It was the scene witnessed at the railway station all over again, the same woeful camping in the open, whilst the bearers and the young seminarists who acted as the secretary's assistants ran hither and thither in bewilderment.
"We have been over-ambitious, we wanted to do things too well!" exclaimed Baron Suire in despair.
There was much truth in his remark, for never had a greater number of useless precautions been taken, and they now discovered that, by some inexplicable error, they had allotted not the lower--but the higher-placed wards to the patients whom it was most difficult to move.
It was impossible to begin the classification afresh, however, and so as in former years things must be allowed to take their course, in a haphazard way.

The distribution of the cards began, a young priest at the same time entering each patient's name and address in a register.
Moreover, all the _hospitalisation_ cards bearing the patients' names and numbers had to be produced, so that the names of the wards and the numbers of the beds might be added to them; and all these formalities greatly protracted the _defile_.
Then there was an endless coming and going from the top to the bottom of the building, and from one to the other end of each of its four floors.
M.Sabathier was one of the first to secure admittance, being placed in a ground-floor room which was known as the Family Ward.

Sick men were there allowed to have their wives with them; but to the other wards of the hospital only women were admitted.

Brother Isidore, it is true, was accompanied by his sister; however, by a special favour it was agreed that they should be considered as conjoints, and the missionary was accordingly placed in the bed next to that allotted to M.Sabathier.

The chapel, still littered with plaster and with its unfinished windows boarded up, was close at hand.