MY LORRAINE JOURNAL
[Illustration]
BOOKS BY EDITH O’SHAUGHNESSY
A DIPLOMAT’S WIFE IN MEXICO. Illustrated.
DIPLOMATIC DAYS. Illustrated.
HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
[ESTABLISHED 1817]
[Illustration: DUCAL PALACE, NANCY]
MY LORRAINE
JOURNAL
_by_
EDITH O’SHAUGHNESSY
[MRS. NELSON O’SHAUGHNESSY]
AUTHOR OF
_“A Diplomat’s Wife in Mexico”
and “Diplomatic Days”_
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration]
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
MY LORRAINE JOURNAL
Copyright, 1918, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published September, 1918
_To
Mrs. William H. Crocker_
_In memory of a lost battle
and in appreciation of
her work in Lorraine_
ILLUSTRATIONS
DUCAL PALACE, NANCY _Frontispiece_
VERDUN AND VICINITY _Facing p._ 4
PLACE STANISLAS, NANCY ” 12
AUTHOR AT VITRIMONT ” 30
CEMETERY, VITRIMONT ” 30
THE BRIDGE AT LUNÉVILLE ” 30
FOUNTAIN OF AMPHITRITE BY JEAN LAMOUR, PLACE STANISLAS,
NANCY ” 38
SOUVENIR MENU OF LUNCHEON AT VERDUN, JUNE 17, 1917 ” 46
OUR PARTY ON THE BATTLE-FIELD AT VERDUN, JUNE 17, 1917 ” 50
IN THE BOYAUX, VERDUN, JUNE 17, 1917 ” 50
SISTER JULIE ” 124
BAS-RELIEF OF THE REFUGEES ” 124
MISS POLK’S WEDDING ” 162
CONTENTS
PAGE
FOREWORD xi
PART I
CHAP.
I. HOW ONE MAY HAPPEN TO GO TO THE FRONT 3
II. NANCY 12
III. LUNÉVILLE 18
IV. VITRIMONT 22
V. LUNÉVILLE AGAIN 28
VI. GERBÉVILLER AND LA SŒUR JULIE 33
VII. BAR-LE-DUC 37
VIII. VERDUN 42
IX. CHÂLONS.—CHÂTEAU DE JEAN D’HEURS.—REVIGNY, THE “LINING” OF
THE FRONT 60
X. MONT FRENET.—LA CHAMPAGNE POUILLEUSE.—THE RETURN 64
PART II
I. BY THE MARNE 77
II. THE CANTEEN AT BAR-LE-DUC 87
III. THEATRICALS AND CAMOUFLAGE 97
IV. THE BURIAL OF PÈRE CAFARD 108
V. A PROVIDENTIAL FORD 112
PART III
LORRAINE IN AUTUMN
“_L’élégante et mélancolique Lorraine_”
I. NANCY AND MOLITOR 121
II. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EMANATIONS 131
III. TOUL 144
IV. A STROLL IN NANCY 153
V. VITRIMONT IN AUTUMN 161
VI. AT THE GUÉRINS’ 167
VII. ACROSS LORRAINE 174
VIII. THE CHÂLONS CANTEEN 182
FOREWORD
It will be seen, by the first chapter, how fortuitous though inevitable
was the writing of this little book, begun before the American troops
came to France; yet it happens to concern that part of the war zone
wherein our men are preparing themselves for battle, and which will be
quickened with their blood.
The time has scarcely come to write of the world war; indeed, it is only
between wars that one can write of them, when wisdom, with accompanying
imagination, looks down the great perspectives; now men’s utmost energies
are concentrated upon deeds of passion performed in hope or in despair.
Oliver’s _Ordeal by Battle_ of 1915 remains the most scholarly and
philosophic of the war books; Masefield’s _Gallipoli_ the most artistic.
But even these, and the many, many others, give not so much a sense of
inadequacy as of impossibility.
Letters from strong souls undergoing supreme emotions have emanated
from the trenches or the air. We have mourned young perished singers:
Rupert Brooke, Alan Seeger. But for the most part, and so it must be,
war books are limited to the relation of personal deeds and sufferings,
and descriptions of localities where they have taken place, colored
more or less by the temperament of each—even as I, “_en passant par la
Lorraine_,” wrote these pages.
EDITH COUES O’SHAUGHNESSY.
33 RUE DE L’UNIVERSITÉ, PARIS, _January 19, 1918_.
PART I
CHAPTER I
HOW ONE MAY HAPPEN TO GO TO THE FRONT
PARIS, _Thursday, June 7, 1917_.
Even personal events have their outriders, and this is how an unexpectant
lady, still fiancée to Mexico, received from Destiny various indications
that she was to go there where men, ten thousand upon ten thousand, lay
down their lives _pro patria_. Like everything, it was simple when it had
happened.
At the Foire Saint-Sulpice, where I was serving at the tea-stall, I met
E. M. C., whom I thought in California. After greetings (we had not seen
each other since the fatal month of October, 1916) she said to me:
“You must come down to Lunéville where I have a house, and visit the
village of Vitrimont, that mother is rebuilding.”
I answered: “My dear, I’m still tied to Mexico, and I can see my
publishers frowning all the way across the ocean if the second
much-promised, long-delayed book doesn’t arrive. I oughtn’t even to peep
at anything else for the moment.”
Then, tea victims beginning to crowd in, “business as usual” engaged us
and we parted.
When I got home I found that Joseph Reinach, met but once—Polybe of
the delightful _Commentaires_—had sent me his brochure, _Le Village
Reconstitué_. I still didn’t hear the outriders galloping down the street.
In the evening I dined _chez Laurent_ with Mr. C., known in Mexico. When
I got there I found that his sister, Madame Saint-R. T., Présidente de
La Renaissance des Foyers, was going into Lorraine, to Lunéville itself,
the next day; conversation was almost entirely of the practical work to
be done in the devastated districts, and the deeply engaging _philosophie
de la guerre_, of how one had not only to rebuild villages, but to remake
souls and lives.
_A quoi bon donner des chemises?_ Give tools and implements, or a brace
of rabbits, that nature may take its course and the peasant can say,
“Soon I will have a dozen rabbits, and twenty-five francs that I have
earned.”
Some one observed that it really would be the rabbits, however—it is any
living, productive thing that is of account, beyond all else, in the dead
and silent places of devastation, and gifts of twelve chickens and one
cock are demanded rather even than shoes.
As we were pleasantly dining in the garden, and philosophizing sometimes
with tears, sometimes smiles, a terrific thunder-storm broke over Paris,
and we all crowded into the big central room, with piles of hastily
torn-off, muddy table-linen. We sat talking, however, till they turned
both ourselves and the lights out. As we parted, Madame Saint-R. T.’s
last words were, “But try to come down to Lunéville.”
I thought to myself that night, “Things are getting hot.” I believe in
signs from heaven, and signs from heaven are not to be neglected.
[Illustration: VERDUN AND VICINITY]
On Saturday, when E. M. stopped by for me to go again to the Foire, I
said:
“I believe I _will_ go to Lunéville. What does one do about papers?”
We straightway went to the Rue François Premier, not being in the
_mañana_ class, either of us, and found there a charming specimen of
_jeunesse dorée_, intellectual, “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of
thought,” but doing his bit. Shears for the cutting of red tape were
liberally applied, and my papers were promised in an unprecedented three
days.
As we “swept” out I said to E. M., “You don’t think we were _too_
strenuous?”
She said, “Oh, they are used to us now, though it was a thrilling moment
when you ripped your photograph (such a photograph!) from the duplicate
of your passport!”
The aforementioned charming specimen, M. de P., had said a photograph was
essential; it was Saturday afternoon, the next day was Sunday, and for
some unexplained reason photographers don’t seem to work in France on
Mondays, at least not in war-time.
It was about this time that E. M. said, in a _dégagé_ way: “I am going
down to Verdun with a friend. It’s awfully difficult, and the women who
have been there can be counted on one’s fingers. I wish _you_ could go,
too.”
I said, “That’s out of the question.” But I thought to myself, “We will
see what Fate decides.” It’s a great thing to keep astride of her, anyway.
