Читать книгу Young Lady Randolph - Rene Kraus - Страница 8

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She hated ces sales Prussiens as much as did anyone in Paris; she admitted it candidly in her memoirs. But the alert young girl did not share the blind cocksureness that prevailed among the French during the crucial days when a fatal conflict seemed inevitable. Her intuition was not blunted by her strong sympathies. Her ambitions aimed high, her predilections were definite, but she was not swept away by her emotions. She was enchanted with brilliant Paris. Yet she realized that a dark future was impending, when Lucien Paradol, the well-known journalist and writer—incidentally the father of her favorite companion—made the casual remark: “Since France and Prussia are running on the same lines, collision is inevitable.”

This observation was made one Sunday afternoon in the salon of Mrs. Jerome. Lord Albemarle, an English friend, who had just been shooting in Norfolk, joined the conversation: “I met the Prussian General Blumenthal at the shoot,” he related. “I told him I would like to see the Prussian maneuvers. ‘It is not necessary to come to Prussia for that purpose,’ he grinned. ‘We will stage a review for you on the Champ de Mars.’ ”

Jennie listened without showing her burning interest. She regretted that Eugénie was not yet back from Egypt. This bit of gossip might have interested her. In fact, the Empress was already on her way back. She was flushed with her triumph in Cairo, and outraged at what became known as the Hohenzollern incident. Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern (a tool of Bismarck, Jennie termed him accurately) was presented as a candidate for the throne of Spain. The Paris press called this claim une sanglante injure pour l’Empereur Napoléon. In fact it was a well calculated injury to Empress Eugénie. Should her adored Spain become a Prussian vassal? Eugénie was furious. She had always remained a Spanish lady of high degree, retaining Spanish interests above French ones. She had never quite understood the duty of reticence, imposed upon her as the very active co-ruler of France. Now she embarked upon her second, her fatal adventure.

After years of steering an enforced middle course Eugénie, surrounded by flatterers, fawned upon as a political genius resembling Catherine of Medici, dominant at the court councils, had become a violent woman. She reacted to the Prussian provocation in a typically feminine fashion. She hastened to Biarritz to attend a bullfight (dressed in a Spanish mantilla with pomegranate flowers in her hair), where she comported herself in an entirely Spanish manner. She observed the horrid scenes with visible relish and uttered loud battle cries in Spanish, encouraging both the torero and the resistance against Prussian insolence.

France, smarting under Bismarck’s insult, again idolized the bellicose Empress for a few months. The whole country demanded war. Amazingly, Jennie, the young observer, was one of the few people who did not lose her head in these days of mass hysteria. She deplored the “rashness and violence” of the Duc de Gramont, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and what she called the ineptitude and blunders of M. Emile Ollivier, the new liberal Premier who had just introduced some tolerant and necessary domestic reforms, but who “took upon himself and his colleagues the responsibility for the war d’un coeur léger.” Jennie could not forgive him this unfortunate sentence. Already in her early youth she had an uncanny instinct for the art, and the fatal importance, of the spoken word.

Napoleon did his best to avert the conflict, but his ever worsening disease sapped his powers of resistance. He was on the eve of a serious operation. Moreover, Herr von Bismarck was hell bent on bloodshed. He had already made his private dispositions on the stock exchange, faithfully carried out by Herr von Bleichroeder, the Jewish banker who wielded full power of attorney in the Iron Chancellor’s complicated business affairs. There was no more room for retreat on either side. On the nineteenth of July, 1870, the Franco-Prussian War was declared.

Deeply perturbed, Jennie found herself in a city on fire with war hysteria. The citizens of Paris, as well as the army, had not the slightest doubt that the war would be but one long, straight march to Berlin. The only man who dared to dissent was General Comte de Tascher. Jennie had been a frequent guest at the house of his sister-in-law, Princess Tascher, whose weekly receptions were famous for their music, with gifted amateurs and artists playing and singing. The outbreak of the war was no reason to abandon these informal and amusing evenings. One of them, however, was disturbed by the General’s prophecy: “Everything depends on the first encounter. If our men are then victorious, the campaign will be successful to the last. But the French cannot stand defeat. Once they are disheartened, nothing more can be done with them.”

Whatever the outlook, the ladies Jerome decided to stick it out in Paris. It was folly. In New York Leonard burned the new Trans-Atlantic cable to urge his wife and children to escape to England. He had to be content with the answer that an injury to Clarissa’s ankle prevented her from traveling. Her ankle was, indeed, badly inflamed. Dr. Sims prescribed absolute quiet and rest in bed. To prescribe absolute quiet to a member of the Jerome tribe was, of course, ridiculous. Bravely, Clarissa limped with her daughters along the teeming streets. In the first month of the war, the people’s outbursts were still patriotic and monarchistic. “Exciting incidents crowded on us,” Jennie later recalled. One day she saw Capoul, the Caruso of his period, and Marie Sass, the famous soprano, being recognized in an omnibus. The masses stopped the bus. Capoul and La Sass knew what was expected of them. They climbed on top of the vehicle, and began the first bars of the Marseillaise. In a moment the singing crowd drowned out their voices.

Society still went to the Opera, but no longer in evening dress. It was certain that the singers would be constantly interrupted by the gallery and made to chant patriotic songs. Frequently trouble ensued; stalls and boxes were quickly vacated, leaving the Opera to the excited masses who were shouting for an anti-Prussian demonstration. The streets were black with people. Carriages could not move. The Jerome ladies learned to get about on shank’s mare. Clarissa limped painfully. “We found the greatest difficulties in getting home,” Jennie remembered, “owing to the streets being filled with huge crowds marching to the cry of ‘Des chassepots, donnez-nous des chassepots!’ ” And she commented: “Poor fellows, they soon had them, and all the fighting they wanted!”

July and August 1870 were “hot months.” This was not New York City during the Civil War, a comparatively quiet sector of the hinterland, only occasionally disturbed by hunger riots and mob outbursts which the police could control. Although much smaller in space than New York, Paris in 1870 had more than double the population of New York (2,000,000 inhabitants against somewhat over 800,000). The frightened and bewildered people literally trod on one another’s toes. The continuous flow of bad news from the front—which Jennie followed by constantly changing the positions of the flags on her map—strained the nerves of the civil population to the utmost. Eugénie assumed the regency, while the Emperor left for Metz to join his army. He was told that 380,000 excellently prepared soldiers were awaiting him. Instead he was received by a poorly equipped soldiery of only 220,000.

This, at least, was the report the Duc de Persigny conveyed to the Jerome ladies. The duke was one of the most conspicuous characters of the extraordinary Second Empire. Born to the humble name of Victor Fialin, he had been the oldest bosom friend of Prince Louis Napoleon. He had shared the latter’s meteoric career, and had even been imprisoned for his cause. But he reaped the benefits of his devotion. When Louis Napoleon became Emperor, his faithful friend was created a duke, made ambassador in London, and finally became a cabinet minister. Yet to Jennie he remained nothing but a “dapper little man with a piercing eye and a pleasant manner.”

Like the few others among their French friends who had not gone to the front, Persigny frequently sought refuge and relaxation in the hospitable American house on the Champs Elysées. Once he conveyed regards from the Prince Imperial, who had just gone through his baptism of fire in the skirmish of Saarbruecken. More often he brought less agreeable news. A few days before it was published in the press, Jennie read the copy of a telegram in which Eugénie bluntly informed Napoleon that Paris and its garrison were losing all confidence. Eugénie demanded that the Emperor dismiss Maréchal Leboeuf from the supreme command, himself resign from active direction of the war, and make Maréchal Bazaine Generalissimo. Jennie recognized that it would be a fatal appointment for Bazaine. “Are they looking for a scape-goat?” she asked. The Duc de Persigny was stunned. “You are the most amazing girl I ever met!” he exclaimed.

