XXXV
DARK DAYS FOR THE REPUBLIC
ONE of our schoolmates brought us the next day a clipping from a newspaper containing an article applauding the measures taken by the Government after the following facts had occurred.
Under the threat, voted by the National Assembly, of an immediate disbanding, the workmen had sent delegates to the Luxembourg, who had begged Monsieur Marie, a man high in the Government, to delay the Assembly’s decision.
Monsieur Marie had answered, so said the newspaper, “as a Cæsar might have done”:
“If the workmen will not leave, we will make them do so by force; do you understand?”
That night armed bands had gone through the streets of Paris, singing: “On n’part pas! on n’part pas!” to the tune of the Lampions. Groups of workmen had been heard to say: “We have been betrayed, and we must begin the revolution of February over again.” Other groups had cried out: “We must have Napoleon!” and they had been the most clamorous of all. The workmen were indignant with de Lamartine, Garnier-Pagès and Arago, who had failed in all their promises.
The poor people were in revolt. There was danger of a massacre. The anger of the wretched had burst forth.
It seemed to us that petitions might prevent all this. Was it possible to understand, we said, that the members of the Government, or others, had not placed themselves at the head of a manifestation for conciliation? How could it be that they had driven a hundred thousand men, all bearing the arms of the National Guards, to desperation? Did they wish to bring about the end of the Republic?
We thought of nothing but these terrible things. At the least allusion to similar events in our lessons of history, we exchanged sorrowful notes with one another during class hours.
What was taking place? What was going to happen?
I received a letter from my friend Charles, addressed to Blondeau, commissioning him to give it to me. I should not have received it until a week later, when I was to leave school for my day at home, if Blondeau had not come at the mid-day recreation and asked to see me in the parlour. He said to me:
“Here is a letter from Charles, and I come to tell you at the same time that since the day before yesterday, the 23d of June, the insurrection has broken out in Paris; that they are killing one another by thousands, and that blood is flowing like water. Are you contented, dreadful little revolutionist?”
“Blondeau!” I said, crying, “that was what I feared. They have exasperated those poor, wretched men beyond endurance at last.”
“Now you are beginning again! But open your letter from Charles. You see I have not unsealed it; Charles has told me, doubtless, the same thing that he has written to you.”
This was what I read:
“At last, my dear Juliette, the Government has seen that it must defend society energetically against the miserable creatures in whom you are interested. All the partisans of order, from the Monarchical party of the Rue de Poitiers to my friend and patron, Flocon, have united to crush those who have been brought over here and hired by foreigners.
“I kiss you good-bye, Juliette, until we meet again. Your friend, Charles.”
I held out the dreadful missive to Blondeau.
“He is perfectly right. He says what is true!” exclaimed Blondeau, giving the letter back to me after having read it.
I left him without even saying good-bye, and ran to my schoolmates and partisans, who were gathered together, and anxious about the visit I had received.
“The revolution has broken out again,” I said, and I read to them my ex-friend Charles’s letter. I emphasised the ex, for I had already torn him from my heart.
I was in such a state of excitement that I felt as if I were intoxicated. My faithful friends, after a half-hour of unanimous expressions of indignation, thought as I did.
“I am of the opinion,” I said to them, “that we should do something. We cannot remain inert while they are massacring innocent people in Paris. I have hidden at the bottom of a little bag, in my linen-closet, a large handkerchief which my father gave me, in the centre of which is printed: ‘Long live the Democratic and Socialistic Republic!’ Find me a long stick in the wood-house, a ribbon or a string, and we will arrange a flag out of it, and will make a manifestation. Will you follow me?”
“We will!” they cried.
“If we could add a few recruits, some partisans, to our united groups, so that our manifestation would be more imposing, don’t you think it would be better?”
“We will all try to get some,” said my comrades.
We then dispersed. I soon returned with my large blue, white, and red handkerchief, and I fastened it to a long stick in such a manner that the words, “Long live the Democratic and Socialist Republic” should be plainly visible.
With my heart ready for battle, I placed myself at the head of my battalion, crying: “Long live the Democratic-Socialist Republic! Long live the insurgents! ‘On n’part pas! on n’part pas!’”
A certain number of my schoolmates followed us; the others looked at us, terrified. The Mlles. André came running, and snatched my handkerchief-flag out of my hands. I defended it heroically. Several of my schoolmates supported me. But a troop commanded by my political enemy came up, crying: “Down with the Democratic-Socialist Republic!” and, lending aid to the Mlles. André and the under-governess, got the better of us. I received some well-directed blows, and I suffered at once from physical pain and from the humiliation of defeat. I was dragged to the drawing-room, held by both arms, and much jostled about. My valiant comrades followed me.
The Mlles. André sat down in their two largest arm-chairs to give me trial. Mlle. Sophie, the younger, questioned my partisans and allies.
“It was Juliette Lambert, was it not, who incited you to this act of scandalous folly?” she asked them.
Alas! out of twenty-two, seventeen answered:
“Yes, mademoiselle.”
