Harper"s Young People, August 31, 1880.
by Various.
CLAUDINE"S DOVES.
BY MRS. E. W. LATIMER.
A few days since, as I was driving in the Bois de Boulogne with a friend, a slender, sweet young girl was pointed out to me. She was walking beside her mother, and there was a loving, tender look in her blue eyes, a shrinking modesty in her deportment, which interested me at the first glance. She was apparently about fifteen. I observed to the friend who pointed her out to me that she was fair, modest, and pretty.
"Yes," he replied, "and she is the heroine of a very pretty story."
Eight years ago her father and mother occupied an _appartement_, or flat, in the Rue de Rivoli. Part of the Rue de Rivoli has houses only on one side; the other is bordered by a high iron railing with gilt spear-heads, inclosing the Garden of the Tuileries. At one point (which was nearly opposite the house where Claudine lived) one tall pavilion of the palace ab.u.t.ted on the sidewalk. The Rue de Rivoli is the most beautiful street in Paris. The windows of the sitting-room of Claudine"s mother looked over the palace and its gardens, its chestnut-trees and its fountains, the Seine and its quays, with a more distant view of the Place de la Concorde and its obelisk, the Chambers of the Legislature, and the gilded dome of the Tuileries. Every procession pa.s.sed under Claudine"s windows. No little girl, I think, who lives in rooms overlooking the Rue de Rivoli would wish to exchange them for any other home.
Claudine"s parents, though of good birth and education, were not rich; they lived on the third story. They had only one old servant. Claudine"s mother was her daughter"s nurse and governess. Till the German army marched on Paris they had a peaceful, refined, and happy home.
At the moment of which I am about to write, the siege had ceased, and the terrible days of the Commune were almost over. The little family began to breathe more freely--only in a certain sense, however, for they were all gathered together in a little close room, which would have looked into the court-yard of their house had not its windows been blocked up by pillows, mattresses, and furniture. They dared not look into the street, they dared not go into their own sitting-room, for the Versailles troops were entering Paris, bomb-sh.e.l.ls were bursting in all directions, and volleys of musketry were being fired round every street corner. Paris was like a city expecting to be sacked, with the additional horror that each man"s foes might be those of his own household.
Of a sudden they began to feel a stifling heat. Thick smoke rose all around them. There was the sickening and suggestive smell of coal-oil in the air. Claudine"s father felt that he must know what was going on. To look out of the windows might be death to all of them; still he ran into the sitting-room, tore down the beds and pillows from a window, and looked out on the Rue de Rivoli.
The palace before him was in flames. As he looked, the fire swept over the venerable gray pile. Forked tongues of flame darted higher than the Mansard roofs of its tall towers, and threatened the stores and dwelling-houses across the way. Claudine"s father looked below into the street: there was no safety there. The men and women of the neighborhood, driven from their rooms by falling fiery flakes from the high roofs of the old palace, cl.u.s.tered together under shelter of the great _porte cocheres_--by which carriages drive into the court-yards of French houses under the rooms of the first story. Muskets, rifles, and mitrailleuses swept the street. To venture into it seemed sure destruction. To stay beneath their blazing roof would expose them all to perish in the flames. Bomb-sh.e.l.ls were falling constantly to right and left, knocking off pieces of the cornices of lofty, stately houses, tearing off their iron balconies, and scattering shattered fragments of wood, window-gla.s.s, iron, and plaster on the pavement.
The father of Claudine, aghast with fear and horror, stepped back into the sitting-room. "I see no escape for us," he cried.
At that moment hoa.r.s.e shouts below them in the court-yard announced that a party of insurgents, accompanied by a band of the fiendish women they called _petroleuses_, had burst into the house that they inhabited.
Already the dangerous fluid from which these women took their name was being poured over the wood-work of the staircase and the two lower _appartements_.
A cry ran through the house of "Save yourselves!" Claudine"s father gathered together some important papers, some money, and a few jewels.
The mother and her old servant spread a blanket on the floor, and flung into it such objects as they could gather up in haste, tying it by the four corners. As to Claudine, frantic with terror, she ran into her bedroom and brought out what she valued most--a cage containing two young turtle-doves. They were her only pets. She loved them better than anything else in the world, except old Clemence and her father and mother.
The torches of the Communards had already set fire to the wood-work saturated with coal-oil. Flames were breaking out in every direction.
The inhabitants of the doomed houses were forced to make their way into the street, or stay to be burned alive. The first to rush down the staircase was Claudine, cage in hand. She ran into the street. A bomb-sh.e.l.l burst as she reached it, and her terrified parents saw her drop upon the sidewalk, while the cage fell at some distance, rolling away out of her hand.
When her father saw her dead, as he supposed, he rushed into the street, undaunted by the bursting of the sh.e.l.l, and picking up her body, retreated with it under shelter of the _porte cochere_.
But Claudine was not dead, nor even wounded. She had fainted with fright, and as her parents hung over her with tender words, she opened her blue eyes and smiled at them. A moment after, she remembered her dear doves. Before any one could stop her or forbid her she ran back into the street through bullets thick as hail, caught up her cage, and ran back with her recovered treasures. A _petroleuse_ who had seen her stopped as she was setting fire to some furniture, and cried out, with a mocking laugh,
"What was the use of running out to pick up those? They will be roast birds anyhow in the next half-hour."
