long retreat; but to save their beloved Paris they faced the enemy
with a fury that nothing could resist.

A miracle was wrought (talk of Angels at Mons, it was Devils at Meaux),
and Germany in that moment was defeated -- even though it took two
years more to make her acknowledge her defeat.

Think of Lieutenant Pericard who in a trench full of corpses at
Bois-brule cried, suddenly entranced, in a loud voice, "Debout les morts!"
and in a moment, as it were, the souls of their dead comrades were
around his men, inspiring them to victory.

When again at Verdun week after week and month after month the French
army endured tine almost hourly mass-attacks of the enemy battalions
and the deluge of their shells (eight million shells, it is estimated
the Germans threw in ten weeks), it still, though heavily punished,
stood solid, and the whole of France stood solid behind it. France
never doubted the conclusion; and the conclusion was never doubtful.


We have spoken of `glory,' but the day of ` la gloire ' has departed.
France herself has ceased to speak of it -- and there can be no better
proof than that, of the change that has come over the minds of men .

France has emerged from the War a changed nation. The people who
in 1870 made ribald verses and sang cynical songs over the plight
of their country are now no more, and France emerges serious, resolute,
to the great work which she has before her -- of building the great
first Democratic State of Europe and becoming the corner-stone of
the future European Confederation.