This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler
[Picture: Book cover]
ALPHONSE DAUDET
* * * * *
* * * * *
Robert Helmont
_DIARY OF A RECLUSE_
_1870–1871_
TRANSLATED BY
LAURA ENSOR
* * * * *
[Picture: Civilians leaving their homes]
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY PICARD AND MONTÉGUT_
LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, LIMITED
BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL
MANCHESTER AND NEW YORK
1892
* * * * *
[Picture: Country Scene]
LIST OF PLATES
PAGE
“Read that, Mr. Robert, said the good man” 18
“Seeing me so thoroughly determined, the Keeper pressed my 35
hand”
“Colaquet managed to take us tolerably straight” 56
“Old Guillard brought out a large jug of sparkling wine” 68
“They began drinking out of their caps” 74
“He lay sprawling at full length on the stone bench” 79
“At that instant a man rushed across the moonlit orchard” 111
The Watch 128
“It was a balloon” 140
“I found a pigeon” 148
“We crossed a heavy punt” 160
“I seized hold of the chain with both hands and lowered 171
myself into the river”
“They blew out his brains with a revolver” 186
“I heard the clinking of glasses, the uncorking of bottles” 191
“Forgetful of the lost harvest in preparing for that of the 199
future”
[Picture: Invalid lying on a sofa]
PREFACE
While spending a day in the country on one of those pretty green islets
that are dotted about in clusters on the Seine between Champrosay and
Soisy, and wrestling with a friend, my foot slipped on the damp grass,
and I broke my leg. My unfortunate love for athletic and violent
exercise has already played me so many ugly tricks, that I should
probably have forgotten this accident, as I have others, but for its
precise and memorable date: the 14th of July 1870! . . . I still see
myself at the close of that sad day, lying on the sofa in the former
studio of Eugène Delacroix, whose small house on the borders of the
forest of Sénart we were then occupying. When my leg was stretched out,
I hardly suffered, for already I felt the vague restlessness of
increasing fever, exaggerating the sensation and heat of the stormy
atmosphere, and enveloping all around me in a misty cloud, as it were, of
shimmering gauze. To the accompaniment of the piano they were singing
the choruses of _Orphée_, and no one, not even I, suspected how serious
was my condition. Through the wide-open bay window in the studio came
the sweet breath of the jasmine and roses, the beat of the night-moths,
and the quick flashes of lightning showing up, above the low garden
walls, the sloping vineyards, the Seine, and the rising ground opposite.
Suddenly the stillness was broken by the sound of a bell; the evening
papers are brought in and opened, and voices broken by emotion, anger, or
enthusiasm exclaim: “War is declared!”
From this moment nothing remains to me but the feverish recollection of a
state of languor lasting six weeks; of six weeks of bed, of splints, of
cradle and plaster case, in which my leg seemed imprisoned in company
with thousands of tormenting insects. During that hot summer, so
exceptionally stormy and scorching, this inaction full of agitation was
dreadful, and my anxiety, increased by the accounts of the public
disasters which filled the papers that covered my bed, added to my
restlessness and sleeplessness. At night the rumble of the distant
trains disturbed me like the tread of endless battalions, and by day,
pale and sad faces, scraps of conversations overheard in the road or at
the neighbour’s, through my open window: “The Prussians are at Châlons,
mother Jean,” and the vans at every moment raising clouds of dust in the
quiet little village, lent a mundane and sinister echo to my perusal of
“the news of the war.” Soon we were the only Parisians left at
Champrosay, left alone with the peasants, obstinately attached to the
land, and still refusing to admit the idea of an invasion. Directly I
could leave my couch and be moved, our departure was decided.
Never shall I forget my first outing in the little old-fashioned garden,
filled with the perfume of ripe peaches and fading roses. Around me,
poor invalid that I was, seated on the steps of a ladder laid against the
fruited wall, they were hurrying on the departure, loading the vans,
gathering the fruit and flowers in the unconscious preoccupation of
leaving nothing for the enemy; even the child, with its arms full of
toys, picking up a little spade forgotten in the grass.
As for me, I inhaled the fresh air with delight; and with an emotion
caused by my weak state and my returning health, I gazed at the grey
house, and at the red flowers covering the Virginian jessamine interwoven
round the bay window of the studio. I thought of the happy hours, so
soft and tranquil, spent there the last three years, the hearty laughter,
the æsthetic discussions so thoroughly in harmony with the little home,
full of the memories of a great artist. Should we ever behold again the
sunny path so often slowly paced with short and chatty steps, the
verandah where we sat in the fine June evenings, in the brightness of a
flowery Spanish broom which, ball-shaped, seemed like an enormous lustre
lighted up in the fading twilight, the richness of its golden colour
deepening as the light decreased!
The family omnibus was filled up and loaded, all our cherished ones
tightly pressed against each other, the child’s toys side by side with
the parrokeet’s cage, the bird scared by the sharp-pointed ears of a
favourite greyhound: we started, passing first through the little village
with its closed and silent villas. The peasants still held out, although
disturbed at the departures, watching them from their doorways with tears
rising in their eyes, and a certain uneasiness depicted in the stolid
cupidity of their countenances. What a return to Paris! The highway
crowded with men and beasts, the sheep running loose between the wheels,
the green of the market-gardeners’ carts mingling with the piled-up
furniture in the vans. On the railway embankment, which lay on one side
of our road, trucks upon trucks extending in interminable rows, halting
and whistling calls, which were answered and re-echoed on the distant
line. And then at last the _octroi_, where the belated droves of cattle
and people and vehicles are accumulated before the too narrow gateway,
and—for me a novel sight—men of the National Guard mixed with the customs
officers—a Parisian militia, full of zeal and good nature, whose bayonets
shine amidst the crowd and in the sunshine on the slopes of the
fortifications, now heightened by gabions and bristling with guns.
