They showed the _poilu_ returning home on leave, and on surprising his wife or his sweetheart with her hands helpless in the washtub, kissing her on the back of the neck. In the corner the dog danced on his hind legs, barking joyfully.
They showed the men in the trenches, and while one stood at the periscope the other opened their Christmas boxes; they showed father and son shoulder to shoulder marching through the snow, mud, and sleet; they showed the old couple at home with no fire in the grate, saying: "It is cold for us, but not so cold as for our son in the trench."
For every contribution to this Christmas fund those who gave received a decoration. According to the sum, these ran from paper badges on a pin to silver and gold medals.
The whole of France contributed to this fund. The proudest shops filled their windows with the paper badges, and so well was the fund organized that in every town and city petitioners in the streets waylaid every pedestrian.
Even in Modena, on the boundary-line of Italy, when I was returning to France, and sharing a lonely Christmas with the conductor of the wagon-lit, we were held up by train-robbers, who took our money and then pinned medals on us.
Until we reached Paris we did not know why. It was only later we learned that in the two days' campaign the _poilus_ was benefited to the sum of many millions of francs.
In Paris and over all France, for every one is suffering through the war, there is some individual or organization at work to relieve that suffering. Every one helps, and the spirit in which they help is most wonderful and most beautiful. No one is forgotten.
When the French artists were called to the front, the artists' models of the Place Pigalle and Montmartre were left destitute. They had not "put by." They were butterflies.
So some women of the industrious, busy-bee order formed a society to look after the artists' models. They gave them dolls to dress, and on the sale of dolls the human manikins now live.
Nor is any one who wants to help allowed to feel that he or she is too poor; that for his sou or her handiwork there is no need. The _midinettes_, the "cash" girls of the great department stores and millinery shops, had no money to contribute, so some one thought of giving them a chance to help the soldiers with their needles.