THE CHERCHE MIDI
In the automobile which brought us back to Paris, we were guarded by
a phenomenon of nature--a taciturn French soldier. His rifle dangled
handily across his knee; he gazed at the passing scenery and was dumb
to all questions. He was even downright mean; for when a tire blew up,
causing half an hour's delay, he would not allow us to stretch our
cramped legs in the road.
He would not even let us talk English among ourselves. Once when some
one was relating a tale of German atrocity he had heard, our guard
scowled blackly at us, lifting his rifle from his knee; and I whispered
hastily: "Quiet, or we may become atrocities ourselves!"
We halted before the headquarters of the Military Governor in the
Boulevard des Invalides; before the war it had been a school for girls.
Although it was late in the evening when we arrived the sidewalk was
crowded, as usual, with civilians. The chauffeur waited while the gates
into the courtyard were opened. The crowd caught sight of the armed
escort and as we moved forward we caught murmurs of "prisoners of war"
and "spies."
We smiled at that--for in a few moments, thought we, this foolishness
would all be over, we would be free again. Our "detention" by the
jolly Colonel was already a memory, listed in among our "interesting
experiences." Speaking in French to pacify our guard, we blithely
planned a belated dinner at a boulevard restaurant. We were ravenous;
we decided upon its menu from hors-d'œuvres to cheese and were settling
the question of wine when some one said:
"We seem to be waiting here a long time. Do you suppose they'd keep us
prisoners until morning?"
Our soldier, who by this time had evidently become a little tired of
his silence, told us curtly that the Captain in charge of the party,
who had preceded us in another car, was conferring as to our fate with
officials inside. We were so surprised at this gratuitous information
that we offered one of our few remaining cigarettes, which was promptly
accepted.
The Captain finally ran down the steps of the building. The other
prisoners, who rode in the car with him, had been given some liberty,
and were walking about the courtyard. He called to them and said
something which seemed to throw them into fits of rage and dismay.
Then he came to our car, and we knew at once that our dinner, like the
Kaiser's, was indefinitely postponed. The Captain did not speak to
us at all. He merely ordered the chauffeur to follow the car ahead,
then retraced his steps. All the other prisoners but one had reseated
themselves.
This one, the amateur journalist who had at one time been an officer
in the American militia and was also the relative of a rich man, was
standing beside the car. The Captain curtly motioned him to enter; he
shook his head vigorously. We could not hear all of the conversation
that followed, but it was brief. Finally the Captain raised his voice:
"So you will not get into the automobile?" "No," replied the American.
"I am an ex-army officer and decline to be treated in such fashion." He
also mentioned his influential relative.
I admit that at the moment my sympathies were somewhat with my fellow
countryman; but even then I could not help feeling how utterly futile
was his objection, on whatever ground it was based. Throughout our
entire period of arrest, we--the two friends with whom I had left
Paris and myself--had followed but one rule. Inasmuch as we had
suddenly found ourselves in a situation where the chief argument was a
rifle and cartridge, we always did exactly as we were ordered. To rebel
against soldiers and officers who were only following the orders of
their superiors seemed mere folly. The fate of the ex-militia man who
declined to enter the automobile proved this point.
The Captain apparently had never heard of his wealthy relative, for
he silently signaled to a soldier standing on the steps. The soldier
placed the point of his bayonet gently against the stomach of the
prisoner, who forthwith backed up the steps of the car and fell across
the knees of his companions, who had been cursing him audibly for
"playing the fool." The Captain seated himself beside his chauffeur and
both cars started out into the night.
We traversed many streets, but I kept peering out of my window and knew
our general direction. In a few minutes we drew up in a side street
leading from the Boulevard Raspail, before a grimy old building. A
soldier with a rifle at salute stood beside its heavy doors. I knew
that building. I had passed it every day during many months, for it was
just a few blocks from my house and on the direct route to my office.
I had glanced at it curiously as I passed. I had read its history.
I wondered if it were as bad on the inside as some of the history
depicted.
The doors opened, and I confess I shuddered as we slipped softly into
the thick blackness of the courtyard. There was not a sound for a
moment, after the chauffeurs cut off the engines. Then a door to the
right opened, throwing out a shaft of light. The Captain descended from
the car ahead. At the same moment the doors closed with a depressing
crash of iron. In that moment my sensations were of an entirely
original character.
We all got out of the cars, the prisoners ahead joining us, and stood
together in an angry group.
"Where are we?" asked some one.
"Don't you know?" the ex-militia man snarled. "They've landed us at
Saint Lazare!"
"Saint Lazare!" cried several in unison.
One of my friends snorted. "Don't be silly. St. Lazare is the prison
for women, not war correspondents."
I roused from my gloomy meditations to break into the conversation.
"I'll tell you where we are if you really care to know," I said. "We're
in the Cherche Midi--the foremost military prison of France. This is
the place where Dreyfus awaited his trial. This is the place of the
historic rats, etc."
I ceased abruptly. Here I was, a bare ten minutes' walk from my
home--and I might as well have been a thousand miles. The clang of
those doors had shut off all the world. How long did they expect to
keep us there? A night? A week? A month? Perhaps until the war was
over? What could we do about it? Nothing. Those doors shut off all
hope. We could get no word to any one if our captors did not desire
it. We would remain there exactly as long as they wished. No matter
what we thought about it--no matter how innocent we were of military
misdemeanor. We were prisoners of war in the Cherche Midi--and I
understood the Dreyfus case better.
Just before we filed into the examination room whence came the shaft of
light, the sage of our party, who had suggested back in the courtyard
that we be good prisoners until the right moment arrived, tapped me on
the shoulder and spoke in my ear:
"Now's the time," he said. "We must kick now or never. I will begin the
rumpus and you follow--and kick hard."
They lined us up in the tiny office where a lieutenant duly inscribed
our names and nefarious profession in the great register. He slammed
the book shut, and began directions to an orderly about conducting us
to our cells--when the sage spoke.
"What about dinner?" he began.
"Too late," said the officer. "It's midnight."
"Not too late to be hungry," was the reply. "We have had nothing to eat
since noon. Do you want it printed that prisoners are starved in the
Cherche Midi?"
The officer reflected. He then consulted with several orderlies and
finally stated that there was no available food in the prison, but that
he would permit us, at our expense, to have dinner served from a hotel
near-by. We agreed to this and the orderlies departed.
This arranged two things which we desired: food--for we were really
famished--and time to plan our campaign for liberty before being
separated into cells. While the orderlies were gone we made an
argumentative onslaught on the Lieutenant in his little cubby-hole
office, separated by a low partition from the big gloomy hall where we
were told to await our dinner.
We told him in detail who we were, how we happened to be there, all
the time insisting on the injustice of our treatment. He replied that
although he could not discuss the merits of our case, it might interest
us to know that his orders were to keep us for eight days in solitary
confinement, not allowing us to even talk with each other, after that
dinner which the orderlies were now spreading on a big table.
Eight days!--and we had already been there a year--or so it seemed.
Eight days! Why it was an eternity. And we would not stand it. The
fight in all of us was finally aroused. They could drag us to cells and
keep us; yes, but dragging would be necessary. We assured him of that.
And then the eagle began to scream. I have often wished when traveling
in Europe that so many American tourists would not so constantly keep
America and Americanism in the foreground of everything they thought
and said and did--but on that night in the Cherche Midi I was as
blatant and noisy and proud an American as ever there was. We waved
the Stars and Stripes and shouted the Declaration of Independence at
the now bewildered officer until he begged us to desist. Earlier in
our conversation we had discussed the mighty effects of journalism
and how it visited its pleasures and its displeasures. Now we quoted
the Constitution of the United States and produced our passports. We
demanded an immediate audience with the American Ambassador.
Our dinner was waiting, and the officer declared finally that if we
would only eat it he would see what he could do for us, to the extent
of telephoning to the Military Governor. We could hear his part of the
telephone conversation as we attacked our food. We never learned with
whom he was talking, but he made it strong. He never had such persons
as ourselves inside his prison and he would be devoutly thankful to be
rid of us. And besides--this was whispered but we caught the drift of
it--they were Americans, these prisoners, and perhaps it might be just
as well to send some word about them to the American Embassy.
There was more that we could not hear, but finally he informed us that
an officer was coming from headquarters to talk with us; that we were
to wait where we were.
I do not know what influence, aside from the telephone conversation,
intervened in our behalf that night. But I am sure that conversation
had little to do with it beyond perhaps securing an immediate rather
than deferred action. Perhaps it was an accident, perhaps a change of
opinion at the Military Governor's headquarters as to the sentence that
had been passed upon us. At any rate, at the moment we were paying for
our dinner and demanding a receipt dated from inside the prison walls
(every one of us kept an eye open to newspaper copy in demanding the
receipt in such fashion) the door was flung open and a high Government
official whom most of us knew personally, entered the room.
His first act was to fling the money from the hands of the hotel
servant back upon the table--snatch the receipts, and tear them in
pieces.
"Gentlemen, the dinners are on me," was his greeting.
A few hours later the military attaché of the American Embassy who had
been roused from his bed, explained that Mr. Herrick would undertake
the personal responsibility for our parole. The gates of the Cherche
Midi opened. The heavy arm of military authority had lightened; but the
free road to the battle front was still closed.