A few days later I again journeyed to Champrosay, but the road no longer
presented the same aspect. The approach of the enemy, so long threatened
and now imminent, could be felt by the deserted state of the suburbs, and
the care displayed by our main-guards. Endless formalities were required
in order to pass through. Amongst the loitering peasants might be seen
the prowling figures of suspicious-looking spies, recalling the sinister
plunderers of the battlefields; and the solitude, the agonised
expectation of the districts I passed through—Villeneuve-Saint-Georges,
Draveil—abandoned and silent, imparted a mystery to the very windings of
the road, where one almost expected to see the shadow of an Uhlan vidette
on the watch. Champrosay, with its solitary street bordered on each side
by villas, seemed to grow larger in the death-like stillness: “Vasta
silentio,” as Tacitus says. Glimpses of parks, caught sight of through
the iron gates, a background of dark shrubberies in the distance,
flower-beds glowing in the brightness of a September day, here and there
a circle of garden chairs on a terrace, forgotten like the idle talk that
has melted into thin air, garden tools leaning against the palings, all
spoke of a rural existence hastily interrupted, a precipitate flight, the
sudden surprise, in the midst of its life, of a small Pompeï, whose last
hour has struck. But Nature, ever the same, was nevertheless undergoing
a change; the broken bridge at Ris, that had been blown up, and whose
loosened chains dipped into the water, transformed the landscape,
isolating on each side of the river the two little districts hitherto
united by the traffic to and fro over the toll-bridge. From all these
scenes uprose the agonising sensation of a great catastrophe, rendered
more striking by the magnificent sun of an exceptionally fine season.
At the same moment, as I closed behind me the door of our now deserted
dwelling, an aged peasant, old Casaquet, came out of a neighbouring
house. When all the others had taken flight and run away, he alone
obstinately refused to take refuge in Paris, where his family had settled
themselves as best they could. “I’m much too old!” he said; and he had
some potatoes, a little wine, a few hens, not to speak of the grunting
porker he kept under his roof. I proposed bringing him away to rejoin
his people. But he stubbornly stuck to his words: “I’m much too old!”
The recollection of this old Robinson Crusoe, the last living being I had
seen at Champrosay, often crossed my mind during the terrible cold and
famine of the siege. What had become of him, and of the whole village,
which I pictured to myself burning and blazing; our house, our books, the
piano, everything tarnished, broken, and laid waste by the invasion, like
the suburban regions of Nogent, Champigny, Petit-Bry, and Courneuve,
among whose sad ruins, villas with broken stairways and half-hanging
shutters, I wandered every day? . . .
But no! When the war was over, and when, towards the end of the Commune,
Paris becoming untenable, we came and took refuge at Champrosay, I had
the pleasant surprise of finding almost everything in its habitually
peaceful condition, with the exception of a few country-houses that the
marauders had searched, and where they had, from pure love of
destruction, destroyed the wainscoting and broken all the windows. The
German army had passed through, but never made any lengthened stay.
Hidden behind a clump of acacias, Delacroix’s house had been even more
protected than others, and in the garden awakening in beauty to the smile
of spring, I could breathe freely for the twofold deliverance from the
siege and from the winter. I was walking along the flower borders, when
old Casaquet’s face peered over the garden wall, and he beamed upon me
with his old wrinkled visage. Over him, too, the invasion had passed
without leaving a trace. “I didn’t suffer too much . . . ” he said,
twinkling his eyes, and standing on a ladder with his elbows resting on
the trellis; and then he related how he had borne this period of exile
and solitude. It had been a real time of feasting. There were no
keepers in the forest, he cut as much wood as he liked (a treasure much
coveted by the peasant); with a few poachers who had taken refuge at the
Hermitage he snared roedeer and pheasants; and whenever an isolated
Prussian, an orderly or straggler, was found in the vicinity of the
quarries, he was quietly and quickly despatched. During four months he
lived without any other news from Paris but the sound of the distant
cannonading, and the occasional sight of an inflated balloon floating
beneath the dark sky.
[Picture: Meeting with Casaquet again] This quiet, ant-like existence on
the surface of the earth amidst the overthrow of a world was most
extraordinary. I too could have lived there like the old peasant,
reduced to the same expedients of primitive life; and this different view
of war appeared to me an appropriate setting for a melancholy picture of
the invasion. That very evening I began in the large studio taking notes
for “Robert Helmont’s Diary of a Recluse;” while the passing to and fro
under my windows of the German cavalry patrols, still encamped on the
edge of the country, the clashing of swords and jingling of curb-chains,
the rough Saxon voices harshly raised in command, mingled with the
thunder of the cannons. All this indeed formed part of “my diary.” My
feelings were still more excited on the following day by all the sad
details of the military occupation—the roads dark with troops, the
halting and the bivouacking by the side of the ditches. To escape from
the humiliating sensations of the vanquished, I wandered into the woods,
lovely in this month of April: a tender green clothed the branches of the
trees, the grass was gemmed with the bloom of wild hyacinths, and the
warbling of the birds and the song of the nightingale were interrupted by
the distant tearing sound of the mitrailleuse. Sometimes, at the turn of
a quiet path, I saw coming toward me under the arching boughs, a
sentimental Saxon colonel, slowly pacing on his charger the lanes and
trysting-places cherished by Louis XV. and Madame de Pompadour. Then I
plunged into the recesses of the deepest thickets, for these encounters
gave me a revulsion of feeling which I can hardly explain. It was thus
that I lived the diary of Robert Helmont at the same time that I wrote
it.
