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diff --git a/14197-0.txt b/14197-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d8c91af --- /dev/null +++ b/14197-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8113 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14197 *** + +THE LIVING PRESENT + +BY + +GERTRUDE ATHERTON + + +NEW YORK +FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY +PUBLISHERS + + +[Illustration: THE MARQUISE D'ANDIGNÉ +President Le Bien--Être du Blessé] + + +TO + +"ETERNAL FRANCE" + + + + +CONTENTS + + +BOOK I + +FRENCH WOMEN IN WAR TIME + + +CHAPTER + + I MADAME BALLI AND THE "COMFORT PACKAGE" + + II THE SILENT ARMY + + III THE MUNITION MAKERS + + IV MADEMOISELLE JAVAL AND THE ÉCLOPÉS + + V THE WOMAN'S OPPORTUNITY + + VI MADAME PIERRE GOUJON + + VII MADAME PIERRE GOUJON (_Continued_) + +VIII VALENTINE THOMPSON + + IX MADAME WADDINGTON + + X THE COUNTESS D'HAUSSONVILLE + + XI THE MARQUISE D'ANDIGNÉ + + XII MADAME CAMILLE LYON + +XIII BRIEF ACCOUNTS OF GREAT WORK: + THE DUCHESSE D'UZÈS; + THE DUCHESSE DE ROHAN; + COUNTESS GREFFULHE; + MADAME PAQUIN; + MADAME PAUL DUPUY + + XIV ONE OF THE MOTHERLESS + + XV THE MARRAINES + + XVI PROBLEMS FOR THE FUTURE + + +BOOK II + +FEMINISM IN PEACE AND WAR + + +CHAPTER + + I THE THREAT OF THE MATRIARCHATE + + II THE TRIUMPH OF MIDDLE-AGE + + III THE REAL VICTIMS OF "SOCIETY" + + IV ONE SOLUTION OF A GREAT PROBLEM + + V FOUR OF THE HIGHLY SPECIALIZED: + MARIA DE BARRIL; + ALICE BERTA JOSEPHINE KAUSER; + BELLE DA COSTA GREENE; + HONORÉ WILLSIE + + ADDENDUM + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +The Marquise d'Andigné, President Le Bien--Être du Blessé + +Madame Balli, President Réconfort du Soldat + +Delivering the Milk in Rheims + +Making the Shells + +Société L'Eclairage Electrique, Usine de Lyon + +Where the Artists Dine for Fifty Centimes + +A Railway Depot Cantine + +Delivering the Post + + + + +BOOK I + + +FRENCHWOMEN IN WAR TIME + + +If this little book reads more like a memoir than a systematic study +of conditions, my excuse is that I remained too long in France and was +too much with the people whose work most interested me, to be capable, +for a long while, at any rate, of writing a detached statistical +account of their remarkable work. + +In the first place, although it was my friend Owen Johnson who +suggested this visit to France and personal investigation of the work +of her women, I went with a certain enthusiasm, and the longer I +remained the more enthusiastic I became. My idea in going was not to +gratify my curiosity but to do what I could for the cause of France as +well as for my own country by studying specifically the war-time work +of its women and to make them better known to the women of America. + +The average American woman who never has traveled in Europe, or only +as a flitting tourist, is firm in the belief that all Frenchwomen are +permanently occupied with fashions or intrigue. If it is impossible to +eradicate this impression, at least the new impression I hope to +create by a recital at first hand of what a number of Frenchwomen (who +are merely carefully selected types) are doing for their country in +its present ordeal, should be all the deeper. + +American women were not in the least astonished at the daily accounts +which reached them through the medium of press and magazine of the +magnificent war services of the British women. That was no more than +was to have been expected. Were they not, then, Anglo-Saxons, of our +own blood, still closer to the fountain-source of a nation that has, +with whatever reluctance, risen to every crisis in her fate with a +grim, stolid, capable tenacity that means the inevitable defeat of any +nation so incredibly stupid as to defy her? + +If word had come over that the British women were quite indifferent to +the war, were idle and frivolous and insensible to the clarion voice +of their indomitable country's needs, that, if you like, would have +made a sensation. But knowing the race as they did--and it is the only +race of which the genuine American does know anything--he, or she, +accepted the leaping bill of Britain's indebtedness to her brave and +easily expert women without comment, although, no doubt, with a glow +of vicarious pride. + +But quite otherwise with the women of France. In the first place there +was little interest. They were, after all, foreigners. Your honest +dyed-in-the-wool American has about the same contemptuous tolerance +for foreigners that foreigners have for him. They are not Americans +(even after they immigrate and become naturalized), they do not speak +the same language in the same way, and all accents, save perhaps a +brogue, are offensive to an ear tuned to nasal rhythms and to the rich +divergencies from the normal standards of their own tongue that +distinguish different sections of this vast United States of America. + +But the American mind is, after all, an open mind. Such generalities +as, "The Frenchwomen are quite wonderful," "are doing marvelous things +for their country during this war," that floated across the expensive +cable now and again, made little or no impression on any but those who +already knew their France and could be surprised at no resource or +energy she might display; but Owen Johnson and several other men with +whom he talked, including that ardent friend of France, Whitney +Warren, felt positive that if some American woman writer with a +public, and who was capable through long practice in story writing, of +selecting and composing facts in conformance with the economic and +dramatic laws of fiction, would go over and study the work of the +Frenchwomen at first hand, and, discarding generalities, present +specific instances of their work and their attitude, the result could +not fail to give the intelligent American woman a different opinion of +her French sister and enlist her sympathy. + +I had been ill or I should have gone to England soon after the +outbreak of the war and worked with my friends, for I have always +looked upon England as my second home, and I have as many friends +there as here. If it had not been for Mr. Johnson and Mr. Warren, no +doubt I should have gone to England within the next two or three +months. But their representations aroused my enthusiasm and I +determined to go to France first, at all events. + +My original intention was to remain in France for a month, gathering +my material as quickly as possible, and then cross to England. It +seemed to me that if I wrote a book that might be of some service to +France I should do the same thing for a country to which I was not +only far more deeply attached but far more deeply indebted. + +I remained three months and a third in France--from May 9th, 1916, to +August 19th--and I did not go to England for two reasons. I found that +it was more of an ordeal to get to London from Paris than to return to +New York and sail again; and I heard that Mrs. Ward was writing a book +about the women of England. For me to write another would be what is +somewhat gracelessly called a work of supererogation. + +I remained in France so long because I was never so vitally interested +in my life. I could not tear myself away, although I found it +impossible to put my material into shape there. Not only was I on the +go all day long, seeing this and that oeuvre, having personal +interviews with heads of important organizations, taken about by the +kind and interested friends my own interest made for me, but when +night came I was too tired to do more than enter all the information I +had accumulated during the day in a notebook, and then go to bed. I +have seldom taken notes, but I was determined that whatever else my +book might be it should at least be accurate, and I also collected all +the literature (leaflets, pamphlets, etc.) of the various oeuvres (as +all these war relief organizations are called) and packed them into +carefully superscribed large brown envelopes with a meticulousness +that is, alas, quite foreign to my native disposition. + +When, by the way, I opened my trunk to pack it and saw those dozen or +more large square brown envelopes I was appalled. They looked so +important, so sinister, they seemed to mutter of State secrets, war +maps, spy data. I knew that trunks were often searched at Bordeaux, +and I knew that if mine were those envelopes never would leave France. +I should be fortunate to sail away myself. + +But I must have my notes. To remember all that I had from day to day +gathered was an impossibility. I have too good a memory not to +distrust it when it comes to a mass of rapidly accumulated +information; combined with imagination and enthusiasm it is sure to +play tricks. + +But I had an inspiration. The Ministry of War had been exceedingly +kind to me. Convinced that I was a "Friend of France," they had +permitted me to go three times into the War Zone, the last time +sending me in a military automobile and providing an escort. I had +been over to the War Office very often and had made friends of several +of the politest men on earth. + +I went out and bought the largest envelope to be found in Paris. Into +this I packed all those other big brown envelopes and drove over to +the Ministère de la Guerre. I explained my predicament. Would they +seal it with the formidable seal of the War Office and write +_Propagande_ across it? Of course if they wished I would leave my +garnerings for a systematic search. They merely laughed at this +unusual evidence on my part of humble patience and submission. The +French are the acutest people in the world. By this time these +preternaturally keen men in the War Office knew me better than I knew +myself. If I had, however unconsciously and in my deepest recesses, +harbored a treacherous impulse toward the country I so professed to +admire and to desire to serve, or if my ego had been capable of sudden +tricks and perversions, they would long since have had these +lamentable deformities, my spiritual hare-lip, ticketed and docketed +with the rest of my dossier. + +As it was they complied with my request at once, gave me their +blessing, and escorted me to the head of the stair--no elevators in +this great Ministère de la Guerre and the Service de Santé is at the +top of the building. I went away quite happy, more devoted to their +cause than ever, and easy in my mind about Bordeaux--where, by the +way, my trunks were not opened. + +Therefore, that remarkable experience in France is altogether still so +vivid to me that to write about it reportorially, with the personal +equation left out, would be quite as impossible as it is for me to +refrain from execrating the Germans. When I add that during that visit +I grew to love the French people (whom, in spite of many visits to +France, I merely had admired coolly and impersonally) as much as I +abominate the enemies of the human race, I feel that the last word has +been said, and that my apology for writing what may read like a +memoir, a chronicle of personal reminiscences, will be understood and +forgiven. + + G.A. + + + + +=THE LIVING PRESENT= + +I + +MADAME BALLI AND THE "COMFORT PACKAGE" + + +One of the most striking results of the Great War has been the +quickening in thousands of European women of qualities so long dormant +that they practically were unsuspected. As I shall tell in a more +general article, the Frenchwomen of the middle and lower bourgeoisie +and of the farms stepped automatically into the shoes of the men +called to the colors in August, 1914, and it was, in their case, +merely the wearing of two pairs of shoes instead of one, and both of +equal fit. The women of those clearly defined classes are their +husbands' partners and co-workers, and although physically they may +find it more wearing to do the work of two than of one, it entails no +particular strain on their mental faculties or change in their habits +of life. Moreover, France since the dawn of her history has been a +military nation, and generation after generation her women have been +called upon to play their important rôle in war, although never on so +vast a scale as now. + +Contrary to the prevailing estimate of the French--an estimate formed +mainly from sensational novels and plays, or during brief visits to +the shops and boulevards of Paris--the French are a stolid, stoical, +practical race, abnormally acute, without illusions, and whose famous +ebullience is all in the top stratum. There is even a certain +melancholy at the root of their temperament, for, gay and pleasure +loving as they are on the surface, they are a very ancient and a very +wise people. Impatient and impulsive, they are capable of a patience +and tenacity, a deep deliberation and caution, which, combined with an +unparalleled mental alertness, brilliancy without recklessness, +bravery without bravado, spiritual exaltation without sentimentality +(which is merely perverted animalism), a curious sensitiveness of mind +and body due to over-breeding, and a white flame of patriotism as +steady and dazzling as an arc-light, has given them a glorious +history, and makes them, by universal consent, preëminent among the +warring nations to-day. + +They are intensely conservative and their mental suppleness is quite +as remarkable. Economy is one of the motive powers of their existence, +the solid pillars upon which their wealth and power are built; and yet +Paris has been not only the home and the patron of the arts for +centuries, but the arbiter of fashion for women, a byword for +extravagance, and a forcing-house for a thousand varieties of +pleasure. No race is so paradoxical, but then France is the genius +among nations. Antiquity, and many invasions of her soil have given +her an inviolable solidity, and the temperamental gaiety and keen +intelligence which pervades all classes have kept her eternally young. +She is as far from decadence as the crudest community in the United +States of America. + +To the student of French history and character nothing the French have +done in this war is surprising; nevertheless it seemed to me that I +had a fresh revelation every day during my sojourn in France in the +summer of 1916. Every woman of every class (with a few notable +exceptions seen for the most part in the Ritz Hotel) was working at +something or other: either in self-support, to relieve distress, or to +supplement the efforts and expenditures of the Government (two billion +francs a month); and it seemed that I never should see the last of +those relief organizations of infinite variety known as "oeuvres." + +Some of this work is positively creative, much is original, and all is +practical and indispensable. As the most interesting of it centers in +and radiates from certain personalities whom I had the good fortune to +meet and to know as well as their days and mine would permit, it has +seemed to me that the surest way of vivifying any account of the work +itself is to make its pivot the central figure of the story. So I will +begin with Madame Balli. + + +II + + +To be strictly accurate, Madame Balli was born in Smyrna, of Greek +blood; but Paris can show no purer type of Parisian, and she has never +willingly passed a day out of France. During her childhood her brother +(who must have been many years older than herself) was sent to Paris +as Minister from Greece, filling the post for thirty years; and his +mother followed with her family. Madame Balli not only was brought up +in France, but has spent only five hours of her life in Greece; after +her marriage she expressed a wish to see the land of her ancestors, +and her husband--who was an Anglo-Greek--amiably took her to a hotel +while the steamer on which they were journeying to Constantinople was +detained in the harbor of Athens. + +Up to the outbreak of the war she was a woman of the world, a woman of +fashion to her finger-tips, a reigning beauty always dressed with a +costly and exquisite simplicity. Some idea of the personal loveliness +which, united to her intelligence and charm, made her one of the +conspicuous figures of the capital, may be inferred from the fact that +her British husband, an art connoisseur and notable collector, was +currently reported deliberately to have picked out the most beautiful +girl in Europe to adorn his various mansions. + +Madame Balli has black eyes and hair, a white skin, a classic profile, +and a smile of singular sweetness and charm. Until the war came she +was far too absorbed in the delights of the world--the Paris world, +which has more votaries than all the capitals of all the world--the +changing fashions and her social popularity, to have heard so much as +a murmur of the serious tides of her nature. Although no one disputed +her intelligence--a social asset in France, odd as that may appear to +Americans--she was generally put down as a mere _femme du monde_, +self-indulgent, pleasure-loving, dependent--what our more strident +feminists call parasitic. It is doubtful if she belonged to charitable +organizations, although, generous by nature, it is safe to say that +she gave freely. + +[Illustration: MADAME BALLI President Réconfort du Soldat] + +In that terrible September week of 1914 when the Germans were driving +like a hurricane on Paris and its inhabitants were fleeing in droves +to the South, Madame Balli's husband was in England; her +sister-in-law, an infirmière major (nurse major) of the First Division +of the Red Cross, had been ordered to the front the day war broke out; +a brother-in-law had his hands full; and Madame Balli was practically +alone in Paris. Terrified of the struggling hordes about the railway +stations even more than of the advancing Germans, deprived of her +motor cars, which had been commandeered by the Government, she did not +know which way to turn or even how to get into communication with her +one possible protector. + +But her brother-in-law suddenly bethought himself of this too lovely +creature who would be exposed to the final horrors of recrudescent +barbarism if the Germans entered Paris; he determined to put public +demands aside for the moment and take her to Dinard, whence she could, +if necessary, cross to England. + +He called her on the telephone and told her to be ready at a certain +hour that afternoon, and with as little luggage as possible, as they +must travel by automobile. "And mark you," he added, "no dogs!" Madame +Balli had seven little Pekinese to which she was devoted (her only +child was at school in England). She protested bitterly at leaving her +pets behind, but her brother was inexorable, and when he called for +her it was with the understanding that all seven were yelping in the +rear, at the mercy of the concièrge. + +There were seven passengers in the automobile, however, of which the +anxious driver, feeling his way through the crowded streets and +apprehensive that his car might be impressed at any moment, had not a +suspicion. They were in hat boxes, hastily perforated portmanteaux, up +the coat sleeves of Madame Balli and her maid, and they did not begin +to yelp until so far on the road to the north that it was not worth +while to throw them out. + + +III + + +At Dinard, where wounded soldiers were brought in on every train, +Madame Balli was turned over to friends, and in a day or two, being +bored and lonely, she concluded to go with these friends to the +hospitals and take cigarettes and smiles into the barren wards. From +that day until I left Paris on the seventeenth of August, 1916, Madame +Balli had labored unceasingly; she is known to the Government as one +of its most valuable and resourceful aids; and she works until two in +the morning, during the quieter hours, with her correspondence and +books (the police descend at frequent and irregular intervals to +examine the books of all oeuvres, and one mistake means being haled to +court), and she had not up to that time taken a day's rest. I have +seen her so tired she could hardly go on, and she said once quite +pathetically, "I am not even well-groomed any more." I frequently +straightened her dress in the back, for her maids work almost as hard +as she does. When her husband died, a year after the war broke out, +and she found herself no longer a rich woman, her maids offered to +stay with her on reduced wages and work for her oeuvres, being so +deeply attached to her that they would have remained for no wages at +all if she had really been poor. I used to beg her to go to Vichy for +a fortnight, but she would not hear of it. Certain things depended +upon her alone, and she must remain at her post unless she broke down +utterly.[A] + + [A] She is still hard at work, June, 1917. + +One of her friends said to me: "Hélène must really be a tremendously +strong woman. Before the war we all thought her a semi-invalid who +pulled herself together at night for the opera, or dinners, or balls. +But we didn't know her then, and sometimes we feel as if we knew her +still less now." + +It was Madame Balli who invented the "comfort package" which other +organizations have since developed into the "comfort bag," and founded +the oeuvre known as "Réconfort du Soldat." Her committee consists of +Mrs. Frederick H. Allen of New York, who has a home in Paris and is +identified with many war charities; Mrs. Edward Tuck, who has lived in +and given munificently to France for thirty years; Madame Paul Dupuy, +who was Helen Brown of New York and has her own oeuvre for supplying +war-surgeons with rubber, oil-cloth, invalid chairs, etc.; the +Marquise de Noialles, President of a large oeuvre somewhat similar to +Madame Dupuy's; the Comtesse de Fels, Madame Brun, and Mr. +Holman-Black, an American who has lived the greater part of his life +in France. Mrs. Willard sends her supplies from New York by every +steamer. + +Madame Balli also has a long list of contributors to this and her +other oeuvres, who sometimes pay their promised dues and sometimes do +not, so that she is obliged to call on her committee (who have a +hundred other demands) or pay the deficit out of her own pocket. A +certain number of American contributors send her things regularly +through Mrs. Allen or Mrs. Willard, and occasionally some generous +outsider gives her a donation. I was told that the Greek Colony in +Paris had been most generous; and while I was there she published in +one of the newspapers an appeal for a hundred pillows for a hospital +in which she was interested, and received in the course of the next +three days over four hundred. + + +IV + + +I went with her one day to one of the éclopé stations and to the Dépôt +des Isolés, outside of Paris, to help her distribute comfort +packages--which, by the way, covered the top of the automobile and +were piled so high inside that we disposed ourselves with some +difficulty. These packages, all neatly tied, and of varying sizes, +were in the nature of surprise bags of an extremely practical order. +Tobacco, pipes, cigarettes, chocolate, toothbrushes, soap, +pocket-knives, combs, safety-pins, handkerchiefs, needles-and-thread, +buttons, pocket mirrors, post-cards, pencils, are a few of the +articles I recall. The members of the Committee meet at her house +twice a week to do up the bundles, and her servants, also, do a great +deal of the practical work. + +It was a long drive through Paris and to the dépôts beyond. A year +before we should have been held up at the point of the bayonet every +few yards, but in 1916 we rolled on unhindered. Paris is no longer in +the War Zone, although as we passed the fortifications we saw men +standing beside the upward pointing guns, and I was told that this +vigilance does not relax day or night. + +Later, I shall have much to say about the éclopés, but it is enough +to explain here that "éclopé," in the new adaptation of the word, +stands for a man who is not wounded, or ill enough for a military +hospital, but for whom a brief rest in comfortable quarters is +imperative. The stations provided for them, principally through the +instrumentality of another remarkable Frenchwoman, Mlle. Javal, now +number about one hundred and thirty, and are either behind the lines +or in the neighborhood of Paris or other large cities. The one we +visited, Le Bourget, is among the largest and most important, and the +Commandant, M. de L'Horme, is as interested as a father in his +children. The yard when we arrived was full of soldiers, some about to +march out and entrain for the front, others still loafing, and M. de +L'Horme seemed to know each by name. + +The comfort packages are always given to the men returning to their +regiments on that particular day. They are piled high on a long table +at one side of the barrack yard, and behind it on the day of my visit +stood Madame Balli, Mrs. Allen, Mr. Holman-Black and myself, and we +handed out packages with a "Bonne chance" as the men filed by. Some +were sullen and unresponsive, but many more looked as pleased as +children and no doubt were as excited over their "grabs," which they +were not to open until in the train. They would face death on the +morrow, but for the moment at least they were personal and titillated. + +Close by was a small munition factory, and a large loft had been +turned into a rest-room for such of the éclopés as it was thought +advisable to put to bed for a few days under medical supervision. To +each of these we gave several of the black cigarettes dear to the +tobacco-proof heart of the Frenchman, a piece of soap, three picture +post-cards, and chocolate. I think they were as glad of the visits as +of the presents, for most of them were too far from home to receive +any personal attention from family or friends. The beds looked +comfortable and all the windows were open. + +From there we went to the Dépôt des Isolés, an immense enclosure where +men from shattered regiments are sent for a day or two until they can +be returned to the front to fill gaps in other regiments. Nowhere, not +even in the War Zone, did war show to me a grimmer face than here. As +these men are in good health and tarry barely forty-eight hours, +little is done for their comfort. Soldiers in good condition are not +encouraged to expect comforts in war time, and no doubt the discipline +is good for them--although, heaven knows, the French as a race know +little about comfort at any time. + +There were cots in some of the barracks, but there were also large +spaces covered with straw, and here men had flung themselves down as +they entered, without unstrapping the heavy loads they carried on +their backs. They were sleeping soundly. Every bed was occupied by a +sprawling figure in his stained, faded, muddy uniform. I saw one +superb and turbaned Algerian sitting upright in an attitude of extreme +dignity, and as oblivious to war and angels of mercy as a dead man in +the trenches. + +Two English girls, the Miss Gracies, had opened a cantine at this +dépôt. Women have these cantines in all the éclopé and isolé stations +where permission of the War Office can be obtained, and not only give +freely of hot coffee and cocoa, bread, cakes and lemonade, to those +weary men as they come in, but also have made their little sheds look +gaily hospitable with flags and pictures. The Miss Gracies had even +induced some one to build an open air theater in the great barrack +yard where the men could amuse themselves and one another if they felt +inclined. A more practical gift by Mrs. Allen was a bath house in +which were six showers and soap and towels. + +It was a dirty yard we stood in this time, handing out gifts, and when +I saw Mrs. Allen buying a whole wheelbarrow-load of golden-looking +doughnuts, brought by a woman of the village close by, I wondered with +some apprehension if she were meaning to reward us for our excessive +virtue. But they were an impromptu treat for the soldiers standing in +the yard--some already lined up to march--and the way they disappeared +down those brown throats made me feel blasée and over-civilized. + +I did not hand out during this little fête, my place being taken by +Mrs. Thayer of Boston, so I was better able to appreciate the picture. +All the women were pretty, and I wondered if Madame Balli had chosen +them as much for their esthetic appeal to the exacting French mind as +for their willingness to help. It was a strange sight, that line of +charming women with kind bright eyes, and, although simply dressed, +stamped with the world they moved in, while standing and lying about +were the tired and dirty poilus--even those that stood were slouching +as if resting their backs while they could--with their uniforms of +horizon blue faded to an ugly gray, streaked and patched. They had not +seen a decent woman for months, possibly not a woman at all, and it +was no wonder they followed every movement of these smiling +benefactresses with wondering, adoring, or cynical eyes. + +But, I repeat, to me it was an ill-favored scene, and the fact that it +was a warm and peaceful day, with a radiant blue sky above, merely +added to the irony. Although later I visited the War Zone three times +and saw towns crowded with soldiers off duty, or as empty as old gray +shells, nothing induced in me the same vicious stab of hatred for war +as this scene. There is only one thing more abominable than war and +that is the pacificist doctrine of non-resistance when duty and honor +call. Every country, no doubt, has its putrescent spots caused by +premature senility, but no country so far has shown itself as wholly +crumbling in an age where the world is still young. + + +V + + +A few days later I went with Madame Balli and Mr. Holman-Black to the +military hospital, Chaptal, devoted to the men whose faces had been +mutilated. The first room was an immense apartment with an open space +beyond the beds filled to-day with men who crowded about Madame Balli, +as much to get that personal word and smile from her, which the French +soldier so pathetically places above all gifts, as to have the first +choice of a pipe or knife. + +After I had distributed the usual little presents of cigarettes, +chocolate, soap, and post-cards among the few still in bed, I sat on +the outside of Madame Balli's mob and talked to one of the +infirmières. She was a Frenchwoman married to an Irishman who was +serving in the British navy, and her sons were in the trenches. She +made a remark to me that I was destined to hear very often: + +"Oh, yes, we work hard, and we are only too glad to do what we can for +France; but, my God! what would become of us if we remained idle and +let our minds dwell upon our men at the Front? We should go mad. As it +is, we are so tired at night that we sleep, and the moment we awaken +we are on duty again. I can assure you the harder we have to work the +more grateful we are." + +She looked very young and pretty in her infirmière uniform of white +linen with a veil of the same stiff material and the red cross on her +breast, and it was odd to hear that sons of hers were in the trenches. + +After that nearly all the men in the different wards we visited were +in bed, and each room was worse than the last, until it was almost a +relief to come to the one where the men had just been operated on and +were so bandaged that any features they may have had left were +indistinguishable. + +For the uncovered faces were horrible. I was ill all night, not only +from the memory of the sickening sights with which I had remained +several hours in a certain intimacy--for I went to assist Madame Balli +and took the little gifts to every bedside--but from rage against the +devilish powers that unloosed this horror upon the world. One of the +grim ironies of this war is that the Hohenzollerns and the junkers are +so constituted mentally that they never will be haunted with awful +visions like those that visited the more plastic conscience of Charles +IX after St. Bartholomew; but at least it will be some compensation to +picture them rending the air with lamentations over their own downfall +and hurling curses at their childish folly. + +It is the bursting of shrapnel that causes the face mutilations, +and although the first room we visited at Chaptal was a witness +to the marvelous restorative work the surgeons are able to +accomplish--sometimes--many weeks and even months must elapse while +the face is not only red and swollen, but twisted, the mouth almost +parallel with the nose--and often there is no nose--a whole cheek +missing, an eye gone, or both; sometimes the whole mouth and chin have +been blown away; and I saw one face that had nothing on its flat +surface but a pipe inserted where the nose had been. Another was so +terrible that I did not dare to take a second look, and I have only a +vague and mercifully fading impression of a hideousness never before +seen in this world. + +On the other hand I saw a man propped up in bed, with one entire side +of his face bandaged, his mouth twisted almost into his right ear, and +a mere remnant of nose, reading a newspaper with his remaining eye and +apparently quite happy. + +The infirmière told me that sometimes the poor fellows would cry--they +are almost all very young--and lament that no girl would have them +now; but she always consoled them by the assurance that men would be +so scarce after the war that girls would take anything they could get. + +In one of the wards a young soldier was sitting on the edge of his +cot, receiving his family, two women of middle age and a girl of about +seventeen. His face was bandaged down to the bridge of his nose, but +the lower part was uninjured. He may or may not have been permanently +blind. The two older women--his mother and aunt, no doubt--looked +stolid, as women of that class always do, but the girl sat staring +straight before her with an expression of bitter resentment I shall +never forget. She looked as if she were giving up every youthful +illusion, and realized that Life is the enemy of man, and more +particularly of woman. Possibly her own lover was in the trenches. Or +perhaps this mutilated boy beside her was the first lover of her +youth. One feels far too impersonal for curiosity in these hospitals +and it did not occur to me to ask. + +Madame Balli had also brought several boxes of delicacies for the +private kitchen of the infirmières, where fine dishes may be concocted +for appetites still too weak to be tempted by ordinary hospital fare: +soup extract, jellies, compotes, cocoa, preserves, etc. Mr. +Holman-Black came staggering after us with one of these boxes, I +remember, down the long corridor that led to the private quarters of +the nurses. One walks miles in these hospitals. + +A number of American men in Paris are working untiringly for Paris, +notably those in our War Relief Clearing House--H.O. Beatty, Randolph +Mordecai, James R. Barbour, M.P. Peixotto, Ralph Preston, Whitney +Warren, Hugh R. Griffen, James Hazen Hyde, Walter Abbott, Charles R. +Scott, J.J. Hoff, Rev. Dr. S.N. Watson, George Munroe, Charles +Carroll, J. Ridgeley Carter, H. Herman Harges--but I never received +from any the same sense of consecration, of absolute selflessness as I +did from Mr. Holman-Black. He and his brother have a beautiful little +hôtel, and for many years before the war were among the most brilliant +contributors to the musical life of the great capital; but there has +been no entertaining in those charming rooms since August, 1914. Mr. +Holman-Black is parrain (godfather) to three hundred and twenty +soldiers at the Front, not only providing them with winter and summer +underclothing, bedding, sleeping-suits, socks, and all the lighter +articles they have the privilege of asking for, but also writing from +fifteen to twenty letters to his filleuls daily. He, too, has not +taken a day's vacation since the outbreak of the war, nor read a book. +He wears the uniform of a Red Cross officer, and is associated with +several of Madame Balli's oeuvres. + + +VI + + +A few days later Madame Balli took me to another hospital--Hôpital +Militaire Villemin--where she gives a concert once a week. Practically +all the men that gathered in the large room to hear the music, or +crowded before the windows, were well and would leave shortly for the +front, but a few were brought in on stretchers and lay just below the +platform. This hospital seemed less dreary to me than most of those I +had visited, and the yard was full of fine trees. It was also an +extremely cheerful afternoon, for not only was the sun shining, but +the four artists Madame Balli had brought gave of their best and their +efforts to amuse were greeted with shouts of laughter. + +Lyse Berty--the most distinguished vaudeville artist in France and who +is certainly funnier than any woman on earth--had got herself up in +horizon blue, and was the hit of the afternoon. The men forgot war and +the horrors of war and surrendered to her art and her selections with +an abandon which betrayed their superior intelligence, for she is a +very plain woman. Miss O'Brien, an Irish girl who has spent her life +in Paris and looks like the pictures in some old Book of +Beauty--immense blue eyes, tiny regular features, small oval face, +chestnut hair, pink-and-white skin, and a tall "willowy" figure--was +second in their critical esteem, because she did not relieve their +monotonous life with fun, but sang, instead, sweet or stirring songs +in a really beautiful voice. The other two, young entertainers of the +vaudeville stage, were not so accomplished but were applauded +politely, and as they possessed a liberal share of the grace and charm +of the Frenchwoman and were exquisitely dressed, no doubt men still +recall them on dreary nights in trenches. + +I sat on the platform and watched at close range the faces of these +soldiers of France. They were all from the people, of course, but +there was not a face that was not alive with quick intelligence, and +it struck me anew--as it always did when I had an opportunity to see a +large number of Frenchmen together at close range--how little one face +resembled the other. The French are a race of individuals. There is no +type. It occurred to me that if during my lifetime the reins of all +the Governments, my own included, were seized by the people, I should +move over and trust my destinies to the proletariat of France. Their +lively minds and quick sympathies would make their rule tolerable at +least. As I have said before, the race has genius. + +After we had distributed the usual gifts, I concluded to drive home in +the car of the youngest of the vaudeville artists, as taxis in that +region were nonexistent, and Madame Balli and Mr. Holman-Black would +be detained for another hour. Mademoiselle Berty was with us, and in +the midst of the rapid conversation--which never slackened!--she made +some allusion to the son of this little artist, and I exclaimed +involuntarily: + +"You married? I never should have imagined it." + +Why on earth I ever made such a banal remark to a French +vaudevilliste, whose clothes, jewels, and automobile represented an +income as incompatible with fixed salaries as with war time, I cannot +imagine. Automatic Americanism, no doubt. + +Mlle. Berty lost no time correcting me. "Oh, Hortense is not married," +she merely remarked. "But she has a splendid son--twelve years old." + +Being the only embarrassed member of the party, I hastened to assure +the girl that I had thought she was about eighteen and was astonished +to hear that she had a child of any age. But twelve! She turned to me +with a gentle and deprecatory smile. + +"I loved very young," she explained. + + +VII + + +Chaptal and Villemin are only two of Madame Balli's hospitals. I +believe she visits others, carrying gifts to both the men and the +kitchens, but the only other of her works that I came into personal +contact with was an oeuvre she had organized to teach convalescent +soldiers, mutilated or otherwise, how to make bead necklaces. These +are really beautiful and are another of her own inventions. + +Up in the front bedroom of her charming home in the Avenue Henri +Martin is a table covered with boxes filled with glass beads of every +color. Here Madame Balli, with a group of friends, sits during all her +spare hours and begins the necklaces which the soldiers come for and +take back to the hospital to finish. I sat in the background and +watched the men come in--many of them with the _Croix de Guerre,_ the +_Croix de la Legion d'Honneur,_ or the _Medaille Militaire_ pinned on +their faded jackets. I listened to brief definite instructions of +Madame Balli, who may have the sweetest smile in the world, but who +knows what she wants people to do and invariably makes them do it. I +saw no evidence of stupidity or slackness in these young soldiers; +they might have been doing bead-work all their lives, they combined +the different colors and sizes so deftly and with such true artistic +feeling. + +Madame Balli has sold hundreds of these necklaces. She has a case at +the Ritz Hotel, and she has constant orders from friends and their +friends, and even from dressmakers; for these trinkets are as nearly +works of art as anything so light may be. The men receive a certain +percentage of the profits and will have an ample purse when they leave +the hospital. Another portion goes to buy delicacies for their less +fortunate comrades--and this idea appeals to them immensely--the rest +goes to buy more beads at the glittering shops on the Rue du Rivoli. +The necklaces bring from five to eight or ten dollars. The soldiers in +many of the hospitals are doing flat beadwork, which is ingenious and +pretty; but nothing compares with these necklaces of Madame Balli, and +some of the best dressed American women in Paris are wearing them. + + +VIII + + +On the twentieth of July (1916) _Le Figaro_ devoted an article to +Madame Balli's Réconfort du Soldat, and stated that it was +distributing about six hundred packages a week to soldiers in +hospitals and éclopé dépôts, and that during the month of January +alone nine thousand six hundred packages were distributed both behind +the lines and among the soldiers at the Front. This may go on for +years or it may come to an abrupt end; but, like all the Frenchwomen +to whom I talked, and who when they plunged into work expected a short +war, she is determined to do her part as long as the soldiers do +theirs, even if the war marches with the term of her natural life. She +not only has given a great amount of practical help, but has done her +share in keeping up the morale of the men, who, buoyant by nature as +they are, and passionately devoted to their country, must have many +discouraged moments in their hospitals and dépôts. + +Once or twice when swamped with work--she is also a marraine +(godmother) and writes regularly to her filleuls--Madame Balli has +sent the weekly gifts by friends; but the protest was so decided, the +men declaring that her personal sympathy meant more to them than +cigarettes and soap, that she was forced to adjust her affairs in such +a manner that no visit to a hospital at least should be missed. + +It is doubtful if any of these men who survive and live to tell tales +of the Great War in their old age will ever omit to recall the +gracious presence and lovely face of Madame Balli, who came so often +to make them forget the sad monotony of their lives, even the pain in +their mutilated limbs, the agony behind their disfigured faces, during +those long months they spent in the hospitals of Paris. And although +her beauty has always been a pleasure to the eye, perhaps it is now +for the first time paying its great debt to Nature. + + + + +II + +THE SILENT ARMY + +I + + +Madame Paquin, the famous French dressmaker, told me casually an +incident that epitomizes the mental inheritance of the women of a +military nation once more plunged abruptly into war. + +Her home is in Neuilly, one of the beautiful suburbs of Paris, and for +years when awake early in the morning it had been her habit to listen +for the heavy creaking of the great wagons that passed her house on +their way from the gardens and orchards of the open country to the +markets of Paris. Sometimes she would arise and look at them, those +immense heavy trucks loaded high above their walls with the luscious +produce of the fertile soil of France. On the seats were always three +or four sturdy men: the farmer, and the sons who would help him unload +at the "Halles." + +All these men, of course, were reservists. Mobilization took place on +Sunday. On Monday morning Madame Paquin, like many others in that +anxious city, was tossing restlessly on her bed when she heard the +familiar creaking of the market wagons which for so many years had +done their share in feeding the hungry and fastidious people of Paris. +Knowing that every able-bodied man had disappeared from his usual +haunts within a few hours after the Mobilization Order was posted, she +sprang out of bed and looked through her blinds. + +There in the dull gray mist of the early morning she saw the familiar +procession. There were the big trucks drawn by the heavily built cart +horses and piled high with the abundant but precisely picked and +packed produce of the market gardens. Paris was to be fed as usual. +People must eat, war or no war. In spite of the summons which had +excited the brains and depressed the hearts of a continent those +trucks were playing their part in human destiny, not even claiming the +right to be five minutes late. The only difference was that the seats +on this gloomy August morning of 1914 were occupied by large stolid +peasant women, the wives and sisters and sweethearts of the men called +to the colors. They had mobilized themselves as automatically as the +Government had ordered out its army when the German war god deflowered +our lady of peace. + +These women may have carried heavy hearts under their bright coifs and +cotton blouses, but their weather-beaten faces betrayed nothing but +the stoical determination to get their supplies to the Halles at the +usual hour. And they have gone by every morning since. Coifs and +blouses have turned black, but the hard brown faces betray nothing, +and they are never late. + + +II + + +Up in the Champagne district, although many of the vineyards were in +valleys between the two contending armies, the women undertook to care +for the vines when the time came, risking their lives rather than +sacrifice the next year's vintage. Captain Sweeney of the Foreign +Legion told me that when the French soldiers were not firing they +amused themselves watching these women pruning and trimming as +fatalistically as if guns were not thundering east and west of them, +shells singing overhead. For the most part they were safe enough, and +nerves had apparently been left out of them; but once in a while the +Germans would amuse themselves raking the valley with the guns. Then +the women would simply throw themselves flat and remain +motionless--sometimes for hours--until "Les Boches" concluded to waste +no more ammunition. + +In Rheims the women have never closed their shops. They have covered +their windows with sandbags, and by the light of lamp or candle do a +thriving business while the big guns thunder. The soldiers, both +British and French, like their trinkets and post-cards, to say nothing +of more practical objects, and, admiring their inveterate pluck, not +only patronize them liberally but sit in their coverts and gossip or +flirt with the pretty girls for whom shells bursting in the street are +too old a story for terror. + +[Illustration: DELIVERING THE MILK IN RHEIMS] + + +III + + +Many of the women of the industrial classes who have been accustomed +all their hard dry lives to live on the daily wage of father or +husband have refused to work since the war began, preferring to +scrape along on the Government allocation (allowance) of +one-franc-twenty-five a day for the wives of soldiers, plus fifty +centimes for each child (seventy-five in Paris). These notable +exceptions will be dealt with later. France, like all nations, +contains every variety of human nature, and, with its absence of +illusions and its habit of looking facts almost cynically in the face, +would be the last to claim perfection or even to conceal its +infirmities. But the right side of its shield is very bright indeed, +and the hands of many millions of women, delicate and toil-hardened, +have labored to make it shine once more in history. + +The Mayoress of a small town near Paris told me of three instances +that came within her personal observation, and expressed no surprise +at one or the other. She probably would not have thought them worth +mentioning if she had not been asked expressly to meet me and give me +certain information. One was of a woman whose husband had been a +wage-earner, and, with six or eight children, had been able to save +nothing. The allocation was not declared at once and this woman lost +no time bewailing her fate or looking about for charitable groups of +ladies to feed her with soup. She simply continued to run her +husband's estaminet (wine-shop), and, as the patronage was +necessarily diminished, was one of the first to apply when munition +factories invited women to fill the vacant places of men. She chose to +work at night that she might keep the estaminet open by day for the +men too old to fight and for the rapidly increasing number of +"réformés": those who had lost a leg or arm or were otherwise +incapacited for service. + +A sister, who lived in Paris, immediately applied for one of the +thousand vacant posts in bakeries, cut bread and buttered it and made +toast for a tea-room in the afternoon, and found another job to sweep +out stores. This woman had a son still under age but in training at +the Front. He had been in the habit of paying her periodical visits, +until this woman, already toiling beyond her strength to support her +other children, sat down one day and wrote to the boy's commanding +officer asking him to permit no more leaves of absence, as the ordeal +was too much for both of them. + +The third story was of a woman whom the Mayoress had often +entertained in her homes, both official and private. When this +woman, who had lived a life of such ease as the mother of eleven +children may, was forced to take over the conduct of her husband's +business (he was killed immediately) she discovered that he had been +living on his capital, and when his estate was settled her only +inheritance was a small wine-shop in Paris. She packed her trunks, +spent what little money she had left on twelve railway tickets for +the capital, and settled her brood in the small quarters behind the +estaminet--fortunately the lessee, who was unmarried, had also been +swept off to the Front. + +The next morning she reopened the doors and stood smiling behind the +counter. The place was well stocked. It was a long while before she +was obliged to spend any of her intake on aught but food and lights. +So charming a hostess did she prove that her little shop was never +empty and quickly became famous. She had been assured of a decent +living long since. + + +IV + + +When I arrived in Paris in May (1916) a little girl had just been +decorated by the President of the Republic. Her father, the village +baker, had made one of those lightning changes from citizen to soldier +and her mother had died a few weeks before. She was an only child. The +bakery had supplied not only the village but the neighboring inn, +which had been a favorite lunching place for automobilists. Traveling +for pleasure stopped abruptly, but as the road that passed the inn was +one of the direct routes to the Front, it still had many hasty calls +upon its hospitality. + +Now, bread-making in France is a science, the work of the expert, not +of the casual housewife. The accomplished cook of the inn knew no more +about mixing and baking bread than he did of washing clothes; and +there was but this one bakery, hitherto sufficient, for the baker and +his wife had been strong and industrious. The inn was in despair. The +village was in despair. A Frenchman will go without meat, but life +without bread is unthinkable. + +No one thought of the child. + +It is possible that in her double grief she did not think of +herself--for twenty-four hours. But the second day after mobilization +her shop window was piled high with loaves as usual. The inn was +supplied. The village was supplied. This little girl worked steadily +and unaided at her task, until her father, a year later, returned +minus a leg to give her assistance of a sort. + +The business of the bakery was nearly doubled during that time. +Automobiles containing officers, huge camions with soldiers packed +like coffee-beans, foot-weary marching regiments, with no time to stop +for a meal, halted a moment and bought the stock on hand. But with +only a few hours' sleep the girl toiled on valiantly and no applicant +for bread was turned empty-handed from the now famous bakery. + +How she kept up her childish strength and courage without a moment's +change in her routine and on insufficient sleep can only be explained +by the twin facts that she came of hardy peasant stock, and, like all +French children, no matter how individual, was too thoroughly imbued +with the discipline of "The Family" to shirk for a moment the +particular task that war had brought her. This iron discipline of The +Family, one of the most salient characteristics of the French, is +largely responsible for the matter-of-fact way in which every soldier +of France, reservist or regular, and whatever his political +convictions, has risen to this ordeal. And in him as been inculcated +from birth patience and perseverance as well as loyalty to his beloved +flag. + +The wives of hotel and shop keepers as well as the women of the farms +have by far the best of it in time of war. The former are always their +husband's partners, controlling the money, consulted at ever step. +When the tocsin rings and the men disappear they simply go on. Their +task may be doubled and they may be forced to employ girls instead of +men, but there is no mental readjusting. + +The women of the farms have always worked as hard as the men. Their +doubled tasks involve a greater drain on their physical energies than +the petite bourgeoise suffers, especially in those districts +devastated by the first German invasion--the valley of the Marne. But +they are very hardy, and they too hang on, for stoicism is the +fundamental characteristic of the French. + +This stoicism as well as the unrivaled mental suppleness was +illustrated early in the war by the highly typical case of a laundress +whose business was in one of the best districts of Paris. + +In France no washing is done in the house. This, no doubt, is one of +the reasons why one's laundry bills, even on a brief visit, are among +the major items, for _les blanchisseuses_ are a power in the land. +When I was leaving Paris the directrice of the École Feminine in +Passy, which had been my home for three months, suggested delicately +that I leave a tip for the laundress, for, said this practical person, +herself a sufferer from many forms of imposition, "she has been +extremely complaisante in coming every week for Madame's wash." I +remarked that the laundress might reasonably feel some gratitude to me +for adding weekly to her curtailed income; but my smiling directrice +shook her head. The favor, it appeared, was all on the other side. So, +although I had tipped the many girls of my unique boarding-place with +pleasure I parted with the sum designated for my patronizing laundress +with no grace whatever. + +But to return to the heroine of the story told me by Mrs. Armstrong +Whitney, one of the many American women living in Paris who are +working for France. + +This laundress had a very large business, in partnership with her +husband. Nobody was expected to bring the family washing to her door, +nor even to send a servant. The linen was called for and delivered, +for this prosperous firm owned several large trucks and eight or ten +strong horses. + +War was declared. This woman's husband and all male employees were +mobilized. Her horses were commandeered. So were her trucks. Many of +her wealthier patrons were already in the country and remained there, +both for economy's sake and to encourage and help the poor of their +villages and farms. The less fortunate made shift to do their washing +at home. Nevertheless there were patrons who still needed her +services at least once a fortnight. + +This good woman may have had her moments of despair. If so, the world +never knew it. She began at once to adjust herself to the new +conditions and examine her resources. She importuned the Government +until, to be rid of her, they returned two of her horses. She rented a +cart and employed girls suddenly thrown out of work, to take the place +of the vanished men. The business limped on but it never ceased for a +moment; and as the months passed it assumed a firmer gait. People +returned from the country, finding that they could be more useful in +Paris as members of one or other of a thousand oeuvres; and they were +of the class that must have clean linen if the skies fall. Also, many +Americans who had fled ignominiously to England returned and plunged +into work. And Americans, with their characteristic extravagance in +lingerie, are held in high esteem by _les blanchisseuses_. + +Further assaults upon the amiable Government resulted in the return of +more horses and one or two trucks. To-day, while the business by no +means swaggers, this woman, thanks to her indomitable courage and +energy, combined with the economical habit and the financial genius of +the French, has ridden safely over the rocks into as snug a little +harbor as may be found in any country at war. + + +III + +THE MUNITION MAKERS + +I + + +Aside from the industrial class the women who suffered most at the +outbreak of the war were those that worked in the shops. Paris is a +city of little shops. The average American tourist knows them not, for +her hectic experiences in the old days were confined to the Galeries +Lafayette, the Louvre, the Bon Marché, and the Trois Quartièrs. But +during the greater part of 1915 street after street exhibited the +dreary picture of shuttered windows, where once every sort of +delicate, solid, ingenious, costly, or catch-penny ware was displayed. +Some of these were closed because the owner had no wife, many because +the factories that supplied them were closed, or the workmen no longer +could be paid. To-day one sees few of these wide iron shutters except +at night, but the immediate consequence of the sudden change of the +nation's life was that thousands of girls and women were thrown out of +work: clerks, cashiers, dressmakers' assistants, artificial flower +makers, florists, confectioners, workers in the fancy shops, makers of +fine lingerie, extra servants and waitresses in the unfashionable but +numerous restaurants. And then there were the women of the opera +chorus, and those connected with the theater; and not only the +actresses' and the actors' families, but the wives of scene shifters +sent off to the trenches, and of all the other humble folk employed +about theaters, great and small. + +The poor of France do not invest their money in savings' banks. They +buy bonds. On the Monday after mobilization the banks of France +announced that they would buy no bonds. These poor bewildered women +would have starved if the women of the more fortunate classes had not +immediately begun to organize relief stations and ouvroirs. + +Madame Lepauze, better known to the reading public of France as Daniel +Lesauer, who is also the wife of the curator of the Petit Palais, was +the first to open a restaurant for soup, and this was besieged from +morning until night even before the refugees from Belgium and the +invaded districts of France began to pour in. Her home is in the Petit +Palais, and in the public gardens behind was Le Pavillion, one of the +prettiest and most popular restaurants of Paris. She made no bones +about asking the proprietor to place the restaurant and all that +remained of his staff at her disposal, and hastily organizing a +committee, began at once to ladle out soup. Many other dépôts were +organized almost simultaneously (and not only in Paris but in the +provincial towns), and when women were too old or too feeble to come +for their daily ration it was left at their doors by carts containing +immense boilers of that nourishing soup only the French know how to +make. + +Madame Lepauze estimates that her station alone fed a million women +and children. Moreover, she and all the other women engaged in this +patriotic duty had soon depleted their wardrobes after the refugees +began streaming down from the north; it was generally said that not a +lady in Paris had more than one useful dress left and that was on her +back. + +Many of these charitable women fled to the South during that +breathless period when German occupation seemed inevitable, but +others, like Madame Pierre Goujon, of whom I shall have much to say +later, and the Countess Greffuhle (a member of the valiant Chimay +family of Belgium), stuck to their posts and went about publicly in +order to give courage to the millions whose poverty forced them to +remain. + + +II + + +The next step in aiding this army of helpless women was to open +ouvroirs, or workrooms. Madame Paquin never closed this great branch +of her dressmaking establishment, and, in common with hundreds of +other ouvroirs that sprang up all over France, paid the women a wage +on which they could exist (besides giving them one meal) in return for +at least half a day's work on necessary articles for the men in the +trenches: underclothing, sleeping bags, felt slippers, night garments; +sheets and pillow-cases for the hospitals. As the vast majority of +the peasant farmers and petite bourgeoisie had been used to sleeping +in airtight rooms they suffered bitterly during that first long winter +and spring in the open. If it had not been for these bee-hive ouvroirs +and their enormous output there would have been far more deaths from +pneumonia and bronchitis, and far more cases of tuberculosis than +there were. + +A good many of these ouvroirs are still in existence, but many have +been closed; for as the shops reopened the women not only went back to +their former situations but by degrees either applied for or were +invited to fill those left vacant by men of fighting age. + + +III + + +And then there were the munition factories! The manager of one of +these _Usines de Guerre_ in Paris told me that he made the experiment +of employing women with the deepest misgiving. Those seeking positions +were just the sort of women he would have rejected if the sturdy women +of the farms had applied and given him any choice. They were girls or +young married women who had spent all the working years of their lives +stooping over sewing-machines; sunken chested workers in artificial +flowers; confectioners; florists; waitresses; clerks. One and all +looked on the verge of a decline with not an ounce of reserve vitality +for work that taxed the endurance of men. But as they protested that +they not only wished to support themselves instead of living on +charity, but were passionately desirous of doing their bit while their +men were enduring the dangers and privations of active warfare, and as +his men were being withdrawn daily for service at the Front, he made +up his mind to employ them and refill their places as rapidly as they +collapsed. + +He took me over his great establishment and showed me the result. It +was one of the astonishing examples not only of the grim courage of +women under pressure but of that nine-lived endowment of the female in +which the male never can bring himself to believe save only when +confronted by practical demonstration. + +In the correspondence and card-indexing room there was a little army +of young and middle-aged women whose superior education enabled them +to do a long day's work with the minimum output of physical energy, +and these for the most part came from solid middle-class families +whose income had been merely cut by the war, not extinguished. It was +as I walked along the galleries and down the narrow passages between +the noisy machinery of the rest of that large factory that I asked the +superintendent again and again if these women were of the same class +as the original applicants. The answer in every case was the same. + +The women had high chests and brawny arms. They tossed thirty-and +forty-pound shells from one to the other as they once may have tossed +a cluster of artificial flowers. Their skins were clean and often +ruddy. Their eyes were bright. They showed no signs whatever of +overwork. They were almost without exception the original applicants. + +[Illustration: MAKING THE SHELLS] + +I asked the superintendent if there were no danger of heart strain. He +said there had been no sign of it so far. Three times a week they were +inspected by women doctors appointed by the Government, and any little +disorder was attended to at once. But not one had been ill a day. +Those that had suffered from chronic dyspepsia, colds, and tubercular +tendency were now as strong as if they had lived their lives on farms. +It was all a question of plenty of fresh air, and work that +strengthened the muscles of their bodies, developed their chests and +gave them stout nerves and long nights of sleep. + +As I looked at those bare heavily muscled arms I wondered if any man +belonging to them would ever dare say his soul was his own again. But +as their heads are always charmingly dressed (an odd effect +surmounting greasy overalls) and as they invariably powder before +filing out at the end of the day's work, it is probable that a +comfortable reliance may still be placed upon the ineradicable +coquetry of the French woman. And the scarcer the men in the future +the more numerous, no doubt, will be the layers of powder. + +I asked one pretty girl if she really liked the heavy, dirty, +malodorous work, and she replied that making boutonnières for +gentlemen in a florist-shop was paradise by contrast, but she was only +too happy to be doing as much for France in her way as her brother +was in his. She added that when the war was over she should take off +her blue linen apron streaked with machine grease once for all, not +remain from choice as many would. But meanwhile it was not so bad! She +made ten francs a day. Some of the women received as high as fifteen. +Moreover, they bossed the few men whose brawn was absolutely +indispensable and must be retained in the _usine_ at all costs. + +These men took their orders meekly. Perhaps they were amused. The +French are an ironic race. Perhaps they bided their time. But they +never dreamed of disobeying those Amazons whose foot the Kaiser of all +the Boches had placed on their necks. + + +IV + + +One of the greatest of these _Usines de Guerre_ is at Lyons, in the +buildings of the Exposition held shortly before the outbreak of the +war. I went to this important Southern city (a beautiful city, which I +shall always associate with the scent of locust[B]-blossoms) at the +suggestion of James Hazen Hyde. He gave me a letter to the famous +Mayor, M. Herriot, who was a member of the last Briand Cabinet. + + [B] It is called acacia in Europe. + +M. Herriot was also a Senator, and as he was leaving for Paris a few +hours after I presented my letter he turned me over to a friend of his +wife, Madame Castell, a native of Lyons, the daughter of one silk +merchant and the widow of another. This charming young woman, who had +spent her married life in New York, by the way, took me everywhere, +and although we traversed many vast distances in the Mayor's +automobile, it seemed to me that I walked as many miles in hospitals, +factories, ateliers (workrooms for teaching the mutilated new trades), +and above all in the _Usine de Guerre_. + +Here not only were thousands of women employed but a greater variety +of classes. The women of the town, unable to follow the army and too +plucky to live on charity, had been among the first to ask for work. +The directeur beat his forehead when I asked him how they behaved when +not actually at the machines, but at least they had proved as faithful +and skillful as their more respectable sisters. + +Lyons was far more crowded and lively than Paris, which is so quiet +that it calls to mind the lake that filled the crater of Mont Pelée +before the eruption of 1902. But this fine city of the South--situated +almost as beautifully as Paris on both sides of a river--is not only a +junction, it not only has industries of all sorts besides the greatest +silk factories in the world, but every train these days brings down +wounded for its many hospitals, and the next train brings the family +and friends of these men, who, when able to afford it, establish +themselves in the city for the period of convalescence. The +restaurants and cafés were always crowded and this handsome city on +the Rhône was almost gay. + +There were practically no unemployed. The old women of the poor went +daily to an empty court-room where they sat in the little amphitheater +sewing or knitting. In countless other ouvroirs they were cutting and +making uniforms with the same facility that men had long since +acquired, or running sleeping bags through sewing-machines at the rate +of thousands a day. M. Herriot "mobilized" Lyons early in the war, and +its contribution to the needs of the Front has been enormous. + +The réformés (men too badly mutilated to be of further use at the +front) are being taught many new trades in the ateliers: toy-making, +wooden shoes with leather tops for the trenches, cigarette packages, +baskets, typewriting, stenography, weaving, repairing. In one of the +many ateliers I visited with Madame Castell I saw a man who had only +one arm, and the left at that, and only a thumb and little finger +remaining of the ten he had taken into war, learning to write anew. +When I was shown one of his exercises I was astounded. He wrote far +better than I have ever done, and I can recall few handwritings so +precise and elegant. One may imagine what a man accomplishes who still +has a good hand and arm. It was both interesting and pathetic to see +these men guiding their work with their remaining hand and +manipulating the machinery with the stump of the other arm. Those who +come out from the battlefields with health intact will be no charge to +the state, no matter what their mutilations. + +[Illustration: SOCIÉTÉ L'ECLAIRAGE ELECTRIQUE, USINE DE LYON] + +One poor fellow came in to the École Joffre while I was there. He was +accompanied by three friends of the Mayor's, who hoped that some one +of the new occupations might suit his case. He was large and strong +and ruddy and he had no hands. Human ingenuity had not yet evolved far +enough for him. He was crying quietly as he turned away. But his case +is by no means hopeless, for when his stumps are no longer sensitive +he will be fitted with a mechanical apparatus that will take the place +of the hands he has given to France. + +Madame Castell's work is supplying hospitals with anything, except +food, they may demand, and in this she has been regularly helped by +the Needlework Guild of Pennsylvania. + +Madame Harriot's ouvroir occupies the magnificent festal salon of the +Hôtel de Ville, with its massive chandeliers and its memories of a +thousand dinners and balls of state from the days of Louis XIV down to +the greatest of its mayors. She supplies French prisoners in Germany +with the now famous comfort packages. Some of them she and her +committee put up themselves; others are brought in by members of the +family or the friends of the unfortunate men in Germany. The pièce de +résistance had always been a round loaf of bread, but on the day I +first visited the salon consternation was reigning. Word had come from +Germany that no more bread nor any sort of food stuff should be sent +in the packages, and hundreds were being unpacked. Crisp loaves of +bread that would have brought comfort to many a poor soul were lying +all over the place. + +The secret of the order was that civilian Germans were begging bread +of the French prisoners, and this, of course, was bad for the tenderly +nursed German morale. + + + + +IV + +MADEMOISELLE JAVAL AND THE ÉCLOPÉS + +I + + +Mlle. Javal, unlike Madame Balli, was not a member of the fashionable +society of Paris, a _femme du monde_, or a reigning beauty. But in +certain respects their cases were not dissimilar. Born into one of the +innumerable sets-within-sets of the upper bourgeoisie, living on +inherited wealth, seeing as little as possible of the world beyond her +immediate circle of relatives and friends, as curiously indifferent to +it as only a haughty French bourgeoisie can be, growing up in a large +and comfortable home--according to French ideas of comfort--governing +it, when the duty descended to her shoulders, with all the native and +practised economy of the French woman, but until her mother's illness +without a care, and even then without an extra contact, Mlle. Javal's +life slipped along for many years exactly as the lives of a million +other girls in that entrenched secluded class slipped along before the +tocsin, ringing throughout the land on August 2, 1914, announced that +once more the men of France must fight to defend the liberty of all +classes alike. + +Between wars the great central mass of the population in France known +as the bourgeoisie--who may be roughly defined as those that belong +neither to the noblesse at one end nor to the industrials and peasant +proprietors at the other, but have capital, however minute, invested +in _rentes_ or business, and who, beginning with the grande +bourgeoisie, the haughty possessors of great inherited fortunes, +continuing through the financial and commercial magnates, down to the +petite bourgeoisie who keep flourishing little shops, hotels, +etc.--live to get the most out of life in their narrow, traditional, +curiously intensive way. They detest travel, although at least once in +their lives they visit Switzerland and Italy; possibly, but with no +such alarming frequency as to suggest an invasion, England. + +The most aspiring read the literature of the day, see the new plays +(leaving the _jeune fille_ at home), take an intelligent interest in +the politics of their own country, visit the annual salons, and if +really advanced discuss with all the national animation such violent +eruptions upon the surface of the delicately poised art life, which +owes its very being to France, as impressionism, cubism, etc. Except +among the very rich, where, as elsewhere, temptations are many and +pressing, they have few scandals to discuss, but much gossip, and +there is the ever recurrent flutter over births, marriages, deaths. +They have no snobbery in the climber's sense. When a bourgeois, +however humble in origin, graduates as an "intellectual" he is +received with enthusiasm (if his table manners will pass muster) by +the noblesse; but it is far more difficult for a nobleman to enter the +house of a bourgeois. It is seldom that he wants to, but sometimes +there are sound financial reasons for forming this almost illegitimate +connection, and then his motives are penetrated by the keen French +mind--a mind born without illusions--and interest alone dictates the +issue. The only climbers in our sense are the wives of politicians +suddenly risen to eminence, and even then the social ambitions of +these ladies are generally confined to arriving in the exclusive +circles of the haute bourgeoisie. + +The bourgeoisie are as proud of their class as the noblesse of theirs, +and its top stratum regards itself as the real aristocracy of the +Republique Française, the families bearing ancient titles as +anachronistic; although oddly enough they and the ancient noblesse are +quite harmonious in their opinion of the Napoleonic aristocracy! One +of the leaders in the grande bourgeoisie wrote me at a critical moment +in the affairs of Greece: "It looks as if Briand would succeed in +placing the lovely Princess George of Greece on the throne, and +assuredly it is better for France to have a Bonaparte there than no +one at all!" + +It is only when war comes and the men and women of the noblesse rise +to the call of their country as automatically as a reservist answers +the tocsin or the printed order of mobilization, that the bourgeoisie +is forced to concede that there is a tremendous power still resident +in the prestige, organizing ability, social influence, tireless +energy, and self-sacrifice of the disdained aristocracy. + +During the war oeuvres have been formed on so vast a scale that one +sees on many committee lists the names of noblesse and bourgeois side +by side. But it is a defensive alliance, bred of the stupendous +necessities of war, and wherever possible each prefers to work without +the assistance of the other. The French Army is the most democratic in +the world. French society has no conception of the word, and neither +noblesse nor bourgeoisie has the faintest intention of taking it up as +a study. There is no active antagonism between the two classes--save, +to be sure, when individual members show their irreconcilable +peculiarities at committee meetings--merely a profound indifference. + + +II + + +Mlle. Javal, although living the usual restricted life before the war, +and far removed from that section of her class that had begun to +astonish Paris by an unprecedented surrender to the extravagancies in +public which seemed to obsess the world before Europe abruptly +returned to its normal historic condition of warfare, was as highly +educated, as conversant with the affairs of the day, political, +intellectual, and artistic, as any young woman in Europe. But the war +found her in a semi-invalid condition and heartbroken over the death +of her mother, whom she had nursed devotedly through a long illness; +her girlhood intimacies broken up not only by the marriage of her +friends, but also by her own long seclusion; and--being quite +French--feeling too aged, at a little over thirty, ever to interest +any man again, aside from her fortune. In short she regarded her life +as finished, but she kept house dutifully for her brother--her only +close relation--and surrendered herself to melancholy reflections. + +Then came the war. At first she took merely the languid interest +demanded by her intelligence, being too absorbed in her own low +condition to experience more than a passing thrill of patriotic +fervor. But she still read the newspapers, and, moreover, women in +those first anxious days were meeting and talking far more frequently +than was common to a class that preferred their own house and garden +to anything their friends, or the boulevards, or even the parks of +Paris, could offer them. Mlle. Javal found herself seeing more and +more of that vast circle of inherited friends as well as family +connections which no well-born bourgeoise can escape, and gradually +became infected with the excitement of the hour; despite the fact that +she believed her poor worn-out body never would take a long walk +again. + +Then, one day, the thought suddenly illuminated her awakening mind: +"How fortunate I am! I have no one to lose in this terrible war!" (Her +brother was too delicate for service.) "These tears I see every day +after news has come that a father, a brother, a husband, a son, has +fallen on the battlefield or died of horrible agony in hospital, I +shall never shed. Almost alone of the many I know, and the millions of +women in France, I am mercifully exempt from an agony that has no end. +If I were married, and were older and had sons, I should be suffering +unendurably now. I am fortunate indeed and feel an ingrate that I have +ever repined." + +Then naturally enough followed the thought that it behooved her to do +something for her country, not only as a manifest of thanksgiving but +also because it was her duty as a young woman of wealth and leisure. + +Oddly enough considering the delicate health in which she firmly +believed, she tried to be a nurse. There were many amateurs in the +hospitals in those days when France was as short of nurses as of +everything else except men, and she was accepted. + +But nursing then involved standing all day on one's feet and sometimes +all night as well, and her pampered body was far from strong enough +for such a tax in spite of her now glowing spirit. While she was +casting about for some work in which she might really play a useful +and beneficent rôle a friend invited her to drive out to the environs +of Paris and visit the wretched éclopés, to whom several charitable +ladies occasionally took little gifts of cigarettes and chocolate. + +Then, at last, Mlle. Javal found herself; and from a halting +apprehensive seeker, still weary in mind and limb, she became almost +abruptly one of the most original and executive women in +France--incidentally one of the healthiest. When I met her, some +twenty months later, she had red cheeks and was the only one of all +those women of all classes slaving for France who told me she never +felt tired; in fact felt stronger every day. + + +III + + +The éclopés, in the new adaptation of the word, are men who are not +ill enough for the military hospitals and not well enough to fight. +They may have slight wounds, or temporary affections of the sight or +hearing, the effect of heavy colds; or rheumatism, debilitating sore +throat, or furiously aching teeth; or they may be suffering too +severely from shock to be of any use in the trenches. + +There are between six and seven thousand hospitals in France to-day +(possibly more: the French never will give you any exact military +figures; but certainly not less); but their beds are for the severely +wounded or for those suffering from dysentery, fevers, pneumonia, +bronchitis, tuberculosis. In those first days of war before France, +caught unprepared in so many ways, had found herself and settled down +to the business of war; in that trying interval while she was ill +equipped to care for men brought in hourly to the base hospitals, +shattered by new and hideous wounds; there was no place for the merely +ailing. Men with organic affections, suddenly developed under the +terrific strain, were dismissed as Réformés Numéro II--unmutilated in +the service of their country; in other words, dismissed from the army +and, for nearly two years, without pension. But the large number of +those temporarily out of condition were sent back of the lines, or to +a sort of camp outside of Paris, to rest until they were in a +condition to fight again. + +If it had not been for Mlle. Javal it is possible that more men than +one cares to estimate would never have fought again. The éclopés at +that time were the most abject victims of the war. They remained +together under military discipline, either behind the lines or on the +outskirts of Paris, herded in barns, empty factories, thousands +sleeping without shelter of any sort. Straw for the most part composed +their beds, food was coarse and scanty; they were so wretched and +uncomfortable, so exposed to the elements, and without care of any +sort, that their slight ailments developed not infrequently into +serious and sometimes fatal cases of bronchitis, pneumonia, and even +tuberculosis. + +This was a state of affairs well known to General Joffre and none +caused him more distress and anxiety. But--this was between August and +November, 1914, it must be remembered, when France was anything but +the magnificent machine she is to-day--it was quite impossible for the +authorities to devote a cell of their harassed brains to the +temporarily inept. Every executive mind in power was absorbed in +pinning the enemy down, since he could not be driven out, feeding the +vast numbers of men at the Front, reorganizing the munition +factories, planning for the vast supplies of ammunition suddenly +demanded, equipping the hospitals--when the war broke out there were +no installations in the hospitals near the Front except +beds--obtaining the necessary amount of surgical supplies, taking care +of the refugees that poured into the larger cities by every train not +only from Belgium but from the French towns invaded or bombarded--to +mention but a few of the problems that beset France suddenly forced to +rally and fight for her life, and, owing to the Socialist majority in +the Chamber of Deputies, criminally unprepared. + +There were plenty of able minds in France that knew what was coming; +months before the war broke out (a year, one of the infirmière majors +told me; but, as I have said, it is difficult to pin a French official +down to exact statements) the Service de Santé (Health Department of +the Ministry of War) asked the Countess d'Haussonville, President of +the Red Cross, to train as many nurses as quickly as possible, for +there was not an extra nurse in a military hospital of France--in many +there was none at all. But these patriotic and far-sighted men were +powerless. The three years' service bill was the utmost result of +their endeavors, and for six months after the war began they had not a +gun larger than the famous Seventy-fives but those captured at the +Battle of the Marne. + +As for the poor éclopés, there never was a clearer example of the +weaker going to the wall and the devil taking the hindmost. They had +been turned out to grass mildly afflicted, but in a short time they +were progressing rapidly toward the grave or that detestable status +known as Réformés Numéro II. And every man counts in France. Quite +apart from humanity it was a terribly serious question for the Grand +Quartier Général, where Joffre and his staff had their minds on the +rack. + + +IV + + +The Curé of St. Honoré d'Eylau was the first to discover the éclopés, +and not only sent stores to certain of the dépôts where they were +herded, but persuaded several ladies of Paris to visit and take them +little presents. But practically every energetic and patriotic woman +in France was already mobilized in the service of her country. As I +have explained elsewhere, they had opened ouvroirs, where working +girls suddenly deprived of the means of livelihood could fend off +starvation by making underclothing and other necessaries for the men +at the Front. Upon these devoted women, assisted by nearly all the +American women resident in Paris, fell to a great extent the care of +the refugees; and many were giving out rations three times a day, not +only to refugees but to the poor of Paris, suddenly deprived of their +wage earners. It was some time before the Government got round to +paying the daily allowance of one-franc-twenty-five to the wives and +seventy-five centimes (fifty outside of Paris) for each child, known +as the allocation. Moreover, in those dread days when the Germans +were driving straight for Paris, many fled with the Government to +Bordeaux (not a few Americans ignominiously scampered off to England) +and did not return for three weeks or more; during which time those +brave enough to remain did ten times as much work as should be +expected even of the nine-lived female. + +They knew at this critical time as well as later when they were +breathing normally again that the poor éclopés beyond the barrier were +without shelter in the autumn rains and altogether in desperate +plight; but it was only now and again that a few found time to pay +them a hasty visit and cheer them with those little gifts so dear to +the imaginative heart of the French soldier. Sooner or later, of +course, the Government would have taken them in hand and organized +them as meticulously as they have organized every conceivable angle of +this great struggle; but meanwhile thousands would have died or +shambled home to litter the villages as hopeless invalids. Perhaps +hundreds of thousands is a safer computation, and these hundreds of +thousands Mlle. Javal saved for France. + + +V + + +Today there are over one hundred and thirty Éclopé Dépôts in France; +two or three are near Paris, the rest in the towns and villages of the +War Zone. The long baraques are well built, rain-proof and +draught-proof, but with many windows which are open when possible, +and furnished with comfortable beds. In each dépôt there is a hospital +baraque for those that need that sort of rest or care, a diet kitchen, +and a fine large kitchen for those that can eat anything and have +appetites of daily increasing vigor. + +These dépôts are laid out like little towns, the streets of the large +ones named after famous generals and battles. Down one side is a row +of low buildings in which the officers, doctors and nurses sleep; a +chemist shop; a well-fitted bathroom; storerooms for supplies; and +consulting offices. There is also, almost invariably, a cantine set up +by young women--English, American, French--where the men are supplied +at any time with cocoa, coffee, milk, lemonade, cakes; and the little +building itself is gaily decorated to please the color-loving French +eye. + +Mlle. Javal took me out to the environs of Paris to visit one of the +largest of these dépôts, and there the men in hospital were nursed by +Sisters of Charity. There was a set of well-filled bookshelves and a +stage in the great refectory, where the men could sit on rainy days, +read, write letters, sing, smoke, recite, and get up little plays. I +saw a group of very contented looking poilus in the yard playing cards +and smoking under a large tree. + +The surroundings were hideous--a railroad yard if I am not +mistaken--but the little "town" itself was very pleasing to the eye, +and certainly a haven of refuge for soldiers whose bodies and minds +needed only repose, care, and kind words to send them back to the +Front sounder by far than they had been in their unsanitary days +before the war. + +Here they are forced to sleep with their windows open, to bathe, eat +good food, instead of mortifying the body for the sake of filling the +family stocking; and they are doctored intelligently, their teeth +filled, their tonsils and adenoids taken out, their chronic +indigestion cured. Those who survive the war will never forget the +lesson and will do missionary work when they are at home once more. + +All that was dormant in Mlle. Javal's fine brain seemed to awake under +the horrifying stimulus of that first visit to the wretches herded +like animals outside of Paris, where every man thought he was drafted +for death and did not care whether he was or not; where, in short, +morale, so precious an asset to any nation in time of war, was +practically nil. + +The first step was to get a powerful committee together. Mlle. Javal, +although wealthy, could not carry through this gigantic task alone. +The moratorium had stopped the payment of rents, factories were +closed, tenants mobilized. Besides, she had already given right and +left, as everybody else had done who had anything to give. It was +growing increasingly difficult to raise money. + +But nothing could daunt Mlle. Javal. She managed to get together with +the least possible delay a committee of three hundred, and she +obtained subscriptions in money from one thousand five hundred firms, +besides donations of food and clothing from eight hundred others, +headed by the King of Spain. + +Her subscription list was opened by President Poincaré 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 Comédie Française 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 éclopés +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 Dépôts d'Éclopés, +Petits Blessés 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 Secrétaire Genérale. + +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 dépôts 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 régime_), the doctors, and, when +necessary, the surgeons. + + +VI + + +Mlle. Javal took me twice through the immense establishment on the +Champs Élysées, 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 hôtel +with a garden behind it. Thousands of these exemplary women of the +bourgeoisie--hundreds of thousands--care little or nothing for +"society." They call at stated intervals, upon which ceremonious +occasion they drink coffee and eat pastry; give their young people +dances when the exact conventional moment has arrived for putting them +on the market, and turn out in force at the great periodicities of +life, but otherwise to live and die in the bosom of The Family is the +measure of their ambition. + +I shall have a good deal to say later of the possible results of the +vast upheaval of home life caused by this war; but of these women +sitting for hours on end in a back room of Mlle. Javal's central +establishment in Paris it is only necessary to state that they looked +as intent upon making cigarettes in a professional manner, beyond +cavil by the canny poilu, as if they were counting the family linen or +superintending one of the stupendous facts of existence, a daughter's +trousseau. Only the one to whom I was introduced raised her eyes, and +I should not have been expected to distract her attention for a moment +had not she told Mlle. Javal that she had read my books (in the +Tauchnitz edition) and would like to meet me when I called. + +It seemed to me that everything conceivable was in those large +storerooms. I had grown used to seeing piles of sleeping-suits, +sleeping-bags, trench slippers, warm underclothes, sabots, all that is +comprised in the word _vêtement_; but here were also immense boxes of +books and magazines, donated by different firms and editors, about to +be shipped to the dépôts; games of every sort; charming photogravures, +sketches, prints, pictures, that would make the baraques gay and +beloved--all to be interspersed, however, with mottoes from famous +writers calculated to elevate not only the morale but the morals of +the idle. + +Then there were cases of handkerchiefs, of pens and paper, pencils, +songs with and without music, knives, pipes, post-cards, razors, +parasiticides, chocolate, vaseline, perfumes (many of these articles +are donations from manufacturers), soap in vast quantities; books +serious and diverting; pamphlets purposed to keep patriotism at fever +pitch, or to give the often ignorant peasant soldier a clear idea of +the designs of the enemy. + +In small compartments at one end of the largest of the rooms were +exhibited the complete installations of the baraques, the portable +beds, kitchen and dining-room utensils and dishes, all extraordinarily +neat and compact. In another room was a staff engaged in +correspondence with officers, doctors and surgeons at the Front, +poilus, or the hundred and one sources that contribute to the great +oeuvre. Girls, young widows, young and middle-aged married women whose +husbands and sons were fighting, all give their days freely and work +far harder and more conscientiously than most women do for hire. + +All of these presents, when they arrive at the dépôts, are given out +personally by the officers, and this as much as the genuine democracy +of the men in command has served to break down the suspicious or surly +spirit of the French peasant on his first service, to win over the +bumptious industrial, and even to subdue the militant anarchist and +predatory Apache. This was Mlle. Javal's idea, and has solved a +problem for many an anxious officer. + +She said to me with a shrug: "My brother and I are now run by our +servants. I have quite lost control. Our home is like a bachelor +apartment. After the war is over I must turn them all out and get a +new staff." + +And this is but one of the minor problems for men and women the Great +War has bred. + + +VII + + +Magic lanterns and cinemas are also among the presents sent to the +éclopé dépôts in the War Zone; some of which, by the way, are +charmingly situated. I visited one just outside of a town which by a +miracle had escaped the attention of the enemy during the retreat +after the Battle of the Marne. The buildings of the dépôt have been +built in the open fields but heavily ambushed by fine old trees. Near +by is a river picturesquely winding and darkly shaded. Here I saw a +number of éclopés fishing as calmly as if the roar of the guns that +came down the wind from Verdun were but the precursor of an evening +storm. + +In the large refectory men were writing home; reading not only books +but the daily and weekly newspapers with which the dépôts are +generously supplied by the editors of France. Others were exercising +in a gymnasium or playing games with that childish absorption that +seems to be as natural to a soldier at the Front when off duty as the +desire for a bath or a limbering of the muscles when he leaves the +trenches. + +Another of Mlle. Javal's ideas was to send to the War Zone automobiles +completely equipped with a dental apparatus in charge of a competent +dentist. These automobiles travel from dépôt to dépôt and even give +their services to hospitals where there are no 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 Dépôts d'Éclopés +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 Vérone, 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 Vérone +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 déjeuner of veal swimming in spinach, dry purée 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 scene shifters, or artists--of both +sexes--the men being either too old or otherwise ineligible for the +army. This was their only square meal during twenty-four hours. They +made at home such coffee as they could afford, and went without dinner +more often than not. The daughter of this very necessary charity, a +handsome strongly built girl, told me that she had waited on her table +without a day's rest for eighteen months. + +I am frank to say that I could not eat the veal and spinach, and +confined myself to the potatoes and bread. But no doubt real hunger is +a radical cure for fastidiousness. + +Later in the day Madame Vérone took me to the once famous Abbaye, now +a workroom for the dressers of dolls, a revived industry which has +given employment to hundreds of women. Some of the wildest revels of +Paris had taken place in the restaurant now incongruously lined with +rows of dolls dressed in every national costume of Allied Europe. They +sat sedately against the walls, Montenegrins, Serbians, Russians, +Italians, Sicilians, Roumanians, Poilus, Alsatians, Tommies,[C] a +strange medley, correctly but cheaply dressed. At little tables, mute +records of disreputable nights, sat women stitching, and outside the +streets of Montmartre were as silent as the grave. + + [C] No doubt there are now little Uncle Sams. + + +II + + +A few days later I was introduced to a case of panurgy that would have +been almost extreme in any but a Frenchwoman. + +Madame Camille Lyon took me to call on Madame Pertat, one of the most +successful doctors in Paris. I found both her history and her +personality highly interesting, and her experience no doubt will be a +severe shock to many Americans who flatter themselves that we alone of +all women possess the priceless gift of driving initiative. + +Madame Pertat was born in a provincial town, of a good family, and +received the usual education with all the little accomplishments that +were thought necessary for a young girl of the comfortable +bourgeoisie. She confessed to me naively that she had coquetted a good +deal. As her brother was a doctor and brought his friends to the house +it was natural that she should marry into the same profession; and as +she continued to meet many doctors and was a young woman of much +mental curiosity and a keen intelligence it was also natural that she +should grow more and more deeply interested in the science of medicine +and take part in the learned discussions at her table. + +One day her husband, after a warm argument with her on the new +treatment of an old disease, asked her why she did not study medicine. +She had ample leisure, no children, and, he added gallantly, a mind to +do it justice. + +The suggestion horrified her, as it would have horrified her large +family connection and circle of friends in that provincial town where +standards are as slowly undermined as the cliffs of France by the +action of the sea. + +Shortly afterward they moved to Paris, where her husband, being a man +of first-rate ability and many friends, soon built up a lucrative +practice. + +Being childless, full of life, and fond of variety, they spent far +more money than was common to their class, saving practically nothing. +They had a handsome apartment with the usual number of servants; +Madame Pertat's life was made up of a round of dressmakers, bridge, +calls during the daytime, and companioning her husband at night to any +one of the more brilliant restaurants where there was dancing. +Sometimes they dined early and went to the opera or the play. + +Suddenly the really serious mind of this woman revolted. She told me +that she said to her husband: "This is abominable. I cannot stand this +life. I shall study medicine, which, after all, is the only thing that +really interests me." + +She immediately entered upon the ten years' course, which included +four years as an interne. France has now so far progressed that she +talks of including the degree of baccalaureate in the regular school +course of women, lest they should wish to study for a profession +later; but at that time Madame Pertat's course in medicine was long +drawn out, owing to the necessity of reading for this degree. + +She was also obliged to interrupt her triumphal progress in order to +bring her first and only child into the world; but finally graduated +with the highest honors, being one of the few women of France who have +received the diploma to practice. + +To practice, however, was the least of her intentions, now that she +had a child to occupy her mind and time. Then, abruptly, peace ended +and war came. Men disappeared from their usual haunts like mist. It +was as if the towns turned over and emptied their men on to the +ancient battlefields, where, generation after generation, war rages on +the same historic spots but re-naming its battles for the benefit of +chronicler and student. + +M. le Docteur Pertat was mobilized with the rest. Madame's bank +account was very slim. Then once more she proved that she was a woman +of energy and decision. Without any formalities she stepped into her +husband's practice as a matter of course. On the second day of the war +she ordered out his runabout and called on every patient on his +immediate list, except those that would expect attention in his office +during the usual hours of consultation. + +Her success was immediate. She lost none of her husband's patients and +gained many more, for every doctor of military age had been called +out. Of course her record in the hospitals was well known, not only to +the profession but to many of Dr. Pertat's patients. Her income, in +spite of the war, is larger than it ever was before. + +She told me that when the war was over she should resign in her +husband's favor as far as her general practice was concerned, but +should have a private practice of her own, specializing in skin +diseases and facial blemishes. She could never be idle again, and if +it had not been for the brooding shadow of war and her constant +anxiety for her husband, she should look back upon those two years of +hard medical practice and usefulness as the most satisfactory of her +life. + +She is still a young woman, with vivid yellow hair elaborately +dressed, and it was evident that she had none of the classic +professional woman's scorn of raiment. Her apartment is full of old +carved furniture and objets d'art, for she had always been a +collector. Her most conspicuous treasure is a rare and valuable +Russian censer of chased silver. This was on the Germans' list of +valuables when they were sure of entering Paris in September, 1914. +Through their spies they knew the location of every work of art in the +most artistic city in the world. + +Madame Pertat is one of the twenty-five women doctors in Paris. All +are flourishing. When the doctors return for leave of absence +etiquette forbids them to visit their old patients while their +brothers are still at the Front; and the same rule applies to doctors +who are stationed in Paris but are in Government service. The women +are having a magnificent inning, and whether they will be as +magnanimous as Madame Pertat and take a back seat when the men return +remains to be seen. The point is, however, that they are but another +example of the advantage of technical training combined with courage +and energy. + + +III + + +On the other hand, I heard of many women who, thrown suddenly out of +work, or upon their own resources, developed their little +accomplishments and earned a bare living. One daughter of an avocat, +who had just managed to keep and educate his large family and was +promptly mobilized, left the Beaux Arts where she had studied for +several years, and after some floundering turned her knowledge of +designing to the practical art of dress. She goes from house to house +designing and cutting out gowns for women no longer able to afford +dressmakers but still anxious to please. She hopes in time to be +employed in one of the great dressmakers' establishments, having +renounced all thought of being an artist in a more grandiose sense. +Meanwhile she keeps the family from starving while her mother and +sisters do the housework. Her brothers are in the military colleges +and will be called out in due course if the war continues long enough +to absorb all the youth of France. + +Mlle. E., the woman who told me her story, was suffering from the +effects of the war herself. I climbed five flights to talk to her, and +found her in a pleasant little apartment looking out over the roofs +and trees of Passy. Formerly she had taken a certain number of +American girls to board and finish off in the politest tongue in +Europe. The few American girls in Paris to-day (barring the +anachronisms that paint and plume for the Ritz Hotel) are working with +the American Ambulance, the American Fund for French Wounded, or Le +Bien-Être du Blessé, and she sits in her high flat alone. + +But she too has adapted herself, and kept her little home. She +illuminates for a Bible house, and paints exquisite Christmas and +Easter cards. Of course she had saved something, for she was the +frugal type and restaurants and the cabaret could have no call for +her. + +But alas! said she, there were the taxes, and ever more taxes. And who +could say how long the war would last? I cheerfully suggested that we +might have entered upon one of those war cycles so familiar in history +and that the world might not know peace again for thirty years. +Although the French are very optimistic about the duration of this war +(and, no doubt prompted by hope, I am myself) she agreed with me, and +reiterated that one must not relax effort for a moment. + +Of course she has her filleul (godson) at the Front, a poor poilu who +has no family; and when he goes out the captain finds her another. She +knits him socks and vests, and sends him such little luxuries as he +asks for, always tobacco, and often chocolate. + +The French bourgeoisie--or French women of any class for that +matter--do not take kindly to clubs. For this reason their +organizations limped somewhat in the earlier days and only their +natural financial genius, combined with the national practice of +economy, enabled them to develop that orderly team work so natural to +the Englishwoman. Mlle. E. told me with a wry face that she detested +the new clubs formed for knitting and sewing and rolling bandages. "It +is only old maids like myself," she added, "who go regularly. After +marriage French women hate to leave their homes. Of course they go +daily to the ouvroirs, where they have their imperative duties, but +they don't like it. I shall belong to no club when the war is over and +my American girls have returned to Paris." + + + + +VI + +MADAME PIERRE GOUJON + +I + + +Madame Pierre Goujon is another young Frenchwoman who led not only a +life of ease and careless happiness up to the Great