Life had fallen back into something like its accustomed routine with
the Delaherches at their house in the Rue Maqua after the terrible
shock of the capitulation, and for nearly four months the long days had
been slowly slipping by under the depressing influence of the Prussian
occupation.
There was one corner, however, of the immense structure that was always
closed, as if it had no occupant: it was the chamber that Colonel de
Vineuil still continued to inhabit, at the extreme end of the suite
where the master and his family spent their daily life. While the other
windows were thrown open, affording evidence by sight and sound of the
activity that prevailed within, those of that room were dark and
lifeless, their blinds invariably drawn. The colonel had complained
that the daylight hurt his eyes; no one knew whether or not this was
strictly true, but a lamp was kept burning at his bedside day and night
to humor him in his fancy. For two long months he had kept his bed,
although Major Bouroche asserted there was nothing more serious than a
contusion of the ankle and a fragment of bone chipped away; the wound
refused to heal and complications of various kinds had ensued. He was
able to get up now, but was in such a state of utter mental
prostration, his mysterious ailment had taken such firm hold upon his
system, that he was content to spend his days in idleness, stretched on
a lounge before a great wood fire. He had wasted away until he was
little more than a shadow, and still the physician who was attending
him could find no lesion to account for that lingering death. He was
slowly fading away, like the flame of a lamp in which the supply of oil
is giving out.
Mme. Delaherche, the mother, had immured herself there with him on the
day succeeding the occupation. No doubt they understood each other, and
had expressed in two words, once for all, their common purpose to
seclude themselves in that apartment so long as there should be
Prussians quartered in the house. They had afforded compulsory
hospitality to many of the enemy for various lengths of time; one, a
Captain, M. Gartlauben, was there still, had taken up his abode with
them permanently. But never since that first day had mention of those
things passed the colonel’s and the old lady’s lips. Notwithstanding
her seventy-eight years she was up every morning soon as it was day and
came and took her position in the fauteuil that was awaiting her in the
chimney nook opposite her old friend. There, by the steady, tranquil
lamplight, she applied herself industriously to knitting socks for the
children of the poor, while he, his eyes fixed on the crumbling brands,
with no occupation for body or mind, was as one already dead, in a
state of constantly increasing stupor. They certainly did not exchange
twenty words in the course of a day; whenever she, who still continued
to go about the house at intervals, involuntarily allowed some bit of
news from the outer world to escape her lips, he silenced her with a
gesture, so that no tidings of the siege of Paris, the disasters on the
Loire and all the daily renewed horrors of the invasion had gained
admission there. But the colonel might stop his ears and shut out the
light of day as he would in his self-appointed tomb; the air he
breathed must have brought him through key-hole and crevices
intelligence of the calamity that was everywhere throughout the land,
for every new day beheld him sinking, slowly dying, despite his
determination not to know the evil news.
While matters were in this condition at one end of the house
Delaherche, who was never contented unless occupied, was bustling about
and making attempts to start up his business once more, but what with
the disordered condition of the labor market and the pecuniary
embarrassment of many among his customers, he had so far only put a few
looms in motion. Then it occurred to him, as a means of killing the
time that hung heavy on his hands, to make a complete inventory of his
business and perfect certain changes and improvements that he had long
had in mind. To assist him in his labors he had just then at his
disposal a young man, the son of an old business acquaintance, who had
drifted in on him after the battle. Edmond Lagarde, who, although he
was twenty-three years old, would not have been taken for more than
eighteen, had grown to man’s estate in his father’s little dry-goods
shop at Passy; he was a sergeant in the 5th line regiment and had
fought with great bravery throughout the campaign, so much so that he
had been knocked over near the Minil gate about five o’clock, when the
battle was virtually ended, his left arm shattered by one of the last
shots fired that day, and Delaherche, when the other wounded were
removed from the improvised ambulance in the drying room, had
good-naturedly received him as an inmate of his house. It was under
these circumstances that Edmond was now one of the family, having an
apartment in the house and taking his meals at the common table, and,
now that his wound was healed, acting as a sort of secretary to the
manufacturer while waiting for a chance to get back to Paris. He had
signed a parole binding himself not to attempt to leave the city, and
owing to this and to his protector’s influence the Prussian authorities
did not interfere with him. He was fair, with blue eyes, and pretty as
a woman; so timid withal that his face assumed a beautiful hue of rosy
red whenever anyone spoke to him. He had been his mother’s darling; she
had impoverished herself, expending all the profits of their little
business to send him to college. And he adored Paris and bewailed his
compulsory absence from it when talking to Gilberte, did this wounded
cherub, whom the young woman had displayed great good-fellowship in
nursing.
Finally, their household had received another addition in the person of
M. de Gartlauben, a captain in the German landwehr, whose regiment had
been sent to Sedan to supply the place of troops dispatched to service
in the field. He was a personage of importance, notwithstanding his
comparatively modest rank, for he was nephew to the governor-general,
who, from his headquarters at Rheims, exercised unlimited power over
all the district. He, too, prided himself on having lived at Paris, and
seized every occasion ostentatiously to show he was not ignorant of its
pleasures and refinements; concealing beneath this film of varnish his
inborn rusticity, he assumed as well as he was able the polish of one
accustomed to good society. His tall, portly form was always tightly
buttoned in a close-fitting uniform, and he lied outrageously about his
age, never being able to bring himself to own up to his forty-five
years. Had he had more intelligence he might have made himself an
object of greater dread, but as it was his over-weening vanity, kept
him in a continual state of satisfaction with himself, for never could
such a thing have entered his mind as that anyone could dare to
ridicule him.
