I thanked him again and went away feeling very happy.

Twelve days later I returned, taking with me a letter covered with the

signatures of the householders and tradesmen living near the Odéon.

On entering the prefect’s room I was petrified to see him, instead of

advancing to meet me, rush toward a cupboard, open the door, and fling

something hastily into it. After this he leaned back against the door as

though to prevent my opening it.

“Excuse me,” he said, in a witty, mocking tone, “but I took a violent

cold after your first visit. I have just put my overcoat—oh, only an

ugly, old overcoat, not a warm one,” he added quickly, “but still an

overcoat, inside there, and there it is now, and I will take the key out

of the lock.”

He put the key carefully into his pocket, and then came forward and

found me a chair. Our conversation soon took a more serious turn,

though, for the news was very bad. For the last twelve days the

_ambulances_ had been crowded with the wounded. Everything was in a bad

way, home politics as well as foreign politics. The Germans were

advancing on Paris. The Army of the Loire was being formed. Gambetta,

Chanzy, Bourbaki, and Trochn were organizing a desperate defense. We

talked for some time about all these sad things, and I told him about

the painful impression I had had on my last visit to the Tuileries, of

my remembrance of everyone, so brilliant, so considerate, and so happy

formerly, and so deeply to be pitied at present. We were silent for a

moment, and then I shook hands with him, told him I had received all he

had sent, and returned to my _ambulance_.

[Illustration: AN EARLY PORTRAIT OF SARAH BERNHARDT.]

The prefect had sent me ten barrels of wine and two of brandy; 30,000

eggs all packed in boxes with lime and bran; a hundred bags of coffee,

boxes of tea, forty boxes of Albert biscuits, a thousand tins of

preserve, and a quantity of other things. M. Menier, the great chocolate

manufacturer, had sent me five hundred pounds of chocolate. One of my

friends, who was a flour dealer, had made me a present of twenty sacks

of flour, ten of which were maize flour. Félix Potin, my neighbor when I

was living at 11 Boulevard Malesherbes, had responded to my appeal by

sending two barrels of raisins, a hundred boxes of sardines, three sacks

of rice, two sacks of lentils, and twenty sugar loaves. From M. De

Rothschild I had received two barrels of brandy and a hundred bottles of

his own wine for the convalescents. I also received a very unexpected

present. Léonie Dubourg, an old schoolfellow of mine at the Grandchamps

Convent, sent me fifty tin boxes, each containing four pounds of salt

butter. She had married a very wealthy gentleman farmer, who cultivated

his own farms, which it seems were very numerous. I was very much

touched at her remembering me, for I had never seen her since the old

days at the convent. I had also asked for all the overcoats and slippers

of my various friends, and I had bought up a job lot of two hundred

flannel vests. My Aunt Betty, my blind grandmother’s sister, who is

still living in Holland, and is now ninety-three years of age, managed

to get for me, through the delightful Dutch Ambassador, Baron ——, three

hundred night shirts of magnificent Dutch linen, and a hundred pairs of

sheets. I received lint and bandages from every corner of Paris, but it

was more particularly from the Palais de l’Industrie that I used to get

my provisions of lint and linen for binding wounds. There was an

adorable woman there, named Mlle. Hocquigny, who was at the head of all

the _ambulances_. All that she did was done with a cheerful

gracefulness, and all that she was obliged to refuse she refused

sorrowfully, but still in a gracious manner. She was at that time more

than thirty years of age, and although unmarried she looked more like a

young married woman. She had large, blue, dreamy eyes, and a laughing

mouth, a deliciously oval face, little dimples, and crowning all this

grace, this dreamy expression and this coquettish, inviting mouth, a

wide forehead like that of the virgins painted by the early painters, a

wide and rather prominent forehead, encircled by hair worn in smooth,

wide, flat bandeaux, separated by a faultless parting. The forehead

seemed like the protecting rampart of this delicious face. Mlle.

Hocquigny was adored by everyone, and made much of, but she remained

invulnerable to all homage. She was happy in being beloved, but she

would not allow anyone to express affection for her.

At the Palais de l’Industrie a remarkable number of celebrated doctors

and surgeons were on duty, and they, as well as the convalescents, were

all more or less in love with Mlle. Hocquigny. As she and I were great

friends, she confided to me her observations and her sorrowful disdain.

Thanks to her I was never short of linen nor of lint. I had organized my

_ambulance_ with a very small staff. My cook was installed in the public

_foyer_. I had bought her an immense cooking range, so that she could

make soups and herb tea for fifty men. Her husband was chief attendant.

I had given him two assistants, and Mme. Guérard, Mme. Lambquin, and I

were the nurses. Two of us sat up at night, so that we each went to bed

every third night. I preferred this to taking on some woman whom I did

not know. Mme. Lambquin belonged to the Odéon, where she used to take

the part of the duennas. She was plain and had a common face, but she

was very talented. She talked loud and was very plain spoken. She called

a spade a spade, and liked frankness and no under meaning to things. At

times she was a trifle embarrassing with the crudeness of her words and

her remarks, but she was kind, active, alert, and devoted. My various

friends who were on service at the fortifications came to me in their

free time to do my secretarial work. I had to keep a book, which was

shown every day to a sergeant who came from the Val-de-Grâce military

hospital, giving all details as to how many men came into our

_ambulance_, how many died, and how many recovered and left. Paris was

in a state of siege, and no one could go far outside the walls, and no

news from outside could be received. The Germans were not, however,

round the gates of the city. Baron Larrey came now and then to see me,

and I had, as head surgeon, Dr. Duchesne, who gave up his whole time,

night and day, to the care of my poor men during the five months that

this truly frightful nightmare lasted.

I cannot recall those terrible days without the deepest emotion. It was

no longer the country in danger that kept my nerves strung up, but the

sufferings of all her children. There were all those who were away

fighting, those who were brought in to us wounded or dying, the noble

women of the people, who stood for hours and hours in the _queue_ to get

the necessary dole of bread, meat, and milk for their poor little ones

at home. Ah, those poor women! I could see them from the theater

windows, pressing up close to each other, blue with cold, and stamping

their feet on the ground to keep them from freezing, for that winter was

the most cruel one we had had for twenty years. Frequently one of these

poor, silent heroines was brought in to me, either in a swoon from

fatigue, or struck down suddenly with congestion caused by cold. On the

20th of December, three of these unfortunate women were brought into the

_ambulance_. One of them had her feet frozen, and she lost the big toe

of her right foot. The second was an enormously stout woman, who was

suckling her child, and her poor breasts were harder than wood. She

simply howled with pain. The youngest of the three was a girl of sixteen

to eighteen years of age. She died of cold, on the trestle on which I

had had her placed to send her home. On the 24th of December, there were

fifteen degrees of cold. I often sent William, our attendant, out with a

little brandy to warm the poor women. Oh, the suffering they must have

endured, those heartbroken mothers, those sisters, and _fiancées_, in

their terrible dread! How excusable their rebellion seems during the

Commune, and even their bloodthirsty madness!

My _ambulance_ was full. I had sixty beds and was obliged to improvise

ten more. The soldiers were installed in the _artistes’ foyer_ and in

the general _foyer_, and the officers in a room which had formerly been

used for refreshments.

One day a young Breton named Marie le Gallec was brought in. He had been

struck by a bullet in the chest and another in the wrist. Dr. Duchesne

bound up his chest firmly and splintered his wrist. He then said to me

very simply:

“Let him have everything he likes, he is dying.”

I bent over his bed and said to him:

“Tell me anything that would give you pleasure, Marie le Gallec?”

“Soup,” he answered promptly, in the most comic way.

Mme. Guérard hurried away to the kitchen and soon returned with a bowl

of broth and pieces of toast. I placed the bowl on the little wooden

shelf with four short legs which was so convenient for the meals of our

poor sufferers. The wounded man looked up at me and said:

“Barra!” I did not understand, and he repeated: “Barra!” His poor chest

caused him to hiss out the word, and he made the greatest efforts to

repeat his emphatic request. I sent immediately to the Marine Office

thinking that there would surely be some Breton seamen there, and I

explained my difficulty, and my ignorance of the Breton dialect. I was

informed that the word “barra” meant bread. I hurried at once to Le

Gallec with a large piece of bread. His face lighted up and, taking it

from me with his sound hand, he broke it up with his teeth and let the

pieces fall in the bowl. He then plunged his spoon into the middle of

the broth and filled it up with bread until the spoon could stand

upright in it. When it stood up without shaking about, the young soldier

smiled. He was just preparing to eat this horrible concoction when the

young priest from St. Sulpice, who had my _ambulance_ in charge,

arrived. I had sent for him on hearing the doctor’s sad verdict. He laid

his hand gently on the young man’s shoulder, thus stopping the movement

of his arm. The poor fellow looked up at the priest, who showed him the

Holy Cup.

“Oh!” he said simply, and then, placing his coarse handkerchief over the

steaming soup, he put his hands together. We had arranged the two

screens, which we used for isolating the dead or dying, around his bed.

He was left alone with the priest while I went on my rounds to calm the

murmurers, or help the believers to raise themselves for the prayer. The

young priest soon pushed aside the partition, and I then saw Marie le

Gallec, with a beaming face, eating his abominable bread sop. He fell

asleep soon afterward, roused up to ask for something to drink, and died

immediately, in a slight fit of choking.

Fortunately I did not lose many men out of the three hundred who came

into my _ambulance_, for the death of the unfortunate ones completely

upset me. I was very young at that time, only twenty-four years of age,

but I could nevertheless see the cowardliness of some of the men, and

the heroism of many of the others. A young Savoyard eighteen years old

had had his forefinger taken off. Baron Larrey was quite sure that he

had shot it off himself with his own gun, but I could not believe that.

I noticed, though, that in spite of our nursing and care the wound did

not heal. I bound it up in a different way, and the following day I saw

that the bandage had been altered. I mentioned this to Mme. Lambquin,

who was sitting up that night together with Mme. Guérard.

“Good; I will keep my eye on him; you go to sleep, my child, and count

on me.”

The next day when I arrived she told me that she had caught the young

man scraping the wound on his finger with his knife. I called him and

told him that I should have to report this to the Val-de-Grâce Hospital.

He began to weep and vowed to me that he would never do it again, and

five days later he was well. I signed the paper authorizing him to leave

the _ambulance_, and he was sent to the army of the defense. I often

wondered what became of him.

Another of our patients bewildered us, too. Each time that his wound

seemed to be just on the point of healing up, he had a violent attack of

dysentery which threw him back. This seemed suspicious to Dr. Duchesne,

and he asked me to watch the man. At the end of a considerable time, we

were convinced that our wounded man had thought out the most comical

scheme. He slept next the wall and therefore had no neighbor on the one

side. During the night, he managed to file the brass of his bedstead. He

put the filings in a little pot which had been used for ointment of some

kind. A few drops of water and some salt mixed with this powdered brass

formed a poison, which might have cost its inventor his life. I was

furious at this stratagem. I wrote to the Val-de-Grâce, and an

_ambulance_ conveyance was sent to take this unpatriotic Frenchman away.

But side by side with these despicable men, what heroism we saw! A young

captain was brought in one day. He was a tall fellow, a regular

Hercules, with a superb head, and a frank expression. On my book he was

described as Captain Menesson. He had been struck by a bullet at the top

of the arm, just at the shoulder. With a nurse’s assistance I was trying

as gently as possible to take off his cloak, when three bullets fell

from the hood which he had pulled over his head, and I counted sixteen

bullet holes in the cloak. The young officer had stood upright for three

hours, serving as a target himself, while covering the retreat of his

men as they fired all the time on the enemy. This had taken place among

the Champigny vines. He had been brought in unconscious in a hospital

conveyance. He had lost a great deal of blood, and was half dead with

fatigue and weakness. He was very gentle and charming, and thought

himself sufficiently well two days later to return to the fight. The

doctor, however, would not allow this, and his sister, who was a nun,

besought him to wait until he was something like well again.

“Oh, not quite well,” she said, smiling; “but just well enough to have

strength to fight.”

Soon after he came into the _ambulance_ the Cross of the Legion of Honor

was brought for him, and this was a moment of intense emotion for

everyone. The unfortunate wounded men who could not move turned their

suffering faces toward him and, with their eyes shining through a mist

of tears, gave him a fraternal look. The more convalescent among them

held out their hands to the young giant.