War, but also, and +from childhood, an uncommonly interesting one, owing to the kind fate +that made her the daughter of the famous Joseph Reinach. + +M. Reinach, it is hardly worth while to state even for the benefit of +American readers, is one of the foremost "Intellectuals" of France. +Born to great wealth, he determined in his early youth to live a life +of active usefulness, and began his career as private secretary to +Gambetta. His life of that remarkable Gascon is the standard work. He +was conspicuously instrumental in securing justice for Dreyfus, +championing him in a fashion that would have wrecked the public career +of a man less endowed with courage and personality: twin gifts that +have carried him through the stormy seas of public life in France. + +His history of the Dreyfus case in seven volumes is accepted as an +authoritative however partisan report of one of the momentous crises +in the French Republic. He also has written on alcoholism and +election reforms, and he has been for many years a Member of the +Chamber of Deputies, standing for democracy and humanitarianism. + +On a memorable night in Paris, in June, 1916, it was my good fortune +to sit next to Monsieur Reinach at a dinner given by Mr. Whitney +Warren to the American newspaper men in Paris, an equal number of +French journalists, and several "Intellectuals" more or less connected +with the press. The scene was the private banquet room of the Hotel de +Crillon, a fine old palace on the Place de la Concorde; and in that +ornate red and gold room where we dined so cheerfully, grim despots +had crowded not so many years before to watch from its long windows +the executions of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. + +I was the only woman, a whim of Mr. Warren's, and possibly that is the +reason I found this dinner in the historic chamber above a dark and +quiet Paris the most interesting I ever attended! Perhaps it was +because I sat at the head of the room between Monsieur Reinach and +Monsieur Hanotaux; perhaps merely because of the evening's climax. + +Of course we talked of nothing but the war (one is bored to death in +Paris if any other subject comes up). Only one speech was made, an +impassioned torrent of gratitude by Monsieur Hanotaux directed at our +distinguished host, an equally impassioned "Friend of France." I +forget just when it was that a rumor began to run around the room and +electrify the atmosphere that a great naval engagement had taken +place in the North Sea; but it was just after coffee was served that a +boy from the office of _Le Figaro_ entered with a proof-sheet for +Monsieur Reinach to correct--he contributes a daily column signed +"Polybe." Whether the messenger brought a note from the editor or +merely whispered his information, again I do not know, but it was +immediately after that Monsieur Reinach told us that news had come +through Switzerland of a great sea fight in which the Germans had lost +eight battleships. + +"And as the news comes from Germany," he remarked dryly, "and as the +Germans admit having lost eight ships we may safely assume that they +have lost sixteen." And so it proved. + +The following day in Paris was the gloomiest I have ever experienced +in any city, and was no doubt one of the gloomiest in history. Not a +word had come from England. Germany had claimed uncontradicted an +overwhelming victory, with the pride of Britain either at the bottom +of the North Sea or hiding like Churchill's rats in any hole that +would shelter them from further vengeance. People, both French and +American, who had so long been waiting for the Somme drive to commence +that they had almost relinquished hope went about shaking their heads +and muttering: "Won't the British even fight on the sea?" + +I felt suicidal. Presupposing the continued omnipotence of the British +Navy, the Battle of the Marne had settled the fate of Germany, but if +that Navy had proved another illusion the bottom had fallen out of the +world. Not only would Europe be done for, but the United States of +America might as well prepare to black the boots of Germany. + +When this war is over it is to be hoped that all the censors will be +taken out and hanged. In view of the magnificent account of itself +which Kitchener's Army has given since that miserable day, to say +nothing of the fashion in which the British Navy lived up to its best +traditions in that Battle of Jutland, it seems nothing short of +criminal that the English censor should have permitted the world to +hold Great Britain in contempt for twenty-four hours and sink poor +France in the slough of despond. However, he is used to abuse, and +presumably does not mind it. + +On the following day he condescended to release the truth. We all +breathed again, and I kept one of my interesting engagements with +Madame Pierre Goujon. + + +II + + +This beautiful young woman's husband was killed during the first month +of the war. Her brother was reported missing at about the same time, +and although his wife has refused to go into mourning there is little +hope that he will ever be seen alive again or that his body will be +found. There was no room for doubt in the case of Pierre Goujon. + +Perhaps if the young officer had died in the natural course of events +his widow would have been overwhelmed by her loss, although it is +difficult to imagine Madame Goujon a useless member of society at any +time. Her brilliant black eyes and her eager nervous little face +connote a mind as alert as Monsieur Reinach's. As it was, she closed +her own home--she has no children--returned to the great hôtel of her +father in the Parc Monceau, and plunged into work. + +It is doubtful if at any period of the world's history men have failed +to accept (or demand) the services of women in time of war, and this +is particularly true of France, where women have always counted as +units more than in any European state. Whether men have heretofore +accepted these invaluable services with gratitude or as a +matter-of-course is by the way. Never before in the world's history +have fighting nations availed themselves of woman's co-operation in as +wholesale a fashion as now; and perhaps it is the women who feel the +gratitude. + +Of course the first duty of every Frenchwoman in those distracted days +of August, 1914, was, as I have mentioned before, to feed the poor +women so suddenly thrown out of work or left penniless with large +families of children. Then came the refugees pouring down from Belgium +and the invaded districts of France; and these had to be clothed as +well as fed. + +In common with other ladies of Paris, both French and American, Madame +Goujon established ouvroirs after the retreat of the Germans, in order +to give useful occupation to as many of the destitute women as +possible. But when these were in running order she joined the +Baroness Lejeune (born a Princess Murat and therefore of Napoleon's +blood) in forming an organization both permanent and on the grand +scale. + +The Baroness Lejeune also had lost her husband early in the war. He +had been detached from his regiment and sent to the Belgian front to +act as bodyguard to the Prince of Wales. Receiving by a special +messenger a letter from his wife, to whom he had been married but a +few months, he separated himself from the group surrounding the +English Prince and walked off some distance alone to read it. Here a +bomb from a taube intended for the Prince hit and killed him +instantly. + +Being widows themselves it was natural they should concentrate their +minds on some organization that would be of service to other widows, +poor women without the alleviations of wealth and social eminence, +many of them a prey to black despair. Calling in other young widows of +their own circle to help (the number was already appalling), they went +about their task in a business-like way, opening offices in the Rue +Vizelly, which were subsequently moved to 20 Rue Madrid. + +When I saw these headquarters in May, 1916, the oeuvre was a year old +and in running order. In one room were the high chests of narrow +drawers one sees in offices and public libraries. These were for card +indexes and each drawer contained the dossiers of widows who had +applied for assistance or had been discovered suffering in lonely +pride by a member of the committee. Each dossier included a methodical +account of the age and condition of the applicant, of the number of +her children, and the proof that her husband was either dead or +"missing." Also, her own statement of the manner in which she might, +if assisted, support herself. + +Branches of this great work--Association d'Aide aux Veuves Militaires +de la Grande Guerre--have been established in every department of +France; there is even one in Lille. The Central Committee takes care +of Paris and environs, the number of widows cared for by them at that +time being two thousand. No doubt the number has doubled since. + +In each of the rooms I visited a young widow sat before a table, and I +wondered then, as I wondered many times, if all the young French +widows really were beautiful or only created the complete illusion in +that close black-hung toque with its band of white crêpe just above +the eyebrows and another from ear to ear beneath the chin. When the +eyes are dark, the eyebrows heavily marked, no hair visible, and the +profile regular, the effect is one of poignant almost sensational +beauty. Madame Goujon looks like a young abbess. + +I do not wish to be cynical but it occurred to me that few of these +young widows failed to be consoled when they stood before their +mirrors arrayed for public view, however empty their hearts. Before I +had left Paris I had concluded that it was the mothers who were to be +pitied in this accursed war. Life is long and the future holds many +mysteries for handsome young widows. Nevertheless the higher happiness +is sometimes found in living with a sacred memory and I have an idea +that one or two of these young widows I met will be faithful to their +dead. + +Smooth as this oeuvre appeared on the surface it had not been easy to +establish and every day brought its frictions and obstacles. The +French temperament is perhaps the most difficult in the world to deal +with, even by the French themselves. Our boasted individuality is +merely in the primal stage compared with the finished production in +France. Even the children are far more complex and intractable than +ours. They have definite opinions on the subject of life, character, +and the disposition of themselves at the age of six. + +Madame Goujon told me that every widow in need of help, no matter how +tormented or however worthy, had to be approached with far more tact +than possible donors, and her idiosyncrasies studied and accepted +before anything could be done with her, much less for her. + +Moreover there was the great problem of the women who would not work. +These were either of the industrial class, or of that petite +bourgeoisie whose husbands, called to the colors, had been small +clerks and had made just enough to keep their usually childless wives +in a certain smug comfort. + +These women, whose economical parents had married them into their own +class, or possibly boosted them one step higher, with the aid of the +indispensable dot, never had done any work to speak of, and many of +them manifested the strongest possible aversion from working, even +under the spur of necessity. They had one-franc-twenty-five a day from +the Government and much casual help during the first year of the war, +when money was still abundant, from charitable members of the noblesse +or the haute bourgeoisie. As their dot had been carefully invested in +_rentes_ (bonds) if it continued to yield any income at all this was +promptly swallowed up by taxes. + +As for the women of the industrial class, they not only received +one-franc-twenty-five a day but, if living in Paris, seventy-five +centimes for each child--fifty if living in the provinces; and +families in the lower classes of France are among the largest in the +world. Five, ten, fifteen children; I heard these figures mentioned +daily, and, on one or two occasions, nineteen. Mrs. Morton Mitchell of +San Francisco, who lives in Paris in the Avenue du Bois de Bologne, +discovered after the war broke out that the street-sweeper to whom she +had often given largesse left behind him when called to the Front +something like seventeen dependents. Indeed, they lost no time +acquainting her with the fact; they called on her in a body, and she +has maintained them ever since. + +While it was by no means possible in the case of the more moderate +families to keep them in real comfort on the allocation, the women, +many of them, had a pronounced distaste for work outside of their +little homes, as they had their liberty for the first time in their +drab and overworked lives and proposed to enjoy it. No man to dole +them out just enough to keep a roof over their heads and for bread and +stew, while he spent the rest on tobacco, at the wine-shops, or for +dues to the Socialist or Syndicalist Club. Every centime that came in +now was theirs to administer as they pleased. + +The Mayoress of a small town near Paris told me that she had heard +these women say more than once they didn't care how long the war +lasted; owing to the prevalence of the alcoholism octopus which has +fastened itself on France of late years the men often beat their wives +as brutally as the low-class Englishmen, and this vice added to the +miserliness of their race made their sojourn in the trenches a welcome +relief. Of course these were the exceptions, for the Frenchman in the +main is devoted to his family, but there were enough of them to emerge +into a sudden prominence after the outbreak of the war when charitable +women were leaving no stone unturned to relieve possible distress. + +There is a story of one man with thirteen children who was called to +the colors on August second, and whose wife received allocation +amounting to more than her husband's former earnings. It was some time +after the war began that the rule was made exempting from service +every man with more than six children. When it did go into effect the +fathers of large flocks hastened home, anticipating a joyful reunion. +But the wife of this man, at least, received him with dismay and +ordered him to enlist--within the hour. + +"Don't you realize," she demanded, "that we never were so well off +before? We can save for the first time in our lives and I can get a +good job that would not be given me if you were here. Go where you +belong. Every man's place is in the trenches." + +There is not much romance about a marriage of that class, nor is there +much romance left in the harried brain of any mother of thirteen. + + +III + + +Exasperating as those women were who preferred to live with their +children on the insufficient allocation, it is impossible not to feel +a certain sympathy for them. In all their lives they had known nothing +but grinding work; liberty is the most precious thing in the world and +when tasted for the first time after years of sordid oppression it +goes to the head. Moreover, the Frenchwoman has the most extraordinary +faculty for "managing." The poorest in Paris would draw their skirts +away from the slatterns and their dirty offspring in our own tenement +districts. + +One day I went with Madame Paul Dupuy over to what she assured me was +one of the poorest districts of Paris. Our visit had nothing to do +with the war. She belonged to a charitable organization which for +years had paid weekly visits to the different parishes of the capital +and weighed a certain number of babies. The mothers that brought their +howling offspring (who abominated the whole performance) were given +money according to their needs--vouched for by the priest of the +district--and if the babies showed a falling off in weight they were +sent to one of the doctors retained by the society. + +The little stone house (situated, by the way, in an old garden of a +hunting-lodge which is said to have been the _rendezvous de chasse_ of +Madame du Barry), where Madame Dupuy worked, with an apron covering +her gown and her sleeves rolled up, was like an ice-box, and the naked +babies when laid on the scales shrieked like demons. One male child, I +remember, sat up perfectly straight and bellowed his protest with an +insistent fury and a snorting disdain at all attempts to placate him +that betokened the true son of France and a lusty long-distance +recruit for the army. All the children, in fact, although their +mothers were unmistakably poor, looked remarkably plump and healthy. + +After a time, having no desire to contract peritonitis, I left the +little house and went out and sat in the car. There I watched for +nearly an hour the life of what we would call a slum. The hour was +about four in the afternoon, when even the poor have a little leisure. +The street was filled with women sauntering up and down, gossiping, +and followed by their young. These women and children may have had on +no underclothes: their secrets were not revealed to me; but their +outer garments were decent. The children had a scrubbed look and their +hair was confined in tight pigtails. The women looked stout and +comfortable. + +They may be as clean to-day but I doubt if they are as stout and as +placid of expression. The winter was long and bitter and coal and food +scarce, scarcer, and more scarce. + + +IV + + +The two classes of women with whom Madame Goujon and her friends have +most difficulty are in the minority and merely serve as the shadows in +the great canvas crowded with heroic figures of French women of all +classes who are working to the limit of their strength for their +country or their families. They may be difficult to manage and they +may insist upon working at what suits their taste, but they do work +and work hard; which after all is the point. Madame Goujon took me +through several of the ouvroirs which her society had founded to teach +the poor widows--whose pension is far inferior to the often brief +allocation--a number of new occupations under competent teachers. + +Certainly these young benefactors had exercised all their ingenuity. +Some of the women, of course, had been fit for nothing but manual +labor, and these they had placed as scrub-women in hospitals or as +servants in hôtels or families. But in the case of the more +intelligent or deft of finger no pains were being spared to fit them +to take a good position, or, as the French would say, "situation," in +the future life of the Republic. + +In a series of rooms lent to the society by one of the great +dressmakers, I saw keen-looking women of all ages learning to retouch +photographs, to wind bobbins by electricity, to dress hair and fashion +wigs, to engrave music scores, articulate artificial limbs, make +artificial flowers, braces for wounded arms and legs, and artificial +teeth! Others are taught nursing, bookkeeping, stenography, dentistry. + +One of Madame Goujon's most picturesque revivals is the dressing of +dolls. Before the Franco-Prussian war this great industry belonged to +France. Germany took it away from France while she was prostrate, +monopolizing the doll trade of the world, and the industry almost +ceased at its ancient focus. Madame Goujon was one of the first to see +the opportunity for revival in France, and with Valentine Thompson and +Madame Vérone, to mention but two of her rivals, was soon employing +hundreds of women. A large room on the ground floor of M. Reinach's +hotel is given over as a storeroom for dolls, all irreproachably +dressed and indisputably French. + +It will take a year or two of practice and the co-operation of male +talent after the war to bring the French doll up to the high standard +attained by the Germans throughout forty years of plodding efficiency. +The prettiest dolls I saw were those arrayed in the different national +costumes of Europe, particularly those that still retain the styles of +musical comedy. After those rank the Red Cross nurses, particularly +those that wear the blue veil over the white. And I never saw in real +life such superb, such imperturbable brides. + + +V + + +Another work in which Madame Goujon is interested and which certainly +is as picturesque is Le Bon Gite. The gardens of the Tuilleries when +regarded from the quay present an odd appearance these days. One sees +row after row of little huts, models of the huts the English Society +of Friends have built in the devastated valley of the Marne. Where +hundreds of families were formerly living in damp cellars or in the +ruins of large buildings, wherever they could find a sheltering wall, +the children dying of exposure, there are now a great number of these +portable huts where families may be dry and protected from the +elements, albeit somewhat crowded. + +The object of Le Bon Gite is to furnish these little temporary +homes--for real houses cannot be built until the men come back from +the war--and these models in the Tuilleries Gardens show to the +visitor what they can do in the way of furnishing a home that will +accommodate a woman and two children, for three hundred francs (sixty +dollars). + +It seems incredible, but I saw the equipment of several of these +little shelters (which contain several rooms) and I saw the bills. +They contained a bed, two chairs, a table, a buffet, a stove, kitchen +furnishings, blankets, linen, and crockery. There were even window +curtains. The railway authorities had reduced freight rates for their +benefit fifty per cent; and at that time (July, 1916) they had rescued +the poor of four wrecked villages from reeking cellars and filthy +straw and given some poor poilus a home to come to during their six +days' leave of absence from the Front. + +The Marquise de Ganay and the Comtesse de Bryas, two of the most +active members, are on duty in the offices of their neat little +exhibition for several hours every day, and it was becoming one of the +cheerful sights of Paris. + +There is little left of the Tuilleries to-day to recall the ornate +splendors of the Second Empire, when the Empress Eugenie held her +court there, and gave garden parties under the oaks and the chestnuts. +There is a vast chasm between the pomp of courts and huts furnished +for three hundred francs for the miserable victims of the war; but +that chasm, to be sure, was bridged by the Commune and this war has +shown those that have visited the Military Zone that a palace makes a +no more picturesque ruin than a village. + + +VI + + +A more curious contrast was a concert given one afternoon in the +Tuilleries Gardens for the purpose of raising money for one of the war +relief organizations. Madame Paul Dupuy asked me if I would help her +take two blind soldiers to listen to it. We drove first out to Reuilly +to the Quinze Vingts, a large establishment where the Government has +established hundreds of their war blind (who are being taught a score +of new trades), and took the two young fellows who were passed out to +us. The youngest was twenty-one, a flat-faced peasant boy, whose eyes +had been destroyed by the explosion of a pistol close to his face. The +older man, who may have been twenty-six, had a fine, thin, dark face +and an expression of fixed melancholy. He had lost his sight from +shock. Both used canes and when we left the car at the entrance to the +Tuilleries we were obliged to guide them. + +The garden was a strange assortment of fashionable women, many of them +bearing the highest titles in France, and poilus in their faded +uniforms, nearly all maimed--réformés, mutilés! The younger of our +charges laughed uproariously, with the other boys, at the comic song, +but my melancholy charge never smiled, and later when, under the +thawing influence of tea, he told us his story, I was not surprised. + +He had been the proprietor before the war of a little business in the +North, prosperous and happy in his little family of a wife and two +children. His mother was dead but his father and sister lived close +by. War came and he left for the Front confident that his wife would +run the business. It was only a few months later that he heard his +wife had run away with another man, that the shop was abandoned, and +the children had taken refuge with his father. + +Then came the next blow. His sister died of successive shocks and his +father was paralyzed. Then he lost his sight. His children were living +anyhow with neighbors in the half ruined village, and he was learning +to make brushes. + +So much for the man's tragedy in war time. It is said that as time +goes on there are more of them. On the other hand, during the first +year, when the men were not allowed to go home, they formed abiding +connections with women in the rear of the army, and when the six days' +leave was granted preferred to take these ladies on a little jaunt +than return to the old drab existence at home. + +These are what may be called the by-products of war, but they may +exercise a serious influence on a nation's future. When the hundreds +of children born in the North of France, who are half English, or half +Scotch, or half Irish, or half German, or half Indian, or half +Moroccan, grow up and begin to drift about and mingle with the general +life of the nation, the result may be that we shall have been the last +generation to see a race that however diversified was reasonably proud +of its purity. + + + + +VII + +MADAME PIERRE GOUJON (Continued) + +I + + +I had gone to Lyons to see the war relief work of that flourishing +city and Madame Goujon went South at the same time to visit her +husband's people. We agreed to meet in the little town of Bourg la +Bresse, known to the casual tourist for its church erected in the +sixteenth century by Margaret of Austria and famous for the carvings +on its tombs. + +Otherwise it is a picturesque enlarged village with a meandering +stream that serves as an excuse for fine bridges; high-walled gardens, +ancient trees, and many quaint old buildings. + +Not that I saw anything in detail. The Mayor, M. Loiseau, and Madame +Goujon met me at the station, and my ride to the various hospitals +must have resembled the triumphal progress of chariots in ancient +Rome. The population leaped right and left, the children even +scrambling up the walls as we flew through the narrow winding streets. +It was apparent that the limited population of Bourg did not in the +least mind being scattered by their Mayor, for the children shrieked +with delight, and although you see few smiles in the provinces of +France these days, and far more mourning than in Paris, at least we +encountered no frowns. + +The heroine of Bourg is Madame Dugas. Once more to repeat history: +Before the war Madame Dugas, being a woman of fashion and large +wealth, lived the usual life of her class. She had a château near +Bourg for the autumn months: hunting and shooting before 1914 were as +much the fashion on the large estates of France as in England. She had +a villa on the Rivera, a hôtel in Paris, and a cottage at Dinard. But +as soon as war broke out all these establishments were either closed +or placed at the disposal of the Government. She cleaned out a large +hotel in Bourg and installed as many beds as it was possible to buy at +the moment. Then she sent word that she was ready to accommodate a +certain number of wounded and asked for nurses and surgeons. + +The Government promptly took advantage of her generous offer, and her +hospital was so quickly filled with wounded men that she was obliged +to take over and furnish another large building. This soon overflowing +as well as the military hospitals of the district, she looked about in +vain for another house large enough to make extensive installations +worth while. + +During all those terrible months of the war, when the wounded arrived +in Bourg by every train, and household after household put on its +crêpe, there was one great establishment behind its lofty walls that +took no more note of the war than if the newspapers that never passed +its iron gates were giving daily extracts from ancient history. This +was the Convent de la Visitation. Its pious nuns had taken the vow +never to look upon the face of man. If, as they paced under the great +oaks of their close, or the stately length of their cloisters telling +their beads, or meditating on the negation of earthly existence and +the perfect joys of the future, they heard an echo of the conflict +that was shaking Europe, it was only to utter a prayer that the souls +of those who had obeyed the call of their country and fallen +gloriously as Frenchmen should rest in peace. Not for a moment did the +idea cross their gentle minds that any mortal force short of invasion +by the enemy could bring them into contact with it. + +But that force was already in possession of Bourg. Madame Dugas was a +woman of endless resource. Like many another woman in this war the +moment her executive faculties, long dormant, were stirred, that +moment they began to develop like the police microbes in fevered +veins. + +She had visited that convent. She knew that its great walls sheltered +long rooms and many of them. It would make an ideal hospital and she +determined that a hospital it should be. + +There was but one recourse. The Pope. Would she dare? People wondered. +She did. The Pope, who knew that wounded men cannot wait, granted the +holy nuns a temporary dispensation from their vows; and when I walked +through the beautiful Convent of the Visitation with Madame Dugas, +Madame Goujon, and M. Loiseau, there were soldiers under every tree +and nuns were reading to them. + +Nuns were also nursing those still in the wards, for nurses are none +too plentiful in France even yet, and Madame Dugas had stipulated for +the nuns as well as for the convent. + +It was a southern summer day. The grass was green. The ancient trees +were heavy with leaves. Younger and more graceful trees drooped from +the terrace above a high wall in the rear. The sky was blue. The +officers, the soldiers, looked happy, the nuns placid. It was an oasis +in the desert of war. + +I leave obvious ruminations to the reader. + +When I met Madame Dugas, once more I wondered if all Frenchwomen who +were serving or sorrowing were really beautiful or if it were but one +more instance of the triumph of clothes. Madame Dugas is an infirmière +major, and over her white linen veil flowed one of bright blue, +transparent and fine. She wore the usual white linen uniform with the +red cross on her breast, but back from her shoulders as she walked +through the streets with us streamed a long dark blue cloak. She is a +very tall, very slender woman, with a proud and lofty head, a profile +of that almost attenuated thinness that one sees only on a +Frenchwoman, and only then when the centuries have done the chiseling. +As we walked down those long, narrow, twisted streets of Bourg between +the high walls with the trees sweeping over the coping, she seemed to +me the most strikingly beautiful woman I had ever seen. But whether I +shall still think so if I see her one of these days in a Paris +ballroom I have not the least idea. + +Madame Dugas runs three hospitals at her own expense and is her own +committee. Like the rest of the world she expected the war to last +three months, and like the rest of her countrywomen who immediately +offered their services to the state she has no intention of resigning +until what is left of the armies are in barracks once more. She lives +in a charming old house in Bourg, roomy and well furnished and with a +wild and classic garden below the terrace at the back. (Some day I +shall write a story about that house and garden.) Here she rests when +she may, and here she gave us tea. + +One wonders if these devoted Frenchwomen will have anything left of +their fortunes if the war continues a few years longer. Madame Dugas +made no complaint, but as an example of the increase in her necessary +expenditures since 1914 she mentioned the steadily rising price of +chickens. They had cost two francs at the beginning of the war and +were now ten. I assumed that she gave her grands blessés chicken +broth, which is more than they get in most hospitals. + +Many of the girls who had danced in her salons two years before, and +even their younger sisters, who had had no chance to "come out," are +helping Madame Dugas, both as nurses and in many practical ways; +washing and doing other work of menials as cheerfully as they ever +played tennis or rode in la chasse. + + +II + + +Curiously enough, the next woman whose work has made her notable, that +Madame Goujon took me to see, was very much like Madame Dugas in +appearance, certainly of the same type. + +Val de Grace is the oldest military hospital in Paris. It covers +several acres and was begun by Louis XIII and finished by Napoleon. +Before the war it was run entirely by men, but one by one or group by +group these men, all reservists, were called out and it became a +serious problem how to keep it up to its standard. Of course women +were all very well as nurses, but it took strong men and many of them +to cook for thousands of wounded, and there was the problem of keeping +the immense establishment of many buildings well swept and generally +clean. But the men had to go, réformés were not strong enough for the +work, every bed was occupied--one entire building by tuberculars--and +they must both eat and suffer in sanitary conditions. + +Once more they were obliged to have recourse to Woman. + +Madame Olivier, like Madame Dugas a _dame du monde_ and an infirmière +major, went to one of the hospitals at the Front on the day war broke +out, nursed under fire, of course, but displayed so much original +executive ability as well as willingness to do anything to help, no +matter what, that she was soon put in charge of the wounded on trains. +After many trips, during which she showed her uncommon talent for +soothing the wounded, making them comfortable even when they were +packed like sardines on the floor, and bringing always some sort of +order out of the chaos of those first days, she was invited to take +hold of the problem of Val de Grace. + +She had solved it when I paid my visit with Madame Goujon. She not +only had replaced all the men nurses and attendants with women but was +training others and sending them off to military hospitals suffering +from the same sudden depletions as Val de Grace. She also told me that +three women do the work of six men formerly employed, and that they +finished before ten in the morning, whereas the men never finished. +The hospital when she arrived had been in a condition such as men +might tolerate but certainly no woman. I walked through its weary +miles (barring the tuberculosis wards) and I never saw a hospital look +more sanitarily span. + +But the kitchen was the show place of Val de Grace, little as the +women hard at work suspected it. Where Madame Olivier found those +giantesses I cannot imagine; certainly not in a day. She must have +sifted France for them. They looked like peasant women and no doubt +they were. Only the soil could produce such powerful cart-horse +females. And only such cart-horses could have cooked in the great +kitchen of Val de Grace. On a high range that ran the length of the +room were copper pots as large as vats, full of stew, and these the +Brobdinagians stirred with wooden implements that appeared to my +shattered senses as large as spades. No doubt they were of inferior +dimensions, but even so they were formidable. How those women stirred +and stirred those steaming messes! I never shall forget it. And they +could also move those huge pots about, those terrible females. I +thought of the French Revolution. + +Madame Olivier, ruling all this force, giantesses included, with a rod +of iron, stood there in the entrance of the immaculate kitchen looking +dainty and out of place, with her thin proud profile, her clear dark +skin, beautifully tinted in the cheeks, her seductive infirmière +uniform. But she has accomplished one of the minor miracles of the +war. + +I wonder if all these remarkable women of France will be decorated one +of these days? They have earned the highest _citations_, but perhaps +they have merely done 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 France. + +She is certainly one of its towering personalities and if she does not +stand out at the end of the war as Woman and Her Achievements +personified it will be because she has the defects of her genius. Her +restless ambition and her driving energy hurl her headlong into one +great relief work after another, until she has undertaken more than +any mere mortal can carry through in any given space of time. She is +therefore in danger of standing for no one monumental work (as will be +the happy destiny of Mlle. Javal, for instance), although no woman's +activities or sacrifices will have been greater. + +It may be imagined that such a woman when she started a newspaper +would be in a position to induce half the prominent men and women in +France either to write for it or to give interviews, and this she did, +of course; she has a magnificent publicity sense. The early numbers of +_La Vie Feminine_ were almost choked with names known to "tout Paris." +It flourished in both branches, and splendid offices were opened on +the Avenue des Champs Elysées. Women came for advice and employment +and found both, for Mlle. Thompson is as sincere in her desire to help +the less fortunate of her sex as she is in her feminism. + + +II + + +Then came the War. + +Mlle. Thompson's plans were formed in a day, her Committees almost as +quickly. _La Vie Feminine_ opened no less than seven ouvroirs, where +five hundred women were given work. When the refugees began pouring in +she was among the first to ladle out soup and deplete her wardrobe. +She even went to the hastily formed hospitals in Paris and offered her +services. As she was not a nurse she was obliged to do the most +menial work, which not infrequently consisted in washing the filthy +poilus wounded after weeks of fighting without a bath or change of +clothing. Sometimes the dirt-caked soldiers were natives of Algiers. +But she performed her task with her accustomed energy and +thoroughness, and no doubt the mere sight of her was a God-send to +those men who had for so long looked upon nothing but blood and death +and horrors. + +Then came the sound of the German guns thirty kilometers from Paris. +The Government decided to go to Bordeaux. Mlle. Thompson's father +insisted that his daughter accompany himself and her mother. At first +she refused. What should she do with the five hundred women in her +ouvroirs, the refugees she fed daily? She appealed to Ambassador +Herrick. But our distinguished representative shook his head. He had +trouble enough on his hands. The more beautiful young women who +removed themselves from Paris before the Boche entered it the simpler +would be the task of the men forced to remain. It was serious enough +that her even more beautiful sister had elected to remain with her +husband, whose duties forbade him to flee. Go, Mademoiselle, and go +quickly. + +Mlle. Thompson yielded but she made no precipitate flight. Collecting +the most influential and generous members of her Committees, she +raised the sum needed for a special train of forty cars. Into this she +piled the five hundred women of her ouvroirs and their children, a +large number of refugees, and an orphan asylum--one thousand in all. +When it had steamed out of Paris and was unmistakably on its way to +the South she followed. But not to sit fuming in Bordeaux waiting for +General Joffre to settle the fate of Paris. She spent the three or +four weeks of her exile in finding homes or situations for her +thousand helpless charges, in Blanquefort, Lourdes, Bayonne, +Marseilles, Bordeaux and other southern cities and small towns, +forming in each a Committee to look out for them. + + +III + + +Soon after her return to Paris she conceived and put into operation +the idea of an École Hôtelière. + +Thousands of Germans and Austrians, employed as waiters or in other +capacities about the hotels, either had slunk out of Paris just before +war was declared or were interned. Even the Swiss had been recalled to +protect their frontiers. The great hotels supplied the vacancies with +men hastily invited from neutral countries, very green and very +exorbitant in their demands. Hundreds of the smaller hotels were +obliged to close, although the smallest were, as ever, run by the wife +of the proprietor, and her daughters when old enough. + +But that was only half of the problem. After the war all these hotels +must open to accommodate the tourists who would flock to Europe. The +Swiss of course could be relied upon to take the first train to Paris +after peace was declared, but the Germans and Austrians had been as +thick in France as flies on a battlefield, and it will be a generation +before either will fatten on Latin credulity again. Even if the people +of the Central Powers revolt and set up a republic it will be long +before the French, who are anything but volatile in their essence, +will be able to look at a Boche without wanting to spit on him or to +kick him out of the way as one would a vicious cur. + +To Mlle. Thompson, although men fall at her feet, the answer to every +problem is Woman. + +She formed another powerful Committee, roused the enthusiasm of the +Touring Club de France, rented a dilapidated villa in Passy, and after +enlisting the practical sympathies of furnishers, decorators, +"magazins," and persons generally whose business it is to make a house +comfortable and beautiful, she advertised not only in the Paris but in +all the provincial newspapers for young women of good family whose +marriage prospects had been ruined by the war and who would wish to +fit themselves scientifically for the business of hotel keeping. Each +should be educated in every department from directrice to scullion. + +The answers were so numerous that she was forced to deny many whose +lovers had been killed or whose parents no longer could hope to +provide them with the indispensable dot. The repairs and installations +of the villa having been rushed, it was in running order and its +dormitories were filled by some thirty young women in an incredibly +short time. Mlle. Jacquier, who had presided over a somewhat similar +school in Switzerland, was installed as directrice. + +Each girl, in addition to irreproachable recommendations and the +written consent of her parents, must pay seventy francs a month, bring +a specified amount of underclothing, etc.; and, whatever her age or +education, must, come prepared to submit to the discipline of the +school. In return they were to be taught not only how to fill all +positions in a hotel, but the scientific principles of domestic +economy, properties of food combined with the proportions necessary to +health, bookkeeping, English, correspondence, geography, +arithmetic--"calcul rapide"--gymnastics, deportment, hygiene. + +Moreover, when at the end of the three months' course they had taken +their diplomas, places would be found for them. If they failed to take +their diplomas and could not afford another course, still would +places, but of an inferior order, be provided. After the first +students arrived it became known that an ex-pupil without place and +without money could always find a temporary refuge there. Even if she +had "gone wrong" she might come and ask for advice and help. + + +IV + + +When I arrived in Paris I had two letters to Mlle. Thompson and after +I had been there about ten days I went with Mr. Jaccaci to call on her +at the offices of _La Vie Feminine_, and found them both sumptuous +and a hive of activities. In the course of the rapid give-and-take +conversation--if it can be called that when one sits tight with the +grim intention of pinning Mlle. Thompson to one subject long enough to +extract definite information from her--we discovered that she had +translated one of my books. Neither of us could remember which it was, +although I had a dim visualization of the correspondence, but it +formed an immediate bond. Moreover--another point I had quite +forgotten--when her friend, Madame Leverrière, had visited the United +States some time previously to put Mlle. Thompson's dolls on the +market, I had been asked to write something in favor of the work for +the New York _Times_. Madame Leverrière, who was present, informed me +enthusiastically that I had helped her _énormément,_ and there was +another bond. + +The immediate consequence was that, although I could get little that +was coherent from Mlle. Thompson's torrent of classic French, I was +invited to be an inmate of the École Hôtelière at Passy. I had +mentioned that although I was comfortable at the luxurious Hôtel de +Crillon, still when I went upstairs and closed my door I was in the +atmosphere of two years ago. And I must have constant atmosphere, for +my time was limited. I abominated pensions, and from what I had heard +of French families who took in a "paying guest," or, in their tongue, +_dame pensionnaire_, I had concluded that the total renouncement of +atmosphere was the lesser evil. + +Would I go out and see the École Feminine? I would. It sounded +interesting and a visit committed me to nothing. Mlle. Thompson put it +charmingly. I should be conferring a favor. There was a guest chamber +and no guest for the pupils to practice on. And it would be an honor, +etc. + +We drove out to Passy and I found the École Feminine in the Boulevard +Beauséjour all and more than Mlle. Thompson had taken the time to +portray in detail. The entrance was at the side of the house and one +approached it through a large gateway which led to a cul-de-sac lined +with villas and filled with beautiful old trees that enchanted my eye. +I cursed those trees later but at the moment they almost decided me +before I entered the house. + +The interior, having been done by enthusiastic admirers of Mlle. +Thompson, was not only fresh and modern but artistic and striking. The +salon was paneled, but the dining-room had been decorated by Poiret +with great sprays and flowers splashed on the walls, picturesque +vegetables that had parted with their humility between the garden and +the palette. Through a glass partition one saw the shining kitchen +with its large modern range, its rows and rows of the most expensive +utensils--all donations by the omnifarious army of Mlle. Thompson's +devotees. + +Behind the salon was the schoolroom, with its blackboard, its four +long tables, its charts for food proportions. All the girls wore blue +linen aprons that covered them from head to foot. + +I followed Mlle. Thompson up the winding stair and was shown the +dormitories, the walls decorated as gaily as if for a bride, but +otherwise of a severe if comfortable simplicity. Every cot was as neat +as a new hospital's in the second year of the war, and there was an +immense lavatory on each floor. + +Then I was shown the quarters destined for me if I would so far +condescend, etc. There was quite a large bedroom, with a window +looking out over a mass of green, and the high terraces of houses +beyond; the garden of a neighbor was just below. There was a very +large wardrobe, with shelves that pulled out, and one of those +wash-stands where a minute tank is filled every morning (when not +forgotten) and the bowl is tipped into a noisy tin just below. + +The room was in a little hallway of its own which terminated in a +large bathroom with two enormous tubs. Of course the water was heated +in a copper boiler situated between the tubs, for although the École +Feminine was modern it was not too modern. The point, however, was +that I should have my daily bath, and that the entire school would +delight in waiting on me. + +It did not take me any time whatever to decide. I might not be +comfortable but I certainly should be interested. I moved in that day. +Mlle. Thompson's original invitation to be her guest (in return for +the small paragraph I had written about the dolls) was not to be +entertained for a moment. I wished to feel at liberty to stay as long +as I liked; and it was finally agreed that at the end of the week +Mlle. Thompson and Mlle. Jacquier should decide upon the price. + + +V + + +I remained something like three months. There were three trolley +lines, a train, a cab-stand, a good shopping street within a few +steps, the place itself was a haven of rest after my long days in +Paris meeting people by the dozen and taking notes of their work, and +the cooking was the most varied and the most delicate I have ever +eaten anywhere. A famous retired chef had offered his services three +times a week for nothing and each girl during her two weeks in the +kitchen learned how to prepare eggs in forty different ways, to say +nothing of sauces and delicacies that the Ritz itself could not +afford. I received the benefit of all the experiments. I could also +amuse myself looking through the glass partition at the little master +chef, whose services thousands could not command, rushing about the +kitchen, waving his arms, tearing his hair, shrieking against the +incredible stupidity of young females whom heaven had not endowed with +the genius for cooking; and who, no doubt, had never cooked anything +at all before they answered the advertisement of Mlle. Thompson. Few +that had not belonged to well-to-do families whose heavy work had been +done by servants. + +A table was given me in a corner by myself and the other tables were +occupied by the girls who at the moment were not serving their +fortnight in the kitchen or as waitresses. These were treated as +ceremoniously (being practiced on) as I was, although their food, +substantial and plentiful, was not as choice as mine. I could have had +all my meals served in my rooms if I had cared to avail myself of the +privilege; but not I! If you take but one letter to Society in France +you may, if you stay long enough, and are not personally disagreeable, +meet princesses, duchesses, marquises, countesses, by the dozen; but +to meet the coldly aloof and suspicious bourgeoisie, who hate the +sight of a stranger, particularly the petite bourgeoisie, is more +difficult than for a German to explain the sudden lapse of his country +into barbarism. Here was a unique opportunity, and I held myself to be +very fortunate. + +Was I comfortable? Judged by the American standard, certainly not. My +bed was soft enough, and my breakfast was brought to me at whatever +hour I rang for it. But, as was the case all over Paris, the central +heat had ceased abruptly on its specified date and I nearly froze. +During the late afternoon and evenings all through May and the greater +part of June I sat wrapped in my traveling cloak and went to bed as +soon as the evening ceremonies of my two fortnightly attendants were +over. I might as well have tried to interrupt the advance of a German +taube as to interfere with any of Mlle. Jacquier's orthodoxies. + +Moreover four girls, with great chattering, invariably prepared my +bath--which circumstances decided me to take at night--and I had to +wait until all their confidences--exchanged as they sat in a row on +the edge of the two tubs--were over. Then something happened to the +boiler, and as all the plumbers were in the trenches, and ubiquitous +woman seemed to have stopped short in her new accomplishments at +mending pipes, I had to wait until a permissionnaire came home on his +six days' leave, and that was for five weeks. More than once I decided +to go back to the Crillon, where the bathrooms are the last cry in +luxury, for I detest the makeshift bath, but by this time I was too +fascinated by the École to tear myself away. + +Naturally out of thirty girls there were some antagonistic +personalities, and two or three I took such an intense dislike to that +I finally prevailed upon Mlle. Jacquier to keep them out of my room +and away from my table. But the majority of the students were "regular +girls." At first I was as welcome in the dining-room as a Prussian +sentinel, and they exchanged desultory remarks in whispers; but after +a while they grew accustomed to me and chattered like magpies. I could +hear them again in their dormitories until about half-past ten at +night. Mlle. Jacquier asked me once with some anxiety if I minded, and +I assured her that I liked it. This was quite true, for these girls, +all so eager and natural, and even gay, despite the tragedy in the +background of many, seemed to me the brightest spot in Paris. + +It is true that I remonstrated, and frequently, against the terrific +noise they made every morning at seven o'clock when they clamped +across the uncarpeted hall and down the stairs. But although they +would tiptoe for a day they would forget again, and I finally resigned +myself. I also did my share in training them to wait on a guest in her +room! Not one when I arrived had anything more than a theoretical idea +of what to do beyond making a bed, sweeping, and dusting. I soon +discovered that the more exacting I was--and there were times when I +was exceeding stormy--the better Mlle. Jacquier was pleased. + +She had her hands full. Her discipline was superb and she addressed +each with invariable formality as "Mademoiselle----"; but they were +real girls, full of vitality, and always on the edge of rebellion. I +listened to some stinging rebukes delivered by Mlle. Jacquier when she +would arise in her wrath in the dining-room and address them +collectively. She knew how to get under their skin, for they would +blush, hang their heads, and writhe. + + +VI + + +But Mlle. Jacquier told me that what really kept them in order was the +influence of Mlle. Thompson. At first she came every week late in the +afternoon to give them a talk; then every fortnight; then--oh là! là! + +I listened to one or two of these talks. The girls sat in a +semicircle, hardly breathing, their eyes filling with tears whenever +Mlle. Thompson, who sat at a table at the