Chapter X: The Cherche MIDI

In the automobile which brought us back to Paris, we were guarded by a phenomenon of nature--a taciturn French soldier. His rifle dangled handily across his knee; he gazed at the passing scenery and was dumb to all questions. He was even downright mean; for when a tire blew up, causing half an hour's delay, he would not allow us to stretch our cramped legs in the road.

He would not even let us talk English among ourselves. Once when some one was relating a tale of German atrocity he had heard, our guard scowled blackly at us, lifting his rifle from his knee; and I whispered hastily: "Quiet, or we may become atrocities ourselves!"

We halted before the headquarters of the Military Governor in the Boulevard des Invalides; before the war it had been a school for girls. Although it was late in the evening when we arrived the sidewalk was crowded, as usual, with civilians. The chauffeur waited while the gates into the courtyard were opened. The crowd caught sight of the armed escort and as we moved forward we caught murmurs of "prisoners of war" and "spies."

We smiled at that--for in a few moments, thought we, this foolishness would all be over, we would be free again. Our "detention" by the jolly Colonel was already a memory, listed in among our "interesting experiences." Speaking in French to pacify our guard, we blithely planned a belated dinner at a boulevard restaurant. We were ravenous; we decided upon its menu from hors-d'œuvres to cheese and were settling the question of wine when some one said:

"We seem to be waiting here a long time. Do you suppose they'd keep us prisoners until morning?"

Our soldier, who by this time had evidently become a little tired of his silence, told us curtly that the Captain in charge of the party, who had preceded us in another car, was conferring as to our fate with officials inside. We were so surprised at this gratuitous information that we offered one of our few remaining cigarettes, which was promptly accepted.

The Captain finally ran down the steps of the building. The other prisoners, who rode in the car with him, had been given some liberty, and were walking about the courtyard. He called to them and said something which seemed to throw them into fits of rage and dismay.

Then he came to our car, and we knew at once that our dinner, like the Kaiser's, was indefinitely postponed. The Captain did not speak to us at all. He merely ordered the chauffeur to follow the car ahead, then retraced his steps. All the other prisoners but one had reseated themselves.

This one, the amateur journalist who had at one time been an officer in the American militia and was also the relative of a rich man, was standing beside the car. The Captain curtly motioned him to enter; he shook his head vigorously. We could not hear all of the conversation that followed, but it was brief. Finally the Captain raised his voice: "So you will not get into the automobile?" "No," replied the American. "I am an ex-army officer and decline to be treated in such fashion." He also mentioned his influential relative.

I admit that at the moment my sympathies were somewhat with my fellow countryman; but even then I could not help feeling how utterly futile was his objection, on whatever ground it was based. Throughout our entire period of arrest, we--the two friends with whom I had left Paris and myself--had followed but one rule. Inasmuch as we had suddenly found ourselves in a situation where the chief argument was a rifle and cartridge, we always did exactly as we were ordered. To rebel against soldiers and officers who were only following the orders of their superiors seemed mere folly. The fate of the ex-militia man who declined to enter the automobile proved this point.

The Captain apparently had never heard of his wealthy relative, for he silently signaled to a soldier standing on the steps. The soldier placed the point of his bayonet gently against the stomach of the prisoner, who forthwith backed up the steps of the car and fell across the knees of his companions, who had been cursing him audibly for "playing the fool." The Captain seated himself beside his chauffeur and both cars started out into the night.

We traversed many streets, but I kept peering out of my window and knew our general direction. In a few minutes we drew up in a side street leading from the Boulevard Raspail, before a grimy old building. A soldier with a rifle at salute stood beside its heavy doors. I knew that building. I had passed it every day during many months, for it was just a few blocks from my house and on the direct route to my office. I had glanced at it curiously as I passed. I had read its history. I wondered if it were as bad on the inside as some of the history depicted.

The doors opened, and I confess I shuddered as we slipped softly into the thick blackness of the courtyard. There was not a sound for a moment, after the chauffeurs cut off the engines. Then a door to the right opened, throwing out a shaft of light. The Captain descended from the car ahead. At the same moment the doors closed with a depressing crash of iron. In that moment my sensations were of an entirely original character.

We all got out of the cars, the prisoners ahead joining us, and stood together in an angry group.

"Where are we?" asked some one.

"Don't you know?" the ex-militia man snarled. "They've landed us at Saint Lazare!"

"Saint Lazare!" cried several in unison.

One of my friends snorted. "Don't be silly. St. Lazare is the prison for women, not war correspondents."

I roused from my gloomy meditations to break into the conversation.

"I'll tell you where we are if you really care to know," I said. "We're in the Cherche Midi--the foremost military prison of France. This is the place where Dreyfus awaited his trial. This is the place of the historic rats, etc."

I ceased abruptly. Here I was, a bare ten minutes' walk from my home--and I might as well have been a thousand miles. The clang of those doors had shut off all the world. How long did they expect to keep us there? A night? A week? A month? Perhaps until the war was over? What could we do about it? Nothing. Those doors shut off all hope. We could get no word to any one if our captors did not desire it. We would remain there exactly as long as they wished. No matter what we thought about it--no matter how innocent we were of military misdemeanor. We were prisoners of war in the Cherche Midi--and I understood the Dreyfus case better.

Just before we filed into the examination room whence came the shaft of light, the sage of our party, who had suggested back in the courtyard that we be good prisoners until the right moment arrived, tapped me on the shoulder and spoke in my ear:

"Now's the time," he said. "We must kick now or never. I will begin the rumpus and you follow--and kick hard."

They lined us up in the tiny office where a lieutenant duly inscribed our names and nefarious profession in the great register. He slammed the book shut, and began directions to an orderly about conducting us to our cells--when the sage spoke.

"What about dinner?" he began.

"Too late," said the officer. "It's midnight."

"Not too late to be hungry," was the reply. "We have had nothing to eat since noon. Do you want it printed that prisoners are starved in the Cherche Midi?"

The officer reflected. He then consulted with several orderlies and finally stated that there was no available food in the prison, but that he would permit us, at our expense, to have dinner served from a hotel near-by. We agreed to this and the orderlies departed.

This arranged two things which we desired: food--for we were really famished--and time to plan our campaign for liberty before being separated into cells. While the orderlies were gone we made an argumentative onslaught on the Lieutenant in his little cubby-hole office, separated by a low partition from the big gloomy hall where we were told to await our dinner.

We told him in detail who we were, how we happened to be there, all the time insisting on the injustice of our treatment. He replied that although he could not discuss the merits of our case, it might interest us to know that his orders were to keep us for eight days in solitary confinement, not allowing us to even talk with each other, after that dinner which the orderlies were now spreading on a big table.

Eight days!--and we had already been there a year--or so it seemed. Eight days! Why it was an eternity. And we would not stand it. The fight in all of us was finally aroused. They could drag us to cells and keep us; yes, but dragging would be necessary. We assured him of that.

And then the eagle began to scream. I have often wished when traveling in Europe that so many American tourists would not so constantly keep America and Americanism in the foreground of everything they thought and said and did--but on that night in the Cherche Midi I was as blatant and noisy and proud an American as ever there was. We waved the Stars and Stripes and shouted the Declaration of Independence at the now bewildered officer until he begged us to desist. Earlier in our conversation we had discussed the mighty effects of journalism and how it visited its pleasures and its displeasures. Now we quoted the Constitution of the United States and produced our passports. We demanded an immediate audience with the American Ambassador.

Our dinner was waiting, and the officer declared finally that if we would only eat it he would see what he could do for us, to the extent of telephoning to the Military Governor. We could hear his part of the telephone conversation as we attacked our food. We never learned with whom he was talking, but he made it strong. He never had such persons as ourselves inside his prison and he would be devoutly thankful to be rid of us. And besides--this was whispered but we caught the drift of it--they were Americans, these prisoners, and perhaps it might be just as well to send some word about them to the American Embassy.

There was more that we could not hear, but finally he informed us that an officer was coming from headquarters to talk with us; that we were to wait where we were.

I do not know what influence, aside from the telephone conversation, intervened in our behalf that night. But I am sure that conversation had little to do with it beyond perhaps securing an immediate rather than deferred action. Perhaps it was an accident, perhaps a change of opinion at the Military Governor's headquarters as to the sentence that had been passed upon us. At any rate, at the moment we were paying for our dinner and demanding a receipt dated from inside the prison walls (every one of us kept an eye open to newspaper copy in demanding the receipt in such fashion) the door was flung open and a high Government official whom most of us knew personally, entered the room.

His first act was to fling the money from the hands of the hotel servant back upon the table--snatch the receipts, and tear them in pieces.

"Gentlemen, the dinners are on me," was his greeting.

A few hours later the military attaché of the American Embassy who had been roused from his bed, explained that Mr. Herrick would undertake the personal responsibility for our parole. The gates of the Cherche Midi opened. The heavy arm of military authority had lightened; but the free road to the battle front was still closed.