It was Christmas Eve, and I had decorated the _ambulance_ with festoons

of green leaves. I had made pretty little chapels in front of the Virgin

Mary, and the young priest from St. Sulpice came to take part in our

poor but poetical Christmas service. He repeated some beautiful prayers,

and the wounded men, many of whom were from Brittany, sang some sad,

solemn songs, full of charm. Porel, the present manager of the

Vaudeville Theater, had been wounded on the Avron Plateau. He was then

convalescent, and was one of my guests, together with two officers now

ready to leave the _ambulance_. That Christmas supper is one of my most

charming and at the same time most melancholy memories. It was served in

the small room which we had made into a bedroom. Our three beds were

covered with draperies and skins which I had fetched from home, and we

used them as seats.

Mlle. Hocquigny had sent me five yards of white pigs’ pudding,[1] the

famous Christmas dish, and all my poor soldiers who were well enough,

were delighted with this delicacy. One of my friends had had twenty

large brioche cakes made for me, and I had ordered some large bowls of

punch, the colored flames from which amused the grown-up sick children

immensely. The young priest from St. Sulpice accepted a piece of brioche

and, after taking a little white wine, left us. Ah, how charming and

good he was, that poor young priest! And how well he managed to make

that unbearable Fortin cease talking. Gradually the latter began to get

humanized, until finally he began to think the priest was a good sort of

fellow. Poor young priest! He was shot by the Communists, and I cried

for days and days over his murder.

Footnote 1:

In France “_white pudding_” is as often eaten as “_black pudding_,”

and is somewhat similar in taste.

CHAPTER XII

MORE HOSPITAL DAYS

The month of January arrived. The army of the enemy held Paris day by

day in a still closer grip. Food was getting scarce. Bitter cold

enveloped the city, and the poor soldiers who fell, sometimes only

slightly wounded, passed away gently in a sleep that was eternal, their

brains numbed and their bodies half frozen.

No more news could be received from outside; but thanks to the United

States Minister, who had chosen to remain in Paris, a letter arrived

from time to time. It was in this way that I received a thin slip of

paper, as delicate as a primrose petal, bringing me the following

message: “Everyone well. Courage. A thousand kisses. Your mother.” This

impalpable missive dated from seventeen days previously.

And so my mother, my sisters, and my little boy were at The Hague all

this time, and my mind which had been continually traveling in their

direction had been wandering along the wrong route, toward Hâvre, where

I thought they were established tranquilly at the house of a cousin of

my father’s mother.

I had my two aunts living at The Hague, but the question was, Were they

there at this time? I no longer knew, and from that moment I never

ceased suffering the most anxious and torturing mental distress.

I was doing all in my power just then to have some wood for burning.

Comte de Kératry had sent me a large provision before his departure to

the provinces, in a balloon, on the 9th of October. I was now very

short, and I would not allow the stock we had in the cellars to be

touched, so that we should not be quite without fuel in case of an

emergency. I had all the little footstools belonging to the theater used

for firewood, all the wooden cases in which the accessories were kept, a

good number of old Roman benches, armchairs, and curule chairs that were

stowed away under the Odéon, and, indeed, everything which came to hand.

Finally, taking pity on my despair, pretty Mlle. Hocquigny sent me about

twenty thousand pounds’ weight of wood, and I then took courage again.

I had been told about some new system of keeping meat, by which the meat

neither lost its juices nor its nutritive quality. I sent Mme. Guérard

to the Council House, in the neighborhood of the Odéon, where such

provisions were distributed, but some brute answered her that when I had

removed all the Buddhistic images from my _ambulance_ I should receive

the necessary food. M. Herisson, the mayor, with some functionary

holding an influential post, had been to inspect my _ambulance_. The

important personage had requested me to have the beautiful white

Virgins, which were on the mantelpieces and tables, taken away, as well

as the Divine Crucified One, hanging on the wall of each room in which

there were any of the wounded. I refused in a somewhat insolent and very

decided way to act in accordance with the wish of my visitor; whereupon,

the famous republican turned his back on me, and gave orders that I

should be refused everything at the Council House. I was very

determined, however, and I moved heaven and earth until I succeeded in

being included for the distribution of food, in spite of the orders of

the chief. It is only fair to say that the mayor was a charming man.

Mme. Guérard returned after her third visit, with a child pushing a hand

barrow containing ten enormous bottles of the miraculous meat. I

received the precious consignment with infinite joy, for my men had been

almost without meat for the last three days; and the beloved

_pot-au-feu_ was an almost necessary resource for the poor wounded

fellows. On all the bottles were directions as to opening them: “Let the

meat soak so many hours, etc., etc.”

Mme. Lambquin, Mme. Guérard, and I, together with all the staff of the

infirmary, were soon grouped, anxiously and inquisitively, around these

glass receptacles.

I told the head attendant to open the largest of the bottles, in which

through the glass we could see an enormous piece of beef, surrounded by

thick, muddy-looking water. The string, fastened round the rough paper

which hid the cork, was cut and then, just as the man was about to put

the corkscrew in, a deafening explosion was heard, and a rank odor

filled the room. Everyone rushed away terrified. I called them all back,

scared and disgusted as they were, and showed them the following words

on the directions: “Do not be alarmed at the bad odor on opening the

bottle.” Courageously, and with resignation, we took up our work once

more, though we felt sick all the time from the abominable exhalation. I

took the beef out and placed it on a dish that had been brought for the

purpose. Five minutes later this meat turned blue, and then black, and

the stench from it was so unbearable that I decided to throw it away.

Mme. Lambquin was wiser, though, and more reasonable.

“No, oh, no, my dear girl,” she said; “in these times it will not do to

throw meat away, even though it may be rotten. Let us put it in the

glass bottle again and send it back to the Council House.” I followed

her wise advice, and it was a very good thing I did, for another

_ambulance_, installed at Boulevard de Medicis, on opening these bottles

of meat had been as horrified as we were and had thrown the contents

into the street. A few minutes after the crowd had gathered round in a

mob and, refusing to listen to anything, had yelled out insults

addressed to “the aristocrats,” “the clericals,” and “the traitors,” who

were throwing good meat, intended for the sick, into the street, so that

the dogs were enjoying it, while the people were starving with hunger.

It was with the greatest difficulty that the wretched, mad people had

been prevented from invading the _ambulance_, and when one of the

unfortunate nurses had gone out, later on, she had been mobbed, and

beaten, until she was left half dead from fright and blows. She did not

want to be carried back to her own _ambulance_, and the druggist begged

me to take her in. I kept her for a few days, in one of the boxes in the

second gallery of the theater, and when she was better she asked if she

might stay with me as a nurse. I granted her wish, and kept her with me

afterwards as a maid.

She was a fair-haired girl, gentle and timid, and was predestined for

misfortune. She was found dead in the Père Lachaise Cemetery after the

skirmish between the Communists and the Versailles troop. A stray bullet

had struck her in the back of the neck as she was praying at the grave

of her little sister, who had died two days before from smallpox. I had

taken her with me to St. Germain, where I had gone to stay during the

horrors of the Commune. Poor girl! I had allowed her to go to Paris very

much against my own will.

As we could not count on this preserved meat for our food, I made a

contract with a knacker, who agreed to supply me, at rather a high

price, with horseflesh, and until the end this was the only meat we had

to eat. Well prepared and well seasoned, it was very good.

Hope had now fled from all hearts and we were living in the expectation

of we knew not what. An atmosphere of misfortune seemed to hang like

lead over us, and it was a sort of relief when the bombardment commenced

on the 27th of December. At last, we felt that something fresh was

happening. It was an era of fresh suffering. There was some stir, at any

rate, for the last fortnight the fact of not knowing anything had been

killing us.

On the 1st of January, 1871, we lifted our glasses to the health of the

absent ones, to the repose of the dead; and the toast choked us with a

lump in our throats.

Every night we used to hear the dismal cry of “_Ambulance! Ambulance!_”

underneath the windows of the Odéon. We went down to meet the pitiful

procession, and one, two, or sometimes three conveyances would be there,

full of our poor, wounded soldiers. There would be ten or twelve rows of

them, lying or sitting up on the straw. I said that I had one or two

places, and lifting the lantern, I looked into the conveyance, and the

faces would then turn slowly toward the lamp. Some of the men would

close their eyes, as they were too weak to bear even that feeble light.

With the help of the sergeant who accompanied the conveyance, and our

attendant, one of the unfortunates would with difficulty he lifted to

the narrow litter on which he was to be carried up to the hospital.

Oh, what sorrowful anguish it was for me when, on lifting the patient’s

head, I discovered that it was getting heavy, oh, so heavy; and when

bending over that inert face I felt that there was no longer any breath!

The sergeant would then give the order to take him back, and the poor

dead man was put back in his place, and another wounded man was lifted

out. The other dying men would then move back a little, in order not to

profane the dead. Ah, what grief it was when the sergeant said: “Do try

to take one or two more in! It is a pity to drag these poor chaps about

from one hospital to another. The Val-de-Grâce is full.”

“Very well, I will take two more,” I would say, and then I wondered

where we should put them. We had to give up our own beds, and in this

way the poor fellows were saved. Ever since the first of January, we had

all three been sleeping every night at the hospital. We had some loose

dressing-gowns of gray swanskin, not unlike the soldiers’ cloaks. The

first of us who heard a cry or a groan sprang out of bed, and if

necessary, called the other two.

On the 10th of January, Mme. Guérard and I were sitting up at night, on

one of the lounges in the _artistes’ foyer_, awaiting the dismal cry of

“_Ambulance!_” There had been a fierce affray at Clamart and we knew

that there would be many wounded. I was telling her of my fear that the

bombs, which had already reached the Museum, the Sorbonne, the

Salpétrière, the Val-de-Grâce, would fall on the Odéon.

“Oh, but my dear Sarah,” said the sweet woman, “the hospital flag is

waving so high above it, that there could be no mistake. If it were

struck it would be purposely, and that would be abominable.”

“But Guérard,” I replied, “why should you expect these execrable enemies

of ours to be better than we are ourselves? Did we not behave like

savages at Berlin, in 1806?”

“But at Paris there are such admirable public monuments,” she urged.

“Well, and was not Moscow full of masterpieces? The Kremlin is one of

the finest buildings in the world. That did not prevent us giving that

admirable city up to pillage. Oh, no, my poor _petite dame_, do not

deceive yourself! Armies may be Russian, German, French or Spanish, but

they _are_ armies, that is, they are beings who form an impersonal

‘whole’—a ‘whole’ that is ferocious and irresponsible. The Germans will

bombard the whole of Paris, if the possibility of doing so should be

offered them. You must make up your mind to that, my dear Guérard.”

I had not finished my sentence when a terrible detonation roused the

sleeping neighborhood. Mme. Guérard and I had been seated opposite each

other. We found ourselves standing up, close together in the middle of

the room, terrified. My poor cook, her face quite white, came to me for

safety. The reports continued rather frequently. The bombarding had

commenced from our side that night. I went round to the wounded men, but

they did not seem to be much disturbed. Only one, a boy of fifteen, whom

we had surnamed “pink baby,” was sitting up in bed. When I went to him

to soothe him, he showed me his little medal of the Holy Virgin.

“It is thanks to her that I was not killed,” he said. “If they would put

the Holy Virgin on the ramparts of Paris the bombs would not come.”

He lay down again then, holding his little medal in his hand, and the

bombarding continued until six in the morning.

“_Ambulance! Ambulance!_” we then heard, and Mme. Guérard and I went

down.

“Here,” said the sergeant, “take this man. He is losing all his blood,

and if I take him any farther he will not arrive living.”

The wounded man was put on the litter, but, as he was German, I asked

the subofficer to take all his papers and give them in at the Ministry.

We gave the man the place of one of the convalescents, whom I installed

elsewhere. I asked him his name and he told me that it was Frantz Mayer,

and that he was the first soldier of the Silesian Landwehr. He then

fainted, from weakness caused by loss of blood. He soon came to himself

again, with our care, and I then asked him whether he wanted anything,

but he did not answer a word. I supposed that he did not speak French,

and as there was no one at the hospital who spoke German, I waited until

the next day to send for some one who knew his language. I must own that

the poor man was not welcomed by his dormitory companions. A soldier

named Fortin, who was twenty-three years of age, and a veritable child

of Paris, a comical fellow, mischievous, droll, and good-natured, never

ceased railing against the young German, who on his side never flinched.

I went several times to Fortin, and begged him to be quiet, but it was

all in vain. Every fresh outbreak of his was greeted with wild laughter,

and his success put him into the gayest of humors, so that he continued,

getting more and more excited all the time. The others were prevented

from sleeping and he moved about wildly in his bed, bursting out into

abusive language when too abrupt a movement intensified his suffering.

The unfortunate fellow had had his sciatic nerve torn by a bullet, and

he had to endure the most atrocious pain.

After my third fruitless appeal for silence, I ordered the two men

attendants to carry him into a room where he would be alone. He sent for

me, and when I went to him, promised to behave well all night long. I

therefore countermanded the order I had given, and he kept his word. The

following day I had Frantz Mayer carried into a room where there was a

young Breton who had had his skull fractured by the bursting of a shell,

and therefore needed the utmost tranquillity.

One of my friends, who spoke German very well, came to see whether the

Silesian wanted anything. The wounded man’s face lighted up on hearing

his own language and then, turning to me, he said:

“I understand French quite well, madame, and if I listened calmly to the

horrors poured forth by your French soldier it was because I know that

you cannot hold out two days longer, and I can understand his

exasperation.”

“And why do you think that we cannot hold out?”

“Because I know that you are reduced to eating rats.” Dr. Duchesne had

just arrived, and he was dressing the horrible wound which the patient

had above his thigh.

“Well,” he said, “my friend, as soon as your fever has gone down you

shall eat an excellent wing of chicken.” The German shrugged his

shoulders and the doctor continued: “Meanwhile drink this, and tell me

what you think of it.”

Dr. Duchesne gave him a glass of water with a little of the excellent

cognac which the prefect had sent me. That was the only _tisane_ that my

soldiers took. The Silesian said no more, but he put on the reserved,

circumspect manner of people who know and will not speak.

The bombardment continued, and the hospital flag certainly served as a

target for our enemies, for they fired with surprising exactitude, and

altered their firing directly a bomb fell a little away from the

neighborhood of the Luxembourg. Thanks to this, we had more than twelve

bombs one night. These dismal shells, when they burst in the air, were

like the fireworks at a fête. The shining splinters then fell down black

and deadly. George Boyer, who at that time was a young journalist, came

to call on me at the hospital, and I told him about the terrifying

splendors of the night.

“Oh, how much I should like to see all that!” he said.

“Come this evening, toward nine or ten o’clock, and you will see,” I

replied.

We spent several hours at the little round window of my dressing-room,

which looked out toward Châtillon. It was from there that the Germans

fired the most.

We listened, in the silence of the night, to the muffled sounds coming

from there, right over yonder, then there would be a light, a formidable

noise in the distance, and the bomb arrived, falling in front of us or

behind, bursting either in the air or on reaching its goal. Once we had

only just time to draw back quickly, and even then the disturbance in

the atmosphere affected us so violently that for a second we were under

the impression we had been struck.

The shell had fallen just underneath my dressing-room, grazing the

cornice, which it dragged down in its fall to the ground, and bursting

there feebly. But what was our amazement to see a little crowd of

children swoop down on the burning pieces, just like a lot of sparrows

on fresh manure when the carriage has passed! The little vagabonds were

quarreling over the _débris_ of these engines of warfare. I wondered

what they could possibly do with them.

“Oh, there is not much mystery about it!” said Boyer; “these little

starving urchins will sell them.”

This proved to be true. One of the men attendants, whom I sent to find

out, brought back with him a child of about ten years old.

“What are you going to do with that, my little man?” I asked him,

picking up the piece of shell, which was warm and still dangerous, by

the edge where it had burst.

“I am going to sell it,” he replied.

“What for?”

“To buy my turn in the _queue_, when the meat is being distributed.”

“But you risk your life, my poor child. Sometimes the shells come

quickly, one after the other. Where were you when this one fell?”

“Lying down on the stone of the wall that supports the iron railings.”

He pointed across to the Luxembourg gardens, opposite the _artistes’_

entrance to the Odéon.

We bought up all the _débris_ that the child had, without attempting to

give him advice which might have sounded wise. What was the use of

preaching wisdom to this poor little creature who heard of nothing but

massacres, fire, revenge, retaliation and all the rest of it, for the

sake of honor, for the sake of religion, for the sake of right! And

then, too, how was it possible to keep out of the way? All the people

living in the Faubourg St. Germain were liable to be blown to pieces, as

the enemy, very luckily, could only bombard Paris on that side and not

everywhere even there. No, we were certainly in the most dangerous

neighborhood.

One day Baron Larrey came to see Frantz Mayer, who was very ill. He

wrote a prescription, which a young errand boy was told to wait for, and

bring back very, very quickly. As the boy was rather given to loitering,

I went to the window. His name was Victor, but we called him Toto. The

druggist lived at the corner of the Place Medicis. It was then six

o’clock in the evening. Toto looked up, and on seeing me, he began to

laugh and jump as he hurried to the druggist’s. He had only five or six

more yards to go, and as he turned round to look up at my window, I

clapped my hands and called out: “Good, be back soon!” Alas! Before the

poor boy could open his mouth to reply, he was cut in two by a shell

which had just fallen. It did not burst, but bounced a yard high, and

then struck poor Toto right in the middle of the chest. I uttered such a

shriek that everyone came rushing to me. I could not speak, but pushed

everyone aside and rushed downstairs, beckoning for some one to come

with me.

“A litter—the boy—the druggist’s,” I managed to articulate.

Ah, what a horror, what an awful horror! When we reached the poor child,

his intestines were all over the ground, his chest, and his poor little

red, chubby face had the flesh entirely taken off. He had neither eyes,

nose, nor mouth, nothing, nothing but some hair, at the end of a

shapeless bleeding mass, a yard away from his body. And it was as though

a tiger’s two claws had opened the body and emptied it with fury and a

refinement of cruelty, leaving nothing but the poor little skeleton.

Baron Larrey, who was the best of men, turned slightly pale at this

sight. He saw many such sights certainly, but this poor little fellow

was a holocaust which had been terribly mutilated. Ah, the injustice,

the infamy of war! Will the much dreamed-of time never come, when wars

are no longer possible, when the monarch who wants war will be dethroned

and imprisoned as a malefactor? Will the time never come when there will

be a cosmopolitan council, where the wise man of every country will

represent his nation, and where the rights of humanity will be discussed

and respected! So many men think as I do. So many women talk as I do,

and yet nothing is done.

A man, whom I liked very much, was engaged in certain inventions for

balloons. To find out how to steer balloons means, for me, finding out

how to realize my dream, namely, to fly in the air, to approach the sky,

and have under one’s feet the moist downlike clouds. Ah, how interested

I was in my friend’s researches! One day, though, he came to me very

much excited with a new discovery.

“I have discovered something about which I am wild with delight!” he

said. He then began to explain to me that his balloon would be able to

carry inflammable matter without the least danger, thanks to this, and

thanks to that.

“But what for?” I asked, bewildered by his explanations and half crazy

with so many technical words.

“What for?” he repeated; “why, for war!” he replied. “We shall be able

to fire, and to throw terrible bombs to a distance of a thousand, twelve

hundred, and even fifteen hundred yards, and it would be impossible for

us to be harmed at such a distance. My balloon, thanks to a substance

which is my invention, with which the covering would be coated, would

have nothing to fear from fire nor yet from gas.”

“I do not want to know anything more about you or your invention,” I

said, interrupting him brusquely. “I thought you were a humane savant,

and you are a wild beast. Your researches were in connection with the

most beautiful manifestation of human genius, with those fêtes of the

skies which I loved so dearly. You want to transform these now into

cowardly attacks turned against the earth. You horrify me! Do go!”

With this I left my friend to himself and his cruel invention, ashamed

for a moment. His efforts have not succeeded, though, according to his

wishes.

The remains of the poor lad were put into a small coffin, and Mme.

Guérard and I followed the pauper’s hearse to the grave. The morning was

so cold that the driver had to stop and take a glass of hot wine, as

otherwise he might have died of congestion. We were alone in the

carriage, for the boy had been brought up by his grandmother who could

not walk at all, and who knitted vests and stockings. It was by going to

order some vests and socks for my men that I had made the acquaintance

of _Mère Tricottin_, as she was called. At her request I had engaged her

grandson, Victor Durieux, as an errand boy, and the poor old woman had

been so grateful that I did not dare go now to tell her of his death. My

_petite dame_ went for me to the Rue de Vaurigard, where the old woman

lived. As soon as Mme. Guérard arrived, the poor grandmother could see

by her sad face that something had happened.

“_Bon Dieu!_ my dear lady, is the poor little _maigrotte_ dead?”

This was her name for me. Mme. Guérard then told her, as gently as

possible, the sad news. The old woman took off her spectacles, looked at

Mme. Guérard, wiped them and put them on her nose again. She then began

to grumble violently about her son, the father of the dead boy. He had

taken up with some low girl, by whom he had had this child, and she had

always foreseen that misfortune would come upon them through it. She

continued in this strain, not sorrowing for the poor boy, but abusing

her son, who was a soldier in the Army of the Loire. Although the

grandmother seemed to feel so little grief, I went to see her after the

funeral.

“It is all over, Mme. Durieux,” I said, “but I have secured the grave

for a period of five years for the poor boy.”

She turned toward me, quite comic in her vexation.

“What madness!” she exclaimed; “now that he’s with the _bon Dieu_ he

won’t want for anything. It would have been better to have taken a bit

of land that would have brought something in. Dead folks don’t make

vegetables grow.”

This outburst was so terribly logical that, in spite of the odious

brutality of it, I yielded to _Mère Tricottin’s_ desire, and gave her

the same present I had given to the boy. They should each have their bit

of land, the child who had had a right to a longer life should sleep his

eternal sleep in his, while the old woman could wrest from hers what

fruits she might.

I returned to the _ambulance_ sad and unnerved. A joyful surprise was

awaiting me. A friend of mine was there, holding in his hand a very

small piece of tissue paper, on which were the following two lines in my

mother’s handwriting: “We are all very well and at Hombourg.” I was

furious on reading this. At Hombourg! All my family at Hombourg,

settling down tranquilly in the enemy’s country! I racked my brains to

think by what extraordinary combination my mother had gone to Hombourg.

I knew that my pretty Aunt Rosine had a friend there, with whom she

stayed every year, for she always went for two months to Hombourg, two

months to Baden-Baden, and a month to Spa, as she was the greatest

gambler that the _bon Dieu_ ever created. Anyhow, those who were so dear

to me were all well, and that was the principal thing. But I was

nevertheless annoyed with my mother for going to Hombourg.

I heartily thanked the friend who had brought me the little slip of

paper. It was sent to me by the American Minister, who had put himself

to no end of trouble in order to give help and consolation to the

Parisians. I then gave him a few lines for my mother, in case he should

be able to send them to her.

The bombardment of Paris continued. One night the Brothers from the

_Ecole Chrétienne_ came to ask us for conveyances and help, in order to

collect the dead on the Châtillon Plateau. I let them have my two

conveyances, and I went with them to the battlefield. Ah, what a

horrible remembrance! It was like a scene from Dante! It was an icy cold

night and we could scarcely get along. Finally, by the light of torches

and lanterns we saw that we had arrived. I got out of the vehicle with

the infirmary attendant and his assistant. We had to move slowly, as at

every step we trod upon the dying or the dead. We passed along

murmuring: “_Ambulance! Ambulance!_” When we heard a groan we turned our

steps in the direction whence it came. Ah, the first man that I found in

this way! He was half lying down, his body supported by a heap of dead.

I raised my lantern to look at his face and found that his ear and part

of his jaw had been blown off. Great clots of blood, coagulated by the

cold, hung from his lower jaw. There was a wild look in his eyes. I took

a wisp of straw, dipped it in my flask, drew up a few drops of brandy

and blew them into the poor fellow’s mouth between his teeth. I repeated

this three or four times. A little life then came back to him and we

took him away in one of the vehicles. The same thing was done for the

others. Some of them could drink from the flask, which made our work

shorter. One of these unfortunate men was frightful to look at. A shell

had taken all the clothes from the upper part of his body, with the

exception of two ragged sleeves, which hung from the arms at the

shoulders. There was no trace of a wound, but his poor body was marked

all over with great black patches, and the blood was oozing slowly from

the corners of his mouth. I went nearer to him, for it seemed to me that

he was breathing. I had a few drops of the vivifying cordial given to

him, and he then half opened his eyes and said: “Thank you.” He was

lifted into the conveyance, but the poor fellow died from a hemorrhage,

covering all the other wounded men with a stream of dark blood.

