“At the hospital Forgeot (for the officers) I admired the ingeniousness with which our nurses have arranged for their wounded a quite charming assembly-room with a piano, some growing plants and several games.

“I also visited our auxiliary hospital at Sainte-Croix.  It would be impossible to find a more beautiful location, a better organization.  I have not had, to my great regret, the time to visit the other hospitals, which, however, I already know.  That will be, I hope, for another time.

“The same day I went to Revigny.  Oh, never shall I forget the impressions that I received there.  First, the passage through that poor village in ruins, then the visit to the hospital situated near the station through which most of the wounded from Verdun pass.

“What was, several months ago, a field at the edge of the road, has become one big hospital of more than a thousand beds, divided into baraques.  We have twenty-five nurses there.  Since the beginning of the battle they have been subjected to frightful work; every one has to care for a number of critically wounded—­those who have need of operations and who are not able to travel further.  What moved me above everything was to find our nurses so simple and so modest in their courage.  Not a single complaint about their terrible fatigue—­their one desire is to hold out to the end.  When I expressed my admiration, one of them answered:  ’We have only one regret:  it is that we have too much work to give special attention to each of the wounded, and then above all it is terrible to see so many die.’

“I visited some of the baraques, and I observed that, in spite of the excessive work, they were not only clean but well cared for, and flowers everywhere!  I also saw a tent where there were about ten Germans; one of our nurses who spoke their language was in charge; they seemed to me very well taken care of—­’well,’ because they were wounded, not ‘too well’ because—­we cannot forget.

“I tore myself away from Revigny, where I should have liked to remain longer, and I arrived that night at Jeans d’Heurs, which seemed to me a small paradise.  The wounded were admirably cared for in beautiful rooms, with windows opening on a ravishing park; the nurses housed with the greatest care.

“The next day I was at Bar-le-Duc, first at the Central, which is an immense hospital of three thousand beds.  Before the war it was a caserne (barrack).  They reconstructed the buildings and in the courts they put up sheds; our nurses are at work there—­among them the beloved President of our Association—­the Mutual Association of Nurses.  All these buildings seemed to me perfect.  I visited specially the splendidly conducted surgical pavilion and the typhoid pavilion.

“The white-washed walls have been decorated by direction of the nurses with great friezes of color, producing a charming effect which ought to please the eyes of our beloved sick.