Part 9 (1/2)

The top apartment was occupied by a government functionary and his family. As captain in the infantry he has been at the front since the very beginning. His wife's family are from Lille, and like most pre-nuptial arrangements when the father is in business, the daughter received but the income of her dowry, which joined to her husband's salary permitted a cheerful, pleasant home, and the prospect of an excellent education for the children.

The salary ceased with the Captain's departure to the front; the wife's income stopped when the Germans entered Lille a few weeks later. They now have but his officer's pay, approximately eighty dollars per month, as entire financial resource. Add to this the death of a mother and four splendid brothers, the constant menace of becoming a widow, and I feel certain that the case will give food for reflection.

All these unfortunate women know each other; have guessed their mutual misfortunes, though, of course, they never mention them. Gathered about a single open fire-place whose welcome blaze is the result of their united economy, they patiently ply their needles at whatever handiwork they are most deft, beading bags, making filet and mesh laces, needle-work tapestry and the like, utilising every spare moment, in the hope of adding another slice of bread to the already too frugal meals.

But orders are rare, and openings for such work almost nil. To obtain a market would demand business training which has not been part of their tradition, which while it tempts, both intimidates and revolts them. Certain desperate ones would branch out in spite of all--but they do not know how, dare not seem so bold.

And so Winter will come anew--Winter with bread and sugar rations at a maximum; Winter with meat prices soaring far above their humble pocket books.

Soup and vegetable stews quickly become the main article of diet. Each succeeding year the little mothers have grown paler, and more frail.

The children have lost their fat, rosy cheeks. But let even a local success crown our arms, let the _communique_ bring a little bit of real news, tell of fresh laurels won, let even the faintest ray of hope for the great final triumph pierce this veil of anxiety--and every heart beat quickens, the smiles burst forth; lips tremble with emotion.

These people know the price, and the privilege of being French, the glory of belonging to that holy nation.

V

When after a lengthy search our friends finally discover our Parisian residence, one of the first questions they put is, ”Why on earth is your street so narrow?”

The reason is very simple. Merely because la rue Geoffrey L'Asnier was built before carriages were invented, the man who gave it its name having doubtless dwelt there during the fourteenth or fifteenth century, as one could easily infer after inspecting the choir of our parish church. But last Good Friday, the Germans in trying out their super-cannon, bombarded St. Gervais. The roof caved in, killing and wounding many innocent persons, and completely destroying that choir.

Elsewhere a panic might have ensued, but residents of our quarter are not so easily disturbed. The older persons distinctly recall the burning of the Hotel de Ville and the Archbishop's Palace in 1870. And did they not witness the battles in the streets, all the horrors of the Commune, after having experienced the agonies and privations of the Siege? I have no doubt that among them there are persons who were actually reduced to eating rats, and I feel quite certain that many a man used his gun to advantage from between the shutters of his own front window.

Their fathers had seen the barricades of 1848 and 1830, their grandfathers before them the Reign of Terror--and so on one might continue as far back as the Norman invasion.

The little cafe on the rue du Pont Louis-Philippe serves as meeting place for all the prophets and strategists of the quarter, who have no words sufficient to express their disdain for the Kaiser's heavy artillery.

”It's all bluff, they think they can frighten us! Why, I, Madame, I who am speaking to you--I saw the Hotel de Ville, the Theatre des Nations, the grain elevators, all in flames and all at once, the whole city seemed to be ablaze. Well, do you think that prevented the Parisians from fis.h.i.+ng in the Seine, or made this cafe shut its doors?

There was a barricade at either end of this street--the blinds were up and you could hear the bullets patter against them. The insurgents, all covered with powder, would sneak over and get a drink--and when finally their barricade was taken, it was the Republican soldiers who sat in our chairs and drank beer and lemonade! _Their_ guns, humph!

Let them bark!”

It is at this selfsame cafe that gather all the important men of our district, much as the American would go to his club. They are serious _bourgeois_, well along in the fifties, just a trifle ridiculous, perhaps on account of their allure and their attire. But should one grow to know them better he would soon realise that most of them are shrewd, hard-working business men, each burdened with an anxiety or a sorrow which he never mentions.

They too love strategy. Armies represented by match safes, dominoes and toothpicks have become an obsession--their weakness. They are thorough Frenchmen and their critical sense must be unbridled. They love their ideas and their systems. They would doubtless not hesitate to advise Foch. Personally, if I were Foch, I should turn a deaf ear.

But if I were a timid, vacillating, pessimistic spirit, still in doubt as to the final outcome, I should most certainly seat myself at a neighbouring table and listen to their conversation that I might come away imbued with a little of their patience, abnegation, and absolute confidence.

Nor does the feminine opinion deviate from this course. I found the same ideas prevalent in the store of a little woman who sold umbrellas.

Before the war Madame Coutant had a very flouris.h.i.+ng trade, but now her sales are few and far between, while her chief occupation is repairing.

She is a widow without children, and no immediate relative in the war.

Because of this, at the beginning she was looked down upon and her situation annoyed and embarra.s.sed her greatly. But by dint of search, a most voluminous correspondence, and perhaps a little bit of intrigue, she finally managed to unearth two very distant cousins, peasant boys from the Cevennes, whom she frankly admitted never having seen, but to whom she regularly sent packages and post cards; about whom she was at liberty to speak without blus.h.i.+ng, since one of them had recently been cited for bravery and decorated with the _Croix de Guerre_.

This good woman devotes all the leisure and energy her trade leaves her, to current events. Of course, there is the official _communique_ which may well be considered as the national health bulletin; but besides that, there is still another, quite as indispensable and fully as interesting, made up of the criticism of local happenings, and popular presumption.

This second _communique_ comes to us direct from Madame Coutant's, where a triumvirate composed of the scissors-grinder, the woman-who-rents-chairs-in-St.-Gervais, the sacristan's wife, the concierge of the Girls' School, and the widow of an office boy in the City Hall, get their heads together and dispense the news.

The concierges and cooks while out marketing, pick it up and start it on its rounds.

”We are progressing North of the Marne”; ”Two million Americans have landed in France,” and similar statements shall be accepted only when elucidated, enlarged and embellished by Madame Coutant's group. Each morning brings a fresh harvest of happenings, but each event is certified or contradicted by a statement from some one who is ”Out there,” and sees and knows.