This little book was published by Dentu in the _Musée Universal_ of 1873;
but it met with little success. It told no story, and contained no
interesting or continued narrative; it was merely a succession of
landscapes, portraying the melancholy of our invaded summer haunts. In
the new edition of my complete works published by Dentu-Charpentier,
“Robert Helmont” is placed at the end of the second volume of “Jack,” and
it finds there its proper place, describing as it does the same forest of
Sénart, the Hermitage, and the Pacôme Gate, where I knew the hero of my
novel “Jack,” and recalling to life a few of the same characters.
[Picture: Abandoned garden chairs]
* * * * *
[Picture: Rural scene]
THE HERMITAGE, _September_ 3_rd_.
It is six weeks yesterday since I broke my leg. It happened on the very
day war was declared. While M. de Grammont was exciting so much tumult
and enthusiasm in the Senate, I myself, on returning from net-fishing in
the Seine, stumbled over a stake hidden in the grass at the edge of the
river, and was brought home to my Hermitage in the forest of Snart in a
woodcutter’s cart . . .
I went out this morning for the first time after fifty days of fever and
suffering, increased by the news of the war. I had nightmares of distant
battles, and the sinister despatches from Forbach and Reischhoffen remain
mixed up in my mind with the pain of my wound, the heat of the plaster
casing, and that restless inactivity which is the most cruel of all
tortures. At last it is over! After having seen nothing for so long but
the tops of the trees, and those great stretches of blue sky of which the
monotony is only broken by passing wings, I felt quite happy at putting
my feet to the ground and getting down my stairs with faltering steps.
But how weak I was! My head swam round. From having remained so long in
the same position, my leg had forgotten its proper balance and functions.
It seemed no longer part of myself, as if I were no longer master of it.
However, with slow steps, and the extreme nervousness which augments
one’s weakness, I was able to get to the poultry-yard and push open its
little latticed door, half buried in the tall grass. Even this gave me a
thrill of pleasure! During my absence, my neighbour, the keeper’s wife,
has taken good care of all this little family, who watch me with an
astonished, bright, and familiar gaze. The rabbits come tumbling over
each other to the edge of their hutches, with their ears pricked up and
quivering. The hens go on with their ceaseless pecking in the grass,
making sharp sounds like those of little pickaxes. The cock, more
demonstrative, flaps his large wings with a resounding
“cock-a-doodle-do.”
[Picture: Robert up and about again] Presently I returned and seated
myself on the old, worn, green-coloured stone bench, which, with the wall
full of gaps and two or three apple-trees covered with moss, date from
the time when my house and the orchards surrounding it were part of an
old monastery built in the middle of the forest . . . Never had my
garden appeared so beautiful to me. The fruit-trees against the wall,
rather stripped of their leaves, were laden with ripe peaches and golden
bunches. The currant-bushes, spread out in thin clumps, were dotted here
and there with sparks of red; and under the autumn sun, that ripens each
berry, bursts each pod, and sheds each grain, the sparrows pursued one
another with unequal flights, while youthful twitterings among them show
how their numbers have been increased by the young broods. From time to
time the heavy flight of a pheasant passed over the ruined wall,
alighting in a field of buckwheat. At the top of a tall tree a squirrel
was playing and cracking nuts. The gentle heat which pervaded the whole
scene threw a wonderful feeling of repose over this little rustic corner.
I had forgotten the Prussians and the invasion . . . Suddenly the keeper
and his wife came in. It was astonishing to see old Guillard at the
Hermitage in the daytime—he, the constant rover of the forest! I
understood that there must be fresh news.
[Picture: “Read that, Mr. Robert, said the good man”]
—Read that, Mr. Robert . . . said the good man.
And drawing from beneath his thick velveteen waistcoat a copy of the
_National_, crumpled and awkwardly folded by hands little accustomed to
deal with papers, he held it out to me with an air of dismay. On the
first sheet, bordered in black, were the sinister words: “_The French
army has capitulated_.” I could not read any farther . . .
. . . Dazed, with closed eyes, for the space of five minutes I seemed to
see nothing but those few words, surrounded by flashes of light and
colour, as if I had read them on a white wall in the full glare of the
sun. Alas! there was therefore no hope. The last barrier had broken
down. It was the invasion, the mighty one . . . The keeper thinks that
in eight days the Prussians will be here.
—Ah, my dear sir, you should see the block on the roads. Between this
and Paris there is a mob of cattle and vehicles. Every one is packing up
and flying. Champrosay is empty; Farmer Goudeloup is the only person who
will not hear of leaving. He has sent away his wife and children, loaded
his two guns, and is ready.
[Picture: Civilians evacuating their homes]
—And you, Guillard, what do you intend doing?
