Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: to the decoration of our cemeteries and the appreciation felt for the kindly solicitude which prompts the adornment of American graves by French citizens. But these instances, even though numerous, perhaps do not justify a positive generalization; they certainly, however, refute the contrary conclusion that on the part of the inhabitants of France there is no respect for or other than a commercial interest in the graves of the Yanks who will be always overseas. III. FRANCO-AMERICAN NEGOTIATIONS, JUNE, 1918- FEBRUARY, 1920. The customs of the French people attendant upon the burial of their dead developed observances which not only seemed strange to the alien and the transient but which were scarcely practicable in time of war, and in a military organization. There was, for example, the practice of retaining mourners in distinctive dress, to participate in the funeral procession; a police official usually witnessed and certified to the fact of interment; the coffin was purchased customarily from a firm possessing a monopoly on the supply of such articles in the locality. Such restrictions being obviously undesirable in time of military operations, negotiations took place between the American and French Governments early in 1918, and an agreement was reached giving freedom to the American military and naval authorities with regard to the method of burying1 their military dead. The same agreement included the significant provision that, following the evacuation of the American Expeditionary Forces from France: The Government of the French'Republic would examine conjointly with the American Government the methods to be taken to insure, in conformity with the French laws and police regulations regarding hygiene, the transport, and return to the United States of the bodie...