Chapter IV (5)

“It is,” I said, “some unhappy wretch being pursued. They are making domiciliary visits and effecting arrests in Paris night and day. It is possible they may force an entrance here. I ought to withdraw for fear of compromising you. Although I am but little known in this neighbourhood, I am, as times go, a dangerous guest.”

“Stay!” she adjured me.

For the second time cries rent the calm evening air. They were mingled now with the tramp of feet and the noise of fire-arms. They came nearer; then we heard a voice shout: “Close the approaches, so that he cannot escape, the scoundrel!”

Madame de Luzy seemed to grow calmer in proportion to the increasing nearness of the danger.

“Let us go up to the second floor,” she said; “we shall be able to see through the sunblinds what is going on outside.”

But scarcely had we opened the door when, on the landing, we beheld a half-dressed fugitive, his face blanched with terror, his teeth chattering and his knees knocking together. This apparition murmured in a strangled voice—

“Save me! Hide me! They are there.... They burst open my gate—overran my garden. They are coming....”

II

Madame de Luzy, recognizing Planchonnet, the old philosopher who occupied the neighbouring house, asked him in a whisper—“Has my cook caught sight of you? She is a Jacobin!”

“Nobody has set eyes on me.”

“God be praised, neighbour!”

She led him into her bedroom, whither I followed them. A consultation was necessary. Some hiding-place must be hit upon where she could keep Planchonnet concealed for several days, or at least for several hours, whatever time it might take to deceive and tire out the search party. It was agreed that I should keep the approaches under observation, and that when I gave the signal, the unfortunate man should make his escape by the little garden gate.

Whilst he waited, he was unable to remain standing. He was completely paralysed with terror.

He endeavoured to make us understand that he was being hounded down for having conspired with Monsieur de Cazotte against the Constitution, and for having on the 10th of August formed one of the defenders of the Tuileries—he, the enemy of priests and kings. It was an infamous calumny. The truth was that Lubin was venting his hate upon him—Lubin, hitherto his butcher, whom he had a hundred times had a mind to lay a stick about to teach him to give better weight, and who was now presiding over the section in which he had formerly been a mere stallholder.

As he uttered the name in strangled tones, he was persuaded that he actually saw Lubin, and hid his face in his hands. And of a truth there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Madame de Luzy shot the bolts and pushed the old man behind a screen. There was a hammering at the door, and Pauline recognized the voice of her cook, who called out to her to open, that the municipal officers were at the gate with the National Guard, and that they had come to make an inspection of the premises.

“They say,” the woman added, “that Planchonnet is in the house. I know very well that it is not so, of course. I know you would never harbour a scoundrel of that sort; but they won’t believe my word.”

“Well, well, let them come up,” replied Madame de Luzy through the door. “Let them go all over the house, from cellar to garret.”

As he listened to this dialogue, the wretched Planchonnet fainted behind the screen, and I had a good deal of trouble in resuscitating him by sprinkling water on his temples. When I had succeeded—

“My friend,” the young woman whispered to her old neighbour, “trust in me. Remember that women are resourceful.”

Then, calmly, as though she had been engaged in some daily domestic duty, she drew her bedstead a little out from its alcove, took off the bedclothes, and with my assistance so arranged the three mattresses as to contrive a space next the wall between the highest and the lowest of them.

Whilst she was making these arrangements, a loud noise of shoes, sabots, gunstocks, and raucous voices broke out on the staircase. This was for all three of us a terrible moment; but the noise ascended by little and little to the floor above our heads. We realized that the searchers, under the guidance of the Jacobin cook, were ransacking the garrets first. The ceiling cracked; threats and coarse laughter were audible, and the sound of kicks and bayonet-thrusts against the wainscot. We breathed again, but there was not a second to lose. I helped Planchonnet to slip into the space contrived for him between the mattresses.

As she watched our efforts, Madame de Luzy shook her head. The bed thus disturbed had a suspicious appearance.

She endeavoured to give it a finishing touch; but in vain, she could not make it look natural.

“I shall have to go to bed myself,” she said.

She looked at the clock; it was exactly seven, and she felt that it would look extraordinary for her to be in bed so early. As to feigning illness, it was useless to think of it: the Jacobin cook would detect the ruse.

She remained thoughtful for some seconds; then calmly, simply, with royal unconcern, she undressed before me, got into bed, and ordered me to take off my shoes, my coat, and my cravat.

“There is nothing for it but for you to be my lover, and for them to surprise us together. When they arrive you will not have had time to re-arrange your disordered clothes. You will open the door to them in your vest,[21] with your hair rumpled.”

-----

Footnote 21:

The vest was worn under the coat. It was a sort of waistcoat, longer
than ours, and provided with sleeves of full length. (AUTHOR.)

-----

All our arrangements were made when the search party, with many exclamations of “_Sacré!_” and “_Peste!_” descended from the garrets.

The unfortunate Planchonnet was seized with such a paroxysm of trembling that he shook the whole bed.

Moreover, his breathing grew so stertorous that it must have been almost audible in the corridor.

“It’s a pity,” murmured Madame de Luzy. “I was so satisfied with my little artifice. But never mind; we won’t despair. May God be our aid!”

A heavy fist shook the door.

“Who knocks?” Pauline inquired.

“The representatives of the Nation.”

“Can’t you wait a minute?”

“Open, or we shall break the door down!”

“Go and open the door, my friend.”

Suddenly, by a sort of miracle, Planchonnet ceased to tremble and gasp.

III

Lubin was the first to enter. He had his scarf round him, and was followed by a dozen men armed with pikes. Casting his eyes first on Madame de Luzy and then on me—“_Peste!_” he exclaimed. “It seems we are disturbing a pair of lovers. Excuse us, pretty one!”

Then turning to his followers, he remarked—

“The _sans-culottes_ are the only folks who know how to behave.”

But despite his theories this encounter had evidently put him in good spirits.

He sat down on the bed, and raising the chin of the lovely high-bred woman, said—

“It is plain that that pretty mouth wasn’t made to mumble paternosters day and night. It would have been a pity if it were. But the Republic before all things. We are seeking the traitor, Planchonnet. He is here, I’m certain of it. I must have him. I shall get him guillotined. It will make my fortune.”

“Search for him, then!”

They looked under the chairs and tables, in the cupboards, thrust their pikes under the bed, and probed the mattresses with their bayonets.

Lubin scratched his ear and looked at me slily. Madame de Luzy, dreading that I might be subjected to an embarrassing catechism, said—

“Dear friend, you know the house as well as I do myself. Take the keys and show Monsieur Lubin all over it. I am sure you will be delighted to act as guide to such patriots.”

I led them to the cellars, where they turned over the piles of faggots, and drank a fairly large number of bottles of wine; after which Lubin staved in the full casks with the butt end of his gun, and leaving the cellar flooded with wine, gave the signal of departure. I conducted them out as far as the gate, which I shut on their very heels, and then ran back to let Madame de Luzy know that we were out of danger.

When she heard this, she bent her head over the side of the bed next the wall, and called—

“Monsieur Planchonnet! Monsieur Planchonnet!”

A faint sigh was the response.

“God be praised!” she exclaimed. “Monsieur Planchonnet, you occasioned me the most appalling fear. I thought you were dead.”

Then turning towards me—

“My poor friend, you used to take so much delight in declaring, from time to time, that you loved me; you will never tell me so again!”

THE BOON OF DEATH BESTOWED

TO ALBERT TOURNIER

THE BOON OF DEATH BESTOWED

When he had for a long while tramped through the deserted streets, André at last went and sat down on the bank of the Seine and watched the water lapping the base of the hill where, in the vanished days of joy and hope, Lucie, his dear mistress, had her home.

For long enough he had not felt so restful.

At eight o’clock he took a bath. Then he strolled into a restaurant in the Palais Royal, and glanced through the newspapers whilst his meal was preparing. In the _Courier of Equality_ he read the list of the condemned prisoners who had been executed on the Place de la Révolution on the 24th of Floréal.

He ate his breakfast heartily. Then he rose, looked in a glass to make sure that he was presentably dressed, and that his colour was not likely to betray him, and set out at an easy pace to the other side of the river towards the low house at the corner of the Rue de Seine and the Rue Mazarine. Here were the quarters of Citizen Lardillon, deputy public prosecutor at the revolutionary tribunal, a man well disposed towards André, who had known him first as a capuchin at Angers, and later as a _sans-culotte_ in Paris.

He rang, and after an interval of some few minutes, a figure appeared behind a grating commanding the entrance, and Citizen Lardillon, having prudently satisfied himself as to the appearance and name of his visitor, at length threw open the door. His face was broad, his colour high, his eyes glittering, his lips moist, and his ears red. He looked a jovial but worried man. He led André into his ante-chamber.

There, on a small round table, a meal for two was set out. There was a chicken, a pie, a ham, a terrine of foie-gras and various cold meats in aspic. On the floor six bottles were cooling in a pail. A pineapple, cheese of various kinds, and preserved fruits occupied the mantelpiece, and flasks of liqueurs were deposited on a desk littered with papers.

Through the half-open door of the adjoining room a large bed was visible, not yet made.

“Citizen Lardillon,” began André, “I have come to beg a favour of you.”

“I am quite ready to grant it, citizen, provided it involves no risk to the security of the Republic.”

André smilingly replied—

“The service I ask you to do me is not in the least compromising to the safety of either the Republic or yourself.”

At a sign from Lardillon, André sat down. “Citizen deputy,” he said, “you are aware that for the last two years I have been conspiring against your friends, and that I am the author of the pamphlet entitled, _The Altars of Fear_. You will not be doing me a favour in having me arrested. You will only be doing your duty. Moreover, that is not the service I ask at your hands. But listen: my mistress, to whom I am devoted, is in prison.”

Lardillon nodded his head to indicate that he approved of the devotion André confessed to.

“I am sure that you are not unfeeling, Citizen Lardillon. I beg you to procure my reunion with the woman I love, and to have me conveyed to Port Libre as speedily as may be.”

“Come, come,” said Lardillon, and a smile played upon his lips, which were both delicate and firm, “it is a greater boon than life that you demand of me. You require me to bestow happiness on you, citizen!”

He stretched out the arm nearest to the bedroom, and called—

“Epicharis! Epicharis!”

A big, dark woman entered, her arms and throat still bare, for she had only got as far with her _toilette_ as a chemise and petticoat, though a cockade was fastened in her hair.

“Nymph of mine,” said Lardillon as he drew her on to his knees, “look upon the face of this citizen, and never forget it! Like us, Epicharis, he is tender-hearted; like us, he realizes that the greatest of ills is to be separated from the beloved one. He wishes to go to prison—ay, to the guillotine—with his mistress, Epicharis. Can I withhold this boon from him?”

“No!” answered the girl, as she tapped the cheeks of the carmagnole-clad monk.

