But Mlle. Jacquier told me that what really kept them in order was the
influence of Mlle. Thompson. At first she came every week late in the
afternoon to give them a talk; then every fortnight; then--oh la! la!

I listened to one or two of these talks. The girls sat in a
semicircle, hardly breathing, their eyes filling with tears whenever
Mlle. Thompson, who sat at a table at the head of the room, played on
that particular key.

I never thought Valentine Thompson more remarkable than during this
hour dedicated to the tuning and exalting of the souls of these girls.
Several told me that she held their hearts in her hands when she
talked and that they would follow her straight to the battlefield.
She, herself, assumed her most serious and exalted expression. I have
never heard any one use more exquisite French. Not for a moment did
she talk down to those girls of a humbler sphere. She lifted them to
her own. Her voice took on deeper tones, but she always stopped short
of being dramatic. French people of all classes are too keen and
clear-sighted and intelligent to be taken in by theatrical tricks, and
Mlle. Thompson made no mistakes. Her only mistake was in neglecting
these girls later on for other new enterprises that claimed her ardent
imagination.

She talked, I remember, of patriotism, of morale, of their duty to
excel in their present studies that they might be of service not only
to their impoverished families but to their beloved France. It was not
so much what she said as the lovely way in which she said it, her
impressive manner and appearance, her almost overwhelming but, for the
occasion, wholly democratic personality.

Once a week Mlle. Thompson and the heads of the Touring Club de
France had a breakfast at the Ecole and tables were laid even in the
salon. I was always somebody's guest upon these Tuesdays, unless I was
engaged elsewhere, and had, moreover, been for years a member of the
Touring Club. Some of the most distinguished men and women of Paris
came to the breakfasts: statesmen, journalists, authors, artists,
people of _le beau monde_, visiting English and Americans as well as
French people of note. Naturally the students became expert waitresses
and chasseurs as well as cooks.

Altogether I should have only the pleasantest memories of the Ecole
Feminine had it not been for the mosquitoes. I do not believe that New
Jersey ever had a worse record than Paris that summer. Every leaf of
every on