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Title: The Amazing City
Author: Macdonald, John Frederick
Language: English
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THE AMAZING CITY
* * * * * *
LA FAISANE
_Mais tous ces objets sont pauvres et moroses!_
CHANTECLER
_Moi, je n’en reviens pas du luxe de ces choses!_
LA FAISANE
_Tout est toujours pareil, pourtant!_
CHANTECLER
_Rien n’est pareil,_
_Jamais, sous le soleil, à cause du soleil!_
_Car Elle change tout!_
LA FAISANE
_Elle... Qui?_
CHANTECLER
_La lumière!..._
LA FAISANE
_Alors tout le secret de ton chant?..._
CHANTECLER
_C’est que j’ose_
_Avoir peur que sans moi, l’orient se repose!..._
_Je pense à la lumière et non pas à la gloire._
_Chanter, c’est ma façon de me battre et de croire._
_Et si de tous les chants le mien est le plus fier,_
_C’est que je chante clair, afin qu’il fasse clair._
ROSTAND: Chantecler.
* * * * * *
THE AMAZING CITY
by
JOHN F. MACDONALD
Author of
“Paris of the Parisians”
“Two Towns—One City” etc.
[Illustration]
London
Grant Richards Ltd.
St Martin’S Street
MDCCCCXVIII
Printed in Great Britain by the Riverside Press Limited
Edinburgh
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 7
I. IN THE STREET 19
II. IN A CELLAR 31
III. IN A MARKET-PLACE 38
IV. BOURGEOISIE 47
1. M. DURAND AT MARIE-LE-BOIS
2. PENSION DE FAMILLE. THE BEAUTIFUL MADEMOISELLE
MARIE, WHO LOVED GAMBETTA
3. PENSION DE FAMILLE. FRENCH AND PIANO LESSONS. LES
SAINTES FILLES, MESDEMOISELLES PÉRIVIER
4. THE AFFAIR OF THE COLLARS
V. ON STRIKE 69
1. WHEN IT WAS DARK IN PARIS
2. BIRDS OF THE STATE AT THE POST OFFICE
3. AFTER THE STORM AT VILLENEUVE-ST-GEORGES
VI. COTTIN & COMPANY 84
VII. THE LATIN QUARTER 92
1. MÈRE CASIMIR
2. GLOOM ON THE RIVE GAUCHE
3. THE DAUGHTER OF THE STUDENTS
VIII. MONSIEUR LE ROUÉ 114
IX. FRENCH LIFE AND THE FRENCH STAGE 122
1. M. PAUL BOURGET, THE REACTIONARY PLAYWRIGHT, AND
M. PATAUD, WHO PUT OUT THE LIGHTS OF PARIS
2. M. ALFRED CAPUS. “NOTRE JEUNESSE” AT THE FRANÇAISE
3. M. BRIEUX, “LA DÉSERTEUSE,” AT THE ODÉON
4. PARIS, M. EDMOND ROSTAND, AND “CHANTECLER”
X. AFTER “CHANTECLER” 187
XI. AU COURS D’ASSISES. PARIS AND MADAME STEINHEIL 192
XII. THE LATE JULES GUÉRIN AND THE DEFENCE OF FORT CHABROL 216
XIII. DEATH OF HENRI ROCHEFORT 235
XIV. ROYAL VISITS TO PARIS 246
XV. AT THE ÉLYSÉE. MESSIEURS LES PRÉSIDENTS 260
1. M. LOUBET AND PAUL DÉROULÈDE
2. M. ARMAND FALLIÈRES. MOROCCO AND THE FLOODS
3. M. RAYMOND POINCARÉ AND THE RECORD OF M. LÉPINE
XVI. MADAME LA PRÉSIDENTE, M. GEORGES CLEMENCEAU AND THE
UNFORTUNATE M. PAMS 296
PREFACE
This selection from the writings of the late John F. Macdonald—between
1907 and 1913—finds, naturally, and without any arbitrary arrangement,
its unity of character, as the middle volume of the book, in three parts,
that it was this author’s ruling desire—rather than his deliberate and
predetermined purpose—to spend many years in writing. The first volume
of this book was _Paris of the Parisians_, the last was the posthumous
volume recently published, under the title of _Two Towns—One City_. In
order to convey a clear idea of the motive and ruling method that give
literary and spiritual unity to this long book in three volumes, which
stands for the accomplished desire of a brief life, let me quote the
author’s own account of this desire given in his Preface to _Paris of the
Parisians_, where, at twenty years of age, he described himself as “a
student of human life, still in his humanities”:
“The purpose of these sketches is not political nor yet didactic. No
charge is laid upon me to teach the French nation its duties, to reprove
it for its follies. Nor yet is it my design to hold up Paris of the
Parisians as an example of naughtiness, nor even of virtue, to English
readers. A student of human life still in my humanities, my purpose is
purely interpretative. I would endeavour to translate into English some
Paris scenes, in such a way as to give a true impression of the movement,
personages, sounds, colours and atmosphere pervaded with joy of living
which belongs to them. These impressions which I have myself received,
and now desire to communicate, are not the result of a general survey
of Paris taken from some lofty summit. I have not looked down upon the
capital of France from the top of the Eiffel Tower; nor yet from the
terrace of the Sacré Cœur; nor yet from the balcony among the _chimères_
of Notre Dame; nor yet from Napoleon’s column on the Place Vendôme; nor
yet from the Revolution’s monument that celebrates the taking of the
Bastille. No doubt from these exalted places the town affords an amazing
spectacle. Domes rise in the distance and steeples. Chimneys smoke;
clouds hurry. Up there the spectator has not only a fine bird’s-eye view
of beautiful Paris: he has a good throne for historical recollections,
for philosophical reveries, for the development of political and
scientific theories also. But for the student of to-day’s life, whose
interest turns less to monuments than to men, there is this drawback—seen
from this point of view the inhabitants of Paris look pigmies. Far below
him they pass and repass: the bourgeois, the bohemian, the boulevardier,
all small, all restless, all active, all so remote that one is not
to be distinguished from the other. Coming down from his tower the
philosopher may explore Paris from the tombs at St Denis to the crypts of
the Panthéon, from the galleries of the Louvre to the shops in the Rue
de Rivoli, from the Opera and Odéon to the Moulin Rouge and sham horrors
of the cabarets of Montmartre—leaving Paris from the Gare du Nord he
may look back at the white city under the blue sky with mingled regret
and satisfaction—regret for the instructive days he has spent with her,
satisfaction in that he knows her every stone; and yet, when some hours
later in mid-Channel the coasts of France grow dim, he may leave behind
him an undiscovered Paris—not monumental Paris, not political Paris, not
Baedeker’s Paris, not profligate Paris, not fashionable cosmopolitan
Paris of the Right Bank, not Bohemian Anglo-American Paris of the Left
Bank, but Paris as she knows herself—Paris of the Parisians.
“Virtues of which the mere foreign spectator has no notion are to be
found in Paris of the Parisians. And the Parisian does not conceal them
through _mauvaise honte_. Love of Nature, love of children, both absorb
him; how regularly does he hurry into the country to sprawl on the
grass, lunch by a lake, stare at the sunset, the stars and the moon; how
frequently he admires the view from his window, the Jardin du Luxembourg
and the Seine; how invariably he spoils his _gosse_ or another’s _gosse_,
anybody’s _gosse_, infant, boy or girl! He will go to the Luxembourg
merely to watch them. He likes to see them dig and make queer patterns in
the dust. He loves to hear them laugh at _guignol_, and is officiously
careful to see that they are securely strapped on to the wooden horses.
He does not mind their hoops, and does not care a jot if their balls
knock his best hat off. He walks proudly behind Jeanne and Edouard, on
the day of their first Communion, all over Paris; laughing as Jeanne
lifts her snow-white skirt and when Edouard, ætat. 10, salutes a friend;
and he worships Jeanne, and thinks that there is no better son in the
world than Edouard, and he will tell you so candidly and with earnestness
over and over again. ‘Ma fille Jeanne,’ ‘Mon fils Edouard,’ ‘Mes deux
gosses,’ is his favourite way of introducing the joy of his heart and
the light of his home. And then he knows how to live amiably, and how
to amuse himself pleasantly, and how to put poorer people at their
ease, as on fête days. He will go to a State theatre on 14th July (when
the performance is free) and joke with the crowd that waits patiently
before its doors, and never push, and never complain, and never think
of elbowing his way forward at the critical moment to get in. He will
admire the fireworks and illuminations after, and dance at street corners
without ever uttering a word that is rude or making a gesture that is
rough. He will trifle with confetti on Mardi Gras, and throw coloured
rolls of paper on to the boulevard trees. And he will laugh all the time
and joke all the time, and make Jeanne happy and Edouard happy, and be
happy himself, until it is time to abandon the boulevards and go home.
‘La joie de vivre!’ Verily, the Parisian studies, knows and appreciates
it.
“There is something else he appreciates also, and reveres. And here
especially we find that his paternal affection for all children,
his courtesy and good-fellowship with all classes, his sense of
proprietorship and delight and pride in public gardens do not indicate
only a happy and amiable disposition, but spring from a deeper sentiment.
He is sauntering on the boulevards, it may be, with Edouard. The time is
summer—there is sunshine everywhere; the trees are in bloom, the streets
are full of movement and noise, _fiacres_ rattle, tram-horns sound,
camelots cry, gamins whistle. Suddenly there is a temporary lull. A slow
procession passes, a hearse buried in flowers; mourners on foot follow,
the near relatives, bareheaded, walking two by two; after them come, it
may be, a long line of carriages; it may be, one forlorn _fiacre_. It
does not matter. For the Parisian, a rich funeral or a poor one is never
an indifferent spectacle; never simply an unavoidable, disagreeable
interruption of traffic, to be got out of sight, and out of the way of
the busy world as quickly as possible. Here is one of those ordinary
circumstances when the Parisian’s attention to the courtesies of social
life is the outward and visible sign of his self-respecting humanity and
fraternal sympathy. His hat is off, and held off—so is Edouard’s cap, so
are the caps of even younger children, for from the age of four upwards
each _gosse_ knows what is due from him on such an occasion. _Cochers_
are bareheaded, boulevard loafers also; the bourgeois stops stirring his
absinthe to salute; many a woman crosses herself and mutters a prayer.
‘Farewell!’ ‘God bless thee!’ The kind and pious leave-taking of the
Parisian enjoying to-day’s sunshine to the Parisian of yesterday whose
place to-morrow will know him no more, accompanies the procession step by
step on its way to the cemetery of Père Lachaise or Montparnasse....
“A kind critic of some of these sketches here reproduced from _The
Saturday Review_ has said of them that their tendency is to ‘counteract
the wrong-headed reports of French and English antipathies by which two
sympathetic neighbour-peoples are being estranged and exasperated.’ If
this be true—and to some extent I hope it may be—the result is surely
all the more gratifying because it does not proceed from any deliberate
effort on my part to serve that end, but, as I have said, from my
endeavour to convey to others the impressions I have received. The
immortal Chadband may be said to have established the proposition that
if a householder, having upon his rambles seen an eel, were to return
home and say to the wife of his bosom, ‘Rejoice with me, I have seen an
elephant,’ it would not be truth. It would not be truth were I to say
of the Jeunesse of the Latin Quarter that it is callous and corrupt, or
to deny that beneath the madcap, frolicsome temper of the hour can be
felt the justness of mind and openness to great ideas that will put
a curb on extravagance and give safe guidance by and by. And again of
Paul and Pierre’s little lady friends, Mimi and Musette, mirth-loving,
dance-loving daughters of Mürger—it would not be truth were I to report
them in any sense wicked girls, or to deny that taking them where they
stand their ways of feeling are straight though, no doubt, their way
of life may go a little zigzag. And of Montmartre and her cabarets and
_chansonniers_—it would not be truth were I to say that only madness and
perversion reign in her cabarets, or to deny that true poets and genuine
artists may be found amidst the false and hectic glitter of the ‘Butte.’
And of the man in the street who is neither poet nor student, the average
Parisian of simply everyday life—it would not be truth were I to repeat
the hackneyed phrase that he would overthrow the Republican Government to
reinstate a Monarchy, being a Royalist at heart. True, storms rage about
him; scandals break out beside him; ministries fall; presidents pass—did
these storms and scandals represent Republican principles it might be
said with truth that he paid them little heed. What is true, however, is
that the qualities and principles he takes his stand by do not change or
fall with ministries or pass with presidents: cultivating still the art
of living amiably, rejoicing still over the beauties of his town, and not
merely rejoicing over them, but respecting and protecting them, believing
still, and with reason, in the greatness of his country, he succeeds
where his rulers often fail, not merely in professing, but in practising
the doctrine of liberty, equality, fraternity.”
The point of view from which the author of _Paris of the Parisians_
in 1900 studied French life remained the same down to 1915, when he
died. Nor did he ever change his interpretative methods into didactic
or political ones. But it was inevitable that, as years passed, fresh
knowledge and enlarged experience would come to the student of French
life who, at twenty, sought to convey his impressions as he at that time
received them. His impressions were not altered, nor, as a result of his
increased knowledge of life, did he ever become himself less appreciative
of the special virtues he discovered in the serious, as well as in the
joyous, sides of the French art of living. On his own side, he remained
to the end of his life (as so many of his friends testify) the same
unworldly, joyous being, of profound and tender sympathies, impatient of
all rules and systems save those that derive their authority from human
kindness. But as a result of his inborn power of vision and gifts of
observation and expression, his impressions became more lucid and were
given greater force by the exceptional opportunities he enjoyed. During
his residence in Paris, throughout the years when most of the essays in
criticism contained in this volume were written, he was dramatic critic
of French life and the French stage for _The Fortnightly Review_, and as
Paris correspondent, given more or less a free hand by other leading
periodicals to which he was a contributor; so that he could direct his
attention to the study of many aspects of Parisian life not exclusively
bounded by political interests.
Looking through the list of subjects dealt with in these chapters, it
will be seen that the criticism of French life carried through by John F.
Macdonald (if by “criticism” we understand what Matthew Arnold defined
as “an impartial endeavour to see the thing as in itself it really is”)
covered, from 1907 to 1913, nearly all events in every domain of Parisian
life during this critical period.
In other words, the present volume supplies the evidence which
not only confirms the impressions that he sought to convey to his
fellow-countrymen in _Paris of the Parisians_, but it lends the authority
that belongs to a judgment founded upon a right criticism to the sentence
which I may, in conclusion, quote from his article on the “Paris of
To-day,” originally published in _The Fortnightly Review_, July, 1915,
and reprinted (by the editor’s kind permission) in his posthumous book,
_Two Towns—One City_.
“It has been repeatedly and persistently asserted, in hastily written
articles and books, that the war has created an entirely ‘new’ Paris.
Journalists and novelists have proclaimed themselves astonished at the
‘calm’ and the ‘seriousness’ of the Parisians, and at the ‘composed’
and ‘solemn’ aspect of every street, corner and stone in the city;
and how elaborately, how melodramatically have they expatiated upon
the abolition of absinthe, the closing of night-restaurants, the
disappearance of elegant dresses, the silence of the Apaches, the hush in
the demi-monde, and the increased congregations in the churches!
“‘A new, reformed Paris,’ our critics reiterate. ‘The flippancy has
vanished, the danger of decadence has passed—and in place of extravagance
and hilarity we find economy, earnestness and dignity.’
“Now, with these hastily conceived reflections and criticisms I beg
leave to disagree. It is not a ‘new’ Paris that one beholds to-day, but
precisely the very Paris one would expect to see. No city, at heart, is
more serious, more earnest, more alive to ideas and ideals: no other
capital in the world works so hard, creates so much, feels so deeply,
labours and battles so incessantly and so consistently for the supreme
cause of liberty, justice and humanity. Crises, and shocks, and scandals,
if you like—but what generous reparations, what glorious recoveries!
Stifling cabarets, lurid restaurants, rouge, and patchouli, and startling
deshabille, if you please; but all those dissipations were provided
for the particular pleasure and well-filled purses of Messieurs les
Étrangers—at least twenty foreigners to one Frenchman on the hectic hill
of Montmartre; and what a babel of English and American voices _chez_
Maxim, until five or six in the morning, when the average Parisian was
peacefully enjoying his last hour’s sleep! The statues and monuments
of Paris, the free Sorbonne University, the quays of the Seine with
their bookstalls, the incomparable Comédie Française, the stately French
Academy, the Luxembourg Gardens, the Panthéon (with its noble motto:
‘Aux Grands Hommes, la Patrie Reconnaissante’), the Arc de Triomphe,
Notre-Dame; do these (and innumerable other) illustrious institutions,
so cherished by the Parisians, appear compatible with ‘flippancy,’
‘incoherency’ and ‘the danger of decadence’? And the profound, ardent
patriotism of the Parisians—how else could it have manifested itself
save in the noble, supreme spectacle of courage, determination and
self-sacrifice which we are witnessing to-day? No; it is not a ‘new’
Paris, but the very Paris one expected to see; hushed but proud; stricken
yet self-confident; wounded, even stabbed to the heart after eleven
months of war—but heroic, indomitable”—the Amazing City—the worthy
capital of, as Mr Kipling says,
“the Land beloved by every soul that loves and serves its kind.”
Before closing my preface to this Selection from the sketches, essays
and criticisms of Paris life, under its picturesque, popular, literary
and social aspects that represents John F. Macdonald’s interpretation
of the spirit of the “Amazing City,” between 1907 and 1914, I have to
acknowledge the kindness of the several Editors, to whom these different
articles were originally addressed; and who have allowed me to reprint
them in the present volume. _The Roué_, _In a Cellar_, and _The Affair
of the Collars_, appeared originally in _The Morning Post_. The three
articles, _On Strike_, the two pictures of the historical _Pension de
Famille in the Rue des Poitevins_ (haunted by the memory of Gambetta),
and of the other _Pension de Famille in the Shadow of St Sulpice_,
saddened by the memory of the pathetic story of the gentle and pious
old maids who died broken-hearted, as victims of the Rochette swindle,
appeared in _The Morning Leader_, in the days before its association with
_The Daily News_. The series of short sketches of French Presidents and
Leading Statesmen, and Personalities, who have helped to make, and are
still living influences in, French politics, were contributed, later, to
_The Daily News and Morning Leader_. I have to thank the Editor of _The
Contemporary Review_ for consenting to the reprinting of the articles
upon _Henri Rochefort_ and _Royal Visits to Paris_; and the Editor of
_The Fortnightly Review_ for allowing me to reproduce from the series of
articles on _French Life and the French Stage_, which appeared in this
_Review_ during several years, three special criticisms, illustrative of
the typical French national “virtue,”—a fundamental understanding of the
essential duty of man to be an intelligent and kindly human being—applied
to the correction and sweetening of faulty rules of “Bohemian” morality
and bourgeois respectability; and lending high ideals to what is
generally described as the “realistic” spirit of the modern French drama.
The articles descriptive of life in the Latin Quarter appeared originally
in _The Saturday Review_.
FREDERIKA MACDONALD.
_February 1918._
I
IN THE STREET
In my almost daily perambulations through the brilliant, through the
drab, and through the ambiguous quarters of Paris, I constantly come upon
street scenes that bring me inquisitively to a standstill. Not that they
are particularly novel or startling. Indeed, to the Parisian they are
such banal, everyday spectacles that he passes them by without so much as
a glance. But for me, familiar though I am with the physiognomy of the
Amazing City, these street scenes, amusing or pathetic, sentimental or
grim, possess an indefinable, a never-failing charm.
For instance, I dote on a certain ragged, weather-beaten old fellow who
is always and always to be discovered, on a boulevard bench, under a dim
gas-lamp, at the precise hour of eleven. Across his knees—unfolded—a
newspaper. And spread forth on the newspaper, scores and scores of
cigarette ends and cigar stumps, which have been industriously amassed in
the streets, and on the terraces of cafés, during the day. Every night,
on this same boulevard bench, at the same hour of eleven, the old fellow
counteth up his spoil.
“Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven,” he mutters.
“Eh bien, le vieux, how are affairs?” asks a policeman. But the old
fellow, bent in half over the newspaper, hears him not. When—O joy!—he
comes upon a particularly fine bit of cigar, he holds it up to the
gas-lamp, measures it closely with his eye, then packs it carefully away
in his waistcoat pocket. But when—O gloom!—he has a long run of bad luck
in the way of wretched, almost tobaccoless cigarette ends, he breaks out
into guttural expressions of indignation and disgust.
The night wears on. Up go the shutters of the little wine-shop opposite.
Rarely a passer-by. Scarcely a sound.
“One hundred and two. One hundred and three. One hundred and four,”
counts the weather-beaten old fellow under the gas-lamp.
Then, the street singers of Paris, with harmonium, violin and a bundle
of tender, sentimental songs. Four of them, as a rule; four men in
jerseys, scarlet waistbands and blue corduroy trousers. They, too, come
out particularly at night and establish themselves under a gas-lamp. And
all around them stand charming, bareheaded girls from the neighbouring
_blanchisseries_ and milliners’ shops; and the adorers of those
maidens—young, amorous MM. Georges, Ernest and Henri—from the grocer’s,
the butcher’s, the printer’s; and workmen and charwomen and concierges;
and probably a cabman or two, and most likely a soldier, a lamp-lighter,
a policeman.
“_Love is Always in Season_, the latest and greatest of valse-songs,
created by the incomparable Mayol,” announces the vocalist. A chord from
the harmonium and violin, and the singer, in a not unmelodious voice,
proceeds to assure us that “though the snow may fall, or the skies may
frown, or the seas may roar, Love, sweet love, is Always in Season.”
General applause. Cries of “C’est chic, ça” from the charming, bareheaded
girls. Sighs and sentimental glances from their faithful adorers.
“Buy _Love is Always in Season_. Only two sous, only two sous! The
Greatest, the most Exquisite valse-song of the day,” cries the vocalist,
holding up copies of the song. “Buy it at once, and we will sing it all
together.”
At least twenty copies are sold. “Attention,” cries the vocalist. And
then, under the gas-lamp, what a spectacle and what song! Everyone sings;
yes, even this huge, apoplectic cabman: “Though the snow may fall....”
Everyone sings: the soldier, the workmen, the decrepit old charwomen:
“Though the skies may frown....” Everyone sings: the very policeman’s
lips are moving. And how the charming, bareheaded girls sing and sing;
and how amorously, how passionately do their adorers raise their voices:
“Though the seas may roar.... What matter, what matter!... Since love,
sweet love, is always in season!”
Of course children, with their lively, irresponsible games, provide
delightful street scenes. No piano-organs, alas! to which they may dance.
We have but three or four piano-organs in Paris, and these play only in
elegant quarters, for the pleasure of portly, solemn butlers. However,
the children hold theatrical performances on the pavement, which, if
animated and dramatic, are scarcely convincing; indeed they must be
pronounced bewildering, chaotic. René, aged six, proclaims himself
Napoleon; Jeanne, his sister, declares herself Sarah Bernhardt; André
strangely states that he is an Aeroplane; others most incoherently become
a Horse, the President of the Republic, Aunt Berthe, a Steamer on the
Seine, the Dog at the neighbouring chemist’s, and (this, a favourite,
amazing rôle) the Eiffel Tower! Then, when the parts have been duly
selected, after no end of wrangling, then, the play! Much extraordinary
dialogue between Napoleon and the divine Sarah; more between the
Eiffel Tower and the President of the Republic; still more between the
Aeroplane, the Seine Steamer and Aunt Berthe. And then dancing and
singing and skipping and——
Well, at once the most irresponsible and irresistible street scene in
Paris. Or, at least, second only in irresponsibility to the fêtes of
Mardi Gras and Mi-Carême.
Year after year, the cynic is to be heard declaring that confetti
has “gone out” and that no one really rejoices at carnival time; but
year after year, when Mardi Gras and Mi-Carême come round, confetti
flies swiftly and thickly and gaily in Paris, and only a rare, elegant
boulevardier, or some dull, heavy bourgeois remains indifferent to the
excitement of the scene.
Confetti, in fact, everywhere! Already at nine o’clock this
morning—blithe morning of Mardi Gras—it has got on to my staircase, and
from thence into the dining-room and on to the breakfast-table. Suddenly,
confetti in my coffee. A moment later, confetti on the butter. And when I
unfold the newspapers, a shower of confetti.
“It is extraordinary,” I murmur to the servant.
“Most certainly, confetti is extraordinary,” she assents. “It goes
where it pleases; it does what it likes; it respects nobody and
nothing—impossible to stop it.”
“And only nine o’clock in the morning,” I remark, removing a new speck of
confetti from the butter.
“At seven o’clock, when I went to Mass, it had got into the church,”
relates my servant. “It was also in the sacristy when I went to see M. le
Curé. Truly, it is the most astonishing thing in the world; and yet it is
only a little bit of coloured paper.”
As time wears on the tradesmen’s assistants bring more confetti into the
house. Somehow or other it enters my boots, and finds a resting-place
in my pockets. At luncheon, lots of confetti. At dinner, pink, green,
yellow, orange and purple confetti with every course. And when at eight
o’clock I set forth to view the rejoicings on the Grands Boulevards, my
servant, leaning over the banisters, impudently pelts me with confetti.
A cold night and occasionally a shower—but the boulevards are thronged
with I don’t know how many thousands of Parisians. Here, there and
everywhere electrical advertising signs dance and blink dizzily. Each
café is brilliantly illuminated. More pale, fierce light from the street
lamps. And, heavens! what a din of voices, and whistles, and musical
instruments!
“Who is without confetti? Who is without confetti?” shout scores of
men, women and children, holding up long, bulky paper bags, supposed to
contain two pounds of the bright-coloured stuff. And the bags sell and
sell. And the little rounds of paper fly and fly. And down they fall in
their hundreds of thousands on to the ground, making it a soft, agreeable
carpet of confetti.
Of course, no traffic. In the midst of the crowd groups of policemen; and
the policemen are pelted, and the policemen must shake confetti out of
eyes, and beards, and ears, and moustaches. However, they are amiable;
and, indeed, everyone is good-tempered. No rudeness and no roughness.
Here is Edouard, aged eight, in the crowd—dressed as a soldier, with
a wooden gun and a paper helmet. There is Yvonne, aged seven, in the
throng—all in white, with a wand tied at the top with a huge creamy
bow. And Edouard and Yvonne are perfectly safe. And that old married
couple—plainly from the provinces—are entirely safe. And——
A splash of confetti in my face. Then, a deluge of confetti over my hat.
And I am pleased, and I am flattered; for my assailant is an English
girl, with blue eyes, and gold hair, and an incomparable complexion.
Despite the cold, every seat and every table on the terraces of the cafés
are occupied. Past the terraces surges the crowd, casting confetti at the
glasses of beer, coffee and liqueurs, which the consumers have carefully
covered over with saucers. But, always unconquerable, the confetti enters
the glasses; and thus one drinketh benedictine _à la_ confetti, and
chartreuse _à la_ confetti, and——
“Who wants a nose? Who wants a nose?” shouts a hawker, holding up a
collection of long, vivid red noses. And the red noses are bought; and
so, too, are false beards and moustaches, and artificial eyebrows, and
huge cardboard ears.
Then, what costumes in the crowd! Of course, any number of pierrots and
clowns, who gesticulate and grimace; and ladies in dominoes, and men
in heavy scarlet mantles and black masks. Over there, an Arab; here, a
Greek soldier in the Albanian kilt—the picturesque “fustanella.” And
confetti—red, blue, yellow, green, white, orange, purple—sprinkled over,
and clinging to, all these different costumes, and flying above them and
all around them, a fantastic spectacle!
Confetti, again, in the fur coats of chauffeurs; a whirl of it—bright
yellow—around three colossal negroes from darkest Africa; and a fierce
battle of it, waged by an admiring Parisian against two fascinating young
ladies from New York. Darkest Africa grins, displaying glistening white
teeth. New York utters shrill little cries. And Motordom—represented
by the three chauffeurs—imitates the many savage sounds emitted by
60-horse-power machines.
“Your health!” cries a clown, plunging a handful of confetti into a glass
which, for only a second or two, has remained uncovered.
“Vive la Vie! Vive la Vie!” shout a procession of students from the Latin
Quarter.
“Who is without Confetti? Who wants a nose? Who desires a moustache?”
yell the hawkers.
And now, rain. Down it comes, finely, steadily, soddening the carpet of
confetti, spotting the fantastic costumes, scattering the crowd. Edouard
(in his paper helmet) and Yvonne (with her wand) are hurried along
homewards—much against their will—by their parents; the hawkers disappear
with the remaining paper bags; the dizzy advertising signs give a last
blink and go out; the policemen congregate beneath the street lamps and
in doorways—the carnival is over.
However, memories remain, and these memories are—confetti.
It has flown, but it has not gone. Every hour of every day, for many a
week, it will turn up in one’s home, in one’s clothing, at one’s meals...
still bold, vivid, ungovernable, unconquerable....
And now, after colour and gaiety—ambiguity, gloom. Away to remote,
neglected corners of Paris; to the _terrain vague_—the waste ground—of
the Amazing City, which, this particular afternoon, lies steeped in a
damp fog, and strewn with sodden newspapers and broken bottles, and pots
and pans without handles, hats without brims, and battered old shoes. On
the waste, prowling about amidst the wreckage, a gaunt, vagabond cat.
Gathering together odds and ends, the aged, bent _chiffonnière_—a hag
of a woman, half demented, with fingers like claws, that go scraping
and digging about in the refuse. Then three ragged children—skeletons
almost—also interested in the rubbish, who are savagely snarled at by
the _chiffonnière_ when they approach her preserves. Fog, damp and
puddles. Mounds of overturned earth, subsidences, crevices. A rusty
engine lying disabled on its side. Quantities of coarse, savage thistles.
Gloom unrelieved. The _chiffonnière_ and the ragged children becoming
more and more ghostly and ghastly in the half-light. The kind of scene
depicted so tragically by the great-hearted Steinlen, and sung of so
despairingly by the humane poet, Rictus. Sung of, too, by lesser poets
than the author of the _Soliloque d’un Pauvre_. For _terrain vague_ is
a favourite theme with the _chansonniers_ of Montmartre, and in their
songs they are fond of describing how they have passed from comfortable,
bourgeois neighbourhoods on to “waste ground.” The bourgeois was dozing
in his chair; Madame la Bourgeoise was knitting a hideous woollen shawl;
Mademoiselles the three daughters were respectively tinkling away at the
piano, pasting picture cards into an album, absorbing a sickly novel.
As a heartrending, an overwhelming contrast, behold—after the snugness
of the bourgeoisie—the wretchedness, the _misère noire_ of the human
phantoms poking about on the waste ground!
“Would that I had a bourgeois here on this _terrain vague_; a bourgeois
I might terrify and harrow!” declaim the realistic _chansonniers_
of the Montmartre cabarets. “‘Bourgeois,’ I would cry, ‘what do you
see? Bourgeois, look well, look again, look always. Bourgeois, do you
understand? It is well, wretched, cowardly Bourgeois—you tremble!’”
No less attracted by _terrain vague_ are the frail, wistful poets of
Paris, the poets (as they have been so admirably denominated) of “mists
and half-moons, dead leaves and lost illusions.” On to the waste they
bring Pierrot, their favourite, eternal hero. Midnight has long struck.
A half-moon casts silvery shafts on to the wreckage—and on to Pierrot,
who, as he stands there forlornly amidst the debris, proceeds to disclose
the secret: “Pourquoi sont pâles les Pierrots....” Only the cheeks of the
vulgar are rosy; for the vulgar cannot feel. But the artist is stung day
after day by ironies, cruelties, bitter awakenings—and so is frail, and
so is pale. How he suffers, how tragically is he disillusioned! There was
a blonde... but she was capricious. There was a brune... but she, too,
was fickle. There was a rousse, an auburn-haired goddess... but alas!
she also was false. And Pierrot sobs. And Pierrot goes on his knees to
the half-moon. And Pierrot prays. And suddenly a radiant figure appears
on the waste ground, and a sweet, melodious voice murmurs: “Why sigh
for the blonde? Why grieve for the brune? Why weep for the rousse? Am I
not enough?” And Pierrot, looking up with his pale, tear-stained face,
beholds his Muse, smiling down upon him—
“Sur ce terrain va—aa—gue.”
Farther away—away, this time, to one of the environs of Paris, and down
there, by the river-side, the annual fête. Not an empty corner, not a
vacant space; nothing but booths, “side-shows,” shooting-galleries,
roundabouts, caravans—“all the fun of the fair.” Confusion, exhilaration,
and a hundred different, frenzied sounds. All this babel lasts a week;
but at the end of the week, departure and gloom. Gone the caravans and
their picturesque inmates. Gone the “distractions.” There stood the
shooting-gallery, with its targets, grotesque dummies and strings of
clay pipes. One fired twice for a penny. If successful, one was rewarded
with paper flowers, or a shocking cigar, or (in exceptional cases) a
strident alarm clock; if a bad marksman, one was consoled with a slice of
hard, gritty ginger-bread. Farther on revolved the roundabout. One rode
a rickety steed, with only one stirrup. One turned to the accompaniment
of a husky, exhausted old organ. What appalling liberties it took with
the _Valse Bleue_! Next, one visited the palmist, inspected a seedy lion,
stared at optical illusions, shook hands with a dwarf, bought sticks of
nougat, rode again on the round about, returned to——
But all over now, and nothing but memories and souvenirs about: broken
clay pipes, splinters of bottles and wood, shavings, scraps of cloth,
hand-bills and rusty, bent nails, the eternal old battered hat, the
equally inevitable old boot, and a hoof or two from the rickety horses
that revolved to the haunting tune of the _Valse Bleue_.
The usual mounds of refuse. Also, the turf damaged with ruts, and burnt
away in places by the fair people’s fires. The annual fête over, not a
soul but myself loiters on this portion of the Seine river-bank. Only
gloom and desolation. Nothing but waste. Again, _terrain vague_.
II
IN A CELLAR
Bright things and sombre things, tarnished things and threadbare things,
frail things, fast-fading things; things and things, and all of them old
things.... The past in this cellar; in every nook and corner of it—the
past. Come here through a hole in the wall of a narrow, cobbled Paris
street—come down a number of crooked stone steps—I now look curiously
about me, and wonder what to do next. No one challenges me: the cellar
appears to be uninhabited. Yet above its crude, primitive entrance, on a
weather-beaten board, I discern the name—Veuve Mollard.
An autumnal mist filled the street outside; and the mist, pouring through
the hole in the wall, has invaded the cellar and made it chilly and
ghostly. It is a rambling, chaotic place—suggestive of three or four
cellars having been thrown into one; for it twists and it turns, and
it bulges and recedes, and it slopes and ascends; and the grimy brick
ceiling—lofty enough at the entrance—suddenly dips towards the middle,
and almost precipitates itself to the ground at the far end. Here and
there an unshaded lamp, of the kitchen description, burns dimly. On
a stool I perceive a workbox, crowded with sewing materials—but not
a sign, not a sound of “Widow” Mollard. I cough loudly. I advance
farther into the cellar. And, as I advance, I pass bright things and
sombre things, tarnished things and threadbare things, frail things,
fast-fading——
“Monsieur?”
An apparition, a spectre! There, in the background, appears a tall, gaunt
woman, with a pale, wrinkled face, large, luminous dark eyes and tumbled
white hair. In the dim light from the lamps Veuve Mollard looks a hundred
years old. There she stands, old and alone, in a rambling old cellar,
amidst old, discarded things.
“Monsieur?”
A deep, even a sepulchral voice—and then from myself an explanation. I
should like to examine the old things—all of them, not knowing myself
what I want. I have a fancy for old things; like to wonder over them;
like, O most respectfully, to handle them. No; unnecessary to turn up
the lamps; they give, just as they are, the very light for old things.
“Faîtes donc, faîtes donc,” assents the deep voice. Retiring to a corner,
Widow Mollard seats herself on a stool and proceeds to darn a rent in a
faded yellow velvet curtain.
Silence in the cellar. Shadows, ambiguities, and the mist from the street.
Against the walls, boards have been laid on the floor; and heaped on the
boards are tapestries, draperies, all kinds of stuffs. Then, tables,
wooden trays, and flat, open receptacles of wicker-work. Also pegs, for
gowns. Again, battered, lidless boxes of odds and ends. Thus, _embarras
de choix_: which of the old things shall I examine first? At last I
decide on the tapestries. They are of all shapes and sizes, but most
of them have been severed, are but parts—no head to this horse, no top
to the lance of this knight, and of that saint only the half. Next, a
circular piece of tapestry representing what might be a throne—but faded,
faded; and the figure on the throne as shadowy as a phantom. Gobelins?
Veuve Mollard no doubt knows: but I prefer to pursue my researches
alone, unaided; and then the gaunt widow is darning and darning away at
the yellow velvet curtain.... Whose velvet curtain? Where has it hung,
what fine window has it screened? Once, evidently, a rich, magnificent
yellow; now faded, crumpled, damaged. A curtain from the Faubourg St
Germain? from a ruined château? even from the palaces of Versailles or
Fontainebleau? Again I glance at Widow Mollard. Old, old. Her fingers
tremble, and a long lock of white hair has fallen over one pale, wrinkled
cheek.
Out of this tray a snuff-box, enamelled, oval-shaped and delicate. A
Watteau peasant girl on the lid—but the pretty, pink-cheeked girl, fast
fading. Whose snuff-box? Then a shoe buckle. Whose massive, old-fashioned
silver buckle? And of whom this miniature: blue eyes, sensitive mouth,
delicate eyebrows and powdered hair? Then, a tiny Sèvres tea-cup; a
gilt key; a chased silver book-clasp; a string of coral; an ornament of
amethysts; bits of embroidery; stray pieces of velvet and silk; lace,
satins, furs, and spangled and soft and transparent stuffs. Whose finery?
Perhaps a débutante’s, a débutante of years ago—now old, like the things.
Graceful, charming débutante of the past! Behold her dressing—or rather
being dressed—for her first, her very first ball, amidst what excitement,
what confusion! Her mother on her knees, the maids also on their knees,
putting the last touches; and the débutante turned round and round,
and exhorted to keep still, and told to walk a little, and ordered to
return, and commanded to remain “there,” and not to move, not to move!
Radiant, irresistible débutante of long ago. At once dignified and shy,
now flushed and now pale when in the ballroom she made her first bow to
the world, received her first compliments, achieved her first triumphs,
and experienced, no doubt, her first emotions, her first illusions, her
first doubts. Here in this cellar, in the half-light and the mist from
the street, here lies her first ball-dress; and here too, perhaps, are
the shoes in which she danced her first official waltz, her first real
_cotillon_—a pair of small satin shoes which repose on the top of a heap
of other frail shoes.
Long, narrow shoes, tiny ridiculous shoes—some of them with loose,
dangling rosettes, others showing a bare place where the rosette or
a jewel had once been fastened. High heels, and the soles scarcely
thicker than a sheet of paper. Sometimes a rent in the satin, and the
maker’s name stamped in dim gilt letters. Shoes, no doubt, that long
ago stepped daring quadrilles at the _bal masqué_ of the Opera; the
shoes of Mademoiselle Liane de Luneville, a former blonde and brilliant
courtesan; and next to them remnants from Mademoiselle de Luneville’s
wardrobe. A white satin dress, sewn with artificial pearls, dismembered
silken sleeves, spangled stuffs, daring gauzes, and other extravagances
and audacities. Courtesan finery. Sold, no doubt, in the twilight of the
_demi-mondaine’s_ career; or seized roughly by the bailiffs when not a
shadow of the beauty or glory of Mademoiselle de Luneville remained.
Now does a moth fly out of a piece of tapestry I have shaken. Now do
I behold a black cat, with lurid yellow eyes, perched motionless upon
a pile of draperies in a corner. Now do I perceive gigantic cobwebs
overhead. Thus, some life—but life of an eerie nature—in the cellar.
“Je ne vous dérange pas, Madame?”
“Faîtes donc, faîtes donc,” replies the deep, sepulchral voice of Veuve
Mollard.
A cracked water-colour landscape signed, ever so faintly, “R. E. F.”
Disposed of, perhaps, for a five-franc piece; and to-day the painter
either dead, or a shabby, lonely, struggling old fellow? or a rich and
distinguished “master”? A sword—used in a duel? A small silver mug—from a
god-father? Pink, white and black dominoes: they should have been placed
amongst the courtesan’s finery. The _bâton_ of a _chef d’orchestre_,
silver-mounted, of ebony. A bunch of tarnished seals; chipped vases
and liqueur glasses; a cracked, frameless mirror; a collection of old
legal and medical books; a heap of dusty, fantastic draperies of the
kind used extensively by the students of the Latin Quarter. Deceptive
draperies that once turned a bed into a divan, discreet draperies that
hid the scars on the walls—the draperies of Paul and Pierre, of Gaston
and René, sons of Henri Mürger, genuine, veritable Bohemians, who, if
they lived recklessly and irresponsibly, were nevertheless full of
generous impulses, imagination, ideals, but who to-day are become stout,
bourgeois, double-chinned inhabitants of such dreary provincial towns as
Abbeville and Arras.
Thus the past in this cellar; in every nook and corner of this rambling,
chaotic cellar, the past. Changes and changes—but not one change for
the better. All around me evidence of somebody’s indifference and
faithlessness to old possessions. On all sides, symbols of somebody’s
downfall and ruin.
“Je vous remercie, Madame.”
“C’est moi qui vous remercie, Monsieur.”
On my way out—on the crooked stone staircase leading upwards to the hole
in the wall—I look back.
And down there, in the dim light from the lamps, the gaunt, white-haired
woman darns away at the faded velvet curtain. Down there, from its
throne of draperies, the black cat watches the widow with lurid yellow
eyes. Down there in vague disorder—in an atmosphere of shadows and
ambiguities, of moth, cobweb and mist—down there, lie bright things and
sombre things, tarnished things and threadbare things, frail things,
fast-fading things; things and things, and all of them old, discarded,
forgotten things.
III
IN A MARKET-PLACE
The market!... We holiday-keepers in Moret-sur-Loing have been
looking forward to it, imagining it, scanning the spot where it is
held, recalling other French market-places, ever since we first bowed
before the amiable _patron_ and _patronne_ of our hotel. Our immediate
inquiry was when is the market. “Tell us,” we cried, “when we, like the
villagers, may go forth in our newest clothes, in high spirits, as though
to some fine ceremony, to view fruits and vegetables, gigots and _rôtis_
if we like, stalls of chiffons and trinkets, patent medicines, soaps,
scents and——”
“A week hence, mon pauvre Monsieur,” interrupted the _patronne_. “The
market takes place on Tuesdays only: as it is Tuesday night, you have
just missed it.”
“Then,” we replied, “the week will be empty, sombre; the week will be a
year, a century; but for you, Madame, and your admirable hotel, the week
would be intolerable.” And the _patronne_ bowed and smiled; we bowed and
smiled, “comme dans le monde,” in fact, “en mondains.” Never was there
sweeter smiling, better bowing, in Moret....
_Moret at the Market._—The time of day differs in Moret-sur-Loing;
differs, also, in neighbouring villages. For miles around, the clocks
strike independently, instead of in chorus, so that it is ten at the
station, when it is ten minutes to, in our hotel; a quarter to ten,
inside the local _bijoutier’s_—but all hours within. When these clocks
have done striking, the church clock starts; there is no corroboration,
no unanimity. However... who cares, who worries? It is “almost” eleven;
“about” twelve; a “little past” four; that suffices. We are late, or
we are early. We get accustomed to being strangely in three places
at the very same hour. Should a friend be pressed we can say: “That
clock is fast”; if he weary us, we need not hesitate to declare it
slow. And watches vary; time is of no moment, in Moret. Farther still
from Fontainebleau, in the village of Grez, the two or three hundred
inhabitants rely chiefly on the Curé for the hour. He alone controls the
church clock; but he, an irascible old gentleman, often quarrels with the
Mayor: and on these occasions stops the clock immediately, revengefully.
Once the quarrel lasted three whole months: for three whole months the
hands of the clock remained stationary. The Mayor protested: but the
Curé ignored him. When at last the Mayor withdrew his objection to the
point at issue, the Curé allowed the clock to go again. And now, if ever
the Mayor and the Curé disagree, the Curé stops the clock, the Mayor
protests, the Curé ignores him: and Grez has no church clock to tell the
time until the unhappy Mayor gives in.
Fortunately for us in Moret, the Mayor and Curé are friends. We depend
more or less on the Curé’s clock—most dilapidated of dials—whose solemn
summons at ten on Sunday bids us attend High Mass; whose brisker chimes
at the same hour on Tuesday set us hastening towards the market. Indeed,
in our hotel, disdainful of its dubious timepiece, we wait for the
ten strokes and after counting them join the villagers outside: knots
of villagers, rows of villagers, solitary villagers, but all of them
fresh, immaculate. Each woman wears a print dress, or a print skirt
and camisole, a spotted handkerchief tied in a knot at the top of her
head. Each man has drawn on a clean cotton shirt and his newest coat,
or a blouse; his tie invariably is bright. Each girl is clad lightly,
charmingly, and has becomingly arranged her hair. As for us... well, we
do not seem shabby beside a painter, a Parisian in “le boating” costume:
our scarf is as silken as theirs, our waistcoat is equally white and
_piqué_, but our cane is undoubtedly handsomer, and we think we dangle it
more elegantly.
Over the cobble-stones, avoiding the _ruisseau_, we go—smoking and
chatting—the peasants swinging their baskets, the girls giving a last
touch to their hair—an amazing spectacle.
At the end of the narrow street—the “Grande Rue,” no less!—is installed
the first market-woman, with a vast basket of vegetables. And she, a
wizened old thing, wrinkled and bent in half, appears to be reflecting
over her poor potatoes, her shabby cauliflowers. Still, she refuses to
bargain. She has but one price, and she sniffs when a would-be customer
turns over her wares, inspecting them; and sniffs again when she is told
that they are “bien médiocres et bien chères.” So she sells nothing:
falls into reflection again, quite forgets the would-be customer,
who, turning up the next street, faces a double row of market-people
established on either kerbstone, and thus comes upon the chiefest
commerce.
All Moret is present, all Moret is bargaining and buying, and all
the market-people are seamed with wrinkles, browned, bent; and all
of them wear blouses or camisoles or print dresses, handkerchiefs or
peaked caps—old, old people all of them; at all events seemingly old;
weather-beaten, of the earth. Each has his or her basket, so that there
are two uninterrupted lines of baskets, of little piles of paper, of
measuring utensils. Every vegetable is available, every fruit. There is
crying, croaking, quarrelling; there is laughter, the chink of sous.
Above the din one hears:
“Trois sous, Madame.”
“Non, Madame, deux sous.”
And: “Regardez ces raisins.”
“Voyez, voyez, les melons.”
And always: “Cinq sous, Madame.”
“Non, Madame, trois sous.... Sous, sous, sous.”
Slowly we progress, meet the _patronne_ of our hotel, the postman, the
_garde champêtre_, the barber and, all of a sudden, a bevy of fair
Americans, daintily dressed, who inhabit a “finishing” school near by. In
the village it is hinted that they are heiresses, all of them. Certainly
their clothes are rich, but they carry paper bags of grapes, and eat the
grapes, and dawdle... just like Mesdemoiselles Jeanne and Marie, village
girls who “do washing” on the river bank every other day of the week.
Also, they utter little cries:
“Isn’t that old woman the funniest thing that’s ever happened!”
And: “My! Isn’t it all too quaint!”
Here a foreigner sketches. Farther on, by the side of the church, a
painter has established his easel; next him, stands a group of village
women who have already done their shopping and bear their spoil. And they
compare their purchases, gesticulating over this cauliflower, that salad;
and soon we hear much about a certain Madame Morin who has gone home
furious because Madame Petilleau carried off an amazing melon she had her
eye on... just by a minute. But Madame Morin is always like that; Madame
Morin would flush, lose her temper, over a single bean.
Now stalls rise—stalls of ribbons and jewellery, stalls of cheeses,
stalls of sheets, curtains, all stuffs. And the stuffs are held up to the
sun and considered in the shade, and compared with a complexion and wound
round a waist, so that we hear:
“Ça vous va bien.”
And: “Je trouve que c’est trop clair.”
And, of course: “Trois francs, Madame.”
“No, Madame, deux francs... francs, francs, francs.”
Baskets become veritable burdens. Gesticulations grow wilder, the cries
louder, the exchange of francs and sous quicker and quicker. Everyone has
vegetables and fruits; many have coloured stuffs.
To and fro go the _patronne_ of our hotel, the postman, the _garde
champêtre_, the barber, the Americans. To and fro go the village
girls—but pause all at once before a ragged fellow whose eyes are
crossed, whose face is unshaven, whose dirty hands clasp an accordion.
The church clock strikes eleven. But above all these sounds rises
suddenly and discordantly the voice of the man with the accordion. As
he sings he leers. The village girls titter. To them, impudently and
grotesquely, he addresses his eternal refrain:
“Tu sais bien que je t’ai-ai-me.”
Still we linger; soon we admire a group of women and children whose
home is on the barges of the river bank. Barefoot, with shining black
eyes and black hair, bright shawls and handkerchiefs, they add to
the picturesqueness of the spectacle as they wander to and fro with
wicker-work wares. A graceful English girl presents the children with
grapes, and the children smile, displaying the whitest teeth. The women
pounce upon stray slips of salad, broken atoms of cauliflower, and are
watched suspiciously by the market-people. The foreigner sketches them;
the painter evidently intends to include them in his scene—and we, also
fascinated, would follow them, were we not tempted to listen to a noisy
fellow who, flourishing a scrap of soap, boasts that it will blot out
every stain.
How simple, how easy is it to stain your coat, he cries; then proceeds to
point out stains on various coats. Fear not, however. Be not cast down.
_He_ is here, he, the enemy of stains—_he_ with “The Miraculous Tablet.”
And the “Miraculous Tablet” is held on high and flourished to and fro,
ready to render old clothes new, and soiled hats fresh, in exchange for
two vulgar sous.
“Seize this surprising opportunity,” shouts the man. “Take out your
stains, all of you. The Miraculous Tablet will away with them all...
except stains on your conscience. I swear it, and I am honest.”
And then, continuing, he announces that the “Miraculous Tablet” has made
him famous throughout the land; that clients return to him in thousands
to express their gratitude; that a certain mother once shed tears of
joy when he took an ink-stain out of her little boy’s white suit; that
only yesterday, in Orleans, the inhabitants cheered and cheered him and,
rushing forward, begged leave to shake his hand. “And,” he concludes,
“believe me, ladies and gentlemen, I had not hands enough.”
Suddenly a tambourine sounds, and up the street come a man and a woman
with a dancing bear, another woman with a monkey. The monkey screams,
the bear on its hind legs bobs up and down, up and down, and the man
encourages him gruffly and the woman shakes the tambourine.
Of course a crowd assembles, and of course cries go up. Cries rise
everywhere: from the market-place, from the crowd, from the enemy of
stains, from the man with the accordion, from the group around the bear;
all cries, the strangest cries, all languages also—English, French, many
a patois, “bargee,” the unknown tongue of the almost black people with
the bear—and all accents.
Then several nuns issue forth from church and pause for a moment. The
Curé appears. A “Savoyard” with statues—as white as his statues, for his
clothes are white and his face is covered with chalk-dust—approaches.
And all these different people, in all their different costumes, with
different accents and different gestures, mingle together, elbow one
another, and all around them are the stalls of bright stuffs, the vast
baskets of vegetables and fresh fruits. In the background—grey and
quaint—stands the church.
However, time is flying and luncheon hour is near. The purchases have
to be borne home, washed, prepared, and so the inhabitants of Moret
raise their baskets, exchange adieux. Off starts the _patronne_ of
our hotel; off go the postman, the _garde champêtre_, the barber and
the fair Americans—still eating grapes—to their “finishing” school.
The village girls disperse, and here and there the market-people are
already dislodging their baskets, counting up sous. Once again we hear
of the hot-tempered Madame Morin, the triumphant Madame Petilleau. Other
familiar sounds reach us as we near the end of the street: “This, then,
is the Miraculous Tablet... and only yesterday in Orleans...” and for the
last time, “Cinq sous, Madame,” “Non, Madame, trois sous,” and the hour
being told by the church.
In the far distance, the bear is evidently dancing, for we faintly
hear the tambourine. But his audience must now be small: before us, up
the Grande Rue, moves a slow procession of men and women with baskets,
sometimes two baskets to each person.
Still, the first market-woman does not appear to have provided them with
their spoil. She alone has done no business, and sits, wizened and bent
in half, over her shabby cauliflowers, her poor potatoes. Occasionally
she sniffs.
But her sniff develops into a snort, when the cross-eyed, unshaven fellow
with the accordion slouches up and, pausing for a moment, winks ... a
fearful wink... leers, addresses her impudently and grotesquely with his
eternal refrain:
“Tu sais bien que je t’ai-ai-me.”
IV
BOURGEOISIE
1. M. DURAND AT MARIE-LE-BOIS
A French friend, M. Durand, thus writes to me:
“To-morrow morning at 11.47 my wife, myself, the three children
and our deaf old servant Amélie, all leave for Marie-le-Bois;
and to-morrow night, whilst you, _mon cher ami_, are eating the
rosbif and drinking the pale ale of _la vieille Angleterre_,
the Durand family will be dining off radishes, sardines,
chicken, and cool salad, in the garden of the Villa des Roses.
“I have taken the villa for a month—our holiday. The Duvals and
the Duponts occupy villas near by; and we shall play croquet
together, and be amiable and happy. I, your stout friend, _le
gros_ Durand, will wear white shoes and no waistcoat, and I
shall also smoke many pipes and enjoy long siestas under my own
tree.” (What an idyllic picture—the large citizen Durand asleep
in a vast cane chair, under a tree!)
“But to-day, _mon vieux_, what anxiety, what chaos, what
despair, in our Paris home! We are distracted, we are in
peril of losing our reason, so terrible, so sinister is the
work of moving to Marie-le-Bois. The packing, the labelling,
the ordering of the railway omnibus (it is engaged for ten
o’clock precisely, but will it—O harassing question—arrive in
time?), the emotion of the children, the ferocity of my wife,
the deafness of superannuated Amélie—all these miseries have
left me as weak as an old cat. You, who have travelled, will
appreciate the agony of the situation. No more can I say, for I
hear my wife crying: ‘Hippolyte, Hippolyte, what are you doing?
You must be mad to write letters in such a crisis.’
“Adieu, therefore. Here, very cordially, are the two hands of,
“GEORGES AUGUSTE HIPPOLYTE DURAND.”
Excellent, simple M. Durand! From his letter one would suppose that he
is about to make the long journey from Paris to the Pyrenees; and that
his luggage is proportionately considerable and elaborate. But, as a
matter of fact, Marie-le-Bois lies humbly on the outskirts of Paris. A
slow train from the St Lazare Station covers the distance in thirty-five
minutes. And once arrived there, one clearly perceives, from the top of
a small hill, the Sacré Cœur, the dome of the Panthéon, the sightseers
(almost their Baedekers) on the Triumphal Arch! Only five and thirty
minutes distant from Paris—and yet Madame Durand is “ferocious,” her
husband is as “weak as an old cat,” and the omnibus has been ordered one
hour and forty-seven minutes in advance, to drive over the mile that
separates M. Durand’s dim, musty little flat from the station!
Luggage? As the Villa des Roses is let furnished, only wearing apparel
and little particular comforts are required, and so the Durand luggage
consists of no more than a shabby large trunk, two dilapidated valises,
a bundle, and a collection of sticks, umbrellas, spades for the children
and a fishing-rod for their father.
Why spades? There is no sand at Marie-le-Bois. Why that fishing-rod? Not
a river floweth within miles and miles of the Villa des Roses. And it
must furthermore be revealed that the “wood” of Marie-le-Bois consists in
reality of a few acres of shabby bushes, dead grass and gaunt trees; that
the villa itself is a hideous, gritty little structure, rendered all the
more uninviting by what the estate agent calls an “ornamental” turret,
and that never a rose (never even a common sunflower) has bloomed in the
scrap of waste ground joyously designated by M. Durand a “garden.”
No matter; M. Durand, a simple, small bourgeois, is happy, his good wife
rejoices, the three children run wild in the hot, dusty roads, deaf old
Amélie is to be heard singing in a feeble, cracked voice in the kitchen;
and the Duvals and the Duponts—also of the small bourgeoisie—are equally
happy and merry in the equally hideous and gritty villas named “My
Pleasure” and “My Repose.”
Between them they have hired a rough, bumpy field, in which they play
croquet for hours at a time—the ladies in cotton wrappers and the
gentlemen in their shirt-sleeves. But not enough mallets to go round and
constant confusion as to whose turn it is to play.
“It is Durand’s turn,” says Dupont.
“No, it is Madame Durand’s,” states M. Duval.
“No, it is my turn—I haven’t played for twenty minutes,” protests the
shrill voice of little Marie Dupont.
“Apparently it is somebody’s turn,” says M. Durand ironically.
And then do the three gentlemen respectively declare that the “situation”
is “extraordinary” and “abominable” and—yes, “sinister”; and then,
also, do the three wives proclaim their lords “egoists” and—Oh dear
me—“imbeciles,” and then (profiting by the dispute) do the many children
of the Duponts and the Durands and Duvals kick about the balls, and hop
over (or dislodge) the hoops, and (when reprimanded) burst into tears.
“It’s mad,” cries M. Durand.
“Auguste, you disgust me,” says Madame Dupont to her husband.
“Mamma, Henri Durand has pulled my hair,” sobs little Germaine Duval.
At length on goes the game. But ten minutes later the same confusion, the
same cries: “It’s my turn,” and “No, it is the turn of Madame Dupont,”
and “I’ve only played once in the last hour,” and “The situation is
becoming more and more sinister.”
Still, in the scraps of garden of the three villas there is peace.
The gentlemen doze a great deal under their respective, their “own”
anæmic trees. Flies buzz about them—but, as M. Durand observes, they
are “country flies,” and therefore “innocent.” In the late afternoon M.
Durand puts on his glasses, opens his _Petit Parisien_ and says: “Let
us hear what is happening in Paris.” As a matter of fact, M. Durand can
almost hear what is happening in Paris from his chair; but he studies
his paper deeply and gives vent to exclamations of “Ah!” and “That dear,
extraordinary Paris—always excited, never tranquil!” as though he were an
exile in the remotest of foreign lands.
As for M. Dupont, he is of the opinion that although newspapers are out
of place in the country, “still a good citizen should keep in touch
with affairs.” And says M. Duval: “A Parisian, wherever he be, should
never altogether forget that he is a Parisian. Therefore it is his
duty—I speak, of course, figuratively—to keep one eye on the capital.”
Figuratively, indeed! M. Duval has only to mount upon his chair to behold
Paris with both eyes, most clearly, most vividly.
And now night-time, and a lamp burning on a table in the garden of the
Villa des Roses, and around the table, covered with coffee cups, the
Durands and the Duponts and the Duvals. Happily they lie back in their
chairs. Now and again the peevish, spiteful hum of the mosquito. Odd
green insects dash themselves against the glass of the lamp.
“The air of the country, there is nothing like it; it is exquisite,
sublime,” says M. Durand rapturously. “Breathe it in, my friends, breathe
it in, with all your might.”
“Durand is right,” assents M. Dupont. “Let us not speak; let us only
breathe.”
“Are we ready?” inquires M. Duval.
And the three M. D.’s and the three Madame D.’s, lying back in their
chairs, breathe and breathe.
2. PENSION DE FAMILLE. THE BEAUTIFUL MADEMOISELLE MARIE, WHO LOVED
GAMBETTA
As a consequence of the death, in her ninety-third year, of Mademoiselle
Marie Rosalie Losset, many a successful French barrister, politician and
_littérateur_ is recalling the early, struggling days of the past. He
sees the Rue des Poitevins, a narrow little street in the heart of the
Latin Quarter. He remembers the board over one of its doorways: “Pension
Laveur. Cuisine Bourgeoise. Prix modérés.” He can almost smell the strong
evening odour of cabbage and onion soup that assailed him in the dim
entrance hall when he returned to the boarding-house exhausted, perhaps
depressed from his lectures at the Sorbonne, his studies in the medicine
schools, his first visits to the Law Courts.
As I am nothing of a greybeard, I am only able to write of Mademoiselle
Marie Rosalie Losset and of the _pension de famille_ in the Rue des
Poitevins at second hand. It was as far back as 1838 that Mademoiselle
Marie, then a _jeune fille_ of eighteen, came up to Paris from tranquil,
beautiful Savoy to help her sister and brother-in-law, M. and Madame
Laveur, to conduct their new boarding-house. Tall, graceful, masses
of golden hair—the “Greek Statue,” the great Gambetta called her, and
the name clung. I must be excused from stating names and events in
chronological order—so much has happened since the year 1840! But I
can give the precise terms of the _pension_: five or six francs a day
for full board, including white or red wine. Also I am able to record
that whereas the sister and brother-in-law, M. and Madame Laveur,
were suspicious, severe and close-fisted, Mademoiselle Marie Rosalie
Losset—“Mademoiselle Marie” for short—was all gaiety and generosity, and
sympathised with the struggles, disappointments and financial ennuis of
the boarders.
Fortunately for the latter it was Mademoiselle Marie who made up the
bills and had charge of the cash-box; the Laveurs occupied themselves
exclusively with the kitchen and the household arrangements. Inevitably,
the student boarders lost their hearts to the “Greek Statue”; but she
laughed at their gallantry, and gaily wanted to know how on earth they
could keep a wife when they couldn’t pay their own way. Bill of M. Paul
a month and thirteen days overdue. Laundry account of M. Pierre five
weeks in arrears, and the washerwoman making persistent “inquiries.” The
washing-basin of M. Jacques, broken an eternity ago, still standing
against him in the boarding-house ledger. And yet they wanted to marry
her, all of them—the foolish sentimentalists, the dear, simple imbeciles!
No, no; she would try to keep the Laveurs in ignorance of the unpaid
bills; she would sew buttons on to M. Paul’s shabby coat, and blot out
the stains from M. Pierre’s; she would say no more of the washing-basin;
she would reassure the angry _blanchisseuse_; she would, in a word,
do everything for the student boarders except marry them. “Tant pis,”
cried the latter dramatically, “you have broken my heart. I shall never
do anything in this world. You have ruined me!” Replied the radiant
Savoyarde: “Nonsense! Work hard, and make a name for yourself. And when
you are famous come and see me, and I promise not to remind you of the
washerwoman, or the basin, or your faded old coat.”
Their studies finished, away from the narrow little Rue des Poitevins
went the “heartbroken” boarders to make a “name for themselves.” Not
so heartbroken but that they became either heroic or distinguished
“citizens” of France. At the end of the plain, bourgeois dinner
Mademoiselle Marie came to Gambetta’s table for dessert, and, amidst a
cracking of nuts and the drinking of sour wine, the future great and
noble Gambetta tempestuously held forth. A Republic for France was his
cry. How the glasses danced as he thumped with his fist on the table!
What cheers from the boarders; what a blush and a flush on the face of
the “Greek Statue”! Gambetta stirred that sombre, musty boarding-house
as later he roused the whole of France with his eloquence, enthusiasm,
his glorious patriotism. His Republican programme was first conceived,
his famous social battle-cry—“Le Cléricalisme, voilà l’ennemi”—was first
sounded in that _pension_ of the narrow, obscure Rue des Poitevins.
Emotion, we may be sure, of the “Greek Statue” whilst her hero was
away with the Army of the Loire. Gloom and hunger in the Pension
Laveur during the Siege of Paris; never a sniff of the strong onion
soup. Years later—1881—Gambetta Prime Minister, accession of “le Grand
Ministère,”—and joy and pride of the “Greek Statue.” But downfall of the
“Grand Ministère” after only two months’ power, and death of Gambetta in
the following year—and then, yes, then, so, at least, I surmise, grief
and tears of the Savoyarde, the “Greek Statue,” now become grey-headed,
now a sexagenarian, now known to her boarders as “Tante Marie.”
So have we arrived at the twilight of the once radiant Savoyarde’s
career. She is sixty, and the golden hair has gone grey, and familiarly
and affectionately she is known amongst her boarders as “Auntie.”
Still, however, does she sew on the missing buttons of the _jeunesse_
of the Latin Quarter, and allow the _pension_ bills to stand over, and
overlook the matter of broken washing-basins, and pacify the angry
_blanchisseuse_, and encourage her struggling boarders with the old
words of long ago: “Work hard, and make a name for yourself, and come
and tell me of your fame....” Years roll on—and “Tante Marie” becomes
deaf and frail, and holds a hand to her ear when the _pensionnaires_
of the past return to the Rue des Poitevins—elderly, many of them
wealthy and distinguished—and pay her homage, and thank her emotionally
for her kindnesses, and leave behind them autographed photographs
bearing, amongst many other signatures, the names of Alphonse Daudet,
François Coppée, Waldeck-Rousseau (Gambetta’s disciple), Reclus, the
great physician, Millerand (ex-Minister of War), Pichon, the actual
French Foreign Secretary, and a former President of the Republic, Émile
Loubet.... More years roll by and “Tante Marie” becomes bent, shaky and
wizened—a nonagenarian. Against her will, she is removed from the sombre,
musty old Balzacian _pension_ to a small, modern, electric-lighted
apartment—where she dies. Dies, in spite of her beauty, brilliancy,
irresistibility, a spinster. Dies with the admission: “It was Gambetta I
loved. Impossible, of course. But he called me a Greek Statue!”
3. PENSION DE FAMILLE. FRENCH AND PIANO LESSONS. LES SAINTES FILLES,
MESDEMOISELLES PÉRIVIER
Three years have elapsed since Henri Rochette, the dashing young French
financier with the handsome black beard, fell with a crash.
“Le Krach de Rochette. Arrest of the Financier. Millions of Losses. Ruin
of Small Investors,” yelled the _camelots_ on the boulevards. It was
another _affaire_, a gigantic swindle reminiscent of Panama, in that the
greater part of the victims were small, thrifty people, who now stood in
thousands outside Rochette’s closed, darkened offices, weeping, raging,
pathetically or passionately demanding the return of their savings.
“That Rochette, he came from nowhere—how did he manage it?” asked the
prudent bourgeois, who had steeled himself against Rochette’s alluring,
rattling circulars.
Yes, Rochette had come from nowhere—or rather, he had come from the
country town of Melun, where he was a waiter in a greasy hotel; then
he passed as clerk into a financial establishment; next he opened
spacious offices of his own and successfully floated a dozen different
companies. I believe the chief factor in Rochette’s success was the
black beard he began to grow and to cultivate assiduously, elaborately,
after his departure from Melun. With ambition, audacity and, above
all, an ornamental black beard, no Frenchman should fail to make his
fortune. Lemoine, the alchemist, Duez, the liquidator of the Religious
Congregations, both of them had splendid black beards; and the first
lived in great style, at the expense of even so astute a financier as Sir
Julius Wernher, and the second kept up costly establishments on money
belonging to the State. True, MM. Duez and Lemoine were shorn of their
beards and sent to prison. But for a long while, at all events, a really
fine black beard in France can excite admiration, inspire confidence,
command capital and make millions.
Well, Rochette fell with a crash—and so a panic, so ruin in Paris.
Cases of suicide. Other cases of death from the shock. Bailiffs in
possession of small homes and dim shops, and the small people expelled.
Up with the shutters in Rochette’s splendid offices; away to prison
with the swindling financier, and off with his beard. Victims and
victims—dazed, broken, distracted. Amongst the forlornest victims, the
two Mesdemoiselles Périvier.
“Saintly creatures,” the stout, red-faced Curé of the church of St
Sulpice used to say of the Mesdemoiselles Périvier. For years and years
they had resided in his parish, attending a Low Mass and High Mass
every morning, and Vespers every evening; for years and years they had
subscribed to M. le Curé’s “good works,” and provided his favourite
dishes of _vol-au-vent_ and _poulet-au-riz_ upon those monthly occasions
when he dined with them in their dreary, six-roomed flat. It was the
most sunless, the most joyless of homes; and the Mesdemoiselles Périvier
were the frailest, the simplest, the most frugal of old spinsters, with
scarcely a friend and not a relative in the world, and with no experience
of the shocks and hardships of life until their small income was lost in
the Rochette crash.
Their eyes stained with tears, the two lonely sisters sought out M. le
Curé. He consoled them as best he could; urged them to bear their loss
with resignation; exhorted them to seek relief in prayer. And day after
day, in shadowy St Sulpice, the Mesdemoiselles Périvier prayed long,
earnestly, humbly. Never did a complaint escape them. But they looked
frailer and lonelier than ever in their rusty black dresses, as they
crossed themselves with holy water on their way out of St Sulpice to
their sunless, stricken home.
A few thousand francs invested in French _rentes_, but returning a sum
insufficient to satisfy even the Mesdemoiselles Périvier’s frugal needs,
was all that remained. Imperative, therefore, to do something. And one
morning the elder Mademoiselle Périvier (aged sixty-three) and her
sister, Mademoiselle Berthe Périvier (three years her junior) affixed a
black-edged visiting-card to their door. Under their joint names appeared
the intimation: “Pension de Famille. French and Piano Lessons. Moderate
Terms.”
Then, in the Paris edition of _The New York Herald_, the Mesdemoiselles
Périvier offered a home to English and American girls desirous of
studying painting in the Latin Quarter; the six-roomed flat, in the
shadow of St Sulpice, being also in the neighbourhood of Julian’s and
Vitti’s art schools. A few flower-pots for the flat. The half-dumb,
yellow-keyed old piano repaired. Far into the night the Mesdemoiselles
Périvier studied French and English grammars; at intervals during the day
the elder Mademoiselle Périvier was to be heard practising feebly on the
piano... against the arrival of pupils and _pensionnaires_.
“Saintly creatures!” repeatedly exclaimed M. le Curé in the houses he
visited. Earnestly he recommended the _pension_. Warmly, too, was it
spoken of by kindly, well-meaning people.
But it was such a sunless, cheerless place, and the Mesdemoiselles
Périvier looked such dim, old-fashioned spinsters in their rusty black
dresses, that the recommendations proved fruitless. After a glance at
the piano and flower-pots, intending _pensionnaires_ took their leave,
and found attractive, sociable quarters _chez_ Madame Lagrange (“widow
of a diplomat”), or at the “Villa des Roses,” or the “Pension Select,”
where there were “musical evenings,” five-o’clock teas, electric light,
comfortable corners and gossip and laughter.
A year went by; another twelvemonth—and then it became known round and
about St Sulpice that the Mesdemoiselles Périvier had been disposing
little by little of their Government stock. Yet they were never heard to
complain. When dust had dimmed the visiting-card on the door, the card
was replaced, and the advertisements still appeared in the Paris _New
York Herald_.
It was noticed, however, that the eyes of the Mesdemoiselles Périvier
were often swollen and red, that their cheeks showed traces of tears,
and that the two lonely spinsters were more assiduous than ever in their
visits to St Sulpice. At all times, in all weathers, they made their way
to the church, and bowed their heads in prayer in the half-light, amidst
the shadows.
It was on her return home from St Sulpice, one bitter afternoon, that
Mademoiselle Berthe Périvier, the younger by three years of the two
spinsters, contracted pneumonia, and died.
“Une sainte fille, une sainte fille,” reiterated M. le Curé, himself
sobbing by the bedside.
And to-day the black-edged visiting-card—“Pension de Famille. French and
Piano Lessons. Moderate Terms”—appears no longer on the door. With her
last remaining French _rentes_ passed the elder Mademoiselle Périvier.
Gone, without a complaint, are the frail, frugal old spinsters. And M.
Henri Rochette, on the eve of his release from prison, is growing a new
beard.
4. THE AFFAIR OF THE COLLARS
It is a popular superstition that amongst the smaller French bourgeoisie
one day is like another day, and all days are empty, colourless and
banal. None of the joys of life—none of its shocks and surprises—up there
in the Durands’ gloomy and oppressive fifth-floor _appartement_. From
morning till night, infinite monotony, relieved only by Madame Durand’s
periodical altercations with the concierge, the tradespeople, and deaf
and dim-eyed old Amélie, the cook. The family newspaper is the _Petit
Journal_, because of its two _feuilletons_. In a corner a little, damaged
piano, upon which angular and elderly Mademoiselle Durand laboriously
picks out the _Polka des Joyeux_ and the _Valse Bleue_. In another
corner Madame Durand knits away at a pink woollen shawl. And from a
third corner M. Hippolyte Durand, in huge carpet slippers, tells his wife
what has happened to him during the day.
The omnibus that took him to his office was full; his lunch consisted
of _navarin aux pommes_ and stewed pears; after leaving his bureau he
played two games of dominoes with Dupont in the Café du Commerce, and
the omnibus that brought him home was even fuller than that in which he
travelled to business.
“There should be more omnibuses in Paris,” remarks Madame Durand.
“And how odious are the conductors!” exclaims elderly and embittered
Mademoiselle Durand from the piano.
Then lights out at eleven o’clock, and the dull, dreamless sleep of the
unimaginative, the worthy.
However, this popularly conceived idea of the life and mind of the
smaller French bourgeoisie is something of a libel. Their existence is
not eternally uneventful, nor their temperament hopelessly colourless.
Now and again the dim, oppressive fifth-floor _appartements_ are shaken
by “Affairs” quite as exciting and incoherent in their own way as those
that have convulsed the Palace of Justice and Chamber of Deputies. There
was once a Dreyfus Affair. There were also the Syveton and Steinheil
Affairs. All three caused the Parisians (who dearly love imbroglios and
incoherencies) to exclaim: “C’est le comble!”—in colloquial English:
“It’s the limit!”
But, in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris, there rages to-day an Affair
that must be awarded the first place amongst all other Affairs for sheer
confusion, dizziness and irresponsibility.
Thus:
Three weeks ago M. Henri Bouzon, a stout, middle-aged bourgeois, bought a
dozen new collars from a “general” clothing establishment known as “The
Joy of the Gentleman.” In due course the collars went to the laundry, but
twelve other collars were returned in their place, and these M. Bouzon
rejected. A second lot of collars—again somebody else’s. Then a third
wrong delivery, and a fourth. By the time a fifth contingent had arrived
M. Bouzon was collarless and desperate.
“Once again, these are not my collars,” he cried. “But as they fit me, I
will keep them.”
Next day, appearance of Madame Martin, the _blanchisseuse_, in a state
of emotion. The fifth contingent of collars belonged to a M. Aristide
Dubois, who was clamouring for them. He had acquired them only recently
at “The Paradise of the Bachelor,” and was furious at their loss.
“Bother Aristide Dubois,” shouted M. Bouzon. “Where are my own dozen
collars from ‘The Joy of the Gentleman’? Return them and I will give up
the Dubois collars—which I am wearing.”
Despair of the _blanchisseuse_. She searched and searched for the Bouzon
collars, but in vain; and tearfully, then frantically did she implore
Henri Bouzon to be “amiable” and “gentil” and surrender up the collars of
Aristide Dubois.
“He is a terrible man—such a temper,” pleaded the _blanchisseuse_. “I had
to tell him you were wearing his collars, and he threatened to call on
you and tear them off your neck.”
“Let him come,” cried M. Bouzon. Then, following Madame Martin out on to
the staircase he shouted over the banisters: “And tell Dubois from me
that he is a brigand and a bandit.”
Inevitably, the concierges and tradespeople of Montparnasse got to hear
of the dispute. It was discussed in doorways and at street corners,
and in her steamy _blanchisserie_ Madame Martin held little levees of
the Montparnasse servants, who took the story home to their masters
and mistresses, who in their turn became garrulous and excited over
the Dubois and Bouzon collars. Then, one memorable afternoon, Aristide
Dubois—another stout and middle-aged bourgeois—called upon Henri Bouzon.
And the following dialogue took place:—
“Sir, you are wearing the collars I bought recently at ‘The Paradise of
the Bachelor.’”
“Sir, I have no wish to speak to you, and I beg you to withdraw.”
“Monsieur, vous aurez de mes nouvelles.”
That was all, but it caused a commotion in Montparnasse. Aristide Dubois’
last words, “Sir, you will hear from me,” signified nothing less than
a duel. Yes; Bouzon and Dubois on the field of honour, sword or pistol
in hand, with doctors in attendance! “Both of them are terrible men,”
related Madame Martin, whose _blanchisserie_ now became a popular place
of rendez-vous. “Impossible to reason with them. They will fight to the
death.” Equally sought after were the respective concierges of the Dubois
and Bouzon families, and the tradespeople who served them.
The discussion spreading, all Montparnasse soon found itself indirectly
and chaotically mixed up in the Affair of the Collars. It was Collars in
a hundred bourgeois homes, in cafés, in the shady Luxembourg Gardens,
even amongst the enormous, apoplectic _cochers_ on the cab-ranks.
“I am for Dubois,” declared some.
“Henri Bouzon has my sympathy,” announced others. “It is the most
distracting of affairs,” agreed everybody. Thus, fame of Henri Bouzon
and Aristide Dubois! After fifty years of obscurity, there they
were—suddenly—the Men of the Hour. Such was their importance, their
renown, that when they appeared in the Montparnasse streets people nudged
one another and whispered:
“Here comes Henri Bouzon.”
And: “There goes Aristide Dubois.”
... Such has been the state of Montparnasse during the last three weeks,
and to-day that usually tranquil neighbourhood is literally convulsed by
the Affair of the Collars. No duel has taken place: but MM. Dubois and
Bouzon exchange lurid letters, in which they call one another “traitors,”
and “Apaches,” and “sinister assassins.” Thus, shades of the Dreyfus
Affair and of the Affairs Syveton and Steinheil! Here, in the Café du
Dôme, sits M. Bouzon, surrounded by Bouzonites. There, in the Café
de la Rotonde, M. Dubois and his own supporters are established,—and
in both places, night after night, hot controversies rage, the marble
tables are thumped, and MM. Dubois and Bouzon are severally applauded and
toasted by their admirers. Become celebrities, they have blossomed out
into silk hats and frock coats, and the waiters bow before them, and the
café proprietors actually address them as “cher maître.” At times they
dramatically exclaim: “Ah, my poor head! This affair is destroying me:
but I will fight to the last,” and there are murmurs of sympathy, which
MM. Bouzon and Dubois (always in their respective cafés) acknowledge
with the condescension of a Briand or a Delcassé or a Clemenceau. For,
most indisputably, they are great public characters. The post brings
them letters of congratulation or abuse; the policemen salute them: and
“The Paradise of the Bachelor” has named a collar after Aristide Dubois,
whilst “The Joy of the Gentleman” has issued the intimation: “For ease,
chic, durability, wear the Collar Bouzon.” Then, to live up to their
renown as the Men of the Hour, MM. Dubois and Bouzon go about with bulky
portfolios under their arms, and a grim, determined expression. “They are
doing too much. They will certainly collapse. It is even worse than the
Dreyfus Affair,” says Montparnasse. And, exclaims Madame Martin, in her
steamy and crowded _blanchisserie_: “Terrible men! I have tried to make
peace between them by offering them all kinds of collars. I have even
declared myself ready to buy them collars out of my own pocket. But they
only go red in the face, and shout, and won’t hear a word.”
And now—in the words of the journalists—a “sensational development.” It
is announced, breathlessly, hysterically by Madame Martin, that at last
she has traced the dozen missing collars, bought by M. Bouzon at “The
Joy of the Gentleman,” to the bourgeois fifth-floor _appartement_ of a
M. Alexandre Dupont. He has been wearing them all these weeks. And he
refuses to surrender them. And he, too, is a “terrible man.” And he has
called M. Dubois a “convict,” and M. Bouzon “le dernier des misérables.”
And, if they come within his reach, he will hurl both of them into the
Seine.
“Le comble” [the limit], gasps Montparnasse. All over the neighbourhood
goes the statement that M. Alexandre Dupont bought _his_ dozen collars at
that other Montparnasse clothing establishment, “The One Hundred Thousand
Supreme Shirts.”
“The man Alexandre Dupont is as great a scoundrel as the man Aristide
Dubois,” cries M. Bouzon to his admiring supporters in the Café du Dôme.
“It is impossible to determine which of the two is the more infamous and
diabolical, the creature Bouzon or the lunatic Dupont,” shouts M. Dubois,
amidst the cheers of his followers in the Café de la Rotonde.
“Bouzon and Dubois—I consign them to the Seine and the Morgue,” storms
Alexandre Dupont, addressing his newly gathered partisans in the Café du
Repos.
Out comes that other “general” clothing establishment, “The One Hundred
Thousand Supreme Shirts,” with the announcement: “The Only Collar in
Paris is the Collar Dupont.”
“All three of them are terrible,” affirms Madame Martin to her audience
in the stifling _blanchisserie_.
“The collars of Bouzon, then the collars of Dubois, and next the collars
of Dupont—but where have they all gone to? Where are we? What is going to
happen!” cries, emotionally and distractedly, Montparnasse.
Nobody knows. Nobody will ever know. But Bouzon, Dubois and Dupont, so
obscure three weeks ago, are the Men of the Hour in Montparnasse to-day.
And one of the three will, almost indubitably, represent Montparnasse in
the Hôtel de Ville after the next Municipal Election,—then be promoted
to the Chamber of Deputies—then will eloquently, passionately inform the
Palais Bourbon that Incoherency is the Peril of the Present Age.
V
ON STRIKE
1. WHEN IT WAS DARK IN PARIS
Eight o’clock at night, and the electric lights burning brightly, and
the band playing gaily, and the customers chatting happily in this
large, comfortable café. Although it is the “dead” season, business
is brisk. Here and there an elegant Parisienne, eating an ice. In
corners, groups of card-players. And next to me, three stout, red-faced,
prosperous-looking bourgeois, to whom the proprietor of the café pays
particular attention. He hopes they are well. He hopes their ladies and
their dear children are well. He hopes their affairs are going well. From
their replies, I learn that the three bourgeois are important tradesmen
of the quarter.
Suddenly their conversation turns to strikes—and naturally my three
neighbours are indignant with the strikers. The strikers spoil affairs;
the strikers should therefore be arrested, imprisoned, transported.
Half-a-dozen of them might be executed, as an example. The Bourse du
Travail and the offices of the General Confederation of Labour should
be razed to the ground. No other country but France would tolerate such
anarchy. One is on the verge of a revolution, and——
At this point the scores of electric lights jump excitedly—turn dim—go
out. And it is darkness.
“The strikers!” exclaims the first bourgeois.
“The electricians!” cries the second.
“Ah, the scoundrels, the brigands, the assassins!” shouts the third.
Mercy me, the excitement! The three bourgeois light matches, everyone
lights matches,—and in the light from the matches I see the proprietor
standing on a chair in the middle of the café. Loudly he claps his hands;
loudly he cries to the waiters: “Candles.” Then, for some mysterious
reason, the customers also mount chairs. The lights have gone out, so one
mounts chairs! If you don’t immediately mount a chair when the lights
have gone out, heaven only knows what will not happen to you. And so I,
too, stand on a chair, and light matches, and join in the cries of: “It’s
a strike; it’s a strike.”
For my own part, I rejoice. I love the cries, the confusion, the
amazing aspect of Paris—when it is dark. Here, in this café, the band
is idle; the card-players have stopped their games; the proprietor
is still clapping his hands and clamouring for candles. However, no
candlesticks: so, vulgarly, as in low places, one uses bottles. A bottle
for every table and the grease (another low spectacle) trickles down
the bottles. The lady at the desk, whose highly important duty it is to
keep the accounts, is given a dilapidated old lantern. Very old and very
dilapidated, too, are the petroleum lamps brought up from the cellars
where they have remained hidden so long as to acquire a sinister coating
of verdigris. “It’s deadly poison,” says one of the bourgeois next to
me. “I won’t have it. Fetch me a candle.” So the waiter bringeth the
bourgeois a candle, and, no sooner has he placed the bottle on the table
than it topples over and falls against the breast of the bourgeois.
“A cloth, a cloth!” he shouts. “I am covered with grease.” And he storms.
And he goes purple in the face. And violently he rubs his waistcoat,
making the stains worse. And as he rubs he cries furiously, of the
strikers: “Ah, the scoundrels, the brigands, the assassins.”
In the street, only gas. And as I make my way to the _grands boulevards_,
I perceive waiters speeding about in all directions, and hear them asking
policemen for the nearest grocer’s shop. The waiters are in quest of
candles. The waiters dare not return to their cafés without packets and
packets of candles. But most of the grocers are closed: and so on speed
the waiters, flushed, breathless, through the gloom.
No theatres to-night. Out went the lights just as the curtain was about
to rise, and on to the stage stepped the manager, lamp or candlestick in
hand—a sepulchral figure—to beg the audience to disperse in good order.
No telephones to-night. Out went the lights in the Exchange, to the
confusion, to the terror of the ladies. They are there in the darkness,
waiting for candles. Then, gloom in most of the newspaper offices. Out
went the lights, suddenly, unanimously. “Lamps, candles!” shouted the
editor. Thus, office-boys also in desperate quest of candles. And they
come into collision with the waiters. And there are tumultuous scenes in
the grocers’ shops. And the grocers cry desperately: “One at a time; one
at a time. I shall faint. I shall lose my reason. I shall die.”
Thousands and thousands of candles in the handsome cafés of the _grands
boulevards_, and all of them in vulgar bottles. Thus, infinite candle
grease; also, more verdigris. But what a difference between the tempers
of the bourgeois and the boulevardier! M. le Boulevardier laughs, jokes,
rejoices. He is in search of a friend,—and so picketh up a bottle and
makes a tour of the café. “Clever fellows; they struck just at the right
hour,” he says, of the strikers. Amiable, too, are the English visitors
to Paris in Darkness. A charming young girl near me produces picture post
cards and writes hurriedly by candlelight. And I expect she is writing:
“MY DEAR,—Such fun, such excitement, I wish you were here. All the
electric lights have gone out and we’ve only got candles. It’s too funny.
I’ll tell you all about it to-morrow. Best love from ETHEL.”
On the terraces of the cafés strings of Chinese lanterns are being
put up by the waiters; down the boulevards rush frantic hawkers with
revolutionary newspapers, _The Social War_ and _The Voice of the People_;
along them, at a trot, comes a detachment of cuirassiers. “The troops,”
cries a Parisian. “Clemenceau is at it again,” says another. “A few
years ago Clemenceau fiercely denounced the practice of sending troops
against the strikers,” remarks a third. “But to-day M. Clemenceau is
Prime Minister,” replies a fourth.
Now, candles burn down and have to be replaced. Now, too, theatrical
managers, newspaper men and all those most affected by the darkness
discuss the probable length of the strike. “A couple of days at the
most,” says a manager. “Perhaps only twenty-four hours,” says his friend.
“Clemenceau is already taking measures to——”
But even as he speaks the electric lights break into a dull glow,—jump
excitedly,—then flash. The strike is over; it was but a two-hours’
strike, intended as a protest against the killing of three strikers
by the troops at Villeneuve-St-Georges and as a proof of what the
Electricians’ Trade Union can do.
So away go the candles and the old lamps. The bands strike up; the
card-players resume their games; the newspapers go to press. “The
assassins had to give in,” says the bourgeois exultingly. “The
electricians will surprise us again,” says the boulevardier, with a
laugh. “I’m so sorry it’s all over,” says the charming young English
girl, glancing at her post cards. And so am I: for I love the cries, the
confusion, the amazing aspect of Paris, when it is dark.
2. BIRDS OF THE STATE AT THE POST OFFICE
From a very fascinating English girl, domiciled in Yorkshire, I have just
received the following request:—“I hear you are having another postal
strike in Paris, and that carrier-pigeons are being used. How charming!
And what a lucky man you are to be living in such an exciting country!
Down here nothing ever happens. So do be a dear and send me a letter by a
pigeon—it would be lovely.”
Thus news travels slowly to my very fascinating correspondent’s home
in Yorkshire. The postal strike, the general strike and all the other
strikes are over: and yet it is certain that if I could but gratify Miss
Ethel Grahame’s desire I should rise considerably in her esteem. Strike
or no strike, she would dearly love to have a pigeon, that had flown all
the way from the _grands boulevards_ to Scarborough, come tapping at her
window. To her friends she would say: “Look! A letter from Paris! And
brought all that long, long distance by a pigeon!” Naturally, cries of
astonishment from the friends. Then, great headlines in the local papers:
“Pigeon-Carrying Extraordinary,” and “Pigeon as Postman,” and “The Pigeon
from Paris.” Next, consternation of Miss Ethel Grahame’s innumerable
admirers, who would immediately proceed to fear and hate me as a
formidable rival. And finally, and best of all, my letter put carefully
away, and preserved for ever and for ever, in a scented desk.
Dreams, only dreams! I know nothing about pigeons; and then it has been
stated that every pigeon in France, who is anything of a carrier, has
been requisitioned by the Government. The postal strike is over, but the
carrier-pigeons of Paris and of the provinces nevertheless remain at the
exclusive disposal of the Cabinet. They have become State birds; they may
fly only for the Republic.
So, what a life! As I cross the Luxembourg Gardens (the pleasantest of
all the Paris parks), this fine, sunny afternoon, I reflect bitterly over
the absurdity and irony of things. Gorgeous, costly birds, such as the
parrot or the peacock, I could easily obtain; but a plain carrier-pigeon,
no! Since the French Government is responsible for my predicament, may it
fall! And may the State birds (if ever employed) play M. Clemenceau and
his colleagues false! And——
A pigeon! Yes—there, on the path before me—a fine, strong, handsome
pigeon; the very pigeon to make the trip from Paris to Scarborough. And
my heart beats. And my brow throbs. And I am all excitement, all emotion,
when—O bitter disappointment!—it suddenly occurs to me that this must be
an ordinary pigeon, one of those idle, good-for-nothing pigeons that hop
about public gardens in quest of crumbs. That is his life; that is all he
is capable of doing. O fool that I was, to have thought for a moment that
here was the very bird to go tapping at Miss Ethel Grahame’s window!
Yes, what a life! As I make my way to the _grands boulevards_ it dawns
upon me that I have never seen a carrier-pigeon, and that therefore I
have no idea what he looks like. Also, suppose I wonderfully succeeded
in securing one, what should I say to him, what should I do with him? In
fact, how does one tell a carrier-pigeon where to go? And——
Two pigeons on the steps of this church, but of the before-mentioned
greedy, good-for-nothing kind. Then, more pigeons in this poulterer’s,
but dormant, dead. And next, on the menu of a café, the intimation in
bold, red letters: “This Day: Braised Pigeon and Green Peas.”
In this café, in their accustomed corner, I find M. Henri Durand and M.
Marcel Bertrand, two amiable, chatty, middle-aged little Frenchmen with
whom I am on cordial, confidential terms. Thinking they may help me, I
tell them of my trouble, and extraordinary are their expressions when I
have finished.
“My admirable but unfortunate friend, you are ill,” gasps M. Bertrand.
“My excellent but unhappy neighbour from Across the Channel, the heat has
disturbed you,” cries M. Durand. And then (after I have denied that I
am suffering either from illness or from the heat) M. Bertrand solemnly
holds forth:
“You ask for a carrier-pigeon to take a letter to a very adorable miss
who lives in Yorkshire. But, my poor old one, French pigeons have
never heard of Yorkshire,—and neither have I and neither has our
friend Durand here, and neither, I am sure, has anyone in France. But I
will not insist: this Yorkshire is not the point. The point is, every
carrier-pigeon in France has been proclaimed a bird of the State. In
Paris, there are 15,000; in the provinces, 150,000, thus 165,000 in
all; and all of them have been mobilised—yes, mobilised by order of the
Government. In fact, a carrier-pigeon to-day occupies the same position
as a soldier or a sailor. True, he cannot fight; but upon command, he
must fly. And yet you ask for one of these State birds! Unfortunate
friend, you might as well ask for a regiment or a military balloon, or a
war-ship.”
But still more extraordinary revelations follow. I hear, for instance,
that the 15,000 carrier-pigeons in Paris are housed in the various
ministries—yes, every ministry in Paris is a vast dovecot. Two thousand
pigeons for the Minister of War; three thousand pigeons for the Minister
of Justice, and six thousand pigeons for the Prime Minister.
“He also keeps pigeons at his private residence,” states M. Bertrand. “If
he heard you wanted one of his State birds, he would have you arrested.”
“So,” I sigh, “there is nothing to be done.” And sympathetically M.
Bertrand replies: “Alas, my poor, lovesick one, nothing. I regret it with
all my heart, but you must tell the blonde, adorable miss that birds of
the State may fly only for their own country.”
Then up speaks M. Durand, and I learn that the 15,000 State birds
in Paris are being wonderfully looked after, even spoilt. Never such
comfortable, pleasant dovecots; never such plentiful, excellent fare! “It
is to be hoped,” concludes M. Durand, “that they are not being overfed,
and that they are not contracting idle, luxurious habits; for that would
be disastrous.”
And here I rise. And after I have taken leave of MM. Durand and Bertrand,
I go to the nearest post office and send Miss Ethel Grahame the following
expensive telegram:—
“Deeply sorry no pigeon available. Have done my very best. Writing full
particulars. Can only say meanwhile that every pigeon in France has been
proclaimed a Bird of the State.”
3. AFTER THE STORM AT VILLENEUVE-ST-GEORGES
Down here at Villeneuve-St-Georges, the sandpit district ten miles away
from Paris, there has been a savage collision between the soldiers
and the strikers. The sandpit men—some five or six thousand powerful
navvies in all—raised barricades in the narrow, cobbled streets. When
the dragoons and cuirassiers advanced, they were met with shower upon
shower of flints, bottles, bricks. Revolvers, too, were fired at them.
From windows, guns were discharged. Rising in his stirrups, an officer
at last shouted forth the terrible official ultimatum: “Retire! Let all
good citizens withdraw, for we are about to use force and arms.” Then,
three bugle calls: the final warning. But still the officer hesitated
to give the order to open fire. Again, the three bugle calls; and yet
again. The horses plunged and reared; now and again a soldier, struck by
a huge brick, was thrown from his saddle to the ground. Fierce shouts of
execration from the strikers, the captain of the cuirassiers unsaddled
by half a paving-stone. For the last time, the three bugle calls. And
immediately after them the command: “Fire!”
There were yells of agony, there were frightful oaths—and there was a
frantic retreat. The strikers fled to the open fields, a few hundred
yards away. The troops demolished the barricades, and occupied every
street. When darkness had descended upon Villeneuve-St-Georges it was
known that three strikers had been shot dead, and nearly a hundred more
or less seriously wounded. Four officers and a number of soldiers had
been injured. At nine o’clock a group of strikers, pushing a barrow
containing the body of one of the dead strikers, stopped before the
general commanding the troops, and said: “Salute your victim.” The
general gravely saluted. Away went the strikers with their barrow. All
night long the cuirassiers and dragoons patrolled Villeneuve-St-Georges
and the surrounding open country. In the town itself no one could sleep
for the clatter on the cobble-stones of the horses’ hoofs.
Such were the scenes in the sandpit district yesterday; but to-day—the
day after—a comparative calm has succeeded the storm. When I enter
Villeneuve-St-Georges, officers and soldiers are walking and riding
about the streets, and now and again a patrolling party goes by. Here
and there, groups of strikers, in their baggy blue trousers. And in the
wine-shops, which are full, long, animated conversations. Who was in
the wrong? No one denies that it was the strikers who fired first; no
one disputes the patience of the troops, who remained imperturbable,
motionless in their saddles, amidst a storm of bricks and bottles, for
two whole hours. Then, most of the soldiers fired in the air: had they
fired on the men the slaughter would have been terrific. Here in this
wine-shop, I hear all this, and not only from the soldiers, but from the
strikers, who are present. Yes; the soldiers and strikers, twenty-four
hours after the conflict, are drinking and conversing together:
fraternising, resting their hands on one another’s shoulders. Very rough
and very large are the hands of the navvies: the hands that hurled the
bottles and bricks. And very grimy, very weary, very eyesore are the
dragoons and cuirassiers, after having patrolled the district all night.
Extraordinary this “fraternising”! The enemies of yesterday sit at the
same table. The men in uniform and the men in the baggy blue trousers
clink glasses together.
“Of course I have done my military service, but I was never sent to a
strike,” says one of the navvies.
“You were lucky,” replies a dragoon, with a laugh.
Who was at fault? “It is all the fault of les patrons—the masters,”
states a striker; and he proceeds to relate how he and his colleagues are
underpaid and overworked: how they are treated as slaves by the masters.
It is also “Clemenceau’s fault.” Why did he send troops? There was no
disorder: there was no need for soldiers. “Clemenceau has treated us as
he treated the miners at Courrières.” And the men in the blue trousers
mutter angrily against the French Premier.
Another wine-shop, and the same scene: strikers and soldiers
fraternising. Says one of the former: “Let us have another coffee;
for to-night we may be fighting again.” Replies a cuirassier: “One
never knows. But remember we are the stronger.” Officers passing down
the street glance into the open doors of the wine-shops, and smile
indulgently at the strange spectacle. “The General!” suddenly cries a
navvy. And the General it is: a tall, slim man, keen-eyed, grey-headed,
dignified. After looking up and down the street, he enters a café with
three officers. Coffee and a liqueur for M. le Général. A penny cigar
for M. le Général. A dozen navvies crowd into the café, sit down, and
scrutinise M. le Général. He smiles, then resumes his conversation with
the officers. But he rises all of a sudden to shake hands warmly with
the Captain of the cuirassiers who was thrown off his horse by half a
paving-stone in yesterday’s conflict. The Captain’s head is bandaged; one
sees only his nose and his ears, and his left hand is in a sling.
“Ça va mieux?” asks the General.
“Ce n’est rien, mon Général,” replies the Captain.
“It was not his fault. And he saluted the body of our comrade,” says a
navvy, of the General.
“He must suffer, but he does not show it. And he looks sympathetic,” says
another striker, of the Captain.
Amazing this good-fellowship! Only in France could it be witnessed, and
for the reason that in France every man is, or has been, a soldier.
The officers call their men “my children.” The officers also call the
strikers “my children”; how often, down at bleak, tragical Courrières,
did I hear them implore the miners to retreat, whilst the flints and
bricks were flying savagely about them; and how often were the three
bugle calls sounded, when, according to stern military law, they should
have been sounded but once! “My children,” cried an old Colonel at
Courrières, “for the love of heaven, retire. It will break our hearts to
shoot. Once again, for the love of heaven, retire.”
Such then is the condition, the temper of Villeneuve-St-Georges to-day:
twenty-four hours after the battle. Nor will the battle be resumed. The
strike of the sandpit men—like all strikes in France—has been quashed
by the soldiers. Only memories remain, and relics, and landmarks. By the
side of the street lies the debris of the barricades. On the walls are
dents, scratches, holes made by the bullets. Now and again an injured
man, soldier or striker, more or less bandaged, passes by. In the
wine-shops and cafés, the men in uniform and the men in the baggy blue
trousers continue to discuss yesterday’s conflict over their coffee, and
fraternise.
VI
COTTIN & COMPANY
Here, under the shadow of the great Porte St-Martin, congregate old
actors and old actresses, who are engaged either at vast, shabby,
outlying theatres (Batignolles, Ternes, Belleville, Bouffes du Nord), or
who are only awaiting an engagement somewhere, anywhere.
Old actors and actresses on the kerbstone, old actors and old actresses
in this dingy little café, with the hard benches, grimy windows and dusty
floor. Among the old actors, old Cottin.
How, as he stands dejectedly on the kerbstone or sits gloomily before his
glass of coffee, how, if he liked, could old Cottin amuse and surprise
us with his tales! His Majesty King Edward VII., when Prince of Wales,
was pleased to compliment old Cottin on his humorous expression and
wink and grin; old Cottin who has lost that grin, and whose expression
is more tragic than comic, and whose dim eye winks no longer. The
name—“Cottin”—appeared in gigantic characters on the bills; the entrance
of Cottin was the signal for laughter and applause. But if ever the
name of Cottin again appear on a theatrical poster it will be in some
obscure, out-of-the-way theatre; and if ever Cottin again addresses an
audience it will be feebly, unspontaneously, from a rough, draughty old
stage. And if we could witness the awakening and rising of old Cottin
in his chilly little attic, we should not see him attended by a valet
as in former days: but assist at the spectacle of old Cottin brushing
vehemently away at his threadbare clothes, and stitching up a rent with a
darning needle, and clipping the fray from off his collars and cuffs with
blunt, rusty scissors, and generally aspiring to smarten himself up, with
the object of obtaining an engagement somewhere, anywhere.
Under the shadow of the great Porte St-Martin, on the kerbstone or in the
dingy little café, in his greasy hat and threadbare clothes, old Cottin
awaits the arrival of small suburban or provincial managers. It is their
practice to come here when in need of an actor who will play innumerable
rôles, at forty or fifty francs a week; and they pick out their actors
brusquely, roughly, and with many a coarse joke. But once old Cottin
dealt only with renowned, illustrious managers.
“Mon bon Cottin,” said the renowned, illustrious managers.
“Mon cher directeur,” said the renowned, illustrious Cottin.
“Epatant, étourdissant, extraordinaire,” was the boulevardier’s
enthusiastic appreciation of Cottin.
Poor old Cottin, late of a boulevard theatre!
Let us not go prying into the secrets of Cottin’s life; the cause of his
gloom and downfall is not our affair. Nor are we entitled to search the
careers of these other old actors and actresses who, perhaps in their
day, were almost as famous as Cottin; and who, like him, have very much
come down in the world. Anyhow, there is genuine, friendly sympathy
between these shabby, clean-shaven old fellows—and also between their
sisters, who are over-stout or over-thin, over-“made-up” or over-pale,
over-garrulous or over-still. In this café, they are _chez eux_, they are
_en famille_. In this café, they speak frankly, easily of themselves.
Madame Marguerite de Brémont, for instance: a woman of sixty, with great
black eyebrows, a powdered face, and a deep, deep voice. Enormous is
Madame Marguerite de Brémont, who is cast for the part of _chiffonnière_,
mad-woman, hideous, unnatural mother, at the Batignolles Theatre, at
forty-five francs a week. With her, a shabby black bag, and also, as a
last _coquetterie_, a black satin reticule, from which she occasionally
produces an old powder puff, and a handkerchief edged (by her own hand)
with coarse yellow lace. Such a deep, deep voice, and such sweeping,
melodramatic gestures with, alas! rough, large hands. Forty-five francs
a week, but, honour of honours, a benefit performance this summer.
And Madame Marguerite de Brémont is telling a group of superannuated
comedians that, upon this glorious occasion, the manager will allow her
to have the pick of the Batignolles wardrobe. She will appear in no fewer
than five melodramatic rôles, “created” by her twenty, thirty years ago;
and, in looking over the Batignolles wardrobe, she has been particularly
impressed by a heavy, yellow velvet dress trimmed lavishly with pearls.
“Yellow was my colour,” says Madame Marguerite de Brémont, “and, for
jewellery, I always wore pearls.”
“Our Marguerite,” observes an emaciated old fellow, “will have an
extraordinary reception. We shall all cry: ‘Vive la de Brémont!’”
“Ma chère,” puts in a faded, wrinkled woman, with bright (and bad) gold
hair, “I have always said that yellow was your colour. All women have
their hair, but the actresses of to-day wear any colour, and the result
is deplorable.”
“Yes, yes,” says the de Brémont, “I shall appear in yellow.” And she
powders her face feverishly, at the prospect of once again appearing in
yellow and pearls.
“C’est bien, ça”: exclaims old Cottin, at the conclusion of an anecdote.
A charming anecdote, related thus, by a little imp of a man, with the
comedian’s large mouth and ever-changing expression.... In an actor’s
charitable home the doyen of them all is an old fellow of eighty-four,
who was a favourite in his day. He passes the time pleasantly enough, in
toddling about the garden on a stick, and in reading faded, yellow Press
criticisms of years and years ago that describe him as “marvellous,”
“incomparable,” “irresistible.” But, one morning, he hears that his
sister-in-law—once a brilliant vaudeville actress—is homeless and
penniless, at the tragic age of seventy-nine, and he becomes gloomy
and silent: and he asks to see the manager of the home. “We are full,”
replies the manager, “and so we cannot receive your sister-in-law.” The
old fellow’s eyes become dim, and at last the old fellow explains: “I
wish to marry my sister-in-law.” Gently the manager observes: “But even
if you marry her, there will be a difficulty. Our rations are limited,
and if you marry her there will only be one portion for the two.” A
meeting between the old fellow of eighty-four and the old woman of
seventy-nine. And a marriage between the old fellow of eighty-four and
the old woman of seventy-nine, attended by all the old actors and old
actresses of the Home, not one of whom tells less than sixty, not one of
whom can toddle about without a stick. Bottles of champagne, from the
manager of the Home. An address, from the aged inmates of the Home. And
to-day the old couple toddle about together in the garden, and together
read the Press criticisms of years and years ago, and together recall the
days when the one was a brilliant vaudeville actress, and the other was a
“marvellous, an incomparable, an irresistible” comedian.
A flashy-looking young man in a check suit and pink shirt looks in, and
tells old Cottin and others that “there is nothing to-day”—an agent for
the suburban, the provincial theatres.
“By all means, yellow,” he says carelessly, in reply to Madame Marguerite
de Brémont’s anxious question as to what colour she should wear. Then,
more amiably: “I subscribe for twenty francs, and if you receive a
bouquet of roses, yellow roses, preserve it in memory of your devoted
Jules.”
“Ce bon Jules!” exclaims the de Brémont, as Jules, the agent, hurries
out of the café. “Il a du cœur, celui-là.” And opens the black bag. And
scribbles down something—probably “20 francs”—in a little greasy book,
with a stump of a pencil. And heaves a deep sigh of satisfaction. And
expresses the hope that she will not be too _émotionnée_ on the night of
her benefit.
At least thirty old actors and old actresses in the café: and most of
them with empty glasses. A lull, during which many look vacantly before
them, while others tap with their boots on the floor and drum with their
fingers on the tables. Great yawns, and occasional stretching of arms,
and often the exclamation: “Mais je m’ennuie, je m’ennuie!” In a corner,
a dingy waiter is sprawled over a racing paper, and behind the counter,
the burly proprietor, in his shirt sleeves, dozes. Outside, the hoarse
shouts of the _camelots_, selling the evening papers. Outside, the
animation of the boulevards.
“Messieurs, Mesdames.”
A quick, brusque voice, and a short, stout little man, with a huge
watch-chain, an umbrella, a thick black moustache, a double chin and a
great swollen neck.
“Has Jules been here? What is the use of Jules? What is the use of any
agent? I call at his office; he is not there. I ask where he is; no one
can tell. I come here—although I have not a moment to spare.”
A manager; at last, a manager! And the manager of one of the vast,
shabby, outlying theatres, who also sends companies out on tour.
“I have need of four men, two ladies, and a child, for _The Terror of
the Fortifications_. Tour starts at St Quentin on Monday week, and lasts
twenty-one weeks. I want workers. Salary for men, not more than fifty
francs; for women, forty to fifty; for the child, twenty-five.”
“Mais c’est bien, c’est très bien, Monsieur le Directeur,” says old
Cottin, say old Cottin’s comrades. And old Cottin and three of his
friends, and the faded, wrinkled lady with the bright (and bad) gold
hair, and one of her friends, all rise before Monsieur le Directeur.
“I will try to find the child,” says the faded woman.
“Girl,” says the director. “Small, thin and not over eleven. Come to see
me to-morrow morning at twelve.” And the stout director waddles out.
“They say it is _épatant_, the _Terror of the Fortifications_,” observes
an old actor.
“Ah,” replies old Cottin absentmindedly: old Cottin, late of a boulevard
theatre.
“Au revoir,” says Madame Marguerite de Brémont, picking up her reticule
and bag. “Au revoir, and good luck. I shall tell the director to-night
that I have chosen the yellow and pearls.”
Four old actors, and two old actresses, at one table, with their heads
together.
“The curtain rises in a hovel,” says one of the old actors, and proceeds
to narrate the plot of _The Terror of the Fortifications_.
VII
THE LATIN QUARTER
1. MÈRE CASIMIR
“Il était une fois.”
After weeks of summer idleness the students of the Latin Quarter return
in October to the Boul’ Mich’ more exhilarated, more extravagant, more
garrulous than ever. They are delighted to be back; they are impatient to
_conspuer_ certain professors; to parade the streets with lanterns and
guys; to disturb the sleep of the bourgeois; to run into debt with their
landlords, to embrace the policemen—to commit a hundred other follies.
Clad in new corduroys, covered with astonishing hats, they call for big
_bocks_—then question the waiter. But ere he can give a recital of what
has taken place on the Rive Gauche during the holidays, the waiter—_ce
sacré_ François—has to hear how Paul (of the Faculty of Medicine) has
been bathing, Pierre (of the Law) bicycling, Gaston (of the Fine Arts)
gardening; and how all three of them wore “le boating” costume (whatever
that may signify), with white shoes, pale blue waistbands and green
umbrellas; and how their food was of the simplest, and their drink, pure,
babylike milk.
Adventures? Romances?
Well, for an entire month, Paul was as sad, as lovesick, as pale as a
pierrot. _She_ was a blonde ... in a cottage... as sweet and fresh as
a rose... as modest as the violet... as innocent as a child... who got
up with the lark and retired with the sun. And Paul rose equally early,
to peep over the hedge of her garden and to hear her sing, as she fed
greedy, speckled poultry; and, from a lane, watched her window—then
wandered sentimentally and wistfully abroad—at night. Suddenly, she
vanished. And when Paul learnt that she had departed for Normandy to
become the bride of a cousin, Paul of the Faculty of Medicine—Paul, the
gayest character in the Latin Quarter and the hero of many an affair
of the heart—Paul, lost his appetite, Paul, experienced the agonies of
insomnia, Paul, aged at least a hundred years all at once.
Thus Paul. No less reminiscent Pierre and Gaston. So that their
lady friends, Mesdemoiselles Mimi and Musette—at once jealous and
impatient—proceed to relate their own experiences; which, by the way, are
but flights of imagination, conceived with the idea of infuriating the
students.
_He also_ was blonde—and wore an _incomparable_ suit of “le boating.”
How _he_ swam—far more magnificently than Paul! How _he_ bicycled—far
more swiftly than Pierre! How _he_ gardened: producing infinitely choicer
flowers than Gaston’s!
“Enough! You have never left Paris. All those wonderful friends of yours
do not exist,” cry the students. And the _sacré_ waiter François (who has
been toying all this time with his napkin) at last is permitted to relate
what has been happening in the Latin Quarter during the summer holidays.
As a rule, however, he has little to say. Of course, the Boul’ Mich’
has been dull. Tourists from “sinister” Germany and from _la vieille
Angleterre_ have “looked” for students and amusements—naturally in vain.
Mademoiselle Mimi owes nine francs for refreshments. And Mademoiselle
Musette two francs eighty centimes for a cab fare. That is all.
But when the students “ushered” in the present autumn season, François
the waiter had important, solemn news to impart. And it was with sincere
sorrow that they learnt that death, in their absence, had claimed the
queer little old woman who carried a match-tray in her trembling, bony
hands; who performed feeble, vague dances; who piped old-time airs, and
related old-time anecdotes; and who had lived amongst Mürger’s sons, ever
since they could remember, under the name of Mère Casimir....
No city but Paris could have produced the little old woman: and no
other community would have put up with her. Were there a Mère Casimir
in London, she would be living in a work-house, strictly superintended,
constantly reprimanded, and constantly, too, she would appear in the dock
of the police court, and the magistrate would say: “I don’t know what to
do with you. You are perfectly incorrigible.” Then this headline amidst
the evening newspaper police reports: “Her Seventy-Seventh Appearance.
Magistrate Doesn’t Know What To Do With Her. But She Gets One Month All
the Same.”
In Paris, however, Mère Casimir was free. A shabby old creature, bent
over her tray of matches, no taller than your walking-stick. Like her
amazing friend, Bibi la Purée, she rarely strayed from the Latin Quarter.
Just as he spoke of himself as “Bibi,” so she invariably referred to
herself as “la Mère Casimir.” But whereas “Bibi” had ever led a vagabond
life, Mère Casimir had known luxurious times, triumphant times: times
when worldlings ogled and worshipped her, as she posed on the stage of
the Opera and drove out in semi-state to the Bois.
And she laughed in a feeble, cracked voice, when she described those
brilliant days; and rubbed her withered, trembling old hands; and nodded
and nodded her bowed, white head; and piped the first line of that
haunting, melancholy refrain:
“Il était une fois.”
Il était une fois. Once upon a time! But the descent from luxury to
poverty had neither saddened nor hardened Mère Casimir. Deeply attached
to the students and to Mesdemoiselles Musette and Mimi, she professed
a greater affection for them than ever she had borne M. le Marquis or
Monseigneur le Duc.
“Des idiots,” she said of the latter.
“Des cœurs—real hearts,” was her favourite way of describing the kindly
Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.
Many years have elapsed since first I saw Mère Casimir in the Café
Procope—“le café de M. de Voltaire,” now, also, no more. It was one
o’clock in the morning. The olive-man and the nougat-merchant had paid
their last call; the flower-woman had said good-night; the next visitor
was Mère Casimir. So feeble was she that she could scarcely push open the
door: and when a waiter let her in, she curtsied to him, then curtsied to
the customers. No one bought her matches: but she was given _bock_. Sous
were collected on her behalf by a student; they were to persuade her to
dance. But Mère Casimir had grown stiff with time. She could do no more
than hop and curtsy, bob and bend, smile and crow, kiss and wave her
withered old hand.
“Il était une fois,” she protested, at the end.
“Once upon a time.” Invited to seat herself at my table, Mère Casimir
told me how she had shone at the Opera; how she had attended notorious,
extravagant suppers and balls; how she had broken hearts; how Napoleon
III. himself had noticed her; how she used to sing Béranger ditties....
She would sing one now ... one of her favourites.... “Listen.” Rising,
she piped feebly again.
Ah, the Elysée! Mère Casimir compared it contemptuously to the Tuileries,
and sighed. What was a President to an Emperor? What was the Opera
to-day? and the Bois? and the Jockey Club? “The vulgar Republic has
changed all that,” she complained. “It disgusts me—this Republic.”
Suddenly the old woman became silent. Bent in half behind the table, she
was scarcely visible. Minutes went by, but she remained motionless. And
at last the waiter, thinking her asleep, called out:
“Eh bien, la vieille?”
Then, Mère Casimir started, and nodded her head, and rose, and thanked
the customers with a last curtsy, and told them she hoped to dance to
them on another occasion; and, before going out into the darkness,
murmured again:
“Il était une fois.”
A few nights later I met her on the Boul’ Mich’ whilst she was passing
from table to table on the terrace of the Café d’Harcourt.
The students were kind to her; so were Mürger’s daughters, Mesdemoiselles
Musette and Mimi. And she was given olives and nougat, and a number of
sous, and even a rose. And the waiters were friendly also; and so was the
stout, black-coated proprietor.
In return, Mère Casimir sang her song and danced her dance, and was
applauded and encored—even by the policeman at the corner.
At two o’clock in the morning, when the Latin Quarter cafés close, the
old woman disappeared.
No one knew where she lived. But she could be seen feebly making her way
up the Boul’ Mich’ and, turning, to pass the Panthéon. There the streets
soon become narrow and dim. Apaches and _chiffonniers_ abound. One or
two sinister-looking wine-shops remind one of those in the _Mystères de
Paris_. Through the grimy windows, one can watch the customers, seated at
rude tables within.
And once, while exploring this neighbourhood, I perceived Mère Casimir
seated next to Bibi la Purée behind one of those windows; with a bottle
of wine in front of them. And I entered and approached them, apologising
for my intrusion.
Bibi was the host: Bibi, “the original with an amazing past,” who in days
gone by had been Verlaine’s valet and friend: and who—after the death
of the “Master”—became obsessed with an unholy passion for umbrellas;
anyone’s umbrellas—all umbrellas—new, middle-aged, decrepit. Bibi, tall
and gaunt, with sunken cheeks, lurid green eyes, an eternal, wonderful
grin, and—— But Bibi cannot be described in passing. Bibi deserves a
chapter to himself, and Bibi has had that chapter elsewhere.[1]
Well, Bibi was the host, and Mère Casimir his guest. Several nights a
week they met in this manner. There in the grimy wine-shop they exchanged
reminiscences: Bibi, of Verlaine; Mère Casimir, of M. le Marquis and
other _roués_ under the Empire. There they drank sour red wine and took
pinches of snuff: Bibi provided the wine, Mère Casimir the snuff. There
they chanted Béranger ditties: Bibi huskily, Mère Casimir in her feeble,
cracked voice. There they were happy and at peace: an extraordinary
couple.
At intervals rough-looking men slouched in and out. Whispering went on
in corners. But no one heeded Bibi and Mère Casimir, and they themselves
paid no attention to the dubious drinkers in the place.
“He is gay, isn’t he, my Bibi?” the old woman would inquire.
“She is still young, isn’t she, la Mère Casimir?” the old fellow demanded.
Then Mère Casimir laughed in her feeble, cracked voice, and rubbed her
withered old hands, and nodded her bowed white head, and piped the first
line of the sad refrain:
“Il était une fois.”
[1] _Paris of the Parisians._
2. GLOOM ON THE RIVE GAUCHE
Sometimes in the Latin Quarter come grave moments, grim and gloomy
moments—moments when the students shun the cafés; when their lady
friends, Mesdemoiselles Mimi and Musette—Mürger’s daughters, Daughters of
Bohemia—look pale and anxious, and whisper together as though alarmed;
when the spectator, observing this depression, becomes himself depressed.
At such a time the women whose clothes are shabby, whose faces are
tragical (the faded Mimis, the Musettes of years ago) come out of those
corners to which their unattractiveness has condemned them; come out,
and congregate—skeletons some of them, swollen, shapeless creatures the
rest—all, considering their usual comparative obscurity, ominous. When
the temper of the Quarter is blithe, they must look on forlornly from
the background. No one heeds them; no one invites them to accept an
olive or sip a _bock_. But when the Quarter has been horrified by some
tragedy, some crime, they, on account of their memories and experiences,
on account, too, of their own connection with tragedy—they, then, are
sought after; they, then, talk the most; they, then, hold the longest and
completest version of the matter that has brought on the gloom.
Recently, at three o’clock in the morning, I heard these shabby,
solitary women chattering more ominously than usual in Madame Bertrand’s
hospitable milk-shop. There, after the cafés have been closed, the
students assemble to devour sandwiches, _brioches_, hot rolls; but
upon the occasion in question the only customers present were Mürger’s
elderly, unattractive daughters. And whilst sipping hot milk or coffee,
and biting hungrily into a penny roll, they listened to the tale of a
woman—the palest, the most wasted of this forlorn group of women, whose
coat and skirt were red, whose boots were muddy, whose gloves betrayed
stitching done upstairs in her dim back room.
Occasionally her narrative was interrupted by a short, sharp cough. She
lost her breath; pressed her hand to her breast; cleared her throat.
“Continue,” said the others impatiently. “I continue,” she replied.
And then, whilst listening also, I learnt that a certain Marcelle played
the chief rôle in the story: Marcelle, blithest of Mürger’s younger
daughters, Marcelle the _vraie gamine_, Marcelle the lively little lady
who always wore a bicycling suit, yet never bicycled; who appeared
seventeen, but in reality was twenty-two; who danced down the Boul’ Mich’
arm-in-arm with the students—she the gayest of the party, her step the
lightest, her Chinese lantern the largest; who was liked by one and all,
and to whom everyone was _mon cher_.... Marcelle the Candid! A brunette,
she took it into her head to become a blonde. “C’est chic d’être blonde,”
she cried: then some days later appeared on the Boul’ Mich’ with flaxen
hair. And she drew attention to this striking metamorphosis, exclaiming:
“Inspect me; stare at me! Am I not ravishing? Isn’t it a success? Such a
dye! Only five francs a bottle—a large bottle—also perfumed!” And drank
a toast... “to the new colour!” And vowed that, with it, began a new
era. And afterwards, when relating reminiscences, naïvely explained:
“That was in the days when I was a brunette.” And constantly sang, in
a shrill voice, that favourite sentimental ballad, _Les Blondes_....
Marcelle the Sympathetic! Each student found in her a patient, a friendly
listener. She was ready to bear with chaotic, interminable narratives of
jealousies, worries, woes. She would propose a drive, a long drive, in an
open cab—the grievance to be unfolded on the way. “Tell the _cocher_,”
she would say to the student, “to choose a deserted route—so that you may
rage and despair, and weep as much as you please. Open your poor heart,
_mon cher_. Keep nothing back. _Allez_, you can trust Marcelle.”...
Marcelle the Sentimental, the Nature-loving! After a noisy luncheon-party
in the country, she would command an adjournment to the wood. Childlike
she sought for flowers, running hither and thither, uttering shrill
little cries of astonishment and rapture. And lingered and lingered in
the wood. And vowed she would not return to Paris before the departure
of the very last train. And asked naïve questions about the moon and the
stars. And murmured: “How sweet is the country, how exquisite!”—shrinking
nevertheless from the bats and mosquitoes. And went to bed immediately
upon reaching Paris—so as not to spoil “the impression” of the country.
And dreamt happily, dreamt as she had never dreamt before—“mon cher!”
Bright Marcelle; and, in spite of her follies, admirable Marcelle! The
shabby, solitary women—the faded Mimis, the Musettes of years ago—had in
her a friend.
Had?... Had; but have no longer.
“_Murdered!_” said the woman in the red dress—huskily—in Madame
Bertrand’s hospitable milk-shop, of Marcelle the Blonde. Murdered; but
no matter how. Murdered; and lying in a room, round the corner, with
candles burning by the death-bed.
“Tall, tall candles,” continued the woman. “They burn brightly; and she
is not alone. To-day I have seen her three times. There were only two
wreaths this morning, but there must be more than twenty now. To-morrow
the concierge will do nothing but take up wreaths.”
And the woman coughed, the other women murmured; then the husky voice was
heard again:—
“They have telegraphed for her brother; her parents are dead. He is a
peasant. He has never been to Paris. He is twenty-three. He adored her. I
have seen letters of his which called her ‘ma petite sœur bien aimée.’ He
would have cut himself into pieces for Marcelle.”
A husky, husky voice. Gestures accompanying each word, and now and again
the short, sharp cough.
As the hour advanced, Madame Bertrand’s stout, bearded manager (installed
behind the counter) began to doze. The servant who distributed the cups
of milk and coffee settled herself on a stool in the background and
closed her eyes. From the coffee urns, the urns of milk, arose fumes;
the urns of boiling water hissed. Past the shop, crawled a market-cart,
packed thick and high with vegetables, and, on the top of the vegetables,
sat a sturdy peasant woman, her head enveloped in a handkerchief.
Through the windows one might see two policemen gossiping over the way; a
vagrant limping by; the eternal _chiffonnier_, stooping over the gutter
in quest of stumps of cigars and cigarettes. Only in the milk-shop was
there light, a pale, unbecoming light from the lamp overhead. Only here
was there colour, the colours of the shabby women’s dresses: faded blue,
dingy yellow, red. Only _chez_ Madame Bertrand was there a group—a group
of frightened, haunted women, fifteen or so. No woman went her way. None
felt strong, secure enough to endure the solitude of her dim _chambre
meublée_. Perhaps they remained there until dawn. Perhaps they were still
there, when the first workman passed. And no doubt he, after glancing
through the windows, shrugged his shoulders and soliloquised: “There they
are, the abandoned ones, making another merry night of it.”
Gloom, next day. Gloom, on the day after. And greater gloom on the
gloomiest day of all—the day of the funeral.
A sombre day: clouds hanging close over the Latin Quarter. A damp day;
in the air, mist. A day when the householders of a certain narrow street
came to their doors; when other residents appeared at their windows; when
spectators assembled on the kerbstone; when a group of shabby, forlorn
women stood silently beside a hearse—the shabbiest, the most wasted, a
woman in red.
She had no other dress. Those in faded blue and dingy yellow, had no
other dresses. In Paris, black failing... “one does one’s best.”
The hearse had just received its light burden, and the coffin was being
covered—thrice covered—with flowers: mere nosegays, bouquets, wreath
after wreath. By the doorstep, stood Marcelle’s concierge—a stout
woman—crying. Farther away, three policemen—erect and motionless. Few
students to be seen. But they had sent their tributes of affection, for
the flowers continued to come—came and came—accompanied by cards and
ribbons: one card bearing the inscription: “To Our Blonde Marcelle.”
Then, after the last flower had been laid, Mürger’s young and charming
daughters, Mürger’s elderly and tragical daughters, gathered behind
the hearse. Slowly it advanced, slowly it disappeared—the policemen
saluting, the concierge weeping, the spectators removing their hats,
the bourgeoise householder crossing herself, the Daughters of Mürger
following immediately behind the hearse; the woman in red, still the most
noticeable.
The most noticeable, perhaps, because her arm was drawn through the arm
of a young man: bareheaded, dressed in a coarse black suit: red-eyed,
red-eared, ungainly, uncouth: of the fields, of the earth, unmistakably,
a peasant. With stooping shoulders and bowed head; stupefied, wrecked;
Marcelle’s peasant brother followed his “petite sœur bien aimée” to her
grave—in the compassionate charge of the shabby, husky-voiced woman in
red.
Across the bridge, past Notre-Dame: past theatres, banks, cafés and fine
shops: past hospitals, past hovels, past drinking dens. On and on, on
and on—the mourners silently and sorrowfully following Marcelle. Still
on: the mourners accompanying Marcelle, once most blithe of Mürger’s
daughters, farther and farther from Mürger’s land. Onward always, through
the gloom, through the mist, to Marcelle’s last destination. Then back
again, through the mist, through the gloom, without Marcelle: and
Marcelle the Blonde, Marcelle the _Vraie Gamine_, only a memory, only a
name.
3. THE DAUGHTER OF THE STUDENTS
The month of July—eleven years ago. The year was one of those dear,
amazing years when, in Paris, everybody has a foe, a feud and a fear;
everybody a flush on his face and a gleam in his eye; everybody a
little adventure with the plain police, the mounted police or the Garde
Républicaine. We are on the march, on the run.
The Ministry of the moment is—well, who _is_ Prime Minister this morning?
Never mind his name; he is sure to be a swindler, a “bandit.” Nothing
but “bandits” among the public men. No purity among the public men; they
have all, all “touched” money in the Panama affair. No; M. Duval is
_not_ an exception. He is as villainous as the rest. If you persist in
your declaration that he is an exception, you must have some sinister,
interested reason. _You_, Monsieur, are no better than M. Duval. You,
too, are a bandit. I say it again, bandit, bandit, bandit. Come out and
fight. Come out and——
Such a tumult, such a panic in Paris! Houses searched by the police, and
hundreds of suspected persons arrested. And in the midst of the panic the
good Bohemians of the Latin Quarter also rise, and march with sticks and
lanterns to the house of Senator Bérenger, and smash his windows, and
groan, and call upon him to come out and be slain on the spot.
Unhappy Senator Bérenger, who deemed that the Quat-z-Arts ball—the great
annual ball of the students—was improper!
“It was Art,” shout the students.
“It was a shocking spectacle,” pronounces the Senator.
“Come out and be slain,” shout the students.
“Arrest them,” orders the Senator. And then—O then—a revolution in the
Quarter; then, the wild, terrifying “Seven Days’ Bagarre.”
There blaze bonfires; there, arise barricades; there, lie omnibuses
overturned on the Boul’ Mich’; there, march furious bands of students
who charge and are charged by the police. Mercy, how we march and how we
run! On the fifth day, we are bandaged, and we limp, but we resume our
manifestations.
“Come out and be slain,” we yell, below the Senator’s window.
“Arrest them,” orders the Senator. “It was Art,” we almost sob, in the
ear of the interviewer.
“It was a shocking spectacle,” declares the Senator.
“You must, you shall be slain,” we cry in frenzy. And then, in the
Quarter, appears the Army; and the Army goes for us; and before such
overwhelming odds, we fly; and twenty of us who fly and fly find
ourselves at last, dishevelled and breathless, in a dim, deserted side
street.
Not a sound; we are too much exhausted to speak.
A moon and stars, silence and peace. Twenty dishevelled and exhausted
students, who sit on the kerbstone, on doorsteps, to rest. And then,
all of a sudden, a Cry. A feeble, plaintive Cry from a doorstep: and on
the doorstep, a bundle. Twenty exhausted, dishevelled students before
the bundle; a bundle—that cries. An amazing discovery, a sensational
surprise! The bundle is a Child; the bundle is a _Gosse_; the bundle is a
bud of a Girl.
Twenty exhausted, dishevelled students strangely in possession of a baby;
and who nurse the baby, and who seek to win her confidence, with awkward
caresses, and by swinging her to and fro, and by assuring her that she is
safe and sound. And, finally, twenty good Bohemians who resolve to adopt
the Child, and introduce her formally to their colleagues, and proclaim
her before all the good Bohemians of the Rive Gauche: “The Adopted
Daughter of the Students of the Latin Quarter.” But, the name, the name?
The Saint for the day is Lucie: so, Lucie. The _gosse_ was found on the
last night of the Bagarre: so, Bagarre. Thus, with the polite prefix, we
get:
Mademoiselle Lucie Bagarre.
Does Paul buy books on the nursing of infants, or the bringing up of
children? And Gaston; does he go blushing into a shop and stammer out
a request for a baby’s complete outfit? At all events, awkwardness and
unrest in the Quarter. It is such a responsibility to have a Daughter;
it is such an anxiety to attend adequately to her needs! And so, after
infinite discussion, it is determined that Mademoiselle Lucie Bagarre
shall reside in the home of Enfants Trouvés, until the best-hearted of
foster-mothers in the whole of France shall have been found.
Says Paul, gravely: “Country air is indispensable.”
Says Gaston: “Milk and eggs.”
Says Pierre: “Companions of her own age.”
Do the good Bohemians of the Latin France go forth gravely in quest
of foster-mothers? Do they pass from province to province, comparing
foster-mothers, testing the milk and eggs, studying local death-rates,
wondering and wondering which is the healthiest and most invigorating of
the various airs? At all events, Mademoiselle Lucie Bagarre is ultimately
taken to a farm.
Says Paul: “Nothing better than a farm.”
Says Gaston: “Fresh milk and eggs every morn.”
Says Pierre: “Cows and ducks and hens to marvel at.”
Says Aimery: “None of the pernicious influences and surroundings of the
city.”
Concludes Xavier: “We have done admirably.”
Thus, the Committee; a Committee of Five, whose duty it is to deal with
the foster-mother, whose privilege it is to “look after the affairs” of
Mademoiselle Lucie Bagarre. Always “sitting,” this Committee; sitting
before ledgers and ink in the Taverne Lorraine, gifts and subscriptions
to be acknowledged; instructions to be sent to the foster-mother;
inquiries after the health of Mademoiselle Lucie Bagarre to be answered;
interviewers to be received; in fine, much business in the Taverne
Lorraine.
And then, all the students of the Latin Quarter have a right to demand
news of Mademoiselle Lucie Bagarre; for all the students are her fathers;
and so, naturally enough, they are anxious to know whether she has spoken
her first word, and cut her first tooth, and staggered her first step.
It is well that the Committee is patient and amiable; it is fortunate
that the Committee rejoices in its work; else there would be cries of:
“Laissez-moi tranquille,” and “Fichez-moi la paix” and “Décampe, ou je
t’assomme.”
Now and then, the Committee visits Mademoiselle Lucie Bagarre at her
farm; and on their return a general meeting is held in the Taverne
Lorraine—with Paul in the chair, Paul on the health, appearance and
pastimes of Mademoiselle Lucie Bagarre. Paul on the foster-mother,
on the farm; Paul, also, on Mademoiselle Lucie Bagarre’s diet. Paul,
finally, on Mademoiselle Lucie Bagarre’s approaching birthday. And,
indeed, on each of her birthdays, the students’ adopted Daughter receives
gifts and an address; and on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, more
gifts; and upon every visit of the Committee, a souvenir of some kind or
another. Explains Paul most wisely: “Children like that.”
Ah me, the responsibility, the anxiety of having a Daughter! The moment
comes when she has measles and chicken-pox; and then, what dark days for
the father. And Mademoiselle Lucie Bagarre is no exception; Mademoiselle
Lucie Bagarre has chicken-pox, has measles. In the Latin Quarter, alarm
and emotion. All Mademoiselle Lucie Bagarre’s many fathers _énervés_
and agitated. All the fathers suggesting precautions and remedies.
All the fathers trying to remember what their parents did when they
had chicken-pox and measles. Does the Committee study books on those
diseases? At all events, the Committee is in constant communication with
the farm. Also, the Committee proceeds solemnly to the farm. The telegram
to Paris: “No complications. Malady following its ordinary course.”
Another telegram: “Think it wiser to remain the night.” A third telegram:
“Good night. Took nourishment this morning.” And in the _Etudiant_
and the _Cri du Quartier_, the brilliant organs of the Quarter, the
announcement in large type: “We rejoice to announce that the adopted
Daughter of the students of the Latin Quarter is now allowed to take air
in her garden. To all her fathers she returns her warmest thanks for
their sympathy, messages and offerings. But the quite unusual number of
her fathers render it impossible to thank each one of them individually.”
Follows Mademoiselle Lucie Bagarre’s signature, the scrawling letters, L.
B., faithfully reproduced. Says Paul: “I gave her a pencil-box. Children
adore that.”
However, four years have elapsed since Mademoiselle Lucie Bagarre pained
her many dear fathers by having chicken-pox. To-day, she has turned
eleven, but she still resides far away from “the pernicious influences
and surroundings of the city.”
Says Paul: “Country air is still indispensable.”
Says Gaston: “Always milk and eggs.”
Says Pierre: “Honest folk about her.”
Down to the farm goes the Committee: and back comes the Committee with
the report that Mademoiselle Lucie Bagarre can now dive her hand into the
pockets of the Committee’s dear corduroy waistcoat. She has grown; she
is almost a _jeune fille_. How, by the way, stands her banking account?
Well: but since the occasion for increasing it now presents itself, let
the occasion be used to the utmost. The fête of Mi-Carême: the proceeds
of the fête to be set aside for “la fille adoptive des étudiants, la
petite Lucie Bagarre.” A grand _bal masqué_ at Bullier’s. Says Paul:
“In order to attract the public, we must be amazing.” All the fathers
scheming how to be amazing. All the fathers painting themselves and
donning fantastic costumes. All the fathers calling upon Paris to swell
their fund by visiting Bullier’s. And Paris responds: Paris flocks to
Bullier’s.
An amazing spectacle, and an amazing night: the good Bohemians have
succeeded in being entirely amazing. Bullier’s packed; Bullier’s all
light, all colour, all movement, when the Committee of Five proudly
surveys the scene.
Says Paul: “Gold.”
Says Gaston: “Bank-notes.”
Says Pierre: “A dot.”
Says Aimery: “A fortune.”
Says Xavier: “A veritable heiress.”
Say the innumerable fathers: “The _richissime_ Mademoiselle Lucie
Bagarre.”
And then, toasts. And then, cheers.
And then, the resolution that an address, signed by all her fathers,
shall be presented to their dear adopted Daughter: who, at this advanced
noisy hour, is lying fast asleep in her farm.
VIII
MONSIEUR LE ROUÉ
Wonderful, O most wonderful M. le Roué—who could fail to admire him for
the constant, anxious endeavours he makes, the innumerable secret devices
he employs to appear juvenile and sprightly! That his figure may be
elegant, he wears stays. That the crow’s feet may not be conspicuous he
(or rather his valet) covers them over with a subtle, greasy preparation.
That his moustache may not droop, he has it waxed to the extremest degree
of rigidity. And that people may not say: “Old le Roué is a wreck” and
“Old le Roué is played out,” he goes about the Amazing City—here, there
and everywhere—with a glass in his eye and a flower in his button-hole,
like the gayest of young worldlings.
However, it has to be recorded that despite all his endeavours, despite
all his artifices, M. le Roué remains a shaky, shrunken old fellow, with
scanty white hair, a tired, pallid face and a thin, feeble voice. Once
upon a time—say forty years ago—he was deemed one of the most brilliant,
the most irresistible ornaments of _le Tout Paris_; but to-day—forty
years after—he has attained that tragic period in the life of a vain,
superannuated _viveur_, when no one, except his valet, is permitted to
see him until two o’clock in the afternoon; and thus no one, save that
faithful attendant, could give us a picture of M. le Roué when, after the
curtains have been drawn and daylight has been let into the room, the old
gentleman is served with his cup of chocolate and morsel of dry toast.
Still, if we cannot witness his awakening, we may assuredly assume that
M. le Roué is not a pleasant spectacle in the morning. And it is equally
safe to suppose that his temper is detestable, his language deplorable,
when the valet shaves his wan cheek, and fastens his stays, and helps
him into his heavy fur coat; and thus, in a word, turns him into the
impeccable if rickety old beau who lunches every day on the stroke of two
o’clock in Sucré’s white-and-gold restaurant.
“Monsieur se porte bien?” inquires the _maître d’hôtel_, respectfully
handing him the menu.
“Pas mal, pas mal,” replies M. le Roué, in his thin, feeble voice. And
although the old gentleman has been advised to keep strictly to a diet of
plain foods and Vichy water, both the dishes and the wines that he orders
are elaborate and rich.
Once again I exclaim: “Wonderful, O most wonderful M. le Roué,” and once
again I demand: “Who could fail to admire him?”
He declines to belong to the past, he refuses to go into retirement; so
long as he can stand up in his stays he is heroically determined to lead
the life of a _viveur_, a rake. See him, here in Sucré’s restaurant,
revelling over his lobster; behold him kissing his trembling, white hand
to the lady book-keeper, a handsome young woman with sparkling diamond
earrings; and hear him, moreover, entertaining Joseph, the _maître
d’hôtel_, with an account of the lively supper-party he presided over
last night, at which Mesdemoiselles Liane de Luneville and Marguerite de
Millefleurs (beautiful, brilliant ornaments of the _demi-monde_) were
present, and Mademoiselle Pauline Boum, of the Casino de Paris, performed
her latest “eccentric” dance.
All this from a gentleman half-way through the seventies! All this from
a shaky, shrunken old fellow who ought, at the present moment, to be
taking a careful constitutional in the Parc Monceau on the arm of some
mild, elderly female relative—instead of rejoicing over lobster and
Château-Yquem in Sucré’s white-and-gold restaurant.
“Monsieur is extraordinary,” says the _maître d’hôtel_, by way of
flattery.
“Monsieur is a monster,” says the handsome lady book-keeper, shaking her
diamond earrings.
And old le Roué the “Extraordinary,” old le Roué “the Monster,” smiles,
winks a dim eye and laughs. But it has to be stated that his smile is a
leer and that his laugh is a cackle.
From Sucré’s restaurant M. le Roué proceeds slowly, leaning heavily on
his walking-stick, to a quiet, comfortable café, where he meets another
heroic old rake—the Marquis de Mô.
But there is this striking difference between the two: whereas old
le Roué is delicately made, frail, shrunken, old de Mô is enormous,
apoplectic, with flowing white whiskers, a round, bumpy bald head,
a fiery complexion and a huge gouty foot which is ever encased in a
wonderful elastic shoe. Le Roué and de Mô rejoiced extravagantly together
in the latter brilliant days of the Second Empire. And to-day, in the
year of 1912, they love to recall their past conquests, duels, follies,
and never tire of abusing the Republican régime.
“What a Government, what an age!” complains le Roué.
“Abominable—odious—sinister,” declares de Mô.
Also, our superannuated _viveurs_ recall affectionate memories of a dear,
mutual friend, the late Comte Robert de Barsac, who died last year, of a
vague illness, shortly after he had riotously celebrated his seventieth
birthday. The truth was, old de Barsac could not keep pace with old le
Roué and old de Mô. His face became leaden in colour and his speech
rambling and incoherent. And one night, he suddenly passed away in his
sleep from exhaustion.
“Ce pauvre cher Robert!” exclaims le Roué sadly. “Ce pauvre cher Robert!”
sighs de Mô.
Then there is another old friend, still living, of whom le Roué and de Mô
speak affectionately as they sit together in their corner of the quiet,
comfortable café.
She is “Madeline”—who, once upon a time, was the “star” actress at the
Variétés theatre. In truth, Marguerite de Prèsles (as she figured on
the bills) was something of a queen: the queen of the half-world. The
newspapers of that period, in alluding to her wit, beauty and charm,
called her the “exquisite Madeline”; the “adorable Madeline”; the
“incomparable” Madeline de Prèsles. Le Roué and de Mô worshipped at her
shrine. And to-day—forty years after—they often visit her at Pichon’s
gaudy night restaurant: where the “adorable” Variétés actress of years
ago makes constant rounds of the place—with tinselled boxes of chocolates
and a basket of flowers!
Yes; “Madeline” sells chocolates and flowers _chez_ Pichon! And the gold
hair has turned white and the slim figure has swollen, and the once
pretty, bejewelled little hands have become knotted and coarse; and the
old lady herself—the former radiant “star” of the Variétés—lives in a
sombre _hôtel meublé_ on the outskirts of Paris, where she passes most of
the day in making up bouquets and button-holes for the painted, rackety
company that assembles nightly at Pichon’s.
Thus some romance is left in old le Roué and old de Mô. They still seek
out “Madeline.” They make her presents on New Year’s Day; nor do they
ever fail to remember her birthday. Once they offered her an annuity—but
whilst expressing her thanks and declaring herself “touched,” she assured
her old admirers that she was content with the income she derived from
her speculations in flowers and chocolates: although (so she added) she
held but a scornful opinion of the modern young worldlings—the young
worldlings of the “odious,” “sinister” Republic—who were her customers
_chez_ Pichon. And so, attached, by force of memories and by reason of
their long, constant gallantry, so attached is “Madeline” to old le
Roué, and old de Mô, that when those two valiant old rakes are seized
with rheumatism or gout, and are obliged most unwillingly and angrily to
lie up, she pays them daily visits; and refreshes and embellishes their
rooms with her flowers; and reminds them vivaciously and wittily of the
epoch—the wonderful epoch—when all three of them were gay, brilliant
ornaments of the Amazing City....
And now, night-time.
Behold M. le Roué dining royally, and haunting the _coulisses_ of the
Opera, and playing baccarat, with trembling hands, in the Cercle Doré,
and entertaining (as we have already recorded) Mesdemoiselles Liane de
Luneville and Marguerite de Millefleurs, and the eccentric Mademoiselle
Pauline Boum, to supper in a gilded, bemirrored _cabinet particulier_.
All this he does long after the innumerable electric advertising devices
(Fontain’s Perfumes—Carré’s Gloves—Cherry Brandy of the Maison Joyeux et
Fils) have begun to blink and dance on the boulevards; and long after M.
le Roué, with his five and seventy years, should have been tucked up in
bed—his old brain at rest and his old head enveloped in a night-cap.
But M. le Roué declines to return home, M. le Roué refuses to close his
dim eyes, until he has visited one of those modern rackety “American”
bars—the “High Life,” for instance—where the young worldlings of to-day
sit upon high stools, and absorb cocktails, _crème de menthe_ and icy
“sherry-cobblers.” And it is wonderful to witness frail, shaky M. le Roué
climb up on to his stool; and the spectacle becomes still more wonderful
when apoplectic, gouty old de Mô laboriously follows his example.
