Another joy in the life of our wounded is the announcement and then the presentation of his decoration.  Once, however, I saw the Cross of Honor received with no sign of satisfaction at all, but that was because it came too late, and its recipient, one of my friends, a brave officer, was about to receive another recompense in heaven.  It was very affecting to see the decoration laid on that already gasping breast, without any consciousness on the part of the poor hero.  His mother and wife, at least, before they buried him, could take the glorious emblem to hand down as heirloom and as instruction to his three little ones.  It is a noble idea of the French Government, to give the decorations of soldiers killed by the enemy to their families—­their widows, their orphans, or, if they are not married, to their old parents.  During these years filled with emotion, few spectacles have impressed me so deeply as the ceremony of “taking arms” in the court of honor of the Invalides, when in this historic monument, built by Louis XIV. and now the tomb of Napoleon, a General of the Third Republic gave the emblem of the brave to women and children dressed in mourning, at the same time as to rough soldiers newly healed of their wounds and ready to return to the front.

[Sidenote:  The return to the front.]

[Sidenote:  Often impatient to rejoin his comrades.]

Return to the front!...  This is the almost invariable ending of the history of our wounded soldier of the fourth year of the War.  Return to the front!  Never will the heroism required for the acceptance of such a duty be sufficiently admired!  After three years of fatigue, privations, of unheard-of dangers, after one or several wounds which brought him within an inch of death, this man who has for long months felt the sweetness, the care, the calm of a comfortable hospital; has had a taste of the charms of family life once more; has little by little turned his thought away from the horrors of war, now he is sent back, to the depot, from which he knows that before long he will be called again to the front!  And he submits, resigns himself:  what do I say?  Often impatient of inaction, of the little rules which annoy his independent temper, he asks to go in advance of the call, to rejoin as a volunteer and without further delay his comrades of Champagne, Lorraine, Flanders or Picardy.  He reenters his regiment as the traveler reenters his own country, and his only sadness is to find that during his absence so many old comrades have fallen, so many newcomers have filled the gaps.  But the welcome of the survivors warms his heart.

[Sidenote:  He goes into the trenches at night.]