At the Palais de l’Industrie a remarkable number of celebrated doctors and surgeons were on duty, and they, as well as the convalescents, were all more or less in love with Mlle. Hocquigny. As she and I were great friends, she confided to me her observations and her sorrowful disdain. Thanks to her I was never short of linen nor of lint. I had organized my _ambulance_ with a very small staff. My cook was installed in the public _foyer_. I had bought her an immense cooking range, so that she could make soups and herb tea for fifty men. Her husband was chief attendant. I had given him two assistants, and Mme. Guérard, Mme. Lambquin, and I were the nurses. Two of us sat up at night, so that we each went to bed every third night. I preferred this to taking on some woman whom I did not know. Mme. Lambquin belonged to the Odéon, where she used to take the part of the duennas. She was plain and had a common face, but she was very talented. She talked loud and was very plain spoken. She called a spade a spade, and liked frankness and no under meaning to things. At times she was a trifle embarrassing with the crudeness of her words and her remarks, but she was kind, active, alert, and devoted. My various friends who were on service at the fortifications came to me in their free time to do my secretarial work. I had to keep a book, which was shown every day to a sergeant who came from the Val-de-Grâce military hospital, giving all details as to how many men came into our _ambulance_, how many died, and how many recovered and left. Paris was in a state of siege, and no one could go far outside the walls, and no news from outside could be received. The Germans were not, however, round the gates of the city. Baron Larrey came now and then to see me, and I had, as head surgeon, Dr. Duchesne, who gave up his whole time, night and day, to the care of my poor men during the five months that this truly frightful nightmare lasted.