Daylight gradually began to appear, a misty, dull dawn. The lanterns had

burned out, but we could now distinguish each other. There were about a

hundred persons there: Sisters of Charity, military and civil

men-nurses, the Brothers from the _Ecole Chrétienne_, other priests and

a few ladies who like myself had given themselves up, heart and soul, to

the service of the wounded.

The sight was still more dismal by daylight, for all that the night had

hidden in its shadows appeared then in the tardy, wan light of that

January morning.

There were so many wounded that it was impossible to transport them all,

and I sobbed at the thought of my helplessness. Other vehicles kept

arriving, but there were so many wounded, so very many. Many of those

who had only slight wounds had died of cold.

On returning to the hospital I met one of my friends at the door. He was

a naval officer, and he had brought me a sailor who had been wounded at

the Fort of Ivry. He had been shot below the right eye. He was entered

as Désiré Bloas, boatswain’s mate, aged twenty-seven. He was a

magnificent fellow, very frank looking, and a man of few words.

As soon as he was in bed, Dr. Duchesne sent for a barber to shave him,

as his bushy whiskers had been ravaged by a bullet that had lodged

itself in the salivary gland, carrying with it hair and flesh into the

wound. The surgeon took up his pincers to extract the pieces of flesh

which had stopped up the opening of the wound. He then had to take some

very fine pincers to extract the hairs which were mixed up inextricably

in the torn mass of flesh. When the barber laid his razor very gently

near the wound, the unfortunate man turned livid, and an oath escaped

his lips. He immediately glanced at me and muttered: “Pardon,

mademoiselle.” I was very young, but I appeared much younger than my

age. I looked like a very young girl, in fact. I was holding the poor

fellow’s hand in mine and trying to comfort him with the hundreds of

consoling words that spring from a woman’s heart to her lips, when she

has to soothe moral or physical suffering.

“Ah, mademoiselle,” said poor Bloas, when the wound was finally dressed,

“you gave me courage.”

When he was more easy I asked him if he would like something to eat.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Well, my boy, would you like cheese, soup, or sweets?” asked Mme.

Lambquin.

“Sweets,” replied the strong, powerful-looking fellow, smiling.

Désiré Bloas often talked to me about his mother, who lived near Brest.

He had a veritable adoration for this mother, but he seemed to have a

terrible grudge against his father, for one day, when I asked him

whether his father was still living, he looked up with his fearless eyes

and appeared to fix them on a being visible only to himself, as though

challenging him, with an expression of the most pitiful contempt. Alas,

the brave fellow was destined to a cruel end, but I will return to that

later on.

The sufferings endured through the siege began to have their effect on

the “morale” of the Parisians. Bread had just been rationed out; there

were to be three hundred grammes for adults, and one hundred and fifty

grammes for children. A silent fury took possession of the people at

this news. Women were the most courageous, the men were excited.

Quarrels grew bitter, for some wanted war to the very death, and others

wanted peace.

One day when I entered Frantz Mayer’s room to take him his meal, he went

into the most ridiculous rage. He threw his piece of fowl down on the

ground and declared that he would not eat anything, nothing more at all,

for they had deceived him by telling him that the Parisians had not

enough food to last two days before surrendering, and he had been in the

_ambulance_ seventeen days now, and was having fowl. What the poor

fellow did not know was that I had bought about forty fowls and six

geese at the beginning of the siege, and I was feeding them up in my

dressing-room in the Rue de Rome. Oh, my dressing room was very pretty

just then, and I let Frantz believe that all Paris was full of fowls,

ducks, geese, and other domestic bipeds.

The bombardment continued, and one night I had to have all my patients

transported to the Odéon cellars, for when Mme. Guérard was helping one

of the sick men to get back into bed a shell fell on the bed itself,

between her and the officer. It makes me shudder even now to think that

three minutes previously the unfortunate man would have been killed as

he lay in bed, although the shell did not burst.

We could not stay long in the cellars. The water was getting deeper in

them and rats tormented us. I therefore decided that the _ambulance_

must be moved, and I had the worst of the patients taken to the

Val-de-Grâce Hospital. I kept about twenty men who were on the way to

convalescence. I rented an immense empty flat for them in the Rue de

Provence, and it was there that we awaited the armistice.

I was half dead with anxiety, as I had had no news from my own family

for so long. I could not sleep and had become the very shadow of my

former self.

Jules Favre was entrusted with the negotiations with Bismarck. Oh, those

two days of preliminaries! They were the most unnerving days of any for

the besieged. False reports were spread. We were told of the maddest,

and most exorbitant demands on the part of the Germans, who certainly

were not tender to the vanquished.

There was a moment of stupor when we heard that we had to pay two

hundred million francs down, for our finances were in such a pitiful

state that we shuddered at the idea that we might not be able to make up

the sum of two hundred millions immediately.

Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, who was shut up in Paris with his wife and

brothers, gave his signature for the two hundred millions. This fine

deed was soon forgotten, and there are even people who gainsay it.

When we heard in Paris that the armistice was signed for twenty days, a

frightful sadness took possession of us all, even of those who most

ardently wished for peace.

Every Parisian felt on his cheek the hand of the conqueror. It was the

brand of shame, the blow given by the abominable treaty of peace.

Oh, that 31st of January, 1871! I was anæmic from the siege, undermined

by grief, tortured with anxiety about my family, and I went out with

Mme. Guérard and two friends toward the Parc Monceau. Suddenly one of my

friends, M. De Plancy, turned pale as death. I looked to see what was

the matter, and noticed a soldier passing by. He had no weapons. Two

others passed and they, also, had no weapons. And they were so pale,

too, these poor, disarmed soldiers, these humble heroes. There was such

evident grief and hopelessness in their very gait; and their eyes, as

they looked at us women, seemed to say: “It is not our fault!” It was

all so pitiful, so touching I burst out sobbing, and went back home at

once, for I did not want to meet any more disarmed French soldiers.

CHAPTER XIII

A WARTIME JOURNEY

I decided to set off now as quickly as possible in search of my family.

I asked Paul de Rémusat to get me an audience with M. Thiers, in order

to obtain from him a passport for leaving Paris. I trusted Mme. Guérard

and Mme. Lambquin with disbanding my _ambulance_.

M. Thiers gave me the passport, and I was ready to go, but I could not

start alone. I felt that the journey I was about to undertake was a very

dangerous one, and M. Thiers and Paul de Rémusat had also warned me of

this. I could see, therefore, that I should be very dependent on my

traveling companion all the time, and on this account I decided not to

take a servant with me, but a friend. I very naturally went at once to

Mme. Guérard. Her husband, gentle though he was, refused absolutely to

let her go with me, as he considered this expedition mad and dangerous.

Mad it certainly was, and dangerous, too.

I did not insist, but I sent for my son’s governess, Mlle. Soubise. I

asked her whether she would go with me, and did not attempt to conceal

from her any of the dangers of the journey. She jumped with joy, and

said she would be ready within twelve hours. This girl is at present the

wife of Commandant Monfils-Chesneau. And how strange life is, for she is

now teaching the two daughters of my son, her former pupil.

Mlle. Soubise was then very young, and she looked like a Creole. She had

very beautiful, dark eyes, with a gentle, timid expression, and the

voice of a child. Her head, however, was full of adventure, romance, and

day dreams.

In appearance we might both have been taken for quite young girls, for,

although I was older than she was, my slenderness and my face made me

look younger. It would have been absurd to try to take a trunk with us,

so I took a bag for us both. We had only a change of linen and some

stockings. I had my revolver, and I offered one to Mlle. Soubise, but

she refused it with horror, and showed me an enormous pair of scissors

in an enormous case.

“But what are you going to do with them?” I asked.

“I shall kill myself if we are attacked,” she replied.

I was surprised at the difference in our characters. I was taking a

revolver determined to protect myself by killing others; she was

determined to protect herself by killing herself.

On the 24th of February, we started on this journey, which was to have

lasted three days, and lasted eleven. At the first gate at which I

presented myself in leaving Paris, I was sent back in the most brutal

fashion! Permissions to go outside the city had to be submitted for

signature at the German outposts. I went to another gate, but it was

only at the postern gate of _Poissonniers_ that I could get my passport

signed.

We were taken into a little shed, which had been transformed into an

office. A Prussian general was seated there. He looked me up and down,

and then said:

“Are you Sarah Bernhardt?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“And this young lady is with you?”

“Yes.”

“And you think you are going to cross easily?”

“I hope so.”

“Well, then, you are mistaken, and you had better stay inside Paris.”

“No, I want to leave. I see myself what may happen, but I want to

leave.”

He shrugged his shoulders, called an officer, said something I did not

understand in German, and then went out, leaving us alone without our

passports.

We had been there about a quarter of an hour when I suddenly heard a

voice I knew. It was one of my friends, René Griffon, who had heard of

my departure, and had come after me to try to dissuade me. The trouble

he had taken was all in vain, though, as I was determined to leave. The

general returned soon after, and Griffon was anxious to know what might

happen to us.

“Everything!” answered the officer. “And worse than everything!”

Griffon spoke German, and had a short colloquy with the officer about

us. This rather annoyed me, for as I did not understand, I imagined that

he was urging the general to prevent our starting. I nevertheless

resisted all persuasions, supplications, and even threats. A few minutes

later, a well-appointed vehicle drew up at the door of the shed.

“There you are,” said the German officer roughly. “I am sending you to

Gonesse, where you will find the provision train which starts in an

hour. I am recommending you to the care of the station master, the

Commandant—after that may God take care of you!”

I stepped into the general’s carriage, and said farewell to my friend,

who was in despair. We arrived at Gonesse, and got out at the station,

where we saw a little group of people talking in low voices. The

coachman made me a military salute, refused what I wished to give him,

and drove away at full speed. I advanced toward the group, wondering to

whom I ought to speak, when a friendly voice exclaimed: “What, you here!

Where have you come from? Where are you going?” It was Villaret, the

tenor in vogue at the Opera. He was going to his young wife, I believe,

of whom he had had no news for five months. He introduced one of his

friends, who was traveling with him, and whose name I do not remember,

General Pelissier’s son, and a very old man, so pale and so sad-looking

and woebegone that I felt sorry for him. It was M. Gerson, and he was

going to Belgium, to take his grandson to his godmother’s. His two sons

had been killed during this pitiful war. One of the sons was married,

and his wife had died of sorrow and despair. He was taking the orphan

boy to his godmother, and he hoped to die himself as soon as possible

afterwards. Ah, the poor fellow, his wish must have been accomplished

very quickly, for he was only fifty-nine then, and he was so cruelly

ravaged by his grief that I took him for seventy.

Besides these five persons, there was an unbearable chatterer, named

Théodore Joussiau, a wine dealer. He did not require any introduction.

“How do you do, madame!” he began. “How lucky we are that you are going

to travel with us! Ah! the journey will be a difficult one. Where are

you going? Two women alone! It is not at all prudent, especially as all

the routes are crowded with German and French sharpshooters, marauders,

and thieves. Oh, haven’t I demolished some of those German

sharpshooters! Sh—we must speak quietly, though. These sly fellows are

very quick of hearing!...” He then pointed to the German officers who

were walking up and down. “Ah, the rascals!” he went on. “If I had my

military costume and my gun they would not walk so boldly in front of

Théodore Joussiau. I have no less than six helmets at home....”

The man got on my nerves, and I turned my back on him and looked to see

which of the men before me could be the station master. A tall young man

with his arm in a sling, came toward me with an open letter. It was the

one which the general’s coachman had handed to him, recommending me to

his care. He held out his well arm to me but I refused it. He bowed and

led the way, and I followed him, accompanied by Mlle. Soubise.

On arriving in his office he gave us seats at a little table, upon which

knives and forks were placed for two persons. It was then three o’clock

in the afternoon, and we had had nothing, not even a drop of water,

since the evening before. I was very much touched by this

thoughtfulness, and we did honor to the very simple but refreshing meal

prepared for us by the young officer.

