In 1859 I was in Paris, finishing my studies at the Lycée St. Louis.
As it happened, I was there with my two school-fellows from Aix, Louis
and Julien. Louis was preparing for his entrance examination to the
Ecole Polytechnique; Julien had decided to go in for law. We were all
out-students.
By this time we had ceased to be savages, entirely ignorant of the
contemporary world. Paris had ripened us. Thus, when the war with Italy
broke out, we were abreast of the stream of political events which had
led to it. We even discussed the war in the character of politicians
and military adepts. It was the fashion at college to take interest in
the campaign, and to follow the movements of the troops on the map.
During our college hours we used to mark our positions with pins and
fight and lose battles. In order to be well up to date, we devoured an
enormous supply of newspapers. It was the mission of us out-students
to bring them in. We used to arrive with our pockets stuffed, with
thicknesses of paper under our coats, enclosed from head to foot in an
armour of newspapers. And while lectures were going on these papers
were circulated; lessons and studies were neglected; we drank our fill
of news, shielded by the back of a neighbour. In order to conceal the
big sheets we used to cut them in four, and open them inside our books.
The professors were not always blind, but they let us go our own way
with the tolerance of men resigned to let the idler bear the burden of
his idleness.
At first, Julien shrugged his shoulders. He was possessed by a fine
adoration of the poets of 1830, and there was always a volume of Musset
or Hugo in his pocket which he used to read at lecture. So when anyone
handed him a newspaper he used to pass it on scornfully without even
condescending to look at it, and would continue reading the poem which
he had begun. To him it seemed monstrous that anybody could care about
men who were fighting one another. But a catastrophe which changed the
whole course of his life caused him to alter his opinion.
One fine day Louis, who had just failed in his examination, enlisted.
It was a rash step which had long been in his mind. He had an uncle who
was a general, and he thought himself sure of making his way without
passing through the military schools. Besides, when the war was over,
he could still try Saint-Cyr. When Julien heard this news, it came upon
him like a thunderbolt. He was no longer the boy declaiming against war
with missish arguments, but he still had an unconquerable aversion. He
wished to show himself a hardened man; and he succeeded in not shedding
tears before us. But from the time his brother went, he became one of
the most eager devourers of newspapers. We came and went from college
together; and our conversations turned on nothing but possible battles.
I remember that he used to drag me almost every day to the Luxembourg
Gardens. He would lay his books on a bench and trace a whole map of
Northern Italy in the sand. That kept his thoughts with his brother. In
the depths of his heart he was full of terror at the idea that he might
be killed.
Even now, when I inquire of my memory, I find it difficult to make
clear the elements of this horror of war on Julien’s part. He was by no
means a coward. He merely had a distaste for bodily exercises, to which
he reckoned abstract mental speculations far superior. To live the
life of a learned man or a poet, shut into a quiet room, seemed to him
the real end of man on this earth; while the turmoils of the street,
battles, whether with fist or sword, and everything which develops the
muscles seemed to him only fit for a nation of savages. He despised
athletes and acrobats and wild beast tamers. I must add that he had
no patriotism. On this subject we heaped contempt upon him, and I can
still see the smile and shrug of the shoulders with which he answered
us.
One of the most vivid memories of that time which remains with me is
the memory of the fine summer day on which the news of the victory of
Magenta became known in Paris. It was June--a splendid June, such as
we seldom have in France. It was Sunday. Julien and I had planned the
evening before to take a walk in the Champs Elysées. He was very uneasy
about his brother, from whom he had had no letter, and I wanted to
distract his thoughts. I called for him at one o’clock, and we strolled
down towards the Seine at the idle pace of schoolboys with no usher
behind them.
Paris on a holiday in very hot weather is something that deserves
knowing. The black shadow of the houses cuts the white pavement
sharply. Between the shuttered, drowsy house fronts is visible but
a strip of sky of a hard blue. I do not know any place in the world
where, when it is hot, it is hotter than in Paris; it is a furnace,
suffocating, asphyxiating. Some corners of Paris are deserted, among
others the quays, whence the loungers have fled to suburban copses. And
yet, what a delightful walk it is, along the wide, quiet quays, with
their row of little thick trees, and below, the magnificent rush of the
river all alive with its moving populace of vessels.
Well, we had come to the Seine and were walking along the quays in the
shadow of the trees. Slight sounds came up from the river, whose waters
quivered in the sun and were marked out as with lines of silver into
large wavering patterns. There was something special in the holiday air
of this fine Sunday. Paris was positively being filled already by the
news of which everybody, and even the very houses, seemed expectant.
The Italian campaign, which was, as everybody knows, so rapid, had
opened with successes; but so far there had been no important battle,
and it was this battle which Paris had for two days been feeling. The
great city held her breath and heard the distant cannon.
I have retained the memory of this impression very clearly. I had just
confided to Julien the strange sensation which I felt, by saying to
him that Paris “looked queer,” when, as we came to the Quai Voltaire,
we saw, afar off, in front of the printing-office of the _Moniteur_, a
little knot of people, standing to read a notice. There were not more
than seven or eight persons. From the pavement where we stood, we could
see them gesticulating, laughing, calling out. We crossed the road
quickly. The notice was a telegram, written, not printed; it announced
the victory of Magenta, in four lines. The wafers which fixed it to the
wall were not yet dry. Evidently we were the first to know in all this
great Paris, that Sunday. People came running, and their enthusiasm was
a sight to see. They fraternised at once, strangers shook hands with
each other. A gentleman, with a ribbon at his button-hole, explained
to a workman how the battle must have occurred; women were laughing
with a pretty laughter and looking as if they were inclined to throw
themselves into the arms of the bystanders. Little by little the crowd
grew; passers-by were beckoned; coachmen stopped their vehicles and
came down from their seats. When we came away there were more than a
thousand people there.