—I, sir? I shall do the same as Goudeloup. Our chiefs have forgotten to
leave us any orders. I shall take advantage of that to remain at my
post, and watch my woods up to the last moment. When the Prussians come,
we will barricade ourselves in the Hermitage; for I suppose, with your
bad leg, you will not think of leaving. And then, if we are
attacked—well, we will defend ourselves. You will fire through the
windows; I shall guard the Pacôme Gate, and Mother Guillard will load the
guns . . . Won’t you, mother? . . .
[Picture: Robert, after hearing the bad news]
Good fellow! It warmed my heart to hear him. In spite of his sixty
years, the Indian, as they call him about here, with his high stature,
wide shoulders, and bright eyes full of mischief and life, is still a
fine-looking soldier. I thought, as I looked at him, that with such a
companion there might indeed be something to do. By lying in ambush on
the outskirts of the forest he knows so thoroughly, we could demolish a
few passing Prussians. But then the sensation of my weakness, of my
useless condition, suddenly came back to me and overwhelmed me.
After the keeper and his wife had taken leave of me, I remained all
alone, seated on my bench, buried in thought. What a state of misery is
mine! To feel that craving for action and vital energy that comes on at
the approach of danger, and not to be able to take ten steps in my
garden. How much longer will this last? The doctor says I must expect
at least two months of it. Two months! Ah! how dreadful . . . The air
was getting chilly, my leg was hurting me. I went in and dined sadly.
After dinner the keeper came—as he has done every evening since my
accident—to smoke a pipe with me. He is more than ever determined to
remain at the Hermitage. While he was telling me all his plans and
schemes of defence, I heard in the distance, through the open window, the
usual sounds of twilight; the wheels creaking in the ruts, the rumbling
of the train, the rustling of the leaves in the thickets; and at moments
another sound, as of all these blended together and increasing in volume,
seemed to rise from the ground, following the course of the river and
little hills on the horizon, to grow gradually louder and louder. It was
like the tramp of an army on the march, hurrying on in the fading light
to find their halting-place, while the first rays of moonlight fall on
the barrels of the guns and the gilded spikes of the helmets . . .
Suddenly a dull report on a level with the earth made us start. Mother
Guillard, who was clearing away my modest repast, felt the pile of plates
she was carrying shake in her hands.
—They have blown up the bridge at Corbeil! . . . said the keeper.
The pretty country village, where I had so often breakfasted before a
day’s shooting, seemed to be sixty miles farther away . . . For a moment
we all three looked blankly at each other. At last old Guillard rose
from his seat, took up his gun and his lantern, muttering between his
teeth:
—I am going to close the Pacôme gate, he said, with an heroic gesture.
Close the Pacôme gate! It seemed easy to say; and yet I fancy the good
fellow will find some difficulty in doing it. For the last century the
old door of the cloister has been ajar; the forest has taken advantage of
the aperture to slip through, and the indiscreet brambles have climbed in
by all the cracks of its disjointed planks. If we have to undergo a
siege, I do not rely much on that gate.
[Picture: The Corbeil bridge]
* * * * *
[Picture: The Hermitage]
_September_ 5_th_.
. . . Long had I sought a solitary corner, not too far away from Paris,
and yet not much frequented by Parisians. One day, while crossing the
forest of Sénart, I discovered the Hermitage, and for the last ten years
I have spent all my summers there. It was a monastery of “Cordeliers,”
burnt down in ‘93. The four principal walls remain standing, but
mouldering and crumbling at intervals, making on the turf, heaps of red
stone quickly re-clothed by a rich and luxuriant vegetation: poppies,
barley, stiff-growing plants with regular and pointed leaves, are divided
by the stones like inlaid metal-work. One gateway looks on the road; the
other, that famous Pacôme gate, opens on to the wooded thickets and the
little hidden paths, full of balsam and wild mint, where, on a misty
morning, I have often fancied I saw disappear, the hood of some old monk
gathering wild herbs. Here and there along the wall, low postern gates,
disused for many a century, send through the darkness of the forest long
rays of light, as if the cloister contained all the sunlight of the
woods.
[Picture: Gateway to the Hermitage]
Inside is waste land, with burnt-up grass, little gardens belonging to
the peasants, some orchards divided by trellis-work, and two or three
houses built of that red stone that is found in the quarries of the wood.
[Picture: Robert’s workroom in the Hermitage]
The forester lives in one of these houses, the other is never let. Mine,
a kind of irregular and curious turret, is chiefly remarkable for the
Virginian creeper that completely covers it. I have cut away just enough
of it to be able to open my windows. Leaving untouched the great
worm-eaten beams in the kitchen and the worn step on the threshold, I
contented myself with heightening a hayloft under the roof, replacing the
walls by glass, and thus making a beautiful studio, where my only
neighbours are the nests of the wood-pigeon and magpie swaying to and fro
on the top of the trees.
When I am there, the forest surrounds me like an ocean, with the swell of
the foliage, the ebb and flow of the breezes, the murmuring softness of a
calm. On a summer’s afternoon, at the hour of silent and slumbering
heat, a bumble-bee comes by regularly, dashes against my half-open
window-pane, whose brightness attracts him, then like a rebounding ball
goes off, shaking the golden dust from his big wings, and disappears
amongst the honey-scented bushes of privet. This bee is my clock. When
he passes by I say: “Ah, it is two o’clock.” And I am right . . .
