Lyons, France, August 20, 1871

My dear Annie:

If I were to make an apology as long as my offense, I could write nothing else, but I don’t like apologies; you don’t either, do you? Then let me hasten to proclaim myself an idle, lazy, procrastinating, miserable do-nothing and good-for-nothing; if that isn’t enough, I leave the sentence open for you to finish and I sign it squarely when you have done and call it “quits.” But really it has been too bad. I have neglected everybody in general, not you in particular. I thought I was too busy to write. I don’t suppose I was, only that I did not employ my time well. I know this is often so and perhaps always. I wish I had been better educated in this regard as well as every other. If you are ever married, as you doubtless will be, and have a family of eight or ten children, I beg you will make it a specialty in their several educations that they be taught to do things in the proper time. You will do me a favor to remember this as one of “my efforts for the good of humanity.”

PRINCE BISMARCK’S LETTER p1

PRINCE BISMARCK’S LETTER p2

[Facsimile]
PRINCE BISMARCK’S LETTER

I wanted all last winter to tell you about my “dressmaking” and describe to you my “shop.” I knew it would interest you if no one else. Now, wasn’t that the last thing you would have thought of, that I should come to Europe and set up dressmaking, and French dressmaking at that? I knew the fact would be a little surprise to most of my old friends who knew me best, but to you I imagine it a matter of bewildering astonishment. Well, you should have seen the patterns! “Did I have patterns?” Didn’t I? And didn’t I cut them myself? And didn’t I direct all the making until I had imparted my wonderful art to others? And you think my garments were fearfully and wonderfully made! Well, that opinion comes of your being an old maid and so particular. I assure you, Miss Annie Childs, that they were nice garments and prettily cut and well made, and I found them in excellent demand; every one wanted them and never a word of complaint of the price; everybody seemed to be perfectly convinced that they were cheap enough at my first offer. I had ten young girls (like yours) dressmakers, and from one to three men “tailors” who worked twelve hours a day, but only with the shears, never an hour’s sewing; and no one sewed at my “shop”; only those who must be taught to take something out and do it over. And we made dresses and sacques and petticoats and chemises and aprons and hoods and mittens and pantaloons, vests, blouses, shirts, socks, of all kinds of material and all sizes that ever the tiniest baby grew to. Oh, yes, and such lots of things for babies,—little dresses, little bonnets, cloaks, blankets, two thousand garments every week. I don’t think they were gored and flounced and frilled as much as yours, Miss Annie Childs, but they were strong and warm and handsome. It is true all my seamstresses had not such nimble, delicate fingers as one might desire for the finest work; they wore very large thimbles sometimes; but there were plenty of small fingers in the family. They came very gladly twice a week to see me and showed me with great pride their successful efforts; always the work came home in the market basket, and always I knew that that same basket would load the other way with bread and a little meat if it were possible, but this was not always. But it was such a comfort to see them, week by week, grow better clothed themselves and the children, till by and by a woman and her baby came to look only like a big and a little bundle of the same clothing she carried in her basket. And all the working-people of the city came to look like walking bundles of the same clothing. To be sure, it took away something from the picturesque style of the city as I first saw it when at least ten thousand human beings were perfectly arranged for models for the painter and the sculptor. I admit that it was highly artistic, but I thought it a “peutrop” for the season, considering that the earliest snows had commenced to fall. Oh, but don’t you wish now that you had come and worked at the head of my “shop”—didn’t I wish it? More than once I sighed in my inmost soul for you. How rich I should have been, with you at my side! Just think of it! I shall write to Fannie sometime when I hain’t told all the news to you—please hand her this if she looks patient and strong enough to stand it.

