A Girl of the Commune Part 16

"You might paint, but who is going to buy your pictures, Henri?"

Cuthbert said, quietly. "As soon as the reds get the upper hand we shall have the guillotine at work, and the first heads to fall will be those of your best customers. You don't suppose the ruffians of Belleville are going to become patrons of art. For my part I would rather fight against the savages than level my rifle against the honest German lads who are led here against us. I should think no more of shooting one of these roughs than of killing a tiger--indeed, I regard the tiger as the more honest beast of the two. Still, if you Frenchmen like to be ruled over by King Mob, it is no business of mine. Thank G.o.d, such a thing is never likely to happen in England--at any rate in my time. In the first place, we can trust our troops, and in the second, we could trust ourselves. Were there not a soldier in the land, such a thing will never happen. Our workmen have sense enough to know that a mob-rule would be ruin to them as well as to the rich, and, were it needed, in twenty-four hours half a million men could be sworn in as constables, and these would sweep the rabble into the Thames."

"Your rabble would be unarmed; ours have at present all got muskets."

"More fools they who gave them to them, but what can one expect from such a Government. There is not among them a single practical man except Gambetta, and he is away at Tours. It is a Government of lawyers and spouters; of words they give us plenty, of government nothing. I would rather, infinitely rather, that the women at the Halles should chose a dozen of the most capable women among them and establish them as the Government. I will guarantee you would see a change for the better before twenty-four hours were over. I doubt if you could see a change for the worse. Jules Fauvre with his ridiculous phrase, not one foot of our territory, not one stone of our fortresses, is no better than a mountebank, and the others are as bad. Would that either Ducrot or Vinoy had the firmness and half the talent of a Napoleon. They would march the troops in, sweep away this gathering of imbeciles, establish martial law, disarm Belleville and Montmartre, shoot Floureus, Pyat, Blanqui, and a hundred of the most noxious of these vermin; forbid all a.s.semblages, turn the National Guards into soldiers, and after rendering Paris impotent for mischief turn their attention to the Germans. The one thing that can save Paris to my mind is a military dictator, but I see no sign of such a man being forthcoming."

"Bravo! bravo!" several of the students shouted, "what a pity it is that you are an Englishman, Cuthbert. You would be just the man for us otherwise."

"At any rate, I should do something and not let everything drift,"

Cuthbert retorted, joining in the laugh at his own unaccustomed vehemence; "but there, we have broken our agreement, now let us revert to art;" but the effort was vain, the talk soon drifted back again to the siege, and many were the conjectures as to what Trochu's famous plan could be and which point offered the most hopeful chance for the army to pierce the German cordon.

Mary Brander had a fortnight before enrolling herself among the nurses at the American ambulance, which was doing admirable work, and was admitted by the French themselves to be a model which could be followed with great advantage in their own hospitals. Here everything was neat, clean, and well arranged. The wounded were lodged in tents which were well ventilated and yet warm. The surgeons and some of the nurses were also under canvas, while others, among whom was Mary Brander, went back to their homes when their turn of duty was over. They had, like the ladies who worked in the French hospitals, adopted a sort of uniform and wore the white badge with the red cross on their arms. With this they could go unquestioned, and free from impertinent remarks through the thickest crowds, everyone making way for them with respectful civility.

"It is terrible," she said to Cuthbert, upon his calling one evening when she was off duty, "and yet I do not feel it so trying as listening to the silly talk and seeing the follies of the people in the streets.

The poor fellows bear their sufferings so patiently, they are so grateful for every little thing done for them, that one cannot but feel how much there is likable among the French in spite of their follies. I talk to them a good deal and it is almost always about their homes and their families, especially their mothers. Sometimes it is their sweethearts or their sisters. With mobiles and linesmen it is just the same. Sometimes I write letters for them--such simple, touching letters as they are, it is difficult not to cry as they dictate, what are, in many cases, last farewells. They always want those at home to know that they have died doing their duty, but beyond that they don't say much of themselves. It is of those to whom they are writing that they think.

They tell them to cheer up. They bid younger brothers take their place.

Besides the letters which will be photographed and sent off by pigeon post, I have a pile of little packets to be despatched when Paris is open--locks of hair, photographs, Bibles, and keepsakes of all kinds."

"I think at any rate, Mary, you have at present discovered one branch at least of woman's mission upon which we cannot quarrel. We grant not only your equality but your superiority to us as nurses."

Mary Brander smiled faintly, but ignored the opening for argument.

"Some of them are dreadfully wounded," she went on, her thoughts reverting to the hospital. "It is terrible to think that when the great battle everyone seems looking forward to takes place, there may be thousands of wounded to be cared for. When do you think it will be?"