It is, in fact, a wonderful nook for work, and where my best pictures
have been painted. And how I love it, this old Hermitage! For the last
ten years I have been adorning it to the best of my ability. I have
brought there what I call my treasures—my books, my sketches, my
etchings, and some old armour . . . And now I should have to leave all
this, abandon my home, to these robbers. And what for? To go and shut
myself up in Paris . . . But as I cannot walk, of what use should I be
to them there? They have too many useless mouths to feed already . . .
Well, no! Decidedly the fellow is right. We must not go away from here,
. . . _Pro aris et focis_! . . .
Not being able to defend my country, the least I can do is to defend my
hearth.
[Picture: Fowl pecking in the yard]
* * * * *
[Picture: . . the keeper came in to my room.]
_September_ 6_th_.
This morning the keeper came into my room. He wore his full-dress
uniform, as on the 15th of August: green tunic, peaked cap, cross-belt,
hunting-knife, and he had an air of importance befitting the solemnity of
his appearance.
—There is bad news, he said, taking up a position by the side of my bed . . .
All the wood-rangers are recalled to Paris in order to be enrolled
with the customs officers. We are starting almost immediately.
Honest old Guillard! He appeared somewhat agitated while talking to me,
and I was myself rather disturbed by the sudden announcement of this
departure. I hurriedly dressed, and we went downstairs. On the road
below was the head-keeper, with about twenty foresters and keepers—the
whole of the staff on duty in the forest. Then came the women, children,
and pointers, and two large carts laden with furniture, rabbit-hutches,
and chickens tied up by the legs. The door of the house was wide open,
and Mother Guillard moved to and fro inside, seeking what she must leave
or take, as the conveyances were full, and the first-comers had taken up
all the available space. The perplexity of the poor housewife was a
sight to see, as she ran from one piece of furniture to another, dragging
a heavy cupboard to the door, then leaving it there, forgetting the most
useful things, but lading herself with those of no value, except that
they were souvenirs: the old clock with its glass shade, some marvellous
portraits, a hunting-horn, a distaff, all of them covered with dust—that
excellent dust that clings to family relics, and of which each particle
speaks of youth and the happy days gone by.
—I trust you are not going to remain here, Mr. Robert, the good woman
called out as she crossed the orchard . . . You shall be put on a cart.
And in order to convince me more thoroughly:
—In the first place, if you remain here, who will cook for you?
In reality the good creatures were rather ashamed of leaving me behind.
Their departure, although involuntary, seemed to them somewhat of a
betrayal on their part. I tried to reassure them on my account, and to
reassure myself at the same time. After all, who knows? The Prussians
may not come so far. Moreover, the Hermitage is in the heart of the
forest, and out of the line of march. There was therefore not the
slightest danger to be apprehended. At most a few days of solitude, and
that did not alarm me.
Seeing me so thoroughly determined, the keeper pressed my hand.
—Good luck, Mr. Robert . . . My wife will leave you our keys. You will
find wine and potatoes in the cellar. Take what you choose. We will
settle on our return home . . . And now, good mother, let us start; and
above all, you know what I said to you; try not to cry.
She, however, nearly broke down. On turning the key for the last time in
the lock, her hand shook. She compressed her lips . . . At that moment
a formidable _hee-haw_! echoed through the Hermitage. The keeper and his
wife looked at each other in consternation.
—It is Colaquet! . . . What is to become of him?
[Picture: Colaquet, the donkey] The unfortunate Colaquet, whom they had
forgotten in the hurry of departure, was their donkey, a pretty little
grey donkey, with a bright and artless look. A few days before, it had
been bitten on the muzzle by a viper, and it had been turned out to graze
in a little field of after-grass; and there he was, looking at his
masters going away, leaning his swollen head, which gave him the
appearance of one of the beasts of the Apocalypse, over the hedge.
How could they take him? He would die on the road, and yet the
veterinary surgeon had promised to cure him. The fate of the poor
animal, rather resembling my own, touched my heart.
[Picture: . . the keeper pressed my hand.]
I promised to take care of Colaquet, and to put him into the stable every
night. The good people thanked me, and we parted.
[Picture: Mother Guillard leaving her home] A sad parting! The carts,
heavy and overloaded, slowly followed the wide forest road, grinding on
the pebbles as they went along. The children were running on each side,
excited by the unexpected journey. The men, in single file, skirted the
edge of the wood, their guns on their shoulders, all of them old
soldiers, well trained and disciplined. Behind them the dogs followed,
hanging their heads uneasily, hardly straying even to listen to the
flight of a hen-pheasant, or to sniff the trace of a rabbit. Domestic
animals do not like changing their quarters, and these were following in
the track of the carts, now become their wandering homes. Mother
Guillard came last, holding in her hand her magpie’s large cage, and from
time to time looking back.
Seated on the curbstone near the principal entrance, I watched them till
the whole party disappeared from my sight in the narrowing perspective of
the road. I saw the last glance on the gun-barrels, I heard the grinding
of the last wheel, and the dust of the highway swallowed them up in a
cloud . . .
It was all over. I was alone. This thought has given me an
unaccountable sensation of uneasiness.
[Picture: Looking along the empty road]
* * * * *
[Picture: Robert alone in the Hermitage garden]
_September_ 7_th_, 8_th_ _and_ 9_th_.
