This is the highest compliment a poilu can pay his officer; in fact, I once heard an ancient Territorial say it irreverently of Marshal Joffre, whom he had known in younger days, somewhere in the Orient.
After a glance at him and at his kitchen even the most callous poilu rebels.
I will tell you the story of the last one, as related by a slightly wounded but very happy poilu I brought in beside me.
But," he said, "I have never seen any poilu with so many decorations.
They confirmed the poilu in his burning sense of injustice.
A descendant of Racine, a well-known figure at the opera, was travelling in the Metro when he spotted a poilu with a string of ten medals on his breast.
One of them tried to grab the hair, but the poilu held it high, beyond her reach, with a gruff command of, "Hands off!
IV I saw a scene with a French poilu one day in the Street of the Three Pebbles, during those battles of the Somme, when the French troops were fighting on our right from Maricourt southward toward Roye.
I saw then that, like the French poilu I have described, this tall Australian was in the grasp of a French agent de police, a small man of whom he took no more notice than if a fly had settled on his wrist.
The poilu was a middle-aged man, and very drunk on some foul spirit which he had bought in a low cafe down by the river.
Another wounded poilu was carried past us, covered by a bloody blanket like the other one.
The poilu demobilized retained his military spirit, nay, he carried about with him the very atmosphere of the trenches.
The food to which the poilu had, for nearly five years, been accustomed at the front was become, since the armistice, the exclusive monopoly of the capitalist or the nouveau-riche in the rear.
He is greater than the Kaiser,--though I die for saying it," cried the littlepoilu recklessly.
And sometimes thepoilu is a little confused, writing a charming letter of thanks to "Monsieur Lafayette" himself.
Without the assistance of this glossary it is almost impossible to understand some of the numerous novels of Poilu life.
The Reward of our Brother thePoilu We often talk of the best poem which the war has produced; and opinions usually vary.
Entering the Judgment Hall, the Poilu is bewildered by its austerity and splendour.
And at these words at last the Good God smiles, and behind Him Heaven opens for the Poilu to enter.
And then, the Poilu continues, he became a soldier, which leads to the awkward question, had he always behaved himself as such?
On reaching the gate of Heaven the Poilu finds St. Peter beating the mats.
She said forcibly: "No, Miss Parton, you will not come in contact with a single heroic poilu here.
Sometimes she spent them in the little dormer-windowed room where the wife of the New York poilu waited for her baby.
The intention of the poilu who had taken her in his arms and kissed her, had not been more cordial.
As well talk to a basalt statue as to Amieux, impassive, his rough red hands on his knees, his musette swollen with all the miscellaneous junk the poilu stuffs into that nondescript receptacle, his cap still firmly on his head .
He gave her the name and address, and when that poilu went back to the front it was Ellen Boardman from Marshallton, Kansas, who walked with him to the gate, who shook hands with him, who waved him a last salute as he boarded his train.
The most seriously wounded were taken to the military hospitals, where they either died, or, if merely in need of bandages, were quickly turned out to make room for some poilu arriving in the everlasting procession of stretchers.
Of course she has her filleul (godson) at the Front, a poor poilu who has no family; and when he goes out the captain finds her another.
And truth to tell, many a case of British whiskey was stolen by Yank and Tommie and Russki and Poilu and sent rejoicing on its way through these devious underground channels of traffic.
How now, Paul, mypoilu comrade, bon ami, why don't you add the house itself to the pack on your back?
Meanwhile the Yank or Tommie or Poilu went to his own commissary or to the British Navy and Army Canteen Bureau, "N.
From all the dug-outs heads popped out and the first movement of surprise at seeing a woman in the trenches turned to a smile of delight, since the Poilu is at all times a chivalrous gentleman.
The average Poilu has no sympathy with the man who grumbles at the number of hours he may have to spend in the factory.
Cats, dogs and monkeys were common, whilst one Poilu was the proud possessor of a parrot which he had purchased from a refugee obliged to fly from his home.
A Poilu who was en permission, and who was sitting at the next table, turned to him saying: "You have no right to grumble.
I enquired of one Poilu whether he would be glad to leave Verdun, and he laughingly replied: "One might be worse off than here.
Now, Mildred, you and Cho-Cho can be Red Cross nurses and little Poilu can be your wounded warrior.
Mildred did squeeze a little too tight when a fellow felt as sick as poor little Poilu did.
Andy laughed as he lifted the poor little Poilu to his own knees.
Poilu was a diminutive mongrel, the love of Mildred's heart.
When they started home, the roly-poly Poilu seemed to have recovered entirely.
A poilu gropes (his eyes are wide) Along the altar rail.
They slouched along, as the poiluloves to slouch along when not fully accoutred, their hands in their breeches pockets and their halfreefed putties flapping upon their shanks.
As we left him he was propped upon his short unsteady legs at the roadside singing the song that your poilu always by preference sings when his mood inclines to the blithesome; he sang the Madelon.
November the eleventh in the morning--there is Mass in the Cathedral for the poilu inconnu, the anonymous soldier of France, and about an empty coffin swathed with the tricolour are ten high candles.
Presently some statesmen in carriages pass out between lines of cavalrymen; big Bertha, the great gun, follows them and then an empty Roman chariot and the hearse on which the poilu inconnu was carried.
A French poilu on his four days' leave is more of a kid than anything I ever laid eyes on.
The English are now retiring, but sentinels of three nationalities still guard the city gates; English Tommy and French poilu stand with their arms across each other's shoulders, the Belgian stands apart.
Another poilu wove for me a table mat of red, white, and blue cord.
The English Tommy Atkins and the French poilu are delightful together.
I thought you might be interested to see what sort of a letter a real poilu writes, and Litigue is just a big workman, young and energetic.
The poilu would hug Tommy and plant a kiss on each of his cheeks--if he dared.
Unless he has been refreshing a vigorous thirst, the poilu is rarely unmanageable.
LE POILU I If you had ventured into Bar-le-Duc during the stormy days of 1916, when the waves of the German ocean beat in vain against the gates of Verdun, you might have thought that the entire French army was quartered there.
Not a single poilu wants peace or is ready for peace.
The poilu would be glad to see us in the fray simply because of the aid we should bring, but he is reasonable enough to know that the United States can keep out of the mêlée without losing any moral prestige.
But since the British have got into the war as a nation, this secret disdain has been forgotten, and the poilu has taken "le Tommie" to his heart.
Probably very much of a scholar by training and feeling, he had accepted his military destiny, and was as much a poilu as anybody.
I used to discuss this sinister quality with a distinguished French artist who as a poilu was the infirmier, or medical service man, attached to a squad of engineers working in a quarry frequently shelled.
In the center of the garden, at the meeting-point of several paths, a mossy fountain was flowing into a greenish basin shaped like a seashell, and in this basin a poilu was washing his clothes.
The food came to us fresh every day in a freight car fitted up like a butcher's shop, in charge of a poilu who was a butcher in civilian life.
The next number was the ever popular "Tipperaree," which every single poilu in the French army has learned to sing in a kind of English.
A poilu in a red cap was standing nonchalantly beside them.
An unnamed poilu sent Premier Clemenceau his Croix de Guerre, with the following letter:-- "You have not been given the Croix de Guerre.
THE POILU The soldier of France, the poilu, is a crusader.
Just then the poilu stands before him for the third time, saluting respectfully: "Captain--I have killed him!
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "poilu" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
