AN ENCOUNTER
As a rule I am bad at topography, and do not easily find my way in
places that I see for the first time. But my faculties had been made
keen by danger during our aerial voyage and my sustained attention
remembered everything that my eyes had seen.
The second time the balloon rose above the forest I had, from my
elevated perch, observed a fairly broad path across the wood, which
looked as if it might lead to some neighbouring village. I kept this
path in my memory and, while our balloon was engaged in its last
struggle, I tried to take note of our movements in order not to lose
the direction of this path. So much so that, when at last we touched
the ground, I was able to find it.
I left my companions to watch near the wrecked balloon and bent my
steps to the left in order to find the way.
I had not been mistaken. After walking for scarcely ten minutes, I
found the path I was looking for. Happy at my discovery, I was about to
return through the wood to tell my companions, when I saw a man leave
the thicket on the other side of the road and come towards me.
What manner of man was this, and what did he want with me? What
singular chance had driven him to this wood in such weather?
It was still raining in torrents. Instead of returning through the
undergrowth, as I had intended, to find my fellow-travellers, I made
as if I were looking for shelter from the rain, and stood with my back
against a tree.
In this position I could wait for the unknown to come up, and could
examine him while he crossed the road to reach me.
He at once came forward. He was well dressed and had the appearance of
a man of means. He looked neither like a peasant nor like a dweller
in large towns, and it was difficult to guess exactly what kind of
individual I had to deal with. He seemed, however, to be looking for
me, for he walked directly towards me and crossed the path, bearing
towards the point where I was standing.
What was this man, friend or enemy? What could I say to him, and how
should I speak to him, in French or in German?
I thought it would be best not to say anything and to wait till he
addressed me. “Bon jour, Monsieur,” said he, on coming up. I returned
his greeting.
“Have you been here long?” he asked me.
“No.”
“Where have you come from?” he continued.
I began to be reassured and noticed that my unknown spoke with the
Alsatian accent. But the Alsatian accent is very similar to the German,
and was not Alsace entirely occupied by the enemy?
Such were my thoughts on hearing him, and instead of answering his
question, I asked him point-blank, “Are you French, Monsieur?” And as
I asked I looked him well in the face and did not take my eyes from
his, trying to read into his soul. “Oui, Monsieur,” was his answer, and
the “Oui, Monsieur” was pronounced simply and with a frankness that
concealed nothing and invited confidence.
I felt he had spoken the truth. I held out my hand and said: “Well,
Monsieur, I am also a Frenchman. We have come from Paris and our
balloon has just come down in this forest....”
“Oh, is that you! Good God, what sufferings you must have undergone! I
have watched you battling with the storm for at least half an hour. My
friends and I came out to beat the forest in order to find you and help
you, for we foresaw a catastrophe.”
I was profoundly touched, and heartily wrung his hand....
“But where are we?”
“At Vigneulles in the Meuse; this is the wood of Vigneulles, the
village is three kilometres away, and behind the wood, a league from
here, are the Prussians. They came into the village yesterday morning.”
After saying this he gave a signal by whistling in a particular
manner, and I at once saw ten or twelve peasants running up from
different part of the wood. He explained our situation to them and gave
them orders. While they went off to find my companions and the débris
of the balloon, I followed my new guide towards the village in order
to lose no time in preparing a way to leave the district as quickly as
possible.
My mentor took me to the Mairie, a little house in the village,
comprising the offices and the personal residence of the Mayor, the
latter on the first-floor.
The behaviour of this village worthy was in singular contrast with
that of the brave man who had brought me to him. He trembled when he
heard that Frenchmen, coming from Paris, and recently descended from a
balloon, were there, and he asked himself whether he could and ought
for a single moment to shelter them. “If the Prussians hear that I have
received them I am lost....”
I will pass quickly over the painful scene which followed. The poor man
is since dead, and I only speak of the incident in order to show that
the devoted efforts of our guide to carry us to the Belgian frontier
were not without risk to himself. His name is Julien Thiébeaux; he
was at that time employed in the Excise Department and has since been
promoted to a Collectorship. He was a brave man and a good citizen.
When he saw the Mayor’s disposition towards ourselves, he said to me:
“You can’t remain here, Monsieur, as the Prussians are encamped close
at hand. They were here yesterday and may be here again to-morrow. They
may come at any moment, even while we are speaking. I wanted to let
the Mayor have the honour of saving you, and for that reason have said
nothing; but the time has now come to act. Will you trust yourselves to
me?”
I looked at the speaker and fixed my eyes on him a second time, trying
to penetrate and read his secret thoughts from his countenance. He will
pardon me for this last trace of suspicion, as will those who read
these lines; it was not unnatural.
We were in the midst of a Prussian encampment, and the Mayor of the
village had shown his sentiments in most unambiguous fashion; he had
not the slightest desire to risk his neck in order to save some unknown
men, who had been wrong-headed enough, according to him, to cross the
Prussian lines in a balloon, and to drop exactly into his unfortunate
village, which had all the best reasons in the world to live on good
terms with the enemy’s army.... And then appears a simple villager,
the first-comer as it were, and one who has no reason to interfere in
a nasty business which does not concern him, and offers his services
spontaneously and light-heartedly without being asked by anyone, in
order to save three unknown men from under the Prussians’ noses! By
doing so he was exposing himself, when he returned from his expedition
on the morrow, to a reward at the hands of the enemy whose nature could
not be doubted.
Such were the thoughts in my mind while M. Thiébeaux explained how
urgent it was that we should leave, and offered to conduct us to the
frontier through the Prussian army.
So I again inspected M. Thiébeaux, and not without suspicion.
But the more I looked at him the further did suspicion fly from my
mind. He had a frank and honest eye and a simple and natural attitude.
Such clear signs of sincerity and loyalty emanated from his whole
person that my doubts ceased, and I felt remorse at having for a single
moment suspected the sincerity of his devotion.
He had finished his little speech by asking the simple question, “Will
you trust yourselves to me?” I held out my hand, and said, “Shake, M.
Thiébeaux, and let us start.”
“But I do not want to start alone,” he said. “I have a friend who knows
the way better than I, and we shall have need of him. I will answer for
him. May I bring him with me?”
A little later my companions and I were seated with our brave guides in
a little country carriage and making for the Belgian frontier.
Vigneulles is in the Meuse, at the entrance to the great plain which
is known as the “Grande Woëvre.” This was the scene of the memorable
battles of the 16th and 18th of August, 1870, the battles which are
called Mars-la-Tour, Rezonville, Gravelotte and Saint-Privat.[B]
The little village lies between Verdun and Metz, and is about forty
kilometres distant from the latter.
[B] NOTE:--It is also the scene of very serious fighting at the
present moment (Feb., 1915). Vigneulles is a few miles from
the German position at St. Mihiel.
This enabled us to calculate the path we must have taken in our balloon.
The distance from Paris to Metz is about four hundred kilometres, but
our balloon did not take a direct course. During the first part of our
journey we went persistently in an opposite direction--that is to say,
towards the west of France--and it was only when the storm commenced,
which was about 11 o’clock in the morning, that the wind must have
shifted and carried us towards the east.
It was not yet 11 o’clock when I had expressed a desire to come down
on the great plain which offered us such an immense and propitious
terrain for coming to earth. The wind had at that time not yet changed,
and we could hope to come down in the fertile plains of Normandy or
possibly in the direction of Brittany. Our aeronaut did not share my
point of view, and we continued our journey. It was only then, after
two hours navigation, that the weather changed. So it is evident that
the balloon must have traversed at least twice the distance between
Paris and Metz, since it had travelled for two hours at full speed
in an opposite direction. The whole journey had been carried out in
the space of four hours--from nine in the morning till one in the
afternoon. That represented an amazing speed: two or three hundred
kilometres an hour.
And now for the Belgian frontier!