Through the two bombardments, and the fight in the streets, and the burnings and the executions, the horrible story of human blood-lust and brutality was redeemed by the womanly courage and pity and devotion to duty which was shown by a little band of Sisters of Mercy, who, with the now famous Sœur Julie at their head, nursed the wounded all through those dreadful three weeks, with no thought of their own danger. The cross of the Legion of Honour was pinned on Sœur Julie’s serge robe by the President of the Republic, in front of the house where the Red Cross flag is still floating from the window, and where she and her fellow-Sisters gave such a splendid proof of the faith that was in them. Of the many deeds of heroism which they performed there is one little story which belonged entirely to herself. When the German soldiery were first let loose in the town, sacking and pillaging, they sacked and pillaged amongst other places the church (or perhaps it was the chapel, which is much nearer her house), and tried in vain to break open the sanctuary above the altar, by firing bullets at the lock. After they had gone Sœur Julie came to the place and with a bayonet which they had left on the stones wrenched open the door of the sanctuary, for fear that the sacred elements might fall into their sacrilegious hand if they came again. Though no one but a priest had the right to touch the wafers which were scattered on the floor of the sanctuary, she took them and the chalice, pierced by the Bavarian bullets, to her own house, and then, still with the same fear, herself consumed them, as David did the Shewbread, though with a rather higher object. And then, I am told, she felt rather uncomfortable in her mind—till she had made her confession to an ambulancier priest and received absolution for her “sin.”