How much I wonder what you are all doing at home! I seem entirely to have lost the thread, and from the stray little thrums which I get hold of I cannot pick it up. I am just now in despair about Sally. Some one writes me that they suppose I know all about her and Vester’s sickness! Imagine the effect of this piece of intelligence. Another says, it was fortunate they were with Ber and Fannie, as they were sure of good care!!! This is consoling. What did they have, and how did they get it, and how was it, and when was it, and how is it now? Do pray you write and tell me. I am distressed and can’t at all help myself. I do hope they have not had a serious illness, but I keep feeling all the time that somebody will be sick. I keep writing Sally at Washington, but have no idea where she is and where you are this hot summer, and Fannie, poor, dear, neglected Fannie. She ought to cross me off her books, and I guess she has before this time. I know there has never been a day since I left that the entire troop of you all has not passed in panorama before me, and I have attempted to place you all as I thought it most likely to be, but I suppose I have been wide of the mark.

For me, as you must have known a hundred times when I left Strassburg, I went to Paris, and, after six weeks there distributing clothing and money, I left and came to Lyons to visit a family of one of the younger ladies who had aided me twice since the war commenced, and I have remained here about as long as I was in Paris, but am ready to leave, and shall again this week go to Paris for a day or two to meet some parties of Americans who will be there on their way home, and from there I am to go, as I have been once, into the central eastern portion of France to see the places and peoples who have been much destroyed by the war and the sieges. I have no idea how much time I shall consume here. I must judge this by the condition I find the people in. I am almost tired of France and long for Germany or something which is solid and Saxon. There is no truth, no fixedness of purpose, nothing reliable, nothing sensible in France, and it only disgusts me that they have always claimed the leadership of the world and that so stupidly it has been conceded to them. I do hope the German bayonets have punched a hole in that bubble large enough to burst it. It is certainly time. If they were even neat, I would not complain so much of them, but they are such a dirty race of people, dirty but fashionable. One gets tired of this. Now, you will see from this that it is a real merit in me to work for the French. I do it out of pity and charity toward suffering humanity, because they need, and not because I gratify my love or my taste by it. I do neither. I think it right to do or I would not touch it, I do assure you.

Now, there are so many people whom you see every day that I would be so glad to see that it makes me almost homesick to write you. Does Willis still remain in Oxford, and Uncle John and Nancy; how are they? And Mrs. Hannah Sanford and Mrs. Sigourney, and all my cousins in Worcester; do you see them? Cousin Lydia Grout, do you see her ever? The Bacons and Starrs and Cousin Maria? I am told that Cousin Ned is to be married, and then my Cousin Jerry, what of him, and the Dennys and Dr. Snow? If you see him, please remember me most kindly. And the Towers and Mr. and Mrs. T. W. Hammond. Don’t you see I am homesick to see all these people even if they have forgotten me? I cannot help it. I am sure you will write me a long letter full of news, just as is your specialty, for, Annie Childs, you know, you do know, how to write a letter, and I shall wait for it now till it comes. You will address me as usual care of American Legation, Berne, Switzerland.

How does Ber behave? Does he boss his wife any? If he does, you pull his ears for me, and oblige

Yoors trooly, and believe me, your lovingest Sis

Clara Barton

Benjamin Moran, Esq.
Chargé d’Affaires, London

Esteemed Sir:

While I acknowledge the receipt of your favor and enclosed cheque for five hundred pounds, permit me, in the name of the suffering of France, to thank you and your Committee most earnestly for the same. Your generous gift will enable me to send comfort into hundreds of desolate and more distraught families, whom I have hitherto been unable to reach. I beg you will permit me to explain that my attempts to clothe the people of France have not been the result of a desire to improve the personal appearance, but to aid in ridding them a little, if possible, from the scourge of pestilence and vermin which the war has so terribly spread among them.

It is to be hoped that few will die of outright hunger during the next six months, but thousands must fall pitiful victims to disease lurking in the only old rags, in which months ago they escaped from fire and destruction. Disease is spread from one family to another, until thousands who are well to-day will rot with smallpox and be devoured by body lice before the end of August. Against the progress of these two scourges there is, I believe, no check but the destruction of all infected garments; hence the imperative necessity for something to take their place. Excuse, sir, I pray you, the plain, ugly terms which I have employed to express myself; the facts are plain and ugly.

