Thank you for correcting the text in this article. Your corrections improve Papers Past searches for everyone. See the latest corrections.

This article contains searchable text which was automatically generated and may contain errors. Join the community and correct any errors you spot to help us improve Papers Past.

Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

THE ENGLISHMEN OF FRANCE

A GREAT FRENCHMAN'S TRIBUTE (By Henri Lavedan, Member of the ' .French Acadcniy, in the "Daily Mail.") Once described as "tho most amiable of sceptics, the subtlest of wits," M. Henri Lavedan is one of the most brilliant of French playwrights. In 1898 at the early,age of 39 he was elected a momber of the Aoadumy in succession to M. Meiliiac. To the British Army: Paris. To-day all England is working with lis and for us; working with the satno ardour for tho salvation of the world as for her own cause. Everywhere she is at work, at home and also by our side. At home, from morning to night, from one end of tho United Kingdom to tho other, she 'is working in hor dockyards, her factories, her workshops, her warehouses, her offices, hei storehouse!); she is working in her Government offices and in her public assemblies; in her colleges and schools, in every family, in every sphere where .her mind and will and, heart manifest themselves—everywhere 6he is toiling. !And by our side also she is working in that other workshop, the field of battle.

All tho English, whoever they are •• and wherever they may be, are of a surety our friends, and are of equal worth; for are they not all inspired by the same resolution, do they not strive towards tho same goal? And that being so, we do not piok and choose among them; our gratitude goes out to them all. And yet there is an unnumbered host among them, an evergrowing host, to whom every hour binds ns closer, of whom, as one might say, we are the blood-relations: •I mean the Englishmen of France. It is true that all of you from now onwards merit that title;, but for my- ■ self, those on whom I bestow the name ■with a deeper gratitudo and a more poignant emotion are those among yon who have come over hero to fight, those who have landed oh our soil to help us to defend and reconquer it, thoso who water it with their blood and sweat and who make the earth blossom again when death miiisles them with it. For ■these are the Englishmen of France whose presence among -us —and, above all, their armed presence—has conferred on tliem, as it were, a special and privileged "naturalisation" of an indelible character. Millions M Ambassadors. .. It is throngh and because of them 'that we shall have learned to understand, to appreciate, to love and admire you all. Better even than the forthright articles of your newspapers, better than the stern speeches of your statesmen and all the formal proofs and declarations of your iron loyalty, these millions of ambassadors with brawny arms and clear brains who have come here to mate themselves heard and felt have brought vs the ■ living and tangible reality of England's untiring and untameable energy. They are tho living and moving images of it. A "Tommy'' gomg down the street teaches us more than all the piotares and photographs; and when he asks us his way we know that he will take that road and follow it to the end.

Because these men have come among us and lived with us, their wholo lives are going to be changed and bettered, not merely in the present but in the future. Their destiny will not ho the samo as it would liavo been had they stayed at home, even though in doing so they had done their duty. _ The flame and .weariness.of their formidable task will have taught them and made them fuller men. They will have learned to know France better than they would have known l'.er through a bustling voyage. They •will know her in her strength and in her fragrance; they will have seen her martyrdom and her smiles, her monuments, her fruits ai>d flowers; the beauty of her cities, the horror of her ruins, the peace of her countryside, the. purity .of her skies, the heroism of her soldiers, and tho matchless tenderness of her women.

Home once more they will take'back with them the garnered spoils of those memories; they will havo _ enough for remembrance, for story-telling—and for silence. And in the years to corao, ns the generations go by, peoplo in the shires and ancient cities of Britain will say, as they point, to a faded portrait: "That was an Englishman of France."

Yes; and among them theie will be thousands upon thousands who will have become part of oiu Motherland, •who will return to you no more and yet against whom no reproach of impiety or indifference can be cast: thefo are the dead who sleep their last honourable sleep outstretched on the soil of Franco to await the day of the great uprising. And all that remains of them will still ?ejoiceto beat rest in our earth, just, as aforetime they were glad when they 9trode erect upon it, strong, clean, and light-hearted. Tho Men Who WIM Remain. Doubtless you know that the greater number of French families have decided not to bring home their dead who fell facing tvie enemy, but to let them lie there at tho front in the burial grounds set apart for soldiers or in the lonely graves dug where they fell, as though their souls, in quitting their mortal shapes, had chosen for them their final resting-place? Well, we love to think that most of your families, too, even those who have the means to afford the costlv and difficulty removal, will give up that idea and prefer to leave them where thev too are at home —the Englishmen of France!

Because you will come to visit them w'e shall meet you the oftener; and even when you are not there they will lack lio care. Their gardens of sleep will he sacred enclosures among our fields: islands of reverence and meditation for evermore. Far from us shall it be to neglect or forget them, those splendid warriors who fought and died on the. solid earth as though it had been their native wave. There where the tide of the attack threw them in, they shall remain; sinco it was amon ; ' lis that they reached port, let the"rest in peace! Their brothers in arms shall do them honour; for them shall be tho prajws of . our women, the hushed admiration of tho little ones, and tho glorious tributes of the great All our ppople of the north and of Flanders whose soil they cleansed and set free shall come, bareheaded pilgrims, to gaze upon tho grass that grows thick above them, where the murmur of the sea, will make answer for their hearts—for their hearts deep-rooted! And thus shall it be well.

Thus was it ordained and foreseen through tho centuries. Let us recognise in it the fulfilment of the historic task, both human and divine, of Joan of Are; this slow, laborious, but inevitable drawing together of our two races. Nothing finer or more incredible has ever been seen. What a husiness! What a journey from tbf cannon of Crecy to the "tanks" of Passohendaelel Think of the chapters you have added to the Hundred Yeirs War! And what new subjects for our church windows where is written the epic of Joan of Arc! You are contributing, as it is meet, to the crowning and canonisation of our national taint. You have put out her funeral pyre; you have smothered it beneath «mr (lowers and regrets and your gallant remorse. It has become an altar for you. You are all of you at Rouen the soldiers of the shining Maid, and it is she whoso spirit burns and iutlunies

you. Tlio swords at lloims; Kipling has bowed his head before her. And on a not far-distance day in one of tlio squares of London tliero will arise an imago of the Horsewoman of Salvation hclmeted like your own soldiers. She it is who liath reconciled ns and will give ip.,.tho victory. There she is she hears your cheers and shouting; and when you have finished singing the "Marseillniso" for us it is her voice w\iich rings out in "God Savo tho lviug."

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19180205.2.26

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 113, 5 February 1918, Page 5

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,365

THE ENGLISHMEN OF FRANCE Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 113, 5 February 1918, Page 5

THE ENGLISHMEN OF FRANCE Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 113, 5 February 1918, Page 5

Help

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert