citation which does not contain the least over-praise:
She evidenced the greatest energy in difficult
circumstances. Charged with the duties of Secretary to the
Mayor, and alone at the time of the arrival of the Germans,
she was not disconcerted by their threats, and kept her head
in the face of their demands with remarkable calm and
decision. When our troops returned, she assumed
responsibility for the service and feeding of the
cantonment. She personally took the steps necessary for the
identification and burial of the dead. Finally, she was able
to prevent panic at the time of the bombardment by the force
of her example and her encouragement of the populace.
Those three nuns were also Frenchwomen and fighters of whom the
"Journal Officiel" in the general order spoke as follows:
Mlle. Rosnet, Marie, sister of the order of St. Vincent de
Paul, Mother Superior of the Hospice at Clermont-en-Argonne,
remained alone in the village and showed during the German
occupation an energy and coolness beyond all praise. Having
received a promise from the enemy that they would respect
the town in exchange for the care the sisters gave their
wounded, she protested to the German commander against the
burning of the town with the observation that "the word of a
German officer is not worth that of a French officer." Thus
she obtained the help of a company of sappers who fought the
flames. She gave the most devoted care to the wounded,
German as well as French....
Mlle. Constance, Mother Superior of the Hospice at
Badonvillers, during the three successive German occupations
in 1914, assisted the sisters and remained bravely at her
post night and day, in spite of all danger, and was busy
everywhere with a devotion truly admirable....
Mlle. Brasseur, Sister Etienne, Mother Superior of the
Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul in the Hospital at Compiègne,
from the war's beginning at the head of a staff whose
tireless devotion has deserved all praise, has given the
most intelligent and enlightened care to numerous wounded
men. During the time of the German occupation, her coolness
and energetic attitude assured the safety of the
establishment she directed. Her brave initiative allowed
several French soldiers to escape from captivity.
The modest postmistress and telegraph operator was a Frenchwoman and a
fighter, who, in the little village of Houpelines, in the north of the
country, deserved this citation in the orders of the day, of which
thousands of soldiers would be proud:
Refusing to obey the order that was given her to leave her
post, she remained in spite of the danger. On the first of
October the Germans entered her office, smashed her
apparatus and threatened her with death. Mlle. Deletete, who
had put her valuables and accounts in safe-keeping, gave
evidence of the greatest calmness. From the seventeenth on
she endured the bombardment. Her office having been damaged
severely by the enemy's fire, she took refuge in the civil
hospice, where four persons were killed at her side. She
resumed her duties on the twenty-third, since which date she
has continued to perform them in the face of frequent
bombardments which have found many victims.
The women behind the lines have been worthy of their sisters at the
front.
In the forges, the foundries, the factories and the munition plants
they have not feared to don the blouse of the workingman, and on this
blouse they wear as insignia a large grenade like that on the brassard
of the mobilized men. Note these figures. On the first of February,
1916, the civil establishments of war, the munition plants, and the
Marine workshops employed 127,792 women. The number has increased, and
on the first of March, 1917, they numbered 375,582 women. On the first
of January, 1918, the women working in the factories manufacturing war
material amounted to 475,000; that is to say, in round numbers, a half
million.
Others, in the hospitals, ambulance and dispensaries have devoted
themselves to the wounded, the mutilated, the sick and the suffering,
to the sacrifice of their health, their youth, and sometimes their
life itself. Here again the figures are eloquent--they speak for
themselves. Three great societies, constituting the French Red Cross,
have carried on this work of charity and devotion--the Société de
Secours aux Blessés Militaires, the Union des Dames de France, and The
Association des Dames Françaises. At the war's outbreak the Société de
Secours aux Blessés had 375 hospitals with 17,939 beds; today it has
796 hospitals with 67,000 beds and 15,510 graduated nurses, three
thousand of whom are employed in military hospitals. On the
thirty-first of December, 1916, the Union des Dames de France had 363
hospitals with 30,000 beds and more than 20,000 graduate or volunteer
nurses. From August, 1914, to March, 1917, the Association des Dames
Françaises had raised the number of its hospitals from 100 to 350, and
from 5,000 to 18,000 the number of its beds; the number of its
graduate nurses from 5,000 to 7,000.
On the thirty-first of December, 1916, the three societies counted
about 42,000,000 days of hospital work, 25,000,000 for the Société de
Secours aux Blessés alone. From the beginning of the war, this society
has expended for equipment the sum of 38,700,000 francs.
Aside from these there are other figures which show the material
effort of the Frenchwomen which I can not pass over in silence. They
show the civic devotion of which they are capable. The Société de
Secours aux Blessés has been granted one cross of the Legion of Honor,
94 Croix de Guerre, 119 Medailles d'Honneur des épidémies. The
Association des Dames Françaises has won 17 Croix de Guerre and 80
Medailles des épidémies. 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 smile. They fought by the example of abnegation they gave, by
the moral force with which they inspired the men in the trenches.
Madame de Castelnau is a glorious figure, she, the wife of the General
who saved Nancy and stopped the rush of the barbarians on the Grand
Couronné!... Madame de Castelnau had, before the war broke out, four
sons. Three fell on the battle field. The fourth is actually still a
prisoner in the hands of the Germans. On the lips of their father
there is never the slightest word of complaint; on the lips of the
mother there are these admirable words, which the children in the
schools will repeat later on.... Madame de Castelnau was in a little
village when her third son was killed. The curé of the village had the
pitiful task of telling the already mourning mother of this new blow
that had struck her. The curé found Madame de Castelnau, and, in the
presence of her great sorrow, he hesitated and was overcome with
embarrassment:
"Madame," he said, "I come to bring you another blow. But know well
that all the mothers of France weep for you."
Madame de Castelnau knew the truth at once. She interrupted the priest
and, looking him straight in the eye, replied:
"Yes, I know what you are going to tell me.... God's will be done. But
the mothers of France would be wrong in weeping for me. Let them envy
me."
Those are the words of a Frenchwoman of noble descent. But you can
place on the same high level the words of an old woman, a humble soul,
whom the gendarmes found one night crouched on a grave that was still
fresh. It was up near Verdun. She told the gendarmes:
"I come from La Rochelle. Five of my sons have already fallen in the
war. I have come here to see where the sixth is buried--the sixth--my
last son."
Moved by the tragic grandeur of the sight, the gendarmes rendered her
military honors and presented arms. The mother rose and uttered the
words her dead and her heart inspired:
"Even so, Vive la France!"
All of them, mothers of noble birth and of peasant stock, rich and
poor, wives, sisters, and fiancées are the first to exhort their sons,
husbands and brothers to fight to the end. All have the same words of
sacrifice and abnegation on their lips. All of them find words which
best fortify, exalt and console their men.
Read this letter I picked up on the field of battle, a letter written
by a humble peasant woman whose heart, after centuries of noble and
wise discipline, was in the right place:
MY DEAR BOY:
We got your letter, which gave us great pleasure. We waited
anxiously for it. You wrote it two days ago. Since that time
things have changed. Did you get my letter? I hope so. I
must reassure you about your father the very first thing. He
was away only three days, time enough to guide a detachment
to Bourges. So there is only one vacant place at the
fireside, but how big that one is.
My dear boy, you speak to me of sacrifice; yes, it is one.
And I can tell you it is the greatest one that has ever been
asked of me. However, I keep calm. I tell myself sometimes
that I have deserved it. I am ready to pay, but I wish so
much that you might not pay.
My dear boy, you speak to me of duty and of honor. I have
never doubted that you would do what you ought to. Yes, my
son, a soldier's honor lies in being on the battle field
when the country is in danger. Go, then, my son, with the
blessing of your mother and your father, and with that most
mighty one of your country and of heaven.
You tell me to accept my lot courageously. Alas, sometimes
it fails me. However, I shall try to be resigned and I hope
to see you again in spite of everything. If that should not
happen, say to yourself, my dear boy, when you close your
eyes, that you have all the love and all the sweetest kisses
of your mother, who would like to fly to you.
The sisters are worthy of their mothers. Here is a letter written by
two young girls who live in Lorraine, near Nancy. Plutarch never wrote
anything more beautiful:
MOYEN, 4 SEPTEMBER, 1914.
MY DEAR EDOUARD:
I have heard that Charles and Lucien died on the
twenty-eighth of August. Eugène is badly wounded. As for
Louis and Jean, they are dead also.
Rose has gone away.
Mother weeps, but she says that you are brave and wishes
that you may avenge them.
I hope that your officers will not refuse you that. Jean won
the Legion of Honor; follow in his footsteps.
They have taken everything from us. Of the eleven who went
to war, eight are dead. My dear Edouard, do your duty; we
ask only that.
God gave you life; he has the right to take it away from
you. Mother says that.
We embrace you fondly, although we would like to see you.
The Prussians are here. Jandon is dead; they have pillaged
everything. I have just returned from Gerbevillers, which is
destroyed. What wretches they are!
Sacrifice your life, my dear brother. We hope to see you
again, for something like a presentiment tells us to hope.
We embrace you fondly. Farewell, and may we see you again,
if God grants.
(Signed) YOUR SISTERS.
P.S. It is for us and for France. Think of your brothers and
of your grandfather in 1870.