“You are right, my goddess. We shall be earning the gratitude of two devoted lovers. Citizen Germain, give me your address, and this very night you shall sleep in the Bourbe.”

“That is agreed?” said André.

“That is agreed,” replied Lardillon as he offered him his hand. “Go and find your fair friend, and tell her how you saw Epicharis in Lardillon’s embrace. I trust that that recollection may stir your hearts to joyous measures.”

André replied that possibly they would be able to call up even more affecting memories, but that he was none the less grateful to Lardillon, and that he only regretted that it was not likely to be in his power to be of service to him in return.

“A humane action needs no recompense,” replied Lardillon.

Then he rose, and clasping Epicharis to his heart, said—

“Who knows when our own turn may come?”

_Omnes eodem cogimur: omnium
Versatur urna; serius ocius
Sors exitura, et nos in æternum
Exilium impositura cymbæ._[22]

“In the meanwhile, let us drink! Citizen, will you join us at table?”

Epicharis said it would only be polite of him, and made to seize him by the arm. But he tore himself away, relying on the promise the deputy public prosecutor had made.

-----

Footnote 22:

We all must tread the paths of Fate,
And ever shakes the mortal Urn,
Whose Lot embarks us, soon or late,
On Charon’s Boat, ah! never to return.
FRANCIS’S _Horace_.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

A TALE OF THE MONTH OF
FLORÉAL IN THE YEAR II

TO MADEMOISELLE JEANNE CANTEL

A TALE OF THE MONTH OF
FLORÉAL IN THE YEAR II

I

The turnkey had shut the door of the house of detention upon her who was formerly known as the Comtesse Fanny d’Avernay, whose arrest is described in the gaol register as a step taken “in the interests of public safety,” though her actual crime was that she had given shelter to enemies of the Government.

And now she is actually within the venerable edifice in which, once upon a time, the recluses of Port Royal indulged their craving for solitude and community life combined, and out of which it was easy to contrive a prison without making any structural change.

Seated on a bench whilst the registrar enters her name, she thinks—

“Ah, God, why are these things permitted; and what more do You demand of me?”

The turnkey’s aspect is rather surly than evil, and his daughter, who is pretty, looks enchanting in her white cap, with cockade and knot of ribbons in the national colours. By this turnkey Fanny is conducted to a large courtyard, in the middle of which grows a fine acacia. There she will wait till he has prepared a bed and a table for her in a room which already contains five or six prisoners, for the house is crowded. Vainly each day is the overplus of tenants led to the revolutionary tribunal and the guillotine. Each day anew the committees fill up the gaps thus created.

In the courtyard Fanny catches sight of a young woman busy cutting a device of initials on the bark of the tree, and at once recognizes Antoinette d’Auriac, a friend of her childhood.

“What, you here, Antoinette?”

“And you, Fanny? Get them to put your bed by the side of mine. We shall have countless things to tell one another.”

“Yes, numbers of things.... And Monsieur d’Auriac, Antoinette?”

“My husband? Upon my word, my dear, I had rather forgotten him. It is unfair on my part. To me he has always been irreproachable.... I fancy that at the present moment he is in prison somewhere or other.”

“And what were you doing just now, Antoinette?”

“Pooh!... What o’clock is it? If it’s five, the friend whose name I was interlacing on the bark there with my own has ceased to exist, for at midday he was haled away to the revolutionary tribunal. His name was Gesrin, and he was a volunteer in the army of the North. I made his acquaintance here in the prison. We passed some agreeable hours together at the foot of this tree. He was a worthy young fellow.... But I must set about making you feel at home, my dear.”

And seizing Fanny by the waist, she carried her off to the room where she herself slept, and obtained the turnkey’s promise not to part her from her friend.

They decided that the following morning they would join forces in washing the floor of their room.

The evening meal, meagrely provided by a patriotic eating-house keeper, was served in common. Each prisoner brought his plate and his wooden cover (metal covers were not allowed), and received his portion of pork and cabbage. At that coarse repast Fanny met women whose gaiety astonished her. As in the case of Madame d’Auriac, their headdresses were scrupulously arranged and they wore unimpeachable costumes. Though death was in sight, they had not lost the womanly desire to please. Their conversation was as gallant as their persons, and Fanny was soon abreast of the love affairs which were knit and unknit in these gloomy courtyards where death lent a keener edge to love. Then, overcome with an indescribable agitation, she was seized with a great longing to clasp another hand in her own.

She called to mind the man who loved her, to whom she had never yielded herself, and a pang of regret, cruel as remorse, rent her heart. Tears as scalding as tears of passion coursed down her cheeks. By the light of the smoky lamp which lit up the table she took note of her companions, whose eyes glittered with fever, and she thought—

“We are condemned to die, all of us. How is it that I am sad and perturbed in spirit, whilst for these women life and death are equally a matter of no concern?”

And all night she wept upon her pallet.

II

Twenty long monotonous days have passed heavily by. The courtyard where the lovers were wont to go in search of quiet and shade is deserted this evening. Fanny, stifled in the moist air of the corridors, has just sat down on the mound of turf which encircles the base of the old acacia that gives the courtyard its shade. The acacia is in flower, and the breeze passing through its branches emerges charged with the heavy perfume. Fanny catches sight of a scrap of paper fastened to the bark of the tree underneath the device which Antoinette traced there. On this paper she reads some verses by the poet Vigée, like herself a prisoner.

