Complete weird tales of.., p.19
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 19
“Rigault is right,” growled Tribert.
“Am I crazy!” mimicked Rigault. “Do you want proofs? Did your Minister Washburn receive the American papers during the siege? And did he erase with ink everything in them that could be of service to France before he would let them be seen by us?”
“He could not do otherwise,” said Philip, gravely; “a Foreign Minister could not distribute to the garrison of a besieged town news which he was able to receive only through the courtesy of the besiegers.” To cut short the violent and foolish scene, he would have turned away once more, but Rigault drowned his last words in a torrent of half-articulate blasphemy, out of which came distinctly the words, “American Minister, American students — paid Prussian spies!”
Without a sound, Landes sprang at him. Tribert jerked Rigault back against the wall, and shoved the table in front of him, while Monsieur Cardinal, alarmed for the crockery in his café, threw his arms around the American’s waist, and shouted for the police. Landes struggled, white with passion, overturning tables and chairs, but Monsieur Cardinal held fast, while Sarre and Pagot each draped himself over an arm.
“Raoul Rigault,” he said, between his gasps, “you lie! Let me go, Monsieur Cardinal! I will not touch him here, — let go, André Sarre, or I’ll break your neck. On my honor I won’t touch him, Monsieur Cardinal, — not here, to-night, — let me go, I tell you!”
“On your honor, Monsieur Landes?” whined Cardinal.
“I said it,” panted Landes.
They released him, and the tumult in the café died away as he took a step forward and faced Rigault.
“I’ll break my cane over your head, when next we meet, you mongrel liar! Keep out of my way, Sarre! — and you too, whatever your name is,” turning on Tribert, who scowled back in reply. “As for this canaille you call Weser, and this Greek here, who seems so ready with that thin knife he’s just slipped back into his pocket — pfui!” He made a gesture of disgust, and walked out into the street, trembling with excitement.
He crossed the Boulevard St. Michel, and entering Ferdinand’s ordered dinner, but when it was brought he felt too upset to eat, and drawing out the paper he had received from Rigault, he looked at it. It bore the seal of the French Students Association and was addressed:
MONSIEUR PHILIP LANDES,
Artiste Peintre,
École des Beaux Arts,
En Ville.
The black-eyed waitress who had served him for three years felt that something indeed serious must be the matter, when a young man who has just been through a siege of six months, living on government demi-rations of horse meat and straw bread, reads a letter before looking at the juicy Châteaubriand which a black-eyed waitress sets before him.
“Are you ill, Monsieur Landes?” she inquired.
“No, — oh, no,” he replied, smiling. “I’ll eat presently. Has Monsieur Ellice come in yet?”
Ellice entered as he spoke, with Ynès Falaise, and Landes rose to welcome them.
“Bon soir, Mlle. Ynès. Hello, Jack! Sit down here, I’m just beginning.”
Ynès seated herself with a graceful shake of her fluffy skirts, and the two young men dropped into chairs on either side of her.
“Well,” said Ellice, after the dinner was ordered, “any news?”
“Nothing of interest,” replied Landes, thinking of the scene just past in the Café Cardinal. “What do the evening papers say?”
“Whatever they say, they don’t say it in English,” observed Mlle. Falaise, whom that language bored. The young men laughed and begged her pardon, then chatted on in French.
“They still keep talking about that mysterious Central Committee,” said Ellice. “What is the Central Committee, Ynès?”
“Politics!” cried the girl. “What a pity, before dinner!”
“Ynès is of Lewis Carroll’s mind,” said Ellice. “Politics to-morrow, politics yesterday, but never politics to-day.”
“Then give me a glass of that Chambertin,” she said evasively, “and talk your politics by and by with Monsieur Philip.”
“I have heard of the Comité Central every day since the surrender,” persisted Landes. “What is it, anyway? Who compose it?”
“Do you know,” interrupted Ynès, “that the Prussians stole all the cuckoo clocks in the Champs Élysées quarter?”
“Ah, bah!” laughed Ellice. “Every one knows they behaved themselves very well while they were in Paris.”
“But they stole the cuckoo clocks,” persisted Mlle. Falaise,— “the barbarians!”
“Barbarians as much as you like,” said Ellice, “and their native tongue—”
“And their French! I suppose they’d call it the Gomidé Zendrale,” mimicked Mlle. Falaise, making her mouth very round.
“Jack,” said Landes, “I’ll tell you all I know about the Central Committee. Do you remember last month, while the peace was being arranged, a placard was stuck all over the walls, — a big, square, red placard, blood-red?”
“Yes, I remember it.”
“It’s a wonder you do, considering the thousands of placards of every shape and color that we used to see pasted up every day during the siege.”
“Oh, I remember this one. It said the National Guard had elected the ‘undersigned’ as a Committee to intervene in the situation.”
“Yes, and they declared they would intervene in the name of three hundred thousand citizens. It isn’t a small detail, three hundred thousand citizens. And the ‘undersigned’ were sixteen names absolutely unknown, unless you except that fellow Assi, who came into prominence during the Creuzot troubles. Well, that was the beginning of the Comité Central. Nobody paid the slightest attention to it then. So far as I know, no one does now, and yet it seems to be there, all the same. What is it, what does it want, Ynès?”
“What the Comité Central wants,” said Ynès, impaling and eating a single pea, “is the Republic. That’s what I want also.”
“It’s what all France wants,” said Ellice.
“Except Monsieur Thiers,” said the girl, scornfully.
“Well, yes, I’d like to know what Monsieur Thiers wants too, while I’m asking for information,” yawned Ellice.
“What he wants,” flashed out Ynès, “is to insult Paris. First he holds the National Assembly at Bordeaux, and then he carries it to Versailles! Imbecile!”
“He said he didn’t want to go there,” said Landes. “Versailles is the city of kings,” he said.
“Oh, pour celà, Versailles is well enough, said Ynès. “It’s only a suburb of Paris now, thanks to the railroad. But Monsieur Thiers blows hot and cold with the same mouth, that is my opinion,” she added, with a gay smile, and held out her glass to touch Philip’s.
They pledged the Republic, and, at her command, drank confusion to all Germans, “and may their stolen cuckoo clocks go wrong forever,” said Ellice.
Ynès kissed her hand to him, and made him a compliment on his esprit, but Landes harked back to the first theme.
“This Central Committee bothers me,” he said. “What common end holds them together? Are they afraid Thiers will betray the Republic? Are they — is it the Commune they are after?”
“The Commune,” murmured Ellice. “That would mean Thermidor!” Their eyes met, they looked at Ynès, who was sipping an ice. Her pretty teeth showed in a careless smile, a fluffy mass of silk and lace framed her pointed foot. She glanced aside, caught them looking at her, and became injured and expostulatory.
“Mais, mon Dieu! What is this? Politics, politics, always politics! And that is how you make yourselves agreeable to ladies, you Americans!”
“Would Mademoiselle perhaps find this more amusing?” smiled Philip, handing her the letter which he had kept beside his plate. “Read it too, Jack,” he added.
Ellice leaned over with a “pardon, Ynès,” and glanced at the paper which she unfolded. When he saw its contents he started back and stared at Landes. “What in thunder!” he exclaimed, “where did you get that?”
“From Raoul Rigault, just now in the Café Cardinal. He was there with André Sarre and a miscellaneous collection of scum that I never saw before. He made a nasty scene and then handed me this.
He said it was because I was an American—”
“Ah, bah!” said Ynès, angrily.
“Well, did you say anything to him?” asked Jack. “I started to make a few suitable remarks, but had to desist because of the shrieks of old Cardinal.”
“Raoul Rigault knows all about the Comité Central,” observed Ynès, in a low voice.
“Oh, he does. I thought as much.”
After a short silence Landes resumed.
“Do you remember, Jack, how they celebrated the twenty-fourth of February in the Place de la Bastile, last month?”
“I didn’t see it but I heard about it.”
“What would you say was the prominent feature in that celebration?”
“If you like to call a prominent feature what was the only feature,” mocked Ynès, recovering her gaiety, “I should say La Garde Nationale.”
