The prefect had sent me ten barrels of wine and two of brandy; 30,000 eggs all packed in boxes with lime and bran; a hundred bags of coffee, boxes of tea, forty boxes of Albert biscuits, a thousand tins of preserve, and a quantity of other things. M. Menier, the great chocolate manufacturer, had sent me five hundred pounds of chocolate. One of my friends, who was a flour dealer, had made me a present of twenty sacks of flour, ten of which were maize flour. Félix Potin, my neighbor when I was living at 11 Boulevard Malesherbes, had responded to my appeal by sending two barrels of raisins, a hundred boxes of sardines, three sacks of rice, two sacks of lentils, and twenty sugar loaves. From M. De Rothschild I had received two barrels of brandy and a hundred bottles of his own wine for the convalescents. I also received a very unexpected present. Léonie Dubourg, an old schoolfellow of mine at the Grandchamps Convent, sent me fifty tin boxes, each containing four pounds of salt butter. She had married a very wealthy gentleman farmer, who cultivated his own farms, which it seems were very numerous. I was very much touched at her remembering me, for I had never seen her since the old days at the convent. I had also asked for all the overcoats and slippers of my various friends, and I had bought up a job lot of two hundred flannel vests. My Aunt Betty, my blind grandmother’s sister, who is still living in Holland, and is now ninety-three years of age, managed to get for me, through the delightful Dutch Ambassador, Baron ——, three hundred night shirts of magnificent Dutch linen, and a hundred pairs of sheets. I received lint and bandages from every corner of Paris, but it was more particularly from the Palais de l’Industrie that I used to get my provisions of lint and linen for binding wounds. There was an adorable woman there, named Mlle. Hocquigny, who was at the head of all the _ambulances_. All that she did was done with a cheerful gracefulness, and all that she was obliged to refuse she refused sorrowfully, but still in a gracious manner. She was at that time more than thirty years of age, and although unmarried she looked more like a young married woman. She had large, blue, dreamy eyes, and a laughing mouth, a deliciously oval face, little dimples, and crowning all this grace, this dreamy expression and this coquettish, inviting mouth, a wide forehead like that of the virgins painted by the early painters, a wide and rather prominent forehead, encircled by hair worn in smooth, wide, flat bandeaux, separated by a faultless parting. The forehead seemed like the protecting rampart of this delicious face. Mlle. Hocquigny was adored by everyone, and made much of, but she remained invulnerable to all homage. She was happy in being beloved, but she would not allow anyone to express affection for her.