“since all that i can ever do for thee
is to do nothing, may'st thou never see,
never divine, the all that nothing costeth me!”
it is for kings to declare war, for nations to fight and pay. napoleon iii declared war against russia, and france fought side by side with england in the crimea, not because the gayest and most tragic of nations had aught to gain, but to ensure an upstart emperor a place among the monarchs of europe. and that strange alliance was merely one move in a long game played by a consummate intriguer—a game which began disastrously at boulogne and ended disastrously at sedan, and yet was the most daring and brilliant feat of european statesmanship that has been carried out since the adventurer's great uncle went to st. helena.
but no one knows why in july, 1870, napoleon iii declared war against germany. the secret of the greatest war of modern times lies buried in the imperial mausoleum at frognal.
there is a sort of surprise which is caused by the sudden arrival of the long expected, and germany experienced it in that hot midsummer, for there seemed to be no reason why war should break out at the moment. shortly before, the spanish government had offered the crown to the hereditary prince leopold of hohenzollern, and france, ever ready to see a grievance, found herself suited. but the hereditary prince declined that throne, and the incident seemed about to close. then quite suddenly france made a demand, with reference to any possible recurrence of the same question, which germany could not be expected to grant. it was an odd demand to make, and in a flash of thought the great german chancellor saw that this meant war. perhaps he had been waiting for it. at all events, he was prepared for it, as were the silent soldier, von roon, and the gentle tactician, von moltke. these gentlemen were away for a holiday, but they returned, and, as history tells, had merely to fill in a few dates on already prepared documents.
if france was not ready she thought herself so, and was at all events willing. nay, she was so eager that she shouted when she should have held her tongue. and who shall say what the schemer of the tuileries thought of it all behind that pleasant smile, those dull and sphinx-like eyes? he had always believed in his star, had always known that he was destined to be great; and now perhaps he knew that his star was waning—that the greatness was past. he made his preparations quietly. he was never a flustered man, this nephew of the greatest genius the world has seen. did he not sit three months later in front of a cottage at donchery and impassively smoke cigarette after cigarette while waiting for otto von bismarck? he was a fatalist.
“the moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on.”
and it must be remembered to his credit that he asked no man's pity—a request as foolish to make for a fallen emperor as for the ordinary man who has, for instance, married in haste, and is given the leisure of a whole lifetime in which to repent. for the human heart is incapable of bestowing unadulterated pity: there must be some contempt in it. if the fall of napoleon iii was great, let it be remembered that few place themselves by their own exertions in a position to fall at all.
the declaration of war was, on the whole, acclaimed in france; for frenchmen are, above all men, soldiers. does not the whole world use french terms in the technicalities of warfare? the majority received the news as lory de vasselot received it. for a time he could only think that this was a great and glorious moment in his life. he hurried in to tell his father, but the count failed to rise to the occasion.
“war!” he said. “yes; there have been many in my time. they have not affected me—or my carnations.”
“and i go to it to-night,” announced lory, watching his father with eyes suddenly grave and anxious.
“ah!” said the count, and made no farther comment.
then, without pausing to consider his own motives, lory hurried up to the casa perucca to tell the ladies there his great news. he must, it seemed, tell somebody, and he knew no one else within reach, except perhaps the abbé susini, who did not pretend to be a frenchman.
“is it peace?” asked mademoiselle brun, who, having seen him climbing the steep slope in the glaring sunshine, was waiting for him by the open side-door when he arrived there.
he took her withered hand, and bowed over it as gallantly as if it had been soft and young.
“what do you mean?” he asked, looking at her curiously.
“well, it seems that the casa perucca and the chateau de vasselot are not on visiting terms. we only call on each other with a gun.”
“it is odd that you should have asked me that,” said lory, “for it is not peace, but war.”
and as he looked at her, her face hardened, her steady eyes wavered for once.
“ah!” she said, her hands dropping sharply against her dingy black dress in a gesture of despair. “again!”
“yes, mademoiselle,” answered lory, gently; for he had a quick intuition, and knew at a glance that war must have hurt this woman at one time of her life.
she stood for a moment tapping the ground with her foot, looking reflectively across the valley.
“assuredly,” she said, “frenchwomen must be the bravest women in the world, or else there would never be a light heart in the whole country. come, let us go in and tell denise. it is germany, i suppose?”
“yes, mademoiselle. they have long wanted it, and we are obliging them at last. you look grave. it is not bad news i bring you, but good.”
“women like soldiers, but they hate war,” said mademoiselle, and walked on slowly in silence.
after a pause, she turned and looked at him as if she were going to ask him a question, but checked herself.
“i almost did a foolish thing,” she explained, seeing his glance of surprise. “i was going to ask you if you were going?”
“ah, yes, i am going,” he answered, with a laugh and a keen glance of excitement. “war is a necessary evil, mademoiselle, and assists promotion. why should you hate it?”
“because we cannot interfere in it,” replied mademoiselle brun, with a snap of the lips. “we shall find denise in the garden to the north of the house, picking green beans, monsieur le comte,” continued mademoiselle brun, with a glance in his direction.
“then i shall have time to help with the beans before i go to the war,” answered lory; and they walked on in silence.
the garden was but half cultivated—a luxuriant thicket of fruit and weed, of trailing vine and wild clematis. the air of it was heavy with a hundred scents, and, in the shade, was cool, and of a mossy odour rarely found in southern seas.
they did not see denise at first, and then suddenly she emerged at the other end of the weed-grown path where they stood. lory hurried forward, hat in hand, and perceived that denise made a movement, as if to go back into the shadow, which was immediately restrained.
mademoiselle brun did not follow lory, but turned back towards the house.
