A REUNION OF THE REDS
"Did Rhoda Polly send you?" Cremieux asked, though I am sure he knew.
"She bade me come here, saying that perhaps I might learn something to
my advantage."
He looked at me queerly, and with a shade of suspicion which I quite
misunderstood.
"Then I may take it that she does not mean to come herself?"
"I am sure she has not the least idea of that. She was in the very thick
of a discussion upon the possibility of factories and ateliers being run
entirely by working men. The whole family had taken sides, and when I
came away I expected every moment to see them leap at each other's
throats."
"They are extraordinary, but quite admirable," he said, throwing away
his cigarette and rising. "We cannot breed anything of the kind in
France. Our spirit of family discipline forbids it. We have the cult of
ancestor worship as in China, only we do not get farther back than
father and mother. It is mainly the mother who leads the young men of
France. We have them among us too, these good mothers, women who teach
their sons to fight to the death for the great Day of Freedom. But they
are scarce. Our women are still under the heel of the priesthood, and
the young men, though they may follow us, still keep the inmost corner
of their hearts for their mothers; and one day when we most want them,
we may find them missing at roll-call. His mother cannot bear that her
son should be outcast and accursed. He need not go to Mass, but if he
will only see her favourite priest a moment in secret, she is sure that
he will stay at home with her. Like you, Rossel is a Protestant and has
not this to put up with. He is now in Metz with Bazaine, but he will
return, and then you and the world will see a man."
I asked him what the men meant to do, and if he thought he could not
prevent further fighting and burning.
Before he had time to answer a bell began clanging furiously in the
town.
"That is the signal," he said; "the Commune of Aramon is to meet in
general assembly. Will you come? You will be quite safe with me, even
though I am going to make them very angry. And besides, as Rhoda Polly
says, you will learn something to your advantage."
"Do you think she meant that?" I asked.
"Ah, you may go far and look long before you find out all that is in
Rhoda Polly's mind, but at any rate I suppose she meant that you would
be safe with me, and might hear a few things that are not included in
the curriculum of the _Lycee_ St. Andre."
We took our way towards the clanging bell, and it had the weirdest
effect as we topped a knoll, where the noise came so fierce and angry as
to put a stop to our conversation. Anon descending into deep dells out
of which the pines shot straight upwards like darts, sheer trunks for a
hundred feet before the first branch was poised delicately outwards as
if to grasp the light, we lost the sound of the rebellious tocsin, or it
came to our ears soft as the Angelus floated over the fields to a
worshipping peasantry in days that were yet of faith.
But Gaston Cremieux kept on his way without paying much notice to the
woodland sights about him. His colour rose, and his shoulders were bent
forward with a certain eagerness. The bell seemed to be calling him, and
I doubt not he was thinking of the responsibility of guiding aright
these darkened souls. His convictions, his aspirations were theirs. But
their volcanic outbursts of destructive energy, sudden, spiteful, and
inexplicable, vexed and troubled him.
Yet the reason plainly was that they had been hurt by those in authority
over them, and they struck back as naturally and instinctively as bees
fly out to sting when their hive is overturned. That the affair is
partly an accident does not matter either to bee or workman.
Presently we began to pass little villas--"Mon Plaisir," "Mont Dore,"
and "Chateau des Roses." The mountain path among the pines began to
widen into a made road, and to carry traces of wheelmarks. My leader
quickened his pace, and after a few minutes of threading our way among
the houses of New Aramon, we turned aside and entered a wide space in
the centre of which was a hall roofed with corrugated iron. Doors wide
and high as those of a barn stood open, and in the interior we could see
many people, men and women, already seated on rude benches.
There were also groups outside, but these were mostly younger men,
sullen-faced and furtive of eye. To me it seemed as if they regarded my
companion with no favourable looks. Several had been wounded in the
fighting, and now carried bandaged arms or white-wrapped heads. Somehow
I knew at once that this was the dangerous element, and I knew that the
whirring machine guns behind which glanced the pitiless eye of Jack
Jaikes, had had something to say to them.
Outwardly the Reunion of the Reds had nothing to distinguish it from
other political gatherings in the Midi. Indeed the type had been struck
out in the earlier pre-Robespierre period of the great Revolution,
improved upon in 1830 and 1848, and had now imposed itself even upon the
anarchists.
A president was appointed, who had his pair of vice-presidents and a
couple of secretaries to prepare a report of the proceedings exactly as
you may find described in Mirabeau's _Courier de Provence_.
The Hall of the People at Aramon had been an old riding-school in the
days before Solferino, when the scheming Emperor was hotly preparing for
his campaign across the Milanese plains. It was now a rather dimly
lighted, well-ventilated meeting-place, with a clean light-varnished
platform in front for speakers, and behind a broader space on which cane
chairs had been set out for the "assessors"--as we would say "members of
committee." These were being filled as we entered the hall. Names were
called out, and sturdy fathers of families rose from beside their
spouses to tramp up to the "assessors" chairs, not without a certain
conscious dignity as citizens whose worth was unexpectedly made apparent
to all men. I have seen the same expression since on the faces of men
pressed to become members of a municipality, or even a village council,
and I suppose Cabinet Ministers look like that when the new Prime
Minister hints at the object of his visit.
The entrance of Gaston Cremieux called forth a kind of shrill cheer, but
the Latin races had not at that time learned the full-bodied roar which
greets and encourages a favourite orator in England or America.
I was seated at the right of the speaker's platform, and a little behind
in shadow--which was as well, for there I could see without being seen.
And what I saw astonished me. There were nearly a couple of thousand
people in the riding-school by the time that Gaston Cremieux had shaken
hands with the President and taken his seat. The iron galleries which
ran round contained the younger people, many girls and their
sweethearts, while at the far end were a score or two of long-limbed
fellows clustered together--probably day labourers whose dusky tints and
clustering black curls indicated their Italian origin.
So long as the great doors remained open, I could see outside the
restless hither and thither of the young men who had scowled at us as we
came into the court.
It was not long before the President and Bureau of Workmen of the
Ateliers des Armes at Aramon declared that this properly called and
constituted general meeting was open.
It was evident that some of the elder men were ready enough to speak,
and a grave-faced grey-headed man rose to make his way towards the
speaker's platform. But long before he reached the _estrade_, it had
already been taken possession of by a young man with a shaggy head and
wild beady eyes. This was Georges Barres, a moulder in the new big gun
factory. He had but recently arrived from St. Etienne, and had instantly
become a notable firebrand.
The speech into which he plunged was a fierce denunciation of the
masters and managers, through which ran the assertion that all property
was theft. The workers, therefore, were justified in redressing their
wrongs with the strong hand, and he and his companions would see to it
that they did not die of starvation with so many rich and fine houses
all about them. As for Monsieur Deventer and his English vermin of
overseers, they must be killed out like rats. Only so would the town be
purified. Only so would their dead comrades be avenged, and a solid
foundation be laid for the Free Commune in which the works and all
within them, the profits and everything included in the year's trading,
should belong absolutely to the workers.
There was some applause from the groups that had gathered in, ceasing
their rapid caged-wolf sentry-go to hear their leader. But for the most
part the meeting sat silent and unresponsive.
At a nod from the chairman a sturdy mechanician rose. He was an
"assembler," or skilled workman, who takes the parts of the gun as they
are sent in from the various departments, and then with file, saw, and
sandpaper, but especially by the wisdom of the eye, "assembles" them
into one complete weapon such as can be issued to fill the orders of the
Government. Pere Felix was a man much regarded in Aramon les Ateliers,
and a silence followed his taking of the speaker's place. He was in no
hurry to begin. He knew his power and the worth of his opinion, and was
determined to conduct himself with the restraint and gravity which he
demanded from his audience.
Pere Felix opened by a word as to the speaker who had preceded him on
the rostrum. Comrade Barres had spoken (he said) with an earnestness
which would have been noble if it had been allied with wisdom. But of
course their companion laboured under the double disadvantage of being a
foreigner himself, a Spaniard from Catalonia, and of knowing nothing
about the district. The Englishmen who were to be killed like rats had
been for the most part of them friends and neighbours ever since the
works were opened, and in any case for a much longer period than Comrade
Barres had spent in France. Besides, like themselves, they were men with
wives and families. They had aided each other in sickness, their wives
had interchanged kindlinesses, their children had played together--why
should they be doomed to a slaughter of the innocents worse than that of
Bethlehem?
As for Director Deventer, he had defended himself when he was attacked
in his own house as every man has a right to do. And what was the use of
founding an Internationale in Aramon to bring about universal peace if
its first action was to send men sneaking forth under cloud of night to
kill women and children? Blood had been shed and he regretted it, but
the lesson learned was a useful one, bitter in the mouth, but sweet in
the belly.
When Gaston Cremieux rose to give an account of his mission he was
received with a storm of applause, but the young men at the back,
clustered near the door, were conspicuously silent. But lately Cremieux
had been their idol, and would be so again; but for the moment he was
under deep suspicion, and they stood sullenly glowering at him,
occasionally murmuring to each other the accusations so typical of men
of Latin race, when their idol does not exactly fulfil their
expectations.
Gaston was a traitor. He had sold himself. So much was evident to them,
though as usual it was difficult to see who would have money or interest
to buy the traitor to the Cause.
But after all there is something communicative in the thunderous
applause of a great assembly, and many of those who had come to hoot
were readiest with their cheers before Cremieux had uttered a score of
sentences. He spoke rather slowly, with marked emphasis, and repeated
each point of his argument in different words till he had firmly
impressed his meaning on his audience.
Yes, he had seen the manager. He had talked with him on the subject of
their grievances, and he knew that so far as the power lay with Monsieur
Dennis Deventer, their demands would be granted. Moreover, the Director
would use what influence he had with the Government to prevent reprisals
for the expulsion of the garrison from the town on the 21st of January.
They, on their side, must return as good workmen to take up their jobs.
Nothing would be said. No man would suffer for the past, and pay on the
higher scale would begin from the day they started work.
"And the comrades who died fighting, what of them?"
The question came bitter and scornful from the back of the hall, deep
under the shadow of the gallery.
"What of them?" answered Gaston Cremieux calmly. "Well, we are all
travelling the same road. We shall all end the same. They a little
earlier, I a little later. We are not making revolution by sprinkling
rosewater. From the beginning your Aramon outbreak was a mistake, as all
such things done in a corner must be. When the bells ring for that
august Twilight of the Newer Gods, you must waste no time storming
through the streets of Aramon, shooting and destroying. You must go in
mass to the railway, requisition trains, get yourselves instantly
transported to Marseilles, to Lyons, or to Paris. There your brothers
will have formed governments which your disciplined bayonets must
sustain. Then, having established a firm rule over the big towns, the
submission of the rural districts is only a matter of time.
"But," he added, with slow emphasis, "we can only succeed by being sure
of our comrades. They must wait for the signal, and the signal may not
be long in coming."
He concluded with a moving picture of the new Heavens and earth which
would arise when the workman was made part owner of his factory, and
when wars were no longer made by kings and emperors against the will of
the people--a glad peaceful world, well ordered, well content, and
without poverty.
It was very noble and very convincing, delivered with a kind of austere
fire strange in one so young and fragile. The people shouted for
"Gaston" as if he had been a son of each of their houses. The motherly
women shed tears, and I heard prayers spoken aloud that this and that
saint, or more especially the Holy Virgin, should protect him.
There was no doubt at all that he carried the meeting with him. The
works of Aramon would be reopened next day, and the director's terms
would be accepted.
This was the sense of the meeting as interpreted by the President. It
was put to the vote and carried unanimously, but the sullen young men
under the gallery had already opened the doors and passed silently out.
I could see them resuming their wolf's prowl in little packs of four or
five, keeping quite distinct from the decent burgesses who had so lately
filled the body of the riding-school, and were now pouring towards their
homes in Aramon in dense black streams.