The King's Pilgrimage Part 4

[Ill.u.s.tration: MEERUT INDIAN CEMETERY

INSPECTING INDIAN GRAVES]

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"_They lie in the keeping of a tried and generous friend, a resolute and chivalrous comrade-in-arms, who, with ready and quick sympathy has set aside for ever the soil in which they sleep, so that we ourselves and our descendants may for all time reverently tend and preserve their resting-places._"]

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THE FRENCH GUARD OF HONOUR AT THE CROSS OF SACRIFICE]

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THE KING PLACING A WREATH ON THE CROSS OF SACRIFICE]

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THE SILENCE AND THE SALUTE AT THE CROSS]

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THE KING'S ADDRESS

"_And the last land he found it was fair and level ground About a carven stone, And a stark sword brooding on the bosom of the cross Where high and low are one._"]

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GENERAL DE CASTELNAU'S REPLY]

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PROCESSION TO THE STONE OF REMEMBRANCE]

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PROCESSION TO THE STONE OF REMEMBRANCE

"_All that they had they gave--they gave_"]

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THE QUEEN LAYING A WREATH ON THE STONE OF REMEMBRANCE]

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THE SALUTE AT THE STONE OF REMEMBRANCE]

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THE QUEEN AT THE GRAVES]

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THE QUEEN AT THE GRAVES]

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THE STONE OF REMEMBRANCE WITH THE QUEEN'S WREATH

"_Their name liveth for evermore_"]

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NAPOLEON'S COLUMN IN THE BACKGROUND

"_And here ... the shadow of his monument falling almost across their graves, the greatest of French soldiers--of all soldiers--stands guard over them_"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LEAVING ETAPLES]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_In the course of my pilgrimage I have many times asked myself whether there can be more potent advocates of peace upon earth through the years to come than this ma.s.sed mult.i.tude of silent witnesses to the desolation of war_"]

IV: "_And there lay gentlemen from out of all the seas._"

On the evening of May 12 the King's train left Longpre and went down to the coast. The night was spent at Etaples, a fis.h.i.+ng port at the mouth of the River Canche, which has figured since many centuries back in the history of the British Empire, and now is the site of what has come to be known as our "Empire Cemetery" in France.

When the Romans were bringing in the path of their legions order and civilization into Europe--misfortunately thwarted by forest or bog or sea from reaching some countries, which have suffered from the fact since--they had their chief naval station for northern Gaul at the mouth of the Canche. This station, no doubt, Julius Caesar used in his expedition against Britain. Later, when Carausius, a Roman Briton, revolted against the Roman Empire, he won the command of the English Channel with his fleet and maintained for some time an independent Britain, a.s.suming the state of Caesar and founding a Roman-British Empire. The _Cla.s.sis Britannica_ of the Roman Empire had had its chief station on the Canche. With the revolt of Carausius there was no longer a "British Fleet" of the Roman Empire, and the _Cla.s.sis Samarica_ (the Fleet of the Somme) took its place and had as its task to hold the coasts of Gaul for the Roman Power against the British Carausius. This Fleet of the Somme also had its base on the Canche. Doubtless in the very early years of the Christian era there was many a naval action between the British sea forces and those of the Romans stationed on the Canche. Etaples is thus linked with the memory of Carausius, the man who first taught England that her fate depended on the holding of the Narrow Seas.