Page:The Book of the Homeless (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916).djvu/135

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MAURICE BARRÉS

She hobbled away, fumbled around in the straw she slept on, and pulled out a piece of cloth that she was keeping for her shroud.

"They shan't nail those boys up with their faces against the boards. I want to shroud them," she said.

She cut the shroud in two and wrapped each in a half of it. Then she kissed each one of them on the forehead, saying,

"That's for your mother, dearie."

No one spoke when the General ended. And he was not the only one to have wet eyes. In each of our hearts there was a prayer for France.

Maurice Barrés

de l' Académie Française

1915

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