While we lunched I looked at him when he was not noticing. He was very

young, and his face bore traces of recent suffering. I felt a

compassionate tenderness for this unfortunate man who was crippled for

life, and my hatred for war increased still more.

He suddenly said to me, in rather bad French:

“I think I can give you news of one of your friends.”

“What is his name?” I asked.

“Emmanuel Bocher.”

“Oh, yes, he is certainly a great friend of mine. How is he?”

“He is still a prisoner, but he is very well.”

“But I thought he had been released,” I said.

“Some of those who were taken with him were released, on giving their

word never to take up arms against us again, but he refused to give his

word.”

“Oh, the brave soldier!” I exclaimed, in spite of myself.

The young German looked at me with his clear, sad eyes.

“Yes,” he said simply, “the brave soldier!”

When we had finished our luncheon, I rose to return to the other

travelers.

“The compartment reserved for you will not be here for two hours,” said

the young officer. “If you would like to rest, ladies, I will come for

you at the right time.” He went away, and before long I was sound

asleep. I was nearly dead with fatigue. Mlle. Soubise touched me on the

shoulder to rouse me. The train was ready to start, and the young

officer walked with me to it. I was a little amazed when I saw the

carriage in which I was to travel. It had no roof, and was filled with

coal. The officer had several sacks put in, one on the top of the other,

to make our seats less hard. He sent for his officer’s cloak, begging me

to take it with us, and send it back, but I refused this odious disguise

most energetically. It was a deadly cold day, but I preferred dying of

cold to muffling up in a cloak belonging to the enemy.

The whistle was blown, the wounded officer saluted, and the train

started. There were Prussian soldiers in the carriages. The

subordinates, the employés, and the soldiers were just as brutish and

rude as the German officers were polite and courteous.

The train stopped without any plausible reason; it started again to stop

again, and it then stood still for an hour on this icy cold night. On

arriving at Creil, the stoker, the engine driver, the soldiers, and

everyone else got out. I watched all these men, whistling, bawling to

each other, spitting, and bursting into laughter as they pointed to us.

Were they not the conquerors and we the conquered?

At Creil we stayed more than two hours. We could hear the distant sound

of foreign music, and the hurrahs of Germans who were making merry. All

this hubbub came from a white house about five hundred yards away. We

could distinguish the outlines of human beings locked in each others’

arms, waltzing, and turning round and round in a giddy revel.

It began to get on my nerves, for it seemed likely to continue until

daylight. I got out with Villaret, intending at any rate to stretch my

limbs. We went toward the white house, and then, as I did not want to

tell him my plan, I asked him to wait there for me.

Very fortunately, though, for me, I had not time to cross the threshold

of this vile lodging-house, for an officer, smoking a cigarette, was

just coming out of a small door. He spoke to me in German.

“I am French,” I replied, and he then came up to me, speaking my

language, for they could all talk French.

He asked me what I was doing there, and my nerves were so overstrung

that I burst out sobbing, and told him, through my sobs, of our

lamentable odyssey since our departure from Gonesse, and finally of our

waiting two hours in an icy cold carriage, while the stokers, engine

drivers, and conductors, were all dancing in this house.

“But I had no idea that there were passengers in those carriages, and it

was I who gave permission to these men to dance, and drink. The guard of

the train told me that he was taking cattle and goods, and that he did

not need to arrive before eight in the morning, and I believed him....”

“Well, monsieur,” I said, “the only cattle in the train will be the

eight French passengers, and I should be very much obliged if you would

give orders that the journey should be continued.”

“Make your mind easy about that, madame,” he replied. “Will you come in

and rest? I am here just now on a round of inspection, and am staying

for a few days in this inn. You shall have a cup of tea, and that will

refresh you.”

I told him that I had a friend waiting for me in the road, and a lady in

the railway carriage.

“But that makes no difference,” he said, “let us go and fetch them.”

A few minutes later we found poor Villaret seated on a milestone. His

head was on his knees and he was asleep. I asked him to fetch Mlle.

Soubise.

“And if your other traveling companions will come and take a cup of tea,

they will be welcome,” said the officer. I went back with him, and we

entered by the little door through which I had seen him come out. It was

a fairly large room which we entered, on a level with the meadow; there

were some mats on the floor, a very low bed, and an enormous table, on

which were two large maps of France. One of these was studded over with

pins and small flags. There was also a portrait of the Emperor William,

mounted, and fastened up with four pins, and all this belonged to the

officer.

On the chimney-piece, under an enormous glass shade, were a bride’s

wreath, a military medal, and a plait of white hair. On each side of the

glass shade was a china vase, containing a branch of box. All this,

together with the table and the bed, belonged to the landlady, who had

given up her room to the officer. There were five cane chairs round the

table, a velvet armchair, and a wooden bench covered with books against

the wall. A sword and belt were lying on the table, and two horse

pistols.

I was philosophizing to myself on all these heterogeneous objects, when

the others arrived: Mlle. Soubise, Villaret, young Gerson, and that

unbearable Théodore Joussiau. I hope he will forgive me if he is living

now, poor man, but the thought of him still irritates me.

The officer had some boiling hot tea brought in for us, and it was a

veritable treat, as we were exhausted with hunger and cold.

When the door was opened for the tea to come in, Théodore Joussiau

caught a glimpse of the throng of girls, soldiers, and other people.

“Ah, my friends,” he exclaimed, with a burst of laughter, “we are at his

majesty William’s; there is a reception on, and it’s _chic_—I can tell

you that!...” With this he smacked his tongue twice. Villaret reminded

him that we were the guests of a German, and that it was preferable to

be quiet.

“That’s enough, that’s enough!” he replied, lighting a cigarette.

A frightful uproar of oaths and shouts now took the place of the

deafening sound of the orchestra, and the incorrigible Southerner half

opened the door.

I could see the officer giving orders to two subofficers who, in their

turn, separated the groups, seizing the stoker, the engine driver, and

the other men belonging to the train, so roughly that I was sorry for

them. They were kicked in the back, they received blows with the flat of

the sword on the shoulder, and a blow with the butt end of a gun knocked

the guard of the train down. He was the ugliest brute, though, that I

have ever seen. All these people were sobered in a few seconds, and went

back toward our carriage, with a hangdog look and a threatening mien.

We followed them, but I did not feel any too satisfied as to what might

happen to us on the way with this queer lot. The officer evidently had a

similar idea, for he ordered one of the subofficers to accompany us as

far as Amiens. This subofficer got into our carriage and we set off

again. We arrived at Amiens at six in the morning. Daylight had not yet

succeeded in piercing through the night clouds. A fine rain was falling,

which was hardened by the cold. There was no carriage to be had and not

even a porter. I wanted to go to the Hotel du Cheval-Blanc, but a man

who happened to be there said to me:

“It’s no use, my little young lady, there’s no way of putting up even a

lath like you. Go to the house over there with a balcony; they can put

some people up.”

With these words he turned his back on me. Villaret had gone off without

saying a word. M. Gerson and his grandson had been stowed away silently

in a covered country cart, hermetically closed. A stout, ruddy,

thick-set matronly woman was waiting for them, but the coachman looked

as though he belonged to nice people. General Pelissier’s son, who had

not uttered a word since we had left Gonesse, had disappeared like a

ball from the hands of a conjurer.

Théodore Joussiau politely offered to accompany us, and I was so weary

that I accepted his offer. He picked up our bag, and began to walk at

full speed, so that we had difficulty in keeping up with him. He was so

breathless with the walk that he could not talk, which was a great

relief to me.

Finally, we arrived at the house, and entered, but my horror was great

on seeing that the hall of the hotel had been transformed into a

dormitory. We could scarcely walk between the mattresses laid down on

the ground, and the grumbling of the people was by no means promising.

When once we were in the office, a young girl in mourning told us that

there was not a corner vacant. I sank down on a chair, and Mlle. Soubise

leaned against the wall, with her arms hanging down, looking most

dejected.

The odious Joussiau then yelled out that they could not let two women,

as young as we were, be out in the street all night. He went to the

proprietress of the hotel and said something quietly about me. I do not

know what it was, but I heard my name distinctly. The young woman in

mourning then looked at me with misty eyes. “My brother was a poet,” she

said. “He wrote a very pretty sonnet about you, after seeing you play

‘Le Passant’ more than ten times. He took me, too, to see you and I

enjoyed myself so much that night. It is all over though.” She lifted

her hands toward her head and sobbed, trying to stifle her cries.

“It’s all over!” she repeated. “He is dead! They have killed him! It is

all over! All over!”

I got up, moved to the depths of my being by this horrible grief. I put

my arms round her, and kissed her, crying myself, and whispering to her

words that soothe, and hopes that comfort.

Lulled by my words, and touched by my sisterliness, she wiped her eyes,

and taking my hand, led me gently away. Soubise followed. I signed to

Joussiau in an authoritative way to stay where he was. And we went up

the two flights of stairs of the hotel, in silence. At the end of a

narrow corridor she opened a door. We found ourselves in rather a large

room, reeking with the smell of tobacco. A small night lamp, placed on a

little table by the bed, was all the light in this large room. The

wheezing respiration of a human breast disturbed the silence. I looked

toward the bed, and by the faint light from the little lamp, I saw a man

half seated, propped up by a heap of pillows. The man was aged-looking,

rather than really old. His beard and hair were white and his face bore

traces of suffering. Two large furrows were formed, from the eyes to the

corners of the mouth. What tears must have rolled down that poor

emaciated face!

The girl went quietly toward the bed, signed to us to come inside the

room, and then shut the door. We walked across on tiptoes to the far end

of the room, our arms stretched out to maintain our equilibrium. I sat

down with precaution on a large Empire couch, and Soubise took a seat

beside me. The man in bed half opened his eyes. “What is it, my child?”

he asked.

“Nothing, father, nothing serious,” she replied. “I wanted to tell you,

so that you should not be surprised when you woke up. I have just given

hospitality in our room to two ladies who are here.”

He turned his head in an annoyed way, and tried to look at us at the end

of the room.

“The lady with fair hair,” continued the girl, “is Sarah Bernhardt, whom

Lucien liked so much, you remember?”

The man sat up and, shading his eyes with his hand, peered at us. I went

near to him. He gazed at me silently, and then made a gesture with his

hand. His daughter understood the gesture and brought him an envelope

from a small bureau. The unhappy father’s hands trembled as he took it.

He drew three sheets of paper out, slowly, and a photograph. He fixed

his gaze on me and then on the portrait.

“Yes, yes, it certainly is you, it certainly is you,” he murmured.

I recognized my photograph, taken in “Le Passant,” smelling a rose.

“You see,” said the poor man, his eyes veiled by tears, “you were this

child’s idol. These are the lines he wrote about you.”

He then read me, in his quavering voice, with a slight Picardian accent,

a very pretty sonnet.

He then unfolded a second paper, on which some verses to Sarah Bernhardt

were scrawled. The third paper was a sort of triumphant chant,

celebrating all our victories over the enemy.

“The poor fellow still hoped, until he was killed,” said the father,

“and yet he has only been dead five weeks. He had three shots in his

head. The first shattered his jaw, but he did not fall. He continued

firing on the scoundrels like a man possessed. The second took his ear

off, and the third struck him in his right eye. He fell then, never to

rise again. His comrade told us all this. He was twenty-two years old.

And now—it’s all over!”

The unhappy man’s head fell back on the heap of pillows. His two inert

hands had let the papers fall, and great tears rolled down his pale

cheeks, in the furrows formed by grief. A stifled groan burst from his

lips. The girl had fallen on her knees and buried her head in the

bedclothes, to deaden the sound of her sobs. Soubise and I were

completely upset. Ah, those stifled sobs, those deadened groans seemed

to buzz in my ears, and I felt everything giving way under me. I

stretched my hands out into space and closed my eyes. Soon there was a

distant rumbling noise, which increased and came nearer, then yells of

pain, bones knocking against each other, horses’ feet making human

brains gush out with a dull, flabby sound; men barbed with iron passed

by like a destructive whirlwind, shouting: “_Vive_ the war!” And women

on their knees, with outstretched arms, crying out: “War is infamous! In

the name of our wombs which bore you, of our breasts which suckled you,

in the name of our pain in childbirth, in the name of our anguish over

your cradles, let this cease!”

