the land is so vast, that volumes have been written already as the
record. Very little can be said or written about another wound,--the
lives of those in the invaded provinces behind the German lines,--for
almost nothing is known as to what has happened there, what is going
on now. A word now and then comes from that dead, no man's land; a
rare fugitive escapes from the conqueror's hand. The military rule
forbids any correspondence through neutrals, as is permitted prisoners
of war, to those held "behind the lines." The inhabitants are kept as
prisoners. Worse, they have been used at certain places along the front
as bucklers against the fire of their countrymen--in a quarry near
Soissons, at Saint-Mihiel. It is known that heavy imposts are laid upon
them, as at Lille, and that the invader is exploiting this richest part
of France's industrial territory. This last wound is, perhaps, the most
serious of all for France, in this modern, machine war. Latterly rumor
has it that the treatment of the inhabitants imprisoned behind the
German lines has become less rigorous, because, as a French general
explained,--"They hope to make peace with us--_quelle sale race!_"

These wounds are still bleeding. They cannot be ignored. They, as
well as the death, suffering, and agony of the long trench combat,
make the faces of the French tense, silent. "To think that they are
still here after a whole year since this happened!" a young Frenchman
exclaimed in bitterness of soul as we looked out over the thickly
scattered graves in the fields around Bercy. To him it was as if a
crazed and drunken marauder had taken possession of his house, burned
a part of it, and still caroused in another wing. The unforgettable,
unforgivable wounds of France!

The French, so clear-seeing, so reasonable even about their own
tragedies, are bitter to the soul when they think of the brutality