At the barracks this gentleman found that his corporal was a labourer in the village where the old chateau stands.  In order to amuse himself the corporal made M. le Chatelain do all the dirtiest jobs, such as sweeping the rooms, cleaning the staircases and the lavatories.  At the same barracks were a number of priests, including an archipretre, who was about to become a bishop.  Even the most ferocious anti-clericals in the caserne had to acknowledge that these men were excellent soldiers and good comrades.  They submitted to all inconveniences, did any task as though it were a religious duty, and submitted to the rough life among men of foul speech with a wonderful resignation.  But that did not save them from the tyranny of a sous-officier, who called them the hardest names his tongue could find when they made any faux pas in their barrack drill, and swore as terribly as those in Flanders when they did not obey his commands with the lightning rapidity of soldiers who have nothing more to learn.

These cases could be multiplied by hundreds of thousands, and for men of refinement there was a long torture in their barracks when there was no mental satisfaction in useful work for France.  Yet their sacrifice has not been in vain perhaps.  “They serve who only stand and wait,” and they proved by their submission to the system a loyalty and a patriotism equal to those who went into the trenches.  They, too, who know what war means—­for war is not only at the front—­will come back with a deep-rooted hatred of militarism which will make it more difficult in future for politicians who breathe out fire and slaughter and urge a people to take up arms for any other cause than that of self-defence.

19

It is curious how long the song of La Marseillaise has held its power.  It has been like a leit-motif through all the drama of this war in France, through the spirit of the French people waiting patiently for victory, hiding their tears for the dead, consoling their wounded and their cripples, and giving their youngest and their manhood to the God of War.  What is the magic in this tune so that if one hear it even on a cheap piano in an auxiliary hospital, or scraped thinly on a violin in a courtyard of Paris, it thrills one horribly?  On the night of August 2, when I travelled from Paris to Nancy, it seemed to me that France sang La Marseillaise—­the strains of it rose from every wayside station —­and that out of its graveyards across those dark hills and fields, with a thin luminous line on the far horizon the ghosts of slain soldiers rose to sing it to those men who were going to fight again for liberty.

Since then it has always been in my ears.  I heard it that night in Amiens when the French army was in retreat, and when all the young men of the city, not yet called to the colours because of their youth, escaped hurriedly on truck trains before a bridge was blown up, so that if they stayed they would be prisoners in German hands.  It was these boys who sang it, with fresh, clear voices, joining in a fine chorus, though not far away the soldiers of France were limping through the night from abandoned positions: