Chapter 4
In August, 1914, there lived at Eclusier, near Frise, a young girl with gray eyes and blonde hair named Marcelle Semer. She was twenty years old at the time and kept accounts in addition to overseeing the work of a factory. At the time of the August invasion, after the Battle of Charleroi, the French tried to halt the Germans at the Somme. Not being in sufficient force, they retreated, crossing the river and the canal. The enemy immediately pursued. Marcelle Semer, who was following the French troops, had the presence of mind, after the last soldier had crossed the Somme Canal, to open the drawbridge in order to prevent the Germans from crossing it, and to hurl the key to the bridge into the canal in order that they might not take it from her when they came up. An entire enemy army corps was thus detained for twenty-four hours by this young girl's presence of mind; and it was only on the following day that the enemy, having found some boats on the Somme, made a bridge of them and passed over the canal. But the French soldiers were already far away.
The Germans were masters of the neighborhood for some days. They seized the inhabitants as hostages and shut them up in a cave. Marcelle Semer secretly carried them food. She also carried sustenance to other inhabitants who had hidden in the woods or in cellars. She succored and concealed the soldiers whom wounds or fatigue had prevented from following the main body of troops. She contrived that sixteen of them, dressed as civilians, escaped. Then she was apprehended by the Germans, arrested and led into the presence of a court-martial. The judgment was summary, and after a quarter of an hour's questioning Marcelle Semer was condemned to death.
"Do you admit," asked the presiding officer, "that you helped French soldiers to escape?"
"I certainly do," she replied. "I managed it so that sixteen of them escaped, and they are beyond your reach. Now you can do what you want to me. I am an orphan. I have only one mother--France. She does not disturb me when I'm dying."
This was one time when God intervened. Marcelle did not die. Brought to the place of execution, at the very moment when they were about to shoot, the French reëntered the village and, by a miracle, she escaped her executioners. Today she wears the Croix de Guerre and the medal of the Legion of Honor.
* * * * *
They were Frenchwomen and fighters, these women whose names and deeds are to be found in the columns of the "Journal Officiel." Read, for example, this citation concerning Madame Macherez, President of the Association des Dames Françaises de Soissons:
She willingly assumed the responsibility and the danger of representing the city before the enemy, and defended or managed the interests of the population in the absence of the mayor and the majority of the members of the town council. In spite of an intense bombardment which partially ruined the city, she took the most effective means possible to maintain calm in the city and to protect the lives of the inhabitants.
In this department, a lay instructress, Mlle. Cheron, merited a citation which does not contain the least over-praise:
She evidenced the greatest energy in difficult circumstances. Charged with the duties of Secretary to the Mayor, and alone at the time of the arrival of the Germans, she was not disconcerted by their threats, and kept her head in the face of their demands with remarkable calm and decision. When our troops returned, she assumed responsibility for the service and feeding of the cantonment. She personally took the steps necessary for the identification and burial of the dead. Finally, she was able to prevent panic at the time of the bombardment by the force of her example and her encouragement of the populace.
Those three nuns were also Frenchwomen and fighters of whom the "Journal Officiel" in the general order spoke as follows:
Mlle. Rosnet, Marie, sister of the order of St. Vincent de Paul, Mother Superior of the Hospice at Clermont-en-Argonne, remained alone in the village and showed during the German occupation an energy and coolness beyond all praise. Having received a promise from the enemy that they would respect the town in exchange for the care the sisters gave their wounded, she protested to the German commander against the burning of the town with the observation that "the word of a German officer is not worth that of a French officer." Thus she obtained the help of a company of sappers who fought the flames. She gave the most devoted care to the wounded, German as well as French....
Mlle. Constance, Mother Superior of the Hospice at Badonvillers, during the three successive German occupations in 1914, assisted the sisters and remained bravely at her post night and day, in spite of all danger, and was busy everywhere with a devotion truly admirable....
Mlle. Brasseur, Sister Etienne, Mother Superior of the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul in the Hospital at Compiègne, from the war's beginning at the head of a staff whose tireless devotion has deserved all praise, has given the most intelligent and enlightened care to numerous wounded men. During the time of the German occupation, her coolness and energetic attitude assured the safety of the establishment she directed. Her brave initiative allowed several French soldiers to escape from captivity.
