dental installations.

Other automobiles have a surgeon and the equipment for immediate
facial operations; and there are migratory pedicures, masseurs, and
barbers. So heavy has been the subscription, so persistent and
intelligent the work of all connected with this great oeuvre, so
increasingly fertile the amazing brain of Mlle. Javal, that
practically nothing is now wanted to make these Depots d'Eclopes
perfect instruments for saving men for the army by the hundred
thousand. I once heard the estimate of the army's indebtedness placed
as high as a million and a half.

The work of M. Frederic Masson must not be ignored, and Madame Balli
assisted him for a short time, until compelled to concentrate on her
other work; but it is not comparable in scope to that of Mlle. Javal.
Hers is unprecedented, one of the greatest achievements of France
behind the lines, and of any woman at any time.

V

THE WOMAN'S OPPORTUNITY

I

Madame Verone, one of the leading lawyers and feminists of Paris, told
me that without the help of the women France could not have remained
in the field six months. This is no doubt true. Probably it has been
true of every war that France has ever waged. Nor has French history
ever been reluctant to admit its many debts to the sex it admires,
without idealization perhaps, but certainly in more ways than one. As
far back as the reign of Louis XI memoirs pay their tribute to the
value of the French woman both in peace and in war. This war has been
one of the greatest incentives to women in all the belligerent
countries that has so far occurred in the history of the world, and
the outcome is a problem that the men of France, at least, are already
revolving in their vigilant brains.

On the other hand the inept have just managed to exist. Madame Verone
took me one day to a restaurant on Montmartre. It had been one of the
largest cabarets of that famous quarter, and at five or six tables
running its entire length I saw seven hundred men and women eating a
substantial dejeuner of veal swimming in spinach, dry puree of
potatoes, salad, apples, cheese, and coffee. For this they paid ten
cents (fifty centimes) each, the considerable deficit being made up by
the ladies who had founded the oeuvre and run it since the beginning
of the war.

[Illustration: WHERE THE ARTISTS DINE FOR FIFTY CENTIMES]

Nearly all of these people escaping charity by so narrow a margin had
been second-rate actors and sce