Chapter IV (4)

I spent the rest of the day in the most harrowing suspense. I was powerless either to indulge in rest or to engage in any occupation. Solitude was repellent, and company uncongenial. In this mood I wandered haphazard along the streets and quays of the town, sorrowfully gazing at the mutilated armorial achievements on the fronts of the houses, and at the decapitated saints in the church porches. Thus preoccupied I found myself unconsciously in the garden of the Palais Royal, where a motley crowd of pedestrians had gathered to drink coffee and glance over the gazettes. The wooden galleries, by the way, had not ceased to present a festal appearance at all hours.

In consequence of the declaration of war and the progress of the allied armies, the Parisians had fallen into the habit of seeking for news at the Tuileries and the Palais Royal. In fine weather the crowd would be considerable, and anxiety even brought in its train a certain degree of distraction.

Many of the women, simply attired after the Greek fashion, wore the national colours, either at the waist or in the head-dress. I felt more lonely than ever in this crowd; all the noise, the movement which surrounded me, only served, so to say, to drive back and concentrate my thoughts upon myself.

“Alas!” I said to myself, “have I said enough? Have I shown my feelings unmistakably? Or rather, have I said too much? Will she ever consent to receive me again, now that she knows I love her? But does she know it? and does she care to know it?”

In this fashion I groaned over the uncertainty of my fate, when my attention was violently diverted by the tones of a familiar voice. I raised my eyes and saw Monsieur Mille standing up in a café and singing in the midst of a group of women “patriots” and “citizens.” He was dressed as a national guard, and with his left arm he encircled a young woman, in whom I recognized one of the flower-sellers from Ramponneau. To the tune of _Lisette_ he was singing these words:—

“Though patriots hundreds strong
To break our bonds are fain,
Women, in thousands, long
To readjust the chain;
Tradition holds them fast,
With pitying scorn they view
Whoso abhors the past
And welcomes in the new.”[12]

-----

Footnote 12:

S’il est douze cents députés
Qui brisent nos entraves,
Le v[oe]u de cent mille beautés
Est de nous rendre esclaves:
Toutes nos dames ont regret
A l’ancien régime,
Et louer un nouveau décret
C’est perdre leur estime.

-----

This verse was received with a murmur of approval. Monsieur Mille smiled, bowed gracefully, and then, turning to his companion, recommenced his song—

“Ah! not with such join hands,
Sophie, beloved maid!
Philosophy’s commands
Yield kindlier, holier aid:
Her guidance she outpours
On those—O happy chance!—
Who to Her rights restores
Our own, our much wronged France.”[13]

Applause followed, and Monsieur Mille, drawing from his pocket a bunch of ribbons, handed it to Sophie as he resumed his song—

“Hasten then, far and wide,
This gay cockade to show,
Which fills my breast with pride,
When to my guard I go.
What’s gold, with tawdry glint,
To the bud which half uncloses?
This badge of triple tint
Outvies the fairest roses.”[14]

-----

Footnote 13:

Ah! ne les imitez jamais,
Adorable Sophie,
Et connaissez mieux les bienfaits
De la philosophie;
C’est elle qui dicte les lois
Aux Solons de la France,
Et qui fera dans tous ses droits
Rentrer un peuple immense.

Footnote 14:

Hâtez-vouz donc de l’arborer
Cette belle cocarde,
Dont j’aime tant à me parer
Quand je monte ma garde:
Vous devez préférer à l’or
Les fleurs à peine écloses;
Ce joli ruban tricolor
A tout l’éclat des roses.

-----

Sophie fastened the ribbon in her cap, and swept the audience with a glance comprehending both triumph and vacancy. Again there was applause. Monsieur Mille bowed. He gazed at the crowd without recognizing me or anybody else; or, rather, in that crowd he was conscious only of himself.

“Ah! monsieur,” exclaimed my neighbour, who in his enthusiasm was bestowing on me a tender embrace; “ah! if the Prussians or the Austrians could see that! They would shudder, monsieur! We were betrayed into their hands at Longwy and Verdun. But if they reached Paris it would be their tomb. The spirit of the populace is altogether martial. I have just come from the Tuileries gardens, monsieur. There I heard some singers stationed in front of the statue of Liberty giving voice to the war song of the _Marseillais_. A frenzied crowd was shouting in chorus the refrain ‘_Aux armes; citoyens!_’ If the Prussians had only been there! They would have disappeared underground!”

The man who thus discoursed to me was a very ordinary person, neither handsome nor ugly, neither short nor tall. He was as like his neighbour as two peas, and there was nothing about him individual or distinctive. As he spoke rather loudly he was soon surrounded. After coughing impressively, he continued—

“The enemy is approaching from Chalons. We must encircle them with a ring of steel. Citizens, it is we who must have an eye to the public welfare. Put not your trust in generals, nor in staff officers and troops of the line, nor in ministers of State, even though you have elected them yourselves; no, not even in your representatives at the Convention. We must be our own salvation.”

“Bravo!” cried some one in the audience; “let us fly to Chalons!”

A little man here made a spirited interruption.

“Patriots have no business to leave Paris until the traitors have been exterminated.”

These words were uttered in a voice which I instantly recognized. On that point I could not be deceived. That tremendous head waggling about on a narrow pair of shoulders, that dull livid face, that shape at once mean and monstrous, could belong to none other than my old schoolmaster—Father Joursanvault. His cassock had given place to a wretched jacket. His countenance sweated hate and apostasy. I looked in another direction, but I could not avoid hearing the old Oratorian continue his discourse in this manner:

“Enough blood was not shed during the glorious days of September. The populace is ever too inclined to magnanimity, and has been too tender towards conspirators and traitors.”

At these terrible words I took to my heels horror-struck. In my childhood I had suspected Monsieur Joursanvault of being neither just nor benevolent. I disliked him, indeed. But I was far from fathoming the blackness of his soul. At the discovery that my old master was nothing but an unprincipled rascal, I was overwhelmed with mingled bitterness and grief.

“Oh, that I were still but a child!” I exclaimed. “What is the use of life if it cannot bring us to anything better than dilemmas such as this? Dear principal, dear Father Féval, my recollections of you must temper the sorrows that overwhelm me! Into what dangers has the tempest cast you, my dear and only master? This I know, at any rate, that wherever you may be, humanity, pity, and heroism prevail all around you. You taught me, reverend master, the worth of rectitude and courage. You foresaw the days of trial and strengthened my heart. May your pupil, your son, never show himself too unworthy of your care!”

I had hardly concluded this mental invocation when I felt inspired with fresh courage. And my thoughts harking back by a natural inclination to my dear Amélie, I realized all in a moment what my duty was, and resolved to fulfil it. I had disclosed my feelings to Amélie; was I not bound to make the same declaration to Madame Berthemet?

I was only a few paces from the door, for in my self-communing I had naturally drifted towards the house which contained my Amélie. I entered and made my avowal.

Madame Berthemet smilingly replied that my conduct was very praiseworthy. Then, adopting a graver tone, she said—

“I am going to make you my confidant since I cannot otherwise satisfy you. Do not delude yourself; you must abandon all hope. My daughter is beloved by the Chevalier de St. Ange, and I believe that she is not insensible to his devotion. I should be glad enough, however, if she were to dismiss him from her thoughts. For our fortunes are on the wane from day to day, and the Chevalier’s love is consequently put to a test which the most ardent sentiments are not always proof against.”

The Chevalier de St. Ange! I shuddered at the name. I had a rival, and that rival the most fascinating of poets, the most attractive of novelists. Birth, connections, good looks, talents, he possessed everything calculated to smooth his path. Only the previous evening I had observed in a lady’s hands a tortoiseshell box, with a portrait in miniature, mounted on the lid, of the Chevalier de St. Ange, in the uniform of a dragoon.

As I caught sight of it I envied him, as did every other man of his acquaintance, his manly elegance and inimitable grace. Every morning I could hear my neighbour, the mercer’s wife, singing at her doorstep the immortal ballad known as _The Pledge_—

Thou who shouldst never have seen the light,
Pledge, beloved, that my fault endears;
Never, ah never, thou luckless wight,
Frailty of mine to thine eyes bring tears.[15]

Footnote 15:

O toi qui n’eus jamais dû naître,
Gage trop cher d’un fol amour;
Puisses-tu ne jamais connaître,
L’erreur qui le donna te jour! (_Le Gage._)

-----

But a little while since I had been reading with delight the philosophical romance which opened the doors of the French Academy to the Chevalier de St. Ange; that admirable _Cynégyre_ which leaves far behind it the _Numa Pompilius_ of Monsieur Florian. “Your _Cynégyre_,” said the venerable Monsieur Sedaine to the Chevalier de St. Ange, as he received him into the illustrious company, “your _Cynégyre_ was dedicated to the manes of Fénelon, and the offering was not unworthy of the altar.” Such was my rival—the impassioned author of _The Pledge_—a man of whom people spoke in one breath with Fénelon and Voltaire! I could not overcome my embarrassment; astonishment numbed my distress.

“What, Madame!” I exclaimed, “the Chevalier de St. Ange!”

“Yes,” rejoined Madame Berthemet, shaking her head, “a brilliant writer. But do not imagine for a moment that he is personally the man you would conjecture from his heroical poems. Alas! as our fortunes diminish his love ebbs with them.”

She added kindly that she regretted that her daughter’s choice had not fallen upon me.

“Talents,” she said, “do not make for happiness. On the contrary, men endowed with extraordinary powers, poets and orators, ought to live single. What need of companions have they who cannot mate with their equals. Their genius alone is sufficient to foster egoism. One cannot be an eminent man without incurring the penalties.”

But I was no longer heedful of her remarks. I could not shake off my astonishment. Her disclosure had killed my love. I had never hoped for its return, and, without hope, love is not endued with any considerable vitality. Mine died at the utterance of a single word.

The Chevalier de St. Ange! Shall I admit it? Although my heart bled, my self-esteem experienced a sort of satisfaction at the thought that, forestalled by such a rival, anybody else, no matter who, would have met the same fate as myself. I pressed a hundred kisses on Madame Berthemet’s hands, and left her house calmly, silently, slowly, a mere shadow of the ardent lover who had entered but an hour before, determined to make a clean breast of his scruples and his passion to the mother of Amélie. I was disconsolate. Not that I suffered. I was simply filled with surprise, shame, and fear at the discovery that I could outlive what had seemed the best part of me, my love.

As I crossed the Pont Neuf to regain my deserted faubourg, I saw in the open space, at the foot of the pedestal upon which the statue of Henri IV had recently been erected, a singer from the Academy of Music, who was declaiming in a moving voice the hymn of the _Marseillais_. The crowd which had collected round him, with bare heads, took up the refrain in chorus, “_Aux armes, citoyens!_” But when the singer struck up the last verse, “_Amour sacré de la Patrie_,” in slow and solemn tones, a shiver of unearthly exaltation passed through the crowd. At the line—

_Liberté, liberté chérie_ ...

I fell on my knees upon the pavement, and beheld all the people around me likewise fallen prostrate. O, my country, my country! what spells do you weave that your children worship you so? Even from out the mire and the blood your image rises radiant. My country! happy are they who die for you. The sun, which was now dipping towards the horizon, surrounded by blood-hued clouds, lit into liquid flame the waters of the most famous of rivers. Hail to you, ultimate illumination of my days of happiness!

Alack! into what a winter of discontent I passed that night! When I closed the door of my little chamber in the roof of the Duc de Puybonne’s mansion, I felt as though I were cementing the stone over my own tomb.

“All is over!” I said through my sobs. “I love Amélie no longer. But how is it that I am forced to remind myself of the fact so untiringly? How is it that, loving her no longer, I cannot turn my thoughts away from her? Why do I lament so bitterly the uprooting of my wretched love?”

Cruel anxieties were added to my personal sorrows. The state of public affairs was driving me to desperation. My destitution was extreme, and, far from cherishing the hope of obtaining work, I was reduced to concealing myself for fear of being arrested as a suspicious character.

Monsieur Mille had not put in an appearance at the house since the 10th of August. I have no idea where he lodged; but he never missed a single sitting of the Commune, and every day before the municipality, amid enthusiastic applause from the _tricoteuses_[16] and _sans-culottes_, he would recite a new patriotic hymn. Indeed he was the most patriotic of poets, and citizen Dorat-Cubières himself, beside him, was a timid _Feuillant_,[17] under the grave suspicion of the demagogues. I had been engaged in incriminating transactions; moreover, Monsieur Mille made no attempt to visit me, and my own scruples made it an easy duty for me not to go in search of him. Nevertheless, being a good-hearted man, he sent me his collection of songs when the printing was completed. Ah, how slight the resemblance between his second muse and his first! The latter had been powdered, painted, perfumed. The new one resembled a fury, with serpents for locks of hair. I can still recall the song of the _sans-culottes_, which aimed at being very malicious. It began thus—

Long, long enough, yea far too long
Dread tyranny has claimed our song,
And despots swayed our lot.
Now breaks the dawn of Liberty,
Of Law, and fair Equality:
All hail! the Sans-Culottes![18]

-----

Footnote 16:

The women who formed part of the revolutionary mobs were known as
_tricoteuses_ from their habit of knitting at all seasons, even at the
foot of the guillotine; the _sans-culottes_ were the men of the same
class. Their nether garments, of course, were rather in rags and
tatters than wanting altogether. (TRANS.)

Footnote 17:

A member of an anti-Jacobin Society, known as _Feuillants_. (TRANS.)

Footnote 18:

Amis, assez et trop longtemps,
Sous le règne affreux des tyrans,
On chanta les despotes.
Sous celui de l’Egalité,
Des Lois et de la Liberté,
Chantons les Sans-Culottes.

-----

The trial of the king aroused me to indescribable distress. My days rolled by in horror. One morning there was a knock at the door. I divined somehow that it proceeded from a gentle and friendly hand. I opened, and Madame Berthemet flung herself into my arms.

“Save me, save us!” she said. “My brother, Monsieur Eustance, my only brother, was scheduled as an _émigré_,[19] and came to seek shelter in my house. He was denounced and arrested. He has been in prison now for five days. Luckily the accusation which hangs over him is vague and ill-founded. My brother was never an _émigré_. To effect his release, all that is necessary is that some one who can vouch for his unbroken residence in France will give evidence in his favour. I begged the Chevalier de St. Ange to do me this service. He prudently begged to be excused. Well! my friend, my son, that service which it would be perilous to him to render me, to you will be still more perilous; yet I come to ask it of you.”

-----

Footnote 19:

A person who had left France without a licence from the Government.
(TRANS.)

-----

I thanked her for her request as if it had been a favour. And, indeed, it was so to be regarded, and of a quality so inestimable that an upright man could scarcely be honoured by a greater.

“Well enough I knew that you would not refuse!” exclaimed Madame Berthemet, embracing me. “But this is not all,” she added. “You will need to procure a second witness; they demand that two shall come forward if my brother is to be released. Oh, my friend, what times we are living in! Monsieur de St. Ange keeps aloof from us; our misfortunes embarrass him; and Monsieur Mille would be afraid to visit folks under suspicion. Who would have thought it, my friend—who would have thought it? Do you remember Federation Day? We were all brimful of enthusiasm about fraternity, and I had on a very becoming dress.”

She was in tears when she left me. I descended the stairs almost immediately after her to go in search of a guarantor, and to tell the truth I was considerably puzzled to put my hands on one. As I bowed my head in my hands I realized that I had a beard of eight days' growth, which might render me an object of suspicion; so I betook myself at once to my barber’s at the corner of the Rue St. Guillaume. This barber was a very worthy fellow named Larisse, as tall as a poplar and as restless as an aspen. When I entered his shop he was attending to a wine merchant of the neighbourhood, who with his face smothered in lather was pouring out all sorts of playful threats.

“Ah, my fine fellow, you dandifier of fine ladies,” he was saying, “your head will be cut off and stuck on the end of a pike to gratify your aristocratic inclinations. Every enemy of the people must add his quota to the basket,[20] from the fat Capet to the slim Larisse. And, _ça ira_, so it will be!”

-----

Footnote 20:

The basket into which the heads of the guillotined fell. (TRANS.)

-----

Monsieur Larisse, paler than moonshine and fluttering like a leaf, observed the utmost precautions as he shaved the chin of the abusive patriot. I can affirm that never did barber experience greater terror. And from this circumstance I drew a happy augury for the success of the design I had suddenly conceived. It was my intention, to be plain, to ask Monsieur Larisse to accompany me before the committee as the second guarantor.

“He is such a coward,” I reflected, “that he will never dare to protest.”

The wine merchant withdrew muttering fresh threats, and left me alone with the barber, who, still trembling, fastened a napkin round my neck.

“Ah, monsieur!” he whispered in my ear, in a voice feebler than a sigh, “hell is let loose upon us! Was it for the accommodation of demons like this that I studied the art of hairdressing? The heads which did honour to my skill are now in London or in Coblentz. How is Monseigneur le Duc de Puybonne? He was a good master.”

I informed him that the Duke was living in London, and giving writing lessons. Indeed, the Duke had managed recently to convey to me a paper in which he told me that he was living, perfectly contented, in London, on four shillings and sixpence a day.

“It may be so,” replied Monsieur Larisse, “but in London hairdressing is not performed as it is in Paris. The English can make constitutions, but they don’t know how to make wigs, and their powder is not nearly white enough.”

Monsieur Larisse soon had me shaven. I had not a very harsh beard at that time. Scarcely had he closed his razor than, seizing him by the wrist, I said to him firmly—

“My dear Monsieur Larisse, you are a valiant man; you are coming with me before the General Assembly of the Section des Postes in the one-time church of St. Eustache. There you will bear witness jointly with me that Monsieur Eustance has never been an _émigré_.”

At these words Monsieur Larisse grew pale, and murmured in inanimate tones—

“But I am not acquainted with Monsieur Eustance.”

“For that matter, neither am I,” I replied.

Which was indeed strictly true. I had correctly diagnosed the character of Monsieur Larisse. He was dumbfounded. His very fear thrust him into the perilous emprise. I took him by the arm and he followed me unresistingly.

“But you are leading me to my death,” he said softly.

“To glory rather,” I replied.

I don’t know whether he was familiar with the tragedians, but he was sensible of the honour and appeared flattered. He had some knowledge of literature, for loosing my arm to go into his back shop, he said—

“A moment, dear sir; let me at least put on my best coat. In the olden times the victims were decked with flowers. I find it recorded in the _Almanack for Honest Men_.”

From his chest of drawers he took a blue coat which he flung round his long, mobile body. Thus attired he accompanied me to the General Assembly of the Section des Postes, which was sitting continuously.

On the threshold of the desecrated church, on the door of which was inscribed the motto, “_Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death_,” Monsieur Larisse felt the sweat break out on his forehead; nevertheless he went in. One of the citizens who was sleeping there on a heap of empty bottles, half aroused himself to inquire our business, and then sent us on to the revolutionary committee of the Section.

I knew this committee through having accompanied Monsieur Berthemet there on two occasions. The president of it was a small lodging-house keeper in the Rue de la Truanderie, whose most regular customers were ladies of easy virtue. Amongst the members there were an itinerant knife-grinder, a porter, and a dyer and cleaner named Bistac. It was with the knife-grinder that we had to do. He was seated informally with his sleeves turned up; we found him a good-natured fellow.

“Citizens,” he said, “from the moment you place before me an attestation in due form, I have no objections to raise, because I am a magistrate and consequently the proper formalities are all I demand. I would only add one word. A man who has intelligence and character ought not to be authorized to leave Paris at a moment like this. Because, you see, citizens——”

He hesitated, and then, making use of gesture to express his meaning, he stretched out his bare and muscular arm and then moved it to his forehead, which he tapped with a finger, and continued—“It is not of this alone” (here he indicated his arm, the working tool) “that we have need, but of this also” (here he motioned to his forehead, the seat of intellect).

He then boasted of his natural gifts, and lamented that his parents had not contrived to give him any instruction. Then he set himself to the task of signing our declaration. Despite his good will this was a long process. Whilst, with hands accustomed to the grindstone, he painfully manipulated the pen, Bistac the cleaner came into the room. Bistac had not the genial nature of the grinder. His soul was all Jacobin. At sight of us his forehead puckered and his nostrils swelled: he scented the aristocrat.

“Who are you?” he demanded of me.

“Pierre Aubier.”

“Oh, oh! Pierre Aubier, and I suppose you flatter yourself that you will sleep in your own bed to-night?”

I put a cool face on the situation, but my companion began to shudder in every limb. His bones rattled so loudly that Bistac’s attention was attracted, and, forgetting me, he turned his scrutiny on to poor Larisse.

“You have all the marks of a conspirator, in my opinion,” said Bistac in a terrible voice. “What is your profession?”

“A barber, at your service, citizen.”

“All barbers are Feuillants!”

Terror commonly inspired Monsieur Larisse to the most courageous actions. He has since confessed to me that at this moment he had all the difficulty in the world to prevent himself from shouting “Long live the King!” As a matter of fact, he did no such thing, but replied proudly that he owed small thanks to the Revolution, which had suppressed wigs and powder, and that he was tired of living in a continual state of apprehension.

“Take off my head,” he added. “I should prefer to get my dying over, rather than to live in constant fear.”

Bistac became perplexed at talk like this.

Meanwhile, the knife-grinder, who was revolving many confused but kindly thoughts in his brain, recommended us to withdraw.

“Off with you, citizens,” he said; “but bear in mind that the Republic has need of this.”

And he pointed to his forehead.

Madame Berthemet’s brother was released next day. The mother of Amélie expressed abundance of gratitude and embraced me—it was a way she had. She did better.

“You have,” said she, “acquired a right to the gratitude of Amélie. I am desirous that my daughter should herself come and express her indebtedness to you. She owes you an uncle. It is less than a mother, it is true; but what commendations does not your courage deserve....”

She went in search of Amélie.

Left alone in the drawing-room, I waited. I asked myself whether I had the strength to see her once more. I feared, I hoped. I died a thousand deaths.

In about five minutes Madame Berthemet reappeared, alone.

“You must excuse an ungrateful girl,” she said. “My daughter refuses to come. ‘I could not endure his presence,’ she declared. 'The sight of him would be torture to me; henceforth I hate him. By showing greater courage than the man I love, he has gained a cruel advantage. I will never see him again while I live. He is generous: he will forgive me.'”

After she had repeated this speech to me Madame Berthemet concluded with these words:

“Forget the ungrateful child!”

I promised to endeavour to do so, and I kept my word. Events contributed to my success. The Terror reigned. That appalling day, the 31st of May, snatched their last hopes from those of the moderate party.

Several times I was denounced as a conspirator on the score of the correspondence I maintained with the Duc de Puybonne, and I was continually risking both liberty and life.

I had no longer a certificate of citizenship, and, not daring to apply for one for fear of being instantly put under arrest, my existence had become unendurable.

There was a demand just then for twelve hundred thousand men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. I entered my name. On the 7th of Brumaire in the year II, at six o’clock in the morning, I set out on the way to Nancy to join my regiment. With a policeman’s cap on my head, a knapsack on my back, and wearing the jacket called a carmagnole, I felt myself fairly martial in appearance.

From time to time I turned my gaze back on the great city where I had suffered so much and loved so profoundly. Then, wiping away a tear, I resumed my journey. I decided to sing in order to cheer myself up, and I began the hymn of the _Marseillais_—

_Allons, enfants de la Patrie!_

At the first halting-place I presented my credentials to some peasants, who sent me to pass the night in the stable on the straw. There I enjoyed a delicious sleep, and as I awakened I thought—

“Well, this is better. I am no longer in danger of the guillotine. So far as I can judge, I am no longer in love with Amélie—or rather I never have been in love with her. I am going to carry a sword and a gun. I shall have nothing else to fear but the Austrian bullets. Brindamour and Trompelamort are right: there is no finer calling than that of a soldier. But who would have dreamed when I was studying Latin under the flowering apple trees at Monsieur Lamadou’s that one day I should take arms in defence of the Republic? Ah! Monsieur Féval, who could have foreseen that your little pupil Pierre would march away to the wars?”

At the next halt a worthy woman put me to sleep in white sheets because I reminded her of her son.

The following day I lodged with a canoness who put me in a loft open to the wind and rain, and even this she did with a very perturbed mind, for a defender of the Republic seemed to her so very near to a dangerous species of brigand.

Finally, I came up with my corps on the banks of the Meuse. I received a sword. At this I reddened with gratification, and felt myself at least a foot taller. Do not laugh at me on that account; it was a case of vanity, I admit it; but vanity goes to the making of a hero. We were scarcely fitted out before we received orders to start for Maubeuge.

We arrived on the Sambre on a dark night. Silence was all around. We could see fires flickering on the hills on the opposite side of the river. I was told that they were the bivouacs of the enemy. Then my heart thumped as if it would burst.

It was from Titus Livy that I had got my ideas of war. But I call you to witness, woods, meadows, hills, banks of the Sambre and the Meuse, that those ideas were delusive. War, such as I took part in, consists of passing through burnt-up villages, sleeping in the mire, listening to the whistle of bullets through the long and melancholy sentry duty of nights; but of single combats and ordered battlefields I saw never a sign. We slept but little, and did not eat at all. Floridor, my sergeant, an old soldier of the French Guard, swore that the life we were leading was festive; he exaggerated, but we were not unhappy, for we had the consciousness of doing our duty and being useful to our country.

We were justly proud of our regiment, which had covered itself with glory at Wattignies. For the greater part it was made up of soldiers of the old _régime_, stout and well instructed. As a large number of men had perished in various engagements, the gaps had been filled up anyhow with youthful recruits. Without the veterans who encircled us we should have been worth nothing. It takes a good deal of time to make a soldier, and in war enthusiasm is no substitute for experience.

My colonel was a one-time nobleman from my native province. He treated me kindly. A lifelong Royalist, a countryman not a townsman, a soldier not a courtier, he had long delayed exchanging the white coat of His Majesty’s troops for the blue coat of the soldiers of the year II. He detested the Republic, and dedicated the remainder of his life to it.

I bless Providence for having guided me to the frontier, since there virtue still survives.

[Written in bivouac, on the Sambre, between septidi the 27th of Frimaire, and sextidi the 6th of Nivôse, in the year II of the French Republic, by Pierre Aubier, volunteer.]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

DAWN

TO MADEMOISELLE LÉONIE BERNARDINI

DAWN

The Cours-La-Reine was deserted. The green banks of the Seine, the ancient pollarded beeches whose shadows began to stretch out towards the east, the calm azure of the sky, cloudless, breezeless, unthreatening but unsmiling, all were wrapped in the deep silence that marks the summer day. A pedestrian coming from the Tuileries made his way slowly towards the hills of Chaillot. His figure was of the agreeable slightness characteristic of early youth, and he wore the coat, breeches, and black stockings indicative of the bourgeois, whose supremacy had at length come round. Yet his countenance was rather that of the dreamer than of the enthusiast. He had a book in his hand; and his finger between the leaves marked the place he had reached, but he had ceased to read. Now and then he stopped and strained his ears to catch the faint yet terrible murmur which rose up from Paris, and in this muffled noise, feebler than a sigh, he fancied he could distinguish cries of death and hate, joy and love, drum-beats, the sound of firearms—all the din, in fact, of insensate fury and sublime enthusiasm which ascends heavenward from crowded streets at the outbreak of revolution. At times he turned his head and shuddered. Everything reported to him, everything he had seen and heard for some hours past filled his brain with confused and terrible pictures: the Bastille captured by the people and already denuded of its battlements; the provost of the merchants' guild slain by a pistol-shot in the midst of a furious crowd; the governor, the venerable de Launay, hewn down on the steps of the Hotel de Ville; the dreadful populace, pale as famine or as deathly fear, drunken, beside itself, dazed by the vision of blood and glory, reeling from the Bastille to the Grève, and above the heads of a hundred thousand deluded people the bodies of the victims swinging from a lamp-post, and the oak-crowned brow of one of the exultant clad in a uniform of blue and white; the conquerors with the registers, the keys and the silver plate belonging to the ancient fortress, mounting amid acclamation the blood-stained steps; and at their head the popular magistrates La Fayette and Bailly, overwrought, uplifted, amazed, their feet dabbled in blood, their heads touching the clouds with pride! Then, fear still paramount with the unleashed rabble, at the scattered noises customarily attendant on the return of the Royal troops to the town at night, the tearing down of the palace railings for conversion into pikes, the pillage of the arsenals, the construction by the citizens of street barricades, and the transportation by the women to the roofs of houses of stones to hurl down on the foreign regiments!

These scenes of violence were reconstructed in his dreamy youthful imagination in subdued tones. He had taken his favourite book, an English work entitled _Meditations Among the Tombs_, and made his way along the Seine, under the trees of the Cours-la-Reine, towards the white house which, night and day, filled his thoughts. All was calm around him. On the river bank he noticed the anglers sitting with their feet in the water, and he followed the course of the stream in an abstracted mood. When he reached the slopes of the hills of Chaillot he met a patrol party, keeping an eye on the communications between Paris and Versailles. This troop, armed with guns, muskets, and halberds, included artisans wearing their aprons of leather or serge, lawyers dressed in black, one priest, and a bearded, bare-legged giant in a shirt. They challenged every would-be passer-by: communications between the Court and the governor of the Bastille had been detected and a surprise was feared.

But this pedestrian was young and of ingenuous appearance. He had scarcely uttered a word or two before the troop smilingly permitted him to continue his journey.

He ascended the slope of a lane odorous of flowering elder, and stopped half-way up in front of a garden gate. This garden was but little, but by means of winding alleys and abrupt turns the space for exercise was considerably extended. Into a pool where ducks were disporting themselves, willows dipped the tips of their branches. At the corner by the street a light alcove had been constructed, and a grass plot spread its freshness in front of the house. Here, on a rustic bench, with her head bent, a young woman was seated; her face was hidden by a large straw hat wreathed with natural flowers. Over her dress, which was of white and rose colour, in stripes, she wore a fichu, fastened at the waistline, this latter a trifle high, giving the skirt an added length that was not unbecoming. Her arms, encased in tight sleeves, were at rest. A basket of an antique pattern, which lay at her feet, held balls of wool. Close by her a child was piling up heaps of sand with his shovel. His blue eyes shone through a tangle of golden hair.

The young woman remained motionless and, as it were, spell-bound, and the young man standing at the gate could not bring himself to break so sweet a spell. At length she raised her head and disclosed a youthful, almost infantile face, with pure rounded lines which imparted a natural expression of gentleness and friendliness. He bowed before her, and she held out her hand.

“How do you do, Monsieur Germain? What is the news? ‘What news do you bring with you?’ as the song says. I don’t know very much, except songs.”

“Pardon me, Madame, for having disturbed your dreams. I was gazing at you. Alone, motionless, your head resting on your hand, it seemed as though you must be the angel of meditation.”

“Alone! alone!” she replied, as if this were the only word she had heard. “Alone! Is she ever alone?”

And seeing that he was looking at her uncomprehendingly, she added—

“Enough of that! It is nothing but a fancy of mine that—— What is your news?”

Thereupon he went over the events of the famous day, the taking of the Bastille, the foundation of liberty.

Sophie listened to him gravely; then she said—

“It is our duty to rejoice, but our joy should be the austere joy which comes of sacrifice. Henceforth the French are their own men no longer; they are the servants of the Revolution which is about to reform the world.”

As she was speaking the child approached and threw himself joyously across her knees.

“Look, mamma! Look at my pretty garden!”

Embracing him, she said—

“You are right, little Emile, it is the wisest thing in the world to lay out a pretty garden.”

“Yes, he is right,” added Germain; “what gallery glowing with porphyry and gold can be compared with a green alley?”

And reflecting how sweet it would be to give this fair woman the support of his arm and lead her to the shade of the trees—

“Ah!” he exclaimed, flashing a meaning glance at her, “what are men and revolutions to me!”

“No, no!” she rejoined, “I cannot so abruptly turn my thoughts from a great people, intent on inaugurating the reign of justice. My attachment to the new ideas surprises you, Monsieur Germain. We have only known one another for quite a brief time. You are not aware, of course, that my father taught me to read in the _Social Contract_ and the Gospels. One day, as we were walking, he pointed out Jean Jacques Rousseau to me. I was only a child, but I dissolved in tears at sight of the gloomy countenance of the wisest of men. I grew up a hater of prejudice. Later on my husband, like myself a disciple of the philosophy of nature, decided that our son should be called Emile, and that he should be taught to labour with his hands. In his last letter, written three years ago on board the ship upon which he perished some days afterwards, he continues to urge on my attention Rousseau’s precepts upon education. I am saturated with the new spirit of the age. It is my conviction that we must struggle for justice and truth.”

“Like yourself, Madame,” sighed Germain, “I have a horror of fanaticism and tyranny; like yourself, I am in love with liberty, but my soul is drained of its strength. At every moment my thoughts escape my control. I am no longer master of myself, and I suffer accordingly.”

The young woman did not reply. An elderly man pushed open the gate and came forward with his arms raised, waving his hat. He wore neither powder nor wig. A few long grey hairs fell down on each side of his bald head. He wore a complete suit of grey ratteen; his stockings were blue and his shoes buckleless.

“Victory! victory!” he cried. “The monster is delivered into our hands, Sophie, and I am the bearer of the news to you.”

“Neighbour, I have just heard of it from Monsieur Marcel Germain, whom I want to introduce to you. His mother and mine were friends at Angers. During the six months he has spent in Paris he has been kind enough to come to see me from time to time in the seclusion of my hermitage. Monsieur Germain, this gentleman is my neighbour and friend, Monsieur Franchot de La Cavanne, a man of letters.”

“Say rather, 'Nicolas Franchot, labourer.'”

“I know, dear friend, that you thus signed your treatise on the Corn Trade. I will say then, to gratify you, although I expect your hands are much more adroit with the pen than with the plough, Monsieur Nicolas Franchot, labourer.”

The older man grasped Marcel’s hand and exclaimed—

“It has fallen, then, that fortress which has so many times engulfed the wronged and the guiltless! Those bolts behind which I passed eight months, deprived both of air and light, have been torn from their places. It was one-and-thirty years ago, on the 17th of February, 1758, that I was cast into the Bastille for having written an epistle on tolerance. Now, to-day, at length the people have avenged me. Right and I are triumphant together. The memory of this day will remain so long as the universe endures. I call as witness to it the sun which saw Harmodius perish, and the brood of Tarquin put to flight!”

The piercing voice of Monsieur Franchot frightened little Emile, who clutched his mother’s dress. Franchot, suddenly becoming aware of the child’s presence, lifted him from the ground and said enthusiastically—

“Happier than we have been, dear child, you will grow up free!”

But Emile, terrified, turned his face away and uttered loud cries.

“Gentlemen,” said Sophie, as she wiped away her little son’s tears, “will you be so kind as to stay to supper with me? I am expecting Monsieur Duvernay, provided he is not detained by the bedside of one of his patients.”

Then turning towards Marcel—

“You must know that Monsieur Duvernay, the king’s physician, is an elector of Paris without the walls. He would be a deputy of the National Assembly if, like Monsieur de Condorcet, he had not out of modesty declined the honour. He is a man of great attainments, and it will be both pleasant and profitable to you to hear him converse.”

“Young man,” added Franchot, “I am acquainted with Monsieur Jean Duvernay, and I know one circumstance about him which does him honour. Two years ago the queen summoned him to attend on the Dauphin, who was threatened with decline. At that time Duvernay was residing at Sèvres, whither one of the Court carriages was sent every morning to convey him to Saint Cloud, where the royal child lay ill. One day the carriage returned to the palace empty. Duvernay had not come. The following day the queen reproached him for absenting himself.

“Doctor,” she said, “you forgot your patient the Dauphin, then?”

“Madame,” replied the worthy man, “I am caring for your son assiduously, but yesterday I was detained by the bedside of a peasant woman in labour.”

“Well now!” remarked Sophie, “wasn’t that noble of him, and oughtn’t we to be proud of our friend!”

“Yes; it was fine,” replied Germain.

A grave, sweet voice close beside them here interposed—

“I do not know,” said the voice, “what it is that is exciting you to admiration; but it is pleasant to hear your transports. In these days there are so many admirable deeds to be witnessed.”

The man who spoke wore a powdered wig and a delicate lace frill. It was Jean Duvernay. Marcel recognized his face from the engravings he had seen in the shops in the Palais Royal.

“I have just come from Versailles,” said Duvernay. “I owe to the Duke of Orleans the pleasure of seeing you this memorable day, Sophie. He brought me in his coach as far as Saint Cloud. The rest of the way I travelled in the most convenient fashion—I mean on my own feet.”

And as a matter of fact, his silver-buckled shoes and black stockings were covered all over with dust.

Emile clung with his little hands to the steel buttons which glittered on the doctor’s coat, and Duvernay, coaxing him on to his knee, found material for smiles in glimpses at the little creature’s budding soul. Sophie summoned Nanon. A sturdy girl appeared, who picked up and carried the child off in her arms, stifling beneath resounding kisses his despairing cries.

The table was laid in the garden alcove. Sophie hung her straw hat on a willow branch; her fair hair fell in curls about her cheeks.

“You will sup in the simplest possible way,” she said, “in the English fashion.”

From the spot where they were seated they could see the Seine, the roofs of the city, the domes and the steeples. The spectacle rendered them as silent as though they were looking out on Paris for the first time. After a while they spoke of the occurrences of the day, of the Assembly, of universal suffrage, of the breaking down of class barriers, and Monsieur Necker’s banishment. All four were agreed that a lasting liberty was at length achieved. Monsieur Duvernay foretold the rise of a new order, and applauded the wisdom of the legislators popularly elected. But his mind was not uplifted, and at times it seemed as though his hopes were alloyed with a certain uneasiness. Nicolas Franchot did not observe the same moderation. He proclaimed the peaceful triumph of the people and the era of fraternity.

Vainly did the physician, vainly the young woman assure him—

“It is only now that the struggle begins. We are only as yet at our first victory.”

“Philosophy is our ruler,” he would reply. “What benefits will not Reason shower on men who accept her all potent sway! The Golden Age which the poets fabled will become a reality. All ills will disappear with the fanaticism and tyranny which gave them birth. The virtuous and enlightened man will enjoy all possible felicity. What do I say? By the aid of physicians and chemists he will even succeed in attaining immortality upon earth.”

Sophie listened to him, but shook her head.

“If you wish to deprive us of death,” she said, “find us first a fountain of youth. Without that your immortality awakens my apprehension.”

The old philosopher laughingly asked her if she found the Christian doctrine of resurrection more comforting.

“For my part,” he said, after emptying his glass, “I am inclined to fear lest the angels and saints should feel impelled to favour the choir of virgins at the expense of the company of dowagers.”

“I do not know,” replied the young woman, in a meditative tone and lifting her eyes to his, “I do not know what value these poor charms, framed out of the dust of the earth, may have in the eyes of angels; but I am sure that divine omnipotence will be better able to repair the ravages of time, if in so blissful an abode such redress should be needful, than all your physics and your chemistry will ever succeed in doing in this world. You, who are an atheist, Monsieur Franchot, and do not believe that God reigns in the heavens, you cannot understand anything about the Revolution, which is the advent of God upon earth.”

She rose. Night had fallen, and in the distance under their eyes the great town starred itself with lights.

Marcel offered his arm to Sophie, and whilst the older men argued with one another, the two sauntered together along the sombre alleys. Marcel found them charming, and Sophie supplied him in turn with their names and associations.

“Here,” she said, “we are in the Allée de Jean Jacques, which leads to the Salon d’Emile. This alley was straight. I had it deflected so that it should pass under the old oak. All day long it gives shade to this rustic bench, which I have called 'Friendship’s Rest.'

“We will sit down for a moment on this bench,” said Sophie.

They sat down. In the silence Marcel could hear the fluttering of his own heart.

“Sophie, I love you,” he murmured, and captured her hand.

She drew it away gently, and pointing out to the young man that a light breeze had set the leaves rustling—

“Do you hear that?” she said.

“I hear the wind among the leaves.”

She shook her head, and said in tones as sweet as a chant—

“Marcel, Marcel! Who tells you that is the wind among the leaves? Who tells you that we are alone? Are you, then, after all, one of those commonplace souls which have failed to discern any of the mysterious portents of the world unseen?”

And as he questioned her with a glance that was all bewilderment—

“Monsieur Germain,” she said, “be so kind as to go upstairs to my room. You will find a little book on the table, and bring it to me....”

He obeyed. All the while he was absent the young widow gazed at the dusky foliage shivering in the night wind. He returned with a little gilt-edged volume.

“_The Idylls of Gesner_; yes, that is it,” said Sophie. “Open the book at the place where the marker lies, and, if your eyes are good enough to read by moonlight, read.”

He read these words:

“Ah! Often will my soul come to hover around you; often when, inflamed by a noble and sublime thought, you are meditating in solitude, a light breath will brush your cheek: at such a moment may your soul be conscious of a gladdening thrill!...”

She stopped him.

“Now do you understand, Marcel, that we are never alone, and that there are words to which I can never listen so long as a breath blown landward from the sea shall set in motion the leaves of the oaks.”

The voices of the two older men drew near.

“God is Goodness,” said Duvernay.

“God is evil,” said Franchot, “and we shall extinguish it.”

Both of them, and Marcel also, took leave of Sophie.

“Adieu, gentlemen,” she said. “Let us all cry, ‘Hurrah for Liberty, and long live the King!’ And you, dear neighbour, do not hinder us from dying when we shall need to die.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

MADAME DE LUZY

TO MARCEL PROUST

MADAME DE LUZY

(_From a manuscript dated September 15th, 1792._)

I

As I entered, Pauline de Luzy held out her hand to me. Then for a moment we remained silent. Her scarf and straw hat were thrown carelessly on an arm-chair.

The prayer from _Orpheus_ was open on the spinet. Going towards the window, she watched the sun sinking to the blood-red horizon.

“Madame,” I said at length, “do you remember the words you said two years ago this very day, at the foot of that hill on the bank of the river towards which at this moment your eyes are turned?

“Do you remember how, with your hand waving in a prophetic gesture, you called up before me, as in a vision, the coming days of trial, of crime and terror? On my very lips you arrested my confession of love, and bade me live and labour for justice and liberty. Madame, since your hand, which I could not anoint with kisses and tears enough, pointed out the way to me, I have pursued it unfaltering. I have obeyed you; I have written and spoken for the cause. For two years I have withstood the blunder-headed starvelings who are the source of dissension and hate, the demagogues who seduce the people by violent demonstrations of pretended sympathy, and the poltroons who do homage to the coming powers.”

She stopped me with a motion of her hand, and made a sign to me to listen. Then we heard borne across the scented spaces of the garden, where birds were warbling, distant cries of “Death!” “To the gallows with the aristocrat!” “Set his head on a pike!”

Pale and motionless she held a finger to her lips.