Supreme of Lobster A l'amiral
Tenderloin a la bearnaise
Artichoke Hearts
Chantilly style
Roast Truffled Bresse Chicken
Scotch Salad
Havana Ice
Desert
Wines
Fleurie (Beaujolais) in Decanter
Pouilly (Maconnais) in Decanter
White Hermitage 1904
Chateau Vaudieu 1904
Saint-Peray frappe

On my right was General d'Armade, one of the noted generals of the French army, who had seen service all through the present war. On my left was M. Farrand. My talk with General d'Armade was most interesting. He said the best soldiers of both the French and the German armies were gone; that they had been destroyed in the early part of the war and that the soldiers now fighting were civilians who had been trained for two years. He declared that a French soldier was always a French soldier. He had no doubt of the ultimate victory of the Allies. In addition to General d'Armade's experience in the present war, he had been in Morocco and the Sudan with important commands.

On Friday, the day following, we were entertained by the directors of the Lyons Fair. On my left was Charles Cabaud, Russian Consul General. On my right sat Dr. Jules Courmont, who in time of peace is Professor of the faculty of medicine and physician to the hospitals of Lyons, but who now, in time of war, is in the War Department, has the rank of general, and is charged with the hygiene of the army.

We found him a very competent and interesting gentleman. He accompanied us in the private car which the railroad furnished us, and went south with us some distance to where there is a large government garrison, and where he had an inspection to make.

During the trip on the train Dr. Courmont told us many interesting things about the hygiene of the army. He said that the warfare of today is very different from the warfare of former times in respect to the hygiene; that contrary to what was commonly supposed, the hygiene of the trenches is excellent; that the soldiers are in better condition, most of them, than they are in time of peace. They are more regularly and better fed, and are strong, well nourished and hearty. The experience has been the regeneration of very many of them physically. This is due, he says, to the fact that they have their food served to them regularly and abundantly; whereas in former wars it was a matter of the greatest difficulty for troops to be provisioned.

We asked him whether or not the water in the trenches was harmful to the soldiers and he replied that they had very little rheumatism, and the men did not seem to suffer from it. He said there was almost, or in fact, no smallpox, and there was comparatively no typhoid. All of the soldiers are innoculated against typhoid, receiving on the first innoculation three or four injections, and subsequently being innoculated about once in every six months, receiving then two injections. This is for soldiers, whereas civilians are usually innoculated about once every three years, if it is desired that they should be kept immune from typhoid. He says they use with best results the system of Dr. Vidal, of Paris, employing a serum in which the bacteria have been destroyed by heat rather than by boiling. They find the effect of this serum much better than that of others. He says that tuberculosis does, of course, exist, because tuberculosis exists among most civilized peoples. There is even more tuberculosis now among the troops than at the beginning of the war; but this is not due to an increase of tuberculosis, but is due to the fact that the later levies of troops have included many soldiers who at the beginning would not have been accepted, because they either had the disease or had a tendency toward it.

He then spoke about the effect of various weapons in use. He was asked whether the modern rifle wound was serious. He said it was either so serious as to kill the soldier by passing-through the brain, the heart, or some other vital part, or else it was a matter of more or less indifference. If a rifle ball went through the fleshy part of the body, you could pretty safely say it was not a grave wound, because the bullets passing through the air are so cleansed and heated that when they go through the fleshy part of the body they leave no germs and do little harm unless they fracture a bone. We asked if they did not carry into the wound infected pieces of the soldiers' clothing, and he said no, that they did not find that to be the case; that the bullet went through so quickly that it separated the clothing, and went through the flesh clean. He even stated that a bullet could pass through the lungs; that the wounded soldier would spit up blood, but that when attended to at once, and the wound dressed, it would be a matter of only eight or ten days when he would be again in fairly good condition. He said, however, that wounds from fragments of shrapnel were of quite a different character; that they were ragged, unclean and usually gave much concern. He said, also, as a matter of fact, that the gun or rifle was performing a less and less important function in warfare. That many were even in favor of abandoning the rifle entirely as a weapon. That the war, as carried on today, is carried on in personal assaults mainly through the effectiveness of the grenades, handknives, revolvers and similar weapons; that the trenches and trench warfare are not suited to close hand-to-hand encounters, as there is not usually room enough to manipulate a gun and bayonet. (This agrees with what was told us by our Negro friend, Bob Scanlon, whom we met at Clermond, and who said all he wanted and carried in an assault or a fight were grenades, a knife and a good club, preferably of iron.)

The doctor said that for the warfare of today reliance is mainly upon the mitrailleuse, which fires 300 shots a minute. He says that nothing living within the range of these guns, and exposed to them, can possibly stand. This is the small arm which had such great effect for the French in the first days of the war. The Germans had very few guns of this kind in the beginning, but they have since provided themselves with them. He said that outside of these guns the most effective are the famous 75 mm. and the 155 mm. rifles. He asked us to recall the fact that both of these guns were fired for our benefit at St. Charmond, under the direction of Col. Rimailho, whom we had the pleasure of meeting there, and who was one of the important men co-operating in building the "75", and who was, himself, the inventor and author of the "155". These are the guns of lighter caliber which do such effective work in the field. Of course, in addition, the French are also using guns of very large caliber, for instance the 350 mm. These, of course, are for the reduction of forts, and the enemy's line prior to assault.

[Illustration: Women Employed in Munitions Factories.]

Dr. Courmont wanted to know whether we had seen the new armored caterpillar cars which they were preparing, and we told him we had seen them at St. Charmond. He said they were to be equipped with one "75" gun and with two or three mitrailleuses (the rapid fire gun), and that an equipment like this, armored against the shrapnel of the enemy, would doubtless be most effective for the French, as a similar caterpillar had been for the English.