I never received from any the same sense of consecration, of absolute selflessness as I did from Mr. Holman-Black.  He and his brother have a beautiful little hotel, and for many years before the war were among the most brilliant contributors to the musical life of the great capital; but there has been no entertaining in those charming rooms since August, 1914.  Mr. Holman-Black is parrain (godfather) to three hundred and twenty soldiers at the Front, not only providing them with winter and summer underclothing, bedding, sleeping-suits, socks, and all the lighter articles they have the privilege of asking for, but also writing from fifteen to twenty letters to his filleuls daily.  He, too, has not taken a day’s vacation since the outbreak of the war, nor read a book.  He wears the uniform of a Red Cross officer, and is associated with several of Madame Balli’s oeuvres.

VI

A few days later Madame Balli took me to another hospital—­Hopital Militaire Villemin—­where she gives a concert once a week.  Practically all the men that gathered in the large room to hear the music, or crowded before the windows, were well and would leave shortly for the front, but a few were brought in on stretchers and lay just below the platform.  This hospital seemed less dreary to me than most of those I had visited, and the yard was full of fine trees.  It was also an extremely cheerful afternoon, for not only was the sun shining, but the four artists Madame Balli had brought gave of their best and their efforts to amuse were greeted with shouts of laughter.

Lyse Berty—­the most distinguished vaudeville artist in France and who is certainly funnier than any woman on earth—­had got herself up in horizon blue, and was the hit of the afternoon.  The men forgot war and the horrors of war and surrendered to her art and her selections with an abandon which betrayed their superior intelligence, for she is a very plain woman.  Miss O’Brien, an Irish girl who has spent her life in Paris and looks like the pictures in some old Book of Beauty—­immense blue eyes, tiny regular features, small oval face, chestnut hair, pink-and-white skin, and a tall “willowy” figure—­was second in their critical esteem, because she did not relieve their monotonous life with fun, but sang, instead, sweet or stirring songs in a really beautiful voice.  The other two, young entertainers of the vaudeville stage, were not so accomplished but were applauded politely, and as they possessed a liberal share of the grace and charm of the Frenchwoman and were exquisitely dressed, no doubt men still recall them on dreary nights in trenches.