A SPY AT DIEPPE
Before leaving for Austria, I had to go to Tours, where the Delegates
of the National Defence Government were at this time sitting.
I had therefore to go back to France, and could only do so by going a
long way round. Part of the north was already occupied. The trains no
longer went regularly, and in order to get from Brussels to Tours I had
to slip through a great many obstacles and often leave the railway and
have recourse to carriages. There was no lack of episodes on the road,
but they were not gay ones and I prefer not to speak about them. The
country was in a fever and disorganised, and to a large extent occupied
and ruined. Where the enemy had not yet come they were expected, and
the days were anxiously counted which were to bring the first Uhlans.
“Spies” were suspected everywhere, just as in Paris, where I saw a
crowd gather one night before a house in the Boulevard Montmartre, and
where a cruel injustice would that night have been committed if the
police had not intervened in time to clear up the mistake.
There was a light in an attic on the sixth floor. It was only a poor
woman at work, but she was accused of signalling with her little lamp
from the height of her attic to the Prussians who were besieging Paris.
The latter were at least fifteen or twenty miles from the boulevard,
even where their siege-works had approached our ramparts. So it was
simply ridiculous to suppose that signals could have been given to
the Prussians from a window in the boulevard. The feeble little light
on the sixth floor, however, was quite enough to make the passer-by
believe that there was a spy up there communicating with the enemy and
signalling messages to him. That is the kind of spy mania which was
responsible for yielding me an amusing quarter of an hour when I least
expected it.
The event took place at Dieppe. This peaceable and innocent little
seaside town, well known to all Parisians, certainly had no reason
to attract the attention of M. de Moltke and his generals, but it
was there that I was nearly arrested as a vile spy, by order of the
sous-préfet, who no doubt smelt out an ingenious plan on the part of
the Prussian Field-Marshal for taking this important fortress without a
blow.
I had just arrived in a carriage from Eu, and had come to Dieppe to
take the train there.
I was waiting for the time when the train was to start, and had gone to
the hotel for lunch in company with the persons who had come with me,
or rather, who had brought me in their carriage, very kindly putting
it at my disposal because for the moment there was no other means of
communication between Eu and Dieppe.
I had scarcely sat down to table when the proprietor came up with a
thousand bows and stammered excuses and told me that there was someone
there ... someone who ... a gentleman who ... in a word that there was
someone who wanted to speak to me.
Someone to speak to me at nine in the morning; me, an unknown, a
stranger from a distance, who had passed the night on the road and
had only just arrived in the place! It seemed a curious demand and I
foresaw mystery. “Let him come in,” I said to the proprietor, smiling,
for I could not help being amused at his grave and embarrassed manner.
The dining-room opened on to a large, dark corridor which had not been
lit up and in which it was difficult to distinguish what was happening.
My host rushed into the corridor and disappeared in the darkness.
There was a moment of deep silence, then hasty footsteps and a confused
noise; I vaguely saw an ill-defined movement, the gleam of weapons,
arms waving in the thick of the darkness, advancing footsteps! At last
a figure appeared out of the background and drew near; then a mad burst
of laughter and these words: “Is that you, Reitlinger? What a joke!”
And when the speaker came out waving his long arms, from the dark
corridor where he was standing with his armed men, I recognised an old
friend: it was one of the most charming sub-prefects in the provinces,
one who was the ornament of the “parquet” at Dieppe and whom I had
known when he was studying in Paris. He sat down at my table and told
me that he had come purely and simply in order to lock up my dangerous
person and prevent me from doing a hurt to the National Defence!
The supreme authorities of Dieppe had been informed that the Secretary
of the Government was at the hotel. The sous-préfet had pricked up
his ears at this report, shrugged his shoulders, shaken his head and
considered, incredulity in his soul! The Secretary of the Government?
... an invention, a clumsy imposture! Was the Government not at Paris?
Was not Paris besieged by the Prussians? Would not the Prussians have
intercepted this Secretary?
That is not the way to humbug authorities who watch over the town and
district with a vigilant and circumspect eye!
This Secretary is simply a spy and he covers himself with the name of
the Government the better to hide his schemes, the better to betray the
poor town of Dieppe, and carry away the plans of its fortifications
with greater security. Let us put him under lock and key.
The “parquet” had been hastily assembled, and the “parquet,” full of
admiration for the perspicacity of the sous-préfet, had ordered out
its _posse_, while the latter promptly headed the expedition to assure
himself of my person. My sous-préfet was the first to laugh at this
deployment of armed force and his own haste in taking part in such an
adventure.
“Now that the security of our country permits it,” said he, “I will
send back my braves and we will drink to the success of your mission.”
This was excellent, but I asked myself what would have happened if
the task of arresting me had been entrusted to one who did not happen
to know me personally. Would M. le Sous-Préfet have kept me under
lock and key, or would I have been obliged to show him the Minister’s
confidential letters accrediting me for my mission?