He was intended for a
career in commerce, but, showing no aptitude for trade, he dallied
with legal studies at Lyons, and "commenced author" by publishing some
essays in that city. At the age of twenty he joined a regiment of
artillery, and seems to have perceived, a year before the war, that
the only profession he was fitted for was soldiering. Towards the
close of September 1914, in circumstances which he recounts in his
book, he was severely wounded; he went back to the front in July 1915,
and, as we have said, fell fighting eight months later. This is the
history of a young man who will doubtless live in the annals of French
literature; and brief as it seems, it is really briefer still, since
all we know of Paul Lintier, or are likely ever to know, is what he
tells us himself in describing what he saw and practised and endured
between August 1 and September 22, 1914. This wonderful book, "Ma
Piece," was written by the young gunner, night after night, on his
knee, during seven weeks of inconceivable intensity of emotion, and it
is by this revelation of his genius that his memory will be preserved.
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