NANCY
Nancy, a dream of the eighteenth century, with the réveillé of
twentieth-century guns.
We arrived at Nancy five hours late, at seven o’clock.
No sign of E. M., no sign of anything familiar. Fortunately I was flanked
by Brittany, and a stout heart did the rest. When we found that the next
train for Lunéville would leave at nine o’clock, I asked them to dine
with me and take a little walk about the town. Our luggage—we were all
traveling light, I with a hand-bag and flat straw valise, they with two
iron helmets—was given to the _consigne_ and, after my _sauf-conduit_ had
been stamped in three separate places, we departed.
The square before the station was surging with the usual pale-blue
waves, and as we crossed it the odor of leather and tired feet and hot
men was a good deal stronger than the linden scent. We passed a very
banal statue of Thiers, _Libérateur du Territoire_, and some horrors of
_art nouveau_. A construction with colored-glass windows and unnatural
cupolas and gilding and mushy outlines protruded from a corner, and its
name, for its sins, was Hôtel Excelsior. But we were searching for the
celebrated Place Stanislas. After asking a passer-by, we were directed
to a street whose name I have forgotten, and we started down its rather
distinguished length of gray, well-built houses of another century,
many of them having the double Lorraine cross in red to indicate cellar
accommodations, with the number they could shelter.
[Illustration: PLACE STANISLAS, NANCY]
When, suddenly, we stepped into the Place Stanislas, I almost swooned
with joy. I was in full eighteenth century, in the midst of one of its
most perfect creations, with the low boom of the twentieth-century guns
in the distance.
Quickly my spirit was ravished from the world of combat into the still,
calm, beautiful world of art, within the enchantments of the _grilles_ of
Jean Lamour. A sensation sweet, satisfying, unfelt since the beginning
of the war, invaded me. I gazed entranced upon that delicate tracery of
wrought iron, like some rich guipure, at the four corners of the square
of buildings, its lovely gilding reflecting a soft light; and, outlined
against a heaven colored especially for them—pale blue, with threads
of palest pink, and a hint of gray and yellow—were urns and torches
and figures, half human, half divine, supporting them. The beautiful
fountains in the corners were banked with sand-bags, but their contours
were in harmony with the other _grilles_, and one was surmounted by an
Amphitrite, the other by a Neptune. It was all a symbol of a state of
mind, a flowering of feeling, to which had been vouchsafed a perfection
of expression.
There is an Arc de Triomphe, put up by Stanislas at one end, in honor
of his kingly son-in-law, in front of the Hôtel de Ville, and a statue
of Stanislas himself in the middle, bearing the name “Stanislas,” the
date of 1831, and “_La Lorraine Reconnaissante_.” In looking about, my
eye fell on the Restaurant Stanislas, _dans la note_, certainly, and I
decided to dine there. We found that we had time to investigate a little
further, and turned down by the café into a most lovely linden-scented
square called Place de la Carrière. Through the double lines of trees
between the fountains at the farther end was visible an old palace, and
the square was flanked by houses that courtiers only could have lived
in. It all cried out, “Stay with me awhile.” An old park was at one
side, with trees planted _en quinconce_[2]—chestnuts, ash, trembling
poplars—and everywhere was the penetrating fragrance of the lindens. It
was so sweet and loosening under the shade, after the long hot day in the
train, that the young officers began to talk, one of his fiancée waiting
in _Les Landes_, the other of his wife of a year, seen only twice seven
days. And then again we were silent, and under the flowering trees I was
seized with a great longing for the beautiful and calm, for the arts and
ways of Peace. It seemed to me I could not longer think of this, that,
or the other “offensive,” but that I must see before my eyes, hear with
my ears, feel with my touch, the lovely, the melodic, the benign. _O
bon Jésus!_ Not of the battle-fields, not of _réformés_, of limbless,
sightless men, not of starving, frightened children, not of black-robed
women, not of lonely deaths, not of munition-factories. What is this
world we are in?
I don’t know how long we were silent, but at last one of the young men
said, “We must think of the hour.” Then came a glancing at wrist watches,
rattling of identity disks, and we went back to the café and got a table
by the window, where we could look out on the lovely, calm _ensemble_ and
the fading sky. The menu was brought; it was a meatless day, but with a
snap of the eye the waiter recommended _œufs à la gelée_. We understood
later, when we found, concealed in the bottom of each little dish under
the egg, a thick, round piece of ham. Fried perch, new potatoes, salad,
strawberries and cream, with the celebrated macarons of Nancy—_des Sœurs
Macarons_, as the little piece of paper underneath each says—made a
delicious menu. A certain _petit vin gris du pays_ had been recommended
us with another snap of the eye.
As we sat waiting, one of the officers exclaimed at a giant, lonely,
priestly figure passing through the Place:
“_Le voilà, l’aumônier du 52ème._”
I said, “Do run after him and ask him for dinner, too.”
He came back with the young man and we had a most enjoyable repast. The
chaplain knew all the things about Nancy that we didn’t. He was a huge,
bearded man, who might have been with the hosts of Charlemagne, and was
a native of Commercy, where Stanislas used to go with his court. The two
Bretons were very Catholic and very royalist; when I remarked upon it,
they said, simply, “Oh, we are all that way, _par là_,” and they spoke
names of great men born in Brittany, and the _aumônier_ told tales of
near yesterdays surpassing those of the heroic age. The gayest of the
Bretons, he who had not just left his young wife and his child unborn,
began to sing, “_Voici un sône tout nouveau_,” and suddenly it was a
quarter before nine and we had time only for a dash to the station _d’une
bonne allure militaire_, which left me breathless. The nine-o’clock
train didn’t, however, leave till ten, as it was waiting for the Paris
train, which didn’t arrive at all. Finally, in a strange heat, vagaries
of lightning without thunder or rain—the thunder we _did_ hear wasn’t
the old-time, pleasant, celestial sort, but something with an easily
traceable, regular, decisive sound—we pulled out of the station, I not
knowing where I was going—no address in the town of Lunéville.
A thick, heavy, soft, enveloping night was about us.
Groups of soldiers were lying, sitting, standing in the little stations.
We stopped every few minutes, and I could distinguish them by the light
of cigarette or lantern on their guns and equipment, waiting for motors
to take them to the trenches. At one place I had to descend to show my
_sauf-conduit_; it was inspected and stamped by the flickering light of
a blue-veiled lantern, and I climbed in again. I was beginning to feel a
bit tired, and the end was _not_ in sight.
We descended at Lunéville in complete darkness, a motley crowd of
military and civilians. My companions were due at different points at
dawn—Baccarat and the Forest of Parroy. As I write, they are in the
trenches. They put me into the hands of a _commissaire_ who said he lived
opposite E. M.’s. I waited, standing by the door, while he locked up
the station, looking out on the silhouette of a gutted, roofless house,
showing dimly against the soft night sky. At last there was a sound of
rattling of keys and the _commissaire_ picked me and my luggage up. We
started forth, the only human beings visible, in what seemed a deserted
town—no lights in streets or houses.
As we passed a wide open space the scent of flowering lindens enveloped
me, and with me walked the ghosts of lovely and too-amiable ladies, of
witty rulers loving the arts as well as women—Duke Léopold and Madame de
Craon, King Stanislas and Madame de Boufflers, and Voltaire and Madame du
Châtelet.
We walked seemingly through the entire town toward a freshness of parks,
and in darkness we arrived before a garden gate; silence, and the bell
nowhere to be found. After looking for it in the light of various
matches—vainly, of course—the _commissaire_ had the brilliant idea of
going to the house next door, _la maison de M. le Maire_, the celebrated
M. Keller. A woman came out and showed the bell where nobody would ever
have thought of looking for it, and, furthermore, masked by vines. The
door was finally opened by a tall, slender, white-robed figure with two
black braids showing over her shoulders and a floating scarf. I thought
it a vision of Isolde, but it proved to be Miss P., who cried:
“We had given you up! We waited at Nancy till the train came in, and then
had to motor back as quickly as possible on account of the lights.”
I went in, to find E. M. in a most becoming, slinky, pale-blue satin
_négligé_, also with braids on her shoulders. I’d rather have found
them both in _paniers_, shaking the powder out of their hair. However,
I can’t complain; it was all pretty good as regards the stage-setting.
We embraced. I explained that various zealous guardians of the gates of
Nancy had stamped my _sauf-conduit_, and, as I was certainly the only
one of my species arriving by that train, they should have given news
of me when asked concerning _une Américaine_. Then, as the only healthy
rooms in Lunéville in 1917 are on the ground floor, I departed to one
that had been retained for me at the Hôtel des Vosges. Again through the
soft-scented night, guided by my _commissaire_, to a room of extreme
cleanliness and a most comfortable bed.
It is 2 A.M. I am too tired to sleep. My mind is jacked up by all the
twists and turns of the day. I have been reading the _Cour de Lunéville_,
by Gaston Maugras, found in my room, belonging to E. M.
Three o’clock. Soft, very soft booming of cannon, and a deep-toned bell.
But no “poppy throws around _my_ bed its lulling charities.”