THE SPIRIT OF FRANCE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2805, 24 June 1916, Page 2

THE SPIRIT OF FRANCE

PRIDE OF RACE AND LOVE OF COUNTRY (From Malcolm Ross, Official Correspondent with the N.Z. Forces.) Northern France, May 1. "Would you like' to see a miracle?" said the Colonel, as we came to a break in the communication trench and looked along a disused road. Yes, we assured him that we should. "Well, scatter," ho added, m we emerged from the trench one at a time, for the Boches could see this road, and ill these days oven miracles cannot be seen in .safety if you cross open spaces in groups. In a green field on our right beside the road was a huge shell hole. It was as if some earthly carbuncle had been rooted from the soil. On the left, 6ume little distance ahead, were the ruins of peasant homes. And near them, iit a shattered shrine, was a Christ, iifesiiiecl and untouched, on u cross. The tumbled bricks lay in a red heap at the foot of the cross. Only the aureole behind the crucifix was slightly broken. The cross and'the figure hod escaped unscratched. That was tho miracle. "The people here go down on their knees-before that," said the Colonel. On a used road, close up behind the firing-line, was another crucifix. A young woman walking along the road went up to it, made a genuflexion, and said an Ave. Maria.' Continuing her journey, she saw a little child playing by the roadside. She took the child back to Hie shrine, and made her, also, say an Ave Maria."

Change the scene now to a homely iuteriOT in one of the villages also not far behind the firing-line. The husband is home from the trenches on leave, and is eating 'a meal. The women are workmu J! ~ * lr .ordinary .domestic duties.' ihe bell for tho Angelus tolls. The man stops his eating, the women their work. Jiaoh one goes through tin; same performance, reverenfly, as did the young woman and the little child at the roadside shrine. The Spirit That Wins a War. ' ■It is this deeply religious spirit, combined with pride of race and love of country, a supreme confidence in their own powers, and a great faith In their ]USo cause, that 3s winning the war in I'ranco to-day. ( , There are no rebels in this land; no conscientious objectors, no stop-the-war party. Everyone knows tliat the war must go on —and go on as quickly as possible—to its legitimate end. And they realise fally that there is only one way out—the destroying Hun must himself be destroyed. ,? OU j get your first impression of an altered France on lauding at"Harseilks.' But Marseilles, itself is ...not changed. The docks and nuays seem, to be as busy as ever. 1 hero is a vast amount of shipping, mostly British. In the glorious avenues of the city the plane trees aro bursting into leaf, as when you last 6awUhem. There aru no shattered, monuments hero. Marseilles is too far behind tho lines. But you note a great change in the people. Everywhere there are soldiere, many of them wounded, some without a leg, same without in arm,

Out of the gateway of the fort at tho entrance of tno harbour that centuries ago held the argosies of tho old conquering Greeks comes a stream of strange troops-a mixture of black, and white, and*brown. Some of them aro great big fellows, much strorger than tho Boches that under fixed lwyonets wo saw unloading the ships near by. Marching'up tho Buo do la RepubliquJ) comes a column of tho littlo Senegalese, black and jolly, sweating in- the warm sun under their packs and warin overcoats. The mixture of caste - and colour, and the variety of uniforms—blue and red arfd grey—remind you that .France, like England, hiis her colonies, and that whereas . Germany's overseas dominions are to her a sealed book, thc-re is free intercommunication between, tho possessions of-England -■and!- France and the Mother' lands. •" 'it-' oije: oi tfie crowded quays. Ed from wounds and-sickness—.#, shipload of them—are going .back ; to- recruit their wasted strength in' Algieiis.' .. ,',T For tho first tmo. we :see' soldiers wearing their steel casques. . It almost seems as if, wo had stepped back into the 6pacious days of the crusades. . Some of the casques have dints in them. In the varied cosmopolitan throng tlmfc moves and has its being in Marseilles one rubs rshoulde're. with tall,, handsome Serbs in khaki, Australians of tile !"grand chapeau"—the, French at first mistook, them for the corns Alpin of Italy, British, Canadians, New Zealanders, Maoris, French, Italian, and English naval officers, and the advance guard of tho friendly Russian influx that a few days' later was to thrill the city with a new enthusiasm. All this variety and the riot of military colour struck "strangely on our eyes after the dull-faded khaki of Gallipolj, and the Egyptian desert.

By way of background there- was a sombre note in tho dresses of the women. 4. great, many were in black, with vens of Ion;? heavy crepe, such as the Latins affect in times of mourning. But even these women were calm and confident. They were bravo also, for they smiled through their tears. One'saw scarcely any young men. They were in tho lines at Verdun stopping 'of the Hunnish horde, and nlons the lines it was-the .fifty-fourth, day, .of. the Battle of Verdun, andto--tlio'- outsideworld the .issuo. still. hun.T in, doubt. No, no, Verdun was not -finisned yet. But the Germans would never take Verdun. '■ The English might lie nervous about it—the French' were serenely confident. Ono could not but admire the spirit of a nation such as this' at a time whon the greatest war in tho world's history was being waged within its own boundaries. •

Paris! A changed Paris! More women in black. More not so many as at Marseilles; Elderly bearded men, women, girls, and boys in the streets. Where was the gay boulevardier of the old Paris? Ho had brooms a thing of the,past. The casual' English have nerhans been too prone to' think that, the light-hearted Frenchman of the boulevards was the embodiment of the soul of Frnhce. He was not. Tho soul of France is rooted in her soil. YOll will find it in the towns and villages and in the fields behind the' lines as much as in the cities. ,