Chapter VII: Part 7

In the Place du Chapitre the populace was already gathered about the fountain of the stone flame. It was like looking at an old print, recording old victories and old rejoicings, together with the eternal hope of the people that new victories, unlike the old, may mean new things for them.

I felt through my single being the surge of the generations, and against my hand the beat of the changeless human heart, forever quickened or retarded by the same things. Loving, hating, desiring, forgetting, and finally relinquishing its beat, because it must. Though I remembered that in all times there are men who prefer something else to life....

In the evening Madame Mény gave a great dinner for the officers of the Mission, to which I was also bidden. Madame Mény is the daughter of Madame Chagué and lives next door to her mother in an ancestral home with high, sloping roof and deep windows, giving on the Place du Marché, overlooking the fountain, which I can’t see from my window. The officers wore all their decorations and even gloves, and I felt as a wren might feel among the birds of paradise, and I wished again that I had brought a good dress and something sparkling for my breast. When dinner was half through came Captain Bacquart from Paris, belated on that Belfort train, still at its old tricks. He was slightly condescending, as one might be coming from the City of Light to the dusky provinces, but everything he had to tell, even the things he had heard in the greatest solemnity from Ministers of State, had been grabbed by the Mission out of the air before he left Paris, and in addition everybody knew a lot of things he didn’t know, that had happened while he was on the way. But we did smile at the story of the routing out of a station-master, whose trust was train-schedules and lost articles rather than events, to be asked whether he knew if the armistice had been signed, by the species every station-master hates even in peace-times—that is to say, travelers—and “_Saperlotte!_” and “_Nom de Dieu!_” rose to the station vault when he found that _that_ was what they wanted him for!

After dinner there was music and for a last time I heard Lavallée sing of “_la douce Annette_.” Then another officer whom I had not seen before, Lieutenant Ruchez, sang in a veiled but flooding voice many of Schumann’s songs. It began by the commandant asking for the “Two Grenadiers,” and for a time the old wounds ceased to burn, even though we thought of those many whose prayer had been “Bury me in the earth of France.” On that night of victory he sang, too, in his musician’s voice, “_Du meine Seele, du mein Herz_,” and “_Ich grölle nicht wenn auch das Herz mir bricht_,” and nobody found it strange. They knew how for all time lovers will tremble at the words, “_Ewig verlor’ nes Lieb_,” or in ecstasy cry out, “_Du meine Seele, du mein Herz_,” to the impulse of the immortal music.

Afterward we sang the “Marseillaise” with further and deeper thought of those hosts who to its sound had gone up to a death of glory.

Then M. Mény opened more champagne and each one drained a last time the red-gold hanap of victory.

And many, many shades haunt these borderlands, the clash of spear on armor mingling with the roar of 75’s and 420’s.

When we came out midnight was striking. The ancient square was dark and still where all the evening distorted forms had gesticulated in the flare of torches, crying of victory and, too, of freedom, the word I scarcely dare breathe, so strange and terrible may be its meaning.... Though what shall more deeply move us than the hope that the unborn inclination of our soul toward love in freedom shall find its being and its breath?...

The commandant and his staff accompanied me a last time across the starless, moonless square to my dwelling, where there was a close handclasping of friends in victory, for had I not been caught up in the apotheosis of the Mission? I felt for a moment, as I stood on the broad steps, like a figure in the background of some great allegorical painting.

For these men, as for me, the “moving finger having writ, was moving on.” Soon they would go from the hillside to the plain they had so long looked down upon. And the scroll of their history there is tightly rolled, nor can any man say what is written on it.

But this they knew, and with a point of sadness, that their work of intimate companionship, of trust, of hope and dolor shared in the valleys of St.-Amarin, Masevaux, and Dannemarie was already in the past. And all endings are sad, even those of victory.

The next morning, in a pale, chill, shifting fog, through which I had glimpses of _camions_ full of shivering, velvet-bodiced, black-bowed children _en route_ for the Belfort train to Paris, and huddled veterans bound the same way, I passed forever from Masevaux, as a wind that goeth and returneth not.

THE END

FOOTNOTES

[1] Permission.

[2] “We’ll get them,” and “we’ve got them.”

[3] _Prisonnier de Guerre_ (Prisoner of War).

[4] NOTE.—As far back as the end of the sixteenth century, there is, in the annals of Masevaux, mention of the tanneries of the Braun family.

[5] Officers’ mess.

[6]

And the forgetful trooper
Who lets the hour pass
And dallies too long, alas!
Will be punished by his under-officer.

[7] The word “ballon” comes from the patois, _bolong_, _bois long_, which took its name from the great forest, “La Selva Vosagus,” once covering the Alsatian plain and its mountains.

[8]

Like to the hawk
That on auroral clouds
Doth rest his velvet wings,
Looking for prey,
So hovers my song.

[9] Hilaire Belloc, _The Road to Rome_.

[10] A letter from Laferrière of November 20th, recounting national events, and the breaking up of the little group, says also: “_La cafetière, la fameuse cafetière a une large felure qui fait craindre sa fin prochaine. Ce serait un symbole?_”

[11] In spite of the Tower (Turenne was a La Tour d’Auvergne) the Roses will bloom.

[12] After the signing of the armistice and the French occupation of the two provinces in their entirety, another reorganization became necessary. To each of the three divisions of Alsace-Lorraine was sent a _Commissaire de la République_—the Commandant (I had almost said my Commandant) Poulet was given charge of Upper Alsace with residence in the ancient and comely town of Colmar. To Lower Alsace with residence at Strasbourg was appointed M. le Conseiller d’Etat Maringer with the title of High Commissioner, and to M. Mirman, the celebrated Mayor of Nancy, was given Lorraine with residence at Metz.

[13] Edouard Schuré, _L’Alsace Française, Rêves et Combats_.

[14] AMERICAN COMMUNIQUÉS

_Tuesday morning._

This morning the First Army resumed the attack. In spite of desperate opposition our troops have forced a crossing of the Meuse at Brieulles and at Cléry-le-Petit. They are now developing a new line in the heavily wooded and very difficult terrain on the heights east of the river between these two points.

On the entire front the enemy is opposing our advance with heavy artillery and machine-gun fire, notwithstanding which we are making excellent progress. The west bank of the Meuse, as far north as opposite Pouilly, lies in our hands.

In the course of several successful raids in the Voivre, detachments of the Second Army have penetrated the enemy’s trenches, destroying material, dugouts, and emplacements, and capturing prisoners.

_Tuesday evening._

The First Army under Lieut.-Gen. Liggett has continued its success. Crossing the river south of Dun-sur-Meuse under a heavy artillery fire which frequently wrecked the new constructed bridges, the troops of Maj.-Gen. Hines’s Corps fought their way up the slopes of the east bank.

Breaking the enemy’s strong resistance, they captured Hills 292, 260, Liny-devant-Dun, and drove him from the Bois de Châtillon.

During the afternoon our gains in this sector were extended northward; Dun-sur-Meuse was captured and our line pushed forward a mile beyond that town, as far as the village of Nièlly. The troops of Maj.-Gen. Sunmerall’s Corps reached the river at Cesse and Luzy and mopped up the forest of Jaulnay.

The important road center of Beaumont fell before our victorious forces, who pushed on to the Bois de l’Hospice, two miles north of that town, capturing in their advance the village of Létanne.

At Beaumont we liberated five hundred French citizens, who welcomed our soldiers as deliverers.

The advance of the past two days has carried our line to points within five miles of the Sedan-Metz railroad, the main line of communications of the German armies. Between Beaumont and Bar Maj.-Gen. Dickman’s Corps, in close liaison with the French Fourth Army on its left, pushed forward under heavy artillery and machine-gun fire through the rugged forest areas beyond Stonne.

The villages of Yoncq, La Basace, and Stonne were taken.

We have taken to-day west of the Meuse 51 additional guns, making a total of more than 150 since November 1st.

Thirty of our bombing planes executed a successful raid on Mouzon and Raucourt this morning, dropping over two tons of bombs with good effect. Reconnaissance and pursuit squadrons carried out many successful missions, machine-gunning enemy troops and greatly assisting the advance of our troops.

Seventeen enemy planes were shot down and two enemy balloons burned. Seven of our planes are missing.

[15] And now let all those come who love Paradise, the place of quiet, the place of safety, the place of eternal happiness, the place where the Barbarian may be feared no more.—ST. AUGUSTINE, _Upon the Barbarian Persecution_.

[16] “S’Strassburger Münster isch s’höschet, s’Friburgers’ dickscht, aver S’Thanner s’fienecht.”

[17] Some of the jokes that were Hansi’s undoing were exceedingly harmless, as, for instance, the domestic revelations of Frau Professor Kugelberg, who answers to the correspondence column the following: “No, I never throw away the old trousers of my husband. I have had great success with cutting them skilfully and employing the least worn parts, in constructing for my young daughters charming and dainty corset-covers, which have the merit also of being very inexpensive. Trimmed with white ribbons, these corset-covers have quite a virginal air, but also with apple-green and cherry-red bows they can be made most attractive.” As for “Professor Knatschke” he is now a classic. The Alsatians have, in a very marked degree, what one might call the wit of border peoples, the tongue often being the only weapon left them.

[18] Gilles Sifferlen, _La Vallée de St.-Amarin_, 1908.

[19] Fairies: kindred to the “green people” of Ireland.

[20] “I will have thee, I will have thee, I will have thee.”

[21] “To play bridge at Limoges” means that an officer is temporarily—or permanently—retired before the age limit. “_Être limogé_,” to be limoged, is another familiar form.

[22] The next morning I learned that Sérin, who had been “ready for anything, _et comment_,” had gathered together, being chief of the Gendarme Service, those of his men who were watching over the slumbers of Masevaux and quite simply “opened wine” for them, drinking solemnly again to “_la Mistie_,” while they as solemnly drank to the health of their respected chief. So do great hours fulfil themselves in little ways.

[23] Victor Hugo, _Alsace et Lorraine_, 1872.

Thy people will live,
But thine empire topples, Germany!...

[24] Battery B, 42d Artillery C.A.C.

[25] Edith Wharton.