Mlle. Brasseur, Sister Etienne, Mother Superior of the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul in the Hospital at Compiegne, from the war's beginning at the head of a staff whose tireless devotion has deserved all praise, has given the most intelligent and enlightened care to numerous wounded men. During the time of the German occupation, her coolness and energetic attitude assured the safety of the establishment she directed. Her brave initiative allowed several French soldiers to escape from captivity. The modest postmistress and telegraph operator was a Frenchwoman and a fighter, who, in the little village of Houpelines, in the north of the country, deserved this citation in the orders of the day, of which thousands of soldiers would be proud: Refusing to obey the order that was given her to leave her post, she remained in spite of the danger. On the first of October the Germans entered her office, smashed her apparatus and threatened her with death. Mlle. Deletete, who had put her valuables and accounts in safe-keeping, gave evidence of the greatest calmness. From the seventeenth on she endured the bombardment. Her office having been damaged severely by the enemy's fire, she took refuge in the civil hospice, where four persons were killed at her side. She resumed her duties on the twenty-third, since which date she has continued to perform them in the face of frequent bombardments which have found many victims. The women behind the lines have been worthy of their sisters at the front. In the forges, the foundries, the factories and the munition plants they have not feared to don the blouse of the workingman, and on this blouse they wear as insignia a large grenade like that on the brassard of the mobilized men. Note these figures. On the first of February, 1916, the civil establishments of war, the munition plants, and the Marine workshops employed 127,792 women. The number has increased, and on the first of March, 1917, they numbered 375,582 women. On the first of January, 1918, the women working in the factories manufacturing war material amounted to 475,000; that is to say, in round numbers, a half million.