Personality of Edith Cavell.
Miss Cavell's character and ability.
Edith Cavell was a frail and delicate little woman about forty years of age. She had come to Brussels some years before the war to exercise her calling as a trained nurse. She soon became known to the leading physicians of the capital and nursed in the homes of the leading families. But she was ambitious, and devoted to her profession, and ere long had entered a nursing-home in the Rue de la Clinique, where she organized for Doctor Depage a training-school for nurses. She was a woman of refinement and education; she knew French as she knew her own language; she was deeply religious, with a conscience almost puritan, and was very stern with herself in what she conceived to be her duty. In her training-school she showed great executive ability, was firm in matters of discipline, and brought it to a high state of efficiency. And every one who knew her in Brussels spoke of her with that unvarying term of respect which her noble character inspired.
Mr. Whitlock engages a defender.
Some time before the trial, Maître Thomas Braun announced to the Legation that for personal reasons he would be obliged to withdraw from the case, and asked that some one else appear for Miss Cavell. We engaged Maître Sadi Kirschen.
The court martial in the Senate chamber.
It was the morning of Thursday, October seventh, that the case came before the court martial in the Senate chamber, where the military trials always took place, and Miss Cavell was arraigned with the Princess de Croy, the Countess de Belleville, and thirty-two others. The accused were seated in a circle facing the court, in such a way that they could neither see nor communicate with their own counsel, who were compelled to sit behind them. Nor could they see the witnesses, who were also placed behind them.
The charge brought against the accused was that of having conspired to violate the German Military Penal Code, punishing with death those who conduct troops to the enemy.
The trial secret.
Miss Cavell's attitude.