"Taisez-vous, cochons. Foutez-moi la paix!"
All this obscenity of song and speech spoils the heroic picture a little,
and yet does not mean very much in spite of its outrageous heights
and depths. It belongs to the character of men who have faced all the
facts of life with frank eyes, and find laughter in the grossest humours
without losing altogether the finer sentiments of the heart and little
delicacies of mind which seem untarnished by the rank weeds which
grow in human nature. Laughter is one of the great needs of the
French soldier. In war he must laugh or lose all courage. So if
there is a clown in the company he may be as coarse as one of
Shakespeare's jesters as long as he be funny, and it is with the
boldness of one of Shakespeare's heroes--like Benedick--that a
young Frenchman, however noble in his blood, seizes the ball of wit
and tosses it higher. Like D'Artagnan, he is not squeamish, though a
very gallant gentleman.
11
The spirit of D'Artagnan is not dead. Along many roads of France I
have met gay fellows whose courage has the laughing quality of that
Musketeer, and his Gascon audacity which makes a jest of death itself.
In spite of all the horrors of modern warfare, with its annihilating
shell-fire and the monstrous ruthlessness of great guns, the French
soldier at his best retains that quality of youth which soars even
above the muck and misery of the trenches.
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