And this next letter is sublime. It was addressed to M. Maurice Barrès
by a lady from the city of Lyons, which is perhaps the most mystic
city in all France. In the newspapers mention had been made of the men
disabled by war, and of all the unfortunates who were mutilated, whose
limbs had been amputated, who were helpless or blinded. The question
was raised of knowing what ought to be done to help them. Then the
lady wrote as follows to M. Barrès:
SIR: One of these recent days, when our troubles have been
so hard to bear, I went to regain my courage into one of the
beloved sanctuaries of Notre Dame.... A lady dressed in
black came in beside me and, as all mothers are sisters in
these trying days, I asked after her men at the front. She
told me sadly that she was a poor widow, and that the war
had taken away her two sons, her sole means of support. One
of them had had an arm amputated--the right arm--and the
hands of the other were cut off at the wrists. She came from
seeing them to pray to the Mother of Sorrows for her
children and herself.
I was deeply moved by her sorrow and by her not complaining.
I sought means to console her. This is the means I have
found, sir, and I tell it to you now....
Let us ask the Virgin, I said to her, to create young women
in France so brave, so strong, and so devoted that they will
gladly and proudly consent to marry the poor, injured men
and to be not only their hearts but the limbs which will aid
them to make their daily bread; leaving to the men the
privilege of loving them, of respecting their presences and
of guiding their lives.
The poor woman understood me. We separated. My own youngest
daughter was in my thoughts; and do you not think that the
men who have a wider audience could stir the hearts of the
young women, twenty years of age in France, if they asked
them to perform this act of devotion, and to be the
companions of the mutilated, maimed men of France?...
Then, too, the women who had only their dignity and their high spirit
to defend themselves against the grossness and the insults of the
Prussians, have been the incarnation of the spirit of France.
An old woman who dwelt in a village on the Aisne was spattered with
mud by the Kaiser as he passed by on horseback. He made a gesture
excusing himself. She fixed her eyes on him and said simply:
"It doesn't matter, sir. That mud can be washed off."
A great lady in one of the châteaux in the invaded regions, had to
receive one of the Kaiser's sons. The day of his departure he sent for
her to thank her for the hospitality she had shown him. The old lady,
looking at him, contented herself with replying:
"Do not thank me, sir. I did not invite you here."
And she reëntered her house with all dignity.
* * * * *
Because the women of France have been all this and have done all this,
France has been able to fight on, and will be able to fight to the
end. Because the women of France have been all this and have done all
this, the soldiers, in the mud of the trenches, revere them as
Madonnas.
The historian Tacitus tells somewhere how, on a hot spring day, a
slave, panting and worn out, entered one of the gates of the Eternal
City. He crossed the Forum without stopping and, in his course,
mounted the Hill of Mars. Finally he came to one of the greatest
houses of the patrician section of the city. His cries and shouts
filled the house:
"Alas, alas!" he cried.
A lady hastened to him. She was the mistress of the house, the famous
Cornelia Graccha.
"What news do you bring?" she asked.
"Alas, alas," repeated the slave, "in the battle down there in Umbria,
two of your sons have been killed."
"Fool," was the reply, "I do not ask that. Have the Barbarians been
conquered?"
"They have, Cornelia."
"Then what matters the death of my sons if my country is victorious!"
Those wonderful words have been handed down from generation to
generation as a symbol of what ancient Rome was. Those words thousands
of French women have uttered for the last four years, and they still
utter them today. Other voices answer them. They rise from the
trenches, and they say:
"Be without fear, women of France. For you we will fight to
our last gasp, we will shed our last drop of blood. Know
that if for months we have held our heads below the level of
the muddy trench and offered our breasts to death, it is
that you may be freed from the wild beasts that have burst
forth from the German forests. For your sakes our homes are
not in ruins and our towns are not vassals to the enemy. It
is all for you, so that when we shall return you need not
throw your arms around conquered necks. Our country, women
of France, is made up of our homes, our churches, and our
fields, and of your beloved faces. Throughout the tragic
periods of its history, our country has always been
incarnated in your faces, whether they called themselves St.
Geneviève or Jeanne d'Arc. And in our building, to personify
the cities that are dear to us, we have always taken your
bodies, your foreheads, and the folds of your gowns--see, in
Paris, that statue in the Place de la Concorde, in the
shadow of the Tuileries, which for days has worn a crêpe
veil.... Well, today is the same as yesterday. In our
trenches our country appears to us in those visions wherein
are mingled your faces. We shall believe that our country
has been well served only when, on your beloved faces, we
shall have caused a smile to appear because the palms we
have placed at your feet are the palms of victory."
