So satisfactory to itself was the progress of the American Expeditionary Force in becoming an army that by the end of its first month of training it was ready for important visitors. True, the first to come was one who would be certain to understand the force's initial difficulties, and who would also be able to help as well as inspect. He was General Petain, Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, and he came for inspection of both French and American troops on August 19, three days after General Sibert had had a family field-day to take account of his troops. General Petain came down with General Pershing, and the first inspection was of billets. Then the two generals reviewed the Alpine Chasseurs, and General Petain awarded some medals which had been due since the month before, when the Blue Devils were in the line. After General Petain's visit with the American troops, he recommended their training and their physique equally, and said: "I think the American Army will be an admirable fighting force within a short time." This was also General Pershing's day for learning--his first session with one of his most difficult tasks. He had to follow the example of General Petain, and kiss the children, and accept the bouquets thrust upon both generals by all the little girls of the near-by Vosges towns. General Pershing did better with the kissing as his day wore on, though its foreignness to his experience was plain to the end. But with the bouquets he was an outright failure. Graciously as he might accept them, the holding of them was much as a doughboy might hold his first armful of live grenades. The camp's next distinguished visitor was Georges Clemenceau, the veteran French statesman who was soon to be Premier of France. Clemenceau saw American troops that day for the second time, the first having been when, as a young French senator, he watched General Grant's soldiers march into Richmond. He recalled to the sons and grandsons of those dusty warriors how inspired a sight it had been, and he added that he hoped to see the present generation march into Berlin. When Clemenceau talked to the doughboys, however, he had more than old memories with which to stir them. He has a graceful, complete command of the English language, in which he made the two or three addresses interspersed in the full programme of his stay. In one speech M. Clemenceau said: "I feel highly honored at the privilege of addressing you. I know America well, having lived in your country, which I have always admired, and I am deeply impressed by the presence of an American army on French soil, in defense of liberty, right, and civilization, against the barbarians. My mind compares this event to the Pilgrim Fathers, who landed on Plymouth Rock, seeking liberty and finding it. Now their children's children are returning to fight for the liberty of France and the world.