We were welcomed at Nancy by the Prefet of the Department, Monsieur Leon
Mirman, to whom an old friend had written from Paris, and by the
courteous French officer, Capitaine de B., who was to take us in charge,
for the French Army, during our stay. M. Mirman and his active and
public-spirited wife have done a great work at Nancy, and in the
desolated country round it. From the ruined villages of the border, the
poor _refugies_ have been gathered into the old capital of Lorraine, and
what seemed to me a remarkably efficient and intelligent philanthropy
has been dealing with their needs and those of their children. Nor is
this all. M. Mirman is an old Radical and of course a Government
official, sent down some years ago from Paris. Lorraine is ardently
Catholic, as we all know, and her old Catholic families are not the
natural friends of the Republican _regime_. But President Poincare's
happy phrase, _l'union sacree_--describing the fusion of all parties,
classes, and creeds in the war service of France, has nowhere found a
stronger echo than in Lorraine.
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