This new kind of life would not be without its charm, were it not
disturbed by a sensation of anxiety, of uneasiness, of constant
expectation, suspending all thought, and rendering all artistic work an
impossibility. I can only undertake those trivial occupations, those
necessary details of everyday life, of which I have always had such a
horror, and to which I must resign myself now that I am my own servant.
Shall I confess it? These trifles do not really weary me very much, and
I understand recluses amusing themselves by carving roots or weaving
baskets. Manual labour is a good means of regulating life for those who
have too much leisure and liberty. Therefore every morning I begin by
paying a visit to the poultry-yard, and when I feel the warmth of an egg
in the straw, I am happy. Then, walking slowly, and leaning on a stick,
I go round the garden, picking the ripe fruit; and from the long, dry,
sunburnt stalks I gather the beans, whose pods burst open and shed their
contents through my fingers. It is laughable to see me seated in front
of my door, cutting up the bread for my soup, or washing my salad in a
bucket. All these things give me rather a childish comfort; but is not
convalescence itself like childhood?—a fresh beginning of life.
In order to avoid going up and down the broken and irregular steps of the
staircase, I have placed my bed in the large room on the ground floor,
which therefore answers the purpose of drawing-room, bed-room, and
kitchen. In this very mild weather, the door leading into the garden
remains wide open all day. I hear the noise of the hens, always busy and
cackling, their little claws pattering on the sand and scratching up the
straw. Next door, in the keeper’s small field, I see poor Colaquet
stretched out, shaking off the flies, and, with the idleness of an
invalid, lolling out his tongue in front of him on the meadow, all purple
with the thousand clusters of lucern. When evening comes on, with some
difficulty he approaches the fence that divides us. I also drag myself
there. I bathe his wound, renew the water, throw a rug over his back for
the night, and he thanks me by shaking his long ears.
What really distresses me in my present state of suffering is having to
fetch water from the old convent well, just at the end of the enclosure.
When I reach it, I am obliged to sit down for a moment on the edge of the
cracked stonework, overgrown by rank weeds. The ornamental wrought
ironwork, of an elegant and ancient style, appears, under the rust that
tarnishes it, like climbing tendrils laid bare by the autumn. This
melancholy is in complete harmony with the deep silence of the Hermitage,
and the atmosphere of loneliness that surrounds me . . . The bucket is
heavy. On returning I stop two or three times. Over there, at the far
end, there is an old door that the wind keeps slamming. The noise of my
footsteps echoes, and troubles me . . .
Oh, solitude! . . .
[Picture: Robert plodding back with the bucket]
* * * * *
[Picture: Robert breakfasting on the lawn]
_September_ 10_th_.
. . . I had just finished breakfasting on the lawn—on my word, an
excellent breakfast too!—fresh eggs, and grapes gathered from my
beautiful purple vine. I was sitting there, idly dreaming, basking in
the light, warmth, and silence, very busy looking at the smoke of my pipe
and at my painted plates, on which a stray wasp was furiously attacking
the emptied stalks. Around me on that clear autumn day, under a deep and
pure blue sky, even more beautiful than the summer skies so often veiled
and dimmed by hot mists, I felt the same hush of Nature, the same
all-pervading sense of peace . . . When suddenly a formidable explosion
in my immediate vicinity shook the house, rattled the windows, and
stirred the leaves, sending forth on all sides the sound of wild
flutterings, screams, alarms, and galloping . . . This time it was not
the bridge at Corbeil that was blown up, but our own, our little bridge
at Champrosay. It meant: “The Prussians are here!” Immediately my heart
stood still, and a veil seemed to pass over the sunlight. Then the
thought crossed my mind that to-morrow, this evening maybe, the forest
roads would be invaded, darkened by these wretches; that I should be
compelled to bury myself alive, and never stir out again. And I longed
to see once more my beloved forest, of which I had been deprived for the
last two months.
The lanes in the woods were lovely, widened by freedom from the long
summer weeds, and showing at the top, through the young branches, a long
ray of light. At the cross-roads, bathed in sunlight, the faded pink
heather was flowering in tufts; and in the thickets, among the black
stems, like a small forest beneath a large one, the ferns displayed their
microscopic trees with their peculiar foliage. What a silence!
Generally a thousand vague sounds greeted me from afar: the trains
passing by and marking the distant horizon, the digging of the quarrymen,
the cart-wheels slowly turning in the ruts, the strident call-whistle of
the gang. And to-day, not a sound—not even that perpetual murmur which
seems like the breathing of a slumbering forest—that stir of the leaves,
that humming of the insects, that pretty “_frrrt_!” like the unfolding of
a fan, made by birds among the foliage. It seemed as if the loud report
just now had stupefied all Nature.
Slightly weary, I had seated myself under a thick oak-tree, when I heard
a rustling in the branches. At last! . . . I expected to see a hare or
a roedeer scamper across the path; but through the parted bushes, about
ten paces from me on the road, jumped a big fellow, dressed all in black,
with his gun on his shoulder, a revolver in his belt, and his head
covered by a large Tyrolese hat. I was startled. I thought it was some
Bavarian or Saxon rifleman. It was, however, a Parisian _franc-tireur_.
At that time there were some twenty of them in the forest, retreating day
by day before the Prussians, lying in ambush to watch their line of
march, and to knock over from time to time an Uhlan of the advance-guard.
