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But nothing could daunt Mlle. Javal. She managed to get together with the least possible delay a committee of three hundred, and she obtained subscriptions in money from one thousand five hundred firms, besides donations of food and clothing from eight hundred others, headed by the King of Spain.

Javal found herself seeing more and more of that vast circle of inherited friends as well as family connections which no well-born bourgeoise can escape, and gradually became infected with the excitement of the hour; despite the fact that she believed her poor worn-out body never would take a long walk again. Then, one day, the thought suddenly illuminated her awakening mind: "How fortunate I am!

The secret of the order was that civilian Germans were begging bread of the French prisoners, and this, of course, was bad for the tenderly nursed German morale. Mlle. Javal, unlike Madame Balli, was not a member of the fashionable society of Paris, a femme du monde, or a reigning beauty. But in certain respects their cases were not dissimilar.

I once heard the estimate of the army's indebtedness placed as high as a million and a half. The work of M. Frederic Masson must not be ignored, and Madame Balli assisted him for a short time, until compelled to concentrate on her other work; but it is not comparable in scope to that of Mlle. Javal.

Javal found herself; and from a halting apprehensive seeker, still weary in mind and limb, she became almost abruptly one of the most original and executive women in France incidentally one of the healthiest.

The connection of his later attacks with anger, worry, embarrassment, even the excitement of watching a play at the theatre, was noted again and again. In Javal's case, the attack fatal to one eye came at the culmination of an exciting electoral campaign. The other eye was stricken at the termination of the Dreyfus case, in which Javal was intensely interested.

So heavy has been the subscription, so persistent and intelligent the work of all connected with this great oeuvre, so increasingly fertile the amazing brain of Mlle. Javal, that practically nothing is now wanted to make these Dépôts d'Éclopés perfect instruments for saving men for the army by the hundred thousand.

This great organization, known as "L'Assistance aux Dépôts d'Éclopés, Petits Blessés et Petites Malades, et aux Cantonments de Repos," was formally inaugurated on November 14, 1914, with Madame Jules Ferry as President, and Madame Viviani as Vice-President. Mlle. Javal shows modestly on the official list as Secrétaire Genérale.

Sooner or later, of course, the Government would have taken them in hand and organized them as meticulously as they have organized every conceivable angle of this great struggle; but meanwhile thousands would have died or shambled home to litter the villages as hopeless invalids. Perhaps hundreds of thousands is a safer computation, and these hundreds of thousands Mlle. Javal saved for France.

But the large number of those temporarily out of condition were sent back of the lines, or to a sort of camp outside of Paris, to rest until they were in a condition to fight again. If it had not been for Mlle. Javal it is possible that more men than one cares to estimate would never have fought again. The éclopés at that time were the most abject victims of the war.