ARMISTICE NIGHT
On the eleventh day of the eleventh month at the eleventh hour, Paris
heard the news. The big guns of Mont Valérian and the forts of Ivry
roared. The anti-aircraft cannon of the Buttes-Chaumont,
Issy-les-Moulineaux, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the Place
de la Bastille took up the message. The submarine moored by the Pont de
la Concorde spoke for the navy. And then the church bells began to ring.
We had heard the tocsin sounded by those same bells at four o'clock on
the afternoon of August 1, 1914. France to arms! We had heard those same
cannon during more than four years announcing the arrival of Tauben and
Zeppelins and Gothas over Paris. But Paris kept the faith and never
doubted that this day would come. The armistice was signed. The war was
over. The victory was ours.
In the Rue Campagne-Première artists' studios are in the buildings with
workingmen's lodgings. House painter and canvas painter work side by
side; writer and printer and book-binder, sculptor, cobbler, and
mattress maker live in the same court. Our little community could exist
by itself, for we have within a few hundred feet all that we need,
tailor and laundress, baker and butcher, restaurant and milk woman, the
stationer who sells newspapers and notions, and the hardware shop where
artists' materials can be had. During these years of danger and
discouragement and depression we have exchanged hopes and fears as we
have bought and sold and worked. We have welcomed the _permissionniares_,
we have shared in the bereavements of almost every family, and we have
greeted the birth of each baby as if it were our own. I was in my studio
when the message of victory arrived. Windows in the large court opened
instantly, and then we hurried down the staircase to pour forth, hand in
hand, arm in arm, into the street. We kissed each other. Flags appeared
in every window and on every vehicle.
The Boulevard du Montparnasse was ablaze with flags and bunting, and
processions were forming. Hands reached out to force me into line. I
managed to break away when I got to the door of my home for the crowd
paused to salute the huge American flag. Herbert, who had reached the
apartment first, was hanging from our balcony. My four children were in
the hall when the elevator stopped. School had been dismissed. They
danced around me. Mimi the five-year-old cried: "No more Gothas, no more
submarines, we can go home to see grandma, and the Americans finished
the war!"
"It is peace, Mimi, peace!" I said.
"What is peace?" asked Mimi bewildered.
I tried to explain. She could not understand. The world since she began
to talk and receive ideas had been air raids and bombardments, and life
was the mighty effort to kill Germans, who were responsible for all
that, and also for the fact that there was not enough butter and milk
and sugar. Mimi knew no more about peace than she did about cake and
boxes of candy and white bread. Questioning my seven year old, I found
that his notions of a world in which men would not fight were as vague
as Mimi's. Lloyd was frankly puzzled. Like Mimi, he believed that the
armistice meant no more Gothas and no more submarines, but he thought
surely that we would go on fighting the Germans. Had not they always
been fighting us? And if we weren't going to fight them any longer,
chasing them back to their own country, what in the world would we do?
And how could Uncle Clem and all the other soldier friends be happy
without any work?
The Artist dropped in for lunch. Together we had seen the war suddenly
come upon France. Together we were to see it as suddenly end. "Do you
know," he said, "everyone in the quarter is going to the Grands
Boulevards. Taxis have disappeared. The Métro and Nord-Sud are jammed.
We may have to foot it, like most people, but if we want to see the big
celebration, we must get over to the Rive Droite this afternoon."
The Artist was right. As Lester and Herbert and I went down the
Boulevard Raspail and the Boulevard Saint-Germain, we seemed to be
following the entire population of the Rive Gauche. To cross the bridge
was the work of half an hour. We kept near the coping, and had time to
see the crew of the submarine _Montgolfier_ engaged in more strenuous
work than sailing under the seas. The _Montgolfier_ was brought up to
the center of Paris a fortnight before to stimulate subscriptions to the
Victory Loan. The Parisians had been allowed to subscribe on board.
To-day the crew was busy trying to keep people off without pushing them
into the river. The crowd in the Place de la Concorde overflowed to the
Champs-Elysées and the Tuileries. Boys were climbing over the German
tanks. They sat astride the big cannon trophies and invaded the captured
aeroplanes parked on the terrace of the Tuileries. Only its steep sides
saved the obelisk.
