THE FIRST DAYS
The French fled from Wörth, and the passes of the Vosges were open to
the victorious armies of the invader. Villages, which knew not why war
had come to the vineyards, beheld the advancing hosts that carried
the sword into the gardens of France. People said that no man might
number them, no general withstand them. For a nation armed had gone out
against those who had betrayed a nation. Old men spoke of Austerlitz
and of Jena, and told one another that never again would the shame of
the new day be forgotten nor its humiliations avenged. Peasants fled
from their homes to the shelter of the cities; the wounded crawled to
the churches and lay side by side with the forgotten dead. Everywhere
the devastating hand withered the fields and gave payment of their
ashes. The curse was upon France, men said. The day of hope had
passed. Out there upon the hill lands the spiked helmets glistened and
the Uhlans rode triumphantly; the hope, the courage of Paris seemed a
mockery beyond words. For the children cried for bread; the dirge for
the dead was the daily prayer.
Westward and southward from Wörth MacMahon’s hosts had fled to tell
the tale in all the towns, and even to proclaim it at the gates of
Strasburg and in the cafés by the great cathedral there. The wounds
the soldiers showed, the enduring fear of those mighty forces crossing
the mountains so swiftly, moved the city to belief and to activity.
Men would not stop to ask why this had been, this betrayal surpassing
belief, this wreck of the glory of a century. The Germans were coming
to the gates of the city they loved. All that life could give in
defence of that city should be their offering to France. Whatever else
of shame and of defeat contributed to their country’s harvest of the
war, Strasburg at least would play her part with honour. Never, while
one stone stood upon another, would she open her gates to the Prussian
king. The few of German heart and birth, who remained indifferent
to the issues, found themselves silenced by the greater voice of
patriotism. Citizens congregated in all the cafés to tell the good
story. “To the last brick, comrades--our general has said so.” And that
watchword became their own from the first.
The news came to the city on the seventh day of August. The eighth day
had not dawned before the great work began. Old and young, civilians
and soldiers--no longer was there to be any distinction of age or class
or fitness for the task. Even the women went to gaze upon the mighty
citadel, and to tell each other that those glistening guns were greater
than all the hosts of Germany. In the squares and public places the
National Guards and _francs-tireurs_ drilled incessantly. The whole
city was full of the sounds of war--of squadrons tramping, of the
blaring music of the bands, of the rumbling of the great guns, of the
brisk word of command and of encouragement. Even little children were
taught to honour the general who had said that Strasburg should not
open her gates while one stone was left upon another.
While all this was the talk of the open places of the city, there was
to be found in the privacy of their houses a determination as real, as
faithful, as unwavering as the creed of the multitude or the gospel of
the cafés. In the Place Kleber itself, Madame Hélène, that mistress
of gentleness and of love, spoke of courage always; of courage and
of patience, and of a woman’s work for France. People who passed the
great house in the Place Kleber would point up to the windows where
the beloved face was to be seen, and would tell each other that there
was the mother of the city, ever giving good counsel with a mother’s
heart and inspiring them to that self-sacrifice which is the truest
gift of motherhood. Beatrix herself, listening to that gentle voice,
would forget her own regrets and all that had been since Edmond left
the châlet at Niederwald. There, in the streets of the city, were those
who called for her pity and her help. Wan men, hobbling upon crutches;
great fellows hugging terrible wounds; lads robbed for ever of the
joy of youth; old soldiers with tears upon their cheeks because they
could fight for France no more--Wörth had sent such as these in their
thousands to Strasburg. She saw them sunning themselves in the square
before her house. Often she listened to the pathetic story of their
flight. She knew not why destiny had so done to them yet had spared the
man she loved.
“If one could only be grateful enough!” she said to Hélène on the
morning of the seventh day after her return. “I feel sometimes that I
have lost the power to be thankful for anything. It will be different
when Edmond comes home. And one can only wait, wait, wait.”
But _grandmère_ shook her head in kindly rebuke.
“Of ourselves always, dear child! Is there no one else but a poor old
woman and an impatient little wife in Strasburg to-day? Do not the
streets teach us their lesson? Ah, the brave hearts in the streets,
Beatrix; the brave men who would save our homes for us! What are we
doing for them--we, the women of France? What help shall we give them
when the need comes and the children suffer? And we must help them.
What can we ask of the poor when the rich give nothing? Let us give
abundantly, dear child, as it has been given to us.”
There was a noble courage in her voice; but to Beatrix that voice was
as a sound from afar. She believed no longer in France or the armies of
France. The mighty impotence of Wörth remained her abiding message. The
doom of the city and of her home seemed already written. The childish
fear, that this lack of faith put a bond upon her love, grew day by
day. She was not worthy of the man who had whispered his ambitions to
her in the châlet of the Niederwald and had sealed his vow of faith in
France with a lover’s caress. Her very belief in the might and the
glory of the Saxon stood against her as a sin. The future lay through a
valley of shadows which gathered quickly about her path, and enveloped
her in the gloom of foreboding and of doubt. She was not a Frenchwoman;
she never would understand--never, never.
“Dear Hélène, how good you are,” she said impulsively. “I feel guilty
when I listen to you. All that I see here makes me think of Edmond.
If only one could write to him. If only one were sure that the prison
meant nothing to him but four square walls and a German jailor. It
would have been different, perhaps, a year ago--but now! Ah, mamma, you
were never married in the Minster, and you never went to the Niederwald
for your honeymoon. My life has changed since that day they came for
him. I don’t think I have any heart left. I try to remember other
things, but every day the question is, Will he come this morning--will
it be next month, next year--or never, never again until the end?”
She lifted a white face to the kindly eyes, and felt old Hélène’s arms
about her neck.
“I cannot lose him, even for France,” she said very pitifully; “you are
not angry with me, Hélène?”
“Angry my child, God forbid! A thousand women’s hearts are heavy as
yours to-day. We must not let them see our tears, we to whom they look
for hope and courage. When Edmond comes, our hands must not be empty.
Oh, think of it, Beatrix--there are Germans at Schiltigheim, Germans at
the gates of our own city. To-morrow--ah, God knows what we shall see
and hear to-morrow!”
There were tears upon her cheeks as this doubt for the city of her
childhood came to trouble her. Beatrix knew well of what she was
thinking. The armies of France had not saved them yesterday. Who should
say that to-morrow would find those armies victorious?
“If all were as you, dear Hélène,” she said tenderly, “we need fear
for nothing. And we shall know how to suffer for Edmond’s sake if the
day comes. Sometimes I think that I should be glad for it to come. It
is hard to be a woman when those in whom you trust have ceased to be
men. At Wörth I believed that nothing in all the world could defeat the
armies of France. I dare not tell you all I saw there. Strasburg cannot
be like that. Nothing will ever be like that again.”
“It will be as our destiny writes it, my child. And we must have faith,
faith always. It is all a woman can offer--her whole heart and soul and
sympathy for those who suffer that she may have a home. Let us give
unstintingly while we may.”
They went together to the windows of the house to watch the marching
of a regiment, which went by with banners flying and drums rolling,
and all the glorious panoply of war. It was a sunny Sabbath morning of
August, and in all the steeples the bells were calling the citizens to
Mass. When the troops had passed and the cheering for the “Mother of
the City,” whose white hairs the soldiers had seen at the window, had
died away, Beatrix quitted the house and went alone toward the Minster;
for thither the citizens now turned, and there the great service of
the day was to be held. She had never seen so many people abroad in
the streets of Strasburg before; nor did they wear the air of those
who feared for themselves or their houses. Women anticipated coming
victories in colours which would not mourn the past irrevocable. Men
walked in groups and spoke of the brave General Uhrich. Bands played
everywhere. The cafés were scenes of mirth and excitement. In the
churches themselves priests spoke of a nation fighting God’s battles,
and moved their flocks to a frenzy of applause. Old soldiers told of
Jena and of Italy. Little children carried long swords at their belts,
and their watchword was “_Aux armes_.”
By these she passed quickly, for the bells told her that the service
was about to begin. In the cathedral square she found a great
concourse of people moved by some savage impulse she could not at
first understand. Ferocious cries were raised; she heard the smashing
of glass in the doors of a café, and saw bludgeons and sticks raised
threateningly above the heads of the people. A man at her side told her
that they had caught a spy and were about to kill him. They had taken
him in the Minster itself. He had run to the café for shelter, but they
would settle his affair, and he would go back to Germany no more. Had
it been possible, she would have drawn back from the crowd; but the
human wave engulfed her and carried her forward, almost to the doors of
the house. Half fainting in the press, unable to make her voice heard,
she became unwillingly the spectator of that tragedy of the Sabbath.
She saw the white-faced man in the porch of the house; she heard his
frenzied appeals for mercy. Foam dripped from his lips, his hair was
dishevelled, his coat torn, his hands upraised to protect his face;
but no one thought of pity or of justice. Men struck at him with their
fists; a drunkard threw a glass at him and cut his forehead; the blows
of canes fell upon his face as whips that strike a board; blood flowed
from his nostrils. He fell fainting, and those about him beat out his
brains as he lay senseless upon the floor.
The people swept by with clamorous shouts. The spy was dead. Strasburg
had settled with him. For an instant, Beatrix reeled back against the
window of the café. Everything in the cathedral square swam before her
eyes. She thought that she would fall, but a strong arm was placed
suddenly about her waist, and a voice that she knew whispered a word in
her ear.
“Silence,” was the word; “I have brought the news I promised you.”
She looked up at the man’s face and read it through his disguise.
Brandon North himself was at her side.