Madame France

J

Rf /"\ 'IT II O C7 li""n 1 fT^ /"'^ I T
i LO U 1 o b r I I C ri

GIFT OF

Madame France

The design of this bronze relief by Mrs. Anna C. Ladd

was suggested by Miss Mary McDowell, when in

France for the Y. W. C. A.

MADAME FRANCE

BY

R. LOUISE FITCH

THE WOMANS PRESS

NEW YORK

1919

COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
R. LOUISE FITCH

THE-PLIMPTON-PBESS
N O R W O 0 D-JK A S S-U-S-A

SDttiicattti

TO THE

WOMEN OF FRANCE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

WE ARE INTRODUCED TO MADAME

FRANCE 9

I. SHE RALLIES HER FORCES ... 23

II. HER AID TO THE ARMY .... 41

III. THE WORK OF HER HANDS ... 61

IV. HER REFUGEES 78

V. HER RAPATRIES 93

VI. HER CHILDREN Ill

VII. HER SCHOOLS IN WAR TIME . . 128

VIII. HER SOCIAL LIFE 139

IX. HER RELIGION 146

X. HER HANDICAPS 153

XI. MADAME FRANCE, THE WOMAN . 165

XII. SHE BEGINS TO BUILD ANEW . 175

ILLUSTRATIONS

Madame France frontispiece

"Nous continuerons jus qu'au bout ! " Joeing page 35

A ballroom turned into an assembling station . 47

Foyer du Soldat conducted by French women. 56

In the noon hour 59

On the terrace of a Y. W. C. A. foyer ... 66

At Dunkirk 72

Making shells 72

All that they own is here in the wagon . . 85

The returning tide of rapatries 98

The Liberty Tree 105

A Boche baby learns democracy .... 114
No munition works was complete without its

nursery 114

A Blue Triangle girl gets acquainted . . . 122

Mural decorations 122

"Allons, enfants!" 133

Outdoor school in Nice 133

The fortunes of war 167

"Mixing high explosives" 172

The work might vary but the spirit remained

the same 182

WE ARE INTRODUCED
TO MADAME FRANCE

THE purpose of this book is to
show what the women of France
have been doing to help win the war,
and the conditions under which they
have worked for four years. It in no
way attempts to draw comparisons as
to results of methods employed by
France and other countries. This can
not be done, for the conditions of France
are peculiar to France. The desire is
to portray very briefly the unusual
situations and problems which the women
of France have had to help settle and
the ways in which they have done
so. The reader must entirely forget
his own country and feel France as she
is and has been, in order to realize what
has been accomplished.

All incidents in this book have been
received first hand, except those regard-

10 Madame France

ing the occupied section, and they were
received directly from those who had
come from that portion of France.

Through the great kindness and cour-
tesy of officials in France under the
Ministers of Armament, War, Public
Health, Public Instruction, Labor and
the Interior, it has been possible to se-
cure many government reports and inter-
views. Each official suggested places of
interest under his own department which
would be advantageous to see, and gave
necessary introductions. Especially is
my gratitude tendered to M. Fontaine,
Director of Labor of France, who took
time, even during the anxious days of
the advance on Chateau-Thierry, to make
suggestions and to pave my way through
France with telegrams and notes.

M. Fontaine also very kindly loaned
to me for two months the companionship
and assistance of Mile. Bourat, Inspector
of Industrial Work at Paris. Together
we visited in Paris many different places
and kinds of work connected with the
war, Mile. Bourat serving as guide and

We are Introduced to Madame France 11

French tongue. Then, armed with a
handful of introductions and permissions,
the allotted pound of sugar each, bread
tickets, sauf conduits, passports, extra
pictures, Young Women's Christian Asso-
ciation permit, the story of my life very
carefully memorized, and the final in-
jupction to Mile. Bourat, "Don't let the
French overcharge Miss Fitch because
she is an American," we started for a
month's tour of France.

We endured and enjoyed the trials of
traveling in war time. We sat up all
night because there were no sleepers; we
argued with numerous police officers be-
cause rules had changed since we left
Paris and we could not wait ten days or
a month for new permissions; we even
became hardened to the threats of prose-
cution for not having registered before
we arrived. We heard with alarm at
first and then with complacency that
there was not an inch of room in any
hotel in France, and that street corners
would be our fate at the next place
but we always secured at least one room.

12 Madame France

We carried our own baggage, which
grew heavier with each new collection
of reports and pictures, but we spent a
most interesting month, seeing everyone
and everything possible. Everywhere we
were shown great courtesy and given
every permission desired, by the Maire,
or the Prefet, by the Directors of In-
struction and Agriculture and Place-
ment, and by the directors of various
institutions and organizations. They
were all interested in the investigation
and eager that every facility possible
should be given to obtain the desired
information.

A trip to the cities where the Young
Women's Christian Association, the only
organization in France working exclu-
sively with women, is established, and
another short trip into the eastern sec-
tion of France where bombardment be-
gan on the first day of the war and
continued at intervals during the four
years, complete the journeys outside of
Paris.

This book is the compilation of facts

We are Introduced to Madame France 13

and deductions based upon numerous
interviews and conversations with men
and women of the highest social and
political rank in all parts of France,
and with peasants, servants, shopkeepers,
refugees, teachers, professors, musicians,
artists, the aged, and children. It is
also based upon personal observation of
the following:

In Paris and vicinity

Hopital Val de Grace, the largest hospital in
France.

Hopital St. Nicolas, where the special ara-
brine treatment for burns is given.

Ecole Edith Cavell, hospital training school
for nurses, entirely managed and operated
by women, patients only being men.

Pasteur Institute and Pasteur Laboratories,
where serum is made.

La Compagnie Generate Electrique, where elec-
tric lights and supplies are made.

Citroen, probably the most completely mod-
ern munition factory in France.

Aeroplane factory, supplying some of America's
needs as well as those of France.

Factory for making shells.

Camouflage factory for making landscape.

14 Madame France

Crenelle Blanchisserie, largest laundry in France,
which cleans quantities of army blankets,
uniforms, etc.

La Serviette du Soldat, which provides towels
for the army. Founded by Mme. Jules
Siegfried.

Ve'tement du Blesse, which provides clothing
to soldiers who return to civilian life, some
16,000 having been supplied with one or
more pieces of a wardrobe.

Vestiaire for refugees in 16th arrondissement,
clothing supplied and work given out for
refugees to make at home.

Entrepot de Don, where supply stations for
various French, American, Canadian and
English organizations are mobilized.

St. Sulpice, where the refugees were temporarily
cared for.

Armoire Lorraine, which supplies linens and
clothing to the devastated districts of Lor-
raine.

(Euvre des Refugies du Nord, which supplies
homes and work for refugees from the De-
partement du Nord.

Cure d'Air, which secured homes in southern
France for hundreds of Paris children dur-
ing the period of the raids.

Ecole Technique, school for teaching trades to
girls.

Mile, de Marie's little settlement home, in

We are Introduced to Madame France 15

operation for seventeen years, now used in

war interests.
Petits Menages, a home for old people, used in

part for a hospital.

Foyer for factory women, where they may se-
cure good food cheaply and have rest and

recreation during the noon hour.
Ecole Rachel, where five different trades are

taught to war widows. Organized by Mme.

Cruppi.
Meeting of the Societe Amicale de Bienfaisance,

which has existed for twenty-six years but

is now adding to its regular work assistance

to war victims.
Meeting of one section of the Conseil National

des Femmes.
Bureau de Renseignement aux families dispersees,

which located families of refugees, rapatries

etc.
Home for Wayward Girls, founded by Mme.

Avril de Ste. Croix.
Trade School for Children, founded by Mme.

Viviani.
Maison Claire, founded by Mme. Brisson, who

has been granted the Legion d'Honneur.

This organization placed Paris children in

southern France until the raids ended.

Twenty such homes existed throughout

France.
Maison des Refugies, founded by Mme. Brun-

16 Madame France

f -4

schwig. Secured apartments for refugees
in families, where they could pay for furni-
ture by instalments and finally obtain
ownership preparatory to returning home.

(Euvre a travailler a domicile, founded by
Mme. Koechlin, from which women received
work to complete at home.

Artist Cantine, operated by Mme. Neumon for
artists in need.

Outside of Paris, the observations in-
cluded:

Work for refugees at Angers.

Work with the rapatries at Evian.

Huge glove factories at Grenoble.

Placement Bureau at Marseilles.

Orphans' homes and school at Nice, also homes

for Paris children in the same city.
School for Mutiles at Montpelier.
Three factories at Toulouse, a large placement

bureau and a school where boys and women

are taught mechanical trades. Also work of

one organization for the blind.
School, hospitals and lodging for refugees at

Lourdes.

A canteen at Chateauroux.
A factory and employment bureau at Mont-

Work for Paris children and refugees at Cahors.
Y. W. C. A. hostels and foyers.

We are Introduced to Madame France 17

Two weeks were spent at Lyons, the

second city of France, and there the

opportunities included visits to the fol-
lowing :

Three factories.

A technical school for girls founded by M.

Harriot, the Maire.

Ecole Primaire, Ecole Superieure, Ecole Normale.
The largest lycee for girls.
Several ouvroirs and cooperative societies.
Two large canteens.
Departement Natalie, which is trying to lower

the death rate of children by care of both

children and mothers.
The institution founded by Mme. Gillet for

abandoned children of rapatries and desolate

children too ill for ordinary life.
An orphans' home at Charbonniere, also founded

by Mme. Gillet.
Special work and farm management by women,

near Lyons.

Other cities visited, the work of which
cannot be specified, were Tours, Bor-
deaux, Neufchateau, Vittel, Contrexe-
ville, Mirecourt, Epinal, Nancy, Bazeilles,
Chambery.

The factories visited include all kinds

18 Madame France

of munitions works which manufacture
bullets, guns, shells (75's, 150's, 220's),
powder, tanks, bombs, aeroplanes and
camouflage, at all of which women were
working.

Opportunities for seeing French daily
life came through luncheons, dinners,
and tea invitations or calls.

The sum of all these observations,
plus those which come to one whose
special mission it is to observe, form
the contents of the book. It has been
written in France at the beginning of
the fifth year of the war. Some of it
has been written in Paris, some in the
interior of France and some within a
few miles of the enemy line, but wher-
ever I write the god of war shakes his
fist in my face.

In the middle of a page I stop a mo-
ment as an aeroplane flies low over my
head. Friend? Foe? It has the mark-
ings of an ally, but that does not answer
the question in this part of France.

On another page a sentence is left

We are Introduced to Madame France 19

until later to be finished, for Big Bertha
almost takes the liberty of sharpening
my pencil for me. She has landed in a
near-by hotel. "There were few vic-
tims," the paper says the next day.

There is talk of evacuation in Paris
on a certain day, as the line bends and
bends. I stop writing a few moments
and consider. // such a thing should
happen what would I want to take be-
sides my note-book? . . . But the line
won't break — and I go on with my
work.

Sometimes when I sit writing in the
lovely hills overlooking a little village,
three slowly spaced shots tell me that
one more of "our boys" has given his
all for his country and is being received
into the land on which he fought.

Again, as I write in the frontier coun-
try in the evening stillness, with the
darkness pressing close from without,
the siren warns that enemy planes are
coming. I take my manuscript and go
to the cellar and continue to write about
the work of the women of France, while

20 Madame France

one of them, less fortunate than I, spends
the rest of the night with what was
once her loved one, amid the ruins of
her home, for the enemy plane does not
always miss.

I go away from the zone of advance
and write, and the calmness of the night
is broken by the snorting camions which
rush by hour after hour on their journey
to the front, bearing men and supplies.
Again, as I gaze off toward the hills,
thinking how best to express this story
of France, a long line of white dust catches
my eye — ambulances, carrying their re-
sistance to Kultur.

On I go, farther yet, into the heart of
France. The trains speed by shrieking
and whistling, carrying the day's output
from the factories farther north to make
a metal wall against a barbaric horde.
I walk in the country, and I pass women
pitching hay in the fields. A little far-
ther on the rumble of a wagon disturbs
my thoughts. I step aside to let it pass.
A man with an artificial arm is driving.
Alas, there is no place in France where

We are Introduced to Madame France 21

I can get away from war long enough to
write about it.

This little city has just received its
quota of refugees. The next one is
squeezing up to make room for thous-
ands of rapatries. Another is taking care
of hundreds of children from Paris who
in this way are to have one summer
free from raids. There is not an inch
in the whole of France which is normal.
France, with her love of beauty and art,
is the battleground for the whole world,
the scene of physical struggle for the
supremacy of the beauty and art of ideals.

I come back to my United States,
even to the corner farthest removed from
the actual scenes of war, and finish this
story in a land of abundance, and
warmth, and safety. I find my own
people eager beyond expression to real-
ize what it has all meant on the other
side, anxious to measure up to the fullest
that is expected of them, serious in
spite of rejoicings over the signing of
the armistice, willing to do anything
desired — and reluctant to admit, "It

22 Madame France

is all so far away, I can't quite picture
it to myself as something real. I wish
I might."

• So I write on under these varying
conditions, trying to tell what the four
years have meant to the women of
France, what changes have come to their
homes, to their ways of living and to
their thoughts. I try to make their
experiences my own, in so far as imagina-
tion can take the place of reality, and
then I try, with much humility and
admiration, to make you live the life of
Madame France, the warrior, and finally
the victor, through the pages of this
little book.

R. LOUISE FITCH

MADAME FRANCE

CHAPTER I

SHE RALLIES HER FORCES

"\\ 7HAT are the women of France

VV doing? You never see any of
them knitting?" Thus is the war work
of Madame France defined for her by
newly arrived America. This is followed
by a justifying, "Well, you never hear
anything about it!"

That is the strange part of it. You
don't. Ask Madame France herself what
she has been doing in war work and she
will hesitate a bit and say, "Why, I
don't know. Nothing special — just
what had to be done these past four
years."

There, she has answered it in the
simplest and most dramatic way possi-
ble - - "just what had to be done these
past four years!"

America, fresh from drives and mass

23

24 Madame France

meetings and parades and bands and
Red Cross rooms and knitting bags, finds
it difficult to understand a land where
none of these exists. "Drive" has no
equivalent in French. French papers
have tried to explain it, with queer
results. Money is raised, much of it,
but not by the drive method. France
does not parade or hold mass meetings.
She does not send her men to war with
speeches and music - - they just go.
There are no Red Cross workshops --by
that name. The women do not knit — in
public.

Small wonder, then, that America, look-
ing for familiar signs of war, is puzzled.
To have the enemy three or four or six
thousand miles away is one thing. To
have it — no other gender applies --in
one's field and dooryard and house, is
quite another.

Did Madame France, for months be-
forehand, get ready for war by making
surgical dressings, hospital garments; by
knitting wristlets and sweaters and hel-
mets? Did she make garments for pro-

She Rallies Her Forces 25

spective refugees, leather-lined jackets
for her aviators? Did she make scrap-
books and collect music and victrola
records for her cantonments? Did she
cheer her men with visits at hostess
houses during their days of preparation?
No, not a single one of these things did
she do.

Madame France, like a woman of any
other country, will open her heart at
times, and, urged on by a few questions,
tell her story of the war, especially its
beginning days, far better than anyone
else can do. Modified a bit as to num-
ber of men, definite work, personal de-
tails, the following interviews will apply
to the average French woman in the
summer of 1914.

Madame W is an educated and

cultured little woman with a husband
and four children; in 1914 the oldest
child was seventeen and the youngest,
seven. She had a fine home, two serv-
ants, and had given her time until
August 2, 1914, to her home, her family
and friends, spending a few weeks away

26 Madame France

at the sea or in the mountains each
summer.

"Did you think, Madame W , in

1914, that there was going to be a war,
especially after the assassination of the
Archduke?"

She hesitated a moment and then
replied, 'Yes and no. Friends of ours
were in Lorraine that summer and won-
dered at the great numbers of Germans
there. The hotels were full of them,
which was quite unusual, and when com-
ment was made, they always claimed
that it was a part of their general manceu-
vering and war training. It did not
look right.

:<We were in Switzerland during the
early part of the summer. There were
many Germans there. Their general at-
titude, occasional remarks, I can't tell
you what — but I felt there would be
war before long. My instinct told me,
'Yes.' My reason said, 'No.' There was
no reason why war should be made
against us. We had humiliated our-
selves many times to keep peace. We

She Rallies Her Forces 27

did not want any war. We had done
nothing to warrant it. So I reasoned
to myself, but all the time my feelings
said, 'It is coming again.'

uThe last day or two of July it seemed
inevitable. Germans were massed every-
where along the border, though we still
hoped war might be averted. My brother
is a chasseur, and always in a war the
chasseurs are the first to leave, as they
must report within an hour of mobiliza-
tion orders.

"I wanted to see him before he left, of
course, if there should be orders to mo-
bilize. I was advised not to try to go to
his home in the Vosges, as I might find
it difficult to get back if troops had to
be moved. But my husband was will-
ing that I should go, so I went to the
telegraph office to send a message that
I would leave that night to see him. I
sent my message, did a few errands, and
when I came back past the office the
mobilization orders were posted! This
was at four o'clock on Saturday after-
noon. Of course I did not go, as it

28 Madame France

would have done no good. He had to
report within an hour."

She was silent for a moment and then
added quietly, "I always felt sorry for
my brother. His wife and children were
away from home, as the whole family
had attended a wedding and he had just
returned alone while the others stayed
on for a visit. The order came so sud-
denly that they had no opportunity to
come back and of course I could not get
there, so he had to leave all alone, with
none of his family to see him off."

"Were many of your family mobil-
ized?"

