In connection with the Conservatoire Hospital, Mme. Adam organised a workroom where the wives, mothers and daughters of the men who were fighting, instead of staying at home and eating their hearts out with anxiety, could meet together, and, while sewing for the wounded, encourage one another and sympathise with one another’s sufferings.
Edmond Adam was a member of the Government Committee appointed to investigate the condition of the general hospitals. This he found so lamentable, that in many instances, owing to the infection of wards and operating theatres, amputation cases had no chance of recovery.
Despite the difficulties and dangers which beset her on every hand, Mme. Adam’s heart burned with a courage and a hope, which her friend, George Sand, appreciated to the full, when she wrote to her from Nohant on the 15th of September.[188] “Vous êtes généreusement exaltée par un peril prochain et défini.” This was one of the last letters Mme. Adam received before the gates of Paris were closed.
FOOTNOTES:
[163] See ante, 99.
[164] Ibid., 118.
[165] Souvenirs, III. 349 et seq.
[166] Souvenirs, III. 448.
[167] Souvenirs, III. 464.
[168] Ibid., 409.