whether in town or country, has remained throughout these forty-eight years strongly and passionately French.  “Since when did you expect the French to come back?” asked M. Mirman, the present Commissioner of the French Republic at Metz, of an old peasant whom he came across not long ago on an official inspection.  The old man’s eyes kindled—­“Depuis toujours!” he said—­“I knew it would come, but I was afraid it mightn’t come till I was dead, so I used to say to my son:  ’If I am dead, and the French come back, you will go to the cemetery, you will knock three times on my grave—­I shall hear!’ And my son promised.”

My present concern, however, is not with the Alsace-Lorraine question, but with the brilliant Army Commander who now occupies what used to be the Headquarters of the German Army Corps which held Alsace.  My acquaintance with him was due to a piece of audacity on my part.  The record of General Gouraud in Champagne, and at the Dardanelles, was well known to me, and I had heard much of his attractive and romantic personality.  So, on arriving at our hotel after a long day’s motoring, and after consulting with the kind French Lieutenant who was our escort, I ventured a little note to the famous General.  I said I had been the guest of the British Army for six days on our front, and was now the guest of the French Army, for a week, and to pass through Strasbourg without seeing the victor of the “front de Champagne” would be tantalising indeed.  Would he spare an Englishwoman, whose love for the French nation had grown with her growth and strengthened with her years, twenty minutes of his time?

The note was sent and I waited, looking out the while on the gay and animated crowd that filled the Platz Gutenberg in front of the hotel, and listening to the bands of children, shouting the “Marseillaise,” and following every French officer as he appeared.  Was there ever a more lovely winter evening?  A rosy sunset seemed to have descended into the very streets and squares of the beautiful old town.  Wisps of pink cloud were tangled in the narrow streets, against a background of intensely blue sky.  The high-roofed burgher houses, with their decorated fronts, had an “unsubstantial faery” look, under the strange rich light; and the front of the Cathedral, with its single delicate spire, soared, one suffusion of rose, to an incredible height above the narrow street below.

“Allons, enfants de la patri-e!” But a motor-car is scattering the children, and an ordonnance descends.  A note, written by the General’s own left hand—­he lost his right arm in consequence of a wound at the Dardanelles—­invites us to dinner with him and his staff forthwith—­the motor will return for us.  So, joyously, we made what simple change we could, and in another hour or so we were waiting in the General’s study for the great man to appear.  He came at once, and I look back upon the evening that followed as one of the most interesting that Fate has yet sent my way.