CHAPTER XXXIII

ARMISTICE NIGHT

On the eleventh day of the eleventh month at the eleventh hour, Paris heard the news. The big guns of Mont Valérian and the forts of Ivry roared. The anti-aircraft cannon of the Buttes-Chaumont, Issy-les-Moulineaux, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the Place de la Bastille took up the message. The submarine moored by the Pont de la Concorde spoke for the navy. And then the church bells began to ring. We had heard the tocsin sounded by those same bells at four o'clock on the afternoon of August 1, 1914. France to arms! We had heard those same cannon during more than four years announcing the arrival of Tauben and Zeppelins and Gothas over Paris. But Paris kept the faith and never doubted that this day would come. The armistice was signed. The war was over. The victory was ours.

In the Rue Campagne-Première artists' studios are in the buildings with workingmen's lodgings. House painter and canvas painter work side by side; writer and printer and book-binder, sculptor, cobbler, and mattress maker live in the same court. Our little community could exist by itself, for we have within a few hundred feet all that we need, tailor and laundress, baker and butcher, restaurant and milk woman, the stationer who sells newspapers and notions, and the hardware shop where artists' materials can be had. During these years of danger and discouragement and depression we have exchanged hopes and fears as we have bought and sold and worked. We have welcomed the _permissionniares_, we have shared in the bereavements of almost every family, and we have greeted the birth of each baby as if it were our own. I was in my studio when the message of victory arrived. Windows in the large court opened instantly, and then we hurried down the staircase to pour forth, hand in hand, arm in arm, into the street. We kissed each other. Flags appeared in every window and on every vehicle.

The Boulevard du Montparnasse was ablaze with flags and bunting, and processions were forming. Hands reached out to force me into line. I managed to break away when I got to the door of my home for the crowd paused to salute the huge American flag. Herbert, who had reached the apartment first, was hanging from our balcony. My four children were in the hall when the elevator stopped. School had been dismissed. They danced around me. Mimi the five-year-old cried: "No more Gothas, no more submarines, we can go home to see grandma, and the Americans finished the war!"

"It is peace, Mimi, peace!" I said.

"What is peace?" asked Mimi bewildered.

I tried to explain. She could not understand. The world since she began to talk and receive ideas had been air raids and bombardments, and life was the mighty effort to kill Germans, who were responsible for all that, and also for the fact that there was not enough butter and milk and sugar. Mimi knew no more about peace than she did about cake and boxes of candy and white bread. Questioning my seven year old, I found that his notions of a world in which men would not fight were as vague as Mimi's. Lloyd was frankly puzzled. Like Mimi, he believed that the armistice meant no more Gothas and no more submarines, but he thought surely that we would go on fighting the Germans. Had not they always been fighting us? And if we weren't going to fight them any longer, chasing them back to their own country, what in the world would we do? And how could Uncle Clem and all the other soldier friends be happy without any work?

The Artist dropped in for lunch. Together we had seen the war suddenly come upon France. Together we were to see it as suddenly end. "Do you know," he said, "everyone in the quarter is going to the Grands Boulevards. Taxis have disappeared. The Métro and Nord-Sud are jammed. We may have to foot it, like most people, but if we want to see the big celebration, we must get over to the Rive Droite this afternoon."

The Artist was right. As Lester and Herbert and I went down the Boulevard Raspail and the Boulevard Saint-Germain, we seemed to be following the entire population of the Rive Gauche. To cross the bridge was the work of half an hour. We kept near the coping, and had time to see the crew of the submarine _Montgolfier_ engaged in more strenuous work than sailing under the seas. The _Montgolfier_ was brought up to the center of Paris a fortnight before to stimulate subscriptions to the Victory Loan. The Parisians had been allowed to subscribe on board. To-day the crew was busy trying to keep people off without pushing them into the river. The crowd in the Place de la Concorde overflowed to the Champs-Elysées and the Tuileries. Boys were climbing over the German tanks. They sat astride the big cannon trophies and invaded the captured aeroplanes parked on the terrace of the Tuileries. Only its steep sides saved the obelisk.

For many months the horses of Marly, guarding the entrance to the Champs-Elysées, had been protected by sand-bags and boxed up. A crowd was tearing off the boards and punching holes in the bags. Air raids were a thing of the past, and these hidden treasures were a painful memory which Paris wanted to efface immediately. A gendarme interfered only to point out the danger of the long nails in the ends of the boards. He insisted that the nails should be taken out, and then the boards were given to those who had torn them off. This kindly interference appealed to the good sense of the crowd. Men were putting the boards across their shoulders to parade the _poilus_ triumphantly around the Place. The gendarme was awarded by the honor of a high seat, too.

The statues of the cities of France formed splendid vantage-points, and they were crowded with the agile and venturesome. Lille and Strasbourg, however, were respected. When Lille was delivered last month, the statue had been covered with flowers and wreaths and flags. As it symbolized all the invaded regions, new offerings had been coming each day from the cities and towns that were being freed. In the midst of the joy of the armistice, this tangible evidence of victory was receiving more offerings each hour. We could see people moving towards Lille with arms aloft, in order that flowers should not be crushed in the jam. There was something sublimely pagan about the offerings to the huge statue. And Strasbourg! After nearly half a century, this was Strasbourg's day. The first instinct of the crowd was to tear off the crepe. But the government had taken precautions. Strasbourg was to be unveiled on the day Marshal Foch and his army enter the city. So Strasbourg was protected by a _cordon_ of the Garde Municipale.

On the Rue Royale side of the Hôtel de Coislin, which the American Red Cross occupied since our entry into the war, the proclamation of the mobilization was covered by some thoughtful person with glass. It has remained through these years, defying wind and rain and souvenir-hunters, a constant reminder in the busy thoroughfare of Paris's last Great Day. This afternoon a fresh poster had been put beside it. We read:

INHABITANTS OF PARIS

It is the victory, the triumphal victory! On all the fronts the conquered enemy has laid down his arms. Blood is going to cease flowing.

Let Paris come forth from the proud reserve which has won for her the admiration of the world.

Let us give free course to our joy, to our enthusiasm, and let us keep back our tears.

To witness to our great soldiers and to their incomparable chiefs our infinite gratitude, let us display from all our houses the French colors and those of our Allies.

Our dead can sleep in peace. The sublime sacrifice which they have made of their life for the future of the race and for the safety of France will not be sterile.

For them as for us "the day of glory has arrived."

Vive la République!

Vive la France Immortelle!

THE MUNICIPAL COUNCIL.

Paris had anticipated the advice of the City Fathers. Printers and bill posters were not quick enough. But the proclamation was read with enthusiasm. "_Ça y est cette fois-ci!_" cried a girl who had just come out of Maxim's.

The cry was taken up immediately by all who were gathered around the poster, and we heard it passing from mouth to mouth as we worked our way toward the Madeleine. Nothing could express more appropriately and concisely the feeling of the Parisians than this short sentence. _Cette fois-ci! This time!_ There had been other times when rejoicing was not in order. There had been false hopes, just as there had been false fears. The certitude of victory _cette fois-ci_--a certitude coming so miraculously a few months after incertitude and doubt--was the explanation of the fierce mad joy expressed in the pandemonium around us.

After a mile on the Grand Boulevards, a mile that reminded us of football days, the Artist said, "This is great stuff now, and will be greater stuff tonight. I wonder if we had not better try to get around to other places before dark just to see, you know." Beyond the _Matin_ office, in a side street near Marguéry's, we saw a taxi. The chauffeur was shaking a five franc note, and heaping curses on a man who lost himself in the boulevard crowd. We ran to the chauffeur and told him we would make it up to him for the _cochon_ who had not been good to him.

"Double fare, and a good _pourboire_ beside," Herbert insisted. The Artist opened the door and started to help me in.

"By all the virgins in France, No! A thousand times no!" growled the chauffeur, trying to keep us out.

"We meant triple fare," said Lester. I disappeared inside the cab.

"Where do _Messieurs-Dame_ want to go?" asked the chauffeur despairingly.

"Rue Lafayette, Boulevard Haussmann, Etoile, Avenue des Champs-Elysées, Invalides, and then we'll leave you at the Opéra," I suggested hopefully.

"What you want is an aeroplane," he remonstrated. But triple fare is triple fare. With a show of reluctance, he cranked and we rattled off. An hour later, after we had escaped being taken by assault a dozen times, resisted attempts to pull us out and put us out, promised to pay for a broken window and a stolen lamp, and used cigarettes and persuasive French on the man upon whose goodwill our happiness depended, we found ourselves on the Avenue de l'Opéra. By this time the chauffeur was resigned, so resigned that he tried to cross the Place de l'Opéra. We were tied up in a mass of other rashly-guided vehicles until the taxi's tires flattened out under the weight of a dozen Australians who had climbed on our roof. We were cheerful about it, and the chauffeur seemed to gather equanimity with misfortune. November 11, 1918, comes only once in a lifetime. We abandoned our taxi and our money, and tried it afoot again.

Fortune was with us. We arrived at the moment when Mademoiselle Chénal appeared on the balcony of the Opéra and sang the "Marseillaise." There was the stillness of death during the verse. But the prima donna's voice was heard only in the first word of the chorus. When the crowd took up the chorus, Paris lived one of the greatest moments of her history. Over and over again Mademoiselle Chénal waved her flag, and the chorus was repeated. Then she withdrew. Another verse would have been an anti-climax. We were carried along the Boulevard des Italiens as far as Appenrodt's. As Herbert and Lester were talking about the night, more than four years ago, when they watched the crowd break the windows of this and other German or supposedly German places, the arc lights along the middle of the boulevard flashed on. Paris of peace days reappeared.

In the midst of it all, my maternal instinct set me worrying. What if Alice, the _gouvernante_, had taken the children out into the crowd? I had gone off without thinking of my chicks. We tried to telephone. On the last day of the war that proved as impossible as on the first. My escorts were quite willing to return to the Rive Gauche. There was no reason why the celebration would not be just as interesting on the Boul' Miche. I left Herbert and Lester on the terrace of the Café Soufflet, and hurried back to the Boulevard du Montparnasse. When I reappeared half an hour later, Christine was with me. She had begged so hard to be taken to the Grands Boulevards. After all, why not? Christine had lived through all the war in France. It was her right to be in on the rejoicing. And I confess that I wanted to hear what she would say when she saw the lights. She was so young when the war started that she had forgotten what lighted streets were.

The two men were delighted with the idea of dining across the river. Despite its reputation for making the most of a celebration, five long years of the absence of youth had atrophied the Boul' Miche. It was interesting, of course, but not what we thought it would be.

We dined at the Grand Café. We went early, fearing that even being in the good graces of the head waiter might not secure a table. But having a table was not guarantee of the possibility of ordering a meal worthy of the occasion. The run on food had been too severe for the past two days. And the market people of the Halles Centrales, so the waiter said, began their celebration on Saturday, when the German delegates appeared to demand the armistice. They would withhold their produce for several days, and get higher prices. The cellars held out nobly, however, so food could be dispensed with.

During the first hour, mostly waiting for dishes which did not come, there was a lull. The effort of the afternoon had been exhausting. Some groups were just about to leave for the theatre when a young American officer jumped on his chair, holding a slipper in his hand. Pouring into it champagne, he proposed the health of Marshal Foch, with the warning that other toasts would follow. Immediately there was a bending under tables, and other slippers appeared. The fun was on. Cosmopolitans have seen New Year's Eve _réveillons_ that were "going some," but the drinking of the health of Foch, Petain, Haig and Pershing will live in the memory of all who were in the Grand Café on the night of November 11th. Tables were pushed together and pyramided. One after the other the highest officer in rank in each of the Allied armies was dragged from his place and lifted up between the chandeliers. Over the revolving doors at the entrance a young lieutenant led the singing of the national anthems, using flag after flag as they were handed up to him. The affair was decidedly _à l'américaine_, as a beaming Frenchman at the next table said. There was no rowdyness, no drunkenness. It was merrymaking into which everyone entered. The owner of the first slipper was an American head nurse, and the first Frenchwoman to jump up on a table had twin sons in the Class of 1919. During years of anguish we had been subjected to a severe nervous strain and to repressing our feelings. The French bubbled over and the English, too, and they were willing to follow the lead of the Americans, because we have a genius for celebrating audibly and in public.

Once more out in the night air, following and watching the night crowd, and joining in or being drawn into the fun, we were struck by the ubiquity of American soldiers and their leadership in every stunt which drew the crowd. We felt, too, the spirit of good _camaraderie_ among the merrymakers. Not a disagreeable incident did we see. The stars of a cloudless sky looked down on Paris frolicking. But they saw nothing that Paris, emerging from her noble dignity of suffering and anxiety, need be ashamed of. Policemen and M.P.'s were part of the celebration.

Lines of girls and _poilus_ danced along arm in arm. The girls wore kepis, and the _poilus_ hats and veils. No soldier's hat and buttons and collar insignia were safe. The price of the theft was a chase and a kiss. Processions crisscrossed and collided. Mad parades of youngsters not yet called out for military service bumped into ring-around-a-rosy groups which held captive American and British and Italian soldiers.

The officers and sergeants in charge of American garages were either taking the day off or had been disregarded. For in the midst of the throngs our huge army trucks moved slowly, carrying the full limit of their three tons, Sammies and _midinettes_, waving flags and shouting.

The trophies of the Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Elysées and the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville were raided. Big cannon could not be moved, and pushing far the tanks was too exhausting to be fun. But the smaller cannon on wheels and the caissons took the route of the Grands Boulevards. Minenwerfer and A.D.C. (anti-aircraft cannon) disappeared during the afternoon. Why should the Government have all the trophies? The aspirations of souvenir-hunters were not always limited to the possible. We saw a group of _poilus_ pulling a 155-cm. cannon on the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, some distance from the Rue Royale. They were actually making off with it! A policeman watched them with an indulgent smile.

"It's too big," he said. "They'll get tired before the night is over, and they couldn't hide it anyway. It is good for them to work off their alcohol. To-morrow the authorities will pick up that cannon somewhere."

The clocks on the Boulevard "islands" were stopped at eight o'clock. This was not a night to think what time it was, and whether the Métro had ceased running. Every lamp-post had its cheer-leader or orator.

Confetti and streamers of uncelebrated Mardi Gras and Mi-Carêmes had their use this night, when four years of postponed festivals were made up for in few wild and joyous hours. What had begun as a patriotic demonstration was ending in a carnival. The "Marseillaise" gave place to "Madelon," favorite doggerel of barracks and streets.

The most dignified had to unbend. A British staff officer, captured by a bunch of girls, was made to march before them as they held his Burberry rain-coat like maids of honor carrying a bride's train. He was a good sport, and reconciled himself to leading a dancing procession, beating time with his bamboo cane. All the Tommies spied _en route_ were pressed into line. A French General, who had unwisely come out in uniform, was mobbed by the crowd. The girls kissed him, and older people asked to shake his hand. He submitted to their grateful joy with warm-hearted and gracious dignity. But when a band of _poilus_ came along, brandishing wicker chairs stolen from a café and asked him to lead them in a charge, that was too much even for November Eleventh. The General retired to the safety of a darkened doorway.

There were no bands. It was the people's night, not the army's night, and tin cans, horns, flags, flowers, voices and kisses were enough for the people's celebration. You could not have enjoyed it yourself if you had not the spirit of a child. Children need no elaborate toys to express themselves, and they don't like to have their games managed for them, or to have the amusement provided when they are "just playing."

Some Americans rigged up a skeleton with a German cap. They followed it singing "Onward, Christian Soldiers." The song was as novel as the skeleton. Where all the Americans came from only Heaven and the Provost-Marshal knew, and there is a strong probability that the latter had no official knowledge of the presence of most of them in Paris! Our soldiers were disconsolate over the fact that they could not buy all the flags they wanted. The shops were completely sold out, and the hawkers were reduced to offering _cocardes_. We heard one boy say: "If I can't get a flag soon, I'll climb one of them buildin's."

"Gee! better not," advised his comrade; "they'd shoot you!"

"Naw! Shootin' 's finished."

The shooting was finished. That is what the signing of the armistice meant to Paris. And, as it meant the same to the whole world, every city in the Allied countries must have had its November Eleventh.