Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/327

 Ville, where they lay on the floors, and even two occupied each of the few beds, and child-birth took place in a state of indescribable filth and discomfort.

The calumniated Assistance Publique has built a large maternité, where mothers and infants receive all possible care; and, in case of pressure on their space, they pay midwives, properly diplomaed, to take charge of poor women in their own houses. Everything at present is so comfortably organised in these public institutions that many women of small means prefer to avail themselves of them rather than endure the domestic upheaval of a confinement at home. It should, however, be admitted that the Assistance Publique took the idea from M. Pinard's charmingly situated maternité of the Boulevard Port Royal. M. Pinard is something more than a celebrated accoucheur; he is a philanthropist, or, as his enthusiastic disciple, Dr. Franck Brentano, said of him when kindly doing me the honours of the maternité of the Boulevard Port Royal, he is a saint. He decided that his hospital should be cheerfully situated, and so it lies in lovely gardens, and, on every side, the patients have views of flowers and trees and green spaces between well-kept paths. Not a hospital this, surely, but an elegant old mansion, through whose long, open windows the fragrance and bloom of flowers carry joy to the