and our race has been moved to its
depths. It has risen as one man and assembled together; it has called up
from its remotest history all its energy, in order to reincarnate them
in the person of him whose duty is to defend the race today; it has
inspired in him the valor of the knights of old, the endurance of the
laborer bending over his furrow, the modesty of the old masters who made
of our cathedrals masterpieces of anonymity, the honesty of the
bourgeois, the patience of humble folk, the consciousness of duty which
mothers teach to their children, all those virtues which, developed from
one generation to another, become a tradition, the tradition of an
industrious people, made strong by a long past and made to endure. It is
these qualities, all of them together, which we admire in the soldier of
1914, the complete and superb type of the entire race.

*A Holy Intoxication.*

When it has such an aim, the noblest of all, war is sublime; all who go
into it are as if transfigured. It exalts, expands, and purifies souls.
On approaching the battlefield a holy intoxication, a holy happiness,
takes possession of those for whom has been reserved the supreme joy of
braving death for their country. Death is everywhere, but they do not
believe in it any more. And when, on certain mornings, to the sound of
cannon that mix their rumblings with mystic voices of bells, in the
devastated church which cries to the heavens through every breach opened
in its walls, the Chaplain blesses the regiment that he will accompany
the next minute to the firing line, every head will be bent at the same
time and all will feel on their brows the breath of God.

Alas! the beauty of the struggle does not hide from me its sadness. How
many went away, full of youth and hope, to return no more. How many have
fallen already without seeing realized what they so ardently desired;
sowers they, who to make the land fertile have watered it with their
blood, yet will not see the harvest.

But at least their sacrifice will not have been in vain. They have
brought reconciliation to their divided country, they have made her
become conscious of herself again, they have made her learn enthusiasm
once again. They have not seen victory, but they have merited it. Honor
to them, struck down first, and glory to those who will avenge them! We
enfold them both in our devotion to the same sacred cause.

Would that a new era might dawn, thanks to them, that a new wor