“Every day new needs make us create new oeuvres, which we organize quickly.

“The making of bandages and compresses has always been an important work with us.  Yards of underclothing and linen are continually asked of us by our nurses for their sick.  The workshops which we have opened since the beginning of the war assist with work a great number of women who have been left by the mobilization of their men without resources.

“The clubs for soldiers, in Paris especially, give to the convalescents and to the men on leave wholesome amusement and compensate somewhat for their absent families.

“Just now we are trying to establish an anti-tuberculosis organization to save those of our soldiers who have been infected or are menaced.  Many hospitals are already opened for them.  At Mentom, on the Mediterranean, for the blind tubercular; at Hauteville, in the Department of the Aisne, for the officers and soldiers; at La Rochelle, for bone-tuberculosis; but the task is enormous.

“We seek also, and the work is under way, to educate intelligently the mutilated, so that they may work and have an occupation in the sad life which remains to them, and I assure you, chere madame, that so many useful things to be done leave very few leisure hours.  If a little weariness has in spite of everything slipped into our hearts, a visit to the hospitals, to the ambulances at the Front, the sight of suffering so bravely, I will even say so cheerfully, supported by our soldiers, very quickly revives our courage, and brings us back our strength and enthusiasm....”

* * * * *

The Countess de Roussy de Sales (an American brought up in Paris) was one of the first of the infirmieres to be mobilized by Madame d’Haussonville on the declaration of war.  She went to Rheims with the troops, standing most of the time, but too much enthralled by the spirit of the men to notice fatigue.  She told me that although they were very sober, even grim, she heard not a word of complaint, but constantly the ejaculation:  “It is for France and our children.  What if we die, so long as our children may live in peace?”

At Rheims, so impossible had it been to make adequate preparations with the Socialists holding up every projected budget, there were no installations in the hospitals but beds.  The nurses and doctors were obliged to forage in the town for operating tables and the hundred and one other furnishings without which no hospital can be conducted.  And they had little time.  The wounded came pouring in at once.  Madame de Roussy de Sales said they were so busy it was some time before it dawned on them, in spite of the guns, that the enemy was approaching.  But when women and children and old people began to hurry through the streets in a constant procession they knew it was only a matter of time before they were ordered out.  They had no time to think, however; much less to fear.