He put the key carefully into his pocket, and then came forward and found me a chair. Our conversation soon took a more serious turn, though, for the news was very bad. For the last twelve days the ambulances had been crowded with the wounded. Everything was in a bad way, home politics as well as foreign politics. The Germans were advancing on Paris. The Army of the Loire was being formed. Gambetta, Chanzy, Bourbaki, and Trochn were organizing a desperate defense. We talked for some time about all these sad things, and I told him about the painful impression I had had on my last visit to the Tuileries, of my remembrance of everyone, so brilliant, so considerate, and so happy formerly, and so deeply to be pitied at present. We were silent for a moment, and then I shook hands with him, told him I had received all he had sent, and returned to my ambulance.
AN EARLY PORTRAIT OF SARAH BERNHARDT.
The prefect had sent me ten barrels of wine and two of brandy; 30,000 eggs all packed in boxes with lime and bran; a hundred bags of coffee, boxes of tea, forty boxes of Albert biscuits, a thousand tins of preserve, and a quantity of other things. M. Menier, the great chocolate manufacturer, had sent me five hundred pounds of chocolate. One of my friends, who was a flour dealer, had made me a present of twenty sacks of flour, ten of which were maize flour. Félix Potin, my neighbor when I was living at 11 Boulevard Malesherbes, had responded to my appeal by sending two barrels of raisins, a hundred boxes of sardines, three sacks of rice, two sacks of lentils, and twenty sugar loaves. From M. De Rothschild I had received two barrels of brandy and a hundred bottles of his own wine for the convalescents. I also received a very unexpected present. Léonie Dubourg, an old schoolfellow of mine at the Grandchamps Convent, sent me fifty tin boxes, each containing four pounds of salt butter. She had married a very wealthy gentleman farmer, who cultivated his own farms, which it seems were very numerous. I was very much touched at her remembering me, for I had never seen her since the old days at the convent. I had also asked for all the overcoats and slippers of my various friends, and I had bought up a job lot of two hundred flannel vests. My Aunt Betty, my blind grandmother’s sister, who is still living in Holland, and is now ninety-three years of age, managed to get for me, through the delightful Dutch Ambassador, Baron ——, three hundred night shirts of magnificent Dutch linen, and a hundred pairs of sheets. I received lint and bandages from every corner of Paris, but it was more particularly from the Palais de l’Industrie that I used to get my provisions of lint and linen for binding wounds. There was an adorable woman there, named Mlle. Hocquigny, who was at the head of all the ambulances. All that she did was done with a cheerful gracefulness, and all that she was obliged to refuse she refused sorrowfully, but still in a gracious manner. She was at that time more than thirty years of age, and although unmarried she looked more like a young married woman. She had large, blue, dreamy eyes, and a laughing mouth, a deliciously oval face, little dimples, and crowning all this grace, this dreamy expression and this coquettish, inviting mouth, a wide forehead like that of the virgins painted by the early painters, a wide and rather prominent forehead, encircled by hair worn in smooth, wide, flat bandeaux, separated by a faultless parting. The forehead seemed like the protecting rampart of this delicious face. Mlle. Hocquigny was adored by everyone, and made much of, but she remained invulnerable to all homage. She was happy in being beloved, but she would not allow anyone to express affection for her.
At the Palais de l’Industrie a remarkable number of celebrated doctors and surgeons were on duty, and they, as well as the convalescents, were all more or less in love with Mlle. Hocquigny. As she and I were great friends, she confided to me her observations and her sorrowful disdain. Thanks to her I was never short of linen nor of lint. I had organized my ambulance with a very small staff. My cook was installed in the public foyer. I had bought her an immense cooking range, so that she could make soups and herb tea for fifty men. Her husband was chief attendant. I had given him two assistants, and Mme. Guérard, Mme. Lambquin, and I were the nurses. Two of us sat up at night, so that we each went to bed every third night. I preferred this to taking on some woman whom I did not know. Mme. Lambquin belonged to the Odéon, where she used to take the part of the duennas. She was plain and had a common face, but she was very talented. She talked loud and was very plain spoken. She called a spade a spade, and liked frankness and no under meaning to things. At times she was a trifle embarrassing with the crudeness of her words and her remarks, but she was kind, active, alert, and devoted. My various friends who were on service at the fortifications came to me in their free time to do my secretarial work. I had to keep a book, which was shown every day to a sergeant who came from the Val-de-Grâce military hospital, giving all details as to how many men came into our ambulance, how many died, and how many recovered and left. Paris was in a state of siege, and no one could go far outside the walls, and no news from outside could be received. The Germans were not, however, round the gates of the city. Baron Larrey came now and then to see me, and I had, as head surgeon, Dr. Duchesne, who gave up his whole time, night and day, to the care of my poor men during the five months that this truly frightful nightmare lasted.
I cannot recall those terrible days without the deepest emotion. It was no longer the country in danger that kept my nerves strung up, but the sufferings of all her children. There were all those who were away fighting, those who were brought in to us wounded or dying, the noble women of the people, who stood for hours and hours in the queue to get the necessary dole of bread, meat, and milk for their poor little ones at home. Ah, those poor women! I could see them from the theater windows, pressing up close to each other, blue with cold, and stamping their feet on the ground to keep them from freezing, for that winter was the most cruel one we had had for twenty years. Frequently one of these poor, silent heroines was brought in to me, either in a swoon from fatigue, or struck down suddenly with congestion caused by cold. On the 20th of December, three of these unfortunate women were brought into the ambulance. One of them had her feet frozen, and she lost the big toe of her right foot. The second was an enormously stout woman, who was suckling her child, and her poor breasts were harder than wood. She simply howled with pain. The youngest of the three was a girl of sixteen to eighteen years of age. She died of cold, on the trestle on which I had had her placed to send her home. On the 24th of December, there were fifteen degrees of cold. I often sent William, our attendant, out with a little brandy to warm the poor women. Oh, the suffering they must have endured, those heartbroken mothers, those sisters, and fiancées, in their terrible dread! How excusable their rebellion seems during the Commune, and even their bloodthirsty madness!
My ambulance was full. I had sixty beds and was obliged to improvise ten more. The soldiers were installed in the artistes’ foyer and in the general foyer, and the officers in a room which had formerly been used for refreshments.
One day a young Breton named Marie le Gallec was brought in. He had been struck by a bullet in the chest and another in the wrist. Dr. Duchesne bound up his chest firmly and splintered his wrist. He then said to me very simply:
“Let him have everything he likes, he is dying.”
I bent over his bed and said to him: