Publisher's Synopsis
As you know only too well, in the year 1914 war set Europe on fire. That is to say, you the men made war, and we the women had but to comply. Let us be honest and true: whereas you, heart of my heart, now gone to fight for your country, wished for this contest with the enthusiasm, spirit, and rage of youth, I wished for it too, but with terror, anguish, and remorse. Such is the difference. The Place? The Ile de France, the part of my country blessed among all, sweeter to my eyes than the most loudly sung; and in the Ile de France, Morny, a village of the Laonnois, situated on a level plain. At ten miles' distance, to the west of Morny, Laon is perched on a steep low hill. To the north, fields and meadows stretch out as far as the eye can reach, and towards the south, the forest of St. Gobain makes a long dark blot on the landscape; beyond, a blue line of mountains closes the horizon like a wall. This peaceful scene, with its green meadows, fertile fields, rich forests, villages nestling among orchards, with its good-humoured tenants wrapt up in a love of their country, sums up the treasures of the Ile de France. But it is also "the seasoning of the French pie, this rotten ferment whose canker-like nature, frivolity, inconstancy, and folly, have spread into the noblest parts of France." You were not aware of this? No more was I, but I learned it from Hummel's Geography, published in 1876 for "German families," and it is a conviction that Teutonic babies imbibe with their mothers' milk."