On account of Sunday coming in between, my papers could not be ready in
time for me to leave with her on Tuesday (they have to be sent to the
_Quartier-Général_ to be stamped), but they were promised for Wednesday
that I might start for Lunéville on Thursday. I went to see E. M. at
her aunt’s, the Princess P.’s, on Monday night for a few last words and
injunctions. I found her after passing through some lovely dove-gray
rooms with priceless old portraits of Polish great, hanging on silvery
walls, and rare bibelots and porcelains discreetly scattered on charming
tables rising from gray carpetings. She greeted me by saying, “It’s all
arranged for you to go to Verdun, too.”
“Verdun!” I cried. “Glory and sorrow of France!”
I didn’t ask how, but thought of the harmonious working of chance that
brings as many gifts as blows in its train.
_Thursday, June 14th, 10.30 a.m._
We slipped out of the station, flooded with waves of blue-clad men, at
eight o’clock, and since then there has been a constant stopping of the
train in green, glade-like places to let troop-trains pass. A while ago
I found myself looking out on a river, and a shiver went over me. It was
the jade-colored, slow-flowing Marne.
White morning-glories are thick on every hedge, and wild roses such
as grow in New England lanes, and there are many thistles, soft and
magenta-colored; lindens, acacias, and poplars abound and hang delicately
over the banks of the river.
Lying open on my lap is the _Revue de Paris_ of June 1st, but I can’t
read even the beautiful “_Lettres d’un Officier Italien_”—(Giosué
Borsi[1]), breathing a deep spirit of conformity to the will of God and
showing the evolution that many an _intellectuel catholique_ of his
generation has gone through in Italy. In his dugout were Dante, Homer,
Ariosto, the Gospels, St. Augustine, Pascal, and _Le Manuel du Parfait
Caporal et les Secours d’Urgence_. And he loved his mother and let her
know it.
All along the route are villages and peaceful country houses, near the
train, bowered in acacia and linden; elder-bushes are in full bloom,
too, and we pass many green kitchen gardens. Women are shaking blankets
out of windows, and looking at the train going to the front, thinking,
who shall say what thoughts?
_Later._
Big movement of troops is delaying us, and it has been a morning spent
among emerald-green hills, pale, like Guatemalan or Bolivian emeralds,
not like the deep-colored gems of the Rue de la Paix. Everywhere are
patches of blue-clad men, marching down white roads between green fields
melting into the blue sky at the point of the eyes’ vision. Still others
are bathing in the pale, warm Marne or resting on its banks. Trains go
past loaded with battered autos, _camions_ and guns coming from the
front, or others with neatly covered, newly repaired machines of death,
going out.
All were silent in the train at first. “_Méfiez-vous, les oreilles
ennemies vous écoutent_” is the device placarded everywhere. In my coupé
some one feeling slightly, very slightly, facetious, had rubbed out the
first two letters of _oreilles_, changed the first “_e_” into an “_f_,”
so that it read, “_Méfiez-vous, les filles ennemies vous écoutent_.” The
ruling passion strong in death!
We pass Epernay, whose little vine-planted hills had run red, before
the treading out of its 1914 wine, with the blood of English and French
heroes.
At last we began to talk, a dark-eyed colonel of infantry with the
_Grand’ Croix de la Légion d’Honneur_ having reached down my bag for me.
It is a historic date for France and for ourselves.
The night before, General Pershing arrived in Paris, with his guerdon
of help, mayhap salvation. All the newspapers had pictures of him and
his staff, their reception at the station, the crowd before the Hôtel
Crillon. One officer told the story of the woman in the crowd who was
so little that there wasn’t the slightest chance of her seeing anything
or anybody. When asked why she was there she answered, “_Mais j’aurai
assisté_,” and that, it seems to me, is the epitome and epitaph of the
generation whose fate it is to see with their eyes the world war.
IN THE STATION, CHÂLONS-SUR-MARNE, _2.30 p.m._
Extreme heat. Train four hours late on account of the movement of troops.