"Fifty-seven," was the reply.

"Fifty-seven! Why that seems impos-
sible."

"Of course my husband, as he was
over forty-eight, was not called to the
front, but he belonged to the reserves
for the protection of Paris. My son,
who was under eighteen, was below mobil-
ization age, though he went later. The
fifty-seven included brothers, nephews,
brother-in-law, cousins, none more dis-

She Rallies Her Forces 29

tantly removed than first cousins. Not
all left on Saturday, of course, but each
had his orders and left within the next
few days."

"What did you women do after your
men left?"

:<We were quite busy for a while.
The mobilization orders, as I said, were
posted at four o'clock on Saturday after-
noon. On Sunday morning at seven I
went to the office of the Maire of our
arrondissement to get some information.

"Every man in the office had gone.
There were crowds of people there. There
had been no milk supply that morning
and they were clamoring for milk for
their babies and for their sick. There
was no one there to look after things as
all the men had gone. Something had
to be done; they must be quieted and
sent away. I told them that if they
would go home then and come back at
the regular time in the morning they
would be able to get their milk as usual.
I did not know at that time what could
possibly be done, but we had to get them

SO Madame France

away quietly. Some other women had
come in by that time and we simply as-
sumed charge of the office. We worked
on all morning, answering questions
and making plans.

"After lunch" -she smiled and cor-
rected herself, "after the lunch hour -
there was no time to eat - - we had an-
other crowd. Women poured into that
office demanding that their men be sent
back. They did not want war and had
done nothing to make fighting necessary.

"I had the queerest feeling. They
must be calmed and sent back home. I
did not know what to say, but I opened
my mouth and suddenly found myself
saying, 'This is not the place to talk
like that. Go tell those things to the
kaiser, he is the one to hear them. Our
work now is to save France.' I was
really frightened and did not know what
would happen. It was the strangest
thing, but those women calmed right
down and went away.

"Then we had to make good about the
milk for next day. We went to all

She Rallies Her Forces 31

the depots in our arrondissement and
found how much each could expect, and
then when the people came in the morn-
ing we told them where to go and how
much to get. The trains were needed,
of course, for the troops, and it was diffi-
cult to get the necessary supply into
Paris. But we had it, for the babies
first, for the sick next, and what was
left for the old people.

"There were many things to do at the
Maire's and we kept things going the
best we could for some weeks, until the
men were recalled or replaced and could
take charge of things again."

"I suppose the wounded began com-
ing back soon, didn't they? Were you
prepared to care for them?"

"No, we were not prepared at all,
and it was only a couple of days before
we had them. We had not enough nurses.
Nursing as a profession has never been
popular among the French women and
women had never nursed much in a war
before. That had been done by the
men. But we had to do it now. I was

32 Madame France

always sorry I could not help more in
that way. For weeks I spent a part
of each day at the Maire's office and then
I became an officer in an organization
to supply clothing, linens, etc., to dev-
astated cities in Lorraine, my own part
of the country. I was so busy with
these things and with my family that I
could not give more than two nights a
week at the hospital."

"Two nights a week? Do you mean
that you worked at the hospital all
night, two nights each week, after work-
ing all day?"

"Oh, yes. It wasn't much, but it
seemed to be all I could do, and help was
needed very badly."

"How did the women take it when
their men left so suddenly?"

"Ah, they were wonderful. I never
saw anything like it. The day the great-
est numbers left, the crowds at the
station were immense. No one was al-
lowed beyond the gates except the sol-
diers, but as I was a member of the
Red Cross I could go through. There

She Rallies Her Forces 33

was the huge crowd of women on one
side and an equally large crowd of men
on the other. They were all quiet. I
did not see a single woman cry. They
were perfectly calm, and they knew what
war meant, or they thought they did.
No one knew what this war would mean.
It was inspiring to see the crowds. As
the trains pulled out, every one, men
and women, sang the Marseillaise. . . . The
men were gone, and the women went
home quietly, and went to work."

"Since then?"

"Since then we have been doing what
had to be done. We were so entirely
unprepared and everything happened so
rapidly that we had to plan as we worked.
We never dreamed that the Germans
would come through Belgium. It wasn't
long before we had the crowds of refu-
gees from Belgium and northern France
to care for, though they did not come
through Paris so much at first.

"And you see all our men between
eighteen and forty-eight were mobilized
at once, so we had much of their work to

34 Madame France

do. For many of the men there was no
time at all to arrange business affairs.
They simply dropped their hammers or
shut their desks and went away. You
cannot make many preparations for set-
tling a business in an hour or even in
several hours.

"We had to help the older men who
were left or do the work ourselves. We
did not have hospital facilities or prepa-
rations. We did not have enough cloth-
ing for our soldiers, nor enough ammuni-
tion nor the necessary preparation for
food. As I said, everything happened
at once and there was no chance to get
ready. In just a few days we had all
these problems to settle and they had to
be settled immediately."

"Did you have any idea that the war
would last this long?"

"No; none of us dreamed it would
not be over in four years. We thought
the battle of the Marne would end it.
Then came the trench life beginning in
December. No one will ever forget that
first year, neither the men nor the women.

The spirit of Madame France is not confined to her girls
and young women. It was a woman like this who declared,
"Nous continuerons — jus qu'au bout!"

She Rallies Her Forces 35

We did not know what a trench was like
or what would be needed, and the men
were not prepared in any way for any-
thing of the kind. It was the begin-
ning of winter, you remember. Yes, there
was much to do."

"Have all the women worked or has it
been just a few?"

"It has not been 'just a few' but it
hasn't been all, all the time, I am sorry
to say. You can't entirely make over
human nature, even with a war. There
are selfish women in France as elsewhere.
Some women say, 'I have done enough
for France when I sent my husband to
fight,' and so they do nothing, and the
rest of us with sons and brothers and
other relatives have to do the things
necessary to keep the husband of such
a woman clothed and fed. There are
some women who, since their rather worth-
less husbands went to war, are really
better off, for they have their allocations
and do not have to work as hard as
before.

"You Americans think we are frivo-

36 Madame France

lous, and of course some French women
are so even in war times. But we are
not all so at heart. We like to be con-
sidered gay and happy and we show that
side to most people. These four years
we could not have endured, had we not
been able to appear light-hearted at
times. The women as a whole are work-
ing. We have had to work in one way
or another."

"How do you feel about it all, now
that you have suffered so much? Do
you want to end it now?"

She looked up quickly and said, "Why,
there is only one thing to do. We must
finish it, and until it is finished, there is
only one thing we can think of - - how
best to do the things that must be done
to end it all. If this could only be the
last time that we need ever think of war!
France has had so many wars, our chil-
dren are all brought up with the sound
of retreating or advancing guns. If we
could only know that this would be the
last, that we would never have to fight
again, never! Surely this will be the

She Rallies Her Forces 37

end of wars. Our one thought is to
finish it — forever."

The light from the little lamp fell upon
her black dress with its crepe trimmings,
and suggested the question, "Have you
lost many of your own men in the war?"

"Ten are killed, and several have been
wounded, some permanently. And then
my mother died during the past year
also."

And the next day in the mail came the
little slip of paper which said that her
son, then twenty-one, had been seri-
ously wounded. The mother did not
eat that day, but she kept on working.
Her only comment was, "It is his foot.
I am afraid perhaps he may never be
able to go back and fight."

How else did the French women meet
the emergencies of those first few days
and weeks?

Dr. M , a French woman who had

been a practicing physician for a number
of years in Paris, had made all plans to
spend the month of August, 1914, in

38 Madame France

England. She sent her twelve-year-old
son on to England a week early, and
planned to join him at the home of rela-
tives in the first week of August.

When the mobilization occurred, she
received word August 4 at noon to report
for duty at the front at four o'clock of
the same afternoon. She felt sure that it
must be a mistake, as women had never
been allowed at the front before. She
had always signed her initials in her
official work and realized that in the list
of doctors she had probably been mis-
taken for a man. She was not at all
unwilling to go, but felt that the authori-
ties should know the situation.

She tried to see the Minister of War
but a thousand or more others were lined
up before the office on similar errands.
She tried another government official with
the same result. Finally she consulted
a prominent physician and told him the
situation. He agreed with her that un-
doubtedly it was a mistake, but that
her orders were military orders, which
could not be disobeyed. He advised her

She Rallies Her Forces 39

to send the War Department a note of
explanation and then to report as ordered
at four o'clock. Undoubtedly she would
be recalled the next day.

In the meantime four o'clock was
rapidly approaching. There was her
home to close, her son to notify, her
business to settle, in the remaining
time. As the nearest approach to a
uniform, she found the suit worn once
when she had spent some time in the
Balkans. She left at four o'clock.

That was the first week in August. It
was in October when she received a reply
from the war office. By that time she
was too busy and there was too much to
do, to take advantage of the govern-
ment's mistake. She simply continued
working. She had never operated be-
fore, but operations had to be performed.
The need for nurses was far greater than
the supply, and the doctors were forced
to accept the services of any who vol-
unteered, regardless of competency.

Dr. M— was put in charge of an
operating unit and during the battle of

40 Madame France

Verdun operated seventeen hours a day,
for days and days at a time, under the
most difficult of circumstances, lacking
countless "necessities." After more than
two years of continuous work, she was
recalled by the government to establish
a new normal training school for nurses,
where everyone except the patients is a
a woman.

These interviews give a faint idea of
the conditions when war was declared
on France, and of the tremendous need
for help and supplies. After these wants
were partially supplied and the first win-
ter in the unspeakable trenches was ended,
came the first gas attack by the Germans.
Here again was an immediate need, and
the women helped to make the masks.

So it has been through the whole
four years. Nothing was ready, situa-
tions developed almost second by second.
With nearly an eighth of the population
of France under arms, the reserve army
of women has been ready to do "what-
ever had to be done." Such things have
been countless.

CHAPTER II

HER AID TO THE ARMY

IT is impossible to tell of the work of
the French women in sequence, for
there has been no sequence to it. It
has all happened almost simultaneously.
With everything else, and before it, and
after it, has come the army.

The immediate needs of the army
when the war began can be stated in
one sentence - - but it is rather a long
sentence. They were food, clothing,
blankets, ammunition, and firearms; bar-
racks, tents, doctors, nurses, medicines,
towels, mess kits, cooks, kitchens, fuel,
means of transportation for men and
materials, ambulances, hospitals, hospi-
tal trains, surgical dressings, horses, aero-
planes, oil, serums; and before these
were well started the needs included
trench weapons, trench garments, instru-

41

42 Madame France

ments, steel helmets, gas masks, and
more hospitals, doctors, nurses and am-
bulances.

Of course this includes no luxuries
such as books and pianos and victrolas
and entertainments and newspapers and
letter paper and cigarettes and rest huts
and such things. This list includes no
civilian needs mentioned elsewhere which
arose simultaneously with the needs for
the army. These are simply some of the
things the army had to have the day it
started, not for training camps, but to
fight the enemy, and it did not have them,
in sufficient quantity, if at all.

Now what could the women do to help
with any of these things?

Immediately the three branches of the
Red Cross began to work: Societe Blesse
Militaire, the most wealthy and aristo-
cratic; Union des Femmes de France,
women of the upper middle class; and
the Association des Dames Franchises,
women of the lower middle class. (France
is not yet a democracy in any sense of the
word, though it is a republic.) All of

Her Aid to the Army 43

these are branches of the Red Cross, but
each works independently of the others.

These women began work at once and
continued with great devotion through-
out the war. They are nursing in all
military hospitals, hundreds of them hav-
ing done voluntary service since the war
began. They have established private
hospitals and canteens at the stations in
the larger cities through which pass troops
and wounded. They have established
many ouvroirs (workshops) where neces-
sary linen and clothing can be secured.
In 1917, the A. D. F. had enrolled 16,000
nurses in 350 hospitals, the U. F. F.,
23,000 nurses in 360 hospitals, and the
S. B. M., 15,500 nurses in 796 hospitals.

The French Red Cross nurses are work-
ing not alone in France, but with their
men in Morocco, Serbia, Russia and
Salonica. They have shown the utmost
bravery, serving with the doctors di-
rectly at the front, under fire, in the
occupied cities, Reims, St. Quentin,
Soissons, Noyon, etc. Almost fifty
have died "on the field of honor" in

44 Madame France

the bombarded cities where they were
caring for those sick with contagious
diseases. A few have been awarded the
Legion d'Honneur, more than one hun-
dred have the croix de guerre and about
five hundred have received special medals
or citations.

The work of the nurses in France, dur-
ing the first two years, at least, of the
war, was done under the most difficult
circumstances. Nursing in war time, es-
pecially at the front, is hard even under
the best conditions. It is much more so
when supplies are inadequate, hospitals
not equipped, and the average nurse
insufficiently trained.

Nowadays the French look at the many
perfectly equipped American hospitals,
the numerous fine hospital trains, the
innumerable ambulances, all ready for
the wounded before the fighting occurs,
and they think of the many men of their
own whom they might have saved had
they had the time to prepare.

At first French hospitals were equipped
near the front. With the uncertainty of

Her Aid to the Army 45

the battle line and the constant shelling,
much equipment was lost, many hospitals
were evacuated hurriedly and moved
to the nearest spot of comparative safety,
a barn, a school building, anywhere for
the time being. The nurses knew no
hours of work because the amount to
be done had no limit. Perhaps it is no
wonder that after four years some chose
work in munitions factories — for a rest!

It was not long before France realized
that in this war some further qualifica-
tions were necessary for nursing than a
motherly interest or a willingness to
serve. Preparations were made for train-
ing schools for nurses and every effort
was made to secure women of education
and refinement to engage in this work.

Nurses as well as doctors have had
to learn by experience the many surgical
needs due to the various kinds of wounds
from shell, dumdum bullets, ordinary
bullets; gas burns of different kinds;
new fevers and new infections; shell
shock; rebuilding mutilated faces, etc.
No one knew how to treat many of these

46 Madame France

before this war began, and the French,
like the others of those first two years,
had to be experimented upon.

As the hospitals increased in numbers
and in patients, sufficient help became
more and more difficult to secure. Again
the women came to the rescue. In many
of the French hospitals they performed
practically all the service work, even to
the stretcher bearing, carrying the
wounded up the many flights of stairs,
in and out of ambulances, and so on.
There seemed to be no question as to
whether the women could stand it. It
had to be done, and the men were not
available, so the women did it. Three
hundred women were employed simply
in service work in one hospital.

Those who wished to find surgical
dressings shops in France, generally had
to go to the hospitals. Many of the
patients, on the road to recovery, rolled
bandages and folded pads. In many
of the hospitals there were employment
bureaus. Lines of women without work

1

I
"I

Her Aid to the Army 47

applied each day, and to many of these
was given the work of making dressings
and refolding them after they had been
cleaned; for the French, short of mate-
rials, used their dressings often as many
as seven times. Many of these women
were refugees who received pay for their
work and thus earned their own living.

Every large city in France was dotted
with little workshops where the needs
of the soldiers were met. Perhaps in a
former grand ball room where many a
noted person had been guest of honor,
the women sat at their sewing machines,
before the piles of cloth, hurrying to get
the uniforms ready or the hospital gar-
ments made for their men. Beneath bril-
liant crystal chandeliers, with beautiful
tapestries on enclosing walls, in rooms
famous in history, where kings and queens
have held court, were tables piled high
with cans of sardines, soap, beans, choco-
late, festoons of bologna linking the chan-
deliers. Here women in the always pres-
ent cover-all prepared packages of food
for prisoners in Germany.

48 Madame France

In another room piles of reference
cards touched the chin of some famous
gentleman now commemorated in bronze
or stone. The descendants of his race
worked busily here to find all news pos-
sible of a prisoner's family. Some of
these old buildings surely wondered at
the strange and unaccustomed scenes
which they beheld. Everything must be
made to serve a definite purpose for the
war, and pleasure halls saw only the
pleasure which comes of service.

"How long have you worked here?"
The question was asked of a woman
preparing packages of food for war pris-
oners.

"Ever since the war began."

"But don't you take a vacation once
in a while?"

"I will when the war is over. Practi-
cally all these prisoners get is what we
send them twice a month, and hunger
takes no vacations."

"Are you paid for the work here?"

"No! not I. I do not need it. Some
of the women who need work are paid."

Her Aid to the Army 49

The ouvroirs served two purposes.
Women who could not leave their homes
came to certain ouvroirs and obtained
yarn for knitting, or garments already
cut for sewing. They were paid usually
by the piece. Other ouvroirs had in-
stalled machines for cutting and for sew-
ing, and other women came there to
work.

Sometimes an ouvroir was established
in a building used for housing refugees,
and the women of these worked right
there. Not always were the ouvroirs in
tapestry-walled rooms. Sometimes the
rooms were rather dark, sometimes they
were not quite finished, as the workmen
who dropped their hammers on the day of
mobilization had not yet returned; but
wherever they were, they were busy
places.

With an eye on the future some men
and women organized cooperative or-
ganizations, and made uniforms for the
soldiers, with the hope of doing general
tailoring when the war should be over and
everyone would be buying new clothes.

50 Madame France

One ouvroir devoted its entire energies
to securing towels for the soldiers; an-
other, garments for the reformes who
were permanently out of the war because
of disabilities and had to start life and
business anew with the handicap of ill
health or maimed body. Some ouvroirs
sold toys, beaded articles, jewelry and
other things made by the wounded or
mutilated.

The blind occupy the attention of
many women, who provide temporary
lodgings, food, clothing where needed,
raise money and equipment for schools
to teach them other means of communi-
cation with the outside world. Women
and school girls spend much time each
day in writing braille. Women teach
in the schools for the blind and try to
add that touch of courage sometimes
necessary for a man to start alone in a
dark world.

