But France is a nation of prose writers; at the fort there are many more authors of memoirs than of songs. Memoirs abound.[28] Why is it that men who have never before tried to record their experiences in writing should feel impelled to recount the happenings of their campaign, and to describe their feelings of discouragement during a lengthy imprisonment? Do they do it to relieve tedium? Have they an obscure need of confession? Or do they consider the circumstances of their life in war-time so exceptional as to deserve the honour, in their view an extraordinary one, of written record? In my opinion this last motive predominates. Rightly or wrongly, the “little soldiers of the republic” regard the present conflict in an epic light, and at bottom, notwithstanding their ingrained tendency to grumble, are not a little flattered at being among the heroes of this affair. They know that as long as men exist people will continue to talk about the great war, and that in the schools children will learn the names of the battles in which their fathers have fought and suffered. They want to be able to astonish their little ones, to be able to say: “I was there; I fought in this battle; read my account of the matter and you will see how everything happened, what my leaders did, and when I received my wound.” Men, Frenchmen above all, whatever their station, have such a hunger for fame. Yesterday I came across Maze on the slopes, wearing his great red chéchia, which accentuates his stature, already considerable. His shirt was drying in the wind, tied to the lightning-conductor, and flapping like a flag. He was sitting behind the parapet, sheltered from the wind, and was reading. “What may you be reading?”—“My battle.”—“Can I look at it?”—“Here you are.” In his note-book, worn and dog’s-eared, the following account was pencilled on the pages he showed me. I reproduce it verbatim, with its mistakes in spelling: