J'y
coopere de toutes mes forces, de toute mon ame. Et si vous me retirez
de ce monde, o Dieu de bonte, permettez que ce soit pour me joindre a
ceux qui m'out precede dans votre sejour, et dont l'affection
terrestre me fut precieuse. C'est toute la priere ardente que je fais
devant le soleil levant, ce jour de Toussaint que sillonnent deja les
obus semeurs de mort, en cette annee 1914 qui verra retablir la paix
du monde, par l'aneantissement du peuple barbare, et la regenerescence
de la nation francaise."
In most cases there rests an obscurity over the brief lives of these
gallant young officer-authors, whose nature was little observed until
the flash of battle illuminated them for one last brilliant moment. We
feel a strong desire, which cannot be gratified, to follow them from
their childhood to their adolescence, and to see for ourselves what
impulses directed them into the path of heroism. It is rarely that we
can do this, but one of these poets has left behind him two friends
who have recaptured the faint and shrouded impressions of his early
life. The piety of M. Henri Albert Besnard, who was his intimate
companion, and of that practised narrator M.
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