Brother Philip bestowed his especial interest on the ambulance established in the Mother-house, Rue Oudinot, and which was called the ambulance of S. Maurice. The novices had been removed into the nooks and corners of the establishment, so as to give plenty of air and space to the suffering soldiers. All the Brothers in this house, young and old, devoted themselves to their sick and wounded; Brother Philip setting the example. He would go from one bed to another, contrive pleasant little surprises, and do everything that could be done to cheer the spirits of the patients as well as to afford them physical relief. The Abbé Roche, the almoner of the mother-house, exercised with the greatest prudence and kindness the priestly office in this ambulance.
On the 1st of January, 1871, one of the soldiers decorated at Champigny for bravery read aloud to Brother Philip, in the “great room,” turned into an ambulance, a “compliment,” in which he offered him, as a New Year’s gift on behalf of all, the expression of their gratitude. On the 6th, in a letter to the Superior-General from Count Sérurier, vice-president of the Société de Secours, and delegate of the Minister of War and of the Marine, he says: “All France is penetrated with admiration, reverence, and gratitude for the examples of patriotism and self-devotion afforded by your institute in the midst of the trials sent by Providence upon our country.”
The first Brother who re-entered Paris on the day after the signing of the armistice at Versailles was the Director of the orphanage at Igny. It was like an apparition once more from the world without, after the long imprisonment under the fire of the enemy.
It must not be forgotten that, besides all that we have mentioned from the beginning of the war to the end of the first siege, teaching was not neglected by the Brothers for a single day; all else that they were doing was but a supplement to their ordinary occupations; and all went well at the same time, in the schools, the ambulances, and on the field of battle. It was as if they multiplied themselves for the good of their fellow-countrymen.
Acknowledgments in honor of their courageous devotion were sent from nearly every civilized country; but amongst all these we select one for mention as having a particular interest for Americans. We give it in the words of M. Poujoulat—first stating, however, that the Académie Française had awarded an exceptional prize, declared “superior to all the other prizes by its origin and its object,” to the Institute of the Christian Brothers. M. Poujoulat writes as follows:[138]
“In 1870, we were abandoned by every government, but when our days of misfortune commenced, we were not forgotten by the nations. There arose, as it were, a compassionate charity over all the earth to assuage our sorrows. The amount of gifts was something enormous. One single city of the United States, Boston, with its environs, collected the sum of eight hundred thousand francs. The Worcester, a vessel laden with provisions, set sail for Havre, but on hearing of the conclusion of peace, the insurrection, and the second siege of Paris, the American captain repaired to England, where the ship’s cargo was sold, and the amount distributed among those localities in France which had suffered most. When this had been done, there still remained two thousand francs over, which the members of the Boston Committee offered to the Académie Française, to be added to the prize for virtue which was to be given that year. ‘This gift,’ said the letter with which it was accompanied, ‘is part of a subscription which represents all classes of the citizens of Boston, and is intended to express the sympathy and respect of the Americans for the courage, generosity, and disinterested devotion of the French during the siege of their capital.’
“The Academy, in possession of this gift, deliberated as to whom the prize should be decreed, it being difficult to point out the most meritorious among so many admirable deeds. After having remarked, not without pride, upon the equality of patriotism, the Academy resolved to give to this prize the least personal and the most collective character possible.
“‘We have decreed it,’ said the Duc de Noailles, speaking for the Academy, ‘to an entire body, as humble as it is useful, known and esteemed by every one, and which, in these unhappy times, has, by its devotedness, won for itself a veritable glory: I allude to the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools.’
“After the Director of the Académie Française, in an eloquent speech had justified the decision, he added that ‘this prize would be to the Institute as the Cross of Honor fastened to the flag of the regiment.’”
Already had the Government of the National Defence perseveringly insisted upon Brother Philip’s acceptance of the Cross of the Legion of Honor, the reward of the brave; but his humility led him to do all in his power to escape it, and he had already refused it four times in the course of thirty years. It was only when he was assured that it was not himself, but his Institute, that it was desired to decorate in the person of its Superior-General, that, sorely against his will, he ceased to resist. Dr. Ricord, in his quality of principal witness of the devotedness of the Brothers, was charged to attach the Cross of Honor to Brother Philip’s cassock, in the grande salle, or principal room, of the mother house. Never had the saintly Superior known a more embarrassing moment than this in all the course of his long life; and when he conducted Dr. Ricord to the door of the house, he managed so effectively to conceal his new decoration that no one would have suspected its existence. He never wore it after this occasion; and this Cross of Honor which he wished to hide from earth remains as a sort of mysterious remembrance. It has never been found again.