Here hearts, from taint of treason free,
Calm victims were of calumny.
Thanks to the shade outspread above
They banished grief in dreams of love.
It heard their sighs and tender fears,
They oft bedewed it with their tears.
You, whom a time less menacing
Shall to this bare enclosure bring,
Spare yet awhile the kindly tree
Which anguish quelled, and strength upheld,
And half bestowed felicity.[23]

-----

Footnote 23:

Ici des c[oe]urs exempts de crimes,
Du soupçon, dociles victimes,
Grâce aux rameaux d’un arbre protecteur,
En songeant à l’amour oubliaient leur douleur.
Il fut le confident de leurs tendres alarmes;
Plus d’une fois il fut baigné de larmes.
Vous, que des temps moins vigoureux
Amèneront dans cette enceinte,
Respectez, protégez cet arbre généreux.
Il consolait la peine, il rassurait la crainte;
Sous son feuillage on fut heureux.

-----

After reading these lines, Fanny relapsed into a thoughtful mood. She mentally reviewed her life, calm and even, her loveless marriage, the state of her own mind, interested in music and poetry, inclined to friendship, sober, untroubled; and then she thought of the love lavished on her by a gallant gentleman, which had wrapped her in its protective folds, yet been accepted unresponsively, as she was better able to realize in the silence of her prison. And, recognizing that she was about to die, she broke down. A sweat of mortal agony rose to her forehead. In her anguish she raised her burning eyes to the star-strewn sky, and wringing her hands murmured—

“Ah, God, give back to me one little gleam of hope!”

At this moment a light footstep approached. It was Rosine, the turnkey’s daughter, coming for a surreptitious talk with her.

“Citizeness,” the pretty girl said to her, “to-morrow evening a man who loves you will be waiting on the Avenue de l’Observatoire with a carriage. Take this parcel; it contains clothes like those I am wearing; during supper you will put them on in your bedroom. You are of the same height and fair colouring as myself. In the dusk we might easily be taken one for the other. A warder who is in love with me, and who has engaged in the plot with us, will come up to your room and bring you the basket which I take when I go marketing.

“With him you will descend the staircase (of which he carries a key) leading to my father’s lodge. On that side of the prison the outer gate is neither locked nor guarded. You will only have to avoid being seen by my father. My lover will place himself with his shoulder against the little window of the lodge and say, as if he were talking to me: 'Au revoir, Citizeness Rose, and don’t be so mischievous!' You will then go quietly into the street. Whilst this is going on I shall leave by the main gate, and we shall join one another in the carriage which is to carry us away.”

As she listened to these words, Fanny drank in the breath of spring and reawakening nature. With the whole energy of her being, palpitating with life, she longed for liberty. She could perceive, could taste the safety that was within her grasp. And as into the same draught was distilled an aroma of love, she clasped her hands on her breast to restrain her happiness. But, little by little, consideration, a powerful factor in her character, got the better of sentiment. She gazed steadily on the turnkey’s daughter, and said—

“Why is it, dear child, that you are prepared to devote yourself in this way to the interests of one whom you scarcely know?”

“Oh,” replied Rose, this time forgetting to use the familiar form of speech she had been employing hitherto, “it’s because your kind friend will give me a large sum of money as soon as you are free, and then I shall be able to marry Florentin, my lover. You see, citizeness, that I am working entirely in my own interests. But I am better pleased to be the means of rescuing you than one of the others.”

“I thank you for that, my child, but why the preference?”

“Because you are so dainty, and your good friend must be so weary of being separated from you. It is agreed, isn’t it?”

Fanny stretched out her hand to take the parcel of clothes Rose was offering her.

But immediately afterwards she drew it back.

“Rose, do you realize that if we are discovered it would mean death to you?”

“Death!” exclaimed the young girl. “You terrify me. Oh, no, I didn’t know that!”

Then, as quickly reassured—

“But, citizeness, your kind friend would manage to hide me.”

“There isn’t a spot in Paris that would prove a safe hiding-place. I thank you for your devotion, Rose; but I can’t take advantage of it.”

Rose stood as if thunderstruck.

“But you will be guillotined, citizeness, and I shall not be able to marry Florentin!”

“Be easy, Rose. I can do you a service although I can’t accept what you offer.”

“Oh, no, no! It would be cheating you out of your money.”

The turnkey’s daughter begged and prayed and wept for long enough. She went on her knees and raised the hem of Fanny’s skirt.

Fanny gently pushed the girl’s hand away and turned her head aside. A moonbeam displayed the peacefulness of the fair face.

It was a lovely night, and a light breeze was moving. The prisoners' tree shook its perfumed branches and scattered its wan flowers upon the head of the voluntary victim.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE LITTLE LEADEN SOLDIER

TO MADAME GASTON MEYER

THE LITTLE LEADEN SOLDIER

That particular night the fever induced by influenza prevented me from sleeping, and presently I heard very distinctly three smart taps on the glass door of a cabinet at the side of my bed, a cabinet in which I kept in an inextricable medley little figures in Dresden china or biscuit of Sèvres, terra-cotta statuettes from Tanagra or Myrina, little Renaissance bronzes, Japanese ivory carvings, Venetian glass, Chinese cups, boxes in Vernis Martin, lacquer trays, enamel caskets—in fact, a thousand nothings which a kind of fetish worship causes one to treasure, and which have the power of reviving memories of bygone hours, both gay and melancholy. The taps were faint but perfectly unmistakable, and by the light of the nightlight I perceived that they proceeded from a little leaden soldier installed amid the contents of the cabinet, who was making efforts to regain his liberty. He was successful, for soon beneath the weight of his fist the glazed door swung wide open. To tell the truth, I was not so surprised as might be expected. To my mind that little soldier had always worn a suspicious appearance. And during the two years since Madame G. M—— had given him to me, I had been prepared for all sorts of impertinences from him. His uniform is blue turned up with red; he is a _Garde française_, and it is common knowledge that that regiment was not remarkable for discipline.

“Ho, there!” I called out. “What’s your name, La Fleur, Brindamour, La Tulipe! can’t you make less noise and let me sleep in peace? I am anything but well.”

The rascal replied with a growl:

“I haven’t changed much, my good man, since I took the Bastille, a hundred years back. On top of that a good many cans of good liquor were emptied. I doubt if many leaden soldiers of my age are still in existence. Good night to you. I am off to parade.”

“La Tulipe,” I replied with severity, “your regiment was disbanded by order of Louis XVI on the 31st of August, 1789. There is no longer any reason for you to attend parade. Stay where you are in the cabinet!”

La Tulipe twirled his moustache, and then, throwing a sly glance of contempt in my direction, retorted:

“What! do you mean to say you don’t know that every year on the night of the 31st of December, when the children are asleep, our great review takes place, and the leaden soldiers march in procession over the roofs and between the chimneys still joyfully pouring forth the smoke arising from the dying embers of the Yule log? It’s a desperate charge, and many a rider takes part in it with never a head on his shoulders. The shades of all the leaden soldiers who have fallen in battle pass by in the rage of combat. Nothing but bent bayonets and broken swords is to be seen. And the spirits of dead dolls, all ashen-faced in the moonbeams, watch them as they go by.”

This harangue put me in a quandary.

“Come now, La Tulipe, you mean to say it is a custom, a solemn custom? I have the profoundest respect for all ancient customs and usages, traditions, legends, and popular beliefs. That is what we call folk-lore—a subject we find a great deal of amusement in studying. La Tulipe, it is a great satisfaction to me to learn that you are an observer of tradition. On the other hand, I am not at all sure that I ought to let you leave that cabinet.”

“Indeed you ought,” said a clear musical voice which I had not heard before, but which I instantly recognized for that of the young woman from Tanagra, who, wrapped in the folds of her himation, occupied a place next to the _Garde française_, on whom she looked down from the graceful dignity of her superior stature. “Indeed you ought. All customs handed down to us by our ancestors are equally worthy of respect. Our fathers knew better than we what is permissible and what forbidden, for they were nearer to the gods. It is only proper, then, to allow this Galatian to perform the warlike rites of his ancestors. In my time they did not wear a ridiculous blue dress turned up with red like our friend here. Their only covering was their buckler. And we held them in great awe. They were barbarians. You yourself are just as much of a Galatian and barbarian. It is all in vain that you have read the poets and historians: you have no true conception of the beauty of life. You were not in the market-place when I used to be spinning wool from Miletus in the courtyard of the house, under the old mulberry tree.”

I compelled myself to answer with moderation—

“Lovely Pannychis, your insignificant Greek folk conceived certain forms so beautiful that the eyes and hearts of the judicious will never tire of them. But every day in your market-place such a quantity of drivel was babbled as would give occupation to one of our municipal councils for a whole session. I have no regrets at never having been a citizen of Larissa or Tanagra. At the same time I admit that what you have said is reasonable. It is fitting that customs should be maintained, otherwise they would cease to be customs. Fair Pannychis, who didst spin wool from Miletus under the ancient mulberry tree, not in vain have you assailed my ears with words of good counsel; for on your advice I give La Tulipe permission to go whithersoever folk-lore may call him.”

Then a little dairymaid in biscuit of Sèvres, her hands resting on her churn, turned towards me with glances of entreaty.

“Monsieur, do not let him go. He has promised to marry me. He falls in love with every woman he meets. If he goes, I shall never set eyes on him again.”

And, hiding her plump cheeks in her apron, she began to weep uncontrollably.

La Tulipe had grown as red as the trimmings of his coat: he could not endure scenes, and he found it extremely distasteful to listen to reproaches which he had richly merited. I reassured my little dairymaid as well as I could, and begged my _Garde française_ on no account to loiter about after the review in some Circe’s grot. He promised, and I said good-bye to him. But he made no attempt to start. It was extraordinary, but he remained perfectly still on his shelf, as motionless as the dainty trifles surrounding him. I let him perceive my surprise.

“Patience!” he exclaimed. “I cannot set out under your very eyes in that fashion, without infringing every law of the occult world. When you have gone to sleep I shall make off easily enough on a moonbeam, for I am full of expedients. But there is no great hurry, and I can still wait another hour or two. We have nothing better to amuse us than conversation. How would you like me to tell you some tale of days gone by? I know plenty such.”

“Yes, tell us one,” said Pannychis.

“Tell us one,” said the dairymaid.

“Go ahead, then, La Tulipe,” said I in my turn.

He sat down, filled his pipe, asked for a glass of beer, coughed, and began his tale with these words:—

THE LEADEN SOLDIER’S STORY

Ninety-nine years ago to the very day, I was standing on a round table with a dozen of my comrades, all of them as like me as if they had been my brothers. Some were standing, some lying down, several had sustained injuries to the head or legs: we were the heroic remnant of a box of leaden soldiers bought the previous year at the fair of Saint Germain. The room was hung with pale blue silk. It contained a spinet with the Prayer from Orpheus open upon it, a few chairs with lyre-shaped backs, a lady’s escritoire of mahogany, a white bed decked with roses; and all along the cornice were perched pairs of doves. Everything combined to convey an impression of affecting charm. The lamp diffused its soft light, and the flame on the hearth quivered like wings beating in the dusk. Clad in a dressing-gown, and seated in front of her escritoire, her delicate neck bending beneath the circling masses of her magnificent fair hair, Julie was turning over the letters tied up with ribbons, which had lain hidden in the drawers of the bureau.

Midnight strikes; the outward sign of the imaginary leap from one year to another. The dainty timepiece, on which is poised a laughing, golden Cupid, proclaims that the year 1793 has come to an end.

Just as the hands of the clock meet, a small phantom figure makes its appearance. Through a door which stands half open, a pretty child has crept out of the dressing-room, where he has his bed, and run in his nightshirt to fling himself into his mother’s arms and wish her a happy new year.

“A happy new year, Pierre?... Ah! thank you, thank you! But do you know what a happy year is?”

He thought he did; but, all the same, she wished to make quite sure that he knew.

“A year is happy, my darling, when it passes on its way bringing us neither hatreds nor fears.”

She embraces him; then she carries him back to the bed he has escaped from, and then returns to her seat in front of the escritoire. She glances first at the flames leaping on the hearth, and then at the letters from which dried flowers are falling. It is heartrending to have to burn them. Yet it must be done. For these letters, if they were discovered, would consign to the guillotine both him who wrote them and her who received them. If it was only herself that was in danger, she would not burn them, so weary is she of her contest for life with the executioners. But she thinks of him, proscribed, denounced, pursued, hidden away in some garret at the other end of Paris. A single one of these letters would be enough to put his pursuers on his track and deliver him over to death.

Pierre is sleeping snugly in the neighbouring dressing-room; the cook and Nanon have gone to their rooms in the upper regions. The intense silence of a snow-clad town reigns all around. The keen, clear air brightens the flame on the hearth. Julie has made up her mind to burn these letters, and it is a task she cannot carry out—how well she knows it!—without recalling events of the profoundest sadness. She will burn the letters, but not until she has read them through once again.

The letters are all arranged in succession, for Julie imparts to everything around her a measure of the orderliness which is natural to her.

These, already growing yellow, date from three years ago, and in the silence of the night Julie lives over again the magic hours. Not a single page is surrendered to the flames until she has conned it over at least ten times, syllable by treasured syllable.

The stillness all around her is unbroken. From time to time she goes to the window, raises the curtain, glances through the oppressive gloom at the tower of Saint Germain des Prés silvered by the moon, and then resumes her slow labours of pious destruction. Why should she not for the last time rejoice over these delicious pages? Why deliver to the flames these cherished lines ere she has for ever imprinted them on her heart. Stillness prevails everywhere, and her spirit leaps with youth and love.

She reads—

“Though absent, I behold you, Julie. I go on my way, surrounded by images which my mind conjures up. I behold you, not cold and unnerved, but alive, animated, ever changing, yet ever perfect. Around you in my dreams I gather the most gorgeous spectacles the world can yield. How happy is Julie’s lover! He finds charms in all things, since in all things he finds her. In loving her it is life he loves; he marvels at this world which she irradiates; he treasures this earth which she adorns. Love unveils to him the hidden mystery of things. He apprehends the infinite forms of creation; they all display to him symbols of Julie; he hears the unnumbered voices of nature; they all murmur in his ear the name of Julie. He plunges his gaze rapturously into the inmost heart of the daylight, with the thought that that fortunate light bathes also the countenance of Julie, and casts as it were a divine caress on the loveliest of human forms. This evening the earliest stars will thrill his being; he will say: ‘Perhaps at this very moment she too is gazing on them.’ He inhales her in all the odours borne on the air. He desires to kiss the very ground she treads on....

“My Julie, if I am fated to fall beneath the axe of the persecutor, and like Algernon Sidney to die for liberty, death itself will be unable to restrain my indignant ghost in the land of shades which holds not you. I shall fly to you, my beloved. Often will my spirit return to hover around you.”

She reads and dreams. Night is coming to a close. Already a pallid light pierces the curtains: it is morning. The servants have begun their work. She must finish her own. Has she caught the sound of voices? No; all around her is silence, still....

Yes, all around is silence, for the snow deadens the tramp of feet. They are coming; they halt outside. Blows fall heavily on the door.

She has not time to hide the letters, to close the escritoire. All she can do she does; she takes the papers in armfuls and throws them underneath the sofa, the valance of which touches the floor; a few letters are scattered on the carpet; she pushes them under with her foot, seizes a book, and flings herself into a chair.

The president of the district enters, followed by a dozen of his pikemen. He is an elderly chair-caner named Brochet, who shivers with ague, and whose bloodshot eyes roam in an unspeakably loathsome fashion.

He makes a sign to his men to keep guard over the approaches, and then turning to Julie, announces—

“We have just received information, citizeness, that you are in correspondence with the agents of Pitt, and with émigrés and conspirators in the prisons. In the name of the law, I am here to take possession of your papers. It is now some time since you were pointed out to me as an aristocrat of the most dangerous type. Citizen Rapoix, whom you see before you” (here he indicated one of his followers), “has confessed that in the severe winter of 1789, you gave him both money and clothes with a view to corrupting him. Magistrates of a timid tendency and wanting in patriotism have shown you leniency over long. But I am master now, in my turn, and you shall not escape the guillotine. Deliver up your papers, citizeness!”

