ARCIS-SUR-AUBE.
Late and tired, I arrived, one September evening, at Arcis-sur-Aube,
birthplace and home of the great Danton.
I had brought with me letters of introduction to friends’ friends,
unaware that at such a moment the sign-manual of the President of the
Republic himself would hardly have secured me a night’s lodging. For
at this especial moment the little town, from end to end, was in the
possession of the military headquarters of that year’s manoeuvres.
Every private dwelling showed a notice of the officers in command
sheltered under its roof. Here and there, the presence of sentinels
indicated the location of generals. The hotels were crowded from
basement to attic, folks who let lodgings for hire had made bargains
long before, whilst the very poorest made up beds, or turned out of
their own, to accommodate the rank and file. At the extreme end of the
town, close to the ancestral home of the Dantons, stands the straggling
old-fashioned Hôtel de la Poste, a hostelry, I should suppose, not in
the least changed since the days of the great conventionnel. All here
was bustle and excitement. Mine host was spitting game in the kitchen,
and could hardly find time to answer my application; soldiers and
officers’ servants, scullions and men of all-work, almost knocked
each other down in the inn-yard, the landlady, generally so affable a
personage in provincial France, gave me the cold shoulder. I turned out
in the forlorn hope of finding a good Samaritan. Of course, to present
a letter of introduction under such circumstances, was quite out of the
question, my errand would have been the last hair to break the camel’s
back, final embarrassment of an already overdone hostess. But night was
at hand; the last train to Troyes, the nearest town, had gone, no other
would pass through Arcis-sur-Aube until the small hours of the morning.
Unless I could procure a room, therefore, I should be in the position of
a homeless vagrant. Well, not to be dismayed, I set out making inquiries
right and left, to my astonishment being rebuffed rather surlily and
with looks of suspicion. The fact is, during these manoeuvres, a
lady arriving at head-quarters alone is apt to be looked upon with no
favourable eye. Especially do people wonder what on earth can bring a
foreigner to an out of the way country place at such a time--she must
surely be a spy, pickpocket or something worse!
After having vainly made inquiries to no purpose along the principal
street, I turned into a grocer’s shop in a smaller thoroughfare; two
young assistants were chatting without anything to do, and they looked
so good-natured that I entered and begged them to help me.
Very likely an English hobbledehoy similarly appealed to would have
blushed, giggled, and got rid of the stranger as quickly as possible;
French youths of all ranks have rather more of the man of the world in
them. The elder of the lads became at once interested in my case, and
manifested a keen desire to be serviceable. Hailing a little girl from
without, he bade her conduct me to a certain Mademoiselle D---- who let
rooms and might have one vacant. The little maid, fetching a companion
to accompany us--here also was a French trait; whatever is done, must be
done sociably--took me to the address given; the demoiselle in question
was, however, not at home, but the concierge said that, another
demoiselle living near would probably be able to accommodate me, which
she did. Before I proceed with my narrative, however, I must mention the
ill fortune that befell my useful little cicerone.
On taking leave I had given her half a franc, a modest recompense enough
as I thought. The following story would seem to show that the good
people of Arcis have not yet become imbued with modern ideas about
money, also that they have a high notion of the value of truth. To my
dismay I learnt next morning that the poor little girl had been soundly
slapped, her mother refusing to believe that she had come honestly by so
much money; as my hostess observed, the good woman might at least have
waited for corroboration of the child’s statement. A box of chocolate,
transmitted by a third hand, I have no doubt acted as a consolation.
Dear kind mademoiselle Jenny M---- How warmly she welcomed me to her
homely hearth! My little purple rosette, insignia of an officer of
Public Instruction of France, proved a bond of union. This excellent
woman was the daughter of a schoolmaster who had himself worn the
academic ribbon, a French schoolmaster’s crowning ambition. He had left
his daughter, in comfortable circumstances, that is to say, she enjoyed
an annuity of £40 a year, the possession of a large, roomy house, part
of which she let, and half an acre of garden full as it could be of
flowers, fruit and vegetables. We at once became excellent friends.
“Now,” she said, “I am very sorry that my best bedroom is given up
to soldiers, two poor young fellows I took in the other night out of
compassion. You can, however, have the little back room looking on
to the garden, it is rather in disorder, but you will find the bed
comfortable. I cannot offer to do much for you in the way of waiting,
having a lame foot, but a woman brings me milk early in the morning and
she shall put a cupful outside your door; bread and butter you will find
in the little kitchen next to your room.”
I assured her that such an arrangement would suit me very well, as I
had my own spirit lamp and could make tea for myself; then we went
downstairs. The great difficulty that night was to get anything to eat.
The soldiers had eaten every body out of house and home, she assured me
there was not such a thing as a chop or an egg to be had in the town for
love or money. Fortunately, I had the remains of a cold chicken in my
lunch basket, and this did duty for supper, my hostess pressing upon me
some excellent Bordeaux.
As we chatted, she mentioned the fact that two or three friends, much
in the same situation as herself, occupied the little houses running
alongside her garden.
“We are all old maids,” she informed me.
“Old maids,” quoth I, “how is that? I thought there were no single women
out of convents in France.”
“The thing,” she said, “has come about in this way--we have all enough
to live upon, and so many women worsen their condition by marriage,
instead of bettering it, that we made up our minds to live comfortably
on what we have got, and not trouble our heads about the men. We
live very happily together, and are all socialists, radicals, _libres
penseuses_ and the rest. We read a great deal, and, as you will see
to-morrow, my father left me a good library.”
As we sat at table in the somewhat untidy kitchen, my fellow guests, the
conscripts, came in, they were pleasant, civil young fellows belonging
to different classes of life. One was a middle-class civilian from an
industrial city of the north, the other a homely peasant, son of the
soil.
These conscripts, however poorly fed in barracks, fare like aldermen
during these manoeuvres, everybody giving them to eat and drink of their
best. They had just dined plentifully, but for all that, managed to get
down a bumper of wine immediately offered by Mademoiselle Jenny; a hunk
of Dijon gingerbread they did evidently find some difficulty in getting
through. We toasted each other in friendliest fashion, and the civilian,
out of compliment to myself, drank to the health of the English army.
Next morning I fared no less sumptuously than a soldier during the
manoeuvres. A savoury steam had announced game for our mid-day meal.
“Now,” said my hostess, as she dished up and began to carve a fat
partridge cooked to a turn--“this bird that came so àpropos, is a
present from a great-nephew of Danton. He is the _juge de paix_ here and
a good neighbour of mine. We will pay him a visit this afternoon.”
Of this gentleman, of Danton’s home and family, I shall say something
later on. We made a round of visits that day, but the _juge de paix_,
who seemed to share the tastes of his great ancestor, was in the country
in search of more partridges. Other friends and acquaintances we found
at home; among these was a retired confectioner, who had once kept a
shop in Regent Street, and had told Mademoiselle Jenny that she would be
delighted to talk English with me.
Warmly welcomed I was by the portly, prosperous looking pastry-cook,
who was reading a newspaper and smoking a cigarette in a well-furnished,
comfortable parlour. But alas! thirty years had elapsed since his
departure from England, and during the interval he had never once
interchanged a word with any of my country-people. To his intense
mortification, he had completely lost hold of the English tongue!
Another acquaintance, an elderly woman, who seemed to be living on small
independent means, had a curious house pet. This, once a pretty little
frisking lamb, had now reached the proportions of a big fat sheep. So
docile and affectionate, however, was the animal, and so attached had
the good soul become to it, that a pet it seemed likely to remain to the
end of its days; the creature followed its mistress about like a dog.
The little town of Arcis-sur-Aube, like many another, is now deserted by
all who can get to livelier and more bustling centres. Tanneries, vest,
stocking and glove weaving and stitching, are the only resources of the
place.
During my stay, I made the acquaintance of a charming family engaged in
the latter trade. Stopping one day in front of a weaver’s open door to
watch him at work, I was cordially invited to enter. The head of the
house, one of those quiet, intelligent, dignified artisans so typical of
his class in France, was weaving vest sleeves at a hand loom, just as
I had seen, at St. Étienne, ribbon weavers pursuing their avocations at
home. As we chatted about his handicraft and its modest emoluments,
his little son came in from school, a bright lad who, to his father’s
delight, had lately gained prizes. It is curious that only one part of
a vest, stocking or glove is done by a single hand; some goods I found
came to this house to be finished and others were sent away to be
made ready for sale elsewhere. By-and-by, a pretty, refined girl, the
daughter of the house, came in and asked me if I would like to see what
she was doing.
Forthwith she took me to a neat, cheerful little room upstairs
overlooking a garden.
On a table by the open window was a hand-sewing machine, and her
occupation was the ornamental stitching of silk and cotton gloves by
machinery. The pay seemed excessively low I thought, I believe something
like twopence per dozen pair, but the young machinist seemed perfectly
contented and happy.
“It is pleasant,” she said, “to be able to earn something at home and to
live with papa and mamma and my little brother.”
Before leaving, with the prettiest grace in the world, she begged my
acceptance of a dainty pair of lavender silk gloves knitted by her own
hands.
Some day I hope to revisit Arcis-sur-Aube, and meantime I hold
occasional intercourse by post with my friends in Danton’s town.