It may well be that my first judgement was correct
and that France succumbed, not to any mortal illness, but to an accident which proved almost fatal. It may be that she is only now recovering from shock and only now coming to view the doctors in her penitentiary, not as magnified saviours dispensing the divine blessings of laudanum and morphia, but as small bewildered men, rendered almost desperate by their own mistakes. When I read La France Libre, that flaming torch in the twilight ; when I hear the note of passion in de Gaulle's voice ; when I listen to " Les Trois Amis " in the French broadcasts from London, I am back again in the spring of 1940 and I feel again the conviction that the French will endure defeat, starvation, intimidation and exile in inexorable defence of their own genius and in confidence that the day will come when the boots of the " ivrogne tudesque " no longer echo along their streets. And was I so wrong even in surrendering at Grenoble and elsewhere to the excited enthusiasm of the French students? They yelled and banged the desks. yet only a week ago one of those -students came to see me in London. I remembered him well ; I recognised his firm grey eyes ; he had taken me round the town and up into the hills above. He was wearing the battle-dress of the Free French and carried the soft cap of the tank-corps. He told me hoof he had escaped. It never occurred to him that anything except events had altered since we walked together in the Dauphine.
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