Thus M. le Roué goes to the “High Life,” goes here, there and everywhere,
like the gayest and most adventurous of young worldlings. And wherever he
goes, the waiters and attendants exclaim: “Monsieur is astonishing!” and
“Monsieur is extraordinary!” and their flattery pleases the old gentleman.
“Pas mal, pas mal,” he replies in his thin, feeble voice, and with his
leer.
However, there come times when M. le Roué is particularly shaky and
shrunken, when he looks peculiarly superannuated and frail; and at these
times he resents the obsequious compliments of the waiters.
“No, no,” he cries shrilly. “I am a very old man, and I am feeling very
weak and very ill.” After which confession, he buries his head in his
trembling, white hands, and mutters to himself, strangely, beneath his
breath.
The waiters then look at him curiously. And old de Mô protests: “What
nonsense, _mon ami_; what folly, _mon vieux_. There is nothing the matter
with you. You are perfectly well.”
But old de Mô’s expression is nevertheless anxious.
Is he about to lose his last remaining companion of years ago? Is he
shortly to sit in that corner of the quiet, comfortable café—alone?
He cannot but acknowledge to himself that in old le Roué’s face there is
the same leaden colour and in old le Roué’s speech the same incoherency
that manifested themselves in their mutual dear friend and contemporary,
the late Comte Robert de Barsac, a short while before he vaguely passed
away.
IX
FRENCH LIFE AND THE FRENCH STAGE
1. M. PAUL BOURGET, THE REACTIONARY PLAYWRIGHT, AND M. PATAUD, WHO PUT
OUT THE LIGHTS OF PARIS
In a boulevard café, over his favourite, strange mixture of strawberry
syrup and champagne, a well-known Paris journalist recently called my
attention to the profusion of playwrights of high, indisputable ability
now writing for the French stage.
“There are not enough theatres to accommodate them all,” he said. “The
papers inform us that X—— has just finished a new _chef-d’œuvre_, but
often four, six, even ten months will elapse ere the masterpiece can be
produced. Why? Because there is no room for X——. He must wait his turn;
and in his leisure—O admirable fertility—he writes yet another play.”
“Nevertheless you have three important _répétitions générales_ this
week,” I remarked. “Capus to-morrow, Donnay at the Français on Wednesday,
and de Flers and Caillavet, the Inexhaustible, on Friday.”
“Charming Capus, delightful Donnay, amazing de Flers and Caillavet,”
exclaimed my companion. “Listen; we are free for an hour. Let us run
over the names of our leading playwrights—a formidable list. Garçon,
another glass”—and away went the waiter in quest of more syrup and
champagne.
Of course, no mere “running over” of the great name of Rostand. Both of
us soon found ourselves reciting passages from _Cyrano_, _Chantecler_,
_La Princesse Lointaine_—my friend eloquently and emotionally, myself
alas! with the natural embarrassment and self-consciousness of the
foreigner. “Au trot, au galop,” said my companion, glancing at the
clock. And rapidly we proceeded to review the “formidable list” of
France’s leading dramatists:—Paul Hervieu, the cultured, polished author
of _Le Dédale_ and _La Course au Flambeau_. Violent, destructive Henri
Bernstein—_La Griffe_, _La Rafale_, _Samson_. Henri Lavedan, brilliantly
audacious in _Le Nouveau Jeu_, delightfully ironical in the _Marquis
de Priola_, but serious, profound (a veritable _tour de force_) in _Le
Duel_. Then Capus, the tolerant, the sympathetic: _Nôtre Jeunesse_, _Les
Passagères_, _Monsieur Piégois_. Émile Fabre, wonderful manipulator of
stage “crowds,” _Les Ventres Dorés_. Lively, brilliant de Flers and
Caillavet, _Le Roi_, _L’Ane de Buridan_, _L’Amour Veille_. Worldly,
cynical Abel Hermant, _Les Transatlantiques_, _Monsieur de Courpière_.
Jules Lemaître, tender in _La Massière_, tragical in _Bertrad_. Brieux:
the amusing _Hannetons_, sombre, harrowing _Maternité_. Georges
Porto-Riche, _L’Amoureuse_, perhaps the finest modern comedy in the
repertoire of the French National Theatre. Sound admirable Donnay,
_Amants_, _Le Retour de Jérusalem_. Anatole France, the incomparable
_Crainquebille_. MM. Arquillière and Bernède, with their masterly
pictures of military life, _La Grande Famille_, _Sous l’Epaulette_.
Romantic, vigorous Jean Richepin, _Le Chemineau_. Sardonic, anarchical
Octave Mirbeau, _Les Affaires sont les Affaires_, _Le Foyer_. Humane,
chivalrous Pierre Wolff, _L’Age d’Aimer_ and _Le Ruisseau_. Georges
Ancey, earnest investigator into the hidden crafty practices of the
Catholic Church, _Ces Messieurs_. Gentle, elegant Romain Coolus,
_L’Enfant chérie_ and _Une Femme Passa_. Grim, lurid André de Lorde of
the Grand Guignol. Ardent, passionate Henri Bataille, _Un Scandale_, _La
Vierge Folle_, _La Femme Nue_.
“Formidable, formidable!” exclaimed our Paris journalist, wiping his brow.
“There remains M. Paul Bourget,” I said.
“M. Paul Bourget is ponderous, prejudiced, pedantic,” objected my
companion. “I have just seen his latest photograph, which shows him
seated at his writing-desk in a frock coat. Novels of life in the
Faubourg St Germain, such as M. Bourget has produced, may possibly be
written in a frock coat—_not_ plays.”
“No doubt the coat was only put on for the visit of the photographer,” I
charitably suggested.
“M. Paul Bourget’s plays convey the impression—no, the conviction—that
they were written in the conventional, cramped armour of a frock coat,”
was the solemn, categorical retort.
Now for M. Bourget, on his side it would be permissible to object that
a gentleman who takes thick strawberry syrup in his champagne commits no
less of an enormity than the dramatist who writes his plays in a frock
coat; and that therefore, he, M. Bourget, considers himself untouched
by the allegations directed against him from that hostile and eccentric
quarter. Nevertheless, an examination of M. Bourget’s dramatic work—_Un
Divorce_, _L’Emigré_, _La Barricade_—compels the comparison that whereas
his fellow-playwrights adopt the theatre exclusively as a sphere in which
to hold up a vivid, faithful, scrupulously impartial picture of scenes
from actual life—_la vie vivante_—M. Bourget uses the stage, ponderously,
as a platform or a pulpit. His views on social questions—the dominant
ideas, the passions of the hour—are well known. They are autocratic,
severe: in the French sense of the word, “correct.” But it unfortunately
happens that _l’homme correct_ possesses none of those indispensable
attributes required of the playwright—an open mind, imagination, a sense
of humour. A firm clerical and the irreconcilable antagonist of divorce,
M. Bourget naturally maintains that in a spiritual emergency, women, as
well as men, are more efficaciously helped to right conduct by priestly
government than by habits of self-reliance. Then his sympathies have ever
rested undisguisedly with the classes he has portrayed in his novels—the
languid worldling of the Faubourg St Germain, the _haute bourgeoisie_,
the despotic _châtelain_.
“M. Bourget is not interested in humble people. The vicissitudes, the
amours, the miseries of the lower classes, he deems beneath his notice.
He concerns himself only with the emotions of the elegant and the rich,”
bitter, sardonic M. Octave Mirbeau makes one of his characters remark.
And, truly enough, it has to be affirmed that however hard he may have
tried to repress his aristocratic proclivities and prejudices when
writing for the stage, the author of _Un Divorce_ and _La Barricade_ has
remained, despite his endeavours, _l’homme autoritaire, l’homme correct_.
“Je ne connais pas des idées généreuses,” he has announced. “Je ne
connais que des idées vraies ou fausses, et il ne vaudrait pas la peine
d’écrire si ce n’était pas pour énoncer les idées que l’on croit et que
l’on sait vraies.” And in the press, in conferences, in prefaces, the
“eminent Academician” (as the clerical _Gaulois_ monotonously designates
M. Bourget) has furthermore declared that _Un Divorce_ and _La Barricade_
were written in a rigorously impartial spirit. But other critics maintain
that the controversies that have raged around M. Bourget’s dramatic
efforts (started with no little pretentiousness by the author himself)
establish nothing. The plays speak for themselves.
M. Bourget’s observations have persuaded him that the rebellious spirit
prevailing amongst the working classes is a menace to his country:
“C’est cette sensation du danger présent que j’aurais voulu donner dans
_La Barricade_ sûr, si j’avais pu y réussir, d’avoir servi utilement ma
classe, et par conséquent mon pays.”
But according to M. Pataud, the notorious ex-Secretary of the Syndicate
of Electricians, M. Bourget carried away with him a totally false
impression of the men and places he professes so closely, and also so
impartially, to have studied.
A word about M. Pataud. It was shortly after he had ordered the
Electricians’ strike that plunged Paris almost into darkness for two
hours,[2] and at the zenith of his fame, that the “Roi de la Lumière”
attended a performance of _La Barricade_ at the Vaudeville Theatre.
It had been reported that he had served M. Bourget as a model for the
character of Thubeuf, the professional agitator in the play. This, M.
Bourget emphatically denied. “Let me see for myself,” said M. Pataud. And
he requested M. Bourget to send him a ticket of admission to the theatre,
and humorously offered to return the compliment by placing a seat in the
Bourse du Travail at the dramatist’s disposal.
Well, M. Bourget granted the request: but ignored the invitation to the
Labour Exchange. And one night “King Pataud” seated himself, amidst
_le Tout Paris_ in the most fashionable of the boulevard theatres. He
himself, in spite of his pink shirt, red tie, and “bowler” hat, belonged
in a sense to _le Tout Paris_. Was he not “Le Roi de la Lumière”? There
were columns about him in the newspapers; he was “impersonated” in every
music-hall _revue_, and his picture post cards sold by the thousand.
Then, pressing (and sentimental) requests for his autograph; invitations
out to dinner and gifts of cigarettes and cigars; and what a stir, what
excited cries of “There goes Pataud,” when the great man swaggered down
the boulevards with a fine Havana stuck in a corner of his mouth, and the
“bowler” hat tilted rakishly over the right eye!
Nor in the Vaudeville Theatre was his triumph less complete. The interest
of the brilliant audience was centred on “Fauteuil No. 159”; not on the
stage. There sat the man who had but to give the signal and—out would
go the lights! So was every opera-glass levelled at him, and so—at the
end of the performance—were all the reporters in Paris eager to obtain
“King” Pataud’s impressions of the play. “Not bad,” he was reported to
have said. “But M. Bourget’s conception of how strikes are conducted is
ridiculous. And his strikers are equally absurd.”
I fancy M. Bourget must have regretted that gift of “Fauteuil No. 159”
at the time. But to-day he has his revenge—for it was the free seat in
the Vaudeville Theatre that led to “King” Pataud’s downfall! After the
agitator’s visit to _La Barricade_ it became the fashion amongst the
managers to invite the “Roi de la Lumière” to their theatres. Behold him,
actually, at the first performance of _Chantecler_—and at the Gymnase,
the Variétés, the Palais Royal. But if the public rejoiced over “King”
Pataud’s presence at the theatre, his colleagues in the labour world
were to be heard grumbling. Pataud (and it was true) was “getting his
head turned.” Pataud was neglecting the Bourse du Travail for theatres
and brilliant restaurants. But the “Roi de la Lumière” paid no heed to
these reproofs, nor to complaints and warnings vigorously expressed. And
the crisis came, the storm burst, when “King” Pataud and an electrician
came to blows on the boulevards, and were marched off to the police
station on a charge of breaking the peace. At the station, the “Roi de
la Lumière” was searched. “Ah, you do yourself well, you enjoy life, you
have a gay time of it,” grinned the _police commissaire_, after examining
the agitator’s pocket-book. It contained bank-notes for a large sum,
receipted bills from luxurious restaurants and hotels, and (what of
course, particularly delighted the Parisian) the autographed photograph
of a certain very blonde and very lively actress. So, indignation and
disgust of the Syndicate of Electricians, who had contributed to their
secretary’s support. He was called upon to resign. And to-day M. Pataud
is an agent for a champagne firm; and the street _gamins_ who once
cheered him, now—O supreme insult—apostrophise him as “sale bourgeois.”
Two questions remain for those whose opinion in the Amazing City counts.
The first is: Does an Eminent Academician, who, whether he writes in a
frock coat or no, professes the conviction that it would not be worth
while to produce plays _only_ to reveal the influence and power of
men’s emotions, passions and ideals in the shaping of life, unless one
had some ulterior clerical, social or political object to serve, stand
in the hopeful ways of thought that distinguish the first order of
Dramatists? The answer to the question is delivered with an emphatic
decision. “Mais—Non”—“Mais,”—a pause and a gesture by an emphatic falling
hand—“Non.” Second question: Is a social agitator, who displays himself
in a pink shirt and bowler hat in the best seats of fashionable theatres,
and who enjoys himself at fashionable restaurants with worldlings—whom he
affects to terrorise—a satisfactory Democrat? Same answer, but the “Non”
and the confirmatory gesture is more emphatic. “Mais—Non.”
[2] See page 69.
2. M. ALFRED CAPUS. “NÔTRE JEUNESSE” AT THE FRANÇAISE
Through a novel published some years ago, under the title of _Qui Perd
Gagne_, I made the acquaintance of a number of Parisians who committed
all manner of faults and follies, got into all kinds of dilemmas; and
yet compelled a certain sympathy by reason of their good-heartedness
and good humour. Never a dull moment in this novel; never, indeed,
a moment when there was not some anxious situation to face, some
formidable difficulty to overcome. The leading personages were a retired
_blanchisseuse_ and her husband. Their names I cannot recall—let them
be christened the Belons; and let it be admitted that the atmosphere
in which they lived would most assuredly be condemned by the orthodox
English critic as “unsavoury.” Laid bare before us in all its tawdriness,
all its feverishness, all its swift delirious ups and downs, was the
life of the adventurer. A good round dozen of these gentlemen, but the
most “enterprising,” the most audacious, the most entertaining amongst
them was our friend Belon, who, before becoming the husband of the
_blanchisseuse_, and the master of the money realised by the sale of the
_blanchisserie_, had been a seedy figure in shady newspaper offices and
suspicious gambling clubs. In his unmarried days Belon rejoiced when a
bet at baccarat, or a successful operation in the line of canvassing for
advertisements, yielded him a louis. He was always “hard up”—always (as
he described it) in a “crisis”—but adversity neither disheartened him nor
turned his temper.
“Times will change,” predicted Belon, when he surveyed his shabby form in
the mirror of a café.
“One of these days you will dine magnificently at Paillard’s,” Belon
murmured, when he issued forth (his hunger still unsatisfied) from a
greasy restaurant.
“Paris,” he soliloquised, as he swaggered along the boulevards, with
a shocking little black cigar in the corner of his mouth, and his
hat tilted rakishly on one side, “Paris, I know you well—know your
weaknesses, your failings, your vanities. And with this precious
knowledge to assist me, I shall undoubtedly succeed.”
Certainly, Belon knew Paris thoroughly—or part of it. He was full of
anecdote and scandal. He had amazing stories to tell of personages high
up in the _grande monde_, the _monde d’affaires_, and the _demi-monde_,
and he told them well. He could be gallant—in a way. Also, when it served
his purpose, he could feign a seriousness that inspired confidence. And
it was his gaiety, his gallantry, his flashy worldliness, that fascinated
the _blanchisseuse_—not a foolish woman by any means, but a practical,
amiable soul, still in her thirties, still attractive, still (as the
French novelist has it) “_appétissante_,” who saw in her marriage to
Belon not only a means of escape from the steamy, stifling atmosphere of
her laundry, but a position of importance, even of luxury and brilliancy.
Belon she believed capable of great things; Belon, with his enterprise,
his audacity, his knowledge of the world, needed only a small capital,
such as the sale of the laundry would provide, to become a master of
_affaires_, and a leader of men. And then—was not Belon fascinating,
and ardent, and tender? Thus, half prosaically, half sentimentally, did
the _blanchisseuse_ consider Belon’s eloquently worded proposal; and
the result of her deliberations was good-bye to the _blanchisserie_.
Affectionately she embraced, liberally she rewarded, Charlotte and
Amélie, her assistants. Charlotte and Amélie wept. The future Madame
Belon wept. Belon himself was moved to tears by the scene.
“Adieu, mes filles,” sobbed the future Madame Belon.
“Adieu, Madame,” sobbed back Charlotte and Amélie.
“Allons-nous-en, allons-nous-en,” said Belon huskily. And so—in this
touching fashion—farewell to the _blanchisserie_.
What changes, when next we beheld the Belons! Madame dressed
attractively; and Monsieur, when he went a-gambling, was an ornament
of brilliant, if not exclusive, clubs, and a power in busy, handsome
newspaper offices. There were, as Belon prophesied, “magnificent dinners”
at Paillard’s. There were constant visits to race-courses, theatres and
music-halls, and he played high, and he conceived colossal “business”
schemes, and he mixed familiarly with personages high up in the _monde
d’affaires_, and in the _demi-monde_; one even had _des relations_ with
certain personages in the veritable _monde_. But the reader, as he
followed Belon et Cie here, there and everywhere, still found himself
in a whirl of adventurers, and the adventurers (despite their display)
were still surrounded by difficulties. For Belon was too audacious, too
“enterprising.” Wonderfully ingenious were his schemes, but their fate
was disastrous.
In a word, Belon, with all his knowledge of Paris, overestimated the
credulity of the Parisians, and was brought face to face with that
unimaginative, relentless personage, the Commissaire de Police. Happier
had been Madame Belon in the steamy days of the _blanchisserie_; happier
had been Belon when he surveyed his shabby form in the café mirror,
saying: “Times will change.” In the Belon _ménage_, not only a constant
dread of M. le Commissaire de Police, but bitter, domestic quarrels,
even infidelities. But the quarrels were “made up,” the infidelities
were pardoned—for, as the troubles thickened, as the situation grew
increasingly alarming, so did the Belons become drawn closely together;
so did they display many, yes, admirable, yes—even heroic qualities.
And when at last the “crisis” arrived, and when the practical, amiable,
retired _blanchisseuse_ saved her husband from a disgraceful fate, it
was the good heart and good humour that had lived through, and survived,
these difficulties which made the point—the very un-English moral—of the
story! Thus, after discussing their short, stormy married career in every
detail, and with the utmost candour, the Belons agreed that no great
harm had been done, since they were better friends than ever! But Paris
had become distasteful to them; what a blithe, refreshing change, then,
to take up their abode in a quiet villa on the outskirts of the city! A
little villa with a porch! A little villa with a garden! A little villa
where one would be entirely _chez soi_. “We will plant cabbages,” cried
Madame Belon enthusiastically. “We will be happy,” responded Belon,
with emotion. So, another and a final change of scene. Behold—as a last
tableau—the Belons installed tranquilly, comfortably and affectionately
on the outskirts of Paris in a neat, innocent little villa.
Thus, very briefly, the story of _Qui Perd Gagne_. The author, I need
scarcely say, was M. Alfred Capus; for who but that inimitable dramatist
would have discovered good-heartedness and good humour as underlying
qualities in such shady people as the Belons; and who but that genius
at clearing up awkward, anxious situations could have got the retired
_blanchisseuse_ and her husband so generously and unexpectedly out of
their moral, as well as their practical, scrapes?
Thus, a good many years ago, M. Capus, then a comparatively unknown
journalist, already possessed those qualities which have made him by far
the most popular playwright of to-day: a wonderful tolerance, a wonderful
bonhomie, and a wonderful and incomparable talent at finding a way of
carrying the treasure of faith in human goodness safely through perilous
circumstances! As a consequence of these qualities M. Capus has been
called an “optimist.” We are always and always hearing of the “optimism”
of M. Capus; but if I may be permitted to differ from the vast majority
of his admirers, I would suggest that, so far from being an optimist, M.
Capus is, from the ideal point of view, a cynic. True, an amiable cynic.
He regards mankind with a smile—not of mockery, because there is nothing
unkind in it; a smile of raillery at the idealist’s effort to take the
mote out of his brother’s eye and to afflict himself too seriously in
his endeavour to get rid of the beam out of his own eye. From the point
of view of M. Capus, motes and beams, big faults as well as little ones,
belong to human nature. It is a pity, but it cannot be helped. “C’est la
vie”—and so let us make the best of it.
And it might be worse! Mankind might be cruel, whereas the average man,
the average woman, is kind—the hearts of average men and women are in
the right place. Thus, let mankind not be judged too harshly. Since we
are what we are, it is inevitable we should commit follies. But let us
see to it that our hearts _are_ in the right place, and when the moment
arrives we shall know how to make atonement for those follies and pass
on undisgraced. “Amusez-vous bien, soyez gais; mais soyez bons.” Such
might be M. Capus’ message to mankind; and that message, indeed, he has
delivered from the stage. For amongst French playwrights who bring home
to us vividly, by means of illustration, French ways of feeling and
methods of judgment that are not English methods, M. Alfred Capus stands
out as the efficient interpreter of the typical personage recognised by
general consent in France as “l’homme qui est foncièrement bon.”
Do not, however, let us suppose that we are in any way helped to a
correct understanding of this personage by makers of dictionaries, who
tell us that “l’homme qui est foncièrement bon” is a “thoroughly good
man.” No. If we leave the thoroughly bad man out of account, no two more
opposite types of human character can be compared with one another—no
two worthy men can be brought together more certain to quarrel, and
mutually to dislike and condemn each other than the “thoroughly good
man,” approved by the English standard, and “l’homme qui est foncièrement
bon,” recognised as such by general consent in France. Nor is this
all. Not only have we here two worthy human beings who, by reason of
the different directions wherein the special worthiness of each of
them displays itself, cannot agree as friends, but for the services of
friendship also their qualifications are so different that upon the
occasions when one can help us the other will get us into trouble; and
in the moods when we should cleave to the one, we should indubitably
avoid the other. The cause of this essential difference is not entirely
explained when the fact is stated that righteousness constitutes the
predominant characteristic of goodness in England, and kindliness the
predominant characteristic in France, because the Englishman is kind
also—in his own way. In other words, his righteousness _does_ exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, and the Frenchman who is
_foncièrement bon_ has virtues also of his own; he has not merely the
good nature of the easy-going publican. What these special virtues really
are, and how, whilst they do not make “l’homme qui est foncièrement
bon” a “thoroughly good man,” in the English sense of the term, they do
make him a lovable and sympathetic human character, one can discover by
passing an evening in the society of Chartier, Lucien Briant, Hélène and
Laure of _Nôtre Jeunesse_, Monsieur Piégois of the delightful comedy of
that name, and Montferrand—the amazing Deputy Montferrand—of _L’Attentat_.
The bonhomie of M. Capus represents a life philosophy as well as a
dramatic method, that might not be applied with equal success to British
institutions. But used among French social conditions, it demonstrates
how neglect of logic, and force of good feeling, may help an intelligent
and a humane people to render faulty systems habitable, and make good
nature serve as a substitute for, and even as a corrective of, a rigid,
an unheroic, an unchristian worship of “respectability” at the expense of
human kindness—that is to say, a form of respectability which does not
necessarily mean a very ardent love of virtue.
The characters of _Nôtre Jeunesse_ are essentially French. Take Chartier,
for instance, the _bonhomme philosophe par excellence_. Chartier, at
forty years of age, amused by his own past; tranquil as to the future;
well satisfied, in the present, to make the best of his life upon a
moderate income—the quarter of a once handsome fortune, considerately
left him by a former mistress, the then famous “Pervenche,” who, after
she had cost him a million and a half, herself broke off their _liaison_,
in the amiable and reasonable fashion related by the Forsaken One himself
thus:
_Chartier._ One evening she said to me: “_Mon chéri_, I have
been looking into things. You have spent upon me three-fourths
of your fortune. It is as much as any woman should expect from
any gallant man. I am contented; and grateful to you. I have
come across a man who is in love with me; and I am going to be
married to him.”... She married an employé at the Louvre. It is
an excellent _ménage_.
Take Laure de Roine, Chartier’s sister, the good genius of the
play—bonhomie, not only personified, but idealised, invested with all the
liveliness and fascination that belong to delightful French womanhood.
Laure, some years older than her brother, left a widow, also with a
quarter of her handsome wedding portion, remaining through the opportune
decease, in the very hour when he seemed bent upon ruining her, after
himself, of a husband given to gambling on the Stock Exchange.
Take Madame Hélène Briant, the very charming, vivacious wife of M.
Lucien Briant, a lady approaching the perilous age—_i.e._ nearly
thirty—reasonably attached to, but not passionately in love with, an
amiable but despondent husband, who has become despondent under the
authoritative rule of M. Briant _père_, a superior man, and master of
the “correct,” frock-coated attitude towards life. Briant _père_ is
the tyrant of the Briant household. Hear the charming Hélène in active
revolt against this insupportable father-in-law, and her husband’s
despondency, as a result of his filial docility, exposing her own case,
half playfully, half seriously, to Laure de Roine, everyone’s good genius:
_Hélène._ When I try to react against this general depression;
when, in spite of them both, I make it my task to find
something cheerful, and worth taking pleasure in, I find myself
treated by both Father and Son as a frivolous worldling. Add
on to that that I have no children, and live in this deadly
provincial atmosphere, full of spiteful gossip, scandal, and
vanity. And then try, if you can, to imagine my condition of
mind—not forgetting that I am an “honest” woman—and that I am
beginning to realise it.
_Laure._ And when a woman begins to realise that she is
“honest”——
_Hélène._ Yes; the case is grave.
All these personages explain themselves to us, and claim us, by reason
of their vivid humanity, as intimate acquaintances, in the play. Yet not
one of them has his or her exact counterpart in English society, for the
simple reason that their choice qualities, and entertaining defects, not
only belong to the French temperament but are the result of manners,
conventions, prejudices and sentiments that do not enter into our actual
experiences, although we are in a position to judge, or at any rate
correctly to appreciate them, when we have studied them in this dramatic
picture....
And now for the situation of the play. It is also essentially
French; what the orthodox English critic would probably describe as
“disagreeable” and “painful.” But with that neither M. Capus nor
ourselves are concerned. Our playwright, true to the canons of his art,
has aimed at no more than selecting an episode from _la vie vivante_, and
revealing it in its most vital and human moments, and the episode he has
chosen is one that has its counterpart, year in, year out, in the gay,
irresponsible land peopled by the _jeunesse_ of Paris and the provinces.
“Nôtre Jeunesse”—that period, in France particularly, of extravagances
and follies; “Nôtre Jeunesse”—those years in the Latin Quarter when
irregularity of conduct does not appear reprehensible even to the
parental eye.
“C’est de leur âge,” says the bourgeois indulgently, thinking, no doubt,
of his own _jeunesse_, when he meets a band of students rejoicing
riotously in their corduroy clothes, long, flowing capes and amazing
hats. And such wild figures were Chartier and Lucien Briant some twenty
years before we meet them. And it is of those days that they are
speaking, when M. Capus introduces them to his audience in the Chartier
Villa at Trouville. Chartier, of course, is in excellent spirits. But
Lucien is nervous and despondent, and becomes still more troubled when
his friend reminds him of his _liaison_ with Léontine Gilard, a charming
and light-hearted girl, whose pet name Chartier forgets.
Lucien helps his memory; the name was “Loulou.” Let me quote the passage:
_Lucien [with emotion]._ Loulou.
_Chartier._ That’s it! I can see Loulou now: fair hair, blue
eyes, very pretty hands. You made a charming couple, the
two of you! Well—there you have a memory which shouldn’t be
disagreeable, surely.
_Lucien._ Ah, _mon ami_, one never knows the end of adventures
of that sort!
_Chartier._ The end? Why didn’t the thing end naturally?
_Lucien._ What do you mean by ending naturally?
_Chartier._ When you left the Latin Quarter, you made Loulou
a handsome present? She took another lover? or, perhaps, she
got married? To-day, if you met each other in the street, you
wouldn’t recognise each other? That is what I call a natural
ending.
_Lucien._ Yes; that is the way things happen with _you_, and
with almost everybody. But not with _me_. I ask myself, What
may not still come of it?
Lucien’s forebodings are prophetic. Soon after, Chartier is told by his
sister Laure that a young girl (_très jolie, très convenable_) has called
to see him. It turns out that the young girl visitor (_très jolie, très
convenable_) is _Lucienne_. In other words, _she_ is the visible and
terrifying proof of the unlucky Lucien Briant’s conviction that he is not
to be permitted, like other men, to bury under the flowers of sentimental
memories the irregularities of his Latin Quarter days.
Still, Lucienne had no intention of troubling her father. She was trained
to believe that she had no legitimate, no righteous claim on him. Poor
Loulou was true to the rule of the game that, for her, had had lifelong
seriousness. Even on her death-bed she has kept faithfully to the terms
of the unequal bargain. She had told Lucienne that her father had behaved
“generously,” that she has no further legitimate claim on him. But she
remembers Chartier’s kindness of heart and recommends her daughter to
apply to him for advice and recommendations helpful in the way of finding
her honest employment. So that this is the reason why Lucienne has sought
out Monsieur Chartier. She is now alone in the world—poor “Loulou’s”
savings nearly exhausted. Can Monsieur Chartier, perhaps, amongst his
friends, find her a situation as secretary or companion, where she may
earn an honest livelihood?
Touched to the heart by Loulou’s good remembrance and confidence in him
is Chartier, and at once interested in Lucienne’s case.
_Chartier._ Yes, yes, certainly—you did well, mademoiselle,
to come to me! I shall at once make inquiries amongst all my
acquaintances. We shall find you a charming post; I give you my
promise, to set about it at once.
Although the good Chartier is perfectly sincere in his desire and
resolution to find Lucienne a “charming post,” he does not feel that
there is any need to distress and upset the nervous and despondent Lucien
by telling him about the appearance upon the scene of Loulou’s daughter
(and his own) and of her need of assistance. But he has no secrets from
Laure, and he at once consults his resourceful sister and confides to her
his charming and discreet plan of finding Lucienne a pleasant situation
as the companion of a lady who travels a great deal; thus Lucienne will
see different countries, have a good salary and be as happy as the day is
long—_also_, she will be kept out of the way of upsetting the nerves of
the timorous Lucien.
Laure, however, the “good genius,” takes another view of the case. It
is _Lucienne’s_ homelessness, not Lucien’s nerves, that appears to her
the chief question. She remembers, too, the “grave” state of mind of
Hélène Briant, the result of her ineffectual efforts to react against
her depressing environment—most repugnant to a charming woman still
young but arrived at an age when she is forced to realise that one is
not _always_ going to be young and charming, and who has no children,
and no congenial companionship, and who, nevertheless, is “honest”—so
far, Laure then _forms her own plan_. And the first step is to make known
the facts of Lucienne’s identity, situation and presence at Trouville
to Lucien, and to Hélène also. This is how she announces what, to him,
at first appears a desperately indiscreet proceeding, to Chartier, who,
ultimately, becomes a convert to her scheme.
Laure begins by assuring her brother that an excess of discretion
condemns those who make it their rule to fail in friendly services.
_Laure [to Chartier]._ Let me tell you what you _should_ have
done, what you ought to have done. You should have taken Lucien
on one side, and, without worrying about the consequences,
have simply made him acquainted with the facts. He had to be
confronted with his duty. And since at heart he is, in spite of
everything, an honest man, and that the very worst actions of
his sort—and of your sort—don’t keep you from being thoroughly
kind-hearted, he would certainly have found a happier and more
consoling solution than to leave his daughter in distress. That
is what you ought to have done. And as I saw you were not going
to do it, that is what I have done.
_Chartier._ What do you say? Good God! You have seen Lucien?
_Laure._ Half an hour ago; after _déjeuner_.
_Chartier._ It is simply insane, what you have done! He must
have been utterly prostrated by such a blow, poor devil?
_Laure._ Yes. He turned very pale. Then he rushed off to
consult his father. Now what can happen to him, at the worst?
He will have to endure some hours of worry, of anxiety,
perhaps of remorse. What then? He deserves it. Lucienne is
seventeen—she has in front of her the promise of a long
existence, an existence conferred upon her by a light-hearted
gentleman in an hour of distraction. Well, it is _Lucienne_ who
interests me. You will tell me that it is not my concern—that
I am interfering in a delicate matter which is no business of
mine?
_Chartier._ Precisely. That was just what I was going to say.
_Laure._ And my answer is, that if one only occupied oneself
with one’s own concerns one would only accomplish selfish and
mediocre things.
How does Lucien act after he has received the fateful news? All
lamentations is he when he bursts into the room after his interview
with his father. Chartier, Laure and Hélène wait to learn what, by the
counsel, no doubt, of Briant _père_, Lucien proposes to do.
_Lucien._ Ah, mon ami [_addressing Chartier_], who would have
believed it? What a fatality! What a drama for my conscience!
Well, well—what one has to do is to occupy oneself with the
present and possible. You will tell Lucienne from me that she
has no longer any need to fear for the future: that shall be
_my_ charge.
_Chartier._ Well done. Well done.
_Lucien._ Yes; but upon one condition—oh, a condition of
stringent importance. The condition is that she must return
immediately to this village, near Limoges. She has lived there
up to the present hour—she can quite easily go on living
there. I will send her every month, and I will guarantee to
her in the event of my death, a yearly pension, that will be
sufficient for her support. There. Do you find that I am acting
very badly? And you, madame [_to Laure_], do _you_ think I am
behaving badly?
_Laure._ Well, not exactly bad.
_Lucien._ Well, that comforts me a little. But what a
catastrophe! Ah, if ever I have a son of my own, I shall try
that he may profit by my example.
But Lucien has not a son of his own. The only child he has is the
daughter he is going to bury alive in the village near Limoges, without
even seeing her—this, of course, by the counsel of _l’homme correct_,
Briant _père_.
But here Hélène intervenes. She has walked innocently into the trap
prepared for her by Laure. In other words, she has seen Lucienne, and
her heart has gone out to the motherless girl. Thus she has come by her
own path into Laure’s plot and plan; she is resolved to adopt Lucienne.
She urges her case, which has the independent advantage of upsetting the
counsels of Briant _père_, with warm generosity, but, at the same time,
with her usual vivacity.
_Hélène._ Lucien, you are my closest friend; and the object of
my dutiful affection, of course—but you can’t be my constant
companion and the confidante, whom I want, in sometimes empty
and tiresome hours. Understand that; and consent to what I
beg of you. Well, the companion I want _is here_; she is your
daughter. You have not given me a child; make me the present of
Lucienne. I am not a mother; but let me have the illusion of
maternity.
Firm in the belief that happiness lies before her and her husband in
the adoption of Lucienne, Hélène will hear of no other solution to the
situation. And in this she has the good genius, Laure, with her; and next
the _bonhomme philosophe_, Chartier; and finally the timid, despondent
Lucien himself, who, in the last scene, comes face to face with his
daughter.
All emotion is Lucien. And he breaks down completely when Lucienne shows
him a photograph taken of him in the Latin Quarter, when he was the
lover of Loulou, a wild figure in corduroy clothes, a long, flowing cape
and an amazing hat.
Lucienne, who imagines she is going to be sent back to the village near
Limoges, and may never possibly see her father again, does not wish to be
separated from the souvenir that stood for the image of him, in his young
days. She stretches out her hand, asking for the return of the photograph:
_Lucienne._ You will not take it away? You will leave it with
me?
_Lucien._ No. I shall keep it. And that is not all, I shall
keep—I should be mad to fight any longer against my own heart;
against your youth and my own—I shall keep the picture, and
_you_ as well!
Chartier, Hélène and Laure enter and behold, with joy, Lucienne in her
father’s embrace. But now arrives the apostle of correctness, Briant
_père_. He is not so much astonished, not so much shocked as filled with
contempt, and lifted above all contact with the irregular sentiments
and ill-directed sympathies of this emotional group of people, whom
he attempts to freeze, with his superior disdain. And it is at this
moment that he utters the unforgettable sentence which is one of the
master-strokes in the play:
_Briant_ père. It is quite sufficient to-day—and believe me,
when simply stating the fact, I do not allow myself to be the
least bit in the world disturbed by it—it suffices that a child
should be illegitimate in order to find itself the object of
universal sympathy; in the same way, it suffices that a woman
is not a lawful wife to render her immediately the object of
universal respect. Let married women, and children born in
wedlock, make no mistake about it: they are going to have a bad
time.[3]
Lucien attempts to mollify his high displeasure. But Briant _père_
(happily for his family’s welfare, perhaps) insists that he must separate
himself henceforth from these offenders. He shakes hands with his son and
with Hélène—salutes, stiffly, Laure and Chartier. Then, with a curt bow
to Lucienne and the one word, “_Mademoiselle_,” he takes his departure.
_Lucienne [to Hélène]._ Qui est ce monsieur?
_Hélène._ C’est ton grand-père.
3. M. BRIEUX, “LA DÉSERTEUSE,” AT THE ODÉON
“Brieux at the Odéon? Brieux passing from the grim playhouse of M.
Antoine, to the calm, placid, highly respectable Odéon?” Such must have
been the startled exclamations of hundreds of playgoers when it was
announced that the “Second Theatre of France” had “received,” and was
actually rehearsing, a new drama by the author of _Les Avariés_ and
_Maternité_.
Amazing tidings, certainly. And especially amazing, even alarming, to
the regular mature patrons of the Odéon, whose peaceful way of life,
whose tranquil train of thought, could not but be upset by the ardent,
revolutionary M. Brieux. They desire no disagreeable awakenings, and,
above all, no “social problems.”
I fancy the neighbourhood has affected our mature ones! They live round
about the Senate, whose members, we know, are renowned for a constant
drowsiness. Is not the Upper Chamber popularly described as the “Palace
of Sleep”? The alert, frisky Parisian cannot endure the _Palais du
Sommeil_. He wants emotions, excitement—and he finds them in the Chamber
of Deputies, which never sleeps.
“A restful sanctuary” is Mr Bodley’s idea of the Senate. “It does very
little; it is not highly considered. The idea sometimes suggested is that
of a retreat for elderly gentlemen.”
Well, the regular mature patron of the Odéon may be likened to the
Senator: his intellect is impaired by the same constant drowsiness.
And the “Second Theatre of France”—most Parisians dispute its right to
that distinguished title—may be likened to the Senate. It is not highly
considered; it renders but small services to the dramatic art; and, at
times, it presents the appearance of a restful sanctuary.
But—arrives M. Brieux. Arrives, actually, upon this tranquil, drowsy
scene, the ardent, revolutionary author of _Maternité_ and _Les Avariés_.
What—oh, what—is in store for the regular mature patrons? No doubt they
were all anxiety, all indignation, until it was understood that M. Brieux
had not arrived in their demure domain alone. With him, M. Jean Sigaux.
With him, a collaborator who might be expected to exercise restraint. Has
M. Sigaux fulfilled those expectations? Is M. Brieux of the Odéon the
M. Brieux of the Théâtre Antoine? Or, has M. Brieux been intimidated by
Odéon traditions?
Not unanimous on this point are the leading French dramatic critics.
Three or four of them profess themselves disappointed with _La
Déserteuse_, because unable to recognise M. Brieux’s change of attitude.
They are still under the spell of _Maternité_, where the author so
vigorously and so ruthlessly attacked the “established morality”
and “dominant passions.” The change of attitude is undeniable. But
_La Déserteuse_ is a strong, generous, human play; and all the more
interesting from our own special point of view, as students of the French
stage in its relation to French life, because it does not represent a
dramatic exposure of injustices and impostures, prevalent (if we believe
the reformer) in all European societies, but a dramatic illustration of
universal passions and emotions, as these manifest themselves under the
influence of traditional sentiments and habits of thought and feeling
that belong essentially to France.
The French bourgeois: wherein he differs from, and as a type of humanity
is superior to, the English shopkeeper; the French _jeune fille_—and
the French sentiment about her—and wherein this sentiment explains
her jealously and tenderly guarded inferiority in attractiveness,
intelligence and independence to her English prototype—here are
the secrets which _La Déserteuse_ may assist a foreign spectator to
penetrate....
We are in the town of Nantes, in the home of Forjot, music publisher,
husband, father and confirmed bourgeois. Forjot also gives concerts, but
he himself is nothing of a musician and would regard music with contempt,
were it not a means of making money. Not so his wife, Gabrielle, young,
beautiful and vivacious, who has been assured by the director of the
local theatre that she is possessed of a rare voice. Gabrielle sings
at little Nantais concerts and is admired and applauded. Gabrielle is
told that she would triumph on the operatic stage—and sighs. She loves
excitement, she longs for fame, she is full of dreams and ambitions and
fancies—but she finds no sympathiser in the music publisher, her husband,
who, looking up impatiently from his ledgers, bids her pay more attention
to her house, her child and “the rest.”
_Gabrielle._ What do you mean by “the rest”? Do you want me to
write out the bills, for instance?
_Forjot._ Never mind the bills: my shopman does that. But I
see no reason why you should not stay in the shop and receive
clients, and, when there is a press of work, lend me a helping
hand with the correspondence.
_Gabrielle._ Don’t expect me to do anything of the sort.
It is the old story: the bourgeois husband and the beautiful,
dissatisfied, ambitious wife, who rebels at her dull surroundings, who
believes herself “wasted,” who is tempted by a sympathetic admirer; and
who falls. Rametty, director of the Nantes Theatre, is Gabrielle’s
lover. His ardent prayer that she should accompany him on one of his
tours and win the fame that inevitably awaits her, rings constantly in
her ears. She resists, chiefly for the sake of her daughter, Pascaline.
But the temptation to fly becomes irresistible when, on the night of one
of Forjot’s concerts, audience, friends, her lover, and even a popular
composer from Paris, delight, intoxicate her with their praise. Forjot,
however, stands aloof; the eulogies of the popular composer—respectfully
known as _Le Maître_—exasperate him.
_Le Maître._ Madame Forjot has sung admirably. Let me give my
testimony. I do not know anyone, you mark me, I say _anyone_,
and I am not excepting the most celebrated vocalists—I do not
know _anyone_ capable of singing this air with such mastery.
_Forjot._ Oh, you exaggerate, surely, her talent, Master. You
are too indulgent.
_Le Maître._ I am not indulgent. Madame is an incomparable
lyrical tragedian. But, madame, you must not remain _en
province_—it would be a crime.
In ecstasies is Gabrielle. In the heavens is Gabrielle. But she soon
comes to earth again, when at last she and her husband find themselves
alone. Forjot has returned to his ledgers—is making up his accounts. He
has not a word to say of his wife’s success. He is entirely absorbed in
the night’s receipts. He counts under his breath; he rustles the pages of
his ledgers; he is—to Gabrielle—exasperating, maddening, intolerable.
And the storm bursts when Gabrielle, beside herself with rage, dashes one
of the ledgers to the ground.
Now furious, now broken, now contemptuous, now with hoarse, poignant
emotion, Forjot addresses his wife.
He knows her to be the mistress of Rametty. His illness of three years
ago was due to that humiliating and horrible discovery, but he had
thought that she had sinned in a moment of madness and was repentant; and
so he resolved to pardon her, generously, without even charging her with
her crime:
_Forjot._ After I had discovered your treachery, I had that
attack of brain fever, which nearly left you free. As a result
of being brought so near to death, thoughts came to me that
I might not have had otherwise, and they ripened in the long
hours of my convalescence. When I recovered, as I was touched
by the care you had taken in nursing me, and by your grief
(which I still believe was sincere), I thought you had only
given way to a mad impulse; and I forgave you in the silence
of my heart. Yes; I know well I am not like the husbands in
the novels you are constantly reading. Those husbands are idle
men of fortune; their child’s future causes them no tormenting
anxiety; they have not the incessant preoccupations of carrying
on a large business concern, where many interests of others,
as well as one’s own are involved. With men in _my_ class, a
false wife does not mean killing someone; it means asking for a
divorce. Well, I did not want to make Pascaline the daughter of
a divorced woman; nor did I want to expose her to the sense of
disgrace of finding out her mother’s degradation. And it is on
Pascaline’s account that I am putting you to-day in a position
when you can make your choice—either become again the wife and
mother you ought to be; or else I _shall_ ask for a divorce. I
don’t want to see again what I saw to-day, Rametty embracing
_my_ child! Nor do I want that one of these days, Pascaline may
be told by some little playmate that her mother is a wanton
[which is true], and her father a man who consents to his own
dishonour—which is _not_ true.
_Gabrielle._ Well, then, ask for a divorce. Adieu.
_Forjot._ What is your decision?
_Gabrielle._ To leave you.
_Forjot._ Think well of what it means. It means throwing over,
once and for ever, a regular life.
_Gabrielle._ It bores me to death this “regular” life. And
then, do you imagine I could endure to go on living near you
when I knew that you despised me enough to hold your tongue
about what you had discovered?
_Forjot._ If you stay, I promise that, by my attitude towards
you, you may be able to suppose that everything is forgotten.
_Gabrielle._ No! I refuse to lead here the life of eternal
humiliation you offer me. Good-night.
_Forjot._ Good-night. You have given me all the pain it was in
your power to give.
But even now the music publisher does not believe that Gabrielle will
desert him. Shortly after she has left the room his little daughter
enters and asks for her mother. The servant is sent in quest of
Gabrielle, but returns to announce that she is nowhere to be found. When
Forjot realises that his wife has left him he covers his face with his
handkerchief and trembles all over and sobs.
_Pascaline [running up to him]._ Father! Father! What _is_ the
matter?
_Forjot._ Nothing, nothing. [_He uncovers his face, which is
tragic with sorrow and stained with tears._] My child, your
mother has gone away from us on a long journey.
In a former paper[4] I spoke of the prodigious importance of the child in
France; the Child, the great indestructible bond between the parents. Of
course, exceptions—as in Gabrielle Forjot’s case. But, as we shall see,
Gabrielle seeks to recover Pascaline; and it is around this struggle that
the vital interest of the play centres. It is also around this struggle,
and in the feelings, language and conduct of those engaged in it that we
realise the different conditions of sentiment, morals and manners that
characterise respectively the French bourgeoisie and the lower English
middle class.
Pascaline is the typical _jeune fille_. In the First Act she is a child
of thirteen; thirteen, _l’âge ingrat_, for at that period the French
_jeune fille_ is plain. It is considered right—imperative—that she
should be plain. If she be not so by nature she is made so. See her in
her convent dress, her “Sunday best”—the one that most successfully
conceals her natural grace—when Mademoiselle is most nearly a fright.
Pascaline, for instance, first appears before us shy, awkward, with her
hair dragged back from her forehead and falling down her shoulders in
depressing little plaits, and arrayed in a dreadful white dress which
no English girl of her age would don without a struggle and a tearful
outburst. Nevertheless, the _jeune fille_ is adored, and she knows it.
She is strictly, terribly _surveillée_—but that, after all, is a proof of
her importance. She must be protected from dangers, so precious is she.
Has she, at the age of fifteen, only to cross the street the servant (I
can see the indignant glances and hear the expressions of pity of her
English sisters) must be close at her elbow. Plenty and plenty of time
to wear fine dresses and make the first exciting bow to the world, and
to be surprised, and to wonder. Says the French mother, speaking from
experience: “It is delicious to be a _jeune fille_. And I tell my Yvonne
so, when she grumbles.” But Yvonne’s grumblings do not betray a tragic,
desperate state of mind. As a matter of fact, Yvonne, in spite of those
dresses and that constant strict, terrible surveillance, is delightfully
happy. And I expect her first bow to the world will be made all the more
exciting by that long, rigid training, and that she will don her elegant
dresses with all the more rapture, and that she will find life the more
brilliant, exhilarating and extraordinary. The parents preserve those
old, ugly dresses. When Cosette left her convent, and discarded her
depressing dress for tasteful finery, and did what she pleased with her
hair, and became all of a sudden beautiful—Jean Valjean kept the dress,
and often brought it forth in secret, and looked upon it with infinite
tenderness and emotion....
