Behind the hotel is the usual beautiful garden, very large and shaded with splendid trees.  During fine weather there are cots or long chairs under every tree, out in the sun, on the veranda; and, after the War Zone, these men seemed to me very fortunate.  The duchess takes in any one sent to her, the Government paying her one-franc-fifty a day for each.  The greater part of her own fortune was invested in Brussels.

She and her daughters and a few of her friends do all of the nursing, even the most menial.  They wait on the table, because it cheers the poilus—­who, by the way, all beg, as soon as they have been there a few days, to be put in the red and gold salon.  It keeps up their spirits!  Her friends and their friends, if they have any in Paris, call constantly and bring them cigarettes.  Fortunately I was given the hint by the Marquise de Talleyrand, who took me the first time, and armed myself with one of those long boxes that may be carried most conveniently under the arm.  Otherwise, I should have felt like a superfluous intruder, standing about those big rooms looking at the men.  In the War Zone where there were often no cigarettes, or anything else, to be bought, it was different.  The men were only too glad to see a new face.

The duchess trots about indefatigably, assists at every operation, assumes personal charge of infectious cases, takes temperatures, waits on the table, and prays all night by the dying.  Mr. Van Husen, a young American who was helping her at that time, told me that if a boy died in the hospital and was a devout Catholic, and friendless in Paris, she arranged to have a high mass for his funeral service at a church in the neighborhood.

The last time I saw her she was feeling very happy because her youngest son, who had been missing for several weeks, had suddenly appeared at the hotel and spent a few days with her.  A week later the Duc de Rohan, one of the most brilliant soldiers in France, was killed; and since my return I have heard of the death of her youngest.  Such is life for the Mothers of France to-day.

COUNTESS GREFFULHE

The Countess Greffulhe (born Princesse de Chimay and consequently a Belgian, although no stretch of fancy could picture her as anything but a Parisian) offered her assistance at once to the Government and corresponded with hundreds of Mayors in the provinces in order to have deserted hotels made over into hospitals with as little delay as possible.  She also established a depot to which women could come privately and sell their laces, jewels, bibelots, etc.  Her next enterprise was to form a powerful committee which responsible men and women of the allied countries could ask to get up benefits when the need for money was pressing.

Upon one occasion when a British Committee made this appeal she induced Russia to send a ballet for a single performance; and she also persuaded the manager of the Opera House to open it for a gala performance for another organization.  There is a romantic flavor about all the countess’s work, and just how practical it was or how long it was pursued along any given line I was unable to learn.