Napoleon took them grumbling for fifteen years to glory. He took
them grumbling to Moscow, and brought them grumbling back. They
grumbled under the Second Empire and into the Republic. In 1916
they all but grumbled themselves into revolution. One heard revolt
whispered in a thousand places. But they did not revolt. They will
not revolt. Grumbling is a mere outer mannerism. In their hearts
they are brave.

Over and over again as we went about France were we impressed
with the courage and the tenacity of the French. By very contrast
with their eternal grumbling did these traits seem to loom large
and definite and certain. We met Dorothy Canfield in Paris, one
of the best of the younger American novelists. She told us a most
illuminating story. She has been two years in France working with
the blind, and later superintending the commissary department of
a training camp for men in the American Field Ambulance service.
She is a shrewd and wise observer, with a real sense of humour, and
Heaven knows a sense of humour is necessary if one gets the truth
out of the veneer of tragedy that surfaces the situation. [Footnote:
This story appeared in Everybody's Magazine in Dorothy Canfield's
own words.] It seems that she was riding into Paris from her training
camp recently, and being tired went to sleep in her compartment,
in which were two civilians, too old for military service. She was
awakened by a wrangle and then--but let her tell it:

"Then I saw a couple of poilus sticking their heads in our window
shaking a beret and asking for contributions to help them enjoy
their week's leave of absence in Paris. My two elderly Frenchmen
had given a little, under protest, saying (what was perfectly true)
that it would go for drink and wouldn't do the poilus any good.