The girls sat throughout this discourse as stunned as if a bomb had dropped on the roof.  They were still discussing it when I left Paris.  No doubt it is already beginning to bear fruit.  Few of them but have that most dismal of all fireside ornaments, a half-effaced old-maid sister, one of the most tragic and pitiable objects in France.  The noble attributes which her drab and eventless life sometimes leave un-withered were superbly demonstrated to the American audience some years ago by Nance O’Neil in “The Lily.”

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One of the new officers I happened to hear of was a farmer who not only won the Croix de Guerre and the Croix de la Legion d’Honneur very early in the war but rose in rank until, when I heard the story, he was a major.  One day a brother officer asked him if he should remain in the army after peace was declared.

“No,” he replied, and it was evident that he had thought the matter over.  “My wife is not a lady.  She is wholly unfitted to take her place in the officers’ class.  There is no democracy among women.  Better for us both that I return whence I came.”

This is a fair sample of the average Frenchman’s ironic astuteness, that clear practical vision that sees life without illusions.  But if the war should drag on for years the question is, would he be willing to surrender the position of authority to which he had grown accustomed, and which satisfies the deepest instincts of a man’s nature after youth has passed?  After all there may be a new “officers’ class.”

I heard another story, told me by a family doctor, equally interesting.  The son of a wealthy and aristocratic house and his valet were mobilized at the same time.  The young patrician was a good and a gallant soldier but nothing more.  The valet discovered extraordinary capacities.  Not only did he win the coveted medals in the course of the first few months, but when his shattered regiment under fire in the open was deprived of its officers he took command and led the remnant to victory.  A few more similar performances proving that his usefulness was by no means the result of the moment’s exaltation but of real however unsuspected gifts, he was rapidly promoted until he was captain of his former employer’s company.  There appears to have been no mean envy in the nature of the less fortunate aristocrat.  Several times they have received their permission together and he has taken his old servant home with him and given him the seat of honor at his own table.  His mother and sisters have made no demur whatever, but are proud that their menage should have given a fine soldier to France.  Perhaps only the noblesse who are unalterably sure of themselves would have been capable of rising above the age-old prejudices of caste, war or no war.

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