A few women teach in the school for
mutiles down in southern France, at
Montpelier; though most of the teaching
thus far has been done by men because

Her Aid to the Army 51

of the trades taught. The men are get-
ting excellent instruction to fit them for
real work in any of twenty-one differ-
ent trades that they may choose. They
have clubs and entertainments of their
own making or that of others, they have
all the fun of being school boys again,
and they have learned that happiness
does not depend upon the number of
limbs one possesses. The women who
work with them consider them a fine
tonic for the blues.

Helping the soldier's family is also
helping him, and many are the societies
which aid the families or widows of
soldiers. One of the most interesting
pieces of work for war widows is done
at the Ecole Rachel at Paris, where five
different trades are taught to women.

One department is devoted to chemis-
try, where women are given practical
instruction to fit them to work in chemical
laboratories, to become pharmacists, and
to make food analyses. Another depart-
ment teaches them how to construct
artificial limbs, including the covers,

52 Madame France

leather braces, and so on. A third de-
partment teaches women how to make
false teeth, that they may become assis-
tants to dentists. Department four gives
instruction for making electrical threads
for telephone and telegraph instruments,
which requires adroitness and skill in
handling delicate things. The fifth de-
partment gives a course in tinting and
retouching photographs.

Practically none of the women in these
courses has worked before and all have
some education. When the courses are
completed and the examinations passed
satisfactorily, employment is secured for
them. This work is carried on by private
subscriptions largely; it was founded and
is managed by women.

A very important work, the value of
which cannot be overstated, is that of
the Pasteur Institute where the serum
which prevents tetanus is made, as well
as the serums for diphtheria, typhoid,
etc. With all the terrible conditions un-
der which the early days of the war were
fought, and with all the unspeakable

Her Aid to the Army 53

situations in the country evacuated by
the Germans, there has been no plague,
no scourge of disease, and for this the
work of the Pasteur Institute is largely
responsible. The main institution is lo-
cated in Paris, the laboratories at Garches,
a near-by suburb.

Before the war there had been no
feminine invasion at either place, but
when necessity again turned to women,
they answered. M. Roux, the director,
now has several young women, one an
American, in his chemical department
and speaks most highly of their work.
At Garches all of the work except in
the stables is now done by women. It
is all intensely interesting, from the huge
cauldrons of serum, the large jars in rows
on the cellar shelves, looking for all the
world like the winter supply of preserves,
to the tens of thousands of tiny bottles,
each a dose, filled, sealed and labeled
ready for use.

In reply to the question, "Do you
find the work of the women as satis-
factory as that of the men?" the director

54 Madame France

replied, "Oh yes, perhaps more so, for
they are more delicate in their touch."

There are several smaller Pasteur In-
stitutes in other cities in France. M.
Calmette, director at Lille, is one of the
foremost scientists of France. His abil-
ity was recognized by the Germans, to
the extent of allowing him to remain at
work in Lille, when they captured the
city in 1914. His wife was taken a
captive into Germany, and he has never
heard of his seventeen-year-old son since
the Germans entered Lille.

The war greatly increased the number
of tuberculosis patients in France and
it has been necessary to establish many
hospitals and sanatariums for them. A
large number of the patients are soldiers.
Some are the children of soldiers or other
members of their families. The tuber-
cular map of France showing the loca-
tions of these hospitals is speckled in
every direction. At the various coasts,
in the mountains of the east and south,
in the valleys — wherever conditions and
climate will permit, there they are. This

Her Aid to the Army 55

of course means more nursing — and more
women to do it.

The French Red Cross established
many canteens and temporary hospital
rooms at stations throughout France.
Here meals were served and care given
when necessary. The devotion of all
classes of women has proved equally
great.

At Lyons there is a little woman of
the poorer class who missed only one
day at the station with her pail of choco-
late in the early morning for the passing
soldiers. On the day when her son was
killed, she stayed away, alone with her
grief; then she came back to go on
serving the sons of other mothers. The
women of the Red Cross there speak with
the greatest admiration of this faithful
little soul, who worked that she might
buy materials to make her morning pail-
ful of chocolate. This task she began
when the first troops went through before
the Red Cross canteen had been estab-
lished.

Foyers were not confined to the sta-

56 Madame France

tions. They were in all the large cities,
where men might rest and receive food
before returning to the front.

Much of the work of the French,
both men and women, was handicapped
because the supply of food and materials
became low. Women did not have sand-
wiches and pies and cakes or any of the
corresponding things that the French
like, as the men passed through smaller
cities and villages — for several reasons.
One was the lack of instant communica-
tion. There were less than half as many
telephones in the whole of France as
there are in Chicago alone. France has
not yet acquired the telephone habit.
There were practically no autos in France
except for strictly military purposes, be-
cause there was very little oil, so it was not
possible to carry things about quickly.
Last, and most important, France was
on rations regarding bread, sugar, cheese,
meat, etc., not because she was saving for
some other nation and had plenty, but
because she did not have it for herself.
The amount of bread apportioned to

Her Aid to the Army 57

any one person and to any one village
left no possible chance for taking food
to the stations for hundreds of soldiers
as they passed through. The city had its
allotment and could get no more; in
fact, it was often obliged to share sud-
denly with many refugees. The army
had its daily allotment, and however
much the French women would have
enjoyed cooking dainties for their men
en route they could not do it.

French women have furthermore been
obliged to save fuel. The biggest and
best coal fields of France were captured
by the Germans during the first month
of the war, and though recently retaken,
because of their flooded condition, will
be unproductive for years. Scraps of
paper, twigs, small sticks which make
fine Hallowe'en bonfires in America are
carefully guarded, as they may be all
the fuel the French housewife will have
for a time. She cannot use it for extra
cooking unless absolutely necessary.

All the new departments in govern-
mental work meant extra clerical help,

58 Madame France

of course, and again thousands of women
were employed, many with little prepa-
ration for such work. All the big manu-
facturing concerns needed more help in
office work, banks called for more women
to help in their work, all business con-
cerns needed women to fill the places of
the men who had gone. In some locali-
ties it has been difficult to get good food
cheaply, or to find a place for the women
to spend their noon hours.

Here the American Young Women's
Christian Association has found a way
to help. At St. Etienne, a cafeteria
has been operating for many months.
One of the best chefs available does the
cooking and the prices are very reason-
able. Because no wine is served, failure
for the place was prophesied at once by
many, but it has been very popular
from the first day and has outgrown its
quarters.

The women and girls who came there
could not sit in the dining-room for the
whole two hours, so rooms on the floor
above were secured for club rooms. Eng-

Her Aid to the Army 59

lish classes are in operation to meet the
demands, and there are gymnasium
classes, folk dancing, singing, and all
the further accompaniments of a club.
Other places of the same kind have been
opened at Tours and at Paris, and have
completely overrun their present quar-
ters.

At St. Etienne, the Young Women's
Christian Association, upon request of
French authorities, has taken over a
beautiful park where outdoor recrea-
tion is provided, pageants are given and
games taught. The Minister of War at
Paris in the summer asked the Young
Women's Christian Association to take
charge of a club house for his sixteen
thousand women employees, and now
the same work is going on there. These
clubs have added much to the happiness
of the girls and consequently much to
the efficiency of their work.

The wife of the little shopkeeper in
France has always been his right hand
assistant, or in some cases he has been
hers. So it is not strange at all that

60 Madame France

she should continue his business while
he was away. Many women who had
never helped their husbands in big busi-
ness concerns kept the business going
while he was at the front. Madame
France put not only her hands and her
heart but her mind also to this big task
which she was so helpful in solving, — that
of working for the soldier, and keeping
his business running until his return.

CHAPTER III

THE WORK OF HER HANDS

WAR is full of shudders, however
it is waged. It contains enough
terrors when both sides are fully equipped
and when it is a match of strength against
strength. But it is unspeakable when,
empty-handed, one must meet one's neigh-
bor, suddenly become an enemy; a neigh-
bor which for fifty years has been
hardening its arteries with iron, and
turning its heart to a shell; a neighbor
which has filled its mind with false doc-
trine and false philosophy, while it filled
its storehouses with cannon; a neighbor
which replaced its soul with greed for
power, and did not realize that the weight
of this power would crush it.

This was the enemy France had to meet
in August, 1914. And she had to meet
that wall of iron and steel with a wall
of flesh and human hearts, for her bullets

61

62 Madame France

were not made and her cannon yet un-
forged. This was the horror for the
women of France when they saw their
men depart. They knew, all France
knew, that the supply of munitions could
not last long, nor could it be made fast
enough: there were not enough men left
to do it all at once. But — guns and
cannon and shells and aeroplanes and
powder and tanks must be made.

"Very well," said Madame France
"if they are needed, I will help." So off
she went to the munitions plant, put on
her cover-all and increased the volume of
the tiny stream which flowed so slowly
from factory to battle line. With her
help it became a wide and rushing torrent,
until the wall of iron facing France was
entirely demolished.

In every munitions plant in France
women have worked, and with perhaps
half a dozen exceptions, at every kind of
work. In the foundries with the grease
and the heat and the smoke; in the filing
room, they could be seen boring, polishing,
testing, labeling, packing, transferring,

The Work of Her Hands 63

loading. They worked in bloomers and
blouses or in cover-alls — white in most
cases, black where the work was especially
dirty.

Women are not allowed to lift more
than a certain weight in factory work, so
for the big shells, special apparatus was
erected to help swing them into place.
But amid the big noisy black machinery
an old can full of flowers, or a single rose
pinned to the black cover-all brought a
little human note. Always there were
flowers — on the machine, in buttonholes,
on the workbench. The iron has not
touched the heart of France yet.

Women stepped into wooden shoes and
stood before the cauldrons of chemicals,
slowly stirring and stirring, while the
fumes yellowed their hair and eyes and
skin — but the work had to be done.
They filled the cartridges — hair covered,
nose protected from the fumes of the
deadly powder. They packed the huge
cans with packages of powder, just so
many to a can, and every one had to go
in. A few tears perhaps as they would

64 Madame France

not all go in, the first few times. Then
the trick was learned. They worked with
the cotton "right from Texas"; they
made little pieces of machinery from
special designs; they managed the com-
pressors; they weighed the powder, black
and white ; they made camouflage devices ;
they were busy everywhere.

Some of the task of preparing for the
enemy was clean and light. The aero-
plane factories work much in wood and
cloth, and there the women in white
cover-alls did all kinds of wood work, even
to the making of the tiny pieces for parts
of the wings. They constructed the cloth
wings also, and the leather work; they
helped assemble the parts, and varnished
and marked.

Figures vary daily so that what is true
to-day is inaccurate to-morrow. Some
idea of the great increase in numbers of
women munition workers may perhaps
be gained from the statement that one
factory grew from less than two thousand
employees to more than twenty-five thou-
sand seventy per cent were women.

The Work of Her Hands 65

The problem of transportation within
the factory limits was not a simple one.
One factory was almost five miles long
and about half that in width. Street
cars touched it at only one point. This
meant long walks, before and after work.

Work in munitions plants was not
entirely happy work for the women.
The first three years at least were far
from cheerful ones for France. Many
of these women were homeless refugees,
living in the crowded rooms available;
many had lost at least one man from the
family; the work was hard, there was
little of cheer when the work was done,
and news from the front was at times
quite discouraging. It is the custom in
France to rest for two hours each noon.
Where could these women rest? There
was no place to go except the street,
and much of the time the weather was
cold and rainy.

At the close of the third year of the
war three women were sent to France by
the Young Women's Christian Associa-
tion of America to see where that organi-

66 Madame France

zation of women, existing for the benefit
of women, might perhaps be able to help
the French women. At once they were
asked to do something for the French
munitions workers. Discussions and in-
vestigations resulted in plans for a large
building across the street from a big
factory near Lyons. The building was
ready in the spring of 1918 and the first
Young Women's Christian Association
"Foyer des Alliees" was opened.
[ It has a large dining-room where coffee,
chocolate and tea, salads, etc., are sold.
The women munitions workers bring their
own lunches there to eat, and supple-
ment them with the simple dishes ob-
tainable. They bring their own wine,
also, if they wish, for none is sold, but
strange to say the bottles have diminished
in number since the value of good coffee,
tea and chocolate has been discovered.

Adjoining the dining-room is a big
assembly room where the women write
letters, mend, embroider, visit, or just
sit and rest. At one end of the room is
a little stage and a piano, and every noon

I

J

The Work of Her Hands 67

some sort of entertainment is given. The
best of the talent at Lyons has formed
the habit of going out at noon to sing and
play for these women.

At first the women looked at it all
rather skeptically. Then they came
again. It was always warm there, and
dry, and the ladies who wore the "Egrec
Dooble Vay Say Ah" on their sleeves
were always smiling. The interest grew;
the music was good, some one recited,
something always happened.

Suddenly they found themselves sing-
ing the Marseillaise for the Young
Women's Christian Association ladies,
and almost before they knew it they
themselves -- French workwomen -- were
singing a real American song, real Ameri-
can words! Then they heard one noon
why the American ladies had come to
help, that their own country and the
country of the American ladies were good
friends, that they had the same colors in
their flags, that they each had a big
celebration day in July (and there was a
figure 4 in both dates), that a Frenchman

68 Madame France

had gone to help America once when
Americans were in trouble and now
America had come to help France, her
men to fight and her women to work, and
that all the women in America and France
were working to help the men end the
war as soon as possible so that all the
world could live again in peace and
freedom.

More and more factory women dropped
in at noon, and soon there were a thou-
sand coming every day. Someone ex-
pressed a wish that she might learn
English — and an English class was started.
Someone liked to recite and sing, and so
she was asked to do that very thing.
Someone else liked games, and there was
a playground ready outside with some-
one to teach interesting games and exer-
cises.

These French working women have
discovered many things since the foyer
was established, that they can laugh and
play together, and their work seems
easier; that they can plan and carry out
things all themselves; that this foyer is

The Work of Her Hands 69

really theirs, for them to enjoy and use
as much as they like.

As Lyons is a great Catholic center,
there was much concern at first in
Catholic circles over the wisdom of
allowing Catholic women to attend a
place conducted by Protestants. The
people of Lyons and the factory women
soon learned that the Young Women's
Christian Association women had just
one object in view — to help make the
lives of the factory women more pleasant,
as their own contribution in helping win
the war. The women could come or not
to the building, as they chose. It was
there and was theirs to use.

The influence, upon the munitions work-
ers, of the Young Women's Christian
Association workers and their efforts,
has been quite remarkable, so much so
that it has been spoken of over and over
again by French men and women. With-
out exception they class the moral in-
fluence, unconsciously exerted, as of prime
importance in the results attained.

Since the establishment of this foyer

70 Madame France

requests have come for others almost
more rapidly than they can be filled.
Now there are three foyers at Lyons,
two at Bourges, one at Roanne, one at
Montlugon, one near Tours, and one
near Paris.

The idea was not new to French women,
but they lacked the money and the organ-
izing ability which the Young Women's
Christian Association provided, with ad-
ditional tact in working with all religious
and political beliefs without offending
any.

Often interesting discoveries were made
about the women workers. One woman
hovered pathetically over the piano in
the foyer day after day and finally it was
found that she had been a concert musi-
cian before the war. When that pro-
fession had closed she had played at the
movies, and as the need for that vanished,
she came to the munitions plant, for she
had to live. She was very happy to
be asked to play accompaniments and
solos at noon time.

Two girls in bloomers and blouses,

The Work of Her Hands 71

who were shunting a small freight car
down a siding at the factory, were for-
merly a teacher and a nurse of nearly four
years experience. It seems that the nurse
had wanted some easier work, so she
was pushing loaded cars about the yards
of a factory.

The women represent all kinds of occu-
pations — milliners, with homes de-
stroyed; lace makers — city in ruins;
modistes — no business nowadays. There
are many who had never worked before.

Some factories work in three shifts of
eight hours each, some in shifts of ten
hours, and a few in two shifts of twelve.
This is the actual working time exclusive
of the two hours rest. Practically all
factories allow their workmen fifteen min-
utes in the afternoon and sometimes
the same in the middle of the morning
for a bite to eat and a bit of rest. Wages
as a rule are good. It is difficult to
translate them into American terms, as
the purchasing power differs in France
and has not been stationary during the
war. The women seem satisfied, and

72 Madame France

many have much more money than they
ever had before. In a number of fac-
tories the workmen have organized co-
operative societies, which have proved
beneficial.

Munitions-making is not the only hand
work done in France. Anything that
man has done, woman seems to be doing
now. Women act as motormen and con-
ductors on street cars — and they mend
the family stockings while they wait for
their shift! They do freight train brak-
ing, serve in dining-cars, carry baggage
onto trains and through stations, help
load freight at freight depots, serve as
guards on the subways, deliver mail and
telegrams, push carts of every variety
and description containing all sorts of
supplies. They clerk in all kinds of stores,
sell papers, bring produce to market,
sprinkle streets, drive taxis, in fact "my
work" and "your work" seems to have
been changed to "work for France."

It is difficult to say just what is the
most important piece of hand work French
women have been doing. Munitions-

At Dunkirk the girls helped the men unload food from English

boats.

There were many thousand girls who made the shells that
stopped the foe.

The Work of Her Hands 73

making has been absolutely essential,
for without it men cannot fight. It is
perhaps the most spectacular as well.

