The Brother Director at Rheims gives the following account of his visit on the 22d of September to the battle-field around Sedan: “We began by Bazeilles,” he writes, “and truly it was a heartrending spectacle. This borough of two thousand five hundred inhabitants, which I had recently seen so rich and prosperous, is entirely destroyed. The only house left standing is riddled with shot, all the rest being mere heaps of charred stones, still smoking from the scarcely extinguished burning. The field of battle was still empurpled with blood, and trampled hard like a road, while in all directions were scattered torn garments, rifled wallets, and broken weapons.”[137]
The ambulance of Rethel received, in four months, eight hundred men, many Prussians being of the number. Several of the Brothers fell ill from their excessive exertions, and from typhus, caught in the exercise of their charitable employment, the latter proving fatal in the case of Brother Bénonien. One of the Directors dying at Châlons-sur-Marne, the Prussians, in token of their respect, allowed the bells, which had been silent since the invasion of the town, to be tolled for his funeral. At Dîjon the Brothers were repeatedly insulted by a handful of demagogues, who would fain have compelled them to take arms and go to the war while they themselves staid at home; but when, soon afterwards, these same Brothers who had been derided as “lazy cowards,” were seen bearing in their arms the wounded men—whom they had on more than one occasion gone out to seek with lanterns, amid rain and mud and darkness—gently laying them in clean white beds, and attending to all their wants with the tenderest solicitude, the mockers were silenced, and their derision forgotten in the admiration of the grateful people. It was here also that, after the battle of the 30th of October, many Garibaldians who were among the wounded beheld with astonishment the calm devotedness of these “black-robes,” whom they had always been accustomed to malign. Not content with begging their pardon merely, they were exceedingly desirous that Garibaldi should award military decorations to certain of the Brothers, who would have had as strong an objection to receive the honor from such hands as the godless Italian would have had to confer it; nor did the cares lavished by these religious on his companions in arms hinder his execrations of the priests and religious orders in his proclamation of January 29, 1871.
In Belgium as well as in France the good offices of the Brothers found ample exercise. After the defeat of Gen. de Failly, more than eleven hundred exhausted and famishing soldiers, with their uniforms torn to shreds after a march of ten leagues through the woods, arrived at a late hour of the night, on the 1st of September, at the house of the Brothers at Carlsbourg, not knowing what place it was. Great was the joy of the poor fugitives at the unexpected sight of that well-known habit and those friendly faces. All were welcomed in, and their lives saved by the timely hospitality so freely accorded to their needs. The sick and wounded had already been brought in carts from the scene of the engagement, and were receiving every care under the same roof. All through the month of September this house was a centre of assistance, information, and correspondence, as well as of unbounded hospitality. At Namur the Brothers converted their house into an ambulance, and, in their work of nursing the sick and wounded, had able auxiliaries in many Christian ladies of high rank.
While the red flag was floating over the Hôtel de Ville at Lyons, and those who talked the most loudly about “the people” troubled themselves the least on their account, the Brothers of this town prepared a hundred beds in their house, and successively had charge of seven hundred soldiers, the Brother Director during all that time having to maintain a persevering resistance to the revolutionists, who no less than twelve times attempted to disperse the community. The devotion of the Brothers was characterized by a peculiar courage in the ambulance at Beaune, reserved for sufferers from the small-pox, and which none but they dared approach. At Châlons-sur-Saône they had four ambulances, in the charge of which they were aided by some nursing Sisters. Many Germans were among their wounded at Orléans and at Dreux. It was at the latter place that one of the chief medical officers of the Prussians, a very hard-hearted man, who had made himself the terror of the ambulance as well as of the town, gave orders that every French soldier, as soon as he began to recover, should be sent a prisoner to Germany; the Brothers, however, did not rest until they had so far softened him as to save their convalescents from the threatened captivity.
