“wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop
than when we soar.”
there were many who thought the war was over that rainy morning after the fall of sedan. for events were made to follow each other quickly by those three sleepless men who moved kings and emperors and armies at their will. bismarck, moltke, and roon must have slept but little—if they closed their eyes at all—between the evening of the first and the morning of the third day of september. for human foresight must have its limits, and the german leaders could hardly have dreamt, in their most optimistic moments, of the triumph that awaited them. bismarck could hardly have foreseen that he should have to provide for an imperial prisoner. moltke's marvellous plans of campaign could scarcely have embraced the details necessary to the immediate disposal of ninety thousand prisoners of war, with many guns and horses and much ammunition.
it was but twenty-four hours after he had left sedan to seek, and seek in vain, the king of prussia, that the third napoleon—the modern man of destiny who had climbed so high and fallen so very low—set out on his journey to the palace of wilhelmsh?he, never to set foot on french soil again. for he was to seek a home, and finally a grave, in england, where his bones will lie till that day when france shall think fit to deposit them by those of the founder of the adventurous dynasty.
among those who stood in the muddy street of donchéry that morning, and watched in silence the departure of the simple carriage, was mademoiselle brun, whose stern eyes rested for a moment on the sphinx-like face, met for an instant the dull and extinct gaze of the man who had twisted all france round his little finger.
when the cavalcade had passed by, she turned away and walked towards sedan. the road was crowded with troops, coming and going almost in silence. long strings of baggage-carts splashed past. here and there an ambulance waggon of lighter build was allowed a quicker passage. messengers rode, or hurried on foot, one way and the other; but few spoke, and a hush seemed to hang over all. there was no cheering this morning—even that was done. the rain splashed pitilessly down on these men who had won a great victory, who now hurried hither and thither, afraid of they knew not what, cowering beneath the silence of heaven.
mademoiselle was stopped outside the gates of sedan.
“you can go no further!” said an under-officer of a bavarian regiment in passable french, the first to question the coming or going of this insignificant and self-possessed woman.
“but i can stay here?” returned mademoiselle in german. in teaching, she had learnt—which is more than many teachers do.
“yes, you can stay here,” laughed the german.
and she stayed there patiently for hours in the rain and mud. it was afternoon before her reward came. no one heeded her, as, standing on an overturned gun-carriage, beneath her shabby umbrella, she watched the first detachment of nearly ten thousand frenchmen march out of the fortress to their captivity in germany.
“no cavalry?” she said to a bystander when the last detachment had gone.
“there is no cavalry left, ma bonne dame,” replied the old man to whom she had spoken.
“no cavalry left! and lory de vasselot was a cuirassier. and denise loved lory.” mademoiselle brun knew that, though perhaps denise herself was scarcely aware of it. in these three thoughts mademoiselle told the whole history of sedan as it affected her. solferino had, for her, narrowed down to one man, fat and old at that, riding at the head of his troops on a great horse specially chosen to carry bulk. the victory that was to mar one empire and make another, years after solferino, was summed up in three thoughts by the woman who had the courage to live frankly in her own small woman's world, who was ready to fight—as resolutely as any fought at sedan—for denise. she turned and went down that historic road, showing now, as ever, a steady and courageous face to the world, though all who spoke to her stabbed her with the words, “there is no cavalry left—no cavalry left, ma bonne dame.”
she hovered about donchéry and sedan, and the ruins of bazeilles, for some days, and made sure that lory de vasselot had not gone, a prisoner, to germany. the confusion in the french camp was greater than any had anticipated, and no reliable records of any sort were obtainable. mademoiselle could not even ascertain whether lory had fought at sedan; but she shrewdly guessed that the mad attempt to cut a way through the german lines was such as would recommend itself to his heart. she haunted, therefore, the heights of bazeilles, seeking among the dead one who wore the cuirassier uniform. she found, god knows, enough, but not lory de vasselot.
all this while she never wrote to fréjus, judging, with a deadly common sense, that no news is better than bad news. day by day she continued her self-imposed task, on the slippery hill-sides and in the muddy valleys, until at last she passed for a peasant-woman, so bedraggled was her dress, so lined and weather-beaten her face. her hair grew white in those days, her face greyer. she had not even enough to eat. she lay down and slept whenever she could find a roof to cover her. and always, night and day, she carried with her the burthen of that bad news of which she would not seek to relieve herself by the usual human method of telling it to another.
and one day she wandered into a church ten miles on the french side of sedan, intending perhaps to tell her bad news to one who will always listen. but she found that this was no longer a house of prayer, for the dead and dying were lying in rows on the floor. as she entered, a tall man, coming quickly out, almost knocked her down. his arms were full of cooking utensils. he was in his shirt-sleeves: blood-stained, smoke-grimed, unshaven and unwashed. he turned to apologize, and began explaining that this was no place for a woman; but he stopped short. it was the millionaire baron de mélide.
mademoiselle brun sat suddenly down on a bench near the door. she did not look at him. indeed, she purposely looked away and bit her lip with her little fierce teeth because it would quiver. in a moment she had recovered herself.
