his soul. One of the most dreaded duties that falls almost invariably to
the lot of queens is having to reign over adopted countries while exiled
from their own. In the special case of this young martyred queen, this
doom of exile which has befallen her, and many other queens, must be a
far more exquisite torture, added to all the other evils endured, for a
crushing fatality has come and separated her for ever from all who were
once her own people, even from that noble woman, all devotion and
charity, who was her mother. This additional sorrow she bears with calm
and lofty courage which never falters. She is by the King's side, his
constant companion in the most terrible hours of all; a companion whose
energy halts at nothing. And she is by the side of the poor who have
lost their all by pillage or fire; by the side of the wounded who are
suffering or dying; to them, too, she is a companion, comforting the
lowliest with her adorable simplicity, shedding on all the increasing
bounty of her exquisite compassion. Oh, may she be blest, reverenced,
and glorified! And for her altar, dedicated within our souls, let us
choose very rare, very delicate flowers, like unto herself.
XVI
THE INN OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN
_August, 1915._
In spite of the kindly welcome which the visitor receives and a
wholesome spirit of gaiety which never fails, it is an inn that I cannot
honestly recommend without reserve.
In the first place it is somewhat difficult of access, so much so that
ladies are never admitted. To climb up to it--for it is perched very
high--the traveller must needs make his way for hours through ancient
forests which the axe had spared until a very few months ago, along
unknown paths winding at steep gradients; among giant trees, pines or
larches, felled yesterday, which still lie about in all directions;
paths that are concealed by close-growing greenery with such jealous
care that in the few open spaces occurring here and there trees have
been planted right into the ground, trees uprooted elsewhere, and which
are here only to hide the wayfarer behind their dying branches. It may
be supposed that on the neighbouring hills sharp eyes, unfriendly eyes,
are watching, which necessitate all these precautions.
But there are many people on the road through those forests, which
seemed at first sight virgin. Viewing from a little distance all these
mountains covered with the same strong growth of forest, so luxuriant,
and everywhere so alike in appearance, who would imagine that they
sheltered whole tribes? And such strange tribes, evidently survivors of
an entirely prehistoric race of men, and in the anomalous position of
having no women-folk. Here are nothing but men, and men all dressed
alike, with a singular fancy for uniformity, in old, faded, woollen
great-coats of horizon blue. They have not paid much attention to their
hair or beards, and they have almost the appearance of brigands, except
that they all have such pleasant faces and such kindly smiles for the
wayfarer that they inspire no terror. So far from this he is tempted
rather to stop and shake hands with them. But what curious little
dwellings they have built, some isolated, some grouped together into a
village! Some of them are quite lightly constructed of planks of wood
and are covered over with branches of pine, and within are mattresses of
leaves that serve for beds. Some are underground, grim as caves of
troglodytes, and the approach to them is protected by huge masses of
rock, doubtless their defence against formidable wild beasts haunting
the neighbourhood. And these dwellings are always close to one of the
innumerable streams of clear water which rush down babbling from the
heights, among pink flowers and mosses--for these miniature waterfalls
are many, and all these mountains are full of the pleasant music of
running water. From time to time, to be sure, other sounds are heard,
hollow sounds of evil import, detonations on the right or the left,
which the echoes prolong. Can it be that there is artillery concealed
almost everywhere throughout the forest? What want of taste, thus to
disturb the symphony of the springs.
They have probably just arrived here, these savage tribes, dressed in
greyish blue; they are recent settlers, for all their arrangements are
new and improvised, and so likewise is the interminable winding road
which they have laid out, and which to-day our motor cars, with the help
of a little goodwill, manage to climb so rapidly.
One of the peculiarities of these hidden villages which crouch in the
shade of the lofty forest trees is that each has its own cemetery,
tenderly cared for, so close that it almost borders on the dwellings, as
if the living were anxious not to sever their comradeship with the dead.
But how comes it that death is so frequent among these limpid streams,
in a region where the air is so invigorating and so pure? These tombs,
so disquieting in their disproportionate numbers, are ranged in rows,
all with the same humble crosses of wood. They have borders of ferns
carefully watered, or of little pebbles, well selected. Flowers such as
thrive in shady places and are common in these parts, shoot up their
pretty pink spikes all around, and the whole scene is steeped in the
green translucent twilight which envelops the whole mountain, the
twilight of these unchanging trees, pines and larches, stretching away
into infinity, crowded together like wheat in a field, tall and straight
like gigantic masts.
In our haste to reach that Inn of the Good Samaritan, which is our
destination, we keep on climbing at a rapid pace, notwithstanding
acute-angled corners where our cars have to back before they can effect
the turn, and other awkward places where our cars slip on the wet soil,
skid, and come to a stop.
These tribes, so primitive in appearance, through whose midst we have
been travelling since the morning, seem to be concentrating their
energies especially on making these roads, which, one would think,
cannot really be necessary to their simple mode of existence. In our
onward course we meet nearly all these men, working with might and main,
with axes, shovels, stakes and picks, hurrying as if the task were
urgent. They stand erect for a moment to salute us, smiling a little
with touching and respectful familiarity, and then they bend down again
to their arduous work, levelling, enlarging, timbering, or digging out
roots that are in the way, and rocks that encroach. And when we were
told that it is scarcely ten months since they began this exhausting
work in the midst of forest, virgin hitherto, we are fain to believe
that all the Genii of the mountains have roused themselves and lent
their magic help.
Oh! what tribute of admiration mingled with emotion do we owe to these
men, likewise, the builders of roads, our gallant territorials, who seem
to be playing at wild men of the woods. They have revived for us the
miracles of the Roman Legions who so speedily opened up roads for their
armies through the forests of Gaul. Thanks to their prodigious labour,
performed without a break, without a murmur, the conditions of warfare
in this region, only yesterday still inaccessible, will be radically
changed for the benefit of our dear soldiers. Everything will reach them
on the heights ten times more expeditiously than before--arms, avenging
shells, rations; and in a few hours the seriously wounded will be gently
driven down in carriages to comfortable field hospitals in the plains.
Roughly speaking at an altitude of about fourteen or fifteen hundred
metres, the ancient forest with its arching trees ends abruptly. The sky
is deep blue above our heads, and infinite horizons unfold around us
their great spectacular display of illusive images. The air is very
clear and pure to-day in honour of our arrival, and it is so
marvellously transparent that we miss no detail of the most distant
landscapes.
We are told that we have reached the plateau where stands that
hospitable inn; it is, however, not yet in sight. But the plateau
itself, where is it situated, in which country of the world? In the
foreground around us and below nothing is visible except summits
uniformly wooded with trees of the same species; this brings back to
mind those great, monstrous expanses of forest which must have covered
the entire earth in the beginning of our geological period, but it is
characteristic of no particular country or epoch of history. In the
distance, it is true, there are signs of a more tell-tale nature. Thus
yonder, on the horizon, that succession of mountains, all mantled with
the same dark verdure, bears a close resemblance to the Black Forest;
that chain of glaciers over there, silhouetting so clearly against the
horizon its ridges of rosy crystal, might well be taken for the Alps;
and that peak in particular is too strikingly like the Jungfrau to
admit of any doubt. But I may not be more definite in my description; I
will merely say that those bluish plains in the East, rolling away at
our feet like a great sea, were but lately French, and are now about to
become French once more.
How spacious is this plateau, and how naked it stands among all those
other summits mantled with trees. Here there is not even brushwood, for
doubtless the winter winds rage too fiercely; here nothing grows but
short, thick grass and little stunted plants with insignificant flowers.
It is ecstasy to breathe here in this delicious intoxication of pure air
and of spaciousness and light. And yet there is some vague sense of
tragedy about the place, due perhaps to those great round holes, freshly
made; to those cruel clefts with which here and there the earth is rent.
What can have fallen here from the sky, leaving such scars on the level
surface? We are warned, moreover, that monstrous birds of a very
dangerous kind, with iron muscles, often come and hover about overhead
in that fair blue sky. And from time to time a cannon shot from some
invisible battery comes to disturb the impressive silence and
reverberates in the valleys below; and then comes, long drawn out, the
whirring of a shell, like a flight of partridges going past.
We notice some French soldiers, Alpine _chasseurs_, or cavalry on their
horses, scattered in groups about this plain, as it may be called,
situated at such an altitude. At this moment all lift their heads and
look in the same direction; this is because one of those great dangerous
birds has just been signalled; it is flying proudly, remote in the open
sky, in the clear blue. But immediately it is pursued by white clouds,
quite miniature clouds, which give the effect of being created
instantaneously, only to vanish as quickly--little explosions of white
cotton wool, one might say--and it seems impossible that they should be
freighted with death. However, that evil bird has understood; he is
aware that good marksmen are aiming at him, and he turns back on hasty
wing, while our soldiers gaily burst out laughing.
And the inn? It lies just in front of us, a few hundred paces away; it
is that greyish hut with its gay tricolour floating on the light breeze
of these altitudes, but near it stands a very lofty cross of pine-wood,
four or five yards high, stretching out its arms as in solemn warning.
The fact is, I must admit, that people die very frequently at this Inn
of the Good Samaritan or in its neighbourhood, and it is for this reason
that in the beginning I recommended it with reserve. It is surprising,
is it not, in such health-giving air? But the truth of it is
indisputable, and it has been necessary hurriedly to attach to it a
cemetery whose existence this tall cross of pine proclaims from afar to
travellers.
Yes, many men die here, but they die so nobly, a death of all deaths
most desirable--each according to his own temperament, according to the
nature of his soul: some in the calm serenity of duty done, others in
magnificent exaltation, but all in glory.
Can this be the famous inn--in other words the dwelling of those
officers who command this outpost, and where their friends on rare and
brief visits, liaison officers, bearers of dispatches, etc., are sure of
finding such cordial and genial hospitality--this modest hutting built
of planks? So it is, and that there may be no mistake, there is an
imposing signboard in the fashion of old times. Shaped like a shield,
it hangs from an iron rod and bears the inscription, "Inn of the Good
Samaritan." The legend is painted in ornamental letters, and the humour
of it is irresistible among such Crusoe-like destitution. Doubtless one
day some officer in a specially happy mood thought of this jest as a
welcome for comrades coming thither on special duty. Naturally he found
at once among his men one who was a carpenter and another a decorator in
civil life, both very much amused at being ordered to put this
unpremeditated idea forthwith into execution.
The furniture of the inn is very rough and ready, if the truth be told,
and the wall of planks just shelters you from the snow or rain, but from
the wind hardly, and from shells not at all. But one fills one's lungs
to the full with the air that reaches one through the little windows,
and from the threshold, looking downwards, there is a marvellous
bird's-eye view of great forests, of an unending chain of glaciers,
clear as crystal, of unbounded distances, and even over the tops of
clouds.
Ah well! all along the battle front there are such Inns of the Good
Samaritan. These others are perched less high, and they do not bear the
same name; indeed very often they have no name at all; but in all of
them prevails the same spirit of kindly hospitality, firm confidence,
smiling endurance and cheerful sacrifice. Here, as there, between two
showers of shells, men are capable of amusing themselves with childish
trifles, so stout of heart are they, and if access were not forbidden on
military grounds I would invite all pessimists in the background, who
have doubts of France and of her destiny, to come here for a cure.
And now, having seen the inn, let us pay a pious visit to the annex, the
inevitable annex, alas! Around the wooden cross which dominates it is a
piece of ground enclosed with an open fence, made of boughs of larch
artistically intertwined. Within its bounds those tombs, too numerous
already, preserve something of a military aspect, ranged as they are in
such correct alignment and all with the same little crosses, adorned
with a wreath of greenery. The Cross! In spite of all infidelity,
denial, scorn, the Cross still remains the sign to which a tender
instinct of atavism recalls us at the approach of death. There is not a
tree, not a shrub, for none grow here: on the ground there is only the
short grass that grows upon this wind-swept plateau. An attempt has been
made, to be sure, to make borders of certain stunted plants found in the
neighbourhood, but rows of pebbles last best. And in five weeks or so,
thick shrouds of snow will begin to cover up everything, until another
spring succeeds the snows and the grass grows green again, in the midst
of still deeper oblivion.
Nevertheless let us not pity them, for they have had the better part,
these young dead who rest there on that glorious mountain-top which is
destined to become once more, after the war, a solitude ineffably calm,
high above forest, valley and plain.
XVII
FOR THE RESCUE OF OUR WOUNDED
_August, 1915._
The preservation of the lives of our dear wounded, who day by day are
stricken down upon the field of battle, depends nine times out of ten on
the rapidity with which they are carried in; on the gentleness and
promptness with which they are taken to the field hospitals, where they
may be put into comfortable beds and left in the care of all the kind
hands that are waiting for them. This fact is not sufficiently well
known; often it happens that wounds which would have been trifling have
become septic and mortal because they have been left too long covered
with inadequate, uncleanly bandages, or have trailed for many hours on
the earth or in the mud.
In the first weeks of the war when we were taken unawares by the
barbarians' attack, treacherous and sudden as a thunderbolt, it was not
bullets and shrapnel alone that killed the sons of France. Often, too,
it happened that help was slow in arriving; sufficient haste could not
be made, and it was impossible to cope right at the beginning with these
shortcomings, in spite of much admirable devotion and ingenuity in
multiplying and improving the means of service. Since then helpers have
poured in from all sides; gifts have been showered with open hands;
organisation has been created with loving zeal, and things are already
working very well. But much still remains to be done, for the work is
immense and complex, and it is our duty to hold ourselves more than ever
in readiness, in anticipation of great final struggles for deliverance.
Now a society is being formed for sending to the Front some fresh
squadrons of fast motor-ambulances, furnished with cots and mattresses
of improved design. Thus thousands more of our wounded will be laid
immediately between clean sheets, then brought into hospital with all
speed, without that delay which is a cause of gangrened wounds, without
those jolts that aggravate the pain of fractured bones and inflict yet
more grievous suffering on those dear bruised heads.
But in spite of the first magnificent donations, a remainder of the
money has still to be found to complete the enterprise satisfactorily.
And so I beseech all mothers, whose sons may fall at any moment; I
beseech all those who have in the firing-line a kinsman dear to them; I
beseech them to send their offerings without hesitation, without
calculation, so that soon, before the April battles begin, several
hundreds of those great life-saving ambulances may be ready to start,
which will assuredly preserve for us a vast number of precious lives.
XVIII
AT RHEIMS
_August, 1915._
On a beautiful August evening I am hastening in a motor car towards
Rheims, one of our martyred towns, where I am hoping to find shelter for
the night before continuing my journey to the General Headquarters of
another Army. In order to avoid military formalities I wish to enter the
town before the sun sets, and it is already too low for my liking.
The evening is typical of one of our splendid French summers; the air is
exquisitely clear, of a delightful, wholesome warmth, tempered with a
light, refreshing breeze. On the hillsides of Champagne the beautiful
vines on which the grapes are ripening spread a uniform expanse of green
carpet, and there are so many trees, so many flowers everywhere,
gardens in all the villages, and roses climbing up all the walls.
To-day the cannon is heard no more, and one would be tempted to forget
that the barbarians are there close at hand if there were not so many
improvised cemeteries all along the road. Everywhere there are these
little graves of soldiers, all alike, which are now to be found from end
to end of our beloved France, all along the battle front; their simple
crosses of wood are ranged in straight lines as if for a parade, topped,
some of them, with a wreath; others still more pathetically with a
simple service-cap, red or blue, falling to rags. We salute them as we
pass.
Among these glorious dead there are some whose kindred will seek them
out and bring them back to the province of their birth later, when the
barbarians have gone away, while others, less favoured, will remain
there forever until the great final day of oblivion. But what masses of
flowers people have already been at pains to plant there for them all.
Around their resting-place there is a brave show of all shades of
brilliant colour, dahlias, cannas, China asters, roses. Who has
undertaken this labour of love? Girls from the nearest villages? Or
perhaps even their own brothers-in-arms, who dwell on the outskirts
everywhere like invisible subterranean tribes in these casemates, trench
shelters, dug-outs of every shape covered over with green branches?
This region, you must know, is not very safe, and when we arrive at a
section of the road which is too much exposed, a sentinel, especially
posted there to give warning, instructs us to leave the high road for a
moment, where we should run the risk of being seen and shelled, and to
take some sheltered traverse behind the curtains of poplars.
One of my soldier-chauffeurs suddenly turns round to say to me:
"Oh look, sir, there is an Arab cemetery. They have put on each grave
their little crescents instead of the cross."
Here to be sure the humble _stelae_ of white wood are all topped with
the crescent of Islam, and this is something of a shock to us in the
very heart of France. Poor fellows, who died for our righteous cause, so
far from their mosques and their marabouts they sleep, and alas! without
facing Mecca, because they who laid them piously to rest did not know
that this was to them a requisite of peaceful slumber! But the same
profusion of flowers has been brought to them as to our own countrymen,
and I need not say that we salute them likewise--a little late, perhaps,
for we pass them so rapidly.
We reach Rheims just before sunset, and here a sudden sadness chills us.
All is silent and the streets almost deserted. The shops are closed,
and some of the houses seem to gape at us with enormous holes in their
walls.
One of the infrequent wayfarers tells us that at the Hotel Golden Lion,
Cathedral Square, we may still be able to find someone to take us in,
and soon we are at the very foot of the noble ruin, which is still
enthroned as majestically as ever in the midst of the martyred town,
dominating everything with its two towers of open stone-work. I stop my
car, the sound of whose rolling in such a place seems profanation; the
sadness of ruins is intensified here into veritable anguish, and the
silence is such that instinctively we begin to talk softly, as if we had
already entered the great church that has perished.
The Golden Lion--but its panes of glass are broken, the doors stand
open, the courtyard is deserted. I send one of my soldiers there,
bidding him call, but not too loudly, in the midst of all this mournful
meditation. He returns; he has received no reply and has seen holes in
the walls. The house is deserted. We must seek elsewhere.
It is twilight. A golden after-glow still lingers around the magnificent
summits of the towers, while the base is wrapped in shadow. Oh, the
cathedral, the marvellous cathedral! what a work of destruction the
barbarians have continued to accomplish here since my pilgrimage of last
November. It had ever been a lace-work of stone, and now it is nothing
but a lace-work torn in tatters, pierced with a thousand holes. By what
miracle does it still hold together? It seems as if to-day the least
shock, a breath of wind perhaps, would suffice to cause it to crumble
away, to resolve itself, as it were, into scattered atoms. How can it
ever be repaired? What scaffolding could one dare to let lean against
those unstable ruins. In an attempt to afford it yet a little protection
sandbags have been piled up, mountain high, against the pillars of the
porticoes, the same precaution that has been taken in the case of St.
Mark's in Venice, of Milan, of all those inimitable masterpieces of past
ages which are menaced by the refined culture of Germany. Here the
precautions are vain; it is too late, the cathedral is lost, and our
hearts are wrung with sorrow and indignation as we look this evening
upon this sacred relic of our past, our art, and our faith, in its death
throes and its abandonment. Ah, what savages! And to feel that they are
still there, close at hand, capable of giving it at any hour its _coup
de grace_.
To bid it farewell, perhaps a last farewell, we will walk around it
slowly with solemn tread, in the midst of this deathlike silence which
seems to grow more intense as the light fails.