At a subsequent period he rendered Delaherche services that were of
inestimable value. But what days of terror and distress were those that
followed upon the heels of the capitulation! the city, overrun with
German soldiery, trembled in momentary dread of pillage and
conflagration. Then the armies of the victors streamed away toward the
valley of the Seine, leaving behind them only sufficient men to form a
garrison, and the quiet that settled upon the place was that of a
necropolis: the houses all closed, the shops shut, the streets deserted
as soon as night closed in, the silence unbroken save for the hoarse
cries and heavy tramp of the patrols. No letters or newspapers reached
them from the outside world; Sedan was become a dungeon, where the
immured citizens waited in agonized suspense for the tidings of
disaster with which the air was instinct. To render their misery
complete they were threatened with famine; the city awoke one morning
from its slumbers to find itself destitute of bread and meat and the
country roundabout stripped naked, as if a devouring swarm of locusts
had passed that way, by the hundreds of thousands of men who for a week
past had been pouring along its roads and across its fields in a
devastating torrent. There were provisions only for two days, and the
authorities were compelled to apply to Belgium for relief; all supplies
now came from their neighbors across the frontier, whence the customs
guards had disappeared, swept away like all else in the general
cataclysm. Finally there were never-ending vexations and annoyances, a
conflict that commenced to rage afresh each morning between the
Prussian governor and his underlings, quartered at the Sous-Prefecture,
and the Municipal Council, which was in permanent session at the Hôtel
de Ville. It was all in vain that the city fathers fought like heroes,
discussing, objecting, protesting, contesting the ground inch by inch;
the inhabitants had to succumb to the exactions that constantly became
more burdensome, to the whims and unreasonableness of the stronger.
In the beginning Delaherche suffered great tribulation from the
officers and soldiers who were billeted on him. It seemed as if
representatives from every nationality on the face of the globe
presented themselves at his door, pipe in mouth. Not a day passed but
there came tumbling in upon the city two or three thousand men, horse,
foot and dragoons, and although they were by rights entitled to nothing
more than shelter and firing, it was often found expedient to send out
in haste and get them provisions. The rooms they occupied were left in
a shockingly filthy condition. It was not an infrequent occurrence that
the officers came in drunk and made themselves even more obnoxious than
their men. Such strict discipline was maintained, however, that
instances of violence and marauding were rare; in all Sedan there were
but two cases reported of outrages committed on women. It was not until
a later period, when Paris displayed such stubbornness in her
resistance, that, exasperated by the length to which the struggle was
protracted, alarmed by the attitude of the provinces and fearing a
general rising of the populace, the savage war which the francs-tireurs
had inaugurated, they laid the full weight of their heavy hand upon the
suffering people.
Delaherche had just had an experience with a lodger who had been
quartered on him, a captain of cuirassiers, who made a practice of
going to bed with his boots on and when he went away left his apartment
in an unmentionably filthy condition, when in the last half of
September Captain de Gartlauben came to his door one evening when it
was raining in torrents. The first hour he was there did not promise
well for the pleasantness of their future relations; he carried matters
with a high hand, insisting that he should be given the best bedroom,
trailing the scabbard of his sword noisily up the marble staircase; but
encountering Gilberte in the corridor he drew in his horns, bowed
politely, and passed stiffly on. He was courted with great
obsequiousness, for everyone was well aware that a word from him to the
colonel commanding the post of Sedan would suffice to mitigate a
requisition or secure the release of a friend or relative. It was not
very long since his uncle, the governor-general at Rheims, had
promulgated a particularly detestable and cold-blooded order,
proclaiming martial law and decreeing the penalty of death to
whomsoever should give aid and comfort to the enemy, whether by acting
for them as a spy, by leading astray German troops that had been
entrusted to their guidance, by destroying bridges and artillery, or by
damaging the railroads and telegraph lines. The enemy meant the French,
of course, and the citizens scowled and involuntarily doubled their
fists as they read the great white placard nailed against the door of
post headquarters which attributed to them as a crime their best and
most sacred aspirations. It was so hard, too, to have to receive their
intelligence of German victories through the cheering of the garrison!
Hardly a day passed over their heads that they were spared this bitter
humiliation; the soldiers would light great fires and sit around them,
feasting and drinking all night long, while the townspeople, who were
not allowed to be in the streets after nine o’clock, listened to the
tumult from the depths of their darkened houses, crazed with suspense,
wondering what new catastrophe had befallen. It was on one of these
occasions, somewhere about the middle of October, that M. de Gartlauben
for the first time proved himself to be possessed of some delicacy of
feeling. Sedan had been jubilant all that day with renewed hopes, for
there was a rumor that the army of the Loire, then marching to the
relief of Paris, had gained a great victory; but how many times before
had the best of news been converted into tidings of disaster! and sure
enough, early in the evening it became known for certain that the
Bavarians had taken Orleans. Some soldiers had collected in a house
across the way from the factory in the Rue Maqua, and were so
boisterous in their rejoicings that the Captain, noticing Gilberte’s
annoyance, went and silenced them, remarking that he himself thought
their uproar ill-timed.
Toward the close of the month M. de Gartlauben was in position to
render some further trifling services. The Prussian authorities, in the
course of sundry administrative reforms inaugurated by them, had
appointed a German Sous-Prefect, and although this step did not put an
end to the exactions to which the city was subjected, the new official
showed himself to be comparatively reasonable. One of the most frequent
among the causes of difference that were constantly springing up
between the officers of the post and the municipal council was that
which arose from the custom of requisitioning carriages for the use of
the staff, and there was a great hullaballoo raised one morning that
Delaherche failed to send his caleche and pair to the Sous-Prefecture:
the mayor was arrested and the manufacturer would have gone to keep him
company up in the citadel had it not been for M. de Gartlauben, who
promptly quelled the rising storm. Another day he secured a stay of
proceedings for the city, which had been mulcted in the sum of thirty
thousand francs to punish it for its alleged dilatoriness in rebuilding
the bridge of Villette, a bridge that the Prussians themselves had
destroyed: a disastrous piece of business that was near being the ruin
of Sedan. It was after the surrender at Metz, however, that Delaherche
contracted his main debt of gratitude to his guest. The terrible news
burst on the citizens like a thunderclap, dashing to the ground all
their remaining hopes, and early in the ensuing week the streets again
began to be encumbered with the countless hosts of the German forces,
streaming down from the conquered fortress: the army of Prince
Frederick Charles moving on the Loire, that of General Manteuffel,
whose destination was Amiens and Rouen, and other corps on the march to
reinforce the besiegers before Paris. For several days the houses were
full to overflowing with soldiers, the butchers’ and bakers’ shops were
swept clean, to the last bone, to the last crumb; the streets were
pervaded by a greasy, tallowy odor, as after the passage of the great
migratory bands of olden times. The buildings in the Rue Maqua,
protected by a friendly influence, escaped the devastating irruption,
and were only called on to give shelter to a few of the leaders, men of
education and refinement.
Owing to these circumstances, Delaherche at last began to lay aside his
frostiness of manner. As a general thing the bourgeois families shut
themselves in their apartments and avoided all communication with the
officers who were billeted on them; but to him, who was of a sociable
nature and liked to extract from life what enjoyment it had to offer,
this enforced sulkiness in the end became unbearable. His great, silent
house, where the inmates lived apart from one another in a chill
atmosphere of distrust and mutual dislike, damped his spirits terribly.
He began by stopping M. de Gartlauben on the stairs one day to thank
him for his favors, and thus by degrees it became a regular habit with
the two men to exchange a few words when they met. The result was that
one evening the Prussian captain found himself seated in his host’s
study before the fireplace where some great oak logs were blazing,
smoking a cigar and amicably discussing the news of the day. For the
first two weeks of their new intimacy Gilberte did not make her
appearance in the room; he affected to ignore her existence, although,
at every faintest sound, his glance would be directed expectantly upon
the door of the connecting apartment. It seemed to be his object to
keep his position as an enemy as much as possible in the background,
trying to show he was not narrow-minded or a bigoted patriot, laughing
and joking pleasantly over certain rather ridiculous requisitions. For
example, a demand was made one day for a coffin and a shroud; that
shroud and coffin afforded him no end of amusement. As regarded other
things, such as coal, oil, milk, sugar, butter, bread, meat, to say
nothing of clothing, stoves and lamps—all the necessaries of daily
life, in a word—he shrugged his shoulders: _mon Dieu!_ what would you
have? No doubt it was vexatious; he was even willing to admit that
their demands were excessive, but that was how it was in war times;
they had to keep themselves alive in the enemy’s country. Delaherche,
who was very sore over these incessant requisitions, expressed his
opinion of them with frankness, pulling them to pieces mercilessly at
their nightly confabs, in much the same way as he might have criticised
the cook’s kitchen accounts. On only one occasion did their discussion
become at all acrimonious, and that was in relation to the impost of a
million francs that the Prussian préfet at Rethel had levied on the
department of the Ardennes, the alleged pretense of which was to
indemnify Germany for damages caused by French ships of war and by the
expulsion of Germans domiciled in French territory. Sedan’s
proportionate share of the assessment was forty-two thousand francs.
And he labored strenuously with his visitor to convince him of the
iniquity of the imposition; the city was differently circumstanced from
the other towns, it had had more than its share of affliction, and
should not be burdened with that new exaction. The pair always came out
of their discussions better friends than when they went in; one
delighted to have had an opportunity of hearing himself talk, the other
pleased with himself for having displayed a truly Parisian urbanity.
One evening Gilberte came into the room, with her air of thoughtless
gayety. She paused at the threshold, affecting embarrassment. M. de
Gartlauben rose, and with much tact presently withdrew, but on
repeating his visit the following evening and finding Gilberte there
again, he settled himself in his usual seat in the chimney-corner. It
was the commencement of a succession of delightful evenings that they
passed together in the study of the master of the house, not in the
drawing-room—wherein lay a nice distinction. And at a later period
when, yielding to their guest’s entreaties, the young woman consented
to play for him, she did not invite him to the salon, but entered the
room alone, leaving the communicating door open. In those bitter winter
evenings the old oaks of the Ardennes gave out a grateful warmth from
the depths of the great cavernous fireplace; there was a cup of
fragrant tea for them about ten o’clock; they laughed and chatted in
the comfortable, bright room. And it did not require extra powers of
vision to see that M. de Gartlauben was rapidly falling head over ears
in love with that sprightly young woman, who flirted with him as
audaciously as she had flirted in former days at Charleville with
Captain Beaudoin’s friends. He began to pay increased attention to his
person, displayed a gallantry that verged on the fantastic, was raised
to the pinnacle of bliss by the most trifling favor, tormented by the
one ever-present anxiety not to appear a barbarian in her eyes, a rude
soldier who did not know the ways of women.
