An infinite
cathedral, a cathedral that is invisible and great has risen on high.
It is the cathedral of the faith of France, in which all faiths
commune in the same hope--a cathedral which time and suffering and
death itself shall not destroy.
III
FRANCE SUFFERING BUT NOT BLED WHITE
Listen to the man in the street when he speaks--that man in the street
who reflects public opinion whether it is just or unjust, genuine or
sophisticated. Listen to him when he speaks and you will hear him say:
"Yes, we know. France has a well tempered spirit. But the blood is
gone out of her body. France would like to fight on, to fight to the
bitter end, but France is suffering. France is worn out. France is
bled white."
France is suffering ... that is true. In the cataclysm that she did
not wish for, that she did not start, that she did not prepare, she
has lost more than a million men. And what men they were! The Ecole
Normale, which is the preparatory school for the French university,
lost seventy per cent of its pupils. That means that three-quarters
of the thinkers, the literary men, the scientists, the philosophers,
the professors of the France of tomorrow have been wiped out. They
were the flower of her youth, the elite of her intelligence.
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