head of the room, played on +that particular key. + +I never thought Valentine Thompson more remarkable than during this +hour dedicated to the tuning and exalting of the souls of these girls. +Several told me that she held their hearts in her hands when she +talked and that they would follow her straight to the battlefield. +She, herself, assumed her most serious and exalted expression. I have +never heard any one use more exquisite French. Not for a moment did +she talk down to those girls of a humbler sphere. She lifted them to +her own. Her voice took on deeper tones, but she always stopped short +of being dramatic. French people of all classes are too keen and +clear-sighted and intelligent to be taken in by theatrical tricks, and +Mlle. Thompson made no mistakes. Her only mistake was in neglecting +these girls later on for other new enterprises that claimed her ardent +imagination. + +She talked, I remember, of patriotism, of morale, of their duty to +excel in their present studies that they might be of service not only +to their impoverished families but to their beloved France. It was not +so much what she said as the lovely way in which she said it, her +impressive manner and appearance, her almost overwhelming but, for the +occasion, wholly democratic personality. + +Once a week Mlle. Thompson and the heads of the Touring Club de +France had a breakfast at the École and tables were laid even in the +salon. I was always somebody's guest upon these Tuesdays, unless I was +engaged elsewhere, and had, moreover, been for years a member of the +Touring Club. Some of the most distinguished men and women of Paris +came to the breakfasts: statesmen, journalists, authors, artists, +people of _le beau monde_, visiting English and Americans as well as +French people of note. Naturally the students became expert waitresses +and chasseurs as well as cooks. + +Altogether I should have only the pleasantest memories of the École +Feminine had it not been for the mosquitoes. I do not believe that New +Jersey ever had a worse record than Paris that summer. Every leaf of +every one of those beautiful trees beyond my window, over whose tops I +used to gaze at the airplanes darting about on the lookout for taubes, +was an incubator. I exhausted the resources of two chemist shops in +Passy and one in Paris. I tried every invention, went to bed reeking +with turpentine, and burned evil-smelling pastiles. Mlle. Jacquier +came in every night and slew a dozen with a towel as scientifically as +she did everything else. All of no avail. At one time I was so spotted +that I had to wear a still more heavily spotted veil. I looked as if +afflicted with measles. + +Oddly enough the prettiest of the students, whose first name was +Alice, was the only one of us all ignored by the mosquitoes. She had +red-gold hair and a pink and white skin of great delicacy, and she +might have been the twin of Elsie Ferguson. A few of the other girls +were passably good-looking but she was the only one with anything like +beauty--which, it would seem, is practically confined to the noblesse +and grande bourgeoisie in France. Next to her in looks came Mlle. +Jacquier, who if she had a dot would have been snapped up long since. + +Alice had had two fiancés (selected by her mother) and both young +officers; one, an Englishman, had been killed in the first year of the +war. She was only eighteen. At one time the northern town she lived in +was threatened by the Germans, and Mrs. Vail of Boston (whose daughter +is so prominent at the American Fund for French Wounded headquarters +in Paris), being on the spot and knowing how much there would be left +of the wildrose innocence that bloomed visibly on Alice's plump +cheeks, whisked her off to London. There she remained until she heard +of Mlle. Thompson's School, when Mrs. Vail brought her to Paris. As +she was not only pretty and charming but intelligent, I exerted myself +to find her a place before I left, and I believe she is still with +Mrs. Thayer in the Hotel Cecilia. + + +VII + + +The École Féminine, I am told, is no more. Mlle. Thompson found it +impossible to raise the necessary money to keep it going. The truth +is, I fancy, that she approached generous donators for too many +different objects and too many times. Perhaps the École will be +reopened later on. If not it will always be a matter of regret not +only for France but for Valentine Thompson's own sake that she did not +concentrate on this useful enterprise; it would have been a definite +monument in the center of her shifting activities. + +I have no space to give even a list of her manifold oeuvres, but one +at least bids fair to be associated permanently with her name. What is +now known in the United States as the French Heroes' Fund was started +by Mlle. Thompson under the auspices of _La Vie Féminine_ to help the +réformés rebuild their lives. The greater number could not work at +their old avocations, being minus an arm or a leg. But they learned to +make toys and many useful articles, and worked at home; in good +weather, sitting before their doors in the quiet village street. A +vast number of these Mlle. Thompson and various members of her +Committee located, tabulated, encouraged; and, once a fortnight, +collected their work. This was either sold in Paris or sent to +America. + +In New York Mrs. William Astor Chanler and Mr. John Moffat organized +the work under its present title and raised the money to buy +Lafayette's birthplace. They got it at a great bargain, $20,000; for a +large number of acres were included in the purchase. Another $20,000, +also raised by Mr. Moffatt, repaired and furnished the château, which +not only is to be a sort of French Mt. Vernon, with rooms dedicated to +relics of Lafayette and the present war, as well as a memorial room +for the American heroes who have fallen for France, but an orphanage +is to be built in the grounds, and the repairs as well as all the +other work is to be done by the blind and the mutilated, who will thus +not be objects of charity but made to feel themselves men once more +and able to support their families. The land will be rented to the +réformés, the mutilés and the blind. + +Mlle. Thompson and Mrs. Chanler, with the help of a powerful +Committee, are pushing this work forward as rapidly as possible in the +circumstances and no doubt it will be one of the first war meccas of +the American tourists so long separated from their beloved Europe. + + +VIII + + +The most insistent memory of my life in Passy at the Hôtel Féminine is +the Battle of the Somme. After it commenced in July I heard the great +guns day and night for a week. That deep, steady, portentous booming +had begun to exert a morbid fascination before the advance carried the +cannon out of my range, and I had an almost irresistible desire to +pack up and follow it. The ancestral response to the old god of war is +more persistent than any of us imagine, I fancy. I was close to the +lines some weeks later, when I went into the Zone des Armées, and it +is quite positive that not only does that dreary and dangerous region +exert a sinister fascination but that it seems to expel fear from +your composition. It is as if for the first time you were in the +normal condition of life, which during the centuries of the ancestors +to whom you owe your brain-cells, was war, not peace. + + + + +IX + +MADAME WADDINGTON + +I + + +One has learned to associate Madame Waddington so intimately with the +glittering surface life of Europe that although every one knows she +was born in New York of historic parentage, one recalls with something +of a shock now and then that she was not only educated in this country +but did not go to France to live until after the death of her father +in 1871. + +This no doubt accounts for the fact that meeting her for the first +time one finds her unmistakably an American woman. Her language may be +French but she has a directness and simplicity that no more identifies +her with a European woman of any class than with the well-known +exigencies of diplomacy. Madame Waddington strikes one as quite +remarkably fearless and downright; she appears to be as outspoken as +she is vivacious; and as her husband had a highly successful career as +a diplomatist, and as his debt to his brilliant wife is freely +conceded, Madame Waddington is certainly a notable instance of the gay +persistence of an intelligent American woman's personality, combined +with the proper proportion of acuteness, quickness, and charm which +force a highly conventionalized and specialized society to take her on +her own terms. The greater number of diplomatic women as well as +ladies-in-waiting that I have run across during my European or +Washington episodes have about as much personality as a door-mat. Many +of our own women have been admirable helpmates to our ambassadors, but +I recall none that has played a great personal rôle in the world. Not +a few have contributed to the gaiety of nations. + +Madame Waddington has had four separate careers quite aside from the +always outstanding career of girlhood. Her father was Charles King, +President of Columbia College and son of Rufus King, second United +States Minister to England. When she married M. Waddington, a +Frenchman of English descent, and educated at Rugby and Cambridge, he +was just entering public life. His château was in the Department of +the Aisne and he was sent from there to the National Assembly. Two +years later he was appointed Minister of Public Instruction, and in +January, 1876, he was elected Senator from the Aisne. In December of +the following year he once more entered the Cabinet as Minister of +Public Instruction, later accepting the portfolio for Foreign Affairs. + +During this period, of course, Madame Waddington lived the brilliant +social and political life of the capital. M. Waddington began his +diplomatic career in 1878 as the first Plenipotentiary of France to +the Congress of Berlin. In 1883 he was sent as Ambassador +Extraordinary to represent France at the coronation of Alexander III; +and it was then that Madame Waddington began to send history through +the diplomatic pouch, and sow the seeds of that post-career which +comes to so few widows of public men. + +Madame Waddington's letters from Russia, and later from England where +her husband was Ambassador from 1883 to 1893 are now so famous, being +probably in every private library of any pretensions, that it would be +a waste of space to give an extended notice of them in a book which +has nothing whatever to do with the achievements of its heroines in +art and letters in that vast almost-forgotten period, Before the War. +Suffice it to say that they are among the most delightful epistolary +contributions to modern literature, the more so perhaps as they were +written without a thought of future publication. But being a born +woman of letters, every line she writes has the elusive qualities of +style and charm; and she has besides the selective gift of putting +down on paper even to her own family only what is worth recording. + +When these letters were published in _Scribner's Magazine_ in 1902, +eight years after M. Waddington's death, they gave her an instant +position in the world of letters, which must have consoled her for the +loss of that glittering diplomatic life she had enjoyed for so many +years. + +Not that Madame Waddington had ever dropped out of society, except +during the inevitable period of mourning. In Paris up to the outbreak +of the war she was always in demand, particularly in diplomatic +circles, by far the most interesting and kaleidoscopic in the European +capitals. I was told that she never paid a visit to England without +finding an invitation from the King and Queen at her hotel, as well as +a peck of other invitations. + +I do not think Madame Waddington has ever been wealthy in our sense of +the word. But, as I said before, her career is a striking example of +that most precious of all gifts, personality. And if she lives until +ninety she will always be in social demand, for she is what is known +as "good company." She listens to you but you would far rather listen +to her. Unlike many women of distinguished pasts she lives in hers +very little. It is difficult to induce the reminiscent mood. She lives +intensely in the present and her mind works insatiably upon everything +in current life that is worth while. + +She has no vanity. Unlike many ladies of her age and degree in Paris +she does not wear a red-brown wig, but her own abundant hair, as soft +and white as cotton and not a "gray" hair in it. She is now too much +absorbed in the war to waste time at her dressmakers or even to care +whether her placket-hole is open or not. I doubt if she ever did care +much about dress or "keeping young," for those are instincts that +sleep only in the grave. War or no war they are as much a part of the +daily habit as the morning bath. I saw abundant evidence of this +immortal fact in Paris during the second summer of the war. + +Nevertheless, the moment Madame Waddington enters a room she seems to +charge it with electricity. You see no one else and you are impatient +when others insist upon talking. Vitality, an immense intelligence +without arrogance or self-conceit, a courtesy which has no relation to +diplomatic caution, a kindly tact and an unmistakable integrity, +combine to make Madame Waddington one of the most popular women in +Europe. + + +II + + +This brings me to Madame Waddington's fourth career. The war which has +lifted so many people out of obscurity, rejuvenated a few dying +talents, and given thousands their first opportunity to be useful, +simply overwhelmed Madame Waddington with hard work and a multitude of +new duties. If she had indulged in dreams of spending the rest of her +days in the peaceful paths of literature when not dining out, they +were rudely dissipated on August 1st, 1914. + +Madame Waddington opened the Ouvroir Holophane on the 15th of August, +her first object being to give employment and so countercheck the +double menace of starvation and haunted idleness for at least fifty +poor women: teachers, music-mistresses, seamstresses, lace makers, +women of all ages and conditions abruptly thrown out of work. + +Madame Waddington, speaking of them, said: "We had such piteous cases +of perfectly well-dressed, well-educated, gently-bred women that we +hardly dared offer them the one-franc-fifty and 'gouter' (bowl of +café-au-lait with bread and butter), which was all we were able to +give for four hours' work in the afternoon." + +However, those poor women were very thankful for the work and sewed +faithfully on sleeping-suits and underclothing for poilus in the +trenches and hospitals. Madame Waddington's friends in America +responded to her call for help and M. Mygatt gave her rooms on the +ground floor of his building in the Boulevard Haussmann. + +When the Germans were rushing on Paris and invasion seemed as +inevitable as the horrors that were bound to follow, Mr. Herrick +insisted that Madame Waddington and her sister Miss King, who was +almost helpless from rheumatism, follow the Government to the South. +This Madame Waddington reluctantly did, but returned immediately after +the Battle of the Marne. + +It was not long before the Ouvroir Holophane outgrew its original +proportions, and instead of the women coming there daily to sew, they +called only for materials to make up at home. For this ouvroir (if it +has managed to exist in these days of decreasing donations) sends to +the Front garments of all sorts for soldiers ill or well, +pillow-cases, sheets, sleeping-bags, slippers. + +Moreover, as soon as the men began to come home on their six days' +leave they found their way to the generous ouvroir on the Boulevard +Haussmann, where Madame Waddington, or her friend Mrs. Greene (also an +American), or Madame Mygatt, always gave the poor men what they needed +to replace their tattered (or missing) undergarments, as well as +coffee and bread and butter. + +The most difficult women to employ were those who had been accustomed +to make embroidery and lace, as well as many who had led pampered +lives in a small way and did not know how to sew at all. But +one-franc-fifty stood between them and starvation and they learned. +To-day nearly all of the younger women assisted by those first +ouvroirs are more profitably employed. France has adjusted itself to a +state of war and thousands of women are either in Government service +and munition factories, or in the reopened shops and restaurants. + + +III + + +The Waddingtons being the great people of their district were, of +course, looked upon by the peasant farmers and villagers as +aristocrats of illimitable wealth. Therefore when the full force of +the war struck these poor people--they were in the path of the Germans +during the advance on Paris, and ruthlessly treated--they looked to +Madame Waddington and her daughter, Madame Francis Waddington, to put +them on their feet again. + +Francis Waddington, to whom the château descended, was in the +trenches, but his mother and wife did all they could, as soon as the +Germans had been driven back, to relieve the necessities of the dazed +and miserable creatures whose farms had been devastated and shops +rifled or razed. Some time, by the way, Madame Waddington may tell the +dramatic story of her daughter-in-law's escape. She was alone in the +château with her two little boys when the Mayor of the nearest village +dashed up with the warning that the Germans were six kilometers away, +and the last train was about to leave. + +She had two automobiles, but her chauffeur had been mobilized and +there was no petrol. She was dressed for dinner, but there was no time +to change. She threw on a cloak and thinking of nothing but her +children went off with the Mayor in hot haste to catch the train. From +that moment on for five or six days, during which time she never took +off her high-heeled slippers with their diamond buckles, until she +reached her husband in the North, her experience was one of the side +dramas of the war. + +I think it was early in 1915 that Madame Waddington wrote in +_Scribner's Magazine_ a description of her son's château as it was +after the Germans had evacuated it. But the half was not told. It +never can be, in print. Madame Huard, in her book, _My Home on the +Field of Honor_, is franker than most of the current historians have +dared to be, and the conditions which she too found when she returned +after the German retreat may be regarded as the prototype of the +disgraceful and disgusting state in which these lovely country homes +of the French were left; not by lawless German soldiers but by +officers of the first rank. Madame Francis Waddington did not even run +upstairs to snatch her jewel case, and of course she never saw it +again. Her dresses had been taken from the wardrobes and slashed from +top to hem by the swords of these incomprehensible barbarians. The +most valuable books in the library were gutted. But these outrages are +almost too mild to mention. + + +IV + + +The next task after the city ouvroir was in running order was to teach +the countrywomen how to sew for the soldiers and pay them for their +work. The region of the Aisne is agricultural where it is not heavily +wooded. Few of the women had any skill with the needle. The two Madame +Waddingtons concluded to show these poor women with their coarse red +hands how to knit until their fingers grew more supple. This they took +to very kindly, knitting jerseys and socks; and since those early days +both the Paris and country ouvroirs had sent (June, 1916) twenty +thousand packages to the soldiers. Each package contained a flannel +shirt, drawers, stomach band, waistcoat or jersey, two pairs of socks, +two handkerchiefs, a towel, a piece of soap. Any donations of tobacco +or rolled cigarettes were also included. + +This burden in the country has been augmented heavily by refugees +from the invaded districts. Of course they come no more these days, +but while I was in Paris they were still pouring down, and as the +Waddington estate was often in their line of march they simply camped +in the park and in the garage. Of course they had to be clothed, fed, +and generally assisted. + +As Madame Waddington's is not one of the picturesque ouvroirs she has +found it difficult to keep it going, and no doubt contributes all she +can spare of what the war has left of her own income. Moreover, she is +on practically every important war relief committee, sometimes as +honorary president, for her name carries great weight, often as +vice-president or as a member of the "conseil." After her ouvroirs the +most important organization of which she is president is the Comité +International de Pansements Chirurgicaux des Etats Unis--in other +words, surgical dressings--started by Mrs. Willard, and run actively +in Paris by Mrs. Austin, the vice-president. When I visited it they +were serving about seven hundred hospitals, and no doubt by this time +are supplying twice that number. Two floors of a new apartment house +had been put at their disposal near the Bois, and the activity and +shining whiteness were the last word in modern proficiency (I shall +never use that black-sheep among words, _efficiency_, again). + +One of Madame Waddington's more personal oeuvres is the amusement she, +in company with her daughter-in-law, provides for the poilus in the +village near her son's estate. Regiments are quartered there, either +to hold themselves in readiness, or to cut down trees for the army. +They wandered about, desolate and bored, until the two Madame +Waddingtons furnished a reading-room, provided with letter paper and +post-cards, books and, I hope, by this time a gramophone. Here they +sit and smoke, read, or get up little plays. As the château is now +occupied by the staff the two patronesses are obliged to go back and +forth from Paris, and this they do once a week at least. + + +V + + +Madame Waddington, knowing that I was very anxious to see one of the +cantines at the railway stations about which so much was said, took me +late one afternoon to St. Lazare. Into this great station, as into all +the others, train after train hourly gives up its load of +permissionnaires--men home on their six days' leave--; men for the +éclopé stations; men from shattered regiments, to be held at Le +Bourget until the time comes to be sent to fill other gaps made by the +German guns; men who merely arrive by one train to take another out, +but who must frequently remain for several hours in the dépôt. + +I have never entered one of these _gares_ to take a train that I have +not seen hundreds of soldiers entering, leaving, waiting; sometimes +lying asleep on the hard floor, always on the benches. It is for all +who choose to take advantage of them that these cantines are run, and +they are open day and night. + +The one in St. Lazare had been organized in February, 1915, by the +Baronne de Berckheim (born Pourtales) and was still run by her in +person when I visited it in June, 1916. During that time she and her +staff had taken care of over two hundred thousand soldiers. From 8 to +11 A.M. café-au-lait, or café noir, or bouillon, paté de foie or +cheese is served. From 11 to 2 and from 6 to 9, bouillon, a plate of +meat and vegetables, salad, cheese, fruits or compote, coffee, a quart +of wine or beer, cigarettes. From 2 to 6 and after 9 P.M., bouillon, +coffee, tea, paté, cheese, milk, lemonade, cocoa. + +The rooms in the station are a donation by the officials, of course. +The dining-room of the St. Lazare cantine was fitted up with several +long tables, before which, when we arrived, every square inch of the +benches was occupied by poilus enjoying an excellent meal of which +beef à la mode was the pièce de résistance. The Baroness Berckheim and +the young girls helping her wore the Red Cross uniform, and they +served the needs of the tired and hungry soldiers with a humble +devotion that nothing but war and its awful possibilities can inspire. +It was these nameless men who were saving not only France from the +most brutal enemy of modern times but the honor of thousands of such +beautiful and fastidious young women as these. No wonder they were +willing and grateful to stand until they dropped. + +[Illustration: A RAILWAY DEPOT CANTINE] + +It was evident, however, that their imagination carried them beyond +man's interiorities. The walls were charmingly decorated not only with +pictures of the heroes of the war but with the colored supplements of +the great weekly magazines which pursue their even and welcome way in +spite of the war. Above there were flags and banners, and the lights +were very bright. Altogether there was no restaurant in Paris more +cheerful--or more exquisitely neat in its kitchen. I went behind and +saw the great roasts in their shining pans, the splendid loaves of +bread, the piles of clean dishes. Not a spot of grease in those +crowded quarters. In a corner the President of the Chamber of Commerce +was cashier for the night. + +Adjoining was a rest-room with six or eight beds, and a lavatory large +enough for several men simultaneously to wash off the dust of their +long journey. + +These cantines are supported by collections taken up on trains. On any +train between Paris and any point in France outside of the War Zone +girls in the uniform of the Croix Rouge appear at every stop and shake +a box at you. They are wooden boxes, with a little slit at the top. As +I have myself seen people slipping in coppers and, no doubt, receiving +the credit from other passengers of donating francs, I suggested that +these young cadets of the Red Cross would add heavily to their day's +toll if they passed round open plates. Certainly no one would dare +contribute copper under the sharp eyes of his fellows. This, I was +told, was against the law, but that it might be found practicable to +use glass boxes. + +In any case the gains are enough to run these cantines. The girls are +almost always good looking and well bred, and they look very serious +in their white uniform with the red cross on the sleeves; and the +psychotherapeutic influence is too strong for any one to resist. + +Madame Waddington had brought a large box of chocolates and she passed +a piece over the shoulder of each soldier, who interrupted the more +serious business of the moment to be polite. Other people bring them +flowers, or cigarettes, and certainly there is no one in the world so +satisfactory to put one's self to any effort for as a poilu. On her +manners alone France should win her war. + + + + +X + +THE COUNTESS D'HAUSSONVILLE[D] + +I + + +Madame la Comtesse d'Haussonville, it is generally conceded, is not +only the greatest lady in France but stands at the very head of all +women working for the public welfare in her country. That is saying a +great deal, particularly at this moment. + + [D] Naturally this should have been the first chapter, both on + account of the importance of the work and the position of Madame + d'Haussonville among the women of France, but unfortunately the + necessary details did not come until the book was almost ready + for press. + +Madame d'Haussonville is President of the first, or noblesse, division +of the Red Cross, which, like the two others, has a title as distinct +as the social status of the ladies who command, with diminishing +degrees of pomp and power. + +Société Française de Secours aux Blessés Militaires is the name of the +crack regiment. + +The second division, presided over by Madame Carnot, leader of the +grande bourgeoisie, calls itself Association des Dames Françaises, and +embraces all the charitably disposed of that haughty and powerful +body. + +The third, operated by Madame Perouse, and composed of able and useful +women whom fate has planted in a somewhat inferior social sphere--in +many social spheres, for that matter--has been named (note the +significance of the differentiating noun) Union des Femmes de France. + +Between these three useful and admirable organizations there is no +love lost whatever. That is to say, in reasonably normal conditions. +No doubt in that terrible region just behind the lines they sink all +differences and pull together for the common purpose. + +The Red Cross was too old and too taken-for-granted an organization, +and too like our own, for all I knew to the contrary, to tempt me to +give it any of the limited time at my disposal in France; so, as it +happened, of these three distinguished chiefs the only one I met was +Madame d'Haussonville. + +She interested me intensely, not only because she stood at the head of +the greatest relief organization in the world, but because she is one +of the very few women, of her age, at least, who not only is a great +lady but looks the rôle. + +European women tend to coarseness, not to say commonness, as they +advance in age, no matter what their rank; their cheeks sag and +broaden, and their stomachs contract a fatal and permanent entente +with their busts. Too busy or too indifferent to charge spiteful +nature with the daily counter-attacks of art, they put on a red-brown +wig (generally sideways) and let it go at that. Sometimes they smudge +their eyebrows with a pomade which gives that extinct member the look +of being neither hair, skin, nor art, but they contemptuously reject +rouge or even powder. When they have not altogether discarded the +follies or the ennui of dress, but patronize their modiste +conscientiously, they have that "built up look" peculiar to those +uncompromisingly respectable women of the first society in our own +land, who frown upon the merely smart. + +It is only the young women of fashion in France who make up lips, +brows, and cheeks, as well as hair and earlobes, who often look like +young clowns, and whose years give them no excuse for making up beyond +subservience to the mode of the hour. + +It is even sadder when they are emulated by ambitious ladies in the +provinces. I went one day to a great concert--given for charity, of +course--in a town not far from Paris. The Mayor presided and his wife +was with him. As I had been taken out from Paris by one of the Patrons +I sat in the box with this very well-dressed and important young +woman, and she fascinated me so that I should have feared to appear +rude if she had not been far too taken up with the titled women from +Paris, whom she was meeting for the first time in her life, to pay any +attention to a mere American. + +She may have been twenty-eight, certainly not over thirty, but she had +only one front tooth. It was a very large tooth and it stuck straight +out. Her lips were painted an energetic vermillion. Her mouth too was +large, and it spread across her dead white (and homely) face like a +malignant sore. She smiled constantly--it was her rôle to be gracious +to all these duchesses and ambassadresses--and that solitary tooth +darted forward like a sentinel on a bridge in the War Zone. But I +envied her. She was so happy. So important. I never met anybody who +made me feel so insignificant. + + +II + + +Madame d'Haussonville naturally suggests to the chronicler the +sharpest sort of contrasts. + +I am told that she devoted herself to the world until the age of +fifty, and she wielded a power and received a measure of adulation +from both sexes that made her the most formidable social power in +France. But the De Broglies are a serious family, as their record in +history proves. Madame d'Haussonville, without renouncing her place in +the world of fashion, devoted herself more and more to good works, her +superior brain and executive abilities forcing her from year to year +into positions of heavier responsibility. + +I was told that she was now seventy; but she is a woman whose +personality is so compelling that she rouses none of the usual vulgar +curiosity as to the number of years she may have lingered on this +planet. You see Madame d'Haussonville as she is and take not the +least interest in what she may have been during the years before you +happened to meet her. + +Very tall and slender and round and straight, her figure could hardly +have been more perfect at the age of thirty. The poise of her head is +very haughty and the nostril of her fine French nose is arched and +thin. She wears no make-up whatever, and, however plainly she may feel +it her duty to dress in these days, her clothes are cut by a master +and an excessively modern one at that; there is none of the Victorian +built-up effect, to which our own grandes dames cling as to the rock +of ages, about Madame d'Haussonville. Her waist line is in its proper +place--she does not go to the opposite extreme and drag it down to her +knees--and one feels reasonably sure that it will be there at the age +of ninety--presupposing that the unthinkable amount of hard work she +accomplishes daily during this period of her country's crucifixion +shall not have devoured the last of her energies long before she is +able to enter the peaceful haven of old age. + +She is in her offices at the Red Cross headquarters in the Rue +François I'er early and late, leaving them only to visit hospitals or +sit on some one of the innumerable committees where her advice is +imperative, during the organizing period at least. + +Some time ago I wrote to Madame d'Haussonville, asking her if she +would dictate a few notes about her work in the Red Cross, and as she +wrote a very full letter in reply, I cannot do better than quote it, +particularly as it gives a far more comprehensive idea of her +personality than any words of mine. + + +"Paris, March 28th, 1917. + +"DEAR MRS. ATHERTON: + +"I am very much touched by your gracious letter and very happy if I +can serve you. + +"Here are some notes about our work, and about what I have seen since +August, 1914. All our thoughts and all our strength are in the great +task, that of all French women, to aid the wounded, the ill, those who +remain invalids, the refugees of the invaded districts, all the +sufferings actually due to these cruel days. + +"Some weeks before the war, I was called to the ministry, where they +asked me to have two hundred infirmaries ready for all possible +happenings. We had already established a great number, of which many +had gone to Morocco and into the Colonies. To-day there are fifteen or +sixteen thousand volunteer nurses to whom are added about eleven +thousand auxiliaries used in accessory service (kitchen, bandages, +sterilization, etc.) and also assisting in the wards of the ill and +the wounded. + +"To the hospitals there have been added since the month of August, +1914, the infirmaries and station cantines where our soldiers receive +the nourishment and hot drinks which are necessary for their long +journeys. + +"At Amiens, for instance, the cantine, an annex of the station +infirmary began with the distribution of slices of bread and drinks +made by our women as the trains arrived. Then a big room used for +baggage was given to us. A dormitory was made of it for tired +soldiers, also a reading-room. At any hour French, English or Belgians +may receive a good meal--soup, one kind of meat and vegetables, coffee +or tea. Civil refugees are received there and constantly aided and +fed. + +"Our nurses attend to all wants, and above everything they believe in +putting their hearts into their work administering to those who suffer +with the tenderness of a mother. In the hospital wards nothing touched +me more than to see the thousand little kindnesses which they gave to +the wounded, the distractions which they sought to procure for them +each day. + +"In our great work of organization at the Bureau on Rue François I'er, +I have met the most beautiful devotion. Our nurses do not hesitate at +contagion, nor at bombardments, and I know some of your compatriots +(that I can never admire enough), who expose themselves to the same +dangers with hearts full of courage. + +"I have visited the hospitals nearest the Front, Dunkerque, so cruelly +shelled. I have been to Alsace, to Lorraine, then to Verdun from where +I brought back the most beautiful impression of calm courage. + +"Here are some details which may interest your compatriots: + +"June 1916. My first stop was at Châlons, where with Mme. +Terneaux-Compans our devoted senior nurse, I visited the hospital +Corbineau, former quarters for the cavalry, very well reconstructed by +the Service de Santé, for sick soldiers; our nurses are doing service +there; generous gifts have enabled us to procure a small motor which +carries water to the three stories, and we have been able to install +baths for the typhoid patients. + +"At the hospital Forgeot (for the officers) I admired the +ingeniousness with which our nurses have arranged for their wounded a +quite charming assembly-room with a piano, some growing plants and +several games. + +"I also visited our auxiliary hospital at Sainte-Croix. It would be +impossible to find a more beautiful location, a better organization. I +have not had, to my great regret, the time to visit the other +hospitals, which, however, I already know. That will be, I hope, for +another time. + +"The same day I went to Revigny. Oh, never shall I forget the +impressions that I received there. First, the passage through that +poor village in ruins, then the visit to the hospital situated near +the station through which most of the wounded from Verdun pass. + +"What was, several months ago, a field at the edge of the road, has +become one big hospital of more than a thousand beds, divided into +baraques. We have twenty-five nurses there. Since the beginning of the +battle they have been subjected to frightful work; every one has to +care for a number of critically wounded--those who have need of +operations and who are not able to travel further. What moved me above +everything was to find our nurses so simple and so modest in their +courage. Not a single complaint about their terrible fatigue--their +one desire is to hold out to the end. When I expressed my admiration, +one of them answered: 'We have only one regret: it is that we have too +much work to give special attention to each of the wounded, and then +above all it is terrible to see so many die.' + +"I visited some of the baraques, and I observed that, in spite of the +excessive work, they were not only clean but well cared for, and +flowers everywhere! I also saw a tent where there were about ten +Germans; one of our nurses who spoke their language was in charge; +they seemed to me very well taken care of--'well,' because they were +wounded, not 'too well' because--we cannot forget. + +"I tore myself away from Revigny, where I should have liked to remain +longer, and I arrived that night at Jeans d'Heurs, which seemed to me +a small paradise. The wounded were admirably cared for in beautiful +rooms, with windows opening on a ravishing park; the nurses housed +with the greatest care. + +"The next day I was at Bar-le-Duc, first at the Central, which is an +immense hospital of three thousand beds. Before the war it was a +caserne (barrack). They reconstructed the buildings and in the courts +they put up sheds; our nurses are at work there--among them the +beloved President of our Association--the Mutual Association of +Nurses. All these buildings seemed to me perfect. I visited specially +the splendidly conducted surgical pavilion and the typhoid pavilion. + +"The white-washed walls have been decorated by direction of the nurses +with great friezes of color, producing a charming effect which ought +to please the eyes of our beloved sick. + +"I visited also the laboratory where they showed me the chart of the +typhoid patients--the loss so high in 1914--so low in 1915. I noted +down some figures which I give here for those who are interested in +the question of anti-typhoid vaccine: In November 1914, 379 deaths. In +November 1915, 22! What a new and wonderful victory for French +science! I must add that three of our nurses have contracted typhoid +fever; none of them was inoculated; twenty who were inoculated caught +nothing. + +"While we were making this visit, we heard the whistle which announced +the arrival of taubes--we wanted very much to remain outside to see, +but we were ordered to go in; I observed that our nurses obeyed the +order because of discipline, not on account of fear. 'We can only die +once!' one of them said to me, shrugging her shoulders. Their chief +concern is for the poor wounded. Many of them now that they are in +bed, powerless to defend themselves, become nervous at the approach of +danger. They have to be reassured. If the shelling becomes too heavy, +they carry them down into the cellars. + +"These taubes having gone back this time without causing any damage, +we set off for Savonnières, a field hospital of about three hundred +beds, established in a little park. It is charming in summer, it may +be a little damp in winter, but the nurses do not complain; the nurses +never complain! + +"Saturday was the most interesting day of my trip. I saw two field +hospitals between Bar-le-Duc and Verdun. Oh! those who have not been +in the War Zone cannot imagine the impression that I received on the +route which leads 'out there,' toward the place where the greatest, +the most atrocious struggle that has ever been is going on. All those +trucks by hundreds going and coming from Verdun; those poor men +breaking stones, ceaselessly repairing the roads, the aeroplane bases, +the dépôts of munitions, above all the villages filled with troops, +all those dear little soldiers, some of them fresh and clean, going, +the others yellow with mud returning--all this spectacle grips and +thrills you. + +"We breakfasted at Chaumont-sur-Aire; I cannot say how happy I was to +share, if only for an hour, the life of our dear nurses! Life here is +hard. They are lodged among the natives more or less well. They live +in a little peasant's room near a stable; they eat the food of the +wounded, not very varied--'boule' every two weeks. How they welcomed +the good fresh bread that I brought! + +"Their work is not easy, scattered over a wide field; tents, and barns +here and there, and then they have been deprived of an 'autocher,' +which had to leave for some other destination. + +"Many of the wounded from Verdun come there; and what wounded! Never +shall I forget the frightful plight of one unfortunate, upon whom they +were going to operate without much chance of success alas. He had +remained nearly four days without aid, and gangrene had done its work. + +"I had tears in my eyes watching the sleep of our heroes who had +arrived that morning overcome and wornout, all covered with dust; I +would have liked to put them in good beds, all white with soft pillows +under their heads. Alas in these hospitals at the front, one cannot +give them the comfort of our hospitals in the rear. + +"After having assisted at the great spectacle of a procession of +taubes going toward Bar-le-Duc, I was obliged to leave Chaumont to go +to Vadelaincourt, which is thirteen kilometres from Verdun, the +nearest point of our infirmaries. I was there in March at the +beginning of the battle. + +"What wonderful work has been accomplished! It is not for me to judge +the Service de Santé, but I cannot help observing that a hospital like +that of Vadelaincourt does honor to the head doctor who organized it +in full battle in the midst of a thousand difficulties. It is very +simple, very practical, very complete. I found nurses there who for +the most part have not been out of the region of Verdun since the +beginning of the war. Their task is especially hard. How many wounded +have passed through their hands; how have they been able to overcome +all their weariness? It is a pleasure to find them always alert and +watchful; I admired and envied them. + +"It was not without regret that I turned my back on this region whose +close proximity to the Front makes one thrill with emotion; I went to +calmer places, I saw less thrilling things, but nevertheless, +interesting: the charming layout at Void, that at Sorcy, in process of +organizing, the grand hospital of Toul which was shelled by taubes. I +was able to see the enormous hole dug by the bomb which fell very near +the building that sheltered our nurses, who had but one idea, to run +to their wounded and reassure them. + +"I visited at Nancy a very beautiful hospital, the Malgrange, which is +almost unique; it is the Red Cross which houses the military hospital. +At the instant of bombardment, most of the hospitals were vacated; +ours, situated outside of the city, gathered in the wounded and all +the personnel of the military hospital, and it goes very well. + +"I finished my journey with the Vosges, Épinal, Belfort, Gerardmer, +Bussang, Morvillars; all these hospitals which were filled for a long +time with the wounded from the battles of the Vosges (especially our +brave Alpines) are quiet now. + +"If I congratulated the nurses of the region of Verdun upon their +endurance, I do not congratulate less those of the Vosges upon their +constancy; Gerardmer has had very full days--days when one could not +take a thought to one's self. There is something painful, in a way, in +seeing great happenings receding from you. We do not hear the cannon +any longer, the wounded arrive more rarely, we have no longer enough +to do, we are easily discouraged, we should like to be elsewhere and +yet one must remain there at his post ready in case of need, which may +come perhaps when it is least expected. + +"I shall have many things still to tell you, but I am going to resume +my impressions of this little trip in a few words. + +"I have been filled with admiration. The word has, I believe, fallen +many times from my pen, and it will fall again and again. I have +admired our dear wounded, so courageous in their suffering, so +gracious to all those who visit them; I have admired the doctors who +are making and have made every day, such great efforts to organize and +to better conditions; and our nurses I have never ceased to admire. +When I see them I find them just as I hoped, very courageous and also +very simple. They speak very little of themselves, and a great deal of +their wounded; they complain very little of their fatigue, sometimes +of not having enough to do. They always meet cheerfully the material +difficulties of their existence as they do almost always the moral +difficulties which are even more difficult. Self-abnegation, attention +to their duty, seem to them so natural that one scarcely dares to +praise them. + +"There is one thing that I must praise them for particularly--that +they always seem to keep the beautiful charming coquetry that belongs +to every woman. I often arrived without warning. I never saw hair +disarranged or dress neglected. This exterior perfection is, I may +say, a distinctive mark of our nurses. + +"And then I like the care with which they decorate and beautify their +hospital. Everywhere flowers, pictures, bits of stuff to drape their +rooms. At Revigny in one of the baraques I saw flowers, simple flowers +gathered in the neighboring field, so prettily arranged, portraits of +our generals framed in green. When I complimented a nurse, she +answered: 'Ah, no; it is not well done; but I hadn't the time to do +better.' + +"At Vadelaincourt, a little room was set aside for dressings, all done +in white with curtains of white and two little vases of flowers. What +a smiling welcome for the poor wounded who come there! 'The +arrangement of a room has a great deal of influence on the morale of +the wounded,' a doctor said to me. All this delights me! + +"I have finished, but I shall think for a long time of this journey +which has left in my memory unforgettable sights and in my heart very +tender impressions. + +"In the Somme, also, our nurses have worked with indefatigable ardor, +and they go on without relaxation. The poor refugees, which the +Germans return to us often sick and destitute of everything, are +received and comforted by our women of the Red Cross. + +"The three societies of the Red Cross--our Society for the Relief of +the Military Wounded, the Union of the Women of France, and the +Association of the Ladies of France--work side by side under the +direction of the Service de Santé. + +"Our Society for the Relief of the Military Wounded has actually about +seven hundred hospitals, which represent sixty thousand beds, where +many nurses are occupied from morning until night, and many of them +serve also at the military hospital at the Front, and in the Orient +(three to four thousand nurses). + +"Every day new needs make us create new oeuvres, which we organize +quickly. + +"The making of bandages and compresses has always been an important +work with us. Yards of underclothing and linen are continually asked +of us by our nurses for their sick. The workshops which we have opened +since the beginning of the war assist with work a great number of +women who have been left by the mobilization of their men without +resources. + +"The clubs for soldiers, in Paris especially, give to the +convalescents and to the men on leave wholesome amusement and +compensate somewhat for their absent families. + +"Just now we are 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, chère 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 infirmières 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 train leaves at three o'clock. Be there. Madame de +Roussy de Sales and several other nurses begged to go with those of +their wounded impossible to transfer by trains, to the civilian +hospitals and make them comfortable before leaving them in the hands +of the local nurses; and obtained permission. The result was that when +they reached the station they saw the train retreating in the +distance. But they had received orders to report at a hospital in +another town that same afternoon. No vehicles were to be had. There +was nothing to do but walk. They walked. The distance was twenty-three +kilometres. As they had barely sat down since their arrival in Rheims +it may be imagined they would have been glad to rest when they +reached their destination. But this hospital too was crowded with +wounded. They went on duty at once. C'est la guerre! I never heard any +one complain. + + + + +XI + +THE MARQUISE D'ANDIGNÉ + + +The Marquise d'Andigné, who was Madeline Goddard of Providence, R.I., +is President of Le Bien-Être du Blessé, an oeuvre formed by Madame +d'Haussonville at the request of the Ministère de la Guerre in May, +1915. She owes this position as president of one of the most important +war relief organizations (perhaps after the Red Cross the most +important) to the energy, conscientiousness, and brilliant executive +abilities she had demonstrated while at the Front in charge of more +than one hospital. She is an infirmiére major and was decorated twice +for cool courage and resource under fire. + +The object of Le Bien-Être du Blessé is to provide delicacies for the +dietary kitchens of the hospitals in the War Zone, as many officers +and soldiers had died because unable to eat eggs, or drink milk, the +only two articles furnished by the rigid military system of the most +conservative country in the world. The articles supplied by Le +Bien-Être du Blessé are very simple: condensed milk, sugar, cocoa, +Franco-American soups, chocolate, sweet biscuits, jams, preserves, +prunes, tea. Thousands of lives have been saved by Bien-Être during +the past year; for men who are past caring, or wish only for the +release of death, have been coaxed back to life by a bit of jam on the +tip of a biscuit, or a teaspoonful of chicken soup. + +Some day I shall write the full and somewhat complicated history of Le +Bien-Être du Blessé, quoting from many of Madame d'Andigné's +delightful letters. But there is no space here and I will merely +mention that my own part as the American President of Le Bien-Être du +Blessé is to provide the major part of the funds with which it is run, +lest any of my readers should be tempted to help me out.