And as for Joan of Arc, there where she sat her horse, gazing, clothed all in white armor, dreamy, beautiful, and in her face a deep, deep joy, a joy not of earth; oh, she was not flesh, she was spiritual! Her sublime mission was closing—closing in flawless triumph. To-morrow she could say, "It is finished—let me go free."
And as for Joan of Arc, there where she sat her horse, gazing, clothed all in white armor, dreamy, beautiful, and in her face a deep, deep joy, a joy not of earth; oh, she was not flesh, she was spiritual! Her sublime mission was closing—closing in flawless triumph. To-morrow she could say, "It is finished—let me go free."
It was the 16th of July that Joan looked down upon Rheims, and now, four hundred and eighty-five years later, it was again July, with the same summer glory on the woods, the same green and scarlet in the poppied fields, the same fair valley, the same stately towers rising to the sky. But no one can ever feel what Joan felt, can ever put into words, ever so faintly, what that moment and that vision meant to the Domremy shepherd girl.
Descending the plain, we entered the city, crossed a bridge, and made our way to the cathedral square. Then presently we were at the doorway where Joan and her king had entered—the portal which has been called the most beautiful this side of Paradise.
How little we dreamed that we were among the last to look upon it in its glory—that disfigurement and destruction lay only a few weeks ahead!
It is not required any more that one should write descriptively of the church of Rheims. It has been done so thoroughly, and so often, by those so highly qualified for the undertaking, that such supplementary remarks as I might offer would hardly rise even to the dignity of an impertinence. Pergussen, who must have been an authority, for the guidebook quotes him, called it, "perhaps the most beautiful structure produced in the Middle Ages."
Nothing [he says] can exceed the majesty of its deeply recessed portals, the beauty of the rose window that surmounts them, or the elegance of the gallery that completes the façade and serves as a basement to the light and graceful towers that crown the composition.
Nothing [he says] can exceed the majesty of its deeply recessed portals, the beauty of the rose window that surmounts them, or the elegance of the gallery that completes the façade and serves as a basement to the light and graceful towers that crown the composition.
The cathedral was already two hundred years old when Joan arrived in 1429. But it must have looked quite fresh and new then, for, nearly five centuries later, it seemed to have suffered little. Some of the five hundred and thirty statues of its entrance were weatherworn and scarred, but the general effect was not disturbed.
Many kings had preceded Joan and her sovereign through the sacred entrance. Long before the cathedral was built French sovereigns had come to Rheims for their coronation, to be anointed with some drops of the inexhaustible oil which a white dove had miraculously brought from heaven for the baptism of Clovis. That had been nearly a thousandyears before, but in Joan's day the sacred vessel and its holy contents were still preserved in the ancient abbey of St. Remi, and would be used for the anointing of her king. The Archbishop of Rheims and his canons, with a deputy of nobles, had been sent for the awesome relic, after the nobles had sworn upon their lives to restore it to St. Remi when the coronation was over. The abbot himself, attended by this splendid escort, brought the precious vessel, and the crowd fell prostrate and prayed while this holiest of objects, for it had been made in heaven, passed by. We are told that the abbot, attended by the archbishop and those others, entered the crowded church, followed by the five mounted knights, who rode down the great central aisle, clear to the choir, and then at a signal backed their prancing steeds all the distance to the great doors.
It was a mighty assemblage that had gathered for the crowning of Joan's king. France, overrun by an invader, had known no real king for years—had, indeed, well-nigh surrendered her nationality. Now the saints themselves had taken up their cause, and in the person of a young girl from an obscure village had given victory to their arms and brought redemption to their throne. No wonder the vast church was packed and that crowds were massed outside. From all directions had come pilgrims to the great event—persons of every rank, among them two shepherds, Joan's aged father and uncle, who had walked from Domremy, one hundred and twenty miles, to verify with their own eyes what their ears could not credit.
Very likely the cathedral at Rheims has never known such a throng since that day, nor heard such a mighty shout as went up when Joan and the king, side by side, and followed by a splendid train, appeared at the great side entrance and moved slowly to the altar.
I think there must have fallen a deep hush then—a petrified stillness that lasted through the long ceremonial, while every eye feasted itself upon the young girl standing there at the king's side, holding her victorious standard above him—the banner that "had borne the burden and had earned the victory," as she would one day testify at her trial. I am sure that vast throng would keep silence, scarcely breathing, until the final word was spoken and the dauphin had accepted the crown and placed it upon his head. But then we may hear borne faintly down the centuries the roar of renewed shouting that told to those waiting without that the great ceremony was ended, that Charles VII of France had been anointed king. In theRecollectionsMark Twain makes the Sieur de Conte say:
What a crash there was! All about us cries and cheers, and the chanting of the choir and the groaning of the organ; and outside the clamoring of the bells and the booming of the cannon.The fantastic dream, the incredible dream, the impossible dream of the peasant child stood fulfilled.
What a crash there was! All about us cries and cheers, and the chanting of the choir and the groaning of the organ; and outside the clamoring of the bells and the booming of the cannon.
The fantastic dream, the incredible dream, the impossible dream of the peasant child stood fulfilled.
It had become reality—perhaps in that old day it evenseemedreality—but now, after five hundred years, it has become once more a dream—to-dayourdream—and in the filmy picture we see theshepherd girl on her knees, saying to the crowned king:
"My work which was given me to do is finished; give me your peace and let me go back to my mother, who is poor and old and has need of me."
But the king raises her up and praises her and confers upon her nobility and titles, and asks her to name a reward for her service, and in the old dream we hear her ask favor for her village—that Domremy, "poor and hard pressed by reason of the war," may have its taxes remitted.
Nothing for herself—no more than that, and in the presence of all the great assemblage Charles VII pronounces the decree that, by grace of Joan of Arc, Domremy shall be free from taxes forever.
Here within these walls it was all reality five hundred years ago. We do not study this interior to discover special art values or to distinguish in what manner it differs from others we have seen. For us the light from its great rose window and upper arches is glorified because once it fell upon Joan of Arc in that supreme moment when she saw her labor finished and asked only that she might return to Domremy and her flocks. The statuary in the niches are holy because they looked upon that scene, the altar paving is sanctified because it felt the pressure of her feet.
We wandered about the great place, but we came back again and again to the altar, and, looking through the railing, dreamed once more of that great moment when a frail shepherd girl began anew the history of France.
Back of the altar was a statue of Joan unlike any we have seen elsewhere, and to us more beautiful. It was not Joan with her banner aloft, her eyes upward. It was Joan with her eyes lowered, looking at no outward thing, her face passive—the saddest face and the saddest eyes in the world. It was Joan the sacrifice—of her people and her king.
It may have been two miles out of Rheims that we met the flood. There had been a heavy shower as we entered the city, but presently the sun broke out, bright and hot, too bright and too hot for permanence. Now suddenly all was black again, there was a roar of thunder, and then such an opening of the water gates of the sky as would have disturbed Noah. There was no thought of driving through such a torrent. I pulled over to the side of the road, but the tall high-trimmed trees afforded no protection. Our top was a shelter, but not a complete one—the wind drove the water in, and in a moment our umbrellas were sticking out in every direction, and we had huddled together like chickens. The water seemed to fall solidly. The world was blotted out. I had the feeling at moments that we were being swept down some great submarine current.
I don't know how long the inundation lasted. It may have been five minutes—it may have been thirty. Then suddenly it stopped—it was over—the sun was out!
There was then no mud in France—not in the high-roads—and a moment or two later we had revived, our engine was going, and we were gliding between fair fields—fresh shining fields where scarlet poppypatches were as pools of blood. There is no lovelier land than the Marne district, from Rheims to Chalons and to Vitry-le-François. It had often been a war district—a battle ground, fought over time and again since the ancient allies defeated Attila and his Huns there, checking the purpose of the "Scourge of God," as he styled himself, to found a new dynasty upon the wreck of Rome. It could never be a battle ground again, we thought—the great nations were too advanced for war. Ah me! Within two months from that day men were lying dead across that very road, shells were tearing at the lovely fields, and another stain had mingled with the trampled poppies.
Chalons-sur-Marne, like Rheims and Épernay, is a champagne center and prosperous. There were some churches there, but they did not seem of great importance. We stopped for water at Vitry-le-François, a hot, uninteresting-looking place, though it had played a part in much history, and would presently play a part in much more. It was always an outpost against vandal incursions from the north, and Francis I rebuilt and strengthened it.
At Vitry we left the Marne and kept the wide road eastward, for we were bound now for the Vosges, for Domremy on the Meuse, Joan's starting place. The sun burned again, the road got hot, and suddenly during the afternoon one of our tires went off like a gun.
One of our old shoes had blown out at the rim, and there was a doubtful look about the others. Narcissa and I labored in the hot sun—for there was no shade from those slim roadside poplars—andwith inside patches and outside patches managed to get in traveling order again, though personally we were pretty limp by the time we were ready to move, and a good deal disheartened. The prospect of reaching Vevey, our base of supplies, without laying up somewhere to order new tires was not bright, and it became even less so that evening, when in front of the hotel at St. Dizier another tire pushed out at the rim, and in the gathering dusk, surrounded by an audience, I had to make further repairs before I could get into the garage.
Early next morning I gave those tires all a pretty general overhauling. I put in blow-out patches wherever there seemed to be a weak place and doubled them at the broken spots. By the time I got done we were carrying in our tires all the extra rubber and leather and general aid-to-the-injured stuff that had formerly been under the back seat, and I was obliged to make a trip around to the supply garages for more. Fortunately the weather had changed overnight, and it was cool. Old tires and even new ones hold better on cool roads.
It turned still cooler as we proceeded—it became chilly—for the Fourth of July it was winterish. At Chalons we had expended three whole francs for a bottle of champagne for celebration purposes, and when we made our luncheon camp in a sheltered cover of a pretty meadow where there was a clear, racing brook, we were too cold to sit down, and drank standing a toast to our national independence, and would have liked more of that delicious liquid warmth, regardless of cost. There could hardly have beena more beautiful spot than that, but I do not remember any place where we were less inclined to linger.
Yet how quickly weather can change. Within an hour it was warm again—not hot, but mildly pleasant, even delightful.
We were well down in the Vosges now and beginning to inquire for Domremy. How strange it seemed to be actually making inquiries for a place that always before had been just a part of an old legend—a half-mythical story of a little girl who, tending her sheep, had heard the voices of angels. One had the feeling that there could never really be such a place at all, that, even had it once existed, it must have vanished long ago; that to ask the way to it now would be like those who in some old fairy tale come back after ages of enchantment and inquire for places and people long forgotten. Domremy! No, it was not possible. We should meet puzzled, blank looks, pitying smiles, in answer to our queries. We should never find one able to point a way and say, "That is the road to Domremy." One could as easily say "the road to Camelot."
Yet there came a time when we must ask. We had been passing through miles of wonderful forest, with regularly cut roads leading away at intervals, suggesting a vast preserved estate, when we came out to an open hill land, evidently a grazing country, with dividing roads and no definite markings. So we stopped a humble-looking old man and hesitatingly, rather falteringly, asked him the road toDomremy. He regarded us a moment, then said very gently, pointing, "It is down there just a little way."
So we were near—quite near—perhaps even now passing a spot where Joan had tended her sheep. Our informant turned to watch us pass. He knew why we were going to Domremy. He could have been a descendant of those who had played with Joan.
Even now it was hard to believe that Domremy would be just an old village, such a village as Joan had known, where humble folk led humble lives tending their flocks and small acres. Very likely it had become a tourist resort—a mere locality, with a hotel. It was only when we were actually in the streets of a decaying, time-beaten little hamlet and were told that this was indeed Domremy, the home of Joan of Arc, that we awoke to the actuality of the place and to the realization that in character at least it had not greatly changed.
We drove to the church—an ancient, weatherworn little edifice. The invaders destroyed it the same year that Joan set out on her march, but when Joan had given safety to France the fragments were gathered and rebuilt, so if it is not in its entirety the identical chapel where Joan worshiped, it contains, at least, portions of the original structure and stands upon the same ground. In front of the church is a bronze statue of the Maid, and above the entrance a painting of Joan listening to the voices. But these are modern. Inside are more precious things.
It is a plain, humble interior, rather too fresh andnew looking for its antiquity, perhaps because of the whitened walls. But near the altar there is an object that does not disappoint. It is an ancient baptismal font—the original font of the little ruined chapel—the vessel in which Joan of Arc was baptized. I think there can be no question of its authenticity. It would be a holy object to the people of Domremy; to them Joan was already a saint at the time of her death, and any object that had served her was sacred. The relic dug from the ruined chapel would be faithfully guarded, and there would be many still alive to identify it when the church's restoration was complete and the ancient vessel set in place.