On one or two occasions, great victories were bruited about. The gloomy, doomed city of Paris rapidly seized on them with elation. Flags flew from every window, everyone rejoiced, and passersby on the street embraced one another. But the jubilation lasted only a few hours. The streets emptied rapidly and the blinds were drawn when the glorious victories proved to be the defeats of Weissemburg, Woerth, or Gravelotte. A sinister murmur rose through Paris: “Nous sommes trahis!”

On August 16th, MacMahon persuaded the Emperor to concentrate the whole army upon Paris, in order to defend the capital to the last. But an imperative telegram from Eugénie insisted that neither the cabinet nor the populace would tolerate such a retirement. She urged her husband to join his decimated forces with Bazaine’s troops. Napoleon, now a pale and haggard figure, doubled up with pain, crouched in the corner of his carriage, no longer asserting authority, ignored by his generals and officers, jeered at by his own men, a shade of what had once been an Emperor, submitted to his still flamboyant wife’s pressure. He embarked on the disastrous road to Sedan.

On the battlefield, in the evening after the encounter, he wrote his letter of surrender to Wilhelm I. To Eugénie he telegraphed: “The army of Châlons has surrendered. I am a prisoner. Napoleon.”

Paris proclaimed the republic. This was the moment for the last foreigners to hasten their departure. Persigny proved his friendship for the Jeromes in calling upon them immediately after his last audience with Eugénie at St. Cloud, where the Empress Regent had retired. The usually imperturbable Duke burst into tears: “Tout est perdu,” he stammered. “Les Prussiens sont à nos portes!”

Another visitor was announced. Mr. Malet, secretary of the British Embassy, had come to pay his respects and to relate his latest experience. He had been delegated to German headquarters to negotiate the evacuation of the English from Paris.

At Versailles, the German headquarters, Bismarck had received him with wine and cigars. The Chancellor obviously relished the trouble his Prussians were making in occupied France. Certainly, he obliged, if the English wanted to get away from Paris, he did not wish to make difficulties, although neither he—“I am not really all powerful, you understand, I am simply the obedient servant of my king, whatever the world says”—nor anyone else could be of much help. But every passport signed and sealed by His Excellency, the ambassador of Her Majesty, the Queen, would be honored.

After the fourth glass of wine the Iron Chancellor unbosomed himself. He offered his personal advice to Malet. “Your people will be lucky if they get away,” he said confidentially. “The French will hate us with an undying hate, and we must take care to render this hate powerless. Paris will have to surrender, or the inhabitants will be cut off from the rest of the world, and left to stew in their own juice.” He smiled while he spoke. But his high-pitched voice rose immediately as he continued: “If the Parisians continue to hold out, their city will be bombarded and, if necessary, burned down.” Bismarck seemed displeased that no riots had broken out in Paris. He considered the declaration of the Republic and its acceptance by the whole of France as “definitely unpleasant.” Why, he argued, if the French Republican government proved to be moderate and virtuous, it might become a danger to the monarchical principle in Germany. “What the King and I fear most,” the Iron Chancellor had said, “is the influence of a French Republic upon Germans. We are well aware what a nefarious influence the Republic in America had upon our people. If the French should now fight us with republican propaganda, they would do us more damage than by their arms....”

“And so,” Mr. Malet ended his report, “I have the honor of conveying to you, ladies, the Chancellor’s advice. Go while the going is good.”

“We will not go!” Jennie answered briskly. She was not a quitter. She belonged in Paris. No home-grown son or daughter can be as fiery a patriot as the American expatriate is to his adopted land. This by no means implies desertion of one’s own country. Throughout her life Jennie dreamed the American dream. But when Paris was in danger, it was there she wanted to be. The three hundred thousand Prussian soldiers with their Bavarian, Wuerttemberg, and Rhenanian vassals, looting the country and closing in on Paris, did not frighten her at all.

Moreover, Jennie rejected the idea of escape on account of her mother’s health. “You could not leave, mamma,” she argued persuasively. “Why, with this pain in your ankle.... You cannot even walk!”

