"Why is this house shut up? There are French in it, lying hidden with their arms." "The owner has been mobilized, and so has gone away. His wife and children have gone away." They kept on insisting: "The French. Hidden. In there." They indicated the place with a gesture. I thought to myself, What is happening? What will they do? Here are the men who will set fire to the house. "Why will you set fire to this house?" I asked. "Your chiefs don't wish it. They have promised me that they won't burn here. You want to set fire here out of excitement (par contagion). Will you put out the fire?" I said again to them: "It is wicked to set fire here, because we shall nurse your wounded." While this was going on, our sisters upstairs were not able to subdue the poor father Prévost. He is an old man of eighty-eight years, partly paralyzed in leg and arm. I was at the doorway. I heard him call out: "They shoved me into the fire. They have gone away and left me. I am going to fall out of the window." I climbed to the fourth floor of the house where he was, to try to attract him away, but he did not wish to come. He was foolish. I knew that he was fond of white sugar. I went up to him and showed him the sugar. I took his jacket and put his snowboots on him, so that he could get away more quickly. You know those boots which fasten by means of two or three buckles, very primitive, and which are so speedily put on. At last I led him to the edge of the doorway here. The Germans saw him and said: "It is a lunatic asylum, don't you see?" so they said to each other. "They want to kill the sisters. There is no need of going into that house. It is a lunatic asylum." That is the reason, I believe, why they didn't come into the house during the night. They entered the chapel of the hospital. While I was with the Germans, some of their like had come to our Infirmary to say: "You must leave here because we are going to set fire." They then said to the old people: "We have orders to burn the Infirmary." Among the number we had the poor mother André, Monsieur Porté, who walked hobbling like this; Monsieur Georget, who is hung on only one wire, and Monsieur Leroy, who isn't hung on any (qui ne tenait qu'à un fil, Monsieur Leroy qui ne tenait plus non plus). [Sister Julie limped across the room. She bent her back double. She went feeble. In swift pantomime she revealed each infirmity of the aged people. She created the picture of a flock of sick and crippled sheep driven before wolves.] At four o'clock they were led away to Maréville. Those of whom I tell you died in the course of the year. Death came likewise to seven others who would not have died but for that. The next morning we had German wounded. No one to care for them. What to do? I said to a wounded Lieutenant-Colonel: "You have given us many wounded to tend. Where are your majors?" See what he answered me. "They have abandoned us."