But to return to our particular _jeune fille_, Pascaline. In the Second
Act, she is seventeen and charming. Nevertheless, it is still necessary
to hide from her all dangerous knowledge, all doubts or suspicions, even
of the existence of evil outside her own experience. Father, governess,
nurse, family friends and all who approach her are in league to keep from
her the true history of her mother’s desertion. The legend, as she hears
it, is that the brilliant, captivating mother she recollects abandoned
her home in order to follow her vocation—to become a great and famous
singer. And this passionately interests Pascaline; consequently, she is
wild with excitement when, after a four years’ absence, her mother claims
the right to see her daughter, and obtains legal authorisation to do so.
Then, trouble. For, in the meanwhile, Forjot has married the excellent,
trustworthy governess, Hélène, chiefly because she was so devoted to
the little Pascaline and would make her a second mother. Pascaline at
thirteen—dazzled and overawed by the brilliant Gabrielle—had treated the
kind and homely governess as a confidante; but at seventeen—flattered,
fascinated and caressed by Gabrielle—she sees in Hélène only the
“Stranger,” who has usurped her mother’s place.
Then begins the second struggle; that is once again to make havoc of
poor Forjot’s domestic peace! The struggle of Hélène, on the one side,
to reconquer by patience and kindness, and sometimes by affectionate
reproaches, the confidence of the child she loves, and has cared for as
her own; and of Pascaline, on the other side, to resist these attentions
and appeals to her feelings and to remain true to her more brilliant
mother, who, she is convinced, has been harshly turned out of her home,
simply because she was too artistic to make a good bourgeoise housekeeper
of the usual type.
The knot in the entangled situation is that Pascaline must not be told
the truth. So that misunderstanding the position, she cannot, from her
own point of view, without disloyalty to her admired and adored mother,
recognise the interloper, Hélène, as the rightful mistress of her
father’s home, and with claims upon herself, Pascaline, for respect and
gratitude, on account of the care and affection she has shown one whom
she has robbed of her natural guardian.
Pascaline comes back from her first interview with Gabrielle fascinated
and enthusiastic, and full of anger and disdain for the homelier, much
less outwardly demonstrative Hélène. This condition of mind becomes
aggravated later on, when Gabrielle is in misfortune. Alas! her voice
has failed her. She is no longer able to follow her artistic vocation,
for the sake of which she sacrificed her home. She now is directress of
a theatrical agency, and she is no longer so gay, although still full of
noble courage. All this Pascaline confides to her old nurse, Marion, with
whom she is still able to talk about her mother.
_Pascaline._ Oh, Marion dear! When one thinks of mama coming
back; and of her having no right to enter this house, and of
someone else installed in her place! If you only could have
seen how sad she was when she left me, my poor mama, who is
generally so gay! And no wonder she is sad. All alone there at
Auteuil in a little pavilion, Rue des Martyrs, at her office, a
stuffy little place without sunshine, without air.
_The Nurse._ At her “office”?
_Pascaline._ Yes. You must know that, for some time, mama has
not been able to sing. It is all the trouble she has gone
through. You see to be constantly crying is not good for the
voice, so that now she is the directress of an agency for
theatrical tours. You can understand that, as I am no longer
a child, I have a right to know things. I _do_ know _now_ why
papa sent mama away.
_Marion._ Did your mother tell you?
_Pascaline._ Yes. Papa would not allow her to sing anywhere! So
then mama, who had an admirable voice, felt obliged to follow
an irresistible vocation.
This is the legend as Pascaline has received it from her mother. Marion
does not contradict it. Nor yet do Forjot and Hélène ever hint at the
true facts of Gabrielle’s desertion. Hélène’s reticence is heroic, for
Pascaline becomes more and more bitter against the good Hélène and defies
her to justify herself by some real fault discovered in Gabrielle, worse
than the noble ambition of a gifted artist.
_Pascaline [to Hélène]._ Of course, you are burning to tell me
all about poor mama’s divorce. Well: let me show you I know all
about it already. I know that, in spite of my father’s orders,
mama would go on singing, and then she was rather extravagant,
and, well, she was not domesticated, and chose to follow her
artistic vocation. There you have the whole story of her sins.
Oh, _if_ there _is_ anything else, I invite you, or rather, I
require you to tell me. _Was_ there anything else?
_Hélène [avoiding Pascaline’s eyes]._ There was nothing else.
_Pascaline [triumphantly]._ There, you are forced to admit it!
Mama’s _only_ fault was that she had an artistic vocation!
Again I beg you to contradict me, if you can. _Was_ there
anything else against her?
_Hélène._ No; only that—nothing else.
However, one little awakening, one little shock. In the Third Act
Pascaline visits the theatrical agency, sees the tawdriness of the place,
hears noisy laughter and is even addressed at length by a shabby old
comedian—a veritable _cabotin_—who mistakes her for an _ingénue_, in
quest of an engagement. The comedian is delightful. He might have stepped
straight on to the Odéon stage from one of those dim little cafés haunted
by broken-down actors in the neighbourhood of the Porte St-Martin. He
appals Pascaline with his grins, grimaces and familiarity. Pascaline’s
silence he attributes to worry. And he seeks to console her by declaring
that one must always be gay, always be smiling, even if one has eaten
nothing all day and the landlord has threatened to turn one out into the
street. He calls her _mon petit enfant_, and _mon petit chat_, and he
_tutoies_ her. Pure, irresistible comedy! The scene deserves to be quoted
in full, but we must hasten on to the _dénouement_.
It is close. Life at the Nantais publisher’s has become intolerable.
Constant strife; day after day, scenes between Pascaline and her
step-mother. And, at last, Hélène decides on a daring step: to visit
Gabrielle, tell her of Forjot’s unhappiness, implore her to interfere
no longer between father and daughter. But she fails to move Gabrielle,
who is cold and impertinent. And then, believing that if she herself
disappeared, Pascaline would be entirely restored to Forjot, Hélène
determines to leave Nantes and resume her dull career of governess.
And this determination becomes all the stronger when she learns that
Pascaline has fled Nantes and taken refuge with her mother. Poor Forjot
has aged and withered when next we see him. Pascaline’s flight has
been a bitter blow. But the music publisher will not hear of Hélène’s
sacrifice, and is passionately bidding her remain, when Gabrielle
is announced. Hélène leaves the room. And Gabrielle and Forjot find
themselves face to face again.
In the great scene that follows, Gabrielle begins by saying that, as
Hélène has determined to leave Nantes, she, Gabrielle, no longer wishes
to keep Pascaline away from her father, and has brought her home.
Forjot declares that Hélène shall not be sacrificed; and upon this,
Gabrielle proclaims her intention of keeping Pascaline.
Now again we have the Bourgeois Forjot displaying qualities of temper,
character and moral sense, of the very highest order: qualities of the
chivalrous sort. He does not fly into a passion. He does not taunt
this offender against maternal and conjugal obligations. But earnestly
and simply he addresses the author of all this trouble; and with a
self-restraint that would certainly not have been found in his English
prototype, he invites her to examine her own conduct; and to ask herself
whether it is Hélène and himself, or whether it is Gabrielle herself, and
Gabrielle only, who has behaved cruelly and selfishly to Pascaline, as
well as to the husband she betrayed and the good woman who has taken care
of the child she abandoned.
_Forjot._ Gabrielle, just remember. _You_ are the cause of all
this trouble. It only depended upon you to stay on here, and
never to be separated from your child. I never made your life
unhappy! I loved you; and you know very well I should have
forgiven you. I begged you to stay and you would not. What harm
you have done by obeying your caprice! Just now I saw very well
you hardly recognised me—so aged am I by all this. For my part,
I have never harmed you. Hélène has never harmed you—what do
you say? No, no; she has never harmed you! And yet it is we who
are punished. It is because _you_ behaved badly in the past
that _we_ are threatened to-day with distress and loneliness.
After having poisoned my life, you wish then to hasten my death?
_Gabrielle._ You know very well that I regret having made you
suffer.
_Forjot._ Let me tell you this: a great many people would not
have acted as we have done. They might not have told our child
the real story of your desertion; but they would not have
invented excuses for you.
_Gabrielle._ Yes; I know you have been very kind, and I thank
you for it.
_Forjot._ I am not the only one you ought to thank. Hélène has
always respected you: she has taught Pascaline to love you!
It seems to me that should touch you. Give our child back to
us. Now, admit it, you have launched yourself upon a new life.
You have made yourself different from us. I can’t well explain
myself; and it is difficult to make you understand my feelings
because I don’t want to use words that might hurt or irritate
you; but I must put the facts before you plainly.
Always generous is Forjot. Not one brutal, not one harsh word does he
throw at his wife! He promises that Pascaline shall continue to visit
her as often as she pleases, if Gabrielle, on the other side, will
promise not to poison Pascaline’s mind against him and Hélène. Gabrielle
is touched. Rising, she opens the door, and brings in Pascaline. And
Pascaline, seeing her poor father’s anxious, care-worn face, runs up to
him.
_Pascaline._ Oh, father! father! advise me. I am puzzled,
bewildered. Something tells me I am acting badly; but I don’t
know what I ought to do. Oh, dear, I don’t know what I ought to
do!
_Forjot._ My little Girl, it all depends upon you whether I
am to finish my life in misery, or in peace. You can give me
happiness in the days I have still to live. But to do that, you
must come back to us; and you must try to treat Hélène with
the respect and gratitude you owe her. In her despair at not
being able to win back your affection, she wants to leave us.
She wishes to return once more to the lonely, uncertain life
of a governess. She wants to plunge herself into this unknown,
uncertain destiny. It is I who appeal to you to have mercy upon
her, and upon me.
_Pascaline._ Ah, if only I might love you without being false
to Mama!
_Gabrielle [emotionally]._ You can, you can, Pascaline! Yes,
my daughter, I am not the mother that you believe in! Since I
left you I have created for myself a new life, new habits, new
affections; and then, Pascaline, I am going to marry again!
Always, emotionally, Gabrielle tells how she once had two paths to
choose, and that she chose the wrong one.
But Pascaline interrupts her with a cry of: “What a calumny!” and vows
that her mother has never done wrong. And that she knows for certain, _as
Hélène herself has often told her so_.
_Gabrielle._ Eh bien, va embrasser Hélène pour cela. Je te le
demande. Je vous la confie, Hélène.
And so, the end. Not heroic, in accordance with the English poetic
sentiment, demanding that Gabrielle should pass out sorrowing and
penitent; convicted in her child’s eyes, who flies for safety to the
virtuous bosom of Hélène, but _à l’amiable_, in accordance with the
French sentiment expressed by Forjot: “Mon enfant, si l’on n’avait pas
d’indulgence les uns pour les autres, la vie des plus braves gens ne
serait pas possible.”
But what comes of it all? No argument for or against divorce; no attack
upon, no justification of the French method of educating the _jeune
fille_. But a picture of the feelings and emotions bound up with that
method; and a picture also of the generous reasonableness, sense of
justice, and human kindness that lie at the root of French character—and
that may to some extent compensate for a lack of the absolutely sincere
and unadulterated love of decency and respectability for their own sakes
that are our own distinguishing characteristics.
[3] _Briant_ père. Il suffit aujourd’hui—et je le constate sans en être
le moins du monde troublé, croyez-le bien—il suffit qu’un enfant soit
naturel pour se voir l’objet de la sympathie générale, comme il suffit
qu’une femme ne soit pas légitime pour être immédiatement entourée du
respect universel. Que les femmes et les enfants ne se le dissimulent
pas, ils sont en train de passer un mauvais quart d’heure.
[4] In a criticism of M. Paul Hervieu’s _Le Dédale_ given in _The
Fortnightly Review_ series of articles upon “French Life and the French
and the French Stage,” by John F. Macdonald. By the kind permission of
the Editor of _The Fortnightly Review_ these articles are reprinted
here.—F. M.
4. PARIS, M. EDMOND ROSTAND, AND “CHANTECLER”
Six years have elapsed since a Paris newspaper announced that M. Constant
Coquelin—dear, wonderful Coquelin _aîné_—had suddenly taken train to the
south-west of France in the following circumstances:—
“Yesterday morning the greatest of our comedians received a telegram
urging him to proceed without delay to Cambo, the tranquil, beautiful
country seat, in the Pyrenees, of M. Edmond Rostand. No sooner had
he read the message than M. Coquelin bade Gillett, his devoted
valet, pack a valise, hail a _fiacre_, and accompany him to the Gare
d’Orléans. Excitement and delight were depicted on the face of the
distinguished traveller, whom we found smoking a cigarette in front of
a first-class compartment. ‘Yes,’ he joyously admitted. ‘Yes, I am off
to the Pyrenees—but that is all I shall tell you.’ Never, indeed, such
indomitable discretion! In reply to our adroit, persuasive questions
regarding the object of his journey, M. Coquelin made such irrelevant
observations as these: ‘The weather looks threatening,’ and ‘Gillett is
the most admirable of valets,’ and ‘Ah, my friends, has it ever occurred
to you what an extraordinary thing is a railway station?’ And then, as
the train steamed slowly away: ‘You may state in your article that the
cushions of this carriage are exceedingly restful and sympathetic.’
Still, in spite of M. Coquelin’s reticence, we are in a position to
acquaint our readers with the reason of this sudden, this sensational
visit to Cambo. _M. Edmond Rostand is engaged upon a new play, and the
leading part in it will be sustained by M. Coquelin._ Down there in the
golden calm of the Pyrenees—yes, even as we pen these words—the most
exquisite of poets is reading to the most brilliant of actors... another
_chef-d’œuvre_. It will surpass the triumphant, the glorious _Cyrano de
Bergerac_! Parisians will certainly rejoice, Parisians will assuredly be
thrilled to hear of the superb, artistic festival in store for them.”
Such, six years ago, was the very first—and very florid—_potin_ to
be published on _Chantecler_; and no sooner had it appeared than
Paris, truly enough, “rejoiced” and was “thrilled”—but complained
that it was maddening and heart-breaking to know so little about the
new masterpiece. What was its theme? What, too, was the title? And
when—oh, when—would the first performance take place? In order to
satisfy the Parisian’s curiosity, newspaper editors despatched their
Yellowest Reporters to Cambo with instructions to force a statement
out of the comedian and the poet. With the Yellow Ones went alert,
sharp photographers. And then, what strange, indelicate scenes in that
once-tranquil and refined spot in the Pyrenees! Since M. Rostand and his
guest refused to receive the invaders, the latter set about performing
their vulgar mission from a distance. Outside the poet’s picturesque
Basque villa, cameras and cameras; and again and again was the “golden
calm” of Cambo disturbed by shouts of “There’s Madame Rostand at that
window,” and “There’s her son, Maurice, picking a flower,” and “There’s
Rostand talking hard to Coquelin on a bench.” Nobody, nothing in the
far-spreading grounds, escaped the photographers. The gardener was
“taken”; so were a housemaid, a peacock, a mowing-machine, a dog and a
hammock. As for the reporters, they followed MM. Rostand and Coquelin
when the latter took their afternoon walks, even hid themselves behind
bushes and hedges in the hopes of overhearing a fragment of their
conversation; and minutely they described in their newspapers the gait
and the gestures of the comedian, and the smile, the eyeglass and the
extreme elegance of the poet; and wildly they declared that insomuch
as MM. Rostand and Coquelin discussed naught but the new masterpiece
during those afternoon walks, every step they took left a glorious, an
historic imprint in the dusty white lane. But the subject of the play,
the date of its production?—“mystery, mystery!” admitted the reporters.
Nor was it until many months later, and until after M. Coquelin had paid
half-a-dozen visits to Cambo, that Paris heard with amazement that M.
Rostand’s hero was a cock, his heroine a hen pheasant, his chief scene a
farm-yard, in which all kinds of feathered creatures were to fly, strut
and waddle about. As Paris was marvelling at the novelty and audacity
of the idea, the poet fell ill. A severe operation kept him an invalid
a whole year. The successive deaths of a relative and of three close
friends so shocked him that he had not the heart to return to his work.
But when in the autumn of 1908 M. Coquelin made yet another expedition
to Cambo, the “glorious,” “historic” walks were resumed. In M. Rostand’s
study, animated, all-night sittings. In the drawing-room, extraordinary
rehearsals—M. Coquelin the cock, Madame Rostand the pheasant, M. Rostand
a dog, young Maurice Rostand a blackbird. Then visits from wig-makers,
costumiers, scene-painters, electricians. And at last the official,
stirring announcement that M. Rostand and the play were leaving for
Paris, that the name of the play was _Chantecler_, and that the first
performance would be given at the Porte St-Martin Theatre in the spring
of 1909.
It was in January of that year that M. Rostand took up his abode in an
hotel facing the Tuileries Gardens. The corridor outside the poet’s suite
of apartments was guarded by footmen—so many sentinels with instructions
to let nobody pass; and thus M. Rostand was secure from cameras and
Yellow scribbling pencils except when he left the hotel, entered a motor
car and sped off to the pleasant little country town of Pont-aux-Dames,
where Constant Coquelin had founded a home for aged and infirm actors.
Of this establishment Coquelin _aîné_ himself was then an inmate. Not
that he was feeling old or infirm—“only a little fatigued and in need
of calm and repose ere disguising myself as a proud, majestic cock.”
Kindly Coquelin was never so happy as when playing the host to his score
of superannuated actors and actresses. He called them his “guests,” and
had provided them with easy-chairs, a library, a billiard-table, playing
cards, backgammon boards and gramophones; and with summer-houses in the
garden where the old ladies might gossip and gossip out of the glare of
the sun, and with a lake, too, in which the old fellows might fish. Also,
he invited them to relate their theatrical experiences—the rôles they
had played, the successes they had achieved, the costumes they had worn
long, long ago; and, oh, dear me, how the “guests” took their host at his
word—yes, heavens, how garrulously and lavishly they responded! Withered
old Joyeux (late—very late—of the Palais Royal) described how emperors
and kings had been convulsed by his grins, winks and tricks; swollen,
red-faced Hector Duchatel (slim, elegant, irresistible at the Vaudeville
in the seventies) declared that beautiful _mondaines_ had sighed, almost
swooned, when he passionately made love on the stage; wrinkled, haggard
Mademoiselle Giselle de Perle (once such a radiant _blonde_ at the
Bouffes) narrated how she could scarcely turn round in her dressing-room
for the _corbeilles_ of flowers, in which jewels and _billets-doux_
from illustrious personages lay concealed. Then, after all these
reminiscences, the “guests” produced faded, tattered newspaper cuttings,
that proclaimed Joyeux “extraordinaire de fantaisie et de verve,” and
Hector Duchatel “le roi de la mode,” and Mademoiselle de Perle “the most
exquisite, the most incomparable of blondes”—“Cabotinville,” if you like;
the tawdry, flashy talk of M. le Cabot and Madame la Cabotine. But I
like, nevertheless, to call up the vision of Coquelin _aîné_, wrapped
in a dressing-gown, a skull-cap pulled down over his ears, listening
patiently and sympathetically to these confidences of the past, and
reading through the faded newspaper cuttings, and saying to haggard
Mademoiselle de Perle: “I myself, like everybody else, was once madly
in love with you,” and to withered old Joyeux: “Those winks and grins
of yours were excruciating,” and—— But an end to this digression. The
scene between Coquelin _aîné_ and his superannuated “guests” is cut short
by the arrival, from the hotel in the rue de Rivoli, of the author of
_Chantecler_.
Well, Constant Coquelin was wearing a dressing-gown and a skull-cap,
because he felt a little “fatigued.” But the visits of M. Rostand,
and of the wig-makers, scene-painters and costumiers, as well as the
impatience of the Parisians to behold the new “masterpiece,” restored to
the comedian all his former energy, enthusiasm. Final resolutions were
made. The first rehearsal at the Porte St-Martin Theatre was fixed for
the following week; the first performance would be given, irrevocably, in
the middle of May. “What a triumph we shall have!” said Coquelin _aîné_
to the few friends he received in the Home. “Ah, my admirable Gillett,
what a work of genius is _Chantecler_!” he exclaimed, when the devoted
valet lighted him to his bedroom. “Listen, I will recite to you Rostand’s
_Hymn to the Sun_. And after that, my good Gillett, you shall hear me
crow.” Replied faithful Gillett: “To-morrow—not to-night. It is wiser to
go to sleep.” But Constant Coquelin refused to sleep until he had recited
and crowed. Up and down the room, in the dressing-gown and skull-cap, he
strutted. The superannuated actors and actresses were awakened by his
cry: “Je t’adore, Soleil!” Five minutes later there resounded throughout
the Home a clarion, peremptory—“Cocorico.” Said the old players: “The
master is rehearsing.” Said Gillett: “Your old servant insists upon your
going to bed.” Said Coquelin _aîné_: “When I have played Chantecler I
shall retire from the stage, and you and I, my faithful Gillett, will
pass the rest of our lives down here, tranquilly, happily, amidst our
twenty old guests.” But next morning, after Gillett had helped his master
into the dressing-gown, Constant Coquelin fell heavily to the floor.
Cry after cry from admirable Gillett, cries from the superannuated
players—then profound silence and gloom. Gloom, too, in Paris. The blinds
darkly drawn in the windows of the first floor of the rue de Rivoli
hotel. The Porte St-Martin—other theatres—closed. All kinds of _soirées_,
banquets and fêtes postponed. “What a disaster, what a tragedy, _mon
ami_; what a blow, what a calamity, _ma chère_.” Gloom—dear, wonderful
Coquelin _aîné_ was dead....
In the summer of 1909 M. Edmond Rostand, after spending four months in
seclusion at Cambo, returned to Paris; a few days later the rehearsals
of _Chantecler_ at the Porte St-Martin Theatre began. “Should anything
happen to me, you must ask Guitry to play my part,” had said Coquelin,
to the poet. M. Guitry, therefore, was appointed “Chantecler,” Madame
Simone, ex-Le Bargy, was made the Hen Pheasant. Gay, frisky M. Galipaux
was created Blackbird, M. Jean Coquelin, the great comedian’s son, chose
the rôle of the Dog. “Irrevocably in November,” stated the newspapers,
“we shall hear ‘Chantecler’ sound his first cocorico.” And Paris rejoiced
once again and was “thrilled.”
But, ah me, how that positive word, “irrevocable,” was misused! No
_Chantecler_ in November, no “Cocorico” in December—only multitudinous
newspaper _potins_ that constantly announced the postponement of the
event, and described “life” at the Porte St-Martin and in M. Rostand’s
hotel on the Champs Elysées. It was repeatedly stated that the poet,
after hot words with M. Guitry, had taken “the 9.39 train back to Cambo.”
It was asserted that Madame Simone had thrown her type-written rôle on
to the stage, stamped hysterically on the rôle, and left the theatre in
tears. It was furthermore reported that M. Guitry was about to undergo
an operation for cancer; that lively Galipaux was suffering from acute
melancholia; that M. Jean Coquelin, distracted, prematurely ancient
and infirm, had taken refuge in the Home at Pont-aux-Dames. Then, the
insinuation that Chantecler would never, never “cocorico.”... Nor,
according to the same newspaper _potins_, was “life” in M. Rostand’s
hotel more serene. He was as closely guarded as the Tsar of All the
Russias. Nevertheless, a waiter who served him was, in reality, a
Yellow Italian journalist; threatening letters and telegrams from
lunatics arrived by the score; and wizened old cranks sent the poet
baskets of feathers, with the solemn warning that unless these, and
only these feathers, were worn by the Cock and the Hen Pheasant, well,
M. Guitry and Madame Simone, and M. Rostand and _Chantecler_ would be
ridiculed, ruined, and done for.... In fine, what a November, what a
December—and what a January of the present year! And when MM. Hertz
and Jean Coquelin, the proprietors of the Porte St-Martin Theatre,
themselves announced that the first performance of _Chantecler_ would
be given on 28th January “_most irrevocably_,” how delirious became the
_potins_, and how agitated the Parisians! The great question was: Would
_Chantecler_ be a triumphant success, or only a moderate success, or a
catastrophe? To determine this problem, clairvoyantes—positively—were
consulted. And Madame Olga de Sonski, at present of the rue des Martyrs,
and late—so her card asserted—of Persia, Budapest, Cairo and Bond
Street—Madame de Sonski declared she already felt the Porte St-Martin,
massive theatre that it was, trembling, almost tottering, from applause.
But not so Madame Juliette de Magenta, of the rue des Ténèbres, from
Morocco, St Petersburg, Constantinople and Broadway: “I hear [_sic_] the
silence, the coldness, the gloom of disappointment and disapproval,”
funereally she said. However, in spite of Madame de Magenta’s lugubrious
prognostications, the news came that M. Rostand had disposed of the
publishing rights of _Chantecler_ for one million francs; that stalls
and dress-circle seats (for the box-office was now open) for the first
three performances were selling like wildfire at six pounds apiece;
that critics and millionaires from America, and French Ambassadors and
Ministers from divers parts of Europe, and even dark-skinned, dyspeptic
merchants from Buenos Ayres, were all hastening to Paris to hear the
“cocorico” of Chantecler. What excitement, what a whirl! For the
twentieth time it was rumoured that M. Rostand had taken “the 9.39 train
back to Cambo.” Now M. Guitry had appendicitis; and Madame Simone had
injured herself by falling through a trap-door. Nevertheless, the first
performance remained fixed “most irrevocably” for 28th January—on which
day many a quarter of Paris and most of the _banlieue_ were flooded.
So, another postponement. Successively, and always “positively
irrevocably,” it was announced that the great event would take place
on 31st January, 2nd February, 5th February and 6th February. And thus
the critics and millionaires from America, the French Ambassadors and
Ministers from divers European capitals, the merchants from Buenos Ayres
(looking sallow and bloodshot from the voyage) were detained in Paris at
much personal inconvenience and loss to themselves. Nothing would move
them until they had heard the clarion cry of—“Cocorico.” And M. Pichon,
Minister of Foreign Affairs, became uneasy at the prolonged sojourn of
the Ministers and Ambassadors. “Diplomatic relations between France and
many a foreign Power are interrupted,” he cried tragically, “and all
because of a cock and a hen pheasant.” Social life, too, was interrupted.
_Le Tout Paris_ refrained from issuing dinner invitations lest they
should clash with the first performance, and countermanded rooms engaged
weeks beforehand in the Riviera hotels.
A final rumour to the effect that M. Rostand had returned to Cambo
by the 9.39 train—a train which, by the way, does not figure in the
time-table. Another _canard_ stating that M. Guitry had contracted
typhoid fever through drinking water contaminated by the floods. A
third Yellow _potin_ reporting Madame Simone to have “mysteriously,”
“sensationally” disappeared. What chaos, what incoherency! And what a
scene in the Porte St-Martin when at last, on Sunday night, 6th February,
_Chantecler_, in the presence of the most brilliant audience yet
assembled in a Paris theatre, came, crowed and conquered.
A new handsome curtain, new carpets, new velvet fauteuils, programmes
printed on vellum, and red ribbons (also supplied by the management)
in the grisly hair of the middle-aged _ouvreuses_. “I have been an
_ouvreuse_ for twenty years, but never have I seen an audience so vast,
so animated, so _chic_,” said one of these ladies to me as she bundled
up my overcoat, pinned a ticket to it and dropped it on to the floor.
“Not a peg left,” she continued. “Immediately beneath your overcoat lies
the overcoat of Prince Murat. In the heap next to it is a Rothschild
overcoat. And as for that other pile of overcoats in the corner, all
fur-lined, all magnificent, well, they belong to ambassadors, dukes,
American millionaires, English milords, famous writers, politicians,
jockeys—all the great personages in the world. Thus, although it lies
on the floor, your overcoat is in illustrious company.” After warning
me that no one would be admitted into the theatre when the curtain
had risen, the _ouvreuse_ showed me to my seat, held out her hand, was
rewarded, and left me free to admire the jewels, feathers, dresses and
coiffures of _le Tout Paris_. All eyes—or rather opera-glasses—on the box
occupied by Madame Rostand and her two sons. In another box, M. Briand,
the Prime Minister. In the stalls, Academicians, generals, playwrights,
critics, newspaper proprietors, aviators, financiers, leading actors and
actresses. Everyone afoot, or rather on tip-toe, gossiping, laughing,
singling out celebrities with their glasses. But at ten minutes to nine
o’clock the three traditional thuds made by a mallet behind the curtain
(the signal in French theatres that the play is about to begin) caused
a hush. Everyone sat down. “_Chantecler_ at last,” said, emotionally, a
lady behind me. The curtain rose two or three inches. “_Pas encore, pas
encore_,” cried a voice. Consternation, dismay of _le Tout Paris_; was
the play again to be postponed, was it true that M. Rostand had taken
that 9.39 train, and that Madame Simone had “sensationally” disappeared,
and that M. Guitry—— “_Pas encore, pas encore!_” But it was—thank
heaven—only the voice of M. Jean Coquelin who appeared in the front of
the stalls in a dress-suit, mounted a footstool and recited the prologue
to M. Rostand’s fantastic, symbolical _chef-d’œuvre_.
It was a delightfully humorous description of the feathered inhabitants
of a farm-yard; and as M. Jean Coquelin continued to harangue the
audience eloquently from his footstool, the animals were heard becoming
impatient on the hidden stage.
A crowing of cocks. A cackling of geese. The stamping of a horse’s hoof.
The creaking of an old cart. The bray of a donkey. The miaow of a cat.
The hoot of an owl. The whistle of a blackbird. Then—distinctly—three
taps from a woodpecker: “_le bec d’un pivert a frappé les trois coups_”;
and with a cry of “The woodpecker says the play must commence,” M.
Coquelin disappeared, down went the lights: and up amidst thunders of
applause rose the curtain.
Before us, a farm-yard, not an inmate or an object of which is wanting.
White, black, grey and brown hens strut hither and thither, sharply
discussing the powers, vanities, infidelities of Chantecler, their lord
and master. Ducks and drakes, ganders and geese take sides for or against
the king of the yard. Now and again the lid of a vast wicker-work basket
opens, to reveal the head of the Old Hen—a very old hen, the doyenne of
the place, and Chantecler’s foster-mother. In her, of course, the cock
finds an ardent defender; but whenever the withered old head protrudes
from the basket the Blackbird, hopping about in his cage, holds forth
mockingly, ironically. For the Blackbird, like every other feathered
creature in the play, is symbolical. He represents the smart, shallow,
cynical Parisian, who scoffs at principles, ridicules genius, laughs
at love, denies the existence of disinterested friendship, and is
enormously pleased with his empty, impudent self. So he makes fun of the
Old Hen and of the white, black, grey and brown hens whilst they pay
naïve tributes to the supreme genius of Chantecler—the Cock of Cocks, the
superb creature whose clarion, peremptory call causes the sun to rise and
makes the world radiant, beautiful and cheerful. Chantecler has betrayed
the hens, but they nevertheless admire and love him. As the discussion
continues, bees, butterflies, wasps fly across the stage. On a pillar, a
cat dozes tranquilly in the sun. Two fluffy little chicks play at getting
in and out of a gigantic sabot. To the right, a huge dog’s kennel; in
the background a gigantic cart, with its shafts in the air. In a corner,
a set of enormous harness. The birds and beasts being of Brobdingnagian
sizes, the objects on the stage have been magnified in proportion. But
all is natural; never, from first to last, a note of extravagance,
grotesqueness. Well, on and on goes the discussion, and, as the Blackbird
sneers and scoffs, it becomes heated and shrill. “Silence; here he
comes, here he comes,” cries a pigeon. And not a sound is heard when
Chantecler appears, solemn, majestic, arrogant, on the poultry-yard wall.
The hens gather together, look up at him with submission, admiration.
The two chicks stop their game. The cat wakes up. Even the Blackbird
ceases hopping about in his cage. Magnificent, awe-inspiring, indeed,
is Chantecler in his dark green and light brown feather dress—“the
green of April and the ochre of October.” He is, as on the top of the
wall he recites his _Hymn to the Sun_, Cyrano de Bergerac in feathers.
He represents the artist, the creative genius, the dispenser of beauty
and spiritual light. If he be the lord over the other denizens of the
farm-yard, it is because they will have it so. They believe the sun rises
because Chantecler summons it with his shrill, imperious “Cocorico.” And
Chantecler, the Superb, believes it himself—believes it in spite of the
sceptical Blackbird. Chantecler, in fact, might stand for a great many
types besides the artistic; for example, the statesman who fancies he is
the creator of the social reforms that are advancing with civilisation
like a tide. “I adore thee, O sun,” begins Chantecler, his beak raised
towards the skies.
Je t’adore, Soleil! ô toi dont la lumière,
Pour bénir chaque front et mûrir chaque miel,
Entrant dans chaque fleur et dans chaque chaumière
Se divise et demeure entière
Ainsi que l’amour maternel!
...
Je t’adore, Soleil! Tu mets dans l’air des roses,
Des flammes dans la source, un dieu dans le buisson!
Tu prends un arbre obscur, et tu l’apothéoses!
O Soleil! toi sans qui les choses
Ne seraient que ce qu’elles sont!
Night falls, and Chantecler sends his subjects to bed. Then he and
Patou, the dog philosopher, discuss the situation in the farm-yard.
Excellent Patou might be Anatole France’s M. Bergeret. He despises the
pert, cynical Blackbird. He denounces the snobbishness, the vanity,
the vulgarity of the age. He is for calm, for reflection, for—— A shot
is heard, the Hen Pheasant flies in and implores Chantecler to protect
her from the hunter. She nestles under the Cock’s wing; she looks up at
him admiringly, tenderly—and proud, gallant, idealistic Chantecler there
and then falls in love with the gorgeous black, gold and red Pheasant.
Majestically Chantecler struts round and round her, his chest thrown
outwards, his beak in the air. Curiously, somewhat disdainfully, the Hen
Pheasant surveys the farm-yard. It strikes her as poor, sordid, such an
obscure little corner of the world. How different from the beauty, the
spaciousness, the grandeur of her forest!
_La Faisane._
Mais tous ces objets sont pauvres et moroses!
_Chantecler._
Moi, je n’en reviens pas du luxe de ces choses!
_La Faisane._
Tout est toujours pareil, pourtant.
_Chantecler._
Rien n’est pareil,
Jamais, sous le soleil, à cause du soleil!
Car Elle change tout!
_La Faisane._
Elle... Qui?
_Chantecler._
La lumière.
Ardently, enthusiastically, then, Chantecler tells the Hen Pheasant
how daylight, as it changes, floods the objects in the farm-yard with
ever-varying colours. That geranium is never twice the same red. Patou’s
kennel, the sabot stuffed with straw, the rusty old pitchfork—not for two
successive moments do they look the same. A rake in a corner, a flower
in a vase, as they change colour in the rays of the sun, fill idealistic
Chantecler with ecstasy.
Still, the Hen Pheasant is not very much impressed. She consents,
nevertheless, to pass the night in Patou’s kennel, which the
dog-philosopher obligingly gives up to her. Owls, with huge, luminous
eyes, appear. Bats dash about in the air. A mole creeps forth. As they
love darkness and detest light, they fancy if Chantecler dies the night
will last for ever. “I hate him,” they say, one after another.—“Je
commence à l’aimer,” says the Hen Pheasant, womanlike, when she thus
hears that Chantecler is in danger.
Owls, bats, the Cat, the Blackbird and strange night creatures are
assembled beneath the branches of a huge tree, when the curtain rises on
the second act. The Big Owl chants an Ode to the Night. “Vive la Nuit,”
cry his brethren, at intervals, in a hoarse chorus. It is determined that
Chantecler must die. At five o’clock in the morning, when the Guinea-Fowl
holds a reception, a terrific fighting-cock shall insult, attack and
slay Chantecler. “Vive la Nuit,” cry the night-birds, their eyes shining
luridly in the darkness. But when a “Cocorico” sounds in the distance the
night creatures fly away, and Chantecler, followed by the Hen Pheasant,
struts on to the dim stage. “Tell me,” pleads the Pheasant, “the secret
of your power.” At first Chantecler refuses, then hesitates, then in a
glorious outburst he declares that the sun cannot rise until he has sung
his song. It is perhaps the noblest, the most exquisite passage in the
play.
Here is the last verse:
Je pense à la lumière, et non pas à la gloire,
Chanter, c’est ma façon de me battre et de croire.
Et si de tous les chants mon chant est le plus fier,
C’est que je chante clair afin qu’il fasse clair.
“But if,” asks the Hen Pheasant, “the skies are clouded and grey?”
_Chantecler._
Si le ciel est gris, c’est que j’ai mal chanté.
_La Faisane._
Il est tellement beau, qu’il semble avoir raison.
Majestically, Chantecler struts to and fro beneath the branches of the
trees. Humbly, admiringly, the Hen Pheasant watches his perambulations.
Night has passed, daybreak is near; the skies above the hillock on which
Chantecler is standing turn from black to purple, and next from purple to
dark grey. “Look and listen,” says Chantecler. He digs his claws firmly
into the turf; he throws his chest out; he raises his head heavenwards:
“Cocorico... Cocorico... Cocorico.” And gradually, delicately, the
skies light up; birds twitter, cottages stand out in the distance, the
tramp of the peasant on his way to the fields tells that the day’s work
has begun—shafts of golden light fall upon the majestic Chantecler and
illuminate the plumage of the graceful, beautiful Hen Pheasant.
And now, in a kitchen garden, the Guinea-Fowl’s “five o’clock”—a worldly,
fashionable reception—at five o’clock in the morning! It is a satire
on elegant Paris _salons_; what tittle-tattle, what scandalmongering,
what epigrams, paradoxes and puns! At a weather-stained old gate stands
the Magpie. One of the first guests he ceremoniously announces is the
Peacock—the _grande dame_, to whom her hostess, the snobbish Guinea-Fowl,
makes a profound curtsy. (The Peacock’s tail is a miracle of ingenuity;
the actress can spread it out fanwise, raise it, let it drop, at will.)
Then, one after another, arrives an endless procession of cocks. “The
Golden Cock; the Silver Cock; the Cock from Bagdad; the Cock from
Cochin China; the Scotch Grey Cock; the Bantam Cock; the Cock without
Claws; M. le Doyen of All the Cocks,” announces the Magpie. Bows from
these multitudinous Cocks to the Guinea-Fowl, to the Peacock and to the
Blackbird. In all, forty-three amazing Cocks, each of whom is jealous of
Chantecler; who eventually appears at the gateway with the Hen Pheasant.
“Announce me, simply, as _the_ Cock,” proudly says Chantecler. “_Le_
Coq,” cries the Magpie. And the trouble begins.
Coldness from the Guinea-Fowl, scorn from the Peacock, mockery from
the Blackbird, and insults from the Prize Fighting Cock, who has been
commissioned by the uncanny, unwholesome Night Birds to slay idealistic,
sun-loving Chantecler. Then, the duel, which ends in the victory of THE
Cock, and the pain and humiliation of the prize-fighter. All the Cocks,
from M. le Doyen down to the Cock without Claws, are dismayed. The
Peacock is disgusted; the Guinea-Fowl is dejected at the wretched failure
of her “five o’clock”—only the smart, irrepressible Blackbird keeps
things going. But not for long. Contemptuously, Chantecler turns upon
him; taunts him with his vain, miserable endeavour to imitate the true,
delightful wit, gaiety and genius of the Sparrow—the _gavroche_—of Paris.
The Parisian Sparrow is flippant, but warm-hearted. He laughs, he scoffs,
he whistles, he swaggers, but he is faithful and brave. But you, wretched
Blackbird, are a coward. You, shallow creature, are a sneak. And then the
line that would have rejoiced the heart of Victor Hugo: “Il faut savoir
mourir pour s’appeler Gavroche.”
A month passes. The last Act represents the Hen Pheasant’s forest,
where she and Chantecler are spending their honeymoon. For the bird has
enticed the Cock away from the farm-yard; and thus, distress of his old
foster-mother, and much indignation amongst the white, grey, brown and
black hens.
Night in the forest, and how beautifully depicted! Up in a tree sits a
solemn woodpecker; below him, around a huge mushroom, a number of toads
with glistening eyes are assembled. Then, a gigantic cobweb, and in the
middle of it, a spider. Here and there, rabbits peep out of their holes.
Everywhere, birds. “It is time,” says the solemn woodpecker to them, “for
you to say your prayers.”
_Une Voix [dans les arbres]._
Dieu des oiseaux!...
_Une Autre Voix._
Ou plutôt—car il sied avant tout de s’entendre
Et le vautour n’a pas le Dieu de la calandre!
Dieu des petits oiseaux!...
_Mille Voix [dans les feuilles]._
Dieu des petits oiseaux!...
_Une Autre Voix._
Et vous, François, grand saint, bénisseur de nos ailes....
_Toutes les Voix._
Priez pour nous!
_Une Voix._
Obtenez-nous, François d’Assise,
Le grain d’orge...
_La Seconde Voix._
Le grain de blé...
_D’autres Voix._
Le grain de mil...
_La Première Voix._
Ainsi soit-il!
_Toutes les Voix._
Ainsi soit-il!
At length, when Chantecler appears, we perceive that there is something
wrong with the Cock. “Does not my forest please you?” asks the Hen
Pheasant tenderly. “Oh yes,” replies Chantecler half-heartedly. The fact
is, he pines after the farm-yard. Every night in the forest he telephones
to the Blackbird, through the flower of the bindweed, for news of his old
foster-mother, the hens, the chicks, the dog Patou. Then the Hen Pheasant
is jealous of his love for the sun. Cruelly, she has insisted that he is
to crow only once every day.
But it is the Hen Pheasant’s design to make Chantecler forget the dawn.
He, of the farm-yard, has never heard the song of the nightingale. So
glorious are her notes that Chantecler, the poet, the idealist, will be
enraptured by them—and lose count of time.
And the nightingale sings; and Chantecler, enthralled, listens
attentively—and as he stands there, spellbound, beneath the nightingale’s
tree,—_the sun rises and lights up the forest_.
A peal of mocking laughter betrays the presence of the Blackbird. So it
is not the imperious “Cocorico” who summons the sun! So the day breaks
without Chantecler’s shrill crow! At first the Cock refuses to admit it:
“That is the sun I summoned yesterday.” But when his illusions are gone
he returns, humbled but not despairing, to the farm-yard. If he has not
the supreme power to create the day, at least he can herald it.
When Chantecler has vanished, the Hen Pheasant, out of love for the Cock,
deliberately flies into a trap set by the owner of the poultry yard. She
remembers Chantecler having described the farmer as an admirable man:
Car le propriétaire est un végétarien.
C’est un homme étonnant. Il adore les bêtes.
Il leur donne des noms qu’il prend dans les poètes.
So the farmer, after releasing the Hen Pheasant from the trap, will
restore her to Chantecler.
More and more golden becomes the forest. A strident “Cocorico” from the
distance announces Chantecler’s return to the yard. When footsteps are
heard, the birds stop singing. And the curtain falls.
It falls on a _chef-d’œuvre_.
X
AFTER _CHANTECLER_
More than a fortnight has passed since I witnessed the dress rehearsal of
_Chantecler_: and what an odd, what an exhausting fortnight it has been!
First of all dreams—or rather nightmares. Strangely, preposterously, I
am majestic, cock-crowing “Chantecler” himself. A few minutes later,
with wild, delirious rapidity, I turn into the Blackbird. M. Rostand’s
Blackbird can hop in and out of his cage, and mingle with the hens, the
ducks, the fluffy little chicks, and the other feathered creatures in the
farm-yard; but I—am a prisoner in my cage—no one heeds my cries, no one
releases me, and to add to my panic huge owls with shining eyes gather
around my cage and hoot lugubriously at me.
Nor is this all. I get hopelessly entangled in the gigantic cobweb,
which is one of the most wonderful scenic effects of the Fourth Act (the
“Hen Pheasant’s Forest”) of _Chantecler_. Also I stumble over the great
toadstools, fall heavily to the ground; and the gorgeous Hen Pheasant
herself appearing, I feel humiliated and ashamed that so elegant and
beautiful a creature should find me sprawling thus awkwardly on the
turf. “What a nuisance these toadstools are,” I observe. “What are you
doing in my forest? Leave it immediately,” commands the Hen Pheasant. But
I have sprained my ankle; impossible to rise, even to move. And I burst
into tears, and I implore the beautiful Pheasant to pardon me, and then a
great bat gets caught in my hair, and——
Enough. Although my sufferings in these nightmares have been acute, I
have one thing to be thankful for. Up to now I have not been attacked,
as “Chantecler” is in the Third Act, by a fierce, bloodthirsty Prize
Fighting Cock.
Gracious goodness, this _Chantecler_! Rising unrefreshed from my
troubled, restless sleep, I find, on the breakfast-table, letters from
London, Birmingham, Manchester, which show that M. Edmond Rostand’s
masterpiece has interested those cities as much as it has agitated and
excited Paris.
“MY DEAR BOY” (writes a frail, silver-haired and very charming
old lady who gave me half-crowns in my schooldays),—“I live
very much out of the world, as old people should do; but I
confess to my curiosity having been aroused by a very peculiar
play now being acted in Paris. I mean _Chantecler_, by a M.
Edmond Rostand. It seems that the characters in it—if one can
call them characters?—are animals. How very remarkable! I
wonder how it can be done! Such things are seen, of course,
in pantomimes (do you remember my taking you to Drury Lane
Theatre many, many years ago to see _Puss-in-Boots_?). But
the newspapers here say that this play is wonderfully natural,
and full of true poetry and feeling. When you can spare
half-an-hour, pray satisfy an old lady’s curiosity by giving
her an account of the piece.”
Then, with innumerable dashes, exclamation marks, and words underlined,
the following appeal from fascinating, lovely, irresistible Miss Ethel
Tempest:—
“Of course, lucky man, you have seen _Chantecler_, and if you
don’t tell me all about it by return of post I shall never
write to you, and never look at you, and never speak to you
again. I don’t want to know anything about the plot of the
play, as I have read all about that in the papers. You have
got to be a dear, and tell me about the hat that Madame Simone
wears as the Hen Pheasant. It’s made of straw and feathers,
and it’s going to be the rage in London. Sybil Osborne tells
me chic Parisiennes are wearing it already. No; on second
thoughts, send me all the fashionable illustrated papers that
give sketches of the hat. As you’re a man, you won’t understand
it. Mind, _all_ the papers: you can’t send enough. If you could
get a special sketch done by one of your artist friends in the
Latin Quarter, it would be lovely.”
Well, of course I write to the gentle, kindly silver-haired lady who
once took me to a Drury Lane pantomime; and of course, too, I send
illustrated papers—thirteen of them—to exquisite Miss Tempest, and ask
Raoul Fauchois, a gay, sympathetic art student, to “do” me a sketch of
the Hen Pheasant’s straw hat. He consents, and I fancy he will keep his
promise. “Naturally, the sketch is not for you,” he says, at once wisely
and poetically. “It is for one of those blonde English misses whose
_chevelure_, so radiant, so golden, lights up the sombre streets of old
London. You may rely upon me, _mon pauvre ami_. I understand; I know
exactly how you feel—for I myself have had affairs of the heart.”
Again, always from London and the provinces, requests for picture post
cards of the principal scenes in _Chantecler_; for gilt brooches (3 f. 50
c. in the tawdry shops of the rue de Rivoli) representing “Chantecler”
crowing and crowing with his chest thrown outwards and his beak raised
heavenwards; for the Porte St-Martin theatre programme of _Chantecler_;
and for—“if you possibly can manage it”—the autograph of M. Edmond
Rostand.
And then a telegram:
“Wife and self arrive Gare du Nord Wednesday 5.45. Please meet
us. Not understanding French wish you accompany us see and
interpret _Chantecler_.”
What worry, what exhaustion!
“Monsieur would be kind to explain this extraordinary ‘Chantecler’ to
me. I am from the country, and have had much to do with poultry; but I
have never seen a cock like Chantecler,” says my servant, a simple, naïve
soul from Normandy.
Then my concierge, a practical lady: “But it’s ridiculous, but it’s mad!
Cocks and hens cannot even speak, and yet this M. Rostand makes them
recite poetry. What is France coming to? What will be the end of us all?
Think, just think, what has been happening since the New Year. That
sinister comet, the terrible floods, and now _Chantecler_.”
Very unwisely, I explain to my servant and to my concierge that M.
Rostand’s glorious _chef-d’œuvre_ is symbolical.
_Chantecler_ is a symbolic play in verse.
The feathered creatures in the farm-yard represent human beings.
“Chantecler” himself is the artist, the idealist. The Hen Pheasant is the
coquettish, seductive, brilliant woman of the world. The Blackbird——
But here I stop, silenced by the startled expression of the concierge
and the servant. It is plain they think I have become irresponsible,
light-headed. “Monsieur is tired. Monsieur should lie down and rest.
Monsieur is not quite himself,” says my servant.
“The comet—the floods—_Chantecler_, have been too much for Monsieur,”
sighs the concierge.
XI
AU COURS D’ASSISES. PARIS AND MADAME STEINHEIL
It was not by reason of baccarat losses, duels, matrimonial disputes, nor
because of the aches of indigestion nor of the indefinable miseries of
neurasthenia, worries and ailments common enough in French Vanity Fair—it
was not, I say, for any of these reasons that fashionable and financial
Paris, sporting and theatrical Paris, certain worldly lights of literary
and artistic Paris, and the extravagant, feverish _demi-monde_ of Paris,
woke up on the morning of the 3rd November[5] in an exceedingly bad
temper. Nor yet was their displeasure occasioned by the weather—London
weather—all fog, damp and gloom. The fact was, at noon was to begin the
first sitting of the great Steinheil trial, to which the above-mentioned
ornaments of _le Tout Paris_ had been excitedly looking forward for many
a month. All that time they had been worrying, agitating, intriguing to
obtain the official yellow ticket that would entitle them to behold with
their own eyes—O, dramatic, thrilling spectacle—the “Tragic Widow’s”
entrance into the dock, and to hear with their own ears—O palpitating,
overwhelming experience—the secret history of an essentially Parisian
_cause célèbre_. The trial would be the event of the autumn season, a
function no self-respecting _mondain_, _mondaine_ or _demi-mondaine_
could afford to miss. And so, as the accommodation in the Court of
Assizes is limited, the campaign to secure cards of admission became
ardent, fierce, and then (as the sensational day of the 3rd November
approached) delirious. Off, by footmen, chauffeurs, special messengers,
went scented little notes to judges and famous lawyers, and to deputies,
senators and ministers, imploring those distinguished personages to
“remember” the writer when the hour arrived for the precious yellow
tickets to be distributed. “_Mon cher ami_,” wrote Madame la Comtesse de
la Tour, “if you forget me I shall never, never forgive you.” Then, with
a blot or two, and in a primitive, scrawling handwriting, Mademoiselle
Giselle de Perle of the half-world: “_Mon vieux gros_, I count upon you
for the trial. If you fail me, your little blonde Pauline will show
her claws. And the claws of this blonde child can be terrible.” (It
is shocking to think that blonde Giselle de Perle should be on such
familiar terms with gentlemen in high places; but as a matter of fact she
and her sisters play a very important rôle in the life of the Amazing
City.) As for stout, diamond-covered Baronne Goldstein (wife of old
bald-headed Goldstein of the Bourse), she invited judges and deputies
to rich, elaborate dinners, at which the oldest, the mellowest, the
most comforting wines from her cellars were produced; and when M. le
Juge and M. le Député had been rendered genial and benevolent by those
rare, warming vintages, she led them into a corner of Goldstein’s vast
gilded _salon_, and there besought them, while breathing heavily under
her breastplate of diamonds, to procure for her “just one little yellow
ticket.” Naturally, all these State officials replied with a bow: “I
will do my best. Need I say that it is my dearest desire to oblige you?”
And our ornaments of _le Tout Paris_ were satisfied; already regarded
that ticket of tickets as being safe and sound in their possession.
When October dawned, Madame la Comtesse, lively Pauline Boum and stout
Baronne Goldstein ordered striking dresses and huge, complicated hats
for the Steinheil _cause célèbre_. In their respective _salons_, over
their “five o’clock’s” of pale tea, sugared cakes, and crystal glasses of
port, malaga and madeira, they excitedly described how they had driven
to the tranquil, ivy-covered villa in the Impasse Ronsin where Madame
Steinheil’s husband and mother had been assassinated on the night of
the 30th-31st May eighteen months ago. And how, after that expedition,
they had proceeded to beautiful Bellevue, seven miles out of Paris, to
stare at that other villa, the “Vert Logis,” where the “Tragic Widow”
received her lovers. How they gossiped, too, over the intrigue between
the accused woman and the late President Félix Faure; and what fun they
made of certain high State dignitaries who were said to be in a state of
“panic” because they had been habitués of the Steinheil villas! “I would
not miss the trial for the largest and finest diamond in the world,”
declared these ladies. “It will be extraordinary, overwhelming, supreme,”
exclaimed the male guests at these tea-and-madeira afternoon parties. “We
shall still be discussing it this time next year.”
Suddenly, however, consternation, indignation, fury, hysteria, in _le
Tout Paris_. In an official decree, M. de Valles, the judge appointed to
preside over the Steinheil “debates,” intimated that all those scented
notes had been written, all those elaborate dinners had been given, all
those striking dresses and complicated hats had been ordered, and tried
on I don’t know how many times—_in vain_. “I have,” stated M. de Valles,
“received over 25,000 applications for tickets of admission, and every
one of them I have refused. Only the diplomatic corps, the Bar, and a
certain number of French and foreign journalists will be admitted. Let
it be clearly understood that this decision of mine is irrevocable.”
Gracious powers, the commotion! _Le Tout Paris_ protested, raged, until
it wore itself out with anger and hysteria. “I have made thousands of
enemies. Even my wife’s friends refuse to speak to me,” said M. de Valles
to an interviewer. True to his word, the judge remained inexorable.
Passionate letters to him remained unanswered; to all visitors he was
invisible. Hence the exceedingly bad temper of _le Tout Paris_ on that
foggy, gloomy morning of the 3rd of November. And thus for the first
time on record the heroine of an essentially Parisian _cause célèbre_
entered the dock of the dim, oblong, oak-panelled Court of Assizes,
secure from the laughter, the mockery, and the opera-glasses of French
Vanity Fair.
An extraordinary woman, Madame Steinheil. Imagine Sarah Bernhardt in
some supremely tragical rôle—pathetic, threatening; tender, violent;
despairing, tearful; wrecked with indignation, suffering and exhaustion,
and you will gain an idea of the “Tragic Widow’s” demeanour during the
ten days’ dramatic trial. Her voice, like the incomparable Sarah’s,
was now melodious and persuasive, then hoarse, bitter, frenzied; when
she wept, it subsided into a moan or a broken whisper. Never even in
Paris (where a widow’s weeds are perhaps excessively lugubrious) have
I seen deeper mourning: heavy crape bands round the accused woman’s
black dress, stiff crape bows in the widow’s cap, a deep crape border
to the handkerchief which she clenched tightly, convulsively, in her
black-gloved hand. Then, under her eyes, dark, dark shadows, which turned
green as the trial tragically wore on. Her face, deadly pale, but for
the hectic spot burning fiercely in each cheek. Her eyes, blue. Her
hair, dark brown. Her ears, small and delicate; her mouth, sensitive,
tremulous, eloquent. Her only _coquetterie_, the low, square-cut opening
in the neck of her dress.
Wistfully, wretchedly, she glanced around the court, after M. de Valles,
the presiding judge, had given her permission to sit down. Then her eyes
fell upon a grim table placed immediately beneath the Bench: and she
shuddered. It was grim because it contained the _pièces à conviction_—the
alpenstock found near the late M. Steinheil’s body, the coil of rope with
which he and his mother-in-law had been strangled, the famous bottle
of brandy with the innumerable finger-prints, the wadding lying on the
floor by the side of Madame Japy’s bed. Then, M. de Valles, in his
rasping voice, asked the “Tragic Widow” the usual preliminary questions
concerning her parentage, domicile and age. Almost inaudibly, Madame
Steinheil replied. And the trial began.
Unfortunately, I have neither the space nor the time at my disposal
to render even a tolerably satisfactory account of this overwhelming
_cause célèbre_. “Impressions” are all I can offer, mixed up with
brief descriptions of what the French journalist calls “incidents in
court”; and even these “impressions” and “incidents” must necessarily be
compressed and disconnected. For the slightness of my recital, I beg the
indulgence of my readers.
“Messieurs les Jurés, I swear I am innocent. Messieurs les Jurés, I
adored my mother. Messieurs les Jurés, do not believe the abominable
things the President is saying about me,” was the “Tragic Widow’s” first
passionate outburst. Then, turning round upon M. de Valles: “You are
treating me atrociously.”
“I am treating you as you deserve,” was the reply.
For the first two days, M. de Valles assumed the office of public
prosecutor, or rather of high inquisitor—and the “Tragic Widow” was
on the rack. The judge in the black-and-red robes sneered, stormed,
threatened, bullied; and turned constantly to the jury with a shrug of
the shoulders as though to say: “She denies everything. She has never
told anything but lies, and now she is lying again.” Over again and
again he brutally accused Madame Steinheil of having assassinated her
mother, but never did the accused woman fail to leap up from her chair
with the cry: “I adored my mother. Messieurs les Jurés, I swear I adored
her.” Another shrug of M. de Valles’ shoulders, and another cynical
smile at the jury, when Madame Steinheil spoke of her devotion to her
eighteen-year-old daughter. “I love her, and she loves me more fondly
than ever—because she believes in my innocence. She has written me the
tenderest letters and has visited me constantly in prison. She helped to
make the black dress I am wearing.” And further gestures expressive of
impatient incredulity on the part of M. de Valles when the “Tragic Widow”
shrieked: “Yes; I have been a bad woman. Yes; I have been an immoral
woman. Yes; I made false, wicked accusations against Remy Couillard and
Alexandre Wolff. But I am not an assassin, a fiend. And only a fiend
could murder her mother.” Here the shriek stopped. For some moments
the “Tragic Widow” cried bitterly. Then, in Sarah Bernhardt’s melodious
voice, she thus addressed the jury: “Gentlemen, I am deeply repentant for
all the wrong I have done. Please realise that I was mad—that I was being
tortured—when I made those false, atrocious accusations. I was being
tortured by the examining magistrate and by the journalists who invaded
my villa and refused to leave it until they had obtained sensational
‘copy’ for their papers. These journalists told me that nobody believed
in my story, and that I had better tell a new one. They said my villa
was surrounded by a hostile mob, come there to lynch me. It was they
who suggested that I should accuse Alexandre Wolff and Remy Couillard.
They tortured me until they made me say what they liked. It was no doubt
splendid material for their papers: but the result was disastrous for
me. Do you know, gentlemen of the jury, that it was actually in a motor
car belonging to the _Matin_ that I was driven to the St Lazare prison?”
And the “Tragic Widow” collapsed in her chair, covered her face with
her hand, sobbed convulsively. At this point the two or three hundred
barristers in court murmured compassionately: and M. de Valles called
them to order by rapping his paper-cutter on his massive silver inkstand.
(M. de Valles, by the way, was for ever rapping his paper-cutter, for
ever wiping his brow with a huge handkerchief, for ever sinking back in
his handsome, comfortable fauteuil, and then suddenly darting forward to
hurl some savage remark at the accused.) Irritated by the compassionate
demonstration of the barristers, unmoved by the shaking and sobbing
of the black-dressed woman in the dock, M. de Valles pointed to the
grim table containing the _pièces de conviction_, and cried: “Look at
that horrible table, and confess; and shed real, not crocodile, tears.
You have stated that on the night of the crime you were bound down
and gagged by three men in black robes and by a red-headed woman, who
entered your room with a dark lantern and then—after they had bound and
gagged you, and after you yourself had lost consciousness—assassinated
poor M. Steinheil and the unfortunate Madame Japy. Nobody believes you;
your story is a tissue of falsehoods. It was you who, with the help of
accomplices, murdered your husband and your mother.”
But let us not be too hard upon M. de Valles for his savage treatment
of Madame Steinheil. He had considerately protected her from the cruel
curiosity and impertinence of _le Tout Paris_; and then it was his
legitimate rôle to attempt by continuous ruthless bullying to extract
a confession from his pale-faced, exhausted martyr. For in France the
word “judge,” as we understand it, is a misnomer. The French judge is
the real public prosecutor, the chief cross-examiner; save for the
jury, he would be all-powerful. But as the twelve men “good and true”
are chosen from the justice-loving French people at large, M. le Juge’s
drastic, brutal insinuations and accusations cannot alone bring about
a condemnation. It is for the jury to decide. It remains with the jury
to condemn. And at one o’clock in the morning of the 14th November the
jurors in the Steinheil _cause célèbre_—workmen, mechanics, _petits
commerçants_—demonstrated their inherent love and sense of justice by——
But I am anticipating events. Let us return to the crowded, stifling
Court of Assizes; and then take a stroll in the marble corridors of the
Paris Law Courts, where, throughout the Steinheil trial, wooden barriers
barred the way to all those not provided with the precious yellow ticket;
and where groups of policemen, and of Municipal and Republican Guards
were discussing—like every other soul in Paris—this incomprehensible,
amazing _cause célèbre_.
A change in M. de Valles on the third day of the trial. Respecting
her tears, refraining from shrugging his shoulders at her repeated
protestations of innocence, the judge treated the “Tragic Widow” as a
human being; even with courtesy and compassion. This metamorphosis was
due, I believe, to a hint received from high quarters, where (so I have
since been assured) the strong protests of the Paris correspondents of
the English and American newspapers against the French judicial system,
had made an impression. But in the opinion of Henri Rochefort, Madame
Steinheil’s savage assailant in the columns of the Nationalist _Patrie_,
the “judge had been bought.” With his gaunt, yellow face, tumbled white
hair, angry grey eyes, the ruthless old journalist and agitator was
the most conspicuous figure in the press-box. To his colleagues and to
the barristers around him, he also accused Madame Steinheil of having
murdered the late Félix Faure. “She was in the pay of the Dreyfusards,”
he said, in his hoarse voice, “and the Dreyfusards knew that so long as
Faure lived there would be no revision. So they commissioned the woman
Steinheil, his mistress, to assassinate him.” After which he sucked
lozenges (fierce old Rochefort is always and always sucking lozenges in
order to ease the hoarseness in his throat), and next proceeded to begin
his article for the _Patrie_, in which he referred to Madame Steinheil as
the “Black Panther”! I fancy, too, that it was Rochefort’s bold design to
magnetise—even to mesmerise—the jury! At all events, when not writing or
accusing, he kept his angry grey eyes fixed hard on the foreman. A good
thing the “Tragic Widow” could not see him from her seat in the dock.
Henri Rochefort’s gaunt yellow face, when lit up luridly with hatred and
vindictiveness, is enough to make anyone falter and quail.
But as M. de Valles was calm, Madame Steinheil felt more at ease; and,
apart from occasional tears and comparatively few outbursts, the “Tragic
Widow” remained composed during the six long, stifling afternoons
occupied by the evidence of the eighty-seven witnesses. Of these, of
course, I can take only the most important. Let us begin with Mr
Burlingham, an American painter and journalist, aged twenty-eight.
Poor, poor Mr Burlingham! It will be remembered that Madame Steinheil
described the assassins of her husband and mother as three men in black
robes, and a red-headed woman. Well, just because Mr Burlingham had
hired a black robe from a costumier’s for a fancy-dress ball a few
nights before the murder, he was suspected, shadowed and worried by the
detective police. One day the police stationed Madame Steinheil outside
his door, and when he sauntered out and walked off, the “Tragic Widow”
exclaimed: “Yes, that is one of the assassins. I recognise him by his
red beard.” But as on the night of the murder Mr Burlingham was far away
in Switzerland with two friends on a walking-tour, he had no difficulty
in establishing a decisive _alibi_. Nevertheless, Mr Burlingham became
notorious. His photographs appeared in the newspapers. He was followed
here, there and everywhere by Yellow Reporters: who described him as
the “enigmatic Burlingham,” and the “sinister Burlingham”—and yet Mr
Burlingham, with his light red beard, gentle green eyes, low voice and
kindly expression is, in reality, the simplest and mildest-looking
mortal that ever breathed. What humiliations, what indignities,
nevertheless, had Mr Burlingham to endure! His landlord gave him notice,
his tradespeople ceased calling for orders; when out walking in the
neighbourhood he inhabited, concierges exclaimed: “There goes the
famous Burlingham,” while little boys cried: “Here comes the sinister
Burlingham.” Once, after calling on a friend who was out, he left his
name with the concierge—and the concierge, panic-stricken, fled her
lodge, and, rushing into the next house, breathlessly told her neighbour
that she had seen the “terrible Burlingham.” In fact, an intolerable time
of it for mild, simple Mr Burlingham.
“I have narrowly escaped the guillotine,” were his first words to the
judge; and the Court laughed. The American should have engaged an
interpreter: his French and his accent were deplorable. “This Steinheil
affair is not clear,” he continued, naïvely, and everyone shook with
delight. “I am very sorry you have been so badly treated,” said M.
de Valles, “but you fell under suspicion because you had eccentric
habits, and mixed with eccentric people.” M. de Valles’ idea of
“eccentric” habits and “eccentric” people was in itself eccentric. For Mr
Burlingham’s friends and associates during his sojourn in Paris have been
painters, sculptors, and journalists of talent and honourable standing.
As for his habits, they have been those of a firm believer in the “simple
life.” Sandals for Mr Burlingham; no hat; terrific walking-tours. Then
a diet of rice, grapes and nuts. (In the buffet of the Law Courts Mr
Burlingham, when invited to take a “drink,” ordered grapes: he consumed
I don’t know how many bunches a day, to the stupefaction of the waiters
and customers.) Well, after having received apologies from the judge, Mr
Burlingham received those of counsel for the defence and the prosecution.
“Excuses are scarcely enough,” replied the witness; “I should like to
say something about the French judicial system.” At which, M. de Valles,
rapping his paper-cutter, sternly requested simple, unfortunate Mr
Burlingham to “retire.”
Murmurs, exclamations, excitement in court when M. Marcel Hutin, of the
_Echo de Paris_, and MM. Labruyère and Barby, of the _Matin_—the three
journalists who bullied and “tortured” Madame Steinheil in the Impasse
Ronsin Villa on the night previous to her arrest—strode up to the short
wooden bar that takes the place, in France, of a witness-box.
No confusion, no shame about them; and yet their conduct in the
drawing-room of the Steinheil villa twelve months ago was despicable.
Calmly they admitted having advised the “Tragic Widow” to “tell a new
story,” as no one in Paris believed in her account of how the double
crime had been committed. They also admitted having lied to the wretched
woman, when they had told her that the villa was surrounded by a hostile
mob, “come there to lynch her.” Madame Steinheil, they continued, was
exhausted, out of her mind. She called for strychnine, with which to
poison herself. Downstairs in the kitchen the cook, Mariette Wolff,
was discovered on her knees, striving to cut open the tube of the
gas-stove—to asphyxiate herself. The cook then produced a revolver, and
cried: “Here is the only means of salvation.” Later on, tea was served
in the drawing-room. M. Marcel Hutin and his two colleagues continued to
browbeat Madame Steinheil. One of the Yellow Reporters cried: “I shall
not leave this house until I know the truth.” Mariette Wolff entered the
drawing-room and tried to soothe her mistress. And——
“So you tortured Madame Steinheil in her drawing-room. You drank her
tea. You were her guests, she was your hostess,” interrupted M. de
Valles, scathingly, indignantly. The “Tragic Widow,” leaning forward on
the ledge of the dock, looked gratefully, thankfully, at the judge. The
three Yellow Reporters strode out of court, each of them provoking angry
exclamations from the barristers as they importantly passed by.
And then, the cook—Mariette Wolff, who had been in Madame Steinheil’s
service for over twenty years; and who, according to the Yellow Press,
“possessed all the secrets of the palpitating Steinheil Mystery.” Henri
Rochefort, M. Arthur Meyer (director of the _Gaulois_, very Jewish in
appearance, but a strong Anti-Semite and an ardent Catholic in politics),
Madame Séverine (the famous woman journalist), four very charming
lady barristers, all their male confrères—everyone, in fact, sprang
up excitedly when Mariette made her long-expected appearance. She has
since been described as a peasant out of one of Zola’s novels, and as
“the double of Balzac’s fiendish Cousine Bette.” She has also been
termed “a fury,” and “a rat” and “a monster.” For my part, when first I
saw her through the open door of the witness-room, sipping a steaming
grog and chatting and laughing with her son Alexandre, I summed her up
as the French double of a typical English charwoman. She was wearing a
battered black bonnet and a seedy black dress, and came to me more as a
Dickensonian than a Zolaesque or a Balzacien character. But Mariette,
happily drinking grog, and Mariette, facing a jury and judge, are two
very different persons. In court, Madame Steinheil’s ex-cook was defiant,
vindictive, violent. As she defended her former mistress, her beady,
black eyes flashed, her chin and nose almost met—her yellow, knotted hand
beat the air. Yes, she was a “fury”; yes—to use the French journalist’s
pet epithet—she looked “sinister.” And, oh dear me, her abuse of the
Yellow Reporters! Mariette’s crude language cannot be reproduced here.
It became particularly strong when she related how she had ordered MM.
Hutin, Barby and Labruyère out of the Impasse Ronsin Villa. It grew even
stronger when she denied their allegations that she intended first of
all to asphyxiate herself, and then to blow out her brains. She denied
everything. “My mistress is innocent,” she cried. “She accused my son
Alexandre of being a murderer, but it was those —— journalists who made
her do that, and I forgive her: and so does Alexandre.” True, Alexandre
Wolff, a horse-dealer’s assistant, with huge red hands and a neck like
a bullock’s, told M. de Valles he bore Madame Steinheil “no grudge.” And
the “Tragic Widow,” leaning forward, murmured melodiously: “Thank you,
Alexandre.”
Full of incoherencies, contradictions, was the evidence of Remy
Couillard, the late M. Steinheil’s valet, into whose pocket-book the
“Tragic Widow” had placed the incriminating pearl. “I bear her no
grudge,” blurted out the young man. “I beg your pardon, Remy,” said
Madame Steinheil, always melodiously, when the valet (attired, since he
was accomplishing his “military service,” in a cavalry uniform) withdrew.
But, a moment later, she fell back in her chair, closed her eyes; and the
black-gloved hands in her lap twitched convulsively, madly.
M. Borderel had stepped forward to give evidence: M. Borderel, the
lover Madame Steinheil had declared twelve months ago to the examining
magistrate to be the one and only man she had ever truly loved.
A hush in court as the middle-aged, red-eyed, broken-down widower from
the beautiful country of the Ardennes, related the history of his
intrigue with the “Tragic Widow.”
It will be remembered that the strongest point for the prosecution was
that Madame Steinheil had murdered her husband in order to be free to
marry “the rich châtelain, M. Borderel.” In a slow, solemn voice, M.
Borderel stated: “Yes; Madame Steinheil did mention marriage to me, but
I said it was impossible. I adored my late wife, I adore my children, and
I felt I could not give them a step-mother; and Madame Steinheil fully
understood that my decision was irrevocable. Therefore the assumption of
the prosecution that Madame Steinheil murdered her husband in order to
become my wife, is unwarrantable.” Here M. Borderel broke down. “I loved
her. I was a widower. I was free. In becoming her lover, I behaved no
more wrongly than thousands of my fellow-countrymen. It is a base lie
that I ever suspected her of being guilty of that awful murder. On the
morning after the crime, I was full of the deepest pity for her; and
when she was accused in the newspapers I passionately told everyone she
was innocent.” Up sprang Maître Aubin, counsel for the defence, with
the cry: “Do you still believe her innocent?” And loudly, vigorously,
whole-heartedly rang forth the answer: “With all my soul, with all my
heart, upon my conscience.”
Even M. de Valles was moved by M. Borderel’s emotion, sorrow, chivalry.
The disclosure of the “rich châtelain’s” _liaison_ with the “Tragic
Widow” caused such a scandal in the Ardennes that M. Borderel had to
sell his estate; and he, too, has been persecuted continuously by Yellow
photographers and journalists. Equally chivalrous was the evidence of
Comte d’Arlon (to whose house Madame Steinheil was removed after the
night of the murder), of M. Martin (a State official), and of other
gentlemen who had been (platonic) friends of the “Tragic Widow.” Then,
more chivalry from M. Pouce, an officer in the detective police. “I
have been one of the detectives in charge of the Steinheil affair,” he
cried. “But I have always believed in the innocence of Madame Steinheil.
Had she told me she was guilty, I should not have believed her. She is
innocent.” And finally, exuberant, fantastic chivalry on the part of a
young man named René Collard: who, to the stupefaction of the Court,
walked up to the Bench and cried: “Madame Steinheil is innocent. I myself
am the red-headed woman who helped to commit the double murder.” M. de
Valles then wiped his brow with his huge handkerchief, rapped on the
silver inkstand with his paper-cutter, and cried: “Silence”—for the Court
was buzzing with excitement. Hesitatingly René Collard (aged perhaps
nineteen) related that he had disguised himself as a woman, bought a
red wig, broken his way into the Steinheil villa (in the company of two
friends), sacked the place, bound and gagged Madame Steinheil, strangled
her husband, suffocated her mother. “Take this young man away,” said M.
de Valles to a municipal guard, “and lock him up.” Two nights in prison
brought young René Collard to his senses. He had seen Madame Steinheil’s
photographs in the papers, had fallen in love with her: had resolved to
save her at the risk of being guillotined by the awful M. Deibler! Said
the examining magistrate: “Little idiot, I shall now send you home in the
charge of a policeman, who will deliver you over to your parents.” And
so, amorous, over-chivalrous young René Collard was conducted back to a
dull, bourgeois flat in the Avenue Clichy, where his father and mother,
after calling him a “villain,” a “criminal,” and a “monster,” took him
into their arms, and hugged him, and called him “the best and most
adorable of sons”; and then sent out Amélie, the only servant, to fetch
a cream cake and a bottle of sweet champagne with which to celebrate the
return home of the “wicked” but “adorable” Master René.
And now, half-past ten o’clock at night on Saturday, the 13th
of November.—I have passed over the address to the jury of M.
Trouard-Riolle, the Public Prosecutor—a mere repetition of the judge’s
savage cross-examination of the “Tragic Widow” on the first two days of
the trial; and I have also passed over Maître Aubin’s long, eloquent
speech for the defence. And the last scenes I have now to describe rise
up so vividly before me, that I adopt the present tense.
The jury have retired to an upstairs room to consider their verdict.
Madame Steinheil, watched by municipal guards, is waiting—deadly pale,
green shadows under her blue eyes, exhausted, a wreck—in the “Chambre
des Accusés.” And in the stifling Court of Assizes, and in the cold
marble corridors of the Palais de Justice, barristers, journalists and
a few ornaments of _le Tout Paris_ (who, somehow or other, have at last
obtained admittance to the Law Courts) are frantically speculating upon
the fate of Madame Steinheil. Most barristers say: “There are no proofs
whatsoever. Therefore, acquittal.” The _Tout Paris_ cries: “She should
be imprisoned for life.” (And here, in yet another parenthesis, let us
suggest that the _Tout Paris’_ mocking, vindictive attitude towards
Madame Steinheil is provoked by malevolent jealousy. Madame la Comtesse,
lively Pauline Boum, stout Baronne Goldstein cannot forgive the “Tragic
Widow” for having been _une femme ultra-chic_—the favourite of the late
President Félix Faure. Yet, as we all know in Paris, the life of these
ladies is very far from exemplary. How terrifically would our great,
kindly, satirical Thackeray have laid bare the true causes of the bitter
hostility directed against the “Tragic Widow” by French Vanity Fair!)
Eleven o’clock; half-past eleven; midnight. Twice, so we hear, have M.
de Valles and counsel for the prosecution and the defence been summoned
to the jurors’ room, to explain certain “points.” The _Tout Paris_,
and Henri Rochefort, are jubilant. “When the jury sends for the judge
it usually means a conviction,” croaks Rochefort, rubbing his hands,
and still sucking his impotent lozenges. We hear, too, that a crowd of
thousands has assembled in front of the Palais de Justice; that the
boulevards are wild with excitement, and——
“The judge has been summoned a third time to the jurors’ room,” we are
told at twenty minutes past twelve.
“Five years’ imprisonment at least,” chuckle the ladies and fatuous
gentlemen of _le Tout Paris_.
“Ten years—fifteen—twenty, I hope. She was in the pay of the Dreyfusards,
and killed Félix Faure,” mutters Rochefort.
“The Court enters; the Court enters,” cry the ushers and the municipal
guards, at half-past twelve.
As the jury files into the box, barristers and journalists mount their
benches, and, upon those rickety supports, sway to and fro. “Silence,”
shouts M. de Valles, rapping his paper-cutter for the last time. His
question to the foreman of the jury is inaudible. But the reply rings out
firmly, vigorously:
“Before God and man, upon my honour and conscience, the verdict on every
count of the indictment is: Not Guilty.”
For a few seconds, silence. Then a shrill cry (from one of the
brown-haired, blue-eyed, very charming lady barristers) of “Acquitted!”
And after that, enthusiastic uproar. Rocking and swaying to and fro
on their rickety benches, the barristers applaud, cheer, fling their
black _képis_ into the air. Up, too, go the caps of their fascinating,
brown-haired colleagues, as they cry: “Bravo.” More shouts and bravoes
from the journalists. (One of them—an Englishman—cheers so frantically
that half-an-hour later his voice is as hoarse as Henri Rochefort’s.)
And so the din continues, increases, until the demonstrators suddenly
perceive the dock is empty. Again, for a second or two, silence,
followed by exclamations of astonishment, alarm. M. de Valles, the
two assistant judges, and the jurors lean forward. Maître Aubin looks
anxious. Where is the “Tragic Widow”? Is she ill? Is she——? But at last
the small door at the back of the dock opens, and Madame Steinheil,
livid, held by either arm by a municipal guard, staggers forward. She has
not yet heard the verdict, but the renewed wild cheering (which drowns
the judge’s voice as he addresses her) tells her what it is. Dazed,
half-fainting in the doorway, she looks around the Court. For the first
time throughout the ten days’ trial she smiles—heavens, the relief, the
gratitude, the softness of that smile! And then amidst shouts of “Vive
Madame Steinheil,” and of “Vive la Justice,” the “Tragic Widow” falls
unconscious into the arms of the _Gardes Municipaux_ and is carried out
backwards through the narrow doorway of the dock.
Paris, too, demonstrates excitedly. Cheers are given by the vast crowd
assembled outside the Law Courts for Madame Steinheil, Maître Aubin and
the jury. M. Trouard-Riolle, the public prosecutor, leaves the Palais de
Justice by a side door, followed by Henri Rochefort, yellower than ever
in the face, his eyes blazing with vindictive fury. Almost encircling
the Palais are the 60 and 90 h.p. motors of the Yellow Reporters, still
bent on pursuing and persecuting the “Tragic Widow.” But she evades them;
passes what remains of the night in the Hotel Terminus; speeds off in an
automobile to a doctor’s private nursing-home at Vésinet next morning.
Acquitted, yes; but by no means rehabilitated, far less left in peace.
Outside the nursing-home at Vésinet, behold rows of motor cars, packs
of Yellow Reporters and photographers. A din in this usually tranquil
country place; a din, too, outside the Impasse Ronsin Villa, and in front
of the Bellevue Villa, where inquisitive Parisians jest, and laugh, and
point and stare at the shuttered windows. Over those “five o’clock’s” of
pale tea, port and sugared cakes, _le Tout Paris_ declares that Madame
Steinheil was acquitted by order of the Government. In the _Patrie_,
Henri Rochefort still calls her the “Black Panther,” and, alluding once
again to the death of Félix Faure, bids President Fallières to beware
of her. And on the boulevards, swarms of _camelots_ thrust under one’s
eyes “picture post cards” of Mariette Wolff; of huge, bloated Alexandre;
of mild Mr Burlingham; of chivalrous Count d’Arlon; of M. Borderel; of
Mademoiselle Marthe Steinheil; and of the “Tragic Widow.”
And the bourgeoisie?
“Acquitted, yes; but the Impasse Ronsin crime, committed eighteen months
ago, remains a mystery,” says a Parisian angrily to me. “The trial has
elucidated nothing: but it has cost enormous sums.” And then, as he
is a thrifty, rather parsimonious little bourgeois, the speaker adds
indignantly: “As Madame Steinheil has won, it is the Treasury, in other
words the unfortunate taxpayer, myself, for instance, who will have to
put his hand in his pocket, and settle the bill.”
[5] 1909.
XII
THE LATE JULES GUÉRIN AND THE DEFENCE OF FORT CHABROL
The month of May, 1899—how long ago it seems!
At that time, up at Montmartre, in a large house, overlooking a garden,
resided M. Jules Guérin, most savage of Anti-Dreyfusards, and chief of
the Anti-Semitic party.
A fine house, but an unlovely garden. A gaunt tree or two; four or five
gritty, stony flower-beds; in a corner, a dried-up, dilapidated old
well. But this waste of a garden suited M. Guérin’s purposes,—which were
sinister.
“If my enemies attack me here, I shall shoot them dead and bury them
beneath this very window—by that tree, in that flower-bed.”
“Oh!” I expostulated.
“Or I shall throw their infamous bodies into that well,” continued M.
Guérin, again pointing out of the window. “I am prepared; I am ready. You
see this gun? Then look at those revolvers. All are loaded.”
A long, highly polished gun rested in a corner at M. Guérin’s elbow.
Curiously then I glanced at a collection of revolvers that bristled
murderously on the wall, and next at Jules Guérin, a powerfully built
man, with massive shoulders, a square chin, lurid green eyes, a fierce
moustache, and a formidable block of a head on which a soft grey hat of
enormous dimensions was tilted jauntily on one side. Thus, although he
sat in his study before a vast, business-like writing-table, Jules Guérin
wore his hat, or rather his sombrero, and also an overcoat; but then (as
he explained) he might be called out at any moment to take part in a
political brawl, or to chastise a journalist, or to arrange a duel—even
to dig the grave of an enemy; and so was dressed ready to sally forth
anywhere, and with ferocious designs upon anyone, at the shortest notice.
Vehemently, he puffed at a cigarette. Now and again he pulled at his
fierce moustache. As he spoke he gesticulated, thumped the writing-table
savagely, and, when he thumped, the ink-bottles and penholders leapt and
danced, and the gun in the corner trembled.
“Downstairs I have twenty clerks and assistants. All are armed with
revolvers; all are devoted; and thus my enemies are their enemies. And so
if the brigands attack us, into the earth with them, or into the well, or
into——”
“But who are these enemies?” I interrupted. “These brigands?”
“The Government—Lépine, Chief of the Police—Loubet, President of the
Republic—a hundred other traitors and assassins,” cried M. Guérin. “But
the garden is waiting for them. I desire that this garden shall be their
cemetery.”
Of course, an impossible ambition. But so incoherent, so chaotic was the
state of mind of the Anti-Semites fourteen years ago, that I refrained
from suggesting that it was highly improbable President Loubet or his
Ministers would invade M. Guérin’s bit of waste ground up there in the
rue Condorcet. Nor was my host a man to stand ridicule. A flippant word
from me, and he would have shown me the door. So I listened patiently
to his wild, savage denunciations of the Jews—of Captain Dreyfus in
particular, who was lying (burnt up with fever, broken and battered in
everything except determination) in his cell on the Devil’s Island;
whilst here, in Paris, the Cour de Cassation was deliberating whether
there was sufficient “new” evidence to justify the prisoner being brought
back to France and given a new trial. Rumours were flying about to the
effect that the Court had already made up its mind to order the revision.
Thus, fury of the Anti-Dreyfusards; frenzy of the Anti-Semites, and, in
their newspapers, the statements that the Cour de Cassation had been
“bought” by the Jews; that the Jews, being the masters of France, had
“sold” the country to Germany; and that, therefore, the only thing to do
with the Jews was to hang them on the lamp-posts of Paris. Particularly
bloodthirsty and barbarous was M. Guérin’s weekly journal, _L’Anti-Juif_,
which stood on the floor, in three or four stacks, of this extraordinary
study. In it were published the name and address of every Jewish
tradesman in Paris. Each column was headed with exhortation: “Français,
N’achetez Rien Aux Juifs.” Then, hideous cartoons depicting the flight
of the Jews along the boulevards and their panic and agony—and their
massacre.
“Now,” said M. Guérin, “you have seen the official organ of the
Anti-Semitic League, and I could show you pamphlets and posters that
are equally powerful. No League in Paris is so resolute, so strong, so
efficiently organised. Such is our success that I am shortly removing to
more spacious quarters. There we shall deliver Anti-Semitic lectures,
and give Anti-Semitic plays—open to all, not a centime will be charged.
Then, boxing and fencing classes, pistol practice, a library, a doctor
and a solicitor on the premises—always, no charge. The Parisians, being
thrifty, will flock to us. They will cry: ‘Here we get entertainment,
medical and legal advice for nothing; it is admirable. Vive Guérin! Vive
la France! À bas les Juifs!’ The Government will be furious. Loubet in
the Élysée will shake in his shoes. And Lépine will shout: ‘We must
arrest that _canaille_ Guérin!’ But let him come. I shall be armed more
strongly than ever in my new quarters in the rue de Chabrol.”
“A garden?” I ventured.
“There are no gardens in the rue de Chabrol: but there are cellars,”
grimly replied M. Guérin. “Come and see me there. You will be astonished.
Au revoir.”
Out in the passage, and on the staircase, I encountered four or five of
Jules Guérin’s clerks and assistants; coarse, powerful young men, with
bull-dog faces, who had been recruited by the chief of the Anti-Semites
from the ghastly slaughter-house of Villette. In the garden I paused to
inspect the stony flower-beds and the dilapidated well.
“The future cemetery of my enemies. Ah, the traitors, the brigands, the
assassins! Let them come.”
At an open window, in his sombrero and smoking his eternal cigarette,
stood fierce Jules Guérin.
“Lépine in _that_ flower-bed,” he shouted, and then closed the window.
But reopened it, when I reached the gateway, to cry:
“And Loubet, in the well.”
A month later, Paris in uproar. On the afternoon of the 3rd June the
Cour de Cassation ordered the revision of the Dreyfus Affair; the
same night official arrangements were made for the return to France
of the shattered prisoner of the Devil’s Island; next day, during the
race-meeting at Auteuil, President Loubet’s hat was smashed over his head
by the stick of a certain Baron Christiani, a Royalist Anti-Dreyfusard.
Then, the fall of the Dupuy Ministry, and M. Loubet in a dilemma. M.
Poincaré, astutest of statesmen, was summoned to the Élysée; but, with
characteristic shrewdness, declined the task of forming a Cabinet in
such unfavourable circumstances. M. Léon Bourgeois (absent on a Peace
mission at The Hague) was telegraphed for, but could not be persuaded to
exercise a pacific influence in his own country. M. Waldeck-Rousseau was
next requisitioned; and left the Élysée with the assurance: “Monsieur
le Président, I will do my best to succeed.” Nothing could have been
more admirable than his subsequent exertions, for, in making them, M.
Waldeck-Rousseau, the most distinguished and most prosperous lawyer at
the Paris Bar, had nothing to gain and everything to lose; and he must
have been dismayed at the refusal, or the reluctance, of highly esteemed
politicians to serve their country by fighting a just if an unpopular
cause. Well, for a whole week the most painstaking, the most level-headed
and truly patriotic Prime Minister who has yet worked for the Third
Republic, visited prominent statesmen with the earnest desire to form a
_ministère d’apaisement_, founded on the principles of disinterestedness
and justice. Throughout that week, he was hooted in the streets, and
ridiculed and insulted by MM. Rochefort, Millevoye, Drumont and Jules
Guérin, who triumphantly predicted in their newspapers that “Panama
Loubet”—like “Père Grévy” before him—would be compelled to resign for
want of a ministry. And biting was the satire, and more savage became
the contumely, when at last the Waldeck-Rousseau Ministry was completed,
by the inclusion of such opposite, hostile personages as the “citizen
Millerand” and fierce, aristocratic and despotic old General the Marquis
de Galliffet. “After this,” wrote Henri Rochefort, “the deluge.” “At
last,” declared M. Drumont, “Paris will rebel; and the next events will
prove fatal to this unspeakable Republic.” The next important event was
the landing in France, in the middle of the night, of a bent, prematurely
aged figure: Captain Dreyfus. How the musty old carriage in which he sat,
dazed, exhausted, shivering, rattled over the cobble-stones to the Rennes
prison! How the prison gates clanged to when the shabby vehicle had
entered the dark, grim courtyard! And how split and how cracked was the
voice of the prisoner from the Devil’s Island when, at the court-martial
a few days afterwards, he protested his innocence and refuted the new
monstrous accusations of highly respected and brilliantly uniformed
Generals Gonse, de Boisdeffre and Mercier! Solitary confinement had left
him almost inarticulate. But he defended himself heroically: and, with an
effort, straightened his bent back when questioned by his judges. Then
how the trial dragged on; and what scenes took place in the streets,
hotels and cafés of Rennes, which were crowded with _le Tout Paris_ and
echoed with Parisian exclamations and disputes! Brawls, duels, Henri
Rochefort’s white “Imperial” pulled; Maître Labori, Captain Dreyfus’s
brilliant counsel, shot between the shoulders; a famous _demi-mondaine_
expelled the town; arrests, startling _canards_, alarms; hysteria,
chaos, and delirium enough for Paris itself; and in Paris—whilst these
exhibitions were occurring in the Rennes streets, and Captain Dreyfus (in
the severe court-room) was stiffening his back and straining his split
voice until it rose to an uncanny scream—what of Jules Guérin in Paris?
and of his guns and revolvers, his well and his flower-bed? and of his
assistants and clerks, the young men with the bull-dog faces, whom he had
recruited from the ghastly slaughter-house of La Villette?
Well, first of all, came the dishevelled, dusty confusion of a
_déménagement_ in the rue Condorcet. The study walls were stripped of
their revolvers; the basement was cleared of the printing-press that
produced the murderous _Anti-Juif_; huge packing-cases were passed into a
number of furniture vans; and so, farewell to the stony garden—in which
not an “enemy” lay buried; and _en route_ to No. 12 rue de Chabrol, a
commodious, massive building with large windows and a solid oak door.
The arrival of Jules Guérin and his assistants caused consternation
amongst the peaceful, bourgeois inhabitants of the street. Lurid
Anti-Semitic posters were stuck to the walls of No. 12; the din of
the printing-machines disturbed the neighbours—and Guérin’s voice of
thunder (execrating the Jews and demanding the lives of his enemies)
was to be heard through the open windows, while his enormous sombrero
was another disquieting element in the orderly, dull thoroughfare. The
Anti-Semitic lectures and plays were announced; a solicitor and a doctor
were engaged—and Paris was invited to visit No. 12 rue de Chabrol and
partake of its pleasures and advantages. Then came the suggestion in
the _Anti-Juif_ that Paris should fix a day and an hour when the Jews
should be hanged on the boulevard lamp-posts. And then followed the
resolution of the Government—to have done with Jules Guérin! A warrant
was issued for his arrest on the charge of “incitement to rebellion.”
Somehow or other the news reached No. 12; and when the Commissary of
Police (armed with his warrant) rang at the oak door, the massive form of
Guérin appeared at a window. “Bandit,” he shouted. “There are twenty of
us in here: and not one of us will be taken alive. Tell the Government
of Traitors we shall fight to the death.” And he flourished a revolver,
and his assistants, assembled behind him in the window, cheered wildly.
Away went the Commissary of Police for further orders. Up came MM.
Drumont, Millevoye and other leading Anti-Semites with exhortations to
surrender. But Guérin, from his window, reiterated his determination to
die heroically at his post: and again the young men with the bull-dog
faces cheered enthusiastically. And there were cries of “Mon Dieu,
quelle affaire!” and angry protests, lamentations and tears amongst the
shopkeepers and peaceful old _rentiers_ of the street. Many of them put
up their shutters and fled, when policemen and Municipal Guards marched
up and stationed themselves outside No. 12. Jules Guérin greeted them
with cries of “Assassins!”; shook his great fist threateningly; rushed
from window to window, shouting forth abuse. More cheering from his
assistants, who pointed guns at the authorities.
“It is a revolution,” cried the householders. “Let us save ourselves
quickly.”
Shutters were hurried up everywhere; cabs carried off distracted
_rentiers_ and their smaller belongings; policemen and Municipal Guards
barred either end of the rue de Chabrol, and permitted only people who
had business in the street to pass them; and with the cutting off of
water and gas supplies, the siege of Fort Chabrol began in earnest.
The Holder of the Fort—though the Parisian, interested in “affaires,”
studied him attentively—could only be observed from a distance. The
curious, with the aid of opera-glasses, discovered him sitting at
an open window with rifles resting on either side of him; or beheld
him walking about the roof amidst the chimney-pots—an extraordinary
figure in his sombrero. Now and again he discharged revolvers at the
heavens: a proceeding that never failed to arouse the enthusiasm of his
fellow-prisoners. Then leaning perilously over the parapet or out of a
window, Guérin would apostrophise the soldiers and policemen below as
“brigands” and “assassins”; and throw down pencilled messages (addressed
to the “Ministry of Traitors” and the “Government of Forgers”) inviting
all State officials to come to the rue de Chabrol and be shot through
their “infamous heads” or their “abominable hearts.” When particularly
indignant, Guérin would hurl forth a cup, a bottle, a saucepan—but the
missiles invariably fell wide of the mark; and the Guards and police
(whilst smoking cigarettes) snapped their fingers and laughed back
mockingly and sardonically at the rebel. It was weary work for the
besiegers; the air was stale and sickly with disinfectants; and often it
rained.
Guérin blessed the downpours. He was short of water. When the skies
were generous, he brought up buckets and basins and a great bath on to
the roof—and shook his fist exultingly at the watchers beneath as the
rain pattered into and filled those receptacles; and next, coming to
the edge of the parapet with a glass in hand, drank to the death of
the “Government of Assassins.” Indeed, quite an orgy of water-drinking
on the roof of the Fort; for the ex-butchers, with the bull-dog faces,
uproariously proposed the health of their chief, and then emptied their
glasses into the street to show that they had no fear of suffering from
thirst.
But what of provisions? The twenty-fifth night of the siege—a dark,
wet night—the police fancied they discerned mysterious objects flying
far over their heads on to the roof of Fort Chabrol. Much speculation,
infinite straining of eyes and stretching of ears, and suddenly a paper
parcel, falling from above, struck a Municipal Guard. Shock of the Guard.
The cry: “It is a bomb!” But it was only a ham—a fine, excellent ham. And
a few minutes later the Guards and police were searching the house from
which it had been thrown and examining numbers of other paper parcels
(carefully tied up) that contained joints of meat, “groceries,” sugared
cakes, fruit and fresh salads; all of which luxuries were obviously
intended for the rebels over the way. But where were Guérin’s friends
and accomplices? Not a soul in the house; so said a policeman: “Try the
roof.” And there, on the roof, more paper parcels ready to be thrown
across to the Fort; and hiding behind the chimney-pots, four or five men.
“Arrest them,” cried an officer. And then, amidst the chimney-pots, much
dodging and slipping and catching as in the games of “hide-and-seek” and
“touch wood”; whilst over the way on _his_ roof, Jules Guérin raced about
amidst _his_ chimney-pots, swinging a lantern and furiously shouting:
“Assassins. Assassins.” Thus, no sleep for the few remaining householders
that night. When his friends had been removed from the roof, and the
police reappeared in the street with their captives and laden with
parcels, Jules Guérin and his assistants discharged revolvers at the
heavy, dark clouds; and, next morning, hurled fenders, fire-irons and
a bedstead into the street. No one was struck: the prisoners were too
excited to take aim.
Guérin’s harangues were still bloodthirsty, but it was noticed that
he looked pale and drawn when he appeared at the windows, as though
suffering from want of nourishment and exercise.... Now he was more
subdued as he took air amidst the chimney-pots; and he would sit up on
the roof in the moonlight, with a gun across his knees, for a whole
hour without moving. How the air reeked with disinfectants, and how
sombre was the Fort! Apparently oil and candles were scarce, for only
a single candle was used at a time. One saw its dim light passing from
room to room—now on the first floor, then on the second, the third; then
there was darkness. Upon two occasions Guérin spent the entire night
on the roof. A dishevelled shivering object he was at daybreak, with
his coat-collar turned up and the sombrero dragged down over his ears.
Nor did his young assistants with the bull-dog faces fare better. Their
cheers became faint: and they themselves were to be discerned leaning
moodily against the chimney-pots or yawning with all their mouths behind
the windows. Moreover, it was suspected by the police that there was
illness in the Fort. One night a candle burned steadily in the same room.
Not a soul on the roof, silence in the citadel. At daybreak Jules Guérin
hoisted a black flag; one of the young prisoners with the bull-dog face
was dying. In answer to Jules Guérin’s call, an officer stepped forward,
and parleying ensued. An ambulance was brought up. When the solid oak
door of Fort Chabrol opened and Jules Guérin appeared with the dying man
in his arms, the policemen and Guards stood gravely at salute. Away,
slowly, went the ambulance. And no sooner had it vanished than Jules
Guérin—livid and trembling—banged to and bolted the door: rushed back to
his window, and there, pointing dramatically to the black flag, hoarsely
shouted: “Assassins. Assassins. Assassins.”
On the 9th September, at five o’clock in the afternoon, Paris heard from
Rennes that Captain Dreyfus had—O astounding judgment!—been found guilty
of high treason, “with extenuating circumstances.” On the following
Tuesday it was announced—O amazing clemency—that the “traitor” had been
pardoned. And throughout France there arose a cry of “N’en Parlons Plus.”
Up and down the boulevards on that Tuesday rushed scores of hoarse,
unshaven _camelots_ with their latest song. “N’en Parlons Plus,” they
shouted. Then (in some cases) the chorus was chanted:
“Le cauchemar est fini; car la France est vengée,
Qu’importe que l’on a gracié Dreyfus?
La nation entière, heureuse et soulagée,
N’a plus qu’un désir—c’est qu’on n’en parle plus.”
But there remained Fort Chabrol. Neither “sanity” nor “order” could
prevail in Paris whilst Jules Guérin was defying the Government from his
window, and hurling missiles at its public servants, and discharging
revolvers at the heavens. As the _camelots_ were selling their song on
the boulevards, as Paris was rejoicing in cafés that the “Affaire” was
now “buried,” Jules Guérin still walked his roof, and his assistants
leant dejectedly against the chimney-pots: and M. Lépine, Chief of the
Police, was on his side preparing an attack on the stronghold. A few
journalists were let into the secret. At ten o’clock on the night of
Tuesday, the 12th September—the thirty-seventh and last night of the
siege—MM. les journalistes were permitted to penetrate through the
lines of policemen and of Municipal and Republican Guards that guarded
the dark, gloomy rue de Chabrol. Not a light in the citadel. But shadowy
forms were to be distinguished on the roof. And at a window, smoking a
cigarette, stood Jules Guérin, in his sombrero.
“_Mon vieux_ Jules, it is for to-night. Be reasonable and come out,”
shouted a journalist; and he was promptly pulled backwards and called to
order by a policeman. But M. Millevoye, the Anti-Semite deputy and editor
of _La Patrie_, was permitted to converse with the rebel on the condition
that he urged him to surrender.
“He swears he will fight to the death,” stated M. Millevoye to an
officer. Very pale and agitated was the deputy. Very excited were the
journalists, who had provided themselves with sandwiches, flasks and
strong oil of eucalyptus with which to ward off contamination. Calm was
the Chief of the Police, when he appeared on the scene with various
officials and announced that the _pompiers_ and their engines were on the
way.
It was a cold, disagreeable night. The clatter of horses’ hoofs—up
came a detachment of the mounted Republican Guard. The hissing of
fire-engines; here were the _pompiers_. A distant babel of voices, for
now, at one o’clock in the morning, all kinds and conditions of Parisians
had heard of the impending attack on the citadel, and had hastened to
the barriers—only to find themselves refused admittance to the grim,
besieged thoroughfare. From my side of the barrier I beheld—beyond
it—stalwart market-people from the Halles, Apaches in caps and scarlet
waistbands, ragged old loafers, revellers from Maxim’s and the stifling,
frenzied night-restaurants of Montmartre.
“Impossible to pass,” declared the policeman. An officer of the Municipal
Guards facetiously kept up the refrain: “Not President Loubet; not his
Holiness the Pope; not even the _bon Dieu_, could I possibly allow
to pass.” Songs from the Apaches. Naïve exclamations from the simple
market-women.
“Please give this bouquet to Guérin. He is a real man; he is _épatant_—do
please send him these flowers,” cried a brilliant _demi-mondaine_ from
Maxim’s, holding forth a bouquet of weird orchids. “Alas, madame,”
replied the facetious officer; “alas, not even a bouquet from paradise
could I possibly allow to pass.”
Ominous sounds in the rue de Chabrol. The thud and the clanking of the
firemen’s hose as it was dragged towards No. 12; the increased hissing
of the steam-engines; the impatient clatter of the horses’ hoofs; the
bolting and barring of doors, and the putting up of shutters in those
few houses where residents remained. Ominous, too, the consultations
(carried on in a low voice) between M. Lépine and the various officials.
Then the flash of lanterns, the smoke pouring forth from the funnels of
the steam-engines, the stench of the disinfectants, those shadowy figures
still on the roof of Fort Chabrol; and Jules Guérin still at his window
in his sombrero, still smoking cigarettes unconcernedly, still calmly
watching the preparations for the attack.
“It is sinister,” cried a journalist.
“So all is ready,” rang out the voice of the Chief of the Police. Briskly
stepping forward, M. Lépine thus addressed Jules Guérin: “It is a quarter
to four o’clock. If, at four o’clock, you do not surrender, we shall use
force.”
Jules Guérin smoked on.
Still nearer to the Fort came the _pompiers_, dragging their hose. The
plan was that they should deluge the massive building with water, while
their colleagues with the shining hatchets should break down the door. A
last consultation between M. Lépine and the officials. He held his watch
in his hand. Five minutes to four o’clock. The neighing of a restive
horse. Shouts and song from behind the barrier. Again, the clanking of
the hose. Three... two... minutes to four. Jules Guérin, striking a
match, lighted a new cigarette.
“He means to fight. It will be appalling,” exclaimed a journalist.
“Jules Guérin, it is four o’clock,” cried M. Lépine, again stepping
forward. Without a word, the man in the sombrero banged down the window,
and a few moments later the shadowy figures of his assistants disappeared
from the roof.
“I thought so, but I wasn’t sure—no, I wasn’t sure,” said M. Lépine—when
the heavy oak door swung open!
A third time he stepped forward—entered the doorway—vanished—reappeared
to give an order—again vanished. Up with the hose, into the gutter with
the fire-engines; way for half-a-dozen ordinary, shabby _fiacres_ which
came bumping and lurching down the street, pulled up before the oak door:
and a few minutes later took Jules Guérin and the young men with the
bull-dog faces ingloriously away to the Santé prison!
“N’en Parlons Plus,” said Paris, when the Senate, assembled as a
High Court, sentenced Jules Guérin, Paul Déroulède, and other rebels
and conspirators against the safety of the Republic to long terms of
imprisonment and exile.
“N’en Parlons Plus,” reiterated Paris, when the Amnesty Bill permitted
the exiles to return to their country.
Little more was heard of Jules Guérin. France, having been restored to
order and sanity, and having made what reparation she could to Major
Dreyfus, would have no more of Anti-Semitism; and on his return from
exile, the rebel of Fort Chabrol retired into the obscurity of a damp,
ugly little house in the valley of the Seine.
He still wore his sombrero; but his spirit was broken, and he pottered
about in his garden and smoked cigarettes by the side of an evil-smelling
stove. Then, a year ago, came the devastating floods. After saving
his own scanty furniture, Jules Guérin went to the assistance of his
neighbours. He was himself again, dashing hither and thither, issuing
orders, directing operations. Many valiant feats he performed. He was
rough, but he was kind. It was through standing waist-deep in the cold,
murky water—whilst helping his neighbours—that he contracted pneumonia.
“The death, at the age of forty-nine, is announced of M. Jules Guérin:
who had his hour of notoriety.”
So—and no more—said the _Figaro_.
XIII
DEATH OF HENRI ROCHEFORT[6]
It is with mixed emotions that I record my own personal recollections
of the late Henri Rochefort. They go back fourteen years, to the
lurid, delirious summer of 1899, when Jules Guérin, the leader of the
Anti-Semites, evaded arrest by shutting himself up in Fort Chabrol; when
Dreyfus, bent, shattered, almost voiceless, was enduring the anguish of a
second court-martial; when the boulevards were being swept of tumultuous
manifestants every night by the Republican Guard.
Rochefort was living in a little villa at the entrance to the Bois de
Boulogne: a retreat for a sage, a poet, a dreamer; the very last abode,
one would have thought, for the most thunderous figure in French public
life. By rights, Rochefort the Ferocious should have been living in a
vast boulevard apartment overlooking the nightly Anti-Dreyfusard uproar.
But there he was (when first I met him) in that innocent maisonnette—in
dressing-gown and slippers, amidst flowers, pictures and frail
china—actually playing with a fluffy toy lamb, of the kind hawked about
for two francs on the terraces of the Paris cafés. It was only his snowy
white hair, brushed upwards, that made him picturesque. Pale, steely blue
eyes, that lit up cruelly, evilly at times; a face seamed, sallow and
horse-like in shape; a harsh, guttural voice; large, yellowish hands,
with long, pointed finger-nails.
Upon the occasion of my first visit to the innocent maisonnette, there
was no cause for agitation. The toy lamb was the attraction. A tube
was attached to it, and at the end of the tube was a bulb which, when
pressed, made the lamb leap. Again and again, Rochefort the Lurid set the
lamb leaping. I too lost my heart to the lamb, and also made it frisk.
Amidst all this irresponsibility, my host was pleased to pronounce me
“sympathetic” and “charming,” not like the “traditional” Englishman with
the bull-dog, the aggressive side-whiskers and long, glistening teeth.
Rochefort saw me to the garden door; Rochefort actually plucked me a
rose; Rochefort’s parting words were a cordial invitation to visit him
and his lamb again soon. So was I amazed to find myself described in his
very next article as “a sinister brigand, in the pay of the Jews; in
fact, one of those diabolical bandits who are devastating our beloved
France.”
... A week later I approached him, and mildly protested, as he was
sitting on the terrace of the Café de la Paix, drinking milk and Vichy
water, sucking his eternal lozenges—and still playing with the lamb.
“Bah, that was only print,” came the reply. “Let us resume our game
with the lamb.” As he made it leap about deftly amongst the glasses on
the marble-topped table, passers-by, recognising his Luridness, stopped,
stared and smiled at the spectacle. “That’s the great Rochefort,” said
the _maître d’hôtel_ to an American tourist: and stupefaction of the
States. Rising at last, and stuffing the lamb into his pocket, Rochefort
remarked: “I must go off and do my article, but you sha’n’t be the
brigand. I feel amiable to-night.”
Next morning appeared the notorious, atrocious article demanding that
walnut shells—containing long, hairy spiders—should be strapped to the
eyes of Captain Dreyfus.
What was the reason of Rochefort’s abominable campaign against the martyr
from the Devil’s Island? Since he styled himself a democrat, the champion
of liberty and justice, the enemy of tyranny, one would have expected
to see the fierce old journalist fighting vigorously for Dreyfus. The
fact is, Rochefort was a mass of contradictions: an imp of perversity:
at once brutal and humane; gentle and bloodthirsty; simple and vain;
the most chaotic Frenchman that ever died. Search his autobiography,
in three portly volumes: not once do you find him resting, smiling
or reflecting—he is all thunder and lightning, an everlasting storm.
Exile, duels, fines and imprisonment—wild, delirious attacks upon the
Government of the day. No one escaped; for fifty years, in the columns of
the _Figaro_, the _Lanterne_, the _Intransigeant_, and finally, in the
_Patrie_, Rochefort pursued presidents and politicians with his unique,
extravagant vocabulary. M. Jaurès, the Socialist leader, was “a decayed
turnip”; M. Georges Clemenceau, “a loathsome leper”; M. Briand, “a
moulting vulture.” As for M. Combes, to the guillotine with him, and into
the Seine with M. Delcassé, and a rope and a boulevard lamp-post for M.
Pelletan. Then President Loubet was “the foulest of assassins”; President
Fallières, “the fat old satyr of the Élysée”; and Madame Marguerite
Steinheil, “the Black Panther.”
For the life of me I could trace nothing of the “panther” in Madame
Steinheil during the ten terrible days that she sat in the dock of the
dim, oak-panelled Paris Assize Court. As for her “blackness,” Rochefort
was referring to her clothes.
“Heavy crape bands round the accused woman’s black dress, stiff crape
bows in the widow’s cap, a deep sombre border to the handkerchief which
she clenched tightly, convulsively, in her black-gloved hand... under
her eyes, dark, dark shadows, which turned green as the trial tragically
wore on.”[7] Impossible, one might have thought, not to sympathise with
this prisoner who, with all her follies and faults, was certainly not the
murderess of her husband and mother.
But what cared Rochefort for evidence and arguments? Leaning forward in
his seat in the Press-box, his sallow face distorted with fury, he fixed
the “Tragic Widow” with his steely, cruel eyes. (“I think he was trying
to hypnotise me—certainly to terrify me,” relates Madame Steinheil in
her _Memoirs_.) Again and again he cracked his lozenges, gesticulated
angrily with his large yellow hands. During the adjournments, he held
forth violently in the corridors of the Law Courts. Not only was Madame
Steinheil the murderess of her mother and husband, but she was also the
assassin of President Félix Faure. She poisoned him in the Élysée, at
the instigation of the Jews, who knew that so long as Faure remained
President there would be no revision of the Dreyfus affair. So, a triple
murderess—and “crack, crack” went the lozenges. Later, when it became
certain that Madame Steinheil would be acquitted, Rochefort declared that
judge and jury had been “bought,” and that the Government had all along
protected the “Black Panther.” His hands were trembling, the sallow face
had turned livid, when at one o’clock in the morning the jury filed into
the dim, stifling court and delivered their verdict: “Not Guilty” on all
counts. How Rochefort scowled at the cries of “Vive Madame Steinheil!”
and “Vive la Justice!” How he sneered when the barristers cheered,
applauded and flung their black _képis_ into the air! With what disgust
he listened to the bravoes from the journalists and the public at the
back of the court. When Madame Steinheil fainted, and was being carried
out of the dock by the Municipal Guards, Rochefort’s ruthless hatred
made the compassion of the public loathsome to him. Shaking, speechless
with rage, he roughly pushed his way out of court, cracking his lozenges
with such savagery that he must have very nearly broken his teeth.
But there were two Henri Rocheforts, and the virtues of the second almost
made amends for the vices of the first.
The second Rochefort revealed himself at the age of twenty. He was a
medical student. Shortly after the adoption of these studies young
Rochefort harangued the surgeon and his fellow-students upon the
“iniquities” of vivisection: and _that_ ended his short medical career.
Another outburst at the Hôtel de Ville, when Rochefort next accepted
a petty clerkship at a pound a week. His colleagues were underpaid
and overworked; a scarcity of light and utter lack of ventilation in
the dusty, shabby office-rooms resulted in cases of acute anæmia and
consumption. “We must have light—floods of it. We must have air—great,
healthy draughts of it,” shouted youthful Rochefort to a high official.
“I’m strong enough myself and don’t care; but look at your clerks.
Martyrs, victims! _De l’air, de la lumière, nom de Dieu!_”
The high official, a pompous, apoplectic soul, was struck dumb by
Rochefort’s invasion of his private sanctum. At last he gasped: “If you
were not the son of a marquis——” But Rochefort interrupted: “My father
died a fortnight ago. But I have no predilection for titles. My name is
Henri Rochefort.”
Rochefort nevertheless was an aristocrat—“_la race_” remained,
in spite of his assumption of democracy. He was, in fine, a
democrat-aristocrat—most chaotic of combinations. Therein lay the
secret of his turbulence and incoherency. Like all French aristocrats,
he was a militarist at heart. He was the ally of Boulanger. He was the
hottest champion of Paul Déroulède when that well-meaning but impossible
“patriot” attempted his celebrated _coup d’état_, on the morning of
President Félix Faure’s funeral, by establishing General Roget as a
military dictator in the Élysée. He was, furthermore, an Anti-Semite.
“Pale, white blood,” he cried disdainfully of the French _noblesse_.
His own blood was vigorously red, but tinged indelibly with blue. Yes;
“_la race_” remained, persisted—clashed inevitably with the true spirit
of democracy. And hence the chaos, the thunder and lightning; from
out of which there nevertheless shone tenderness, chivalry and a love
of beautiful things. He loved music, sculpture, pictures: and whilst
urging on France to declare war against England over the Fashoda Affair,
announced in my hearing that he would rather annex a portrait by Reynolds
than a province in the Sudan. He loved animals: and animals loved him.
Wild fury of Rochefort when a bull-fight was advertised to take place at
Enghien-les-Bains.
When the Government declined to forbid it, down to Enghien went Rochefort
and a number of friends. Sallow-faced old Rochefort seized hold of the
“impresario” who was organising the bull-fight and shook him. “I and my
friends are going to wreck your arena,” he shouted. Nor did he release
the “impresario” until the latter had promised that the bull-fight should
not take place.
If Rochefort had been all vindictiveness and luridness, how did it come
to pass that he was the guest of the great-hearted Victor Hugo, when both
of them were exiles in Brussels? And if the hoarse-voiced, steely-eyed
old journalist had been all venom, how did it come about that he was the
devoted, admiring friend of that very noble, if disconcerting apostle of
humanity, Louise Michel, “the Red Virgin.”
Londoners may remember the frail, thin, shabby little Woman who denounced
social injustices in a dingy hall in a back street off Tottenham Court
Road some ten years ago. In appearance she was nothing—until she spoke.
And when Louise Michel spoke, ah dear me, how one realised the miseries
grimly and heroically endured by the poor of this topsy-turvy world!
The shabby, frail little figure, with the big, inspired eyes, became
galvanised. From London to Paris, from Paris to every European capital,
travelled the “Red Virgin”—incomparably eloquent—the woes and sufferings
of her fellow-creatures at once crushing and supporting her. Herself,
she cared nothing for. The same old threadbare black dress; eternal dim
attics and meagre food; the same old self-sacrifice, the pity to the
verge of despair, the same old breakdowns from weakness and exhaustion.
Rochefort—Victor Henri Marquis de Rochefort-Luçay—sought her out in
her attic. When the “Red Virgin” was travelling and lecturing abroad,
Rochefort instructed his foreign correspondents to look after her. He
bought her a country house: which she promptly sold; he gave her an
annuity: which she mortgaged; he arranged that his tradespeople should
serve her in his name; but house, annuity, provisions—everything went to
the poor.
“I can do nothing with her,” Rochefort once told me. “She is at once
sublime and adorable and ridiculous! When I tell her she is killing
herself, she replies: ‘Tant pis, mon petit Henri. But you yourself will
die one of these days.’”
A week later Louise Michel expired suddenly, from exhaustion, at
Marseilles.[8] Sallow-faced, white-headed, red-eyed old Rochefort was the
chief mourner at the funeral. As he walked, bent, trembling, behind the
hearse of the “Red Virgin”—crack, crack went the lozenges.
The month of June, 1912. Rochefort’s daily article in the _Patrie_
missing; and again missing the next day, and the day after that—the first
time octogenarian Rochefort had “missed” his daily lurid article for
fifty-two years!
On the fourth day there appears in the _Patrie_ the following
intimation:—“I shall soon reach my eighty-second year, and it is now
half-a-century since I have worked without a rest even in prison or in
exile, at the hard trade of a journalist, which is the first and the most
noble of all professions—when it is not the lowest. I think I have earned
the right to a rest. But it will only be a short one. My old teeth can
still bite.”
However, the “rest” in the country is prolonged: and the teeth don’t
“bite” again. Eyesight becomes misty. Hearing next fails. Behold
Rochefort in a dressing-gown, stretched on an invalid’s chair in a
drowsy country garden, whence he is transported, as a last hope, to
Aix-les-Bains,—where he dies.
The 30th June 1913. Day of Rochefort’s funeral. All Paris lining the
boulevards and streets as the cortège, half-a-mile long, passes by. A
crowd of all kinds and conditions of Parisians. Here is M. Jaurès, “the
decayed turnip.” There is M. Clemenceau, “the loathsome leper.” Over
there, M. Briand, “the moulting vulture.” And their heads are uncovered;
there is not the faintest resentment in their minds as the remains of
lurid, yet not always unkind, old Rochefort are borne away round the
corner under a magnificent purple pall.
Round the corner and up the steep hill to the vast, rambling Montmartre
Cemetery. Tombs, shadows, silence, mystery within the cemetery walls;
but, beyond them, the hectic arms of the Moulin Rouge, and the lurid
lights of night restaurants. In this mixed atmosphere Henri Rochefort has
an appropriate resting-place.
[6] He died on 27th June 1913.
[7] See page 196.
[8] 19th January 1905.
XIV
ROYAL VISITS TO PARIS
Whenever France is shaken by a scandal, convulsed by a crisis, the voice
of the undiscerning prophet is to be heard proclaiming the doom of the
Republic. The Affair of the Decorations in President Grévy’s time, the
Panama Affair, the Dreyfus Affair, the Steinheil Affair, yesterday’s
Rochette-Caillaux-Calmette Affair; each of these delirious dramas excited
the assertion that the French people, disgusted and indignant at so
much political corruption, were ready and eager for the restoration
of the old régime. True, these five scandals—and many other smaller
ones—shocked, saddened, humiliated the French nation. But at no time have
they caused the average Frenchman—most intelligent and reasonable of
beings—to lose faith in the Republic. Invariably he has maintained that
it is not the Republic that is at fault, but the Republicans behind her;
emphatically, he has insisted that the remedy lies, not in the overthrow,
but in the _reform_, of the Republic—in the honest enforcement of the
principles and doctrines of the Rights of Man. No Kings, no Emperors
for Twentieth-Century France! Imagine, if you can do it, Philippe, Duke
of Orleans, the handsomest, the most brilliant, the most irresistible
of Pretenders. Suppose Prince Victor Napoleon endowed with some of the
military and administrative genius of the Petit Caporal, instead of
having married and settled down in comfortable, bourgeois little Belgium.
Picture a modern General Boulanger on a new black charger—France would,
nevertheless, remain true to the Republican régime. “Ah non, mon vieux,
pas de ça,” one can hear the average Frenchman say to the would-be
monarch. “We have had you before. We know better than to try you again.
Bonsoir.”
Still, in spite of their confirmed Republicanism, the French people
love Royalty—the Royalty of other nations. How often, outside national
buildings that bear the democratic motto of Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity, have I heard shouts of: “Vive le Roi” and “Vive la Reine,”
and admiring exclamations of: “Il est beau” and “Elle est gentille,” when
a foreign monarch and his consort have visited Paris! How brilliantly
has the city been adorned and illuminated; what a special shine on the
helmets and breast-plates of the Republican Guard, and on the boots of
the little, nervous boulevard policemen; what a constant playing of the
august visitor’s own national anthem! In all countries a neighbouring
sovereign is received cordially, elaborately. But it is in Republican
France that a Royal visit is marked with the greatest pomp, circumstance
and excitement. For the fact is that France, more than any other
country, loves a fête—and the arrival in Paris of a King means flags,
fairy lamps, festoons of paper flowers, fireworks. (The mere ascent of a
rocket, the smallest shower of “golden rain” will throw the Parisian into
ecstasies.) Also it delights the Frenchman to behold the uniforms, and
the Stars and Orders of foreign nations—and he will stand about for hours
to catch only a glimpse of the monarch.
“Je l’ai vu, moi,” M. le Bourgeois declares proudly. Probably he has
discerned no more than the nose, or the ear or the eyebrow of his
Majesty. But he “salutes” the ear and the nose, he cheers the eyebrow:
and the newspapers are full of the “distinction” and “graciousness” and
“wit” of the visiting sovereign. Modern French novels and plays also
call attention to the homage paid by Parisians to foreign Royalty. In
that brilliant comedy, _Le Roi_, the mythical King of Cerdagne thus
addresses a Parisienne: “Le séjour à Paris, c’est une chose qui nous
délecte, nous autres pauvres rois, pauvres rois de province! On est si
riant pour nous, ici! Pour aimer les rois, il n’y a vraiment plus que
la France.” And the lady replies: “Mais elle est sincère, sire. Elle
est amoureuse de vous. Elle flirte, elle fait la coquette—elle aime ça.
La France est une Parisienne.” Most indisputably, France “flirts” with
Foreign Royalty. Vast quantities of flowers, fresh and artificial, here,
there and everywhere. All official buildings blazing and glittering with
huge electrical devices. About ten o’clock at night—amidst what murmurs,
exclamations, rapture!—fireworks on the ghost-haunted Ile de France.
Then Republican and Municipal Guards massed on the Place de l’Opéra;
and a dense crowd assembled to witness the arrival of his Majesty,
M. le Président, MM. les Ambassadeurs, and hosts of distinguished
personages, for the gala performance. All Paris turns out: stout M.
le Bourgeois, students from the Latin Quarter, _midinettes_ in their
best hats (I prefer them at noon, when Mesdemoiselles Marie and Yvonne
are bareheaded), workmen in their Sunday suits, small clerks in pink
shirts, obscure, dim-eyed old Government officials, Apaches on their
good behaviour, cabmen and chauffeurs (off their boxes), conscripts
with permits, concierges hastened from their lodges in slippers,
street gamins—Victor Hugo’s Gavroche—with his inimitable sarcasms and
repartee—all turn out to behold the Royal guest of Republican France pay
his State visit to the Opera. But what with the police and the troops
and the closed carriage of the sovereign, all these kinds and conditions
of Parisians do not behold even so much as the eyebrow of his Majesty.
They remain there until the performance is over, but with no happier
success. Away goes the Royal carriage, without affording the crowd the
view of an ear-tip, a chin or the nape of the neck. Still, in spite of
the crowd having seen nothing, what cheers! I have heard them raised for
the Tsar; for the Kings of Greece, Belgium, Sweden, Norway and Italy;
for the late ruler of Portugal; for the highly popular Alfonso of Spain;
for the greatest favourite of all, the idol of the Parisians—King Edward
the Seventh. King Edward’s State visit took place eleven years ago. The
result of it, twelve months later, was the consummation of the _Entente_.
Thus the present month of April will see Paris celebrating a “double”
event: the visit of King George and Queen Mary, and the tenth anniversary
of the Cordial Understanding. And it is safe to affirm that when the
cheers break out afresh in honour of their Majesties, they will not fail
to surpass in spontaneity and enthusiasm all the cheers of the past.
Royal visits to Paris never vary. They last four or five days, and during
that brief period the foreign sovereign, the French President, the
Cabinet Ministers, the array of high State officials, the troops, the
police, the Press and the greater part of Paris public have so much to
do and to see that at the end of the whirl they cannot but confess to a
condition of exhaustion. Both the Royal visitor and the President hold
brilliant State banquets. Most probably there is a third banquet at the
Quai d’Orsay. The gala at the Opera (or sometimes at the Français), a
Military Review, an expedition to Versailles, a reception at the Hôtel
de Ville, a special race-meeting, presentations of Addresses: such are
the traditional items in the strenuous “programme.” Then, speeches to
make; and since they are eminently “official,” they must be carefully
considered, and thoroughly mastered, beforehand. As, on the other
score, the “official” toasts and speeches are invariably stereotyped
in substance and sentiment, they cannot demand much inventiveness or
exertion. They must be mutually polite and complimentary—a repetition of
one another.
However, in spite of the polite and amusing banality of the “official”
speeches, Royal visits to France can have far-reaching consequences.
Eighteen years ago the arrival in Paris of the Tsar resulted in the
Franco-Russian Alliance. After that, King Edward and the _Entente_; and
since then the visits of the kings of Spain and Italy have undoubtedly
promoted a mutual friendly feeling between those two countries and
Republican France. Then there have also taken place, during the last five
or six years, odd, amazing Royal visits: that have caused the punctilious
French Protocol no end of _ennuis_ and perplexities. Behold black-faced
and burly old Sisowath, King of Cambodia, descending most indecorously
upon Paris, in a battered top-hat and gorgeous silken robes: and with a
party of bejewelled native dancing-girls! Impossible to separate Sisowath
from his monstrous top-hat (which came from heaven knows where) and
his dancers; impossible, therefore, to entertain his Cambodian Majesty
ceremoniously. Nor would he have tolerated State banquets, the Hôtel de
Ville, Versailles, the Opera. No pomp for black Sisowath. A great deal of
his time he spent in going up and down lifts; and in listening to gay
songs from the gramophone. When he drove through the streets he kissed
his great ebony hands at the Parisiennes. He was, as a matter of fact,
for kissing everybody: even capacious President Fallières, even sallow,
petulant M. Clemenceau. As he did his embracing, he hugged his victims in
his huge, massive arms. Still, he was a King—and so official France had
to overlook his eccentricities. As for the Parisians, they revelled in
Bohemian Sisowath. Ecstatic, gay cries of “_Vive le roi!_” and “_Vivent
les petites danseuses_”:—to which his merry old Majesty responded by
standing up in his carriage, and waving the disgraceful top-hat; and
blowing forth more and more kisses; and shouting out messages in his own
incomprehensible language.... Then, after Sisowath, Mulai Hafid, the
ex-Sultan of Morocco, who before coming to Paris passed a few days at
Vichy. Nobody, however, had reason to cheer or rejoice over this Royal
visitor: for his behaviour was intolerable. Sisowath was expansive,
affectionate, _rigolo_; Mulai Hafid was violent, insolent, offensive.
“Grotesque, horrible machines” was “Mulai’s” comment on the hats of the
fashionable Frenchwomen. The military bands, “they drive me mad.” The
actresses, “shameless and shocking”—they should be veiled like the ladies
of Morocco. “Where is your sun?” demanded the ex-Sultan, looking up at
the grey skies. “I am so bored that I am going to bed. What a people,
what a country!” All this, and more, the Yellow journalists gleefully
repeated in their newspapers. Then, photographs of “Mulai” scowling, of
“Mulai” disdainful, of “Mulai” contemptuous. So that when “Mulai” came to
Paris, still scowling, the Hippolyte Durands were indignant at his bad
manners. In France, you mustn’t speak ill of anything French: especially
when you are in receipt of a pension of 350,000 francs a year.
But “Mulai” didn’t care. He was for ever taking the Paris journalists
into his confidence, and more and more unflattering became his comments
on French life. As it rained every day, his temper was detestable; and he
has been seen to shake his fist at the French skies. Then he omitted to
salute the French flag: he described the French language as ridiculous;
he yawned in the Louvre: and he retired to bed through sheer boredom a
dozen times a day.
Also, “Mulai” was said to be furious because the Press had compared him
unfavourably with Sisowath, the amazing ebony-black monarch of Cambodia.
“Sisowath,” said the papers, was not only _rigolo_. When he came to Paris
seven years ago he wore brilliant robes, a multitude of diamonds—as well
as a battered old top-hat. And he laughed and laughed all day long.
Not only did he kiss his great black hands at the Parisiennes, but he
showered silver amongst the crowd. And he meant it kindly when he hugged
bald, portly State officials. In a word, black, enormous Sisowath of
Cambodia was an unsophisticated, affectionate, merry old soul. But, in
“Mulai’s” estimation, Sisowath is a savage, and furious, as I have said,
is the ex-Sultan that he should be mentioned in the same breath with him.
Socially, in fact, “Mulai’s” visit to France is anything but a success.
He has been raging against French boots, because, after putting on
a pair, they pinched him. He has been cursing French automobiles,
because they travel so fast. And he has hurled a French suit of clothes
(especially made for him) out of the window, because of the buttons.
“Ah non, c’est trop fort,” cries Hippolyte Durand, as he reads of
“Mulai’s” outbursts in the papers. And still greater becomes his
indignation, when he comes upon the following statement:—“The situation
in Morocco continues serious. The Vled Bu Beker, of the Rehama tribe, is
active. The attitude of the Vled Belghina and the Vled Amrane Fukania
is threatening. The Hiania tribesmen are gathered at Safrata on the Wed
Sebu. At Ben Guerie, Bab Aissa, Suk-el-Arba and——”
“I will read no more; I understand nothing, I am distracted!” cries M.
Hippolyte Durand. “Ah, _nom d’un nom_, what a sinister country is this
Morocco!”
Earlier in this paper, I observed that Royal visits to Paris never
“vary,” but in one respect this statement requires correction. The most
delicate, the most anxious duty of the French Government is to watch
over the safety of her illustrious guests. Paris, rightly or wrongly,
is alleged to abound with anarchists, fanatics and lunatics. Ask M.
Guichard, one of the chiefs of the Criminal Investigation Department:
and he will tell you that a Royal visit, if a delight to the public, is
a misery and a nightmare to the detective police. The extent, the depth
of the misery depends upon the nationality of the monarch. Of course, no
fears as to old Sisowath’s safety; and peril for Mulai Hafid, who was
nearly always in bed, caused even slighter apprehensions. The kings of
Belgium, Sweden and Norway—well, the detective police, although watchful,
“breathed” freely and slept of nights when their Majesties came to
Paris. But the King of Italy, a hundred thousand precautions; the King
of Spain—extraordinary vigilance: and even then a bomb fell within a few
yards of the Royal carriage; the Tsar—a state of panic and siege that
still haunts me after the interval of eighteen long years. Weeks before
his Imperial Majesty’s arrival, Russian detectives descended upon Paris.
Together with their French colleagues they searched for conspirators and
bombs—even forcing their way into the rooms of the poor Russian girl
students of the Latin Quarter, seizing their correspondence, subjecting
them to offensive cross-examinations. Still rougher methods with the male
students: with Russian plumbers, clerks and mechanics; many were arrested
on no evidence as “revolutionaries” and imprisoned (without being allowed
to communicate with their friends) until after the Imperial Visitor’s
departure. Often, as a result of the raids of the detective police,
the poorer Russian residents in Paris were given _congé_ by terrified
concierges, and had to take refuge in stifling, common lodging-houses, or
seek for shelter on the outskirts of Paris. Meanwhile, Paris was decking
herself out with flowers and flags, rehearsing coloured electrical
“effects,” setting the supports for the panoramic fireworks, buying
up the photographs of the Tsar of All the Russias. But it was a pale,
uneasy, harassed-looking Emperor that drove through the splendidly
decorated thoroughfares; it was a beautiful, but a sad-faced, Consort who
accompanied him; it was cheers all the way; but it was also a detective
in plain clothes at one’s elbow, more detectives in corners and doorways,
still more detectives on roofs and—I dare say—up chimneys; it was
festoons and illuminations and fireworks: but it was also bayonets and
sabres; it was the democratic _Marseillaise_ of France _and_ the National
Anthem of despotic Russia; it was “Long live the Emperor”; and “Long live
the Republic”—but it was an ironical, a pitiable spectacle: this Imperial
guest, come on a visit to a friendly country, protected and surrounded by
an illimitable, armed bodyguard, as though he were entering—not Paris—but
the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
Numbers of Russian decorations for the Paris detective police, when
the Tsar had departed in safety! Out of prison came the perfectly
innocent “revolutionaries”: the Russian girls were permitted to resume
their studies in the Latin Quarter... not the silliest little bomb had
spluttered, not a seditious cry had been raised... and a high police
official of my acquaintance was granted by a grateful Government a
prolonged holiday on increased pay. He deserved it. Dark shadows under
his eyes, hectic spots in his cheeks, dyspepsia, insomnia, acute
neurasthenia: such was his plight after the glorious visit to Paris of
the Tsar of All the Russias. To-day, eighteen years later, my detective
friend has risen to one of the highest positions at the Sûreté, and he
can produce many a decoration or gift awarded him by foreign Royalty,
and is particularly proud of a gold watch presented to him by King
Edward the Seventh. The late King was so popular in Paris that he was
known familiarly and affectionately as “Edouard.” Nevertheless, he was
watched over by the private detective police. “_Mais oui_, we had even to
attend to the safety of ‘Edouard,’ the most admirable of kings; he often
gave me cigars, and you have already seen the gold watch,” my detective
friend recently told me. “We were concerned about the Indians in Paris.
Oh, nobody else would have assailed Edouard. As for the Indians, they
were kept under observation day and night.” The detective was alluding
to the notorious Krishnavarna, who “ran” a scurrilous little newspaper
in a house off the Champs Élysées. Odd, sinister-looking Indians (I am
still quoting my police friend) called frequently at the place. They
remained there for hours and hours: what were they doing? But the police
have their eye on them—especially closely and keenly fixed on them now
that King George and Queen Mary are about to make their entrance into
Paris. Also—so I am informed by the same high detective official—the
police have been instructed to beware of the militant Suffragettes.
Miss Christabel Pankhurst “under observation”; the comings and goings
of her visitors watched and recorded; the lady passengers on the Havre,
Dieppe and Calais steamers carefully scrutinised on their arrival; the
police actually taught to shout “Votes for Women” in order that they may
promptly distinguish that cry in the event of its being uttered! Dear
Paris—dear, excitable, incoherent, wonderful, incomparable Paris—into
what difficulties as well as delights, into what a whirl of pleasure and
confusion, does a Royal visit plunge you!
But, never mind the difficulties, _tant pis_ for the confusion; _vivent_
the more than compensating thrills of emotion and delight. This evening,
as I close this paper, Paris is once again shouting: “Vive le Roi” and
“Vive la Reine”—shouting herself “hoarse,” so the French and English
Press unanimously declare; and the decorations and illuminations of
the past have been triumphantly eclipsed, and the State banquets, the
reception at the Hôtel de Ville, the gala performance at the Opera,
the race-meeting and the military review have surpassed in brilliancy
and splendour even the golden ceremonies that solemnised the visit of
the Tsar of All the Russias. Very remarkable, too, the State speeches
delivered by the President of the Republic and the King of England in
the banqueting-hall of the Élysée. Both speeches of unusual length: the
old, banal, stilted phrases superseded by a note of eloquent and vigorous
sincerity.
As a matter of fact, the reception of his son has excited even higher
and livelier enthusiasm than did the official visit of King Edward
the Seventh—because he _is_ his son: because, since the year 1904,
the _entente cordiale_ has matured and strengthened. At all events,
unprecedented things have happened. Until to-day, the French newspapers
could scarcely contrive to publish an English word, or name, or sentence
without misspelling, mangling or otherwise distorting it. Our Prime
Minister used to be “Sir Askit,” whilst our ex-Home Secretary, Mr “Winsy
Churkil,” was frequently and severally described as Chief of the Police
and—Prefect of the Thames. Vanished, to-day, all those inexactitudes and
incoherencies of recent times. Before me, almost surrounding me, spread
and bulge a mass of French newspapers of all opinions. But every one of
them has become “correct,” impeccable in its English, and right across
the top of the front page of _Gil Blas_, in gigantic characters, the
familiar, cordial invitation:
“Shake hands, King George.”
XV
AT THE ÉLYSÉE. MESSIEURS LES PRÉSIDENTS
1. M. LOUBET AND PAUL DÉROULÈDE
On 16th February 1899, President Faure (known familiarly and gaily in
Paris as “Félix”) died suddenly. Two days later the Upper and Lower
Chambers, solemnly assembled at Versailles, proclaimed M. Émile Loubet
his successor. And now, after seven years in the Élysée, M. Loubet makes
way for the eighth President of the Third French Republic and retires
into a tranquil, simple _appartement_.
Seven years ago! But it seems only yesterday that I found myself, one
cold, misty afternoon, before the St-Lazare station, where the newly
elected President was to arrive. I was eager to witness his début in
Paris as Chief of the State. Eager, too, to “receive him” were thousands
of Parisians.
But as I surveyed the dense, excited crowd, I gathered at a glance that
the reception it reserved for M. Loubet was to be very far from friendly.
Here, there and everywhere chattered and whispered the followers of MM.
Edouard Drumont, Lucien Millevoye, Henri Rochefort and Jules Guérin. In
full force, too, were the paid hirelings of those notorious agitators;
collarless, shabby, unshaven fellows, “Messieurs les Quarante-Sous.” And
present again was the “Emperor of the Camelots,” a striking-looking man
with long hair, bold, brilliant eyes and a humorous expression; not only
the composer and seller of “topical” songs, not only the indefatigable
electioneering agent and the ironical pamphleteer, but the ingenious, the
illustrious, the incomparable organiser of “popular demonstrations.”
Often did agitators say to the “Emperor”: “I want So-and-so hissed,”
or “I want So-and-so cheered.” Obligingly and genially the “Emperor”
replied: “Nothing is easier.” And in truth, the operation was simple. The
agitator provided the money: and the “Emperor” called together a fine
army of manifestants.
Thus the crowd before the St-Lazare station looked threatening on that
memorable winter’s afternoon. Of course those garrulous, gesticulating
bodies, the “Ligue de la Patrie Française” and M. Paul Déroulède’s
“League of the Patriots,” were strongly represented. Inevitably, too, the
little, nervous, impetuous policemen of Paris figured conspicuously in
the scene. And everyone was restless, everyone was impatient, save the
“Emperor of the Camelots,” who, making his way urbanely and imperturbably
through the crowd, occasionally spoke a word to his subjects, his army:
the shabby, unshaven fellows, Messieurs les Quarante-Sous. No doubt he
was asking them whether their voices were in good condition, and whether
their whistles were handy. And most probably he was instructing them how
to keep out of the clutches of the alert, watchful police.
“À bas Loubet!”
The cry came from the interior of the station. No sooner had it been
uttered than the crowd excitedly exclaimed: “He has arrived.”
And then, what a din of shouting, of hissing, of hooting! And then, what
a blowing of shrill, piercing whistles! And then, as the Presidential
carriage drove away (with M. Loubet seated by the window, pale, grave,
dignified, venerable), what a hoarse, violent uproar of “À bas Loubet!”
and “Mort aux traîtres!” and “Panama! Panama! Panama!”[9] Not one hat
raised to him. Not one cheer given him. Not one courtesy paid him. It was
to the ear-splitting notes of whistles, it was to a chorus of calumny and
abuse, it was in the midst of a howling, hostile mob, that the new Chief
of the State made his début in Paris.
What, it may be asked, was the reason of M. Loubet’s unpopularity? Well,
the Dreyfus days had begun: those wild, frenzied days of feuds, duels
and hatreds; of frauds, riots and conspiracies, when Parisians allowed
themselves to be governed and blinded by their passions and prejudices.
M. Loubet was notoriously in favour of granting the unhappy prisoner
on the Devil’s Island a new trial. Paris, on the other hand, misled,
intimidated, deceived by the Nationalists, was Anti-Dreyfusard. And hence
the tempestuous reception—at once spontaneous and “organised”—accorded
the new President on his return from Versailles.
However, in the present paper, it is not my intention to examine the
political situation in France during the tumultuous winter, summer and
autumn of 1899. My aim is to portray certain scenes and to record certain
incidents which may convey an idea of the state of Paris in that epoch,
and of her attitude towards M. Loubet. And here let me return without
further ado to the crowd before the St-Lazare station, where, after the
President’s departure, there appeared yet another amazing agitator in the
person of M. Déroulède.
He has been likened to—Don Quixote. And it has also been good-humouredly
agreed that in his devoted lieutenant, M. Marcel Habert, he possesses an
admirable Sancho Panza. For M. Déroulède is an _exalté_. M. Déroulède
is extravagant, theatrical, often absurd: yet with a noble sincerity in
him and an attachment to the idea. And as he stood in the thick of the
St-Lazare crowd, with his official Deputy’s sash, with his decoration
in his button-hole, with fire in his eye, with a flush on his cheeks
and with burning “patriotic” utterances on his lips—as he stood there
haranguing and gesticulating, M. Paul Déroulède held everyone’s
attention. At that moment, he was passionately inviting his hearers
to follow him to Joan of Arc’s statue, there to hold a “patriotic”
demonstration. Often, he made such a pilgrimage. Often, too, he made
pilgrimages to the Strasbourg monument on the Place de la Concorde: and
to the cemeteries where rest the “heroic victims” of Germany. There were
many who laughed at him, but his courage and honesty no one, not even his
adversaries, doubted. He had fought valiantly in the Franco-Prussian War,
and ever since that appalling campaign he had looked after the interests
of the scrubby little soldier—_le pioupiou_—and composed songs and poems
in his honour. “Vive l’Armée!” and “Vive la France!” were the eternal,
emotional cries of M. Déroulède. At his bidding, Paris echoed those
cries. And Paris also “supported” him enthusiastically when he made his
pilgrimages to the Place de la Concorde, and the cemeteries, and Joan
of Arc’s statue; for in what is essential and fine in him, his noble
sincerity and devotion to the idea, even when in the wrong, M. Déroulède
stands as the outward and visible type of a quality that belongs to the
soul and the genius of France.
Well, upon the present occasion, M. Déroulède’s audience was particularly
responsive. “Then follow me!” he shouted triumphantly. And so, behold him
leading a long, animated procession from the St-Lazare station to the rue
de Rivoli. And behold him again, a few minutes later, standing against
the railing that encircles “La Pucelle” astride of her horse. And
behold his followers—hundreds of them—closely surrounding him, and the
police—scores of them—ready to “charge” the crowd at the first outbreak
of disorder. But M. Déroulède, unlike the Anti-Semitic Jules Guérin, was
no lover of brawls. He wished only to “defend” the “honour of the Army”
(which, by the way, had never been assailed). He desired only to point
out that France was governed by a number of men who dreamt day and night,
dreamt night and day, dreamt always and always of “selling their country
to the enemy.” Ah, these abominable, these infamous traitors! Even as he,
Paul Déroulède, stood there, at the foot of Joan of Arc’s statue, this
sinister, this diabolical Government was plotting the “réhabilitation” of
a man—no, a scoundrel—convicted by his own colleagues of treason.
“Citizens, our France, our beloved France, is in danger. Citizens, do
your duty. Citizens, drive away the traitors who govern you. Citizens,
show your execration of these traitors by crying with me: “Vive l’Armée!”
“Vive la France!” “Vive la patrie!”
And again the crowd was responsive. This time, indeed, there were shouts
of “Vive Déroulède!” Parisians came running up from neighbouring streets,
so that the crowd grew and expanded. On the tops of the omnibuses
passengers cheered encouragingly. At every window and on every doorstep
stood spectators. In fine, much animation around Joan of Arc’s statue.
“En avant!” cried, martially, our Don Quixote. Warned by the police to
be “prudent,” he replied that he was a “patriot,” and hotly demanded
that his Deputy’s sash should be respected. Then, placing himself at
the head of his followers, he led them triumphantly towards the _grands
boulevards_. Again, “patriotic” cries. Again, fierce denunciations of the
“Government of Traitors.”
And, in M. Déroulède’s organ, _Le Drapeau_, next morning, what an
exultant account of M. Loubet’s tempestuous début in Paris, and what a
glowing recital of the “grandiose” and “glorious” manifestation held at
the foot of Joan of Arc’s gilded statue.
After this we had daily, almost hourly, manifestations. Very _affairé_,
but always urbane and imperturbable, was the “Emperor of the Camelots.”
Very active and zealous were Messieurs les Quarante-Sous. And very
garrulous, excited and nervous were the Parisians. In cafés they
emotionally agreed that the situation was “grave.” In cafés, also, they
whispered of plots against the President and the Republic—sensational
plots that greatly agitated the Chief of the Police. Yes, M. Lépine was
alarmed; M. Lépine had lost his appetite; M. Lépine could not rest at
night for thinking of the shoals and shoals of conspirators then present
in Paris. A veritable plague of conspirators!
Here, there and everywhere, a conspirator. Who knew: perhaps one’s
very neighbour in cafés, trains, omnibuses and trams was a dangerous
conspirator? And so, when we spoke of conspirators and conspiracies, we
lowered our voices and glanced apprehensively over our shoulders, and
were altogether very uneasy, suspicious and mysterious. Heavens, what
rumours! And mercy, what an effervescence! Now it was the “agents” of
the Bonapartists who were “active.” Anon it was the Orleanists who were
“at work.” Next it was the Clericals who were conspiring. And, finally,
it was the Militarists, who had actually appointed the day and the hour
when they would give a Dictator to France. Already it had been arranged
that the Dictator should appear in Paris on a splendid black charger,
surrounded by a brilliant, dashing staff. And the Dictator, from his
saddle, was eloquently to address the populace. And when the Dictator
spoke the sacred name “France,” he was to draw and flourish his sword.
And the brilliant staff was to cheer. And the dashing staff was to cry——
No matter: the approaching arrival in Paris of the Dictator and retinue
was a secret; only whispered timidly and fearfully amongst us when we
felt ourselves secure from conspiring eavesdroppers. Such was the gossip;
such was the nervousness. Little wonder, then, that the Chief of the
Police passed restless, unhappy nights. Never a moment’s peace, never a
moment’s leisure for poor M. Lépine. All around him, conspirators. And
before him, at the same time, the task of making preparations for M.
Félix Faure’s funeral, which was to be solemn, imposing and magnificent.
And magnificent it was. Almost interminable was the procession that
left the Élysée for Notre Dame, to the tragic strains of Chopin’s
_Funeral March_. All along the route, soldiers and policemen. And behind
the soldiers and policemen, the people of Paris—men, women and even
children—who murmured their admiration at the plumes, at the flowers
and at the brilliant uniforms in the cortège. Each foreign Power was
imposingly represented. But most imposing of them all were the Emperor
William’s envoys: three Prussian officers, veritable giants. Then,
mourners from the French Army; mourners from the Chambers; mourners from
the Corps Diplomatique; mourners from the Academy and Institute; mourners
from every distinguished official, social and artistic sphere. And at the
head of all these grand mourners the homely, plainly dressed figure of M.
Émile Loubet.
However, one mourner was missing: a friend of the late M. Faure: none
other than M. Paul Déroulède. And yet he had deeply deplored the death of
the late President, and fiercely denounced the advent of his successor.
But—M. Déroulède was busy. Think: at that moment the Élysée had no
master. So, what an opportunity. And as the funeral procession proceeded
slowly and solemnly from Notre Dame to the cemetery, M. Déroulède might
have been seen in a distant quarter of Paris with his hand on the bridle
of General Roget’s horse.
“À l’Élysée, Général; à l’Élysée.”
Only think of it. There was General Roget with soldiers under
his command, who would follow him wherever he led them. And the
Élysée—practically—was empty. And thus it was the moment of moments to
achieve a brilliant _coup d’état_.
“À l’Élysée, Général; à l’Élysée.”
But General Roget refused to turn his horse’s head in the direction of
the Élysée. He preferred to return to the barracks with his men, and
therefore begged M. Déroulède to release his hold of the bridle.
_Manqué_, M. Déroulède’s conspiracy. In vain, his tremendous _coup
d’état_. Behold our Don Quixote and his devoted Sancho Panza, in dismay
and despair. Behold them some time later on their trial for conspiracy.
But behold them acquitted by the jury amidst a scene of the wildest
enthusiasm. And hear the joyous, triumphant proclamations that their
acquittal was yet another bitter humiliation for M. Loubet.
What insults and what calumnies followed! Every Nationalist organ began
a fierce campaign against M. Loubet, accused him of corruption, of every
conceivable meanness and crime, and exultantly related how his name was
constantly being _conspué_ in Paris. Since it was “seditious” to cry “À
bas Loubet,” they cried “Vive l’Armée!” and “Mort aux traîtres,” which
M. Lucien Millevoye, Édouard Drumont, Henri Rochefort and Jules Guérin
declared to be the same thing.
Those were the only cries that greeted M. Loubet when he drove out in the
Presidential carriage—pale, grave, dignified, venerable. From his native
place, the village of Montélimar, came a message imploring him to resign.
More hissing and hooting in the streets, but always a calm smile on the
President’s kindly face; always that determined, imperturbable expression.
Other “incidents”? Well, for months there was incident after incident:
and when Émile Loubet drove to the Longchamps Races surrounded by
cavalry, it was stated that he feared assassination. At Longchamps up
rushed an elegant young aristocrat with a stick in his hand, and the
stick was aimed at the President’s head. It only smashed the President’s
hat: but the Nationalists rejoiced. And the elegant young aristocrat was
regarded as a hero, and caricaturists always portrayed Émile Loubet with
his hat smashed over his head. Came another message from Montélimar,
inviting him to accept the public verdict: but came, also, messages of
sympathy and esteem from all the Courts in Europe.
And here, passing over other incidents, let me arrive at once at the
day when the man in the street began to admire Émile Loubet’s patience,
tact, determination, and when he was delighted at the calm, kindly
smile; and when—day of days—he said: “Ce bon Loubet,” and then—moment
of moments—cried, “Vive Loubet.” A change, a change! Through the streets
drove the President, saluting, saluted. Parisians rejoiced to learn that
the Tsar had a veritable affection for Émile Loubet, and Parisians were
pleased to see him drive across Paris with the King of England, chatting,
smiling, laughing. Cordial the shouts of “Vive Loubet.” Cordial the
newspaper appreciations of Émile Loubet. And the streets lined to see him
take train to London.
In London, scores of journalists accompanying him, and also scores of
_camelots_. Yes, real Paris _camelots_ in Soho, and in the public-houses
and little restaurants of Soho, the _camelots_ loud in their praises of
Émile Loubet.
Here, there and everywhere the motto: “Entente Cordiale.”
I remember the King of the Camelots telling me in Soho that he and his
men had taken a great fancy to Englishmen.
His appreciation was worth having, for he was no enthusiast. Indeed, he
had done a great trade some time ago in Anti-English caricatures, toys
and post cards. He drank to the _entente_ in a bottle of Bass. He vowed
that Bass was better than _bock_. He paid tributes to roast beef, apple
tart and kippers; indeed, regretted with veritable emotion that there
were no kippers in France. So kind and affable and flattering was the
King of the Camelots that I could write of him for hours. However, I must
leave him on the kerbstone in Holborn, shouting: “Vive Loubet,” and
waving his hat and receiving (so, at least, he declared afterwards) a
special salute from the smiling, delighted President.
Everyone charmed with Émile Loubet, and Émile Loubet charmed with
everything. Of course, King and President held little private
conversations; it is certain that Lord Lansdowne and M. Delcassé met
often and talked long.
Then, Paris again—and crowds in the street once more to shout: “Vive
Loubet.” Heavens, what a change since the February afternoon four
years ago! To-day, nothing but sympathy and esteem for the President,
part author of the Anglo-French Agreement. To-day, nothing but sincere
pleasure at the Agreement, which brings together two naturally friendly
and sympathetic countries. “Perhaps the most important Treaty ever signed
in time of peace,” said an enthusiastic Parisian to me. And then, with
equal enthusiasm: “Vive Loubet!”
[9] M. Loubet was Premier and Minister of the Interior at the time of
the exposure of the Panama scandal. In November, 1892, he was forced
to resign, but retained his post of Minister of the Interior under M.
Ribot, the new Premier. Two months later, disgusted by the calumnies of
their adversaries in the Chamber, both M. Loubet and his colleague M. de
Freycinet (Minister of War) retired.
2. M. ARMAND FALLIÈRES. MOROCCO AND THE FLOODS
A day or two ago, in the Presidential palace of the Élysée, M. Armand
Fallières celebrated his seventy-second birthday. I do not know whether
there were gifts, flowers, a birthday cake, champagne and speeches: but,
according to an incorrigible gossip in a boulevard newspaper, M. le
Président stated that this was the blithest birthday he had known for
seven years. “I breathe again,” he is reported to have said. “This time
next year, I shall pass my anniversary, not in a frock coat and varnished
boots, but in a dressing-gown and carpet slippers.”
I believe this is the “mood” that would obsess anyone who had passed
seven years of his life as President of the French Republic. It was M.
Émile Loubet’s mood. Nothing in this world would have induced him to
accept a second Septennat; and to-day M. Loubet lives in a quiet little
flat on the Rive Gauche, where (in his slippers) he has often exclaimed:
“Ce pauvre Fallières!” And then gone to bed tranquilly and comfortably;
whilst his successor at the Élysée was in consultation with the Minister
of Foreign Affairs over the miseries of Morocco. President Casimir-Périer
endured just six months of Presidency. “On m’embête; je m’en vais,” said
he. He was too elegant to care for slippers. But a day or two after his
resignation he was discovered stretched in an easy-chair in the garden
of a Bois de Boulogne restaurant, in white duck trousers. “I breathe
again,” he stated—just as President Fallières has now declared on his
seventy-second birthday.
Thus it would miraculously appear that one stops breathing upon being
appointed President of the French Republic, and doesn’t regain one’s
breath until one’s martyrdom at the Élysée has expired. Certain it is
that the President of the French Republic, living as he does in the
most amazing city in the world, must experience and endure amazing
tribulations and adventures. President Loubet went through the Dreyfus
Affair; President Fallières through the Floods. Up and down the Seine in
a barge sailed M. Fallières, and because of his bulk and lest the barge
might capsize, the boatmen had to implore M. le Président not to move.
He was a heroic, but not a dignified, figure as he sat, massive and
motionless, in that barge. Nor could he ever look other than bulky in the
Presidential carriage (which, when he entered it, nearly tilted over)
as he drove forth to meet foreign sovereigns, or to attend the great
military review or gala performances at the Français and Opéra. That vast
bulk has always been against him. Not a Parisian that has not commented
on it, not an illustrated newspaper that has not depicted it, not a
theatrical revue that has not exaggerated it.
Although M. Armand Fallières has left Paris for his country residence
at Rambouillet, the French “Presidential Holiday” has not yet begun. To
start with, Rambouillet is a State château, almost another Élysée, in
that Cabinet meetings are held there, the Ministers motoring down from
Paris with their portfolios and wearing their official, inscrutable
expressions. Outside in the park, flowers, birds, winding paths, shady
trees, hidden, tranquil corners; but within the Council Chamber, the old,
eternal complications and miseries of politics.
No doubt, when the Ministers have left, M. le Président seeks to lead the
simple, the ordinary life. But, as Rambouillet is a State residence,
flunkeys abound, and not only gardeners, but detectives, haunt the
park. Impossible, to put it vulgarly, to be “on one’s own.” Worse than
that, how the majestic, powdered flunkeys wink and grin when M. Armand
Fallières has turned his back upon them in his slippers, alpaca jacket
and vast gardening hat! For M. le Président is burly, with a formidable
_embonpoint_; and when he enters a carriage, it tilts; and when he steps
into a rowing boat, it very nearly capsizes, and when——
“I am the most inelegant of Presidents,” M. Armand Fallières himself has
admitted. “Heavens, how my servants despise me!”
At Rambouillet M. Fallières’ predecessor, most admirable M. Loubet, also
aroused the disdain of the flunkeys by reason of his simplicity—and
his real holiday did not begin until he had reached his native town of
Montélimar, where he was treated—and liked to be treated—as _un enfant
du pays_—a son of the soil. Because Montélimar is famous for its nougat,
M. Loubet was dubbed by fierce, lurid old Henri Rochefort—“Nougat the
First.” But Republican France liked to hear of her President hobnobbing
with the people of Montélimar and gossiping with the peasantry of
neighbouring villages, and leading forth on his arm a little brown-faced
and wrinkled old lady, in the dress and cap of a peasant woman—his mother.
But those are all memories. We have nothing to do with Montélimar; we
are only concerned with the wine-growing districts of Loupillon, where
M. Fallières (released from official Rambouillet) will be amiable,
pottering and peering about amidst his vineyards in a few days. Behold,
just as last year, M. le Président, not only in slippers, but in his
shirt-sleeves; and behold, too, the peasantry stretched over hedges and
perched high up in trees, that they may view the burly Chief of the State
inspecting and admiring his grapes. They are his hobby, his pride, his
exquisite joy: and yet it is notorious that they are a very sour, a very
inferior, one might almost say, a very terrible little grape.
Ask the Loupillon peasants and they will exclaim: “It is extraordinary,
it is unheard-of that a Son of this Soil, and a President of the
President, should produce such a grape! Look at it! _Cré nom d’un nom_,
what a sad little thing!”
Ask those privileged, intimate friends who lunch _en famille_ at the
Élysée, and they will cry: “Ah, the white wine of Fallières! Ah, the
Presidential grape from Loupillon! It makes one shudder to mention it.”
But, M. le Président ignores these criticisms and mockeries. After
Morocco and Proportional Representation, his dear little grapes! In spite
of their smallness, their sourness, how he loves them!
Six weeks of his grapes—then the Élysée, Morocco, once again; and then,
in February next, nothing but holidays for the Chief of the State. For
February will see the end of M. Fallières’ seven years’ Presidency, and,
like his predecessor, he will not seek re-election. Like M. Loubet, too,
his next Paris residence will be a comfortable, bourgeois third-floor
_appartement_—its site, the Boulevard St Germain, within a few minutes’
walk of M. Émile Loubet’s flat in the rue Dante. No flunkeys, no
detectives in plain clothes—and no telephone. Moreover, no pianolas,
no gramophones, no parrots, no poodles, for M. Fallières (who owns the
building of flats in which he has decided to reside) has warned his
tenants that no such nuisance will be tolerated when he moves to his new
quarters. The simple, the ordinary life! Morocco, etc., etc., etc.—only
memories. Never ceremonious banquets, with Château Yquem, and Morton
Rothschild, and Lafite, and the finest of Extra Secs. Modest luncheons
and dinners _en famille_. And for wine, nothing but the sour, little
white grape of Loupillon.
It has been said that the best rulers are those who feel an extreme
disinclination to rule, and who only consent to accept authority under
a strong sense of duty. If this be true, then unquestionably M. Émile
Loubet and M. Armand Fallières were good and loyal presidents, who,
without personal ambition and at the cost of their own tastes, as well
as of their own interests, served the Republic—for seven years, each
of them—to the very best of their knowledge and power. And upon this
question of power one has to keep in mind that M. le Président, though
he holds the title of Chief of the State, is very much in the hands
of his ministers. He forms ministries? Yes; but here, too, it is not
always the most competent and disinterested men, in France particularly,
who are most eager for office. Nothing can be more unjust than to make
admirable M. Émile Loubet, excellent M. Armand Fallières, responsible for
everything that happened, and especially for everything that went wrong,
during the two periods of seven years these patriotic French citizens
devoted to the service of their country.
The difficulties of M. le Président, the impertinent disregard of his
rank in the State shown by the very men he has called to power, is a
favourite theme of playwrights and novelists. In _L’Habit Vert_, the
brilliant, satirical comedy by MM. de Flers and de Caillavet, just
produced at the Variétés theatre, a Cabinet Minister submits an important
political telegram for the President’s official approbation. “Yes, that
will do; send it off immediately,” says M. le Président. “That’s all
right; it was sent half-an-hour ago,” replies the Minister. Then, in
that famous comedy, _Le Roi_, which so rejoiced the heart of King Edward
the Seventh, the French Premier to one of his colleagues: “Cormeau, the
Minister of Commerce, has just resigned. Nearly a Ministerial Crisis,
but we have escaped it. Telephone the name of Cormeau’s successor, and
that all is well, to the Press, the Chamber, the Senate, the Palace of
Justice, and—ah yes, I forgot—to the President of the Republic.”
On the top of all this, M. le Président, although practically in the
hands of Messieurs les Ministres, is held responsible by the public
for the possible blunders and follies and sins of the Cabinet. Salary,
£40,000 a year, with all kinds of substantial “perquisites.” Residences:
the Palace of the Élysée and the Château de Rambouillet. Ironical
official title: Chief of the State. Result: Morocco, Floods, or the
Dreyfus Affair, helplessness and worry, collapse of the respiratory
organ. But, thank heaven! M. le Président recovereth his breath when the
time comes for another to take his place: and he himself may drift into
a dressing-gown and carpet slippers and exclaim of his successor, by the
tranquil, unofficial fireside: “Ce pauvre——!” Successor at the Élysée.
Who will he be? Of course, after the lofty and admirable statesmanship
he has exhibited throughout the Balkan conflict, M. Poincaré, the Prime
Minister, is hailed by the man in the street as the future Chief of the
State? But elegant M. Paul Deschanel, of the French Academy, President
of the Chamber of Deputies, and a would-be President of the Republic for
the last fourteen years, is also mentioned; and impetuous, despotic,
sallow-faced M. Georges Clemenceau, in spite of his recent delirious
ups and downs, has hosts of followers. Solid M. Ribot is stated to be
an eager candidate. M. Léon Bourgeois (who did such fine work at The
Hague Peace Conference) would probably be elected, were there a Madame
Bourgeois to “receive” officially at the Élysée. After that, M. Delcassé,
M. Lépine, M. Briand, Madame Sarah Bernhardt, M. Dranem the comic singer,
“Monte Carlo Wells.” But I am anticipating events. I am also in peril of
appearing incoherent; so let me hasten to declare that the last-named
candidates for the Presidency of the Third Republic are but the gay
“selections” of that inveterate gossip in a certain boulevard newspaper.
And, that made clear, let us for the moment leave the emptiness of
political ambition and share in the dressing-gown and carpet-slipper mood
of M. Armand Fallières.
3. M. RAYMOND POINCARÉ AND THE RECORD OF M. LÉPINE
Last February (1913) must be accounted an important month in the history
of the Third French Republic. Away, after his seven years’ official
tenancy of the Élysée, went M. Armand Fallières to a comfortable
bourgeois _appartement_, there, no doubt, to recall, in dressing-gown
and carpet slippers, the rare joys and successes and the many shocks and
miseries of his Septennat, and to speculate upon the destiny reserved for
his successor, ninth President of the Republic, M. Raymond Poincaré.
No commonplace destiny—that was certain. M. Fallières took possession
of the Élysée amidst general indifference; M. Émile Loubet assumed
office amongst eggs, threats, vegetable stalks, shouts of “traitor” and
“bandit”: but M. Poincaré found Paris _en fête_—flags flying, hats and
handkerchiefs whirling, the crowd in its Sunday best—on the day that _he_
became Chief of the State.
A vast popularity, M. Poincaré’s! Exclaimed M. le Bourgeois: “At last we
have got a strong man for a President! For the first time, there will
be a master at the Élysée.” On all sides, indeed, it was agreed that
M. Poincaré’s election to the Presidency signified the collapse of the
tradition that the Chief of the State should be a figure-head, a mere
signer of documents, placed, none too ceremoniously, before him by his
Ministers.
Thus, a new régime had dawned. Poincaré was “going to wake things up”;
Poincaré was also “going to do things”; what precisely Poincaré was going
to do nobody could explain; but “Vive Poincaré,” was the cry of the
hour; and not only in luxurious, radiant Paris, but in grim, industrial
centres, dull, provincial towns, and remote, obscure hamlets. Such a
popularity that into the shop windows came Poincaré Pipes, Poincaré
Braces, Poincaré Walking Sticks, the Poincaré Safety Razor. Then, on
restaurant menus: Consommé Poincaré—Poulet Poincaré—Omelette Poincaré.
More Poincaré, smiling and bowing, on dizzy kinematograph films and in
the music hall revues; and imagine, if you can, the sale of Poincaré
photographs in the flashy arcade of the rue de Rivoli! “Poincaré and
Gaby Deslys—that’s what we are selling,” the shopkeepers stated. “But
Poincaré is surpassing the blonde, elegant Gaby.”
In a word, nothing but Poincaré, only Poincaré, until the announcement
that M. Lépine, Chief of the Paris Police, had tendered his resignation,
that his decision to retire was “irrevocable.” Then M. Lépine leading in
the photographic commerce of the rue de Rivoli: and M. Poincaré a poor
second, and the blonde Mademoiselle Deslys a remote third. Elsewhere and
everywhere, M. Lépine and his resignation superseded M. Poincaré and the
New Régime, as the one and only topic of conversation. For twenty years
the Chief of the Police had governed his own departments of Paris with
extraordinary skill. Throughout that period he had practically lived in
the streets: repressing riots, scattering criminals, dispersing Royalist
conspirators, controlling fires, directing all manner of grim or poignant
or delirious operations—a short, slender, insignificant-looking figure,
in ill-fitting clothes, a dusty “bowler” hat, and square, creaking boots.
With him, a shabby umbrella or a stout, common walking-stick, the latter
the only weapon he ever carried. Never more than four or five hours’
sleep: even then the telephone placed at his bedside.
It was all work with M. Lépine—all energy, all courage. The most familiar
figure in the streets, he soon became the most famous and most popular
of State servants. Cried M. le Bourgeois, whilst out walking with his
small son: “_Voilà—regarde bien—voilà_ Lépine!”
Everyone “saluted” him, all political parties (except the United
Socialists, who admire no one) applauded him. There was (with the same
solitary exception) general rejoicing when the dusty, intrepid little
Chief of the Police received the supreme distinction of the Grand Cross
of the Legion of Honour.
Yes; a popularity even vaster than M. Poincaré’s. Gossips remarked that
it was curious that the Presidency of the one should synchronise with
the resignation of the other. Critics agreed that if France had gained
a strong Chief of the State she had lost an incomparable Chief of the
Police. Alarm of M. le Bourgeois, who had got to regard M. Lépine as his
special protector. Once again, and for the hundredth time, M. Lépine
became the hero of the hour. And, as I have already recorded, there was
a rush for Lépine photographs—Lépine side and full face, Lépine gay or
severe, Lépine with Grand Cross or shabby umbrella, and a decided “slump”
in Poincarés and blonde, bejewelled Gaby Deslys’ in the rue de Rivoli
arcade.
Impossible, in the space at my disposal, to give more than an idea of M.
Lépine’s amazing record. Born at Lyons in 1846, he is now sixty-seven
years of age—a mere nothing for a Frenchman of genius. At thirty he was
already Under-Prefect of the Department of the Indre. Successively he
was Prefect of the Seine-et-Oise, General Secretary of the Préfecture
de Police, Governor-General of Algeria, and Chief of the Police. From a
biographical dictionary that devotes pages and pages to Louis Lépine, I
take the following passages:—“Actif et ferme, il parvint à rétablir les
relations rompues entre le Conseil Municipal de Paris et la Préfecture
de Police, et opéra d’importantes réformes.... Nommé Gouverneur-Général
de l’Algérie, il apporta en plan de grands travaux publics et de
réformes.... Nommé Conseiller d’État, il prit de nouveau la direction de
la Préfecture de Police. Il s’est occupé de refondre tous les règlements
administratifs relatifs au service de la navigation et de la circulation
dans Paris, et un vaste Répertoire de Police a paru sous sa direction.”
Thus it will be seen that M. Lépine was always “reforming,” for ever
reorganising, unfailingly “active” and “firm.” He it was who “reformed”
the nervous, excitable Paris police in the delirious Dreyfus days of
1899. To their astonishment he preached calm.
“Mais oui, mais oui, mais oui, du calme, nom d’un nom,” he expostulated.
“You charge the crowd for no reason. You thump the innocent bourgeois on
the back and tear off his collar. You exasperate the Latin Quarter. You
are making an inferno of the boulevards. You are bringing ridicule and
discredit on the force. In future, I myself shall direct operations.”
Dreyfus riots every day and every night, and M. Lépine in the thick of
them. Short and slender, he was swept about and almost submerged by the
Anti-Dreyfus mob. He lost his hat, his umbrella, but never his temper.
He was to be seen swarming up lamp-posts, that he might discover the
extent of the crowd and whether reinforcements of agitators were coming
up side streets, and from which particular windows stones, bottles and
lighted fusées were being hurled. His orders he issued by prearranged
gesticulations. Not only the police, but the Municipal and Republican
Guards, had been taught to understand the significance of his signals.
A wave of the arm, and it meant “charge.” But it was only in desperate
extremities that M. Lépine sent the crowd flying, battered and wounded.
Pressure was his policy; six or seven rows of policemen advancing slowly
yet heavily upon the manifestants, truncheon in hand and the formidable
horses and shining helmets of the Republican Guard in the rear. When,
upon a particularly tumultuous occasion, the “pressure” was resisted, and
a number of boulevard kiosks were blazing and heads, too, were on fire,
M. Lépine implored assistance—from Above.
“Send me rain,” he begged audibly of the heavens, “send me torrents of
rain.” And the heavens responded, so people affirmed. A few minutes
later the heavens sent M. Lépine thunder, lightning and a deluge that
reduced the blazing kiosks to hissing, sodden ruins; cleared the frantic
boulevards; allowed police, soldiers and even M. Lépine to go to bed.
But, on the other hand, caused Jules Guérin and his fellow outlaws and
conspirators against the Republic to exult wildly and grotesquely on the
roof of Fort Chabrol. For Guérin was short of water. The supply had been
cut off and Guérin’s only salvation was surrender or rain. And it rained,
and it poured and it thundered. The heavens were equally kind to Rebel,
and Chief of the Police. Up there on the roof of conspiring Fort Chabrol
assembled Guérin and his companions with baths, buckets and basins; with
jugs, glasses and mugs; all of which speedily overflowed with the rain.
Down there in the street, the soldiers in occupation of the besieged
thoroughfare stared upwards, open-mouthed, at the amazing spectacle on
the roof—Guérin and Company joining hands and dancing with glee amidst
their multitudinous rain-catching vessels; Guérin bending perilously over
the parapet and roaring forth between the explosions of thunder and the
flashes of lightning: “We have got enough water for months. Tell Lépine
we defy him.” Another jig from Guérin et Cie. Guérin once again at the
edge of the parapet, mockingly drinking the health of the soldiers below,
and then emptying baths full of water into the street and bellowing:
“Voilà de l’eau,” and performing such delirious, dangerous antics that it
was deemed necessary to telephone an account of the scene to the Chief of
the Police. “Let him dance his jigs all night in the rain; it will cool
him,” replied M. Lépine. “Je le connais: he is too clever to fall over
the parapet.”
Nor did Guérin capsize. Nor yet did M. Lépine put an end to the jigs
on the roof—to the rest of the Fort Chabrol farce—until Paris had been
appeased by the Rennes Court Martial verdict, and the acutest stage of
the Anti-Dreyfusard agitation died out amidst exclamations of: “C’est
fini! Quelle sacrée affaire! Quel cauchemar! Enfin, n’en parlons plus.”
After the lurid autumn of 1899 came a particularly bleak, cheerless
winter. So bitter was the weather that fond mothers kept their children
indoors, and thus Edouard and Yvonne yawned with boredom in their
nurseries, and quarrelled, and exchanged blows, and gave way to tears.
“Toys are not what they used to be,” complained a mother to M. Lépine.
“They are stupid or vulgar, and children get tired of them.”
This set M. Lépine thinking. Like all Frenchmen, a lover of children,
the Chief of the Police realised that the arrival of winter was a grief
and a blow to Edouard and Yvonne. If they couldn’t rejoice in the open,
they must be enabled to rejoice in their homes; and the way of rejoicing
at home is with toys. But toys, so said that mother, had deteriorated:
and this grave state of affairs M. Lépine resolved to investigate.
Behold him, therefore, gazing critically—officially—into the windows of
toy-shops, and hear him declaring, as the result of his inspections, that
the toys, truly enough, were old-fashioned, and vapid, and banal—poor
things to play with in the nursery after the Guignol and roundabouts
of the Luxembourg Gardens, and the other delights and surprises to be
enjoyed in summer _en plein air_. Thus “reforms” were imperative.
In a long, official circular M. Lépine informed the toy manufacturers of
Paris that, with the consent of the Government and with the approval of
the President of the Republic, an annual Toy Exhibition was to be held,
and that prizes and diplomas would be awarded to those manufacturers who
displayed the greatest originality in their work. However, not ungainly,
ugly originality. “Pas de golliwogs.” Messieurs les Apaches also
prohibited; and a stern, official reprimand to the toy-maker in whose
window M. Lépine had discovered a miniature guillotine.
“Des choses amiables, gaies, pratiques, douces, humaines, humoristiques.”
Toys to amuse and also to quicken Edouard and Yvonne’s imagination
and intellect. Well, the Paris toy-makers responded brilliantly. The
first exhibition was an overwhelming success, and to-day it has become
a State Institution. Not only is there the “Prize of the President of
the Republic,” but M. le Président himself visits the show. Then prizes
from the Presidents of the Chamber and Senate, prizes from every Cabinet
Minister, prizes from the Judges of the Paris Law Courts, and more prizes
from scientists, men of letters, the leading newspapers, the _haute
bourgeoisie_, the _grand monde_. Thus, what an inducement for the toy
manufacturers to do their utmost! This winter’s Exhibition I missed, but
a letter from a French father of five informed me that it had “surpassed”
itself. Continued my friend: “Des choses épatantes, merveilleuses,
inouïes! I confess, _mon vieux_, that I go there all by myself; yes,
without my five children.” Thus M. le Bourgeois (to which excellent
category of society my friend belongs) goes to the Lépine Exhibition
“on his own.” Surely only a Frenchman could find pleasure in that? And
surely only a French Chief of the Police—fancy suggesting such a thing
to Scotland Yard!—could, in the midst of his grim, poignant or delirious
duties, evince so charming and tender a consideration for children as to
realise that it is a question of interest to public order that children
shall have toys “original” enough to marvel at and rejoice over, during
the bleak months of winter. But, inevitably, as in all admirable works,
in all excellent reforms, there are drawbacks; and in this particular
case they are obvious. For instance, a whole “set” of the First Act of
_Chantecler_: innumerable chicks and chickens, the Blackbird in his cage,
the dog Patou in his kennel, proud, majestic Chantecler on the hedge of
the farm-yard, the radiant Hen Pheasant, the lurid-eyed Night Birds,
trees, haystacks, a pump... price 300 francs.
“Papa, do please buy me all this, immediately,” demands Yvonne
tremulously, passionately, her eyes shining, her cheeks aflame.
“Papa, I want all this,” shouts Edouard, pointing to a vast array
of soldiers, cannon, ambulances, aeroplanes and air-ships engaged in
military manœuvres. Price 420 francs.
“But you have only five francs each to spend. For the love of heaven, be
reasonable. Ah, _nom d’un nom_, all the world is looking and laughing at
us,” cries the unfortunate father.
Scowls and sulkiness from Edouard; tears and shrill hysterics from
Yvonne. When informed of these tragic scenes, M. Lépine exclaims: “Poor
little dears! But what can I do? Impossible to buy a whole farm-yard or
an army with a piece of five francs.”
After toys, let me take pictures—the incomparable Monna Lisa, who, when
She vanished, disturbed even the proverbial calm of M. Lépine. All France
sent him “clues.” Every post brought him shoals of letters that strangely
and severally denounced a Woman in a Shawl, Three Men in Blue Aprons,
a Man with a Sack, a Negro with a Diamond Ring, a Turk in a Fez, and
a Man Dressed as a Woman, as Monna Lisa’s base abductor. In each case
these singular beings were said to have been seen carrying an object
of the exact dimensions of the stolen picture. Also, their demeanour
“was excited,” their “hands trembled” as they clutched the precious
masterpiece, and they jumped into a passing cab or hurled themselves into
a train just as it was steaming out of the station. “Believe me, M. le
Préfet,” concluded M. Lépine’s incoherent informants, “believe me, I have
given you an exact description of the culprit.” Then, letters of abuse,
threatening letters, letters from practical jokers, letters demanding
interviews—all of which had (under French law) to be considered and
classified. Again, telegram upon telegram, and the telephone bell always
ringing.
“If I cannot speak to M. Lépine himself, I won’t speak to anyone. And
then the picture will be lost for ever,” stated a voice through the
telephone.
“Well, what is it?” demanded M. Lépine, at last coming to the machine.
“_Ecoutez-moi bien_, M. le Préfet. My name is Charles Henri Durand. I am
forty-seven years of age. I am a papermaker by profession. And I live on
the third floor of No. 16 rue de Rome,” related the voice through the
telephone.
“After that, after that! Quickly! _Au galop!_” cried M. Lépine.
“Monsieur le Préfet, my information is grave and I must not be hurried,”
continued the voice. “At the very hour of the theft of the picture I was
passing the Louvre. Suddenly, a man jostled me. He was carrying what was
undoubtedly a picture in a sack. He hastened down a side street, casting
suspicious glances about him. He was a Man with a Squint and——”
“Ah, zut,” cried the Chief of the Police, hanging up the receiver.
And on the top of all this incoherency, light-headedness. Always
and always, when Paris is shaken by a sensational _affaire_, some
light-headed soul loses what remains of his reason. On to the Place
de la Concorde came a pale-faced, wild-eyed man, with a chair. After
mounting the chair, he folded his arms across his chest and broke out
into a fixed, ghastly grin. As he stood motionless on his chair, always
grinning, a crowd inevitably assembled, and M. Lépine appeared.
“What are you doing there?” demanded the latter.
“Hush! I am Monna Lisa,” replied the Man with the Grin.
“Then at last we have found you!” exclaimed the Chief of the Police. “All
France has been mourning your loss. Come with me quickly. You must return
immediately to the Louvre.”
“Yes, yes,” assented the light-headed one, descending from his chair and
confidently passing his arm under the arm of M. Lépine. “Take me home to
the Louvre.”
A wonderful spectacle, the Man with the Grin disappearing on the arm of
the Chief of the Police, relating, as he went, that he had escaped from
his frame in the Louvre in the dead of the night.
A wonderful spectacle was M. Lépine a few nights later, when “directing
operations” at a disastrous fire on the Boulevard Sebastopol. In the
sight of the crowd he struggled into oilskins, and next was to be seen
stationing the engines, dragging about hose, pushing forward ladders,
signalling and shouting forth encouragement and patience to the occupants
of the blazing house. On this, as on all similar occasions, M. Lépine
was blackened and singed when at last the fire had been mastered. But
never have I beheld him so blackened, so dishevelled and battered, so
courageous and capable as when he came to the rescue of the “victims”
of the devastating Paris floods. Up and down the swollen, lurid river
he careered in a shabby old boat. At once-pleasant river-side places,
such as Boulogne and Surèsnes, he was to be found chest-deep in the
turbid, yellow-green water—always signalling, always “firmly” and
“actively” “directing operations.” He climbed into the upper windows
of tottering, flooded houses; briskly made his way across narrow plank
bridges; distributed here, there and everywhere blankets, medicaments,
provisions—the mud and slime of the river caked hard on his oilskins.
As he passed by in his boat, the most bedraggled figure in Paris, loud
cries of “Vive Lépine” from the bridges and quays; and, indeed, wherever
he went, M. le Préfet de Police excited respect and admiration. I see
him, in top hat and frock coat, “receiving” the late King Edward VII.
in the draughty Northern Station. I see him pointing out the beauties
of Paris to the present Prince of Wales. I see him surrounded by the
turbulent students of the Latin Quarter, whither he has been summoned to
check their demonstrations against some unpopular professor. I see him
examining (in the interests of the public) the clocks of motor cabs, the
cushions of railway carriages, the seating conditions in theatres, the
very benches and penny chairs in the Bois de Boulogne. Finally, I see him
as he is to-day; no longer Chief of the Police, but a private “citizen,”
established in a spacious, comfortable _appartement_, which, to the
admiration and excitement of naïve, bourgeois Parisians, is equipped with
no fewer than two bathrooms.
“With two bathrooms our admirable Lépine will have plenty to do,” states
M. le Bourgeois. “They are a responsibility, as well as a pleasure; but,
of course, they will not prove too much for a man like Lépine.” Then up
speaks a primitive soul: “One is free to bathe and free not to bathe. But
to have two bathrooms is scandalous: and I should not have thought it of
Lépine.”
However, in the opinion of a third critic, M. Lépine should be permitted
to have ninety-nine bathrooms if he likes. Twenty-two years Chief of
the Police, he is now entitled to do as he pleases. So leave his two
bathrooms alone.
“When a man has retired, he must have distractions with which to occupy
his mind and his leisure.”
But if, as reported, M. Lépine loves his pair of bathrooms, he loves
the streets better. As in his official days, behold him here, there and
everywhere. A brawl or a fire, and there he is. Now in an omnibus, next
in the underground railway, up at Montmartre, down on the boulevards,
amidst exclamations of “Voilà Lépine!” and the salutes of the police.
Only a private “citizen,” but he is still addressed as “M. le Préfet.”
Merely the master of a comfortable _appartement_, of a couple of
bathrooms—but is that enough for a Frenchman of action and genius?
Gossips predict that M. Lépine will next be seen in the Chamber of
Deputies, or that he will help M. Georges Clemenceau to wake up the
Senate—the “Palais du Sommeil.” For my own part I fancy that, should a
crisis arrive, the ex-Chief of the Police will be requested to “direct
operations” again.
“There is a telephone in my new home,” M. Lépine is reported to have
said. “If the Government should want me back, it has only to ring me up.”
XVI
MADAME LA PRÉSIDENTE, M. GEORGES CLEMENCEAU AND THE UNFORTUNATE M. PAMS
There is an important reason for the popularity of M. le Président: there
is Madame la Présidente.
Less than a month ago Madame Raymond Poincaré, wife of the President
of the French Republic, was the hostess, in Paris, of King George and
Queen Mary; to-day, as I write, she is helping to entertain, with almost
similar brilliancy, their Majesties Christian and Alexandrine of Denmark.
In the interval between these two Royal visits, Madame Poincaré has spent
a few days on the Riviera, but it wasn’t a holiday. Madame la Présidente
was accompanied to the south of France by the most punctilious, the most
rigid, the most terrible of all tutors—a high official of the French
Protocol. And instead of enjoying the drowsy charms or the worldly
delights of the Riviera, it was Madame Poincaré’s duty to master a few
elegant phrases from the difficult Danish language; to acquaint herself
with the brightest episodes in Danish history; to discern the subtleties
and intricacies of Danish etiquette; and incidentally (and always
under the respectful but intense eye of the high Protocol official)
to discover which kinds of flowers grow in Denmark; what the climate
is like; at what hours the Danes rise and retire; and whether they are
particularly fond of music, literature, the drama, pictures, sculpture,
dancing, needlework, and so on, and so forth.
Although an extremely clever and accomplished woman, it is probable that
Madame Poincaré experienced hardships and even miseries in “getting up”
her Denmark: for it is a country—and a language—that does not easily
accommodate itself to an emergency. (You, reader, could _you_ gossip,
here and now, glibly and elegantly, even in your own language, about
Danish national characteristics?) Moreover, it must be remembered that,
when she left for the Riviera to acquaint herself with Denmark, Madame
Poincaré had only recently finished “getting up” her England: the latter,
of course, a less arduous, but nevertheless a strenuous, task. Two
languages, two countries; two Kings and two Queens; banquets, gala opera
performances, military reviews, special race-meetings, drives in State
carriages across Paris, ceremonious greetings and adieux at the gaily
decorated Royal railway station—decorations, illuminations, soldiers and
soldiers, the National Anthems of England, Denmark and France—all this
brilliancy, and excitement, and hard labour in the short space of one
month! Such, nevertheless, has been the duty of Madame Raymond Poincaré
as hostess of the Presidential Palace of the Élysée: and yet even here
in England, and even there in Denmark, one hears scarcely a word about
the personality or the functions of Madame la Présidente!
An ungrateful, even an ironical position, that of a French President’s
wife. She is the hostess of foreign Royalty: but never, in her turn,
their guest. The rigid French Protocol forbids, for some reason or other,
that Madame la Présidente shall accompany her husband on his State visits
abroad. She may drive through the streets of Paris by the side of Queen
Mary: but she must not drive, officially, through the streets of London,
or Copenhagen, or St Petersburg. In a word, Madame la Présidente must
suffer all the anxieties and responsibilities of the arduous, proud
position of hostess to Royalty: and is left behind in Paris when her
husband goes away on visits of State to receive almost Royal honours.
Yes: an ungrateful, an ironical position, that of Madame la Présidente.
Particularly so, when one remembers that, upon social occasions at
all events, she is almost invariably more tactful, _sympathique_ and
ornamental than M. le Président.
Well, the French Chief of the State goes almost royally abroad. In
his own country, when he opens exhibitions or “inaugurates” monuments
and statues and _lycées_ at Lyons and Marseilles, he is very nearly a
king—and Madame la Présidente stays at home. She “counts” only in Paris;
her powers are confined within the walls of the Élysée, where she is for
ever dispensing all kinds of hospitalities—hospitalities that demand
infinite skill and tact. For instance, one of those dinners upon other
occasions—“eminent” Academicians, leading barristers, men of letters,
and clericals, and anti-clericals, and militarists, and pacifists, and
ambiguities, enigmas, and “dark horses” (so far as their political
opinions are concerned)—many of whom are the bitterest of enemies, and
all of whom Madame la Présidente has “placed” around the dinner-table,
with such incomparable tact and discretion that not a guest can see
more than the nose or the chin of his particular foe. Also, Madame
la Présidente has often reconciled enemies—to the advantage of M. le
Président—whose own endeavours to obtain the same reconciliation have
proved vain. Furthermore, it is on record that, during an acute Cabinet
crisis, Madame la Présidente stopped one of France’s leading statesmen,
as he flung out of the Élysée, by grasping his arm and putting a rose in
his button-hole, and the Cabinet Minister, exclaiming: “Ah, madame, vous
êtes exquise!” allowed himself to be led by Madame la Présidente back to
the Council Chamber.
Has Madame la Présidente been once again working miracles? What is this
we hear in the month of June, 1913? A reconciliation, an alliance, even,
between M. Raymond Poincaré and M. Georges Clemenceau.
When, in February last, M. Raymond Poincaré was elected President of
the French Republic, Parisians exclaimed excitedly, with one voice:
“This means the end of Clemenceau. He is dying; he is dead; he is
already buried.” For it will be remembered that M. Georges Clemenceau,
the “Smasher of Cabinets,” also “The Tiger,” had savagely attacked M.
Poincaré’s candidature; had even called upon him to withdraw in favour of
an obscure Minister of Agriculture, in business life a maker of cigarette
papers, of the unfortunate name of Pams. Cried M. Clemenceau here, there
and everywhere: “I vote for Pams.” In the lobbies of the two Chambers he
ordered his followers to “vote solidly for Pams.” The “Tiger” had sent
M. Loubet to the Élysée; he would do the same for his dear Pams. The
manufacturer of cigarette papers was a true democrat—M. Poincaré was a
despot. Pams, indeed, had all the virtues; Pams at the Élysée would raise
the prestige of the Republic, but heaven help the poor Republic if M.
Poincaré were elected.
So fierce was the “Tiger’s” antagonism that, on the very day of the
Presidential election, and in the Palace of Versailles, M. Poincaré
appointed “seconds” to demand an explanation from M. Clemenceau. The
affair was “arranged.” But up to the last moment the “Tiger” canvassed
and canvassed for M. Pams in the lobbies of the Versailles palace. And
he was sallower than ever; he did not attempt to conceal his anger
and indignation when M. Poincaré was proclaimed Chief of the State by
a handsome majority. Said a Deputy: “Versailles has been Clemenceau’s
Waterloo. In Poincaré he met his Wellington.” But the “Tiger” wasn’t
tamed. A few weeks later he “smashed” the Briand Cabinet. Then he started
a paper—_L’Homme Libre_—and therein, as in the lobbies of the two
Chambers, he renewed his attacks upon the new President. So has Paris
been amazed, staggered, almost petrified to read in the newspapers the
following official announcement:
“Sur le désir que le président de la République lui en avait fait
exprimer par son secrétaire général civil, M. Clemenceau s’est rendu
aujourd’hui à l’Élysée, pour conférer avec M. Poincaré.” Or: “At the
desire of the President of the Republic, expressed through his principal
private secretary, M. Clemenceau has called at the Élysée and conferred
with M. Poincaré.”
Mortal enemies—nearly a duel—three months ago: but now is M. Clemenceau
invited most politely to call at the Élysée, where he remains shut up
with President Poincaré for a whole hour! Never such gesticulations
on the boulevards, such excitement in the French Press. “Even the
weather has been _bouleversé_ by the interview at the Élysée,” writes a
Paris journalist. “M. Clemenceau’s visit to M. Poincaré is undoubtedly
responsible for the sudden heat wave.” Asks another journalist, somewhat
cruelly: “What does M. Pams think of it? Also, where is M. Pams? We
have sought for M. Pams at both his Paris and country residences, but
in vain. No news of M. Pams either at the cigarette paper manufactory.
We are becoming uneasy about M. Pams.” And declares a third journalist:
“Versailles is forgotten and forgiven. Behold the President and
Clemenceau hand-in-hand. But it is the triumph of the ‘Tiger.’”
And so, most indisputably, it is. It was M. Poincaré who “desired” the
famous interview, and this was made clear (at M. Clemenceau’s request)
in the official communication to the Press. Why did he “desire” it?
What induced M. Poincaré to forget all about M. Clemenceau, M. Pams and
Versailles? The truth is, M. Poincaré has need of the “Tiger’s” support,
not only in the Chambers, but in his new paper. It is also a fact that,
in spite of the Pams episode, M. Clemenceau is far and away the most
powerful journalist and politician in France. If M. Clemenceau doesn’t
agree with you, he “smashes.” “He assassinates you in the Chamber and
then buries you in his newspaper,” once said a Deputy. To come to the
point: the President of the French Republic, disturbed by the hostility
to the Three Years Army Service Bill, sees in the “Tiger” the only
statesman powerful enough to cope successfully with the situation. In
other words, the next French Premier will be M. Georges Clemenceau.
And, according to many a reliable French politician, the fall of M.
Barthou, the actual Prime Minister, is near. A kindly, admirable
man, M. Barthou: but no “leader.” I remember him, as Minister of the
Interior, attending the funeral of the victims of the Courrières mining
catastrophe—eleven hundred lives lost. Tears ran down his face; he was
literally a wreck, pale, red-eyed, almost inarticulate, when the special
train took him back to Paris. Six weeks later, during the subsequent
strike, down to Courrières came M. Georges Clemenceau, the new Minister
of the Interior. Not a trace of emotion about the “Tiger” as he visited
the stricken mining villages. He spoke sharply to the strikers. He
promised that, if order were preserved, the troops would be withdrawn.
Next day three—precisely three—windows of an engineer’s house were
broken. Then trainful after trainful of troops, until there were ten
soldiers to every striker—and that broke the strike.
A man of iron, M. Clemenceau—when in power. No pen so eloquent, so
stirring as his in French journalism, and his pen he has now taken up in
favour of M. Poincaré and the new Army Service Bill. Throbbing, thrilling
phrases, as always. Here is a passage of his appeal to the French Army:
“Athens, Rome, the greatest things of the past were swept off the face of
the earth on the day that the sentinels hesitated as you are beginning to
do. And you—your France, your Paris, your village, your field, your road,
your stream—all that tumult of history out of which you come, since it is
the work of your forerunners—is all this nothing to you?”
All this may be very sound, very lofty, very noble. But all this, by
arrangement with President Poincaré, will lead to the next Premiership.
And all this leaves me unhappy, for the reason that I can’t help thinking
and worrying about M. Pams.
What is the “Tiger,” the future Premier, going to do for him?
There’s a cynical, sinister rumour on the boulevards that M. Clemenceau
has shrugged his shoulders and said: “Don’t speak to me about Pams. I’ve
had enough of him. Let him go on making cigarette papers.” So things
stand at the Élysée on the 2nd of June 1913.
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