Paris, Sept. 18, 1871

My dear Fannie:

I have forgotten if I really did send a line in Annie’s letter or not. I know I wanted to, but since that I have received that precious “gingerbread” letter from all the family, and I have read and re-read, and spied into little corners to see some other welcome face peeping out. It was so good of Willis and Ber to set their hands and seals. Yes, I know all about receiving letters that call directly upon my heart, and my desire to answer that hour, and a thousand times I have said that those were the very letters which were to lie longest in neglect and likely enough never get answered at all. The fact is I am over-anxious about them, and wait for a few moments of better opportunity, feeling that I have much to say, and so I wait and wait, and these letters are the sore spot, the worrying sin of my existence, that little package which I cannot put by, but which lies around, and looks me in the face on the most impossible of occasions, and reproaches in silence, and comes late at night and early in the morning to haunt, it may be to taunt, me a little; that little package is the plague of my life, and yet I prize it most of all and couldn’t have done without it, but I can never quite dispose of it. Oh, yes, yes, I do understand all you try so patiently to explain to me, ONLY that I don’t think my poor scrap could ever have been one of the class of letter which burden me, for I have no recollection whatever of it, and seriously suspect it was only a little pile of trash. It has been brave of you not to get sick in all summer with all your work, and company and sickness besides, but I am so glad that Sally was with you, and I suppose Vester was also, but it is not mentioned where he was during his illness.

I am spending some fine days in Paris, just what I most desired. I wanted to see some American people; it had been so long since I had seen them—and indeed there is no lack of them here. All Paris swarms with them, as I suppose it always does, and all grades. Some I am proud of, and some I am ashamed of; some speak remarkably well, and some cannot utter a proper sentence. Generally they are “well dressed,” as the world goes, but to my eye “over-rigged,” as a sailor would say, but always much better than the English, who are the most fearful dressers in all Christendom. English women are solid and sensible, learned and self-possessed, and all the world respects them; but the art of selecting and putting clothes onto themselves is something quite beyond their line of vision. Not that they do not wear enough,—oh, Heavens, no, not that,—there is always enough and to spare, but there is no calculation what portion or member of the body corporate it will be found dangling from, and Joseph’s coat bore no comparison. Still they are splendid women, and handsome, fifty per cent more beautiful than the French. The French declare that the Germans cannot dress in decent manner, but I have seen much good, comfortable-looking dressing in Germany, and I rather liked it. I don’t know what has induced me to write so much upon the silly matter of dress, unless that some of my “sisterin” abroad annoy me a little with theirs.

I can see how busy Ber must be with his large family and congratulate both him and his children upon the relationship. I imagine him to be the most sensible and paternal of parents. I shall be only too glad when you can really take your legitimate place in the work. I can see an equal call for your services. Go and look after the little girls. They may not like to tell all their troubles to their State Papa, but would rejoice to reveal some things to a mamma. Go with Ber. I think that is one of your “rights”—it is at least your privilege, and you know it is very well said that “until women get their rights, they must keep their privileges.” I also have something of a family in Europe, some hundreds of state children, but of my own immediate family I have two delightful girls. They are as fully grown and developed as my two boys in America were, rather more, and about as near alike, but charming girls, both good as they can be, and be human, live girls. One is all gentleness, the other all strength, but both are so loving, so obedient, so true. The elder is Miss Antoinette Margot. She is a thorough artist, and is with me at present, painting and visiting the Louvre and the Luxembourg and comparing notes with the Parisian painters. She is at this moment painting an American flag, and looking back over her shoulder to ask me, “How many of the red stripes must commence at the field?” and ends with “Mais il est très joli.” Miss Anna Zimmermann is at her home in Carlsruhe looking after the thousand wants of a clergyman’s house, keeping the big brothers in order for the Universities they are plodding through; obeying her papa and mamma, who tell her she is too “independent and ambitious,” writing at odd moments as she can pick them, reading Carlyle, Dickens, Goethe, Schiller, as she can steal the minutes, pining that she must be held in just such bondage of body and soul, praying for the day when she may come and live with me a little more, and beginning a long, strong, logical letter once in a while with “To the Devil with the housework! Why must I fritter away all the best years of my own life and starve my brain to cram my brothers who already have been taught twenty times more than they can apply?” And she is right.

