his powerful editorials had done much to combat the spirit of
pacificism, which at that time was weakening the preparations of
France for the inevitable conflict.

The obligation of universal service required him to exchange his
position of great power and usefulness for a lesser position, but this
spirit of common service in the ranks means much for France or for any
nation. The democracy of the French Army could not be questioned, when
the powerful Editor of the _Matin_ became merely a lieutenant in the
Territorial Infantry. As such, he served in the battle of the Marne
and later before Verdun, and thus could say of the two most heroic
chapters in French history, as Æneas said of the Siege of Troy, "Much
of which I saw, and part of which I was."

Having fulfilled the obligation of universal service in the ranks, it
is not strange that in 1916 he was recalled to serve the French
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For a time he rendered great service in
Switzerland, where from the beginning of the war an acute but
ever-lessening controversy has raged between the pro-German and the
pro-Ally interests.

He was then chosen for a much more important mission. In October,
1916, he came to the United States as head of the "Official Bureau of
French Information," and here he has remained until the present hour.
As such, he has been an unofficial ambassador of France. His position
has been not unlike that of Franklin at Passy in the period that
preceded the formal recognition by France of the United States and the
Treaty of Alliance of 1778. As with Franklin, his weapon has been the
pen and the printing press, and the unfailing tact with which he has
carried on his mission is not unworthy of comparison with that of