It was very interesting to compare the way in which French and British temperaments expressed themselves; intensely interesting to note how each so quickly became the complement of the other.
One knew so well the attitude of disdain of anything foreign which invariably characterises the Briton abroad; an unfortunate attitude which has been encouraged, or so it would almost seem, by the invariable courtesy, under the most irritating conditions, of men and women of the Latin races.
Here were some seventy or eighty thousand men thrust headlong into a strange country. Probably at least two-thirds of that number had never been out of England before. Everyone knows the impression which your average Englishman of the middle and lower classes has of French men and French women. Certainly it has not been very complimentary. How would our men now bear themselves?
And if our attitude to the French has for the most part been one of cold disdain and amusement, the French would seem to have regarded us, as a race, with incredulity, tempered by such a degree of irritation as their native courtesy would permit. This, together with an under current of admiration.
"Que j'aime la hardiesse anglaise!" says Voltaire, "que j'aime les gens qui disent ce qu'ils pensent."
During those early August days before the Retreat there was little real opportunity to modify racial opinions. But if British disdain was not yet effaced, the overwhelming reception by the French went far to break it down. Soon it was to be washed clean away in the blood sacrament which united French and English in a closer tie than that of brothers-in-arms.
French methods and customs still amused our men, but the amusement became that light-hearted gaiety, in tackling and surmounting trifling difficulties in a foreign country, which is quite irresistible. Here the British soldier or sailor is always at his very best, and the anecdotes of his adventures in French villages and towns would fill a volume.
Wiseacres who try to invent some universal language should certainly base it upon that of Thomas A. in a strange country. He is equally at home in China, Peru, the wilds of Africa or Spain.
The fact which astonished him more than anything else about the French language was that all the children spoke it. He could understand grown-ups learning it in time; but how the kiddies were able to talk it with such amazing fluency, that was quite beyond him.
As for the French attitude of mind, I am inclined to think that their incredulity, admiration and irritation were all intensified; the last named, however, being even less in evidence than before.