largely in his tales. But that she was more real than d'Artagnan we had
hardly conceived, until one day we stood before the seventeenth century
house in the rue de l'Université which once had the honor of sheltering
her. It belonged to Jean Mailefer, and he has left an account of the
visit in quaintly spelled old French which we were fortunate enough to
have a chance to read. He was very proud of the magnificence of his
dwelling, and spread its luxury before us as a peacock might spread his
gorgeous tail for humbler birds to admire. It was fit for a queen he
felt, and lo! she was coming. He describes exultantly the sound of the
trumpets that signalized the consequential arrival of royalty.
"_Tatera, tatera, tatera! Que d'honeurs qui vont tomber sur mes foibles
espaulles!_" ["What honors to fall upon my poor shoulders!"] The pride
of the seventeenth century--how laughably like it is to that of the
twentieth. The queen as she entered, jestingly said, "The house is my
own!" "Yes, _grande Princess_, you are right," responded its owner,
quickly. At the same time the Marshal Duplessis asked of him,
"Monsieur, are you the master of this house?" "Monsieur," replied the
gallant gentleman of Rheims, bowing with a grand air, I make no doubt,
"Monsieur, I was but a moment ago; but when the sun appears, the stars
are eclipsed."
In the rue de la Grue we searched out the house where was born Tronson
du Coudray, an eloquent lawyer of the Paris Parliament and the
courageous defender of Marie Antoinette. With all our young enthusiasm
we loved him as the champion of the ill-fated queen. The Porte de
Paris, the great iron gateway in Rheims, the guidebooks told us was a
triumph of the smith's art, but it held our imaginations in thrall
because it had been built in honor of the crowning of Louis XVI and
Marie Antoinette. Somewhere we had found an account of the coronation,
and read how joyously they had entered the city, and how in the
cathedral, in the midst of the acclamations and applause, so loud and
prolonged that they covered the sound of the bells and the noise of the
cannon, the "_gracieuse Marie Antoinette_" had fainted and thus "_elle
a perdu quelques instants du plus beau jour de sa vie_" ["she had lost
some moments of the most beautiful day of her life"]. We loved to
imagine her against the background of that rich interior of the
cathedral, the light through its glowing windows touching with
iridescence the tall gray pillars; the royal pennants and draperies,
bright tones against the sombre hues of the marvelous tapestries; gold
flashing here and there from tall candlesticks and brilliant uniforms;
wonderful gems catching fire from the great arched windows that seemed,
in the brightness of the sun, to be themselves made of rival jewels. A
splendid setting for "the most beautiful day of her life." "The height,
the space, the gloom, the glory," how they typified that life!
The Porte de Paris, too, was eloquent of the fierce days of the
Revolution. The people of Rheims tell how the mob one day came surging
toward it, when the ringleaders proposed that they destroy the gilded
crown upon its apex as the symbol of hated royalty. Then the mayor, a
man of tactful resource, called to the most furious of the band and
asked if he had a ten-sou piece at his service. The man readily passed
it to him, whereupon the mayor at once gave it to a beggar standing
near. "Take it," said he; "Monsieur will have nothing with a crown upon
it." Every one laughed, and the crown on the gate was saved.
Under the wide arch of the Porte de Paris victorious Napoleon entered
after the Prussian occupation of the city in 1814. It was already
nightfall when the fierce battle was fought, and not until eleven
o'clock was Napoleon able to enter the city. What an ovation he
received from the rejoicing citizens--the Remois! It thrilled us to
read it. All at once the great bells of the cathedral thundered forth a
welcome, while at the same time every window in the town was lighted
and a great cry of "_Vive l'Empereur!_" rang from end to end of the
city. The house in the rue de Vesle, where he slept that night, is an
old acquaintance.
