trying to establish an anti-tuberculosis organization
to save those of our soldiers who have been infected or are menaced.
Many hospitals are already opened for them. At Mentom, on the
Mediterranean, for the blind tubercular; at Hauteville, in the
Department of the Aisne, for the officers and soldiers; at La
Rochelle, for bone-tuberculosis; but the task is enormous.

"We seek also, and the work is under way, to educate intelligently the
mutilated, so that they may work and have an occupation in the sad
life which remains to them, and I assure you, chere madame, that so
many useful things to be done leave very few leisure hours. If a
little weariness has in spite of everything slipped into our hearts, a
visit to the hospitals, to the ambulances at the Front, the sight of
suffering so bravely, I will even say so cheerfully, supported by our
soldiers, very quickly revives our courage, and brings us back our
strength and enthusiasm...."

* * * * *

The Countess de Roussy de Sales (an American brought up in Paris) was
one of the first of the infirmieres to be mobilized by Madame
d'Haussonville on the declaration of war. She went to Rheims with the
troops, standing most of the time, but too much enthralled by the
spirit of the men to notice fatigue. She told me that although they
were very sober, even grim, she heard not a word of complaint, but
constantly the ejaculation: "It is for France and our children. What
if we die, so long as our children may live in peace?"

At Rheims, so impossible had it been to make adequate preparations
with the Socialists holding up every projected budget, there were no
installations in the hospitals but beds. The nurses and doctors were
obliged to forage in the town for operating tables and the hundred and
one other furnishings without which no hospital can be conducted. And
they had little time. The wounded came pouring in at once. Madame de
Roussy de Sales said they were so busy it was some time before it
dawned on them, in spite of the guns, that the enemy was approaching.
But when women and children and old people began to hurry through the
streets in a constant procession they knew it was only a matter of
time before they were ordered out. They had no time to think, however;
much less to fear.

Finally the order came to evacuate the hospitals and leave the town,
which at that time was in imminent danger of capture. There was little
notice. The last tr