“love ... gives to every power a double power
above their functions and their offices.”
“ah!” said mademoiselle brun, as she stepped on deck the next morning. and the contrast between the gloomy departure from corsica and the sunny return to france was strong enough, without further comment from this woman of few words.
the yacht was approaching the little harbour of st. raphael at half speed on a sea as blue and still as the mediterranean of any poet's dream. the freshness of morning was in the air—the freshness of provence, where the days are hot and the nights cool, and there are no mists between the one and the other. almost straight ahead, the little town of fréjus (where another corsican landed to set men by the ears) stood up in sharp outline against the dark pinewoods of valescure, with the thin wood-smoke curling up from a hundred chimneys. to the left, the flat lands of les arcs half hid the distant heights of toulon; and, to the right, headland after headland led the eye almost to the frontier of italy along the finest coast-line in the world. every shade of blue was on sky or sea or mountain, while the deep morning shadows were transparent and almost luminous. from the pinewoods a scent of resin swept seaward, mingled with the subtle odour of the tropic foliage near the shore. the sky was cloudless. this was indeed the smiling land of france.
denise, who had followed mademoiselle on deck, stood still and drank it all in; for such sights and scents have a deep eloquence for the young, which older hearts can only touch from the outside, vaguely and intangibly, like the memory of a perfume.
denise had slept well, and mademoiselle brun said she had slept enough for an old woman. a cheery little stewardess had brought them coffee soon after daylight, and had answered a few curt questions put to her by mademoiselle brun.
“yes; the yacht was the yacht of the baron de mélide, and the bête-noire, by the same token, of madame, who hated the sea.”
and madame was at the chateau near fréjus, where monsieur le baron had installed her on the outbreak of the war, and would assuredly be on the pier at st. raphael to meet them. and god only knew where monsieur le baron was. he had gone, it was said, to the war in some civil capacity.
as they stood on deck, denise soon perceived the little pier where there were, even at this early hour, a few of those indefatigable mediterranean waltons who fish and fish and catch nothing, all through the sunny day. presently mademoiselle brun caught sight of a small dot of colour which seemed to move spasmodically up and down.
“i see the parasol,” she said, “of jane de mélide. what good friends we have!”
and presently they were near enough to wave a handkerchief in answer to the baroness de mélide's vigorous salutations. the yacht crept round the pier-head, and was soon made fast to a small white buoy. while a boat was being lowered, the baroness, in a gay parisian dress, walked impatiently backwards and forwards, waved her parasol, and called out incoherent remarks, which mademoiselle brun answered by a curt gesture of the hand.
“my poor friend!” exclaimed the baroness, as she embraced mademoiselle brun. “my dear denise, you are a brave woman. i have heard all about you.”
and her quick, dancing eyes took in at a glance that denise had come against her will, and mademoiselle brun had brought her. of which denise was ignorant, for the sunshine and brightness of the scene affected her and made her happy.
“surely,” she said, as they walked the length of the pier together, “the bad news has been exaggerated. the war will soon be over and we shall be happy again.”
“do not talk of it,” cried the baroness. “it is a horror. i saw lory, after w?rth, and that was enough war for me. and, figure to yourself!—i am all alone in this great house. it is a charity to come and stay with me. lory has gone to the front. my husband, who said he loved me—where is he? bonjour, and he is gone. he leaves me without a regret. and i, who cry my eyes out; or would cry them out if i were a fool—such as mademoiselle thinks me. ah! i do not know what has come to all the men.”
“but i do,” said mademoiselle, who had seen war before.
and the baroness, looking at that still face, laughed her gay little inconsequent laugh.
a carriage was waiting for them in the shade of the trees on the market-place, its smart horses and men forming a strong contrast to the untidy town and slip-shod idlers. as usual, a game of bowls was in progress, and absorbed all the attention of the local intelligence.
“we have half an hour through the pine trees,” said the baroness, settling herself energetically on the cushions. “and, do you know, i am thankful to see you. i thought you would be prevented coming.”
she glanced at denise as she spoke, and with a suddenly grave face, leant forward, and whispered—
“the news is bad—the news is bad. all this has been organized by lory and my husband, who told me, in so many words, that they must have us where they can find us at a moment's notice. in case—ah, mon dieu! i do not know what is going to happen to us all.”
“then are we to be moved about, like ornaments, from one safe place to another?” asked denise, with a laugh which was not wholly spontaneous.
“i have never been treated as an ornament yet,” put in mademoiselle brun, “and it is perhaps rather late to begin now.”
denise looked at her inquiringly.
“yes,” said the little woman, quietly. “i am going to the war—if jane will take care of you while i am away.”
“and why should not i go too?” asked denise.
“because you are too young and too pretty, my dear—since you ask a plain question,” replied the baroness, impulsively. then she turned towards mademoiselle. “you know,” she said, “that my precious stupid is organizing a field hospital.”
“i thought he would find something to do,” answered mademoiselle, curtly.
“yes,” said the baroness, slowly, “yes—because when he was a boy he had for governess a certain little woman whose teaching was deeds, not words. and he is paying for it himself. and we shall all be ruined.”
she spread out her rich dress, lay back in her luxurious carriage, and smiled on mademoiselle brun with something that was not mirth at the back of her brown eyes.
“i shall go to him,” said mademoiselle. and the baroness made no reply for some moments.
“do you know what he said?” she asked. “he said we shall want women—old ones. i know one old woman who will come!”
mademoiselle was buttoning her cotton gloves and did not seem to hear.
“it was, of course, lory,” went on the baroness, “who encouraged him and told him how to go about it. and then he went back to the front to fight. mon dieu! he can fight—that lory!”
“where is he?” asked mademoiselle. and the baroness spread out her gloved hands.
“at the front—i cannot tell you more.”
and mademoiselle did not speak again. she was essentially a woman of her word. she had undertaken to find lory and give him that odd, inexplicable message from the abbé. she had not undertaken much in her narrow life; but she had usually accomplished, in a quiet, mouse-like way, that to which she set her hand. and now, as she drove through the smiling country, with which it was almost impossible to associate the idea of war, she was planning how she could get to the front and work there under the baron de mélide, and find lory de vasselot.
“they are somewhere near a little place called sedan,” said the baroness.
and mademoiselle brun set out that same day for the little place called sedan; then known vaguely as a fortress on the belgian frontier, and now for ever written in every frenchman's heart as the scene of one of those stupendous catastrophes to which france seems liable, and from which she alone has the power of recovery. for, whatever the history of the french may be, it has never been dull reading, and she has shown the whole world that one may carry a brave and a light heart out of the deepest tragedy.
by day and night mademoiselle brun, sitting upright in a dark corner of a second-class carriage, made her way northward across france. no one questioned her, and she asked no one's help. a silent little old woman assuredly attracts less attention to her comings and goings than any other human being. and on the third day mademoiselle actually reached chalons, which many a more important traveller might at this time have failed to do. she found the town in confusion, the civilians bewildered, the soldiers sullen. no one knew what an hour might bring forth. it was not even known who was in command. the emperor was somewhere near, but no one knew where. general officers were seeking their army-corps. private soldiers were wandering in the streets seeking food and quarters. the railway station was blocked with stores which had been hastily discharged from trucks wanted elsewhere. and it was no one's business to distribute the stores.
mademoiselle brun wandered from shop to shop, gathering a hundred rumours but no information. “the emperor is dying—macmahon is wounded,” a butcher told her, as he mechanically sharpened his knife at her approach, though he had not as much as a bone in his shop to sell her.
she stopped a cuirassier riding a lame horse, his own leg hastily bandaged with a piece of coloured calico.
“what regiment?” she asked.
“i have no regiment. there is nothing left. you see in me the colonel, and the majors, and the captains. i am the regiment,” he answered with a laugh that made mademoiselle bite her steady lip.
“where are you going?”
“i don't know. can you give me a little money?”
“i can give you a franc. i have not too much myself. where have you come from?”
“i don't know. none of us knew where we were.”
he thanked her, observed that he was very hungry, and rode on. she found a night's lodging at a seed-chandler's who had no seeds to sell.
“they will not need them this year,” he said. “the prussians are riding over the corn.”
the next morning the indomitable little woman went on her way towards sedan in a forage-cart which was going to the front. she told the corporal in charge that she was attached to the baron de mélide's field hospital and must get to her work.
“you will not like it when you get there, my brave lady,” said the man, good-humouredly, making room for her.
“i shall like it better than doing nothing here,” she replied.
and so they set forth through the country heavy with harvest. it was the second of september. the corn was ripe, the leaves were already turning; for it had been a dry summer, and since april hardly any rain had fallen.
it was getting late in the afternoon when they met a man in a dog-cart driving at a great pace. he pulled up when he saw them. his face was the colour of lead, his eyes were startlingly bloodshot.
“this parishioner has been badly scared,” muttered the soldier who was driving mademoiselle brun.
“where are you going?” asked the stranger in a high, thin voice.
“to sedan.”
“then turn back,” he cried; “sedan is no place for a woman. it is a hell on earth. i saw it all, mon dieu. i saw it all. i was at bazeilles. i saw the children thrown into the windows of the burning houses. i saw the bavarians shoot our women in the streets. i saw the troops rush into sedan like rabbits into their holes, and then the prussians bombarded the town. they had six hundred guns all round the town, and they fired upon that little place which was packed full like a sheep-pen. it is not war—it is butchery. what is the good god doing? what is he thinking of?”
and the man, who had the pasty face of a clerk or a commercial traveller, raised his whip to heaven in a gesture of fierce anger. mademoiselle brun looked at him with measuring eyes. he was almost a man at that moment. but perhaps her standard of manhood was too high.
“and is sedan taken?” she asked quietly.
“sedan is taken. macmahon is wounded. the emperor is prisoner, and the whole french army has surrendered. ninety thousand men. the prussians had two hundred and forty thousand men. ah! that emperor—that scoundrel!”
mademoiselle brun looked at him coldly, but without surprise. she had dealt with frenchmen all her life, and probably expected that the fallen should be reviled—an unfortunate characteristic in an otherwise great national spirit.
“and the cavalry?” she asked.
“ah!” cried the man, and again his dull eye flashed. “the cavalry were splendid. they tried to cut their way out. they passed through the prussian cavalry and actually faced the infantry, but the fire was terrible. no man ever saw or heard anything like it. the cuirassiers were mown down like corn. the cavalry exists no longer, madame, but its name is immortal.”
there was nothing poetic about mademoiselle brun, who listened rather coldly.
“and you,” she asked, “what are you? you are assuredly a frenchman?”
“yes—i am a frenchman.”
“and yet your back is turned,” said mademoiselle brun, “towards the prussians.”
“i am a writer,” explained the man—“a journalist. it is my duty to go to some safe place and write of all that i have seen.”
“ah!” said mademoiselle brun. “let us, my friend,” she said, turning to her companion on the forage-cart, “proceed towards sedan. we are fortunately not in the position of monsieur.”