And thus it was that in the big, gloomy house in the Rue Maqua a
twofold life went on. While at meal-times Edmond, the wounded cherub
with the pretty face, lent a listening ear to Delaherche’s unceasing
chatter, blushing if ever Gilberte asked him to pass her the salt,
while at evening M. de Gartlauben, seated in the study, with eyes
upturned in silent ecstasy, listened to a sonata by Mozart performed
for his benefit by the young woman in the adjoining drawing-room, a
stillness as of death continued to pervade the apartment where Colonel
de Vineuil and Madame Delaherche spent their days, the blinds tight
drawn, the lamp continually burning, like a votive candle illuminating
a tomb. December had come and wrapped the city in a winding-sheet of
snow; the cruel news seemed all the bitterer for the piercing cold.
After General Ducrot’s repulse at Champigny, after the loss of Orleans,
there was left but one dark, sullen hope: that the soil of France might
avenge their defeat, exterminate and swallow up the victors. Let the
snow fall thicker and thicker still, let the earth’s crust crack and
open under the biting frost, that in it the entire German nation might
find a grave! And there came another sorrow to wring poor Madame
Delaherche’s heart. One night when her son was from home, having been
suddenly called away to Belgium on business, chancing to pass
Gilberte’s door she heard within a low murmur of voices and smothered
laughter. Disgusted and sick at heart she returned to her own room,
where her horror of the abominable thing she suspected the existence of
would not let her sleep: it could have been none other but the Prussian
whose voice she heard; she had thought she had noticed glances of
intelligence passing; she was prostrated by this supreme disgrace. Ah,
that woman, that abandoned woman, whom her son had insisted on bringing
to the house despite her commands and prayers, whom she had forgiven,
by her silence, after Captain Beaudoin’s death! And now the thing was
repeated, and this time the infamy was even worse. What was she to do?
Such an enormity must not go unpunished beneath her roof. Her mind was
torn by the conflict that raged there, in her uncertainty as to the
course she should pursue. The colonel, desiring to know nothing of what
occurred outside his room, always checked her with a gesture when he
thought she was about to give him any piece of news, and she had said
nothing to him of the matter that had caused her such suffering; but on
those days when she came to him with tears standing in her eyes and sat
for hours in mournful silence, he would look at her and say to himself
that France had sustained yet another defeat.
This was the condition of affairs in the house in the Rue Maqua when
Henriette dropped in there one morning to endeavor to secure
Delaherche’s influence in favor of Father Fouchard. She had heard
people speak, smiling significantly as they did so, of the servitude to
which Gilberte had reduced Captain de Gartlauben; she was, therefore,
somewhat embarrassed when she encountered old Madame Delaherche, to
whom she thought it her duty to explain the object of her visit,
ascending the great staircase on her way to the colonel’s apartment.
“Dear madame, it would be so kind of you to assist us! My uncle is in
great danger; they talk of sending him away to Germany.”
The old lady, although she had a sincere affection for Henriette, could
scarce conceal her anger as she replied:
“I am powerless to help you, my child; you should not apply to me.” And
she continued, notwithstanding the agitation on the other’s face: “You
have selected an unfortunate moment for your visit; my son has to go to
Belgium to-night. Besides, he could not have helped you; he has no more
influence than I have. Go to my daughter-in-law; she is all powerful.”
And she passed on toward the colonel’s room, leaving Henriette
distressed to have unwittingly involved herself in a family drama.
Within the last twenty-four hours Madame Delaherche had made up her
mind to lay the whole matter before her son before his departure for
Belgium, whither he was going to negotiate a large purchase of coal to
enable him to put some of his idle looms in motion. She could not
endure the thought that the abominable thing should be repeated beneath
her eyes while he was absent, and was only waiting to make sure he
would not defer his departure until some other day, as he had been
doing all the past week. It was a terrible thing to contemplate: the
wreck of her son’s happiness, the Prussian disgraced and driven from
their doors, the wife, too, thrust forth upon the street and her name
ignominiously placarded on the walls, as had been threatened would be
done with any woman who should dishonor herself with a German.
Gilberte gave a little scream of delight on beholding Henriette.
“Ah, how glad I am to see you! It seems an age since we met, and one
grows old so fast in the midst of all these horrors!” Thus running on
she dragged her friend to her bedroom, where she seated her on the
lounge and snuggled down close beside her. “Come, take off your things;
you must stay and breakfast with us. But first we’ll talk a bit; you
must have such lots and lots of things to tell me! I know that you are
without news of your brother. Ah, that poor Maurice, how I pity him,
shut up in Paris, with no gas, no wood, no bread, perhaps! And that
young man whom you have been nursing, that friend of your brother’s—oh!
a little bird has told me all about it—isn’t it for his sake you are
here to-day?”
Henriette’s conscience smote her, and she did not answer. Was it not
really for Jean’s sake that she had come, in order that, the old uncle
being released, the invalid, who had grown so dear to her, might have
no further cause for alarm? It distressed her to hear his name
mentioned by Gilberte; she could not endure the thought of enlisting in
his favor an influence that was of so ambiguous a character. Her inbred
scruples of a pure, honest woman made themselves felt, now it seemed to
her that the rumors of a liaison with the Prussian captain had some
foundation.
“Then I’m to understand that it’s in behalf of this young man that you
come to us for assistance?” Gilberte insistently went on, as if
enjoying her friend’s discomfiture. And as the latter, cornered and
unable to maintain silence longer, finally spoke of Father Fouchard’s
arrest: “Why, to be sure! What a silly thing I am—and I was talking of
it only this morning! You did well in coming to us, my dear; we must go
about your uncle’s affair at once and see what we can do for him, for
the last news I had was not reassuring. They are on the lookout for
someone of whom to make an example.”
