In looking over the bulky file of French newspapers, illustrated weeklies, and pamphlets on the war, which I brought back with me, I am struck by the fact that the outstanding characteristic of all this comment on the great war from journalist to statesman and publicist is not denunciation of the barbarian. Denunciation plays a singularly small part in the French reaction to their suffering. References to Germans and Germany are usually of a psychological or humorous character, illustrating the grotesque and antipathetic aspects in which the Teuton presents himself to the Latin mind. That part which grieving and denunciation have played in English comment, the gross and apoplectic hate of the German press, is taken by lyrical enthusiasm for heroism. The newspapers, sure pulse of popular appetite, are filled daily with stories of sacrifice, gallantry, heroism. This is the aspect of the sordid bloody war that the French spirit feeds on. It is a fresh manifestation of an old national trait--the love of chivalry. Some day, doubtless, these splendid tales of individual heroism, of soldierly and civilian sacrifice, will be gathered together to make the laurel wreath of the New France. I could fill a volume with those I have read and heard. And I like to think that while Germany went wild over the torpedoing of the Lusitania,--even dared to celebrate it in America,--while the Zeppelin raids arouse her patriotic enthusiasm, the French gloat over the story of the private who crawled out of the trench and hunted for two days without food or water for his wounded officer. The love of the _beau geste_ is an ineradicable trait of French character. It has had a bountiful satisfaction in this war. "We have fought a chivalrous war," General C. exclaimed, pointing to the little figure of Jeanne d'Arc. The same general ordered that the government dole of a franc and a half a day be paid to those Alsatian women whose husbands were fighting in the German army. "They are French women: it is not their fault that their husbands are fighting against France!" And the deathless touch of all, which will be remembered in the world long after the destruction wrought to the cathedral of Rheims, is the picture of French saving German wounded in the burning church--fired by German shells! The _beau geste_, the beautiful act, which ennobles all men, not merely the doer of the deed,--that is what France is giving the world. The image of men who are more than efficient and strong and physically courageous, of men who are filled with a divine spirit of sacrifice and devotion. Truly supermen. Chivalry was a trait of the Old France as it is of the New. It has fallen somewhat into disrepute of late years with the rise of the comfort and efficiency standards. Nowhere else on the broad battlefields of Europe has it revived, to redeem the horror of war, so shiningly as in the New France. * * * * *