But we should far exceed the limits of our notice were we to follow with anything like completeness the work of the Brothers in the departments of France. The places particularized suffice as an indication of what was done in numbers more, in several of which some of the Brothers fell victims to their charity. The testimony of the medical men, in praise not only of their unwearied devotion, but also of their skill in the care of the sick and wounded, was everywhere the same. It seems scarcely credible that in several localities—at Villefranche and Niort amongst others—where they were unostentatiously carrying on these self-denying labors, the municipal councils, as if to punish them for their generosity, withdrew the annual sum which had for years past (in one case, for sixty-four years) been allowed to their schools for the expenses of administration. It frequently happened that, in opening ambulances, they did not, for that reason, discontinue their classes, those who taught in the day watching by the sick at night; giving up for the good of others their time, their repose, their comfort—all they had to give. The Committees of Succor did much, but it seemed as if without them something would have been wanting to the ambulances. For additional particulars we must refer the reader to the interesting pages of M. Poujoulat, from which we have drawn so largely. And now, having in some measure sketched the work of the Brothers in the provinces during the war, we must not leave it unnoticed in the capital.
Towards the end of November, 1870, Brother Philip, after receiving the appeal from the ambulances of the Press, issued no order to the Brothers of the communities in Paris, but simply informed them of the request that had been made him, bidding them consider it before God, and adding, “You are free to give your assistance or to withhold it.” The Brothers prayed, went to Communion, and then said to their Superior, “We are ready.” Even the young novices in the Rue Oudinot wrote to him letters of touchingly earnest entreaty to be allowed to serve with their elders. We give the following in the words of M. Poujoulat:
“On the 29th of November, at six o’clock in the morning, in piercing cold, a hundred and fifty of the Brothers of the Christian Schools were assembled at the extremity of the Quai d’Orsay, near the Champ de Mars. An old man was with them in the same habit as themselves; this was Brother Philip, his eighty years not appearing to him any reason for staying at home. They were awaiting the order to march. Gen. Trochu, acting less in accordance with his own judgment than with the imperious despatches sent from Tours and with the wishes of the Parisians, proposed to pierce through the enemy’s lines and join the army of the Loire. The attack having been retarded by an overflow of the Marne, and the necessity of throwing additional bridges across the river, the Brothers waited eight hours for an order which never came. On the following morning, the 30th, they were again with Brother Philip at the same post, at the same hour, and shortly received the order to advance, while, with profound emotion, the venerable Superior, after seeing his ‘children,’ as he was wont to call them, depart, returned alone to the Rue Oudinot.
“Cannonading was heard towards the southeast. The two corps of the army, under Gens. Blanchard and Renault, had attacked Champigny and the table-land of Villiers. The Brothers, mounted in various vehicles, proceeded towards the barrier of Charenton, on their way receiving many encouraging acclamations from the people. Their work commenced on the right bank of the Marne, which they crossed on a bridge of boats, not far from Champigny and Villiers, amid the rattling of musketry and the roar of heavy guns. Divided into companies of ten, each with its surgeon, provided with litters, and wearing the armlet marked with the Red Cross, they proceed to seek the wounded, troubling themselves little about finding death. They are attended by ambulance carriages, in which they place the sufferers, who are taken to Paris by the bateaux mouches (small packet-boats of the Seine). When litters are not to be had, the Brothers themselves carry those whom they pick up, sometimes for long distances, never seeming to think themselves near enough to danger, because they wish to be as near as possible to those who may be reached by the shell and shot. They walk on tranquilly and fearlessly, the murdering projectiles appearing to respect them. They have lifted up the brave Gen. Renault, mortally wounded by the splinter of a bomb.
“This general, before his death, a few days afterwards, said to the Brother Director of Montrouge: ‘I have grown gray on battle-fields; I have seen twenty-two campaigns; but I never saw so murderous an engagement as this.’ And it was in the midst of this tempest of fire that the Brothers fulfilled their charitable mission. No one could see without admiration their delicate and intelligent care of the wounded.”