[E] Donations +from ten cents to ten thousand are welcome, and $5 keeps a wounded man +for his entire time in one of those dreary hospitals in that +devastated region known as "Le Zone des Armées," where relatives nor +friends ever come to visit, and there is practically no sound but the +thunder of guns without and groans within. Not that the French do +groan much. I went through many of these hospitals and never heard a +demonstration. But I am told they do sometimes. + + [E] All donations in money are sent to the bankers, Messers John + Munroe & Co., _Eighth Floor_, 360 Madison Avenue, New York. + +To Madame d'Andigné belongs all the credit of building up Le Bien-Être +du Blessé from almost nothing (for we were nearly two years behind the +other great war-relief organizations in starting). Although many give +her temporary assistance no one will take charge of any one department +and she runs every side and phase of the work. Last winter she was +cold, and hungry, and always anxious about her husband, but she was +never absent from the office for a day except when she could not get +coal to warm it; and then she conducted the business of the oeuvre in +her own apartment, where one room was warmed with wood she had sawed +herself. + +To-day Le Bien-Être du Blessé is not only one of the most famous of +all the war-relief organizations of the fighting powers but it has +been run with such systematic and increasing success that the War +Office has installed Bien-Être kitchens in the hospitals (before, the +nurses had to cook our donations over their own spirit lamp) and +delegated special cooks to relieve the hard-worked infirmières of a +very considerable tax on their energies. This is a tremendous bit of +radicalism on the part of the Military Department of France, and one +that hardly can be appreciated by citizens of a land always in a state +of flux. There is even talk of making these Bien-Être kitchens a part +of the regular military system after the war is over, and if they do +commit themselves to so revolutionary an act no doubt the name of the +young American Marquise will go down to posterity--as it deserves to +do, in any case. + + + + +XII + +MADAME CAMILLE LYON + + +Madame Lyon committed on my behalf what for her was a tremendous +breach of the proprieties: she called upon me without the formality of +a letter of introduction. No American can appreciate what such a +violation of the formalities of all the ages must have meant to a +pillar of the French Bourgeoisie. But she set her teeth and did it. +Her excuse was that she had read all my books, and that she was a +friend of Mlle. Thompson, at whose École Hôtelière I was lodging. + +I was so impressed at the unusualness of this proceeding that, being +out when she first called, and unable to receive her explanations, I +was filled with dark suspicion and sought an explanation of Mlle. +Jacquier. Madame Lyon? Was she a newspaper woman? A secret service +agent? Between the police round the corner and Mlle. Jacquier, under +whose eagle eye I conformed to all the laws of France in war time, I +felt in no further need of supervision. + +Mlle. Jacquier was very much amused. Madame Lyon was a very important +person. Her husband had been associated with the Government for +fourteen years until he had died, leaving a fortune behind him, a +year before; and Madame Lyon was not only on intimate terms with the +Government but made herself useful in every way possible to them. She +was one of the two ladies asked to cooperate with the Government in +their great enterprise to wage war on tuberculosis--Le Comité Central +d'Assistance aux Militaires Tuberculeux; and was to open ateliers to +teach the men how to learn new trades by which they might sit at home +in comfort and support themselves. + +And she had her own ouvroir--"L'Aide Immédiate"--for providing things +for the permissionnaires, who came to the door and asked for them. She +ran, with a committee of other ladies, a café in Paris, where the +permissionnaires or the réformés could go and have their afternoon +coffee and smoke all the cigarettes that their devoted patrons +provided. One hundred poilus came here a day, and her ouvroir had +already assisted eighteen thousand. And---- + +But by this time I was more interested to meet Madame Lyon than any +one in Paris. As I have said before, a letter or two will open the +doors of the noblesse or the "Intellectuals" to any stranger who knows +how to behave himself and is no bore, but to get a letter to a member +of the bourgeoisie--I hadn't even made the attempt, knowing how futile +it would be. If one of them was doing a great work, like Mlle. Javal, +I could meet her quite easily through some member of her committee; +but when Frenchwomen of this class, which in its almost terrified +exclusiveness reminds me only of our own social groups balancing on +the very tip of the pyramid and clutching one another lest some +intruder topple them off, or cast the faintest shadow on their +hard-won prestige, are working in small groups composed of their own +friends, I could not meet one of them if I pitched my tent under her +windows. + +Madame Lyon gave me a naïve explanation of her audacity when we +finally did meet. "I am a Jewess," she said, "and therefore not so +bound down by conventions. You see, we of the Jewish race were +suppressed so long that now we have our freedom reaction makes us +almost adventurous." + +Besides hastening to tell me of her race she promptly, as if it were a +matter of honor, informed me that she was sixty years old! She looked +about forty, her complexion was white and smooth, her nose little and +straight, her eyes brilliant. She dressed in the smartest possible +mourning, and with that white ruff across her placid brow--Oh là là! + +She has one son, who was wounded so terribly in the first year of the +war, and was so long getting to a hospital where he could receive +proper attention, that he was gangrened. In consequence his recovery +was very slow, and he was not permitted to go again to the trenches, +but was, after his recovery, sent up north to act as interpreter +between the British and French troops. He stood this for a few months, +and Madame Lyon breathed freely, but there came a time when M. Lyon, +although a lawyer in times of peace, could not stand the tame life of +interpreter. He might be still delicate, but, he argued, there were +officers at the front who had only one arm. At the present moment he +is in the stiffest fighting on the Somme. + +I saw a great deal of Madame Lyon and enjoyed no one more, she was so +independent, so lively of mind, and so ready for anything. She went +with me on two of my trips in the War Zone, being only too glad of +mental distraction; for like all the mothers of France she dreads the +ring of the door-bell. She told me that several times the ladies who +worked in her ouvroir would come down with beaming faces and read +extracts from letters just received from their sons at the Front, then +go home and find a telegram announcing death or shattered limbs. + +Madame Lyon has a hôtel on the Boulevard Berthier and before her +husband's death was famous for her political breakfasts, which were +also graced by men and women distinguishing themselves in the arts. +These breakfasts have not been renewed, but I met at tea there a +number of the political women. One of these was Madame Ribot, wife of +the present Premier. She is a very tall, thin, fashionable looking +woman, and before she had finished the formalities with her hostess +(and these formalities do take so long!) I knew her to be an American. +She spoke French as fluently as Madame Lyon, but the accent, however +faint--or was it a mere intonation,--was unmistakable. She told me +afterward that she had come to France as a child and had not been in +the United States for fifty-two years! + +One day Madame Lyon took me to see the ateliers of Madame Viviani--in +other words, the workshops where the convalescents who must become +réformés are learning new trades and industries under the patronage of +the wife of the cabinet minister now best known to us. Madame Viviani +has something like ten or twelve of these ateliers, but after I had +seen one or two of the same sort of anything in Paris, and listened to +long conscientious explanations, and walked miles in those enormous +hospitals (originally, for the most part, Lycées) I felt that +duplication could not enhance my knowledge, and might, indeed, have +the sad effect of blunting it. + +Madame Lyon said to me more than once: "Ma chère, you are without +exception, the most impatient woman I have ever seen in my life. You +no sooner enter a place than you want to leave it." She was referring +at the moment to the hospitals in the War Zone, where she would lean +on the foot of every bed and have a long gossip with the delighted +inmate, extract the history of his wound, and relate the tale of +similar wounds, healed by surgery, time and patience--while I, having +made the tour of the cots, either opened and shut the door +significantly, or walked up and down impatiently, occasionally +muttering in her ear. + +The truth of the matter was that I had long since cultivated the habit +of registering definite impressions in a flash, and after a tour of +the cots, which took about seven minutes, could have told her the +nature of every wound. Moreover, I knew the men did not want to talk +to me, and I felt impertinent hanging round. + +But all this was incomprehensible to a Frenchwoman, to whom time is +nothing, and who knows how the French in any conditions love to talk. + +However, to return to Madame Viviani. + +After one futile attempt, when I got lost, I met Madame Lyon and her +distinguished but patient friend out in one of the purlieus of Paris +where the Lycée of Arts and Crafts has been turned into a hospital for +convalescents. + +Under the direction of a doctor each convalescent was working at what +his affected muscles most needed or could stand. Those that ran +sewing-machines exercised their legs. Those that made toys and cut +wood with the electric machines got a certain amount of arm exercise. +The sewing-machine experts had already made fifty thousand sacks for +sand fortifications and breastworks. + +From this enormous Lycée (which cost, I was told, five million francs) +we drove to the Salpêtrière, which in the remote ages before the war, +was an old people's home. Its extent, comprising, as it does, court +after court, gardens, masses of buildings which loom beyond and yet +beyond, not only inspired awed reflections of the number of old that +must need charity in Paris but made one wonder where they were at the +present moment, now that the Salpêtrière had been turned into a +hospital. Perhaps, being very old, they had conveniently died. + +Here the men made wooden shoes with leather tops for the trenches, +cigarette packages, ingenious toys--the airships and motor ambulances +were the most striking; baskets, chairs, lace. + +The rooms I visited were in charge of an English infirmière and were +fairly well aired. Some of the men would soon be well enough to go +back to the Front and were merely given occupation during their +convalescence. But in the main the object is to prepare the +unfortunates known as réformés for the future. + +Since the fighting on the Somme began Madame Lyon has gone several +times a month to the recaptured towns, in charge of train-loads of +installations for the looted homes of the wretched people. In one +entire village the Germans had left just one saucepan. Nothing else +whatever. + + + + +XIII + +BRIEF ACCOUNTS OF GREAT WORK + +THE DUCHESSE D'UZÈS + + +The Duchesse d'Uzès (_jeune_) was not only one of the reigning +beauties of Paris before the war but one of its best-dressed women; +nor had she ever been avoided for too serious tendencies. She went to +work the day war began and she has never ceased to work since. She has +started something like seventeen hospitals both at the French front +and in Saloniki, and her tireless brain has to its credit several +notable inventions for moving field hospitals. + +Near Amiens is the most beautiful of the duc's castles, Lucheux, built +in the eleventh century. This she turned into a hospital during the +first battle of the Somme in 1915, and as it could only accommodate a +limited number she had hospital tents erected in the park. Seven +hundred were cared for there. Lucheux is now a hospital for officers. + +She herself is an infirmière major and not only goes back and forth +constantly to the hospitals in which she is interested, particularly +Lucheux, but sometimes nurses day and night. + +I was very anxious to see Lucheux, as well as Arras, which is not far +from Amiens, and, a vast ruin, is said to be by moonlight the most +beautiful sight on earth. We both besieged the War Office. But in +vain. The great Battle of the Somme had just begun. They are so polite +at the Ministère de la Guerre! If I had only thought of it a month +earlier. Or if I could remain in France a month or two longer? But +hélas! They could not take the responsibility of letting an American +woman go so close to the big guns. And so forth. It was sad enough +that the duchess risked her life, took it in her hand, in fact, every +time she visited the château, but as a Frenchwoman, whose work was of +such value to France, it was their duty to assist her in the +fulfillment of her own duty to her country. Naturally her suggestion +to take me on her passport as an infirmière was received with a smile. +So I must see Arras with a million other tourists after the war. + +The duchess prefers for reasons of her own to work, not with the +noblesse division of the Red Cross, but with the Union des Femmes de +France. As she is extremely independent, impatient, and enterprising, +with a haughty disdain of red tape, the reasons for this uncommon +secession may be left to the reader. + +And if she is to-day one of the most valued of the Ministère de la +Guerre's coöperators, she has on the other hand reason to be grateful +for the incessant demands upon her mind, for her anxieties have been +great--no doubt are still. Not only is the duc at the front, but one +of two young nephews who lived with her was killed last summer, and +the other, a young aviator, who was just recovering from typhoid when +I was there, was ill-concealing his impatience to return to the Front. +Her son, a boy of seventeen--a volunteer of course--in the sudden and +secret transfers the army authorities are always making, sometimes +could not communicate with her for a fortnight at a time, and +meanwhile she did not know whether he was alive or "missing." Since +then he has suffered one of those cruel misfortunes which, in this +war, seem to be reserved for the young and gallant. She writes of it +in that manner both poignant and matter-of-fact that is so +characteristic of the French mother these days: + +"I have just gone through a great deal of anguish on account of my +oldest son, who, as I told you, left the cavalry to enter the +chasseurs à pied at his request. + +"The poor boy was fighting in the splendid (illegible) affair, and he +was buried twice, then caught by the stifling gases, his mask having +been torn off. He insisted upon remaining at his post, in spite of the +fact that he was spitting blood. Fortunately a lieutenant passed by +and saw him. He gave orders to have him carried away. As soon as he +reached the ambulance he fainted and could only be brought to himself +with the greatest difficulty. His lungs are better, thank God, but his +heart is very weak, and even his limbs are affected by the poison. +Many weeks will be required to cure him. I don't know yet where he +will be sent to be attended to, but of course I shall accompany +him.... The duc is always in the Somme, where the bombardment is +something dreadful. He sleeps in a hut infested with rats. Really it +is a beautiful thing to see so much courage and patience among men of +all ages in this country." + +In the same letter she writes: "I am just about to finish my new Front +hospital according to the desiderata expressed by our President of the +Hygiène Commission. I hope it will be accepted as a type of the +surgical movable ambulances." + +Before it was generally known that Roumania was "coming in" she had +doctors and nurses for several months in France in the summer of 1916 +studying all the latest devices developed by the French throughout +this most demanding of all wars. The officials sent with them adopted +several of the Duchesse d'Uzès' inventions for the movable field +hospital. + +She has never sent me the many specific details of her work that she +promised me, or this article would be longer. But, no wonder! What +time have those women to sit down and write? I often wonder they gave +me as much time as they did when I was on the spot. + + +THE DUCHESSE DE ROHAN + + +Before the war society used to dance once a week in the red and gold +salon of the historic "hôtel" of the Rohans' in the Faubourg St. +Germain, just behind the Hôtel des Invalides. Here the duchess +entertained when she took up her residence there as a bride; and, as +her love of "the world" never waned, she danced on with the inevitable +pauses for birth and mourning, until her daughters grew up and brought +to the salon a new generation. But the duchess and her own friends +continued to dance on a night set apart for themselves, and in time +all of her daughters, but one, married and entertained in their own +hôtels. Her son, who, in due course, became the Duc de Rohan, also +married; but mothers are not dispossessed in France, and the duchess +still remained the center of attraction at the Hôtel de Rohan. + +Until August second, 1914. + +The duchess immediately turned the hôtel into a hospital. When I +arrived last summer it looked as if it had been a hospital for ever. +All the furniture of the first floor had been stored and the immense +dining-room, the red and gold salon, the reception rooms, all the +rooms large and small on this floor, in fact, were lined with cots. +The pictures and tapestries have been covered with white linen, four +bathrooms have been installed, and a large operating and +surgical-dressing room built as an annex. The hall has been turned +into a "bureau," with a row of offices presided over by Maurice +Rostand. + +Behind the hôtel is the usual beautiful garden, very large and shaded +with splendid trees. During fine weather there are cots or long chairs +under every tree, out in the sun, on the veranda; and, after the War +Zone, these men seemed to me very fortunate. The duchess takes in any +one sent to her, the Government paying her one-franc-fifty a day for +each. The greater part of her own fortune was invested in Brussels. + +She and her daughters and a few of her friends do all of the nursing, +even the most menial. They wait on the table, because it cheers the +poilus--who, by the way, all beg, as soon as they have been there a +few days, to be put in the red and gold salon. It keeps up their +spirits! Her friends and their friends, if they have any in Paris, +call constantly and bring them cigarettes. Fortunately I was given the +hint by the Marquise de Talleyrand, who took me the first time, and +armed myself with one of those long boxes that may be carried most +conveniently under the arm. Otherwise, I should have felt like a +superfluous intruder, standing about those big rooms looking at the +men. In the War Zone where there were often no cigarettes, or anything +else, to be bought, it was different. The men were only too glad to +see a new face. + +The duchess trots about indefatigably, assists at every operation, +assumes personal charge of infectious cases, takes temperatures, waits +on the table, and prays all night by the dying. Mr. Van Husen, a young +American who was helping her at that time, told me that if a boy died +in the hospital and was a devout Catholic, and friendless in Paris, +she arranged to have a high mass for his funeral service at a church +in the neighborhood. + +The last time I saw her she was feeling very happy because her +youngest son, who had been missing for several weeks, had suddenly +appeared at the hôtel and spent a few days with her. A week later the +Duc de Rohan, one of the most brilliant soldiers in France, was +killed; and since my return I have heard of the death of her youngest. +Such is life for the Mothers of France to-day. + + +COUNTESS GREFFULHE + + +The Countess Greffulhe (born Princesse de Chimay and consequently a +Belgian, although no stretch of fancy could picture her as anything +but a Parisian) offered her assistance at once to the Government and +corresponded with hundreds of Mayors in the provinces in order to have +deserted hotels made over into hospitals with as little delay as +possible. She also established a dépôt to which women could come +privately and sell their laces, jewels, bibelots, etc. Her next +enterprise was to form a powerful committee which responsible men and +women of the allied countries could ask to get up benefits when the +need for money was pressing. + +Upon one occasion when a British Committee made this appeal she +induced Russia to send a ballet for a single performance; and she also +persuaded the manager of the Opera House to open it for a gala +performance for another organization. There is a romantic flavor about +all the countess's work, and just how practical it was or how long it +was pursued along any given line I was unable to learn. + + +MADAME PAQUIN + + +Madame Paquin, better known to Americans, I fancy, than any of the +great dressmakers of Europe, offered her beautiful home in Neuilly to +the Government to be used as a hospital, and it had accommodated up to +the summer of 1916 eight thousand, nine hundred soldiers. + +She also kept all her girls at work from the first. As no one ordered +a gown for something like eighteen months they made garments for the +soldiers, or badges for the numerous appeal days--we all decorated +ourselves, within ten minutes after leaving the house, like heroes and +heroines on the field, about three times a week--and upon one occasion +this work involved a three months' correspondence with all the Mayors +of France. It further involved the fastening of ribbons and pins +(furnished by herself) upon fifteen million medallions. Madame Paquin +is also on many important committees, including "L'Orphelinat des +Armées," so well known to us. + + +MADAME PAUL DUPUY + + +Madame Dupuy was also an American girl, born in New York and now +married to the owner of Le Petit Parisien and son of one of the +wealthiest men in France. She opened in the first days of the war an +organization which she called "Oeuvre du Soldat Blessé ou Malade," and +from her offices in the Hôtel de Crillon and her baraque out at the +Dépôt des Dons (where we all have warehouses), she supplies surgeons +at the Front with wheeling-chairs, surgical dressings, bed garments, +rubber for operating tables, instruments, slippers, pillows, blankets, +and a hundred and one other things that harassed surgeons at the Front +are always demanding. The oeuvre of the Marquise de Noailles, with +which a daughter of Mrs. Henry Seligmen, Madame Henri van Heukelom, is +closely associated, is run on similar lines. + +I have alluded frequently in the course of these reminiscences to +Madame Dupuy, who was of the greatest assistance to me, and more than +kind and willing. I wish I could have returned it by collecting money +for her oeuvre when I returned to New York, but I found that Le +Bien-Être du Blessé was all I could manage. Moreover, it is impossible +to get money these days without a powerful committee behind you. To go +to one wealthy and generous person or another as during the first days +of the war and ask for a donation for the president of an oeuvre +unrepresented in this country is out of the question. It is no longer +done, as the English say. + + + + +XIV + +ONE OF THE MOTHERLESS + + +Versailles frames in my memory the most tragic of the war-time +pictures I collected during my visit to France. That romantic and +lovely city which has framed in turn the pomp and glory of France, the +iconic simplicities of Marie Antoinette, the odious passions of a +French mob, screeching for bread and blood, and the creation of a +German Empire, will for long be associated in my mind with a sad and +isolated little picture that will find no niche in history, but, as a +symbol, is as diagnostic as the storming of the palace gates in 1789. + +There is a small but powerful oeuvre in Paris, composed with one +exception of Americans devoted to the cause of France. It was founded +by its treasurer, Mr. Frederic Coudert. Mr. August Jaccaci, of New +York, is President; Mrs. Cooper Hewett, Honorary President; Mrs. +Robert Bliss, Vice-President; and the Committee consists of the +Comtesse de Viel Castel, Mrs. Francis G. Shaw, and Mrs. William H. +Hill, of Boston. It is called "The Franco-American Committee for the +Protection of the Children of the Frontier." + +This Committee, which in May, 1916, had already rescued twelve hundred +children, was born of one of those imperative needs of the moment +when the French civilians and their American friends, working behind +the lines, responded to the needs of the unfortunate, with no time for +foresight and prospective organization. + +In August, 1914, M. Cruppi, a former Minister of State, told Mr. +Coudert that in the neighborhood of Belfort there were about eighty +homeless children, driven before the first great wind of the war, the +battle of Metz; separated from their mothers (their fathers and big +brothers were fighting) they had wandered, with other refugees, down +below the area of battle and were huddled homeless and almost starving +in and near the distracted town of Belfort. + +Mr. Coudert immediately asked his friends in Paris to collect funds, +and started with M. Cruppi for Belfort. There they found not eighty +but two hundred and five children, shelterless, hungry, some of them +half imbecile from shock, and all physically disordered. + +To leave any of these wretched waifs behind, when Belfort itself might +fall at any moment, was out of the question, and M. Cruppi and Mr. +Coudert crowded them all into the military cars allotted by the +Government and took them to Paris. Some money had been raised. Mr. +Coudert cabled to friends in America, Mrs. Bliss (wife of the First +Secretary of the American Embassy) and Mrs. Cooper Hewett contributed +generously, Valentine Thompson gave her help and advice for a time, +and Madame Pietre, wife of the sous-préfet of Yvetot, installed the +children in an old seminary near her home and gave them her personal +attention. Later, one hundred were returned to their parents and the +rest placed in a beautiful château surrounded by a park. + +Every day of those first terrible weeks of the war proved that more +and more children must be cared for by those whom fortune had so far +spared. It was then that Mr. Jaccaci renounced all private work and +interests, and that Mrs. Hill, Mrs. Shaw and the Comtesse de Viel +Castel volunteered. The organization was formed and christened, Mrs. +Bliss provided Relief Dépôts in Paris, and Mr. Coudert returned to New +York for a brief visit in search of funds. + +During the bombardment of the Belgian and French towns these children +came into Paris on every train. They were tagged like post-office +packages, and it was as well they were, not only because some were too +little to know or to pronounce their names correctly, but even the +older ones were often too dazed to give a coherent account of +themselves; although the more robust quickly recovered. The first +thing to do with this human flotsam was to wash and disinfect and feed +it, clip its hair to the skull, and then, having burned the rags of +arrival, dress it in clean substantial clothes. While I was in Paris +Mr. Jaccaci and Mrs. Hill were meeting these trains; and, when the +smaller children arrived frightened and tearful they took them in +their arms and consoled them all the way to the Relief Dépôts. The +result was that they needed the same treatment as the children. + +It was generally the Curé or the Mayor of the bombarded towns that had +rounded up each little parentless army and headed it toward Paris. +When the larger children were themselves again they all told the same +bitter monotonous stories. Suddenly a rain of shrapnel fell on their +village or town. They fled to the cellars, perhaps to the one Cave +Voûtée (a stone cellar with vaulted roof) and there herded in +indescribable filth, darkness, fear, hunger for weeks and even months +at a time. The shelling of a village soon stopped, but in the larger +towns, strategic points desired of the enemy, the bombarding would be +incessant. Mothers, or older children, would venture out for food, +returning perhaps with enough to keep the pale flame of life alive, as +often as not falling a huddled mass a few feet from the exit of the +cellar. Mothers died of typhoid, pneumonia, in childbirth; others +never had reached the cellar with their own children in the panic; one +way or another these children arrived in Paris in a state of +orphanhood, although later investigations proved them to have been +hiding close to their mother (and sometimes father; for all men are +not physically fit for war) by the width of a street, in a town where +the long roar of guns dulled the senses and the affections, and the +constant hail of shrapnel precluded all search for anything but food. + +Moreover, many families had fled from villages lying in the path of +the advancing hordes to the neighboring towns, and there separated, +crowding into the nearest Caves Voûtées. Most of these poor women +carried a baby and were distraught with fear besides; the older +children must cling to the mother's skirts or become lost in the +mêlée. + +When one considers that many of these children, in Rheims or Verdun, +for instance, were in cellars not for weeks but for months, without +seeing the light of day, with their hunger never satisfied, with +corpses unburied for days until a momentary lull encouraged the elders +to remove the sand bags at the exit and thrust them out, with their +refuge rocking constantly and their ear-drums splitting with raucous +sounds, where the stenches were enough to poison what red blood they +had left and there were no medicines to care for the afflicted little +bodies, one pities anew those mentally afflicted people who assert at +automatic intervals, "I can't see any difference between the cruelty +of the British blockade and the German submarines." The resistant +powers of the human body, given the bare chance of remaining alive, +are little short of phenomenal. But then, when Nature compounded the +human frame it was to fling it into a newborn world far more difficult +to survive than even the awful conditions of modern warfare. + +Some of these children were wounded before they reached the cellars. +In many cases the families remained in their homes until the walls, at +first pierced by the shrapnel, began to tumble about their ears. Then +they would run to the homes of friends on the other side of the town, +staying there until the guns, aided by the air scouts, raked such +houses as had escaped the first assault. Often there were no Caves +Voûtées in the villages. The mothers cowered with their children under +the tottering walls or lay flat on the ground until the German guns +turned elsewhere; then they ran for the nearest town. But during these +distracted transfers many received wounds whose scars they are likely +to carry through life. The most seriously wounded were taken to the +military hospitals, where they either died, or, if merely in need of +bandages, were quickly turned out to make room for some poilu arriving +in the everlasting procession of stretchers. + +Sometimes, flat on their stomachs, the more curious and intelligent of +the children watched the shells sailing overhead to drop upon some +beautiful villa or château and transpose it into a heap of stones. +Where there were English or Americans in these bombarded towns, or +where the Curés or the Mayors of those invaded had not been shot or +imprisoned, the children were sent as quickly as possible to Paris, +the mothers, when there were any, only too content to let them go and +to remain behind and take their chances with the shells. + +One little Belgian named Bonduelle, who, with two brothers, reached +Paris in safety, is very graphic: "We are three orphans," he replied +in answer to the usual questions. "Our uncle and aunt took the place +of our dear parents, so soon taken from us.... It was towards the +evening of Wednesday, 6th September, 1914, that I was coming back to +my uncle's house from Ypres, when all at once I heard shrieks and +yells in the distance. I stopped, for I was like one stunned. On +hearing behind me, on the highway, German cavalry, I ran into a house +where I spent the night. I could not close my eyes when I thought of +the anxiety of my uncle and aunt and of the fate of my two small +brothers, Michael and Roger. Early the following day I rushed to our +house. Everybody was in the cellar. We shed tears on meeting again. I +found two of my cousins wounded by a shell which had exploded outside +our door. Soon another shell comes and smashes our house. I was +wounded. Dazed with fear, my cousin and myself got out through a +window from the cellar, we ran across fields and meadows to another +uncle, where the rest of the family followed us soon. We remained +there the whole winter, but what a sad winter! We have not taken off +our clothes, for at every moment we feared to have to run away again. + +"The big guns rumbled very much and the shells whistled over our +heads. Every one heard: 'So-and-so is killed' or 'wounded, by a +shell.' 'Such-and-such-a-house is ruined by a shell.' + +"After having spent more than seven months in incredible fear, my +brothers and myself have left the village, at the order of the +gendarmes, and the English took us to Hazebrouck, from where we went +to Paris." + +In some cases the parents, or, as was most generally the case, the +mother, after many terrifying experiences in her village, passed and +repassed by the Germans, having heard of the relief stations in Paris, +sent their children, properly tagged, to be cared for in a place of +comparative safety until the end of the war. Young Bruno Van +Wonterghem told his experience in characteristically simple words: + +"Towards the evening of September 6th, 1914, the Germans arrived at +our village with their ammunition. One would have thought the Last +Judgment was about to begin. All the inhabitants were hiding in their +houses. I was hiding in the attic, but, desirous to see a German, I +was looking through a little window in the roof. Nobody in the house +dared to go to bed. It was already very late when we heard knocks at +the door of our shop. It was some Germans who wanted to buy chocolate. +Some paid but the majority did not. They left saying, 'Let us kill the +French.' The following morning they marched away toward France. In the +evening one heard already the big guns in the distance. + +"Turned out of France the Germans came to St. Eloi, where they +remained very long. Then they advanced to Ypres. The whole winter I +heard the rumbling of the big guns, and the whistling of the shells. I +learned also every day of the sad deaths of the victims of that awful +war. I was often very frightened and I have been very happy to leave +for France with my companions." + +While I was in Paris the refugee children, of course, were from the +invaded districts of France; the Belgian stream had long since ceased. +Already twelve hundred little victims of the first months of the war, +both Belgian and French, either had been returned to their mothers or +relatives by the Franco-American Committee, or placed for the +educational period of their lives in families, convents, or boys' +schools. The more recent were still in the various colonies +established by Mrs. Hill and the other members of the Committee, where +they received instruction until such time as their parents could be +found, or some kind people were willing to adopt them. + +It was on my first Sunday in Paris that Mr. Jaccaci and Mrs. Hill +asked me to drive out with them to Versailles and visit a sanitorium +for the children whose primary need was restoration to health. It was +on the estate of Madame Philip Berard, who had contributed the +building, while the entire funds for its upkeep, including a trained +nurse, were provided by Mrs. Bliss. + +Versailles was as green and peaceful as if a few miles away the shells +were not ripping up a field a shot. After lunch in the famous hotel +ordinarily one of the gayest in France at that time of the year, we +first visited the rest hospital of Miss Morgan, Miss Marbury and Miss +de Wolfe, and then drove out into the country to Madame Berard's +historical estate. Here, in the courtyard of a good-sized building, +we were greeted by about forty children in pink-and-white gingham +aprons, and heads either shaved or finished off with tightly braided +pigtails. It seemed to me then that they were all smiling, and--for +they had been there some weeks--that most of them looked round and +healthy. But I soon found that some were still too languid to play. +One lying in a long chair on the terrace at the back of the house and +gazing vacantly out at the beautiful woods was tubercular, the victim +of months in a damp cellar. Another, although so excessively cheerful +that I suspect she was not "all there" was also confined to a long +chair, with a hip affection of some sort, but she was much petted, and +surrounded by all the little luxuries that the victims of her smile +had remembered to send her. One beautiful child had the rickets, and +several suffered from intestinal prolapsus and other internal +complaints, but were on the road to recovery. + +While their Swedish nurse was putting them through their gymnastic +exercises I studied their faces. At first my impression was one of +prevailing homeliness; scrubbed, flat, peasant faces, for the most +part, without the features or the mental apparatus that provides +expression. But soon I singled out two or three pretty and engaging +children, and rarely one whose face was devoid of character. And they +stood well and went through their exercises with precision and vigor. + +It was just before we left that my wandering attention was directed +toward the scene to which I alluded in my first paragraph. The greater +number of the children were shouting at play in a neighboring field. +The preternaturally happy invalid was smiling at the lovely woods +beyond the terrace, woods where little princes had frolicked, and +older princes had wooed and won. Mr. Jaccaci was still petting the +beautiful little boy who looked like the _bambino_ on the celebrated +fresco of Florence; Mrs. Hill was kissing and hugging several little +girls who had clung to her skirts. It was, in spite of its origin, a +happy scene. + +I had been waiting by the door for these ceremonies of affection to +finish, when I happened to glance at the far end of the wide stone +terrace. There, by the balustrade, in the shadow of the leafy woods, +stood a girl of perhaps eight or ten. Her arms hung at her sides and +she was staring straight before her while she cried as I never have +seen a child cry; silently, bitterly, with her heavy plain face hardly +twisted in its tragic silent woe. + +I called Mrs. Hill's attention to her, for I, a stranger, could not +intrude upon a grief like that, and the idol of all those children +immediately ran over to the desolate figure. She questioned her, she +put her arms about her. She might as well have addressed one of the +broken stone nymphs in the woods. That young mind, startled from the +present, it may be, by witnessing the endearments lavished upon +prettier and smaller children, had traveled far. She was in the past, +a past that anteceded even that past of death and thundering guns and +rocking walls and empty stomachs; a past when the war, of whose like +she had never heard, was still in the sleepless brains of the monster +criminals of history, when she lived in a home in a quiet village with +the fields beyond; where she had a mother, a father, sisters, +brothers; where her tears had been over childish disappointments, and +her mother had dried them. Small and homely and insignificant she +stood there in her tragic detachment the symbol of all the woe of +France, and of the depraved brutality of a handful of ambitious men +who had broken the heart of the world. + + + + +XV + +THE MARRAINES + + +It is hardly too much to say that every woman in France, from noblesse +to peasant, has her filleul (godson) in the trenches; in many cases, +when she still has a considerable income in spite of taxes, +moratoriums, and all the rest of it, she is a marraine on the grand +scale and has several hundred. Children have their filleul, correspond +with him, send him little presents several times a month and weep +bitterly when word comes that he is deep in his last trench. + +Servants save their wages so that when the filleuls of their +mistresses come home on their six days' leave they at least can +provide the afternoon wine and entertain them royally in the kitchen. +Old maids, still sewing in their attic for a few sous a day, have +found a gleam of brightness for the first time in their somber lives +in the knowledge that they give a mite of comfort or pleasure to some +unknown man, offering his life in the defence of France, and whose +letters, sentimental, effusive, playful, almost resign these poor +stranded women to the crucifixion of their country. + +Busy women like Madame d'Andigné sit up until two in the morning +writing to their grateful filleuls. Girls, who once dreamed only of +marrying and living the brilliant life of the _femme du monde_ spend +hours daily not only on cheerful letters, but knitting, sewing, +embroidering, purchasing for humble men who will mean nothing to their +future, beyond the growth of spirit they unconsciously induced. Poor +women far from Paris, where, at least, thousands of these +permissionnaires linger for a few hours on their way home, toil all +night over their letters to men for whom they conceive a profound +sentiment but never can hope to see. Shop girls save their wages and +lady's maids pilfer in a noble cause. + +It was Madame Berard (who was a Miss Dana of Boston) who organized +this magnificent spirit into a great oeuvre, so that thousands of men +could be made happy whom no kindly woman so far had been able to +discover. + +Madame Berard, who has three sons in the army herself, nursed at the +Front for several months after the war broke out. Even officers told +her that they used to go off by themselves and cry because they never +received a letter, or any sort of reminder that they were anything but +part of a machine defending France. These officers, of course, were +from the invaded district, and in addition to their isolation, were +haunted by fears for their women now in the power of men who were as +cruel as they were sensual and degenerate. + +When she returned to her home she immediately entered upon the career +of marraine, corresponding with several hundred of the men she either +had known or whose names were given to her by their commanding +officers. Naturally the work progressed beyond her capacity and she +called upon friends to help her out. Out of this initial and purely +personal devotion grew the great oeuvre, Mon Soldat, which has met +with such a warm response in this country. + +Madame Berard's headquarters are in a villa in the Parc Monceau. Here +is conducted all the correspondence with the agents in other cities, +here come thousands of letters and presents by every mail to be +forwarded to the Front, and here come the grateful--and +hopeful--permissionnaires, who never depart without a present and +sometimes leave one, generally an ingenious trinket made in the +trenches. + +When I visited the villa last summer the oeuvre had eight thousand +marraines, and no doubt the number has doubled to-day. Fifteen hundred +of these were American, marshalled by Madame Berard's representative +in New York, Mr. R.W. Neeser. Some of these fairy godmothers had ten +filleuls. Packages were dispatched to the Front every week. Women that +could not afford presents wrote regularly. There were at that time +over twenty thousand filleuls. + +The letters received from these men of all grades must be a source of +psychologic as well as sympathetic interest to the more intelligent +marraines, for when the men live long enough they reveal much of their +native characteristics between the formalities so dear to the French. +But too many of them write but one letter, and sometimes they do not +finish that. + + + + +XVI + +PROBLEMS FOR THE FUTURE + +I + + +What the bereft mothers of France will do after this war is over and +they no longer have the mutilated sons of other mothers to nurse and +serve and work for, is a problem for themselves; but what the younger +women will do is a problem for the men. + +Practically every day of the three months I spent in Passy I used one +of the three lines of tramcars that converge at La Muette (it is +almost immoral to take a taxi these days); and I often amused myself +watching the women conductors. They are quick, keen, and competent, +but, whether it was owing to the dingy black uniforms and +distressingly unbecoming Scotch military cap or not, it never did +occur to me that there would be any mad scramble for them when the men +of France once more found the leisure for love and marriage. + +Grim as these women looked, however, "on their job," I often noticed +them laughing and joking when, off duty for a few moments, they rested +under the trees at the terminus. No doubt there is in them that +ineradicable love of the home so characteristic of the French race, +and as there is little beauty in their class at the best, they may +appeal more to the taste of men of that class than they did to mine. +And it may be that those who are already provided with husbands will +cheerfully renounce work in their favor and return to the hearthstone. +Perhaps, however, they will not, and wise heads of the sex which has +ruled the world so long are conferring at odd moments upon these and +other females who have taken up so many of the reins laid down by men +and driven the man-made teams with a success that could not be more +complete if they had been bred to it, and with a relish that has +grown, and shows no sign of retroaction. + +[Illustration: DELIVERING THE POST] + +The French women of the people, however, unlovely to look upon, +toil-worn, absorbed from childhood in petty economics, have little to +tempt men outside of the home in which they reign, so for those that +do return the problem ends. But it is an altogether different matter +with the women of the leisure classes. The industrial women who have +proved so competent in the positions occupied for centuries by men +merely agitate the economic brain of France, but the future of the +women of the upper strata of the bourgeoisie is shaking the very soul +of the social psychologist. + + +II + + +At the outbreak of the war hundreds of girls belonging to the best +families volunteered as nurses. Some quickly retired to committee work +in disgust, or because their pampered bodies rebelled under the +strain. + +Others have never faltered, doing the most repulsive and arduous work +day by day, close to the thunder of guns, or under the constant menace +of the taube whose favorite quarry is the hospital full of ill and +wounded, and of pretty women whose torn bodies even in imagination +satisfy the perversities of German lust; but if they ever go home to +rest it is under the peremptory orders of their médecin major, who has +no use for shattered nervous systems these days. + +While these girls may have lost their illusions a little earlier than +they would in matrimony, the result is not as likely to affect the +practical French mind toward the married state as it might that of the +more romantic and self-deluding American or English woman. There is +little doubt that they will marry if they can, for to marry and marry +early has been for too many centuries a sort of religious duty with +well-born French women to be eradicated by one war; and as they will +meet in hospital wards many officers who might not otherwise cross +their narrow paths, their chances, if the war ends soon enough, will +be reasonably increased. + +Moreover, many a man who was a confirmed bachelor will, after the +acute discomfort of years of warfare, look upon the married state as a +greater reward than the medals on his breast; and on the other hand +many girls will be glad to marry men old enough to be a parent of the +young husband they once dreamed of; for hardly since the Thirty +Years' War will men when peace comes be so scarce and women so many. + +There has even been talk from time to time of bringing the Koranic law +across the Mediterranean and permitting each able-bodied Frenchman of +any class to have three registered wives besides the one of his +choice, the additional expense and responsibility being borne by the +State. + +But of all the countries in Europe polygamy is most unthinkable in +France. The home is as perfected and as sacred an economic institution +as the State. To reign over one of those important units, even if deep +in the shadow of the expansive male, to maintain it on that high level +of excellence which in the aggregate does so much to maintain France +at the very apex of civilization, in spite of another code which +shocks Anglo-Saxon morality--this, combined with the desire to gratify +the profoundest instincts of woman, is the ambition of every +well-conditioned French girl. + +She would far rather, did the demand of the State for male children +become imperative, give it one or more outside the law rather than +forfeit her chance to find one day a real husband and to be a +component part of that great national institution, The Family. She +would not feel in the same class for a moment with the women who live +to please men and refrain from justifying themselves by fulfilling at +the same time a duty to their depleted State. + + +III + + +The women of the noblesse, like the aristocracies of any country, and +whatever the minor shadings and classifications, are divided into two +classes: the conservative, respectable, home-loving, no matter what +the daily toll to rank; and the devotees of dress, pleasure, sex, +subdivided, orchestrated, and romanticized. As these women move in the +most brilliant society in the world and can command the willing +attendance of men in all circles; as their husbands are so often +foraging far afield; and as temptation is commonly proportionate to +opportunity, little wonder that the Parisian _femme du monde_ is the +most notable disciple of Earth's politer form of hedonism. + +This is true to only a limited extent in the upper circles of the +bourgeoisie. Some of the women of the wealthier class dress +magnificently, have their lovers and their scandals (in what class do +they not?), and before the war danced the night away. But the great +majority rarely wandered far from their domestic kingdom, quite +content with an occasional ball, dinner, or play. A daughter's +marriage was the greatest event in their lives, and the endless +preparations throughout the long engagement, a subdued but delicious +period of excitement. Their social circles, whatever their birth, were +extremely restricted, and they were, above all things, the mates of +their husbands. + + +IV + + +But the war has changed all that. France has had something like a war +a generation from time immemorial, but in modern times, since woman +has found herself, they have been brief. Feminism, whether approved by +the great mass of Frenchwomen or not, has done its insidious work. And +for many years now there has been the omnipresent American woman with +her careless independence; and, still more recently, the desperate +fight of the English women for liberty. + +It was quite natural when this war swept across Europe like a fiery +water-spout, for the French woman of even the bourgeoisie to come +forth from her shell (although at first not to the same degree as the +noblesse) and work with other women for the men at the Front and the +starving at home. Not only did the racing events of those first weeks +compel immediate action, but the new ideas they had imbibed, however +unwillingly, dictated their course as inevitably as that of the more +experienced women across the channel. The result was that these women +for the first time in their narrow intensive lives found themselves +meeting, daily, women with whom they had had the most distant if any +acquaintance; sewing, knitting, talking more and more intimately over +their work, running all sorts of oeuvres, founding homes for refugees, +making up packages for prisoners in Germany (this oeuvre was conceived +and developed into an immense organization by Madame Wallestein), +serving on six or eight committees, becoming more and more +interdependent as they worked for a common and unselfish cause; their +circle of acquaintances and friends as well as their powers of +usefulness, their independent characteristics which go so far toward +the making of personality, rising higher and higher under the impetus +of deprisoned tides until they flowed gently over the dam of the +centuries; the flood, be it noted, taking possession of wide pastures +heretofore sacred to man. + +Naturally these women spent very little time at home; although, such +is the incomparable training of those practical methodical minds, even +with a diminished staff of servants the domestic machinery ran as +smoothly as when they devoted to it so many superfluous hours. + +And with these new acquaintances, all practically of their own class, +they talked in time not only of the war and their ever augmenting +duties, but, barriers lowered by their active sympathies, found +themselves taking a deep interest in other lives, and in the things +that had interested other women of more intelligence or of more +diversified interests than their own. + +Insensibly life changed, quite apart from the rude shocks of war; +lines were confused, old ideals were analyzed in many instances as +hoary conventions, which had decayed inside until a succession of +sharp quick contacts caused the shell to cave in upon emptiness. + + +V + + +A year passed. During that time husbands did not return from the front +unless ill or maimed (and thousands of husbands are even to-day quite +intact). Then came Chapter Two of the domestic side of the War, which +should be called "Les Permissionnaires." Officers and soldiers were +allowed a six days' leave of absence from the front at stated +intervals. + +The wives were all excitement and hope. They snatched time to +replenish their wardrobes, and once more the thousand corridors of the +Galeries Lafayette swarmed, the dressmakers breathed again. Shop +windows blossomed with all the delicate fripperies with which a +Frenchwoman can make old garments look new. Hotel keepers emerged from +their long night like hibernates that had overslept, and rubbing their +hands. The men were coming back. Paris would live again. And Paris, +the coquette of all the ages, forgot her new rôle of lady of sorrows +and smiled once more. + +The equally eager husband (to pass over "les autres") generally +sneaked into his house or apartment by the back stairs and into the +bathtub before he showed himself to his adoring family; but after +those first strenuous hours of scrubbing and disinfecting and shaving, +and getting into a brand new uniform of becoming horizon blue, there +followed hours of rejoicing unparalleled by anything but a victory +over "Les Boches." + +For two days husband and wife talked as incessantly as only Gauls can; +but by degrees a puzzled look contracted the officer's brow, gradually +deepening into a frown. His fluent