These be big words, my masters! I can only say they are not mine,--I am
far too modest to utter any such high-sounding phrase on my own
responsibility,--but they are the exact terms used by a high municipal
dignitary in characterising the result of what he was pleased to term
my "chivalrous conduct." My sardonic chum, on the contrary,--an
individual wholly abandoned to the ignoble vice of punning,--asserts
that my conduct was simply "barbarous." It will be for the reader to
judge.
St. Meuse--let us call it St. Meuse--is a town of what is still French
Lorraine; and to St. Meuse I came drifting up the Marne Valley, over
the flat expanse of the plain of Châlons, and by St. Menehould, the
proud stronghold of pickled pigs' feet, in the second week of September
1873. St. Meuse was one of the last of the French cities held in pawn
by the Germans for the payment of the milliards. The last instalment of
blood-money had been paid and the _Pickelhaubes_ were about to evacuate
St. Meuse as soon as the cash had been methodically counted, and after
they should have leisurely filled their baggage trains and packed their
portmanteaus. My intention in going to St. Meuse was to witness this
evacuation scene, and to be a spectator of the return of
light-heartedness to the French population of the place, on the
withdrawal of the Teuton incubus which for three years had lain upon
the safety-valve of their constitutional sprightliness. I had been a
little out of my reckoning of time, and when I reached St. Meuse I
found that I had a week to stay there before the event should occur
which I had come to witness; but the interval could not be regarded as
lost time, for St. Meuse is a very pleasant city and the conditions
which were so soon to terminate presented a most interesting field of
study.
You must know that St. Meuse is a fortress. It has a citadel or at
least such fragments of a citadel as the bombardment had left, and the
quaint old town is surrounded with bastions which are linked by
curtains and flanked by lunettes, the whole being girdled by a ditch,
beyond the counterscarp of which spreads a sloping glacis which makes a
very pleasant promenade. The defensive strength of the place is reduced
to zero in these days of far-reaching rifled siege artillery, for it
lies in a cup and is surrounded on all sides by hills the summits of
which easily command the fortifications. But the consciousness that it
is obsolete as a fortress has not yet come home to St. Meuse. It has,
in truth, a very good opinion of itself as a valorous, not to say
heroic, place; nor can it be denied that its title to this
self-complacency has been fairly earned. In the Franco-German war,
spite of its defects, it stood a siege of over two months and succumbed
only after a severe bombardment which lasted for several days. And
while as yet it was not wholly beleaguered, it was very active in
making itself disagreeable to the foreign invader. It was a patrolling
party from St. Meuse that intercepted the courier on his way from the
battlefield of Sedan to Germany, carrying the hurried lines to his wife
which the Crown Prince of Prussia scrawled on the fly-leaf of an
orderly book while as yet the last shots of the combat were dropping in
the distance; carrying too the notes of the momentous battle which
William Howard-Russell had jotted down in the heat of the action and
had taken the same opportunity of despatching. St. Meuse, then, had
balked the Princess of the first tidings of her husband's safety, and
the great English newspaper of the earliest details of the most
sensational battle of the age. It had fallen at last, but not
ingloriously; and the iron of defeat had not entered so deeply into its
soul as had been the case with some French fortresses, of which it
could not well be said that they had done their honest best to resist
their fate. Its self-respect, at least, was left to it, and it was
something to know that when the German garrison should march away, it
was bound to leave to St. Meuse the artillery and munitions of war of
the fortress just as they had been found on the day of the surrender.
I came to like St. Meuse immensely in the course of the days I spent in
it waiting for the great event of the evacuation. The company at the
_table d'hôte_ of the Trois Maures was varied and amusing. The Germans
ate in a room by themselves, so that the obnoxious element was not
present overtly at the general _table d'hôte._ But we had a few German
officials in plain clothes--clerks in General Manteuffel's bureau,
contractors, cigar merchants, etc., who spoke French even among
themselves, and were painfully polite to the French habitués who were
as painfully polite in return. There was a batch of Parisian
journalists who had come to St. Meuse to watch the evacuation, and who
wrote their letters in the café over the way to the accompaniment of
_verres_ of absinthe and bocks of beer. Then there was the gallant
captain of gendarmes, who had arrived in St. Meuse with a trusty band
of twenty-five subordinates to take over from the Germans the municipal
superintendence of the place, and, later, the occupation of the
fortress. He was the most polite man I ever knew, this captain of
gendarmes, with a clever knack of turning you outside in in the course
of half an hour's conversation, and the peculiar attribute of having,
to all appearance, eyes in the back of his head. To him, as he placidly
ate his food, there came, from time to time, quiet and rather
bashful-looking men in civilian attire of a slightly seedy description.