“Well, I watched the whole business,” Philip went on, “from six in the morning till six in the evening the battalions of the National Guard passed without intermission, bands playing, bugles and drums, and officers at their head. They carried wreaths of immortelles, tied with crape and red ribbons, and placed them around the statue of Liberty in the Place de la Bastile. During the next five days a hundred and fifty battalions came and did the same thing. Each one did exactly as all the rest. The delegates, preceded by drummers and buglers or by bands, with their officers and flags, entered through the gate opposite the rue Saint-Antoine and passed around the column inside the railing. The commissaires wore a red cocarde. When they halted, these fellows in red took the wreaths and flags, each inscribed with the number of the company and battalion, and placed them before the pedestal. Then the commandant uncovered, the drums beat the long roll, the bands played a patriotic air, and everybody shouted, ‘Vive la République! ‘ Usually an officer made a speech, which always began in the same way, something like this: ‘The people of Paris, honoring the memory of those illustrious victims who died in defending Liberty, mean to defend the Republic to the death.’”
“They kept up their parades too,” said Ellice, “every day, and toward the end of the month they grew rather — rather menacing, I thought—”
“More patriotic, you mean,” interposed Mademoiselle Ynès.
“Well,” said Landes, “I heard an officer of the 238th battalion say: ‘Monopolists and tyrants think the people under age, but sometimes the people wake up and claim their majority unexpectedly. We speak,’ he said, ‘of’93, of 1830 and’48; who knows if our children will not add to these, 1871?’ I thought it was only blow at the time but now I’m not so sure.”
“After all,” said Ellice, “this National Guard is a pretty poor organization, seems to me. They only grew war-like after the Prussians had left Paris. I’d back one regiment of the Line against the whole two hundred and fifty battalions of the National Guard.”
“They certainly have a fondness for blowing bugles and it is very tiresome,” laughed Ynès, “but I think they are good republicans.”
“Blowing bugles and parading,” repeated Ellice, “they parade every day and all day.”
“Yes,” said Landes drily, “and the other day they paraded their cannon out of sight.”
“Out of sight?” cried the girl. “Oh, pas du tout! They are quite easy to be seen winking and blinking in the sun up on Montmartre. You must take me up there to-morrow, Jack, every one is going.”
“Now, see how these Parisians play with danger,” said Landes. “Do you think it amusing that an organized militia seizes two hundred and fifty odd pieces of cannon from the park in the Cours-la-Reine and drags them up to the heights of Montmartre and trains them on the city?”
“It was to save them from being handed over to the Germans,” said Ynès; “Thiers would have given them up to Bismarck.”
“Oh, never!” protested Landes.
“Pardon,” murmured Ynès, obstinately.
Landes smiled and waived the question.
“Anyway, Ynès,” said Jack Ellice, “you must confess it’s making pretty free with government property.”
“Pardon,” said Mademoiselle Falaise again and set her pretty teeth. “The cannon belong to the National Guard. Every soldier in each battalion gave something toward paying for them, so did the families and friends of the soldiers. I gave ten francs, all I had at the time. They were built during the siege for the National Guard and paid for as I have just told you. They don’t belong to the government at all!” and Mademoiselle tossed her head and looked very decided.
“All the same, Thiers ought to have shown spirit enough to prevent their removal and placing where they are. It’s a menace pure and simple,” said Ellice.
“Who gave the order for their removal?” inquired Landes, picking up a pear and smiling at Ynès’ impatience of their seriousness.
“The Central Committee,” she answered.
“Precisely! And the Parisians say that the Central Committee does not exist! And Montmartre bristles with artillery which could lay Paris in ashes, and you think it a good joke. The illustrated papers make caricatures about it. If Thiers isn’t a fool, he’ll send a Line regiment up there to fetch them within the next twenty-four hours.”
“Monsieur Thiers is a nobody,” announced Madamoiselle Falaise. “Monsieur Ellice, are you going to take me to the theatre?”
They all rose. Landes walked with the others to the door, and they stood a moment chatting on the Boulevard St. Michel, then crying: “Au revoir! À demain donc!” they separated, Landes turning up toward the Luxembourg Gardens, and Ellice, escorting Madamoiselle Falaise to the Folies-St-Antoine, where she had a speaking part in the new farce, “Paris Upside Down,” and was receiving fifty francs a week and some applause.
CHAPTER II. PHILIP ACTS AS ESCORT.
AFTER TAKING LEAVE of Jack and Ynès, Philip walked slowly up the St. Michel and sat down on a Boulevard bench. Mechanically he took off his hat to enjoy the spring breeze.
“The first soft air,” he thought to himself, “that has entered the sad city, since her gates closed in autumn and the state of siege was proclaimed.” This started several trains of thought at once, which he followed, not because he wanted to, but because they persisted, getting themselves more or less mixed up and intertwisted as trains of thought will; the scene in Café Cardinal, the talk with Jack and Ynès, and now this first touch of returning spring, reminding him of light-hearted springtimes that came and went before the troubles began.
It was the 16th day of March, 1871.
On the 20th of January preceding, General Trochu, Governor of Paris, had lost his last battle under the walls, and had published the following despatch:
NOTICE!
IT IS NOW URGENTLY NECESSARY TO SEND A FLAG OF TRUCE TO SÈVRES, DEMANDING AN ARMISTICE OF TWO DAYS, FOR THE REMOVAL OF THE WOUNDED, AND THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD.
WAGONS, STOUTLY BUILT AND WELL EQUIPPED, ARE WANTED, ALSO THE LARGEST POSSIBLE NUMBER OF STRETCHERS.
LOSE NO TIME, BUT WORK!
Landes went out with the American ambulance. Before he returned, Paris had surrendered.
Poor General Trochu! In the beginning he had cried, “The Governor of Paris will not surrender!” but hunger, bitter cold, and a dissatisfied public told heavily on the resolution of the Governor of Paris. Sortie after sortie failed to break the ring of German bayonets. The people clamored for another and still another effort. He sent out thousands of men to face their fate. They went gladly. Few of them ever returned. Yet even when the shattered remnants of their troops crept back through the gates of the fortifications, the people cried, “The Governor of Paris must not surrender!”
On the 21st of January, the people read in placards on the walls that the Government of National Defence had decided to separate the offices of Commander-in-chief of the Army and President of the Government, that General Vinoy was appointed Commandant of the Army of Paris, that the title and functions of Governor of Paris were suppressed, and that General Trochu was to remain President of the Government.
On the 1st day of March, as the morning bells sounded eight o’clock, the first German of the advanced guard passed the fortifications of Neuilly. At half-past ten, the German army being massed on the meadow of Longchamps, the Crown Prince passed along the cheering lines. At ten minutes to eleven, the cheers rolled out in a deafening “Hoch dem Konig!” and King William galloped across the meadow to the windmill, where his son was waiting to receive him. Then all the splendid German bands crashed out with the hymn “Heil dir in Siegeskranz!”
The echo of that triumphant music was still sounding in Paris over the Seine, among the shell-torn houses of the left bank, and in the bitter hearts of the people. Landes heard it, now, as he sat musing, his eyes bent on his cane, with which he was absently beating a tattoo on the curb.
“Monsieur Philip” whispered a voice behind him. He swung around and jumped up.
“Faustine!” he exclaimed “What’s the matter? What are you crying for?”
At first she would do nothing but lean against a tree and sob quietly. After a while he persuaded her to sit down, and then lighting a cigarette, he waited for her to speak when she should be ready. He knew she would not have come to him if she had not had something to say.
The Place de Medici was not well lighted. The petroleum lamps, which had hung from the gilded iron railing of the Luxembourg Gardens during the siege were now removed, and the gas burned dimly, at long intervals, on some of the gas posts. The light from the Café d’lena on the opposite side of the Boulevard St. Michel illumined the fountain in the Place de Medici, but hardly penetrated to the Gardens. Under the black arcades of the Odéon, a lantern or two glimmered feebly. Few people passed; no one paid the slightest attention to them. A woman’s sobs could scarcely attract attention in a city which for six months had heard little else. Landes smoked and waited, still beating a gentle tattoo on the curbstone.
