"Restore that wreck of the Tuileries," said my friend--but I shall let him tell his story without quotation-marks, and without the interruption of my urging and questionings, that finally got him almost as much interested in his subject as I was myself--Restore that wreck of the Tuileries, and these gay equipages and these loiterers in the Avenue would repeat for you, very nearly, the scene of my first service with the American ambulance. That was before I was a regular member of the corps--in fact, before the corps which operated at the siege of Paris had been properly formed. Dr. Sims, Dr. Tom Pratt, Frank Hayden and others, with three ambulance-wagons, were going to the front: we heard a great deal of _"à Berlin!"_ in the streets in those days. I came down this way to the Palais d'Industrie to see them off, and when I did see the American ladies raising the colors to march through the crowd, I couldn't help taking part in the procession. So I put on the _brassard_ of Geneva--a red cross on a white band strapped on the arm, being the ambulance badge established in 1864 by the International Convention of Geneva--and seized one of the sticks with a sack on the end of it, and began asking contributions for the wounded as the cortege moved on. It was one of the most exciting scenes I ever witnessed, our march for miles through the crowded boulevards to the station of the Northern Railway. Dr. Sims walked behind his own horses, which headed the procession, and the throng everywhere commented admiringly upon the _chic_ of the fine animals. The American ladies--there were three of them--marched beside the wagons, bearing the French and American colors and the red cross of the International ambulance. We filled and emptied and refilled our sacks with the Napoleons from the _monde_ in their flash barouches and from the loungers of the clubs, and with the greasy sous of the workingmen and grisettes. Many took out purses containing five sous and gave three: many took out purses containing silver and copper, and gave the silver. Old men with feeble sight and hearing would hobble up to us through the crowd and ask, "What is this?" "For the wounded," we would say--"for France!" And trembling hands would be thrust into pockets, and "God's blessing on you!" would go with their silver or sous. Well, well, it was a great day. It was, I believe, the largest collection ever taken up in Paris for the wounded. We shouted ourselves hoarse when the train bore the corps away for Mézières. They served through the war, part of the time with the French, part of the time with the Prussians. Many of them have since been decorated by both governments.