Paris Mobilizes

Not everyone was overjoyed to be leaving : mother and son.

A Last Meal Before Leaving

'In the streets of Paris in those first days of the war I saw many scenes of farewell. All day long one saw them, so that at last one watched them without emotion, because the pathos of them became monotonous. It was curious how men said good-bye, often, to their wives and children and comrades at a street corner, or in the middle of the boulevards. A hundred times or more I saw one of these conscript soldiers who had put on his uniform again after years of civilian life, turn suddenly to the woman trudging by his side or to a group of people standing round him and say: "Alors, il faut 'dire 'Adieu' et 'Au revoir'." One might imagine that he was going on a week-end visit and would be back again in Paris on Monday next. It was only by the long-drawn kiss upon the lips of the woman who raised a dead white face to him and by the abruptness with which the man broke away and walked oft hurriedly until he was lost in the passing crowds that one might know that this was as likely as not the last parting between a man and a woman who had known love together and that each of them had seen the vision of death which would divide them on this side of the grave. The stoicism of the Frenchwomen was wonderful. They made no moan or plaint. They gave their men to La Patrie" with the resignation of religious women who offer their hearts to God. Some spiritual fervour, which in France permeates the sentiment of patriotism, giving a beauty to that tradition of nationality which, without such a spirit, is the low and ignorant hatred of other peoples, strengthened and uplifted them. '

 

from : Philip Gibbs ‘The Soul of the War’ 1915

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