Still, I must confess that the attitude of French and English to one another today is almost thrilling.  The English Tommy Atkins and the French poilu are delightful together.  For that matter, the French peasants love the English.  They never saw any before, and their admiration and devotion to “Tommee,” as they call him, is unbounded.  They think him so “chic,” and he is.

No one—­not even I, who so love them—­could ever accuse the “piou-piou” of being chic.

The French conscript in his misfits has too long been the object of affectionate sarcasm and the subject of caricature to be unfamiliar to the smiles of the whole world.

You see the army outfits are made in three sizes only.  So far as my observation goes none of the three measurements fits anyone today, and as for the man who is a real “between”—­well, he is in a sad box.  But what of that?  He doesn’t seem to care.  He is so occupied today fighting, just as he did in the days of the great Napoleon, that no one cares a rap how he looks—­and surely he does not.

You might think he would be a bit self-conscious regarding his appearance when he comes in contact with his smarter looking Ally.  Not a bit of it.  The poilu just admires Tommy and is proud of him.  I do wish you could see them together.  The poilu would hug Tommy and plant a kiss on each of his cheeks—­if he dared.  But, needless to say, that is the last sort of thing Tommy wants.  So, faute de mieux the poilu walks as close to Tommy as he can—­when he gets a chance—­ and the undemonstrative, sure-of-himself Tommy permits it without a smile—­which is doing well.  Still, in his own way Tommy admires back—­ it is mutual.

The Englishman may learn to unbend—­I don’t know.  The spirit which has carried him all over the world, rubbed him against all sorts of conditions and so many civilizations without changing his character, and made of him the one race immune to home-sickness, has persisted for centuries, and may be so bred in the bone, fibre, and soul of the race as to persist forever.  It may have made his legs and his spine so straight that he can’t unbend.  He has his own kind of fun, but it’s mostly of the sporting sort.  He will, I imagine, hardly contract the Frenchman’s sort, which is so largely on his lips, and in his mentality, and has given the race the most mobile faces in the world.

I am enclosing a copy of the little map Captain S------sent me.  It may
give you an idea of the route the English were moving on during the
battle, and the long forced march they made after the fighting of the
two weeks ending August 30.

I imagine they were all too tired to note how beautiful the country was.  It was lovely weather, and coming down the route from Haute Maison, by La Chapelle, to the old moated town of Crecy-en-Brie at sunset, must have been beautiful; and then climbing by Voulangis to the Forest of Crecy on the way to Fontenay by moonlight even more lovely, with the panorama of Villiers and the valley of the Morin seen through the trees of the winding road, with Montbarbin standing, outlined in white light, on the top of a hill, like a fairy town.  Tired as they were, I do hope there were some among them who could still look with a dreamer’s eyes on these pictures.