one side, and I never saw the man again. An army will always have all
kinds of people in it, the good, the bad, the degenerate, the depraved,
the brutal; and these types will act according to their natures. But I
can't imagine several regiments of French poilus doing in little German
towns what the Germans did at Nomeny. The backbone of the French army,
as he is the backbone of France, is the French peasant. In spite of De
Maupassant's ugly tales of the Norman country people, and Zola's studies
of the sordid, almost bestial, life of certain unhappy, peasant
families, the French peasant (cultivateur) is a very fine fellow. He has
three very good qualities, endurance, patience, and willingness to work.
Apart from these characteristics, he is an excellent fellow by himself;
not jovial, to be sure, but solid, self-respecting, and glad to make
friends when there is a chance that the friendship will be a real one.
He does not care very much for the working men of the towns, the
ouvriers, with their fantastic theories of universal brotherhood and
peace, and he hates the deputé whom the working man elects as he hates a
vine fungus. A needless timidity, some fear of showing himself off as a
simpleton, has kept him from having his just influence in French
politics; but the war is freeing him from these shackles, and when peace
comes, he will make himself known: that is, if there are any peasants
left to vote.

Another thing about the peasantry is that trench warfare does not weary
them, the constant contact with the earth having nothing unusual in it.
A friend of mine, the younger son of a great landed family of the
province of Anjou, was captain of a company almost exclusively composed
of peasants of his native region; he loved them as if they were his
children, and they would follow him anywhere. The little company, almost
to a man, was wiped out in the battles round Verdun. In a letter I
received from this officer, a few days before his death, he related this