Other automobiles have a surgeon and the equipment for immediate facial operations; and there are migratory pedicures, masseurs, and barbers.  So heavy has been the subscription, so persistent and intelligent the work of all connected with this great oeuvre, so increasingly fertile the amazing brain of Mlle. Javal, that practically nothing is now wanted to make these Depots d’Eclopes perfect instruments for saving men for the army by the hundred thousand.  I once heard the estimate of the army’s indebtedness placed as high as a million and a half.

The work of M. Frederic Masson must not be ignored, and Madame Balli assisted him for a short time, until compelled to concentrate on her other work; but it is not comparable in scope to that of Mlle. Javal.  Hers is unprecedented, one of the greatest achievements of France behind the lines, and of any woman at any time.

V

THE WOMAN’S OPPORTUNITY

I

Madame Verone, one of the leading lawyers and feminists of Paris, told me that without the help of the women France could not have remained in the field six months.  This is no doubt true.  Probably it has been true of every war that France has ever waged.  Nor has French history ever been reluctant to admit its many debts to the sex it admires, without idealization perhaps, but certainly in more ways than one.  As far back as the reign of Louis XI memoirs pay their tribute to the value of the French woman both in peace and in war.  This war has been one of the greatest incentives to women in all the belligerent countries that has so far occurred in the history of the world, and the outcome is a problem that the men of France, at least, are already revolving in their vigilant brains.

On the other hand the inept have just managed to exist.  Madame Verone took me one day to a restaurant on Montmartre.  It had been one of the largest cabarets of that famous quarter, and at five or six tables running its entire length I saw seven hundred men and women eating a substantial dejeuner of veal swimming in spinach, dry puree of potatoes, salad, apples, cheese, and coffee.  For this they paid ten cents (fifty centimes) each, the considerable deficit being made up by the ladies who had founded the oeuvre and run it since the beginning of the war.

[Illustration:  WHERE THE ARTISTS DINE FOR FIFTY CENTIMES]

Nearly all of these people escaping charity by so narrow a margin had been second-rate actors and scene shifters, or artists—­of both sexes—­the men being either too old or otherwise ineligible for the army.  This was their only square meal during twenty-four hours.  They made at home such coffee as they could afford, and went without dinner more often than not.  The daughter of this very necessary charity, a handsome strongly built girl, told me that she had waited on her table without a day’s rest for eighteen months.