HOUSEHOLD FAMINE.
A narrow street in the heart of Paris; houses on each side, towering up
so high that the sunshine never reached the earth upon which they stood;
and those who lived in the lower stories scarcely knew what it was to
see a gleam of pure light from Christmas to Christmas. The houses,
solid, old, and moss-grown at the base, were crowded with human beings,
who would gladly have worked for a livelihood, had any work been
attainable in Paris that cruel season.
But there was stagnation in trade, and distress in all the land. Those
who depended on toil for their daily bread, found all their efforts
insufficient to appease the incessant cravings of hunger, which was a
terrible disease all over France that year. But there was no work. Those
who controlled capital held it close, thus paralyzing trade and adding
to the general distress. Thousands and thousands of those who longed to
be, in fact, the working people of Paris, suffered terribly for food.
This want was felt all through the neighborhood we speak of. Scarcely a
family within sight of it had enjoyed a sufficiency of food for weeks.
Poverty drove them from story to story, while it kept them almost too
weak to climb the stairs as they multiplied upward.
In a small room, under the roof of one of these houses, two women sat in
idleness. They would have been glad to work, but that poor privilege was
denied to them. They would more gladly have eaten something, but all the
provisions they had in the room would scarcely have set forth the ghost
of a meal. Still this destitution was borne with a sort of cheerful
patience, which nothing but a native of France could have maintained
under such circumstances. There was no abandonment to despondency—hunger
had, sometimes, made these two females serious, but seldom morose; their
burden of life grew heavier day by day, but up to this time it had not
broken down the patience which is the most beautiful part of womanhood.
They sat together in the darkening room, two worn and half-famished
creatures, wondering if the morrow would have something in store for
them with a sort of forlorn hope, which neither had the spirit to
express.
These two suffering women were mother and daughter; yet the mother was
not at full mid-age, and a powerful constitution made her seem younger
than she really was. She was handsome, too, spite of the famine that had
pinched her features, and given that hungry light to her eyes. A large,
fine woman, of the English type, full of natural health and energy this
person had been only a year before; now she was subdued and broken down
by sheer physical want.
The young girl who sat near her was a fair, gentle blonde, very thin,
white and delicate: her great, blue eyes enlarged with craving; and her
mouth tremulous, like that of an infant denied of its innocent wishes.
The woman had just come in from a long, long walk through country roads;
her shoes were heavy with clinging mud, and all the edges of her dress
were soiled. The girl noticed this, and said, with some anxiety,
“Mother, have you been far?”
“Yes, Marguerite, very far. Once more I have been to Versailles.”
“And for no good?”
“For no good! The guard refused me at the gate.”
These words were uttered with profound despondency. The poor woman
closed her eyes, and leaned her head against the wall of the room as
they left her lips, as if about to sleep or die. Marguerite started up
and went to her, shivering with mingled pain and nervousness.
“Mamma! mamma!”
The woman was insensible. She had been walking all day without food, and
come home hopeless. This had never happened before; through many a weary
year of disappointment and pain that noble form had held its strength,
but it gave way now, and a cold whiteness settled upon her. To her child
she seemed dead.
“Oh! my poor, poor mamma! What can I do?” she cried out, wringing her
hands in utter helplessness, for there was not even a cup of water in
the room.
“Monsieur! Monsieur Jacques!”
The frightened girl beat her hands against the partition which divided
her room from that of some poor neighbor; and cried out in her despair,
“Monsieur Jacques! Monsieur Jacques!”
Directly a heavy and most singular man appeared at the door with his
coat off, and an iron crucible in his hand.
“What is it, Marguerite, my child? What is hurting you!”
Marguerite came toward the man, and seized hold of his arms with both
hands.
“Monsieur Jacques, she is dead. Look, look! the great God has taken her
away from me!”
The poor girl was too horror-stricken for tears; but her face was so
wild and white that the strange man flung his crucible on the floor,
spattering the hot lead it held over the threshold, where it gleamed
like silver. The next moment found the head of that insensible woman on
his bosom, and his face close to hers. He was listening for her breath.
The girl stood by, mute as stone, watching him with her wild, blue eyes,
that seemed twice their usual size. At last the man spoke,
“No, little one, she is not dead. Give me your hand, I will make you
sure.”
Marguerite reached forth her hand, and Jacques laid it on the wrist he
was handling. The well-formed hand fell down from his hold in limp
immobility; but Marguerite, after bending her head a little while, cried
out joyfully as an infant does when it hears a watch tick, “Oh! my good
God! It beats—it beats!”
The girl fell down upon her knees, and, covering her face with both
hands, kept repeating amid her tears,
“It beats—it beats! She is alive!”
“Yes, little one, she is alive. Do not cry! Do not cry so!”
The girl looked up, radiant in spite of her pallor and her tears.
“Oh, Monsieur Jacques! it is because I am so happy! How kind the good
God is! How he makes us think light of trouble that seemed so great!
Only this morning I was so sad, weeping because she must go out, and no
breakfast; not a morsel of bread; not a drop of milk—in short, nothing.
It was the third morning I had seen this, and it made my heart sick with
trouble. But now that is so little, I smile at it. I have her here
alive—she breathes—she opens her eyes! Oh, mamma! you have been so close
to death, I thought you had gone and was about to die myself. Only for
that tiny flutter in your wrist I could not have helped it. Ah! you know
all about it. You look into my eyes, and say in your heart, ‘How this
poor child loves me. She is worth living for.’”
Here Monsieur Jacques put Marguerite on one side with his hand, in which
was a lump of brown bread. In the other he held a cup of water.
“Let her eat this, little one; then she will be strong, and tell us how
all this happened.”
Marguerite reached out her hand for the bread.
“Oh, monsieur! let me give it to her. I so longed to see her eat it from
my hand; but then it is yours—I have no right.”
