excepting at the table d'hote dinner. M. Zola then brought his faculties
of observation into play, and after a lapse of a few days he informed me
that he was astonished at the ease and frequency with which some English
girls raised their wine-glasses to their lips. It upset all his idea of
propriety to see young ladies of eighteen tossing off their Moselle and
their champagne as to the manner born. In France the daughter who is
properly trained contents herself with water just coloured by the
addition of a little Bordeaux or Burgundy. And the contrast between this
custom and incidents which M. Zola noticed at Oatlands--and to which he
once or twice called my attention--made a deep impression on him.
The people staying at the hotel were certainly all of a good class. There
were several well-known names in the register; and knowing how much has
been written on the happy decrease of drinking habits 'in the upper
middle-class of England,' I was myself slightly surprised at what was
pointed out to me. When M. Zola discovered, too, that sundry
gentlemen--leaving wine to their wives and daughters--were addicted to
drinking whisky with their meals, he was yet more astonished, for he
claims that in France nowadays, greatly as the consumption of alcohol has
increased among the masses, it has declined almost to vanishing point
among people with any claim to culture. On this matter, however, I
reminded him that wine was often expensive in England, that beer
disagreed with many people, and that some who felt the need of a
stimulant were thus driven to whisky and water.
When the master and Desmoulin wandered down to the Thames towing-path,
they found fresh food for observation and comment among the boating
fraternity. With some gay parties were damsels whose disregard for
decorum was strongly reminiscent of Asnieres and Joinville-le-Pont; and
it was slightly embarrassing to stroll near the river in the evening,
when at every few yards one found young couples exchanging kisses in the
shadows of the trees. After all it was surprise rather than embarrassment
which the exiles experienced, for they had scarcely imagined that English
training was conducive to such public endearments.
At a later stage a bicycle was procured for the master, and he was then
able to extend his sphere of observation; but in the earlier days at
Oatlands his rambles were confined to the vicinity of Walton and
Weybridge. At the latter village he laid in a fresh stock of linen, and
was soon complaining of the exiguous proportions of English shirts. The
Frenchman, it should be remembered, is a man of many gestures, and
desires all possible freedom of action for his arms. His shirt is cut
accordingly, and a superabundance rather than a deficiency of material in
length as well as breadth is the result. But the English shirt-maker
proceeds upon different lines; he always seems afraid of wasting a few
inches of longcloth, and thus if the ordinary ready-made shirt on sale at
shops of the average class is dressy-looking enough, it is also often
supremely uncomfortable to those who like their ease. Such, at least, was
the master's experience; and in certain respects, said he, the English
shirt was not only uncomfortable, but indecorous as well. This astonished
him with a nation which claimed to show so much regard for the
proprieties.
The desire to clothe himself according to his wont became so keen that M.
Desmoulin decided to make an expedition to Paris. All this time Mme. Zola
had remained alone at the house in the Rue de Bruxelles, outside which,
as at Medan (where the Zolas have their country residence), detectives
were permanently stationed. Mme. Zola was shadowed wherever she went, the
idea, of course, being that she would promptly follow her husband abroad.
She had, however, ample duties to discharge in Paris. At the same time
she much wished to send her husband a trunkful of clothes as well as the
materials for a new book he had planned, in order that he might have some
occupation in his sorrow and loneliness.
Most people are by this time aware that M. Zola's gospel is work. In
diligent study and composition he finds some measure of solace for every
trouble. At times it is hard for him to take up the pen, but he forces
himself to do so, and an hour later he has largely banished sorrow and
anxiety, and at times has even dulled physical pain. He himself, heavy
hearted as he was when the first novelty of his strolls around Oatlands
had worn off, felt that he must have something to do, and was therefore
well pleased at the prospect of receiving the materials for his new book,
'Fecondite.'
At that date he certainly did not imagine that the whole of this work
would be written in England, that his exile would drag on month after
month till winter would come and spring return, followed once more by
summer. In those days we used to say: 'It will all be over in a
fortnight, or three weeks, or a month at the latest;' and again and again
did our hopes alternately collapse and revive. Thus the few chapters of
'Fecondite,' which he thought he might be able to pen in England,
multiplied and multiplied till they at last became thirty--the entire
work.
It was M. Desmoulin who brought the necessary materials--memoranda,
cuttings, and a score of scientific works--from Paris. And at the same
time he had a trunk with him full of clothes which had been smuggled in
small parcels out of M. Zola's house, carried to the residence of a
friend, and there properly packed. Desmoulin also brought a hand camera,
which likewise proved very acceptable to the master, and enabled him to
take many little photographs--almost a complete pictorial record of his
English experiences.
During Desmoulin's absence the master remained virtually alone at
Oatlands, and as he still cared nothing for newspapers I sent him a few
books from my shelves, and, among others, Stendhal's 'La Chartreuse de
Parme.' He wrote me afterwards; 'I am very grateful to you for the books
you sent. Now that I am utterly alone they enabled me to spend a pleasant
day yesterday. I am reading "La Chartreuse." I am without news from
France. If you hear of anything really serious pray let me know about
it.'
By this time proper arrangements had been made with regard to M. Zola's
correspondence. His exact whereabouts were kept absolutely secret even
from his most intimate friends. Everybody, his wife and Maitre Labori
also, addressed their letters to Wareham's office in Bishopsgate Street.
Here the correspondence was enclosed in a large envelope and redirected
to Oatlands. With regard to visitors Wareham and I had decided to give
the master's address to none. Wareham intended to take their cards,
ascertain their London address, and then refer the matter through me to
M. Zola. Later on, a regular supply of French newspapers was arranged,
and those journals were re-transmitted to the master by Wareham or
myself.
On the other hand, I usually addressed M. Zola's letters for him to the
house of a trusty friend in Paris. This precaution was a necessary one,
as M. Zola's handwriting is so extremely characteristic and so well known
in France. And thus we were convinced that any letter arriving in Paris
addressed by him would immediately be sent to the 'Cabinet Noir,' where
all suspicious correspondence is opened by certain officials, who
immediately report the contents to the Government.
It has been pretended that of recent years this secret service has been
abolished; but such is by no means the case. It flourishes to-day in the
same way as it flourished under the Second Empire, when Napoleon III.
made a point of acquainting himself with the private correspondence of
his own relatives, his ministers, and his generals. After the revolution
of September 1870, hundreds of copies of more or less compromising
letters, covert attacks on or criticisms of the Imperial Government,
_billets-doux_ also between Imperial princes and their mistresses, and so
forth, were found at the Palace of the Tuilleries; and some of them were
even published by a commission nominated by the Republican Government.
Much of the same kind of thing goes on to-day, and M. Zola, when in Paris
during the earlier stages of the Dreyfus case, had made it a point to
trust no letter of the slightest importance to the Postal Service. On one
occasion, a short time after his arrival in England, we had reason to
fear that a letter addressed by me to Paris had gone astray, and all
correspondence on M. Zola's side was thereupon suspended for several
days. However, the missing letter turned up at last, and from that time
till the conclusion of the master's exile the arrangements devised
between him, Wareham, and myself worked without a hitch.
VII
EXCURSIONS AND ALARUMS
Already at the time of M. Zola's arrival in London I had received a
summons to serve upon the jury at the July Sessions of the Central
Criminal court. I had been excused from service on a previous occasion,
but this time I had no valid excuse to offer, and it followed that I must
either serve or else pay such a fine as the Common Serjeant might direct.
There is always a certain element of doubt in these matters; and while I
might perhaps luckily escape service after a day or two, on the other
hand, I might be kept at the Old Bailey for more than a week. At any
other time I should have accepted my fate without a murmur; but I was
greatly worried as to what might befall M. Zola during my absence in
London, and I more than once thought of defaulting and 'paying up.' But
the master would not hear of it. He was now located at Oatlands, and felt
sure that he would have no trouble there. Moreover, said he, it would
always be possible for me to run down now and again of an evening, dine
with him, and attend to such little matters as might require my help.
