l'An deux tu ceignais,
Car c'est dans notre chair a nous que tu la sculptes.

France! France! Benis chaque arme et chaque front;
C'est d'ardeur, non de peur, que tremble l'eperon.
Nous sommes tes martyrs volontaires, superbes,

Sous l'aureole d'or des galons du kepi....
Nous allons preparer aux faucilles des gerbes,
Puisqu'ou tombe un soldat pousse un nouvel epi._"

The poet, shortly before he fell, wrote to a friend "Nous
travaillerons mieux apres la victoire, ce que nous ferons ayant ete
muri par la fatigue et les angoisses. La vie est bonne et belle et la
guerre est une chose bien amusante." This is the type of Frenchman who
fights for the love of fighting, who puts above all other happiness
the prize of military honour and glory won in a good cause. We meet
with it in the lyrical effusion of an adventurous poet like Jacques de
Choudens and in the straightforward evidence of a practised soldier
like Captain Hassler, whose "Ma Campagne" is a record extraordinary
alike for its courage, for its vivacity, and for its modesty.

The peculiar spirit of ardent gallantry to which we have dedicated
these few pages is illustrated, as will be observed, by examples taken
without exception from the first months of the war. It would be rash
to say, without a careful sifting of evidence, how much of this
sentiment survived the days which preceded the battle of the Marne.
France has, in the succession of her attacks up to the present hour,
continued and confirmed the magnificent tradition of her courage. But
it is impossible to overlook the elements which have taken the
romantic colour out of the struggle. No chivalry could survive close
experience of the vile and bestial cruelty of German methods. The sad
and squalid aspects of a war of resistance, fought in the very
bleeding flesh of the beloved mother-country, were bound to be fatal
to "cette bonne humeur bienfaisante" which so marvellously
characterized the young French officers of August 1914. Moreover, the
mere physical element of fatigue has been enough to quench that first
radiant flame. We find it deadening, at last, even the high spirit of
Paul Lintier, and we listen to his confession: "To sleep! to sleep! O
to live without a thought, in absolute silence. To live, after having
so often nearly died. I could sleep for days, and days, and days!"

These are considerations which belong to a heavier and a wearier time.
As a matter of histo