but if we thought which foreign civilization brought us the most in our
lives, it was that of France.

What would the world be without French civilization? To think of
France dead was to think of cells in your own brain that had gone
lifeless; of something irreparable extinguished to every man to whom
civilization means more than material power of destruction. The
sense of what might be lost was revealed to you at every turn in
scenes once merely characteristic of a whole, each with an appeal of
its own now; in the types of people who, by their conduct in this hour
of trial, showed that Spartan hearts might beat in Paris-the Spartan
hearts of the mass of everyday, workaday Parisians.

Those waiting at home calmly with their thoughts, in a France of
apprehension, knew that their fate was out of their hands in the hands
of their youth. The tide of battle wavering from Meaux to Verdun
might engulf them; it might recede; but Paris would resist to the last.
That was something. She would resist in a manner worthy of Paris;
and one could live on very little food. Their fathers had. Every day
that Paris held out would be a day lost to the Germans and a day
gained for Joffre and Sir John French to bring up reserves.

The street lamps should not reveal to Zeppelins or Taubes the
location of precious monuments. You might walk the length of the
Champs Elysées without meeting a vehicle or more than two or three
pedestrians. The avenue was all your own; you might appreciate it as
an avenue for itself; and every building and even the skyline of the
streets you might appreciate, free of any association except the
thought of the results of man's planning and building. Silent, deserted
Paris by moonlight, without street lamps--few had ever seen that.