* * * * *

But France has not only fought with all her courage, with all her
soul, with all her tenacity. She has fought with all her living
strength, with her men, her women, even her children.

What can I say which has not already been said about the men? When I
think of my own men, when I think of all the men floundering and
fighting in this mud, I can find no other means of expression than
the words that have already served the Commander in Chief of the
French Army, General Pétain, on the evening of his great victory at
the Chemin des Dames. In receiving the American newspapermen, he said
to them:

"Do not speak of us, the generals and the officers. Speak only of the
men. We have done nothing; the men have done everything. Our men are
wonderful; we, their leaders, can only kneel at their feet."

* * * * *

The women have been no less wonderful. And I want to write a few words
about them.

The women who are at the front have fought like the men. Can you
imagine a more beautiful deed of arms than that of a young girl,
twenty years old, named Marcelle Semer, whose heroic story a French
Cabinet Minister, M. Klotz, told recently at one of the Matinées
Nationales at the Sorbonne.

In August, 1914, there lived at Eclusier, near Frise, a young girl