We moaned at the thought of our deprivation.
"Lucky people! They know if their relations are dead or alive."
"At this very moment there are some who read the papers!"
"Oh, rage! oh, despair! oh, hostile blockade!"
"And there are some people who know the truth! When shall we see a newspaper again?"
"At this very moment some are enjoying ... nice things to eat!"
"Oh, for a tea at Rumpelmayer"s!"
"Oh, for chocolates from Pihan!"
Such memories did but sharpen the thorn of our hunger. And yet we had not lost all the pleasures of life. For instance, do you suppose we had given up having tea in the afternoon? By no means. It is highly important that women should swallow something good and hot about five o"clock. Simple toast was the only dainty we allowed ourselves.
Well-b.u.t.tered toast with a well-sugared cup of tea is not to be despised. Hold! Toast, yes, but no b.u.t.ter! The little we had was jealously salted and reserved for cooking. And tea? Do you think tea a native of the department of the Aisne? Tea was no more to be had. Sugar was so scarce that we never ate a single lump without a family council to decide whether it was the proper moment. Fortunately I found a recipe of my grandmother"s at the bottom of my reticule. I requisitioned all the licorice in Morny. Mme. Lantois" walnut-tree provided us at little cost with a basketful of green shining leaves. Walnut leaves are like good women: in the long run they may lose their beauty, but they retain their virtue. These leaves then, boiled with licorice, gave us a delicious drink all the winter, which had nothing in common with the pale decoctions we nowadays moisten our throats with at the end of a dinner-party. I had been careful to say negligently: "This tea is excellent for the complexion. Regularly taken, it would greatly improve the skin, and give it a matchless bloom."
No one ever missed the afternoon tea. This ceremony, indeed, was often transformed into a great patriotic meeting, vibrating with despair and lamentations, or with enthusiasm and hope, according to the news of the day. For news we had, though I said we got none, and it was commented upon with pa.s.sion. Our news of course was all unofficial, and evil or good rode fast. It spread throughout the country; it floated in the air; it came from every quarter. When I left Mme. Lantois" dairy with a can full of milk, my pocket was also full of news; likewise if we went to the baker, or if we called on M. Lonet.
The initiated came back in a hurry, called the whole family to gather round, and feverishly told the news. We ended by putting a bell in the dining-room, known as "the war bell." If one of us heard anything fresh, she rushed into the room and frantically rang the bell. From the garden, the attic, the bedrooms we flocked, allured by the hope of good tidings.
"What has happened? What is going on?"
Marvellous things always happened.
Periodically--at least twice a month--neighbouring towns were retaken by the French.
"You know, that cannonade ... so violent ... simply meant that our soldiers recovered St. Quentin."
Noyon also was reconquered I do not know how many times, and La Fere retaken with bayonets. Once the news really seemed worthy of belief. The Germans had put it up in Laon: "La Fere has been in a cowardly manner retaken by the French." We thought it true. Really, now, who would make up such an adjective? The Germans had certainly used it. On inquiry it was found that the adjective, like the news, had been invented, and the bill had never existed at all. Glorious feats were just as frequent on the front near us.
"The Route des Dames ... you know?... The French have held it since yesterday. And to-night they have carried the village of Ailles."
"Really, I thought they took it last week."
"Last week it was a false report; to-day the thing is certain."
And the Allies! Think how they worked!
"Seventy thousand Russians have just landed at Antwerp. The English are sh.e.l.ling Hamburg. Our Northern army is advancing, yes, it is...; deliverance will come from the North."
Ah, the secret of making legends is not lost! Popular imagination invents hundreds of them. But nowadays they cannot live long. Books and newspapers cut their wings as soon as they are hatched, and the poor things flutter an instant, and then die. But imagine a corner of a country like ours, perfectly isolated from the rest of the world for some ten years, and deprived of all news, all writings; suppose the peasants should be questioned long after upon the events of the present war, from their statements you might compose the most beautiful epic poem ever heard. As in the good old time, its t.i.tle would be, "The Gestes of the French by the Grace of G.o.d."
Frenchmen, my brothers, I know you were splendid. You fought like lions, like the heroes that you are. Your glorious feats are too numerous to be counted. It was our despair not to know them. But, in revenge, we invented feats for you, fresh ones every day. Once, for instance, the French, masters of the stone-quarries of Paissy, made good use of a secret pa.s.sage, and leaping unexpectedly from out of the ground, flick, flack, flick, spread death and dismay among the Germans; then, like jacks-in-the-box, they disappeared as if by magic. Struck with consternation, the Germans would have thought themselves dreaming had not too many proofs testified to the reality of the brief apparition.