“if they must quarrel,” she said to herself, “they may do it without my assistance.”
and denise seemed, indeed, ready to fall out with her neighbour, for she came towards him with heightened colour and a flash of annoyance in her eyes.
“i am sorry they put you to the trouble of coming out here,” she said.
“why, mademoiselle? because i find you picking green beans?”
“no; not that. but one has one's pride. this is my garden. i keep it! look at it!” and she waved her hand with a gesture of contempt.
de vasselot looked gravely round him. then, after a pause, he made a movement of the deepest despair.
“yes, mademoiselle,” he said, with a great sigh, “it is a wilderness.”
“and now you are laughing at me.”
“i, mademoiselle?” and he faced her tragic eyes.
“you think i am a woman.”
de vasselot spread out his hands in deprecation, as if, this time, she had hit the mark.
“yes,” he said slowly.
“i mean you think we are only capable of wearing pretty clothes and listening to pretty speeches, and that anything else is beyond our grasp altogether.”
“nothing in the world, mademoiselle, is beyond your grasp, except”—he paused, and looked round him—“except a spade, perhaps, and that is what this garden wants.”
they were very grave about it, and sat down on a rough seat built by mattei perucca, who had come there in the hot weather.
“then what is to be done?” said denise, simply.
for the french—the most intellectually subtle people of the world—have a certain odd simplicity which seems to have survived all the changes and chances of monarchy, republic, and empire.
“i do not quite know. have you not a man?”
“i have nobody, except a decrepit old man, who is half an imbecile,” said denise, with a short laugh. “i get my provisions surreptitiously by the hand of madame andrei. no one else comes near the casa. we are in a state of siege. i dare not go into olmeta; but i am holding on because you advised me not to sell.”
“i, mademoiselle?”
“yes; in paris. have you forgotten?”
“no,” answered lory, slowly—“no; i have not forgotten. but no one takes my advice—indeed, no one asks it—except about a horse. they think i know about a horse.” and lory smiled to himself at the thought of his proud position.
“but you surely meant what you said?” asked denise.
“oh yes. but you honour me too much by taking my opinion thus seriously without question, mademoiselle.”
denise was looking at him with her clear, searching eyes, rather veiled by a suggestion of disappointment.
“i thought—i thought you seemed so decided, so sure of your own opinion,” she said doubtfully.
de vasselot was silent for a moment, then he turned to her quickly, impulsively, confidentially.
“listen,” he said. “i will tell you the truth. i said 'don't sell.' i say 'don't sell' still. and i have not a shred of reason for doing so. there!”
denise was not a person who was easily led. she laughed at the stern, strong mademoiselle brun to her face, and treated her opinion with a gay contempt. she had never yet been led.
“no,” she said, and seemed ready to dispense with reasons. “you will not sell, yourself?” she said, after a pause.
“no; i cannot sell,” he said quickly; and she remembered his answer long afterwards.
after a pause he explained farther.
“i tell you frankly,” he said earnestly, for he was always either very earnest or very gay—“i tell you frankly, when we both received an offer to buy, i thought there must be some reason why the places are worth buying, but i have found none.”
he paused, and, looking round, remembered that this also was his, and did not belong to denise at all, who claimed it, and held it with such a high hand.
“as corsica at present stands, perucca and vasselot are valueless, mademoiselle, i claim the honour of being in the same boat with you. and if the empire falls—bonjour la paix!”
and he sketched a grand upheaval with a wave of his two hands in the air.
“but why should the empire fall?” asked denise, sharply.
“ah, but i have the head of a sparrow!” cried lory, and he smote himself grievously on the forehead. “i forgot to tell you the very thing that i came to tell you. which is odd, for until i came into this garden i could think of nothing else. i was ready to shout it to the trees. war has been declared, mademoiselle.”
“war!” said denise; and she drew in one whistling breath through her teeth, as one may who has been burnt by contact with heated metal, and sat looking straight in front of her. “when do you go, monsieur le comte?” she asked, in a steady voice, after a moment.
“to-night.”
he rose, and stood before her, looking at the tangled garden with a frown.
“ah!” he said, with a sudden laugh, “if the emperor had only consulted me, he would not have done it just yet. i want to go, of course, for i am a soldier. but i do not want to go now. i should have liked to see things more settled, here in olmeta. if the empire falls, mademoiselle, you must return to france; remember that. i should have liked to have offered you my poor assistance; but i cannot—i must go. there are others, however. there is mademoiselle brun, with a man's heart in that little body. and there is the abbé susini. yes; you can trust him as you can trust a little english fighting terrier. tell him——no; i will tell him. he is a vasselot, mademoiselle, but i shall make him a perucca.”
he held out his hand gaily to say good-bye.
“and—stay! will you write to me if you want me, mademoiselle? i may be able to get to you.”
denise did not answer for a moment. then she looked him straight in the eyes, as was her wont with men and women alike.
“yes,” she said.
a few minutes later, mademoiselle brun came into the garden. she looked round but saw no one. approaching the spot where she had left denise, she found the basket with a few beans in it, and denise's gloves lying there. she knew that lory had gone, but still she could see denise nowhere. there were a hundred places in the garden where any who did not wish to be discovered could find concealment.
mademoiselle brun took up the basket and continued to pick the french beans.
“my poor child! my poor child!” she muttered twice, with a hard face.