“i have come to help you,” she said.
“god knows, we want you,” replied the baron—a phlegmatic man, who, nevertheless, saw the quivering lip, and turned away hastily. for he knew that mademoiselle would never forgive herself, or him, if she broke down now.
“here,” he said, with a clumsy gaiety, “will you wash these plates and dishes? you will find the pump in the curé's garden. we have nurses and doctors, but we have no one to wash up. and it is i who do it. this is my hospital. i have borrowed the building from the good god.”
mademoiselle was naturally a secretive woman. she could even be silent about her neighbours' affairs. susini had been guided by a quick intuition, characteristic of his race, when he had confided in this frenchwoman. she had been some hours in the baron's hospital before she even mentioned lory's name.
“and the count de vasselot?” she inquired, in her usual curt form of interrogation, as they were taking a hurried and unceremonious meal in the vestry by the light of an altar candle.
the baron shook his head and gulped down his food.
“no news?” inquired mademoiselle brun.
“none.”
they continued to eat for some minutes in silence.
“was he at sedan?” asked mademoiselle, at length.
“yes,” replied the baron, gravely. and then they continued their meal in silence by the light of the flickering candle.
“have you any one looking for him?” asked mademoiselle, as she rose from the table and began to clear it.
“i have sent two of my men to do so,” replied the baron, who was by nature no more expansive than his old governess. and for some days there was no mention of de vasselot between them.
mademoiselle found plenty of work to do besides the menial labours of which she had relieved the man who deemed himself fit for nothing more complicated than washing dishes and providing funds. she wrote letters for the wounded, and also for the dead. she had a way of looking at those who groaned unnecessarily and out of idle self-pity, which was conducive to silence, and therefore to the comfort of others. she smoothed no pillows and proffered no soft words of sympathy. but it was she who found out that the curé had a piano. she it was who took two hospital attendants to the priest's humble house and brought the instrument away. she had it placed inside the altar rails, and fought the curé afterwards in the vestry as to the heinousness of the proceeding.
“you will not play secular airs?” pleaded the old man.
“all that there is of the most secular,” replied she, inexorably. “and the recording angels will, no doubt, enter it to my account—and not yours, monsieur le curé”.
so mademoiselle brun played to the wounded all through the long afternoons until her fingers grew stiff. and the doctors said that she saved more than one fretting life. she was not a great musician, but she had a soothing, old-fashioned touch. she only played such ancient airs as she could remember. and the more she played the more she remembered. it seemed to come back to her—each day a little more. which was odd, for the music was, as she had promised the curé, secular enough, and could not, therefore, have been inspired by her sacred surroundings within the altar rails. though, after all, it may have been that those who recorded this sacrilege against mademoiselle brun, not only made a cross-entry on the credit side, but helped her memory to recall that forgotten music.
thus the days slipped by, and little news filtered through to the quiet ardennes village. the tide of war had rolled on. the germans, it was said, were already halfway to paris. and from paris itself the tidings were well-nigh incredible. one thing alone was certain; the bonaparte dynasty was at an end and the mighty schemes of an ambitious woman had crumbled like ashes within her hands. all the plotting of the regency had fallen to pieces with the fall of the greatest schemer of them all, whom the paris government fatuously attempted to hoodwink. napoleon the third was indeed a clever man, since his own wife never knew how clever he was. so france was now a howling republic—a republic being a community wherein every man is not only equal to, but better than his neighbour, and may therefore shout his loudest.
no great battles followed sedan. france had but one army left, and that was shut up in metz, under the command of another of the paris plotters who was a bad general and not even a good conspirator.
poor france had again fallen into bad hands. it seemed the end of all things. and yet for mademoiselle brun, who loved france as well as any, all these troubles were one day dispersed by a single note of a man's voice. she was at the piano, it being afternoon, and was so used to the shuffling of the bearer's feet that she no longer turned to look when one was carried in and another, a dead one perhaps, was carried out.
she heard a laugh, however, that made her music suddenly mute. it was lory de vasselot who was laughing, as they carried him into the little church. he was explaining to the baron that he had heard of his hospital, and had caused himself to be carried thither as soon as he could be moved from the cottage, where he had been cared for by some peasants.
the laugh was silenced, however, at the sight of mademoiselle brun.
“you here, mademoiselle?” he said. “alone, i hope,” he added, wincing as the bearers set him down.
“yes, i am alone. denise is safe at fréjus with jane de mélide.”
“ah!”
“and your wounds?” said mademoiselle brun.
“a sabre-cut on the right shoulder, a bullet through the left leg—voilà tout. i was in sedan, and we tried to get out. that is all i know, mademoiselle.”
mademoiselle stood over him with her hands crossed at her waist, looking down at him with compressed lips.
“not dangerous?” she inquired, glancing at his bandages, which indeed were numerous enough.
“i shall be in the saddle again in three weeks, they tell me. if the war only lasts—” he gave an odd, eager laugh. “if the war only lasts—”
then he suddenly turned white and lost consciousness.
