“Madame, whatever my poor wife’s condition, I can have no reproaches for her. I can remember only what she was to me in the past, a true, good wife. I loved her then and I love her now. Give her back to me, and for the rest of her life I will atone to her for what she has suffered.” This great-hearted French soldier had been wounded and was now mobilized in industry. He could make a home for his wife and Madame de Ste. Croix helped them establish themselves anew. Then she began a long search for the children. She wrote to the king of Spain, who is her friend and who, since the war began, has often used his influence with the German kaiser to find lost and imprisoned French and Belgians. The children of these poor parents were ultimately found and were restored to their bruised hearts. Four of the five children were restored to them. The oldest boy, when the Germans broke up their home, resisted the soldiers sent to take them away. He was only a child. He did not realize the invincible majesty of Germany and he protested with all his young might. A German soldier kicked him, breaking his back. So he died, slowly and in great agony. CHAPTER XXII FRENCHMEN, NEVER FORGET With Madame Avril de Ste. Croix I visited the house of mercy in Paris where women and child victims of German soldiers find refuge. I visited this house and I saw there that which made me an implacable foe of any peace except on terms of extinction of the power that caused this war. “We have very few here now,” said Madame de Ste. Croix. “I mean compared with the first three years of the war. When the Germans think themselves victorious they are ruthless in their treatment of women and of civilians generally. When they are losing they are less cruel.” I am glad that I did not see the first fruits of German wrath. I do not understand how any one who did see it can ever smile or be happy again. What I have seen is the mild and tempered wrath of a beaten foe. I saw, in what is called the isolation pavilion of that house of mercy, seventeen girls in a condition of health which made it impossible for them to associate with others. This pavilion had room for twice the number, and in former times, from 1914 to 1917, this one refuge was crowded, crowded with ruined and diseased French and Belgian girls. Now the German army has no time and less opportunity for such bestiality. There were only seventeen girls in the isolation pavilion of that house of mercy in Paris. The youngest girl was fourteen. They have comfortable rooms, a little parlor with books and a piano, and a kind and devoted house mother. She is a teacher as well, and the education of these pathetic young creatures is carried on daily, as though they had a normal destiny, as indeed some of them have. Recovery, even from their dread malady, is not impossible, and the best medical care in Paris is given them freely.