The story was contained in an article written by a French correspondent who witnessed the repatriation at Evian-les-Bains of a large number of women and children long held prisoners by the Germans. Among them was a woman and her two little boys, Jean, aged five, and Gilbert, three. The mother was in the last stages of tuberculosis, and she had just managed to live long enough to get her children to Evian. Then she died. But before she died she said to the French Red Cross representative who had promised to care for the little ones: “I want you to make workmen of them. The country will so much need skilled workers.” This heroic mother, who with her last breath dedicated her children to the rebuilding of France, was a simple, plain woman of the people. It is hardly likely that she had ever said a single word about patriotism. She lived it, and so do all French women. And there, I verily believe, is the secret of the vitality and the unconquerable strength of the French nation. At their mother’s knee the men of France learn that the first love and allegiance of their hearts and lives are due their country. They never forget that lesson. I do not know who ever invented the fiction that French women are not maternal. It is true that they do not, as a rule, have many children, but that is easily understood when one studies the French economic and social conditions. In all families outside the wage earning class the girl children must be provided with dowries. It is the custom, and a dowerless girl has a difficult time getting married. Also, under French law, all children inherit equally their parents’ estate. Land holdings, as a rule, are very moderate, and if there were many children it would be impossible to educate and equip them for life. It has never been the custom, as with us, for girls of the middle classes to earn their living. Until very recently the _jeune fille_, the young, unmarried girl, hardly ever went out unescorted. The prototype of our American college bred, tennis playing, independent, self-supporting girl did not exist in France. The one ideal of the gently reared French girl was marriage and a home. And in the home she became a real power. Theoretically all women are powers in their homes. The power of the French wife and mother is not theoretical, it is real, it is legalized. A Frenchman who does not consult his wife in every business matter is the exception. A son who does not refer all his affairs to his mother’s consideration is a bad son. Under French law the family council, which includes near relatives as well as fathers and mothers, settles most questions involving minor children. It is in the family council where marriages are arranged and marriage contracts agreed upon.