Said the reporter of one of the Bordeaux papers next day: "Through the
Kipling evoked by M. Cestre we admired the English and those who fight,
in the great winds of the North Sea, that combat rude and brave. We
admired the faithful indigenes, gathering from all her dominions, to put
their muscular arms at the service of the empire..."

It would, indeed, have been difficult to pay a more graceful compliment
to the entente cordiale than to try to run the author of "Soldiers
Three" and the "Barrack Room Ballads," and with him the nation behind
him, into the smooth mould of a conference--that mixture, so curiously
French, of clear thinking and graceful expression, of sensitive
definition and personal charm, all blended into a whole so
intellectually neat and modulated that an audience like this may take it
with the same sense of being cheered, yet not inebriated, with which
their allies across the Channel take their afternoon tea.

A Frenchman of a generation ago would scarcely have recognized the
England pictured by the amiable Bordeaux professor, and I am not sure
that in this entirely altruistic big brother of little nations the
English would have recognized themselves. But, at any rate, polite
flutters of applause punctuated the talk, and at the end M. Cestre
asked his audience to rise as he paid his final tribute to the people
now fighting the common battle with France. They all stood up and,
smiling up at the left-hand proscenium-box, saluted the British
ambassador, Sir Francis Bertie, with long and enthusiastic applause. A
man in the gallery even ventured a "Heep! heep!" and every one drifted
out very content, indeed.

In the foyer I saw one lady carefully spelling out with her lorgnette
one of the words on the list posted there of the subjects for