wife, whose animation over trifles +had always been a source of infinite refreshment, was talking of +things which he, after a solid year of monotonous warfare far from +home, knew nothing. He cared to know less. He wanted the old exchange +of personalities, the dear domestic gabble. + +The wife meanwhile was heroically endeavoring to throw off a feeling +of intolerable ennui. How was it that never before had she found the +hearthstone dull? The conversation of her life partner (now doubly +honored) induced a shameful longing for the seventh day. + +So it was. During that year these two good people had grown apart. The +wife's new friends bored the husband, and the gallant soldier's +stories of life at the Front soon became homogeneous. Whether he will +accept his wife's enlarged circle and new interests after the war is +over is one of the problems, but nothing is less likely than that she +will rebuild the dam, recall the adventurous waters of her +personality, empty her new brain cells, no matter how much she may +continue to love her husband and children. + + +VI + + +Nor to give up her new power. In those divisions of the bourgeoisie +where the wife is always the husband's partner, following a custom of +centuries, and who to-day is merely carrying on the business alone, +there will be no surrender of responsibilities grown precious, no +sense of apprehension of loss of personal power. But in those more +leisured circles where, for instance, a woman has been for the first +time complete mistress of all expenditures, domestic or +administrative, and of her childrens' destinies; has learned to think +and act for herself as if she were widowed in fact; and in addition +has cultivated her social sense to an extreme unprecedented in the +entire history of the bourgeoisie, she will never return to the old +status, even though she disdain feminism per se and continue to prefer +her husband to other men--that is to say, to find him more tolerable. + +A young woman of this class, who until the war widowed her had been as +happy as she was favored by fortune: wealthy, well-bred, brilliantly +educated, and "elle et lui" with her husband, told me that no American +could understand the peculiarly intensive life led by a French couple +who found happiness in each other and avoided the fast sets. And +whereas what she told me would have seemed natural enough in the life +of a petite bourgeoisie, I must confess I was amazed to have it from +the lips of a clever and beautiful young woman whom life had pampered +until death broke loose in Europe. + +The husband, she told me, did the thinking. Before he left home in the +morning he asked his wife what she intended to order for dinner and +altered the menu to his liking; also the list of guests, if it had +been thought well to vary their charming routine with a select +company. + +Before his wife bought a new gown she submitted the style and colors +to what seems literally to have been her other half, and he solemnly +pondered over both before pronouncing his august and final opinion. + +If they had children, the interest was naturally extended. His concern +in health and in illness, in play and in study, was nothing short of +meticulous. I asked my informant if Frenchwomen would ever again +submit to a man's making such an infernal nuisance of himself, and, +sad as she still was at her own great loss, she replied positively +that they would not. They had tasted independence and liked it too +well ever to drop back into insignificance. + +"Nor," she added, "will we be content with merely social and domestic +life in the future. We will love our home life none the less, but we +must always work at something now; only those who have lost their +health, or are natural parasites will ever again be content to live +without some vital personal interest outside the family." + +Words of tremendous import to France, those. + + +VII + + +I caught a glimpse more than once of the complete submergence of +certain Frenchwomen by husbands too old for war, but important in +matters of State. They bored me so that I only escaped betraying acute +misery by summoning all my powers of resistance and talking against +time until I could make a graceful exit. They were, these women (who +looked quite happy), mere echoes of the men to whom their eyes +wandered in admiration and awe. The last thing I had imagined, +however, was that the men would concern themselves about details that, +in Anglo-Saxon countries at least, have for centuries been firmly +relegated to the partner of the second part. How many American women +drive their husbands to the club by their incessant drone about the +iniquities of servants and the idiosyncrasies of offspring? + +And much as the women of our race may resent that their rôle in +matrimony is the one of petty detail while the man enjoys the "broader +interests," I think few of us would exchange our lot for one of +constant niggling interference. It induces a certain pleasure to +reflect that so many Frenchwomen have reformed. Frenchmen, with all +their conservatism, are the quickest of wit, the most supple of +intellect in the world. No doubt after a few birth-pains they will +conform, and enjoy life more than ever. Perhaps, also, they will cease +to prowl abroad for secret entertainment. + + +VIII + + +Nothing, it is safe to say, since the war broke out, has so astonished +Frenchwomen--those that loved their husbands and those that loved +their lovers--as the discovery that they find life quite full and +interesting without men. At the beginning all their faculties were put +to so severe a strain that they had no time to miss them; as France +settled down to a state of war, and life was in a sense normal again, +it was only at first they missed the men--quite aside from their +natural anxieties. But as time went on and there was no man always +coming in, husband or lover, no man to dress for, scheme for, exercise +their imaginations to please, weep for when he failed to come, or +lapsed from fever heat to that temperature which suggests exotic +fevers, they missed him less and less. + +Unexpected resources were developed. Their work, their many works, +grew more and more absorbing. Gradually they realized that they were +looking at life from an entirely different point of view. + +Voilà! + +Is the reign of the male in the old countries of Europe nearing its +end, even as Kings and Kaisers are reluctantly approaching the vaults +of history? An American woman married to a Frenchman said to me one +day: + +"Intelligent Frenchwomen complain to me that they never win anything +on their merits. They must exert finesse, seduction, charm, magnetism. +For this reason they are always in a state of apprehension that some +other woman equally feminine, but more astute and captivating, will +win their man away. The result is the intense and unremitting +jealousies in French society. They see in this war their opportunity +to show men not only their powers of individual usefulness, often +equal if not superior to that of their husband or lover, but their +absolute indispensability. They are determined to win respect as +individuals, rise above the rank of mere females." + + +IX + + +Moreover, this war is bringing a liberty to the French girl which must +sometimes give her the impression that she is living in a fantastic +dream. Young people already had begun to rebel at the old order of +matrimonial disposition by parental authority, but it is doubtful if +they will ever condescend to argument again, or even to the old formal +restrictions during the period of the long engagement. Not only will +husbands be too scarce to dicker about, but these girls, too, are +living their own lives, going to and coming from hospital work daily +(unless at the Front), spending long hours by convalescent cots, +corresponding with filleuls, attending half a dozen clubs for work; +above all, entertaining their brothers' friend during those oases +known as _permission_, or six days' leave. And very often the friends +of their brothers are young men of a lower rank in life, whose valor +or talents in the field have given them a quick promotion. + +The French army is the one perfect democracy in the world. Its men, +from duke to peasant-farmer, have a contemptuous impatience for social +pretense when about the business of war, and recognition is swift and +practical. As the young men of the aristocracy and haute bourgeoisie +have lost more and more of their old friends they have replaced them +with men they like for good masculine reasons alone, and these they +have taken to bringing home, when permissionnaires at the same time. +Nothing can be more certain than that girls, once haughty and +exacting, will marry these young men and be glad to get them. + +A student of his race said to me one day: "France is the most +conservative country in Europe. She goes on doing the same thing +generation after generation paying no attention to rebellious mutters, +hardly hearing them in fact. She believes herself to have been moulded +and solidified long since. Then, presto! Something sudden and violent +happens. Old ideas are uprooted. New ones planted. Is there a +struggle? Not for a moment. They turn an intellectual somersault and +are immediately as completely at home with the new as the old." + +During the second year of the war a feminist was actually invited to +address the graduation class of a fashionable girls' school. She told +them that the time had come when girls of all classes should be +trained to earn their living. This war had demonstrated the +uncertainty of human affairs. Not a family in France, not even the +_haute finance_, but would have a curtailed income for years to come, +and many girls of good family could no longer count on a dot if the +war lasted much longer. Then there was the decrease in men. Better go +out into the world and make any sort of respectable career than be an +old maid at home. She gave them much practical advice, told them that +one of the most lucrative employments was retouching photographs, and +implored them to cultivate any talent they might have and market it as +soon as possible. + +The girls sat throughout this discourse as stunned as if a bomb had +dropped on the roof. They were still discussing it when I left Paris. +No doubt it is already beginning to bear fruit. Few of them but have +that most dismal of all fireside ornaments, a half-effaced old-maid +sister, one of the most tragic and pitiable objects in France. The +noble attributes which her drab and eventless life sometimes leave +un-withered were superbly demonstrated to the American audience some +years ago by Nance O'Neil in "The Lily." + + +X + + +One of the new officers I happened to hear of was a farmer who not +only won the _Croix de Guerre_ and the _Croix de la Legion d'Honneur_ +very early in the war but rose in rank until, when I heard the story, +he was a major. One day a brother officer asked him if he should +remain in the army after peace was declared. + +"No," he replied, and it was evident that he had thought the matter +over. "My wife is not a lady. She is wholly unfitted to take her place +in the officers' class. There is no democracy among women. Better for +us both that I return whence I came." + +This is a fair sample of the average Frenchman's ironic astuteness, +that clear practical vision that sees life without illusions. But if +the war should drag on for years the question is, would he be willing +to surrender the position of authority to which he had grown +accustomed, and which satisfies the deepest instincts of a man's +nature after youth has passed? After all there may be a new "officers' +class." + +I heard another story, told me by a family doctor, equally +interesting. The son of a wealthy and aristocratic house and his valet +were mobilized at the same time. The young patrician was a good and a +gallant soldier but nothing more. The valet discovered extraordinary +capacities. Not only did he win the coveted medals in the course of +the first few months, but when his shattered regiment under fire in +the open was deprived of its officers he took command and led the +remnant to victory. A few more similar performances proving that his +usefulness was by no means the result of the moment's exaltation but +of real however unsuspected gifts, he was rapidly promoted until he +was captain of his former employer's company. There appears to have +been no mean envy in the nature of the less fortunate aristocrat. +Several times they have received their _permission_ together and he +has taken his old servant home with him and given him the seat of +honor at his own table. His mother and sisters have made no demur +whatever, but are proud that their ménage should have given a fine +soldier to France. Perhaps only the noblesse who are unalterably sure +of themselves would have been capable of rising above the age-old +prejudices of caste, war or no war. + + +XI + + +French women rarely emigrate. Never, if they can help it. Our servant +question may be solved after the war by the manless women of other +races, but the Frenchwoman will stay in her country, if possible in +her home. All girls, the major part of the young widows (who have +created a panic among the little spinsters) will marry if they can, +not only because marriage is still the normal career of woman but +because of their sense of duty to the State. But that social France +after the war will bear more than a family resemblance to the France +that reached the greatest climax in her history on August second, +nineteen-fourteen, has ceased to be a matter of speculation. + + * * * * * + +Although I went to France to examine the work of the Frenchwomen only, +it would be ungracious, as well as a disappointment to many readers, +not to give the names at least of some of the many American women who +live in France or who spend a part of the year there and are working +as hard as if this great afflicted country were their own. Some day +their names will be given to the world in a full roll of honor. I do +not feel sure that I know of half of them, but I have written down all +I can recall. The list, of course, does not include the names of +Americans married to Frenchmen: + +Mrs. Sharp, Miss Anne Morgan, Mrs. Tuck, Mrs. Bliss, Miss Elisabeth +Marbury, Miss Elsie de Wolfe, Mrs. Robert Bacon, Mrs. W.K. Vanderbilt, +Mrs. Whitney Warren, Mrs. Wharton, Mrs. Canfield Fisher, Miss Grace +Ellery Channing, Mrs. Blake, Mrs. Carroll of Carrollton, Mrs. Sherman, +Mrs. Cooper Hewett, Miss Holt, Mrs. William H. Hill, Mrs. Shaw, Mrs. +Frederick H. Allen, Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney, Miss Fairchild, Mrs. +Younger, Mrs. Morton Mitchell, Mrs. Fleury, Mrs. Sales, Mrs. Hyde, +Mrs. William Astor Chanler, Mrs. Ridgeley Carter, Miss Ethel Crocker, +Miss Daisy Polk, Miss Janet Scudder, Mrs. Lathrop, Miss Vail, Mrs. +Samuel Watson, Mrs. Armstrong Whitney, Mrs. Lawrence Slade, Miss +Yandell, Mrs. Greene, Mrs. Duryea, Mrs. Depew, Mrs. Marion Crocker, +Miss Mary Eyre, Mrs. Gros, Mrs. Van Heukelom, Mrs. Tarn McGrew, Mrs. +Schoninger, Miss Grace Lounsbery, Mrs. Lawrence, the Princess +Poniatowska, and Isadora Duncan. + + + + +BOOK II + +FEMINISM IN PEACE AND WAR + + + + +I + +THE THREAT OF THE MATRIARCHATE + +I + + +It is possible that if the European War had been averted the history +of Feminism would have made far different reading--say fifty years +hence. The militant suffragettes of England had degenerated from +something like real politicians into mere neurasthenics and not only +had lost what little chance they seemed for a time to have of being +taken seriously by the British Government, but had very nearly +alienated the many thousands of women without the ranks that were +wavering in the balance. This was their most serious mistake, for the +chief handicap of the militants had been that too few women were +disposed toward suffrage, or even interested. The history of the world +shows that when any large body of people in a community want anything +long enough and hard enough, and go after it with practical methods, +they obtain it in one form or another. But the women of Britain as +well as the awakening women of other nations east and west of the +Atlantic, were so disgusted and alarmed by this persisting lack of +self-control in embryonic politicians of their sex that they voted +silently to preserve their sanity under the existing régime. It has +formed one of the secret sources of the strength of the antis, that +fear of the complete demoralization of their sex if freed from the +immemorial restraints imposed by man. + +This attitude of mind does not argue a very distinguished order of +reasoning powers or of clear thinking; but then not too many men, in +spite of their centuries of uninterrupted opportunity, face +innovations or radical reforms with unerring foresight. There is a +strong conservative instinct in the average man or woman, born of the +hereditary fear of life, that prompts them to cling to old standards, +or, if too intelligent to look inhospitably upon progress, to move +very slowly. Both types are the brakes and wheel-horses necessary to a +stable civilization, but history, even current history in the +newspapers, would be dull reading if there were no adventurous spirits +willing to do battle for new ideas. The militant women of England +would have accomplished wonders if their nervous systems had not +broken down under the prolonged strain. + +It is probable that after this war is over the women of the +belligerent nations will be given the franchise by the weary men that +are left, if they choose to insist upon it. They have shown the same +bravery, endurance, self-sacrifice, resource, and grim determination +as the men. In every war, it may be argued, women have displayed the +same spirit and the same qualities, proving that they needed but the +touchstone of opportunity to reveal the splendor of their endowment, +but treated by man, as soon as peace was restored, as the same old +inferior annex. + +This is true enough, but the point of difference is that never, prior +to the Great War, was such an enormous body of women awake after the +lethargic submission of centuries, and clamoring for their rights. +Never before have millions of women been supporting themselves; never +before had they even contemplated organization and the direct +political attack. Of course the women of Europe, exalted and worked +half to death, have, with the exception of a few irrepressibles, put +all idea of self-aggrandizement aside for the moment; but this idea +had grown too big and too dominant to be dismissed for good and all, +with last year's fashions and the memory of delicate _plats_ prepared +by chefs now serving valiantly within the lines. The big idea, the +master desire, the obsession, if you like, is merely taking an +enforced rest, and there is persistent speculation as to what the +thinking and the energetic women of Europe will do when this war is +over, and how far men will help or hinder them. + +I have written upon this question in its bearings upon the women of +France more fully in another chapter; but it may be stated here that +such important feminists as Madame Vérone, the eminent avocat, and +Mlle. Valentine Thompson, the youngest but one of the ablest of the +leaders, while doing everything to help and nothing to embarrass their +Government, never permit the question to recede wholly to the +background. Mlle. Thompson argues that the men in authority should not +be permitted for a moment to forget, not the services of women in this +terrible chapter of France's destiny, for that is a matter of course, +as ever, but the marked capabilities women have shown when suddenly +thrust into positions of authority. In certain invaded towns the wives +of imprisoned or executed Mayors have taken their place almost +automatically and served with a capacity unrelated to sex. In some of +these towns women have managed the destinies of the people since the +first month of the war, understanding them as no man has ever done, +and working harder than most men are ever willing to work. Thousands +have, under the spur, developed unsuspected capacities, energies, +endurance, above all genuine executive abilities. That these women +should be swept back into private life by the selfishness of men when +the killing business is over, is, to Mlle. Thompson's mind, +unthinkable. In her newspaper, _La Vie Feminine_, she gives weekly +instances of the resourcefulness and devotion of French womanhood, and +although the women of her country have never taken as kindly to the +idea of demanding the franchise as those of certain other nations, +still it is more than possible that she will make many converts before +the war is over. + +These are not to be "suffrage" chapters. There is no doubt in my mind +that the women of all nations will have the franchise eventually, if +only because it is ridiculous that they should be permitted to work +like men (often supporting husbands, fathers, brothers) and not be +permitted all the privileges of men. Man, who grows more enlightened +every year--often sorely against his will--must appreciate this +anomaly in due course, and by degrees will surrender the franchise as +freely to women as he has to negroes and imbeciles. When women have +received the vote for which they have fought and bled, they will use +it with just about the same proportion of conscientiousness and +enthusiasm as busy men do. One line in the credo might have been +written of human nature A.D. 1914-1917: "As it was in the beginning, +is now, and ever shall be." + +But while suffrage and feminism are related, they are far from +identical. Suffrage is but a milestone in feminism, which may be +described as the more or less concerted sweep of women from the +backwaters into the broad central stream of life. Having for untold +centuries given men to the world they now want the world from men. +There is no question in the progressive minds of both sexes that, +outside of the ever-recurrent war zones, they should hereafter divide +the great privileges of life and civilization in equal shares with +men. + +Several times before in the history of the world comparatively large +numbers of women have made themselves felt, claiming certain equal +rights with the governing sex. But their ambitions were generally +confined to founding religious orders, obtaining admission to the +universities, or to playing the intellectual game in the social +preserves. In the wonderful thirteenth century women rivaled men in +learning and accomplishments, in vigor of mind and decision of +character. But this is the first time that millions of them have been +out in the world "on their own," invading almost every field of work, +for centuries sacrosanct to man. There is even a boiler-maker in the +United States who worked her way up in poor-boy fashion and now +attends conventions of boiler-makers on equal terms. In tens of +thousands of cases women have made good, in the arts, professions, +trades, businesses, clerical positions, and even in agriculture and +cattle raising. They are brilliant aviators, yachtsmen, automobile +drivers, showing failure of nerve more rarely than men, although, as +they are not engaged in these pursuits in equal numbers perhaps that +is not a fair statement. Suffice it to say that as far as they have +gone they have asked for no quarter. It is quite true that in certain +of the arts, notably music, they have never equaled men, and it has +been held against them that all the great chefs are men. Here it is +quite justifiable to take refuge in the venerable axiom, "Rome was not +made in a day." It is not what they have failed to accomplish with +their grinding disabilities but the amazing number of things in which +they have shown themselves the equal if not the superior of men. +Whether their success is to be permanent, or whether they have done +wisely in invading man's domain so generally, are questions to be +attacked later when considering the biological differences between men +and women. The most interesting problem relating to women that +confronts us at present is the effect of the European War on the whole +status of woman. + +If the war ends before this nation is engulfed we shall at least keep +our men, and the males of this country are so far in excess of the +females that it is odd so many American women should be driven to +self-support. In Great Britain the women have long outnumbered the +men; it was estimated before the war that there were some three +hundred thousand spinsters for whom no husbands were available. After +the war there will be at best something like a proportion of one whole +man to three women (confining these unwelcome prophecies to people of +marriageable age); and the other afflicted countries, with the +possible exception of Russia, will show a similar dislocation of the +normal balance. The acute question will be repopulation--with a view +to another trial of military supremacy a generation hence!--and all +sorts of expedients are being suggested, from polygamy to artificial +fertilization. It may be that the whole future of woman as well as of +civilization after this war is over depends upon whether she concludes +to serve the State or herself. + +While in France in the summer of 1916, I heard childless women say: +"Would that I had six sons to give to France!" I heard unmarried +women say: "Thank heaven I never married!" I heard bitterness +expressed by bereft mothers, terror and despair by others when the +curtain had rung down and they could relax the proud and smiling front +they presented to the world. Not one would have had her son shirk his +duty, nor asked for compromise with the enemy, but all prayed for the +war to end. It is true that these men at the front are heroes in the +eyes of their women, worshiped by the majority when they come home +briefly as permissionnaires, and it is also true that France is an old +military nation and that the brain-cells of its women are full of +ancestral memories of war. But never before have women done as much +thinking for themselves as they are doing to-day, as they had done for +some fifteen or twenty years before the war. That war has now lasted +almost three years. During this long and terrible period there has +been scarcely a woman in France, as in Britain, Russia, Italy, +Germany, who has not done her share behind the lines, working, at her +self-appointed tasks or at those imposed by the Government, for months +on end without a day of rest. They have had contacts that never would +have approached them otherwise, they have been obliged to think for +themselves, for thousands of helpless poor, for the men at the Front. +The Frenchwomen particularly have forced men to deal with them as +human beings and respect them as such, dissipating in some measure +those mists of sex through which the Frenchman loves to stalk in +search of the elusive and highly-sophisticated quarry. As long as a +woman was sexually attractive she could never hope to meet man on an +equal footing, no matter how entrancing he might find her mental +qualities. She must play hide-and-seek, exercise finesse, seduction, +keep the flag of sex flying ever on the ramparts. It is doubtful if +Frenchmen will change in this respect, but it is more than doubtful if +women do not. + +There is hardly any doubt that if this war lasts long enough women for +the first time in the history of civilization will have it in their +power to seize one at least of the world's reins. But will they do +it--I am now speaking of women in mass, not of the advanced thinkers, +or of women of the world who have so recently ascertained that there +is a special joy in being free of the tyranny of sex, a tyranny that +emanated no less from within than without. + +It is to be imagined that all the men who are fighting in this most +trying of all wars are heroes in the eyes of European women--as well +they may be--and that those who survive are likely to be regarded with +a passionate admiration not unmixed with awe. The traditional weakness +of women where men are concerned (which after all is but a cunning +device of Nature) may swamp their great opportunity. They may fight +over the surviving males like dogs over a bone, marry with sensations +of profound gratitude (or patriotic fervor) the armless, the legless, +the blind, the terrible face mutilés, and drop forever out of the +ranks of Woman as differentiated from the ranks of mere women. What +has hampered the cause of Woman in Great Britain and Europe so far is +the quite remarkable valuation put upon the male by the female. This +is partly temperamental, partly female preponderance, but it is even +more deeply rooted in those vanished centuries during which man +proclaimed and maintained his superiority. Circumstances helped him +for thousands of years, and he has been taken by the physically weaker +and child-bearing sex at his own estimate. It is difficult for +American women to appreciate this almost servile attitude of even +British women to mere man. One of the finest things about the militant +woman, one by which she scored most heavily, was her flinging off of +this tradition and displaying a shining armor of indifference toward +man as man. This startled the men almost as much as the window +smashing, and made other women, living out their little lives under +the frowns and smiles of the dominant male, think and ponder, wonder +if their small rewards amounted to half as much as the untasted +pleasures of power and independence. + +It is always a sign of weakness to give one side of a picture and +blithely ignore the other. Therefore, let me hasten to add that it is +a well-known fact that Mrs. Pankhurst had borne and reared six +children before she took up the moribund cause of suffrage; and that +after a season's careful investigation in London at the height of the +militant movement I concluded that never in the world had so many +unattractive females been banded together in any one cause. Even the +young girls I heard speaking on street corners, mounted on boxes, +looked gray, dingy, sexless. Of course there were many handsome, even +lovely, women,--like Mrs. Cavendish-Bentinck and Lady Hall, for +instance--interested in "the movement," contributing funds, and giving +it a certain moral support; but when it came to the window smashers, +the jail seekers, the hunger-strikers, the real martyrs of that +extraordinary minor chapter of England's history, there was only one +good-looking woman in the entire army--Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence--and +militant extravagances soon became too much for her. There were +intelligent women galore, women of the aristocracy born with a certain +style, and showing their breeding even on the soap-box, but sexually +attractive women never, and even the youngest seemed to have been born +without the bloom of youth. The significance of this, however, works +both ways. If men did not want them, at least there was something both +noble and pitiful in their willingness to sacrifice those dreams and +hopes which are the common heritage of the lovely and the plain, the +old and the young, the Circe and the Amazon, to the ultimate freedom +of those millions of their sisters lulled or helpless in the enchanted +net of sex. + +It is doubtful if even the militants can revert to their former +singleness of purpose; after many months, possibly years, of devotion +to duty, serving State and man, the effacement of self, appreciation +of the naked fact that the integrity of their country matters more +than anything else on earth, they may be quite unable to rebound to +their old fanatical attitude toward suffrage as the one important +issue of the Twentieth Century. Even the very considerable number of +those women that have reached an appearance which would eliminate them +from the contest over such men as are left may be so chastened by the +hideous sufferings they have witnessed or heard of daily, so moved by +the astounding endurance and grim valor of man (who nearest approaches +to godhood in time of war) that they will have lost the disposition to +tear from him the few compensations the new era of peace can offer. If +that is the case, if women at the end of the war are soft, completely +rehabilitated in that femininity, or femaleness, which was their +original endowment from Nature, the whole great movement will subside, +and the work must begin over again by unborn women and their +accumulated grievances some fifty years hence. + +Nothing is more sure than that Nature will take advantage of the lull +to make a desperate attempt to recover her lost ground. Progressive +women, and before the war their ranks were recruited daily, were one +of the most momentous results of the forces of the higher +civilization, an evolution that in Nature's eye represented a +lamentable divergence from type. Here is woman, with all her physical +disabilities, become man's rival in all of the arts, save music, and +in nearly all of the productive walks of life, as well as in a large +percentage of the professional and executive; intellectually the +equal if not the superior of the average man--who in these days, poor +devil, is born a specialist--and making a bold bid for political +equality. + +It has been a magnificent accomplishment, and it has marked one of the +most brilliant and picturesque milestones in human progress. It seems +incredible that woman, in spite of the tremendous pressure that Nature +will put upon her, may revert weakly to type. The most powerful of all +the forces working for Nature and against feminism will be the quite +brutal and obscene naturalness of war, and the gross familiarity of +civilization with it for so long a period. There is reversion to type +with a vengeance! The ablest of the male inheritors of the accumulated +wisdom and experiences and civilizing influences of the ages were in +power prior to August 1914, and not one of them nor all combined had +the foresight to circumvent, or the diplomatic ingenuity to keep in +leash the panting Hun. They are settling their scores, A.D. 1914-1917, +by brute fighting. There has been some brain work during this war so +far, but a long sight more brute work. As it was in the beginning, +etc. + +And the women, giving every waking hour to ameliorating the lot of the +defenders of their hearth and their honor, or nursing the wounded in +hospital, have been stark up against the physical side: whether making +bombs in factories, bandages or uniforms, washing gaping wounds, +preparing shattered bodies for burial, or listening to the horrid +tales of men and women home on leave. + + +II + + +The European woman, in spite of her exalted pitch, is living a more or +less mechanical life at present. Even where she has revealed +unsuspected creative ability, as soon as her particular task is mapped +she subsides into routine. As a rule she is quite automatically and +naturally performing those services and duties for which Nature so +elaborately equipped her, ministering to man almost exclusively, even +when temporarily filling his place in the factory and the tram-car. +_Dienen! Dienen!_ is the motto of one and all of these Kundrys, +whether they realize it or not, and it is on the cards that they may +never again wish to somersault back to that mental attitude where they +would dominate not serve. + +On the other hand civilization may for once prove stronger than +Nature. Thinking women--and there are a few hundred thousands of +them--may emerge from this hideous reversion of Europe to barbarism +with an utter contempt for man. They may despise the men of affairs +for muddling Europe into the most terrible war in history, in the very +midst of the greatest civilization of which there is any record. They +may experience a secret but profound revulsion from the men wallowing +in blood and filth for months on end, living only to kill. The fact +that the poor men can't help it does not alter the case. The women +can't help it either. Women have grown very fastidious. The sensual +women and the quite unimaginative women will not be affected, but how +about the others? And only men of the finest grain survive a long +period of war with the artificial habits of civilization strong upon +them. + +The end of this war may mark a conclusive revulsion of the present +generation of European women from men that may last until they have +passed the productive age. Instead of softening, disintegrating back +to type, they may be insensibly hardening inside a mould that will +eventually cast them forth a more definite third sex than any that +threatened before the war. Woman, blind victim of the race as she has +been for centuries, seldom in these days loves without an illusion of +the senses or of the imagination. She has ceased, in the wider avenues +of life, lined as they are with the opulent wares of twentieth century +civilization, to be merely the burden-bearing and reproductive sex. +Life has taught her the inestimable value of illusions, and the more +practical she becomes, the more she cherishes this divine gift. It is +possible that man has forfeited his power to cast a glamour over all +but the meanest types of women. If that should be the case women will +ask: Why settle down and keep house for the tiresome creatures, study +their whims, and meekly subside into the second place, or be eternally +on the alert for equal rights? As for children? Let the state suffer +for its mistakes. Why bring more children into the world to be blown +to pieces on the field of battle, or a burden to their women +throughout interminable years? No! For a generation at least the +world shall be ours, and then it may limp along with a depleted +population or go to the dogs. + +Few, no doubt, will reason it out as elaborately as this or be so +consciously ruthless, but a large enough number are likely enough to +bring the light of their logic to bear upon the opportunity, and a +still larger number to feel an obscure sense of revolt against man for +his failure to uphold civilization against the Prussian anachronism, +combined with a more definite desire for personal liberty. And both of +these divisions of their sex are likely to alter the course of +history--far more radically than has ever happened before at the close +of any fighting period. Even the much depended upon maternal instinct +may subside, partly under the horrors of field hospitals where so many +mother's sons are ghastly wrecks, partly under a heavy landslide of +disgust that the sex that has ruled the world should apparently be so +helpless against so obscene a fate. + +They will reflect that if women are weak (comparatively) physically, +there is all the more hope they may develop into giants mentally; one +of man's handicaps being that his more highly vitalized body with its +coercive demands, is ever waging war with a consistent and complete +development of the mind. And in these days, when the science of the +body is so thoroughly understood, any woman, unless afflicted with an +organic disease, is able to keep her brain constantly supplied with +red unpoisoned blood, and may wax in mental powers (there being no +natural physical deteriorations in the brain as in the body) so long +as life lasts. + +Certainly these women will say: We could have done no worse than these +chess players of Europe and we might have done better. Assuredly if we +grasp and hold the reins of the world there will never be another war. +We are not, in the first place, as greedy as men; we will divide the +world up in strict accordance with race, and let every nation have its +own place in the sun. Commercial greed has no place in our make-up, +and with the hideous examples of history it will never obtain +entrance. + +How often has it been the cynical pleasure of mere ministers of state +to use kings as pawns? Well, we despise the game. Also, we shall have +no kings, and republics are loth to make war. Our instincts are +humanitarian. We should like to see all the world as happy as that +lovely countryside of Northeastern France before August 1914. We at +least recognize that the human mind is as yet imperfectly developed; +and if, instead of setting the world back periodically, and drenching +mankind in misery, we would have all men and women as happy as human +nature will permit, we should devote our abilities, uninterrupted by +war, to solving the problem of poverty (the acutest evidence of man's +failure), and to fostering the talents of millions of men and women +that to-day constitute a part of the wastage of Earth. Of course, +being mortal, we shall make mistakes, give way, no doubt, to racial +jealousies, and personal ambitions; but our eyes have been opened wide +by this war and it is impossible that we should make the terrible +mistakes we inevitably would have made had we obtained power before we +had seen and read its hideous revelations--day after day, month after +month, year after year! It is true that men have made these +resolutions many times, but men have too much of the sort of blood +that goes to the head, and their lust for money is even greater than +their lust for power. + +Now, this may sound fantastic but it is indisputably probable. Much +has been said of the patriotic exaltation of young women during war +and just after its close, which leads them to marry almost any one in +order to give a son to the state, or even to dispense with the legal +formality. But although I heard a great deal of that sort of talk +during the first months of the war I don't hear so much of it now. Nor +did I hear anything like as much of it in France as I expected. To +quote one woman of great intelligence with whom I talked many times, +and who is one of the Government's chosen aids; she said one day, "It +was a terrible distress to me that I had only one child, and I +consulted every specialist in France. Now I am thankful that I did +have but one son to come home to me with a gangrene wound, and then, +after months of battling for his life, to insist upon going back to +the Front and exposing it every day. I used to feel sad, too, that +Valentine Thompson" (who is not only beautiful but an Amazon in +physique) "did not marry and be happy like other girls, instead of +becoming a public character and working at first one scheme or another +for the amelioration of the lot of woman. Now, I am thankful that she +never married. Her father is too old to go to war and she has neither +husband nor son to agonize over. Far better she live the life of +usefulness she does than deliberately take upon herself the common +burdens of women." No Frenchwoman could be more patriotic than the one +who made this speech to me, and if she had had many sons she would +have girded them all for war, but she had suffered too much herself +and she saw too much suffering among her friends daily, not to hate +the accursed institution of war, and wish that as many women could be +spared its brutal impositions as possible. + +Nobody has ever accused me of being a Pacifist. Personally, I think +that every self-respecting nation on the globe should have risen in +1914 and assisted the Allies to blast Prussia off the face of the +Earth, but after this war is over if the best brains in these nations +do not at once get to work and police the world against future wars, +it will be a matter for regret that they were not all on the German +ship when she foundered. + + +III + + +It is to be remembered that woman has, in her subconscious +brain-cells, ancestral memories of the Matriarchate. It is interesting +to quote in this connection what Patrick Geddes and G. Arthur +Thompson have to say on the mooted question of the Mother-Age: + +"Prehistoric history is hazardous, but there is a good case to be made +out for a Mother-Age. This has been reconstructed from fossils in the +folk lore of agriculture and housewifery, in old customs, ceremonies, +festivals, games; in myths and fairy tales and age-worn words. + +"Professor Karl Pierson finds in the study of witchcraft some of the +fossils that point back to the Matriarchate. In the older traditions +'the witch resumes her old position as the wise-woman, the medicine +woman, the leader of the people, the priestess.' 'We have accordingly +to look upon the witch as essentially the degraded form of the old +priestess, cunning in the knowledge of herbs and medicine, jealous of +the rights and of the goddess she serves, and preserving in spells and +incantations such wisdom as early civilization possessed.' + +"The witch's weather wisdom is congruent with the fact that women were +the earliest agriculturists; her knowledge of herbs with that of the +ancient medicine women; her diablerie with that of the ancient group +relations of the sexes so different from what we call marriage to-day; +her nocturnal dances with the ancient choruses of marriage-ripe +maidens. The authority and magic circle kept by the broom are those of +the hearth and floor in her primeval roundhut; and her distaff and +pitchfork, her caldron, her cat and dog, are all in keeping with the +rôle of woman in the Mother-Age. + +"But there is another way, and that certainly not less reliable, by +which we can arrive at some understanding of the Mother-Age, and how +it naturally came about, namely, by a study of our 'contemporary +ancestors,' of people who linger on the matriarchal level. Such +people, as well as others on the still lower nomad stage of +civilization, are to be found at this day in Australia. + +"While the purely nomad stage lasted, little progress could be made, +because the possessions of a group were limited by the carrying powers +of its members. But in a favorite forest spot a long halt was +possible, the mothers were able to drop their babies and give a larger +part of their attention to food-getting. As before, the forest +products--roots and fruits--were gathered in, but more time and +ingenuity were expended in making them palatable and in storing them +for future use. The plants in the neighborhood, which were useful for +food or for their healing properties, were tended and kept free of +weeds, and by and by seeds of them were sown in cleared ground within +easy reach of the camp. Animals gathered about the rich food area, and +were at first tolerated--certain negro tribes to-day keep hens about +their huts, though they eat neither them nor their eggs--and later +encouraged as a stable source of food-supply. The group was anchored +to one spot by its increasing possessions; and thus home-making, +gardening, medicine, the domestication of animals and even +agriculture, were fairly begun. Not only were all these activities in +the hands of women, but to them, too, were necessarily left the care +and training of the young. + +"The men meanwhile went away on warlike expeditions against other +groups, and on long hunting and fishing excursions, from which they +returned with their spoils from time to time, to be welcomed by the +women with dancing and feasting. Hunting and war were their only +occupations, and the time between expeditions was spent in resting and +in interminable palavers and dances, which we may perhaps look upon as +the beginnings of parliaments and music halls. + +"Whether this picture be accurate in detail or not there is at any +rate a considerable body of evidence pointing to the 'Matriarchate' as +a period during which women began medicine, the domestication of the +smaller animals, the cultivation of vegetables, flax and corn, the use +of the distaff, the spindle, the broom, the fire-rake and the +pitchfork. + +"In the Mother-Age the inheritance of property passed through the +mother; the woman gave the children her own name; husband and father +were in the background--often far from individualized; the brother and +uncle were much more important; the woman was the depository of +custom, lore, and religious tradition; she was, at least, the nominal +head of the family, and she had a large influence in tribal affairs." + +For some years past certain progressive women have shown signs of a +reversion to the matriarchal state--or shall we say a disposition to +revive it? In spite of human progress we travel more or less in +circles, a truth of which the present war and its reversions is the +most uncompromising example. + +In the married state, for instance, these women have retained their +own name, not even being addressed as Mrs., that after all is a polite +variation of the Spanish "de," which does not by any means indicate +noble birth alone, women after marriage proudly announcing themselves +as legally possessed. For instance a girl whose name has been Elena +Lopez writes herself after marriage Elena Lopez de Morena, the "de" in +this case standing for "property of." It will be some time before the +women of Spain travel far on the Northern road toward pride in sex +deliverance, but with us, and in Britain, the custom is growing +prevalent. + +Then there is the hyphen marriage, more common still, in which the +woman retains her own name, but condescends to annex the man's. Once +in a way a man will prefix his wife's name to his own, and there is +one on record who prefixed his own to his wife's. But any woman may +have her opinion of him. + +So far as I have been able to ascertain these marriages are quite as +successful as the average; and if the woman has a career on hand--and +she generally has--she pursues it unhampered. The grandmother or aunt +takes charge of the children, if there are any, while she is at her +duties without the home, and so far, the husband has been permitted +the compensation of endowing the children with his name. + +The reversion to the prehistoric matriarchate can hardly be complete +in these days, but there are many significant straws that indicate the +rising of a new wind blown by ancient instincts. To look upon them as +shockingly advanced or abnormal is an evidence of conservatism that +does not reach quite far enough into the past. + +A still more significant sign of the times (in the sense of linking +past with present) is the ever-increasing number of women doctors and +their success. Men for the most part have ceased to sneer or even to +be more than humanly jealous, often speaking in terms of the warmest +admiration not only of their skill but of their conscientiousness and +power of endurance. When I went to live in Munich (1903) a woman +surgeon was just beginning to practice. This, to Germany, was an +innovation with a vengeance, and the German male is the least tolerant +of female encroachment within his historic preserves. The men +practitioners threw every possible obstacle in her way, and with no +particular finesse. But nothing could daunt her, and two or three +years later she was riding round in her car--a striking red one--while +the major number of her rivals were still dependent upon the ambling +cab-horse, directed off and on by a fat driver who was normally +asleep. Jealousy, however, for the most part had merged into +admiration; for your average male, of whatever race, is not only +philosophical but bows to success; she was both recognized and called +in for consultation. Hang on! Hang on! should be the motto of all +women determined to make their mark in what is still a man's world. +Life never has denied her prizes to courage and persistence backed by +ability. + +A curious instance of man's inevitable recognition of the places of +responsibility women more and more are taking is in the new reading of +the Income Tax papers for 1917. Heretofore only married men were +exempted taxation on the first $4000 but from now on, apparently, +women who are also "heads of families" are likewise favored. As +thousands of women are supporting their aged parents, their brothers +while studying, their children and even their husbands, who for one +reason or other are unequal to the family strain, this exemption +should have been made coincidentally with the imposing of the tax. But +men are slow to see and slower still to act where women are concerned. + +As we all know, women have invaded practically every art, trade, and +industry, but--aside from the arts, for occasionally Nature is so +impartial in her bestowal of genius that art is accepted as +sexless--in no walk of life has woman been so uniformly successful as +in medicine. This is highly significant in view of the fact that they +invented and practiced it in the dawn of history, while man was too +rudimentary to do anything but fight and fill the larder. It would +seem that the biological differences between the male and the female +which are so often the cause of woman's failure in many spheres +preëmpted throughout long centuries by man, is in her case +counteracted not only by her ancestral inheritance, but by the high +moral element without which no doctor or surgeon can long stand the +exactions and strain of his terrible profession. No woman goes +blithely into surgery or medicine merely to have a career or to make a +living, although ten thousand girls to her one will essay to write, or +paint, or clerk, or cultivate her bit of voice, with barely a thought +expended upon her fitness or the obligations involved. + +But the woman who deliberately enters the profession of healing has, +almost invariably, a certain nobility of mind, a lack of personal +selfishness, and a power of devotion to the race quite unknown to the +average woman, even the woman of genius when seeking a career. + +During the Great War there have been few women doctors at the Front, +but hundreds of women nurses, and they have been as intrepid and +useful as their rivals in sex. They alone, by their previous +experience of human suffering, bad enough at best, were in a measure +prepared for the horrors of war and the impotence of men laid low. But +that will not restore any lost illusions, for they took masculine +courage for granted with their mothers' milk, and they cannot fail to +be imbued to the marrow with a bitter sense of waste and futility, of +the monstrous sacrifice of the best blood of their generation. + + + + +II + +THE TRIUMPH OF MIDDLE-AGE + +I + + +Certain doctors of England have gone on record as predicting a +lamentable physical future for the army of women who are at present +doing the heavy work of men, particularly in the munition factories. +They say that the day-long tasks which involve incessant bending and +standing and lifting of heavy weights will breed a terrible reaction +when the war ends and these women are abruptly flung back into +domestic life. There is almost no man's place in the industrial world +that English women are not satisfactorily filling, with either muscle +or brains, and the doctors apprehend a new problem in many thousand +neurotics or otherwise broken-down women at the close of the war. +Although this painful result of women's heroism would leave just that +many women less to compete for the remaining men sound of wind and +limb, still, if true, it raises the acute question: Are women the +equal of men in all things? Their deliverance from the old marital +fetish, and successful invasion of so many walks of life, have made +such a noise in the world since woman took the bit between her teeth, +more or less en masse, that the feministic pæan of triumph has almost +smothered an occasional protest from those concerned with biology; but +as a matter-of-fact statistics regarding the staying power of women in +what for all the historic centuries have been regarded as avocations +heaven-designed and with strict reference to the mental and physical +equipment of man, are too contradictory to be of any value. + +Therefore, the result of this prolonged strain on a healthy woman of a +Northern race evidently predestined to be as public as their present +accomplishment, will be awaited with the keenest interest, and no +doubt will have an immense effect upon the future status of woman. She +has her supreme opportunity, and if her nerves are equal to her nerve, +her body to her spirit, if the same women are working at the severe +tasks at the end of the war as during the first months of their +exaltation, and instead of being wrecks are as hardened as the +miserable city boys that have become wiry in the trenches--then, +beyond all question woman will have come to her own and it will be for +her, not for man, to say whether or not she shall subside and attend +to the needs of the next generation. + +Before I went to France in May 1916 I was inclined to believe that +only a small percentage of women would stand the test; but since then +I have seen hundreds of women at work in the munition factories of +France. As I have told in another chapter, they had then been at work +for some sixteen months, and, of poor physique in the beginning, were +now strong healthy animals with no sign of breakdown. They were more +satisfactory in every way than men, for they went home and slept all +night, drank only the light wines of their country, smoked less, if at +all, and had a more natural disposition toward cleanliness. Their bare +muscular arms looked quite capable of laying a man prostrate if he +came home and ordered them about, and their character and pride had +developed in proportion.