Others, in the hospitals, ambulance and dispensaries have devoted themselves to the wounded, the mutilated, the sick and the suffering, to the sacrifice of their health, their youth, and sometimes their life itself. Here again the figures are eloquent--they speak for themselves. Three great societies, constituting the French Red Cross, have carried on this work of charity and devotion--the Societe de Secours aux Blesses Militaires, the Union des Dames de France, and The Association des Dames Francaises. At the war's outbreak the Societe de Secours aux Blesses had 375 hospitals with 17,939 beds; today it has 796 hospitals with 67,000 beds and 15,510 graduated nurses, three thousand of whom are employed in military hospitals. On the thirty-first of December, 1916, the Union des Dames de France had 363 hospitals with 30,000 beds and more than 20,000 graduate or volunteer nurses. From August, 1914, to March, 1917, the Association des Dames Francaises had raised the number of its hospitals from 100 to 350, and from 5,000 to 18,000 the number of its beds; the number of its graduate nurses from 5,000 to 7,000. On the thirty-first of December, 1916, the three societies counted about 42,000,000 days of hospital work, 25,000,000 for the Societe de Secours aux Blesses alone. From the beginning of the war, this society has expended for equipment the sum of 38,700,000 francs. Aside from these there are other figures which show the material effort of the Frenchwomen which I can not pass over in silence. They show the civic devotion of which they are capable. The Societe de Secours aux Blesses has been granted one cross of the Legion of Honor, 94 Croix de Guerre, 119 Medailles d'Honneur des epidemies. The Association des Dames Francaises has won 17 Croix de Guerre and 80 Medailles des epidemies. The Union des Femmes de France has won 39 Croix de Guerre. And last comes the glorious list of martyrs of the societies: 110 nurses have died in the devoted performance of their duties. The heroism of these valiant women, many of whom remained in the occupied territories, will be the eternal pride of France. Madame Perouse, President of the Union des Femmes de France wrote to M. Louis Barthou telling him the number of women who had risked their liberty, their life, their honor even, to protect in the face of the ferocious enemy the sacred rights of the French wounded. It is fitting to add that, if they have taken care of the German wounded as well as the French wounded, they can always recall the reply of a devoted teacher of the Marne district, Mlle. Fouriaux, to a German major: "Sir, we have only done our duty as nurses, never forgetting that we are Frenchwomen." Mlle. Joulin, a nurse at Douai, did not forget her duty as a Frenchwoman. She was held a prisoner by the Germans for a year in the camp at Holzminden, in which she took the place of the mother of five children who had been put down on the list of hostages drawn up by the German barbarians.