"Too Busy!"

In Great Britain the honorary president of a vast pyramid of women's war organizations is Queen Elizabeth, whose wardrobe contains a choice assortment of female uniforms (TIME, Oct. 9). Last week in Paris petite Eve Curie, newly installed as Chief of the Feminine Section of the Ministry of Information, made it very plain to the press that most French women, unlike their British sisters, have no time for flossy uniforms, showy organizations. From the French point of view, the fact that Britain still has less than 1,000,000 men under arms, whereas France has more than 5,000,000, means that as yet British women simply have no idea of what war can mean in feminine sacrifice and struggle to support home and children while father holds the Maginot Line.

Unlike London, Paris has no beauteous peers' daughters standing by their Rolls-Royces in trick uniforms waiting for statesmen to emerge from Government buildings and be whisked away. There are no French sailorettes like the pert British "Wrens." At French air fields no uniformed female auxiliaries lunch gaily with pilots just back from showering Germany with leaflets. The wives of French bigwigs, from Mme Albert Lebrun down, simply do such war work as they can, are notably chary of becoming "honorary president" of this or that.

Just after World War II broke, several socialite groups sought the patronage of Mme Gamelin, wife of the French Generalissimo, and one, reputedly, received this characteristic note: "My wife excuses herself for being too busy to reply personally to your request that she be honorary president of your organization, and asks me to present her regrets. (Signed) Maurice Gamelin."

22-c-. Today almost every French woman has her own personal family war work to do because she has a brother, fiance, husband, father or uncle in the Army who needs cigarets, socks, a sweater, favorite articles of food, regular letters of affectionate encouragement and such efforts as she can make toward attending to his neglected affairs. Thousands of French women are holding their husbands' jobs today as bus conductors, mail carriers, taxi drivers, and in stores and factories.

A woman dependent on a husband at the front receives 26-c- per day from the State if she lives in Paris, only 15-c- in the provinces. In Paris the allowance per dependent child is 12&3162;, elsewhere 10-c-, and a soldier at the front gets 22-c- daily pocket money.

The typical French soldier's wife was going a bit hungry last week, scrimping to send her man all she possibly could. One Mme Jeanne Durand, who has a job paying $50 monthly and has been sending her husband nothing, was sensationally hauled into court on his demand from the Maginot Line that she be made to live up to the "mutual faithfulness, aid and support" clause in their marriage contract. Setting a legal precedent, the court ordered Mme Durand to pay $2.25 per month toward settling the canteen bill of her drafted husband.

Defense Passive. Such general war work as French women have time for, after doing their own, is attended to by thousands of small committees organized in cities and towns, with no coordinating or super-organization. They do a specific job in a specific place, and their general attitude, emphasized by Eve Curie, is "No publicity and no showing off!" In Paris, for example, the war has thrown many musicians and writers out of work. So there is a small committee, Dejeuners de Lettres et de la Musique, one of whose presidents happens to be Mme Lebrun. It serves an ample lunch to jobless writers and musicians for 5-c-.

Another specific job is to warn of thi approach of war gas, so there is a committee called the Union Feminine Civique et Sociale which trains women sniffers (flaireuses) to detect nearly odorless gasses by smell without getting killed by taking too deep a whiff.

A larger organization of this kind is Defense Passive, a corps of women who, if there ever are any air raids, will drive ambulances and help drag the wounded out of smashed buildings. Some Defense Passives have already bought long, brown, gas-proof capes with yellow scarves, but most are still thriftily hesitating to uniform themselves. Just now they are "practicing," driving about at night in completely lightless ambulances to hypothetical bomb spots.

Only other World War II women's organization in France with a uniform--none was uniformed in World War I--is the Section Automobile Feminine Franc,aise. This is composed of about 1,200 definitely wealthy women, each owning her own car, for only the rich have cars in France. During the evacuation of Paris by thousands of civilians, most of whom left by train, they dashed about carrying blankets, rood and mail to evacues in their new country homes.

Windsor, Gould, Vanderbilt. A few swank names there are in French women's war work: the Duchess of Windsor, whose Versailles Colis du Trianon sends familyess French soldiers parcels containing a pullover, two pairs of socks, two handkerchiefs, pencil & paper, cigarets, sweets and box of aspirin; orchidaceous Mrs. Frank Jay Gould, member of a wealthy French women's organization under the patronage of Marshal Joffre's widow which collects money to buy ambulances, last week bought 40; the Duchesse de Caylus, whose Oeuvre des Detresses Cachee tactfully tries to aid needy and unemployed French women as unobtrusively as possible, pays them to knit, fold dressings--work which almost every other French woman is already doing gratis.

On the Riviera last week, war-work committee swanksters were the Countess of Warwick, Mme Jacques Balsan (the former Consuelo Vanderbilt), Elsa Maxwell, Maxine Elliott. Danger of war between France and Italy having finally ebbed, the French Government last week turned the Menton-Cannes section of the Riviera back from a military to a civil zone and the Monte Carlo casino was in full blast daily from 10 a. m. to 5 p. m.

Princesses and Cooks. In Biarritz, where the fashion houses Lanvin and Patou have shops, arrived last week Mme Louis Cartier to open a shop next door--her personal piece of family war work. Installed in the Casino de Bellevue is the leading eye, ear, nose & throat hospital of France, and the knitting and bandage-rolling centre of Biarritz is the famed Hotel du Palais, once a palace of Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie. Wise old Madame la Maruechale Puetain, who is in charge of the knitting, carefully let it be known that women of all classes are welcome, sits nowadays clicking her needles benignly amid an assortment of serving maids, duchesses, peasants' wives, princesses, cooks.

No. 1 aide of Madame la Mar&#;chale is the famed French heroine-nurse of World War I who as Mile Georgette Saint-Paul won the Legion of Honor, Croix de Guerre with two palms and two stars, Muedaille des Epidemics, the U. S. Certificate of Merit. She is now Mrs. T. Bentley Mott, wife of the head of the American Fund for French Wounded, Colonel Mott, onetime liaison officer between Marshal Foch and General Pershing. The whole Biarritz colony, French and foreign, are exceptionally war-work-minded, last week were furiously getting truckloads of warm clothing, cigarets and sweets off to the Maginot Line for Christmas.

"Vagabondage of Dreams." Since World War II has caused few casualties in France, the famed chateaux of the Loire are not yet converted into hospitals as they were in World War I. French women last week were actually having a good deal harder time in every way than French troops at the front. In a broadcast to women on their wartime duties which could have been made only in France, Poet-Playwright Jean Giraudoux, who is

Minister of Information, mystically declared :

"Man has the time to reflect, to consider, to evaluate--but it may be the duty of woman to abandon herself in her thoughts to the vagabondage of dreams, for we live in a time when we require imagination to see the reality. That is why you must not be an army of resigned women. You must all--humble or great--fashion the homes necessary for France and future peace. You must combat war upon war's own principle--which is to kill."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.