Wave after wave of horizon blue undulates through the station. They are
lying about, standing about, sitting about—the _poilus_. Half hidden by
their equipment, their countless bundles tied around their waists, slung
on their shoulders, under their arms, they seem indescribably weary and
dusty, turned toward the blazing front where the best they can hope is
_la bonne blessure_—theirs not to reason why. Sometimes 30,000 pass
through Châlons in a day.
Now it comes to me that our men—our fresh, eager, beautiful young men,
such as I saw disembark at Vera Cruz—will pass through this same station
to that same blazing front....
By my window, on the siding, is passing an endless train of box-cars,
with four horses in the ends of each car. Between the horses’ forefeet,
pale-blue groups of men are crowded; no room to lie, scarcely to
sit—cramped, hot, with their eternal accoutrement. One bent group was
playing cards, the horses’ heads above them. But mostly they are looking
out at people who are not called upon to die.
_Later._
Pangs of hunger began to assail me as the train pulled out. I went into
the dining-car and had a modest, belated repast of _œufs sur le plat_,
cheese and fruit. At the tables were groups of uniformed men talking in
low voices of what had been and what might have been. As I looked out of
the window, while waiting, my eyes fell upon the first band of prisoners
I had seen—tall, stalwart men, wearing the round white cap with its band
of red—at work on the roads, those veins and arteries of France.
An officer, once the most civilian of civilians, looking like the
pictures of Alexandre Dumas _fils_ on the covers of cheap editions of _La
Dame aux Camélias_, with bushy hair parted on one side, mustache, and
stubby Napoleon, broad face and twinkling eyes, pointed out Sermaize, the
first of the devastated villages we passed, which has been rebuilt by
the English Society of Friends. “Conscientious objectors” don’t intend
to let the sons of Mars do everything, but they can’t keep pace with
the destruction. In _Le Village Reconstitué_ M. Reinach speaks of the
ugliness of the models proposed to the victims, which pass understanding,
and says that even the vocabulary of Huysmans would not suffice to give
the least idea of them. What the peasant wants is “_mon village_,” which
doesn’t at all resemble what the _commis voyageur en laideur_ proposes.
REVIGNY, _4.30 p.m._
I have seen the first black crosses in a green field bounded by clumps
of poplar against the clear sky. Revigny is a mass of ruins, roofless
houses, heaps of mortar, and endless quantities of blue-clad, heavily
laden men coming and going in the station—the eternal waiting, waiting
for transit. Revigny is on the road to Verdun, Alexandre Dumas _fils_
told me. He gets out at Bar-le-Duc, which is now the point of departure
to the fateful fortress. Groups of yellow Annamites are working at the
roads. They are imported for that purpose, being of little use when the
cannon sounds.
Awhile ago two young Breton under-officers, colonials, came into the
compartment. They had been at school together and had not met for ten
years until just now on the train. They watched together the shifting
scenery; one was coming from a young wife, the other from a fiancée.
GONDRECOURT.
Two symmetrical fifteenth-century towers pierce a pale-blue sky. One of
the young Bretons tells me that for some time the train has been making
a great détour, as the straight line to Nancy would take it through
Commercy, daily bombarded by the enemy.
PAGNY, _5.30 o’clock p.m._
Here we pick up the Meuse—and there still follows us the pink-and-gray
ribbon of willow-fringed canal that links the Marne to the Rhine,
and which all day long has looked like the marble the Italians call
_cipollino_. But I remember that its greenness has been but lately
colored with a crimson dye.
TOUL (_where we thread up the Moselle_), _5.50_.
We have just passed Toul. Great barracks are near the station, and
on the opposite hill is the fortress, high against the sky, bound to
Verdun by an uninterrupted series of forts. It is a _place de guerre de
première classe_. The Romans had an encampment here, and Vauban made the
fortifications of his time.
And because the mind is not always held to the thing in view, even though
it be of great moment, I thought how Toul was the town where Hilaire
Belloc did his military service, “was in arms for his sins”; from here it
was that he set out upon the “path to Rome” in fulfilment of his vow.
Other things laid long away in memory came to mind, and I was only jerked
back as my eye was caught by a group of German prisoners being marched
past the station, one soldier, with a pointed bayonet, in front of them
and another behind.
And at Nancy we are to knit up the river Meurthe.