"Soon; of course no one can say when, but I don't see anything to gain from waiting longer. The mobiles are as good as they are likely to be made. One can't call the line disciplined, according to the English ideas of discipline, but they are better than they were, and at any rate all are anxious for something to be done."

"Do you think they will get through?"

He shook his head.

"If they could fall suddenly upon the Germans they might do so, but it is no easy matter to move large bodies of men quickly, and to be successful they ought to be able to hurl themselves against the Germans before they have time to concentrate. I have no doubt whichever side we issue out on, we shall get on fairly enough as long as we have the a.s.sistance of the guns of the forts; but beyond that I don't think we shall get. The Germans must by this time know the country vastly better than we do. They are immensely better trained in making extensive movements. They have excellent generals and good officers. I fancy it will be the same thing that it has been before. We shall make an advance, we shall push the enemy back for a bit, we shall occupy positions, and the next day the Germans will retake them. We have no method and no commissariat. Even now bodies of troops are outside the walls frequently four-and-twenty hours without food. In the confusion consequent on a battle matters will be ten times worse. In the morning the troops will be half-starved and half-frozen, and there will be very little fight left in them."

"What would you do if you were commander-in-chief, Cuthbert?"

"I am altogether unfit to make a plan, and still more unfit to carry it out," he said, "but my idea would certainly be to attack somewhere with half my force, to force the enemy back, and to hold positions at the end of the day, so that the Germans would concentrate to attack in the morning. At night I would withdraw the greater portion of them, march them straight across Paris; the other half of the army would attack there at daybreak, and would be reinforced soon after the fighting began by those who had fought the day before. I think in that way they ought to be able to cut their way out, but what they would do when they once get out is more than I can tell you. They have no cavalry to speak of, while the Germans have a splendid cavalry force who would hara.s.s them continually. The infantry would pursue and would march infinitely better than we should do. We should scatter to get food, whole regiments would break up and become ma.s.ses of fugitives, and finally we should be surrounded, either cut to pieces or forced to surrender. Of two things, I am not sure that it would not be best for us to be handsomely thrashed on the first day of our sortie."

"You take a very gloomy view of things," she said, almost angrily.

"Why, I should have thought you would be pleased. I am prophesying success for your friends, the Germans."

"I don't know why you should always insist that they are my friends. I was of opinion that they were right at first, and am so still, but I think they now are behaving hardly and cruelly; at least I think Bismarck is. It was heartless for him to insist, as a condition of the armistice, that Paris should not be re-victualled while it lasted. Of course they could not agree to that, though they would have agreed to anything like fair conditions. Everyone really wanted peace, and if the Germans hadn't insisted on those terms, peace would have been made. So things have changed altogether, and it is clear that not the Germans, but their leaders, want to injure and humiliate France to the utmost.

They were not content with their pound of flesh, but they want to destroy France altogether. I despised these people at first, but I don't despise them now. At least they are wonderfully patient, and though they know what they will have to suffer when everything is eaten up, no one has said a word in favor of surrender, since Bismarck showed how determined he was to humiliate them."

"I think I shall win my bet after all, Mary."

"I am not so sure as I was that you won't. I didn't think I could ever have eaten horse-flesh, but it is really not so bad. Monsieur Michaud told us, yesterday, that he dined out with some friends and had had both cat and rat. Of course they were disguised with sauces, but the people made no secret of what they were, and he said they were really very nice. I don't think I could try them, but I don't feel as certain as I did; anyhow, we haven't begun to touch our stores, and there is no talk of confiscating everything yet."

CHAPTER XI.

Two men were sitting in a cabaret near the Halles. One was dressed in the uniform of a sergeant of the National Guard. He was a powerfully-built man, with a black beard and a mustache, and a rough crop of hair that stuck out aggressively beneath his kepi. The other was some fifteen years younger; beyond the cap he wore no military uniform.

He had a mustache only, and was a good-looking young fellow of the Ouvrier cla.s.s.

"I tell you it is too bad, Pere Dufaure. A year ago she pretended she liked me, and the fact that she wore good dresses and was earning lots of money did not seem to make any difference in her. But now all that is changed. That foreigner has turned her head. She thinks now she is going to be a lady and has thrown me over as if I were dirt, but I won't have it," and he struck his fist upon the table, "those cursed aristocrats are not to have everything their own way."

"Patience, Jean. Women will be women, and the right way to win her back is to have patience and wait. I don't say that just at present her head is not turned with this American, who by the way is a good Republican, and though he has money, has good notions, and holds with us that we have too long been ground down by the bourgeois, still she may tire of him after a while. He is not amusing, this American, and though Minette may like being adored, she likes being amused also. Pooh, pooh, this matter will come all right. Besides, although she likes the American at present, she thinks more of the Commune than of any lover. Have patience and do not quarrel with her. You know that I am on your side. But Minette is a good deal like what her mother was. Ah, these women! A man can do nothing with them when they make up their minds to have their own way. What can I say to her? I can not threaten to turn her out of the house for everything in it is hers. It is she who earns the money. She is too old to be beaten, and if it comes to scolding, her tongue runs faster than mine does, and you know besides she has a temper."

Jean nodded.

"She is worse than a wild-cat when her back is up," he said. "Why, when this thing first began, and I told her to beware how she went on with this American, for that I would kill him if he came in my way, she caught up a knife, and if I had not run like a rabbit, she would have stuck me, and you know how she went on, and drove me out of Montmartre.

After that affair I have not dared see her."

"Why not let her go? and take to someone else, Jean? There are plenty of pretty girls in the quarter who would not say no to the best rising worker in his trade."

"It is no use, Pere Dufaure, I have told myself the same a hundred times, but I cannot do it. She has her tempers, what woman has not; but at other times who is so bright and gay as she is?"

"Well, well, Jean, we shall see what we shall see. You don't suppose that if things do not turn out well, as we hope they will do, I should let her carry out this whim of hers, and go off with the American, and leave me to shift for myself. Not such a fool. At present I say nothing.

It is always better to hold your tongue as long as you can. I make him welcome when he comes to our house; we go together to the meetings, and sometimes he speaks, and speaks well, though he does not go far enough for us. Well, no one can say what may happen--he may be shot by the Germans, or he may be shot at the barricades, who knows. At any rate it is best to hold my peace. If I leave things alone, Minette is as likely as not to change her mind again, but if I were to say anything against him--first, we should have a scene; secondly, she would be more than ever determined on this whim. You must be patient, Jean, and all will come well in the end."

"I am not so sure of that," Jean said, sullenly. "I was as patient as I could be, but no good came of it; then, as you know, I tried to get rid of him, but failed, and had to move away, but one thing is certain, if I don't marry her he never shall. However, I can wait."

"That is all right, Jean; wait till our little affairs come off and the bourgeois are under our feet. There will be good posts for true citizens then, and I will see that you have one, and it will be time to talk about marriages when everything is going on well. When we once get the Germans out of the way, we shall see what we shall see, Sapristie! we will make short work of the capitalists, and as for the troops, they will have had enough fighting and will be ready enough to march off and leave us alone."

At the time they were talking, the couple they were speaking of were standing leaning on the parapet of the wall by the river. They met there every evening when there was no a.s.sembly of importance to attend.

"I wish it was all over, Minette," he said, "and that we could leave the city and be off. It would be a different life for you, dear, but I hope a pleasanter one. There would be no cold weather like this, but you can sit all the year round in the veranda without needing wraps. There will be servants to wait on you, and carriages, and everything you can wish for, and when you are disposed there will be society; and as all of our friends speak French, you will soon be quite at home with them. And, what one thinks of a good deal at present, there will be fruits and flowers, and plenty to eat, and no sound of cannon, and no talk of wars.

We fought out our war ten years ago."

"It sounds nice, Arnold, very nice, but it will be strange not to work."

"You won't want to work there," he said; "in the day it is so hot that you will be glad to sit indoors in a darkened room and do nothing. I shall paint a good deal, and when you have the fancy, you can sit as my model again."

"And is it a large city, Arnold? It seems to me now that I could not live in the country, I should soon get dreadfully tired of it."

"It is a large city," he said, "though, of course, not so large as Paris. There are theatres there and amus.e.m.e.nts of all sorts."

"I should be content with you, Arnold. It does not seem to me that I could want anything else, but after all this excitement it will seem strange to have nothing to do."

"I shall be glad to be out of it," he said. "Your father and the others are quite right--the rich have too much and the poor too little. The manufacturers gain fortunes, and the men whose work enriches them remain poor all their lives. Still I fear that they will go too far, and that troubles me."

She made a quick movement as if about to speak, but checked herself for a moment, and then said, quietly--

"You know the proverb, Arnold, 'One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.'"

"That is true," he said, "as to an omelette, but a change of Government can be carried out without costing life, that is unless there is resistance, and I hope there will be none here. The incapables over there will slink away. Why, Flourens and a few hundred men were enough to s.n.a.t.c.h the government out of their feeble hands. If the people declare that they will govern themselves, who is to withstand them. I hope to see the triumph and then to go. You know I am not a coward, Minette; our corps have shown that they can fight, but I long for my quiet home again, with its gardens and flowers, and balmy air, and I like handling a paint-brush much better than a rifle, and above all to see you mistress of my home, but I know there is a good deal to go through first. Trochu's plans may be carried out any day."