New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-11-05

%ACH smaller city of France has its own
regiment. That regiment, at full
strength at the beginning of the war;
has been more than once decimated, and the
city now sends it recruits, clothing and num-
lions. as mother sends packages to her child
The wounded who have been cured return to
get guns, knapsacks and cartridges. They stay
a little while--lon enough to taste the VINE
or the cider of the country. Then they go
away And in the trenches, on calm days.
smoking their pipes, they dream Of the quiet
of the provincial town, hundred leagues
away from the shells.
But certain cities have no soldiers-those
which the sea battles, where the wind blows
fresh and salty from the ocean stretches
These are the home stations of the sailors, not
of the men who fight on land. There the city
regiments are the crews of the warshps. In
stead of being reformed and reorganized in
gloomy barracks, these crews are received In
roadstead, under an open sky, in the free air.
The Depot, that sinister and cavernous rendez-
vous, becomes the Arsenal, place of light and
life and movement. Here is no quadrangle or
court surrounded by walls. Battleships,
cruisers, bridges, between-decks, masts, fight
ing tops, from which one can see clear to the
horizon. Instead of troop housed in build
inps. fleet men and vessels, which, in order
that it may reft, the country holds in sheltered
waters. It is inspiring to see one Of these
great ports when the ships come back to 1t,
worn and war stained
Last week saw them. traversed the road
stead of Toulon on one of those poor ferry
boats which ply about the harbor. and which
look so pitiful with their aged carcasses, their
scaled and spotted sides and their thin smoke
stacks that one is tempted to think of each of
them: at must be derelict fshed up some
where by wrecking company"
We passed before a Russian battleship with
five huge stacks, bizarre and startling. Then
we came upon the transports all painted gray,
transformed merchant ships. powerful and
beautiful, which constitute one Of the most
precious shares of patrimony. which are
our riches and our strength, which in time OF
peace have carried so many Frenchmen to the
fairy lands of the Orient, and which now in
their war trim wait to bear soldiers and cannon
to Salonca.
Our old, wheeling ferryboat was carrying us
~ l. l~oxx oil ha
best that maritime France can boast Of when
heard young soldier, seated near me, say
to woman:
slow fine it isl And how beautiful! Isn't
it splendid-my roadstead-and don't you
love it,"
turned | could not see him very WELL at
most a three quarter view. | noticed only that
he wore smoked glasses, although the day was
then overcast and the sunlight was in no
sense dazzling. But the skies cleared. l.
seemed as if the light clouds melted away and
the sun, now fairly low, showered US with its
rays Of gold.
The young woman to whom the soldier was
talking opened her umbrella, which was Of
mauve shade She tenderly sheltered her friend,
and as l watched her (indiscreetly, perhaps),
she gave me an indefnable look, at once appeal
ing and troubed-a look which did not un-
derstand. but which revealed to me, all of
sudden, the splendid beauty Of her eyes.
What feminine charm there was in that
look Pupils of deep black, a very SOFT white
skin, and under the eye, in that visage, young
pure and highbred, small blue vein, light and
delicate, which gave to that feature through
which the heart most clearly shows its emo
tons a note of adorable sensibility.