SPIRIT OF FRANCE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLVIII, Issue 4579, 7 June 1917, Page 5

SPIRIT OF FRANCE.

This war has inspired great men and women to speak and write in rvords which the world will not Here is the eloquence of M. Paul Deschanel, President of the Chamber of Deputies r—n passage from a speech of iotli October, 1916, which fortified France m the will to defeat German barbarism . “Gentllemen, the Germans have invaded us more than twenty times; five times since the Revolution. From this fact there arise certain essential- duties for us, commandments of patriotism ; to remain united ; to make France better known ; never again to forget; always to foresee “Let us hearken to the voice of tlio trench and the .tomb, what comes from there is a cry of love. Never has the French family been more united. Frenchmen were following different roads, but they have como together at the summit. The same direction, the same- ideal I The heroes facing death know that the real brief flame of life is extinguished in .them it lights another immortal. And the enemy does not comprehend that the . tiling which was tearing us apart is what is now uniting us: the passion for right. “Every year Germany celebrated the feast of Sedan. I ask that France shall .celebrate the memorable day of 4th August, 1914, when the accord of all her children was sealed, also that she shall celebrate the immortal combats of the Marne and Verdun. The Cathedral of Rheims, with bleeding arnis, curses the crime forever. . To forget would he treason. But France will not forget this time:.she can no longer forget; in their heroic appea] her dead have risen, they are standing, they axe watching her!”