Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1006/004.006.002-006#044

Lacaune
Nov 25th, 1918 –
My dearest Family,
The Happiest of all the Christmases that have ever been known to you, and a heart overflowing with Christmas love and joy!! To have Peace on Earth all over the World and the dawning of a new Good will that must endure --
Can it really all be true --
We have been so dazed by it here. It is all a dream of church bells which will ring forever in one’s ears, seas of happy faces, uncontrollable sobbing, torches flaring in midnight
[written along the left side and top of the sheet:] I couldn’t send you any presents -- now -- I hope later from Paris.
[page 2] procession, jubilant children proudly bearing aloft the two banners, flags of all nations flying and days (and nights[?] as radiant in golden sunshine and starlight as heart could demand --
None of us can find words for it. All one’s being cries out in humble gratitude at being alive for this day and here, to share it with those who have suffered from the beginning.
It would have been very wonderful to have been at in Paris -- but it didn’t much matter where one was.
I had gone down to Castres for the day, and happened to be right near the newspaper shop that got the first official word. (I have [page 3] the announcing poster to treasure for always which begins “La guerre est finie” --
It was just 20 minutes to 12 when we heard, as the whole of Castres was turning out for its noonday meal. In a breath the streets were a black mob, not cheering frenziedly as in Paris, but radiating such a silent low-[murmured?] joy as will never be known again in all Time.
For 20 long minutes we waited for the official proclamation, and then the bells began and the guns boomed –
I wonder how any one of us all ever survived it -- -- --
As we plodded up into the mts. again that afternoon, we found [page 4] every station gay with flags and drum beats, and at Lacaune were all my blessed family with the drapeaux and their Sunday best lined up to meet me.
We marched straight to the church along torchlit streets, where all Lacaune, Protestant & Catholics together for the first time in history, gathered in Thanksgiving before a flag-draped altar before which knelt [crossed out: all] the bleu horizonal[?] uniforms of Lacaune – our guard of honor. Then, behind the fife & drum sounding from the very altar itself, we marched to the Place de la Vierge, gay with colored lanterns and festoons of colored streamers. Everyone carried [page 5] some kind of light – the village Sisters white-coiffed in a soft red glow [no punctuation given here] Friends shouted and rejoiced, young men & girls zigzagged madly up and down in an endless snake-dance, rockets, guarded sacredly: for four long years and correspondingly explosive & uncontrollable, whizzed and soared (quite as terrifying as any bomb!) – fire-serpents and golden fountains wrippled and sprayed, the Mayor mounted[?] aloft for a triumphal speech, our boys stared their eyes out and shouted [crossed out: as loud as any there] in mad glee when
[page 6] [Is there a page missing] mammoth bonfire and slowly consumed in devouring flames – and over all the Virgin smiled quietly down from her pedestal on [crossed out: the] high.
It was like some revolutionary scene – the lights, the wild music & rejoicing. And later, to do us honor, all Lacaune escorted us home and in our court, to the sound of cannon-crackers & drum-beats, thanked America and Americans. -- -- --
Oh dearest People – how can one ever be worthy of such times –
-- My heart[breast?] overflowing with Christmas love to you all – Your Bun

• Keywords: long archives; henry w. longfellow family papers (long 27930); erica (thorp) de berry; document; correspondence; holidays; christmas; places; europe; france; lacaune; subject; education; school; Erica Thorp deBerry Papers (1006/004.006); (LONG-SeriesName); Outgoing (1006/004.006.002); (LONG-SubseriesName); 1918 (1006/004.006.002-006); (LONG-FileUnitName)