Because these women of France have sent their men forth to die, eyes dry, with stiff lips and head erect, do not think that they do not mourn for them.  When night casts her kindly mantle of darkness over all, when they are hidden from the eyes of the world, it is then that the proud heads droop and are bent upon their arms, as the women cry out in the bitterness of their souls for the men who have gone from them.  Yet they realise that behind them stands the greatest Mother of all, Mother France, who sees coming towards her, from her frontiers, line on line of ambulances with their burden of suffering humanity, yet watches along other routes her sons going forth in thousands, laughter in their eyes, songs on their lips, ready and willing to die for her.  France draws around her her tattered and bloodstained robe, yet what matters the outer raiment?  Behind it shines forth her glorious, exultant soul, and she lifts up her head rejoicing and proclaims to the world that when she appealed man, woman, and child—­the whole of the French nation—­ answered to her call.

***End of the project gutenberg EBOOK the white road to Verdun***

******* This file should be named 11679.txt or 11679.zip *******

This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:  http://www.gutenberg.net/1/1/6/7/11679

Updated editions will replace the previous one—­the old editions will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the project gutenberg-tm concept and trademark.  Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research.  They may be modified and printed and given away—­you may do practically anything with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

*** Start:  Full license ***

The full project gutenberg license
please read this before you distribute or use this work

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at http://gutenberg.net/license).