Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/224

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in stout soldier voices, are followed by the Marseillaise. Thus does France, returned to her origins, repel the invader of her peaceful land, the ravager of homes, the profaner of churches.

When we come to the priest-combatants, the curés sac-au-dos, the record is one of stainless and noble heroism. As Mgr. Herscher says, it would be necessary to invent a new language in order to characterise justly what have become deeds of every day. It is not in "clerical" newspapers that the courage of the soldier-priest is enshrined, but in the columns of the Journal Officiel. The Legion of Honour and the Military Medal have been awarded in numerous instances, and citations in the Orders of the Day have been still more frequent.

Thus Corporal de Gironde, of the 81st of the Line, receives the Military Medal for extraordinarily daring patrol work. He is a Jesuit. The Dominican Corporal Jaméguy rallies, within fifty yards of the German trenches, a party of five un-*wounded and eight wounded men who had been cut off, and leads them all into safety the next day under a vicious fire. The Abbé Boravalle writes—

"After a very hot day our commandant announced that he was making recommendations in our company for promotion to the rank of corporal. Of four recommended, three were priests: I am proud to be one of them."