But the savage whirlwind passed by, riding over the women. I stretched

my arms out in a supreme effort which woke me suddenly. I was lying in

the girl’s bed. Mlle. Soubise, who was near me, was holding my hand. A

man whom I did not know, but whom some one called “doctor,” laid me

gently down again on the bed. I had some difficulty in collecting my

thoughts.

“How long have I been here?” I asked.

“Since last night,” replied the gentle voice of Soubise. “You fainted,

and the doctor told us that you had an attack of fever. Oh, I have been

very frightened!” I turned my face to the doctor.

“Yes, dear lady,” he said, “you must be very prudent still for the next

forty-eight hours, and then you can set out again. But you have had a

great many shocks for one with such delicate health. You must be

careful.” I took the draught that he was holding out to me, apologized

to the owner of the house, who had just come in, and then turned round

with my face to the wall. I needed rest so very, very much.

Two days later I left our sad but congenial hosts. My traveling

companions had all disappeared. When I went downstairs I kept meeting

Prussians, for the unfortunate proprietor had been invaded compulsorily

by the German army. He looked at each soldier and at each officer,

trying to find out whether he were not the one who had killed his poor

boy. He did not tell me this, but it was my idea. It seemed to me that

such was his thought and such the meaning of his gaze.

In the vehicle in which I drove to the station, the kind man had put a

basket of food. He also gave me a copy of the sonnet and a tracing of

his son’s photograph.

I left the desolate couple with the deepest emotion, and I kissed the

girl on taking our departure. Soubise and I did not exchange a word on

our journey to the station; we were both preoccupied with the same

distressing thoughts.

CHAPTER XIV

HOMBOURG AND RETURN

At the station we found that the Germans were masters there, too. I

asked for a first-class compartment to ourselves, or for a

_coupé_—whatever they liked, provided we were alone.

I could not make myself understood. I saw a man oiling the wheels of the

carriages, who looked to me like a Frenchman. I was not mistaken. He was

an old man, who had been kept on, partly out of charity and partly

because he knew every nook and corner, and being Alsatian, spoke German.

This good man took me to the booking office and explained my wish to

have a first-class compartment to myself. The man who had charge of the

ticket office burst out laughing. There was neither first nor second

class, he said; it was a German train, and I should have to travel like

everyone else. The wheel oiler turned purple with rage, which he quickly

suppressed. (He had to keep his place. His consumptive wife was nursing

their son, who had just been sent home from the hospital with his leg

cut off and the wound not yet healed up. There were so many in the

hospital....) All this he told me as he took me to the station master.

The latter spoke French very well, but he was not at all like the other

German officers I had met. He scarcely saluted me, and when I expressed

my desire he replied curtly:

“It is impossible. Two places shall be reserved for you in the officers’

carriage.”

“But that is what I want to avoid,” I exclaimed. “I do not want to

travel with German officers.”

“Well, then, you shall be put with German soldiers,” he growled angrily,

and putting on his hat, he went out, slamming the door.

I remained there, amazed and confused by his insolence. I turned so

pale, it appears, and the blue of my eyes became so clear, that Soubise,

who was acquainted with my fits of anger, was very much alarmed.

“Do be calm, madame, I implore,” she said. “We are two women alone among

these people. If they liked to harm us they could, and we must

accomplish the aim and object of our journey, we must see little Maurice

again.”

She was very clever, this charming Mlle. Soubise, and her little speech

had the desired effect. To see the child again was my aim and object. I

calmed down and vowed that I would not allow myself to get angry during

this journey, which promised to be fertile in incidents, and I almost

kept my word. I left the station master’s office and found the poor

Alsatian waiting at the door. I gave him a couple of louis which he hid

away quickly, and then shook my hand as though he would break it off.

“You ought not to have that so visible, madame,” he said, pointing to

the little bag I had hanging at my side. “It is very dangerous.”

I thanked him, but did not pay any attention to his advice. Just as the

train was about to start we entered the only first-class compartment.

There were two young German officers in it. They saluted, and I took

this as a good omen. The train whistled, and I thought what good luck we

had had, as no one else would get in! Well, the wheels had not turned

round ten times when the door opened violently, and five German officers

leaped into our carriage.

We were nine then, and I thought, What torture! The station master waved

a farewell to one of the officers, and both of them burst out laughing

as they looked at us. I glanced at the station master’s friend. He was a

surgeon major and was wearing the _ambulance_ badge on his sleeve. His

wide face was congested, and a ring of sandy, bushy beard surrounded the

lower part of it. Two little bright, light-colored eyes in perpetual

movement lit up this ruddy face and gave him a sly look. He was broad

shouldered and thick-set, and gave one the idea of having strength

without nerves. The horrid man was still laughing when the station and

its station master were far away from us, but what the other one had

said was evidently very droll. I was in a corner seat, with Soubise

opposite me, and the two young German officers on the other side of each

of us. They were both very gentle and polite, and one of them was quite

delightful in his youthful charm. The surgeon major took off his helmet.

He was very bald and had a very small, stubborn-looking forehead. He

began to talk in a loud voice to the other officers. Our two young

bodyguards took very little part in the conversation. Among the others

was a tall, affected young man whom they addressed as Baron. He was

slender, very elegant, and very strong. When he saw that we did not

understand German, he spoke to us in English. But Soubise was too timid

to answer, and I speak English very badly. He therefore resigned himself

regretfully to talking French. He was agreeable, too agreeable; he

certainly had not bad manners, but he was deficient in tact. I made him

understand this by turning my face toward the scenery we were passing.

We were very much absorbed in our thoughts and had been traveling for a

long time when I suddenly felt suffocated by smoke which was filling the

carriage. I looked round and saw that the surgeon major had lighted his

pipe and, with his eyes half closed, was sending up puffs of smoke to

the ceiling. My throat was smarting with it, and I was choking with

indignation, so that I was seized with a fit of coughing, which I

exaggerated in order to attract the attention of the impolite man. The

baron, however, slapped him on the knee and endeavored to make him

comprehend that smoke annoyed me. He answered by an insult which I did

not understand, shrugged his shoulders, and continued to smoke.

Exasperated by this, I lowered the window on my side. The intense cold

made itself felt in the carriage, but I preferred that to the nauseous

smoke of the pipe. Suddenly the surgeon major got up, putting his hand

to his ear. I then saw that his ear was filled with cotton wool. He

swore like an ox-driver and, pushing past everyone, and stepping on my

loot and on Soubise’s, he shut the window violently, cursing and

swearing all the time—quite uselessly, for I did not understand him. He

went back to his seat, continued his pipe, and sent out enormous clouds

of smoke in the most insolent way. The baron and the two young Germans

who had been the first in the carriage appeared to ask him something,

and then to remonstrate with him, but he evidently told them to mind

their own business and began to abuse them. Very much calmer myself on

seeing the increasing anger of the disagreeable man, and very much

amused by his earache, I again opened the window. He got up again,

furious, showed me his ear and his swollen cheek, and I comprehended the

word periostitis in the explanation he gave me on shutting the window

again. I then made him understand that I had a weak chest and that the

smoke made me cough. The baron acted as my interpreter and explained

this to him. But it was easy to see that he did not care a bit about

that, and he once more took up his favorite attitude and his pipe. I

left him in peace for five minutes, during which time he was able to

imagine himself triumphant until, with a sudden jerk of my elbow, I

broke the pane of glass. Stupefaction was then depicted on the major’s

face, and he became livid. He got straight up, but the two young men

rose at the same time, while the baron burst out laughing in the most

brutal manner. The surgeon moved a step in our direction, but he found a

rampart before him; another officer had joined the two young men, and he

was a strong, hardy-looking fellow, just cut out for an obstacle. I do

not know what he said to the surgeon major, but it was something clear

and decisive. The latter, not knowing how to expend his anger, turned on

the baron, who was still laughing, and abused him so violently that the

latter calmed down suddenly, and answered in such a way that I quite

understood the two men were calling each other out. That affected me but

little. They might very well kill each other, these two men, for they

were equally ill-mannered.

The carriage was now quiet and icy cold, for the wind blew in wildly

through the broken pane. The sun had set. The sky was getting cloudy. It

was about half past five and we were approaching Tergnier. The major had

changed seats with his friend, in order to shelter his ear as much as

possible. He kept moaning like a half-dead cow.

Suddenly, the repeated whistling of a distant locomotive made us listen

attentively. We then heard two, three, and four _petards_ bursting under

our wheels. We could perfectly well feel the efforts the engine driver

was making to slacken speed, but before he could succeed we were thrown

against each other by a frightful shock. There were cracks and creaks,

the hiccoughs of the locomotive spitting out its smoke in irregular

fits, desperate cries, shouts, oaths, sudden downfalls, a lull, then a

thick smoke, broken by the flames of a fire. Our carriage was standing

up like a horse kicking up its hind legs. It was impossible to get our

balance again.

Who was wounded and who was not wounded? We were nine in the

compartment. For my part, I fancied that all my bones were broken. I

moved one leg and then I tried the other. Then, delighted at finding

them without any broken places, I tried my arms in the same way. I had

nothing broken and neither had Mlle. Soubise. She had bitten her tongue

and it was bleeding, and this had frightened me. She did not seem to

understand anything. The tremendous shaking up had made her dizzy, and

she lost her memory for some days. I had a rather deep scratch between

my eyes. I had not had time to stretch out my arms, and my forehead had

knocked against the hilt of the sword which the officer seated by

Soubise had been holding upright.

Assistance arrived from all sides. For some time the door of our

compartment could not be opened. The darkness had come on when it

finally yielded, and a lantern shone feebly on our poor, broken-up

carriage. I looked round for our one bag, but on finding it I let it go

immediately, for my hand was red with blood. Whose blood was it? Three

men did not move, and one of them was the major. His face looked to me

livid. I closed my eyes, in order not to know, and I let the man who had

come to our aid pull me out of the compartment. One of the young

officers got out after me. He took Soubise, who was almost in a fainting

condition, from his friend. The imbecile baron then got out; his

shoulder was out of joint. A doctor came forward among the rescuers. The

baron held his arm out to him and told him to pull it, which he did at

once. The French doctor took off the officer’s cloak, told two of the

railway men to hold him, and then, pushing against him himself, pulled

at the poor arm. The baron was very pale and gave a low whistle. When

the arm was back in its place the doctor shook the baron’s other hand.

“_Cristi!_” he said, “I must have hurt you very much. You have a

precious lot of courage.” The German saluted and I helped him on again

with his cloak.

The doctor was then fetched away, and I saw that he was taken back to

our compartment. I shuddered in spite of myself. We were now able to

find out what had been the cause of our accident. A locomotive attached

to two vans of coal had been shunting, in order to get on to the siding

and let us pass, when one of the vans got off the rails and the

locomotive tired its lungs with whistling the alarm, while men ran to

meet us scattering _petards_. Everything had been in vain, and we had

run against the overturned van.

What were we to do? The soft roads were all broken up by the cannon. We

were about four miles from Tergnier, and a fine, penetrating rain was

making our clothes stick to our bodies.

There were four carriages, but the wounded had to be conveyed. Other

carriages would come, but there were the dead to be carried away. An

improvised litter was just being borne along by two workmen. The major

was lying on it, so livid that I clenched my hands until my nails

entered the flesh. One of the officers wanted to question the doctor who

was following.

“Oh, no!” I exclaimed, “please, please do not. I do not want to know.

The poor fellow!”

I stopped my ears as though some one was about to shout out something

horrible to me, and I never knew his fate.

We were obliged to resign ourselves to setting out on foot. We went

about two kilometers as bravely as possible, and then I stopped quite

exhausted. The mud which clung to our shoes made them very heavy. The

effort we had to make at every step to get each foot out of the dirt

tired us out. I sat down on a milestone and declared that I would not go

any farther.

My companion wept, and the two young German officers, who had acted as

bodyguards, made a seat for me by crossing their hands, and we went

nearly another mile like that. My companion could not walk any farther.

I offered her my place, but she refused it. “Well, then, let us wait

here!” I said, and quite at the end of our strength, we rested against a

little broken tree.

It was now night, and such a cold night! Huddled close to Soubise,

trying to keep warm, I began to fall asleep, seeing before my eyes the

wounded men of Châtillon, who had died seated against the little shrubs.

I did not want to move again, and the torpor seemed to me thoroughly

delicious.

