them that what appealed to us most in our French patients was the
perfect discipline and the gratitude of the men. We are all women
in the Hospitals, and the men might take advantage of this fact to
show want of discipline, but we never had to complain of lack of
obedience. These soldiers of France may some of them before the
war have been just rough peasants, eating, drinking, and sleeping;
even having thoughts not akin to knighthood, but now, through the
ordeal of blood and fire, each one of them has won his spurs and
come out a chivalrous knight, and they bring their chivalry right into
the hospitals with them. We had also learned to love them for their
kindness to one another. When new wounded are brought in and
the lights are low in the hospital wards, cautiously watching if the
Nurse is looking (luckily Nurses have a way of not seeing
everything), one of the convalescents will creep from his bed to
the side of the new arrival and ask the inevitable question: "D'ou
viens-tu?" (Where do you come from?) "I come from Toulouse,"
replies the man. "Ah," says the enquirer, "my wife's Grandmother
had a cousin who lived near Toulouse." That is quite a sufficient
basis for a friendship. The convalescent sits by the bedside of his
new comrade, holding the man's hand, whilst his wounds are
being dressed, telling him he knows of the pain, that he, too, has
suffered, and that soon all will be well.

Lions to fight, ever ready to answer to the call of the defence of
their country, yet these men of France are tender and gentle. In
one hospital through which I passed there was a baby. It was a
military hospital, and no civilian had any right there, but the
medical officers who inspected the hospital were remarkably blind
--none of them could ever see the baby. One of the soldiers
passing through a bombarded village saw a little body lying in the