But my sheet will be full and I shall have said nothing at all. I have just written your “Marm” and I think, perhaps, that will find its way to you, and you must just have had a surfeit through Annie. I am glad she went for a vacation. I wonder what they do at Falmouth. When I am home, can’t we go? I am not at all certain where I shall pass the winter; it may be I shall think I must work in France. I cannot tell how they will present themselves by winter, or I may think it well to quarter myself here in Paris and wait; and I have half a mind to go to Spain. This is perhaps the most sensible use I could make of the time. I must wait a little the turning of events. I can tell better after a month more in the east of France. I am glad you have had a visit from Georgie. It was nice of her to send me a line. Is not Alice with you now? Has she turned to ashes?—very possible—human nature can as well as wood or coal. Write me when you have time and don’t let Ber abuse you.

YoursClara

To Ber—
I am first-rate, how are you? Clara
For particulars see within.

[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.

Happily, that is past, and my present hour must be applied to telling you of Miss Barton’s work in a third general point of desolate France, viz., the brave little town of Belfort, which has rendered its name illustrious by the heroism of its defense. Here we are, facing the high citadel and the famous cannon “Catharine” that twenty-five thousand German bombs could not silence, and here day after day works your countrywoman trying to overcome the greatest amount of misery possible among so many.

The room in which she received her people has been tendered by Monsieur l’Administrateur of the town, and is in his own mansion, and himself and family are proving at every moment to your noble sister how proud they are of having obtained this favor.

It is in this room that she stands from morning till night, smiling and graceful as always, receiving family after family, and endeavoring to learn by herself what are their circumstances, how deeply they have suffered, to express to them her sympathy, and assist them with some money. It is probable that many of these poor people in this land of aristocracies have never listened to words so respectfully spoken, and are often so overcome by this added kindness of manner extended to them that the first answer which comes is a sob,—often no words can come,—and trembling, blessing hands held out to her are all that can speak. But oh! how eloquently they speak!

They are very poor, these relics of an eight months’ siege. Some, of course, have lost nothing in material by the war, having nothing to lose but time and labor, but the larger portion have lost all or nearly all they possessed, the fruit of forty or fifty years of hard work, and remain homeless, hopeless, old, broken, dispirited, sick since they have lived in cellars, and without the smallest prospect of regaining their lost property. Do wars in Republics leave the people as badly off, I wonder?

It is not a rare thing to see a poor woman come in with her garland of six, seven, or eight handsome young children which she presents with both pride and distress. One had even thirteen, and when asked if all of them were still in her charge, she exclaimed, with the most charming simplicity, “Oh! no, madame, two are abroad; I have only eleven to work for.”

To-day, a tall, thinly clad woman entered, and presented her billet, bearing the stamp of the mayor. “Have you children?” asked Miss Barton kindly, as she took it. “Have I children?” exclaimed the woman in a tone at once proud and pitiful. “Dear child, if I haven’t. I have ten.” Miss Barton turned away to her table, but a stolen glance at her face a moment after detected something there glistening brighter than the gold she dropped into that hard, dark hand. “Ah,” thought I, as I hastened down the name as rapidly as possible,—“Ah, if only all the world’s work were done with a little of the heart in it how much nearer Heaven would seem!”

