Part 18

“Send me rain,” he begged audibly of the heavens, “send me torrents of rain.” And the heavens responded, so people affirmed. A few minutes later the heavens sent M. Lépine thunder, lightning and a deluge that reduced the blazing kiosks to hissing, sodden ruins; cleared the frantic boulevards; allowed police, soldiers and even M. Lépine to go to bed. But, on the other hand, caused Jules Guérin and his fellow outlaws and conspirators against the Republic to exult wildly and grotesquely on the roof of Fort Chabrol. For Guérin was short of water. The supply had been cut off and Guérin’s only salvation was surrender or rain. And it rained, and it poured and it thundered. The heavens were equally kind to Rebel, and Chief of the Police. Up there on the roof of conspiring Fort Chabrol assembled Guérin and his companions with baths, buckets and basins; with jugs, glasses and mugs; all of which speedily overflowed with the rain. Down there in the street, the soldiers in occupation of the besieged thoroughfare stared upwards, open-mouthed, at the amazing spectacle on the roof—Guérin and Company joining hands and dancing with glee amidst their multitudinous rain-catching vessels; Guérin bending perilously over the parapet and roaring forth between the explosions of thunder and the flashes of lightning: “We have got enough water for months. Tell Lépine we defy him.” Another jig from Guérin et Cie. Guérin once again at the edge of the parapet, mockingly drinking the health of the soldiers below, and then emptying baths full of water into the street and bellowing: “Voilà de l’eau,” and performing such delirious, dangerous antics that it was deemed necessary to telephone an account of the scene to the Chief of the Police. “Let him dance his jigs all night in the rain; it will cool him,” replied M. Lépine. “Je le connais: he is too clever to fall over the parapet.”

Nor did Guérin capsize. Nor yet did M. Lépine put an end to the jigs on the roof—to the rest of the Fort Chabrol farce—until Paris had been appeased by the Rennes Court Martial verdict, and the acutest stage of the Anti-Dreyfusard agitation died out amidst exclamations of: “C’est fini! Quelle sacrée affaire! Quel cauchemar! Enfin, n’en parlons plus.”

After the lurid autumn of 1899 came a particularly bleak, cheerless winter. So bitter was the weather that fond mothers kept their children indoors, and thus Edouard and Yvonne yawned with boredom in their nurseries, and quarrelled, and exchanged blows, and gave way to tears.

“Toys are not what they used to be,” complained a mother to M. Lépine. “They are stupid or vulgar, and children get tired of them.”

This set M. Lépine thinking. Like all Frenchmen, a lover of children, the Chief of the Police realised that the arrival of winter was a grief and a blow to Edouard and Yvonne. If they couldn’t rejoice in the open, they must be enabled to rejoice in their homes; and the way of rejoicing at home is with toys. But toys, so said that mother, had deteriorated: and this grave state of affairs M. Lépine resolved to investigate. Behold him, therefore, gazing critically—officially—into the windows of toy-shops, and hear him declaring, as the result of his inspections, that the toys, truly enough, were old-fashioned, and vapid, and banal—poor things to play with in the nursery after the Guignol and roundabouts of the Luxembourg Gardens, and the other delights and surprises to be enjoyed in summer _en plein air_. Thus “reforms” were imperative.

In a long, official circular M. Lépine informed the toy manufacturers of Paris that, with the consent of the Government and with the approval of the President of the Republic, an annual Toy Exhibition was to be held, and that prizes and diplomas would be awarded to those manufacturers who displayed the greatest originality in their work. However, not ungainly, ugly originality. “Pas de golliwogs.” Messieurs les Apaches also prohibited; and a stern, official reprimand to the toy-maker in whose window M. Lépine had discovered a miniature guillotine.

“Des choses amiables, gaies, pratiques, douces, humaines, humoristiques.”

Toys to amuse and also to quicken Edouard and Yvonne’s imagination and intellect. Well, the Paris toy-makers responded brilliantly. The first exhibition was an overwhelming success, and to-day it has become a State Institution. Not only is there the “Prize of the President of the Republic,” but M. le Président himself visits the show. Then prizes from the Presidents of the Chamber and Senate, prizes from every Cabinet Minister, prizes from the Judges of the Paris Law Courts, and more prizes from scientists, men of letters, the leading newspapers, the _haute bourgeoisie_, the _grand monde_. Thus, what an inducement for the toy manufacturers to do their utmost! This winter’s Exhibition I missed, but a letter from a French father of five informed me that it had “surpassed” itself. Continued my friend: “Des choses épatantes, merveilleuses, inouïes! I confess, _mon vieux_, that I go there all by myself; yes, without my five children.” Thus M. le Bourgeois (to which excellent category of society my friend belongs) goes to the Lépine Exhibition “on his own.” Surely only a Frenchman could find pleasure in that? And surely only a French Chief of the Police—fancy suggesting such a thing to Scotland Yard!—could, in the midst of his grim, poignant or delirious duties, evince so charming and tender a consideration for children as to realise that it is a question of interest to public order that children shall have toys “original” enough to marvel at and rejoice over, during the bleak months of winter. But, inevitably, as in all admirable works, in all excellent reforms, there are drawbacks; and in this particular case they are obvious. For instance, a whole “set” of the First Act of _Chantecler_: innumerable chicks and chickens, the Blackbird in his cage, the dog Patou in his kennel, proud, majestic Chantecler on the hedge of the farm-yard, the radiant Hen Pheasant, the lurid-eyed Night Birds, trees, haystacks, a pump... price 300 francs.

“Papa, do please buy me all this, immediately,” demands Yvonne tremulously, passionately, her eyes shining, her cheeks aflame.

“Papa, I want all this,” shouts Edouard, pointing to a vast array of soldiers, cannon, ambulances, aeroplanes and air-ships engaged in military manœuvres. Price 420 francs.

“But you have only five francs each to spend. For the love of heaven, be reasonable. Ah, _nom d’un nom_, all the world is looking and laughing at us,” cries the unfortunate father.

Scowls and sulkiness from Edouard; tears and shrill hysterics from Yvonne. When informed of these tragic scenes, M. Lépine exclaims: “Poor little dears! But what can I do? Impossible to buy a whole farm-yard or an army with a piece of five francs.”

After toys, let me take pictures—the incomparable Monna Lisa, who, when She vanished, disturbed even the proverbial calm of M. Lépine. All France sent him “clues.” Every post brought him shoals of letters that strangely and severally denounced a Woman in a Shawl, Three Men in Blue Aprons, a Man with a Sack, a Negro with a Diamond Ring, a Turk in a Fez, and a Man Dressed as a Woman, as Monna Lisa’s base abductor. In each case these singular beings were said to have been seen carrying an object of the exact dimensions of the stolen picture. Also, their demeanour “was excited,” their “hands trembled” as they clutched the precious masterpiece, and they jumped into a passing cab or hurled themselves into a train just as it was steaming out of the station. “Believe me, M. le Préfet,” concluded M. Lépine’s incoherent informants, “believe me, I have given you an exact description of the culprit.” Then, letters of abuse, threatening letters, letters from practical jokers, letters demanding interviews—all of which had (under French law) to be considered and classified. Again, telegram upon telegram, and the telephone bell always ringing.

“If I cannot speak to M. Lépine himself, I won’t speak to anyone. And then the picture will be lost for ever,” stated a voice through the telephone.

“Well, what is it?” demanded M. Lépine, at last coming to the machine.

“_Ecoutez-moi bien_, M. le Préfet. My name is Charles Henri Durand. I am forty-seven years of age. I am a papermaker by profession. And I live on the third floor of No. 16 rue de Rome,” related the voice through the telephone.

“After that, after that! Quickly! _Au galop!_” cried M. Lépine.

“Monsieur le Préfet, my information is grave and I must not be hurried,” continued the voice. “At the very hour of the theft of the picture I was passing the Louvre. Suddenly, a man jostled me. He was carrying what was undoubtedly a picture in a sack. He hastened down a side street, casting suspicious glances about him. He was a Man with a Squint and——”

“Ah, zut,” cried the Chief of the Police, hanging up the receiver.

And on the top of all this incoherency, light-headedness. Always and always, when Paris is shaken by a sensational _affaire_, some light-headed soul loses what remains of his reason. On to the Place de la Concorde came a pale-faced, wild-eyed man, with a chair. After mounting the chair, he folded his arms across his chest and broke out into a fixed, ghastly grin. As he stood motionless on his chair, always grinning, a crowd inevitably assembled, and M. Lépine appeared.

