"Sir, we have only done our duty as nurses, never forgetting that we
are Frenchwomen."

Mlle. Joulin, a nurse at Douai, did not forget her duty as a
Frenchwoman. She was held a prisoner by the Germans for a year in the
camp at Holzminden, in which she took the place of the mother of five
children who had been put down on the list of hostages drawn up by the
German barbarians.

And if you would know where these heroic women have poured out their
courage, their coolness and their physical resistance, which they have
put in the service of their country and of humanity, you have but to
listen to the declaration of one of them, Mlle. Canton-Baccara, who
has been made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, for having shown
bravery and exceptional devotion in the face of the greatest danger:

"The wounded soldier who suffers," said Mlle. Canton-Baccara, "the
soldier who is complaining or the peasant who is weeping for the farm
that has been pillaged, a woman's smile ought to console and her voice
ought, under all circumstances, to be ready to recall to him that
above these sufferings and troubles, above the paltry struggles of
interest and ambition, there is, above all this, France, our France,
which matters before all else."

Still other women, who were neither in the hospitals, at the front,
nor in the factories, have been admirable fighters. They fought,
according to Mlle. Canton-Baccara's words, with their heart and with
their smile. They fought by the example of abnegation they gave, by
the moral force with which they inspired the men in the trenches.