THE SPIRIT OF FRANCE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXXI, 8 June 1916, Page 5

THE SPIRIT OF FRANCE.

The new "spirit of France" was 1 made apparent to an audience of Frenchmen, Englishmen, and Americans at a luncheon given in London by the American Luncheon Club to the French senators and deputies who visited England at the middle of April. This was done in a letter read by M. Franklin-Bouillon. It was the last message sent by a "humble cook-soldier to his wife from the trenches, where he fell fighting a few days later:

My dear Yvonne,—Don't be worried. I have good hopes of seeing you again and mv dear boy Raymond as well. I am writing you to take good care of yourself and of him, for I should never forgive you 'if anything amiss should happen either to you or to him. If by ill-luck anything went wrong with me, for we are at war and of course are running risks, I hope, you will keep courageous, and be sure if I die that I have complete confidence in you, and I ask you to live in order to bring up our boy so that he will become a true fellow. Give him a good education according to the means at your disposal, and when he has grown up tell hir" that- his father died for him, or rather for all —which would be of service to him and all generations to come.

I hope to be beside you, but, as I have said, one never knows what is going to happen. We are well taken care of, and are advancing in the firm hope of victory. '

M. Franklin-Bouillon asked his audience to be assured that the words to which they had just listened breathed "in as eloquent terms as the literature of all time contained" the firm resolve in which France is carrying on.