She insisted on our finding time to share the _filet_ and
fried potatoes that were just being taken off the stove, and while
we lunched she told us the story of the invasion--of the Hospice
doors broken down "a coups de crosse" and the grey officers bursting
in with revolvers, and finding her there before them, in the big
vaulted vestibule, "alone with my old men and my Sisters." Soeur
Gabrielle Rosnet is a small round active woman, with a shrewd and
ruddy face of the type that looks out calmly from the dark
background of certain Flemish pictures. Her blue eyes are full of
warmth and humour, and she puts as much gaiety as wrath into her
tale. She does not spare epithets in talking of "ces satanes
Allemands"--these Sisters and nurses of the front have seen sights
to dry up the last drop of sentimental pity--but through all the
horror of those fierce September days, with Clermont blazing about
her and the helpless remnant of its inhabitants under the perpetual
threat of massacre, she retained her sense of the little inevitable
absurdities of life, such as her not knowing how to address the
officer in command "because he was so tall that I couldn't see up to
his shoulder-straps."--"Et ils etaient tous comme ca," she added, a
sort of reluctant admiration in her eyes.
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