However, men cannot fight if they
cannot eat, no matter how much am-
munition they have. The food supply
grew steadily less during the first three
years of the war. France does not pro-
duce enough foodstuffs for her entire
use, and because the difficulties of ship-
ping were so great, because so large a
percentage of the peasant population was
gone, and because the land was needed
for other purposes, the situation became
increasingly difficult. Peasant women
have always worked in the fields and they
continued to do so, adding in many cases
to their own work, that of a husband or
son. But even this was not enough;
bigger crops had to be secured, more land
cultivated.

Once more Madame France came to
the rescue. If the need were in the
fields, there she would work. But she
did not go out to the fields in an auto-
mobile, with cook tent and wagon fol-

74 Madame France

lowing. She did not take a course in
practical farming. She just walked to
the fields and began to work.

Here again France has her own
methods. She is a country of small land
owners, each one working quite inde-
pendently, for cooperation is entirely un-
known. Some of the larger holdings are
cultivated by machinery, but the average
farm is run by hand. So many horses
have been requisitioned during the war
that oxen, slow — picturesque perhaps,
but very slow - - were substituted, or fail-
ing these, the earliest tools, the hands,
were used.

So women plough the fields, and do
every kind of farm work; they have
planted, cultivated, threshed, stacked hay;
they have gardened, tended the live-
stock, cooked their own meals and cared
for the children. Small wonder that some
at forty years of age look sixty. Long,
long hours they spend in the fields, for
farming by hand is slow work. Often
the only assistance has been from the
children and the older men of the village.

The Work of Her Hands 75

Grain is cut by scythe, stacked by hand,
and when it is all removed from the field,
the women and children go over the
fields again, laboriously picking up each
little overlooked stalk. Much threshing
is still done on the barn floor.

The government has tried to help, in
the matter of harvesting especially, and
has released some men from the army
during harvest time, usually widowers
with families, as this occupation is of
course far safer for the men than the
trenches, and is just as important.

Numbers of the women who have gone
to the fields have had no training in farm
life, but they need work and want to help.
Some of the women on the big estates
are as deserving of praise as the others.
Many a woman has assumed entire charge
of her estate, managing it so that it has
yielded as much as before; in addition
she has looked after the family of the as-
sistant in his absence at the front; often
too she has provided a house for refugees.

In the south of France women have
labored in the olive orchards, and in the

76 Madame France

vineyards. They are working in the three
hundred factories for canning fruit and
making jams, and in the three hundred
vegetable canning factories. France has
always worked with her hands, but she
has worked harder than ever during the
years of the war.

The housewife in the cities and in the
small villages does not have all the
modern conveniences for doing her work
at home and consequently it is accom-
plished with less speed than it would be
otherwise. Many of the houses were
built hundreds of years ago, and have not
been changed since. There are almost
no sewer systems, and to a strictly prac-
tical person the architecture of a beauti-
ful building loses much of its charm after
crossing the open sewer before it. There
are few electric lights and the supply of
petrol has been very low. Some cities
are entirely in darkness at night within
and without except for a few candles,
and have been so for years, since the
supply of oil grew less. There are few
delivery wagons in large cities now, and

The Work of Her Hands 77

none in small ones. This means going
to market, though that is not a new habit
in France. The peasant still washes her
clothes on her knees in the little river, or
at the public wash house. There is very
little coal, and on that account a great
deal of suffering and illness has resulted,
especially to the children. Coal in the
summer of 1918 sold for eighty dollars a
ton, and not a great deal at that price
could be bought by the average family.

Every cook book in the warring coun-
tries has had to be revised over and over
again and France has long since given
up her pastries, rolls, cakes and sweets.
But she makes most palatable things of
every eatable scrap she can get, and
patiently looks forward to the time when
she can again show her abilities as a cook.

"The work of her hands" has greatly
increased, though the number of her
hands remains the same. They are not
as dainty hands as once they were, but
they could not be more respected by
the men at the front who have received
the benefits of their toil.

CHAPTER IV

HER REFUGEES

FRANCE has had many problems
during this war, and if they could
be graded as to importance and work
involved, the old degrees of big, bigger,
biggest, would have to be entirely dis-
carded. The new degrees would be large,
immense and tremendous. In the latter
class comes the problem of the "refugies,
6vacu6s et rapatries."

Imagination, aided by pictures and
descriptions, however vivid, cannot put
the live human feel into it. One cannot
paint the sensations of weariness, hunger,
despair, resignation, by pen or brush or
typewriter.

One can describe bursting shells, houses
jumbled masses of stones, a woman with
her child in her arms and her worldly
possessions on her back, hurrying wearily

78

Her Refugees 79

along the road, her world in flames be-
hind — and what ahead? No pictures
can include the sigh as it escapes from
the heart, the tears which overflow the
emotional eyes no matter how calm the
outward eyes may be, the cumulative
rage which must be held in check in the
presence of the enemy in one's own
invaded city.

France sees these expressions as well
as the pictures, and sees them take place.
And they are not the emotions and pic-
tures of a strange people thousands of
miles distant, but the realities that hap-
pen to her own friends, her own relatives,
her own neighbors.

The war game is not played by the
enemy to suit the convenience of an in-
vaded country. How far the line will
bend, how many people will be made
homeless, the hour when they will leave,
where they will go, are not questions
which can be decided beforehand. They
happen — the answers must be given at
once.

Picture that great army of people;

82 Madame France

once, and they were many. There were
the hungry to feed, and that meant
everybody. They were dirty, for flee-
ing from an enemy cannot be accomplished
in luxury and convenience; some were
filthy, from habit; all cities have that
variety.

And when all their immediate wants
were supplied, there was yet to settle
the problem of lodgings — and that in-
volved all sorts of complications; a
daughter with aged parents, a mother
and several children, an elderly man and
his invalid wife, a grandmother and grand-
children. The situations were as numer-
ous as the people. Lodgings had to be
equipped. That meant chairs, tables,
stoves, dishes, and beds at least, plus
bedding and some kind of linen.

After lodgings, clothes had to be sup-
plied. Many persons had none except
what they wore, and after several days
on muddy or dusty roads these were
hardly suitable for further wear.

Then came the question of work. Many
had never worked before, some from shift-

Her Refugees 81

baggage: coffee pots, mementoes, family
pictures. Invariably there were the fam-
ily pets, ducks, a goat, rabbits, and
always dogs. Paris had to build special
kennels for the dogs.

There were always the dregs of the city
(and often the topmost cream). Some
have had nothing and were losing nothing;
most of them have had some business, a
farm, a store, a beautiful home, a good
position. On they came together, some so
ill they could not walk alone, all patient
and quiet, simply waiting for what fate
would bring next.

The cities farther south found them-
selves suddenly deluged with their help-
less neighbors from the north. There
they were. What should be done with
them — not to-morrow, not next week,
but that minute? Buildings of all descrip-
tions were requisitioned, public build-
ings, schools, hotels, convents, unfinished
apartments. They were requisitioned for
a day or a night or weeks or months
— or years, as the need has demanded.

There were the sick to care for, at

82 Madame France

once, and they were many. There were
the hungry to feed, and that meant
everybody. They were dirty, for flee-
ing from an enemy cannot be accomplished
in luxury and convenience; some were
filthy, from habit; all cities have that
variety.

And when all their immediate wants
were supplied, there was yet to settle
the problem of lodgings — and that in-
volved all sorts of complications; a
daughter with aged parents, a mother
and several children, an elderly man and
his invalid wife, a grandmother and grand-
children. The situations were as numer-
ous as the people. Lodgings had to be
equipped. That meant chairs, tables,
stoves, dishes, and beds at least, plus
bedding and some kind of linen.

After lodgings, clothes had to be sup-
plied. Many persons had none except
what they wore, and after several days
on muddy or dusty roads these were
hardly suitable for further wear.

Then came the question of work. Many
had never worked before, some from shift-

tier Refugees 83

lessness and some from lack of necessity.
Both classes now had the same thing in
common — nothing. Self-respect does
not permit of charity, and so work had
to be secured whereby all the necessities
might be paid for in instalments. Those
who had neither self-respect nor posses-
sions had to be made to feel responsi-
bility.

All the problems of charity, social
service, and relief which any community
ever has was dumped upon city after
city in overwhelming numbers, with no
preparation and no organization for han-
dling such problems on a vast scale. There
were no relief lodges nor aid societies as
they are known in the United States.

The women of France have never
worked together in organizations. They
knew little of social service. They have
worked as a mass of individuals, rather
than as individuals in a mass. The na-
tion as a whole has been very proud of
its individualism. But whether as a mass
of individuals or individuals in a mass,
the refugees were there and had to be

84 Madame France

taken care of. Immediately individuals
and groups of individuals started organi-
zations, raised money and opened relief
shops.

During the first days of the war the
women offered their services in any way.
Those with leisure time made garments
and knitted. But when the refugees ar-
rived with neither home nor work, the
government requested the women to put
up their knitting needles and help with
the problems of the unemployed and
homeless.

Hundreds of organizations all managed
by women now exist for relief work of
every kind. Women are represented on
the boards of all other organizations.
The voluntary workers raise the money,
procure the supplies, manage the organi-
zations, give work to those who need it,
especially the many refugees, and pay a
minimum salary for the work.

The knitting needles and sewing ma-
chines were turned over to the unem-
ployed women to make the needed gar-
ments for soldiers and refugees, and thus

Her Refugees 85

they became self-supporting. Each or-
ganization has taken care of twenty to
twenty thousand. Not only did France
have the problem of her own people to
solve, but there have also been the thou-
sands of Serbians and Belgians in France
without home and country, and in need.

The names of some of the organiza-
tions give an idea of the work involved:

Central Bureau of French and Belgian Refugees,
assists 15,000 refugees.

Society complimentary to the French and Belgians,
procures food and lodging for 1,400 refugees;
700 are fed each day.

Society for Scattered Families, tries to locate mem-
bers of families which have become separated,

Committee of Devastated Aisne, accumulates stocks
of provisions for the time when the population
there shall be free.

Assistance to the Refugees and Victims of the
War, provides clothing for the babies, an em-
ployment bureau, etc., assists thirty families a
day.

Committee for the Refugees of Meurthe-et-Moselle,
assists 12,000 refugees.

86 Madame France

There are organizations to assist the
evacues from the invaded departments,
to procure clothing for the children and
for the adults, to make layettes for the
babies, to send the delicate children into
the country. Every phase of the life of
a refugee is studied and assistance is
given.

How do the various members of a
family know where to find one another
when they are so scattered throughout
France? That question forms instinc-
tively in thinking of the problem of
Northern France. It bobbed up with
great persistency almost coincident with
the flood of refugees.

"Where is my sister?" "How can I
find out where my parents are?" And
immediately from the worried men in
the army, "What has become of my wife?
Where are my children?"

As a result, two large central offices
have been established, one in Paris and
one in Lyons, where the most minute
and complete system of records is kept of
all who leave their homes through any

Her Refugees 87

channel from the invaded country. They
are classified by departements of France,
Aisne, Nord, Oise, etc.; they are classi-
fied by cities, Lille, Lens, St. Quentin;
they are classified alphabetically, by fami-
lies. All information possible concern-
ing them is secured.

These offices employ hundreds of wo-
men, all voluntary workers at first, and
they take every possible means to find
members of separated families. Often a
memory for names or addresses will help
locate a missing member. Catalogues
are issued every few weeks with complete
compilation of material, and these when
distributed lead to further information.
Every means of obtaining information is
seized. For instance, officers write to
some one from St. Quentin, whose street
address is the same as that of an inquir-
ing family, and thus knowledge is secured
of the former neighbor. Often refugees
or rapatries gave news of a friend who was
still left in the invaded districts.

The population of the invaded country
was something like three million, so very

88 Madame France

simple arithmetic is required to estimate
something of the number of cards neces-
sary to make this department a success.
Each departement of course registers all
who pass through it and cooperates with
the larger offices, so that missing members
of hundreds of families are located each
week.

After a few weeks of work it was dis-
covered that spies and codes are not con-
fined to any one locality and it therefore
became necessary to adopt a new method
of disseminating news. Soon informa-
tion to or from any one in the invaded
country or in prison camps could never
be delivered as sent. The message had
to be rewritten, the wording entirely
changed, so that enemy codes would be
worthless.

Some queer situations have arisen from
variation in viewpoints. France is not
very well acquainted with itself, and still
conforms a good deal to its old descrip-
tion — Paris, and France. Customs differ
quite widely in different parts of France,
and especially is this true regarding food.

Her Refugees 89

What is considered a necessity in one
part is a great luxury in another. For
example, the people of the north are
accustomed to having butter for break-
fast; to them it is as necessary as bread.
In the south, this is an unheard-of ex-
travagance. When the refugees from the
north were sent to the south, in accord-
ance with custom they asked for butter
for breakfast. "The extravagance of
some people, without even a home,"
was commented upon in no gentle terms
and "butter" almost caused a woman's
riot. They understand each other better
now, but it has been very difficult, es-
pecially for the older people, to become
used to new ways.

It has been equally difficult for some
cities to accept gracefully their quota of
refugees. One little city has had all its
many summer hotels filled with old peo-
ple, who outnumber the residents three
to one; some are fussy, many are ill.
Another city gets the inmates of an insane
asylum or of some houses of prostitution,
or a host of the feeble-minded. One city

90 Madame France

has room for thousands but no work for
any; another has work for thousands
but no room. To build homes for them
has not been possible for many reasons:
lack of workmen and materials and time
(France is built slowly, of stone), insta-
bility of the refugee population and lack
of knowledge of the duration of the war.
So they all have been getting along as
best they can, often excessively over-
crowded.

Another little city has handled over
sixty thousand refugees for a longer or
shorter time, from a few days to many
months. The women of the city have
worked more than faithfully through all
these years, and it is not easy work either.
They have prided themselves justifiably
in being able to meet every emergency.
The Maire thought he had them beaten
once when on a Saturday he announced
that six hundred mattresses would be
needed by Monday. There were just
three hundred mattresses available in the
city, but the women had the other three
hundred ready by Monday, though there

Her Refugees 91

were many women missing from church
on Sunday, and beds were not burdened
with occupants for long on either night.
On Monday the Maire was led trium-
phantly to the big hall in the old convent,
a refuge for refugees, and there his worries
disappeared beneath the pile of mat-
tresses, six hundred of them all ready.

This whole problem of the homeless
from the north and the homeless from
the other invaded countries, especially
Belgium and Serbia, is a most tremendous
one, both for those who have left their
homes and for those who must assist
them. The women of France have done
a wonderful work with them, but it is
not spectacular. Much of it has been
very hard physically and mentally and
emotionally; much of it has been re-
ceived with diminishing gratitude, for
generosity becomes habit both for the
giver and the receiver in some cases
after four years.

The work cannot stop with peace,
for the whole invaded, demolished north
will need assistance for many years, and

9£ Madame France

the women must continue to give it. It
cannot be done in clean workshops or in
one's home. It will have to be done
under the saddest, most disheartening,
revolting and unspeakable conditions -
but it must be done. Already the refugees
are returning, as they are permitted, to
the districts recently freed from German
invasion. Once again the problems pur-
sue-- lodging, food, clothing, materials,
work. The women who return have all
they can do; the others are helping them,
in every way that they can, and help
will be needed for a long time.

CHAPTER V

HER RAPATRIES

AS the line was pushed back in the
fall of 1914, back went the refugees
to their homes, or what was left of their
homes. Then machinery, provisions, fur-
niture, had to be provided so that they
might start life over again. Then again
the battle line came down, and this time
caught many who could not escape, so
that for two years or more they lived
under the jurisdiction of an enemy, in
their own towns. Some of these people
were finally repatriated and came back
again, through Switzerland.

The call of home was too strong to
resist and when the enemy was no longer
in their door yards, back they went again.
Then came the big drive in the spring of
1918 when Paris itself was once more
threatened. For the third time some of

94 Madame France

these same people came on ahead of the
enemy.

Why did they go back each time to a
dangerous country? Home is home, and
to a Frenchwoman it has been home for
generations and generations. There is
always the hope that at last the enemy
is repulsed for all time. The little patch
of one's own in whatever condition has
a pull which cannot be resisted.

Life in an invaded city is not what one
would voluntarily choose. Leaving out
of consideration all the cruelties of physi-
cal nature proved against the German
invader, there are agonies more tortur-
ing than physical pain to sensitive souls.
There is yet to be recorded the pleasure
of billeting German officers, by inhabit-
ants of an invaded French city. Over
and over comes the same story, of self-
ishness, discourtesy, greed — if nothing
worse were mentioned.

"The officers — they are awful, lots
worse than the soldiers." A middle-aged
nun, a rapatriee from Lens, in telling her
experiences as unwilling hostess and ser-

Her Rapatries 95

vant to German officers, could not find
suitable or strong enough words to express
her contempt. Insults, coarse and brutal
language, bestial actions, she was com-
pelled to endure day after day in her own
home, and she was powerless either to
leave or to compel the intruders to do
so. The agonies that hundreds of women
have endured while being obliged to
watch the tortures to death of loved ones
can never be computed.

The {jermans have played upon every
possible emotion in their endeavors to
weaken the spirit of the French while
they dwelt among them. Offers of food
when one is half starved, if one turn
traitor; promises of recovered family if
one leave one's country were common.

A subtly brutal incident is told of a
prominent official of one of the larger
cities. An English bomb fell upon a
building killing the French official's young
son. Immediately the Germans were
most sympathetic. "It is a great calam-
ity that has come to you, in the death of
your son by the English, but of course

96 Madame France

knowing the English as we do, it is not
surprising that they should shell French
cities and kill French children." German
officials came to the funeral bearing large
bouquets of flowers. "Accept our sym-
pathy for this great sorrow that has
come to you through the English. Is
there anything we can do for you to help
lighten your grief?"