“Yes, I have had you in mind all along,” Henriette hesitatingly
replied. “I thought you might be willing to assist me with your advice,
perhaps with something more substantial—”
The young woman laughed merrily. “You little goose, I’ll have your
uncle released inside three days. Don’t you know that I have a Prussian
captain here in the house who stands ready to obey my every order?
Understand, he can refuse me nothing!” And she laughed more heartily
than ever, in the giddy, thoughtless triumph of her coquettish nature,
holding in her own and patting the hands of her friend, who was so
uncomfortable that she could not find words in which to express her
thanks, horrified by the avowal that was implied in what she had just
heard. But how to account for such serenity, such childlike gayety?
“Leave it to me; I’ll send you home to-night with a mind at rest.”
When they passed into the dining room Henriette was struck by Edmond’s
delicate beauty, never having seen him before. She eyed him with the
pleasure she would have felt in looking at a pretty toy. Could it be
possible that that boy had served in the army? and how could they have
been so cruel as to break his arm? The story of his gallantry in the
field made him even more interesting still, and Delaherche, who had
received Henriette with the cordiality of a man to whom the sight of a
new face is a godsend, while the servants were handing round the
cutlets and the potatoes cooked in their jackets, never seemed to tire
of eulogizing his secretary, who was as industrious and well behaved as
he was handsome. They made a very pleasant and homelike picture, the
four, thus seated around the bright table in the snug, warm dining
room.
“So you want us to interest ourselves in Father Fouchard’s case, and
it’s to that we owe the pleasure of your visit, eh?” said the
manufacturer. “I’m extremely sorry that I have to go away to-night, but
my wife will set things straight for you in a jiffy; there’s no
resisting her, she has only to ask for a thing to get it.” He laughed
as he concluded his speech, which was uttered in perfect simplicity of
soul, evidently pleased and flattered that his wife possessed such
influence, in which he shone with a kind of reflected glory. Then
turning suddenly to her: “By the way, my dear, has Edmond told you of
his great discovery?”
“No; what discovery?” asked Gilberte, turning her pretty caressing eyes
full on the young sergeant.
The cherub blushed whenever a woman looked at him in that way, as if
the exquisiteness of his sensations was too much for him. “It’s
nothing, madame; only a bit of old lace; I heard you saying the other
day you wanted some to put on your mauve peignoir. I happened yesterday
to come across five yards of old Bruges point, something really
handsome and very cheap. The woman will be here presently to show it to
you.”
She could have kissed him, so delighted was she. “Oh, how nice of you!
You shall have your reward.”
Then, while a terrine of foie-gras, purchased in Belgium, was being
served, the conversation took another turn; dwelling for an instant on
the quantities of fish that were dying of poison in the Meuse, and
finally coming around to the subject of the pestilence that menaced
Sedan when there should be a thaw. Even as early as November, there had
been several cases of disease of an epidemic character. Six thousand
francs had been expended after the battle in cleansing the city and
collecting and burning clothing, knapsacks, haversacks, all the debris
that was capable of harboring infection; but, for all that, the
surrounding fields continued to exhale sickening odors whenever there
came a day or two of warmer weather, so replete were they with
half-buried corpses, covered only with a few inches of loose earth. In
every direction the ground was dotted with graves; the soil cracked and
split in obedience to the forces acting beneath its surface, and from
the fissures thus formed the gases of putrefaction issued to poison the
living. In those more recent days, moreover, another center of
contamination had been discovered, the Meuse, although there had
already been removed from it the bodies of more than twelve hundred
dead horses. It was generally believed that there were no more human
remains left in the stream, until, one day, a _garde champetre_,
looking attentively down into the water where it was some six feet
deep, discovered some objects glimmering at the bottom, that at first
he took for stones; but they proved to be corpses of men, that had been
mutilated in such a manner as to prevent the gas from accumulating in
the cavities of the body and hence had been kept from rising to the
surface. For near four months they had been lying there in the water
among the eel-grass. When grappled for the irons brought them up in
fragments, a head, an arm, or a leg at a time; at times the force of
the current would suffice to detach a hand or foot and send it rolling
down the stream. Great bubbles of gas rose to the surface and burst,
still further empoisoning the air.
“We shall get along well enough as long as the cold weather lasts,”
remarked Delaherche, “but as soon as the snow is off the ground we
shall have to go to work in earnest to abate the nuisance; if we don’t
we shall be wanting graves for ourselves.” And when his wife laughingly
asked him if he could not find some more agreeable subject to talk
about at the table, he concluded by saying: “Well, it will be a long
time before any of us will care to eat any fish out of the Meuse.”
They had finished their repast, and the coffee was being poured, when
the maid came to the door and announced that M. de Gartlauben presented
his compliments and wanted to know if he might be allowed to see them
for a moment. There was a slight flutter of excitement, for it was the
first time he had ever presented himself at that hour of the day.
Delaherche, seeing in the circumstance a favorable opportunity for
presenting Henriette to him, gave orders that he should be introduced
at once. The doughty captain, when he beheld another young woman in the
room, surpassed himself in politeness, even accepting a cup of coffee,
which he took without sugar, as he had seen many people do at Paris. He
had only asked to be received at that unusual hour, he said, that he
might tell Madame he had succeeded in obtaining the pardon of one of
her proteges, a poor operative in the factory who had been arrested on
account of a squabble with a Prussian. And Gilberte thereon seized the
opportunity to mention Father Fouchard’s case.
“Captain, I wish to make you acquainted with one of my dearest friends,
who desires to place herself under your protection. She is the niece of
the farmer who was arrested lately at Remilly, as you are aware, for
being mixed up with that business of the francs-tireurs.”
“Yes, yes, I know; the affair of the spy, the poor fellow who was found
in a sack with his throat cut. It’s a bad business, a very bad
business. I am afraid I shall not be able to do anything.”
“Oh, Captain, don’t say that! I should consider it such a favor!”
There was a caress in the look she cast on him, while he beamed with
satisfaction, bowing his head in gallant obedience. Her wish was his
law!
“You would have all my gratitude, sir,” faintly murmured Henriette, to
whose memory suddenly rose the image of her husband, her dear Weiss,
slaughtered down yonder at Bazeilles, filling her with invincible
repugnance.
Edmond, who had discreetly taken himself off on the arrival of the
captain, now reappeared and whispered something in Gilberte’s ear. She
rose quickly from the table, and, announcing to the company that she
was going to inspect her lace, excused herself and followed the young
man from the room. Henriette, thus left alone with the two men, went
and took a seat by herself in the embrasure of a window, while they
remained seated at the table and went on talking in a loud tone.
“Captain, you’ll have a _petit verre_ with me. You see I don’t stand on
ceremony with you; I say whatever comes into my head, because I know
you to be a fair-minded man. Now I tell you your préfet is all wrong in
trying to extort those forty-two thousand francs from the city. Just
think once of all our losses since the beginning of the war. In the
first place, before the battle, we had the entire French army on our
hands, a set of ragged, hungry, exhausted men; and then along came your
rascals, and their appetites were not so very poor, either. The passage
of those troops through the place, what with requisitions, repairing
damages and expenses of all sorts, stood us in a million and a half.
Add as much more for the destruction caused by your artillery and by
conflagration during the battle; there you have three millions.
Finally, I am well within bounds in estimating the loss sustained by
our trade and manufactures at two millions. What do you say to that,
eh? A grand total of five million francs for a city of thirteen
thousand inhabitants! And now you come and ask us for forty-two
thousand more as a contribution to the expense of carrying on the war
against us! Is it fair, is it reasonable? I leave it to your own sense
of justice.”
M. de Gartlauben nodded his head with an air of profundity, and made
answer:
“What can you expect? It is the fortune of war, the fortune of war.”
To Henriette, seated in her window seat, her ears ringing, and vague,
sad images of every sort fleeting through her brain, the time seemed to
pass with mortal slowness, while Delaherche asserted on his word of
honor that Sedan could never have weathered the crisis produced by the
exportation of all their specie had it not been for the wisdom of the
local magnates in emitting an issue of paper money, a step that had
saved the city from financial ruin.
“Captain, will you have just a drop of cognac more?” and he skipped to
another topic. “It was not France that started the war; it was the
Emperor. Ah, I was greatly deceived in the Emperor. He need never
expect to sit on the throne again; we would see the country dismembered
first. Look here! there was just one man in this country last July who
saw things as they were, and that was M. Thiers; and his action at the
present time in visiting the different capitals of Europe is most wise
and patriotic. He has the best wishes of every good citizen; may he be
successful!”
He expressed the conclusion of his idea by a gesture, for he would have
considered it improper to speak of his desire for peace before a
Prussian, no matter how friendly he might be, although the desire
burned fiercely in his bosom, as it did in that of every member of the
old conservative bourgeoisie who had favored the plebiscite. Their men
and money were exhausted, it was time for them to throw up the sponge;
and a deep-seated feeling of hatred toward Paris, for the obstinacy
with which it held out, prevailed in all the provinces that were in
possession of the enemy. He concluded in a lower tone, his allusion
being to Gambetta’s inflammatory proclamations:
“No, no, we cannot give our suffrages to fools and madmen. The course
they advocate would end in general massacre. I, for my part, am for M.
Thiers, who would submit the questions at issue to the popular vote,
and as for their Republic, great heavens! let them have it if they want
it, while waiting for something better; it don’t trouble me in the
slightest.”
Captain de Gartlauben continued to nod his head very politely with an
approving air, murmuring:
“To be sure, to be sure—”
Henriette, whose feeling of distress had been increasing, could stand
their talk no longer. She could assign no definite reason for the
sensation of inquietude that possessed her; it was only a longing to
get away, and she rose and left the room quietly in quest of Gilberte,
whose absence had been so long protracted. On entering the bedroom,
however, she was greatly surprised to find her friend stretched on the
lounge, weeping bitterly and manifestly suffering from some extremely
painful emotion.
“Why, what is the matter? What has happened you?”
The young woman’s tears flowed faster still and she would not speak,
manifesting a confusion that sent every drop of blood coursing from her
heart up to her face. At last, throwing herself into the arms that were
opened to receive her and concealing her face in the other’s bosom, she
stammered:
“Oh, darling if you but knew. I shall never dare to tell you—and yet I
have no one but you, you alone perhaps can tell me what is best to do.”
A shiver passed through her frame, her voice was scarcely audible. “I
was with Edmond—and then—and then Madame Delaherche came into the room
and caught me—”
“Caught you! What do you mean?”
“Yes, we were here in the room; he was holding me in his arms and
kissing me—” And clasping Henriette convulsively in her trembling arms
she told her all. “Oh, my darling, don’t judge me severely; I could not
bear it! I know I promised you it should never happen again, but you
have seen Edmond, you know how brave he is, how handsome! And think
once of the poor young man, wounded, ill, with no one to give him a
mother’s care! And then he has never had the enjoyments that wealth
affords; his family have pinched themselves to give him an education. I
could not be harsh with him.”
Henriette listened, the picture of surprise; she could not recover from
her amazement. “What! you don’t mean to say it was the little sergeant!
Why, my dear, everyone believes the Prussian to be your lover!”
Gilberte straightened herself up with an indignant air, and dried her
eyes. “The Prussian my lover? No, thank you! He’s detestable; I can’t
endure him. I wonder what they take me for? What have I ever done that
they should suppose I could be guilty of such baseness? No, never! I
would rather die than do such a thing!” In the earnestness of her
protestations her beauty had assumed an angry and more lofty cast that
made her look other than she was. And all at once, sudden as a flash,
her coquettish gayety, her thoughtless levity, came back to her face,
accompanied by a peal of silvery laughter. “I won’t deny that I amuse
myself at his expense. He adores me, and I have only to give him a look
to make him obey. You have no idea what fun it is to bamboozle that
great big man, who seems to think he will have his reward some day.”
“But that is a very dangerous game you’re playing,” Henriette gravely
said.
“Oh, do you think so? What risk do I incur? When he comes to see he has
nothing to expect he can’t do more than be angry with me and go away.
But he will never see it! You don’t know the man; I read him like a
book from the very start: he is one of those men with whom a woman can
do what she pleases and incur no danger. I have an instinct that guides
me in these matters and which has never deceived me. He is too consumed
by vanity; no human consideration will ever drive it into his head that
by any possibility a woman could get the better of him. And all he will
get from me will be permission to carry away my remembrance, with the
consoling thought that he has done the proper thing and behaved himself
like a gallant man who has long been an inhabitant of Paris.” And with
her air of triumphant gayety she added: “But before he leaves he shall
cause Uncle Fouchard to be set at liberty, and all his recompense for
his trouble shall be a cup of tea sweetened by these fingers.”
But suddenly her fears returned to her: she remembered what must be the
terrible consequences of her indiscretion, and her eyes were again
bedewed with tears.
“_Mon Dieu!_ and Madame Delaherche—how will it all end? She bears me no
love; she is capable of telling the whole story to my husband.”
Henriette had recovered her composure. She dried her friend’s eyes, and
made her rise from the lounge and arrange her disordered clothing.
“Listen, my dear; I cannot bring myself to scold you, and yet you know
what my sentiments must be. But I was so alarmed by the stories I heard
about the Prussian, the business wore such an extremely ugly aspect,
that this affair really comes to me as a sort of relief by comparison.
Cease weeping; things may come out all right.”
Her action was taken none too soon, for almost immediately Delaherche
and his mother entered the room. He said that he had made up his mind
to take the train for Brussels that afternoon and had been giving
orders to have a carriage ready to carry him across the frontier into
Belgium; so he had come to say good-by to his wife. Then turning and
addressing Henriette:
“You need have no further fears. M. de Gartlauben, just is he was going
away, promised me he would attend to your uncle’s case, and although I
shall not be here, my wife will keep an eye to it.”
Since Madame Delaherche had made her appearance in the apartment
Gilberte had not once taken her anxious eyes from off her face. Would
she speak, would she tell what she had seen, and keep her son from
starting on his projected journey? The elder lady, also, soon as she
crossed the threshold, had bent her fixed gaze in silence on her
daughter-in-law. Doubtless her stern patriotism induced her to view the
matter in somewhat the same light that Henriette had viewed it. _Mon
Dieu!_ since it was that young man, that Frenchman who had fought so
bravely, was it not her duty to forgive, even as she had forgiven once
before, in Captain Beaudoin’s case? A look of greater softness rose to
her eyes; she averted her head. Her son might go; Edmond would be there
to protect Gilberte against the Prussian. She even smiled faintly, she
whose grim face had never once relaxed since the news of the victory at
Coulmiers.
“_Au revoir_,” she said, folding her son in her arms. “Finish up your
business quickly as you can and come back to us.”
And she took herself slowly away, returning to the prison-like chamber
across the corridor, where the colonel, with his dull gaze, was peering
into the shadows that lay outside the disk of bright light which fell
from the lamp.
Henriette returned to Remilly that same evening, and one morning, three
days afterward, had the pleasure to see Father Fouchard come walking
into the house, as calmly as if he had merely stepped out to transact
some business in the neighborhood. He took a seat by the table and
refreshed himself with some bread and cheese, and to all the questions
that were put to him replied with cool deliberation, like a man who had
never seen anything to alarm him in his situation. What reason had he
to be afraid? He had done nothing wrong; it was not he who had killed
the Prussian, was it? So he had just said to the authorities:
“Investigate the matter; I know nothing about it.” And they could do
nothing but release him, and the mayor as well, seeing they had no
proofs against them. But the eyes of the crafty, sly old peasant
gleamed with delight at the thought of how nicely he had pulled the
wool over the eyes of those dirty blackguards, who were beginning to
higgle with him over the quality of the meat he furnished to them.
