He loses a
certain childishness which had hitherto clung to him, and he expresses
himself with a more virile sobriety. Nothing could exceed the pathos
of his pictures of the terrible life in the Argonne, and we are made
to feel how rapidly the suffering and the responsibility of his
military life were bringing out all the deepest and most serious
elements in his character. There is a remarkable letter of January 7,
1915, describing an engagement in which he lost several of his best
men, and in particular an experienced corporal in whose skill he much
confided. The briefest fragment broken from this pathetic description,
addressed to his father, will give a notion of the tone of it:--
"J'etais absorbe par les blesses dans mon poste de commandement et
quand je pus me rendre dans la tranchee ou il etait, il tombait dans
le coma. Ses derniers mots avaient ete: 'Adieu, ma Patrie!' Pourtant,
il me reconnut a la voix, me repondit faiblement. Je l'assistai dans
ses derniers moments. Ce fut bien rapide, bien simple et bien beau.
_J'etais pour lui le chef, ce qui est plus que le Pere et le Pretre
reunis_.
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