On a wet evening in May, the Brécé ladies were sitting together in the
big drawing-room, knitting woollen bodices for the poor children of the
village. Old Madame de Courtrai was standing with her back to the fire,
holding up her skirts and warming her legs. The Duke, General Cartier
de Chalmot, and M. Lerond were chatting, prior to a game of whist. The
Duke opened the previous day’s paper that was lying upon the table.
“Hostilities between the Americans and the Spanish have not yet started
in earnest,” he said. “What do you anticipate will be the outcome of it
all, General? I should be very glad to have the opinion of so eminent a
military authority as yourself.”
“It would certainly be very instructive if you would tell us what you
think about the forces that are about to try their strength in the
Antilles and in the China seas, General,” put in M. Lerond.
General Cartier de Chalmot passed his hand over his forehead, opened
his mouth some time before he spoke, and then said in an authoritative
manner:
“The Americans have committed a very imprudent act in declaring war on
Spain, and it may well cost them dear. Having no army and no navy, it
would be a difficult matter for them to keep up a struggle against an
efficient army and a well-trained navy. They have their stokers and
their enginemen, but stokers and enginemen do not make a battle fleet.”
“Do you think the Spaniards will win, General?” asked M. Lerond.
“Generally speaking, the success of a campaign depends upon
circumstances impossible to prophesy,” replied the General. “But it may
at once be stated that the Americans are not ready for war, and war
necessitates long and careful preparation.”
“Come, General,” cried Madame de Courtrai, “tell us that these American
wretches will be beaten!”
“Their success is doubtful,” replied the General. “I might even
go so far as to say that it would be paradoxical, and an insolent
contradiction of every system employed by those nations which are
essentially military nations. As a matter of fact, the victory of the
United States would constitute a condemnation of the principles adopted
throughout Europe by the most competent soldiers, and such a result is
neither likely nor desirable.”
“Good!” cried Madame de Courtrai, smacking her withered sides with
her bony hands, and shaking her head, with its rough, grey locks
that looked like a fur cap. “Good! our friends the Spaniards will be
victorious! _Vive le roi!_”
“General,” said M. Lerond, “I am most interested in what you say. The
success of our friends would be well received in France, and who knows
if they might not be the means of stirring up a Royalist and clerical
movement in this country!”
“Pardon me,” said the General. “I make no prophecy regarding the
future. As I have said before, the success of a campaign depends upon
circumstances impossible to foresee. All I can do is to take into
consideration the quality of the conflicting elements, and from this
point of view the advantage is certainly with Spain, although her fleet
does not include a sufficiency of naval units.”
“Certain symptoms,” said the Duke, “would point to the fact that the
Americans have already begun to repent of their temerity. I have heard
it positively stated that they are panic-stricken. They live in daily
dread of seeing the Spanish ironclads appear on their coasts. The
inhabitants of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia are fleeing inland
_en masse_; in fact, a general panic exists.”
“_Vive le roi!_” repeated Madame de Courtrai, with fierce delight.
“What about little Honorine?” asked M. Lerond. “Is she still favoured
with the visitations of Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles?”
“Yes,” replied the dowager duchess, with some embarrassment.
“It would be a good idea,” ventured the ex-deputy, “to make an official
report of the child’s statements of what she sees and hears when in her
trances.”
No reply was forthcoming to this remark, the reason being that, having
undertaken to note down the words attributed by Honorine to the Blessed
Virgin, Madame de Brécé very soon stopped doing so: the child’s
expressions were not nice. Besides, M. le Curé Traviès, who was in the
habit of shooting rabbits every evening in the woods of Lénonville,
had too often surprised Isidore and Honorine lying among the dead
leaves to be any longer in doubt as to why they were there. M. Traviès
was something of a poacher, but both his morals and his doctrine were
sound. He gathered from repeated observations that it was hardly likely
the Blessed Virgin would appear to Honorine.
He had spoken on the matter to the ladies of the castle, who were, if
not convinced, at least somewhat perplexed. So when M. Lerond asked
them for details of the latest ecstasies, they changed the subject.
“If you care to hear news from Lourdes,” said the dowager duchess, “we
have some.”
“My nephew writes me that many miracles take place in the grotto,” said
M. de Brécé.
“I have heard the same thing from one of my officers,” replied the
General. “He is a promising young fellow, and has come back amazed at
the wonderful things he saw there.”
“You know that the doctors in attendance at the piscina report the most
miraculous cures?” said the Duke.
“We do not need the opinion of learned men to make us believe in
miracles,” said Madame de Brécé with a limpid smile. “I have far more
confidence in the Blessed Virgin than in any doctors.”
They then began to talk of the Affair, amazed, so they said, that the
“syndicate of treachery” should continue its audacious manifestations
unpunished. With much emphasis the Duke expressed himself as follows:
“When two courts martial have given their verdict, the smallest doubt
can no longer exist.”
“Have you heard,” said Madame Jean, “that Mademoiselle Deniseau, the
local prophetess, has learned from the mouth of St. Radegonde herself
that Zola is going to become a naturalized Italian, and will not return
to France?”
This prophecy was received with much favour.
A servant entered, bringing the letters.
“Perhaps there will be some news of the war,” said the Duke, opening a
paper.
And in dead silence he read the following:
“Commodore Dewey has destroyed the Spanish fleet in the port of
Manilla. The Americans have not lost a man.”
This telegram caused much depression in the drawing-room. The only
person who continued to look confident was Madame de Courtrai, who
cried:
“It’s not true!”
“The telegram,” said M. Lerond, “is an American one.”
“Yes,” said M. de Brécé, “we must beware of false news.”
All endorsed this prudent view of things, and yet were aghast at the
sudden vision of a fleet, blessed by the Pope, bearing the flag of His
Catholic Majesty, and carrying on the prow of her vessels the names of
the Virgin and the saints, disabled, shattered, and sunk by the guns
of bacon merchants, sewing-machine manufacturers, and heretics, by
a nation without kings, without princes, without a history, without
national traditions, and without an army.