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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



French women became conductors, motor 

 operators, ticket-sellers on the subways 

 of Paris ; they took the positions vacated 

 by men in the post-office department ; 

 they were employed in the street-cleaning 

 and other municipal departments. 



In all industries, public or private, 

 women replaced the men called to the 

 front, and, what is much more to the 

 point, they made good in their new work. 



UNREMITTING TOIL FOR A FREE FRANCE 



As farmers, as vintners, as laborers, as 

 munition workers, French women toil 

 without ceasing to save France and take 

 some of the burden of war from the 

 shoulders of the men. In their own field, 

 as housewives who understand the impor- 

 tance of thrift, they have saved the eco- 

 nomic situation. 



The enormous financial burden which 

 war has so unjustly thrown on France 

 has been lightened by the thousand econo- 

 mies put into practice by French women 

 in their homes. All the little dainties of 

 table, the little coquetries of dress, the 

 little temptations of amusement, have 

 been sternly put aside for the duration of 

 the war. 



Sugar means money spent abroad ; 

 therefore the French woman gives up 

 pastries, sweets, and reduces the amount 

 of sugar used in the household. Coal is 

 needed to keep the munition factories up 

 to the maximum of production, so the 

 French woman reduces the amount of 

 gas and electricity used in her home, as 

 these are the products of coal. 



Thus French women, through practicing 

 direct and indirect economies, actually re- 

 duce the cost of the war to France ; and, 

 more than this, when any money is saved 

 to them from these economies they invest 

 the saving in government war loan, mak- 

 ing every copper do double work in the 

 defense of the country. 



In this article I have outlined what 

 France has done in the war. I have men- 

 tioned the work of the army which met 

 and turned the heaviest blows the mili- 

 tary power of Germany could muster. I 

 have mentioned how the artillery, the 

 product of French brains, bulwarked the 

 efforts of the soldiers. I have referred 

 to the work of the women of France and 

 their splendid stand under the strain of 

 war, and I have mentioned the spirit of 

 France. 



AN UNCONQUERABLE SPIRIT 



In conclusion, I must again allude to 

 that spirit. French men and women 

 know that the resources of their nation 

 in property and lives are being consumed 

 in the furnace of war. They know what 

 the death of their soldiers means to the 

 nation in the future. They realize the 

 terrible consequences of German occupa- 

 tion. Yet in the face of all these bitter 

 trials the people have never faltered. 



Throughout the misery, the suffering, 

 the brutal injustice of this war, France 

 has fought valiantly for one ideal — the 

 ideal upon which that nation and our own 

 is founded — the right of the citizen to 

 liberty. 



Each day as the French armies. press 

 the enemy back from the territory so long 

 occupied, the sacrifices of : France are 

 proved with greater poignancy. 



The band of blackened land now given 

 over to desolation is the visual testimony 

 of what the war has meant to France. 

 But it is not only the losses of today, but 

 what those losses mean in the future, that 

 must be reckoned as part of the burden 

 France bears. This is a sacrifice no man 

 can gauge. 



When democracy rises triumphant 

 from the struggle with despotism, and 

 when the last page of war history is 

 written, the world will gladly acknowl- 

 edge its debt to France. 



