y President Poincare with a gift of
one thousand francs; the American War Relief Clearing House gave her
four thousand three hundred francs, Madame Viviani contributed four
thousand francs; the Comedie Francaise one thousand, and Raphael Weill
of San Francisco seven thousand seven hundred and fifty; Alexander
Phillips of New York three thousand; and capitalists, banks, bank
clerks, civil servants, colonials, school children, contributed sums
great and small.

Concerts were given, bazaars hastily but successfully organized,
collections taken up. There was no end to Mlle. Javal's resource, and
the result was an almost immediate capital of several hundred thousand
francs. When public interest was fairly roused, les pauvres eclopes
became one of the abiding concerns of the French people, and they have
responded as generously as they did to the needs of the more
picturesque refugee or the starving within their gates.

This great organization, known as "L'Assistance aux Depots d'Eclopes,
Petits Blesses et Petites Malades, et aux Cantonments de Repos," was
formally inaugurated on November 14, 1914, with Madame Jules Ferry as
President, and Madame Viviani as Vice-President. Mlle. Javal shows
modestly on the official list as Secretaire Generale.

The Government agreed to put up the baraques, and did so with the
least possible delay. Mlle. Javal and her Committee furnish the beds
(there were seven hundred in one of the depots she showed me), support
the dietary kitchen and the hospital baraques, and supply the
bathrooms, libraries, and all the little luxuries. The Government
supports the central kitchen (_grand regime_), the doctors, and, when
necessary, the surgeons.

VI

Mlle. Javal took me twice through the immense establishment on the
Champs Elysees, where she has not only her offices but workrooms and
storerooms. In one room a number of ladies--in almost all of these
oeuvres women give their services, remaining all day or a part of
every day--were doing nothing but rolling cigarettes. I looked at them
with a good deal of interest. They belonged to that class of French
life I have tried to describe, in which the family is the all
important unit; where children rarely play with other children,
sometimes never; where the mother is a sovereign who is content to
remain within the boundaries of her own small domain for months at a
time, particularly if she lives not in an apartment, but in an hotel
with a garden behind