wenty-third, since which date she
has continued to perform them in the face of frequent
bombardments which have found many victims.

The women behind the lines have been worthy of their sisters at the
front.

In the forges, the foundries, the factories and the munition plants
they have not feared to don the blouse of the workingman, and on this
blouse they wear as insignia a large grenade like that on the brassard
of the mobilized men. Note these figures. On the first of February,
1916, the civil establishments of war, the munition plants, and the
Marine workshops employed 127,792 women. The number has increased, and
on the first of March, 1917, they numbered 375,582 women. On the first
of January, 1918, the women working in the factories manufacturing war
material amounted to 475,000; that is to say, in round numbers, a half
million.

Others, in the hospitals, ambulance and dispensaries have devoted
themselves to the wounded, the mutilated, the sick and the suffering,
to the sacrifice of their health, their youth, and sometimes their
life itself. Here again the figures are eloquent--they speak for
themselves. Three great societies, constituting the French Red Cross,
have carried on this work of charity and devotion--the Societe de
Secours aux Blesses Militaires, the Union des Dames de France, and The
Association des Dames Francaises. At the war's outbreak the Societe de
Secours aux Blesses had 375 hospitals with 17,939 beds; today it has
796 hospitals with 67,000 beds and 15,510 graduated nurses, three
thousand of whom are employed in military hospitals. On the
thirty-first of December, 1916, the Union des Dames de France had 363
hospitals with 30,000 beds and more than 20,000 graduate or volunteer
nurses. From August, 1914, to March, 1917, the Association des Dames
Francaises had raised the number of its hospitals from 100 to 350, and
from 5,000 to 18,000 the number of its beds; the number of its
graduate nurses from 5,000 to 7,000.

On the thirty-first of December, 1916, the three societies counted
about 42,000,000 days of hospital work, 25,000,000 for the Societe de
Secours aux Blesses alone. From the beginning of the war, this society
has expended for equipment the sum of 38,700,000 francs.

Aside from these there are other figures which show the material
effort of the Frenchwomen which I can not pass over in silence. They
show the civic devotion of which they are capable. The Societe de
Secours au