3-039-057 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Convalescent soldiers at the Protestant Ambulance, Bordeaux, 1871. Franco-Prussian War. Portrait of '...a group of the military convalescents, one of whom is a young Englishman, a volunteer in the French army, who had served marching and fighting, nearly five months, and had never been wounded, but suffered from bronchitis, occasioned by sleeping in the snow. He is now almost recovered, and hoped soon to leave the..."Protestant Hospital" in the Rue Huguerie [which was] established for the relief of foreign sailors, a portion of which has lately been occupied by wounded French soldiers from General Chanzy's army. This temporary hospital, or ambulance, for the military is supported chiefly by contributions of money and personal service from a society of Protestant ladies, some of them English and some French, residing in that city; while the funds belonging to the original institution, which was first set up in 1862, are strictly reserved for the benefit of sailors in need of medical care. The hospital is kept in beautiful order, clean and well ventilated; the English patients, of whom there are several, told our Artist gratefully of the kindness they had experienced from the lady superintendent and the other gentle nurses'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.