It seems a marvelous thing to be able to look upon an object that may be regarded as the ceremonial starting point of a grace that was to redeem a nation. Surely, if ever angels stood by to observe the rites of men they gathered with those humble shepherd folk about the little basin where a tiny soul was being consecrated to their special service.
In the church also is the headstone from the grave of Joan's godmother, with an ancient inscription which one may study out, and travel back a long way. Near it is another object—one that ranks in honor with the baptismal font—the statuette of St. Marguerite, before which Joan prayed. Like the font this would be a holy thing, even in Joan's lifetime, and would be preserved and handed down. To me it seems almost too precious to remain in that ancient, perishing church. It is something that Joan of Arc not only saw and touched, but to which she gave spiritual adoration. To me it seems the most precious,the most sacred relic in France. The old church appears so poor a protection for it. Yet I should be sorry to see it taken elsewhere.
Birthplace of Joan of ArcBirthplace of Joan of Arc
Joan's house is only a step away—a remnant of a house, for, though it was not demolished like the church, it has suffered from alterations, and portions of it were destroyed. Whatever remained at the time of Louis XI would seem to have been preserved about as it was then, though of course restored; the royal arms of France, with those accorded by Charles VII to Joan and her family, were combined ornamentally above the door with the date, 1481, and the inscription, in old French, "Vive labeur; vive le roy Loys." The son of Joan's king must have felt that it was proper to preserve the birthplace of the girl who had saved his throne.
Doubtless the main walls of the old house of Jacques d'Arc are the same that Joan knew. Joan's mother lived there until 1438, and it was less than fifty years later that Louis XI gave orders for the restoration. The old walls were solidly built. It is not likely that they could have fallen to complete ruin in that time. The rest is mainly new.
What the inside of the old house was in Joan's time we can only imagine. The entrance room was the general room, I suppose, and it was here, we are told, that Joan was born. Mark Twain has imagined a scene in the house of Jacques d'Arc where a hungry straggler comes one night and knocks at the door and is admitted to the firelit room. He tells us how Joan gave the wanderer her porridge—against her father's argument, for those were times of sore stress—andhow the stranger rewarded them all with the great Song of Roland. The general room would be the setting of that scene.
Behind it is a little dungeon-like apartment which is shown as Joan's chamber. The walls and ceiling of this poor place are very old; possibly they are of Joan's time—no one can really say. In one wall there is a recess, now protected by a heavy wire screen, which means that Joan set up her shrine there, the St. Marguerite and her other holy things. She would pray to them night and morning, but oftener I think she would leave this dim prison for the consolation of the little church across the way.
The whole house is a kind of museum now, and the upper floor is especially fitted with cases for books and souvenirs.
In the grounds there is a fine statue by Mercié, and the whole place is leafy and beautiful. It is not easy, however, to imagine there the presence of Joan. That is easier in the crooked streets of the village, and still easier along the river and the fields. The Fairy Tree—l'Arbre Fée de Bourlement—where Joan and her comrades played, and where later she heard the voices, is long since gone, and the spot is marked by a church which we cared to view only from a distance. It seems too bad that any church should be there, and especially that one. The spot itself, marked by a mere tablet, or another tree, would be enough.
It was in January, 1429, that Joan and her uncle Laxart left Domremy for Vaucouleurs to ask the governor to give her a military escort to the uncrownedking at Chinon. She never came back. Less than half a year later she had raised the siege at Orléans, fought Patay, and conducted the king to his coronation at Rheims. She would have returned then, but the king was afraid to let her go. Neither did he have the courage to follow or support her brilliant leadership. He was weak and paltry. When, as the result of his dalliance, she was captured at Compiègne, he allowed her to suffer a year of wretched imprisonment, making no attempt at rescue or ransom, and in the end to be burned at Rouen as a witch.
I have read in an old French book an attempt to excuse the king, to show that he did not have armed force enough to go to Joan's rescue, but I failed to find there any evidence that he even contemplated such an attempt. I do find that when Joan had been dead thirteen years and France, strong and united, was safe for excursions, he made a trip to Lorraine, accompanied by Dunois, Robert de Baudricourt, and others of Joan's favorite generals. They visited Domremy, and Baudricourt pointed out to the king that there seemed to be a sadness in the landscape. It is said that this visit caused Charles to hasten the process of Joan's rehabilitation—to reverse the verdict of heresy and idolatry and witchcraft under which she had died. But as the new hearing did not begin until eleven years after the king's visit to Domremy, nearly twenty-five years after Joan's martyrdom, the word "hasten" does not seem to apply. If Charles VII finally bestirred himself in that process, it was rather to show before he died thathe held his crown not by the favor of Satan but of saints.
The memory of Joan of Arc's fate must always be a bitter one to France, and the generations have never ceased to make atonement. Her martyrdom has seemed so unnecessary—such a reproach upon the nation she saved.
Yet perhaps it was necessary. Joan in half a year had accomplished what the French armies, without her, had been unable to do in three quarters of a century—she had crippled the English power in France. Her work was not finished—though defeated, the enemy still remained on French soil, and unless relentlessly assailed would recover. After the coronation at Rheims there would seem to have fallen, even upon Joan's loyal followers, a reaction, a period of indifference and indolence. Joan's fearful death at the stake awoke her people as nothing else could have done.
By a lonely roadside far up in Normandy we passed, one day, a small stone column which recorded how upon this spot was delivered the battle of Formigny, April 15th, in the year 1450, under the reign of Charles VII, and how the French were victorious and the English armies forced to abandon Norman soil. Joan of Arc had been dead nineteen years when that final battle was fought, but it was her spirit that gave the victory.
Our tires were distressingly bad now. I had to do some quick repairing at Domremy, also between Domremy and Vaucouleurs, where we spent the night. Then next morning at Vaucouleurs, in an unfrequented back street behind our ancient inn, I established a general overhauling plant, and patched and relined and trepanned during almost an entire forenoon, while the rest of the family scoured the town for the materials. We put in most of our time at Vaucouleurs in this way. However, there was really little to see in the old town. Our inn was as ancient as anything, and our landlord assured us that Joan's knights probably stopped there, and even Uncle Laxart, but he could not produce his register to prove it. There are the remains of the château where Joan is said to have met the governor, and a monument to the Maid's memory has been begun, but remains unfinished through lack of funds. The real interest in Vaucouleurs, to-day, is that it was the starting point of Joan's great march. One could reflect upon that and repair tires simultaneously.
We got away in time to have luncheon in the beautiful country below Toul, and then kept on to Nancy. At both places there seemed to be nothing but soldiers and barracks, and one did not have toget out of the car to see those. Not that Nancy is not a fine big town, but its cathedral and its Arch of Triumph are both of the eighteenth century. Such things seemed rather raw and new, while museums did not interest us any more.
Lorraine itself is beautiful. It seemed especially fair where we crossed the line into Germany, and we did not wonder that France could not forget her loss of that fertile land. There was no difficulty at the customs. We were politely O. K.'d by the French officials and courteously passed by the Germans, with no examination beyond ourtriptyques. Then another stretch of fine road and fair fields, and we were in a village of cobbled streets and soldiers—German soldiers—and were told that it was Dieuze; also that there was an inn—a very good inn—a little way down the street. So there was—an inn where they spoke French and German and even a variety of English, and had plenty of good food and good beds for a very modest sum indeed. Dieuze was soon to become a war town, but beyond a few soldiers—nothing unusual—we saw no signs of it that first week in July.
Strassburg, Showing the CathedralStrassburg, Showing the Cathedral
Strassburg was our next stopping place. We put in a day there wandering about its fine streets, looking at its picturesque old houses, its royal palace, and its cathedral. I do not think we cared for the cathedral as we did for those of France. It is very old and very wonderful, and exhibits every form of architecture that has been employed in church building for nearly a thousand years; but in spite of its great size, its imposing height, its rich façade, therewas something repellant about it all, and particularly in its great bare interior. It seemed to lack a certain light of romance, of poetry, of spiritual sympathy that belongs to every French church of whatever size.
And we were disappointed in the wonderful clock. It was very wonderful, no doubt, but we had expected too much. We waited for an hour for the great midday exhibition, and collected with a jam of other visitors in the little clock chapel, expecting all the things to happen that we had dreamed of since childhood. They all did happen, too, but they came so deliberately and with so little liveliness of demonstration that one had to watch pretty closely sometimes to know that anything was happening at all. I think I, for one, had expected that the saints and apostles, and the months and seasons, would all come out and do a grand walk around to lively music. As for the rooster that crows, he does not crow as well as Narcissa, who has the gift of imitation and could have astonished that crowd if she had let me persuade her to try.
There have been several of these Strassburg clocks. There was one of them in the cathedral as far back as 1352. It ran for about two centuries, when another, finished in 1574, took its place. The mechanism of the new clock was worn out in another two centuries, but its framework forms a portion of the great clock of to-day, which dates from 1840. It does a number of very wonderful things, but in this age of contrivance, when men have made mechanical marvels past all belief, the wonder of the Strassburg clock is largely traditional. The rooster that crowsand flaps his wings is really the chief feature, for it is the rooster of the original clock, and thus has daily amused the generations for five hundred years.
Gutenberg, the first printer, began his earliest experiments in a cloister outside the Strassburg gates, and there is a small public square named for him, and in the center of it a fine statue with relief groups of the great printers of all nations. Of course Franklin was there and some other Americans. It gave us a sort of proprietary interest in that neighborhood, and a kindly feeling for the city in general.
It was afternoon when we left Strassburg, and by nightfall we were in the Black Forest—farther in than we had intended to be, by a good deal. With our tires in a steady decline we had no intention of wandering off into dark depths inhabited by fairies and woodcutters and full of weird enchantments, with all of which Grimm's tales had made us quite familiar. We had intended merely to go in a little way, by a main road that would presently take us to Freiburg, where there would be a new supply of patches and linings, and even a possibility of tires, in case our need became very sore.
But the Black Forest made good its reputation for enchantments. When we came to the spot where, by our map, the road should lead to Freiburg, there were only a deserted mill, with a black depth of pine growing where the road should have been. Following along, we found ourselves getting deeper and deeper into the thick forest, while the lonely road became steeper and narrower and more andmore awesome in the gathering evening. There were no villages, no more houses of any kind. There had been rain and the steep hills grew harder to climb. But perhaps a good fairy was helping us, too, a little, for our crippled tires held. Each time we mounted a perpendicular crest I listened for the back ones to go, but they remained firm.
By and by we started down—downwherewe had no notion—but certainly down. Being under a spell, I forgot to put on the engine brake, and by the time we were halfway down the hill the brake bands were hot and smoking. By the time we were down the greasy linings were afire. There was a brook there, and we stopped and poured water on our hot-boxes and waited for them to cool. A woodcutter—he must have been one, for only woodcutters and fairies live in the Black Forest—came along and told us we must go to Haslach—that there was no other road to Freiburg, unless we turned around and went back nearly to Strassburg. I would not have gone back up that hill and through those darkening woods for much money. So we went on and presently came out into a more open space, and some houses; then we came to Haslach.
By our map we were in the depths of the Schwarzwald, and by observation we could see that we were in an old, beautiful village, of the right sort for that locality, and in front of a big inn, where frauleins came out to take our bags and show us up to big rooms—rooms that had great billowy beds, with other billowy beds for covering. After all, the enchantment was not so bad. And the supper thatnight ofWiener schnitzelandpfannekuchenwas certainly good, and hot, and plentiful beyond belief.
But there was more trouble next morning. One of those old back tires was in a desperate condition, and trying to improve it I seemed to make matters worse. I took it off and put in a row of blow-out patches all the way around, after which the inner tubes popped as fast as I could put them in and blow them up. Three times I yanked that tire off, and then it began to occur to me that all those inside patches took up too much room. It would have occurred to any other man sooner, but it takes a long and violent period of pumping exercise to get a brain like mine really loosened up once it is caked by a good night's sleep.
So I yanked those patches out and put on our last hope—a spare tire in fairly decent condition, and patiently patched those bursted tubes—all of which work was done in a hot place under the eyes of a kindly but maddening audience.
Three times in the lovely land between Haslach and Freiburg Narcissa and I had to take off a tire and change tubes, those new patches being not air-proof. Still, we got on, and the scenery made up for a good deal. Nothing could be more picturesque than the Black Forest houses, with their great overhanging thatched roofs—their rows and clusters of little windows, their galleries and ladders, and their clinging vines. And what kindly people they are. Many of the roads are lined with cherry trees and this was cherry season. The trees were full of gatherers, and we had only to stop and offer to buyto have them load us with the delicious black fruit, the sweetest, juiciest cherries in the world. They accepted money, but reluctantly; they seemed to prefer to give them to us, and more than once a boy or a man ran along by the car and threw in a great loaded branch, and laughed, and waved and wished usgute reise. But this had happened to us in France, too, in the Lorraine.
We were at Freiburg in the lower edge of the Black Forest some time during the afternoon, one of the cleanest cities I have ever seen, one of the richest in color scheme. Large towns are not likely to be picturesque, but Freiburg, in spite of its general freshness, has a look of solid antiquity—an antiquity that has not been allowed to go to seed. Many of the houses, including the cathedral, are built of a rich red stone, and some of them have outer decorations, and nearly all of them have beautiful flowers in the windows and along the balconies. I should think a dweller in Freiburg would love the place.
Freiburg has been, and still is, celebrated for many things; its universities, its cathedral, its ancient buildings, in recent years for its discovery of "twilight sleep," the latest boon which science has offered to sorrow-laden humanity.
It is a curious road from Freiburg to Basle. Sometimes it is a highway, sometimes it is merely a farm road across fields. More than once we felt sure we were lost and must presently bring up in a farmyard. Then suddenly we would be between fine hedges or trees, on a wide road entering a village.
We had seen no storks when we left Freiburg. We had been told there were some in Strassburg, butno one had been able to point them out. We were disappointed, for we had pictured in our minds that, once really in the Black Forest, there would be, in almost any direction, a tall chimney surmounted by a big brushy nest, with a stork sitting in it, and standing by, supported on one very slim, very long, very perpendicular leg, another stork, keeping guard. This is the picture we had seen many times in the books, and we were grieved, even rather resentful, that it was not to be found in reality. We decided that it probably belonged only in the books, fairy books, and that while there might have been storks once, just as there had once been fairies, they had disappeared from mortal vision about the same time—that nobody in late years had really seen storks—that—
But just then we really saw some ourselves—sure-enough storks on an old steeple, two of them, exactly as they always are in the pictures, one nice mother stork sitting in a brushy nest and one nice father stork standing on his stiff, perpendicular leg.
We stopped the car to gaze. The church was in an old lost-looking village, which this stork seemed to own, for there were no others, and the few people we saw did not appear to have anything like the stork's proprietary interest. We could hardly take our eyes from that old picture, suddenly made reality.
We concluded, however, that it was probably the only stork family in Germany; but that, also, was a mistake. A little farther along, at another village, was another old stubby steeple, and another pair of storks, both standing this time, probably to see usgo by. Every village had them now, but I think in only one village did we see more than a single pair. That little corner of the Schwarzwald will always remain to us a part separated from the rest of the world—a sort of back-water of fairyland.
The German customs office is on one side of a road, the Swiss on the other, and we stopped in a shady place and interviewed both. We did not dread these encounters any more. We had long since learned that if there was one class of persons abroad likely to be more courteous than others to travelers, that class is the customs officials.
This particular frontier was in the edge of Basle, and presently we had crossed a bridge and were in the city, a big, beautiful city, though not so handsome as Freiburg, not so rich in color, not quite so clean and floral.
We did not stop in Basle. There are wonders to be seen, but, all things considered, we thought it better to go on. With good luck we might reach Vevey next day, our European headquarters and base of supplies. We had been more than two months on the road already; it was important that we get to headquarters—more important than we knew.
So we went wandering through a rather unpopulous, semi-mountainous land—a prosperous land, from the look of it, with big isolated factory plants here and there by strongly flowing streams. They seemed to be making almost everything along those streams. The Swiss are an industrious people. Toward evening we came to a place we had never heard of before, a town of size and of lofty buildings—a place of much manufacturing, completely lost up in the hills, by name Moutier. It was better not to go farther that night, for I could see by our road map that there was going to be some steep climbing between Moutier and the Lake Geneva slope. There are at least two divides between Moutier and Geneva, and Swiss watersheds are something more than mere gentle slopes such as one might meet in Ohio, for instance, or Illinois. They are generally scrambles—they sometimes resemble ladders, though the road surface is usually pretty good, with a few notable exceptions. We met one of these exceptions next morning below Moutier. There had been rains, and the slippery roads between those perpendicular skyscraping bluffs had not dried at all. Our route followed a rushing stream a little way; then it turned into the hill, and at thatpoint I saw ahead of me a road that was not a road at all, but a semi-perpendicular wallow of mud and stone that went writhing up and up until it was lost somewhere among the trees. I had expected a good deal, but nothing as bad as this. I gave one wild, hopeless thought to our poor crippled rear tires, threw the lever from third to second, from second back to first, and let in every ounce of gasoline the engine would take. It really never occurred to me that we were going to make it. I did not believe anything could hold in that mud, and I expected in another minute to be on the side of the road, with nothing to do but hunt up an ox-team. Whir! slop! slosh! slide!—grind!—on one side and on the other—into a hole and out of it, bump! thump! bang!—why, certainly we are climbing, but we would never make the top, never in the world—it was hardly to be expected of any car; and with those old tires! Never mind, we would go till we stalled, or skidded out of the road.
We were at the turn! We had made the turn! We were going straight up the last rise! Only a little more, now—ten feet—five feet,six inches!Hooray!we were on top of the hill, b'gosh!
I got out and looked at the back tires. It was incredible, impossible, but they were as sound and solid as when we left Moutier. Practically our whole weight had been on those tires all the way up that fearful log-haul, for that is what it was, yet those old tubes and outer envelopes had not shown a sign. Explain it if you can.
There was really no trouble after that. Therewere hills, but the roads were good. Our last day was a panorama of Swiss scenery in every form; deep gorges where we stopped on bridges to look down at rushing torrents far below; lofty mountains with narrow, skirting roads; beautiful water-fronts and lake towns along the lakes of Biel and Neufchâtel, a final luncheon under a great spreading shade—a birthday luncheon, as it happened—and then, toward the end of the lovely July afternoon, a sudden vision, from high harvest meadows, of the snow-clad mountaintops beyond Lake Geneva—the peaks of the true Alps. And presently one saw the lake itself, the water—hazy, dreamy, summery, with little steamers so gay and toylike, plying up and down—all far below us as yet, for we were still among the high hayfields, where harvesters were pitching and raking, while before and behind us our road was a procession of hay wagons.
