The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1918-02-18
How France Welcomes
Her Returning Exlles
Lewis S. Gannett, in Leslie's

Every day. in some little village or
concentration town in Belgium, one of
tho long trains Is filled with exiles
from the deserted town of France close
to the present battle front. Then be-
gins the three days journey across
Luxembourg and Germany to Switzer-
land and France. The trains cross
the Swiss border from Germany at
various hours; but they are routed to
arrive at Evian twice day; at 4:0S
in the afternoon, and at 4:4S in the
morning.
Then comes the. welcome home
and in it America shares. Eight big
American Red Cross ambulances are
drawn UP before the station, and a
group of young ambulanciers waits,
grinning American grins, to help the
very old and the very young out of
the trains. 1.-THE six or seven hun
dred people pour out of the trains;
they shout "Vive Ia France" they
shake hands with every 'hystander:
they cheer hysterical with joy. Six
triumphant trumpeters greet them
with blare of welcome; and the an
swering shout somehow catches at
your throat as you listen. The crowd
pours out on to the street; and the
trumpeters lead the way forward, their
lusty tunes drawing the strange pro-
cession after them. Bent old men and
women whose backs were straighter
when the Germans invaded their coun-
try the time before, in 1870, try to
march erect, looking out of misty eyes
at this strangely happy land of France.
Small boys and girls, after three al
most sleepless nights on the train, hop
and skip as If they had just opened
their eyes on Il Christmas morn.
fuse to ride in ambulances; there are
old women STOPPING upder huge sacks;
there are nuns and priests. women in
Paris hats-three years old, to be
sure, but Enthusiastically from Paris: and
women with shawls wrapped about
their heads. Crowds gather to greet
them, and people run to windows to
wave their handkerchiefs: and other
people march along with the queer
throng to the Casino, almost mile
from the station.
At the Casino comes the grand re-
ception. The repatriates sit on low
benches at long, improvised board Ia
bles-with room for ZOO persons; and
coffee and bread are served them by
the women of Evian. The band plays,
and the mayor rises, in full evening
dress with his silk hat in his left
hand. and makes his speech of well
han x,-ba
Your watch says 80, and it is break
fast time. or the hour of for tea
morning or afternoon the mayor tells
the returned eNiles with the same fer
Sor, the. same unnlistakable sincerity,
that they, too, are true soldiers of
France, that their moral resistance I'M
der alien rule has been one of Frances
greatest victories.
There is n strange thrill as that
crowd rises to sing the "Marseillaise."
From the Casino the repatriates pass
on in scattered groups to find their
hotels and lodging houses. One night
Is passed in Evian, time enough to see
two new conveys land open-eyed in
the home country.
Some of them go to hospitals: less
than half have relatives and friends to
so to; the lonely remnant is passed to
far-off parts of France. A few come
back to France skilled in war trades.
and are sent to the industrial towns
But there is a lonely remnant OF nearly
500 daily, whom the government
passes on to the projects of the de-
partments which have borne least OF
the direct burden Of the war.