A cart passed by, however, on its way to Tergnier. One of the young men

hailed it and, when the terms were made, I felt myself picked up from

the ground, lifted into the vehicle and carried along by the jerky,

rolling movement of two loose wheels which climbed the hills, sank into

the mire, and jumped over the heaps of stones, while the driver whipped

up his beasts and urged them on with his voice. He had a “don’t care,

let what will happen” way of driving, which was quite the note of the

times. I was aware of all this in my semi-sleep, for I was not really

asleep, but I did not want to answer any questions. I gave myself up to

this prostration of my whole being with a certain enjoyment.

A rough jerk, however, indicated that we had arrived at Tergnier. The

cart had drawn up at the hotel, and we had to get out. I pretended to be

still asleep. But it was no use, I had to wake up. The two young men

helped me up to my room.

I asked Soubise to arrange about the payment of the cart before the

departure of our excellent young companions, who were sorry to leave us.

I signed for each of them a voucher, on a sheet of the hotel paper, for

a photograph. Only one of them ever claimed it. This was six years

later, and I sent it to him.

The Tergnier Hotel could only give us one room between us. I let Soubise

go to bed, and I slept in an armchair, dressed as I was. The following

morning I asked about a train for Cateau, but was told that there was no

train. We had to work marvels to get a vehicle, but finally, Dr.

Meunier, or Mesnier, agreed to lend us a two-wheeled conveyance. That

was something, but there was no horse. The poor doctor’s horse had been

requisitioned by the enemy. A wheelwright, for an exorbitant price, let

me hire a colt that had never been in the shafts, and which went wild

when the harness was put on. The poor little beast calmed down after

being well lashed, but his wildness then changed into stubbornness. He

stood still on his four legs, which were trembling with fury, and

refused to move. With his neck stretched forward toward the ground, his

eye fixed, and his nostrils dilating, he would not budge any more than a

stake in the earth. Two men then held the light carriage back, the

halter was taken off the colt’s neck, he shook his head for an instant

and, thinking himself free and without any impediments, he began to step

out. The men were scarcely holding the vehicle. He gave two little kicks

and then began to trot. It was only a very short trot. A boy then

stopped him, some carrots were given to him, his mane was stroked, and

the halter was put on again. He stopped suddenly, but the boy, jumping

into the gig and holding the reins lightly, spoke to him and encouraged

him to move on. The colt tried timidly and, not feeling any resistance,

began to trot along for about a quarter of an hour, and then came back

to us at the door of the hotel. I had to leave a deposit of four hundred

francs with the notary of the place, in case the colt should die.

Ah, what a journey that was with the boy! Soubise and I sitting close

together in that little gig, the wheels of which creaked at every jolt!

The unhappy colt was steaming like a _pot-au-feu_ when the lid is

raised. We started at eleven in the morning, and when we had to stop,

because of the poor beast who could not go any farther, it was five in

the afternoon and we had not gone five miles. Oh, that poor colt, he was

certainly to be pitied! We were not very heavy, all three of us

together, but we were too much for him. We were just a few yards away

from a sordid-looking house. I knocked and an enormous old woman opened

the door.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Hospitality for an hour and shelter for our horse.”

She looked out on the road and saw our turnout. “Hey, father,” she

called out in a husky voice, “come and look here!”

A fat man, quite as fat, but older than she was, came hobbling heavily

along. She pointed to the gig, so oddly equipped, and he burst out

laughing and said to me in an insolent way:

“Well, what do you want?”

I repeated my phrase, “Hospitality for an hour, etc., etc.”

“P’raps we can do it, but it’ll want paying for.”

I showed him twenty francs. The old woman gave him a nudge.

“Oh, but in these times, you know, it’s well worth forty francs!”

“Very good,” I said, “agreed, forty francs.”

He then let me go inside the house with Mlle. Soubise, and sent his son

forward to the boy, who was coming along holding the colt by his mane.

He had taken off the halter very considerately, and thrown my rug over

its steaming sides. On reaching the house, the poor beast was quickly

unharnessed, and taken into a little inclosure, at the far end of which

a few badly joined planks served as a stable for an old mule, which was

aroused by the fat woman with kicks, and turned out into the inclosure.

The colt took its place, and when I asked for some oats for it she

replied: “P’raps we could get it some, but that isn’t in the price of

the forty francs.”

“Very well,” I said; and I gave our boy five francs to fetch the oats,

but the old shrew took the money from him and handed it to her lad,

saying: “You go, you know where to find them, and come back quick.”

Our boy stayed with the colt, drying it and rubbing it down as well as

he could. I went back to the house, where I found my charming Soubise

with her sleeves turned up, and her delicate hands washing two glasses

and two plates for us. I asked if it would be possible to have some

eggs.

“Yes, but——”

I interrupted our monstrous hostess.

“Don’t tire yourself, madame, I beg,” I said. “It is understood that the

forty francs are your tip and that I am to pay for everything else.”

She was confused for a moment, shaking her head and trying to find

words, but I asked her to give me the eggs. She brought me five eggs and

I began to prepare my omelette, as my culinary glory is an omelette.

The water was nauseous, so we drank cider. I sent for the boy and let

him have something to eat in our presence, for I was afraid that the

ogress would give him too economical a meal.

When I paid the fabulous bill of seventy-five francs, inclusive, of

course, of the forty francs, the matron put on her spectacles and,

taking one of the gold pieces, looked at it on one side, then on the

other, made it ring on a plate and then on the ground. She did this with

each of the three gold pieces. I could not help laughing. “Oh, there’s

nothing to laugh at!” she grunted. “For the last six months we’ve had

nothing but thieves here.”

“And you know something about theft!” I said.

She looked at me, trying to make out what I meant, but the laughing

expression in my eyes took away her suspicions. This was very fortunate,

as they were people capable of doing us harm. I had taken the

precaution, when sitting down to table, of putting my revolver near me.

“You know how to fire that?” asked the lame man.

“Oh, yes, I shoot very well!” I answered, but this was not true. Our

steed was then put in again in a few seconds, and we proceeded on our

way. The colt appeared to be quite joyful. He stamped, kicked a little,

and began to go at a pretty steady pace. Our disagreeable hosts had told

us the way to St. Quentin, and we set off, after our poor colt had made

attempts to stand still. I was dead tired and fell asleep, but after

about an hour the vehicle stopped abruptly, and the wretched beast began

to snort and put his back up, supporting himself on his four stiff,

trembling legs.

It had been a gloomy day, and a lowering sky seemed to be shedding tears

slowly over the earth. We had stopped in the middle of a field, which

had been plowed up all over by the heavy wheels of cannon. The rest of

the ground had been trampled by horses’ feet, and the cold had hardened

the little ridges of earth, leaving icicles here and there which

glittered dismally in the thick atmosphere.

We got down from the vehicle to try to discover what was making our

little animal tremble in this way. I gave a cry of horror for, only

about five yards away, some dogs were pulling wildly at a dead body,

half of which was still underground. It was a soldier and, fortunately,

one of the enemy. I took the whip from our young driver and lashed the

horrid animals as hard as I could. They moved away for a second, showing

their teeth, and then returned to their voracious and abominable work,

growling sullenly at us.

Our boy got down and led the snorting pony by the bridle. We went on

with some difficulty, trying to find the road in these devastated

plains. Darkness came over us and it was icy cold. The moon feebly

pushed aside her veils and shone over the landscape with a wan, sad

light. I was half dead with fright. It seemed to me that the silence was

broken by cries from underground, and every little mound of earth

appeared to me to be a head. Soubise was crying, with her face hidden in

her hands. After going along for half an hour, we saw, in the distance,

a little group of people coming along carrying lanterns. I went toward

them, as I wanted to find out which way to go. I was embarrassed on

getting nearer to them, for I could hear sobs. I saw a poor woman, who

was very corpulent, being helped along by a young priest. The whole of

her body was shaken by her fits of grief. She was followed by two

subofficers and by three other persons. I let her pass by, and then

questioned those who were following her. I was told that she was looking

for the bodies of her husband and son, who had both been killed a few

days before on the St. Quentin plains. She came each day at dusk, in

order to avoid inquisitive people, and she had not yet met with any

success. It was hoped that she would find them this time, as one of

these subofficers, who had just left the hospital, was taking them to

the spot where he had seen the poor creature’s husband fall, mortally

wounded. He had fallen there himself, and had been picked up by the

_ambulance_ people.

I thanked these persons, who told me the wretched road we must take, the

best one there was, lay through this cemetery.

We could now distinguish groups of people searching about, and it was

all so horrible that it made me want to scream out.

Suddenly, the boy who was driving us pulled my coat sleeve.

“Oh, madame,” he said, “look at that scoundrel stealing!”

I looked and saw a man lying down full length, with a large bag near

him. He had a dark lantern, which he held toward the ground. He then got

up, looked around him, for his outline could be seen distinctly on the

horizon, and began his work again.

When he caught sight of us he put out his lamp, and crouched down on the

ground. We walked on in silence straight toward him. I took the colt by

the bridle, on the other side from the boy, who no doubt understood my

idea, for he let himself be guided by me. I walked straight toward the

man, pretending not to know he was there. The colt backed, but we pulled

hard and made it advance. We were so near to him that I shuddered at the

thought that the wretch would perhaps allow himself to be trampled over

by the animal and the light vehicle rather than reveal his presence.

Fortunately, though, I was mistaken; a stifled voice murmured:

“Take care there! I am wounded. You will run over me.” I took the gig

lantern down. We had covered it with a jacket, as the moon lighted us

better, and I turned it now on the face of this wretch. I was stupefied

to see a man of from sixty-five to seventy years of age, with a

hollow-looking face, framed with long, dirty, white whiskers. He had a

muffler round his neck, and was wearing a peasant’s cloak of a dark

color. Around him, shown up by the moon, were sword belts, brass

buttons, sword hilts, and other objects that the infamous old man had

torn from the poor dead men.

“You are not wounded. You are a thief, and a violator of tombs! I shall

call out and you will be killed. Do you hear that, you miserable

wretch!” I exclaimed, and went so near to him that I could feel his

breath sully mine. He crouched down on his knees, and, clasping his

criminal hands, implored me in a trembling, tearful voice.

“Leave your bag there, then,” I said, “and all those things. Empty your

pockets, leave everything and go. Run, for as soon as you are out of

sight I shall call one of those soldiers who are searching, and I shall

give them your plunder. I know I am doing wrong, though, in letting you

off and not giving you up.”

He emptied his pockets, groaning all the time, and was just going away

when the lad whispered: “He’s hiding some boots under his cloak.” I was

furious with rage with this vile thief and I pulled his big cloak off.

“Leave everything, you wretched man,” I exclaimed, “or I will call out.”

Six pairs of boots, taken from the corpses, fell noisily on to the hard

ground. The man stooped down for his revolver, which he had taken out of

his pocket at the same time as the stolen objects.

“Will you leave that, and get away quickly?” I said, “my patience is at

an end.”

“But if I am caught I shan’t be able to defend myself,” he exclaimed, in

a fit of desperate rage.

“It will be because God willed it so,” I answered. “Go at once or I will

call.” The man then made off, abusing me as he went.

Our little driver then fetched a soldier to whom I related the

adventure, showing him the objects.

“Which way did the rascal go?” asked a sergeant who had come with the

soldier.

“I can’t say,” I replied.

“Oh, well, I don’t care to run after him,” he said, “there are enough

dead men here.”

We continued our way until we came to a place where several roads met,

and it was then possible for us to take a road a little more suitable

for vehicles.

After going through Busigny, and a wood, where there were bogs in which

we only just escaped being swallowed up, our painful journey came to an

end, and we arrived at Cateau in the night, half dead with fatigue,

fright, and despair.

I was obliged to take a day’s rest there, for I was prostrate with

feverishness. We had two little rooms, roughly whitewashed but quite

clean. The floor was of red, shiny bricks, and there was a polished wood

bed, and curtains of white sateen.

I sent for a doctor for my nice little Mlle. Soubise, who, it seemed to

me, was worse than I was. He thought we were both in a very bad state,

though. A nervous feverishness had taken all the use out of my limbs and

made my head burn. Soubise could not keep still, but kept seeing

specters and fires, hearing shouts, and turning round quickly, imagining

that some one had touched her on the shoulder. The good man gave us a

soothing draught to overcome our fatigue, and the next day a very hot

bath brought back the suppleness to our limbs. It was then six days

since we had left Paris, and it would take about twenty more hours to

reach Hombourg, for in those days trains went much less quickly than at

present. I took the train for Brussels, where I was counting on buying a

trunk, and a few necessary things.

