Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-08-01


PARIS. July -. 1915.
E1HE last stand among civilized
Pssp os dss the hems IS tosas OF
& ing made in France.
When Alexandra Ribot, the French
minister of finance, recently, in ex-
planning to the chamber the necessity
for the new war loan of over 100000
900, said I'VE are spending 15O.OO0,O0O
francs a month for our families. and
we must continue to spend literally
he put his finger on the lever that
secretly guides French national life.
Nowhere has pleasant living ever
been better understood than in France,
and to no modern people. particularly
as regards its women, does the life OF
the home still mean more. So today
the whole body of the women of the
French nation is engaged in terrific
domestic struggle to maintain that
home, despite the poverty and death
war
It has been said that the war itself
has already been put upon business
where every home is touched by the
war. the last thought of the dying SOL
der is how his home will get along
when he is gone, and the first thought
of his women is how that home can be
maintained with it's soldier no more.
1t has always been the especia! care
of the FrenchwOman to build the
home, and underneath this effort is the
larger spirit of family building. The
Frenchwoman wants not SO much
dress for herself as furniture Tor her
home: she wants a husband. and then
she wants children, because without
children no family can be built
The money-meanness of the French,
the system of requiring money IN mar
riage, is not so much personal selhsn-
ness as foresight. The success OF the
Frenchwoman in the past is inoica'eu
nv the small number of emigrants TO
the United States or elsewhere, even TO
their own rich colonies.
All is. or was, life of order The
roaming spirit of the English and the
American. once so characterlstlc OF the
French. gives way before the demands
of the home.
Even today, with poverty staring so
many families in the face, but few or
the rented apartments, possibly occu-
pied for the past fve, ten or twenty
Years. in such cities as Paris, Orleans
or Bordeaux have been given up for
cheaper ones. There are no more than
the usual number Of "to-let" signs in
these cities.
ciously the French women love and re-
spect their homes, consider the reports
that have been printed for these ten
months concerning the civil population
in the north of France, just south of
the four provinces. held by the Germans
and right on the firing line of nearly
six hundred miles between the channel
and the Swiss frontier.
These people have stayed In their
homes in spite of the constant efforts
of the French officers to make them
move out of cannon range. They
stayed, too, in the provinces invaded by
the Germans.
The case Of one woman, duplicated by
the thousand, came to the writer's at
tention. She lived at Crouy, village
of $500 Inhabitants perched on the side
scissors. Weighing nearly 300 pounds
too heavy to walk far, the French beg
ged her to leave before she was killed
by one of the hundreds of bombs that
daily fell about the place. She was so
fat that she could not get into her own
cellar. where her neighbors sought ref
uge during an extra heavy lombard
mont. What. go away and leave my
1Ofn1tOTe. she protested.
When Crouy was taken by the Ger
mans she was still there guarding her
furniture. and she stayed on, with many
of the other women of the town, be it
noted. until the Germans finally, this
May forcibly removed the entire popu-
lation. which was about to starve, over
the Swiss frontier. whence they were
taken in charge by the French gov
eminent, to be cared for until the end
Of the war. or until the territory is re-
taken from the Germans.
II you would understand how French
wives love their husbands, who are a
part of this home. read this curious
story lately revealed in Paris through
the Mont -de-Piete, as is called the mu-
nicipal loanshop.
A poor woman called at the loanshop
and asked that she be permitted to
pawn a 6ve-franc piece. But it is
money" the clerk told her. land we
can't loan money on money"
The woman insisted that she be
loaned at least three francs on it, as
she needed money, but didn't want to
spend the coin she possessed. MY hus-
band gave it to me just before he
last souvenir 1 have of his love-" she
explained. They break many rules
nowadays for the benefit of the SOL
der. and so the clerk took a chance
and broke the one in this case.
-
Knowing some of the fundamental
facts about French life, the big sur
prise has been to observe how freely
these women have given their men to
the army, these husbands and sons
who represent all they have in the
world to live for; to observe with what
apparent calmness these women, who
for so many years have been busy
planning and planning for their homes,
making countless sacrifices to render
them successful, are now making the
great sacxAfce that may wreck these
beloved structures.
It Is really magnificent. the spirit.