Jacques was holding the woman’s head on his arm. She was conscious,—her
eyes were wide open,—but quiet from perfect exhaustion. He surrendered
the bread into those outstretched hands with a smile that illuminated
his grim free into something better than beauty ever was to a man.
Marguerite held the water to her mother’s lips, and then placed a morsel
of bread between them. This was feebly swallowed. At that moment, made
aware that food was near, the woman started up, snatched at the bread,
and devoured it ravenously. Marguerite began to cry again at this; then
she laughed through her tears, and turned to Jacques, who looked on with
two great tears rolling down his cheeks. Seizing his two hands, she fell
to kissing them rapturously.
“It is you that I must thank. Where did you get it? bread, and such
bread, all of flour; the last we had was half fern, that made our
throats dry. She would not eat, but gave it all to me, saying that she
had plenty put away, but liked to eat it by herself. That was wrong,
very wrong; it cheated me into eating so much. Do you know, Monsieur
Jacques, I fear—nay, I feel sure that she has eaten nothing. Oh! mamma,
mamma! if I forgive you, it will be after you have eaten every crumb of
monsieur’s bread.”
The woman, who had been devouring the bread like a hungry wolf, now
dropped the last crust from her hands.
“Forgive me! I had forgotten you, little one; but the day was so long,
and I walked fast both ways.”
Marguerite replaced the fragment of bread in her mother’s hands.
“Eat it all!” she said. “I have had enough, haven’t I, Monsieur
Jacques?”
“Plenty,” answered the man. “Never fear; there is yet another loaf—the
baker is my friend. Besides, I have made a discovery.”
“A discovery! What?” cried Marguerite. “I can believe anything since we
have food. See, mamma is listening. Where shall we look for this
discovery?”
“Here, in this house.”
“Here?”
“Yes, in the roof. We have been close to it all the time. What the
people want is, first bread, then arms.”
“Well, monsieur.”
“And ammunition. Look!”
Jacques pointed to the crucible, which lay upon the floor, and the
bright metal which covered the threshold, like a fantastic embroidery.
Marguerite shook her head; she could understand nothing of this.
“There is plenty of it under the roof and about the old windows. The
people want arms, powder, bullets—I make them, you understand. See, I
gather this up—no harm is done. I melt it over again, run it into a
mold, that you shall see—for Jacques not only works for the people, but
he invents. Then I take my bag of bullets to the proper place, do a
little work where I can get it, and come back with a pocket full of
sous, enough for a little bread that is all flour, such as madame has
eaten. So do not fear that she will faint again. To-morrow shall be a
holiday—I don’t just now remember the saint, but we will find one to
suit us, or do without. Between us, little one, saints are getting out
of fashion since liberty took the lead—not that I like it altogether,
mark; but we will have our holiday. In the morning I will go to
market—that is, you shall go with me, and I will buy you six eggs, a
sprig of parsley, perhaps an onion, who knows, with some milk, and—but
it does not do so well when we promise overmuch; still make sure of
this, it will be a feast providing we can get the work.”
Marguerite smiled, and took both her mother’s cold hands in hers.
“You hear, mamma, it is to be a feast!”
“Yes, I hear,” answered the woman, brightening into new life. “Give me
plenty of food and I can do anything.”
“Ah!” said Marguerite, with a sigh. “Even food will not bring _him_ out
of the Bastille.”
Monsieur Jacques laughed.
“The want of it may: people who starve are strong as giants. It is
hunger which makes lions fierce; famish a man, and he becomes a wild
beast. Food may not relieve your father, my little friend; hunger
can—but for that what would my bullets be worth?”
The woman, who was listening keenly to all this, sat upright, and you
could see the strong vitality of a great idea kindling through her
frame.
“Go on, Monsieur Jacques, your words are worth more than the bread; they
give life to ideas.”
“Yes, I know. We have found a saint worth all the martyrs in the
calendar—nay, we must not call it a saint, but a goddess. Let the clergy
take their saints; we want something to work for, not to pray to.”
The woman’s eyes grew bright as stars. Hunger had made them
supernaturally large.
“This very day I would have knelt to the king. After so many years of
waiting, I had made up my mind to speak to him, or be trampled under the
feet of his horses; but though I fell upon the earth, it was of no
avail, they would not allow me to reach him. Oh! those nobles are hard,
hard as the rock. He did not look that way; so many persons surrounded
him that I could no more get through them, or reach him, than I could
have stopped an army.
“The king was on his way to Meudon, to hunt, they told me, and no one
must impede the way. So they went by, horses and men, spattering me with
mud. Ah! how grand they were, how their clothes shone and glittered! How
rosy and plump they looked, while I was famishing, and _he_ in the
depths of the Bastille. Ah, Monsieur Jacques! there is a great gulf
between the good king and his people. Who will fill it up?”
“Wait,” said Jacques—“wait and work.”
“Ah! but mamma has already worked so hard,” said Marguerite, kissing her
mother with pathetic tenderness. “It is my turn now. I will find
something to do, if it is only to open and shut the mold in which
Monsieur Jacques runs his bullets.”
“But can you do nothing better than that, little one?”
“Oh, many things!” answered the girl. “I can embroider beautifully, and
make the loveliest things—but who will employ me? I have tried, oh! so
hard, to get work.”
“No doubt, no doubt; but then work is the thing which no one can get in
Paris. Even the earth refuses to do her part, and lets the seed dry up
in her bosom, that is why France is so restless. But madame has just
made a revelation—she spoke of some one in the Bastille.”
“She spoke of my father,” said Marguerite, in a sad, low voice.
“And is he in that awful place?”
“Sit down, monsieur, and I will tell you,” said the elder lady, “for you
are almost the only friend we have, and I must confide in some one.”