to the French lines, a journey that would take me over the battlefield of the Marne.  “La Marne!  Helas, quelle douleur!” said Jeanne, and wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron.  “But it was a glorious victory,” I expostulated.  Yes, but Jeanne, it seemed, had lost a brother in the battle of the Marne.  She pulled out of her bosom a frayed letter, bleached, stained, and perforated with holes about the size of a shilling, and handed it to me.  I could make nothing of it.  She handed me another letter.  “Son camarade,” she explained, and no longer attempted to hide her tears.  And this was what I read: 

Le 10 sept., 1914.

CHERE MADAME—­Comme j’etais tres bon camarade avec votre frere Paul Duval et que le malheur vient de lui arriver, je tient a vous le faire savoir, car peut-etre vous serai dans l’inquietude de pas recevoir de ces nouvelles et de ne pas savoir ou il est.  Je vous dirai que je vient de lui donner du papier a lettre et une enveloppe pour vous ecrire et aussitot la lettre finit il l’a mis dans son kepi pour vous l’envoye le plus vite possible et malheureusement un obus est arriver, et il a etait tue.  Heureusement nous etions trois pres de l’un l’autre et il n’y a eut de lui de touche.  Je vous envoi la petite lettre qu’il venait de vous faire, et en meme tant vous verrez les trous que les eclats d’obus l’on attrapper.  Recevez de moi chere madame mes sinceres salutations.

JULES COPPEE.

Tambour au 151e Regiment d’Inf.,
2e Cie 42e Division, Secteur postale 56.

Crude and illiterate though it was, the letter had a certain noble simplicity.  “Tres gentil,” I remarked as I returned it to Jeanne, and thought the matter at an end.  But Jeanne had not done, and, with much circumlocution and many hesitations, she at last preferred a simple request.  I was going to visit the battlefield of the Marne—­yes?  I assented.  Well, perhaps, perhaps Monsieur would visit Paul’s grave, and perhaps if he found it he would take a photograph.  “Why, certainly,” I said, little knowing what I promised.  But the request was to have a strange sequel, as you shall hear.  Sykes came to say my car was at the door.  As I clambered in and turned to wave a farewell, Madame and Jeanne stood on the doorstep to wish me bon voyage.  “J’espere que vous tuerez plusieurs Allemands,” cried Madame in a quavering voice.  “Veuillez ne pas oublier, M’sieu’,” cried Jeanne wistfully.  I waved my hand, and had soon left rue Robert le Frisson far behind me.

FOOTNOTE: 

[8] The town described in this sketch is described not as it is, but as it was some months ago, and nothing is to be inferred from the title as to its present significance.

XII

MORT POUR LA PATRIE