I am grateful to the officers who have accepted me for
their subordinate, to the men I have been proud to lead.
They are the children of a chosen people. I am full of
gratitude towards our country which has received me and
heaped favors upon me. Nothing would be too much to give in
payment for that, and for the fact that my little son may
always hold his head high and never know, in the reborn
France, that torment which has poisoned many hours of our
childhood and of our youth. "Am I a Frenchman?" "Would I
deserve to be one?" No, little boy, you shall not say that.
You shall have a native land and your step may sound on the
earth, nourishing you with the assurance, "My father was
there and he gave all he had for France." If recompense is
necessary, this is the sweetest one there is for me.
This is the letter of a Protestant, second lieutenant Maurice
Dieterlin, who was killed on the sixth of October, 1915, and who, on
the eve of the Champagne offensive, wrote these last words they were
to read from him, to his family:
I saw the most beautiful day of all my life. I regret
nothing and I am as happy as a king. I am glad to pay my
debt that my country may be free.
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