“What are you doing there?” demanded the latter.

“Hush! I am Monna Lisa,” replied the Man with the Grin.

“Then at last we have found you!” exclaimed the Chief of the Police. “All France has been mourning your loss. Come with me quickly. You must return immediately to the Louvre.”

“Yes, yes,” assented the light-headed one, descending from his chair and confidently passing his arm under the arm of M. Lépine. “Take me home to the Louvre.”

A wonderful spectacle, the Man with the Grin disappearing on the arm of the Chief of the Police, relating, as he went, that he had escaped from his frame in the Louvre in the dead of the night.

A wonderful spectacle was M. Lépine a few nights later, when “directing operations” at a disastrous fire on the Boulevard Sebastopol. In the sight of the crowd he struggled into oilskins, and next was to be seen stationing the engines, dragging about hose, pushing forward ladders, signalling and shouting forth encouragement and patience to the occupants of the blazing house. On this, as on all similar occasions, M. Lépine was blackened and singed when at last the fire had been mastered. But never have I beheld him so blackened, so dishevelled and battered, so courageous and capable as when he came to the rescue of the “victims” of the devastating Paris floods. Up and down the swollen, lurid river he careered in a shabby old boat. At once-pleasant river-side places, such as Boulogne and Surèsnes, he was to be found chest-deep in the turbid, yellow-green water—always signalling, always “firmly” and “actively” “directing operations.” He climbed into the upper windows of tottering, flooded houses; briskly made his way across narrow plank bridges; distributed here, there and everywhere blankets, medicaments, provisions—the mud and slime of the river caked hard on his oilskins. As he passed by in his boat, the most bedraggled figure in Paris, loud cries of “Vive Lépine” from the bridges and quays; and, indeed, wherever he went, M. le Préfet de Police excited respect and admiration. I see him, in top hat and frock coat, “receiving” the late King Edward VII. in the draughty Northern Station. I see him pointing out the beauties of Paris to the present Prince of Wales. I see him surrounded by the turbulent students of the Latin Quarter, whither he has been summoned to check their demonstrations against some unpopular professor. I see him examining (in the interests of the public) the clocks of motor cabs, the cushions of railway carriages, the seating conditions in theatres, the very benches and penny chairs in the Bois de Boulogne. Finally, I see him as he is to-day; no longer Chief of the Police, but a private “citizen,” established in a spacious, comfortable _appartement_, which, to the admiration and excitement of naïve, bourgeois Parisians, is equipped with no fewer than two bathrooms.

“With two bathrooms our admirable Lépine will have plenty to do,” states M. le Bourgeois. “They are a responsibility, as well as a pleasure; but, of course, they will not prove too much for a man like Lépine.” Then up speaks a primitive soul: “One is free to bathe and free not to bathe. But to have two bathrooms is scandalous: and I should not have thought it of Lépine.”

However, in the opinion of a third critic, M. Lépine should be permitted to have ninety-nine bathrooms if he likes. Twenty-two years Chief of the Police, he is now entitled to do as he pleases. So leave his two bathrooms alone.

“When a man has retired, he must have distractions with which to occupy his mind and his leisure.”

But if, as reported, M. Lépine loves his pair of bathrooms, he loves the streets better. As in his official days, behold him here, there and everywhere. A brawl or a fire, and there he is. Now in an omnibus, next in the underground railway, up at Montmartre, down on the boulevards, amidst exclamations of “Voilà Lépine!” and the salutes of the police. Only a private “citizen,” but he is still addressed as “M. le Préfet.” Merely the master of a comfortable _appartement_, of a couple of bathrooms—but is that enough for a Frenchman of action and genius? Gossips predict that M. Lépine will next be seen in the Chamber of Deputies, or that he will help M. Georges Clemenceau to wake up the Senate—the “Palais du Sommeil.” For my own part I fancy that, should a crisis arrive, the ex-Chief of the Police will be requested to “direct operations” again.

“There is a telephone in my new home,” M. Lépine is reported to have said. “If the Government should want me back, it has only to ring me up.”

XVI

MADAME LA PRÉSIDENTE, M. GEORGES CLEMENCEAU AND THE UNFORTUNATE M. PAMS

There is an important reason for the popularity of M. le Président: there is Madame la Présidente.