While the man was talking to me, his comrades, coming out of the coppice,
joined us. They were nearly all old soldiers, working-men from the
faubourgs of Paris. I took them back to the Hermitage, and made them
drink a few bottles of wine.
[Picture: The blown bridge of Champrosay]
They told me the Prince of Saxony’s division had reached Montereau, one
stage distant from here. I learnt also from them about the defensive
operations begun round Paris—the organisation of the troops; and to hear
them speak with such calm, such confidence, and especially hearing their
Parisian accent, warmed my heart. Ah, brave fellows! if I could only
have gone off with them, stuck on my head their ridiculous headgear, and
fought in their ranks, under the walls of the good city! . . . But,
alas! to have walked merely twenty steps in the woods had swollen my leg,
and I was in pain. Ah, well! I was grieved when they left me. They are
probably the last Frenchmen that I shall see for some time . . .
They left at dusk, cheered by my sour wine. I gave them a hen, . . .
they carried off four . . .
[Picture: Robert meets the first franc-tireur]
[Picture: . . they carried off four]
* * * * *
[Picture: Colaquet grazing]
_September_ 11_th_.
No news.
_September_ 12_th_.
Still no news. What can be going on? Are they forced to retire?
Really, this suspense is unbearable.
_September_ 13_th_.
I have only bread enough for two days. I found this out in the morning,
on opening the chest where Mother Guillard placed my week’s
provisions—six large floury and golden loaves, that she baked for me
every Sunday. What shall I do? I have, it is true, an oven and a
kneading-trough, but not an atom of flour. Perhaps I should find some at
the farm at Champrosay, if Goudeloup has remained there as he intended.
But how can I get so far in my present weak condition? Seated on my
garden bench in front of my door, I was absorbed in these melancholy
thoughts, when I heard the sound of an animal galloping in the keeper’s
field. It was Colaquet. Colaquet, generally so lazy, was gambolling
round the orchard, kicking up little tufts of grass with his hoofs and
rolling over on his back, with a feeling of satisfaction and pleasure in
living. In two bounds he came at my call, and leant his head, no longer
swollen, but now of normal size, on the wooden trellis; the rapid motion
of his long ears, whose language I am beginning to understand, telling me
of his happiness at being free and delivered from his pain and infirmity.
Lucky Colaquet! he is cured before I am; and while I looked at him with
an envious eye, I remembered that there—over there, under the shed—was an
old conveyance that Guillard formerly used on fête-days to drive parties
of Parisians through the forest. If I harnessed Colaquet, we might go
and fetch some flour . . . So I set to work rummaging under the shed.
Amongst the rusty pickaxes, hay-rakes, and dilapidated harrows I finally
discovered a worm-eaten spring-cart, forgotten and unused, its two shafts
lying on the ground. By means of some pieces of rope and a few nails I
put it into a tolerable state of repair. It occupied me till the
evening; but what an interesting piece of work! I was amused in turning
over those old nails, those worn-out pegs. Once or twice I surprised
myself by whistling over my work. Pretty cool, considering I was
expecting the Prussians . . . Now everything is ready, the cart and the
team. To-morrow morning, if in the meanwhile nothing happens, we shall
start for Champrosay!
[Picture: The old spring-cart]
* * * * *
[Picture: The farm work-shop]
* * * * *
[Picture: On the road to Champrosay]
_September_ 14_th_.
I have made a compact with myself to keep a very exact diary of the
strange and terrible life I have been drawn into; if I have many days as
exciting and tragic as this, I shall never be able to live through them.
My hand shakes, my brain is on fire. However, I must make the attempt . . .
At first starting all went well. The weather was beautiful. I had
placed a bundle of hay in the cart, and although Colaquet’s eyelids were
still swollen from the bite, he managed to take us tolerably straight—he
had so often made this journey, carrying bundles of linen to the
riverside. In spite of the slight jolting, I found the drive delightful.
Not the point of a helmet nor the glitter of a gun-barrel to be seen.
Only, on arriving at Champrosay, the deep silence that had so impressed
me in the woods appeared still more striking. The peasants’ cottages
hardly seemed to me the same: no pigeons on the roofs, the doors closed,
and the courtyards deserted. The silent belfry of the little church,
with its defaced dial, stood above like a faithful guardian. Farther on,
all the villas along the road, their grounds extending to the forest,
were also carefully shut up. Their summer wealth of flowers continued to
bloom, and, under the shade of the clipped trees, the yellow sandy paths
were but lightly strewn with a few dead leaves. Nothing could give a
more vivid idea of sudden departure and flight than the sight of these
deserted houses, decked out as usual behind their high iron gates. There
seemed still a kind of quiver and warmth of life; and at times, at the
turn of the path, visions rose up in my mind of straw hats, upraised
parasols, and of goats tethered on the grass-plots in their accustomed
place.
[Picture: Colaquet managed to take us tolerably straight]
What, however, really seemed deathlike was the road, the highroad to
Corbeil, that I had left so full of life, with a continual flow of vans,
mail-coaches, market-gardeners’ carts, perambulating poultry-yards full
of cackle and prattle; carriages borne along through the whirlwind of
their own speed, on which float, even in the calmest weather, the veils
and ribbons of the occupants; and the tall waggons laden with fresh hay
and scythes and pitchforks, casting long shadows across the road. And
now nothing and no one. In the filled-up ruts the dust has the still
look of fallen snow, and the two wheels of my spring-cart glide on
noiselessly. At the end of the village the farm appears in the distance,
closed, and silent from the foot of its walls to the highest tile of its
tall dark roof. Has Goudeloup also taken flight? . . . Here I am before
the gateway. I knock—I call. A window above the dairy opens cautiously,
and I see the cunning, somewhat unkempt head of the farmer appear, with
his untrimmed beard, and his small round, suspicious eyes hidden under
bushy eyebrows.