[F] + + [F] Dr. Rosalie Morton, the leading woman doctor and surgeon of New + York, who also studied this subject at first hand, agrees with + me that the war tasks have improved the health of the European + women. + +It is not to be imagined, however, that the younger, at least, of +these women will cling to those greasy jobs when the world is normal +again and its tempered prodigals are spending money on the elegancies +of life once more. And if they slump back into the sedentary life when +men are ready to take up their old burdens, making artificial flowers, +standing all day in the fetid atmosphere of crowded and noisy shops, +stitching everlastingly at lingerie, there, it seems to me, lies the +danger of breakdown. The life they lead now, arduous as it is, not +only has developed their muscles, their lungs, the power to digest +their food, but they are useful members of society on the grand scale, +and to fall from any height is not conducive to the well-being of body +or spirit. No doubt, when the sudden release comes, they will return +to the lighter tasks with a sense of immense relief; but will it last? +Will it be more than a momentary reaction to the habit of their own +years and of the centuries behind, or will they gradually become aware +(after they have rested and romped and enjoyed the old life in the +old fashion when off duty) that with the inferior task they have +become the inferior sex again. The wife, to be sure, will feel +something more than her husband's equal, and the Frenchwoman never has +felt herself the inferior in the matrimonial partnership. But how +about the wage earners? Those that made ten to fifteen francs a day in +the _Usines de Guerre_, and will now be making four or five? How about +the girls who cannot marry because their families are no longer in a +position to pay the dot, without which no French girl dreams of +marrying? These girls not only have been extraordinarily (for +Frenchwomen of their class) affluent during the long period of the +war, but they order men about, and they are further upheld with the +thought that they are helping their beloved France to conquer the +enemy. They live on another plane, and life is apt to seem very mean +and commonplace under the old conditions. + +That these women are not masculinized is proved by the fact that many +have borne children during the second year of the war, their tasks +being made lighter until they are restored to full strength again. +They invariably return as soon as possible, however. It may be, of +course, that the young men and women of the lower bourgeoisie will +forswear the dot, for it would be but one more old custom giving way +to necessity. In that case the sincere, hardworking and not very +humorous women of this class no doubt would find full compensation in +the home, and promptly do her duty by the State. But I doubt if any +other alternative will console any but the poorest intelligence or the +naturally indolent--and perhaps Frenchwomen, unless good old-fashioned +butterflies, have less laziness in their make-up than any other women +under the sun. + +The natural volatility of the race must also be taken into +consideration. Stoical in their substratum, bubbling on the surface, +it may be that these women who took up the burdens of men so bravely +will shrug their shoulders and revert to pure femininity. Those past +the age of allurement may fight like termagants for their lucrative +jobs, their utter independence; but coquetry and the joy in life, or, +to put it more plainly, the powerful passions of the French race, may +do more to effect an automatic and permanent return to the old status +than any authoritative act on the part of man. + + +II + + +The women of England are (or were) far more neurotic than the women of +France, as they have fewer natural outlets. And the struggle for legal +enfranchisement, involving, as it did, a sensationalism that affected +even the non-combatants, did much to enhance this tendency, and it is +interesting to speculate whether this war will make or finish them. +Once more, personally, I believe it will make them, but as I was not +able to go to London after my investigations in France were concluded +and observe for myself I refuse to indulge in speculations. Time will +show, and before very long. + +No doubt, however, when the greater question of winning the war is +settled, the question of sex equality will rage with a new violence, +perhaps in some new form, among such bodies of women as are not so +subject to the thrall of sex as to desert their new colors. It would +seem that the lot of woman is ever to be on the defensive. Nature +handicapped her at the start, giving man a tremendous advantage in his +minimum relationship to reproduction, and circumstances (mainly +perpetual warfare) postponed the development of her mental powers for +centuries. Certainly nothing in the whole history of mankind is so +startling as the abrupt awakening of woman and her demand for a +position in the world equal to that of the dominant male. + +I use the word abrupt, because in spite of the scattered instances of +female prosiliency throughout history, and the long struggle beginning +in the last century for the vote, or the individual determination to +strive for some more distinguished fashion of coping with poverty than +school-teaching or boarding-house keeping, the concerted awakening of +the sex was almost as abrupt as the European War. Like many fires it +smouldered long, and then burst into a menacing conflagration. But I +do not for a moment apprehend that the conflagration will extinguish +the complete glory of the male any more than it will cause a revulsion +of nature in the born mother. + +But may there not be a shuffling of the cards? Take the question of +servant-girls for instance. Where there are two or more servants in a +family their lot is far better than that of the factory girl. But it +is quite a different matter with the maid-of-all-work, the household +drudge, who is increasingly hard to find, partly because she, quite +naturally, prefers the department store, or the factory, with its +definite hours and better social status, partly because there is +nothing in the "home" to offset her terrible loneliness but +interminable hours of work. In England, where many people live in +lodgings, fashionable and otherwise, and have all meals served in +their rooms, it is a painful sight to see a slavey toiling up two or +three flights of stairs--and four times a day. In the United States, +the girls who come over from Scandinavia or Germany with roseate hopes +soon lose their fresh color and look heavy and sullen if they find +their level in the household where economy reigns. + +Now, why has no one ever thought of men as "maids" of all work? On +ocean liners it is the stewards that take care of the state-rooms, and +they keep them like wax, and make the best bed known to civilization. +The stewardesses in heavy weather attend to the prostrate of their +sex, but otherwise do nothing but bring the morning tea, hook up, and +receive tips. Men wait in the diningroom (as they do in all +first-class hotels), and look out for the passengers on deck. Not the +most militant suffragette but would be intensely annoyed to have +stewardesses scurrying about on a heaving deck with the morning broth +and rugs, or dancing attendance in a nauseous sea. + +The truth of the matter is that there is a vast number of men of all +races who are fit to be nothing but servants, and are so misplaced in +other positions where habit or vanity has put them, that they fail far +more constantly than women. All "men" are not real men by any means. +They are not fitted to play a man's part in life, and many of the +things they attempt are far better done by strong determined women, +who have had the necessary advantages, and the character to ignore the +handicap of sex. + +I can conceive of a household where a well-trained man cooks, does the +"wash," waits on the table, sweeps, and if the mistress has a young +child, or is indolent and given to the rocking-chair and a +novel-a-day, makes the beds without a wrinkle. He may lack ambition +and initiative, the necessary amount of brains to carry him to success +in any of the old masculine jobs, but he inherits the thoroughness of +the ages that have trained him, and, if sober, rides the heavy waves +of his job like a cork. I will venture to say that a man thus employed +would finish his work before eight P.M. and spend an hour or two +before bed-time with his girl or at his club. + +Many a Jap in California does the amount of work I have described, and +absorbs knowledge in and out of books during his hours of leisure. +Sometimes they do more than I have indicated as possible for the white +man. Energetic boys, who want to return to Japan as soon as possible, +or, mayhap, buy a farm, make a hundred dollars a month by getting up +at five in the morning to wash a certain number of stoops and sweep +sidewalks, cook a breakfast and wash up the dinner dishes in one +servantless household, the lunch dishes in another, clean up generally +in another, cook the dinner, wait on the table, clean up in still +another. As white men are stronger they could do even more, and +support a wife in an intensive little flat where her work would be +both light and spiritually remunerative. Domestic service would solve +the terrible problem of life for thousands of men, and it would +coincidentally release thousands of girls from the factory, the +counter, and the exhausting misery of a "home" that never can be their +own. At night he could feel like a householder and that he lived to +some purpose. If he is inclined to complain that such a life is not +"manly," let him reflect that as he is not first-rate anyhow, and +never can compete with the fully equipped, he had best be +philosophical and get what comfort out of life he can. Certainly the +increased economic value of thousands of men, at present slaving as +underpaid clerks and living in hall bedrooms, would thin the ranks of +the most ancient of all industries, if, according to our ardent +reformers, they are recruited from the ranks of the lonely +servant-girl, the tired shop-girl, and the despairing factory hand. + + +III + + +For it is largely a question of muscle and biology. + +I have stated elsewhere that I believe in equal suffrage, if only +because women are the mothers of men and therefore their equals. But I +think there are several times more reasons why American women at least +should not overwork their bodies and brains and wear themselves out +trying to be men, than why it is quite right and fitting they should +walk up to the polls and cast a vote for men who more or less control +their destinies. + +To digress a moment: When it comes to the arts, that is quite another +matter. If a woman finds herself with a talent (I refrain from such a +big word as genius, as only posterity should presume to apply that +term to any one's differentiation from his fellows), by all means let +her work like a man, take a man's chances, make every necessary +sacrifice to develop this blessed gift; not only because it is a duty +but because the rewards are adequate. The artistic career, where the +impulse is genuine, furnishes both in its rewards and in the exercise +of the gift itself far more happiness, or even satisfaction, than +husband, children, or home. The chief reason is that it is the supreme +form of self-expression, the ego's apotheosis, the power to indulge in +the highest order of spiritual pride, differentiation from the mass. +These are brutal truths, and another truth is that happiness is the +universal goal, whatever form it may take, and whatever form human +hypocrisy may compel it to take, or even to deny. Scientific +education has taught us not to sacrifice others too much in its +pursuit. That branch of ancestral memory known as conscience has +morbid reactions. + +To create, to feel something spinning out of your brain, which you +hardly realize is there until formulated on paper, for instance; the +adventurous life involved in the exercise of any art, with its +uncertainties, its varieties, its disappointments, its mistakes; the +fight, the exaltations, the supreme satisfactions--all this is the +very best life has to offer. And as art is as impartial as a microbic +disease, women do achieve, individually, as much as men; sometimes +more. If their bulk has not in the past been as great, the original +handicaps, which women in general, aided by science and a more +enlightened public, are fast shedding, alone were to blame. Certainly +as many women as men in the United States are engaged in artistic +careers; more, if one judged by the proportion in the magazines. + +Although I always feel that a man, owing to the greater freedom of his +life and mental inheritances, has more to tell me than most women +have, and I therefore prefer men as writers, still I see very little +difference in the quality of their work. Often, indeed, the magazine +fiction (in America) of the women shows greater care in phrase and +workmanship than that of the men (who are hurried and harried by +expensive families), and often quite as much virility. + +No one ever has found life a lake. Life is a stormy ocean at best, and +if any woman with a real gift prefers to sink rather than struggle, +or to float back to shore on a raft, she deserves neither sympathy nor +respect. Women born with that little tract in their brain sown by +Nature with bulbs of one of the arts, may conquer the world as proudly +as men, although not as quickly, for they rouse in disappointed or +apprehensive men the meanest form of sex jealousy; but if they have as +much courage as talent, if they are willing to dedicate their lives, +not their off hours, to the tending of their rich oasis in the general +desert of mind, success is theirs. Biological differences between the +sexes evaporate before these impersonal sexless gifts (or whims or +inadvertencies) of conservative Nature. + +Of course women have worked themselves to death in their passionate +devotion to art. So have men. Women have starved to death in garrets, +their fine efforts rejected by those that buy, and sell again to an +uncertain public. So have men. The dreariest anecdotes of England and +France, so rich in letters, are of great men-geniuses who died young +for want of proper nourishment or recognition, or who struggled on to +middle-age in a bitterness of spirit that corroded their high +endowment. I do not recall that any first-rate women writers have died +for want of recognition, possibly because until now they have been few +and far between. The Brontës died young, but mainly because they lived +in the midst of a damp old churchyard and inherited tubercular +tendencies. The graves and old box tombs crowd the very walls of the +parsonage, and are so thick you hardly can walk between them. I spent +a month in the village of Haworth, but only one night in the village +inn at the extreme end of the churchyard; I could read the +inscriptions on the tombs from my windows. + +Charlotte had immediate recognition even from such men as Thackeray, +and if the greater Emily had to wait for Swinburne and posterity it +was inherited consumption that carried her off in her youth. Although +much has been made of their poverty I don't think they were so badly +off for their times. The parsonage is a well-built stone house, their +father had his salary, and the villagers told me that the three girls +looked after the poor in hard winters, often supplying whole families +with coal. Of course they led lives of a maddening monotony, but they +were neither hungry nor bitter, and at least two of them developed a +higher order of genius than was possible to the gifted Jane Austin in +her smug life of middle-class plenty, and, to my mind, far more +hampering restrictions. + +Even if the Brontës had been sufficiently in advance of their times to +"light out" and seek adventure and development in the great world, +their low state of health would have kept them at home. So impressed +was I with the (to a Californian) terrible pictures of poverty in +which the Brontes were posed by their biographers that I grew up with +the idea that one never could develop a gift or succeed in the higher +manner unless one lived in a garret and half starved. I never had the +courage to try the regimen, but so deep was the impression that I +never have been able to work except in austere surroundings, and I +have worked in most abominably uncomfortable quarters with an +equanimity that was merely the result of the deathless insistence of +an old impression sunk deep into a mind then plastic. + +Let me hasten to add that many successful authors work in the most +luxurious quarters imaginable. It is all a matter of temperament, or, +it may be, of accident. Moreover this outer evidence of prosperity +makes a subtle appeal to the snobbery of the world and to a certain +order of critic, by no means to be despised. Socially and in the arts +we Americans are the least democratic of people, partly because we are +so damnably unsure of ourselves; and if I were beginning my career +to-day I doubt if I should be so unbusiness-like as to take the lowly +Brontes as a model. + +If I have digressed for a moment from the main theme of this book it +has been not only to show what the influence of such brave women as +the Brontes has been on later generations of writers, but that biology +must doff its hat at the tomb in Haworth Church. Their mental virility +and fecundity equalled that of any man that has attained an equal +eminence in letters, and they would have died young and suffered much +if they never had written a line. They had not a constitution between +the four of them and they spent their short lives surrounded by the +dust and the corruption of death. + + +IV + + +But when it comes to working like men for the sake of independence, of +avoiding marriage, of "doing something," that is another matter. To my +mind it is abominable that society is so constituted that women are +forced to work (in times of peace) for their bread at tasks that are +far too hard for them, that extract the sweetness from youth, and +unfit them physically for what the vast majority of women want more +than anything else in life--children. If they deliberately prefer +independence to marriage, well and good, but surely we are growing +civilized enough (and this war, in itself a plunge into the dark ages, +has in quite unintentional ways advanced civilization, for never in +the history of the world have so many brains been thinking) so to +arrange the social machinery that if girls and young women are forced +to work for their daily bread, and often the bread of others, at least +it shall be under conditions, including double shifts, that will +enable them, if the opportunity comes, as completely to enjoy all that +home means as falls to the lot of their more fortunate sisters. Even +those who launch out in life with no heavier need than their driving +independence of spirit should be protected, for often they too, when +worn in body and mind, realize that the independent life per se is a +delusion, and that their completion as well as their ultimate +happiness and economic security lies in a brood and a husband to +support it. + +There used to be volumes of indignation expended upon the American +mother toiling in the home, at the wash-tub for hire, or trudging +daily to some remunerative task, while her daughters, after a fair +education, idly flirted, and danced, and read, and finally married. +Now, although that modus operandi sounds vulgar and ungrateful it is, +biologically speaking, quite as it should be. Girls of that age should +be tended as carefully as young plants; and, for that matter, it would +be well if women until they have passed the high-water mark of +reproductivity should be protected as much as possible from severe +physical and mental strain. If women ever are to compete with men on +anything like an equal basis, it is when they are in their middle +years, when Nature's handicaps are fairly outgrown, child-bearing and +its intervening years of lassitude are over, as well as the recurrent +carboniferous wastes and relaxations. + +Why do farmers' wives look so much older than city women of the same +age in comfortable circumstances? Not, we may be sure, because of +exposure to the elements, or even the tragic loneliness that was +theirs before the pervasion of the automobile. Women in city flats are +lonely enough, but although those that have no children or "light +housekeeping" lead such useless lives one wonders why they were born, +they outlast the women of the small towns by many years because of the +minimum strain on their bodies.[G] + + [G] The French are far too clever to let the women in the munition + factories injure themselves. They have double, treble, and even + quadruple shifts. + +As a matter of fact in the large cities where the struggle of life is +superlative they outlast the men. About the time the children are +grown, the husband, owing to the prolonged and terrific strain in +competing with thousands of men as competent as himself, to keep his +family in comfort, educate his children, pay the interest on his life +insurance policy, often finds that some one of his organs is breaking +down and preparing him for the only rest he will ever find time to +take. Meanwhile his prospective widow (there is, by the way, no nation +in the world so prolific of widows and barren of widowers as the +United States) is preparing to embark on her new career as a club +woman, or, if she foresees the collapse of the family income, of +self-support. + +And in nine cases out of ten, if she has the intelligence to make use +of what a combination of average abilities and experience has +developed in her, she succeeds, and permanently; for women do not go +to pieces between forty and fifty as they did in the past. They have +learned too much. Work and multifarious interests distract their mind, +which formerly dwelt upon their failing youth, and when they sadly +composed themselves in the belief that they had given the last of +their vitality to the last of their children; to-day, instead of +sitting down by the fireside and waiting to die, they enter resolutely +upon their second youth, which is, all told, a good deal more +satisfactory than the first. + +Every healthy and courageous woman's second vitality is stronger and +more enduring than her first. Not only has her body, assisted by +modern science, settled down into an ordered routine that is +impregnable to anything but accident, but her mind is delivered from +the hopes and fears of the early sex impulses which so often sicken +the cleverest of the younger women both in body and mind, filling the +body with lassitude and the mind either with restless impatience or a +complete indifference to anything but the tarrying prince. To blame +them for this would be much like cursing Gibraltar for not getting out +of the way in a storm. They are the tools of the race, the chosen +mediums of Nature for the perpetuation of her beloved species. But the +fact remains--that is to say, in the vast majority of girls. There is, +as we all know, the hard-shell division of their sex who, even without +a gift, infinitely prefer the single and independent life in their +early youth, and only begin to show thin spots in their armor as they +approach thirty, sometimes not until it is far too late. But if you +will spend a few days walking through the department stores, for +instance, of a large city and observing each of the young faces in +turn behind the counters, it will be rarely that you will not feel +reasonably certain that the secret thoughts of all that vast army +circle persistently about some man, impinging or potential. And +wherever you make your studies, from excursion boats to the hour of +release at the gates of a factory, you must draw the same conclusion +that sex reigns, that it is the most powerful factor in life and will +be so long as Earth at least continues to spin. For that reason, no +matter how persistently girls may work because they must or starve, +it is the competent older women, long since outgrown the divine +nonsense of youth, who are the more satisfactory workers. Girls, +unless indifferently sexed, do not take naturally to work in their +youth. Whether they have the intelligence to reason or not, they know +that they were made for a different fate and they resent standing +behind a counter all day long or speeding up machinery for a few +dollars a week. Even the highly intelligent girls who find work on +newspapers often look as if they were at the end of their endurance. +It is doubtful if the world ever can run along without the work of +women but the time will surely come when society will be so +constituted that no woman in the first flush of her youth will be +forced to squander it on the meager temporary reward, and forfeit her +birthright. If she wants to, well and good. No one need be deeply +concerned for those that launch out into life because they like it. +Women in civilized countries are at liberty to make their own lives; +that is the supreme privilege of democracy. But the victims of the +propelling power of the world are greatly to be pitied and Society +should come to their rescue. I know that the obvious answer to this is +"Socialism." But before the rest of us can swallow Socialism it must +spew out its present Socialists and get new ones. Socialists never +open their mouths that they do not do their cause harm; and whatever +virtues their doctrine may contain we are blinded to it at present. +This war may solve the problem. If Socialism should be the inevitable +outcome it would at least come from the top and so be sufferable. + + +V + + +It is all very well to do your duty by your sex and keep up the +birth-rate, and there are compensations, no doubt of that, when the +husband is amiable, the income adequate, and the children are dears +and turn out well; but the second life is one's very own, the duty is +to one's self, and, such is the ineradicable selfishness of human +nature after long years of self-denial and devotion to others, there +is a distinct, if reprehensible, satisfaction in being quite natural +and self-centered. If, on the other hand, circumstances are such that +the capable middle-aged woman, instead of living entirely for herself, +in her clubs, in her increasing interest in public affairs, and her +chosen work, finds herself with certain members of her family +dependent upon her, she also derives from this fact an enormous +satisfaction, for it enables her to prove that she can fill a man's +place in the world, be quite as equal to her job. + +Instead of breaking down, this woman, who has outlived the severest +handicap of sex without parting with any of its lore, grows stronger +and more poised every year, retaining (or regaining) her looks if she +has the wisdom to keep her vanity alive; while the girl forced to +spend her days on her feet behind a counter (we hear of seats for +these girls but we never see them occupied), or slave in a factory +(where there is no change of shift as in the munition factories of +the European countries in war time), or work from morning until night +as a general servant--"one in help"--wilts and withers, grows pasée, +fanée, is liable to ultimate breakdown unless rescued by some man. + +The expenditure of energy in these girls is enormous, especially if +they combine with this devitalizing work an indulgence in their +natural desire to play. Rapid child-bearing would not deplete them +more; and it is an intensely ignorant or an intensely stupid or, in +the United States, an exceptionally sensual woman who has a larger +family than the husband can keep in comfort. Moreover, unless in the +depths of poverty, each child means a period of rest, which is more +than the girl behind the counter gets in her entire working period. + +These women, forced by a faulty social structure to support themselves +and carry heavy burdens, lack the intense metabolism of the male, his +power to husband his stores of carbon (an organic exception which +renders him indifferent to standing), and the superior quality of his +muscle. Biologically men and women are different from crown to sole. +It might be said that Nature fashioned man's body for warfare, and +that if he grows soft during intervals of peace it is his own fault. +Even so, unless in some way he has impaired his health, he has +heretofore demonstrated that he can do far more work than women, and +stand several times the strain, although his pluck may be no finer. + +If one rejects this statement let him look about among his +acquaintance at the men who have toiled hard to achieve an +independence, and whose wives have toiled with them, either because +they lived in communities where it was impossible to keep servants, or +out of a mistaken sense of economy. The man looks fresh and his wife +elderly and wrinkled and shapeless, even if she has reasonable health. +It is quite different in real cities where life on a decent income (or +salary) can be made very easy for the woman, as I have just pointed +out; but I have noticed that in small towns or on the farm, even now, +when these scattered families are no longer isolated as in the days +when farmers' wives committed suicide or intoxicated themselves on tea +leaves, the woman always looks far older than the man if "she has done +her own work" during all the years of her youth and maturity. If she +renounces housekeeping in disgust occasionally and moves to an hotel, +she soon amazes her friends by looking ten years younger; and if her +husband makes enough money to move to a city large enough to minimize +the burdens of housekeeping and offer a reasonable amount of +distraction, she recovers a certain measure of her youth, although +still far from being at forty or fifty what she would have been if her +earlier years had been relieved of all but the strains which Nature +imposes upon every woman from princess to peasant. + +It remains to be seen whether the extraordinary amount of work the +European women are doing in the service of their country, and the +marked improvement in their health and physique, marks a stride +forward in the physical development of the sex, being the result of +latent possibilities never drawn upon before, or is merely the result +of will power and exaltation, and bound to exhibit its definite limit +as soon as the necessity is withdrawn. The fact, of course, remains +that the women of the farms and lower classes generally in France are +almost painfully plain, and look hard and weather-beaten long before +they are thirty, while the higher you mount the social scale in your +researches the more the women of France, possessing little orthodox +beauty, manage, with a combination of style, charm, sophistication, +and grooming, to produce the effect not only of beauty but of a unique +standard that makes the beauties of other nations commonplace by +comparison. + +Nevertheless, the fact remains that these girls and young women +working in the _Usines de Guerre_, are better looking than they were +before and shine with health. The whole point, I fancy, lies in the +fact that they work under merciful masters and conditions. If they +were used beyond their capacity they would look like their sisters on +the farms, upon whom fathers and husbands have little mercy. + +When girls in good circumstances become infected with the microbe of +violent exercise and insist upon walking many miles a day, besides +indulging for hours in games which permit no rest, they look like +hags. Temporarily, of course. When they recover their common sense +they recover their looks, for it is in their power to relax and +recuperate. Men will walk twenty miles, take a cold shower, a good +meal, a night's rest, and look as well as ever the next day--or at the +end of the walk, for that matter. They can afford the waste. Women +cannot. If women succeed in achieving hard unyielding muscles in the +wrong place they suffer atrociously in childbirth; for Nature, who is +as old-fashioned and inhospitable to modern ideas as a Tory statesman, +takes a vicious pleasure in punishing one sex every time it succeeds +in approaching the peculiar level of the other, or which diverges from +the normal in any way. Note how many artists, who are nine-tenths +temperament and one-tenth male, suffer; not only because they are +beset with every sort of weakness that affects their social status, +but because the struggle with life is too much for them unless they +have real men behind them until their output is accepted by the +public, and themselves with it. + +Some day Society will be civilized enough to recognize the limitations +and the helplessness of those who are artists first and men +afterwards. But meanwhile we can only rely upon the sympathy and the +understanding of the individual. + +Far be it from me to advise that girls refrain from doing their part +in the general work of the home, if servants are out of the question; +that won't hurt them; but if some one must go out and support the +family it would better be the mother or the maiden aunt. + +Better still, a husband, if marriage is their goal and children the +secret desire of their hearts. + +If girls are so constituted mentally that they long for the +independent life, self-support, self-expression, they will have it and +without any advice from the worldly-wise; it is as driving an impulse +as the reproductive instinct in those who are more liberally sexed. +And these last are still in the majority, no doubt of that. Therefore, +far better they marry and have children in their youth. They, above +all, are the women whose support and protection is the natural duty of +man, and while it is one of life's misfortunes for a girl to marry +simply to escape life's burdens, without love and without the desire +for children, it is by far the lesser evil to have the consolation of +home and children in the general barrenness of life than to slave all +day at an uncongenial task and go "home" to a hall bedroom. + +These views were so much misunderstood when they appeared in magazine +form that I have felt obliged to emphasize the differences between the +still primitive woman and the woman who is the product of the higher +civilization. One young socialist, who looked quite strong enough to +support a family, asked me if I did not think it better for a girl to +support herself than to be the slave of a man's lust and bear +innumerable children, whether she wished for them or not, children to +whose support society contributed nothing. But why be a man's slave, +and why have more children than you can support? We live in the +enlightened twentieth century, when there is precious little about +anything that women do not know, and if they do not they are such +hopeless fools that they should be in the State Institutions. The time +has passed for women to talk of being men's slaves in any sense, +except in the economic. There are still sweatshops and there is still +speeding up in factories, because society is still far from perfect, +but if a woman privately is a man's slave to-day it is because she is +the slave of herself as well. + + +VI + + +Personally, although nothing has ever tempted me to marry a second +time, I am very glad I married in my early youth, not only because +matrimony enables a potential writer to see life from many more +viewpoints than if she remains blissfully single, but because I was +sheltered from all harsh contacts with the world. No one was ever less +equipped by nature for domesticity and all the responsibilities of +everyday life, and if circumstances had so ordered that I had not +blundered into matrimony before twenty-four-or-five, no doubt I never +should have married at all. + +But at that time--I was home on a vacation from boarding-school, and +had had none of that illuminating experience known as being "out," I +did no reasoning whatever. On the other hand I was far too mentally +undeveloped and arrogant to be capable at that tender age of falling +deeply in love. My future husband proposed six times (we were in a +country house). I was flattered, divided between the ambition to +graduate brilliantly and to be an author with no further loss of time, +and wear becoming caps and trains to my frocks. On the other hand I +wanted neither a husband particularly nor to go back to school, for I +felt that as my grandfather had one of the best libraries in +California nothing could be more pleasant or profitable than to finish +my education in it undisturbed. Nevertheless, quite abruptly I made up +my mind and married; and, if the truth were known, my reasons and +impulses were probably as intelligent as those of the average young +girl who knows the world only through books and thinks it has little +more to teach her. My life had been objective and sheltered. If forced +to earn my living at sixteen no doubt the contacts impossible to +escape would soon have given me a real maturity of judgment and I +should have grown to love, jealously, my freedom. + +That is to say, if I had been a strong girl. As a matter-of-fact I was +extremely delicate, with a weak back, a threat of tuberculosis, and +very bad eyes. Most of this was the result of over-study, for I had +been a healthy child, but I loved books and was indifferent to +exercise and nourishment. No doubt if I had been turned out into the +world to fare for myself I should have gone into a decline. Therefore, +it was sheer luck that betrayed me into matrimony, for although my +mental energies were torpid for several years my first child seemed to +dissipate the shadows that lay in my blood, and at twenty-five I was +a normally strong woman. We lived in the country. My husband looked +after the servants, and if we were without a cook for several days he +filled her place (he had learned to cook "camping out" and liked +nothing better) until my mother-in-law sent a woman from San +Francisco. I read, strolled about the woods, storing up vitality but +often depressed with the unutterable ennui of youth, and haunted with +the fear that my story-telling faculty, which had been very +pronounced, had deserted me. + +When my husband died I had but one child. I left her with her two +adoring grandmothers and fled to New York. I was still as callow as a +boarding-school girl, but my saving grace was that I knew I did not +know anything, that I never would know enough to write about life +until I had seen more of it than was on exhibition in California. + +But by that time my health was established. I felt quite equal to +writing six books a year if any one would publish them, besides +studying life at first hand as persistently and deeply as the present +state of society will permit in the case of a mere woman. For that +reason I shall always be sorry I did not go on a newspaper for a year +as a reporter, as there is no other way for a woman to see life in all +its phases. I had a letter to Charles Dana, owner of the New York +_Sun_, and no doubt he would have put me to work, but I was still too +pampered, or too snobbish, and, lacking the spur of necessity, missed +one of the best of educations. Now, no matter who asks my advice in +regard to the literary career, whether she is the ambitious daughter +of a millionaire or a girl whose talent is for the story and whose +future depends upon herself, I invariably give her one piece of +advice: "Go on a newspaper. Be a reporter. Refuse no assignment. Be +thankful for a merciless City Editor and his blue pencil. But, if you +feel that you have the genuine story-telling gift, save your money and +leave at the end of a year, or two years at most." + +As for myself, I absorbed life as best I could, met people in as many +walks of life as possible. As I would not marry again, and, in +consequence, had no more children, nor suffered from the wearing +monotonies of domestic life, I have always kept my health and been +equal to an immense amount of work. + +But the point is that I had been sheltered and protected during my +delicate years. No doubt it was a part of my destiny to hand on the +intensely American qualities of body and mind I had inherited from my +Dutch and English forefathers, as well as to do my share in carrying +on the race. But I got rid of all that as quickly as possible, and +struck out for that plane of modern civilization planted and furrowed +and replenished by daughters of men. + + + + +III + +THE REAL VICTIMS OF "SOCIETY" + +I + + +There is nothing paradoxical in affirming that while no woman before +she has reached the age of thirty-five or forty should, if she can +avoid it, compete with men in work which the exigencies of +civilization (man-made civilization) have adapted to him alone, still, +every girl of every class, from the industrial straight up to the +plutocratic, should be trained in some congenial vocation during her +plastic years. Civilization in certain respects is as inadequate as it +was a thousand years ago. Socialism might solve the problem if it were +not for the Socialists. Certainly no man or body of men has yet arisen +with the proper amount of imagination, selflessness, brains and +constructive genius, necessary to plan a social order in which all men +shall work without overworking and support all women during the best +years of the child-bearing and child-rearing span. If men had been +clever enough to make even an imperfect attempt to protect women +without independent means from the terrors of life, say by taxing +themselves, they would not be pestered to-day with the demand for +equal rights, see themselves menaced in nearly all of the +remunerative industries and professions, above all by the return of +the Matriarchate. + +It is Life that has developed the fighting instinct in woman, bred the +mental antagonism of sex. Nature did not implant either. Nor has she +ever wavered a jot from the original mix compounded in her immemorial +laboratory. Man is man and woman is woman to-day, even to the superior +length of limb in the male (relative to the trunk) and the greater +thickness of hairs in the woman's eyelashes. In England women of the +leisure class showed during the years of the sports craze a tendency +to an unfeminine length of limb, often attaining or surpassing the +male average. But Nature avenged herself by narrowing the pelvis and +weakening the reproductive organs. Free trade drove the old sturdy +yeoman into the towns and diminished the stature and muscular power of +their descendants, but ten months of trench life and Nature laughed at +the weak spot in civilization. The moment false conditions are removed +she claims her own. + +Women to-day may prove themselves quite capable of doing, and +permanently, the work of men in ammunition and munition factories, but +it is patent that when human bipeds first groped their way about the +terrifying Earth, she was not equal to the task of leveling forests, +killing the beasts that roamed them, hurling spears in savage warfare, +and bearing many children for many years. She played her part in the +scheme of things precisely as Nature had meant she should play it: +she cooked, she soothed the warrior upon his return from killing of +man or beast, and she brought up her boys to be warriors and her girls +to serve them. There you have Nature and her original plan, a bald and +uninteresting plan, but eminently practical for the mere purpose +(which is all that concerns her) of keeping the world going. And so it +would be to-day, even in the civilized core, if man had been clever +enough to take the cue Nature flung in his face and kept woman where +to-day he so ingenuously desires to see her, and before whose +deliverance he is as helpless as old Nature herself. + +Man obeyed the herding instinct whose ultimate expression was the +growth of great cities, invented the telegraph, the cable, the school, +the newspaper, the glittering shops, the public-lecture system; and, +voluntarily or carelessly, threw open to women the gates of all the +arts, to say nothing of the crafts. And all the while he not only +continued to antagonize woman, proud and eager in her awakened +faculties, with stupid interferences, embargoes and underhand +thwartings, but he permitted her to struggle and die in the hideous +contacts with life from which a small self-imposed tax would have +saved her. Some of the most brilliant men the world will ever know +have lived, and administered, and passed into history, and the misery +of helpless women has increased from generation to generation, while +coincidentally her intelligence has waxed from resignation or +perplexity through indignation to a grim determination. Man missed +his chance and must take the consequences. + +Certainly, young women fulfill their primary duty to the race and, +incidentally, do all that should be expected of them, in the bringing +forth and rearing of children, making the home, and seeing to the +coherence of the social groups they have organized for recreation or +purely in the interest of the next generation. + +Perhaps the women will solve the problem. I can conceive the time when +there will have developed an enormous composite woman's brain which, +combining superior powers of intuition and sympathy with that high +intellectual development the modern conditions so generously permit, +added to their increasing knowledge of and interest in the social, +economic, and political problems, will make them a factor in the +future development of the race, gradually bring about a state of real +civilization which twenty generations of men have failed to +accomplish. + +But that is not yet, and we may all be dead before its heyday. The +questions of the moment absorb us. We must take them as they arise and +do the best we can with existing conditions. The world is terribly +conservative. Look at the European War. + + +II + + +Nowhere are fortunes so insecure as in the United States. The phrase, +"Three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves," was not +coined in Europe. But neither does it embrace a great American truth +Many a fortune rises and falls within the span of one generation. Many +a girl reared in luxury, or what passes in her class for luxury, is +suddenly forced out into the economic world with no preparation +whatever. It would be interesting to gather the statistics of men who, +with a large salary, or a fair practice, and indulged family, and a +certain social position to keep up, either vaguely intend to save and +invest one of these days--perhaps when the children are educated--or +carry a large life insurance which they would find too heavy a tax at +the moment. + +Often, indeed, a man does insure his life, and then in some year of +panic or depression is forced to sell the policy or go under. Or he +insures in firms that fail. My father insured in three companies and +all failed before he died. In San Francisco the "earthquake clause" +prevented many men from recovering a penny on their merchandise or +investments swept away by the fire. Even a large number of the rich +were embarrassed by that fire, for, having invested millions in Class +A buildings, which were fire-proof, they saw no necessity for +expending huge sums annually in premiums. They never thought of a +general conflagration whose momentum would carry the flames across the +street and into their buildings through the windows, eating up the +interiors and leaving the fire-proof shell. One family lost six +million dollars in a few hours, and emigrated to one of the Swiss +lakes in order to be able to educate their children while their +fortunes slowly recovered with the aid of borrowed capital. + +A large number of girls, who, without being rich, had led the +sheltered life before the fire, were obliged to go to work at once. +Some were clever enough to know what they could do and did it without +loss of time, some were assisted, others blundered along and nearly +starved. + +Often men who have done well and even brilliantly up to middle life, +are not equal to the tremendous demand upon the vital energies of +beginning life over again after some disastrous visitation of Nature, +or a panic, or an ill-advised personal venture has wrecked their own +business or that of the concern in which they were a highly paid cog. +In the mining States men are dependent upon the world's demand for +their principal product. Farmers and stock-raisers are often cruelly +visited, strikes or hard times paralyze mills and factories; and in +times of panic and dry-rot the dealers in luxuries, including +booksellers--to say nothing of the writers of books as well as the +devotees of all the arts--are the first to suffer. And it is their +women that suffer acutely, because although many of these men may hang +on and recover, many more do not. They have used up their vital +forces. It is not so much a matter of will as of physics. A woman in +the same conditions who had been obliged to tax her vital organs for +an equal number of years would no doubt have lasted as long. + +Unless defective, there is not a girl alive, certainly not an +American girl, who is wholly lacking in some sort of ability. The +parasite type (who is growing rare in these days, by the way, for it +is now the fashion to "do things") either fastens herself upon +complacent relatives or friends when deserted by fortune, or drifts +naturally into the half-world, always abundantly recruited from such +as she. + +Many girls have a certain facility in the arts and crafts, which, with +severe training, might fit them for a second place in the class which +owes its origin to Heaven-born gifts. If their facility manifests +itself in writing they could be trained at college, or even on the +small local newspaper to write a good mechanical story, constructed +out of popular elements and eminently suited to the popular magazine. +Or they may fit themselves for dramatic or musical criticism, or +advertisement writing, which pays enormously but is not as easy as it +sounds. Or if every school (I am saying nothing about girls' colleges) +would train their promising "composition" writers in reporting, their +graduates would plant their weary feet far more readily than they do +now when they come to a great city and beseech a busy editor to give +them a chance. + +Almost anything can be done with the plastic mind. But not always. It +is the better part of wisdom for proud parents to discover just what +their offspring's facility amounts to before spending money on an art +or a musical education, for instance. I had a painful experience, and +no doubt it has been duplicated a thousand times, for Europe before +the war was full of girls (many living on next to nothing) who were +studying "art" or "voice culture," with neither the order of endowment +nor the propelling brain-power to justify the sacrifice of their +parents or the waste of their own time. + +Some years ago, finding that a