There is this wonderful and alluring in France, that, recognising the faults in an administration or department of the public service, she sets to work immediately to effect reform. And it was clear enough that the _service de santé_, or hospital service, was grievously defective at the outbreak of the war. It was a question that had never been properly worked out. Those who had thought about the subject at all, never supposed that the demands upon the department would be so terrific. Probably they thought, as did most Frenchmen, that the war would be of quick duration and that—well—the inconveniences of the system would be but temporary, and one would do the best one could in so short a time. But the actual facts were to give the lie to this prevision as to many others. The war lasted long, the demands upon the hospital were not only terrific but protracted. But with the spirit of adaptability, of which the French have given so many proofs during the war, they set to work with the resolution to do the best possible. Little by little the gross defects of the earlier days were remedied; the number of doctors, which at the beginning had been hopelessly inadequate, was augmented, and immense improvements were made in the organisation of the hospital trains. Thereupon the evacuation of the wounded developed on scientifically humane lines, in spite of the difficulties of an unexpected kind, mainly brought about by the colossal character of the war. Thus the wounded rapidly received attention in the ambulances and were quickly sent away in trains and motor-cars, and reached the most distant parts of France not later than the morrow of the combat. I was at Biarritz when the Champagne offensive was taking place, and saw arrive at the station wounded men, still powdered with the dust of the trenches, who had been in the fight twenty-four hours before. The hospitals, however, even the most modern in their equipment, did not equal the English, still less the American, but the reason was not far to seek: a lack of money. A great many "sanitary formations" (as they are called in France) suffered also from a want of motors; in fact the French, by the very nature of the circumstances, had not the immense resources that the English possess. English newspapers raised immense sums for the care of the sick. But if the French had not the money to devote to the niceties of hospital installation they did the best they could with the time and means at their disposal. And although, perhaps, the hospitals were not as clean as would satisfy English tastes, they served their purpose, which was to restore as many men as possible to the firing-line and alleviate suffering.