His grandchild turned to me; "Why, yes, doctor. That is the great news
to-day. The siege of Berlin has begun."
And while she spoke, she went on with her sewing as calmly as you
please. How could he suspect what was happening? He couldn't hear the
guns at the fortifications. He couldn't see the city in its fear and
sorrow.
From his bed he could see one side of the Arc de Triomphe, and his room
was filled with odds and ends of the period of the First Empire--all
admirably fitted to sustain his illusions. Portraits of Napoleon's
marshals, battle prints, a picture of the little King of Rome in his
baby dress; big stiff consoles decorated with trophies, covered with
imperial relics, medallions, bronzes, a piece of the rock of St. Helena
under a glass case, miniatures all representing the same blue-eyed
lady, now with hair curled, now in a ball dress, now in a yellow gown
with leg-of-mutton sleeves. And all this--consoles, King of Rome,
marshals, yellow-gowned, short-waisted ladies, with that prim stiffness
which was considered graceful in 1806, this atmosphere of victory and
conquest--it was this more than anything we could say to him that made
him accept so naïvely the siege of Berlin.
After that day, our military operations grew simpler and simpler.
Nothing but a little patience was needed in order to take Berlin. Every
little while, when the old gentleman grew listless, we read him a
letter from his son, an imaginary letter of course, as Paris was by now
cut off, and as since Sedan, the aide-de-camp of Mac Mahon had been
sent to a German fortress.
You can easily imagine the despair of the poor child who heard nothing
from her father, knowing that he was a prisoner, deprived of even
comfort and perhaps sick, while she had to write letters in his name
that were full of joy, brief indeed, such as a soldier would write from
the field, a soldier advancing day by day through the enemy's country.
Sometimes it was too much for her, and weeks went by without a letter.
The old man began to worry and to be unable to sleep. Then presto! a
letter from Germany would arrive, and she would read it gayly at her
grandfather's bedside, holding back her tears.
The old colonel would listen gravely, smile knowingly, approve,
criticize, and explain to us any passage which seemed confused. But it
was in the replies that he made to his son that he was magnificent.
"Never forget that you are French," he wrote. "Be generous to the poor
Germans. Don't let them suffer more than is inevitable from the
invasion of their country." And then came suggestions without end,
charming, moralizing on property rights, the courtesy due to women, a
veritable code of honor for conquerors. All this was interwoven with
reflections on politics and discussions of the peace terms. On this
last point he was not unduly exacting. "Indemnity, and nothing
more--what good would their provinces be to us? A France could never be
made out of a Germany." He dictated that in a firm voice, and one could
not hear him without emotion, there was so much sincerity, so beautiful
a patriotism in what he said.
Meanwhile, the siege was progressing--not the siege of Berlin,
unfortunately! We had reached the period of severe cold, the
bombardment, the epidemics, the famine. But thanks to our efforts, to
the infinite tenderness which enfolded him, the serenity of the old old
man was never troubled. To the end, I was able to get white bread and
fresh meat for him--for him alone, of course. You can't imagine
anything more touching than these luncheons so innocent in their
egotism--the old gentleman sitting up in bed, fresh and smiling, his
napkin tucked under his chin, and his pale little granddaughter at hand
to guide his hand, make him drink, and help him as he ate all these
forbidden good things.
Then, animated by his meal, in the comfort of his warm room, while the
winter's wind whistled outside and the snow flakes whirled around the
windows, the ex-cuirassier told us for the hundredth time the story of
the retreat from Russia when frozen biscuit and horse flesh was all
that there was to eat.
"Do you realize what that means, little one? We had to eat horse!"
Did she realize what that meant! For two months she had eaten no other
meat.
As time went on and the old gentleman recovered little by little, our
task increased in difficulty. The numbness of the senses which had made
it so easy to deceive him was disappearing day by day. Two or three
times already the terrible cannonading at the Porte Maillot had made
him jump, his ear as keen as a hunting dog's, and we had been obliged
to invent a last victory for Bazaine at the gates of Berlin and salvos
fired at the Invalides[273-1] in honor of the event.
Another day, when his bed had been brought over to the window (it was,
I think, the Thursday on which the battle of Buzenval was fought), he
distinctly saw the troops of the National Guard formed on the Avenue de
la Grand Armé.
"What are those troops?" asked the old gentleman, and we heard him
mutter, "Not well set up."
It went no farther, but we understood that thereafter we must take
every precaution. Unfortunately we were not sufficiently careful. One
evening as I reached the house, the little girl came to meet me,
considerably troubled. "It is to-morrow that they enter the city," she
said.
Was the door of her grandfather's bedroom open? In thinking it all over
afterward, I remember that this evening his face wore a very striking
expression. Probably he had overheard us; but while we were talking of
the entry of the Prussians, the old gentleman was thinking of the
triumphant return of the French troops, for which he had so long been
waiting--Mac Mahon marching down the avenue in the midst of flowers,
his son at the marshal's side, and he himself on his balcony wearing
his full dress uniform as he did at Lutzen, saluting the riddled flags
and the powder-blackened eagles.
Poor old Jouve! No doubt he thought that we did not want him to
participate in this review of our troops in the fear that his emotion
would be too much for him, so he carefully avoided speaking of it. But
the next day, at the very minute when the Prussian battalions started
on their march from the Porte Maillot to the Tuileries,[274-1] the
window up there opened gently and the Colonel appeared on the balcony
wearing his helmet, his saber and all the old-fashioned but still
glorious regalia of one of Milhaud's cuirassiers.
I still wonder what will power, what spurt of vitality it had taken to
put him on his feet again in all the trappings of war. At all events,
there he was, standing erect behind the rail, surprised to find the
avenues so large, so silent, the window curtains down, and Paris as
gloomy as a great pesthouse; flags everywhere, but such strange flags
bearing a red cross on a white field, and no crowd to meet our
soldiers.
For an instant he thought he might be mistaken; but no, below, behind
the Arc de Triomphe, there came an indistinct rattle and then a black
line advanced in the early light. Then, little by little, the eagles on
the tops of helmets could be seen shining in the sun, the little drums
of Jena began to beat, and under the Arc de L'Etoile, accented by the
heavy tread of marching men and by the clash of sidearms, Schubert's
Triumphal March burst out.
Suddenly the silence of the Place de L'Etoile was broken by a terrible
cry: "To arms! To arms! The Prussians!" And the four Uhlans[275-1] at
the head of the column could see up there on the balcony a tall old man
stagger and fall. This time Colonel Jouve was really dead.