“I could be carried,” Clarissa replied, no less resolute. “And we do not have to leave the country entirely,” she added. “There must be a sort of Newport in France, too.” She must get Jennie away from the danger of a possible encounter with the Prussians, the anxious mother thought. Jennie would get into trouble. She could never control her temper, if such a meeting took place.

“Deauville!” Mr. Malet suggested.

“And how are we to get there?” Jennie persisted. “We are not British subjects. Your ambassador, Mr. Malet, could not do a thing for us. And whether Mr. Washburn can be helpful ...” She indicated a slight doubt in the efficiency of the U. S. diplomacy. It was entirely unfounded doubt. Mr. Washburn sat out the whole long and terrible siege of Paris that ensued, a pillar of help to his countrymen and friends, and became a classic American witness of German atrocities.

“Let me take care of that!” Malet replied.

The British Embassy was jammed with English people who wanted to get out of Paris. The ambassador would have needed a dozen hands to sign and seal all the requested passports. But Mr. Malet had his way with the chief.

Still the question of departure seemed insoluble. In the hour of despair the confusion in Paris was worse than ever. “Qui sait?” was the only answer to the question whether and when a train would go to Rouen. The French did not refuse to do their duty. The drivers of the post-coaches sat on the boxes of their vehicles although there were no horses to pull them. The horses had been requisitioned for the army. But the drivers were au service.

Finally in the courtyard of the Grand Hotel a traveling carriage with a mountain of provisions and luggage was drawn up. Jennie and Mr. Malet helped Clarissa into the carnage. The sisters followed. Jennie, the driving spirit, was in charge of the passports. Here they were, duly signed and sealed and equipped with British visas through the courtesy of the British ambassador.

They were in a hurry to catch the train to Rouen, the last one to leave the occupied zone. To avoid difficulties on the way, their car was protected by the crossed English and American flags. To Jennie this was still a mere matter of expedience, not yet the symbol of her life’s endeavor.

Deauville proved very different from Newport. The high tide of war did not flood the fashionable resort, but every sort of flotsam drifted by. Deauville was crowded with refugees from what had been the Imperial Court. They did not dare to show themselves in daylight. One could not be sure how the new republican authorities would feel about the dispossessed courtiers. Moreover, even unoccupied France was teeming with Herr von Bismarck’s bloodhounds.

The Jeromes established themselves in the Palace Hotel. They found their suite a little expensive, but, after all, it was only for a few weeks. Paris would successfully stave off the siege, and one would soon be able to return to the only city where life was worth living. In this hope they spent a quiet time at the resort until a remarkable incident occurred. One morning late in September, the door to Jennie’s hotel room was flung open, and a stranger made his unceremonious appearance. Hastily he closed the door behind him. “Don’t tell anyone a word, Mademoiselle Jennie!” said the strange man. “For God’s sake don’t let anyone know that I am here!”

Jennie looked up. Was it possible? This pale, haggard, unshaved creature—yes, of course, at second glance she recognized the shadow of M. de Gardonne. Not much was left of the court-chamberlain’s immaculate appearance. He looked as if he were on the run. His imperturbable composure had given way to an expression of despair. “I so often enjoyed your hospitality in the Champs Elysées,” he tried to smile, “that I feel encouraged once more to prey on your good nature. I am aware that I do not look very presentable. But, you see, Mademoiselle, that is how one gets if one has had to spend two days and two nights hidden in the dunes ...”, the aging court-chamberlain blushed, “.... as little visible as possible.”

“Whom are you speaking to, Jennie?” came Clarissa’s voice from the next room.

Jennie’s dark eyes flashed a question to M. de Gardonne. Already she was his accomplice.

“To an old friend, mamma!” she called back. “Come in ... if you are dressed....”

Clarissa did not swoon when she opened the door. But she could not suppress a faint exclamation of surprise.

“Quiet, quiet, please,” M. de Gardonne whispered urgently. “No one is to know that ... that you have such an early guest, Madame!”

“I should say so!” Clarissa answered emphatically.