Sometimes they merely caught his eye and went out again without
speaking; sometimes they handed to him little notes; sometimes they
held with him a brief whispered conversation during which the captain's
nonchalance was imperturbable. These respectable individuals who, if
they saw you once in conversation with their chief, ever after bowed to
you with the greatest empressement, were members of the secret police.
As for the inhabitants of St. Meuse, they appeared to await the hour of
their delivery with considerable philosophy. Physically they are the
finest race I ever saw in France; their men, tall, square, and
muscular, their women handsome and comely. Numbers of both sexes are
fair-haired, and the sandiness of hair which we are wont to associate
with the Scottish Celt is by no means uncommon. A sardonic companion
whom I had picked up by the way, attributed those characteristics to
the fact that in the great war St. Meuse was a depôt for British
prisoners of war who had in some way contrived to imbue the native
population with some of their own physical attributes. He further
prophesied a wave of Teuton characteristics as the result of the German
occupation which was about to terminate; but his insinuations seemed to
me to partake of the scurrilous, especially as he instanced Lewes, once
a British depôt for prisoners of war, as a field in which similar
phenomena were to be discerned. But, nevertheless, I unquestionably
found a good deal of what may be called national hybridism in St.
Meuse. I used to buy photographs of a shopkeeper over whose door was
blazoned the Scottish name Macfarlane. Outwardly Macfarlane was a
"hielanman" all over. He had a shock-head of bright red hair such as
might have thatched the poll of the "Dougal cratur;" his cheek-bones
were high, his nose of the Captain of Knockdunder pattern, and his
mouth of true Celtic amplitude. One felt instinctively as if Macfarlane
were bound to know Gaelic, and that the times were out of joint when he
evinced greater fondness for _eau sucrée_ than for Talisker. It was
with quite a sense of dislocation of the fitness of things that I found
Macfarlane could talk nothing but French. But although he had torn up
the ancient landmarks, or rather suffered them to lapse, he yet was
proud of his ancestry. His grandfather, it appeared, was a soldier of
the "Black Watch" who had been a prisoner of war in St. Meuse, and who,
when the peace came, preferred taking unto himself a daughter of the
Amalekite and settling in St. Meuse, to going home to a pension of
sevenpence a day and liberty to ply as an Edinburgh caddie.
As for the German "men in possession," they pursued the even tenor of
their way in the precise yet phlegmatic German manner. Their guards
kept the gates and bridges as if they meant to hold the place till the
crack of doom, instead of being under orders to clear out within the
week. The recruits drilled on the citadel esplanade, straightening
their legs and pointing their toes as if their sole ambition in life
was to kick their feet away into space, down to the very eve of
evacuation. Their battalions practised skirmishing on the glacis with
that routine assiduity which is the secret of the German military
success. Old Manteuffel was living in the prefecture holding his levees
and giving his stiff ceremonious dinner-parties, as if he had done
despite to Dr. Cumming's warnings and taken a lease of the place. The
German officers thronged their café, each man, after the manner of
German officers, shouting at the pitch of his voice; and at the café of
the under-officers tough old _Wachtmeisters_ and grizzled sergeants
with many medals played long quiet games at cards, or knocked the balls
about on the chubby little pocketless tables with cues the tips of
which were as large as the base of a six-pounder shell.
The French journalists insisted I should accept it as an article of
faith, that these two races dwelling together in St. Meuse hated each
other like poison. They would have it that while discipline alone
prevented the Germans from massacring every Frenchman in the place, it
was only a humiliating sense of weakness that hindered the Frenchmen
from rising in hot fury against the Germans who were their temporary
masters. I am afraid the gentlemen of the Parisian press came rather to
dislike me on account of my obdurate scepticism in such matters. That
there was no great cordiality was obvious and natural. Some of the
Germans were arrogant and domineering. For instance, having a respect
for the Germans, it pained and indeed disgusted me to hear a colonel of
the German staff, in answer to my question whether the evacuating force
would march out with a rearguard as in war time, reply, "Pho, a field
gendarme with a whip is rearguard enough against such _canaille!_" But
in the mouths of Hans and Carl and Johann, the stout _Kerle_ of the
ranks, there were no such words of bitter scorn for their compulsory
hosts. The honest fellows drew water for the goodwives on whom they
were billeted, did a good deal of stolid love-making with the girls,
and nursed the babies with a solicitude that put to shame the male
parents of these youthful hopes of Troy. I take leave, as a reasonable
person, to doubt whether it can lie in the heart of a family to hate a
man who has dandled its baby and whether a man can be rancorous against
a family whose baby he has nursed. But fashion's sway is omnipotent in
emotion as in dress. Ever since the war, journalists, authors, and
public opinion generally had hammered it into the French nation that if
it were not to be a traitor to its patriotism, the first article of its
creed must be hatred against the Germans; and that the bitterer this
hate the more fervent the patriotism. It was not indeed incumbent on
Frenchmen and Frenchwomen to accept this creed, but it behoved them at
least to profess it; and it must be admitted that they did this for the
most part with an intensity and vigour which seemed to prove that with
many profession had deepened into conviction.