“Take them yourself,” said Julie; “my escritoire is unlocked.”

There still remained in the drawers certain certificates of births, marriages, and deaths, tradesmen’s bills, and title-deeds, which one by one Brochet examined. He fumbled with them, and laid them aside with the suspicious air of a man who reads but poorly, and from time to time exclaimed: “Scandalous! The name of the so-called king is not effaced. Scandalous, scandalous, I call it!”

From his manner Julie concludes that his visit will be lengthy and scrupulous. She cannot resist taking a furtive glance at the side of the sofa, and she sees at once the corner of a letter peeping out from under the valance like the white ear of a cat. At this sight her agony vanishes suddenly. The certainty that she is lost brings back to her a quiet assurance, and her face takes on a calm indistinguishable from an expression of complete security. She has no doubt that the men will observe this scrap of paper so patent to her own eyes. Its whiteness on the red carpet positively screams at her. But she cannot guess whether they will discover it at once or whether some time must first elapse. This doubt occupies and distracts her mind. At this tragic moment she indulges in a sort of joke with herself as she watches the patriots moving further away from or nearer to the sofa.

Brochet, who has finished with the papers in the escritoire, becomes impatient, and declares that he will certainly find what he has come in search of.

He overthrows the furniture, turns the pictures round, and raps the panelling with the pommel of his sword to detect hiding-places. He can discover nothing. He smashes a panel of looking-glass to see if anything is concealed behind it. There is nothing.

Whilst this is going on his men raise some of the squares of parquet. They declare with oaths that a beggarly aristocrat is not going to have the laugh of honest _sans-culottes_. But never one of them espies the little white wisp which peeps from under the valance of the sofa.

They march Julie into the other rooms of the suite and demand all her keys. They burst open the cupboards, shiver the windows to splinters, smash up the chairs, drag the stuffing from the upholstery. And they find nothing.

Still Brochet is not yet despondent; he returns to the bedroom.

“In God’s name! the papers are here; I’m certain of it!”

He examines the sofa, declares that it has a suspicious appearance, probes it five or six times with his sword from end to end. Still he finds no traces of what he seeks, utters a horrible oath, and gives his men orders to depart.

He is already at the door, when, returning a step or two towards Julie, he raises his fist and shouts—

“Live in dread of my return! I am the sovereign people!”

And he goes out, last of all.

At length all are gone. She hears the clatter of their tread grow fainter on the staircase. She is saved! Her imprudence has not betrayed him—him whom she loves! She runs, with a jubilant little laugh, to embrace the tiny Pierre, who is sleeping with his fists clenched, just as though everything round his cradle had not been turned upside down.

When he had finished his tale, La Tulipe relighted his pipe, which had gone out, and emptied his glass.

“My friend,” I said, “justice is a virtue. For a _Garde française_ it must be admitted that you are a finished story-teller. But I have a strong impression that I have already heard that story somewhere.”

“It may be that Julie herself related it. She was a creature of infinite wit.”

“And what became of her?”

“She knew some happy times in the days of the Consulate. Nevertheless, of an evening she would whisper sorrowful secrets to the trees in her park. You see, Monsieur, she was better armed against death than against love.”

“And he who wrote such elegant letters?”

“He became a baron and prefect under the Empire.”

“And little Pierre?”

“He died a colonel of _gendarmerie_ at Versailles, in 1859.”

“The deuce he did!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE WORKS OF
ANATOLE FRANCE

It has long been a reproach to England that only one volume by ANATOLE FRANCE has been adequately rendered into English; yet outside this country he shares the distinction with TOLSTOI of being the greatest and most daring student of humanity now living.

¶ There have been many difficulties to encounter in completing arrangements for a uniform edition, though perhaps the chief barrier to publication here has been the fact that his writings are not for babes—but for men and the mothers of men. Indeed, some of his Eastern romances are written with biblical candour. “I have sought truth strenuously,” he tells us, “I have met her boldly. I have never turned from her even when she wore an unexpected aspect.” Still, it is believed that the day has come for giving English versions of all his imaginative works, and of his monumental study JOAN OF ARC, which is undoubtedly the most discussed book in the world of letters to-day.

¶ MR. JOHN LANE has pleasure in announcing that he will commence publication of works by M. Anatole France in English, which will be under the general editorship of Mr. FREDERIC CHAPMAN, with the following volumes:

1. THE RED LILY. A Translation by Winifred Stephens.
2. MOTHER OF PEARL. A Translation by the Editor.
3. THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS. A Translation by Alfred Allinson.
4. THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD. A Translation by Lafcadio
Hearn.

¶ During the autumn and next year will appear the remaining volumes, including JOAN OF ARC. All the books will be published at SIX SHILLINGS each, with the exception of JOAN OF ARC.

¶ The format of the volumes leaves little to be desired. The size is Demy 8vo (9 × 5¾ in.), and they will be printed from Caslon type upon a paper light of weight but strong in texture, with a cover design, a gilt top, end-papers from designs by Aubrey Beardsley, initials by Henry Ospovat. In short, these are volumes for the bibliophile as well as the lover of fiction, and form perhaps the cheapest library edition of copyright novels ever published, for the price is only that of an ordinary novel.

¶ The translation of these books has been entrusted to such competent French scholars as MR. ALFRED ALLINSON, HON. MAURICE BARING, MR. FREDERIC CHAPMAN, MR. ROBERT B. DOUGLAS, MR. A. W. EVANS, MRS. FARLEY, LAFCADIO HEARN, MRS. JOHN LANE, MRS. NEWMARCH, MR. C. E. ROCHE, MISS WINIFRED STEPHENS, and MISS M. P. WILLCOCKS.