It was a continuous coast, now, down to Lausanne—the lake, as it seemed, rising up to meet us, its colors and outlines becoming more vivid, the lofty mountains beyond it approaching a little nearer, while almost underneath us a beautiful city was gleaming in the late afternoon sunshine.
We were by this time among the vineyards that terrace those south-facing steeps to the water's edge. Then we were at the outskirts of the city itself, still descending, still coasting, for Lausanne is built mainly on a mountainside. When we came to a comparative level at last, we were crossing a great bridge—one of those that tie the several slopes of the city together; then presently we were at St.Frances's church, the chief center, and felt almost at home, for we had been here a good many times before.
We did not stop. Vevey was twelve miles down the lake—we had a feverish desire to arrive there without having to pump those tires again, if possible. Leisurely, happily, we covered that final lap of our long tour. There is no more beautiful drive in Europe than that along Lake Geneva, from Lausanne to Vevey on a summer evening, and there never was a calmer, sweeter summer evening than that of our return. Oh, one must drive slowly on such an evening! We were anxious to arrive, but not to have the drive ended. Far down the lake the little towns we knew so well began to appear—Territet, Montreux, Clarens, Vevey la Tour—we could even make out the towers of Chillon. Then we passed below the ancient village hanging to the mountainside, and there was Vevey, and there at its outskirts our pretty hotel with its big gay garden, the blue lake just in front, the driveway open. A moment more and the best landlady in Europe was welcoming us in the most musical French and German in the world. Our long round was ended—three thousand miles of the happiest travel to be found this side of paradise. By and by I went out to look at our faithful car in the little hotel garage. It had stood up to the last moment on those old tires. I suppose then the tension was too much. The left rear was quite flat.
It was the 10th of July that we returned to Vevey, and it was just three weeks later that the world—a world of peace and the social interchange of nations—came to an end.
We had heard at Tours of the assassination of the Austrian archduke and his duchess, but no thought of the long-threatened European war entered our minds. Neither did we discover later any indications of it. If there was any tension along the Franco-German border we failed to notice it. Arriving at Vevey, there seemed not a ripple on the drowsy summer days. Even when Austria finally sent her ultimatum to Serbia there was scarcely a suggestion of war talk. We had all the nations in our hotel, but they assembled harmoniously in the little reading room after dinner over the papers and innocuous games, and if the situation was discussed at all, the word "arbitration" was oftenest heard.
Neither did the news come to us gradually or gently. It came like a bomb, exploded one evening by Billy Baker, an American boy of sixteen and a bulletin of sorts. Billy had been for his customary after-dinner walk uptown, and it was clear the instant he plunged in that he had gathered something unusual.
"Say, folks," he burst out, "did you know that Austria has declared war against Serbia and is bombarding Belgrade, and now all the others are going to declare, and that us Americans have got to beat it for home?"
There was a general stir. Billy's items were often delivered in this abrupt way, but his news facts were seldom questioned. He went on, adding a quick, crisp detail, while the varied nationalities assumed attitudes of attention. The little group around the green center table forgot what they were there for. I had just drawn a spade when I needed a heart, and did not mind the diversion. Billy concluded his dispatches:
"We've all got to beat it, you know,now, before all the ships and trains and things are used for mobilization and before the fighting begins. If we don't we'll have to stay here all winter." Then, his mission finished, Billy in his prompt way pulled a chair to the table. "Let me in this, will you?" he said. "I feel awfully lucky to-night."
Americans laugh at most things. We laughed now at Billy Baker—at the dramatic manner of his news, with its picturesque even if stupendous possibilities—at the vision in everyone's mind of a horde of American tourists "beating it" out of Europe at the first drum-roll of war.
But not all in the room laughed. The "little countesses"—two Russian girls—and their white-haired companion, talked rapidly and earnestly together in low voices. The retired French admiral—old and invalided—rose, his long cape flung backacross his shoulder, and walked feebly up and down, stopping at each turn to speak to his aged wife, who sat with their son, himself an officer on leave. An English judge, with a son at home, fraternized with the Americans and tried to be gay with them, but his mirth lacked freedom. A German family instinctively separated themselves from the others and presently were no longer in the room. Even one of the Americans—a Southern girl—laughed rather hysterically:
"All my baggage but one suit case is stored in Frankfort," she said. "If Germany goes to war I'll have a gay time getting it."
Morning brought confirmation of Billy Baker's news, at least so far as Austria's action was concerned, and the imminence of what promised to be a concerted movement of other great nations toward war. It was said that Russia was already mobilizing—that troops were in motion in Germany and in France. That night, or it may have been the next, a telegram came for the young French officer, summoning him to his regiment. His little son of nine or ten raced about excitedly.
"L'Allmagne a mobilisé—mon père va à la guerre!"
The old admiral, too feeble, almost, to be out of bed, seemed to take on a new bearing.
"I thought I was done with war," he said. "I am an invalid, and they could not call on me. But if France is attacked I shall go and fight once more for my country."
The German family—there were two grown sons in it—had already disappeared.
It was about the third morning that I took a walk down to the American Consulate. I had been there before, but had not found it exciting. It had been a place of silence and inactivity. There were generally a few flies drifting about, and a bored-looking man who spent an hour or two there morning and afternoon, killing time and glad of any little diversion in the way of company.
The Consulate was no longer a place of silence and buzzing flies. There was buzzing in plenty, but it was made by my fellow countrymen—country-women, most of them—who were indeed making things hum. I don't know whether the consul was bored or not. I know he was answering questions at the rate of one per second, and even so not keeping up with the demand for information.
"Is there going to be a war?" "Is England going into it?" "Has Germany declared yet?" "Will we be safe in Switzerland?" "Will all Americans be ordered home?" "Are the trains going to be stopped?" "Will we have to have passports?" "I have got a sailing in September. Will the ships be running then?" "How can I send a letter to my husband in Germany?" "How about money? Are the Swiss banks going to stop payment on letters of credit?"—these, repeated in every varying form, and a hundred other inquiries that only a first-class registered clairvoyant could have answered with confidence. The consul was good-natured. He was also an optimist. His replies in general conveyed the suggestion to "keep cool," that everything was going to be all right.
The Swiss banks, however, did stop payment onletters of credit and various forms of checks forthwith. I had a very pretty-looking check myself, and a day or two before I had been haggling with the bank man over the rate of exchange, which had been gently declining. I said I would hold it for better terms. But on the day that Germany declared war I decided to cash it, anyway, just to have a little extra money in case—
Oh, well, never mind the details. I didn't cash it. The bank man looked at it, smiled feebly, and pointed to a notice on the wall. It was in French, but it was an "easy lesson." It said:
No more checks or letters of credit cashed until further notice.
By order of the Association.
I don't know yet what "Association" it was that was heartless enough to give an order like that, but I hoped it would live to repent it. The bank man said that in view of my position as a depositor he might be induced to advance me 10 per cent of the amount of the check. The next day he even refused to take it for collection. Switzerland is prudent; she had mobilized her army about the second day and sent it to the frontier. We had been down to the big market place to see it go. I never saw anything more quiet—more orderly. She had mobilized her cash in the same prompt, orderly fashion and sent it into safe retirement.
It was a sorrowful time, and it was not merely American—it was international. Switzerland never saw such a "busted community" as her tourists presentedduring August, 1914. Every day was Black Friday. Almost nobody had any real money. A Russian nobleman in our hotel with a letter of credit and a roll of national currency could not pay for his afternoon tea. The little countesses had to stop buying chocolates. An American army officer, retired, was unable to meet his laundry bill. Even Swiss bank notes (there were none less than fifty francs in the beginning) were of small service, for there was no change. All the silver had disappeared as if it had suddenly dissolved. As for gold—lately so plentiful—one no longer even uttered thewordwithout emotion. Getting away, "beating it," as Billy had expressed it, was still a matter of prime importance, but it had taken second place. The immediate question was how and where to get money for the "beating" process. The whole talk was money. Any little group collected on the street might begin by discussing the war, but, in whatever language, the discussion drifted presently to finance. The optimistic consul was still reassuring. To some he advanced funds—he was more liberal than the Bank of Switzerland.
There was a percentage, of course—a lucky few—who had money, and these were getting away. There were enough of them along the Simplon Railway to crowd the trains. Every train for Paris went through with the seats and aisles full. All schedules were disordered. There was no telling when a train would come, or when it would arrive in Paris. Billy Baker promptly mobilized his party and they left sometime in the night—or it may have been in the morning,after a night of waiting. It was the last regular train to go. We did not learn of its fortunes.
No word came back from those who left us. They all went with promises to let us know, but a veil dropped behind them. They were as those who pass beyond the things of earth. We heard something of their belongings, however. Sometimes on clear days a new range of mountains seemed to be growing in the west. It was thought to be the American baggage heaped on the French frontier. Very likely our friends wrote to us, but there was no more mail. The last American, French, and English letters came August 3d. The last ParisHeraldhung on the hotel file and became dingy and tattered with rereading. No mails went out. One could amuse himself by writing letters and dropping them in the post office, but he would know, when he passed a week later, that they had remained there. You could still cable, if you wished to do so—in French—and there must have been a scramble in America for French dictionaries, and a brisk hunting for the English equivalents of whatever terse Berlitz idiom was used to convey:
"Money in a hurry—dead broke."
Various economies began to be planned or practiced. Guests began to do without afternoon tea, or to make it themselves in their rooms. Few were paying their hotel bills, yet some went to cheaper places, frightened at the reckoning that was piling up against settling day. Others, with a little store of money, took very modest apartments and did light housekeeping to stretch their dwindling substance. Some, even among those at the hotels, in view of thegeneral uncertainty, began to lay in tinned meats and other durable food against a time of scarcity. It was said that Switzerland, surrounded by war, would presently be short of provisions. Indeed, grocers, by order of the authorities, had already cut down the sale of staples, and no more than a pound or two of any one article was sold to a single purchaser. Hotels were obliged to send their servants, one after another, and even their guests, to get enough sugar and coffee and salt to go around. Hotel bills of fare—always lavish in Switzerland—began to be cut down, byrequest of the guests themselves. It was a time to worry, or—to "beat it" for home.
We fell into the habit of visiting the Consulate each morning. When we had looked over the little local French paper and found what new nations had declared war against Germany overnight, we strolled down to read the bulletins on the Consulate windows, which generally told us what steamer lines had been discontinued, and how we couldn't get money on our checks and letters of credit. Inside, an active commerce was in progress. No passport had been issued from that Consulate for years. Nobody in Europe needed one. You could pass about as freely from Switzerland to France or Germany as you could from Delaware to New Jersey.
Things were different now. With all Europe going to war, passports properly viséd were as necessary as train tickets. The consul, swamped with applications, had called for volunteers, and at several little tables young men were saying that they did not know most of the things those anxious people—women,mainly—were asking about, but that everything would surely be all right, soon. Meantime, they were helping their questioners make out applications for passports.
There were applications for special things—personal things. There was a woman who had a husband lost somewhere in Germany and was convinced he would be shot as a spy. There was a man who had been appointed to a post office in America and was fearful of losing it if he did not get home immediately. There were anxious-faced little school-teachers who had saved for years to pay for a few weeks abroad, and were now with only some useless travelers' checks and a return ticket on a steamer which they could not reach, and which might not sail even if they reached it. And what of their positions in America? Theirs were the sorrowful cases, and there were others.
But the crowd was good-natured, as a whole—Americans are generally that. The stranded ones saw humor in their situation, and confessed to one another—friends and strangers alike—their poverty and their predicaments, laughing a good deal, as Americans will. But there were anxious faces, too, and everybody wanted to know a number of things, which he asked of everybody else, and of the consul—oh, especially of the consul—until that good-natured soul was obliged to take an annex office upstairs where he could attend to the manufacture of passports, while downstairs a Brooklyn judge was appointed to supervise matters and deal out official information in judicial form.
The judge was qualified for his appointment. Every morning before ten o'clock—opening time—he got together all the matters—letters, telegrams, and the like—that would be apt to interest the crowd, and dealt this substance out in a speech, at the end of which he invited inquiries on any point he had failed to make clear.
He got them, too—mainly questions that he had already answered, because there is a type of mind which does not consider information valid unless delivered to it individually and, in person. I remember, once, when among other wild rumors it had been reported that because of the food scarcity all foreigners would be ordered out of Switzerland in five days, a woman who had listened attentively to the judge's positive and thrice-repeated denial of this canard promptly asked him if she could stay in Switzerland if she wanted to.
The judge's speech became the chief interest of the day. It was the regular American program to assemble in front of the Consulate, exchanging experiences and reading the bulletins until opening time. The place was in a quiet side street of the quaint old Swiss city, a step from the lake-front promenade, with a background of blue mountains and still bluer water. Across the street stood a sixteenth-century château with its gardens of greenery. At ten the Consulate doors opened and the little group pressed in for the speech. I am sure no one in our stranded assembly will easily forget those mornings.
Promising news began to come. The judge announcedone morning that five hundred thousand francs had been placed to the consular credit in Switzerland by America for the relief of her citizens. Great happiness for the moment! Hope lighted every face. Then some mathematician figured that five hundred thousand francs amounted to a hundred thousand dollars, and that there were ten thousand Americans in Switzerland—hence, ten dollars apiece. The light of hope grew dim. There was not a soul in that crowd who needed less than two hundred dollars to pay his board and get him home. Ten thousand times two hundred—it is a sizable sum. And what of the rest of Europe? The mathematician figured that there were a quarter of a million Americans in Europe, all willing to go home, and that it would take fifty million dollars and a fleet of five hundred fair-sized ships to deliver them in New York.
Still, that five hundred thousand francs served a good purpose. An allotment of it found its way to our consul, to use at his discretion. It came to the right man. Here and there were those who had neither money nor credit. To such he had already advanced money from his own limited supply. His allowance, now, would provide for those needy ones until more came. It was not sufficient, however, to provide one woman with three hundred francs to buy a set of furs she had selected, though she raged up and down the office and threatened to report him to Washington, and eventually flung some papers in his face. It turned out later that she was not an American. I don't know what she was—mostly wildcat, I judge.
Further news came—still better. The government would send a battleship—theTennessee—with a large sum of gold. The deposit of this specie in the banks of Europe would make checks and letters of credit good again. Various monies from American banks, cabled for by individuals, would also arrive on this ship.
Things generally looked brighter. With the British fleet protecting the seas, English, French, and Dutch liners were likely to keep their schedules; also, there were some Italian boats, though these were reported to be overrun by "swell" Americans who were paying as high as one thousand dollars for a single berth. Perhaps the report was true—I don't know. None of our crowd cared to investigate.
There were better plans nearer home—plans for "beating it" out of Switzerland on a big scale. Special trains were to be provided—and ships. A commission was coming on theTennesseeto arrange for these things. The vessel had already left New York.
The crowd at the Consulate grew larger and more feverishly interested. Applications for passports multiplied. Over and over, and in great detail, the Brooklyn judge explained just what was necessary to insure free and safe departure from Europe when the time came to go. Over and over we questioned him concerning all those things, and concerning ever so many other things that had no particular bearing on the subject, and he bore it and beamed on us and was fully as patient as was Moses in that other wilderness we wot of.
Trains began to run again through France; at least they started, and I suppose they arrived somewhere. Four days, six days, eight days was said to be the time to Paris, with only third-class coaches, day and night, all the aisles full—no food and no water except what was carried. It was not a pleasant prospect and few of our people risked it. TheTennesseewas reported to have reached England and the special American trains were promised soon. In fact, one was presently announced. It went from Lindau, through Germany, and was too far east for most of our crowd. Then there were trains from Lucerne and elsewhere; also, special English trains. Then, at last a Simplon train was scheduled: Territet, Montreux, Vevey, Lausanne, Geneva—all aboard for Paris!
Great excitement at the Consulate. TheTennesseemoney could arrive any day now; everybody could pay up and start. The Brooklyn judge rehearsed each morning all the old details and presented all the news and requirements. The train, he said, would go through a nation that was at war. It would be under military surveillance. Once on the train, one must stay on it until it arrived in Paris. In Paris passengers must go to the hotels selected, they must leave at the time arranged and by the train provided, and must accept without complaint the ship and berth assigned to each. It would be a big tourist party personally conducted by the United States for her exiled citizens. The United States was not ordering its citizens to leave Switzerland; it was merely providing a means for those whomust go at once and had not provided for themselves. The coaches would be comfortable, the price as usual, red cards insuring each holder a seat would be issued at the Consulate. Tickets through to New York would be provided for those without funds. The government could do no more. Any questions, please?
Then a sharp-faced, black-haired, tightly hooked woman got up and wanted to know just what style the coaches would be—whether they would have aisles down the side; whether there would be room to lie down at will; whether meals would be served on the train; whether there would be time at Dijon to get off and see some friends; whether she could take her dog; whether her ticket would be good on another train if she didn't like this one when she saw it. The judge will probably never go into the tourist-agency business, even if he retires from the law.
Well, that particular train did not go, after all. Or, rather, it did go, but few of our people went on it. There was a misunderstanding somewhere. The Germans were getting down pretty close to Paris just then, and from the invisible "somewhere" an order came countermanding the train. The train didn't hear of it, however, and not all of the people. Those who took it must have had plenty of room, and they must have gone through safely. If the Germans got them we should have heard of it, I think. Those who failed to take it were not entirely sorry. TheTennesseemoney had not been distributed yet, and it was badly needed. I don't knowwhat delayed it. Somewhere—always in that invisible "somewhere"—there was a hitch about that, too. It still had not arrived when thenexttrain was scheduled—at least, not much of it. It had not come on the last afternoon of the last day, when the train was to go early in the morning. It was too bad. There was a borrowing and an arranging and a negotiating at the banks that had become somewhat less obdurate these last days, with theTennesseein the offing. But many went away pretty short, and, but for the consul, the shortness would have been shorter and more general.
It was a fine, big, comfortable train that went next morning. A little group of us who were not yet ready to "beat it" went down to see our compatriots go. There seemed to be room enough, and at least some of the coaches had aisles down the sides. I do not know whether the sharp-faced, tightly hooked woman had her dog or not. There was a great waving, and calling back, and much laughter as the train rolled away. You could tell as easily as anything that the Americans were "beating it" for home.
Heavy installments of theTennesseemoney began to arrive at the Consulate next day. I got some of it myself.
A day or two later I dropped into the Consulate. It had become a quiet place again, as in the days that already seemed very long ago. It was hard to believe in the reality of the eager crowd that used to gather there every morning to tell their troubles and laugh over them, and to collect the morning news.Now, again, the place was quite empty, except for a few flies drowsing about and the rather tired, bored-looking man who came to spend an hour or two there every morning, killing time and glad of any little diversion in the way of company.