Madame de Bonmont knew the Exhibition well, having dined there
on several occasions. That evening she was dining at the “Belle
Chocolatière”—a Swiss restaurant situated, as every one knows, on the
bank of the Seine—together with the militant élite of Nationalism,
Joseph Lacrisse, Henri Léon, Gustave Dellion, Jacques de Cadde,
Hugues Chassons des Aigues and Madame de Gromance, who, as Henri Léon
remarked, was very like the pretty servant in Liotard’s pastel, a
greatly enlarged copy of which served as a sign for the restaurant.
Madame de Bonmont was gentle and tender-hearted. It was love,
relentless love that had placed her among these warriors, and, like
the Antigone of Sophocles, she brought among them a soul fashioned not
for hatred but for sympathy. She pitied the victims. Jamont seemed to
her the most pathetic of these, and the premature retirement of this
general moved her to tears. She thought of embroidering a cushion for
him, on which he could lay his glorious head. She loved making such
presents, the value of which consisted solely in the feeling that
prompted them. Her love, strengthened by admiration, for Municipal
Councillor Lacrisse, left her a good deal of leisure, which she
employed in weeping over the misfortunes of the Army and in eating
sweets. She was fast putting on flesh and was becoming quite an
imposing figure.
The thoughts of young Madame de Gromance were of a less generous kind.
She had loved and deceived Gustave Dellion, and then she had loved him
no longer. But as he removed her light pink-flowered cloak under the
respectfully-lowered eyes of the head-waiter on the terrace of the
“Belle Chocolatière,” Gustave muttered in her ears words that sounded
strangely like “jade” and “beastly strumpet.” She did not allow the
least distress to appear on her face, but inwardly she thought him
rather sweet, and felt that she was about to love him again. And
Gustave thoughtfully realized that for the first time in his life he
had spoken like a lover. He sat down solemnly beside Clotilde.
The dinner, which was the last of the season, was by no means a merry
one. The sadness of farewell was felt and a certain Nationalist
melancholy. Doubtless they still hoped—what am I saying?—they still
cherished infinite hopes, but it is painful, when one has everything,
both men and money, to await the future, the dim, distant future, the
realization of long-cherished desires and urgent ambitions. Joseph
Lacrisse alone remained calm, thinking that he had done enough for
his King in being elected municipal councillor by the Nationalist
Republicans of the Grandes-Écuries.
“Taking it altogether,” he said, “everything went very well at
Longchamps on the 14th. The Army was cheered. There were shouts of
‘Hurrah for Jamont! Hurrah for Bougon!’ There was a great deal of
enthusiasm.”
“Doubtless, doubtless,” said Henri Léon; “but Loubet returned
unmolested to the Élysée, and the day did not forward our affairs
overmuch.”
Hugues Chassons des Aigues, who had a fresh scar on his nose—which was
of the big and royal order—frowned and said proudly:
“I can tell you things were hot at the Cascades. When the Socialists
cheered the Republic and the Army——”
“The police,” put in Madame de Bonmont, “ought not to allow things to
be shouted.”
“When the Socialists cheered the Republic and the Army we replied,
‘Long live the Army! Death to the Jews!’ The ‘white carnations,’ whom
I had hidden in the crowd, rallied to my cry. They charged the ‘red
eglantines’ under a hail of iron chairs. They were magnificent. But it
was no good, the crowd would not respond. The Parisians had come with
their wives and children, with baskets and string bags full of food,
and the place swarmed with country cousins come to see the Exhibition.
Old farmers with stiff legs who looked on with fishy eyes, peasant
women in shawls, looking as scared as owls! How could we stir up a
family party of that sort?”
“Doubtless,” said Lacrisse, “the moment was ill-chosen. Besides, to a
certain extent, we have to respect the Exhibition truce.”
“All the same,” said Chassons des Aigues, “we hit pretty hard at the
Cascades. I gave Citizen Bissolo a crack on the head that sent it down
into his hump. I saw him fall to the ground; he looked just like a
tortoise. Then, ‘Hurrah for the Army! Death to the Jews!’”
“Doubtless, doubtless,” said Henri Léon gravely. “But ‘Hurrah for the
Army!’ and ‘Death to the Jews!’ is a trifle subtle for crowds. It is—if
I may say so—too literary, too classical, and it is not sufficiently
revolutionary. ‘Hurrah for the Army!’ It is fine, it is noble, it is
proper, it is cold—yes, it is cold. Let me tell you, there is only
one way to excite a crowd, and that is by panic. Believe me, the only
way to get a mob of unarmed people on the run is to put fear into
their bellies. You should have run, crying—what shall I say?—‘Save
yourselves! Look out! You are betrayed! Frenchmen, you are betrayed!’
If you had shouted that or something like it, in a lugubrious voice,
running along the lawn, five hundred thousand people would have run
along with you, would have run quicker than you, until they dropped. It
would have been terrible and magnificent. You would have been knocked
down and trampled to death, mashed to a pulp, but you would have
started the revolution.”
“Do you really think so?” asked Jacques de Cadde.
“I am certain of it,” replied Henri Léon. “‘Treachery!’ that is the
true cry of riot, the cry that gives wings to the crowd and sets brave
men and cowards alike going at the same pace, fills a hundred thousand
hearts with one emotion and restores the use of his legs to the
paralytic. Ah, my dear Chassons, if you had shouted at Longchamps ‘We
are betrayed!’ you would have seen your old screech-owl with her basket
of hard-boiled eggs and her umbrella and your old fellow with the stiff
legs running like hares.”
“Running where?” asked Lacrisse.
“I don’t know. Who knows where a panic-stricken crowd runs to? They
don’t know themselves. But what does that matter? They’ve been set
going, and that’s enough. You can’t cause riots with method. To occupy
strategical points was well enough in the far-off days of Barbès and
Blanqui, but to-day, what with the telegraph, telephone or merely the
police and their bicycles, any sort of concerted action is out of the
question. Can you see Jacques de Cadde occupying the police-station in
the Rue de Grenelle, for instance? No. All that is possible nowadays
is a vague, immense, tumultuous demonstration. And fear, unanimous,
tragical fear alone is capable of carrying away the enormous human
masses that frequent public fêtes or open-air shows. You ask me where
the crowd of the 14th of July would have run to, spurred on as by a
big black flag at the cries of ‘Treachery! Treachery! The foreigner!
Treachery!’ Where would they have run to? Into the lake, I suppose.”
“Into the lake,” repeated Jacques de Cadde. “Well, they would have been
drowned, that’s all.”
“Well,” returned Henri Léon, “would thirty thousand drowned citizens
have counted for nothing? Would not the Ministry and the Government
have experienced serious difficulty and real danger in the matter?
Wouldn’t that have been a good day’s work? Look here, you are no
politicians. You don’t care a damn whether you overthrow the Republic
or not.”
“You’ll see that after the Exhibition,” said young Cadde with the
simplicity of faith. “I myself smashed one of them at Longchamps for a
start.”
“Ah, you smashed one of them, did you?” asked young Dellion with
interest. “What sort of a specimen?”
“A mechanic. It would have been better if he had been a Senator, of
course; but in a crowd you are more likely to chance on a workman.”
“What was your mechanic doing?” asked Léon.
“He was shouting ‘Hurrah for the Army!’ so I bashed him.”
Thereupon, fired with generous emulation, young Dellion told them that
on hearing a Socialist-Dreyfusard shout for Loubet, he had bashed his
jaw for him.
“All goes well!” said Jacques de Cadde.
“There are some things that might go better,” said Hugues Chassons des
Aigues. “Don’t let us be too pleased with ourselves. On July the 14th,
Loubet, Waldeck, Millerand and André each returned home safe and sound.
They would not have returned had my advice been heeded. But no one will
act, we are lacking in energy.”
Joseph Lacrisse answered gravely:
“No, no, we are not wanting in energy, but for the moment there’s
nothing to be done. After the Exhibition we shall enter upon a vigorous
course of action. It will be a favourable moment. After her fête
France will be suffering from a bad head and a bad temper. There will
be lock-outs and strikes. Nothing simpler than to provoke a Ministerial
crisis, even a Presidential crisis. Don’t you agree with me, Léon?”
“Doubtless, doubtless,” replied Henri Léon. “But we must not forget
that in three months’ time we shall be a little less numerous and
Loubet a little less unpopular.”
Jacques de Cadde, Chassons des Aigues, Dellion, Lacrisse and all
the Trublions tried to drown with their protestations so dismal a
prediction, but in a very quiet voice Henri Léon proceeded:
“It is inevitable. Loubet will become less unpopular daily. He was
primarily disliked because of the reports that we spread about him, but
he will not live up to all of them. He is not great enough to equal
the picture we drew of him, to the terror of the crowd. We showed
them a Loubet of a hundred cubits’ stature, protecting the thieves in
Parliament and destroying the Army. The reality will seem much less
terrible. They will see that he does not always protect the thieves
or disorganize the Army. He will hold reviews. That will produce an
impression. He will ride in a carriage. That is more dignified than
going on foot. He will bestow crosses and an abundance of academic
palms, and those who receive the cross or the palms will refuse
to believe that he intends to betray France. He will make tactful
speeches; you may be sure of that; tactful because utterly inane. If he
wants to be acclaimed he has only to travel about. The country people
will cheer for the President as he passes, just as though he were the
kind-hearted tanner whose loss we all deplore because he loved the
Army. And if the Russian alliance were pulled off—the bare idea of
such a thing makes me shudder—you would see our Nationalist friends
unharness his carriage and drag it through the streets. I don’t say
he’s a genius, but he’s not a bigger fool than the rest of us, and he
is trying to improve his position. That’s only natural. We want to
overthrow him and he is wearing us out.”
“I defy him to wear us out,” cried young Cadde.
“Time alone will suffice to wear us out,” replied Henri Léon. “How
fine our Municipal Council was on the evening of the poll that gave
us the majority! ‘Hurrah for the Army! Death to the Jews!’ yelled
the electors, drunk with joy, pride and love. And the successful
candidates, beaming, replied, ‘Death to the Jews! Hurrah for the Army!’
But as the new Council can neither free the sons of the electors from
military service nor distribute the money of the rich Jews among the
small shopkeepers nor even spare the working-man the horrors of slack
times, it will betray vast hopes and become as odious as it was once
desirable. It will shortly run the risk of becoming unpopular over
questions of monopoly, gas, water and omnibuses.”
“You are wrong, my dear Léon,” cried Joseph Lacrisse. “There is
nothing to fear with regard to the renewal of monopolies. We say to
the electors, ‘We are giving you cheap gas,’ and the electors will not
complain. The Municipal Council of Paris, elected on an exclusively
political programme, will exercise a decisive influence on the
political and national crises that will follow immediately after the
closing of the Exhibition.”
“Yes, but in order to do that,” said Chassons des Aigues, “it will
have to place itself at the head of the revolutionary movement. If
it is moderate, prudent, conciliatory, considerate, all is lost. The
Council must realize that it has been elected to overthrow and smash
Parliamentarianism.”
“Blow the trumpet! Blow the trumpet!” cried Jacques de Cadde.
“Little must be said, but that little to the point,” continued Chassons
des Aigues.
“Blow the trumpet! Blow the trumpet!”
Chassons des Aigues disdained the interruption.
“A pledge, a simple pledge should be expressed from time to time. Such
as: ‘Impeachment of the Ministers——’”
“Blow the trumpet! Blow the trumpet!” cried young Cadde louder than
ever.
Chassons des Aigues tried to make him listen to reason.
“I am not opposed on principle to our friends sounding the _hallali_
of the parliamentarians, but in public gatherings the trumpet is the
supreme argument of the minority. We must keep it for the Luxembourg
and Palais Bourbon. I should like to point out, my dear fellow, that at
the Hôtel de Ville we are in the majority.”
This consideration did not move young Cadde, who continued to
vociferate:
“Blow the trumpet! Blow the trumpet! Do you know how to blow the
trumpet, Lacrisse? If you don’t, I’ll teach you; it is quite essential
for a municipal councillor to know how to blow the trumpet.”
“To resume,” said Chassons des Aigues, as solemn as a judge, “the first
pledge of the Council should be the impeachment of the Ministers; the
second, the impeachment of the Senators; and the third, the impeachment
of the President of the Republic. After a few resolutions of this
description the Ministry will proceed to the dissolution of the
Council. The Council resists, and makes a vehement appeal to public
opinion. Outraged Paris rises——”
“Do you think so?” asked Henri Léon quietly. “Do you really think,
Chassons, that outraged Paris will rise?”
“I do think so,” replied Chassons des Aigues.
“I do not think so,” said Henri Léon. “You know Citizen Bissolo—since
it was you who nearly brained him on the fourteenth of July at
the review—I know him too. One night, on the boulevard, during a
demonstration following the election of the deplorable Loubet, Citizen
Bissolo came to me as the most constant and most generous of his
enemies. We exchanged a few words. All our paid roughs were shouting
at the top of their voices. Shouts of ‘Hurrah for the Army!’ resounded
from the Bastille to the Madeleine. Smiling and amused, the passers-by
were on our side. Bissolo stretched out his long hunchback’s arm like
a scythe in the direction of the crowd and remarked: ‘I know the jade.
Mount her, and she’ll break your back by suddenly lying down when you
aren’t expecting it.’ Those were the words of Citizen Bissolo as we
stood at the corner of the Rue Drouot on the day when Paris offered
herself to us.”
“But this Bissolo of yours is a rogue,” cried Joseph Lacrisse. “He
insults the people.”
“He is a prophet,” replied Henri Léon.
Young Jacques de Cadde chanted, in his thick voice:
“Blow the trumpet! It’s the only way!”
THE END.
Transcriber’s Note:
Punctuation has been standardised. Punctuation, spelling and accents
have been retained as in the original publication, except as follows:
Page 33
Saints-Péres. It was so cold _changed to_
Saints-Pères. It was so cold
Page 39
Mademosielle Lalouette’s manners were _changed to_
Mademoiselle Lalouette’s manners were
Page 130
he muttered with a scrowl _changed to_
he muttered with a scowl
Page 182
in porportion to the useful _changed to_
in proportion to the useful
Page 212
Philippe at the Elysée you _changed to_
Philippe at the Élysée you
Page 254
between the Rue des Grandes-Ecuries _changed to_
between the Rue des Grandes-Écuries
Page 258
asked young Dellon _changed to_
asked young Dellion
Page 281
but in a very quite voice _changed to_
but in a very quiet voice
End of Project Gutenberg's Monsieur Bergeret in Paris, by Anatole France