Fifteen thousand of the victorious troops will pass in review to-day before the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied armies. Down across the field you can hear the distant notes of a bugle. They are taken up by other buglers at various points. Then across the field comes a regimental band. The players have been in the charge too—with rifles instead of musical instruments. This is their first chance to play in months—and play they do. You hear the martial notes of the Marseillaise floating across the field, played with a force that must have been heard in the German lines.
The regiments take up their positions at one side of the field. General Langle de Carry, commander of the army that did the Champagne fighting, with only a half dozen officers, take positions at the reviewing stand. The reviewing stand is a hillock of mud. Both general and officers wear the long overcoats of the light "horizon blue," the new color of the French army.
A man emerges from the line of trees behind the group and plows his way across the mud. He is large and bulky. He plants his feet firmly at each step—splashing the mud out in all directions. He wears a short jacket of the "horizon blue" and no overcoat. He wears the old red trousers of the beginning of the war. His hat, around which you can see the golden band of oak leaves signifying that he is a general, is pulled low over his eyes. Drops of rain are on his grizzled mustache. A leather belt is about his powerful body, but he wears no sword.
Langle de Carry and his officers whirl about quickly at his approach. Every hand is raised in salute. The bulky man touches the visor of his hat in response—then plants both his large ungloved fists upon his hips. His feet are spread slightly apart. He speaks to de Carry in a low voice. As you have already guessed, this big man is Joffre.
You were told at the beginning of the war that Joffre was a little fat man—like Napoleon. That is not true. Joffre is a big man. He is even a tall man, but does not look so because of his bulk. Few men possess, at his age, such a powerful or so healthy a body. That is why he can cover so many miles of battle front in his racing auto every day. That is why he shows not the slightest sign of the wear and tear of war.
No time is lost in conversation. The bugles blew again and the regiments of heroes began their march past the muddy reviewing stand. Even in their battle-stained uniforms, every regiment looked "smart." When they came abreast of Joffre, stolidly and solidly standing a step in advance of the others, the long line of rifles raised in salute is as straight as ever that of a German regiment on parade at Potsdam, despite deep and slippery mud.
After the infantry came the famous "seventy-fives" with the same machine-like precision that before the war we always associated with Germans. The review ends with a regiment of heavy cavalry—cuirassiers—coming at full charge, rising high in their stirrups, with swords aloft, and breaking into a battle yell when they passed "Father Joffre," as he is called by his soldiers.
Through it all he stands motionless, feet apart, one hand planted on his hip, raising the other to the visor of his hat, peering beneath it straight ahead with unblinking eyes. As the men pass this general without a sword, with no medals, no gold braid, no overcoat—and in old red trousers—the rain pelting upon him, the look on their faces is one of adoration. It matters not to them that there are no cheering crowds, no crashing bands, no gala atmosphere. The one eye in France that they care about is upon them.
The long line then forms facing him, and the men to receive decorations advance. One of them—a private—is to receive the médaille militaire, the greatest war decoration in the world, for it can only be given to privates, or to generals commanding armies who have already received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. Joffre himself only won it after the battle of the Marne.