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.