THE ENGLISHMEN OF FRANCE.

Hokitika Guardian, 9 February 1918, Page 4

THE ENGLISHMEN OF FRANCE.

A GREAT FRENCHMAN’S TRIBUTE.

(By Henri Lavedan, Member of the v French Academy.) Once described as “ the most amiable of sceptics, the subtlest of wits,” M. Henri Lavedan is one of the most brilliant of playwrights. In iSyS at the early age of 39 he was eloctycl a* member of the Academy in succession to M. Meilhac. Tc the British Army. Paris To-day all England is working with us and for us; working with the same ardour for the of the world as for her own cause. Ever3 r where she is at work, at home and also by our side. At home, from morning to night, from one end of the United Kingdom to the other, she is working in her dockyards, her factories, her workshops', her warehouses, her offices, her storehouses ; she is working in her Government offices and in her public assemblies; m her colleges and schools, in every i familv, in every sphere where her I mind and will am) heart manifest I themselves —everywhere she is toiliug. . , . . I And by our side also sheas work- ' ino - in that other workshop, the field of battle. I' All tire English, whoever they are, and wherever they may be, are of a surety our friends and are of i equal worth ; for are they not all. inspired by the same resolution, do they not strive towards the same goal ? And that being so, we do hot pick and choose among them ; our gratitude goes out to them all. i And yet there-is an unnumbered , host among them, an ever-growing host, to whom every hour binds us closer, of whom, as one might saj', we are the blood-relations —I mean the Englishmen of F'ranee. It is true that all of vou from now onj wards merit that title ; but for myself, those on whom I bestow the j name with a deeper gratitude and a i more poignanL emotion are those among you who have come over here to fight, those who have landed on our soil to help us to defend and reconquer it, those who water it with their blood and sweat and who make the earth blossom again wljen death mingles them with it. For these are the Englishmen of France whose presence among us and, above all. .their armed presence—has conferred on them, as it were, a special and privileged “naturalisation" of an indelible character.

MIJXIONS OR AMBASSADORS It is through 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 vour iron loyalty, these millions of ambassadors with brawny arms and clear brains who have come here to make themselves heard and felt, have brought us the living and tangible reality of England’s untiring and untameable energy. They are the living and moving image of it. A “ Tommy ” goingdown the street teaches us more than all the {pictures and photographs ; and when he asks us hisway we know that he will take the road and follow it to the end. Because these men have come among us and lived with us, their whole lives are going to be changed and bettered, not merely in tlie present blit in the future. Their destiny will not be the same as it would have been had they sta\ r ed at home, even though in doing so the3 7 had done their dut3 r . The flame and weariness of their formidable task will have taught them and made them fuller men. They will have learned to kqow F'ranee better than the3' would have knowp her through a bustling voyage. IThey will know her in her strength and in her fragrance; they will have seen her martyrdom and her smiles, her monuments, her fruits and flowers ; the beauty of her cities, the horror of her ruins, the peace ot her countryside, the purit3 r of her skies, the heroism of her soldiers, and the matchless tenderness of her women.

Home once more they will take back with them the garnered spoils ot these memories; they will have enough for remembrance, for storytelling—and for silence. And in the years to come, as the generations go by, people 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 there will be thousands upon thousands who will have become part ot our Motherland, who will return to you no more and yet against whom no reproach of impiety or indifference can be cast: these are the dead who sleep their last honourable sleep outstretched on the soil ot France to await the day of the great uprising. And all that remains of them will still rejoice to be at rest in our earth, just as aforetime they were glad when they strode erect upon t, strong, clean and light-hearted. the men who wiix remain. Doubtless you know that the greater number ot French families have decided not to bring home their dead who fell facing the enemy, but to let them lie there at the front in the burial grounds set apart for soldiers or in the lonety graves dug where they fell, as though their sduls, 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 costly and difficult removal, will give up that idea and prefer to leave them where they too are at home—the Englishmen of France! Because you will c«me to visit we shall meet j'ou the oftener; and even when you are not there they will lack no care. Their gardens of sleep will be 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 patina wave, Thera where the

tide of the attarck threw them up they shall remain; since it was among us that they reached port, let them rest in peace! Their brothers iu arms shall do them honour; for them shall be the pra3 r ers of our women, the hushed admiration of the little ones, and the glorious tributes .of the great anniversaries. All our people of the north and of Flanders whose soil they cleansed and set free shall come, bareheaded pilgrims, to gaze upon the grass that grows thick above them, there where the murmur ottlie sea will make answer for their,hearts —for Itheir hearts deeprooted ! And thus shall it be Well.

Thus was it ordained and foreseen through the centuries. Let us recognise in it the fulfiment of the historic task, both human and divine, of Joan of Arc; this slow, laborious, but inevitable drawing together of our two races. Nothing finer or more incredible has ever been seen. What a business ! What a journey from the cannon of Crecy to the “tanks” of Passcliendaele! Think of the chapters you have i added to the Hundred Years 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 ot our national saint, You have put out her funeral pyre ; you have smothered it beneath your flowers and regrets and 3 r our gallant remorse. It lias become an altar to you. You are all of you at Rouen the soldiers of the shining Maid, audit is she whose spirit burns and inflames 3'ou. The swords of your chiefs have saluted her statue at Rlieims ; Kipling has bowed his head before her. And on a not far-distant day in one of the squares of London there will arise an image of the Horsewoman of Salvation hehneted like our own soldiers. She it is who hath reconciled us and will give us the victory. There where she is she hears your cheers and shouting ; and when you have finished singing the “ Marseillaise ” for us it is her voice which rings out iu “ God Save the King.”