Madame de Castelnau is a glorious figure, she, the wife of the General
who saved Nancy and stopped the rush of the barbarians on the Grand
Couronné!... Madame de Castelnau had, before the war broke out, four
sons. Three fell on the battle field. The fourth is actually still a
prisoner in the hands of the Germans. On the lips of their father
there is never the slightest word of complaint; on the lips of the
mother there are these admirable words, which the children in the
schools will repeat later on.... Madame de Castelnau was in a little
village when her third son was killed. The curé of the village had the
pitiful task of telling the already mourning mother of this new blow
that had struck her. The curé found Madame de Castelnau, and, in the
presence of her great sorrow, he hesitated and was overcome with
embarrassment:

"Madame," he said, "I come to bring you another blow. But know well
that all the mothers of France weep for you."

Madame de Castelnau knew the truth at once. She interrupted the priest
and, looking him straight in the eye, replied:

"Yes, I know what you are going to tell me.... God's will be done. But
the mothers of France would be wrong in weeping for me. Let them envy
me."

Those are the words of a Frenchwoman of noble descent. But you can
place on the same high level the words of an old woman, a humble soul,
whom the gendarmes found one night crouched on a grave that was still
fresh. It was up near Verdun. She told the gendarmes:

"I come from La Rochelle. Five of my sons have already fallen in the