this apparition of the daughter of a royal house arises before me
as an image of our France to-day, weeping for the flower of our
race so abundantly cut down.

My object in writing these lines is not to exhort my fellow-citizens
to commemorate to-day our noble dead, according to immemorial
custom, but to honor as a united people those who have sacrificed
their lives for their country and to meditate upon the lesson that
comes to us from their scattered burial places.

First, with the memory of our own, let us with all piety associate
the memory of those brave ones who have shed their blood under all
the Allies' standards, from the streams of the Yser to the banks
of the Vistule; from the mountains of Frioul to the defiles of
Morava, and on the vast seas.

Then, let us offer our choicest flowers of memory to the innocent
victims of an atrocious cruelty, to the women, the child martyrs,
to that young English nurse, guilty only of generosity, whose
assassination aroused the indignation of the entire universe.

And our dead, our beloved dead! May a grateful country open wide
enough its great heart to contain them all, the humblest as well
as the most illustrious, the heroes fallen with glory to whom
have been erected monuments of bronze and marble, who will live in
history, and those simple ones who drew their last breath thinking
of the green fields of home.

Blessed be all those whose blood has been shed for their country!
Not in vain have they sacrificed their lives. At the glorious