After that it was a glorious day. In a few minutes the news had spread
to the whole town. We thought to bear it with us, but it out-stripped
us, for we could not turn a corner or pass along a street without at
once understanding by the joy on every face that the thing was known.
It floated in the sunshine; it came on the wind. In half-an-hour the
aspect of Paris was changed; solemn expectancy had given place to an
outburst of triumph. We sauntered for a couple of hours in the Champs
Elysées among crowds who laughed for joy. The eyes of the women had a
special tenderness. And the word “Magenta” was in every mouth.
But Julien was still very pale; he was much disturbed and I knew what
was his secret terror, when he murmured:--
“They laugh to-day, but how many will be crying to-morrow?”
He was thinking of his brother. I made jokes to try and reassure him,
and told him that Louis was sure to come back a captain.
“If only he does come back,” he answered, shaking his head.
As soon as night fell, Paris was illuminated. Venetian lanterns swung
at all the windows. The poorest persons had lighted candles; I even
saw some rooms whose tenants had merely pushed a table to the window
and set their lamp on it. The night was exquisite, and all Paris was
in the streets. There were people sitting all along upon the doorsteps
as if they were waiting for a procession. Crowds were standing in the
squares, the cafés and the wine-shops were thronged, and the urchins
were letting off crackers which scented the air with a fine smell of
powder.
I repeat I never saw Paris so beautiful. That day, all joys were
united, sunshine, a Sunday, and a victory. Afterwards, when Paris heard
of the decisive battle of Solferino, there was not the same enthusiasm,
even though it brought the immediate conclusion of the war. On the day
when the troops made their entry, the demonstration was more solemn,
but it lacked that spontaneous popular joy.
We got a two days’ holiday from Magenta. We grew even more eager about
the war, and were among those who thought that peace had been made too
hastily. The school year was drawing to its end. The holidays were
coming, bringing the feverish excitement of liberty; and Italy, the
army, and the victories, all disappeared in the general setting free
of the prize distribution. I remember that I was to go and spend my
holidays in the South that year. When I was just about to start, in
the beginning of August, Julien begged me to stay till the 14th, the
date fixed for the triumphal entry of the troops. He was full of joy.
Louis was coming back with the rank of sergeant, and he wished me to be
present at his brother’s triumph. I promised to stay.
Great preparations were made for the reception of the army which had
for some days been encamped in the immediate neighbourhood of Paris.
It was to enter by the Place de la Bastille, to follow the line of the
Boulevards, to go down the Rue de la Paix, and cross the Place Vendôme.
The Boulevards were decorated with flags. On the Place Vendôme, immense
stands had been erected for the members of the Government and their
guests. The weather was splendid. When the troops came into sight along
the Boulevards, vast applause burst forth. The crowd thronged on both
sides of the pavement. Heads rose above heads at the windows. Women
waved their handkerchiefs and threw down the flowers from their dresses
to the soldiers. All the while, the soldiers kept on passing with
their regular step, in the midst of frantic hurrahs. The bands played;
the colours fluttered in the sun. Several, which had been pierced by
balls, received applause, and one in particular, which was in rags, and
crowned. At the corner of the Rue du Temple an old woman flung herself
headlong into the ranks and embraced a corporal, her son, no doubt.
They came near to carrying that happy mother in triumph.
The official ceremony took place in the Place Vendôme. There, ladies
in full dress, magistrates in their robes, and officials in uniform
applauded with more gravity. In the evening, the Emperor gave a banquet
to three hundred persons at the Louvre, in the Salle des Etats. As
he was proposing a toast, which has remained historic, he exclaimed:
“If France has done so much for a friendly people what would she not
do for her own independence?” An imprudent speech which he must have
regretted later. Julien and I had seen the march past from a window in
the Boulevard Poissonière. He had been to the camp the night before
and had told Louis where we should be. Thus when his regiment passed
Louis lifted his head to greet us. He was much older, and his face was
brown and thin. I could hardly recognise him. He looked like a man,
compared with us who were still children, slender and pale like women.
Julien followed him with his eyes as long as he could, and I heard him
murmur, with tears in his eyes, while a nervous emotion shook him: “It
is beautiful after all--it is beautiful.”
In the evening I met them both again in a little café of the Quartier
Latin. It was a small place at the end of an alley where we generally
went, because we were alone there and could talk at our ease. When I
arrived, Julien, with both elbows on the table, was already listening
to Louis, who was telling him about Solferino. He said that no battle
had ever been less foreseen. The Austrians were thought to be in
retreat and the allied armies were advancing when suddenly, about five
in the morning, on the 24th, they had heard guns--it was the Austrians
who had turned and were attacking us. Then a series of fights had
begun, each division taking its turn. All day long, the different
generals had fought separately, without having any clear idea of
the total form of the struggle. Louis had taken part in a terrible
hand-to-hand conflict in a cemetery, in the midst of graves; and that
was about all he had seen. He also spoke of the terrible storm which
had broken out towards the evening. The heavens took part and the
thunder silenced the guns. The Austrians had to give up the field in a
veritable deluge. They had been firing on each other for sixteen hours,
and the night which followed was full of terrors, for the soldiers did
not exactly know which way the victory had gone, and at every sound in
the darkness they thought that the battle was beginning again.
During this tale Julien kept on looking at his brother. Perhaps he
was not even listening, but was happy in merely having him before his
eyes. I shall never forget the evening spent thus in that obscure and
peaceful café, whence we heard the murmur of festival Paris, while
Louis was leading us across the bloody fields of Solferino. When he had
finished Julien said quietly:--
“Anyway, you are here and what does anything else matter?”