east we can plead in excuse that it was unselfish and free from
all national vanity. If, in spite of ultimate victory, France had lost
her high place among the nations, we should have felt that the victory
itself was an irreparable loss for the world. And now we may speak
frankly of that fear because, however unfounded it was, it reveals the
nature of the friendship between France and England.

That is also revealed in the praise which the French have given to our
army. There is no people that can praise as they can: for they enjoy
praising others as much as some nations enjoy praising themselves, and
they lose all the reserve of egotism in the pleasure of praising well.
But in this case they have praised so generously because there was a
great kindliness behind their praise, because they, like us, feel that
this war means a new brotherhood stronger than all the hatreds it may
provoke, a brotherhood not only of war but of the peace that is to come
after it. That welcome of English soldiers in the villages of France,
with food and wine and flowers, is only a foretaste of what is to be in
both countries in a happier time. It is what we have desired in the past
of silly wrangles and misunderstandings, and now we know that our desire
is fulfilled.

*"That Sweet Enemy."*

For behind all those misunderstandings, and in spite of the difference
of character between us, there was always an understanding which showed
itself in the courtesies of Fontenoy and a hundred other battles. When
Sir Philip Sidney spoke of France as that sweet enemy, he made a phrase
for the English feeling of centuries past and centuries to be. We
quarrelled bitterly and long; but it was like a man and woman who know
that some day their love will be confessed and are angry with each other
for the quarrels that delay the confession. We called each other
ridiculous, and knew that we were talking nonsense; indeed, as in all
quarrels without real hatred, we made charges against each other that
were the opposite of the truth. We said that the French were frivolous;
and they said that we were gloomy. Now they see the gayety of our
soldiers and we see the deep seriousness of all France at this crisis of
her fate. She, of all the nations at war, is fighting with the least
help from illusion, with the least sense of glory and romance. To her
the German invasion is like a pestilence; to defeat it is merely a
necessity of her existence; and in defeating it she i