"Yes," was the reply. "Send me home
to France." The answer was a great
disappointment after this exceptional show
of sympathy.

The Germans engaged in the publish-
ing business for some time and distributed,
free, to each convoy of rapatries copies
of the Ardennes Gazette, beautifully il-
lustrated, with poetry and jokes and
column's of "pure reading matter," though
not a great deal of emphasis should be
placed upon the "pure." This paper
was their final effort to ingratiate them-
selves with the rapatries, and their last
fling at the English.

"Before and after" pictures are dis-
played in this paper: the pleasant village

Her Rapatries 97

street, houses uninjured, trees full of
blossoms, children playing in the streets;
same picture after being bombed by the
English, showing nothing but ruins! A
corner of a French cemetery, green and
well kept, a corner of a German cemetery
even more beautifully kept, a stony ill-
kept grave of the English showing how
brutally they care for their dead! The
photograph was probably taken on some
no-man's-land before any beautifying
could be done, but the inference is that
it is typical. Then there are pictures of
children crowding around the German
doctor in an invaded village, begging him
not to leave them as they are so fond of
the kind doctor! There are pictures of
French prisoners, well groomed, in beauti-
ful surroundings, bands playing and so on.
Yes, there is the history of Napoleon
— and the inference is plain, one does
not need a magnifying glass to see it.
The greatest general that France has
ever had, one of the greatest the world
has ever known, could not beat Germany
and her Allies, so what is the use of trying

98 Madame France

now! Always in every paper there were
the latest German victories, to prove
resistance useless.

As for breaking the morale of the French
people, even of those who had lived the
lives of captives for years amidst want
and humiliation while their hearts must
have continually dilated with suppressed
rage — it did not make a dent in their
spirit, and the Ardennes Gazette has
been merely a "scrap of paper." But
the mental agony that these captives
and refugees have endured was much
more wearing than their physical depri-
vations.

In October, 1914, the first convoys of
rapatries arrived by way of Annemasse.
They were sent in irregularly every month
or so until the beginning of 1916, when
arrangements were made with the Ger-
man government and the Swiss govern-
ment to send them in regular convoys at
specified times.

The reception of the rapatries at Evian
on Lake Geneva, where the welcome home
has taken place, was one of the most per-

Her Rapatries 99

feet pieces of organization and war work
done in France. Every day for six weeks
or two months in succession, the rapatries,
arrived, about six hundred of them at
seven o'clock in the morning and another
six hundred at six o'clock in the evening.
Some had been in the invaded! country
ever since the beginning of the war, some
for only a few months. No one knew
when or how his turn might come to be
sent back to free France. That depended
entirely upon the pleasure of the invaders,
who had a strange sense of humor.

An elderly couple belonging to a promi-
nent family in France lived in Roubais,
which was captured by the Germans
during the first year of the war. A
daughter living in central France, who
has worked unceasingly since the be-
ginning of the war with the rapatries,
tried every known method to have her
parents sent back. Finally, through the
request of a ruler of a neutral country,
it was arranged that they should come
with the next convoy. The little couple
were notified by the Germans and told

100 Madame France

what train to take. They arranged the
few things they are allowed to carry out
of the country, gave all their possessions
and food to their neighbors and arrived
at the station just before train time.
Then up blustered a German officer and
told them that they could go on back to
their home; that they would see what it
meant to be under German rule; not even
the request of a king could influence a
German. He himself was the ruler! The
little couple were never able to leave the
invaded city until it was French again.
Another touch of this same humor
appeared in the evacuation of a city.
The inhabitants were told that the city
would be evacuated by quarters. The
first quarter would be allowed to take
thirty kilos of baggage ; the second quarter
might take what each could carry in a
hand bag; the third, all that could be
carried in a handkerchief apiece, and the
fourth might leave as they were born,
though this last decree was finally modi-
fied to allow them to wear the clothes
they had on.

Her Rapatries ' 10"!

No money could be taken, and there
was very little chance of smuggling it
through. Paper checks on the banks
in their city in exchange for their money
could be taken, but these were worthless
of course unless the French government
redeemed them (which it did). The ac-
tual money, however, in the invaded
country stayed there with the Ger-
mans.

The rapatries were allowed to take no
deeds, or public or private papers. Im-
agine the situation for France in the
cities which are completely destroyed
when owners try to establish claims and
boundary lines!

The sick, the starved, the aged, mothers
with several children, were usually the
ones sent back. Picture their progress!
When they finally started from their
home cities they were usually sent through
Belgium, where they were often required
to wait for days and weeks. Belgium,
also under German rule, could do nothing
for them, food was extremely high in
price, and a few weeks there was quite

"102 Madame France

enough to relieve them of the last of
their little store of money.

Then finally on through Switzerland
they went, where the Swiss Red Cross
gave them their first taste of humanity.
At St. Gingolph on the French border
they were met by a French doctor and
two nurses, the first people from home
whom many had seen in four years.
By the time the train reached Evian
they had all been ticketed, baggage for
families placed in separate specially
marked bags, preparations made for trans-
ferring the sick, and the tension had
begun to lessen.

Evian was a busy place for the ensuing
five hours after the arrival of a convoy.
The emotional side cannot be touched in
a few words. One simply has to try to
live in imagination the lives of the re-
turning folk since the war began, to
realize the scene.

Within five hours those six hundred
people were fed; formally welcomed home
with music and a speech from the mayor
of Evian; they received their mail, which

Her Rapatries 103

sometimes gave the first news in four
years of husband or son — nor was it
always happy news. They had baths
and clean clothes, were questioned by
the intelligence officers, were examined
physically, had their money changed into
French money and very carefully re-
ceipted, and if they had none or not
enough, received their allotment from
the government; they received their cards
telling where they were to spend the night,
when they were to leave and for what
place; they had their orders for new
clothing, for medical attention if neces-
sary; they were questioned as to ability,
and employment was secured, and all
was done with the greatest facility and
order.

Most of the work there was performed
by women, under the direction of the
department of the Minister of the In-
terior. The serving of the six hundred
twice a day was voluntary work. The
office work, registering, etc., was also
done by women, who did not conform to
union labor hours, but worked at least

104 Madame France

thirteen hours every day during the weeks
while the convoys were arriving.

There was a hospital for children who
needed medical care, and that meant
providing lodgings for the mothers while
the children were there. There was a
home for the aged who were not well
enough to go on at once. There was a
home for abandoned babies, including
some Boche babies, and for orphans
until arrangements could be made for
sending them on. There was even a
school for the children who had to spend
a few weeks there while brother or sister
finished with the measles or diphtheria or
gained strength enough through proper
food to go on.

No more beautiful spot could be found
for a first day at home than Evian, with
its hills, its woods, its gorgeous sunsets
and beautiful Lake Geneva. There were
still hard days ahead, for with the rapatries
as with the refugees, leaving the home of
centuries is like leaving a part of their
lives.

More pathos and humor were mixed

The Liberty Tree planted in 1870 at Evian, Switzerland*
has grown up to shade the barracks of rapatries.

Her Rapatries 105

up at Evian than one will be apt to find
elsewhere in the world, but whatever
emotion was uppermost, those women
at the registration desk never failed to
share it. To watch them one would
scarcely think that they had sympathized
or rejoiced four hundred thousand times
these past four years. They were as
genuinely interested in the good news,
the clever outwitting of the Germans,
the sorrows and tragedies, as though they
had never heard any of it before.

It is certainly appropriate that some
of the barracks for housing the rapatries
were built beneath the huge tree which
was planted at the close of the war in
1870, and has been known as the Liberty
tree. It seems prophetic of the liberty
that has come to France.

The rapatries were sent on within
twenty-four hours, if possible, to make
room for the next twelve hundred. Lyons
was the big distributing point, and from
there they went to various departements
of the country, until it is advisable for
them to return home.

106 Madame France

The element of uncertainty has been
present so constantly in war work in
France that continuous complications have
arisen and increased the work. The story
of the city of Nancy, for instance, is quite
typical of the bombarded and devastated
territories.

During the first weeks of the war
Nancy was seriously threatened and a
large part of the population fled. Then
when the danger was past the city re-
sumed a fairly normal existence, the
population returned and relief societies
were formed for the refugees from the
north and east who poured in from more
dangerous sections. Schools were estab-
lished for orphans, and relief stations,
canteens, and ouvroirs to provide work
and clothing were also established. This
work was continued with efficiency for
about three years.

In the winter of 1918 the bombarding
began again, and the city became a
dangerous place for people unable to
defend themselves in any way, especially
women and children and the aged. The

Her Rapatries 107

government ordered an evacuation as a
means of protection for nerves and life
in general. Though one may not be
afraid, constant dodging of death without
any means of protection or retaliation
begins to bring results in weakened hearts,
diminished resistance to disease, taut
nerves. This of course was increased
with the continued interruption of sleep,
not once in a while but night after night,
two and three times a night.

The city of one hundred thousand
dwindled to forty thousand. One school
moved down to southern France. An-
other school was transferred to Moulin,
near Paris. Over in Brittany some three
thousand children were sent. Nearly all
the war organizations were moved else-
where. They were still managed by the
women and men from Nancy, however,
and financed by that city. This ar-
rangement naturally complicated matters
greatly for city officials, but the work
continued.

By removing so many from their own
homes and source of supplies, incomes

108 Madame France

ceased and that meant that work must
be secured for mothers and older children.
This also necessitated breaking up fami-
lies temporarily. The majority of the
children were cared for in schools and
homes while the mothers secured work
elsewhere. The surprising part of it all
is that the forty thousand who remained
carried on their business with their nightly
pilgrimages to the refuge stations, and
all with the air of, "Well, why get ex-
cited! What can you do about it? It
won't last forever and we have stood it for
four years."

Nancy, in the midst of its own troubles,
took time to construct a beautifully sim-
ple monument to the memory of the first
three Americans who fell for France.
The citizens selected the site many months
ago but apologetically explained that they
had not been able to place the monument
as that vicinity was rather heavily shelled
just then. With all their difficulties they
kept the city organization intact though
it was pretty well scattered over France
for many months, and they continued

Her Rapatries 109

relief and protective work though many
miles removed from their own homes.

In the devastated districts close to the
Lorraine line the complications have been
more serious. It has taken much pluck
added to material assistance to go ahead
and rebuild a ruined home, and start all
over from the very beginning with noth-
ing but a pair of hands. In that section
also they learned to speak with more than
caution, for the country teemed with
spies whose methods were ingenious but
usually quickly discovered.

Older people who lived in Lorraine
in 1870 days say that after the 1870 war
they always hated to have a German
resident die, for it meant that at least
ten relatives from Germany came to the
funeral and so fell in love with the coun-
try that they never went back! This
mixing of the two races in Lorraine and
on the border has resulted in many serious
situations.

The little French border villages val-
iantly hung on, women and children work-
ing the fields, with gas masks dangling

110 Madame France

where sunbonnets ought to hang. The
workers seemed to become almost im-
pervious to bursting shells which threw
dirt in their faces or plowed up their
gardens or chipped off a corner of a
house. One marvels anew at the power
of adaptability!

CHAPTER VI

HER CHILDREN

THE word "children" suggests laugh-
ter and happiness and pink and
blue ribbons, and little lacy white dresses,
and whistles, and ball bats and snuggly
"good nights," and all that is irresistibly
lovable in the world.

What a change in one's ideas of child-
hood when seen through the eyes of
Madame France the past four years!
It seems as though there could not be
enough forgiveness in the whole world to
counterbalance the needless horrors in-
flicted simply upon the helpless childhood
of France. The pity of it, the utterly use-
less terror of it all makes one turn cold
with rage.

Will one who has seen ever forget the
little children who came down from the
north just ahead of the Germans? Can
one ever forget the utter weariness and

in

Madame France

hunger in those dirty little faces as the
tired little feet stumbled into the canteens
at Paris in the middle of the night? Will
the picture of those pinched little babies
ever fade? — babies just a few weeks
old tvho had finally cried themselves to
sleep because their hunger would not be
satisfied with only water or cold coffee
for the past few days.

No, these things will never be for-
gotten, nor the look of complete woe
when once more they were dragged from
a place where there was food and rest to
go to the Metro station to escape yet
another raid. Nor can one forget the
terror, the nightmares of some of the
little rapatries, nor the eyes of others as
they saw a lighted city at night for the
first time in four years, and cried out,
' ' Oh ! there is too much light ! The Gothas
will get us." There are some things one
does not want to forget.

About two million people have come
down from the north, three-fourths of
whom are women and children, the
greater number, children. Some of the

Her Children 113

children were with their mothers or grand-
mothers, some with neighbors, some alone.
In the invaded country their lives were
scarcely normal. In the occupied coun-
try they soon learned that the aim of
one's existence was not to tell all one
knows to an enemy, and not to know all
that said enemy thinks one should.
Deception and lying often meant saving
their own lives or their families'.

They. saw destruction and death, some-
times of friends, sometimes of their own
mothers, often horrible sights which it
takes them many, many months to forget,
or at least to push into the background
of their minds. They lived on what
food they could get, not what they
needed. They spent nights in damp cel-
lars. They lost sleep. They had in-
sufficient clothing. The women who
worked with the rapatries tell some piti-
ful tales. They tell them quietly, with-
out emotion. After four years there are
neither words to express emotions, nor
degrees beyond the superlative, so one
goes back to simple statements.

114 Madame France

Many babies were left at Evian, no one
knows by whom, or from where. Occa-
sionally a woman left a Boche baby
because she couldn't keep her family
and that baby! Occasionally a mother
left her other children, and kept the
Boche baby - - because it needed her
and was helpless and the others could
take care of themselves. A home for all
abandoned babies was established in Lyons,
where they are given every care and
are to be trained and educated.

One day six children came in a convoy
to Evian, without any relatives. They
were all quite young. It was soon learned
that their mother, after continued and
pestering questions from the Germans,
had unconsciously given some informa-
tion which led to the arrest of her hus-
band as a spy, and his speedy death. Her
grief was so great that she killed her-
self. The six children were alone in the
world.

One little girl who seemed to be with-
out relatives in the convoy was in such
a nervous state that she had nightmare

A Boche baby learns democracy with his French companions
in a Lyons hospital.

No munition works or camouflage factory was complete
without its nursery.

Her Children 115

night after night upon arriving at Lyons.
It was finally necessary to give her special
care and isolation from the other children.
She continually cried at night, "Mamma
is killed, her blood is over everything,
and it is warm! It is warm! Brother is
killed too." After many months of care-
ful nursing she became more quiet. The
nurses thought perhaps she was dream-
ing a good deal of it. One day in another
convoy, a girl a little older told the same
story, the death of the mother with the
same comments, and the death of the
brother. Some one remembered the story
of the first little girl and arrangements
were made to have the children see each
other, on the chance that they might be
related. Those who saw the meeting of
the two little sisters can scarcely tell of
it without tears in their eyes. The mother,
two little girls and the brother had been
in a cellar during a bombardment. A
shell burst there, killing the mother and
injuring the brother so badly that he soon
died. The two little girls had become
separated. Can such things ever fade

116 Madame France

from a childish mind so that they leave
no scar?

Not all was sad at Evian. Sometimes
a child discovered a former playmate
from home, and great tales were dis-
closed. Sometimes the children realized
quickly that at last they could talk, and
their little tongues flew. The average
child forgets soon, which is well. Those
who do not forget have suffered in these
few years more tortures than the average
adult endures in a lifetime.

On the second of August, 1914, the
first society for caring for orphans was
organized. In the hurry of mobiliza-
tion many men did not know where to
turn for care for their motherless or
otherwise needy children while they were
gone. At once they were told not to
worry, the children would be provided
for, and thus Les Orphelin de la Guerre
was organized, which cares for the or-
phans and half orphans. The number of
children cared for has reached nearly
one and a half million.

Down on the Riviera there are many

Her Children 117

lovely estates and hotels which were
taken for the children. Here they could
be out of doors a great part of the year,
and everything was done to strengthen
the little bodies. They ate out of doors
at tables under the trees, they often had
their lessons out of doors, they swam in
the sea or played in the hills. All possible
was done to take away the feeling of an
institution. There are orphan homes else-
where in France, presided over by refugee
nuns and other devoted French women.

During the spring of 1918 when the air
raids on Paris and the vicinity were severe,
there was much concern over the welfare
of the children, the most valuable posses-
sions of France. The alerte sounded five
minutes before the lights in the city were
turned off when a raid was signaled.
Five minutes is not a long time to get into
clothes when suddenly awakened from a
sound sleep, and hurry rapidly to a
place of safety down several flights of
winding stairs to a Metro station a block
or two away. A mother was kept busy
when there were several children to pro-

118 Madame France

tect. To sit sleepily on a cold cellar
floor, with not quite enough clothes on,
perhaps several nights a week, is not
conducive to health, either. Bad colds
and much bronchitis resulted.

So the government made plans to have
all children sent farther south if their
parents wished. Many who could afford
to go took their children or sent them to
a place of safety. If they had not the
means they had at least the opportunity
through the government offer or through
several private organizations. Thousands
of children spent the summer months of
1918 where there were no dim lights, un-
less because of a scarcity of petrol, where
there were no raids and no guns.

The machinery necessary, mental and
otherwise, to transfer these children, was
quite stupendous. First must be found
the places in central or southern France
where they could be sent. This meant
private homes in each of which one or
more children were received for three or
four months — more if the raids con-
tinued. If private homes were not avail-

Her Children 119

able small hotels which could be taken
for the summer, or other similarly equipped
buildings were requisitioned. The per-
sonnel for running them and materials
for furnishing had to be secured, and
arrangements had always to be made for
proper medical attendance and nursing.

