It would be hard to find any one more courteous and kind than the French officer.  A good deal of the success of the American Ambulance Field Sections in France is due to the hospitality and bon acceuil of the French, and to the work of the French officers attached to the Sections.  In Lieutenant Kuhlman, who commanded at Pont-a-Mousson, every American had a good friend and tactful, hard-working officer; in Lieutenant Maas, who commanded at Verdun, the qualities of administrative ability and perfect courtesy were most happily joined.

The principal characteristic of the French soldier is his reasonableness.

Chapter IX

Preparing The Defense Of Verdun

Every three months, if the military situation will allow of it and every other man in his group has likewise been away, the French soldier gets a six days’ furlough.  The slips of paper which are then given out are called feuilles de permission, and the lucky soldier is called a permissionnaire.  When the combats that gave the Bois-le-Pretre its sinister nickname began to peter out, the poilus who had done the fighting were accorded these little vacations, and almost every afternoon the straggling groups of joyous permissionnaires were seen on the road between the trenches and the station.  The expression on the faces was never that of having been rescued from a living hell; it expressed joy and prospect of a good time rather than deliverance.

When I got my permission, a comrade took me to the station at a certain rail-head where a special train started for Paris, and by paying extra I was allowed to travel second class.  I shall not dwell on the journey because I did not meet a single human being worth recording during the trip.  At eight at night I arrived in Paris.  So varied had been my experiences at the front that had I stepped out into a dark and deserted city I should not have been surprised.  The poilu, when he sees the city lights again, almost feels like saying, “Why, it is still here!” Many of them look frankly at the women, not in the spirit of gallant adventure, but out of pure curiosity.  In spite of the French reputation for roguish licentiousness, the sex question never seems to intrude very much along the battle-line, perhaps because there is so little to suggest it.  Certainly conversation at the front ignores sex altogether, and speech there is remarkably decent and clean.  Of course, when music-hall songs are sung at the concerts, the other sex is sometimes more than casually mentioned.  It is the comic papers which are responsible for the myth that the period of furlough is spent in a Roman orgy; this is, of course, true of some few, but for the great majority the reverse rules, and une permission is spent in a typically French way, paying formal calls to the oldest friends of the family, being with the family as much as possible, and attending to such homely affairs as the purchase of socks and underclothes.  In the evening brave Jacques or Georges or Francois is visited by all his old cronies, who gather round the hero and ask him questions, and he is solemnly kissed by all his relatives.  One evening is sure to be consecrated to a grand family reunion at a restaurant.