x Blesses has been granted one cross of the Legion of Honor,
94 Croix de Guerre, 119 Medailles d'Honneur des epidemies. The
Association des Dames Francaises has won 17 Croix de Guerre and 80
Medailles des epidemies. The Union des Femmes de France has won 39
Croix de Guerre. And last comes the glorious list of martyrs of the
societies: 110 nurses have died in the devoted performance of their
duties.

The heroism of these valiant women, many of whom remained in the
occupied territories, will be the eternal pride of France. Madame
Perouse, President of the Union des Femmes de France wrote to M. Louis
Barthou telling him the number of women who had risked their liberty,
their life, their honor even, to protect in the face of the ferocious
enemy the sacred rights of the French wounded. It is fitting to add
that, if they have taken care of the German wounded as well as the
French wounded, they can always recall the reply of a devoted teacher
of the Marne district, Mlle. Fouriaux, to a German major:

"Sir, we have only done our duty as nurses, never forgetting that we
are Frenchwomen."

Mlle. Joulin, a nurse at Douai, did not forget her duty as a
Frenchwoman. She was held a prisoner by the Germans for a year in the
camp at Holzminden, in which she took the place of the mother of five
children who had been put down on the list of hostages drawn up by the
German barbarians.

And if you would know where these heroic women have poured out their
courage, their coolness and their physical resistance, which they have
put in the service of their country and of humanity, you have but to
listen to the declaration of one of them, Mlle. Canton-Baccara, who
has been made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, for having shown
bravery and exceptional devotion in the face of the greatest danger:

"The wounded soldier who suffers," said Mlle. Canton-Baccara, "the
soldier who is complaining or the peasant who is weeping for the farm
that has been pillaged, a woman's smile ought to console and her voice
ought, under all circumstances, to be ready to recall to him that
above these sufferings and troubles, above the paltry struggles of
interest and ambition, there is, above all this, France, our France,
which matters before all else."

Still other women, who were neither in the hospitals, at the front,
nor in the factories, have been admirable fighters. They fought,
according to Mlle. Canton-Baccara's words, with their heart and with
their s