FRANCE'S UNKNOWN SOLDIER

Hokitika Guardian, 22 January 1921, Page 1

FRANCE'S UNKNOWN SOLDIER

BURIAL AT ARC DE TRIOMPHE

M. MILLERAND’S TRIBUTE.

PARIS, Nov 12. Paris to-day on the 50th anniversary of tho Third Republic celebrated the return of her Unknown Soldier brought from the bloody fields of Flanders, from the .downs of Champagne, or the shellswept wilderness of Verdun to rest at the Arc de Triomphe as a. symbol of universal self-sacrifice and the unrecorded heroism which won the war. It was not a sad ceremony. The day broke grey and chilly, but the Paris crowds, despite their infinite respect for the dead and despite the years of suffering which were represented by that one coffin containing the remains

of one of countless thousands of unnamed fallen soldiers, were determined to look on the glory and magnificence of the ceremony and what it meartt. Thousands lof blue-dad soldiers lined the road. The cavalry was prancing and brilliant; the Republican Guard wore present in their gay trappings of scarlet, and gold, and, above all, there were fhe flags—hundreds of flags in one continual procession. Many of the flags were those captured by Germany in 1870, and since returned to France. THE HEART OF CAMBETTA. Punctually the great procession set off from Place du Lion de Belfort, headed by cavalry and infantry,, with its living swaying mass of standards and pennants. Preceding the gun-carriage, with its tri-colour draped coffin, was a huge and massive gilded car, hearing aloft tho heart of Gambetta, the great Republican statesman who, during the Franco* Prussian war of 1870, refused to despair of France’s ultimate victory. The French President, M. Millerand who had arrived beforehand in a motor car, was waiting on the great steps ot the Pantheon. Behind (he soldiers and police were stretched a tightly packed, huge, and respectful crowd—not a silent crowd, for cvqry now and then, as they sighted a popular general the people cheered. M. Milleiand, in a speech which lasted half an hour, summed up the history of the Third Republic, which, in a way began with Gambetta and ended with the Unknown Soldier. ‘SLEEP ON, 0 DEAD!”

"Unknown .Soldier,” said the President, ‘•anonymous 'and triumphant, representative of the heroic poilus—you, 0 dead, who rest in an icy slumber beneath the soil of Flanders, of Champagne, or of Verdun, voting heroes who have hurried here from across the Atlantic. from Britain, from its far-off Dominions, from Italy, Belgium, and Serbia, and from all points of the world to offer your lives on behalf of the great ideal which once more was vepre- ' seated hv France—sleep on in peace! I ‘'Yon have fulfilled your destiny. France and civilisation have been saved I by von.” Then the procession passed on. Leaving the Pantheon at 10.30 a. lit., it went along the Boulevards gaint Michel and Saint Germain to the Chamber of Deputies, where it crossed the river. Everywhere were massed dense crowds but nowhere deeper than in the huge Place de la Concorde, where fully •'IO,OOO persons according *to a police estimate, were gathered and so up the magnificent avenue of the Champs Fdvsees. i

The coffin was blessed by Mgr. Roland Gossclin, the coadjutor Bishop of Paris, and thou M. Millernnd, the throe Marshals Joffre, Foeh and Detain, famous generals like Gourand, Mangin, and Dubail, stood to attention While the general salute sounded.

“The Marseillaise’’ followed, and suddenly, there was u tremendous whirr of wind as flight after flight, of imprisoned -pigeons were let loose to wing their way far into the sky.

The procession was over; troops marched away, all except the small guard left to watch over the Unknown Soldier until the evening when his coffin mas hoisted to the great chamber in the Arc de Triumphs .which is to lie a> temporary resting-place before th.c burial beneath the,a roll. In this chamber all will have an opportunity to pay their homage.