When it was decided that Miss Barton would accept the labor of herself receiving the crowd of victims of the bombardment, the authorities of the town, fearing for her, from the roughness of these people, who, they said, would rush in all together, by all the doors and windows, placed four policemen around the house to protect her against the crowd. Two of them in turn have for their mission to open the only door by which the solicitors are admitted. But never was I so amused as to see Miss Barton protecting her policemen, and preventing these rough men and shrill-toned women from crowding them against the wall. When sometimes they are all in a quarrel, the policemen swearing like two thunders according to the approved French manner of preserving respect, she appears at the door, and in the most charming manner prays them to wait a little and be quiet. Then the most piercing voices become silent, the wildest men are ashamed of their noise. The only visible motions are those nearest trying to hide themselves behind others, and those in the distance raising themselves on tiptoe to see “la bonne dame américaine.” As for the policemen, they are perfectly puzzled, and could never have supposed that so gentle a lady, who never scolds or swears, could hold in order so undisciplined a crowd.

Often the work is interrupted for more agreeable reasons. Once it is a deputation of the sisters of the civil hospital, in their snowy bonnets, or some other charitable institutions of the town who want to thank her for the gifts sent to their establishment. Another day it is the mayor of the town, who desires to pay respects; another time all the council, mercifully asking to be allowed to express to her their gratitude in the name of Belfort and the county. All this as a personal matter I hear always steadily repelled, and they are politely requested to bear in mind that it is America and the goodly city of Boston to whom, if to any, all thanks are due. But no one is so mad as to expect to outdo a Frenchman in official politeness, and I observed the president of the council, half bent, hat in hand, replying that their three names would be always so united in their hearts that they should never be able to hear the one without thinking of the others.

This is a region almost exclusively Catholic, and the ignorance of the people is something deplorable. Each recipient is asked for a signature, and the proportion who are able to make something beyond an X is less than one in fifteen. Writing is an accomplishment generally not to be thought of, especially by the women, but when one who has attained so far is asked if she can give her signature, she replies, with the assuming grace of a noble of the blood, “Certainement, pourquoi pas?” But the common response is a burst of astonishment at the bare supposition. “I write! Mon Dieu, how should I.” A difficulty, by no means the smallest, is to find the kind of money to which these poor people have been accustomed. The immense payments of France to Germany all in silver and gold are fast making coin among the things that were. The bank-notes of France never having been small in value, and used rather as a convenience for business than as a currency for the people, the poor are mostly strangers to it, and when a note was placed in their hands they waited, holding it a long time, and then ventured to inquire timidly, if that was something that they could get some money for, and where they should go to get it changed, and how they should do it? It was useless to tell them its value; they would have preferred ten francs in silver to twenty in paper. And, indeed, as they could not read, it were perhaps better for them, as one saw at once that they would be at the mercy of every swindler they met. This would not do. All notes which had been given were recalled and redeemed in coin, and it is certainly the occupation of one man from morning till night to change paper into coin as fast as it is required for distribution.

But it is impossible; the night is not long enough to tell all that transpires during the day, and one must not attempt it. I only wish, as I always do, that her own people could see their countrywoman at work among European poor, as not one European has done. If they are proud of her for what she has done at home, they would be prouder of her in a tenfold greater degree for what she is doing abroad, never at the best strength, in a strange country of foreign customs and divers tongues.

Pardon, s’il vous plaît, my miserable English; you knew what it was when you gave me leave to write you, and I can only thank you for the kind indulgence.

Yours in sincerity
A.

Château de Belfort
Belfort, Oct. 28, 1871

Dear Mr. Dwight:

Sitting down to write you after one of the hardest day’s work one might ever hope to find, you will not wonder if I am not dazzlingly brilliant.

I should not select so inauspicious a moment but that I find your letter has been waiting so long without getting to me, and that I cannot rest until I have at least commenced a reply, even if I am not able to finish it to-night. It had been stayed by my own orders. My letters in France for a time went wrongly and some were lost, both for and from me, for which the postal authorities are now busy searching, and as the losing of letters is one of the things I cannot endure, I ordered mine to be held at all points where they would arrive, until I could arrange some safe place of reception. They have come to me at Belfort, and I find yours which has waited a month.

I should have written upon leaving Paris in July if I had not thought every day that I might get a line from either you or Mr. Moran, telling me of the delivery or receipt of my large package of accounts, from which I might draw some inference if my manner of doing things were an acceptable one. After this, I grew so busy that I think I forgot all but my work, or rather did not realize the length of time, as it passed so quickly.