Then came the task of checking the
children, getting them ready, deciding
where to send each one, having each
examined physically. Also arrangements
had to be made for special trains, some-
times for two hundred children, some-
times for as many as eight hundred at
one time. Permission had to be obtained
to take them, arrangements made for
transportation to the station if the chil-
dren were small, and adults secured to
accompany the children on the journey,
which usually took at least twelve hours.

Such a trip lasts long in memory!
Most mothers consider traveling for a
few hours with two or three children, at
most, quite an undertaking. Try man-
aging twenty or thirty for twelve hours,
including all of the night in French third

120 Madame France

class cars! No wonder some few frail
little things found the excitement too
much and spent a couple of days after-
ward wearing out a fever. Usually when
a convoy of children was large, one city
was used as a distributing point and
various little journeys were made from
there, an hour or two distant, with the
children chosen for these places.

Then in the fall came the task of gath-
ering them all together and bringing
them back. A good deal of clerical
work was necessary to check names and
locations and report to the parents. These
organizations were run almost entirely by
women.

Some of the children were taken into
the Pyrenees, some to the Mediterranean
and some to central France. Down on
the Riviera there is a beautiful estate
valued at two million dollars, owned by
a German. When war began the French
government sealed the rooms and the
property stood idle for a long time. Then
it was opened, all the furnishings packed,
stored in one story of the house, the

Her Children

doors to these rooms sealed, and the rest
of the house made into a rest home for
Parisian children who were sent away
from the German bombs.

Colonies for the many children who
have contracted tuberculosis have been
established in various parts of France
and these too, of course, require the serv-
ices of many women.

One big problem which the French have
solved is the care of small children while
the mothers work in factories, especially
in the munition factories. The muni-
tions had to be made, the supply of men
was not sufficient, the women were will-
ing to work, but what could be done with
the small children? Many women were
refugees and had no one at all with whom
to leave them. So the plan which has
been used in some French factories for
many years was quite generally adopted.

In the grounds of each factory was
built a creche, where children are taken
care of during the day. The building
for small babies under three years is
called a puponniere. The creche takes

Madame France

care of those between that age and five
years. The garderie is where children
above five are sent. The word creche
has come to be used quite generally,
however, as the place where any children
are cared for.

These buildings are as modern and
sanitary as can be. The methods vary
slightly in each place but, in general,
each baby when it is brought in the morn-
ing is bathed and dressed entirely in
clothes provided by the factory. Com-
petent nurses care for the babies during
the day. There is a big room full of
cribs for the naps and a room where the
mothers put on clean white cover-alls
and nurse their babies. There are diet
kitchens and cunning dining-rooms where
the toddlers eat; there are toys and
gardens. Sometimes the babies are kept
all week, going home with their mothers
only for Sunday. At some creches every-
thing for the children is done by the
attendants; at others, the mothers are
themselves required to keep the children
up to a certain standard.

1

cfi k>

I I

S M

Jit

!-s

a>

o

&

Her Children 123

In Paris, where the babies remained
over night, the creches had especially
equipped cellars, with duplicate baskets
or cribs for the raids. Some skill was
required to carry forty babies down to
the cellar in five minutes. But the nurses
only smiled about it and said, "It isn't
difficult when you are used to it, and
sometimes the babies don't even waken!"
Everything is done to encourage the
mothers .to care for their children in the
best manner possible and while the out-
come is not always encouraging from
that standpoint, at least the children are
given every chance.

The garderies have a great assortment
of children, especially during the weeks
when the public schools are closed. The
children are taught games and lessons,
kept out of doors as much as possible
and required to be neat and orderly and
polite. For some of them this is their
first lesson along such lines.

The creches are usually very attrac-
tive, and not built in the factory style of
architecture at all. The contrast is quite

124 Madame France

striking as one stands in the doorway of
a creche, carefully walled in from its
surroundings. Bright flower beds all
around, neat little paths and perhaps a
patch of grass in front greet the eye;
rooms within clean and bright; walls
decorated with fascinating yappy ducks,
or floppy-eared dogs, or teasing cats chas-
ing along the picture molding. Across
the wall on any side is the factory, with
its noise and dirt, its piles of shells waiting
to be sent north, or cars of raw metal
ready to make more shells.

Child life in France became all topsy-
turvy, and the real world which is not
full of death and destruction of man's
own making will seem a queer place to
some who have known nothing else since
they have been old enough to know any-
thing at all. War was written — no, not
written, but fairly plastered — over every-
thing. Tiny legs are wound with spiral
puttees just like brother's, hat bands con-
tain the word "Verdun" or "Marne"
or "Ypres," showing where father fought
— and perhaps fell. Toys are soldiers

Her Children 125

or nurses, games are of war, often with
real shells exploding near. Some patheti-
cally humorous situations resulted.

A little lad of eight called at a school in
Lyons one day for his seven-year-old
sister. It was a bit unusual, but the
instructor allowed her to go, thinking the
mother had sent for her. Late in the
afternoon the mother came to inquire
why the child had not been sent home at
the usual time. The circumstances were
related and a search was made for the
children. They were finally discovered
a long way from home, trying to find the
proper place where the little boy could
enlist as a soldier and his sister as a
nurse.

A baby of three who had never seen his
father was not allowed to forget that
such a person existed and was periodically
shown pictures of father in his uniform,
before he went to war, with his gun, etc.
Finally one day father came home on
permission. The child was introduced
to him with the words, most excitedly
spoken, "This is your father!" With

126 Madame France

the recollection of the numerous pictures
called "father" the child looked up in a
puzzled way and said, "Which one?"

There is one place in Paris where raids
have nothing but pleasant associations.
Down in one of the poorer districts is a
little settlement which has been doing
excellent work for seventeen years. The
directress, a most charming woman, has
tried to make this spot a haven, in the
world's distress, for the people of her
community. The building is considered
safe, so all the neighbors came there when
the alerte sounded. As the directress lives
there she was always on hand during a
raid. She tried to make the hour or
two or more as happy as possible for the
children, often with music and games,
usually with hot chocolate and bread.

One day when there had been no raids
for several weeks, a little child asked her
rather wistfully, "Aren't we ever going
to have any more Gothas? We have not
had chocolate for a long time!" The
directress added, with a touch of sadness,
"Thirty-three of my settlement boys have

Her Children 127

fought for France. Five are yet liv-
ing."

France is not an individualistic nation
now when she considers her children. It
is not "your child and my child" but "our
children." They must in time rebuild,
repopulate, redevelop France. They are
the greatest asset of the nation and the
women of France must train and educate
not only each her own, but all those who
have not proper care, or home or parents.
Their bodies must be made strong to
resist the great army of disease germs,
their minds must be made keen to enable
them to think the best for France, their
souls must outgrow the many scars of
the past four years, to make possible the
fulfilment of the ideals for which so many
fathers have given their lives. To ac-
complish this is now part of the work of
the women of France.

CHAPTER VII

HER SCHOOLS IN WAR TIME

THE once familiar picture of the
child starting for school each morn-
ing with his bag of books in one hand
and an apple in the other and care far
removed from his brow, will have to
undergo many changes to portray accu-
rately the French school child of the past
four years.

France wants her children educated,
or instructed, as she prefers to call it, and
neither bombs, nor Berthas, nor gas, nor
falling walls have prevented her from so
doing. Nothing is as it was, but then
nothing in the whole of France is as it was.

However, instruction has gone right
on. In the invaded districts the apple
in the school child's hand gave place
sometimes to the gas mask, and the
customary school room was transferred

128

Her Schools in War Time 129

to a cellar in many cases, but teacher and
pupils were there regularly each day
and the children learned to count by
falling shells and cannon booms. They
studied about all the battles fought
throughout the ages in their very city,
and they watched Liberty struggle once
more almost in their doorway.

In Paris the schools were not closed for
a day of their customary sessions, though
conditions have been far from natural.
Air raids disturbed a great deal, and the
minds of little folks who are awakened
night after night cannot be quite as keen
as if their owners had had more sleep.

When Big Bertha arrived, there was
even more difficulty, as there was no tell-
ing when she would hit or where. She
seemed for a time to choose a certain
section of the city in which a large girls'
school was located. Windows were sand-
bagged and every possible precaution
taken. One of the teachers apologized
one day for having so little time for an
interview.

"It is just examination time and the

130 Madame France

girls have been much interrupted this
past week with so many raids at night,
when they cannot get their sleep, and by
the big gun during the day which has
hit quite near us several times. The
rooms are now so dark that it is some-
times difficult to work, and there is really
not enough air because of the sand-bags.
But the girls have been splendid through
it all, and will pass their examinations
all right."

She neglected to say that her own
sleep had been further disturbed by the
arrival at night of a friend from an
evacuated city, who had no place to go,
and that her home was now shared by
the friend.

France has been obliged to try an ex-
periment in the realm of public instruc-
tion and to her surprise has found it
satisfactory. To mix the sexes in school,
either pupils or teachers, has been quite
unknown. There are no coeducational
schools and it has been the custom for
men to teach in the boys' schools and
women in the girls'. When so many of

Her Schools in War Time 131

the men instructors left with their com-
panies, it became necessary to put in
some women instructors, if the schools
were to remain open. The plan has
proved very successful, even to discipline.

This, however, is not the only change
which war has wrought in the educational
system. In Lyons, for example, one of
the finest lycees for girls was requisi-
tioned almost at once for a hospital for
the French wounded. Did the school
cease to exist? Not at all. The seven
hundred students moved over into an
annex of a boys' lycee and for three years
continued their work as before, but in
the space intended for three hundred.

A normal school for young women in
the same city was also used as a hospital.
The pupils moved into a very tiny por-
tion of the building and held many of
their classes in the outside court as the
only available space. The director of
the normal school continued her work as
head of the normal school and assumed
in addition the directorship of the hos-
pital.

132 Madame France

Over and over again teachers gave up
all vacations to do the extra work in-
volved. In the invaded country many
organized relief organizations, helped with
ambulances, took on the work of a city
official absent at the front, besides con-
tinuing their own work. Numbers of
the teachers taught all day and worked
two or three nights every week at a
hospital because there was so great need
and so little help.

, Other complications arose with the
coming of refugees. The great influx
meant opening new school rooms, wher-
ever space could be found, or doubling
and trebling the number of pupils for
each teacher. This meant cutting into
halves or thirds the ordinary space con-
sidered necessary for pupils. Paper is
scarce in France, very little publishing is
now being done, and books are expen-
sive. Refugees had little money, so
old books had to be used, and every book
and piece of paper carefully treasured.

Some of the refugees themselves were
teachers in their own cities and whenever

"Aliens, enfants!"

Their mothers are in a munition factory. The children are
from a Garderie, and are singing the Marseillaise.

Outdoor school in Nice for cliildren brought away from Paris
to escape air raids and the big gun.

Her Schools in War Time 133

possible positions were found for them.
The work with the refugees was very
difficult as they were not always a stable
population, nor did they come and go at
the regular time for entrance or depar-
ture of pupils. Any teacher knows what
that means.

There are the thousands of orphans
also who are being colonized. Their in-
struction cannot be neglected, teachers
and materials and equipment have to be
provided for them. The only coeduca-
tional room thus far discovered in France
has made its appearance in one of the
orphanages and this new experiment is
being watched with interest.

Again, the many thousands of children
sent down from Paris and other raided
cities needed instruction. The Germans
did not wait until the close of the school
term for raids and bombardments, so
again the ordinary routine was broken and
the needs of the moment were met.
Many of these children were delicate in
health and could not do the ordinary
work, so special arrangements were made

134 Madame France

for them. In almost every case the
teachers were women.

With so many changes in business, it
was necessary in occupations for women
to reorganize courses of study, and even
types of schools. Trade schools have
been established for children, especially
for orphans and children who will be
obliged to earn their own living. Trade
schools have also been organized for
teaching war widows left with families
to support. Technical schools have been
opened at Paris and at Lyons especially,
where young women may equip them-
selves for positions as assistant engineers,
secretaries, industrial designers, for po-
sitions in customs offices, commercial and
industrial legislation, mechanics, etc.

The new school at Lyons opened Octo-
ber, 1917, with an enrolment of seventy-
one, forty-three in the industrial course
and twenty in the commercial courses.
Many young women are entering the
field of chemistry, though that has always
been more of a woman's study in France
than in some other countries. Women

Her Schools in War Time 135

are even now holding positions in factory
laboratories, pharmacies, and in the de-
partments of food analysis.

Practically the only courses which were
suspended in any of the schools were the
domestic science courses, because of the
scarcity of food and gas. These will be
resumed when conditions are normal and
the whole question of home economics
will receive large consideration.

English is being studied in every nook
and corner of France. Aside from the
present invasion of English-speaking
armies, and the consequent desire to be
friendly with them, it was seen that there
would be a great advantage after the war
in the commercial world for those who
knew English. This was recognized not
only in the big business world of France
but even by the servants.

A little maid at Hotel Petrograd in
Paris, the Young Women's Christian Asso-
ciation hotel for women, was seen study-
ing most diligently a small English book
and dictionary after her work for the day
was done. When questioned as to why

136 Madame France

she worked so hard to learn English she
replied in a voice which showed polite
surprise at one's ignorance, "Why, no one
will be able to do much business after the
war unless she can speak English!" She
was then reading some American fables
and found them "very interesting but a
little hard yet."

France is becoming one large English
class, with its private teachers and special
classes and courses in schools and univer-
sities, and Young Womens Christian Asso-
ciation classes for girls. It is of course a
fair exchange, for all the rest of the world
is borrowing some French person to assist
with all the French words between the
nouns and verbs. The registrar of a
Paris Berlitz school smiled at the ques-
tion, "Do you have many American
pupils here?" and replied, 'Yes, this
is a regular American barracks."

The universities have increased their
enrolment of young women and are chang-
ing courses to fit present needs, and are
opening more and more courses to young
women.

Her Schools in War Time 137

Aside from these many changes which
the war has brought to France and her
past ways of doing things, the pupils never
forgot that their country was at war.
Wherever inquiry was made, in Paris, in
central France, in the south, the pupils
have been giving and working for the
refugees or the army.

One school reports that every child
had given twenty-five centimes each week
(about five cents) since the war began to
buy materials to make layettes for the
babies, clothes for the refugees, socks for
the soldiers. The children did a certain
amount at school in connection with their
sewing lessons and gave three hours a
week outside of school hours.

A school of poorer children gave each
ten centimes a week or even less. If a
child had a poor refugee relative, she was
allowed to give the garments that she
made to the relative. The pupils of one
school gave a certain portion of their
chocolate allowance each week for the
prisoners in Germany. Chocolate has
been almost as much a part of the daily

138 Madame France

diet of a Frenchman as white bread has
been to an American, and has been very
scarce.

Some teachers have rather apologized
for a lessening of the pace of the first
two years. Perhaps it will not be held
against them, all things considered!

CHAPTER VIII

HER SOCIAL LIFE

FRANCE is closely bound by tradi-
tion and the customs of generations
and either finds it difficult to change, or
does not care to do so. The custom of
wearing black, including much crepe, as
a mark of respect for her dead is practi-
cally universal. Mourning is worn a
definite length of time for each grade of
relative (two years for a husband) , through
the stages of deep mourning, light mourn-
ing, back to normal life, and the veil is
long and thick. For parents or parents-
in-law the period is eighteen months.

At the beginning of the war France
had not time to discuss what she would
do when her men should be killed. They
were killed almost at once and in large
numbers and the women simply did what
they have always done; each put on her

139

140 Madame France

black garments and continued to wear them
the customary time. As one after an-
other of her family were killed, many a
French woman has remained in black
since the beginning of the war.

Custom also excludes social life during
certain periods of mourning. Conse-
quently there was almost no social life in
France during the war. That does not
mean that France did nothing social, how-
ever. Society for pleasure was practi-
cally abolished, but any forms of social
gatherings which benefited the war were
continued. For example, many entertain-
ments were given for the benefit of the
Fund for the Blind, for the Orphans' Fund,
for the School for Mutiles, for any one
of the hundreds of funds to relieve war
victims. Fairs have been held, moving
pictures, concerts and theatricals given.

After the American invasion, there were
difficulties in some sections. Movies
could be given only in certain buildings
with certain electrical connections. In
a number of villages the French plans
had to be canceled, as the Americans were

Her Social Life 141

occupying the only suitable buildings and
the Red Cross did not permit the build-
ings it controlled to be used for money-
making purposes. But the French very
gracefully accepted the inevitable and
gave the movies anyway, free, for the
benefit of the American convalescents
in the village, and made plans to hold
them for themselves in another city.

There were no large dinners and dances
and teas. Occasionally a friend was in-
vited to dinner, and the hostess apologized
for the necessity of asking the friend to
bring bread ticket and sugar! But all
such things became so common, little was
thought of it.

In May, 1918, France held her first
art exhibit in four years, the proceeds from
admissions going to war funds. The many
bows of crepe in the corners of pictures
showed how the pride of France in her
art was mingled with sorrow for the
death of her artists.

France had among other tasks con-
nected with the war that of being hostess
to all her allies. Permissions or leaves

142 Madame France

for her own men were few and scattered
during those first years, and when father
did come home, everything stopped as
far as possible in honor of his visit. The
regular routine was so entirely upset that
one small girl who had not had the pleas-
ure of knowing her father very well,
because of his long absence, remarked
after his departure, "Is that man gone?
Maybe we can have some quiet now!"

When the first permissions were granted
the question arose at once, Where should
the men go whose homes were in the
occupied territory? French pay for poilus
is not large. Many men had lost home
and business and family, in the north.
These men must be made welcome by
the rest of France. So organizations were
formed for taking care of them, canteens
were opened and lodgings provided.
Many families added one or more sol-
diers on permission to their own numbers
for a few days.

France has been invaded by friend
and foe. As the strength of the enemy
continued, more and more allies came

Her Social Life 143

to her assistance, most of them from a
great distance. There were her own colo-
nies, a different people, a different color
and race. Something must be done for
them. There were the homeless Bel-
gians, the Serbs, the Czecho-Slovaks, the
Greeks, the Chinese, the Italians, the
Russians (whose position after the break-
up of the Russian army became quite
unenviable). Then there were all the
English-speaking people, the English
themselves who could usually go home
to England for permissions, the New
Zealanders and Australians who were so
many thousands of miles from home, the
Canadians and their next-door neighbors,
the Americans.

The women of these countries all wanted
their men well cared for; many of the
men did not see women of their own
countries for four years ! Madame France
was supposed to represent Canadian
women to the Canadians, Belgian women
to the Belgians, American women to the
Americans. In addition to all her other
work she did the best sh,e could to be not

144 Madame France

only war worker, but hostess for these
numerous strange men. She opened her
home to many, she helped organize clubs,
Franco-American, Franco-Canadian, and
many other Franco's.

She did countless things which she had
never done before. She has never per-
mitted her daughters to walk alone with
men on the street. She tried to realize
that it is "done" by the best families in
other countries. She has heretofore kept
her evenings for her family and intimate
friends. She gradually added to this
group a few of the "foreigners" who have
no other time, and because it is their
custom at home to visit in the evening!

She heard in these conversations, and
her daughters heard, of things utterly
foreign to the customs of her country - - of
coeducation from the primary grade
through the university, of girls' societies,
of club work, of girls (the best there are)
who travel alone, of careers for women
who are not obliged financially to indulge
in them, of the finest college women in
the nursing profession! She heard these

Her Social Life 145

things, and sometimes wondered just where
she would find herself when all should
be over and the invaders, both foe and
friend, departed.

It was not always easy to play the hos-
tess, for oftentimes the black garments
had not been worn long, and oftentimes
her own men had returned mutilated,
blind, tubercular, needing much of her
attention. But she shoved her respon-
sibilities up a little closer to make room
for one more, and appeared gay, no matter
how she felt.

CHAPTER IX

HER RELIGION

IT is not difficult to see the material
things accomplished by an individual
or even by a nation, nor is it difficult to see
the changes in material situations. It
is even possible to understand mental
changes and emotions. But to see and
understand the soul of an individual or
of a nation is extremely hard. Feelings,
beliefs, the guiding motives of life are not
easily expressed nor are they always
truly portrayed in deeds.

France has been struggling for many
generations to express her own soul to her-
self. She has tried through ceremonies,
and bloodshed, through legislation,
through power, through indifference,
but always as a nation of individ-
uals. A national soul is not the sum
or the average of its individual souls.

146

Her Religion 147

My ideals plus your ideals do not make
our nation's ideals. A national soul is
something outside of each individual soul.
It is more than any one or the sum of all,
but is included in each. It is perhaps
the sum of the sacrifice of individual
souls for the soul of the whole.

As a collection of individuals, France
has sacrificed and endured and suffered
- and remained unembittered and calm.
The sum of the individual sacrifices and
devotion can never be computed. What
has been the impelling power to keep her
sane, she hardly knows herself. Per-
haps it has been philosophy, perhaps it is
religion, perhaps a mixture of both. But
if philosophy, it has been close kin to
religion.

Is France more religious than she was
when the war began? How can one tell?
France is a religious nation, and the form
and power which religion should have
have caused much discussion and many
battles. The predominating form of re-
ligion is Catholicism, though France wants
it understood that she is not priest-ridden.

148 Madame France

The separation of church and state took
place in 1905, but the separation of church
and politics is not yet fully accomplished.

Those who are not Catholics have
been called atheists, but this is about as
close to the truth as to say that all who
are not Methodists or Baptists are not
Christians. Some did not like the cere-
monies, or the confessional, or the au-
thority of the Catholic form of religion,
and have ceased to conform, but this
does not imply that they are not religious.
Service has supplanted services, as re-
ligious expression for many.

Protestantism is a tiny little bark in
the sea of Catholicism and though the
sea is rather rough at times, the bark is
persistent. Intolerance has not been en-
tirely abolished from the religious code of
ethics. However, every one has learned
much during these four years, and it may
be that a national religion, regardless of
the form of expression, may result.

There were in the French army some
25,000 priests, of whom 300 were chap-
lains; 340 Protestant ministers were also

Her Religion 149

in the ranks, 68 of them chaplains. To-
gether they have fought and prayed to
the same God, through different word
expressions. Hundreds of Catholic sis-
ters and Protestant women have worked
unceasingly and have sacrificed and suf-
fered, to relieve the suffering of others.
Perhaps it has been that their own souls
may be saved, perhaps it has been that
the souls of others might be comforted.
The impelling force is the same. Whether
it has all meant more religion or greater
opportunities for expression of the reli-
gion which has always existed within, is
hard to tell.

The Catholic church has done all in
its power to give spiritual aid to its be-
lievers. Some say that religion has taken
a deeper hold upon the Catholic people
and cite as proof the great increase in
the sale of candles. Others say that that
increase is due to the great number of
deaths and therefore is simply conformity
to custom. Still others say that it is
due to the scarcity of petrol in many
places, which thus makes candles the

150 Madame France

only method of illumination. Church at-
tendance seems about the same. The
population has shifted so greatly that
this also is difficult to estimate. There
seems to be no standard of this kind by
which to judge. Old residents have gone,
new ones have come, and the changes are
frequent.

An interesting discussion has been tak-
ing place in some of the Protestant
synods. So many of the ministers went
to the front that it was difficult to keep
the work of the church progressing satis-
factorily. It was sometimes difficult to
find ministers to perform marriage cere-
monies, conduct funerals and administer
baptism. The question of admitting
women to the office of minister, either with
all a minister's duties and functions, or
as assistant, has been very thoroughly
discussed, pro and con.

The pros have won out however and
France will soon have a training course
for women for the ministry. The ad-
mission for candidacy will be very care-
fully made and the training will include

Her Religion 151

such courses as will enable a candidate to
do social service work as a part of her
parish responsibility. This is indeed an
innovation occasioned by the war.

Judged by outside standards, France
is at least as religious as she was four
years ago. An inner feeling one can
judge only by conversation and general
attitude. It is quite impossible that any
nation or any number of people could
go through the things that have befallen
France, during the past four years, with-
out doing a great deal of thinking. The
people can never possibly come out of it
as they went in. Inevitably they must
be either more hard, brutal, and cynical,
or more gentle and considerate.

The faces of the French, the men who
come from the hell they have gone through
or the women who have endured so much
because of their sufferings, are not the
faces of cynics or of brutes. Neither do
they show a spirit of senseless resigna-
tion, of self-abnegation. They seem to
reflect only a courage to serve on, with
the best of heart and mind and body

152 Madame France

until the curse is lifted forever from their
land and their souls, and then to serve on
just the same.

Over and over again one hears women
of France saying, "The most serious
thing I ever did in my life before the war
was to dress for a card party. I can
never go back to that world when the
war is over." Her "card party" for
four years has been the care of hundreds
of refugees, and refugees are often dirty
and uneducated and unrefined. Or day
after day, or night after night she has
worked with the wounded, and that is
sometimes pretty hard on the stoutest
nerves. Or she has served at depot can-
teens long, long hours at a time. "I
can never go back to the old world. I
did not know there was so much to do
in the world. I must continue to help."
All this may not be religion, but it is
certainly a very close imitation.

CHAPTER X

HER HANDICAPS

TO understand just what the war has
meant to the woman of France
and what problems she had to face almost
from the beginning, it is absolutely es-
sential that the France of these four
years be understood. There is not a
tiny corner of the whole country which
is normal. First, last and all the time,
France has been an invaded country
and the battlefield of the war, in the west.
That immediately takes France out of
the class of other combatants and gives
her entirely different situations and prob-
lems. The war work done, and the man-
ner of doing it and the peace problems
to be faced cannot be compared with
that of any other country because there
is no other where the situation is the
same.

The whole of France can be tucked

153

154 Madame France

into the state of Texas and still give
Texas something like 50,000 square miles
of elbow room. Considering the average
density of population for the two coun-
tries, France, 189.5 per square mile and
Texas, 14.8 for the same space, a great
many more people would have to be
added to Texas to make the situations
comparable at all. In some sections of
the north of France the density is 776
per square mile. The 1911 census gave
France a population of about 39,000,000,
which means that there are many cities
and villages (36,000) and they are rather
close together. Texas with 50,000 square
miles more has less than 4,000,000 popu-
lation. The invaded territory was popu-
lated to the extent of about 3,000,000,
scattered through scores and scores of
cities and villages, ranging from a few
hundred in population to the 206,000 in
Lille.

Some of the oldest civilization of France
had its beginnings in this invaded country.
Some of the most historic buildings, the
most beautiful architecture, tapestries and

Her Handicaps 155

other works of art belonged in this sec-
tion. That is not all, however. For
with the love of art which France pos-
sesses, she has her practical side.

Her cities were busy places with smelt-
ing works, and mills, with quarries and
mines. Flax and hemp were spun and
woven. The lawns and laces of Amiens,
Armentieres, Dunkirk, Valenciennes, and
the net of Calais are known far beyond
France. Woolen goods were woven in
Lille, Roubaix, Reims, and Sedan. Cot-
ton cloth and velvet were made at Lille,
Amiens, St. Quentin and Rouen.

The greatest sugar mills in France were
in this section. So were the greatest
coal mines, where more coal was mined
than in all the rest of France together.
The largest slate quarry was also in this
section. Then there were factories for
making plate glass, hardware, paper, vine-
gar, candles, boots, chemicals, tapestries,
umbrella and knife handles, buttons and
a long list of other commodities. To all
that must be added rich farming lands,
and the usual business firms and banks.

156 Madame France

Everything was working busily until
the beginning of August, 1914. Since
then — surely this cannot be the same
country !

Where are the 3,000,000 people of the
invaded territory?

Nearly all not in the army were thrust
into the rest of France, where they came
homeless, and without funds and work,
without food and with much illness.

The factories and the historical places
and the homes and the farms and the
mines and all the rest?

Everything possible has been carried
into Germany, most of the rest destroyed.
Before the war, the destruction of a little
city by storm or fire was a great calamity.
Villages and cities by the hundreds in
France have been demolished, dismantled,
burned, completely desolated and ruined.
In one city, only one wall of one church
remains standing.

This means not only the destruction of
property but the destruction of the means
of subsistence for three million people.
On one hand the supply of food and fuel

Her Handicaps 157

)

for Prance has been reduced, and it
never was sufficient for her needs without
outside importations; on the other hand
the number of people to be fed and cared
for on this decreased supply has been
greatly increased. This is one reason
why Madame France fills what was once
her coal bin with every possible chip and
stick, and why she no longer makes her
famous rolls and pastry.

Every few weeks during the past four
years, the various allies have read with
interest that England had landed so
many troops or that a certain number of
Canadians or Australians or Americans
were in France, and every one, including
France, rejoiced. But no one except
France has quite realized what it meant
to have friends as well as foes upon her
soil.

There was Belgium, who had to borrow
a little corner of France to call her official
home for a few years. There were the
many Belgian refugees of all ranks to be
cared for. There was the Belgian army
which had to be reorganized and rearmed.

158 Madame France

The same had to be done for the Serbians
and the Greeks. France did it.

There were the British troops and the
Italian, and lastly the Americans, to
provide with locations for docks, recrea-
tion centers, hospitals, aviation fields,
hotels, business offices, training camps,
railroads and other activities. The
greater the influx, the greater the needs
of all kinds.

Different business methods prevailed
in each of the allied countries, and France
had to understand each or try to have the
allies understand hers. There is, for ex-
ample, a long distance between the delib-
erate methods of France and the do-it-
yesterday methods of America. Then
there came the problems of recompense
to the landholders for all the space used
by the allies in their different phases of
preparation and work. There were all
the problems of ammunition for her own
army; and aeroplanes, tanks, and am-
munition to make for some of her allies.
France has attended to it all, and at the
close of the third year of the war was

Her Handicaps 159

holding 574 kilometers of the 739 on the
western front. It has been a tremendous
task, much larger than is always realized,
because, once more — France was the
battle ground.

Some of the tasks of the women sound
simple, perhaps, but consider the situa-
tion, more in detail. Have you impor-
tant business to transact?

Telephone! There are no telephones
or perhaps only one, except in large cities
and very few there.

Telegraph! Very well, but the station
is some distance away, and you will have
to show your papers.

Take an auto! Auto? There are no
such things except military autos and a
few taxis.

Call a taxi then. Certainly, if you
can find one within a few blocks, but if
you go out of town in a taxi you must
get special permission from the police,
and his office is not open between twelve
and two P.M. Also the allotment of gaso-
line may not be sufficient for the taxi
driver to take you there.

160 Madame France

Motor cycle? Have you permission
to ride on that out of the city?

Ah, you are thoroughly disgusted and
will walk, as it is only a few miles. Very
good, but have you your permission to
walk outside of town?

Trains are uncertain. War supplies
and troops take precedence. Trains may
be on time and they may be twelve hours
late. Did you register with the police
before starting for the station? No
ticket otherwise. Sleeper? It is possible,
but hardly probable, and will cost you
ten dollars a night!

Send a letter? Most certainly, send
it — but don't look for an answer. It
may take two days to go an eight-hour
trip and it may take six weeks.

And even if all permissions are per-
fectly satisfactory and you have registered
with the police and you have your ticket
and the way seems perfectly clear, the
rules for travel may change over night
and nothing you have will be valid.
There have been spies to guard against
and nothing stays for long as it was.

Her Handicaps 161

These were some of the joys of living
as a civilian in warring France and they
perhaps explain why women's war work
was not done in France in the way that
it was done in countries farther removed
from the recent conflict.

Such a simple matter as calling an
organization together by a notice in the
weekly or daily paper meets with two
difficulties. First there are few if any
organizations in smaller cities, and second,
only cities of some size have newspapers.
These are small, two or four pages at
most, because of custom and the present
lack of paper. There are no civic or-
ganizations, no literary societies, clubs,
lodges or orders for adults and children
which are found abundantly in the United
States. France knows the idea of unity
but not the practical application of it.
One must understand all these things to
understand how France accomplished her
work, especially her woman's work.

A cross section of the daily life of
Madame France in no way resembles a
similar section before the war. Life is

162 Madame France

very different for her and for her country.
As a nation she has been obliged almost
to efface her national life while she fought
to retain her nationality. The war found
her as a woman with much of the work
of her men to do. Six hundred men are
gone from just one little city of three
thousand.

Her problems included the immediate
and numerous needs of her large army,
and her civilian population (together nearly
one-fifth of her entire population). She
had many new situations to handle in
the continuous stream of allies of other
nationalities, which emptied from their
countries into hers. The constant in-
crease of her debt, and the constant de-
crease in her resources through invasion,
destroyed much business, and the short-
age in her food supplies, oil, and fuel
taxed her ingenuity seemingly to the
limit, though had that limit been still
farther removed she would have met it
in some way. She cannot think her own
thoughts, live her own life, follow her
own religion alone. She shares them

Her Handicaps 163

all with the world which came to help
her.

The coining of America lessened many
of her problems while it added others.
Hospitals and camps are situated near
many small villages, and the American
spending propensity has added new life
to these places. The American Red Cross
has been ready with offers of assistance
in any line, and requests have been filled
for nurses, doctors, a hospital staff, sup-
plies, canteens for refugees, dispensaries,
clothing, furniture, use of camions — the
essentials most needed in the places most
difficult to secure them. This lightened
the burdens of Madame France tremen-
dously, and after four years of the hard-
est work and struggle she began to breathe
a bit more easily.

If she had had time to think and pre-
pare she might perhaps have changed
her methods in some respects. It is
usually easy to see after something has
happened, but it is often difficult to
look ahead even when there is time for
argument and discussion. Whatever she

164 Madame France

might have done, the admiration of the
world is hers for what she has done and
is doing. No task has been too large or
too hard for her to undertake, and the
tasks have been tremendous and innu-
merable.

CHAPTER XI

MADAME FRANCE, THE WOMAN

WHAT kind of woman is Madame
France? She is not any one kind.
In no country are the women all of the
same pattern. One finds all kinds in
France as elsewhere. All the virtues and
all the vices abound and flourish on French
soil as on any other. No nation has yet
been discovered where both do not exist.
It is easy to live a life of morality when
no temptations assail. Many virtues are
entirely of the negative variety, virtues
simply because they are not vices — and
when the test of the struggle comes, since
no moral muscles have been developed,
the virtues tumble. Self-control, unself-
ishness, sacrifice, generosity cannot be
learned in a day. There are many women
with these qualities latent and when
the real need comes their response is a
surprise even to themselves.

165

166 Madame France

The women of France are of all varie-
ties. The war might have been lost the
first year if all the women had done as
some have done. It might perhaps have
ended sooner had all done as some others
have done. Many find it difficult to
sacrifice when for the first time in their
lives, comparative comfort and the craved
luxuries are within their grasp. Many
think they must have what they like, re-
gardless of the rest of the country. There
are many whose tottering remnants of
morality fall completely at the thought
of money for a new fur collar. There
are those also whose ideals of marriage
consist of a contract with an officer with
good pay, the pay to come to the woman
and the officer in question to occupy a
dangerous place at the front. There are
some with no heart, no mind, no conscience
and no soul. But these varieties are not
peculiar to France.

