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.”