one their duty as Frenchwomen. C'est la guerre.

VIII

VALENTINE THOMPSON

I

Fortunate are those women who not only are able to take care of
themselves but of their dependents during this long period of
financial depression; still more fortunate are those who, either
wealthy or merely independent, are able both to stand between the
great mass of unfortunates and starvation and to serve their country
in old ways and new.

More fortunate still are the few who, having made for themselves by
their talents and energy a position of leadership before the war, were
immediately able to carry their patriotic plans into effect.

In March, 1914, Mlle. Valentine Thompson, already known as one of the
most active of the younger feminists, and distinctly the most
brilliant, established a weekly newspaper which she called _La Vie
Feminine_. The little journal had a twofold purpose: to offer every
sort of news and encouragement to the by-no-means-flourishing party
and to give advice, assistance, and situations to women out of work.

Mlle. Thompson's father at the moment was in the Cabinet, holding the
portfolio of Ministre du Commerce. Her forefathers on either side had
for generations been in public life. She and her grandmother had both
won a position with their pen and therefore moved not only in the best
political but the best literary society of Paris. Moreover Mlle.
Thompson had a special penchant for Americans and knew more or less
intimately all of any importance who lived in Paris or visited it
regularly. Mrs. Tuck, the wealthiest American living in France--it has
been her home for thirty years and she and her husband have spent a
fortune on charities--was one of her closest friends. All Americans
who went to Paris with any higher purpose than buying clothes or
entertaining duchesses at the Ritz, took letters to her. Moreover, she
is by common consent, and without the aid of widow's bonnet or Red
Cross uniform, one of the handsomest women in Paris. She is of the
Amazon type, with dark eyes and hair, a fine complexion, regular
features, any expression she chooses to put on, and she is always the
well-dressed Parisienne in detail as well as in effect. Her carriage
is haughty and dashing, her volubility racial, her enthusiasm, while
it lasts, bears down every obstacle, and her nature is imperious. She
must hold the center of the stage and the reins of power. I should say
that she was the most ambitious woman in Fr