To most of these French soldiers, indeed to all
that I have talked with, the love of France is like the faith of a devout
Catholic in his church. It is not to be argued about. It holds the very
truth of life. It enshrines all the beauty of French ideals, all the rich
colour of imagination, all the poetry and music that has thrilled
through France since the beginning of our civilization, all her agonies
and tears. To the commonest soldier of France, "La Patrie" is his
great mother, with the tenderness of motherhood, the authority of
motherhood, the sanctity of motherhood, as to a Catholic the Blessed
Virgin is the mother of his soul. Perhaps as one of her children he has
been hardly dealt with, has starved and struggled and received many
whippings, but he does not lose his mother-love. The thought of
outrageous hands plucking at her garments, of hostile feet trampling
upon her, of foul attempts upon her liberty and honour, stirs him to
just that madness he would feel if his individual mother, out of whose
womb he came, were threatened in the same way. He does not like
death--he dreads the thought of it--but without questioning his soul he
springs forward to save this mother-country of his and dies upon her
bosom with a cry of "Vive la France!"
2
The French soldier, whatever his coarseness or his delicacy, needs
feminine consolation, and all his ideals and his yearnings and his self-
pity are intimately associated with the love of women, and especially
of one woman--his mother.
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