Standards of morality are not fixed
quantities. France has hers, other coun-
tries have theirs. They differ. France
is invaded by millions of men of other

The Woman 167

nationalities with different moral stand-
ards, higher and lower.

One of the most immediate needs of
France in 1914 was munitions. Into the
factories came the men of all shades of
color and morals — Mussulmans, Chinese,
Sengalese, Moroccans, Algerians, Arabs,
with the others, many physically unfit for
military service. Into the factories also
came the French women and here they
have worked side by side with these men,
with the same trucks, at the same ma-
chines. Perhaps it is superfluous to state
that the situation has been difficult and
the temptations many.

Elsewhere France has had her trouble.
One officer asks for segregated houses
near his camp. The next requests the
French to remove all such women from the
vicinity of his. The attitude of the men
in the armies complicates matters still
further.

Some men came to France with a reck-
less spirit of, " Oh well, I am going to get
killed anyway, so I might as well have
one fling." Some come from the trenches

168 Madame France

with the idea that a man ought not to be
very particular about what he does after
he has lived in that hell for a while.
Some become careless when away from
home. Some have ideals which cannot
stand an ocean voyage. Some have come
with the preconceived idea that all French
women are gay and painted and lacking
in morals, so they look at all French
women with that interpretation.

Oftentimes, the real French woman is
much puzzled at the insulting manners of
her guests and forms quite uncompli-
mentary ideas of her allies, when she
finds some personal ideals do not seem as
high as she had fancied they would be.

France has the problem of her refugees.
Many have lived with an enemy where
all that is worst in human life has been
uppermost and it is necessary to reteach
many things both to children and adults,
since the need for deception has been
removed. The scum of the cities from
the north has poured into the rest of
France and it is not possible in sending
refugees to temporary lodgings to dis-

The Woman 169

criminate between the moral and the
immoral.

This whole question of morality con-
cerns certain elements in France greatly.
There was no time to decide before going
into battle what the attitude of the
country should be toward it, nor how she
should and could adjust the matter to suit
herself and all of her allies. Single stand-
ards of morality do not abound in many
countries. France has all the conditions
before her from a country representing
single standards to a country which prac-
tices polygamy.

If all the women of any country wanted
a single standard, it would have to be,
but neither all the virtues nor all the
intelligence have been confined to either
half of the human race. Organizations
are trying through a systematic plan of
education to create a public sentiment
favoring a check in the spread of moral
disease, at least, if for no other reason
than for the welfare of France.

Much care and careful consideration is
being spent now upon the children of

170 Madame France

France, whether legitimate or illegiti-
mate. They must be given their chance.
Homes have been established for the
girls who are not bad by nature, but who
have been the victims of war conditions,
in one way or another. They are helped
to help themselves. When France is left
alone again after the war is quite over
she will be able to handle her own prob-
lems of this kind with much less difficulty
than she can at present.

French customs regarding marriage dif-
fer from those of many other countries.
A girl grows into young womanhood with
the idea that she is expected to marry.
She is not expected to marry without a
dot or marriage settlement from her
family, nor is she expected to marry
without the consent of her parents. It is
perhaps natural that with the death of
so many young men in France, and with
the decline in family fortunes, the French
"fortune hunter" has gone forth, espe-
cially after the arrival of the young and
reputedly wealthy Americans — and her
hunting is not always difficult.

The Woman 171

Conditions are bringing changes. The
Catholic church has made marriage pos-
sible in less time than heretofore. France
has warned the woman who marries a
Mussulman of the polygamous laws of
the country to which she will go, so that
she may know what she is doing. The
dot is sometimes overlooked now.

Madame France has the problem also
of restraining some of her over zealous
daughters from putting no limit to their
charges for commodities. American boys
are generous as a lot, and knowing nothing
of language, conditions or customs, will
pay whatever price is asked, not without
grumbling afterwards sometimes. Ameri-
cans have "so much money," it is so
easy to get it from them, they will not
know that the regulation price is being
broken, could every one resist? It be-
comes a case of break the law, but don't
get caught !

Sometimes the Americans themselves
are the cause of law-breaking, when they
offer extra money for food "now" even
though it is not the time in which food

172 Madame France

is permitted to be sold — only an hour
early, perhaps, but not the regulation
time. France is trying hard to regulate
the prices of certain commodities at least,
even to closing the little shop if the pro-
prietress fails to conform.

These are the worst sides of Madame
France, which can be told in a few
paragraphs. To her virtues, and the
marvelous work she has accomplished,
without ostentation, this little book is
a brief testimonial.

The man of any nationality whatso-
ever, who is refined, a gentleman in every
sense of the word, whether highly edu-
cated or not, a man who brought his own
ideals along and has kept them carefully
with him all the time while he helped in
the fight for ideals, will find women of
just that same type in France. These
are the women who take no advantage
of his isolation from his own women folk,
except to be courteous and friendly.
These are the real women of France, who
have kept their own ideals through every-
thing, though separated from their own

•*•&

4) X

§4

The Woman 173

men. They have worked with brain or
hand, or both; they have sacrificed and
endured; they have encouraged the
weaker ones to keep on trying; they have
given sympathy and courage to the dis-
heartened men, mutilated, disfigured,
without funds, or outlook, or family.

These are the women who are taking
vacations only when the war is com-
pletely over, realizing that war conditions
continue long after peace has officially
come. These are the women who have
lost their own homes without bitterness;
their own families without cynicism;
women who, after years of comfort and
abundance, begin again with nothing;
women who have had every luxury and
could have them now, but who give of
their means and their ability that others
may not lack so much.

These are the women who prefer to
be considered happy, and carry their
sorrows within, while their faces smile.
They assume any problems which come
their way, with intelligence and deter-
mination which means only success, and

174 Madame France

they work on untiringly for France and
ideals, personal as well as national.

Madame France is such a woman in
all classes of society. It is not difficult
to find her. All that is necessary is the
desire. She is there in large numbers,
not on the streets or in the cafes, but
working, that a new and yet more glorious
France may be wrought from the ruins
amid which she stands.

CHAPTER XII

SHE BEGINS TO BUILD ANEW

WHAT will it all mean to Madame
France? For more than four
years she has lived a life of abnormality
and uncertainty. Customs and tradi-
tions of centuries have entirely disap-
peared. She has been obliged to assume
so many responsibilities and solve so
many problems that her old world is
gone. This means not only her physical
world, but her mental world as well.
So many unusual conditions have arisen,
without warning and without precedent,
that even her habits of thought have
been uprooted.

What will be the result of it all for her?
When the war is all over and the peace
terms settled, will she go gack to the old
ways? Will she connect the several ends
of customs and obliterate the past four

175

176 Madame France

years? Will she sweep up the debris,
mend the broken pieces and go on as
though nothing had happened? That is
quite impossible, for neither broken cities
nor broken hearts are ever quite the same
even when mended. They may be bet-
ter, they may be worse, but they are
never the same.

Perhaps it is a fortunate thing that
there will be no specific date at which
the war, with all that it involves, will be
definitely ended. The tremendous strain,
mental and physical, under which Ma-
dame France has been doing her share
in the war has been very gradually les-
sening since the summer of 1918, when
the certainty of victory began to be
realized. This tension will continue to
dissolve gradually until the time (should
such time ever exist) when her help will
be no longer needed. Especially since
the signing of the armistice has she been
able to see with a clearer perspective and
to realize wherein she will be an important
factor in the life of the nation hereafter.

The women of France have occupied

Begins to Build Anew 177

a most important place in the economic
world of their country during the past
four years. Many have been independent
financially as well as in action for the
first time in their lives. Many whose
husbands are numbered among the killed
or crippled will find it necessary and
desirable to continue as the money maker
for the family. They have proven them-
selves able to earn a man's salary by
doing a man's work, and this has greatly
changed the visions of the future for
them.

The war has caused some strange shifts
in conditions. The poorest class, which
has had nothing, has suddenly found
itself possessed of huge wages. This
money has not as a rule gone into better
homes and better food, better living
conditions and permanent investments.
This class of women has not learned either
to save or to spend. They have simply
bought, generally clothes and adorn-
ments. The careful middle class, which
had good homes, good business, comforts
and some luxuries, with the future ap-

178 Madame France

parently well assured, after the German
invasion was obliged to begin again ab-
solutely at the beginning of the financial
world. Business gone, homes destroyed,
property confiscated or ruined - - there
was nothing left but unquenchable cour-
age. But with the inequality in the
distribution of wisdom the present con-
ditions will again be reversed, for money
does not take care of itself. After the
first wild orgy of spending has in turn
spent itself, some of the poorer class will
have learned something of the value of
money aside from its immediate pur-
chasing power. There is a possibility
that each of these classes will have more
sympathy for the other because of their
war experiences.

There will be some discontent among
the spendthrifts who have saved nothing,
when wages resume an approximate un-
inflated pre-war basis. This situation
brings forth problems and possibilities.
Shall this class be left discontented, or
shall they be taught economy and thrift?
As the war progressed, it became in-

Begins to Build Anew 179

creasingly difficult to obtain food. Prices
rose rapidly, but more serious than that,
food became more and more scarce.
These conditions led to the organization
of cooperative societies among factory
employees. The purpose of these was
to establish various kinds of cafeterias in
the different factories where good food
could be obtained at moderate prices.

If women remain in the factory world,
as they undoubtedly will, these organi-
zations will increase the scope of their
usefulness, as they already give evidence
of doing. They will institute recreational
and educational features as well, such
as are now conducted by some factory
owners and outside organizations, for
these have already proved of the greatest
value to the employees.

Some of the cooperative societies or-
ganized during the war have had the
foresight to plan for after-war days. Some
have financed themselves in a small way
with what the members could provide,
others have borrowed capital. They have
done the needed war work, making of

180 Madame France

uniforms or other war materials, with
the ultimate intention of swinging gradu-
ally and without confusion and loss of
time into a corresponding peace trade
where their talents and equipment can
be used. This removes some of the peace
adjustment problems from the shoulders
of the government and will give the work-
ers experience in cooperation, leadership,
and management. Usually the person-
nel of these societies includes both men
and women working the same number
of hours for equal pay.

There is another organization among
the laboring class of French people, both
men and women, and that is the "syndi-
cat" which is in reality a labor union.
The future of this is quite uncertain,
because of the unusual conditions in
France. There have been strikes and
threatened strikes during the war period
and there will be more of both. It is
hardly possible that France alone should
escape entirely the influence of Bolshev-
ikism and radical socialism. Some of
the unions have been quite beneficial in

Begins to Build Anew 181

securing legitimate reforms in working
conditions, but are impairing their use-
fulness by losing sight of "legitimate
reforms." Greed for power which became
an obsession and a disease in Germany
has spread in some form to other coun-
tries. The very class of people who
opposed warring against this obsession
have caught it in a milder form. Many
want power, not for the good they may
do with it, but to crush others.

Because of the unusual conditions in
France, she will be spared a run of this
in its worst form. The laboring class in
France at present is a very unstable
quantity. Many thousands will be re-
turning to their own homes, soon, either
in distant lands or in other parts of
France, and it takes some time for ideas
to permeate a new mass of people. The
people of northern France are going to
be exceedingly busy for the next few
years and will have little time in which
to question whether or not they are
dissatisfied or unhappy.

Men and women must reestablish

182 Madame France

homes, rebuild cities, replant orchards,
retill soil. They must equip factories
again, and commercial establishments,
secure raw materials, reestablish markets.
They must open schools, erect churches,
repair highways and bridges, railroads,
telephones, start anew city governments,
restock farms.

In the undevastated sections of the
country there are many readjustments
to be made, which are even now in the
process. There are still the orphans to
care for, and the crippled, occupations
to provide for the mutiles and the blind,
the dismantling of camps and hospitals,
and the disposition of materials and
workmen. There are also the countless
changes to be made in the business world
with the return of the men. In fact
there are such quantities of things to
do that Madame France, if she exhibits
in reconstruction days the courage and
adaptability of war days, will not fall
a victim to radicalism of any description.

France understands herself much better
than before the war. Sections of the

The work might vary, from saw mills to munition factories,

but the spirit of determination remained the same.

Begins to Build Anew 183

country have differed very greatly in
customs, methods, dialect, and have re-
tained quite strong sectional feelings.
France is rather a stay-at-home country,
which has meant lack of appreciation
and understanding of sections and people
farther removed. The many refugees
representing all parts of northern France,
the thousands of soldiers on permission,
or in convalescent hospitals, the many
thousands of children for whom to pro-
vide homes — all these things and many
more have contributed to a better under-
standing among the people, and especially
among the women of France. Their prob-
lems are now national rather than sec-
tional and should result in a greater
unification of the country.

The life of the peasant women of north-
ern France can never be quite the same
and in some ways this will probably be a
good thing. As early as the spring of
1918 plans were made and drawings com-
pleted for the rebuilding of the destroyed
homes. None of the art is to be lost.
There is to be no attempt to Americanize

184 Madame France

France. The plans call for homes of the
same general style as those destroyed,
with the advantage of some modern con-
veniences. They will still be French
homes built in accordance with French
architecture for French people, with a
few extras slipped in, to aid in hygienic
and sanitary ways. Four years away
from what was, will make her a bit more
willing to accept what is, though it is
very difficult to separate permanently a
French peasant and tradition.

The women of France do not consider
the subject of marriage as they did a few
years ago. Women of all classes have
been obliged to work and have learned
thereby economic independence. They
rather like it, and the early marriage
with its financial settlement does not
appeal as it once did. Large numbers of
marriage ties which were never deeply
fastened have been dissolved by divorce
during the war. Women are going to
have more to say hereafter about whom
they will marry and why. This will be a
great rent in French tradition, but it is

Begins to Build Anew 185

inevitable. Since all classes of women
have been doing one kind of work or
another, there is a greater respect for
work of all kinds for women, by women.

The very strict chaperonage customs
among the wealthier classes have been
broken over and over again during the
war, from necessity and expediency. They
can never be resumed with all their
former rigidity. Any girl who has learned
to do things alone will resent assistance,
either proffered or enforced. Her little
voyages of exploration alone have been
too interesting to surrender. And she
will experiment more and more — alone.
Her part in the war has been too interest-
ing and too much needed, she will insist
upon her share of reconstruction work, also.

Suffrage? The vote? Equal rights
with men? Of course they are coming,
perhaps not immediately but rather soon.
They have already been discussed by the
government. The suffrage party has in
no way handicapped the government dur-
ing the crisis of the war, surrendering
personal desires for the solution of critical

186 Madame France

and immediate problems. The French
woman has been considered the silent
influence of France, and it has been
claimed that she exerted more influence
over the vote of the men than if she voted
herself. However that may have been,
the situation is not what it was before
the war. Now there are thousands of
women with no men folks to influence,
but with homes and families and business
to manage and protect. These women
rather want a voice in the reconstruction
of France and the working out of the
peace terms. They have proven them-
selves reliable, efficient, loyal, untiring in
work and devotion, in the greatest crisis
that France has ever had to face. They
know that they can rely upon their men
to remember this. Full suffrage would
be a commendable collective croix de
guerre for the women of France in return
for heroism displayed the past four and
a half years.

Madame France cannot pick up her
school books and go on where she was
studying when the war began. Those

Begins to Build Anew 187

books must be altered now to fit new con-
ditions and needs. The technical world
is already opening for her and she is
entering it eagerly. The professional
world has opened its door a bit wider and
she is going in there. But there is a
different world which she has had to
enter rather unprepared and where she
must continue to work. She has known
very little of organized social service
and she has had a tremendous amount of
it to do, and will have for years ahead.
She has been learning cooperation and
team-work during these past few years,
and all that involves one's obligations
to one's neighbor.

There may be no "better baby" con-
tests in France for many years, but the
effects of the hygiene exhibitions con-
ducted by the American Red Cross in
various cities in France will have its
effect upon the mothers of France in
their care of their children. More efforts
will be exerted to develop a stronger
physical France, through scientific liv-
ing, both in adults and children.

188 Madame France

All these changes for Madame France
are not coming at once. Indeed some
will not be noticeable for years, but they
are on the way. It is very difficult to
break away from the traditions of hun-
dreds of years. Class distinction, so
tightly drawn now, will not give way at
once. It is too deep rooted. Peasant
life will not change rapidly. It has en-
dured in its present form too long. Many
other things will change very slowly,
but the change has begun.

Now that the fighting and destruction
are ended, Madame France is beginning
to build anew. Her allies are gradually
leaving, so she can make plans with some
assurance of permanency to them, she
can consider the number and size of her
problems and the manner in which she
wants them solved. With her foreign
friends still with her she can only work
around the edges. There is always the
possibility that America in her zeal and
willingness to help will unconsciously work
to Americanize France. Nothing could
be more undesirable. France is France

Begins to Build Anew 189

as a nation, and America is America,
and they are quite different in tempera-
ment, methods, habits of thought. France
without her own background, without
her own traditions and ideas, would not
be France, nor would it make a good
America. As soon as the need for Amer-
ica's assistance is ended, it is greatly to
be hoped that she will leave France to
her own. destiny. She will have given to
France the greatest gift she could give
to any nation, the American spirit. With
that and her own spirit, France will not
be the France she once was, but a unified
and glorified France, one of the greatest
powers among nations in helping spread
the gospel of peace as learned through the
horrors of the past four years.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
BERKELEY

Return to desk from which borrowed.
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.

MAD 11 1946

u LD

MAY 2 7 '65 -4 p
NOV 13 199

LD 21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476

YR 0/274

U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES

^

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY