II—THE YOUNG HEROES OF FRANCE
Told by Maurice Barrès, in memory of Max Barthou, who volunteered at eighteen
I believe that young heroes abound at this moment when every family is cruelly involved in the war. The son dreams of helping his father, his elder brothers, of joining them, of avenging them. Are his city and his home invaded? With his whole heart he tries and examines himself as to what his duty and his honour demand. I remember how the minds of my companions, some 10 years old, and our slightly older brothers were fired in 1870....
Do you wish me to bring you my contribution to the monument of our young patriots?
First, a little story. On Nov. 24, 1914, on a cold day, about 3 in the afternoon, the Prussians, whom they call "Boches," are once again trying to cross the frontier, to enter France. It is very cold, there is a high wind, and snow covers the ground. Who tells the story? A workman at the front, who, from the neighbourhood of Pont-à-Mousson, writes to his two little children at his home at Neuillez sur Marne. They gave me his letter. I should spoil it if I retouched it. I transcribe it just as it is:
"My dear little Marcella, this story, which happened to some French soldiers, you are to tell to your little Charlie and your companions, and you are to show them how two little children saved the lives of twenty-eight papas.
"In a lonely farmhouse a detachment of reservists, composed of thirty men, are resting from the labours of the night in an underground cellar, waiting for the next night to begin their work again and accomplish their mission.
In a room about them, two children, Liza and John, are sitting beside their mamma near the fire. All three talk the old country dialect. All at once the mother rises, runs to the door and sees some horsemen coming from a distance.
"'My children,' she says, pressing them to her heart, 'I think the Prussians are coming. They will see that we have lodged and fed French soldiers, and they will surely want to make us tell where they are. They will take them and shoot them.'
"'We must say they have gone away there, just in the opposite direction!' said little John.
"'Oh, no!' said their mamma; 'if we deceive them with a lie they will come back and take vengeance. Listen rather! I shall speak to the Prussians only in dialect, and they won't understand a word. Do you also do as I do, and, to everything they say, answer always in the same phrase, in dialect.'
"The clatter of hoofs was heard, and the rattle of weapons.
"'Courage, my children!' said their mamma. The door opens. The Boches enter. They ask questions, but the mother's answers are unintelligible to them.
"'Look at these two children! They must learn French at school,' said the officer, who spoke a little French.
"One of the Germans seized little Lisa, while another caught little John.
"'Where is your father?' he asked in a harsh voice. 'Where are the French that passed here?'
"Lisa raised her blue eyes to this foreign soldier and, all trembling, replied in dialect. John did the same. The soldiers, irritated, suspecting a trick, searched the house, but did not find the trap-door which had been previously covered with dirty straw. They threatened to cut the children's throats. They told them they would kill their mother, too, if they did not answer. The poor children began to cry, but, faithful to their mother's directions, they repeated, through their tears, the same phrase.
"The French soldiers who were in the cellar and who heard everything through a ventilator felt their blood boil, and, but for their officer, would have come forth to protect the poor children, and, without doubt, would have been killed, for they were outnumbered.
"The Prussians did not think that such young children, threatened with death, would be capable of such heroic discretion; they ended by believing that they could not make themselves understood and rode away.
"And that is how two little children, Lisa, aged 8, and John, aged 10, by their obedience to their mother and by courage kept thirty men from being killed, twenty-eight wives still have their husbands, and forty-seven little children have their papas. Among these forty-seven little children my little Marcella and my little Charlie will perhaps see their papa again."
I leave this story in its fine simplicity. A workman who had become a soldier chats with his children far away. But the chief attraction in it for me is that the fact reported is quite authentic. I know the farm in the district of Meurthe et Moselle, and later on I shall tell its name, as well as those of the farmer's wife and the two children, who have received a well-earned reward.