On hearing these cruel words little Claudine began to comprehend for the first time the greatness of the danger. She drew back, darted a look of reproach at the vile woman who stood laughing at her trouble, and then, with the big tears rolling down her cheeks, "G.o.d will know how to keep them safe," she said, and opened the cage door. The doves flew out. They poised themselves a moment; then they rose into the air, and flew away to seek a purer sky above the clouds of smoke and sulphur. In spite of what the cruel woman said, the doves were saved.
A few moments later a drum was heard advancing up the street. The drummers marched at the head of a body of troops--the soldiers had come! "_Vive l"armee!_" cried the frightened householders.
In an instant _petroleuses_, robbers, and insurgents scattered in all directions. It is a queer sight to see a French crowd run when the troops charge. _Now_, however, every soldier "thought on vengeance." The incendiaries dropped fast before the iron hail.
Meantime all hands were busy putting out the flames. The fire was at last got under. The furniture and wood-work of the first and second stories were badly burned and broken, but the rest of the house was saved.
Claudine and her family went back into their rooms, and let in the light of day, the father and mother blessing G.o.d for the timely arrival of the troops who had saved all Paris from fire and pillage. By degrees they grew more calm. But one sad heart was inconsolable. Claudine"s share in the great catastrophe which had almost laid Paris "even with the ground"
was the loss of her dear turtle-doves.
The next morning when she came out early on the balcony to look at the blackened ruins of the n.o.ble palace, and to mourn for her lost favorites, she uttered a cry of joy. Her doves sat on the railing of the balcony. They had flown back to their little mistress and their home.
"Mamma! mamma!" she cried, "G.o.d has sent me back my doves!" and her little heart recovered the happiness that in her inexperience she fancied had been lost forever.
JOHNNY"S SONG.
BY JOSEPHINE POLLARD.
"Come, now, Johnny, sing me a song-- Sing me a song," said Mabel.
"I will," said Johnny, whose voice was strong, "For I"m the boy that is able."
So he sang, and whistled, and sang again, Till all the woods were a-ringing, And Mabel frowned, and began to complain, "Why, Johnny, what"s that you"re singing?"
"Don"t you like it?" said Johnny Stout (Mabel her laugh must smother), As he straightened himself in his roundabout, And said, "I"ll sing you another."
He sang and whistled with might and main, Till Mabel"s ears were a-ringing, And she stopped them up, and exclaimed again "Why, Johnny, what are you singing?"
"That"s _Pinafore_," said Johnny Stout, Who thought himself quite clever; "You"ve heard it often enough, no doubt."
Said Mabel, "N--hardly ever."
And she made up her mind that never again Would she ask Minnie Stout"s big brother To sing her a song, when "twas very plain He knew not one tune from another.
VIOLA"S SKETCH.
BY MRS. W. J. HAYS.
We had been staying at Dinan, a pretty and cheap little summer resting-place in Brittany, and so picturesque were the costumes of the peasantry that Viola, my sister, was fascinated, and her sketch-book was getting crammed, while I, more frivolous, was longing to be in Paris, where I could go to the Bon Marche, see the newest fashions, and hear the latest doings and sayings of the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt.
Viola was always more sensible in some things than I, but she was weak on jugs, and mugs, and rugs, and picturesque old rags, and old women, and children; therefore it was no surprise to me, when we were on the road to the railway station, and our trunks already well on the way toward Paris, to have her insist upon stopping to find out what was the matter with a child who was crying bitterly. When, however, Viola discovered that the child was the grand-daughter of old Margot, who had been our "maid-of-everything" at the little cottage which aunt had hired for the season, who had cooked for us, and washed for us, and gone to market for us, at some ridiculously low wages, there was no use in arguing with her; stop she would, and alight she would from the queer old conveyance we were in--for it was not the day for the diligence--and aunt had to wait, nolens volens--and that means willingly if you choose, and unwillingly if you don"t choose--and I had to wait, and I had to do all the scolding, for aunt is as meek as a turtle-dove. And after a while both aunt and I were just as much interested as was Viola, and there were we three all listening to little Suzette, forgetful of the train and of Paris.
Suzette had ceased crying, and was pulling a flower to pieces as she told us of her trouble. Margot had been obliged to remain away from home on account of our intended departure, and she had left orders, strict orders, for Jacques, Suzette"s brother, not to do this, nor that, nor the other--in fact, had forbidden so many things that poor little Suzette knew not what was the thing he could do; nevertheless Jacques insisted upon doing just as he pleased, and Suzette and he had a quarrel. Suzette wished him to obey his grandmother; he called his grandmother an old witch, and said Suzette was her cat, and that as for voice and eyes, their cat had much finer ones. Then they had even worse words, and she had pulled his hair, and he had banged the door, and said he was going to drown himself; and he had come down to the pond, for she had run after him, and she was sure--yes, positively sure--that her brother was dead, and she should never see him again.
"But, Suzette," said Viola, "he may be hiding just to tease you."
"No, ma"m"selle, he has not wit enough for that; he has a tender heart, and I was cruel to him, and of course being desolate from my unkindness, he has effaced himself."-And then she burst out sobbing again.
"Oh, come, Viola," said I; "the child believes this to be true; let us prove to her that it is not so. The pond is small; we will hunt high and low for him. You take one bank, I will take the other, and between us Jacques can not escape."
Aunt made a feeble expostulation about the train.
"The train, madame," said I, grandly, "can wait. When humanity demands our time, there should be no thought of personal convenience. You see this weeping girl, you hear what it is that causes her tears; how, then, can you suggest to us the idea of evading responsibility?"
Then aunt feebly again murmured, "Dinner."