If the Porte de Paris seemed old to us and eloquent of the past, what
was to be said of the gray old arch known as the Porte de Mars, that
dated before Christ and "spoke aloud for future times to hear" of the
triumphs of great Cæsar and of the Gallo-Roman days? and what of the
market-place which was once, we were told, the Roman forum? Even in our
time, though all traces of the forum were gone, the market-place was an
ancient-looking square, edged as it was with quaint old buildings,
among them, notably, an elaborately carved wooden house, one of the
most curious specimens of fifteenth century art.
Near by was the old church of St. Jacques. Often we used to steal in to
rest awhile in its rainbow-colored twilight. Not as imposing as the
cathedral, but very lovely nevertheless, it was one of the relics of
the twelfth century. The cathedral, St. Jacques, and the old abbey
church of St. Remi--they have formed for us the beautiful and
impressive backgrounds of many a wedding and funeral and quaint
religious service.
Many a time we have threaded the queer old streets of Rheims with their
queer old names--the rue de la Clef [Street of the Key], the rue des
Deux Anges [Street of the Two Angels], the rue des Trois Raisinets
[Street of the Three Little Grapes]. _The Maison des Quatres Chats
Gringnants_ [House of the Four Grinning Cats], the _Auberge du Lapin
Gras_ [Tavern of the Fat Rabbit], curious old buildings of the Middle
Ages--we passed them by in our youth, but we shall carry the memory of
them into our old age. How tranquil the city used to seem to us then!
Too quiet, sometimes; a drowsy old town, we said, sitting like
venerable age sleeping in the sun. How little we dreamed what a cruel
awakening was in store for it; that horror and terror were to stalk
through all those peaceful streets and leave their dreadful scars
behind!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHERE DOROTHY VERNON DWELT
BY MINNA B. NOYES
At Rowsley, England, the quaint old Peacock Inn, with its vine-covered
walls, casement windows, and rare old gardens, is the picture of peace
and comfort, and it is also a perfect type of the hostelries of bygone
days.
If the guest can tear himself away from its ease and plenty, its
stately gardens, and its soothing atmosphere, the surrounding country
affords many delightful walks and attractions both historical and
romantic.
Following the pretty little river Wye, one soon comes to Haddon Hall,
one of the best specimens of medieval domestic architecture now in
existence, although it has been added to at various periods from the
eleventh to the sixteenth centuries.
It was given by William the Conqueror to one of his sons, William
Peveril (Scott's "Peveril of the Peak"), and is now the property of the
Duke of Rutland, a descendant of the beautiful Dorothy Vernon, whose
romantic elopement with John Manners has been celebrated in drama,
song, and story, and lends an especial interest to the old castle.
The Vernons lived at Haddon Hall from 1195 to 1567, and, among the many
beautiful women of their line, the most beautiful is said to have been
the self-willed Dorothy. Her youthful love-dream was thwarted by her
equally obstinate father, some say because of family feuds, others say
on account of difference in religion.
Whatever the cause, parental opposition was so strong that one night,
when a grand ball was in progress in the famous ball-room of Haddon
Hall, the heiress stole away through the door of the anteroom and fled,
in all her festive array, along "Dorothy's Walk" (a long terrace lined
with stately yews), down the long flight of steps to the lower terrace,
and over the little bridge to her waiting lover. He carried her away on
his fleet steed to a hasty morning wedding, carefully placing many
miles between the irate father and the lovely bride.
Dorothy's father, Sir George Vernon, "The King of the Peak," allowed
his wrath to cool in time, and the happy couple returned and made their
home at the Hall.
John Manners was a younger son of the Earl of Rutland, and father of
the first Duke of Rutland, whose cradle is now exhibited in the state
bedroom of Haddon Hall.
The great ball-room from which Miss Dorothy fled is over one hundred
feet long, eighteen feet wide, and fifteen feet high. On the south
side, toward the garden, are three very large, recessed windows, and on
the north side is a huge fireplace with ancient fire-dogs. At the east
end of the room is a glass case containing a bust of Grace, Lady
Manners, wife of Sir George Manners. This is said to have been made
from a cast taken after death. Certainly the lady was far from
beautiful if one judges from this representation of her charms!
