That is the only thing that has occurred to him to say in complaint: "It suits exactly." And he says it with such a fine, quiet smile, while thanking me for taking an interest in him. I hesitate to go closer to look at their gravely wounded man, who has remained without stirring, for fear I might disturb his last thoughts. I do go close to him, however, very gently, because they are going to carry him away. Ah! He is a mere lad! A village boy; one can guess that at once by his bronzed cheeks, which have just begun to grow pale. The sun, as he wishes, floods his handsome 20-year-old face, which is at the same time vigorous and candid, and his hand is still held like a guard before his eyes, which are set and seem no longer to perceive anything. They must have given him morphine to keep him from suffering too much. Humble child of our countryside, brief little life, what is he dreaming of, if he is still dreaming? Perhaps of his kerchiefed mamma, who wept happy tears every time she recognized his childish writing on an envelope from the front? Or is he dreaming of the farm garden that held his earliest years? I see on his breast the handkerchief with which they tried to cover his face; it is of fine linen, embroidered with a Marquis's coronet--the coronet of one of his bearers. He had wanted "to go on seeing things," doubtless in his terror of the great night. But even this sun, which must dazzle him, will soon cease suddenly to be recognizable for him; to begin with, it will be the half-darkness of the hospital, and, immediately afterward, will begin for him the long inexorable night, in which no sun will ever dawn again. "VIVE LA FRANCE"--HOW MEN DIE FOR THEIR COUNTRY _Last Messages of French Soldiers_ _Told by Rene Bazin, Member of the French Academy_ Behind the dry official reports of military events is a vast fund of emotional human stories. Glimpses of this side of the Great War are found in private letters, personal experiences, and thrilling episodes of courage, humor, or pathos which are being preserved in the New York Times _Current History_. I have heard magnificent sayings of our soldiers; others have been written to me by those who heard them. I would not have them perish. It seems to me that they naturally form a part of the epoch we are living through; that they are good to read and meditate on, unconscious testimonies of that which historians will call the new life of France, of that which has ever been her deeper life, widened and developed in this hour of trial. Therefore I shall record here not all these sayings and traits, but some of them. At B., in the hospital of the Grand Hotel, a wounded soldier was to have a limb amputated. But he was so weak that the surgeon hesitated. "If we could only give him some blood!" "If that is all that is needed I am ready to give it!" answers another wounded soldier, a Breton.