I looked up at the row of wounded. One man held his bandaged head between his hands and was crying. An officer in a box, wearing the gorgeous uniform of the headquarters staff, held a handkerchief over his eyes. Through the second verse the audience alternately cheered and stamped their feet and wept. Then came the wonderful "Amour sacré de la patrie"--sacred love of home and country--verse. The crashing of the orchestra ceased, dying away almost to a whisper. Chenal drew the folds of the tricolor cloak about her. Then she bent her head and, drawing the flag to her lips, kissed it reverently. The first words came like a sob from her soul. From then until the end of the verse, when her voice again rang out over the renewed efforts of the orchestra, one seemed to live through all the glorious history of France. At the very end, when Chenal drew a short jeweled sword from the folds of her gown and stood, silent and superb, with the folds of the flag draped around her, while the curtain rang slowly down, she seemed to typify both Empire and Republic throughout all time. All the best of the past seemed concentrated there as that glorious woman, with head raised high, looked into the future. And as I came out of the theater with the silent audience I said to myself that a nation with a song and a patriotism such as I had witnessed could not vanish from the earth--nor again be vanquished. THE END [Illustration: FRONT D'ARTOIS] NOTE The attached map of the "Front d'Artois" is the first of the kind ever presented to the public. The author of this book has been specially authorized to reproduce it by the French Ministry of War, under whose direction it was first executed from photographs by French airmen taken on their trips over the German lines. It bears the date September 25, 1915, that being the day when the great offensive was launched against the Germans both in Artois and Champagne. On that occasion the map was given only to French officers. The heavy blue zigzag line shows the front line of the German trenches. The thin blue lines running to the rear show the communication trenches extending back to the second and even the third lines of defense. The French trenches are naturally not shown, but were to the west of the Germans, in some places not over fifteen yards of barbed wire entanglements separating them. At the time of the September attack all these trenches were captured by the French. The Artois front, which is often called "the sector north of Arras," is one of the most important on the entire line, inasmuch as the army holding the plateau holds also the key to the channel ports. The bloodiest and most desperate battles of the war have occurred there.