Less than a month ago Madame Raymond Poincaré, wife of the President of the French Republic, was the hostess, in Paris, of King George and Queen Mary; to-day, as I write, she is helping to entertain, with almost similar brilliancy, their Majesties Christian and Alexandrine of Denmark. In the interval between these two Royal visits, Madame Poincaré has spent a few days on the Riviera, but it wasn’t a holiday. Madame la Présidente was accompanied to the south of France by the most punctilious, the most rigid, the most terrible of all tutors—a high official of the French Protocol. And instead of enjoying the drowsy charms or the worldly delights of the Riviera, it was Madame Poincaré’s duty to master a few elegant phrases from the difficult Danish language; to acquaint herself with the brightest episodes in Danish history; to discern the subtleties and intricacies of Danish etiquette; and incidentally (and always under the respectful but intense eye of the high Protocol official) to discover which kinds of flowers grow in Denmark; what the climate is like; at what hours the Danes rise and retire; and whether they are particularly fond of music, literature, the drama, pictures, sculpture, dancing, needlework, and so on, and so forth.

Although an extremely clever and accomplished woman, it is probable that Madame Poincaré experienced hardships and even miseries in “getting up” her Denmark: for it is a country—and a language—that does not easily accommodate itself to an emergency. (You, reader, could _you_ gossip, here and now, glibly and elegantly, even in your own language, about Danish national characteristics?) Moreover, it must be remembered that, when she left for the Riviera to acquaint herself with Denmark, Madame Poincaré had only recently finished “getting up” her England: the latter, of course, a less arduous, but nevertheless a strenuous, task. Two languages, two countries; two Kings and two Queens; banquets, gala opera performances, military reviews, special race-meetings, drives in State carriages across Paris, ceremonious greetings and adieux at the gaily decorated Royal railway station—decorations, illuminations, soldiers and soldiers, the National Anthems of England, Denmark and France—all this brilliancy, and excitement, and hard labour in the short space of one month! Such, nevertheless, has been the duty of Madame Raymond Poincaré as hostess of the Presidential Palace of the Élysée: and yet even here in England, and even there in Denmark, one hears scarcely a word about the personality or the functions of Madame la Présidente!

An ungrateful, even an ironical position, that of a French President’s wife. She is the hostess of foreign Royalty: but never, in her turn, their guest. The rigid French Protocol forbids, for some reason or other, that Madame la Présidente shall accompany her husband on his State visits abroad. She may drive through the streets of Paris by the side of Queen Mary: but she must not drive, officially, through the streets of London, or Copenhagen, or St Petersburg. In a word, Madame la Présidente must suffer all the anxieties and responsibilities of the arduous, proud position of hostess to Royalty: and is left behind in Paris when her husband goes away on visits of State to receive almost Royal honours. Yes: an ungrateful, an ironical position, that of Madame la Présidente. Particularly so, when one remembers that, upon social occasions at all events, she is almost invariably more tactful, _sympathique_ and ornamental than M. le Président.

Well, the French Chief of the State goes almost royally abroad. In his own country, when he opens exhibitions or “inaugurates” monuments and statues and _lycées_ at Lyons and Marseilles, he is very nearly a king—and Madame la Présidente stays at home. She “counts” only in Paris; her powers are confined within the walls of the Élysée, where she is for ever dispensing all kinds of hospitalities—hospitalities that demand infinite skill and tact. For instance, one of those dinners upon other occasions—“eminent” Academicians, leading barristers, men of letters, and clericals, and anti-clericals, and militarists, and pacifists, and ambiguities, enigmas, and “dark horses” (so far as their political opinions are concerned)—many of whom are the bitterest of enemies, and all of whom Madame la Présidente has “placed” around the dinner-table, with such incomparable tact and discretion that not a guest can see more than the nose or the chin of his particular foe. Also, Madame la Présidente has often reconciled enemies—to the advantage of M. le Président—whose own endeavours to obtain the same reconciliation have proved vain. Furthermore, it is on record that, during an acute Cabinet crisis, Madame la Présidente stopped one of France’s leading statesmen, as he flung out of the Élysée, by grasping his arm and putting a rose in his button-hole, and the Cabinet Minister, exclaiming: “Ah, madame, vous êtes exquise!” allowed himself to be led by Madame la Présidente back to the Council Chamber.

Has Madame la Présidente been once again working miracles? What is this we hear in the month of June, 1913? A reconciliation, an alliance, even, between M. Raymond Poincaré and M. Georges Clemenceau.

When, in February last, M. Raymond Poincaré was elected President of the French Republic, Parisians exclaimed excitedly, with one voice: “This means the end of Clemenceau. He is dying; he is dead; he is already buried.” For it will be remembered that M. Georges Clemenceau, the “Smasher of Cabinets,” also “The Tiger,” had savagely attacked M. Poincaré’s candidature; had even called upon him to withdraw in favour of an obscure Minister of Agriculture, in business life a maker of cigarette papers, of the unfortunate name of Pams. Cried M. Clemenceau here, there and everywhere: “I vote for Pams.” In the lobbies of the two Chambers he ordered his followers to “vote solidly for Pams.” The “Tiger” had sent M. Loubet to the Élysée; he would do the same for his dear Pams. The manufacturer of cigarette papers was a true democrat—M. Poincaré was a despot. Pams, indeed, had all the virtues; Pams at the Élysée would raise the prestige of the Republic, but heaven help the poor Republic if M. Poincaré were elected.

So fierce was the “Tiger’s” antagonism that, on the very day of the Presidential election, and in the Palace of Versailles, M. Poincaré appointed “seconds” to demand an explanation from M. Clemenceau. The affair was “arranged.” But up to the last moment the “Tiger” canvassed and canvassed for M. Pams in the lobbies of the Versailles palace. And he was sallower than ever; he did not attempt to conceal his anger and indignation when M. Poincaré was proclaimed Chief of the State by a handsome majority. Said a Deputy: “Versailles has been Clemenceau’s Waterloo. In Poincaré he met his Wellington.” But the “Tiger” wasn’t tamed. A few weeks later he “smashed” the Briand Cabinet. Then he started a paper—_L’Homme Libre_—and therein, as in the lobbies of the two Chambers, he renewed his attacks upon the new President. So has Paris been amazed, staggered, almost petrified to read in the newspapers the following official announcement:

“Sur le désir que le président de la République lui en avait fait exprimer par son secrétaire général civil, M. Clemenceau s’est rendu aujourd’hui à l’Élysée, pour conférer avec M. Poincaré.” Or: “At the desire of the President of the Republic, expressed through his principal private secretary, M. Clemenceau has called at the Élysée and conferred with M. Poincaré.”

Mortal enemies—nearly a duel—three months ago: but now is M. Clemenceau invited most politely to call at the Élysée, where he remains shut up with President Poincaré for a whole hour! Never such gesticulations on the boulevards, such excitement in the French Press. “Even the weather has been _bouleversé_ by the interview at the Élysée,” writes a Paris journalist. “M. Clemenceau’s visit to M. Poincaré is undoubtedly responsible for the sudden heat wave.” Asks another journalist, somewhat cruelly: “What does M. Pams think of it? Also, where is M. Pams? We have sought for M. Pams at both his Paris and country residences, but in vain. No news of M. Pams either at the cigarette paper manufactory. We are becoming uneasy about M. Pams.” And declares a third journalist: “Versailles is forgotten and forgiven. Behold the President and Clemenceau hand-in-hand. But it is the triumph of the ‘Tiger.’”

And so, most indisputably, it is. It was M. Poincaré who “desired” the famous interview, and this was made clear (at M. Clemenceau’s request) in the official communication to the Press. Why did he “desire” it? What induced M. Poincaré to forget all about M. Clemenceau, M. Pams and Versailles? The truth is, M. Poincaré has need of the “Tiger’s” support, not only in the Chambers, but in his new paper. It is also a fact that, in spite of the Pams episode, M. Clemenceau is far and away the most powerful journalist and politician in France. If M. Clemenceau doesn’t agree with you, he “smashes.” “He assassinates you in the Chamber and then buries you in his newspaper,” once said a Deputy. To come to the point: the President of the French Republic, disturbed by the hostility to the Three Years Army Service Bill, sees in the “Tiger” the only statesman powerful enough to cope successfully with the situation. In other words, the next French Premier will be M. Georges Clemenceau.