Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: THE MARECHALE]
*THE MARECHALE*
(CATHERINE BOOTH-CLIBBORN)
BY
JAMES STRAHAN
AUTHOR OF "HEBREW IDEALS," "THE BOOK OF JOB," ETC.
HODDER & STOUGHTON
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
_The right of translation is reserved_
Dedicated
WITH REVERENCE AND AFFECTION TO
THEODORE MONOD
WHO TAUGHT US TO SAY TO OUR DIVINE MASTER
"NONE OF SELF AND ALL OF THEE"
*PREFACE*
This book is the unexpected result of a brief visit which the Marechale
paid her daughter and the writer in the spring of this year. She was
daily persuaded, not so much to talk of the past, as to live parts of
her life over again, for in her case the telling of a story is the
enacting of a drama. At a meal-time she rarely keeps her seat, though
she is apparently unconscious of leaving it and surprised that she
requires to return to it. She begins to describe an incident, to recall
a conversation, to sketch a character, and straightway she is suiting
the word to the action, the action to the word, holding the mirror up to
nature, using her brilliant dramatic gift, which is as natural to her as
singing is to birds, to call up faces, to bring back voices, to restore
scenes, which are all, whether grave or gay, summoned out of a dead past
that has suddenly, as by the wave of a magician's wand, become once more
alive.
One day I said to her, "Have you never thought of giving all this to the
world?" She answered, "I am often asked to do so, and some day I may."
Soon after she surprised me by saying, "I have come to the conclusion
that something ought to be written now, and you must write it."
A mass of materials in English, French and German--reports, letters,
diaries, magazines, and other documents--has therefore been put at my
disposal. I have not used a tithe of what I have received, and much of
what is left is as good as what has been taken. More will ere long, I
doubt not, see the light. One of my best sources of information has
been the Marechale's own phenomenal memory, which I have tested times
without number, and found invariably accurate, except in dates. Events
are apt to be associated in her mind not so much with years as with
homes and children, which are much more interesting.
With regard to the subject of the fourteenth chapter, the Marechale
would have preferred not to break the silence which she has maintained
for a number of years, but after reading her letters and diaries I have
urged her to let a brief statement be published, first because I feel
that she owes something to her old comrades in the fight, and second for
the sake of her own and her family's future work. Members of the family
who have been consulted, as well as other friends, desire this even more
strongly than the writer does.
This book consists of a few sections from a life which, like Mrs.
Browning's pomegranate, "shows within a heart blood-tinctured." To a
heart of love add a spirit of fire, and you have the Marechale. Blood
and fire--that is what she was at the beginning, and that is what she
will be to the end. One has often heard her say that she has never been
more in her element than when, on entering some town, she has found
herself confronted, in a theater or casino, by "all the devils of the
place." She is happy whenever "Jesus is going to have a chance for a
night." In the natural course of things her greatest battles are still
before her. England has need of her, France perhaps still greater need.
May it be long before the Marechale reaches her last campaign!
Meanwhile the old battle-cry, _En Avant!_
The subject of this sketch--written during a brief respite from other
work--is at present far away, but I know that what she desires to give
to the world is a sense of the Divine, the miracle-working power which
rewards a child-like faith, and that she will be glad if every reader
closes the book with a _Gloire a Dieu!_
J. S.
*CONTENTS*
CHAPTER I
Finely Touched to Fine Issues