So, on the Monday morning when the sessions opened, I duly repaired to
town; and on the journey up, I saw in the 'Daily Chronicle' the
announcement of M. Zola's recent presence at the Grosvenor Hotel. This
gave me quite a shock. So the Press was on the right track at last!
Starting from the Grosvenor Hotel, might not the reporters trace the
master to Wimbledon, and thence to his present retreat? I had no time for
hesitation. My instructions, moreover, were imperative. For the benefit
of M. Zola personally, and for the benefit of the whole Dreyfus cause, I
had orders to deny everything. So I drove to the Press Association
offices, sent up a contradiction of the 'Daily Chronicle's' statement,
and then hurried up Ludgate Hill to the Court, where my name was soon
afterwards called.
I found myself on the second or third jury got together, and that day I
was not empanelled. But on the morrow I was required to do duty; and
between then and the latter part of the week I sat upon four or five
cases--all crimes of violence, and one described in the indictment as
murder. This position was the more unpleasant for me, as I am, by strong
conviction, an adversary of capital punishment. I absolutely deny the
right of society to put any man or any woman to death, whatever be his or
her crime. My proper course then seemed to lie in the direction of a
public statement, which would have created, I suppose, some little
sensation or scandal; but happily the prosecuting counsel in his very
first words abandoned the count of murder for that of manslaughter, and I
was thereby relieved from my predicament.
The cases on which I sat, and those to which I listened while I remained
in attendance, need not be particularised. I will merely mention that
they were nearly all due to drink. Mr. Justice Lawrance, who sat upon the
bench, was visibly impressed by the circumstance, to which he more than
once alluded in his summings up. In one case he was so good as to refer
to a question, put by me from the jury box, as a proper and pertinent
one, at which I naturally felt vastly complimented. On the second or
third day, either before the proceedings began or when the Court rose for
luncheon--I do not exactly remember which--a gentleman approached me, and
introduced himself as a member of the Press. Said he, 'I have been asking
Mr. Avory for you. You are Mr. Vizetelly, I believe?'
'That is my name,' I answered.
'Well, I have come to speak to you about M. Zola's presence in England.'
I should here mention that, in spite of my contradiction of the
'Chronicle' story, there remained some people who had reason to believe
it. Moreover, it had been more or less confirmed by the 'Morning Leader,'
and some editors, rightly surmising that if M. Zola were in London he
would very likely be in communication with his usual translator, had
despatched reporters to my house, where my wife had seen them. On
learning that I was quietly during jury service at the Old Bailey, some
had apparently concluded that I was not concerned in M. Zola's movements,
which, so it happened, was the very conclusion I had desired them to
arrive at. One gentleman, however, not content with his repulse at my
house, had followed me to the Court.
I answered his inquiries with a variety of suggestions. Zola in England,
and in London too! Well, we had heard that before, said I. But was it a
probable course for the novelist to take? He knew no English, and had but
few personal friends in England. His portraits, however, were in several
shops and in many newspapers. And only a few years previously he had been
seen by a thousand English pressmen and others. So would he not be liable
to recognition almost immediately? Now, the only modern language besides
French of which M. Zola had any knowledge was Italian. And if I were in
his place, I said, I should go to Italy--for instance, to one of the
little towns in the North, whence, if needful, one could cross over into
Switzerland; though, of course, there was little likelihood that the
Italian Government would ever surrender the distinguished writer to his
persecutors.
Continuing in this strain I gave my interviewer material for a very
plausible article, which I remember was duly published, and which thus
helped to divert attention from the right scent.
At the week-end, having given considerable time to jury duties, I was
compelled to spend Saturday morning in London on business, and in the
afternoon I allowed myself a few hours' relaxation. Reaching Wimbledon
about eight in the evening I called on Wareham, who received me with a
great show of satisfaction; for, said he, my services had been required
for some hours past and nobody had known where I might be. That day, it
seemed, just before Wareham had left his Bishopsgate Street office, he
had received a visit from a most singular-looking little Frenchman, who
had presented one of Maitre Labori's visiting cards and requested an
interview with M. Zola. Questioned as to his business, the only
explanation he would give was that he had with him a document in a sealed
envelope which he must place in M. Zola's own hands. Wareham had wired to
me on the matter, but owing to my absence from home had of course
received no reply. Then, on reaching Wimbledon, he had called on me and
found me out. And, finally, he had gone down to Oatlands and had there
seen M. Zola, who had handed him a note authorising Maitre Labori's
messenger to call at the hotel on the morrow. However, the messenger and
his manners had seemed very suspicious to Wareham--as, indeed, they
afterwards seemed to me--and the question arose, was he a genuine envoy,
was the writing on Maitre Labori's card perchance a forgery, and what was
the document in a sealed envelope which was to be handed to nobody but M.
Zola himself? Well, said I at a guess, perhaps it is a copy of the
Versailles judgment, and this is simply an impudent attempt to serve it.
Wareham still had Zola's note in his possession, and we resolved to go to
town that evening to interview the messenger and extract from him some
decisive proof of his bona fides before allowing matters to go any
further.
The envoy's address was the Salisbury Hotel, Salisbury Court, Fleet
Street, which I thought a curious one, being in the very centre of the
London newspaper district; and all the way up to town my suspicions of
having to do with a 'plant' steadily increased. It was quite ten o'clock
when we reached the hotel, and on inquiring for our party found that he
had gone to bed.
'Well,' said Wareham, sharply, 'he must be roused. We must see him at
once.'
I spoke to the same effect, and the hotel servants looked rather
surprised. I have an idea that they fancied we had come to arrest the
man.
In about ten minutes he was brought downstairs. His appearance was most
unprepossessing. He was very short, with a huge head and a remarkable
shock of coal-black hair. Having hastily risen from bed, he had retained
his pyjamas, but a long frock-coat hung nearly to his slippers, and in
one hand he carried a pair of gloves, and in the other a huge eccentric
silk hat of the true chimney-pot type. These were details, and one might
have passed them over. But the man's face was sadly against him. He had
the slyest eyes I have ever seen; that peculiar shifty glance which
invariably sets one against an individual. And thus I became more and
more convinced that we had to deal with some piece of trickery.
We entered the smoking-room where the gas was burning low. A gentleman
stopping at the hotel was snoring in solitary state in one of the arm
chairs. Reaching a table near a window we sat down and at once engaged in
battle.
'I have not brought you a definite answer,' said Wareham to the envoy,
'but this gentleman is in M. Zola's confidence, and wishes further proof
of your bona fides before allowing you to see M. Zola.'
Then I took up the tale, now in French, now in English, for the envoy
spoke both languages. Who was he? I asked. Did he claim to have received
Labori's card from Labori himself? What was the document in the envelope
which he would only deliver to M. Zola in person? And he replied that he
was a diamond-broker. Did I know So-and-So and So-and-So of Hatton
Garden? They knew him well, they did business with him; they could vouch
for his honorability. But no, I was not acquainted with So-and-So and
So-and-So. I never bought diamonds. Besides, it was ten o'clock on
Saturday night, and the parties mentioned were certainly not at their
offices for me to refer to them.
Afterwards the little envoy began to speak of his family connections and
his Paris friends, mentioning various well-known names. But the proofs I
desired were not forth-coming; and when he finally admitted that he had
not received Maitre Labori's card from that gentleman himself, all my
suspicions revived. True he added that it had been given him by a
well-known Revisionist leader to whom Maitre Labori, in a moment of
emergency, having nobody of his own whom he could send abroad, had handed
it.
But what was in the envelope? That was the great question. The envoy
could or would not answer it. He knew nothing certain on that point. Then
we--Wareham and I--brought forward our heavy artillery. We could not
allow a document to be handed to M. Zola under such mysterious
conditions. We must see it. But no, the envoy had strict instructions to
the contrary; he could not show it to us. In that case, we rejoined, he
might take it back to Paris. He had produced no proof of any of his
assertions; for all we knew he might have told us a fairy tale, and the
mysterious document might simply be a copy of the much dreaded judgment
of Versailles. This suggestion produced a visible impression on the
little man, and for half an hour we sat arguing the point. Finally he
began to compliment us: 'Oh! you guard him well!' he said. 'I shall tell
them all about it when I get back to Paris. But you do wrong to distrust
me; I am honourable. I am well known in Hatton Gardens. I have done
business there, ten, twelve years with So-and-So and So-and-So. I speak
the truth: you may believe me.'
We shrugged our shoulders. For my part, I could not shake off the bad
impression which the envoy had made on me. The gleams of craft and
triumph which now and again I had detected in his eyes were not to my
liking. Assuredly few men are responsible for any physical repulsiveness;
we cannot all be 'Belvedere' Apollos; but then the envoy was not only of
the ugly, but also the cunning-looking class. Yet a more honourable man
never breathed. He at once thrust one hand into the depths of a capacious
inner pocket, produced the mysterious envelope, and opened it in our
presence. It contained simply a long letter from Maitre Labori,
accompanied by a document concerning the prosecution which had been
instituted with reference to the infamous articles that Ernest Judet, of
the 'Petit Journal,' had recently written, accusing Zola's father of
theft and embezzlement whilst he was a wardrobe officer in the French
Foreign Legion in Algeria. It was needful that Zola should see this
document, and return it by messenger to Paris immediately.
The affair in question is still _sub judice_, and I must therefore speak
of it with some reticence. But all who are interested in M. Zola's origin
and career will do well to read the admirable volume written by M.
Jacques Dhur, and entitled 'Le Pere d'Emile Zola,' which the Societe
Libre d'Edition des Gens de Lettres (30, Rue Laffitte, Paris) published a
short time ago. This will show them how strong are the presumptions that
the documents cited by Judet in proof of his abominable charges are rank
forgeries--similar to those of Henry and Lemercier-Picard! In this
connection it afforded me much pleasure to be able to supply certain
extracts from Francesco Zola's works at the British Museum, showing how
subsequent to the date at which the novelist's father is alleged to have
purloined State money he was received with honour by King Louis-Philippe,
the Prince de Joinville, the Minister of War, and other high personages
of the time--incidents which all tend to establish the falsity of the
accusations by which Judet, in his venomous spite and malignity, hoped to
cast opprobrium on the parentage of my dear master and friend.
But I must return to Maitre Labori's envoy. When I had seen the contents
of his envelope I heartily apologised to him for the suspicions which I
had cast upon his good faith. At this he smiled more maliciously and
triumphantly than ever, and then candidly remarked: 'Well, if you have
tested me, I have tested you, and I shall be able to tell all our friends
in Paris that M. Zola is in safe hands.'
According to our previous agreement we re-sealed the envelope, writing
across it that it had been opened in the presence of Wareham and myself.
And afterwards our reconciliation also was 'sealed' over a friendly
glass. Nevertheless the envoy never saw M. Zola. M. Desmoulin luckily
turned up on the morrow, and, armed with a fresh note from the master,
persuaded our little French friend to hand him the documents.
We left the Salisbury Hotel, Wareham and I, well pleased to find that our
suspicions had been unfounded. Nevertheless the whole conversation of the
last hour had left its mark on us; and, for my part, I was in much the
same state of mind as in the old days of the siege of Paris, when the spy
mania led to so many amusing incidents. Thus, the circumstance of finding
two persons at the corner of Salisbury Square as we left it--two persons
who were speaking in French and who eyed us very suspiciously--revived my
alarm. They even followed us along Fleet Street towards the Ludgate
Circus, and though we dodged them through the cavernous Ludgate Hill
Railway Station, across sundry courts and past the stores of Messrs.
Spiers and Pond, we again found them waiting for us on our return towards
the embankment, determined, so it seemed, to convoy us home. We hastened
our steps and they hastened theirs. We loitered, they loitered also. At
last Wareham made me dive into a side street and thence into a maze of
courts, and though the others seemed bent on following us, we at last
managed to give them the slip.