Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/98

76 there were originally four hundred and seventy- five dwellings, just twenty emerge from the ruins comparatively intact, and that is due to Seur Julie. They are all clustered about the Hospice of St. Charles, of which she is the superior."

We quickened our pace, for we were anxious to meet and talk with this remarkable woman who had saved the little that is left of the city. We knew General Castelnau, after the defeat and the Aight of the Germans, had mentioned her in army orders. To decorate her with the Cross of the Legion of Honour, we had read at the time, President Poincaré had come himself to Lorraine and to the hospice. In Nancy the night before we had heard her mentioned with a sort of reverence.

At the head of a narrow, sloping street we saw several comparatively complete buildings. We entered one through an archway surmounted by a cross. We were ushered by a sad-faced sister into a parlour whose walls were freshly splashed with plaster. We didn't need to be told that many bullets had torn through them.

Sœur Julie entered. She impressed us as a short and stout woman, rather beyond middle age. From her pleasant and sympathetic face dark eyes snapped. On her habit of a religieuse shone the Cross of the Legion. From time to