The five others clung close to one another. Mlle. Sophie could drag nothing from them but one and the same answer:
“Both she and ourselves wished to make a manifestation!”
“Oh! yes, you are brave and faithful friends,” Mlle. Sophie replied, who did not really wish to punish any one but me. “It is a noble sentiment, for which I give you praise. Was it one of you—now, don’t lie—who furnished the handkerchief?”
“No, mademoiselle.”
“You see, the premeditation came alone from Juliette Lambert.”
I had not said a word, nor made a gesture, wishing to keep up my dignity, though accused, and to force my judges, my faithful friends, and even the traitors, to admire me.
“Do you deny what you have done?” Mlle. Sophie asked me.
“No, mademoiselle, I am an insurgent, but—”
At this moment the mother of one of my faithful friends entered, exclaiming:
“My daughter—I wish my daughter—where is she? The insurgents are marching on Chauny!”
There was a general panic. They allowed my friend and her mother to depart, and they barricaded the front door.
“Don’t be frightened!” I cried, going from one to another of my schoolmates, making no discrimination between friends and enemies, “I will protect you. They are my friends, and we will go and mount guard.”
We picked up our unfortunate and much damaged flag, and my corporal, my four “insurgents” and I, went and placed ourselves by the barricaded front door. We heard a battalion of the National Guard passing by, crying: “Down with the insurgents! Death to them!”
Frightened people in the streets talked together, saying:
“The Guards have gone to bar the way to the insurgents.”
The Mlles. André closed all the doors and shutters of the house, and they left us where we were from half-past one o’clock in the afternoon until nightfall. One of us tried to open a door at dinner-time. It was impossible, and we were obliged to remain there very hungry.
We were boarders, all five of us, and could not think of returning to our families. Besides, the padlocked door and the high walls prevented any hope of flight. We said to one another:
“After all, those who are fighting suffer much more than we. They also are hungry; they are wounded, they are dying for their cause, and what are our sufferings compared with theirs?”
Finally, after what seemed interminable hours, they came to fetch us, and sent us to bed without supper. We were too proud to ask for any; but the traitors had kept a little of their bread for us, and, with some chocolate they gave us, by slipping it under our sheets, we were able to satisfy our hunger a little, which sleep finally pacified.
The next day, in the morning, I was again called to the drawing-room, but this time alone. My faithful friends, cleverly influenced, had agreed to beg pardon, and had made their submission.
The elder Mlle. André asked me whether I repented.
I tried to prove to her that I had not acted like a child; that I was convinced of my right to have my own opinions, and that I had defended ideas about which I had seriously reflected.
“Disturbing, dangerous, and wicked ideas!” replied the elder Mlle. André.
“They are ideas of conciliation, of peace, and of justice, mademoiselle, but they are not understood by those who find present things excellent, or by those who are afraid of all reform.”
“This is my sentence,” said Mlle. André, curtly. “You will take breakfast in the refectory, and I shall announce at the end of the meal that I am going to send you home to your parents. Such scandals cannot end without an example being made.”
I breakfasted with good appetite, and when I heard the sentence delivered I was neither ashamed nor remorseful. My only fear was that I might be severely blamed by my grandmother.
I said to myself that in any case I would have recourse to my father, who could but uphold me for having defended our common cause, and for having suffered for our opinions.
I rose proudly and replied, at least with apparent calmness, for in reality my heart was almost strangling me, so fast did it beat:
“I am delighted to leave; I stifle under oppression, and I am going to be free at last!”
I said good-bye to no one. I went and put on my hat and waited for Mlle. Sophie, who was to take me back to grandmother.
My friends considered me an heroic victim to my cause, but were not sorry, so one of them told me later, to be relieved from the excitement I caused them.
My grandmother was at first disturbed on hearing the story of my escapade; but, seeing my resolute attitude, she thought more of winning me back than of scolding me, for, during her last days of fright, fearing the insurgents would come, she was all the more unhappy at not having me with her in the danger threatening the town. She had thought continually of sending for me. Since I had returned, why should she be angry? So, with quickly recovered calmness, she replied to Mlle. Sophie:
“As you consider Juliette’s action an act of insubordination toward you, you are quite right to bring her back to me. But, permit me to tell you that I think her conduct unusual. It shows me Juliette as I love to see her—giving proof of a strong will and a courage that everyone does not possess. Although the child returns to me without my having sent for her, neither she nor I will suffer from it, and, mademoiselle, I have a greater desire to thank you for having brought her back to me than to ask pardon for her.”
I threw myself into grandmother’s arms, and all trace of ill-feeling between us disappeared.
Panic was on the increase during the following days. They said that the insurgents, driven out of Paris, were coming to sack the town; the National Guard went to bar the way against the plunderers. Grandmother, in spite of my reassuring words, was terrified. She hid at night, in a large hole which grandfather dug in our courtyard, her silver, her jewels, all the valuable things she possessed. Blondeau also buried his money-box in the hole, which they covered with earth and gravel.
My father, to whom grandmother had written, sent me a letter of congratulation at having left a school where they taught nothing but inane middle-class ideas.