It is known in France how to honor even the greatest of heroes, not by many words, but with a few deeds less cheap. During the two days and nights that Marshal Ferdinand Foch lay in state, last week−beneath the Emperor Napoleon's tremendous Arch of Triumph−the government suppressed and darkened every electric sign which might have profaned the scene. As thousands and tens of thousands filed past the bier, all night long the only light was that from funeral torches and the blue "Sacred Flame" which burns eternally beneath the Arch for the Unknown Soldier.
Men had sweated with pick and shovel, earlier in the week, uprooting all the police "safety islands" in the boulevards along which the cortege would pass. On his last ride the supreme generalissimo must swerve neither to right nor left, and so the ugly "islands" were uprooted, and straight down the centre of the long ribbons of asphalt passed Ferdinand Foch.
He had not so much loved as delighted in children, and so the long terraces of the Tuilleries gardens were reserved pour les enfants des soldats de La Grande Armee. Alongside the children on other terraces were les blesses, crippled, blinded perhaps, but every man in shining uniform, rigid and silent as they gave the Last Salute, many with streaming eyes.
For the first time the President of the Republic−just now M. Gaston Doumergue−chose to ignore the inflexible protocol which decrees that the Head of the State does not follow the corpse of a citizen. For the first time the King of the Belgians−tall, chivalrous, heroic Albert I− came to Paris in the simple quality of general, kissed the hand of Mme. La Maréchale Foch, looked for the last time on the Supreme Generalissimo, whose orders even His Majesty had obeyed as a subordinate, and returned to Brussels after only three hours in the French capital.
Excepting only the Unknown Soldier, the last hero to lie beneath the Arc de Triomphe up to last week was Victor Hugo, 43 years ago. The emotion of Frenchmen was keyed to such a pitch that even the official tellers of the Chamber of Deputies−men chosen for no other quality than their incorruptible honor−majestically lied when the Communist Deputies voted against a bill granting $12,000 to defray the expenses of the funeral. Though every Communist who had thus voted rose and blatantly proclaimed the fact, the official count showed that the bill had passed unanimously, and the President of the Chamber refused to entertain any appeal against the falsehood.