In 1781 France, a kingdom rich and powerful, found the handful of American colonists in the condition of a boy, poor, friendless, obscure, and threatened by a powerful enemy. Washington had no money, no guns, no powder, no shoes for his soldiers in the winter. At the moment when our fortunes were at the lowest ebb, France sent us her greatest admiral, with a fleet of two battle-ships, three destroyers, thirty-eight transports, and seven thousand soldiers, with muskets, powder, shot, shoes, clothing and medical supplies. She sent us Lafayette, heir to rich estates, with one of the largest private incomes in Europe, who, with his fellow officers, joined the troops of Washington. He saw his Frenchmen fall side by side with the troops of Washington. When at length Cornwallis surrendered his sword to the Commander of our army, Lafayette shared in the ceremony. What treasure of lives and fortune France lavished upon this republic more than one hundred years ago! We owe France our generals, our admirals, our soldiers and sailors, our munitions, our physicians, our nurses, our admiration, our love, our lives and our sacred honour. THE WORLD'S LOVE FOR FRANCE If Germany is the best hated nation in the world, so France is the most dearly loved country. From France we have our painting at the hands of her artists, from France we have our sculpture at the hands of Rodin. From France we have fine literature and music; from France we have the beautiful, organized into the clothes the people wear. But above all, France has given us the enduring things of the spirit. The whole history of heroism holds nothing finer than the tales of French soldiers struggling unto blood and death to secure happiness and liberty for others. Where will you find a more glorious sentiment than this, that fell from the lips of the poilu in the trenches,--"We sleep in mud, we bathe in blood, but our souls, they dwell among the stars." Here is that young French girl, going to the station, the Garde du Nord, to meet her wounded husband, who had never seen his new-born babe. But the young fellow died while they lifted him out of the car. Putting the little babe down to the cheek that was becoming cold, the girl lifted her eyes unto God, and with streaming eyes exclaimed, "I am only his wife! France is his mother!" And here is that poilu home for his eight days' rest, who saw the broken-down hearse, with a poor little woman hidden under crêpe, marching as the sole mourner; the soldier sprang up, rushed to the hearse, saw a crippled comrade who had been killed at the battle of the Somme, and turned to bid all the men and women on the sidewalk fall into line, because a soldier of France was sleeping, and all Frenchmen were his lovers, and who carried the poor man in triumphal procession in the midst of sorrowing hundreds to his final resting place. The French have added a new chapter to the history of heroism. The Hun will never conquer France. Should a time