Bog-Myrtle and Peat Part 19

Yet I had interfered as much for the sake of the lady's eyes as for the sake of the old man's grey hairs. Besides, the butcher was but a pig of a Burgundian who daily maligned the Prussians with words like pig's offal.

Then we went back along the sh.e.l.l-battered streets, empty of carriages, for all the horses had been eaten, some as beef and some as plain horse.

"Monsieur the Commissary," said one of the porters, "do you know that the old man to whom you spoke, with the young lady, is le Pere Felix, whom all the patriots of Paris call the 'Deliverer of Forty-eight'?"

I knew it not, nor cared. I am a Prussian, though born in Elsa.s.s.

So in Paris the days pa.s.sed on. In our Hotel de Ville the officials of the Provisional Government became more and more uneasy. The gentlemen of the National Guard took matters in their own hands, and would neither disband nor work. They sulked about the brows of Montmartre, where they had taken their cannon. My word, they were dirty patriots! I saw them every day as I went by to the Halles, lounging against the walls--linesmen among them, too, absent from duty without leave. They sat on the kerb-stone leaning their guns against the placard-studded wall. Some of them had loaves stuck on the points of their bayonets--dirty scoundrels all!

Then came the flight of one set of masters and the entry of another. But even the Commune and the unknown young men who came to the Hotel de Ville made no change to Jules, the head waiter from the Midi. He made ready the _dejeuner_ as usual, and the gentlemen of the red sash were just as fond of the calves' flesh and the red wine as the brutal _bourgeoisie_ of Thiers' Republic or the aristocrats of the _regime_ of Buonaparte. It was quite equal.

It was only a little easier to send my weekly report to my Prince and Chancellor out at Saint Denis. That was all. For if the gentlemen who went talked little and lined their pockets exceedingly well, these new masters of mine both talked much and drank much. It was no longer the Commune, but the Proscription. I knew what the end of these things would be, but I gave no offence to any, for that was not my business. Indeed, what mattered it if all these Frenchmen cut each other's throats? There were just so many the fewer to breed soldiers to fight against the Fatherland, in the war of revenge of which they are always talking.

So the days went on, and there were ever more days behind them--east-windy, bleak days, such as we have in Pomerania and in Prussia, but seldom in Paris. The city was even then, with the red flag floating overhead, beautiful for situation--the sky clear save for the little puffs of smoke from the bombs when they sh.e.l.led the forts, and Valerien growled in reply.

The constant rattle of musketry came from the direction of Versailles.

It was late one afternoon that I went towards the Halles, and as I went I saw a company of the Guard National, tramping northward to the b.u.t.tes Montmartre where the cannons were. In their midst was a man with white hair at whom I looked--the same whom we had seen at the market-stalls.

He marched bareheaded, and a pair of the scoundrels held him, one at either sleeve.

Behind him came his daughter, weeping bitterly but silently, and with the salt water fairly dripping upon her plain black dress.

"What is this?" I asked, thinking that the cordon of the Public Safety would pa.s.s me, and that I might perhaps benefit my friend of the white locks.

"Who may you be that asks so boldly?" said one of the soldiers sneeringly.

They were ill-conditioned, white-livered hounds.

"Jules the garcon--Jules of the white ap.r.o.n!" cried one who knew me.

"Know you not that he is now Dictator? _Vive_ the Dictator Jules, Emperor-of 'Encore-un-Bock'!"

So they mocked me, and I dared not try them further, for we came upon another crowd of them with a poor frightened man in the centre. He was crying out--"For me, I am a man of peace--gentlemen, I am no spy. I have lived all my life in the Rue Scribe." But one after another struck at him, some with the b.u.t.t-end of their rifles, some with their bayonets, those behind with the heels of their boots--till that which had been a man when I stood on one side of the street, was something which would not bear looking upon by the time that I had pa.s.sed to the other. For these horrors were the commonest things done under the rule of h.e.l.l--which was the rule of the Commune. Then I desired greatly to have done my commission and to be rid of Paris.

In a little the Nationals were thirsty. Ho, a wine-shop! There was one with the shutters up, probably a beast of a German--or a Jew. It is the same thing. So with the still b.l.o.o.d.y b.u.t.ts of their _cha.s.sepots_ they made an entrance. They found nothing, however, but a few empty bottles and stove-in barrels. This so annoyed them that they wrought wholesale destruction, breaking with their guns and with their feet everything that was breakable.

So in time we came to the Prison of Mazas, which in ordinary times would have been strongly guarded; but now, save for a few National Guards loafing about, it was deserted--the criminals all being liberated and set plundering and fighting--the hostages all fusiladed.

When we arrived at the gate, there came out a finely dressed, personable man in a frock-coat, with a red ribbon in his b.u.t.ton-hole. The officer in charge of the motley crew reported that he held a prisoner, the citizen commonly called Pere Felix.

"Pere Felix?" said the man in the frock-coat, "and who might he be?"

"A member of the Revolutionary Government of Forty-eight," said the old man with dignity, speaking from the midst of his captors; "a revolutionary and Republican before you were born, M. Raoul Regnault!"