The modest postmistress and telegraph operator was a Frenchwoman and a fighter, who, in the little village of Houpelines, in the north of the country, deserved this citation in the orders of the day, of which thousands of soldiers would be proud:
Refusing to obey the order that was given her to leave her post, she remained in spite of the danger. On the first of October the Germans entered her office, smashed her apparatus and threatened her with death. Mlle. Deletete, who had put her valuables and accounts in safe-keeping, gave evidence of the greatest calmness. From the seventeenth on she endured the bombardment. Her office having been damaged severely by the enemy's fire, she took refuge in the civil hospice, where four persons were killed at her side. She resumed her duties on the twenty-third, since which date she has continued to perform them in the face of frequent bombardments which have found many victims.
The women behind the lines have been worthy of their sisters at the front.
In the forges, the foundries, the factories and the munition plants they have not feared to don the blouse of the workingman, and on this blouse they wear as insignia a large grenade like that on the brassard of the mobilized men. Note these figures. On the first of February, 1916, the civil establishments of war, the munition plants, and the Marine workshops employed 127,792 women. The number has increased, and on the first of March, 1917, they numbered 375,582 women. On the first of January, 1918, the women working in the factories manufacturing war material amounted to 475,000; that is to say, in round numbers, a half million.
Others, in the hospitals, ambulance and dispensaries have devoted themselves to the wounded, the mutilated, the sick and the suffering, to the sacrifice of their health, their youth, and sometimes their life itself. Here again the figures are eloquent--they speak for themselves. Three great societies, constituting the French Red Cross, have carried on this work of charity and devotion--the Société de Secours aux Blessés Militaires, the Union des Dames de France, and The Association des Dames Françaises. At the war's outbreak the Société de Secours aux Blessés had 375 hospitals with 17,939 beds; today it has 796 hospitals with 67,000 beds and 15,510 graduated nurses, three thousand of whom are employed in military hospitals. On the thirty-first of December, 1916, the Union des Dames de France had 363 hospitals with 30,000 beds and more than 20,000 graduate or volunteer nurses. From August, 1914, to March, 1917, the Association des Dames Françaises had raised the number of its hospitals from 100 to 350, and from 5,000 to 18,000 the number of its beds; the number of its graduate nurses from 5,000 to 7,000.
On the thirty-first of December, 1916, the three societies counted about 42,000,000 days of hospital work, 25,000,000 for the Société de Secours aux Blessés alone. From the beginning of the war, this society has expended for equipment the sum of 38,700,000 francs.
Aside from these there are other figures which show the material effort of the Frenchwomen which I can not pass over in silence. They show the civic devotion of which they are capable. The Société de Secours aux Blessés has been granted one cross of the Legion of Honor, 94 Croix de Guerre, 119 Medailles d'Honneur des épidémies. The Association des Dames Françaises has won 17 Croix de Guerre and 80 Medailles des épidémies. The Union des Femmes de France has won 39 Croix de Guerre. And last comes the glorious list of martyrs of the societies: 110 nurses have died in the devoted performance of their duties.
The heroism of these valiant women, many of whom remained in the occupied territories, will be the eternal pride of France. Madame Perouse, President of the Union des Femmes de France wrote to M. Louis Barthou telling him the number of women who had risked their liberty, their life, their honor even, to protect in the face of the ferocious enemy the sacred rights of the French wounded. It is fitting to add that, if they have taken care of the German wounded as well as the French wounded, they can always recall the reply of a devoted teacher of the Marne district, Mlle. Fouriaux, to a German major:
"Sir, we have only done our duty as nurses, never forgetting that we are Frenchwomen."
Mlle. Joulin, a nurse at Douai, did not forget her duty as a Frenchwoman. She was held a prisoner by the Germans for a year in the camp at Holzminden, in which she took the place of the mother of five children who had been put down on the list of hostages drawn up by the German barbarians.
And if you would know where these heroic women have poured out their courage, their coolness and their physical resistance, which they have put in the service of their country and of humanity, you have but to listen to the declaration of one of them, Mlle. Canton-Baccara, who has been made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, for having shown bravery and exceptional devotion in the face of the greatest danger:
"The wounded soldier who suffers," said Mlle. Canton-Baccara, "the soldier who is complaining or the peasant who is weeping for the farm that has been pillaged, a woman's smile ought to console and her voice ought, under all circumstances, to be ready to recall to him that above these sufferings and troubles, above the paltry struggles of interest and ambition, there is, above all this, France, our France, which matters before all else."
Still other women, who were neither in the hospitals, at the front, nor in the factories, have been admirable fighters. They fought, according to Mlle. Canton-Baccara's words, with their heart and with their smile. They fought by the example of abnegation they gave, by the moral force with which they inspired the men in the trenches.
Madame de Castelnau is a glorious figure, she, the wife of the General who saved Nancy and stopped the rush of the barbarians on the Grand Couronné!... Madame de Castelnau had, before the war broke out, four sons. Three fell on the battle field. The fourth is actually still a prisoner in the hands of the Germans. On the lips of their father there is never the slightest word of complaint; on the lips of the mother there are these admirable words, which the children in the schools will repeat later on.... Madame de Castelnau was in a little village when her third son was killed. The curé of the village had the pitiful task of telling the already mourning mother of this new blow that had struck her. The curé found Madame de Castelnau, and, in the presence of her great sorrow, he hesitated and was overcome with embarrassment:
"Madame," he said, "I come to bring you another blow. But know well that all the mothers of France weep for you."
Madame de Castelnau knew the truth at once. She interrupted the priest and, looking him straight in the eye, replied:
"Yes, I know what you are going to tell me.... God's will be done. But the mothers of France would be wrong in weeping for me. Let them envy me."
Those are the words of a Frenchwoman of noble descent. But you can place on the same high level the words of an old woman, a humble soul, whom the gendarmes found one night crouched on a grave that was still fresh. It was up near Verdun. She told the gendarmes:
"I come from La Rochelle. Five of my sons have already fallen in the war. I have come here to see where the sixth is buried--the sixth--my last son."
Moved by the tragic grandeur of the sight, the gendarmes rendered her military honors and presented arms. The mother rose and uttered the words her dead and her heart inspired:
"Even so, Vive la France!"
All of them, mothers of noble birth and of peasant stock, rich and poor, wives, sisters, and fiancées are the first to exhort their sons, husbands and brothers to fight to the end. All have the same words of sacrifice and abnegation on their lips. All of them find words which best fortify, exalt and console their men.
Read this letter I picked up on the field of battle, a letter written by a humble peasant woman whose heart, after centuries of noble and wise discipline, was in the right place:
MY DEAR BOY:
We got your letter, which gave us great pleasure. We waited anxiously for it. You wrote it two days ago. Since that time things have changed. Did you get my letter? I hope so. I must reassure you about your father the very first thing. He was away only three days, time enough to guide a detachment to Bourges. So there is only one vacant place at the fireside, but how big that one is.
My dear boy, you speak to me of sacrifice; yes, it is one. And I can tell you it is the greatest one that has ever been asked of me. However, I keep calm. I tell myself sometimes that I have deserved it. I am ready to pay, but I wish so much that you might not pay.
My dear boy, you speak to me of duty and of honor. I have never doubted that you would do what you ought to. Yes, my son, a soldier's honor lies in being on the battle field when the country is in danger. Go, then, my son, with the blessing of your mother and your father, and with that most mighty one of your country and of heaven.
You tell me to accept my lot courageously. Alas, sometimes it fails me. However, I shall try to be resigned and I hope to see you again in spite of everything. If that should not happen, say to yourself, my dear boy, when you close your eyes, that you have all the love and all the sweetest kisses of your mother, who would like to fly to you.
The sisters are worthy of their mothers. Here is a letter written by two young girls who live in Lorraine, near Nancy. Plutarch never wrote anything more beautiful:
MOYEN, 4 SEPTEMBER, 1914.
MY DEAR EDOUARD:
I have heard that Charles and Lucien died on the twenty-eighth of August. Eugène is badly wounded. As for Louis and Jean, they are dead also.
Rose has gone away.
Mother weeps, but she says that you are brave and wishes that you may avenge them.
I hope that your officers will not refuse you that. Jean won the Legion of Honor; follow in his footsteps.
They have taken everything from us. Of the eleven who went to war, eight are dead. My dear Edouard, do your duty; we ask only that.
God gave you life; he has the right to take it away from you. Mother says that.
We embrace you fondly, although we would like to see you. The Prussians are here. Jandon is dead; they have pillaged everything. I have just returned from Gerbevillers, which is destroyed. What wretches they are!
Sacrifice your life, my dear brother. We hope to see you again, for something like a presentiment tells us to hope.
We embrace you fondly. Farewell, and may we see you again, if God grants.
(Signed) YOUR SISTERS.
P.S. It is for us and for France. Think of your brothers and of your grandfather in 1870.