You ask for my views. They have been so many and so varied that it would be impossible to tell them at one sitting, but I may say that my sympathy and judgment have pointed, and my efforts been directed, to three classes of sufferers, with two of which I have nearly finished, and the third I am at this moment among with heart and hand.

1. These were, the families of the prisoners of Versailles, and the ships of the Manche.

2. The families of Alsace and Lorraine, who, refusing to become German, are passing over the lines into France by hundreds, even thousands.

3. And thirdly, the region of Belfort.

The first-named of these are no longer confined to Paris, but are scattered now, for some distance around, poor, suffering, frightened, and trebly desolate.

First, they have often lost the family support in the person of the prisoner; next, they wait in suspense worse than actual death for the result of the impending trial, and fearing often to reveal to those about them who they are, and why they are so destitute; and lastly, poor as they are, they know that the Government allows but fifty centimes a day for the use of each prisoner, and provides nothing else, not even a bed, only straw, and whatever more he has (and many are very ill) must be provided by the friends from outside. You will see how the hungry mouths and wretched homes would be robbed by pity and anxiety to supply this necessity.

I have made it a portion of my care to find and supply some of these families; it can only be some, for there cannot be less than twenty thousand of them. There are forty thousand prisoners.

The next in order, and a still more wretched class, if possible, so far as extreme homelessness and nothingness can go, are the outcoming Alsatians. The time has arrived for each to decide individually which to become, and remaining to take the oath of allegiance to Germany. In their ignorance and infatuation, they still believe France to be the greatest nation of the earth, and, in spite of her recent reverses, watch with unflinching faith to see her, at no distant day, rise in all her old-time power and glory, and advance in majesty to take back her lost possessions; and to them the thought is death, that, in that proud day, second only to the Resurrection, they and their sons must bend their necks to the Prussian helmet, and point their guns against the Eagles of France. Impudent expressions touching these points bring them into unpleasant relations with the German soldiery still stationed among them, who probably do not hesitate to mention unwelcome and unpalatable facts. This “last feather” is too much, and, finding the burden too heavy to be borne, the incensed father, or, too often, the widowed mother, gathers up the family of growing children, and, turning the back upon the blackened walls and trampled fields of the old home, makes the nearest point of the French lines and comes out defiant, with never a penny or a morsel. The French are glad to receive them, feel complimented by their loyalty, but are burdened and embarrassed by them. Societies for their relief are formed at many points, but it is only the merest trifle they can do for them, excepting to aid in finding employment. This often takes a long time, and the interim of waiting is something fearful. I found them largely at Lyons, which is one of the points they make on their way to the South of France, and Algiers. Again I found them at Paris, where several thousands have come in, every train bringing them, especially the night trains.

I have put in practice a lesson here which I learned in Germany fourteen months ago, when infuriated France drove all her German families over her lines; viz., to meet and provide for them at the trains. No one can suppose for a moment that leaving Alsace and Lorraine and coming into France is not the most unwise and deplorable step these poor people could take; that they would not be a hundred-fold better off to remain. But I did not understand that your mission was to the wise, but to the unhappy, and I have taken the liberty to give them something.

But while occupied with those and these, I had by no means forgotten Belfort, or the fact that this was to be the great point when the right time should come. After leaving Paris, I met some very intelligent and practical gentlemen from that vicinity and learned of them many facts which have been of use to me, and always a confirmation of what we had both thought, viz., that help would be really more serviceable at the commencement of the cold weather than in midsummer. Their crops were abundant, especially grass. This set me to confer in Switzerland in reference to cows, and from these inquiries I learned something of a plan most gratifying if it could be realized, and I waited a little to see. This was in August, at which time, as you know, nearly all the cattle are on the mountains. On the 9th of October (“Le jour de la Saint Denis”) they are returned to the farms! There are then often too many for the winter and they can be purchased at lower rates. This, then, would be the time to purchase. But the good idea had entered into the minds of the Swiss to make a collection of cattle at that time for all the vicinity of Belfort and Montbéliard, or where the stock had been lost. They could do this without sending money out of Switzerland, which they desired to avoid, having already done so much of it. They carried out their plan, and when the time arrived commenced sending, and are still sending, to this region nearly as much stock as it is thought they can keep through the winter.

