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_.