"Ah, good father, but this is not Forty-eight! It is Seventy-one!" said the man on the steps, with a supercilious air. "I tell you as a matter of information!"

"You had better shoot him and have the matter over!" he added, turning away with his cane swinging in his hand.

Then, with a swirl of his sword, the officer marshalled us all into the courtyard--for I had followed to see the end. I could not help myself.

It was a great, bare, barren quadrangle of brick, the yard of Mazas where the prisoners exercise. The walls rose sheer for twenty feet. The doorway stood open into it, and every moment or two another company of Communists would arrive with a gang of prisoners. These were rudely pushed to the upper end, where, unbound, free to move in every direction, they were fired at promiscuously by all the ragged battalions--men, women, and even children shooting guns and pistols at them, as at the puppet-shows of Asnieres and Neuilly.

The prisoners were some of them running to and fro, pitifully trying between the grim brick walls to find a way of escape. Some set their bare feet in the niches of the brick and strove to climb over. Some lay p.r.o.ne on their faces, either shot dead or waiting for the guards to come round (as they did every five or ten minutes) to finish the wounded by blowing in the back of their heads with a charge held so close that it singed the scalp.

As I stood and looked at this horrible shooting match, a human shambles, suddenly I was seized and pushed along, with the young girl beside me, towards the wall. Horror took possession of me. "I am Chief Servitor at the Hotel de Ville," I cried. "Let me go! It will be the worse for you!"

"There is no more any Hotel de Ville!" cried one. "See it blaze."

"Accompany gladly the house wherein thou hast eaten many good dinners!

Go to the Fire, ingrate!" cried another of my captors.

So for very shame, and because the young maid was silent, I had to cease my crying. They erected us like targets against the brick wall, and I set to my prayers. But when they had retired from us and were preparing themselves to fire, I had the grace to put the young girl behind me. For I said, if I must die, there is no need that the young maid should also die--at least, not till I am dead. I heard the bullets spit against the wall, fired by those farthest away; but those in front were only preparing.

Then at that moment something seemed to r.e.t.a.r.d them, for instead of making an end to us, they turned about and listened uncertainly.

Outside on the street, there came a great flurry of cheering people, crying like folk that weep for joy--"Vive la ligne! Vive la ligne! The soldiers of the Line! The soldiers of the Line!"

The door was burst from its hinges. The wide outer gate was filled with soldiers in dusty uniforms. The Versaillists were in the city.

"Vive la ligne!" cried the watchers on the house-tops. "Vive la ligne!"

cried we, that were set like human targets against the wall. "Vive la ligne!" cried the poor wounded, staggering up on an elbow to wave a hand to the men that came to Mazas in the nick of time.

Then there was a slaughter indeed. The Communists fought like tigers, asking no quarter. They were shot down by squads, regularly and with ceremony. And we in our turn s.n.a.t.c.hed their own rifles and revolvers and shot them down also.... "_Coming, Frau Wittwe! So fort!_" ...

And the rest--well, the rest is, that I have a wife and seven beautiful children. Yes, "The girl I left behind me," as your song sings. Ah, a joke. But the seven children are no joke, young Kerl, as you may one day find.

And why am I Oberkellner at the Prinz Karl in Heidelberg? Ah, gentlemen, I see you do not know. In the winter it is as you see it; but all the summer and autumn--what with Americans and English, it is better to be Oberkellner to Madame the Frau Wittwe than to be Prince of Kennenlippeschonberghartenau!

V

THE CASE OF JOHN ARNISTON'S CONSCIENCE

_Hail, World adored! to thee three times all hail!

We at thy mighty shrine--profane, obscure With clenched hands beat at thy cruel door, O hear, awake, and let us in, O Baal!_

_Low at thy brazen gates ourselves we fling-- Hear us, even us, thy bondmen firm and sure, Our kin, our souls, our very G.o.d abjure!

Art thou asleep, or dead, or journeying?_

_Bear us, O Ashtoreth, O Baal, that we In mystic mazes may a moment gleam, May touch and twine with hot hearts pulsing free Among thy groves by the Orontes stream_.

_Open and make us, ere our sick hearts fail, Hewers of wood within thy courts, O Baal!_

"_Pro Fano_."

John Arniston's heart beat fast and high as he went homeward through the London streets. It had come at last. The blossom of love's pa.s.sion-flower had been laid within his grasp. The eyes in whose light he had sunned himself for months had leaped suddenly into a sweet and pa.s.sionate flame. He had seen the sun of a woman's wondrous beauty, and long followed it afar. Miriam Gale was the success of the season. It was understood that she had the entire unattached British peerage at her feet. Nevertheless, her head had touched John Arniston's shoulder to-night. He had kissed her hair. "A queen's crown of yellow gold," was what he said to himself as he walked along, the evening traffic of the Strand humming and surging about him. Because her lips had rested a moment on his, he walked light-headed as one who for the first time "tastes love's thrice-repured nectar."