The interior of the family chapel is in a semi-ruined state. On the
right there is a stoup for holy water, about four hundred years old,
and just beyond it are the servants' seats. In the chancel are two
large, high, family pews, one on either side, the master and his sons
occupying one, and the lady and her daughters the other.
The stained-glass window in the chapel was of great beauty, but, early
in the nineteenth century, the greater part of it was mysteriously
stolen in the night, and its place has been filled with fragments of
colored glass taken from other windows.
In the kitchen may still be seen the immense fireplace, the large,
hollowed-out block, evidently used for a chopping-tray, a
salting-trough, and a few other pieces of culinary apparatus.
In the banqueting-hall is the minstrels' gallery, the front of which is
carved and paneled, and decorated with stags' antlers, and there is
also a gallery along one side, probably of later construction. The lord
and his guests sat at one end of the hall on a raised platform, while
the retainers sat at tables in the body of the hall. The high table is
a remarkable specimen of its kind, and one of the most interesting
relics of feudal times.
At the north end of the hall, just inside the entrance, is a kind of
handcuff, fastened to the wall and so arranged as to hold a man's wrist
up at arm's-length while liquor was poured down his sleeve--the
punishment meted out to every guest who did not drink all that the laws
of hospitality forced upon him!
Over the banqueting-hall is the drawing-room, the walls still hung with
ancient tapestries. There is a great deal of beautiful old tapestry in
Haddon Hall, and it all seems to be woven or worked in small pieces,
even the shades of coloring being done separately and then sewed
together.
Another room shown to visitors is the state bedroom, with old
oil-paintings, and Goblin tapestry designed in panels on the borders of
which are medallions with subjects from Æsop's fables. Queen Elizabeth
is said to have once slept in this room, and in a large window-recess
is a dressing-table with a mirror called "Queen Elizabeth's
looking-glass." The poor queen's vanity must have received a shock when
she saw herself reflected there, or else the glass has become defective
with age! In this room there is also the primitive cradle said to be
that of the first Duke of Rutland.
The state bed is large and imposing, draped with faded green silk
velvet lined with white satin, dating from the reign of Henry VI. The
last person to occupy this bed was George IV, when he was Prince Regent.
There are some smaller and less interesting rooms to which the visitor
may have access, all, by the small windows and the rude workmanship of
doors and fastenings, showing great antiquity.
A winding staircase of uneven stone steps leads to the Peveril Tower,
the highest part of the Hall, and from this tower there is a beautiful
view of the valley of the Wye and the hills and valleys around.
Haddon Hall is not used as a residence by its owner, the Duke of
Rutland, but it is kept in reasonable repair, and is visited yearly by
hundreds of "trippers" from all parts of the British Isles and by
tourists from all countries.
To be appreciated fully it should be inspected leisurely, and not
"done" in the few minutes allowed some of the "personally conducted"
visitors. One lovely summer day we saw two large wagonettes filled with
tourists drive up to the Hall, and the procession, headed by a guide,
walked through the rooms and back to the waiting vehicles in less than
half an hour! We learned that these people were Americans, who had
landed at Liverpool that morning, and after hastily viewing this fine
old mansion, they were to be taken to Chatsworth House, the Duke of
Devonshire's country-seat a few miles away, while later in the day they
were due in London for additional sight-seeing!
It is small wonder if they had little appreciation of the beauties of
venerable pile or modern mansion, and but the vaguest memories of them
after their return home!
Haddon Hall will repay one for frequent and extended visits, as new
points of interest will repeatedly reward the unhurried visitor, and
many a pleasant hour may be spent on the terraces, looking out over the
charming landscape and dreaming of bygone days when the Hall was a
stage for the drama of life, with all its elements of love and hate, of
comedy and tragedy, of peace and war.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOREIGN FIRE-BRIGADES
BY CHARLES T. HILL
One summer, while in Switzerland, I asked a prominent merchant of
Lausanne, when his town had had its last serious fire. "Not in three
years," he replied. I was moved to ask this question because I had
found the fire apparatus in padlocked barns, or stations, with the keys
in the hands of the police, who attended to the fire-fighting; and this
seemed, as compared to the remarkably quick methods employed in
America, a somewhat dangerous form of fire protection. Lausanne is a
town of about fifty thousand population, and I wondered how many
American cities of a like size could boast of only one serious fire in
three years. Not many, I imagine.
In Lucerne, a smaller city of Switzerland, of about forty thousand
population, the conditions were practically the same, with the
exception that each stable containing the fire apparatus had a notice
posted on the door stating that the keys could be found in the
neighboring hotels and drug-shops, and the citizens were expected to
take out the engines in the event of a fire, while the firemen
(volunteers) came on "call," the alarm being sounded on all the church
bells. Lucerne is a well-known tourist center, heavily populated during
the summer months, and has many large shops filled with very
inflammable material, and a great many very old buildings; and yet this
place had had only two fires of any size within two years!
While I was attending the morning drill of the Central Fire Station at
Dresden, in Saxony, the captain in command told me that the city had,
on an average, about six alarms of fire a week. I casually remarked
that we had twenty-five _a day_ in New York. He looked at me with
wonderment and doubt, and when I repeated that we actually had between
twenty and thirty alarms of fire a day in the Borough of Manhattan
alone, he threw up his hands and exclaimed, "Thank heaven, it is not as
bad as that here, or our beautiful city would be destroyed!"
And so we find, thanks to superior building construction, less hurry
and rush in business methods, and a wholesome regard on the part of the
citizens for certain rigid laws covering the use of explosives and
materials of all kinds which usually cause fire, the lot of the foreign
firefighter is not as strenuous as that of his brother fireman on this
side of the water. Because of the excellent character of the buildings
abroad fires burn slowly, and rarely extend beyond the room or floor in
which they start. Here, on the other hand, the conditions are entirely
different. Our fires are larger, more destructive, and more frequent,
compelling us to support not only the most effective, but most
expensive, fire-departments in the world; and yet, in spite of all
this, our annual fire losses are from ten to twenty times more than
those of any country in Europe.
Better building laws and the universal adoption of fire-prevention
ordinances, are going to change all this for us, in time, but as yet
our annual fire loss stuns the average European by its enormous total.
In London, the fire-department comes under the supervision of the city
authorities, the London County Council looking after the administration
of the "Metropolitan Fire-Brigade," as it is called; and this brigade,
in management and routine work, is not unlike many large American
fire-departments, though the apparatus used is radically different. A
naval officer has always been chief of the London fire-brigade, and the
firemen are usually recruited from the marine service, a time-honored
custom giving preference to men who have been at least five years at
sea. It is argued that the work of a fireman is of a nature more
readily performed by a sailor, who is not only accustomed to danger and
exposure of all kinds, but is trained to climbing and working in
perilous positions. These new men, after passing a severe physical
examination before a medical board, are put through three months'
careful schooling at fire headquarters, where they are not only taught
how to handle every tool and implement used in the brigade, but become
skilled in life-saving work.
The fire stations in London are much larger than the engine-houses
found in American cities, and some of the newer buildings in appearance
are not unlike some of our better-class apartment-houses. Indeed, this
is practically what they are--a kind of apartment-house or barracks for
the men and their families, as well as a station for the apparatus and
the horses; and here the firemen live, occupying little apartments of
from three to five rooms, according to their rank and position. They
are, therefore, in the houses and on duty at all times, with the
exception of one day's leave of absence in every fifteen. Enough
firemen are found in each London fire station to make up three of our
fire-companies, but only one third of these men are in service or on
"call-duty" at a time, the rest being held in reserve to answer any
other alarms which might come in, or to reinforce the first detachment
leaving the house should their "call" prove to be a bad fire. And the
men of each squad or detachment on "call-duty" are supposed to be fully
dressed when an alarm comes in, and have only to adjust their helmets,
which hang in long rows on the walls of the apparatus floor, before
jumping on the engines; and no exception is made to this rule, even
with the men on the last or "night tour"--from 9 P.M. until 7 A.M. This
accounts for the pictures we sometimes see, showing the English firemen
seated along the sides of their engines, in military fashion, fully
uniformed.
