13 March, 1915.]

* * * * *




PRO PATRIA: III




VIII

PRO PATRIA: III[4]


1

Although nothing entitles me to the honour of addressing you in the
name of my refugee countrymen, nevertheless it is only fitting, since
a kindly insistence brings me here, that I should in the first place
give thanks to England for the manner in which she welcomed them in
their distress. I am but a voice in the crowd; and, if my words exceed
the limits of this hall and lend to him who utters them an authority
which he himself does not possess, it is only because they are filled
with unbounded gratitude.

In this horrible war, whose stakes are the salvation and the future of
mankind, let us first of all salute our wonderful sister, France, who