The adoption of this resolution was a high compliment to Clara Barton. She brought to the congress not only the prestige of America’s accession to the treaty, but a new and notable enlargement of the sphere of Red Cross activity which she had invented, tested, and found practicable in America, and worthy of recommendation to all the world.
At Geneva she was joined by Antoinette Margot, whom she sent for as a companion and interpreter. For, though Clara Barton was fairly at home in conversation in French, she was glad of assistance at times. Antoinette had written her in the years of their separation. Her own life had been none too happy, and she had passed through a religious crisis that led her, though born a Protestant, into the Roman Catholic Church, and later into a cloister. Even this change she credited to Clara Barton! This amused Clara, but Antoinette said that but for Clara she would have remained “a crushed-down little unhappy baby in my father’s house”; Clara had given her courage and strength to face great questions and decide them:
Dear, dear Miss Barton [she wrote]: Never, never I shall forget what I owe to you. I owe you even my perfect actual happiness of being a Catholic, for, without your strong teaching, and your nerving of my heart, I could never have dared to take the step of following my convictions, when I had convictions to follow.
Clara’s comment was:
Poor, simple child! It is all for the best, I think. Hers is one of those unsteady, unbalanced minds that must be controlled. She has no mastery over herself, and nothing but a priest and a confessional can make her happy.
Antoinette poured out her impulsive love in extravagant protestations of devotion. She wanted to see Miss Barton, to kiss the feet of the woman who had done so much for her, and who stood in the mind of Antoinette as the realization of the noblest ideal of womanhood.
We owe to this impulsive girl, who later entered a convent, a really fine description of Clara Barton as she stood among the representatives of all the nations that were joined in the league of the Red Cross at Geneva:
The Government of the United States has done itself no greater credit than in selecting Clara Barton to represent it among the nations abroad. During the last week I have looked on as she has sat day by day in one of the greatest and grandest assemblies of men that could be gathered—men representing the highest rank among the civilized nations of the earth; men of thought, of wisdom, of power, called together from all over the world to deliberate on great questions, of nautical import, military power, the neutrality of nations, humanity in war, wisdom in peace. In the midst of this assembly of gray-haired men, glittering with military decorations, with national honors, won and conferred, sat this one woman—calm, thoughtful, self-possessed, recognized and acknowledged as possessing every right and privilege belonging to any member of the conference; not merely permitted to be there, but there by the sovereign right of nations; not merely allowed to sit there by the courtesy due to a lady, but by the right due to a nation’s representative; her vote not merely accepted as a matter of form, but expected and watched for; grave questions referred to her as the representative of a great nation, and all deference paid to her judgment: her demeanor so unobtrusive, her actions so wise, that it could not otherwise than reflect merited credit upon her and her country.
But the crowning recognition of her philanthropic labors at home and abroad was given when one of the Italian delegates, springing upon the platform, proposed to the assemblage to vote, by acclamation, that “Mademoiselle Barton bien mérite de l’humanité”.
Even Miss Barton was moved from her usual composure by the thunders of applause. I do not know whether you in America are familiar with the peculiar significance of that phrase. It is an expression of the highest approbation, honor, and esteem that the French language can convey. It is probable that Miss Barton is the first woman in the world who has ever received such a tribute.