Walking wounded began arriving at Bois Fleury shortly after Marie-Ange had settled the stricken peasants in her own bedroom, and when she saw these wretched men and realized that there would be many more in the same state or worse, she sprang into action with her characteristic energy and resolve. Marshaling the household servants and the farm workers, she had the carpets rolled, the furniture moved, lamps and candles arrayed, and pallets made of straw and the linen of the château. Maids were set to turning tablecloths and napkins into bandages. In short order, the German regimental surgeons learned what she was doing and set up their dressing stations in the grand ballroom. Having seen to everything at the château, and having placed her steward in charge, the intrepid girl assembled some farmhands and wagons and made for the battlefield itself. There she directed the gathering of the helpless wounded onto carts and sending them back to Bois Fleury. She herself crawled through the thickets by the banks of the Mance to find wounded men caught there and then commanded terrified laborers and the few soldiers not engaged in the fighting to help drag them out while shells exploded and bullets snapped through the branches.
