The Last Salute

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 656, 7 May 1929, Page 9

The Last Salute

FUNERAL OF MARSHAL FOCH Moving Scenes in Paris BETWEEN two and three million people lined the route between Notre Dame and the Invalides by which the body of Marshal Foeh was conveyed to its last resting-place, wrote the Paris correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian." From earty dawn every vantage-point had been occupied. Many people had waited by the side of the walks all the long night hours. As the time of the procession drew nigh the roofs and balconies became black, and the very trees on either side became loaded with adventurous youths. Almost the whole population of the great city, young and old, had jammed itself into some two miles of space.

TT was by far the greatest crowd that 1 Paris has ever known—a crowd that marked by its silence and its gravity the intensity of the homage it had come forth to pay to one of the greatest of the world’s soldiers. Nowhere was the vastness of this human agglomeration more visible or, -more impressive than in the great open space stretching from the Grand Palais to the Eslanade des Invalides on the other side of the PonJ Alexandre. From no other vantage point could so general an impression be gained of the magnificence of the occasion. Silent Excitement Under a grey London-like mist the great electric lamps, illuminated for the occasion, burned dimply through veils of crepe. At 10 o’clock sonorous loud-speakers roared forth the triumphal march of Saint-Saens played bv the distant organ of Notre Dame, which showed that the procession had begun. Half an hour later there was a sudden flash of lire from the Quai d’Orsay, followed by a heavy thud. A battery on the other side of the river had begun to thunder minute by minute the last salute of 21 shots. A short silence, and then as the procession emerged into the vast open space, with the dome of the Invalides faintly blue in the distance, a strange tremor, a continuous murmur of excitement made itself felt. First appeared the brass-helmeted and dark-cloaked mounted Republican Guards, squadron after squadron of them, advancing slowly, majestically. At their head rode several rows of trumpeters sounding on their muffled instruments a strange soulful plaint of almost faery-like thinness, hardly audible above the crunch of the horses' hooves upon the sanded pavement. Horizon-blue followed in batteries of artillery and regiments of infantry passing in what seemed an almost interminable succession. From their midst wailed and sobbed Chopin’s heart-straining “Funeral March” played by regimental bands. In these military displays the French are incomparable. Each detachment followed the other at wide intervals, advancing in solid, phalanx-like formation. Scarlet and Hodden-Grey A wider interval, and then to an English air a more familiar music punctuated by the solemn thuds of the drums. “La Marche Funebre Anglaise.” ran whispers through the crowd. It. developed into Handel's Dead March in “Saul,” surely the most masterly and military of all laments for the dead, played as the Coldstream Guards Band can play it.

French horizon-blue had now changed into red as the stalwart young giants in scarlet tunics and great bearskins marched by with that mathematical precision of tread possessed only by the King’s Guards. Scarlet gave way to hodden grey with the arrival of the London Scottish, changing again to the blue of the Royal Air Force. Great Britain by alphabetical right, if by no other, led the foreign contingents. Red, hodden-grey, and blue yielded to ashen gr.een in a gallant company of the Italian Bersaglieri. and then again to khaki with the Belgians, and so on through a gamut crl military tints. This military part of the procession concluded with squadrons of picturesque Spahis; their long, flowing white robes and their long-tailed white Arab steeds prancing restlessly gave them the appearance of moving in clouds. A Heart-moving Spectacle After the armies, the Church. Another wide gap, and there advanced two Cardinals in all their pomp— Archbishop Dubcts. of Paris, and Archbishop Binet, of Besancon, each ■wearing the purple cappa longa, of which the enormous trains were carried by chaplains. Behind them camo the episcopacy of France in full canonicals. The participation of these prelates in a State ceremony had been arranged beforehand with the consent of the Government. Marshal Foch’s charger followed, led by the bridle. Save for its ears and eyes the pathetic animal was in black trappings decorated with silver stars. The gun-carriage bearing the coffin, covered -with a huge Tricolour, was drawn by six horses. It was escorted by a British, a Polish and a French high officer, each carrying the field marshal’s baton that had been accorded to the great soldier by each of their countries. The coffin was immediately followed by the widow and members of the late Marshal's family —a heart-moving spectacle. Before the coffin was removed to the vaults of the chapel awaiting its final deposit in the tomb alongside Turenne’s and in face of Napoleon’s, there was a march past of all the troops engaged in the ceremony. For over an hour the march past continued, and then, out of sheer fatigue, it was by the President's order interrupted. Not since the great post-Armistice triumphal march had Paris, so avid of martial spectacles, witnessed such a military display. Rarely in its long history has the French capital paid homage on such a scale to one of the succession of great French soldiers.