At Geneva she was joined by Antoinette Margot, whom she sent for as a companion and interpreter. For, though Clara Barton was fairly at home in conversation in French, she was glad of assistance at times. Antoinette had written her in the years of their separation. Her own life had been none too happy, and she had passed through a religious crisis that led her, though born a Protestant, into the Roman Catholic Church, and later into a cloister. Even this change she credited to Clara Barton! This amused Clara, but Antoinette said that but for Clara she would have remained “a crushed-down little unhappy baby in my father’s house”; Clara had given her courage and strength to face great questions and decide them: Dear, dear Miss Barton [she wrote]: Never, never I shall forget what I owe to you. I owe you even my perfect actual happiness of being a Catholic, for, without your strong teaching, and your nerving of my heart, I could never have dared to take the step of following my convictions, when I had convictions to follow. Clara’s comment was: Poor, simple child! It is all for the best, I think. Hers is one of those unsteady, unbalanced minds that must be controlled. She has no mastery over herself, and nothing but a priest and a confessional can make her happy. Antoinette poured out her impulsive love in extravagant protestations of devotion. She wanted to see Miss Barton, to kiss the feet of the woman who had done so much for her, and who stood in the mind of Antoinette as the realization of the noblest ideal of womanhood. We owe to this impulsive girl, who later entered a convent, a really fine description of Clara Barton as she stood among the representatives of all the nations that were joined in the league of the Red Cross at Geneva: