W ar Service Letters 



457 



ably boasted of the number of children she had given to France. Any- 

 way, she infuriated a German officer, who tore open her dress and 

 slashed off her right breast. An old bent woman of seventy! I have 

 seen the scar myself, and have shown it to the doctor at our clinic. 

 There is no possible doubt as to the truth of her story. 



"One woman in our care was shot in the leg by the Boche — 'par me- 

 chancete,' she told me; but I never finished getting her story, through 

 some interruption. Another had her husband shot down and killed 

 beside her in their own home because he protested against a German 

 officer taking all his fourteen rabbits. 



"As a rule, the stories of the worst cruelty all belong to the first year 

 of the war. Those who have lived longer behind the lines complain for 

 the most part of unreasonable regulations, fines, petty tyranny, loss of 

 property, or unjust prison sentences. One very intelligent woman from 

 the Vosges told me that so long as things were running normally the 

 Germans in her district were kind enough. 'The soldiers often gave my 

 children bits of chocolate, and a military doctor used to care for the 

 sick; but twice it happened that the country had to be evacuated, and 

 then we were treated like dogs, herded out of the way with no regard 

 whatever for the hardships and suffering we had to undergo.' I asked 

 her why she had returned to France, since her husband was a civil 

 prisoner behind the lines. 'Because of my son,' she said. 'He is four- 

 teen. All the boys and girls were taken from their families and sent 

 into Germany as soon as they were fifteen.' . . . 



"I saw little of the celebration of victory, for I wasn't allowed to 

 leave the hospital and come up to Mont de Marsan, where all the real 

 doings were. We did not get the news of the signing of the armistice 

 until nearly two o'clock at Labouheyre. Then Dr. Seagrave came up 

 from the village, from the mayor's house, where she had just learned 

 it, and told us all to go over to the mayor's, as he wanted us to go with 

 him to the mairie while he announced it to the village people. He made 

 us walk beside him and grouped us near him as he stood on the steps 

 of the mairie to address the crowd. His speech, I thought, was very 

 good, even if my translation of it makes it sound stilted to you. 'My 

 friends,' he said, 'the bells have already told you what I have to say. 

 Germany has signed the armistice. The nightmare under which we 

 have lived for four long years is over. In this hour of victory let our 

 first thoughts, our first gratitude, be for our noble dead. This is not a 

 day for words. Our hearts are too full. Let us pay tribute, however, 

 to our glorious allies, through whom civilization has triumphed over 

 barbarism. England, Italy, Serbia — above all America, by whose un- 

 stinted help we have finally conquered. Let us remember that in our 

 darkest hour America came to our aid; that America realized that if 

 France perished civilization itself was doomed. We have conquered. 

 Victory is ours. Lift your voices now and cry with me, Vive I'Ameri- 

 que! Vive la France!' . . . 



