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Your wood strengthens the trenches, or burns to warm the freezing poilus. Brave forests, pathetic forests! I hear you defy the enemy in your hour of death: Strike us, kill us. Still you shall never pass!" We had felt that we knew something of the war-zone after Lorraine; but there the great battles had all been fought in 1914, when the world was young.
No excuse for getting lost! And when I was sure we were well over the French lines, I planed down to alight in a field. "The alert was out for us, of course, and a fierce barrage put up, but I flew high till I was ready for a dive. We'd hardly landed, when the poilus swarmed like bees, but that was what we wanted. You must imagine the scene that followed, till I can tell you by word of mouth!
Men were scarce in Paris, particularly men of military age. A few "Poilus" home on leave, and a number of Belgians, with a sprinking of other soldiers, were the only evidences of war. The men seen were practically all over the military age. It was the golden age for the "has been"; the old man had again come into his own. The girl of the demi-mondaine was having a hard time of it in Paris.
Another thing I discovered was the unwillingness of the French officers to take the initiative in saluting; yet they would never fail to return such a courtesy. Perhaps their earlier experiences in this little matter had been discouraging. It is much the same with the poilus and farmer folk. If you wish them 'Bonjour' they would invariably respond and also salute.
The slopes are thick with dead Germans. Returning again and again to the attack, hounded on by their War Lord, German soldiers still advance over fields carpeted with their fallen comrades; and still French guns and gallant French poilus smile grimly down at them, as if to say: "Come! Come on! Here is Verdun behind us. There is yet land to sell between these trenches and the city. Come, then!
Here comes one of our own poilus, a sight you will not see many times in this American town on French soil." Poilus is a French word meaning "shaggy," and is commonly applied to the French enlisted man. As this French soldier drew close he brought up his hand in smart salute to his own officer and the Americans. Greg turned to look back, but the French soldier was no longer looking their way.
One hundred poilus came here a day, and her ouvroir had already assisted eighteen thousand. And But by this time I was more interested to meet Madame Lyon than any one in Paris.
"None of the poor poilus are deprived. This is from my own private store. I wish there was more of it, but I can't resist giving a lump now and then to the village children. They are so hungry for it. They call me 'Mam'zelle Sucre'."
She quite forgot luncheon, and early afternoon found her on the balcony of the Crillon Hotel, overlooking the Place de la Concorde. Paris was truly awake by that time, and going mad. The long-quiet fountains were playing, Poilus and American soldiers had seized captured German cannon and were hauling them wildly about.
Lucullan banquets, opulent lunches, all-night dances, high revels of an exotic character testified to the peculiar psychic temper as well as to the material prosperity of the passive elements of the community and stung the poilus to the quick. "But what justice," these asked, "can the living hope for, when the glorious dead are so soon forgotten?"
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