From Cateau to Brussels there was no hindrance to our journey, and we

were able to take the train again the same evening.

I had replenished our wardrobe, which certainly needed it, and we

continued our journey without much difficulty as far as Cologne,

although on passing through Strasbourg I had a nervous attack from

sorrow and despair. On arriving at Cologne we had a cruel

disappointment. The train had only just entered the station, when a

railway official, passing quickly in front of the carriages, shouted

something in German, which I did not catch. Everyone seemed to be in a

hurry, and men and women pushed each other without any courtesy. I

addressed another official and showed him our tickets. He took up my bag

very obligingly, and hurried after the crowd. We followed, but I did not

understand the excitement, until the man flung my bag into a

compartment, and signed to me to get in as quickly as possible. Mlle.

Soubise was already on the step, when she was pushed aside violently by

a railway porter, who slammed the door, and before I was fully aware of

what had happened, the train had disappeared. My bag had gone in the

carriage, and my trunk was with all the other trunks, in a luggage van

that had been unhooked from the train which had arrived and fastened on

to the express which had left. I began to cry with rage. An official

took pity on us and led us to the station master. He was a very superior

sort of man, who spoke French fairly well. I sank down in his great

leather armchair, and told him my misadventure, sobbing nervously. He

looked kind and sympathetic. He immediately telegraphed for my bag and

trunk to be given into the care of the station master at the first

station. “You will have them again to-morrow, toward midday,” he said.

“Then I cannot start this evening?” I asked.

“Oh, no, that is impossible,” he replied. “There is no train, for the

express that will take you to Hombourg does not start before to-morrow

morning.”

“O God, God!” I exclaimed, and I was seized with veritable despair,

which soon affected Mlle. Soubise, too.

The poor station master was rather embarrassed and tried to soothe me.

“Do you know anyone here?” he asked.

“No, no one. I have only been to Baden-Baden. That was three years ago,

and I do not know anyone in Cologne.”

“Well, then, I will have you driven to the Hôtel du Nord. My

sister-in-law has been there for two days and she will look after you.”

Half an hour later his carriage arrived and he took us to the Hôtel du

Nord, after driving a long way around to show us the city. But at that

time I did not admire anything belonging to the Germans.

On arriving at the Hôtel du Nord, he introduced us to his sister-in-law,

a fair-haired young woman, pretty, but too tall and too big for my

taste. I must say, though, that she was very sweet and affable. She

engaged two bedrooms for us near her own rooms. She had a flat on the

ground floor, and she invited us to dinner, which was served in her

drawing-room. Her brother-in-law joined us in the evening. The charming

woman was very musical. She played to us from Berlioz, Gounod, and even

Auber. I thoroughly appreciated the delicacy of this woman, in letting

us hear only French composers. I asked her to play something from Mozart

and Wagner. At that name she turned to me and exclaimed: “Do you like

Wagner!”

“I like his music,” I replied, “but I detest the man.”

Mlle. Soubise whispered to me: “Ask her to play Liszt.”

She overheard, and complied with infinite graciousness. I must own that

I spent a delicious evening there.

At ten o’clock the station master (whose name I have very stupidly

forgotten, and I cannot find it in any of my notes) told me he would

call for us at eight the following morning, and then took leave of us. I

fell asleep, lulled by Mozart, Gounod, etc.

At eight o’clock the next morning, a servant came to tell me that the

carriage was waiting for us. There was a gentle knock at my door, and

our pretty hostess of the previous evening said sweetly: “Come, you must

start!” I was really very much touched by the delicacy of this pretty

German woman.

It was such a fine day that I asked her if we should have time to walk

and, on her reply in the affirmative, we all three started for the

station, which is not far from the hotel. An engaged carriage had been

reserved for us, and we installed ourselves in it as comfortably as

possible. The brother and sister shook hands with us and wished us a

pleasant journey.

When the train had started, I discovered, in one of the corners, a

bouquet of forget-me-nots with the sister’s card, and a box of

chocolates from the station master.

I was at last about to arrive at my goal and was in a state of wild

excitement at the idea of seeing, once more, all my beloved ones. My

eyes, which had grown larger with anxiety, traveled more rapidly than

the train. I fumed each time it stopped, and envied the birds I saw

flying along. I laughed with delight as I thought of the surprised faces

of those I was going to see again, and then I began to tremble with

anxiety. What had happened to them? and should I find them all? I should

if ... ah, those “ifs,” those “becauses,” and those “buts”! My mind

became full of them, they bristled with illnesses, and accidents, and I

began to weep. My poor little traveling companion began to weep, too.

Finally, we came within sight of Hombourg. Twenty more minutes of this

turning of wheels and we entered the station. But just as though all the

spirites and devils from the infernal regions had concerted to torture

my patience, we stopped short. All heads were out of the windows. “What

is it?” “What’s the matter?” “Why are we not going on?” There was a

train in front of us at a standstill, with a broken brake, and the line

had to be cleared. I fell back on my seat, clenching my teeth and hands

and looking up in the air to distinguish the evil spirits which were so

bent on tormenting me, and then I resolutely closed my eyes. I muttered

some invectives against the invisible sprites, and declared that as I

would not suffer any more, I was now going to rest. I then fell fast

asleep, for the power of sleeping when I wish is a precious gift which

God has bestowed on me. In the most frightful circumstances and the most

cruel moments of life, when I have felt that my reason was giving way

under shocks that have been too great or too painful, my will has laid

hold of my reason, just as one holds a bad-tempered little dog that

wants to bite, and subjugating it, my will has said to my reason:

“Enough, you can take up again to-morrow your suffering and your plans,

your anxiety, your sorrow and your anguish. You have had enough for

to-day. You would give way altogether under the weight of so many

troubles, and you would drag me along with you. I will not have it! We

will forget everything for a while and go to sleep together!” And I have

gone to sleep. This is absolutely true.

Mlle. Soubise roused me as soon as the train had really arrived. I was

refreshed and calmer. A minute later we were in a carriage, and had

given the address: 7 Obere Strasse.

We were soon there, and I found all my adored ones, big and little, and

they were all very well. Oh, what happiness it was! The blood pulsed in

all my arteries. I had suffered so much that I burst out into delicious

sobs.

Who can ever describe the infinite pleasure of tears of joy! During the

next two days the maddest things occurred, which I will not relate, so

incredible would they sound. Among others, fire broke out in the house;

we had to escape in our night clothes, camp out for six hours in five

feet of snow, etc., etc., but everyone was safe and sound.

We then set out for Paris, but on arriving at St. Denis there were no

more trains. It was four o’clock in the morning. The Germans were

masters of all the suburbs of Paris and the trains ran only for their

service. After an hour spent in running about, in discussions and

rebuffs, I found an officer of higher rank, who was better educated and

more agreeable. He had a locomotive prepared to take me to the Gare du

Hâvre.

The journey was very amusing. My mother, my aunt, my sister Régina,

Mlle. Soubise, the two maids, the children, and I all squeezed into a

little square space, in which there was a very small, narrow bench,

which I think was the place for the signalman in those days. The engine

went very slowly, as the rails were frequently obstructed by carts or

railway carriages.

We left at five in the morning and reached the Gare du Hâvre at seven.

At a place which I cannot locate, our German conductors were exchanged

for French. I questioned them and learned that Paris was just then

disturbed by revolutionary movements.

The stoker with whom I was talking was a very intelligent and very

advanced individual. “You would do better to go somewhere else, and not

to Paris,” he said, “for before long they will come to blows there.”

We had arrived by this time, but at this hour, as no train was expected

in, it was impossible to find a carriage. I got down with my tribe from

the locomotive, to the great amazement of the station officials.

I was no longer very rich, but I offered twenty francs to one of the men

if he would see to our six bags. We were to send for my trunk and those

belonging to my family later on.

There was not a single carriage outside the station. What was to be

done? I was then living at No. 4 Rue de Rome, and this was not far away,

but my mother scarcely ever walked, for she was delicate and had a weak

heart. The children, too, were very, very tired. Their eyes were puffed

up and scarcely open, and their little limbs benumbed by the cold and

the sitting still. I began to get desperate, but a milk cart was just

passing by, and I sent the porter to hail it. I offered twenty francs if

the man would drive my mother and the two children to 4 Rue de Rome.

“And you, too, if you like, young lady,” said the milkman. “You are

thinner than a grasshopper, you won’t make it any heavier.” I did not

want inviting twice, although rather annoyed by the man’s speech.

When once my mother was installed, in spite of her hesitation, by the

side of the milkman, and the children and I were in among the full and

empty milk pails, I said to the man: “Would it be all the same to you to

come back and fetch the others?” I pointed to the remaining group, and

added: “You shall have twenty francs more.”

“Right you are!” said the worthy fellow. “A good day’s work! Don’t you

tire your legs, you others. I’ll be back for you directly!”

He then whipped up his horse and took us off at a wild rate. The

children rolled about and I held on. My mother set her teeth and did not

utter a word, but from under her long lashes she glanced at me with a

displeased look.

On arriving at my door the milkman drew up his horse so short that I

thought my mother would fall out on to the animal’s back. We had

arrived, though, and we got out. The cart started off again at full

speed. My mother would not speak to me for about an hour. Poor, pretty

mother, it was not my fault after all.

CHAPTER XV

THE COMMUNE AND VICTOR HUGO

I had gone away from Paris eleven days before, and had then left a sad

city. The sadness had been painful, the result of a great misfortune

which had been unexpected. No one had dared to look up, fearing to be

blown upon by the same wind which was blowing the German flag floating

over yonder beyond the Arc de Triomphe.

I found Paris now effervescent and grumbling. The walls were placarded

with many-colored posters, and all these posters contained the wildest

harangues. Fine, noble ideas were side by side with absurd threats.

Workmen, on their way to their daily toil, stopped in front of these

bills. One would read aloud, and the gathering crowd would begin the

reading over again. And all these human beings, who had just been

suffering so much through this abominable war, now echoed these appeals

for vengeance. They were very much to be excused. This war, alas! had

hollowed out under their very feet a gulf of ruin and of mourning.

Poverty had brought the women to rags, the privations of the siege had

lowered the vitality of the children, and the shame of the defeat had

discouraged the men. Well, these appeals to rebellion, these anarchist

shouts, these yells from the crowd, shrieking: “Down with thrones! Down

with the Republic! Down with the rich! Down with the priests! Down with

the Jews! Down with the army! Down with the masters! Down with those who

work! Down with everything!”—all these cries roused the benumbed

hearers. The Germans, who fomented all these riots, rendered us a real

service without intending it. Those who had given themselves up to

resignation were stirred out of their torpor. Others, who were asking

for “revenge,” found an aliment for their inactive forces. None of them

agreed. There were ten or twenty different parties, devouring each other

and threatening each other. It was terrible!

But it was the awakening. It was life after death. I had among my

friends about ten of the leaders of different opinions, and all of them

interested me, the maddest and the wisest of them. I often saw Gambetta

at Girardin’s, and it was a joy to me to listen to this admirable man.

What he said was so wise, so well balanced and so captivating! This man

with his heavy stomach, his short arms, and huge head, had a halo of

beauty round him when he spoke. And he was never common, never ordinary.

He took snuff, and the gesture of his hand when he brushed away the

stray grains, was full of grace, He smoked huge cigars, but could smoke

them without annoying anyone. When he was tired of politics and talked

literature, it was a rare charm, for he knew everything and quoted

poetry admirably. One evening, after dinner at Girardin’s, we played

together the whole of the scene in the first act between _Hernani_ and

_Doña Sol_. He was not handsome, like Mounet-Sully, but he was just as

admirable in it.

Another time he recited the whole of “Ruth and Boaz.” But I preferred

his political discussions to all that, especially when he criticised the

speech of some one whose opinion was opposed to his own. The eminent

qualities of this politician’s talent were logic and balance, and his

seductive force was chauvinism. The obscure death of so great a thinker

is a disconcerting challenge flung at human pride.

I sometimes saw Rochefort, whose wit delighted me. I was not at ease

with him, though, for he was the cause of the fall of the Empire, and,

although I am very Republican, I liked the Emperor, Napoleon III. He had

been too trustful, but very unfortunate, and it seemed to me that

Rochefort insulted him too much after his misfortune.