young relative, who was just finishing +her school course, drew and painted in water colors with quite a +notable facility, and the family for generations having manifested +talents in one way or another, I decided to take her abroad and train +her faculty that she might be spared the humiliation of dependence, +nor feel a natural historic inclination to marry the first man who +offered her an alternative dependence; and at the same time be enabled +to support herself in a wholly congenial way. I did not delude myself +with the notion that she was a genius, but I thought it likely she +would become apt in illustrating, and I knew that I could throw any +amount of work in her way, or secure her a position in the art +department of some magazine. + +I took her to the European city where I was then living and put her in +the best of its art schools. To make a long story short, after I had +expended some five thousand dollars on her, including traveling +expenses and other incidentals, the net result was an elongated thumb. +I was forced to the conclusion that she had not an atom of real +talent, merely the treacherous American facility. Moreover, she lost +all her interest in "art" when it meant hard work and persistent +application. I was wondering what on earth I was to do with her when +she solved the problem herself. She announced with unusual decision +that she wanted to be a nurse, had always wanted to be a nurse (she +had never mentioned the aspiration to me) and that nothing else +interested her. Her mother had been an invalid; one way or another she +had seen a good deal of illness. + +Accordingly I sent her back to this country and entered her, through +the influence of friends, at a hospital. She graduated at the head of +her class, and although that was three or four years ago she has never +been idle since. She elected to take infectious cases, as the +remuneration is higher, and although she is very small, with such tiny +hands and feet that while abroad her gloves and boots had to be made +to order, no doubt she has so trained her body that the strains in +nursing fall upon no particular member. + +In that case I paid for my own mistake, and she found her level in +ample time, which is as it should be. Of what use is experience if you +are to be misled by family vanity? As she is pretty and quite mad +about children, no doubt she will marry; but the point is that she can +wait; or, later, if the man should prove inadequate, she can once more +support herself, and with enthusiasm, for she loves the work. + +To be a nurse is no bed of roses; but neither is anything else. To be +dependent in the present stage of civilization is worse, and nothing +real is accomplished in life without work and its accompaniment of +hard knocks. Nursing is not only a natural vocation for a woman, but +an occupation which increases her matrimonial chances about eighty per +cent. Nor is it as arduous after the first year's training is over as +certain other methods of wresting a livelihood from an unwilling +world--reporting, for instance. It is true that only the fit survive +the first year's ordeal, but on the other hand few girls are so +foolish as to choose the nursing career who do not feel within +themselves a certain stolid vitality. After graduation from the +hospital course their future depends upon themselves. Doctors soon +discover the most desirable among the new recruits, others find +permanent places in hospitals; and, it may be added, the success of +these young women depends upon a quality quite apart from mere +skill--personality. In the spring of 1915 I was in a hospital and +there was one nurse I would not have in the room. I was told that she +was one of the most valuable nurses on the staff, but that was nothing +to me. + +I could not see that any of the nurses in this large hospital was +overworked. All looked healthy and contented. My own "night special," +save when I had a temperature and demanded ice, slept from the time +she prepared me for the night until she rose to prepare me for the +day, with the exception of the eleven o'clock supper which she shared +with the hospital staff. Being very pretty and quite charming she will +marry, no doubt, although she refuses to nurse men. But there are +always the visiting doctors, the internes, and the unattached men in +households, where in the most seductive of all garbs, she remains for +weeks at a time. + +In fact nearly all nurses are pretty. I wonder why? + +The hospital nurses during the day arrived at intervals to take my +temperature, give me detestable nourishment, or bring me flowers or a +telephone message. It certainly never occurred to me to pity any of +them, and when they lingered to talk they entertained me with pleasant +pictures of their days off. They struck me as being able to enjoy life +very keenly, possibly because of being in a position to appreciate its +contrasts. + +I know the daughter of a wealthy and historic family, whose head--he +is precisely the type of the elderly, cold-blooded, self-righteous, +self-conscious New York aristocrat of the stage--will not permit her +to gratify her desire to write for publication, "for," saith he, "I do +not wish to see my honored name on the back of works of fiction." + +I do not think, myself, that he has deprived the world of one more +author, for if she had fiction in her brain-cells no parental dictum +could keep it confined within the walls of her skull; but the point is +that being a young woman of considerable energy and mental activity, +she found mere society unendurable and finally persuaded her father to +make her one of his secretaries. She learned not only stenography and +typewriting but telegraphy. There is a private apparatus in their +Newport home for her father's confidential work, and this she +manipulates with the skill of a professional. If the fortunes of her +family should go to pieces, she could find a position and support +herself without the dismal and health-racking transition which is the +fate of so many unfortunate girls suddenly bereft and wholly +unprepared. + + +III + + +The snobbishness of this old gentleman is by no means a prerogative of +New York's "old families." One finds it in every class of American men +above the industrial. In Honoré Willsie's novel, _Lydia of the Pines,_ +an American novel of positive value, the father was a day laborer, as +a matter of a fact (although of good old New England farming stock), +earning a dollar and a half a day, and constantly bemoaning the fact; +yet when "young Lydia," who was obliged to dress like a scarecrow, +wished to earn her own pin-money by making fudge he objected +violently. The itching pride of the American male deprives him of many +comforts and sometimes of honor and freedom, because he will not let +his wife use her abilities and her spare time. He will steal or +embezzle rather than have the world look on while "his" wife ekes out +the family income. The determined Frenchwomen have had their men in +training for generations, and the wife is the business partner +straight up to the haute bourgeoisie; but the American woman, for all +her boasted tyranny over the busy male of her land, is either an +expensive toy or a mere household drudge, until years and experience +give her freedom of spirit. This war will do more to liberate her than +that mild social earthquake called the suffrage movement. The rich +women are working so hard that not only do they dress and entertain +far less than formerly but their husbands are growing quite accustomed +to their separate prominence and publicly admitted usefulness. The +same may be said of groups of women in less conspicuous classes, and +when the war is over it is safe to say these women will continue to do +as they please. There is something insidiously fascinating in work to +women that never have worked, not so much in the publicity it may give +but in the sense of mental expansion; and, in the instance of war, the +passion of usefulness, the sense of dedication to a high cause, the +necessary frequent suppression of self, stamp the soul with an impress +that never can be obliterated. That these women engaged in good works +often quarrel like angry cats, or fight for their relief organization +as a lioness would fight for her hungry cub, is beside the point. That +is merely another way of admitting they are human beings; not +necessarily women, but just human beings. As it was in the beginning, +is now, etc. Far better let loose their angry passions in behalf of +the men who are fighting to save the world from a reversion to +barbarism, than rowing their dressmakers, glaring across the bridge +table, and having their blood poisoned by eternal jealousy over some +man. + +And if it will hasten the emancipation of the American man from the +thralldom of snobbery still another barrier will go down in the path +of the average woman. Just consider for a moment how many men are +failures. They struggle along until forty or forty-five "on their +own," although fitted by nature to be clerks and no more, striving +desperately to keep up appearances--for the sake of their own pride, +for the sake of their families, even for the sake of being "looked up +to" by their wife and observant offspring. But without real hope, +because without real ability (they soon, unless fools, outlive the +illusions of youth when the conquest of fortune was a matter of +course) always in debt, and doomed to defeat. + +How many women have said to me--women in their thirties or early +forties, and with two or three children of increasing demands: "Oh, if +I could help! How unjust of parents not to train girls to do something +they can fall back on. I want to go to work myself and insure my +children a good education and a start in the world, but what can I do? +If I had been specialized in any one thing I'd use it now whether my +husband liked it or not. But although I have plenty of energy and +courage and feel that I could succeed in almost anything I haven't the +least idea how to go about it." + +If a woman's husband collapses into death or desuetude while her +children are young, it certainly is the bounden duty of some member of +her family to support her until her children are old enough to go to +school, for no one can take her place in the home before that period. +Moreover, her mind should be as free of anxiety as her body of strain. +But what a ghastly reflection upon civilization it is when she is +obliged to stand on her feet all day in a shop or factory, or make +tempting edibles for some Woman's Exchange, because she cannot afford +to spend time upon a belated training that might admit her lucratively +to one of the professions or business industries. + +The childless woman solves the problem with comparative ease. She +invariably shows more energy and decision, provided, of course, these +qualities have been latent within her. + +Nevertheless, it is often extraordinary just what she does do. For +instance I knew a family of girls upon whose college education an +immense sum had been expended, and whose intellectual arrogance I +never have seen equalled. When their father failed and died, leaving +not so much as a small life insurance, what did they do? Teach? Write? +Edit? Become some rich and ignorant man's secretary? Not a bit of it. +They cooked. Always noted in their palmy days for their "table," and +addicted to relieving the travail of intellect with the sedative of +the homeliest of the minor arts, they began on preserves for the +Woman's Exchange; and half the rich women in town were up at their +house day after day stirring molten masses in a huge pot on a red-hot +range. + +It was sometime before they were taken seriously, and, particularly +after the enthusiasm of their friends waned, there was a time of hard +anxious struggle. But they were robust and determined, and in time +they launched out as caterers and worked up a first-class business. +They took their confections to the rear entrances of their friends' +houses on festive occasions and accepted both pay and tips with lively +gratitude. They educated their younger brothers and lost their +arrogance. They never lost their friends. + +Owing to dishonest fiction the impression prevails throughout the +world that "Society" is heartless and that the rich and well-to-do +drop their friends the moment financial reverses force them either to +reduce their scale of living far below the standard, or go to work. +When that happens it is the fault of the reversed, not of the +entrenched. False pride, constant whining, or insupportable +irritabilities gradually force them into a dreary class apart. If +anything, people of wealth and secure position take a pride in +standing by their old friends (their "own sort"), in showing +themselves above all the means sins of which fiction and the stage +have accused them, and in lending what assistance they can. Even when +the head of the family has disgraced himself and either blown out his +brains or gone to prison, it depends entirely upon the personalities +of his women whether or not they retain their friends. In fact any +observant student of life is reminded daily that one's real position +in the world depends upon personality, more particularly if backed by +character. Certainly it is nine-tenths of the battle for struggling +women. + +Another woman whom I always had looked upon as a charming butterfly, +but who, no doubt, had long shown her native shrewdness and +determination in the home, stepped into her husband's shoes when he +collapsed from strain, abetted by drink, and now competes in the +insurance business with the best of the men. But she had borne the +last of her children and she has perfect health. + +Galsworthy's play, _The Fugitive_, may not have been good drama but it +had the virtue of provoking thought after one had left the theater. +More than ever it convinced me, at least, that the women of means and +leisure with sociological leanings should let the working girl take +care of herself for a time and devote their attention to the far more +hopeless problem of the lady suddenly thrown upon her own resources. + +No doubt this problem will have ceased to exist twenty years hence. +Every girl, rich or poor, and all grades between, will have +specialized during her plastic years on something to be used as a +resource; but at present there are thousands of young women who find +the man they married in ignorance an impossible person to live with +and yet linger on in wretched bondage because what little they know of +social conditions terrifies them. If they are pretty they fear other +men as much as they fear their own husbands, and for all the "jobs" +open to unspecialized women, they seem to be preeminently unfitted. If +the rich women of every large city would build a great college in +which every sort of trade and profession could be taught, from nursing +to stenography, from retouching photographs to the study of law, +while the applicant, after her sincerity had been established, was +kept in comfort and ease of mind, with the understanding that she +should repay her indebtedness in weekly installments after the college +had launched her into the world, we should have no more such ghastly +plays as _The Fugitive_ or hideous sociological tracts as _A Bed of +Roses_. + + + + +IV + +ONE SOLUTION OF A GREAT PROBLEM + +I + + +The world is willing and eager to buy what it wants. If you have goods +to sell you soon find your place at the counter, unless owing to some +fault of character your fellow barterers and their patrons will have +none of you. Of course there is always the meanest of all passions, +jealousy, waiting to thwart you at every turn, but no woman with a +modicum of any one of those wares the world wants and must have need +fear any enemy but her own loss of courage. + +The pity is that so many women with no particular gift and only minor +energies are thrust into the economic world without either natural or +deliberate equipment. All that saves them in nine cases out of ten is +conserved energies, and if they are thrust out too young they are +doubly at a disadvantage. + +A good deal has been written about the fresh enthusiasm of the young +worker, as contrasted with the slackened energies and disillusioned +viewpoint of middle life. But I think most honest employers will +testify that a young girl worker's enthusiasm is for closing time, and +her dreams are not so much of the higher skilfulness as of the +inevitable man. Nature is inexorable. She means that the young things +shall reproduce. If they will not or cannot that is not her fault; she +is always there with the urge. Even when girls think they sell +themselves for the adornments so dear to youth they are merely the +victims of the race, driven toward the goal by devious ways. Nature, +of course, when she fashioned the world reckoned without science. I +sometimes suspect her of being of German origin, for so methodical and +mechanical is her kultur that she will go on repeating "two and two +make four" until the final cataclysm. + +I think that American women are beginning to realize that American men +are played out at forty-five; or fifty, at the most. There are +exceptions, of course, but with the vast majority the strain is too +great and the rewards are too small. They cannot retire in time. I +have a friend who, after a brilliant and active career, has withdrawn +to the communion of nature and become a philosopher. He insists that +all men should be retired by law at forty-five and condemned to spend +the rest of their days tilling the soil gratis for women and the +rising generation. The outdoor life would restore a measure of their +dissipated vitality and prolong their lives. + +This may come to pass in time: stranger things have happened. But, as +I remarked before, it is the present we have to consider. It seems to +me it would be a good idea if every woman who is both protected and +untrained but whose husband is approaching forty should, if not +financially independent, begin seriously to think of fitting herself +for self-support. The time to prepare for possible disaster is not +after the torpedo has struck the ship. + +A thousand avenues are open to women, and fresh ones open yearly. She +can prepare secretly, or try her hand at first one and then another +(if she begins by being indeterminate) of such congenial occupations +as are open to women of her class, beyond cooking, teaching, clerking. +Those engaged in reforms, economic improvements, church work, and +above all, to-day, war relief work, should not be long discovering +their natural bent as well as its marketable value, and the particular +rung of the ladder upon which to start. + +Many women whose energies have long been absorbed by the home are +capable of flying leaps. These women still in their thirties, far from +neglecting their children when looking beyond the home, are merely +ensuring their proper nourishment and education. + +Why do not some of the public spirited women, whose own fortunes are +secure, form bureaus where all sorts of women, apprehensive of the +future, may be examined, advised, steered on their way? In this they +would merely be taking a leaf from the present volume of French +history its women are writing. It is the women of independent means +over there who have devised so many methods by which widows and girls +and older spinsters tossed about in the breakers of war may support +themselves and those dependent upon them. There is Mlle. Thompson's +École Feminine, for instance, and Madame Goujon's hundred and one +practical schemes which I will not reiterate here. + +Women of the industrial class in the United States need new laws, but +little advice how to support themselves. They fall into their natural +place almost automatically, for they are the creatures of +circumstances, which are set in motion early enough to determine their +fate. If they do hesitate their minds are quickly made up for them by +either their parents or their social unit. The great problem to-day is +for the women of education, fastidiousness, a certain degree of ease, +threatened with a loss of that male support upon which ancient custom +bred them to rely. Their children will be specialized; they will see +to that. But their own problem is acute and it behooves trained and +successful women to take it up, unless the war lasts so long that +every woman will find her place as inevitably as the working girl. + + +II + + +For a long time to come women will be forced to leave the +administering of the nation as well as of states and cities to men, +for men are still too strong for them. The only sort of women that men +will spontaneously boost into public life are pretty, bright, womanly, +spineless creatures who may be trusted to set the cause of woman back +a few years at least, and gratify their own sense of humorous +superiority. + +Women would save themselves much waste of energy and many humiliations +if they would devote themselves exclusively to helping and training +their own sex. Thousands are at work on the problems of higher wage +and shorter hours for women of the industrial class, but this problem +of the carefully nurtured, wholly untrained, and insecurely protected +woman they have so far ignored. To my mind this demands the first +consideration and the application of composite woman's highest +intelligence. The industrial woman has been trained to work, she +learns as she grows to maturity to protect herself and fight her own +battles, and in nine cases out of ten she resents the interference of +the leisure class in her affairs as much as she would charity. The +leaders of every class should be its own strong spirits. And the term +"class consciousness" was not invented by fashionable society. + +There is another problem that women, forced imminently or +prospectively to support themselves, must face before long, and that +is the heavy immigration from Europe. Of course some of those +competent women over there will keep the men's jobs they hold now, and +among the widows and the fatherless there will be a large number of +clerks and agriculturists. But many réformés will be able to fill +those positions satisfactorily, and, when sentiment has subsided, +young women at least (who are also excellent workers) will begin to +think of husbands; and, unless the war goes on for many years and +reduces our always available crop, American girls of the working class +will have to look to their laurels both ways. + + +III + + +Here is the reverse of the picture, which possibly may save the too +prosperous and tempting United States from what in the end could not +fail to be a further demoralization of her ancient ideals and +depletion of the old American stock: + +No matter how many men are killed in a war there are more males when +peace is declared than the dead and blasted, unless starvation +literally has sent the young folks back to the earth. During any war +children grow up, and even in a war of three years' duration it is +estimated that as against four million males killed there will be six +million young males to carry on the race as well as its commerce and +industries. For the business of the nation and high finance there are +the men whose age saved them from the dangers of the battlefield. + +There will therefore be many million marriageable men in Europe if the +war ends in 1917. But they will, for the most part, be of a very +tender age indeed, and normal young women between twenty and thirty do +not like spring chickens. They are beloved only by idealess girls of +their own age, by a certain type of young women who are alluded to +slightingly as "crazy about boys," possibly either because men of +mature years find them uninteresting or because of a certain vampire +quality in their natures, and by blasée elderly women who generally +foot the bills. + +Dr. Talcott Williams pointed out to me not long since that after all +great wars, and notably after our own Civil War, there has been a +notable increase in the number of marriages in which the preponderance +of years was on the wrong side. Also that it was not until after our +own war that the heroine of fiction began to reverse the immemorial +procedure and marry a man her inferior in years. In other words, +anything she could get. This would almost argue that fiction is not +only the historian of life but its apologist. + +It is quite true that young men coming to maturity during majestic +periods of the world's history are not likely to have the callow +brains and petty ideals which distinguished the average youth of +peace. Even boys of fourteen these days talk intelligently of the war +and the future. They read the newspapers, even subscribing for one if +at a boarding-school. In the best of the American universities the men +have been alive to the war from the first, and a large proportion of +the young Americans who have done gallant service with the American +Ambulance Corps had recently graduated when the war broke out. Others +are serving during vacations, and are difficult to lure back to their +studies. + +Some of the young Europeans of eighteen or twenty will come home from +the trenches when peace is declared, and beyond a doubt will compel +the love if not the respect of damsels of twenty-five and upward. But +will they care whether they fascinate spinsters of twenty-five and +upward, or not? The fact is not to be overlooked that there will be as +many young girls as youths, and as these girls also have matured +during their long apprenticeship to sorrow and duty, it is not to be +imagined they will fail to interest young warriors of their own +age--nor fail to battle for their rights with every device known to +the sex. + +Temperament must be taken into consideration, of course, and a certain +percentage of men and women of unbalanced ages will be drawn together. +That happens in times of peace. Moreover it is likely that a large +number of young Germans in this country either will conceive it their +duty to return to Germany and marry there or import the forlorn in +large numbers. If they have already taken to themselves American wives +it is on the cards that they will renounce them also. There is nothing +a German cannot be made to believe is his duty to the Fatherland, and +he was brought up not to think. But if monarchy falls in Germany, and +a republic, socialistic or merely democratic, rises on the ruins, then +it is more than likely that the superfluous women will be encouraged +to transfer themselves and their maidenly dreams to the great +dumping-ground of the world. + +Unless we legislate meanwhile. + + + + +V + +FOUR OF THE HIGHLY SPECIALIZED + + +There are four other ways in which women (exclusive of the artist +class) are enjoying remunerative careers: as social secretaries, play +brokers, librarians, and editors; and it seems to me that I cannot do +better than to drop generalities in this final chapter and give four +of the most notable instances in which women have "made good" in these +highly distinctive professions. I have selected four whom I happen to +know well enough to portray at length: Maria de Barril, Alice Kauser, +Belle da Costa Greene, and Honoré Willsie. It is true that Mrs. +Willsie, being a novelist, belongs to the artist class, but she is +also an editor, which to my mind makes her success in both spheres the +more remarkable. To edit means hours daily of routine, details, +contacts; mechanical work, business, that would drive most writers of +fiction quite mad. But Mrs. Willsie is exceptionally well balanced. + + +I + +MARIA DE BARRIL + + +A limited number of young women thrown abruptly upon their own +resources become social secretaries if their own social positions +have insensibly prepared them for the position, and if they live in a +city large enough to warrant this fancy but by no means inactive post. +In Washington they are much in demand by Senators' and Congressmen's +wives suddenly translated from a small town where the banker's lady +hobnobbed with the prosperous undertaker's family, to a city where the +laws of social precedence are as rigid as at the court of the +Hapsburgs and a good deal more complicated. But these young women must +themselves have lived in Washington for many years, or they will be +forced to divide their salary with a native assistant. + +The most famous social secretary in the United States, if not in the +world, is Maria de Barril, and she is secretary not to one rich woman +but to New York society itself. Her position, entirely self-made, is +unique and secure, and well worth telling. + +Pampered for the first twenty years of her life like a princess and +with all her blood derived from one of the oldest and most relaxed +nations in Europe, she was suddenly forced to choose between sinking +out of sight, the mere breath kept in her body, perhaps, on a pittance +from distant relatives, or going to work. + +She did not hesitate an instant. Being of society she knew its needs, +and although she was too young to look far ahead and foresee the +structure which was to rise upon these tentative foundations, she +shrewdly began by offering her services to certain friends often +hopelessly bewildered with the mass of work they were obliged to +leave to incompetent secretaries and housekeepers. One thing led to +another, as it always does with brave spirits, and to-day Miss de +Barril has a position in life which, with its independence and +freedom, she would not exchange for that of any of her patrons. She +conducted her economic venture with consummate tact from the first. +Owing to a promise made her mother, the haughtiest of old Spanish +dames as I remember her, she never has entered on business the houses +of the society that employs her, and has retained her original social +position apparently without effort. + +She has offices, which she calls her embassy, and there, with a staff +of secretaries, she advises, dictates, revises lists, issues thousands +of invitations a week during the season, plans entertainments for +practically all of New York society that makes a business of pleasure. + +Some years ago a scion of one of those New York families so much +written about that they have become almost historical, married after +the death of his mother, and wished to introduce his bride at a +dinner-dance in the large and ugly mansion whose portals in his +mother's day opened only to the indisputably elect. + +The bridegroom found his mother's list, but, never having exercised +his masculine faculties in this fashion before, and hazy as to whether +all on that list were still alive or within the pale, he wrote to the +social ambassadress asking her to come to his house on a certain +morning and advise him. Miss de Barril replied that not even for a +member of his family, devoted as she was to it, would she break her +promise to her mother, and he trotted down to her without further +parley. Moreover, she was one of the guests at the dinner. + +Of course it goes without saying that Miss de Barril has not only +brains and energy, but character, a quite remarkably fascinating +personality, and a thorough knowledge of the world. Many would have +failed where she succeeded. She must have had many diplomatists among +her ancestors, for her tact is incredible, although in her case Latin +subtlety never has degenerated into hypocrisy. No woman has more +devoted friends. Personally I know that I should have thrown them all +out of the window the first month and then retired to a cave on a +mountain. She must have the social sense in the highest degree, +combined with a real love of "the world." + +Her personal appearance may have something to do with her success. +Descended on one side from the Incas of Peru, she looks like a Spanish +grandee, and is known variously to her friends as "Inca," "Queen," and +"Doña Maria"--my own name for her. When I knew her first she found it +far too much of an effort to pull on her stockings and was as haughty +and arrogant a young girl as was to be found in the then cold and +stately city of New York. She looks as haughty as ever because it is +difficult for a Spaniard of her blood to look otherwise; but her +manners are now as charming as her manner is imposing; and if the +bottom suddenly fell out of Society her developed force of character +would steer her straight into another lucrative position with no +disastrous loss of time. + +It remains to be pointed out that she would have failed in this +particular sphere if New York Society had been as callous and devoid +of loyalty even in those days, as the novel of fashion has won its +little success by depicting it. The most socially eminent of her +friends were those that helped her from the first, and with them she +is as intimate as ever to-day. + + +II + +ALICE BERTA JOSEPHINE KAUSER + + +Credit must be given to Elisabeth Marbury for inventing the now +flourishing and even over-crowded business of play broker; but as she +was of a strongly masculine character and as surrounded by friends as +Miss de Barril, her success is neither as remarkable nor as +interesting as that of Alice Kauser, who has won the top place in this +business in a great city to which she came poor and a stranger. + +Not that she had; grown up in the idea that she must make her own way +in the world. Far from it. It is for that reason I have selected her +as another example of what a girl may accomplish if she have character +and grit backed up with a thorough intellectual training. For, it must +never be forgotten, unless one is a genius it is impossible to enter +the first ranks of the world's workers without a good education and +some experience of the world. Parents that realize this find no +sacrifice too great to give their children the most essential of all +starts in life. But the extraordinary thing in the United States of +America is how comparatively few parents do realize it. Moreover, how +many are weak enough, even when with a reasonable amount of +self-sacrifice they could send their children through college, to +yield to the natural desire of youth to "get out and hustle." + +Miss Kauser was born in Buda Pest, in the United States Consular +Agency, for her father, although a Hungarian, was Consular Agent. It +was an intellectual family and on her mother's side musically gifted. +Miss Kauser's aunt, Etelka Gerster, when she came to this country as a +prima donna had a brief but brilliant career, and the music-loving +public prostrated itself. But her wonderful voice was a fragile +coloratura, and her first baby demolished it. Berta Gerster, Miss +Kauser's mother, was almost equally renowned for a while in Europe. + +Mr. Kauser himself was a pupil of Abel Blouet at the Beaux Arts, but +he fought in the Revolution of 1848 in Hungary, and later with +Garibaldi in the Hungarian Legion in Italy. + +Miss Kauser, who must have been born well after these stirring events, +was educated by French governesses and Polish tutors. Her friends tell +the story of her that she grew up with the determination to be the +most beautiful woman in the world, and when she realized that, +although handsome and imposing, she was not a great beauty according +to accepted standards, she philosophically buried this callow ambition +and announced, "Very well; I shall be the most intellectual woman in +the world." + +There are no scales by which to make tests of these delicate degrees +of the human mind, even in the case of authors who put forth four +books a year, but there is no question that Miss Kauser is a highly +accomplished woman, with a deep knowledge of the literature of many +lands, a passionate feeling for style, and a fine judgment that is the +result of years of hard intellectual work and an equally profound +study of the world. And who shall say that the wild ambitions of her +extreme youth did not play their part in making her what she is +to-day? I have heard "ambition" sneered at all my life, but never by +any one who possessed the attribute itself, or the imaginative power +to appreciate what ambition has meant in the progress of the world. + +Miss Kauser studied for two years at the École Monceau in Paris, +although she had been her father's housekeeper and a mother to the +younger children since the age of twelve. Both in Paris and Buda Pest +she was in constant association with friends of her father, who +developed her intellectual breadth. + +Financial reverses brought the family to America and they settled in +Pensacola, Florida. Here Miss Kauser thought it was high time to put +her accomplishments to some use and help out the family exchequer. +She began almost at once to teach French and music. When her brothers +were older she made up her mind to seek her fortune in New York and +arrived with, a letter or two. For several months she taught music and +literature in private families. Then Mary Bisland introduced her to +Miss Marbury, where she attended to the French correspondence of the +office for a year. + +But these means of livelihood were mere makeshifts. Ambitious, +imperious, and able, it was not in her to work for others for any +great length of time. As soon as she felt that she "knew the ropes" in +New York she told certain friends she had made that she wished to go +into the play brokerage business for herself. As she inspires +confidence--this is one of her assets--her friends staked her, and she +opened her office with the intention of promoting American plays only. +Her trained mind rapidly adapted itself to business and in the course +of a few years she was handling the plays of many of the leading +dramatists for a proportionate number of leading producers. When the +war broke out, so successful was she that she had a house of her own +in the East Thirties, furnished with the beautiful things she had +collected during her yearly visits to Europe--for long since she had +opened offices in Paris and London, her business outgrowing its first +local standard. + +The war hit her very hard. She had but recently left the hospital +after a severe operation, which had followed several years of +precarious health. She was quite a year reestablishing her former +strength and full capacity for work. One of the most exuberantly +vital persons I had ever met, she looked as frail as a reed during +that first terrible year of the war, but now seems to have recovered +her former energies. + +There was more than the common results of an operation to exasperate +her nerves and keep her vitality at a low ebb. Some thirty of her male +relatives were at the Front, and the whole world of the theater was +smitten with a series of disastrous blows. Sixteen plays on the road +failed in one day, expensive plays ran a week in New York. Managers +went into bankruptcy. It was a time of strain and uncertainty and +depression, and nobody suffered more than the play brokers. Miss +Kauser as soon as the war broke out rented her house and went into +rooms that she might send to Hungary all the money she could make over +expenses, and for a year this money was increasingly difficult to +collect, or even to make. But if she despaired no one heard of it. She +hung on. By and by the financial tide turned for the country at large +and she was one of the first to ride on the crest. Her business is now +greater than ever, and her interest in life as keen. + + +III + +BELLE DA COSTA GREENE + + +This "live wire," one of the outstanding personalities in New York, +despite her youth, is the antithesis of the two previous examples of +successful women in business, inasmuch as no judge on the bench nor +surgeon at the Front ever had a severer training for his profession +than she. People who meet for the first time the young tutelar genius +of Mr. Morgan's Library, take for granted that any girl so fond of +society, so fashionable in dress and appointments, and with such a +comet's tail of admirers, must owe her position with its large salary +to "pull," and that it is probably a sinecure anyway. + +Little they know. + +Belle Greene, who arrests even the casual if astute observer with her +overflowing _joie de vivre_ and impresses him as having the best of +times in this best of all possible worlds, is perhaps the "keenest on +her job" of any girl in the city of New York. Let any of these +superficial admirers attempt to obtain entrance, if he can, to the +Library, during the long hours of work, and with the natural masculine +intention of clinching the favorable impression he made on the young +lady the evening before, and he will depart in haste, moved to a +higher admiration or cursing the well-known caprice of woman, +according to his own equipment. + +For Miss Greene's determination to be one of the great librarians of +the world took form within her precocious brain at the age of thirteen +and it has never fluctuated since. Special studies during both school +and recreation hours were pursued to the end in view: Latin, Greek, +French, German, history--the rise and spread of civilization in +particular, and as demonstrated by the Arts, Sciences, and Literature +of the world. When she had absorbed all the schools could give her, +she took an apprenticeship in the Public Library system in order +thoroughly to ground herself in the clerical and routine phases of the +work. + +She took a special course in bibliography at the Amherst Summer +Library School, and then entered the Princeton University Library on +nominal pay at the foot of the ladder, and worked up through every +department in order to perfect herself for the position of University +Librarian. + +While at Princeton she decided to specialize in early printing, rare +books, and historical and illuminated manuscripts. She studied the +history of printing from its inception in 1445 to the present day. It +was after she had taken up the study of manuscripts from the +standpoint of their contents that she found that it was next to +impossible to progress further along that line in this country, as at +that time we had neither the material nor the scholars. She has often +expressed the wish that there had been in her day a Morgan Library for +consultation. + +When she had finished the course at Princeton she went abroad and +studied with the recognized authorities in England and Italy. Ten +years, in fact, were spent in unceasing application, what the college +boy calls "grind," without which Miss Greene is convinced it is +impossible for any one to succeed in any vocation or attain a +distinguished position. To all demands for advice her answer is, +"Work, work, and more work." + +She took hold of the Morgan Library in its raw state, when the +valuable books and MSS. Mr. Morgan had bought at sales in Europe were +still packed in cases; and out of that initial disorder Belle Greene, +almost unaided, has built up one of the greatest libraries in the +world. Soon after her installation she began a systematic course in +Art research. She visited the various museums and private collections +of this country, and got in touch with the heads of the different +departments and their curators. She followed their methods until it +was borne in upon her that most of them were antiquated and befogging, +whereupon she began another course in Europe during the summer months +in order to study under the experts in the various fields of art; +comparing the works of artists and artisans of successive periods, +applying herself to the actual technique of painting in its many +phases, studying the influence of the various masters upon their +contemporaries and future disciples. + +By attending auction sales, visiting dealers constantly and all +exhibitions, reading all art periodicals, she soon learned the +commercial value of art objects. + +Thus in time she was able and with authority to assist Mr. Morgan in +the purchase of his vast collections which embraced art in all its +forms. With the exception of that foundation of the library which +caused Mr. Morgan to engage her services, she has purchased nearly +every book and manuscript it contains. + +Another branch of the collectors' art that engaged Miss Greene's +attention was the clever forgery, a business in itself. She even went +so far as to buy more than one specimen, thus learning by actual +handling and examination to distinguish the spurious from the real. +Now she knows the difference at a glance. She maintains there is even +a difference in the smell Mr. Morgan bought nothing himself without +consulting her; if they were on opposite sides of the world he used +the cable. + +Naturally Miss Greene to-day enjoys the entrée to that select and +jealously guarded inner circle of authorities, who despise the +amateur, but who recognize this American girl, who has worked as hard +as a day laborer, as "one of them." But she maintains that if she had +not thoroughly equipped herself in the first place not even the great +advantages she enjoyed as Mr. Morgan's librarian could have given her +the peculiar position she now enjoys, a position that is known to few +of the people she plays about with in her leisure hours. + +She has adopted the mottoes of the two contemporaries she has most +admired: Mr. Morgan's "Onward and Upward" and Sarah Bernhardt's "Quand +Même." + + +IV + +HONORÉ WILLSIE + + +Honoré Willsie, who comes of fine old New England stock, although she +looks like a Burne-Jones and would have made a furore in London in the +Eighties, was brought up in the idea that an American woman should +fit herself for self-support no matter what her birth and conditions. +Her mother, although the daughter of a rich man, was brought up on the +same principles, and taught school until she married. All her friends, +no matter how well-off, made themselves useful and earned money. + +Therefore, Mrs. Willsie was thoroughly imbued while a very young girl +with the economic ideal, although her mother had planted with equal +thoroughness the principle that it was every woman's primary duty to +marry and have a family. + +Mrs. Willsie was educated at Madison, Wisconsin, beginning with the +public schools and graduating from the University. She married +immediately after leaving college, and, encouraged by her husband, a +scientist, and as hard a student as herself, she began to write. Her +first story followed the usual course; it was refused by every +magazine to which she sent it; but, undiscouraged, she rewrote it for +a syndicate. For a year after this she used the newspapers as a sort +of apprenticeship to literature and wrote story after story until she +had learned the craft of "plotting." When she felt free in her new +medium she began writing for the better magazines; and, compared with +most authors, she has had little hard climbing in her upward course. +Naturally, there were obstacles and setbacks, but she is not of the +stuff that ten times the number could discourage. + +Then came the third stage. She wrote a novel. It was refused by many +publishers in New York, but finally accepted as a serial in the first +magazine that had rejected it. + +This was _The Heart of the Desert_. After that followed _Still Jim_ +which established her and paved the way for an immediate reception for +that other fine novel of American ideals, _Lydia of the Pines_. + +It was about two years ago that she was asked to undertake the +editorship of the _Delineator_, and at first she hesitated, although +the "job" appealed to her; she had no reason to believe that she +possessed executive ability. The owner, who had "sized her up," +thought differently, and the event has justified him. She ranks to-day +as one of the most successful, courageous, and resourceful editors of +woman's magazines in the country. The time must come, of course, when +she no longer will be willing to give up her time to editorial work, +now that there is a constant demand for the work she loves best; but +the experience with its contacts and its mental training must always +have its value. The remarkable part of it was that she could fill such +a position without having served some sort of an apprenticeship first. +Nothing but the sound mental training she had received at home and at +college, added to her own determined will, could have saved her from +failure in spite of her mental gifts. + +Mrs. Willsie, like all women worth their salt, says that she never has +felt there was the slightest discrimination made against her work by +publishers or editors because she was a woman. + + +THE END + + + + +ADDENDUM + + +NOTE.--_Six months ago I wrote asking Madame d'Andigné to send me +notes of her work before becoming the President of Le Bien--Être du +Blessé. She promised, but no woman in France is busier. The following +arrived after the book was in press, so I can only give it +verbatim.--G.A._ + + +At the time this gigantic struggle broke out I was in America. My +first thought was to get to France as soon as possible. I sailed on +August 2nd for Cherbourg but as we were pursued by two German ships +our course was changed and I landed in England. After many trials and +tribulations I reached Paris. The next day I went to the headquarters +of the French Red Cross and offered my services. I showed the American +Red Cross certificate which had been given to me at the end of my +services at Camp Meade during the Spanish-American War. As I had had +practically little surgical experience since the course I took at the +Rhode Island Hospital before the Spanish-American War I asked to take +a course in modern surgery. I was told that my experience during that +war and my Red Cross certificate was more than sufficient. After +serious reflection I decided that I could render more service to +France by getting in the immense crops that were standing in our +property in the south of France than by nursing the wounded soldiers. +Far less glorious but of vital importance! So off I went to the south +of France. By the middle of October thousands of kilos of cereals and +hay and over 20,000 hectoliters of wine were ready to supply the army +at the front. I then spent my time in various hospitals studying the +up-to-date system of hospital war relief work. It was not difficult +to see the deficiencies--the means of rapidly transporting the wounded +from the "postes de secours" to an operating table out of the range of +cannons--in other words auto-ambulances--impossible to find in France +at that time. So I cabled to America. The first was offered by my +father. It was not until January that this splendid spacious +motor-ambulance arrived and was offered immediately to the French Red +Cross. Presently others arrived and were offered to the Service de +Santé. These cars have never ceased to transport the wounded from the +Front lines to hospitals in the War Zone. I heard of one in the north +and another in the Somme. This work finished, I took up duty as +assistant in an operating room in Paris to get my hand in. I next went +to a military hospital at Amiens. This hospital was partly closed soon +afterward, and, anxious to have a great deal of work, I went to the +military hospital at Versailles. + +The work in the operating room was very absorbing, as it was there +that that wonderful apparatus for locating a bullet by mathematical +calculation was invented and first used. There, between those four +white walls I have seen bullets extracted from the brain, the lungs, +the liver, the "vesicule biliaire," etc., etc. + +From there I was called to a large military hospital at the time of +the attack in Champagne in September, 1915. Soon I was asked to +organize and superintend the Service of the Mussulman troops. At first +it was hard and unsatisfactory. I spoke only a few words of Arabic and +they spoke but little French. I had difficulty in overcoming the +contempt that the Mussulmans have for women. They were all severely +wounded and horribly mutilated, but the moral work was more tiring +than the physical. + +However, little by little they got used to me and I to them. We became +the best of friends and I never experienced more simple childlike +gratitude than with these "Sidis." I remember one incident worth +quoting. I was suffering from a severe grippy cold--they saw that I +was tired and felt miserable. I left the ward for a few moments. On +returning I found that they had pushed a bed a little to one side in a +corner and had turned down the bed-clothes and placed a hot-water jug +in it (without hot water). The occupant was a Moroccan as black as the +ace of spades; he was trepanned but was allowed up a certain number of +hours a day. "Maman,"--they all called me Maman--"toi blessée, toi +ergut (lie down) nous tubibe (doctor) nous firmli (nurse)." And this +black, so-called savage, Moroccan took up his post beside the bed as I +had often done for him. I explained as best as I could that I would +have to have a permission signed by the Medecin-Chef, otherwise I +would be punished; and the Medecin-Chef had left the hospital for the +night. He shook his wise black head, "Maman blessée, Maman blessée!" + +One called me one day and asked me what my Allah was like. I told him +I thought he was probably very much like his. Well! if my Allah was +not good to me, theirs would take care of me, they would see to that. + +In May, 1916, I was asked to organize a war relief work[H] at the +request of the Service de Santé. This work was to provide the "grands +blessés et malades" with light nourishing food, in other words, +invalid food. The rules and regulations of the French military +hospitals are not sufficiently elastic to allow the administering of +such food. In time of war it would be easier almost to remove Mt. +Blanc than to change these rules and regulations. There was just one +solution--private war relief work. + + [H] Le Bien--Être du Blessé. + +So, with great regret, I bade good-bye to these children I never would +have consented to have left had it not been for the fact that I knew +from experience how necessary was the war relief work which was forced +upon me, as I had seen many men die from want of light nourishing +food. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Living Present +by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14197 *** |