—Ah! it is you, Mr. Robert . . . Wait a moment. I am coming down.
[Picture: Goudeloup appears at a window]
Together we enter the little, low room where the carters, harvesters, and
threshers usually come in the evening to receive their day’s pay. In a
corner I perceive two loaded guns.
—You see, says Goudeloup, I am ready for them . . . If they leave me
alone, I shall not stir . . . But if they are imprudent enough to meddle
with the farm . . . Let them beware!
[Picture: The shattered Champrosay bridge]
We were talking in low tones, as if in an enemy’s country. He let me
have a few loaves and a sack of flour; then having loaded my cart, we
parted, promising each other soon to meet again, . . . Poor man!
Before returning home, no traces of Prussians being visible, I was
tempted to go down the lane which passes under the walls of the farm and
leads to the Seine. It was the whim of an artist. A river is the soul
of a landscape. Animating the scene with its ceaseless movement, it
gives life to all the changes of the day, and imparts grandeur to Nature
by the reflection of its mirrored banks, and of glowing sunsets sinking
into tranquil depths of liquid fire. Now its water faithfully reflects
the surrounding melancholy. The shattered bridge, the crumbling piers
piled up on either side in white heaps of stone, the iron chains dangling
in the river, all this seems like a great rent in the landscape, the
cruel work of the invader. No boats, no rafts—the river has returned to
its wild, natural state, its surface furrowed by unfettered currents and
swirling pools eddying round the ruins of the broken bridge, and bearing
on its way nothing but drifting tufts of grass and roots, on which the
water-wagtail, wearied out with its long flight, abandons itself to the
course of the stream. On the slopes of each bank the corn and vines
still stand, and the newly-mown fields are yet overshadowed by the high
haycocks; a whole harvest lost and left to its fate . . .
I had stood there for a moment looking at this scene of disaster, when I
heard two shots, followed by shrieks and groans, which seemed to come
from the direction of the farm. I hastened to see what was the matter,
and as I approached the cries of “Help—Help” were redoubled. I
recognised the voice of the farmer amongst others raised in anger, a
hideous jargon of sound. I whip up Colaquet, but the hill is steep and
Colaquet moves not. One would almost say he was afraid. He lays back
his ears and runs up against the wall; besides this, the road takes a
turn, and I cannot see what is taking place on the highroad above.
Suddenly, through a breach in the wall that the fall of the neighbouring
bridge has made, as if expressly for me, the whole interior of the farm
comes into view: the yard, the sheds, men, horses, helmets, long lances,
flour sacks burst open, an unhorsed cavalry soldier lying before the well
at full length in a pool of blood, and the unfortunate Goudeloup, pale,
scared, a hideous object, howling and struggling between two gigantic
Uhlans, who have tied a rope round his neck, and are about to swing him
up by the pulley outside his hayloft. It is impossible to describe my
sensations. I am filled with feelings of indignation, pity, horror, and
anger . . . I forget that I am wounded and unarmed. I prepare to spring
over the breach and throw myself on these wretches . . . But my foot
slips . . . I hear something like the snap of a stick in my leg,
followed by horrible pain. Everything goes round with me, the yard, the
sheds, the pulley . . .
[Picture: Uhlans hanging Goudeloup]
When I recovered consciousness, I was lying stretched on the hay in my
cart before the gate of the Hermitage. The sun was setting and the wood
was still. Colaquet was quietly nibbling the grass from out of the
cracks in the wall. How had I got home? How had I been able to avoid
the Uhlans, who swarmed on the highway. Perhaps Colaquet had the idea of
coming across country and reaching the forest by the quarry road? . . .
And, in truth, the good creature proudly tossed his head and moved his
ears, as if to say, “I have saved you from a dangerous pass!” . . . I
was in great pain, and it really required some courage to step out of the
cart, unharness the donkey, and go into the house. I thought I had for
the second time broken my leg. However, after an hour’s rest, I was able
to rise, take a little food, and write these few pages. The pain is
already less sharp, and nothing remains but a great weariness . . .
Nevertheless, I do not think I shall sleep much to-night. I know they
are prowling around me, that they are still there, and I have seen them
at work . . . Oh! that unfortunate peasant, murdered in his farmyard,
dragging himself, clutching at the walls! . . .
[Picture: Gate at the Hermitage]
* * * * *
[Picture: Prussians on the march]
_September_ 20_th_.
From the four corners of the horizon, in the murmur of the distant road,
which the passing wind quickly snatches up and bears to my ears, there is
a ceaseless and confused rumbling, a noise as of the heavy and monotonous
sound of waves, which, enveloping the whole forest, slowly flows on
towards Paris, to die away at the point where the wide roads are lost in
the immense encompassing zone. Till now the inundating masses have
spared me, and here I remain cowering in the Hermitage, listening to the
advancing tide, like a shipwrecked man on a rock surrounded by the sea.
[Picture: Cavalry patrols close by]