"Do you admit," asked the presiding officer, "that you helped French soldiers to escape?"
"I certainly do," she replied. "I managed it so that sixteen of them escaped, and they are beyond your reach. Now you can do what you want to me. I am an orphan. I have only one mother--France. She does not disturb me when I'm dying."
This was one time when God intervened. Marcelle did not die. Brought to the place of execution, at the very moment when they were about to shoot, the French reëntered the village and, by a miracle, she escaped her executioners. Today she wears the Croix de Guerre and the medal of the Legion of Honor.
They were Frenchwomen and fighters, these women whose names and deeds are to be found in the columns of the "Journal Officiel." Read, for example, this citation concerning Madame Macherez, President of the Association des Dames Françaises de Soissons:
She willingly assumed the responsibility and the danger of representing the city before the enemy, and defended or managed the interests of the population in the absence of the mayor and the majority of the members of the town council. In spite of an intense bombardment which partially ruined the city, she took the most effective means possible to maintain calm in the city and to protect the lives of the inhabitants.
In this department, a lay instructress, Mlle. Cheron, merited a citation which does not contain the least over-praise:
She evidenced the greatest energy in difficult circumstances. Charged with the duties of Secretary to the Mayor, and alone at the time of the arrival of the Germans, she was not disconcerted by their threats, and kept her head in the face of their demands with remarkable calm and decision. When our troops returned, she assumed responsibility for the service and feeding of the cantonment. She personally took the steps necessary for the identification and burial of the dead. Finally, she was able to prevent panic at the time of the bombardment by the force of her example and her encouragement of the populace.
Those three nuns were also Frenchwomen and fighters of whom the "Journal Officiel" in the general order spoke as follows:
Mlle. Rosnet, Marie, sister of the order of St. Vincent de Paul, Mother Superior of the Hospice at Clermont-en-Argonne, remained alone in the village and showed during the German occupation an energy and coolness beyond all praise. Having received a promise from the enemy that they would respect the town in exchange for the care the sisters gave their wounded, she protested to the German commander against the burning of the town with the observation that "the word of a German officer is not worth that of a French officer." Thus she obtained the help of a company of sappers who fought the flames. She gave the most devoted care to the wounded, German as well as French....