And this next letter is sublime. It was addressed to M. Maurice Barrès by a lady from the city of Lyons, which is perhaps the most mystic city in all France. In the newspapers mention had been made of the men disabled by war, and of all the unfortunates who were mutilated, whose limbs had been amputated, who were helpless or blinded. The question was raised of knowing what ought to be done to help them. Then the lady wrote as follows to M. Barrès:
SIR: One of these recent days, when our troubles have been so hard to bear, I went to regain my courage into one of the beloved sanctuaries of Notre Dame.... A lady dressed in black came in beside me and, as all mothers are sisters in these trying days, I asked after her men at the front. She told me sadly that she was a poor widow, and that the war had taken away her two sons, her sole means of support. One of them had had an arm amputated--the right arm--and the hands of the other were cut off at the wrists. She came from seeing them to pray to the Mother of Sorrows for her children and herself.
I was deeply moved by her sorrow and by her not complaining. I sought means to console her. This is the means I have found, sir, and I tell it to you now....
Let us ask the Virgin, I said to her, to create young women in France so brave, so strong, and so devoted that they will gladly and proudly consent to marry the poor, injured men and to be not only their hearts but the limbs which will aid them to make their daily bread; leaving to the men the privilege of loving them, of respecting their presences and of guiding their lives.
The poor woman understood me. We separated. My own youngest daughter was in my thoughts; and do you not think that the men who have a wider audience could stir the hearts of the young women, twenty years of age in France, if they asked them to perform this act of devotion, and to be the companions of the mutilated, maimed men of France?...
Then, too, the women who had only their dignity and their high spirit to defend themselves against the grossness and the insults of the Prussians, have been the incarnation of the spirit of France.
An old woman who dwelt in a village on the Aisne was spattered with mud by the Kaiser as he passed by on horseback. He made a gesture excusing himself. She fixed her eyes on him and said simply:
"It doesn't matter, sir. That mud can be washed off."
A great lady in one of the châteaux in the invaded regions, had to receive one of the Kaiser's sons. The day of his departure he sent for her to thank her for the hospitality she had shown him. The old lady, looking at him, contented herself with replying:
"Do not thank me, sir. I did not invite you here."
And she reëntered her house with all dignity.
* * * * *
Because the women of France have been all this and have done all this, France has been able to fight on, and will be able to fight to the end. Because the women of France have been all this and have done all this, the soldiers, in the mud of the trenches, revere them as Madonnas.
The historian Tacitus tells somewhere how, on a hot spring day, a slave, panting and worn out, entered one of the gates of the Eternal City. He crossed the Forum without stopping and, in his course, mounted the Hill of Mars. Finally he came to one of the greatest houses of the patrician section of the city. His cries and shouts filled the house:
"Alas, alas!" he cried.
A lady hastened to him. She was the mistress of the house, the famous Cornelia Graccha.
"What news do you bring?" she asked.
"Alas, alas," repeated the slave, "in the battle down there in Umbria, two of your sons have been killed."
"Fool," was the reply, "I do not ask that. Have the Barbarians been conquered?"
"They have, Cornelia."
"Then what matters the death of my sons if my country is victorious!"
Those wonderful words have been handed down from generation to generation as a symbol of what ancient Rome was. Those words thousands of French women have uttered for the last four years, and they still utter them today. Other voices answer them. They rise from the trenches, and they say:
"Be without fear, women of France. For you we will fight to our last gasp, we will shed our last drop of blood. Know that if for months we have held our heads below the level of the muddy trench and offered our breasts to death, it is that you may be freed from the wild beasts that have burst forth from the German forests. For your sakes our homes are not in ruins and our towns are not vassals to the enemy. It is all for you, so that when we shall return you need not throw your arms around conquered necks. Our country, women of France, is made up of our homes, our churches, and our fields, and of your beloved faces. Throughout the tragic periods of its history, our country has always been incarnated in your faces, whether they called themselves St. Geneviève or Jeanne d'Arc. And in our building, to personify the cities that are dear to us, we have always taken your bodies, your foreheads, and the folds of your gowns--see, in Paris, that statue in the Place de la Concorde, in the shadow of the Tuileries, which for days has worn a crêpe veil.... Well, today is the same as yesterday. In our trenches our country appears to us in those visions wherein are mingled your faces. We shall believe that our country has been well served only when, on your beloved faces, we shall have caused a smile to appear because the palms we have placed at your feet are the palms of victory."
Future historians will state that France has fought not only with all her courage, her tenacity and her soul, with all her men, women and children: they will also state that these men, women and children, in spite of the terrible times, their suffering and their mourning, have remained firmly united, forming a firm rock from which not a single stone has been splintered.
In that tormented, feverish France where the ardor of the Revolution still boils, there were, before the war, different parties, cliques, groups and churches. The war has leveled, united and bound them all together.
In some admirable pages, consecrated to the "Effort of French Womanhood," M. Louis Barthou has painted the picture of the sacred union there is among all the French women: