Part 43

Whatever vanity there was about old Philarète Chasles left him altogether during this critical time, which seemed to make good men better still. His niece, too, who used to be loud-voiced and conceited, was quite a different person. One day that I was at their house at Meudon, she sat in a corner for a long time crying quietly. Out there, they were all feverishly anxious, could not rest, craved, partly to hear the latest news, partly to feel the pulse of Paris. One day after dinner, Chasles invited me to go into town with him, and when we arrived he took a carriage and drove about with me for two hours observing the prevailing mood. We heard countless anecdotes, most of them apocryphal, but reflecting the beliefs of the moment: The Empress had sent three milliards (!) in French gold to the Bank of England. The Emperor, who was jealous of Macmahon since the latter had rescued him at Magenta, had taken the command of the Turcos from the Marshal, although the latter had said in the Council of War: "The Turcos must be given to me, they will not obey anyone else." And true it was that no one else had any control over them. If one had committed theft, or misbehaved himself in any other way, and Macmahon. whom they called only "Our Marshal," rode down the front of their lines and scolded them, they began to cry, rushed up and kissed his feet, and hung to his horse, like children asking for forgiveness. And now someone had made the great mistake of giving them to another general. And, the commander being anxious to dazzle the Germans with them, they and the Zouaves had been sent first into the fire, in spite of Bazaine's very sensible observation: "When you drive, you do not begin at a galop." And so these picked troops were broken up in their first engagement. It was said that of 2,500 Turcos, only 29 were left.

An anecdote like the following, which was told to us, will serve to show how popular legends grow up, in virtue of the tendency there is to reduce a whole battle to a collision between two generals, just as in the Homeric age, or in Shakespeare: The Crown Prince of Prussia was fighting very bravely at Wörth, in the front ranks. That he threw the Turcos into confusion was the result of a ray of sunlight falling on the silver eagle on his helmet. The Arabs thought it a sign from Heaven. Macmahon, who was shooting in the ranks, was so near the Crown Prince that the latter shouted to him in French: "Voilà un homme!" but the Frenchman surpassed him in chivalrous politeness, for he saluted, and replied: "Voilà un héros!"

XXVII.

After my return to Paris, I had taken lessons from an excellent language teacher, Mademoiselle Guémain, an old maid who had for many years taught French to Scandinavians, and for whom I wrote descriptions and remarks on what I saw, to acquire practise in written expression. She had known most of the principal Northerners who had visited Paris during the last twenty years, had taught Magdalene Thoresen, amongst others, when this latter as a young woman had stayed in Paris. She was an excellent creature, an unusual woman, intellectual, sensitive, and innocent, who made an unforgettable impression upon one. Besides the appointed lesson-times, we sometimes talked for hours together. How sad that the lives of such good and exceptional women should vanish and disappear, without any special thanks given to them in their life-times, and with no one of the many whom they have benefitted to tell publicly of their value. She possessed all the refinement of the French, together with the modesty of an old maid, was both personally inexperienced, and by virtue of the much that she had seen, very experienced in worldly things. I visited her again in 1889, after the lapse of nineteen years, having learned her address through Jonas Lie and his wife, who knew her. I found her older, but still more charming, and touchingly humble. It cut me to the heart to hear her say: "C'est une vraie charité que vous me faites de venir me voir."

Mlle. Guémain was profoundly affected, like everyone else, by what we were daily passing through during this time of heavy strain. As a woman, she was impressed most by the seriousness which had seized even the most frivolous people, and by the patriotic enthusiasm which was spreading in ever wider circles. She regarded it as deeper and stronger than as a rule it was.

XXVIII.

The temper prevailing among my Italian friends was very different. The Italians, as their way was, were just like children, laughed at the whole thing, were glad that the Prussians were "drubbing" the French, to whom, as good patriots, they wished every misfortune possible. The French had behaved like tyrants in Italy; now they were being paid out. Besides which, the Prussians would not come to Paris. But if they did come, they would be nice to them, and invite them to dinner, like friends. Sometimes I attempted to reply, but came off badly. One day that I had ventured a remark to a large and ponderous Roman lady, on the ingratitude of the Italians towards the French, the good lady jumped as if a knife had been stuck into her, and expatiated passionately on the infamy of the French. The Romans were,--as everyone knew,--the first nation on earth. The French had outraged them, had dared to prevent them making their town the capital of Italy, by garrisoning it with French soldiers who had no business there, so that they had themselves asked for the Nemesis which was now overtaking them, and which the Italians were watching with flashing eyes. She said this, in spite of her anger, with such dignity, and such a bearing, that one could not but feel that, if she were one day called upon to adorn a throne, she would seat herself upon it as naturally, and as free from embarrassment, as though it were nothing but a Roman woman's birthright.

XXIX.

In the meantime, defeats and humiliations were beginning to confuse the good sense of the French, and to lead their instincts astray. The crowd could not conceive that such things could come about naturally. The Prussians could not possibly have won by honourable means, but must have been spying in France for years. Why else were so many Germans settled in Paris! The French were paying now, not for their faults, but for their virtues, the good faith, the hospitality, the innocent welcome they had given to treacherous immigrants. They had not understood that the foreigner from the North was a crafty and deceitful enemy.

It gradually became uncomfortable for a foreigner in Paris. I never went out without my passport. But even a passport was no safeguard. It was enough for someone to make some utterly unfounded accusation, express some foolish, chance suspicion, for the non-Frenchman to be maltreated as a "spy." Both in Metz and in Paris, in the month of August, people who were taken for "Prussians" were hanged or dismembered. In the latter part of August the papers reported from the Dordogne that a mob there had seized a young man, a M. de Moneys, of whom a gang had asserted that he had shouted "Vive la Prusse!" had stripped him, bound him with ropes, carried him out into a field, laid him on a pile of damp wood, and as this would not take fire quick enough, had pushed trusses of straw underneath all round him, and burnt him alive. From the Quartier La Vilette in Paris, one heard every day of similar slaughter of innocent persons who the people fancied were Prussian spies. Under such circumstances, a trifle might become fatal. One evening at the end of August I had been hearing L'Africaine at the grand opera, and at the same time Marie Sass' delivery of the Marseillaise--she sang as though she had a hundred fine bells in her voice, but she sang the national anthem like an aria. Outside the opera-house I hailed a cab. The coachman was asleep; a man jogged him to wake him, and he started to drive. I noticed that during the drive he looked at his watch and then drove on for all that he was worth, as fast as the harness and reins would stand. When I got to the hotel I handed him his fare and a four sous' tip. He bawled out that it was not enough; he had been de remise; he had taken me for someone else, being waked so suddenly; he had been bespoken by another gentleman. I laughed and replied that that was his affair, not mine; what had it got to do with me? But as all he could demand, if he had really been de remise, was two sous more, and as, under the ordinances prevailing, it was impossible to tell whether he was or not, I gave him the two sous; but no tip with it, since he had no right to claim it, and I had not the slightest doubt that he was lying. Then he began to croak that it was a shame not to give a pourboire, and, seeing that did not help matters, as I simply walked up the hotel steps, he shouted in his ill-temper, first "Vous n'êtes pas Français!" and then "Vous êtes Prussien!" No sooner had he said it than all the hotel servants who were standing in the doorway disappeared, and the people in the street listened, stopped, and turned round. I grasped the danger, and flew into a passion. In one bound I was in the road, I rushed at the cabman, seized him by the throat and shook my hand, with its knuckle-duster upon it, threateningly at his head. Then he forgot to abuse me and suddenly whined: "Ne frappez pas, monsieur!" mounted his box, and drove very tamely away. In my exasperation I called the hotel waiters together and poured scorn on them for their cowardice.

In spite of the season, it was uncomfortable weather, and the temper of the town was as uncomfortable as the weather. As time went on, few people were to be seen about the streets, but there was a run on the gunmakers' and sword-smiths'. By day no cheerful shouts or songs rang out, but children of six or seven years of age would go hand in hand in rows down the street in the evenings, singing "Mourir pour la patrie," to its own beautiful, affecting melody. But these were the only gentle sounds one heard. Gradually, the very air seemed to be reeking with terror and frenzy. Exasperation rolled up once more, like a thick, black stream, against the Emperor, against the ministers and generals, and against the Prussians, whom people thought they saw everywhere.

XXX.

Foreigners were requested to leave Paris, so that, in the event of a siege, the city might have no unnecessary mouths to feed. Simultaneously, in Trochu's proclamation, it was announced that the enemy might be outside the walls in three days. Under such circumstances, the town was no longer a place for anyone who did not wish to be shut up in it.

One night at the end of August, I travelled from Paris to Geneva. At the departure station the thousands of German workmen who had been expelled from Paris were drawn up, waiting, herded together like cattle,--a painful sight. These workmen were innocent of the war, the defeats, and the spying service of which they were accused; now they were being driven off in hordes, torn from their work, deprived of their bread, and surrounded by inimical lookers-on.

As it had been said that trains to the South would cease next day, the Geneva train was overfilled, and one had to be well satisfied to secure a seat at all. My travelling companions of the masculine gender were very unattractive: an impertinent and vulgar old Swiss who, as it was a cold night, and he had no travelling-rug, wrapped himself up in four or five of his dirty shirts--a most repulsive sight; a very precise young Frenchman who, without a vestige of feeling for the fate of his country and nation, explained to us that he had long had a wish to see Italy, and had thought that now, business being in any case at a standstill, the right moment had arrived.

The female travellers in the compartment were a Parisian, still young, and her bright and charming fifteen-year-old daughter, whose beauty was not unlike that of Mlle. Massin, the lovely actress at the Théâtre du Gymnase. The mother was all fire and flame, and raved, almost to tears, over the present pass, cried shame on the cowardice of the officers for not having turned out the Emperor; her one brother was a prisoner at Königsberg; all her male relations were in the field. The daughter was terror-struck at the thought that the train might be stopped by the enemy--which was regarded as very likely--but laughed at times, and was divided between fear of the Prussians and exceeding anxiety to see them: "J'aimerais bien pouvoir dire que j'aie vu des Prussiens!"

At one station some soldiers in rout, with torn and dusty clothes, got into our carriage; they looked repulsive, bespattered with mud and clay; they were in absolute despair, and you could hear from their conversation how disorganised discipline was, for they abused their officers right and left, called them incapable and treacherous, yet themselves gave one the impression of being very indifferent soldiers. The young sergeant major who was leading them was the only one who was in anything like spirits, and even he was not much to boast of. It was curious what things he believed: Marshal Leboeuf had had a Prussian officer behind his chair, disguised as a waiter, at Metz, and it had only just been discovered. Russia had lent troops to Prussia, and put them into Prussian uniforms; otherwise there could not possibly be so many of them. But Rome, too, was responsible for the misfortunes of France; the Jesuits had planned it all, because the country was so educated; they never liked anybody to learn anything.

After Culoz commenced the journey through the lovely Jura mountains. On both sides an immense panorama of high, wooded mountain ridges, with poverty-stricken little villages along the mountain sides. At Bellegarde our passports were demanded; no one was allowed to cross the frontier without them--a stupid arrangement. The Alps began to bound our view. The train went on, now through long tunnels, now between precipices, now again over a rocky ridge, whence you looked down into the valley where the blue-green Rhone wound and twined its way between the rocks like a narrow ribbon. The speed seemed to be accelerating more and more. The first maize-field. Slender poplars, without side-branches, but wholly covered with foliage, stood bent almost into spirals by the strong wind from the chinks of the rocks. The first Swiss house.

XXXI.

There was Geneva, between the Alps, divided by the southern extremity of Lake Leman, which was spanned by many handsome bridges. In the centre, a little isle, with Rousseau's statue. A little beyond, the Rhone rushed frothing and foaming out of the lake. From my window I could see in the distance the dazzling snow peak of Mont Blanc.

After Paris, Geneva looked like a provincial town. The cafés were like servants' quarters or corners of cafés. There were no people in the streets, where the sand blew up in clouds of dust till you could hardly see out of your eyes, and the roads were not watered. In the hotel, in front of the mirror, the New Testament in French, bound in leather; you felt that you had come to the capital of Calvinism.

The streets in the old part of the town were all up and down hill. In the windows of the booksellers' shops there were French verses against France, violent diatribes against Napoleon III. and outbursts of contempt for the nation that had lost its virility and let itself be cowed by a tyrant. By the side of these, portraits of the Freethinkers and Liberals who had been driven from other countries and found a refuge in Switzerland.

I sailed the lake in every direction, enraptured by its beauty and the beauty of the surrounding country. Its blueness, to which I had never seen a parallel, altogether charmed me in the changing lights of night and day. On the lake I made the acquaintance of a very pleasant Greek family, the first I had encountered anywhere. The eldest daughter, a girl of fourteen, lost her hat. I had a new silk handkerchief packed amongst my things, and offered it to her. She accepted it and bound it round her hair. Her name was Maria Kumelas. I saw for the first time an absolutely pure Greek profile, such as I had been acquainted with hitherto only from statues. One perfect, uninterrupted line ran from the tip of her nose to her hair.

XXXII.

I went for excursions into Savoy, ascended La Grande Salève on donkey-back, and from the top looked down at the full length of the Leman.

I drove to the valley of Chamounix, sixty-eight miles, in a diligence and four; about every other hour we had relays of horses and a new driver. Whenever possible, we went at a rattling galop. Half-way I heard the first Italian. It was only the word quattro; but it filled me with delight. Above the high, wooded mountains, the bare rock projected out of the earth, at the very top. The wide slopes up which the wood ascended, until it looked like moss on stone, afforded a view miles in extent. The river Arve, twisting itself in curves, was frequently spanned by the roadway; it was of a greyish white, and very rapid, but ugly. Splendid wooden bridges were thrown over it, with abysms on both sides. Midway, after having for some time been hidden behind the mountains, Mont Blanc suddenly appeared in its gleaming splendour, positively tiring and paining the eye. It was a new and strange feeling to be altogether hemmed in by mountains. It was oppressive to a plain-dweller to be shut in thus, and not to be able to get away from the immutable sheet of snow, with its jagged summits. Along the valley of the stream, the road ran between marvellously fresh walnut-trees, plane-trees, and avenues of apple trees; but sometimes we drove through valleys so narrow that the sun only shone on them two or three hours of the day, and there it was cold and damp. Savoy was plainly enough a poor country. The grapes were small and not sweet; soil there was little of, but every patch was utilised to the best advantage. In one place a mountain stream rushed down the rocks; at a sharp corner, which jutted out like the edge of a sloping roof, the stream was split up and transformed into such fine spray that one could perceive no water at all; afterwards the stream united again at the foot of the mountain, and emptied itself with frantic haste into the river, foaming greyish white, spreading an icy cold around. The changes of temperature were striking. Under shelter, hot Summer, two steps further, stern, inclement Autumn, air that penetrated to the very marrow of your bones. You ran through every season of the year in a quarter of an hour.

The other travellers were English people, all of one pattern, unchangeable, immovable. If one of them had buttoned up his coat at the beginning of the drive, he did not unbutton it on the way, were he never so warm, and if he had put leather gloves on, for ten hours they would not be off his hands. The men yawned for the most part; the young ladies jabbered. The English had made the whole country subservient to them, and at the hotels one Englishman in this French country was paid more attention to than a dozen Frenchmen.

Here I understood two widely different poems: Hauch's Swiss Peasant, and Björnson's Over the Hills and Far Away. Hauch had felt this scenery and the nature of these people, by virtue of his Norwegian birth and his gift of entering into other people's thought; Björnson had given unforgettable expression to the feeling of imprisoned longing. But for the man who had been breathing street dust and street sweepings for four months, it was good to breathe the strong, pure air, and at last see once more the clouds floating about and beating against the mountain sides, leaning, exhausted, against a declivity and resting on their journey. Little children of eight or ten were guarding cattle, children such as we know so well in the North, when they come with their marmots; they looked, without exception, like tiny rascals, charming though they were.