December was drawing near its end, and Jean insisted on going away. His
leg was quite strong again, and the doctor announced that he was fit to
go and join the army. This was to Henriette a subject of profoundest
sorrow, which she kept locked in her bosom as well as she was able. No
tidings from Paris had reached them since the disastrous battle of
Champigny; all they knew was that Maurice’s regiment had been exposed
to a murderous fire and had suffered severely. Ever that deep, unbroken
silence; no letter, never the briefest line for them, when they knew
that families in Raucourt and Sedan were receiving intelligence of
their loved ones by circuitous ways. Perhaps the pigeon that was
bringing them the so eagerly wished-for news had fallen a victim to
some hungry bird of prey, perhaps the bullet of a Prussian had brought
it to the ground at the margin of a wood. But the fear that haunted
them most of all was that Maurice was dead; the silence of the great
city off yonder in the distance, uttering no cry in the mortal hug of
the investment, was become to them in their agonized suspense the
silence of death. They had abandoned all hope of tidings, and when Jean
declared his settled purpose to be gone, Henriette only gave utterance
to this stifled cry of despair:
“My God! then all is ended, and I am to be left alone!”
It was Jean’s desire to go and serve with the Army of the North, which
had recently been re-formed under General Faidherbe. Now that General
Manteuffel’s corps had moved forward to Dieppe there were three
departments, cut off from the rest of France, that this army had to
defend, le Nord, le Pas-de-Calais, and la Somme, and Jean’s plan, not a
difficult one to carry into execution, was simply to make for Bouillon
and thence complete his journey across Belgian territory. He knew that
the 23d corps was being recruited, mainly from such old soldiers of
Sedan and Metz as could be gathered to the standards. He had heard it
reported that General Faidherbe was about to take the field, and had
definitely appointed the next ensuing Sunday as the day of his
departure, when news reached him of the battle of Pont-Noyelle, that
drawn battle which came so near being a victory for the French.
It was Dr. Dalichamp again in this instance who offered the services of
his gig and himself as driver to Bouillon. The good man’s courage and
kindness were boundless. At Raucourt, where typhus was raging,
communicated by the Bavarians, there was not a house where he had not
one or more patients, and this labor was additional to his regular
attendance at the two hospitals at Raucourt and Remilly. His ardent
patriotism, the impulse that prompted him to protest against
unnecessary barbarity, had twice led to his being arrested by the
Prussians, only to be released on each occasion. He gave a little laugh
of satisfaction, therefore, the morning he came with his vehicle to
take up Jean, pleased to be the instrument of assisting the escape of
another of the victims of Sedan, those poor, brave fellows, as he
called them, to whom he gave his professional services and whom he
aided with his purse. Jean, who knew of Henriette’s straitened
circumstances and had been suffering from lack of funds since his
relapse, accepted gratefully the fifty francs that the doctor offered
him for traveling expenses.
Father Fouchard did things handsomely at the leave-taking, sending
Silvine to the cellar for two bottles of wine and insisting that
everyone should drink a glass to the extermination of the Germans. He
was a man of importance in the country nowadays and had his “plum”
hidden away somewhere or other; he could sleep in peace now that the
francs-tireurs had disappeared, driven like wild beasts from their
lair, and his sole wish was for a speedy conclusion of the war. He had
even gone so far in one of his generous fits as to pay Prosper his
wages in order to retain his services on the farm, which the young man
had no thought of leaving. He touched glasses with Prosper, and also
with Silvine, whom he at times was half inclined to marry, knowing what
a treasure he had in his faithful, hard-working little servant; but
what was the use? he knew she would never leave him, that she would
still be there when Charlot should be grown and go in turn to serve his
country as a soldier. And touching his glass to Henriette’s, Jean’s,
and the doctor’s, he exclaimed:
“Here’s to the health of you all! May you all prosper and be no worse
off than I am!”
Henriette would not let Jean go away without accompanying him as far as
Sedan. He was in citizen’s dress, wearing a frock coat and derby hat
that the doctor had loaned him. The day was piercingly cold; the sun’s
rays were reflected from a crust of glittering snow. Their intention
had been to pass through the city without stopping, but when Jean
learned that his old colonel was still at the Delaherches’ he felt an
irresistible desire to go and pay his respects to him, and at the same
time thank the manufacturer for his many kindnesses. His visit was
destined to bring him an additional, a final sorrow, in that city of
mournful memories. On reaching the structure in the Rue Maqua they
found the household in a condition of the greatest distress and
disorder, Gilberte wringing her hands, Madame Delaherche weeping great
silent tears, while her son, who had come in from the factory, where
work was gradually being resumed, uttered exclamations of surprise. The
colonel had just been discovered, stone dead, lying exactly as he had
fallen, in a heap on the floor of his chamber. The physician, who was
summoned with all haste, could assign no cause for the sudden death;
there was no indication of paralysis or heart trouble. The colonel had
been stricken down, and no one could tell from what quarter the blow
came; but the following morning, when the room was thrown open, a piece
of an old newspaper was found, lying on the carpet, that had been
wrapped around a book and contained the account of the surrender of
Metz.
“My, dear,” said Gilberte to Henriette, “as Captain de Gartlauben was
coming downstairs just now he removed his hat as he passed the door of
the room where my uncle’s body is lying. Edmond saw it; he’s an
extremely well-bred man, don’t you think so?”
In all their intimacy Jean had never yet kissed Henriette. Before
resuming his seat in the gig with the doctor he endeavored to thank her
for all her devoted kindness, for having nursed and loved him as a
brother, but somehow the words would not come at his command; he opened
his arms and, with a great sob, clasped her in a long embrace, and she,
beside herself with the grief of parting, returned his kiss. Then the
horse started, he turned about in his seat, there was a waving of
hands, while again and again two sorrowful voices repeated in choking
accents:
“Farewell! Farewell!”
On her return to Remilly that evening Henriette reported for duty at
the hospital. During the silent watches of the night she was visited by
another convulsive attack of sobbing, and wept, wept as if her tears
would never cease to flow, clasping her hands before her as if between
them to strangle her bitter sorrow.