¶ As Anatole Thibault, _dit_ Anatole France, is to most English readers merely a name, it will be well to state that he was born in 1844 in the picturesque and inspiring surroundings of an old bookshop on the Quai Voltaire, Paris, kept by his father, Monsieur Thibault, an authority on 18th-century history, from whom the boy caught the passion for the principles of the Revolution, while from his mother he was learning to love the ascetic ideals chronicled in the Lives of the Saints. He was schooled with the lovers of old books, missals, and manuscripts; he matriculated on the Quais with the old Jewish dealers of curios and _objets d’art_; he graduated in the great university of life and experience. It will be recognised that all his work is permeated by his youthful impressions; he is, in fact, a virtuoso at large.

¶ He has written about thirty volumes of fiction. His first novel was JOCASTA and THE FAMISHED CAT (1879). THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD appeared in 1881, and had the distinction of being crowned by the French Academy, into which he was received in 1896.

¶ His work is illuminated with style, scholarship, and psychology; but its outstanding features are the lambent wit, the gay mockery, the genial irony with which he touches every subject he treats. But the wit is never malicious, the mockery never derisive, the irony never barbed. To quote from his own GARDEN OF EPICURUS, “Irony and Pity are both of good counsel; the first with her smiles makes life agreeable; the other sanctifies it to us with her tears. The Irony I invoke is no cruel deity. She mocks neither love nor beauty. She is gentle and kindly disposed. Her mirth disarms anger, and it is she teaches us to laugh at rogues and fools whom but for her we might be so weak as to hate.”

¶ Often he shows how divine humanity triumphs over mere asceticism, and with entire reverence; indeed, he might be described as an ascetic overflowing with humanity, just as he has been termed a “pagan, but a pagan constantly haunted by the preoccupation of Christ.” He is in turn—like his own Choulette in THE RED LILY—saintly and Rabelaisian, yet without incongruity. At all times he is the unrelenting foe of superstition and hypocrisy. Of himself he once modestly said: “You will find in my writings perfect sincerity (lying demands a talent I do not possess), much indulgence, and some natural affection for the beautiful and good.”

¶ The mere extent of an author’s popularity is perhaps a poor argument, yet it is significant that two books by this author are in their HUNDRED AND TENTH THOUSAND, and numbers of them well into their SEVENTIETH THOUSAND, whilst the one which a Frenchman recently described as “Monsieur France’s most arid book” is in its FIFTY-EIGHTH THOUSAND.

¶ Inasmuch as M. France’s only contribution to an English periodical appeared in “The Yellow Book,” Vol. V, April 1895, together with the first important English appreciation of his work from the pen of the Hon. Maurice Baring, it is peculiarly appropriate that the English edition of his works should be issued from the Bodley Head.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

FRENCH NOVELISTS
: : OF TODAY : :
BY WINIFRED STEPHENS

WITH A PORTRAIT FRONTISPIECE
Cr. 8vo, PRICE FIVE SHILLINGS, NET.

“No book of the spring season will receive a heartier welcome than Miss Winifred Stephens' ‘French Novelists of To-day.’ It provides what thousands of educated readers have long been asking for in vain—a guide to the writings of the great living masters of French fiction. It is evident that Miss Stephens has gathered much of her material in France, and that she has been in contact with the personal as well as the artistic life of the authors described. The biographical passages in each chapter add much to our knowledge, and are obviously compiled from first-hand information. Miss Stephens shows critical powers of a high order. Her accounts of the chief novels are pleasant reading for those already acquainted with the books, while for the beginner they afford a clear, judicious, comprehensive guide.... We cannot praise too highly this sparkling and graceful book, which should have a place in the library of every student of French literature. Its practical value is enhanced by the full and careful bibliographies.”—_British Weekly._

“These light chapters will be serviceable in helping the English reader to realise the personality and work of the writers they deal with.”—_Times._

“The book may be welcomed as a further sign of the progress of France and England towards mutual comprehension. Thanks to its useful bibliographies, it will serve as an excellent guide to all those who are anxious to make themselves acquainted with what is best in modern French fiction.... The criticism of this book is good, and gains much by its connection with a concise biography of the author discussed.... The book may be recommended to all English readers of French fiction.”—_Daily News._

“A felicitous and graceful little volume, presenting very adequately the eight French novelists of to-day who are read, criticised, and sold ... should be read along with recent essays on French writers by Mr. Edmund Gosse.”

_Daily Chronicle._

“... These essays form a useful introduction to modern French fiction. They are, for the most part, well judged and tersely written.”

_Evening Standard._

“As a guide to modern French fiction and its authors, this book is useful, especially in its bibliographies.”—_Daily Mail._

“... Miss Winifred Stephens puts her hand to a most welcome and timely undertaking in this book, which will supply English readers with an intelligent introduction to the study of leading French novelists. What she says about the writers she selects is excellent.”—_Daily Graphic._

“Miss Stephens' primary object was to indicate what contemporary French novels are likely to interest English readers, and on the whole she has succeeded: her book will serve a very useful purpose.”

_Manchester Guardian._

JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD, LONDON AND NEW YORK.

THE WORKS OF
ANATOLE FRANCE

IN AN ENGLISH
TRANSLATION EDITED
BY FREDERIC CHAPMAN