While as yet the evacuation had been a thing of the remote future, the
people of St. Meuse had borne the yoke lightly, and indeed had, I
believe, privily congratulated themselves on the substantial advantages
in the way of money spent in the place and the immunity from taxation
which were incidental to the foreign occupation. But as the day for the
evacuation drew closer and closer, one became dimly conscious of an
electrical condition of the social atmosphere which any trifle might
stimulate into a thunderstorm. Blouses gathered and muttered about the
street-corners, scowling at and elbowing the German soldiers as they
strode to buy sausages to stay them in the homeward march. The gamins,
always covertly insolent, no longer cloaked their insolence, and wagged
little tricolour flags under the nose of the stolid German sentry on
the Pont St. Croix. At the _table d'hôte_ the painful politeness of the
German civilians had no effect in thawing the studied coldness of the
French habitués.
As for myself, I was a neutral, and professing to take no side,
flattered myself that I could keep out of the vortex of the soreness.
Soon after my arrival at St. Meuse I had called upon the Mayor at his
official quarters in the Hôtel de Ville, and had received civil
speeches in return for civil speeches. Then I had left my card on
General Manteuffel, with whom I happened to have a previous
acquaintance; and those formal duties of a benevolent neutral having
been performed I had held myself free to choose my own company.
Circumstances had some time before brought me into familiar contact
with very many German officers, and I had imbibed a liking for their
ways and conversation, noisy as the latter is. Several of the officers
then in St. Meuse had been personal acquaintances in other days and it
was at once natural and pleasant for me to renew the intercourse. I was
made an honorary member of the mess; I spent many hours in the
officers' casino; I rode out with the officers of the squadron of
Uhlans. All this was very pleasant; but as the day of the evacuation
became close I noticed that the civility of the French captain of
gendarmes grew colder, that the cordiality of the French habitués of
the _table d'hôte_ visibly diminished, and that I encountered not a few
unfriendly looks when I walked through the streets by myself. It began
to dawn upon me that St. Meuse was getting to reckon me a German
sympathiser, and as there was no half-way house, therefore not in
accord with the emotions of France and St. Meuse.
On the afternoon immediately preceding the morning that had been fixed
for the evacuation, there came to me a polite request that I should
visit M. le Maire at the Hôtel de Ville. His worship was elaborately
civil but obviously troubled in mind. He coughed nervously several
times after the initiatory compliments had passed, and then he began to
speak. "Monsieur, you are aware that the Germans are going to-morrow
morning?"
I replied that I had cognisance of this fact. "Do you also know that
the last of the German officials depart by the 5 A.M. train, not caring
to remain here after the troops are gone?"
Of this also I was aware.
"Let me hope," continued the Mayor, "that you are going along with
them, or at all events will ride away with Messieurs the officers?"
On the contrary, was my reply, I had come not only to witness the
evacuation but to note how St. Meuse should bear herself in the hour of
her liberation; I desired to witness the rejoicings; I was not less
anxious to be a spectator of any disturbance if such unhappily should
occur. Why should M. le Maire have conceived this desire to balk my
natural curiosity?
M. le Maire was obviously not a little embarrassed; but he persevered
and was candid. This deplorable occupation was now so nearly finished
and happily, as yet, everything had been so tranquil, that it would be
a thousand pities if any untoward event should occur to detract from
the dignified attitude which the territory now to be evacuated had
maintained. It was of critical importance in every sense that St. Meuse
should not give way to riot or disorder on that occasion. He hoped and
believed it would not--here M. le Maire laid his hand on his heart--but
a spark, as I knew, fired tinder, and the St. Meuse populace were at
present figurative tinder. I might be that spark.
"You much resemble a German," said M. le Maire, "with that great yellow
beard of yours, and your broad shoulders, as if you had carried arms.
Our citizens have seen you much in the society of Messieurs the German
officers; they are not in a temper to draw fine distinctions of
nationality; and, dear sir, I ask you to go away with the Germans lest
perchance our blouses, reckoning you for a German, should not be very
tender with you when the spiked helmets are out of the place. The truth
is," said the worthy Maire with a burst of plain speaking, "I'm afraid
that you will be mobbed and that there will be a row, and that then the
Germans may come back and the evacuation be postponed, and I'll get
wigged by the Prefect and the Minister of the Interior and bully-ragged
in the newspapers, and St. Meuse will get abused and the fat will be
generally in the fire!"
Here was an awkward fix. I could not comply with the Mayor's request;
that was not to be thought of for reasons I need not mention here. I
had no particular desire to be mobbed. Once before I had experienced
the tender mercies of a French mob and I knew that they were very
cruel. But stronger than the personal feeling was my sincere sympathy
with the Mayor's critical position; and also my anxiety, by what means
might be within my power, to contribute to the maintenance of a
tranquillity so desirable. But, then, what means were within my power?
I could not go; I could not promise to stop indoors, for it was
incumbent on me to see everything that was to be seen. And if through
me trouble came I should be responsible heaven knows for what!--with a
skinful of sore bones into the bargain.
"If Monsieur cannot go,"--the Mayor broke in upon my cogitation,--"if
Monsieur cannot go, will he pardon the exigency of the occasion if I
suggest one other alternative? It is,"--here the Mayor hesitated--"it
is the yellow beard which gives to Monsieur the aspect of a German.
With only whiskers nobody could take Monsieur for anything but an
Englishman. If Monsieur would only have the complaisance and charity
to--to--"
Cut off my beard! Great powers! shear that mane that had been growing
for years!--that cataract of hair that has been, so to speak, my
oriflamme; the only physical belonging of which I ever was proud, the
only thing, so far as I know, that I have ever been envied! For the
moment the suggestion knocked me all of a heap. There came into my head
some confused reminiscence of a story about a girl who cut off her hair
and sold it to keep her mother from starving, or redeem her lover from
captivity, or something of the kind. But that must have been before the
epoch of parish relief, and kidnapping is now punishable by statute.
What was St. Meuse to me that for her I should mow my hirsute glories?
But then, if people grew savage, they might pull my beard out by the
roots. And there had been lately dawning on me the dire truth that its
tawny hue was becoming somewhat freely streaked with gray, a colour I
abhor, except in eyes. I made up my mind.
"I'll do it, sir," said I to the Mayor, with a manly curtness. My heart
was too full for many words.
He respected my emotion, bowed in silence over the hand which he had
grasped, and only spoke to give me the address of his own barber.
This barber was a patriot of unquestioned zeal; but I am inclined to
think his extraction was similar to that of Macfarlane, for he combined
patriotism with profit in a most edifying manner. He shaved the German
officers during the whole of their stay in St. Meuse; he accompanied
them on their march to the frontier; he earned the last centime in
Conflans; and then, driving forward to the frontier line, he unfurled
the tricolour as the last German soldier stepped over it. It is seldom
that one in this world sees his way to being so adroitly ambidextrous.
But this is a digression. In twenty minutes, shorn and shaven, I was
back again in the Mayor's parlour. The tears of gratitude stood in his
eyes. I learned afterwards that a decoration was contingent on his
preservation of the public peace on the occasion of the evacuation.
Started by the Mayor, the report rapidly circulated through St. Meuse
that I had cut off my beard rather than that it should be possible that
any one should mistake me for a German. From being a suspect I became a
popular idol. The French journalists entertained me to a banquet at
night at which in libations of champagne eternal amity between France
and England was pledged. Next morning the Germans went away and then
St. Meuse kicked up its heels and burst into exuberant joy. The Mayor
took me up to the station in his own carriage to meet the French
troops, and introduced me to the colonel of the battalion as a man who
had made sacrifices for _la belle France_. The colonel shook me
cordially by the hand and I was embraced by the robust vivandière, who
struck me as being in the practice of sustaining life on a diet of
garlic. When we emerged from the station I was cheered almost as loudly
as was the colonel, and a man waved a tricolour over my head all the
way back to the town, treading at frequent intervals on my heels. In
the course of the afternoon I happened to approach the civic band which
was performing patriotic music in the Place St. Croix. When the
bandmaster saw me he broke off the programme and struck up "Rule
Britannia!" in my honour, to the clamorous joy of the audience, who
were thwarted in their aim of carrying me round the Place shoulder-high
only by the constancy with which I clung to the railings which surround
Chevert's statue. But the crowning recognition of my sacrifice came at
the banquet which the town gave to the French officers. The Mayor
proposed the toast of "our English friend." "We had all," he said,
"made sacrifices for _la Patrie_--he himself had sustained the loss of
a wooden outhouse burned down in the bombardment; the gallant colonel
on his right had spilt his blood at St. Privat. Them it behoved to
suffer and they would do it again cheerfully, for it was, as he had
said, for _la Patrie_. But what was to be said of an honourable
gentleman who had sacrificed the most distinguishing ornament of his
physical aspect without the holy stimulus of patriotism, and simply
that there might be obviated the risk of an embroilment to the possible
consequence of which he would not further allude? Would it be called
the language of extravagant hyperbole, or would they not rather be
words justified by facts, when he ventured before this honourable
company to assert that his respected English friend had by his
self-sacrifice saved France from a great peril?" The Mayor's question
was replied to by a perfect whirlwind of cheering. Everybody in the
room insisted upon shaking hands with me and I was forced to get on my
legs and make a reply. Later in the evening I heard the Mayor and the
town clerk discussing the project of conferring upon me the freedom of
the city.