And what do you think of the _cha.s.seurs a pied_ who, behind a hedge at Malva, planted a forest of poles with a cap on the top of every one, and then, when the enemy with loud cries were in the very act of rushing upon this trap, shot them down to the very last man?
And don"t let us forget the Africans. Ten negroes from Senegal--you understand, ten--sprang out of their trenches on a night as black as ink--of course we did not know whether negroes were or were not in the trenches--noiselessly crept along the ground through brushwood and darkness, and shouting their war-cry bounded forward into the village of Chamouille. Panic-stricken, the German soldiers fled, while the officers--seventeen in number--not one more, not one less--let the Africans cut their throats like so many lambs. The ten negroes lay down once more, flat on their faces, and crawling along on their hands and knees, went back to their trenches without a ta.s.sel missing from their caps, without a rent dishonouring their large breeches. These anecdotes were our daily bread. Innumerable were the villages taken by surprise, the convoys seized, the batteries triumphantly brought in. We were always breathless; every one of us lent a half-sceptical ear to everything that was said, and tried to detect a little truth among all this fiction. Who invented or transformed the news? It was difficult to know. Many a time Mr. n.o.body-knows-who had confided it to Mrs.
So-and-So, who told it to Mr. Everybody. But generally the information came from the best sources. If M. H., the Mayor of Laon, had really said all that was ascribed to him, he had done nothing else but commit the secrets of our army to the office-porter or the fruiterer over the way.
On the other hand, it is hard to conceive how many secrets our countrymen extracted from their German guests. Speaking of the officers to whom they gave hospitality they a.s.sumed a mysterious air, and hinted that, walking delicately, they had elicited from them avowals as mortifying for their pride as encouraging for us.
But there was another origin, quite modern, for the news no one wanted to take upon himself. It was no difficult riddle. The news came from Heaven. Aviators dropped it. Letters had been picked up here and there, said rumour; some of them were evidently home-made, and were but laughed at--this one, for instance: "Friends, take courage; reinforcements are coming." A touching contrivance of some ingenious liar to cheer up his neighbours!
Other messages, written in a kind of official style, were so precise that they seemed worthy of attention; and one of them, known throughout the country as the message of Magny, was for a long time looked upon as authentic by the most competent judges. Oh, we were very credulous, and you laugh at us, all of you, who read the papers every morning at your breakfast. We were so cruelly crushed by the invaders, so uneasy at hearing nothing, so eager for news which might have been bones for our anxiety to gnaw that we greedily s.n.a.t.c.hed at all the falsehoods we came across, and found our mouths a minute after full of sand.
Was there no means of encouraging us? Floods of sentimental ink were wasted elsewhere upon our fate, but the smallest drop spilt in the Vernandois or the Laonnois would have done us more good.
We had not deserved thus to be forsaken, for we were admirable. I maintain, laying aside all useless modesty, I maintain that we were admirable. Our persons and properties had been given up as hostages. A line was chalked out on the map; it was the part to be sacrificed. In this part we were shut up, bodies and souls, with no possibility of shaking ourselves free. We not only suffered it to be so; we agreed to the bargain; we resigned ourselves to hunger, misfortune, oppression. We submitted to see our houses plundered, our forests levelled with the ground, our lands destroyed, so that the rest of the country might be safe, the metropolis undamaged, that France herself might be free to recover her power and to prepare her vengeance. Exposed to violence, requisitions, even to reprisals, we did not give way; we wished for victory, never for peace; we thought of France, not of ourselves. But what unbearable pangs did we bear! We laboured under "the hope deferred that maketh the heart sick," as the Bible says. Sometimes we seemed to think the burden too heavy for our strength and impossible to be borne any longer. What became of us when, in the last days of October, the Germans arrogantly announced that they had won a victory at Soissons, that they had broken through, and that they were going on to Paris...?
"Parisse!... Parisse!..."
We were heart-broken by it, sunk in desolation, and when thereupon came the welcome message of Magny, full of excellent things, although scandalously false, should we not have believed it true? Rather than not to have believed it, we should have framed and hung a copy in every house!
The message of Magny made its appearance on All Saints" Day. On coming back from the cemetery we watched the sh.e.l.ling of a French aeroplane, which laughed at its a.s.sailant, and the smoke of the sh.e.l.ls was like small round b.a.l.l.s gilt by the sun. The cannon rolled furiously in the direction of Noyon, and we thought: "If they have pa.s.sed, it is not over there."
In the village we heard the good news that every one whispered in his neighbour"s ear: "They haven"t pa.s.sed; on the contrary, they have been soundly beaten at Vailly. Besides, aviators have dropped a letter near Magny, copies of which are pa.s.sing from hand to hand."
