In sending Marshal Joffre to the United States, the French Government did a peculiarly wise and happy thing. Viviani, Chocheprat, de Chambrun--their names held no significance for most Americans. But Joffre! Ah, there was a name to conjure with. The hero of the Marne, the bulwark of civilization, he was the one figure in the whole world the mere sight of whom would instantly fan into flame the slumbering fires of American patriotism. In the first place, he did not come to us as a stranger. We already knew him, you see, through the illustrated papers and the motion-picture screens,--a stoutish, white-mustached, twinkling-eyed, benevolent-looking old gentleman in a great blue coat, walking rather heavily down lanes of motionless troops with their rifles held rigidly toward him, or stooping over a hospital cot to pin to the breast of a wounded soldier a bit of enamel and ribbon,--and seeing him thus, day after day, he became as familiar to us as Colonel Roosevelt and Andrew Carnegie and Billy Sunday. And because we recognized that he was, despite his splendid achievements and his sounding title, a simple, kindly, homely man, our great admiration for him grew into a sort of personal affection. He does not dazzle us with the glamour of Napoleon; he does not pique our curiosity like Kitchener; he does not appeal to our sympathies like King Albert; the appeal that he makes is to our hearts and our imaginations. He is--I must have recourse to a Spanish word to express my meaning--_simpatico_. We recognize his greatness, but it does not awe us. We feel that he is “home folks,” that in the humblest dwelling he would be at home; we would like to give him the big armchair by the fire and a pair of slippers and a cigar and visit with him. For he is a man of the people, as simple, as friendly, as democratic as Lincoln. We remember the story told about him; that he said that when the Germans had been driven out of France he wanted no triumphal entry into Paris, but that he wanted to go fishing. We understand such a man.