When I saw these things likely to succeed, I held a conference with the authorities of Belfort, and asked them to tell me plainly what their people most needed. They replied, “Small sums of money to commence the winter with,” and gave this reason: There is just now commencing a money panic in France. The large payments she must make to Germany in gold and silver make these commodities exceedingly scarce, and all who have a little bury it in their pockets and bureaus, and hold it against the time when there will be no more and paper worth little or nothing. The smallest note, as you know, is twenty francs, a sum beyond the reach of a poor family, and thus there is nothing for them in money. This state of things, they assured me, would grow worse and worse, and, as France is only at her second payment (I believe), there was no room to doubt the correctness of their judgment. I asked how they would have it, in a sum to give to the people themselves, or should I give it? Apologizing for the labor they were suggesting to me, they begged that I would do it if I could, not that they were too indolent to do the work (for they are splendid men, and have the welfare of their people at heart), but they explained, that, living among and exercising jurisdiction over these people, who looked to them for impossible things, it was embarrassing to them to make distributions among them personally. The people were ignorant, and all had suffered so much that each one believed his or her case to be the worst in the world. And they would be much better satisfied with something from a stranger, which they would receive as a gift, than with ten times the sum from the municipal authorities, to whom they looked for “indemnity.” They seemed almost ashamed to ask of me the labor of distribution, and offered all possible assistance. For the town of Belfort and the nearest villages, the Administrateur has made the same kind of arrangement as the Mayor of Villette, and I am at this writing receiving at this house from fifty to a hundred a day, hearing their story and giving to them the proportion which seems best suited to their condition.

I shall go from point to point seeing and aiding personally all I can or until I am too tired to go farther, and after this, if something remain unfinished, find the proper persons to do what I have not done. Montbéliard, Haute Savoie, and Gex will be remembered as you desired. Indeed, is it necessary for me to say that I shall try by all means in my power to carry out all suggestions which you have made? Time and observation have shown them to have been wise and good. I have found nothing better, and only dare hope I may be able to execute something nearly as well as you designed.

The money from Baring Bros. I have drawn through Paris, as far as I thought well in the present state of things, and indeed more of it than I have found convenient for the manner in which I was desired to distribute it, and some I must take through Switzerland or Germany to get the coin which will be useful to these people. The authorities will aid me in all these things. I have so far rather gained than lost in all exchanges.

I believe I have forgotten to speak of my visit to the Prefect of Doubs, which was one of the most pleasant that could have been. I found him to be an excellent man (who desired to be remembered to you with great regard, regretting your illness). He seemed glad and touched that I had found and regarded the families of Alsace and Lorraine, and a little surprised that I should have “comprehended their condition so quickly,” as he expressed it, as they are a rather new feature in the chapter of French suffering, and he asked that, in anything I might leave with Besançon, he be allowed to draw one half of it from the “Comité de Secours” from time to time to aid these families on their distressing arrivals and passages through the town. I thank you very much for this pleasant and useful introduction.

I am unable, my dear friend, at the present moment to report further, as I am just in the midst of my work; when it is a little over, I will write again, and as soon as possible I will send you all explanations and certificates and signatures which have come into my possession, and tell you as well as I am able what I have done, and how it was done.

With the highest esteem

I am very truly yours

Clara Barton

I cannot describe how painful and tiresome I find it to work here, abroad, among these strangers, with every thought and sympathy and energy turning and rushing four thousand miles across the ocean to our own beautiful and ill-fated city,[1] with its hundred thousand homeless heads. At night I can realize this a little; in the morning I think I have dreamed a bad dream. The facts will not remain fixed with me.