“If my life alone were at stake,” the old courtier said, and it was evident that he meant every word, “I would certainly not disturb ladies at this untimely hour. Nor would I present myself in ...” his fine blue-veined hand pointed to his torn and stained clothes “....this attire. But another, a very precious life is entrusted to me. It might, indeed, be a matter of life or death for a much beloved lady, if I should be caught ... before tomorrow morning.”

Clarissa was still suspicious. But Jennie said: “What you need most, I guess, is a cup of tea. I’ll call for breakfast.”

“For God’s sake, no waiter!” he interrupted her move toward the bell. “No one must see me. No one must know that I am here. I must preserve my liberty, at least until late tonight. You understand? I must! Please don’t ask questions, ladies! Please,” the poor fellow, until a few weeks ago a very mighty and somewhat haughty man, beseeched. “Let me spend the day in your rooms. After dark I will leave, and ...” he added quietly, “I believe, I will never have an opportunity of disturbing you again.”

“Jennie!” Clarissa’s voice sounded shaken. “Come into my room!” When she had closed the door, she asked almost breathlessly: “Do you believe he has committed murder?”

“You read too many of those yellow romans policiers, mamma,” Jennie replied. “Don’t you see he is preventing murder?”

“Whose?”

“A much beloved lady’s!” Jennie quoted de Gardonne.

Clarissa looked startled. “I ... understand ...” she said slowly. “Do you think the Prussians would shoot her?”

“No. Herr von Bismarck does not shoot women. He would behead her. Ceremoniously, of course! Probably on the same block where Marie Antoinette was decapitated as a courteous gesture. In front of a hundred thousand hand-picked spectators!”

M. de Gardonne was permitted to stay all day in the Jerome suite. The chambermaid was not allowed in to make the beds. Mme. Jerome’s ankle was worse. She intended to spend the day resting, and did not wish to be disturbed.

The courtly intruder retired into a corner. He did not speak a single word during the whole day. When darkness fell, he very modestly cleared his throat to attract Jennie’s attention. It so happened that she was alone in the room with him. He bowed deeply, tip-toed to the door, listened for a moment, opened the door, glanced rapidly at the empty corridor, and slipped out of the room, forgetting to close the door behind his back. Perhaps it would have made a noise. The hinges of French hotel doors were always poorly oiled.

Looking out of the window, Jennie saw him, a shade, as it were, slowly walking down the street. Suddenly “Spanish Ladies,” the old English chanty, was whistled. The whistling man walked toward the hotel, running straight into de Gardonne. As far as Jennie could make out in the darkness, the man wore a dark, probably blue, coat, and light, certainly white, trousers, the English yachtsman’s uniform. He had the rolling gait of a sea-faring man. Gardonne, the human shadow, almost disappeared at his side. Both walked noiselessly with enormous strides down to the pier.

Two days later a significant epilogue followed. Dr. Evans, the famous American dentist, practicing in Paris, and Dr. Crane, once medical practitioner at the Imperial Court, called on the ladies Jerome. It was only for a minute. Their carriage was waiting. Clarissa gladly received the old friends. They asked her to come downstairs with them. Perhaps she would like to shake hands with another old acquaintance. Jennie was to come, too. The old acquaintance insisted on seeing her.

A heavily veiled lady sat in the back of the carriage. She shook hands with Clarissa. Then her voice, ever with its harsh Castilian accent, addressed Jennie: “I want to thank you quite particularly, my dear child. Without your help and hospitality our friend in common could not have spent his perilous day so comfortably. Perhaps he could not have made the arrangements for my excursion at all. Good-by, my dear. I shall see you soon—in England!”

The coachman lashed the horses. A quarter of an hour later an English yacht weighed anchor. The crossing was rough, but Sir John Burgoyne, the famous yachtsman, was undaunted; he had taken his craft through heavier seas. Confidently, he expected to make Ryde, the little port on the Isle of Wight, in two days.

He stood at the wheel. The September gale swept the ocean. It swept over France. The man in the blue coat and white trousers whistled “Spanish Ladies” into the roaring storm.