Activity agreed with Clara Barton. She rose to meet great emergencies. When the crisis was passed, she felt the effect of so long a strain. Again and again during her lifetime she carried an enterprise completely through to the triumphant close, and when it was done collapsed from nervous overstrain. Twice in America that collapse had been indicated by the total failure of her voice. At the close of the Franco-Prussian War she collapsed again. This time it was not her voice, but her eyesight. Her eyes were inflamed by the strain and smoke of the battle-fields. The nervous tension aggravated the discomfort of which the inflamed eyes were, after all, only a symptom. For several months in the winter and spring of 1872 she was at Carlsruhe in a state of semi-blindness. [Illustration: [_Facsimile_] STRASSBURG DIPLOMA OF HONOR] We have a little sidelight on Clara Barton’s work among the French women in an undated letter from Belfort, almost certainly by Antoinette Margot. An American woman in Paris had evidently asked her for some account of the work of Clara Barton, and she had promised to write it. The letter gives some intimate glimpses into the character of her work: [October, 1871] DEAR MADAM: Faithful to the promise made to you one bright day in Paris more than two months ago, I write. You remember that it was a kind of clandestine pledge, made in low tones, that I would one time tell you something of the doings of your compatriot, who has the “singular habit, _for a woman_,” as the world would say, of doing something and saying nothing. From much observation, I am convinced that Clara Barton never makes the least report of what she does, unless, for some cause, she considers it to be absolutely indispensable, and then, in a form so plain and business-like that one would read, and turn the paper, little dreaming of all the sentiment, strength, heart, poetry, and labor that lay hidden beneath that unpretending exterior. It were too long to tell you of the few weeks in Paris, following your departure. What, between the sympathies for the families of the wretched prisoners of Versailles, and the outpouring Alsatians who refuse to remain German, there was little rest for body or soul. Some entire families had even followed from Strassburg, knowing that Miss Barton went from there to Paris, and certain of relief if they should find her there. They did find her, and now occupy good positions. One is even placed for life in the civil service of the French Government (if the Government shall last so long). But these things, done through rain and storm, cost strength, and I was near to report to you a sick list.