form, namely, as a Maison de Santé, also
for the resort and benefit of scrofulous
children.

The Grand Hospital, as has been stated,
is for the reception of poor children from
the Paris hospitals; but parents, without
being actually poor, may find it a great
boon to be able to send ailing children
to a seaside infirmary, where they will
have every comfort, with first-rate medical
attendance, for a franc or a franc and
a half per day, at most. Take the cost at
forty francs a month; that makes four
hundred and eighty francs, or less than
twenty pounds a year – which many and
many a parent would gladly spare, to
procure for a sick child such great
advantages. With five hundred young folks,
then, in the Hôpital Napoléon, and one
hundred in the Maison de Santé, Berck
can accommodate six hundred little patients
who require sea air either for their
recovery, or simply to keep them alive.

Nor is this all. M. Rothschild, seeing
what has been effected, has bought a piece
of ground on the beach, and is building
thereon a hospital for the scrofulous
children of Jewish parents, of which Dr.
Perrochaud is to be the medical head.
One good work has called forth another,
and it possibly may not be the last of its
kind. Moreover, there have sprung up,
like mushrooms, sundry chalets, marine
villas, and lodging-houses, for the reception
of invalids in easy circumstances, repairing
from the interior either for the benefit of
the sea and good medical advice, or merely
for a healthy change. In consequence of
this affluence of divers strangers, land at
Berck has doubled and trebled in value. Dr.
Perrochaud now resides there permanently,
having relinquished his practice at
Montreuil-sur-Mer. He is settled in the midst
of his work, and also of his works, on
which he can look with honest pride, and
can rejoice in the results of unflagging
perseverance in a holy cause. It is not
every man who sets a good thing going,
and has the happiness to witness its
accomplishment.

Before describing the Hôpital Napoléon,
we will mention how it is maintained and
worked. The funds for its erection and
support were and continue to be supplied
by the Assistance Publique of Paris – a
body, which may almost be called a power,
entirely occupied with works of charity,
and principally with the maintenance of
hospitals. For instance, the Hôtel-Dieu,
at Paris, is one of its many establishments.

The Assistance Publique is immensely
rich. One item of its revenues is the
tenth of the gross receipts (not the
profits) of all the theatres and places of public
amusement in Paris. Every evening, whether
at the Grand Opera, the snug Athénée,
or the modest conjuring room of Robert-
Houdin's successors, the tenth part of the
money taken is set aside for the Assistance
Publique. Consequently, when that body
wants to do good deeds grandly, it is not
stopped by want of cash.

Again: the service in the Hôpital
Napoleon is not performed by hired nurses or
domestics, but by sixty Franciscan Sisters
of Charity, whose zeal and self-devotion
are beyond all praise. Of course they act
under the directeur, the able and courteous
M. Magdeleine, to whose part fall,
as his title implies, the general management,
housekeeping, and direction of the
establishment. Their nursing duties and
attendance on the patients are guided by
the médecin, our excellent friend Dr.
Paul Perrochaud. Both those gentlemen
are handsomely lodged in the hospital, in
commodious suites of apartments facing
the sea, the directeur on the first-floor, the
doctor on the second. The third-floor is
occupied by employés. The almoner has
a detached residence, or presbytery, in
one of the courts, looking out on the
dunes. The workmen (as the carpenter,
the plumber, the steam-engine man, the
carter, &c.), are also lodged in separate
buildings, so as to form two little colonies
by themselves. The Sisters of Charity
live together in spacious apartments in the
façade next the sea.

Those worthy women bear the brunt of
all the duties and all the hard work that
are possible to be performed by female
hands. The sister who acts as head cook
has sisters under her as assistant cooks,
kitchen-maids, and scuillons. They have
a grand kitchen, which might pass for a
vast laboratory, but that you are shown a
laboratory proper, close to a well-stored
surgery, and fitted up with all sorts of
vessels and stores, for the making of
medicinal drinks. There is a sister, with
assistants, in charge of the linen, which is
piled in racks in such plenty, that steps,
sliding along a little railway, pass from
pile to pile to enable it to be got at. There
are sisters also to take care of the clothing,
the little blouses, pantaloons, waistcoats,
and the like; for the children are clad, as
well as lodged, fed, and nursed. The
clothing department is down-stairs; the