They have not pa.s.sed! They have been beaten! Oh, joy! how lovely is the day! And how near is the Capitol to the Tarpeian Rock! Yesterday we lay on the ground broken with the shock; to-day, lively and drunk with joy, we rush with a bound towards the regions of trust and hope!
Our best source of news was Mme. Lantois". The kitchen of the farm is a large, gay, bright room, whose painted walls, black and white flags, glittering copper saucepans, and cages full of song-birds, are pleasant to the eye. A select society was to be met there about five in the evening. To find a seat you had to disturb one of the cats which lay enthroned on all free chairs. To upset a cat is high treason. To remain standing would have looked uncivil. I used to get out of the sc.r.a.pe by taking on my lap Gros-Blanc, Ye-Ye, or Belle-Limace, who seemed to approve of this arrangement.
All tongues were let loose.
First, we exchanged and commented upon the news of the day. What troops--infantry, cavalry, artillery--had been seen in Morny and its neighbourhood, whether there were many of them and which direction they took, whether the trains were loaded with soldiers or ammunition--these were the questions asked and answered. Then we were told what wounded soldiers and prisoners had been brought to Laon, and heard what motor-cars had traversed the village. Twice the Emperor himself was seen within our gates in an iron-plated car, preceded and followed by two cars occupied by soldiers armed to the teeth. Upon this occasion the Prussians of the village posted on both sides of the road had bawled themselves hoa.r.s.e to such a degree that they had been obliged to run to the next cellar in order to moisten their gullets. Hundreds of pairs of eyes, moreover, had watched the sky and discovered aeroplanes--English or French--which had been fired at by such and such a battery. The German flying machines had been disporting themselves here or there. The captive balloon--"William"s sausage"--had perched above certain points.
How many of us had, the night before, observed the signals that came from Laon or glittered in the "mountains"?
The ears had just as much to do as the eyes. Guns had been fired from this quarter and that, German cannon or French, ordnance or fieldpiece.
In one direction a mine had been fired. In fine weather we heard the sound of rifles or the crackling of mitrailleuses. One stormy day the workmen declared that they had heard the French bugles sound for a charge. What a fine harvest of news we gathered every evening! What would we not have given to be able to hand it on to those who might have turned it to good account! When we had gone all over it again there followed a warmly conducted debate; we drew conclusions as to the successes or reverses each side had met with, or as to the positions they occupied.
But as it is impossible always to be discussing strategy, and as we could talk only of the war, we fell to telling stories. And many of them touched upon our general flight before the Germans and its failure.
M. and Mme. Lantois, with their son Rene, a big lad of eighteen, had tried to run away too--not, like ourselves, on foot, but in a cart drawn by two stout horses. The prudent hands of the farmer"s wife had heaped up in the bottom of the vehicle two sacks of flour, a keg of wine, a barrel of salt pork, two hundred eggs, and even thirty bottles of petroleum. No matter whither they would have to go, they were thus prepared for any events. The first hours all went well, but near Nouvion-le-Vineux the fugitives were overtaken by the French army. They were ordered to draw up on the roadside and wait. Night fell. The soldiers kept on advancing. A cannon happened to break down and got somewhat injured. So the weary farmer went to sleep leaning against a post, while his wife, lantern in hand, gave a light to the poor gunners, who, cursing and swearing, did their best to mend the damaged wheel. The stream of men flowed on uninterruptedly till the morning. The good people, who had kept out of the way all this time, thought the moment propitious to resume their journey. They put the horses to, and were about to move forward, when they were startled by a loud shout. Fresh soldiers were advancing, and ... they were Prussians.
"I am sure," Mme. Lantois said, "that at this point they were not three miles away from our rearguard."
Horses, cart, provisions, and even petroleum--ogres turn up their noses at nothing--were swallowed in a mouthful. The three fugitives, despoiled and abashed, came back on foot to Morny, all whose inhabitants returned to their houses sheepish and downcast.
In other places the Germans were not even put to the trouble of despoiling the people, who of their own free will sacrificed to the new-comers. They mistook them for English soldiers. In Festieux, for instance, not far from us, the urchins of the village cried out:
"The English are coming!"
And the peasants crowded about them. They had already stripped themselves for the French, but all the same they were eager to welcome the Allies. And they poured out wine and coffee, they offered fruit and biscuits. The woman who told us this story, after she had shared a whole pail of lemonade among "those poor boys who were so hot," went to the tallest of the band, a man with gold lace, and, in a very loud voice so that he might understand French the better, said to him:
"Well, as a reward, you will bring us William"s head!"
The man spread out his face in a broad grin, and, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, answered:
"We no English, we Germans...."