Chapter 7

You must know that St. Meuse is a fortress. It has a citadel or at least such fragments of a citadel as the bombardment had left, and the quaint old town is surrounded with bastions which are linked by curtains and flanked by lunettes, the whole being girdled by a ditch, beyond the counterscarp of which spreads a sloping glacis which makes a very pleasant promenade. The defensive strength of the place is reduced to zero in these days of far-reaching rifled siege artillery, for it lies in a cup and is surrounded on all sides by hills the summits of which easily command the fortifications. But the consciousness that it is obsolete as a fortress has not yet come home to St. Meuse. It has, in truth, a very good opinion of itself as a valorous, not to say heroic, place; nor can it be denied that its title to this self-complacency has been fairly earned. In the Franco-German war, spite of its defects, it stood a siege of over two months and succumbed only after a severe bombardment which lasted for several days. And while as yet it was not wholly beleaguered, it was very active in making itself disagreeable to the foreign invader. It was a patrolling party from St. Meuse that intercepted the courier on his way from the battlefield of Sedan to Germany, carrying the hurried lines to his wife which the Crown Prince of Prussia scrawled on the fly-leaf of an orderly book while as yet the last shots of the combat were dropping in the distance; carrying too the notes of the momentous battle which William Howard-Russell had jotted down in the heat of the action and had taken the same opportunity of despatching. St. Meuse, then, had balked the Princess of the first tidings of her husband's safety, and the great English newspaper of the earliest details of the most sensational battle of the age. It had fallen at last, but not ingloriously; and the iron of defeat had not entered so deeply into its soul as had been the case with some French fortresses, of which it could not well be said that they had done their honest best to resist their fate. Its self-respect, at least, was left to it, and it was something to know that when the German garrison should march away, it was bound to leave to St. Meuse the artillery and munitions of war of the fortress just as they had been found on the day of the surrender.

I came to like St. Meuse immensely in the course of the days I spent in it waiting for the great event of the evacuation. The company at the _table d'hôte_ of the Trois Maures was varied and amusing. The Germans ate in a room by themselves, so that the obnoxious element was not present overtly at the general _table d'hôte._ But we had a few German officials in plain clothes--clerks in General Manteuffel's bureau, contractors, cigar merchants, etc., who spoke French even among themselves, and were painfully polite to the French habitués who were as painfully polite in return. There was a batch of Parisian journalists who had come to St. Meuse to watch the evacuation, and who wrote their letters in the café over the way to the accompaniment of _verres_ of absinthe and bocks of beer. Then there was the gallant captain of gendarmes, who had arrived in St. Meuse with a trusty band of twenty-five subordinates to take over from the Germans the municipal superintendence of the place, and, later, the occupation of the fortress. He was the most polite man I ever knew, this captain of gendarmes, with a clever knack of turning you outside in in the course of half an hour's conversation, and the peculiar attribute of having, to all appearance, eyes in the back of his head. To him, as he placidly ate his food, there came, from time to time, quiet and rather bashful-looking men in civilian attire of a slightly seedy description. Sometimes they merely caught his eye and went out again without speaking; sometimes they handed to him little notes; sometimes they held with him a brief whispered conversation during which the captain's nonchalance was imperturbable. These respectable individuals who, if they saw you once in conversation with their chief, ever after bowed to you with the greatest empressement, were members of the secret police.

As for the inhabitants of St. Meuse, they appeared to await the hour of their delivery with considerable philosophy. Physically they are the finest race I ever saw in France; their men, tall, square, and muscular, their women handsome and comely. Numbers of both sexes are fair-haired, and the sandiness of hair which we are wont to associate with the Scottish Celt is by no means uncommon. A sardonic companion whom I had picked up by the way, attributed those characteristics to the fact that in the great war St. Meuse was a depôt for British prisoners of war who had in some way contrived to imbue the native population with some of their own physical attributes. He further prophesied a wave of Teuton characteristics as the result of the German occupation which was about to terminate; but his insinuations seemed to me to partake of the scurrilous, especially as he instanced Lewes, once a British depôt for prisoners of war, as a field in which similar phenomena were to be discerned. But, nevertheless, I unquestionably found a good deal of what may be called national hybridism in St. Meuse. I used to buy photographs of a shopkeeper over whose door was blazoned the Scottish name Macfarlane. Outwardly Macfarlane was a "hielanman" all over. He had a shock-head of bright red hair such as might have thatched the poll of the "Dougal cratur;" his cheek-bones were high, his nose of the Captain of Knockdunder pattern, and his mouth of true Celtic amplitude. One felt instinctively as if Macfarlane were bound to know Gaelic, and that the times were out of joint when he evinced greater fondness for _eau sucrée_ than for Talisker. It was with quite a sense of dislocation of the fitness of things that I found Macfarlane could talk nothing but French. But although he had torn up the ancient landmarks, or rather suffered them to lapse, he yet was proud of his ancestry. His grandfather, it appeared, was a soldier of the "Black Watch" who had been a prisoner of war in St. Meuse, and who, when the peace came, preferred taking unto himself a daughter of the Amalekite and settling in St. Meuse, to going home to a pension of sevenpence a day and liberty to ply as an Edinburgh caddie.

As for the German "men in possession," they pursued the even tenor of their way in the precise yet phlegmatic German manner. Their guards kept the gates and bridges as if they meant to hold the place till the crack of doom, instead of being under orders to clear out within the week. The recruits drilled on the citadel esplanade, straightening their legs and pointing their toes as if their sole ambition in life was to kick their feet away into space, down to the very eve of evacuation. Their battalions practised skirmishing on the glacis with that routine assiduity which is the secret of the German military success. Old Manteuffel was living in the prefecture holding his levees and giving his stiff ceremonious dinner-parties, as if he had done despite to Dr. Cumming's warnings and taken a lease of the place. The German officers thronged their café, each man, after the manner of German officers, shouting at the pitch of his voice; and at the café of the under-officers tough old _Wachtmeisters_ and grizzled sergeants with many medals played long quiet games at cards, or knocked the balls about on the chubby little pocketless tables with cues the tips of which were as large as the base of a six-pounder shell.

The French journalists insisted I should accept it as an article of faith, that these two races dwelling together in St. Meuse hated each other like poison. They would have it that while discipline alone prevented the Germans from massacring every Frenchman in the place, it was only a humiliating sense of weakness that hindered the Frenchmen from rising in hot fury against the Germans who were their temporary masters. I am afraid the gentlemen of the Parisian press came rather to dislike me on account of my obdurate scepticism in such matters. That there was no great cordiality was obvious and natural. Some of the Germans were arrogant and domineering. For instance, having a respect for the Germans, it pained and indeed disgusted me to hear a colonel of the German staff, in answer to my question whether the evacuating force would march out with a rearguard as in war time, reply, "Pho, a field gendarme with a whip is rearguard enough against such _canaille!_" But in the mouths of Hans and Carl and Johann, the stout _Kerle_ of the ranks, there were no such words of bitter scorn for their compulsory hosts. The honest fellows drew water for the goodwives on whom they were billeted, did a good deal of stolid love-making with the girls, and nursed the babies with a solicitude that put to shame the male parents of these youthful hopes of Troy. I take leave, as a reasonable person, to doubt whether it can lie in the heart of a family to hate a man who has dandled its baby and whether a man can be rancorous against a family whose baby he has nursed. But fashion's sway is omnipotent in emotion as in dress. Ever since the war, journalists, authors, and public opinion generally had hammered it into the French nation that if it were not to be a traitor to its patriotism, the first article of its creed must be hatred against the Germans; and that the bitterer this hate the more fervent the patriotism. It was not indeed incumbent on Frenchmen and Frenchwomen to accept this creed, but it behoved them at least to profess it; and it must be admitted that they did this for the most part with an intensity and vigour which seemed to prove that with many profession had deepened into conviction.

While as yet the evacuation had been a thing of the remote future, the people of St. Meuse had borne the yoke lightly, and indeed had, I believe, privily congratulated themselves on the substantial advantages in the way of money spent in the place and the immunity from taxation which were incidental to the foreign occupation. But as the day for the evacuation drew closer and closer, one became dimly conscious of an electrical condition of the social atmosphere which any trifle might stimulate into a thunderstorm. Blouses gathered and muttered about the street-corners, scowling at and elbowing the German soldiers as they strode to buy sausages to stay them in the homeward march. The gamins, always covertly insolent, no longer cloaked their insolence, and wagged little tricolour flags under the nose of the stolid German sentry on the Pont St. Croix. At the _table d'hôte_ the painful politeness of the German civilians had no effect in thawing the studied coldness of the French habitués.

As for myself, I was a neutral, and professing to take no side, flattered myself that I could keep out of the vortex of the soreness. Soon after my arrival at St. Meuse I had called upon the Mayor at his official quarters in the Hôtel de Ville, and had received civil speeches in return for civil speeches. Then I had left my card on General Manteuffel, with whom I happened to have a previous acquaintance; and those formal duties of a benevolent neutral having been performed I had held myself free to choose my own company. Circumstances had some time before brought me into familiar contact with very many German officers, and I had imbibed a liking for their ways and conversation, noisy as the latter is. Several of the officers then in St. Meuse had been personal acquaintances in other days and it was at once natural and pleasant for me to renew the intercourse. I was made an honorary member of the mess; I spent many hours in the officers' casino; I rode out with the officers of the squadron of Uhlans. All this was very pleasant; but as the day of the evacuation became close I noticed that the civility of the French captain of gendarmes grew colder, that the cordiality of the French habitués of the _table d'hôte_ visibly diminished, and that I encountered not a few unfriendly looks when I walked through the streets by myself. It began to dawn upon me that St. Meuse was getting to reckon me a German sympathiser, and as there was no half-way house, therefore not in accord with the emotions of France and St. Meuse.

On the afternoon immediately preceding the morning that had been fixed for the evacuation, there came to me a polite request that I should visit M. le Maire at the Hôtel de Ville. His worship was elaborately civil but obviously troubled in mind. He coughed nervously several times after the initiatory compliments had passed, and then he began to speak. "Monsieur, you are aware that the Germans are going to-morrow morning?"

I replied that I had cognisance of this fact. "Do you also know that the last of the German officials depart by the 5 A.M. train, not caring to remain here after the troops are gone?"

Of this also I was aware.

"Let me hope," continued the Mayor, "that you are going along with them, or at all events will ride away with Messieurs the officers?"

On the contrary, was my reply, I had come not only to witness the evacuation but to note how St. Meuse should bear herself in the hour of her liberation; I desired to witness the rejoicings; I was not less anxious to be a spectator of any disturbance if such unhappily should occur. Why should M. le Maire have conceived this desire to balk my natural curiosity?

M. le Maire was obviously not a little embarrassed; but he persevered and was candid. This deplorable occupation was now so nearly finished and happily, as yet, everything had been so tranquil, that it would be a thousand pities if any untoward event should occur to detract from the dignified attitude which the territory now to be evacuated had maintained. It was of critical importance in every sense that St. Meuse should not give way to riot or disorder on that occasion. He hoped and believed it would not--here M. le Maire laid his hand on his heart--but a spark, as I knew, fired tinder, and the St. Meuse populace were at present figurative tinder. I might be that spark.

"You much resemble a German," said M. le Maire, "with that great yellow beard of yours, and your broad shoulders, as if you had carried arms. Our citizens have seen you much in the society of Messieurs the German officers; they are not in a temper to draw fine distinctions of nationality; and, dear sir, I ask you to go away with the Germans lest perchance our blouses, reckoning you for a German, should not be very tender with you when the spiked helmets are out of the place. The truth is," said the worthy Maire with a burst of plain speaking, "I'm afraid that you will be mobbed and that there will be a row, and that then the Germans may come back and the evacuation be postponed, and I'll get wigged by the Prefect and the Minister of the Interior and bully-ragged in the newspapers, and St. Meuse will get abused and the fat will be generally in the fire!"

Here was an awkward fix. I could not comply with the Mayor's request; that was not to be thought of for reasons I need not mention here. I had no particular desire to be mobbed. Once before I had experienced the tender mercies of a French mob and I knew that they were very cruel. But stronger than the personal feeling was my sincere sympathy with the Mayor's critical position; and also my anxiety, by what means might be within my power, to contribute to the maintenance of a tranquillity so desirable. But, then, what means were within my power? I could not go; I could not promise to stop indoors, for it was incumbent on me to see everything that was to be seen. And if through me trouble came I should be responsible heaven knows for what!--with a skinful of sore bones into the bargain.

"If Monsieur cannot go,"--the Mayor broke in upon my cogitation,--"if Monsieur cannot go, will he pardon the exigency of the occasion if I suggest one other alternative? It is,"--here the Mayor hesitated--"it is the yellow beard which gives to Monsieur the aspect of a German. With only whiskers nobody could take Monsieur for anything but an Englishman. If Monsieur would only have the complaisance and charity to--to--"

Cut off my beard! Great powers! shear that mane that had been growing for years!--that cataract of hair that has been, so to speak, my oriflamme; the only physical belonging of which I ever was proud, the only thing, so far as I know, that I have ever been envied! For the moment the suggestion knocked me all of a heap. There came into my head some confused reminiscence of a story about a girl who cut off her hair and sold it to keep her mother from starving, or redeem her lover from captivity, or something of the kind. But that must have been before the epoch of parish relief, and kidnapping is now punishable by statute. What was St. Meuse to me that for her I should mow my hirsute glories? But then, if people grew savage, they might pull my beard out by the roots. And there had been lately dawning on me the dire truth that its tawny hue was becoming somewhat freely streaked with gray, a colour I abhor, except in eyes. I made up my mind.

"I'll do it, sir," said I to the Mayor, with a manly curtness. My heart was too full for many words.

He respected my emotion, bowed in silence over the hand which he had grasped, and only spoke to give me the address of his own barber.

This barber was a patriot of unquestioned zeal; but I am inclined to think his extraction was similar to that of Macfarlane, for he combined patriotism with profit in a most edifying manner. He shaved the German officers during the whole of their stay in St. Meuse; he accompanied them on their march to the frontier; he earned the last centime in Conflans; and then, driving forward to the frontier line, he unfurled the tricolour as the last German soldier stepped over it. It is seldom that one in this world sees his way to being so adroitly ambidextrous.

But this is a digression. In twenty minutes, shorn and shaven, I was back again in the Mayor's parlour. The tears of gratitude stood in his eyes. I learned afterwards that a decoration was contingent on his preservation of the public peace on the occasion of the evacuation.

Started by the Mayor, the report rapidly circulated through St. Meuse that I had cut off my beard rather than that it should be possible that any one should mistake me for a German. From being a suspect I became a popular idol. The French journalists entertained me to a banquet at night at which in libations of champagne eternal amity between France and England was pledged. Next morning the Germans went away and then St. Meuse kicked up its heels and burst into exuberant joy. The Mayor took me up to the station in his own carriage to meet the French troops, and introduced me to the colonel of the battalion as a man who had made sacrifices for _la belle France_. The colonel shook me cordially by the hand and I was embraced by the robust vivandière, who struck me as being in the practice of sustaining life on a diet of garlic. When we emerged from the station I was cheered almost as loudly as was the colonel, and a man waved a tricolour over my head all the way back to the town, treading at frequent intervals on my heels. In the course of the afternoon I happened to approach the civic band which was performing patriotic music in the Place St. Croix. When the bandmaster saw me he broke off the programme and struck up "Rule Britannia!" in my honour, to the clamorous joy of the audience, who were thwarted in their aim of carrying me round the Place shoulder-high only by the constancy with which I clung to the railings which surround Chevert's statue. But the crowning recognition of my sacrifice came at the banquet which the town gave to the French officers. The Mayor proposed the toast of "our English friend." "We had all," he said, "made sacrifices for _la Patrie_--he himself had sustained the loss of a wooden outhouse burned down in the bombardment; the gallant colonel on his right had spilt his blood at St. Privat. Them it behoved to suffer and they would do it again cheerfully, for it was, as he had said, for _la Patrie_. But what was to be said of an honourable gentleman who had sacrificed the most distinguishing ornament of his physical aspect without the holy stimulus of patriotism, and simply that there might be obviated the risk of an embroilment to the possible consequence of which he would not further allude? Would it be called the language of extravagant hyperbole, or would they not rather be words justified by facts, when he ventured before this honourable company to assert that his respected English friend had by his self-sacrifice saved France from a great peril?" The Mayor's question was replied to by a perfect whirlwind of cheering. Everybody in the room insisted upon shaking hands with me and I was forced to get on my legs and make a reply. Later in the evening I heard the Mayor and the town clerk discussing the project of conferring upon me the freedom of the city.

CHRISTMAS IN A CAVALRY REGIMENT

1875

The civilian world, even that portion of it which lives by the profusest sweat of its brow, enjoys an occasional holiday in the course of the year besides Christmas Day. Good Friday brings to most an enforced cessation from toil. Easter and Whitsuntide are recognised seasons of pleasure in most grades of the civilian community. There are few who do not compass somehow an occasional Derby day; and we may safely aver that the amount of work done on New Year's Day is not very great. But in all the year the soldier has but one real holiday--a holiday with all the glorious accompaniments of unwonted varieties of dainties and full liberty to be as jolly as he pleases without fear of the consequences. True, the individual soldier may have his day's leave, nay, his month's furlough; but his enjoyments resulting therefrom are not realised in the atmosphere of the barrack-room, but rather have their origin in the abandonment for the nonce of his military character and a _pro tempore_ return into civilian life. Christmas Day is the great regimental merry-making, free to and appreciated by the veteran and the recruit alike; and as such it is looked forward to for many a month prior to its advent and talked of many a day after it is past and gone.

About a month before Christmas the observer skilled in the signs of the times may begin to notice the tokens of its approach. Self-deniant fellows, men who can trust themselves to carry a few shillings about with them without experiencing a chronic sensation that the accumulated pelf is burning a hole in their pockets, busy themselves in constructing "dimmocking bags" for the occasion, such being the barrack-room term for receptacles for money-hoarding purposes. The weak vessels, those who mistrust their own constancy under the varied temptations of dry throats, empty stomachs, and a scant allowance of tobacco, manage to cheat their fragility of "saving grace" by requesting their sergeant-major to put them "on the peg,"--that is to say, place them under stoppages, so that the accumulation takes place in his hands and cannot be dissipated by any premature weaknesses of the flesh. Everybody becomes of a sudden astonishingly sober and steady. There is hardly any going out of barracks now; for a walk involves the expenditure of at least "the price of a pint," and in the circumstances this extravagance is not allowable. The guard-room is unwontedly empty--nobody except the utterly reckless will get into trouble just now; for punishment at this season involves the forfeiture of certain privileges and the incurring of certain penalties--the former specially prized, the latter exceptionally disgusting at this Christmas season.