Chapter SIXTEEN: Gallia Victrix

Lastly, two friends of ours in Paris.

This is an unsatisfactory world, and our destinies are not always controlled as we could wish. But occasionally—just once or twice, maybe, in a lifetime—something happens (or is arranged for us) which so utterly transcends our own dreams and deserts as to restore our faith in an All-Wise and All-Benevolent Providence once and for all.

Frances Lane had been transferred to a military hospital in Paris. Here she discharged, cheerfully and efficiently, those minor and unheroic duties which the professional healer is accustomed to depute to the amateur.

One morning, during the last week in October, she was called upon in the ordinary course of business to sit by the bedside of a young officer who had just been wheeled from the operating-room, until such time as he should “come out of the ether.” And the young officer was Boone Cruttenden. Hence the foregoing appreciative reference to the workings of Providence.

Boone duly emerged from one form of oblivion to enter upon another, hardly less complete. In the first, he had been oblivious to everything. In the second, he was oblivious to everything and everybody save Frances. The malady proved catching, and both patients imagined, as usual, that their symptoms were undetected by the outside world. So the War had to take care of itself for a while.

* * * * *

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year nineteen-eighteen these twain found themselves wandering side by side—with Frances on the right, ferociously interposing her slim person between Boone’s strapped and bandaged arm and the rest of humanity—through the congested Boulevards; waiting, waiting, like every one else, for Something Official to be announced.

During the previous day _tout Paris_, in Sabbath attire, had roamed restlessly, silently, expectantly, about the streets. Night had fallen, and the throng had not abated. The great city was as murky as ever. Peace might be hovering in the air, but War precautions still prevailed on earth. Small, ghostly, electric lights, encased in dark-blue glass, still indicated rather than illuminated the wayfarer’s path. At intervals a discreet, faintly luminous sign, bearing the legend _Abri_, proffered a refuge from the terror that flies by night. Through this gross darkness, silently, furtively, the great concourse drifted and groped. Only over La Place de la Concorde, like the promise of victorious Dawn, the sky was bright with the lights newly unveiled to illuminate the great array of trophies—German guns, German aeroplanes, festoons of German helmets—set up for the advancement of the latest War Loan—“The Loan of the Last Quarter of an Hour,” as the posters happily described it.

On Monday morning the crowd was still there. It had contrived to slip home and put on its working-clothes, but that was all. The shops were open, but no one appeared to be buying anything. There was little sound. Occasionally the most unlikely-looking persons were accosted and asked, “_On a signé?_” But it did not matter, as no one ever stayed for an answer. Paris was waiting.

Then in a moment, about the stroke of eleven, the electric discharge came. Cries arose from various parts of the city. The newspaper offices and information bureaux broke into simultaneous, preconcerted animation.

In the Boulevard des Italiens, Boone and Frances, standing amid a vast throng facing the office of _Le Matin_, suddenly became aware, between two intervals of whispered confidences, that the huge map of the Western Front which covered the outer wall of the building, upon whose surface, through months of alternate agony and triumph, the ebb and flow of battle had been recorded by an undulating array of tiny flags, was being obliterated by a series of great printed slips, set one above another. The first of these had already been put in position. It said:

L’ARMISTICE EST SIGNÉE!

There came a buzz of excitement from the crowd, but little noise. The second slip was going up:—

“_A-a-a-ah!_” Here was a new thought. “We have won—_won!_ We have beaten him—beaten the Boche! _Enfin!_” Men and women began to grip one another’s hands. The confused, uncertain buzzing rose higher, and the third slip went up:—

VIVE LA FRANCE!

That settled it. Next moment every hat was in the air. _This_ was what everybody had been waiting for. Every French man, woman, and child was shouting, or crying, or embracing his neighbour. France! France! France—safe, free, victorious! France!

The last strip was unrolled:—

VIVENT LES ALLIÉS!

This time it was a different demonstration. Mingled with it were the enthusiastic cheers of the Parisian—the glowing, grateful tribute of the principal sufferer to the friends from all over the globe who had stood by her so stoutly. But in the main it was a deep, full-throated, Anglo-Saxon roar. In that crowd stood scores of British and hundreds of American soldiers. Higher and higher rose the cheering. They were not blind cheers. They were cheers of realization. A job of work well and truly completed! No more trenches! No more mud! No more Hell! No more death! Victory! Peace! Home! Sweethearts and Wives!

It was at this point, for the first time, that Boone Cruttenden kissed Frances Lane.

Thereafter, a brief period of uncertainty; then Paris settled down to rejoice in earnest.

It is not easy to rejoice suddenly—after four and a half years of stoical endurance. Still, by noon, Paris had settled down into her stride. The _midinettes_ and _ouvrières_ had come out for their dinner-hour, and none manifested any intention of returning to their labours. In the balconies outside the great millinery shops of the Rue de la Paix lovely creatures in kimonos, of the _mannequin_ tribe, forgetful of the whole duty of a _mannequin_, which is to languish and glide, were hanging far out over the seething street, waving, weeping, and screaming like common persons.

The city had broken out into flags. Every window sported one. Every person carried one. None of your miniature, buttonhole affairs; but a good, flapping tricolour, or Union Jack, or Stars and Stripes, three feet square, carried over the shoulder on a pole six feet long.

Every one felt it incumbent upon him to show some slight civility to his neighbour. Soldiers saluted civilians; civilians embraced soldiers. Young military gentlemen kissed young ladies of the dressmaking persuasion. Exuberant daughters of Gaul joined hands and danced in a ring round embarrassed Anglo-Saxon officers, or tweaked the tails of the Glengarry bonnets of passing “Jocks.” At each _porte-cochère_ snuffy concierges were phlegmatically tearing down the printed signs tacked upon the outer doors—_Abri, 25 places_—with an almost genial, “_Et voilà!_” A spirit of brotherly love prevailed: Boone and Frances saw a Paris taxi-driver distinctly slow down to avoid running over two young ladies whose cavaliers were playfully endeavouring to push them under his front wheels.

Presently an aged man in a blue blouse and a species of yachting-cap accosted them.

“_Américain?_” he demanded.

“_Oui_,” admitted Boone cautiously. He had already stalled off more than one would-be kisser.

“_Blessé!_” added Frances proudly.

The old gentleman shook hands with both of them, several times. Tears were running down his cheeks.

“_Et maintenant_,” he told them, “_mon fils reviendra!_”

And he hobbled off, to spread the great news elsewhere.

* * * * *

By the afternoon Paris had resolved itself into processions, mainly of soldiers and girls intertwined. Nearly everybody was singing. The French sang the _Marseillaise_, or _Madelon_. The English-speaking races devoted their energy, which was considerable, to a ditty with the mysterious refrain—

_Would you rather be a Colonel, with an eagle on your shoulder,_
_Or a private, with a chicken on your knee?_

Ordinary vehicular traffic had almost entirely removed itself from the streets—probably from the instinct of self-preservation; for the few taxis which still survived carried never less than fifteen passengers, mostly on the roof. But huge military motor-trucks were ubiquitous. They were mainly British and American, but they bore a cargo completely representative of the Franco-Italo-Anglo-American _entente_, from the impromptu jazz-band of some thirty artistes perched upon the canvas roof, to the quartette of Australian soldiers and their lady friends sitting astride the radiator, bob-sleigh fashion, and wearing one another’s hats. It is needless to add that small French boys adhered like flies to all the less accessible parts of the vehicle.

As evening approached, and the electric arc-lamps awoke sizzling and sputtering from their enforced sleep of many gloomy months, one question began to exercise the collective faculties of the celebrants:—

“Where shall we go to-night?”

In most cases the answer was simple enough. At moments of intense mental exaltation the Anglo-Saxon in Paris turns to the Folies Bergères as simply and spontaneously as your true Moslem turns towards Mecca at the call of the muezzin. But Boone and Frances cared for none of these things.

“Listen, dear,” said Boone. “Let’s go to some place that’s _quiet_, where we can get by ourselves!”

“That will be too lovely,” agreed the other optimist, as she struggled panting through the press. “But _where_, darling?”

“Well, anyway, some place where we won’t meet any one we know,” said Boone, with the first instinct of the newly affianced; and Frances concurred.

After dinner, at a restaurant whose proprietor had exuberantly decided to celebrate the cessation of hostilities by trebling prices all round—a dinner at which purely private and domestic plans were raptly discussed amid an atmosphere of riotous publicity—they went to a _revue_.

It was not the usual French war-time _revue_ for Anglo-Saxon consumption—with syncopated melodies and Cockney chorus-girls, imperfectly disguised as Parisiennes. It was a _revue intime_, intended for Paris alone, and was full of delicate fancies, and esoteric jokes, and mysterious topical allusions. Boone and Frances understood possibly one third of the dialogue and one in a hundred of the allusions. But they enjoyed the _revue_ exceedingly. In their present frame of mind they would have enjoyed a Greenwich Village mystery-play, or _Hamlet_ without cuts.

The audience was almost exclusively Parisian—officers in uniform; fair women wearing their jewels for the first time in months; stout, bald, bearded citizens of the bourgeoisie; here and there a British uniform. But so far as our own particular pair of truants could see, they were the only Americans present.

From the boulevard outside came the muffled tramp of feet; shouts of triumph; coy feminine shrieks; the honking of motor-horns; the clink of cow-bells—all suggestive of New Year’s Eve on Broadway. But inside the theatre the _revue_ flowed smoothly on. No one on the stage made any allusion to the matter which was bursting all hearts. Not that there was no tension, both on the stage and in the auditorium. In theatre-land it is an understood thing that upon occasions of public rejoicing the actors and the play take second place, while the audience, for one night only, steps into the spot-light and plays “lead.” For instance, at this moment, not many blocks away, upon the stage of the Folies Bergères a self-appointed band of khaki-clad enthusiasts were assisting a hysterical _corps de ballet_ in the execution of its duty.

But the _revue intime_ pursued its intimate course. The piece was too delicately planned and executed to admit of unauthorized “gags” or inartistic interpolations. The audience, being Parisian, realized this, and waited. A time would come. Meanwhile, they leaned back in their seats, fanned themselves, and laughed at the jokes. But the fans moved very rapidly, and the laughs sounded rather breathless—rather like sobs.

Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, at the end of the second act, came the cracking-point.

The scene was laid in a restaurant. (Not that that mattered; a sewing-circle would have served equally well.) The glittering little company were already gathered upon the stage for the _finale_. They were headed by the leading lady—young, blonde, lovely; a shimmering vision in silver—prepared to burst into song. The orchestra gave her a preliminary chord; she opened her carmine lips. And then, to her entered from the wings, apparently without cue or authorization, the principal comedian, in the rôle of the head waiter of the restaurant—preposterous weeping whiskers and all.

He walked to the footlights, turned to the audience, and announced, quite simply:—

“_L’Armistice est signée!_”

The thing came with such consummate unexpectedness—the thing they had been expecting all evening—that for a moment no one stirred. Then, with a rush, the audience were on their feet; so were the orchestra. One long-drawn, triumphant electrifying chord sprang—apparently of its own volition—from their instruments, and a tremor ran through the theatre. The girl in silver stepped forward, and broke into the _Marseillaise_, with tears raining down her face.…

“Name of a name of a name!” An old French colonel, standing beside Boone, was muttering brokenly to himself. Boone could see his fingernails whiten as he grasped the back of the seat in front of him. Boone contented himself with Frances’s hand, and together they gazed up at the singer. There she stood—slender, radiant, beautiful, with not too much on, shedding abundant, genuine tears over an artificial complexion. She _was_ Paris—Paris personified—Paris unclothed and in her right mind—Paris come to her own again.

The curtain fell—rose—fell—rose—while the storm of cheers raged. About the tenth time it rose again, to stay. The girl had both her hands pressed to her face, and her body was shaking. But another chord from the orchestra—the same chord—steadied her. She dropped her hands by her sides, uplifted her limpid voice, and sang the _Marseillaise_ once more.

But this time her _entourage_ had increased. Upon the outskirts of the stage—sidling in from the wings, peeping round the proscenium, mingling bodily with the glittering, shimmering company—there appeared another throng. Scene-shifters; dressers; lusty firemen; brown-faced _poilus_; gendarmes; mysterious individuals in decayed dress-suits; little boys and girls, indicative of the fact that even _revue_ artists contract domestic ties—they all edged on, and sang the _Marseillaise_ too. If the girl in the centre was Paris, this shining, grimy, patient, cheerful, wistful, triumphant throng around her was France. France—with the black shadow of forty years rolled away from her horizon! France—the much-enduring, the all-surviving, the indomitable; with her beloved capital inviolate still, and her lost provinces coming back to her! _Gallia Victrix._ No wonder they sang. _La Guerre est gagnée_—at last!

There let us leave them all—on the crest of the wave. _La Guerre est gagnée._ God send that we tackle _La Paix_ as successfully!

THE END

The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A