s now
fighting in the forest of the Argonne, but on the first occasion on
which he led his men, Violand was wounded again, now in the shoulder.
He was sent far back, into Brittany, to Quimper, where, a second time,
by a subterfuge he contrived to escape from the hospital before his
wound was properly healed. He was absolutely intractable in his
determination to get back promptly to the fighting line: "il etait
comme ca, avec son air delicat et tranquille!" Again brought back, he
was set to training men at Quimper. But he could not endure the
restraint, and his nerves broke down.

It was found impossible to hold him back, and on October 8 the
military authorities consented to his return to his regiment, and with
the permission was combined the news that he had been nominated for
the cross of the Legion of Honour. The letter in which he announces
that fact to the ladies at home--"mes cheres Grand'mere et Tante"--is
charming in its simplicity. "La croix gagnee sur un champ de bataille,
c'est a mes yeux le plus beau reve qu'un jeune Francais put faire; je
regrette seulement de ne pas l'avoir meritee davantage; mais l'avenir
me permettra, j'espere, de justifier cette recompense, que je
considere comme anticipee." The official notification specifies the
wounds which he had received and the fact that, by the testimony of
all who saw him under fire, the young lieutenant gave evidence of very
great courage and of indomitable energy. That he was, by what he calls
a queer coincidence, the youngest officer of his regiment and its only
member of the Legion of Honour, afforded him an unaffected
satisfaction.

From this time--the end of October 1914--the letters of Camile Violand
testify to the rapid development of his mind and character. He loses a
certain childishness which had hitherto clung to him, and he expresses
himself with a more virile sobriety. Nothing could exceed the pathos
of his pictures of the terrible life in the Argonne, and we are made
to feel how rapidly the suffering and the responsibility of his
military life were bringing out all the deepest and most serious
elements in his character. There is a remarkable letter of January 7,
1915, describing an engagement in which he lost several of his best
men, and in particular an experienced corporal in whose skill he much
confided. The briefest fragment broken from this pathetic description,
addressed to his father, will give a notion of the tone of it:--

"J'etais ab