THE QUATORZE OF TESTING
Big Bertha, or rather her successors, kept up a sporadic bombardment of
Paris in April and May. A few shells fell again in June. But the effect
of the bombardment, materially and morally, was nothing like that of the
original Big Bertha. The culmination of horror and indignation was
reached on Good Friday afternoon, when a hundred people were killed in
the church of Saint-Gervais. After that the Germans made no other big
killing. They came to realize that Big Bertha could not intimidate or
demoralize Paris. Where the shells fell, however, we shall never forget.
I used to listen with awe (and a bit of envy) to the stories of people
who passed through the siege of 1870. I remember well when I was a child
being told by my father's friends, as we drove in the city, "A shell
burst here in 1870 and tore the front out of a shop: I was sitting at a
café near by"; or, "On that spot the Versailles troops stormed a
barricade and lined its defenders against a wall--there was no quarter."
Now I have my stories to tell! There is hardly a street between the
Boulevard Montparnasse and the Seine that is not associated in my mind
with an aeroplane bomb or a Big Bertha shell. The compensation for
having lived through these days will be the privilege of telling
Americans who come to see us "all about it." As the years go by, I have
no doubt that legends will form themselves in my mind and that I shall
do my full share of innocent and unintentional lying. You want to
impress your listener: so you must make things graphic.
But I shall never be eloquent enough to enhance upon or exaggerate the
nervous tension through which we passed during the spring and early
summer of 1918. From the moment we learned the news of the collapse of
the Fifth British Army, which brought the Germans to Montdidier, until
the tide of battle was definitely turned, we never had an easy moment.
The strain was worse than in 1914. For it lasted months instead of
weeks, and reverses after four years of fighting, with all the world
against Germany, were more difficult to understand and to stand. The
British were just recovering themselves when the Germans fell on the
French, captured the entire Craonne plateau for which we had been
struggling for three years, reoccupied Soissons, and started to advance
once more from the Aisne to the Marne.
It was not easy to be an optimist. We had faith in the holding ability
of the French and British armies; we believed that the Germans were
shooting their last bolt; and we knew that the Americans were arriving
in large numbers. But we had been fooled so often about internal
conditions in Germany! And Russia and the submarine warfare were factors
concerning which we had no exact data. The people who recreate the past
with the advantage of hindsight will tell that they never worried a
minute. They knew things were coming out all right! To listen to them
one would think that they expected all along to happen just what did
happen in the way it did happen. When I hear this kind of talk now I
know that it was either a case of
"Where ignorance is bliss
'Tis folly to be wise,"
or hopeless bumptiousness. How strange it is that many of those who tell
you now that the Germans never had a chance ran away from Paris in 1914
and again in 1918.
Parisians passed no fortnight in which there was more anxiety and
uncertainty to their beloved city than the first two weeks of July. The
Germans were widening their pocket. They occupied the right bank of the
Marne from Château-Thierry to Dormans. They crossed the Marne. It was
too late for Germany to hope to win the war. But would they get to
Paris?
On July Fourth I was in reconquered Alsace and my husband was speaking
at Tours. He telegraphed me to join him at Boulogne-Sur-Mer on July
seventh. It took me three days to go in slow trains, with an occasional
lift by motor, the entire length of the front. I saw everywhere reserves
of troops and endless lines of motor-trucks and trains with cannon and
ammunition. The American uniform was ubiquitous. All this gave me a hope
and confidence I had not felt in Paris, where I knew that the Government
was making more elaborate preparations than in 1914 to evacuate the
city. Herbert and I returned to Paris from Etaples on July ninth. The
direct route by Abbéville and Amiens was under the German cannon, so we
had to make a wide detour by Tréport and Beauvais. We both had a raging
fever and it was all we could do to get home from the Gare de Nord.
Doctor Charon came early in the morning and told us that we were down
with the _grippe espagnole_, the plague that was sweeping France and
that had much to do with the general depression. Many a soldier who had
gone through four years of battle unscathed succumbed to this mysterious
disease. It hit one suddenly and the end came quickly. On the other
hand, if the first forty-eight hours passed without complications,
recovery was as rapid. Despite the protests of Doctor Charon, Herbert
got out of bed on the morning of the thirteenth to go to Lyons to the
inauguration of the Pont Président-Wilson. I was up to celebrate the
Quatorze. After it was over, I was glad of the illness that came to keep
me in Paris for this day when we whistled to keep up our courage. Had
the Spanish grip not interfered, I should have returned to my children
in the Little Gray Home near Saint-Nazaire.
The military operations in July, 1918, were not critical from the
standpoint of the safety of France and the success of the Allied cause.
The size of the army America was sending to France put the Germans in
such a hopeless inferiority of numbers that as soon as the table of the
landing of the first million was published we knew that the Germans were
doomed _if the fighting continued_. But we had a growing number of
strikes and a wide-spread defeatist campaign in the rear to contend
with. If Paris were taken, what would be the effect on French public
opinion? This was the stake the Germans were fighting for, and they knew
it was their only hope of salvation.
Never have I loved Paris more than on the Quatorze of testing. Music and
dancing were lacking, of course: for since 1914 we had not danced in
public out of respect to the dead and music had been barred in cafés.
Military bands had other places to play than in Paris. But happen what
might, Parisians were determined to celebrate the fête just as if the
Germans had not crossed the Marne. I went out for the day with friends.
We smiled and laughed and tried to have a good time. The relaxation
helped all to bear the burden. Within limits hedonism has its merits.
"Eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die" is the philosophy that
wins out when a crisis is being faced.
I went to the review in the morning, and made a round of the streets and
the Champs-Elysées Quarter that had been rebaptized in honor of our
Allies. The Paris Municipal Council cannot be accused of lacking
optimism in regard to persons as well as events. Belief in victory and
in the permanent esteem for those who were bringing it to pass led to
changes of names that may not in retrospect have popular approval. The
Avenue du Trocadéro has become the Avenue du Président-Wilson; the
Avenue d'Antin, the Avenue Victor-Emanuel III; the Avenue de l'Alma, the
Avenue Georges V; the Quai Débilly, the Quai de Tokio; part of the Rue
Pierre-Charron, the Rue Pierre I de Serbie; and the Place de l'Alma, the
Place des Alliés.
When Herbert returned from the Quatorze at Lyons, we celebrated the
Franco-American victory of the Marne with a dinner at Parc Montsouris.
Whoever has been to the Pavillon du Lac becomes a regular client. We
discovered this unpretentious little restaurant many years ago when we
were exploring with Christine and the baby-carriage. Ever since Xavier
has been our friend. Xavier does not need to be on the Grands
Boulevards. He prepares the choicest dishes with utmost confidence that
his friends will bring their friends to Montsouris. The Pavillon du Lac
is nearly a mile from the nearest Métro station and no taxicabs are to
be found out there by the fortifications. But difficulty of
transportation is more than compensated for by the restfulness of the
Pavillon du Lac, its _cuisine_--and Xavier, with his good humor and
witticisms, waiting on the table. You eat on the _terrasse_ facing the
park, with its waterfall and lake, and you feel that it is all
yours--park and restaurant. From _patron_ to _chef_, everybody calls you
by name, and most of the people at the tables are your friends. In the
salon is a piano. You dance to your heart's content. Xavier dances with
you.
When I try to write of the Pavillon du Lac, memories crowd in on me
thick and fast. I could have put this restaurant in almost any chapter
of my Paris vistas.
But what place could a dinner at Montsouris enter more appropriately
than on the night of July 18, 1918? We were celebrating better than we
knew. The afternoon _communiqué_ brought with it the certainty that the
miracle of 1914 had been repeated and that Paris was saved again. Did we
realize that the day's fighting was the turning point of the war? I
think not. But we acted as if we did.
Around our table were gathered the American General commanding the
troops in Paris, my husband's chief on the Committee of Public
Information, a French editor, colleagues of the American and British
press, and one of our dearest French friends, whose work for his country
in the hour of trial was bearing splendid fruit. Xavier was at his best.
Had I not recently been in his beloved Alsace from which he had been an
exile since childhood? From _hors d'œuvres_ to _liqueurs_, there was
an uninterrupted flow of good cheer. The strain of years was passing
away.
The climax came when Jim Kerney picked up his cordial glass, twirled it
with his thumb, looked at it regretfully, and sighed,
"The fellow who blew this glass was certainly short of breath."
[Illustration: Old Paris is disappearing]