Nevertheless, a German prisoner who had been taken in the Bois-le-Pretre confessed to me a horror of the French breaking through into Germany.  Looking round to see if any one was listening, he said in English, for he was an educated man—­“Just remember the French Revolution.  Just remember the French Revolution.  God! what cruelties.  You remember Carrier at Nantes, don’t you, my dear sir?  All the things we are said to have done in Belgium—­” But here the troop of prisoners was hurried to one side, and I never saw the man again.  An army will always have all kinds of people in it, the good, the bad, the degenerate, the depraved, the brutal; and these types will act according to their natures.  But I can’t imagine several regiments of French poilus doing in little German towns what the Germans did at Nomeny.  The backbone of the French army, as he is the backbone of France, is the French peasant.  In spite of De Maupassant’s ugly tales of the Norman country people, and Zola’s studies of the sordid, almost bestial, life of certain unhappy, peasant families, the French peasant (cultivateur) is a very fine fellow.  He has three very good qualities, endurance, patience, and willingness to work.  Apart from these characteristics, he is an excellent fellow by himself; not jovial, to be sure, but solid, self-respecting, and glad to make friends when there is a chance that the friendship will be a real one.  He does not care very much for the working men of the towns, the ouvriers, with their fantastic theories of universal brotherhood and peace, and he hates the depute whom the working man elects as he hates a vine fungus.  A needless timidity, some fear of showing himself off as a simpleton, has kept him from having his just influence in French politics; but the war is freeing him from these shackles, and when peace comes, he will make himself known:  that is, if there are any peasants left to vote.

Another thing about the peasantry is that trench warfare does not weary them, the constant contact with the earth having nothing unusual in it.  A friend of mine, the younger son of a great landed family of the province of Anjou, was captain of a company almost exclusively composed of peasants of his native region; he loved them as if they were his children, and they would follow him anywhere.  The little company, almost to a man, was wiped out in the battles round Verdun.  In a letter I received from this officer, a few days before his death, he related this anecdote.  His company was waiting, in a new trench in a new region, for the Germans to attack.  Suddenly the tension was relieved by a fierce little discussion carried on entirely in whispers.  His soldiers appeared to be studying the earth of the trench.  “What’s the trouble about?” he asked.  Came the answer, “They are quarreling as to whether the earth of this trench would best support cabbages or turnips.”

It is rare to find a French workman (ouvrier) in the trenches.  They have all been taken out and sent home to make shells.