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My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
page 62 of 314 (19%)
Tilghmann, and last but not least, the future Sir William MacCormack. Dr.
Blewitt had a variety of business to transact with the officials of the
French Red Cross Society, and I was with him at his interviews with its
venerable-looking President, the Count de Flavigny, and others. It is of
interest to recall that at the outbreak of the war the society's only
means was an income of L5 6_s._ 3_d._, but that by August 28 its receipts
had risen to nearly L112,000. By October it had expended more than
L100,000 in organizing thirty-two field ambulances. Its total outlay
during the war exceeded half a million sterling, and in its various field,
town, and village ambulances no fewer than 110,000 men were succoured and
nursed.

In Paris the society's headquarters were established at the Palace de
l'Industrie in the Champs Elysees, and among the members of its principal
committee were several ladies of high rank. I well remember seeing there
that great leader of fashion, the Marquise de Galliffet, whose elaborate
ball gowns I had more than once admired at Worth's, but who, now that
misfortune had fallen upon France, was, like all her friends, very plainly
garbed in black. At the Palais de l'Industrie I also found Mme. de
MacMahon, short and plump, but full of dignity and energy, as became a
daughter of the Castries. I remember a brief address which she delivered
to the Anglo-American Ambulance on the day when it quitted Paris, and in
which she thanked its members for their courage and devotion in coming
forward, and expressed her confidence, and that of all her friends, in the
kindly services which they would undoubtedly bestow upon every sufferer
who came under their care.

I accompanied the ambulance on its march through Paris to the Eastern
Hallway Station. When it was drawn up outside the Palais de l'Industrie,
Count de Flavigny in his turn made a short but feeling speech, and
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