For many months the horses of Marly, guarding the entrance to the
Champs-Elysées, had been protected by sand-bags and boxed up. A crowd
was tearing off the boards and punching holes in the bags. Air raids
were a thing of the past, and these hidden treasures were a painful
memory which Paris wanted to efface immediately. A gendarme interfered
only to point out the danger of the long nails in the ends of the
boards. He insisted that the nails should be taken out, and then the
boards were given to those who had torn them off. This kindly
interference appealed to the good sense of the crowd. Men were putting
the boards across their shoulders to parade the _poilus_ triumphantly
around the Place. The gendarme was awarded by the honor of a high seat,
too.
The statues of the cities of France formed splendid vantage-points, and
they were crowded with the agile and venturesome. Lille and Strasbourg,
however, were respected. When Lille was delivered last month, the statue
had been covered with flowers and wreaths and flags. As it symbolized
all the invaded regions, new offerings had been coming each day from the
cities and towns that were being freed. In the midst of the joy of the
armistice, this tangible evidence of victory was receiving more
offerings each hour. We could see people moving towards Lille with arms
aloft, in order that flowers should not be crushed in the jam. There was
something sublimely pagan about the offerings to the huge statue. And
Strasbourg! After nearly half a century, this was Strasbourg's day. The
first instinct of the crowd was to tear off the crepe. But the
government had taken precautions. Strasbourg was to be unveiled on the
day Marshal Foch and his army enter the city. So Strasbourg was
protected by a _cordon_ of the Garde Municipale.
On the Rue Royale side of the Hôtel de Coislin, which the American Red
Cross occupied since our entry into the war, the proclamation of the
mobilization was covered by some thoughtful person with glass. It has
remained through these years, defying wind and rain and
souvenir-hunters, a constant reminder in the busy thoroughfare of
Paris's last Great Day. This afternoon a fresh poster had been put
beside it. We read:
INHABITANTS OF PARIS
It is the victory, the triumphal victory! On all the fronts the
conquered enemy has laid down his arms. Blood is going to cease
flowing.
Let Paris come forth from the proud reserve which has won for her
the admiration of the world.
Let us give free course to our joy, to our enthusiasm, and let us
keep back our tears.
To witness to our great soldiers and to their incomparable chiefs
our infinite gratitude, let us display from all our houses the
French colors and those of our Allies.
Our dead can sleep in peace. The sublime sacrifice which they have
made of their life for the future of the race and for the safety of
France will not be sterile.
For them as for us "the day of glory has arrived."
Vive la République!
Vive la France Immortelle!
THE MUNICIPAL COUNCIL.
Paris had anticipated the advice of the City Fathers. Printers and bill
posters were not quick enough. But the proclamation was read with
enthusiasm. "_Ça y est cette fois-ci!_" cried a girl who had just come
out of Maxim's.
The cry was taken up immediately by all who were gathered around the
poster, and we heard it passing from mouth to mouth as we worked our
way toward the Madeleine. Nothing could express more appropriately and
concisely the feeling of the Parisians than this short sentence. _Cette
fois-ci! This time!_ There had been other times when rejoicing was not
in order. There had been false hopes, just as there had been false
fears. The certitude of victory _cette fois-ci_--a certitude coming so
miraculously a few months after incertitude and doubt--was the
explanation of the fierce mad joy expressed in the pandemonium around
us.
After a mile on the Grand Boulevards, a mile that reminded us of
football days, the Artist said, "This is great stuff now, and will be
greater stuff tonight. I wonder if we had not better try to get around
to other places before dark just to see, you know." Beyond the _Matin_
office, in a side street near Marguéry's, we saw a taxi. The chauffeur
was shaking a five franc note, and heaping curses on a man who lost
himself in the boulevard crowd. We ran to the chauffeur and told him we
would make it up to him for the _cochon_ who had not been good to him.
"Double fare, and a good _pourboire_ beside," Herbert insisted. The
Artist opened the door and started to help me in.
"By all the virgins in France, No! A thousand times no!" growled the
chauffeur, trying to keep us out.
"We meant triple fare," said Lester. I disappeared inside the cab.
"Where do _Messieurs-Dame_ want to go?" asked the chauffeur
despairingly.
"Rue Lafayette, Boulevard Haussmann, Etoile, Avenue des Champs-Elysées,
Invalides, and then we'll leave you at the Opéra," I suggested
hopefully.
"What you want is an aeroplane," he remonstrated. But triple fare is
triple fare. With a show of reluctance, he cranked and we rattled off.
An hour later, after we had escaped being taken by assault a dozen
times, resisted attempts to pull us out and put us out, promised to pay
for a broken window and a stolen lamp, and used cigarettes and
persuasive French on the man upon whose goodwill our happiness depended,
we found ourselves on the Avenue de l'Opéra. By this time the chauffeur
was resigned, so resigned that he tried to cross the Place de l'Opéra.
We were tied up in a mass of other rashly-guided vehicles until the
taxi's tires flattened out under the weight of a dozen Australians who
had climbed on our roof. We were cheerful about it, and the chauffeur
seemed to gather equanimity with misfortune. November 11, 1918, comes
only once in a lifetime. We abandoned our taxi and our money, and tried
it afoot again.
Fortune was with us. We arrived at the moment when Mademoiselle Chénal
appeared on the balcony of the Opéra and sang the "Marseillaise." There
was the stillness of death during the verse. But the prima donna's voice
was heard only in the first word of the chorus. When the crowd took up
the chorus, Paris lived one of the greatest moments of her history. Over
and over again Mademoiselle Chénal waved her flag, and the chorus was
repeated. Then she withdrew. Another verse would have been an
anti-climax. We were carried along the Boulevard des Italiens as far as
Appenrodt's. As Herbert and Lester were talking about the night, more
than four years ago, when they watched the crowd break the windows of
this and other German or supposedly German places, the arc lights along
the middle of the boulevard flashed on. Paris of peace days reappeared.
In the midst of it all, my maternal instinct set me worrying. What if
Alice, the _gouvernante_, had taken the children out into the crowd? I
had gone off without thinking of my chicks. We tried to telephone. On
the last day of the war that proved as impossible as on the first. My
escorts were quite willing to return to the Rive Gauche. There was no
reason why the celebration would not be just as interesting on the Boul'
Miche. I left Herbert and Lester on the terrace of the Café Soufflet,
and hurried back to the Boulevard du Montparnasse. When I reappeared
half an hour later, Christine was with me. She had begged so hard to be
taken to the Grands Boulevards. After all, why not? Christine had lived
through all the war in France. It was her right to be in on the
rejoicing. And I confess that I wanted to hear what she would say when
she saw the lights. She was so young when the war started that she had
forgotten what lighted streets were.
The two men were delighted with the idea of dining across the river.
Despite its reputation for making the most of a celebration, five long
years of the absence of youth had atrophied the Boul' Miche. It was
interesting, of course, but not what we thought it would be.
We dined at the Grand Café. We went early, fearing that even being in
the good graces of the head waiter might not secure a table. But having
a table was not guarantee of the possibility of ordering a meal worthy
of the occasion. The run on food had been too severe for the past two
days. And the market people of the Halles Centrales, so the waiter said,
began their celebration on Saturday, when the German delegates appeared
to demand the armistice. They would withhold their produce for several
days, and get higher prices. The cellars held out nobly, however, so
food could be dispensed with.
During the first hour, mostly waiting for dishes which did not come,
there was a lull. The effort of the afternoon had been exhausting. Some
groups were just about to leave for the theatre when a young American
officer jumped on his chair, holding a slipper in his hand. Pouring into
it champagne, he proposed the health of Marshal Foch, with the warning
that other toasts would follow. Immediately there was a bending under
tables, and other slippers appeared. The fun was on. Cosmopolitans have
seen New Year's Eve _réveillons_ that were "going some," but the
drinking of the health of Foch, Petain, Haig and Pershing will live in
the memory of all who were in the Grand Café on the night of November
11th. Tables were pushed together and pyramided. One after the other the
highest officer in rank in each of the Allied armies was dragged from
his place and lifted up between the chandeliers. Over the revolving
doors at the entrance a young lieutenant led the singing of the national
anthems, using flag after flag as they were handed up to him. The affair
was decidedly _à l'américaine_, as a beaming Frenchman at the next table
said. There was no rowdyness, no drunkenness. It was merrymaking into
which everyone entered. The owner of the first slipper was an American
head nurse, and the first Frenchwoman to jump up on a table had twin
sons in the Class of 1919. During years of anguish we had been subjected
to a severe nervous strain and to repressing our feelings. The French
bubbled over and the English, too, and they were willing to follow the
lead of the Americans, because we have a genius for celebrating audibly
and in public.
[Illustration: The Grand Palais]
Once more out in the night air, following and watching the night crowd,
and joining in or being drawn into the fun, we were struck by the
ubiquity of American soldiers and their leadership in every stunt which
drew the crowd. We felt, too, the spirit of good _camaraderie_ among
the merrymakers. Not a disagreeable incident did we see. The stars of a
cloudless sky looked down on Paris frolicking. But they saw nothing that
Paris, emerging from her noble dignity of suffering and anxiety, need be
ashamed of. Policemen and M.P.'s were part of the celebration.
Lines of girls and _poilus_ danced along arm in arm. The girls wore
kepis, and the _poilus_ hats and veils. No soldier's hat and buttons and
collar insignia were safe. The price of the theft was a chase and a
kiss. Processions crisscrossed and collided. Mad parades of youngsters
not yet called out for military service bumped into ring-around-a-rosy
groups which held captive American and British and Italian soldiers.
The officers and sergeants in charge of American garages were either
taking the day off or had been disregarded. For in the midst of the
throngs our huge army trucks moved slowly, carrying the full limit of
their three tons, Sammies and _midinettes_, waving flags and shouting.
The trophies of the Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Elysées and the
Place de l'Hôtel de Ville were raided. Big cannon could not be moved,
and pushing far the tanks was too exhausting to be fun. But the smaller
cannon on wheels and the caissons took the route of the Grands
Boulevards. Minenwerfer and A.D.C. (anti-aircraft cannon) disappeared
during the afternoon. Why should the Government have all the trophies?
The aspirations of souvenir-hunters were not always limited to the
possible. We saw a group of _poilus_ pulling a 155-cm. cannon on the Rue
du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, some distance from the Rue Royale. They were
actually making off with it! A policeman watched them with an indulgent
smile.
"It's too big," he said. "They'll get tired before the night is over,
and they couldn't hide it anyway. It is good for them to work off their
alcohol. To-morrow the authorities will pick up that cannon somewhere."
The clocks on the Boulevard "islands" were stopped at eight o'clock.
This was not a night to think what time it was, and whether the Métro
had ceased running. Every lamp-post had its cheer-leader or orator.
Confetti and streamers of uncelebrated Mardi Gras and Mi-Carêmes had
their use this night, when four years of postponed festivals were made
up for in few wild and joyous hours. What had begun as a patriotic
demonstration was ending in a carnival. The "Marseillaise" gave place to
"Madelon," favorite doggerel of barracks and streets.
The most dignified had to unbend. A British staff officer, captured by a
bunch of girls, was made to march before them as they held his Burberry
rain-coat like maids of honor carrying a bride's train. He was a good
sport, and reconciled himself to leading a dancing procession, beating
time with his bamboo cane. All the Tommies spied _en route_ were
pressed into line. A French General, who had unwisely come out in
uniform, was mobbed by the crowd. The girls kissed him, and older people
asked to shake his hand. He submitted to their grateful joy with
warm-hearted and gracious dignity. But when a band of _poilus_ came
along, brandishing wicker chairs stolen from a café and asked him to
lead them in a charge, that was too much even for November Eleventh. The
General retired to the safety of a darkened doorway.
There were no bands. It was the people's night, not the army's night,
and tin cans, horns, flags, flowers, voices and kisses were enough for
the people's celebration. You could not have enjoyed it yourself if you
had not the spirit of a child. Children need no elaborate toys to
express themselves, and they don't like to have their games managed for
them, or to have the amusement provided when they are "just playing."
Some Americans rigged up a skeleton with a German cap. They followed it
singing "Onward, Christian Soldiers." The song was as novel as the
skeleton. Where all the Americans came from only Heaven and the
Provost-Marshal knew, and there is a strong probability that the latter
had no official knowledge of the presence of most of them in Paris! Our
soldiers were disconsolate over the fact that they could not buy all the
flags they wanted. The shops were completely sold out, and the hawkers
were reduced to offering _cocardes_. We heard one boy say: "If I can't
get a flag soon, I'll climb one of them buildin's."
"Gee! better not," advised his comrade; "they'd shoot you!"
"Naw! Shootin' 's finished."
The shooting was finished. That is what the signing of the armistice
meant to Paris. And, as it meant the same to the whole world, every city
in the Allied countries must have had its November Eleventh.