A message has been sent from the Court of Baden to say that I am desired there. This is the third time I have been asked in the last two months, but was always too busy to go immediately, but now that I am so near and the message made so direct, I must go. If I can finish my work first I will; if not, I must leave it a little and return. I have no idea what is wanted of me. I will send this enclosed to Baring Bros.

Hastily

C. B.

Messrs. Edmund Dwight and P. T. Jackson
Boston
Esteemed Friends:

It has long been a subject of deep regret to me that I have been unable to make my report of the expenditure of certain sums of money placed in my hands by you, as agents for the distribution of the “French Relief Fund” sent by the city of Boston to the people of France who had been rendered destitute by the war of 1870-71. My apology for this long delay is physical illness, which overtook me before the work of distribution was completed in 1872, and has, with the exception of a few months, held me prostrate from that time until the present, more than two thirds of the time unable to leave my bed, and one year unable to transact the smallest item of my own business, or even hear of it as done by others.

But all this time it has been a source of pain and unrest to me that I could not close the account and make the proper returns to you; and all the more so, as there is still a portion of the money which I did not expend, and which I desire to return to you; and only He who knows and comprehends all can know with what gratitude I welcome the past few weeks of returning strength, which have enabled me to go over the long undisturbed packages of letters, receipts, and vouchers which have traveled with and remained by me all these weak and weary years, and arrange them to be at last given up to you, who have waited upon my silence with a gentlemanly kindness seldom met in the rough business of life.

Although allowed the largest liberty in regard to the place and manner of the distribution, I knew from you both that your preference lay in the direction of the east of France, and accordingly Belfort, Montbéliard, Besançon, Savoie, and Strassburg became the scenes of my labors: and, as you both know my manner was to give in small sums to the needy in person, it only remains for me to repeat that I met the poor of these districts by call, through the civil authorities presiding over them, listened to each story of want and suffering, and gave such a sum as assured by the authorities would be most serviceable to them, and such as they themselves should have given if left in their hands. I was always cautioned from this quarter against making the sum too large, as the people had only the habit of small sums, and were demoralized by too much at once. This, of course, both increased and prolonged the labor of distribution.

I remember to have written you that among the most necessitous I met were the outcoming Alsatians. An extract from a letter of mine, written at Belfort, October, 1871, and kindly embodied in your report, renders a further description of this class of sufferers unnecessary in mine.

As these self-constituted exiles made their way largely into or through the districts I was serving, the people were keenly alive to the distress they witnessed, and humanely devised plans for relief. The one most practicable to their minds was to form a colony of Alsatians in the South of France and help them on to it. The climate was genial and productive, the country not over-populated, and the mayors and prefects besought me to withhold something for this enterprise and aid them personally in the establishment of their colony. I accordingly held back the money I had not expended, and went to Paris to learn what aid would be rendered by influential persons and the Government. But Paris was not so unsophisticated as the good people of the desolated outskirts. She was wise, polite, and had other aims. She immediately foresaw that these people, once broken up in their homes and family ties, placed on the borders of the sea studded with ships, would not withstand a pressure of poverty; but at the first approach of want would emigrate a second time and to some other country. Thus France would lose her soldiers, and she counted largely on the exasperated Alsatians some day to fight for their homes, take back their lost possessions, and the Rhine. Hence they not only discouraged but forbade the step, and I had my appropriation left on my hands. I went to Carlsruhe to deliberate and rest, was worn out, and became ill, and from that time have never been able either to apply the funds or (until now) arrange the papers showing how I had disposed of what I had applied.

At the end of a year and a half of illness, I was able to figure up what still is due you, which sum, if satisfactory to you, I shall be happy to send you in a draft on my bankers.

Praying that, if upon examination all is not found to be satisfactory, you will not hesitate to inform me, and thanking you for your kindness and patience, I remain,

With the highest respect

Most truly yours

Clara Barton

New England Village, Mass.
April 24, 1876