We were all equal. The French Army is by far the most democratic
institution I have ever seen. On our journeys the Staff Captains and
ourselves habitually ate with a sergeant and a corporal. The
corporal was the son of a General. The sergeant was a man of
business and a writer. His first words when he met me were in
English: "Monsieur Bennett, I have read your books." One of our
chauffeurs was a well-known printer who employs three hundred
and fifty men--when there is peace. The relations between officers
and men are simply unique. I never saw a greeting that was not
exquisite. The officers w ere full of knowledge, decision, and
appreciative kindliness. The men were bursting with eager devotion.
This must count, perhaps even more than big guns.

The Commandant, of course, presided at the vin d'honneur. His
glance and his smile, his latent energy, would have inspired
devotion in a wooden block. Every glass touched every glass, an
operation which entailed some threescore clinkings. And while we
were drinking, one of the Staff Captains--the one whose English
was the less perfect of the two--began to tell me of the career of the
Commandant, in Algeria and elsewhere. Among other things, he
had carried his wounded men on his own shoulders under fire from
the field of battle to a place of safety. He was certainly under forty;
he might have been under thirty-five.

Said the Staff Captain, ingenuously translating in his mind from
French to English, and speaking with slow caution, as though
picking his way among the chevaux de frise of the English
language: