is little known, even by the French, yet altogether interesting and appealing.
They are foreigners on whom the outbreak of war laid no formal compulsion.
But they had stood on the butte in springtime perhaps,
as Julian and Louise stood, and looked out over the myriad twinkling lights
of the beautiful city. Paris -- mystic, maternal, personified,
to whom they owed the happiest moments of their lives -- Paris was in peril.
Were they not under a moral obligation, no less binding than [that by which]
their comrades were bound legally, to put their breasts between her
and destruction? Without renouncing their nationality, they had yet chosen
to make their homes here beyond any other city in the world.
Did not the benefits and blessings they had received point them a duty
that heart and conscience could not deny?

"Why did you enlist?" In every case the answer was the same.
That memorable day in August came. Suddenly the old haunts were desolate,
the boon companions had gone. It was unthinkable to leave the danger to them
and accept only the pleasures oneself, to go on enjoying
the sweet things of life in defence of which they were perhaps even then
shedding their blood in the north. Some day they would return,
and with honor -- not all, but some. The old order of things
would have irrevocably vanished. There would be a new companionship
whose bond would be the common danger run, the common sufferings borne,
the common glory shared. "And where have you been all the time,
and what have you been doing?" The very question would be a reproach,
though none were intended. How could they endure it?

Face to face with a situation like that, a man becomes reconciled,
justifies easily the part he is playing, and comes to understand,
in a universe where logic counts for so little and sentiment and the impulse
of the heart for so much, the inevitableness and naturalness of war.