Future historians will state that France has fought not only with all
her courage, her tenacity and her soul, with all her men, women and
children: they will also state that these men, women and children, in
spite of the terrible times, their suffering and their mourning, have
remained firmly united, forming a firm rock from which not a single
stone has been splintered.
In that tormented, feverish France where the ardor of the Revolution
still boils, there were, before the war, different parties, cliques,
groups and churches. The war has leveled, united and bound them all
together.
In some admirable pages, consecrated to the "Effort of French
Womanhood," M. Louis Barthou has painted the picture of the sacred
union there is among all the French women:
I have seen [he writes] our women at the front and behind
the lines, in the hospitals, the railway stations, the
automobile service, the canteens, the factories, in relief
work and in charity work. I have met nurses, unmoved under a
bombardment. I have tested the spirit of fellowship which
unites them, including as it does the names of the most
aristocratic French families and the most modest citizens.
There is no false pride among those in high places nor envy
among those lower in the social scale. They wear the same
garb, the same cap, with the same cross on their foreheads.
For the soldiers there is the same uniform, and when you say
uniform you mean equality in devotion, in the risk of life,
and in loyalty to duty. Between the classes of society there
is no contention, there is only emulation. I do not know
whether or not, in times of peace, they had all and
everywhere escaped the local passions which have poisoned
national life, but the war has given them sacred union for a
countersign, and they, as disciplined soldiers, have
respected this countersign.
The French nurse's smile will have served the nation's
defense well, but I emphasize this when I think how well it
will have served the nation's unity in the aftermath that
shall follow war. What rancors it will have appeased! What
jealousies it will have blotted out! What petty prejudices
it will have conquered! These society women and women of the
middle class who have leaned over the beds of sick or
wounded peasants, and these young girls who have tended
their hurts, bound up their wounds, and calmed their
sufferings have, with their delicate hands, so expert in the
worst treatments, laid the foundations of a France that is
united and fraternal, where envy and hate have no place. All
eyes have opened to broader vistas of revealed clearness, to
which they have hitherto remained closed through prejudice,
or obstinacy. They will have learned that bravery, devotion
to the right, loyal and tried disinterestedness, heartfelt
and wise knowledge can dwell in the simple soul of the
peasant and the workingman. The peasants and the workingmen
who have come out from their care will have learned that
luxury does not exclude goodness, that beauty is not always
a sterile gift, that youth is not altogether callow, that a
woman can be pretty and generous, delicate and courageous,
rich and sympathetic, and that the mothers whose children
are dead excel in lavishing the care of their hands and the
tenderness of their hearts on the wounded children who are
suffering far from their mothers.
The sacred sense of union that reigns among the men is no less firm.
It is only necessary to read the letters written on the eve of their
deaths--in that hour when a man, alone, face to face with himself,
lets his soul speak--by the fighters who gave their heart's blood for
the sacred cause.
They all say the same things.
Here is a letter a Jew wrote, named Robert Hertz, a second lieutenant
of the 330th infantry regiment, who fell on the 13th of April, 1915,
at Marcheville:
MY DEAR: I remember the dreams I had when I was a little
child. With all my soul I wished to be a Frenchman, to be
worthy to be one, and to prove that I was one.... Now the
old, childish dream comes back to me, stronger than it ever
was. I am grateful to the officers who have accepted me for
their subordinate, to the men I have been proud to lead.
They are the children of a chosen people. I am full of
gratitude towards our country which has received me and
heaped favors upon me. Nothing would be too much to give in
payment for that, and for the fact that my little son may
always hold his head high and never know, in the reborn
France, that torment which has poisoned many hours of our
childhood and of our youth. "Am I a Frenchman?" "Would I
deserve to be one?" No, little boy, you shall not say that.
You shall have a native land and your step may sound on the
earth, nourishing you with the assurance, "My father was
there and he gave all he had for France." If recompense is
necessary, this is the sweetest one there is for me.
This is the letter of a Protestant, second lieutenant Maurice
Dieterlin, who was killed on the sixth of October, 1915, and who, on
the eve of the Champagne offensive, wrote these last words they were
to read from him, to his family:
I saw the most beautiful day of all my life. I regret
nothing and I am as happy as a king. I am glad to pay my
debt that my country may be free. Tell my friends that I go
on to victory with a smile on my lips, happier than the
stoics and the martyrs of all time. For a moment we are
beyond the France that is eternal. France ought to live.
France will live. Get ready your loveliest gowns, keep your
best smiles to welcome the conquerors in the great war.
Perhaps we shall not be there, but there will be others in
our places. Do not weep, do not wear mourning, for we shall
have died with a sweet smile on our lips and a lovely
superhumanity in our hearts. Vive la France! Vive la France!