MAGINOT PEACE
pointed insistently in the interviews he gave us to
the strength of the German forces, to the no
divisions always massed along the Dutch frontier
and the gravity of the situation. The other officers
said:
'The D.M.I.'s intelligent, but pessimistic/
For two months from the loth March, I was often
away from the British Army, having myself become
one of the cogs in the leisure machine. Captain de
Castellane, a friend of mine and an officer in the
French Army, had, at the request of General Billotte,
the commander of the armies in the north, asked me
to lecture the officers of the Seventh, First, Ninth,
and Second Armies on the British character and
Britain's war effort. I welcomed the opportunity
gladly and I was first received by General Billotte
himself at his Headquarters in a chateau near
Chauny. The General, who had been Governor of
Paris, I knew to be a pretty blunt individual, but
possessed of a lively and precise brain. I had a long
talk with him.
Tm very glad you're going to talk to my officers
about England/ he said, 'there are too many silly
stories on the subject. The English are in my group
and I know all about them and I'm fully alive to their
great qualities* But they are distressingly slow.
Here we are after eight months of war and all
they've got is ten divisions! They want to do too
well. They're finicky. The Germans appreciate the
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