WENT DOWN OFF SABLE ISLAND.
I can even picture the ocean, the day and all the surroundings, because, as many will recall, it was just off Sable Island that La Bourgogne went to her grave on July 4, 1898, the same day that all America was rejoicing over its victory in the Spanish-American War.
I have the most heartfelt sympathy for the bereaved, unfortunate survivors of this last terrible wreck. It has always seemed to me a great mistake to compel women and children to be saved first. How much better it would be to save entire families than to have so many widows and children.
I know that I should have preferred going down with my husband to being saved without him. The women and children from the Titanic, who have just passed through this ordeal of being separated from their husbands and fathers, stepping into little boats and looking back on their loved ones for the last time, must feel just as I do.
Why should the rule of the sea supersede the marriage vow, “until death do us part.”
The story of La Bourgogne has been told and retold so often, and there have been so many different versions of the wreck, that I do not believe that the public understands the truth yet. For one thing, I think too much stress has been laid upon the alleged brutality of the crew.
While it is undoubtedly true that they were untrained and undisciplined, and were not at their proper stations, I don’t believe that they fought back the women and children with their knives. It was the men in the steerage who did these things.
We boarded La Bourgogne on Saturday, July 2, from New York. The steamship was bound for Havre. My husband, who, I may mention, had served ten years in the French navy, wanted to spend the summer months with his parents.
The first two days we had beautiful weather. Sunday night I could not sleep, recalling the stories of the passengers as I did. At one o’clock on Monday morning I awakened my husband, telling him that I heard a foghorn.