She has never sent me the many specific details of her work that she promised me, or this article would be longer. But, no wonder! What time have those women to sit down and write? I often wonder they gave me as much time as they did when I was on the spot.
THE DUCHESSE DE ROHAN
Before the war society used to dance once a week in the red and gold salon of the historic "hôtel" of the Rohans' in the Faubourg St. Germain, just behind the Hôtel des Invalides. Here the duchess entertained when she took up her residence there as a bride; and, as her love of "the world" never waned, she danced on with the inevitable pauses for birth and mourning, until her daughters grew up and brought to the salon a new generation. But the duchess and her own friends continued to dance on a night set apart for themselves, and in time all of her daughters, but one, married and entertained in their own hôtels. Her son, who, in due course, became the Duc de Rohan, also married; but mothers are not dispossessed in France, and the duchess still remained the center of attraction at the Hôtel de Rohan.
Until August second, 1914.
The duchess immediately turned the hôtel into a hospital. When I arrived last summer it looked as if it had been a hospital for ever. All the furniture of the first floor had been stored and the immense dining-room, the red and gold salon, the reception rooms, all the rooms large and small on this floor, in fact, were lined with cots. The pictures and tapestries have been covered with white linen, four bathrooms have been installed, and a large operating and surgical-dressing room built as an annex. The hall has been turned into a "bureau," with a row of offices presided over by Maurice Rostand.
Behind the hôtel is the usual beautiful garden, very large and shaded with splendid trees. During fine weather there are cots or long chairs under every tree, out in the sun, on the veranda; and, after the War Zone, these men seemed to me very fortunate. The duchess takes in any one sent to her, the Government paying her one-franc-fifty a day for each. The greater part of her own fortune was invested in Brussels.
She and her daughters and a few of her friends do all of the nursing, even the most menial. They wait on the table, because it cheers the poilus—who, by the way, all beg, as soon as they have been there a few days, to be put in the red and gold salon. It keeps up their spirits! Her friends and their friends, if they have any in Paris, call constantly and bring them cigarettes. Fortunately I was given the hint by the Marquise de Talleyrand, who took me the first time, and armed myself with one of those long boxes that may be carried most conveniently under the arm. Otherwise, I should have felt like a superfluous intruder, standing about those big rooms looking at the men. In the War Zone where there were often no cigarettes, or anything else, to be bought, it was different. The men were only too glad to see a new face.
The duchess trots about indefatigably, assists at every operation, assumes personal charge of infectious cases, takes temperatures, waits on the table, and prays all night by the dying. Mr. Van Husen, a young American who was helping her at that time, told me that if a boy died in the hospital and was a devout Catholic, and friendless in Paris, she arranged to have a high mass for his funeral service at a church in the neighborhood.
The last time I saw her she was feeling very happy because her youngest son, who had been missing for several weeks, had suddenly appeared at the hôtel and spent a few days with her. A week later the Duc de Rohan, one of the most brilliant soldiers in France, was killed; and since my return I have heard of the death of her youngest. Such is life for the Mothers of France to-day.