In some of the stations, the London fire-brigade still clings to the
rather old-fashioned custom of keeping the horses standing in harness,
in stables at the rear, to be led out to the apparatus by hand in event
of a "call"; and this makes their "turnout" in answer to an alarm
appear to us to be a peculiarly slow one, accustomed as we are to the
remarkably quick methods employed in our fire-departments. But several
of the newer houses, built within the last few years, are supplied with
many ingenious American time-saving devices--sliding-poles,
swinging-harness, etc.,--while the horses are kept in box-stalls on the
apparatus floor, in convenient running distance of the engines, all of
which has considerably reduced the time consumed in turning out to an
alarm.
The English fire-engine is a small affair, much smaller than our steam
fire-engines, having about one half the pumping capacity of the
American engines; and nearly every one in London is a combined engine
and hose-wagon,--the hose being carried in a box-like compartment on
each side of the machine, just back of the driver's seat. This
"hose-box" serves as a convenient place for the firemen to sit while
riding to the fire. Quite a number of automobile fire-engines are in
service in the London brigade, big, businesslike-looking machines,
about as large as some of our motor-engines, and capable of great speed
while answering an alarm. As a contrast to this up-to-date equipment, a
number of "manuals," or hand-engines, are in use, which ought to have
been sent to the scrap-heap years ago.
In the way of ladder-trucks they are very well supplied in London, for,
in addition to several "horse ladder-escapes," as they are called (a
fairly long extension ladder carried on a horse-drawn truck, and which
can be detached from this truck and pushed close to a building), they
have a great many hand-pushed "ladder-escapes" (a shorter extension
ladder of the same type and pushed by hand) scattered throughout the
city, housed in substations in the principal squares and more important
thoroughfares, and intended for emergency use only until the regular
apparatus arrives. They have also a few "aërial" ladder-trucks carrying
a very long extension ladder which can be raised, by means of an
ingenious little engine using carbonic-acid gas for its motive power,
to a height of eighty feet or more. But aside from use as a kind of
water-tower at large fires, these aërial ladders are rarely extended to
their full length, for the houses are nearly all of a uniform height,
not over five or six floors, and the ordinary extension ladder is
sufficiently long to reach the upper parts of these buildings.
The fire-alarm boxes, or "alarm-points," as they are known, are found
at convenient corners throughout London, and consist of an iron post
about as high as an ordinary hitching-post, with a little round metal
box at the top containing a glass door. You break the glass in this
door, pull the little handle or knob inside, and thus send in a
"fire-call" to four or five of the nearest fire stations. In all
American cities when a fire-alarm box is "pulled" the alarm is
transmitted direct to a central-bureau, usually at fire headquarters,
and is then retransmitted, either automatically or by hand, to the
engine-houses; but in London--and in every other European city--each
fire station has its own alarm-bureau, in charge of an officer and
several operators, these stations receiving only the alarms from the
boxes in the immediate neighborhood. All the stations, however, are
connected with each other, and with a central-bureau or headquarters,
by both telegraph and telephone.
London has something like 4000 fires annually, and spends about
$1,250,000 every year to support her fire-brigade. It is estimated that
the city of New York (comprising the Boroughs of Manhattan, Bronx,
Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond, and with about the same population as
London proper) has 12,500 fires annually, and spends something over
$7,500,000 to support her fire-department.
In Paris, the fire-brigade comes under the jurisdiction of the
Department of War, and it is part of the French army that attends to
the fire-fighting in this famous city. Two battalions of infantry,
known as the "Regiment des Sapeurs Pompiers," look after this important
work, and although this brigade is recruited, drilled, and commanded by
various regimental officers, from a colonel down to a lieutenant, and
belongs to the war department, it comes under the direct control of the
Prefect of Police (Chief of Police), who is the actual head of the
Paris fire-brigade.