Although this little bit of advice appeared to me not altogether free from satire, there was in the letter more praise than I had expected, and I felt proud and happy. The letter was passed round in the class-room, commented upon in the playground, and I was so excited that I can perfectly well remember how I forgot to learn my repetition that day, and how I got forty lines of the Ars Poetica to write out five times.
What a take-down, this imposition upon a budding dramatic author!
Examinations to prepare compelled me for some time to postpone all idea of astonishing the Paris playgoers with a "new and original" drama.
I took my B.A. at the end of that year, and my B.Sc. at the end of the following one. Three years later I was leaving the military school with the rank of sub-lieutenant.
My uniform was lovely; and if I had only had as much gold in my pockets as on my shoulders, sleeves, and breast, I think I ought to have been the happiest being on earth.
The proudest day of a young French officer's life is the day on which he goes out in the street for the first time with all his ironmongery on, his moustache curled up, his cap on his right ear, his sabre in his left hand. The soldiers he meets salute him, the ladies seem to smile approvingly upon him; he feels like the conquering hero of the day; all is bright before him; battles only suggest to him victories and promotions.
On the first day, his mother generally asks to accompany him, and takes his arm. Which is the prouder of the two? the young warrior, full of confidence and hope, or the dear old lady who looks at the passers-by with an air that says: "This is my son, ladies and gentlemen. As for you, young ladies, he can't have all of you, you know."
Poor young officer! dear old mother! They little knew, in 1869, that in a few months one would be lying in a military hospital on a bed of torture, and the other would be wondering for five mortal months whether her dear and only child was dead, or prisoner in some German fortress.
On the 19th of July, 1870, my regiment left Versailles for the Eastern frontier.
As in these pages I simply intend to say how I came to make the acquaintance of English school-boys, it would be out of place, if not somewhat pretentious, to make use of my recollections of the Franco-Prussian War.
Yet I cannot pass over two episodes of those troublous times.
I was twelve years of age when I struck up a friendship with a young Pole, named Gajeski, who was in the same class with me. We became inseparable chums. Year after year we got promoted at the same time. We took our degrees on the same days, entered the military school in the same year, and received our commissions in the same regiment.
We took a small appartement de garçon at Versailles, and I shall never forget the delightful evenings we spent together while in garrison there. He was a splendid violinist, and I was a little of a pianist.
Short, fair, and almost beardless, Gajeski was called the "Petit Lieutenant" by the soldiers, who all idolized him.
At the battle of Wörth, after holding our ground from nine in the morning till five in the evening, against masses of Prussian troops six times as numerous as our own, we were ordered to charge the enemy, with some other cavalry regiments, in order to protect the retreat of the bulk of the army.
A glance at the hill opposite convinced us that we were ordered to go to certain death.
My dear friend grasped my hand, as he said with a sad smile: "We shall be lucky if we get our bones out of this, old fellow."
Down the hill we went like the wind, through a shower of bullets and mitraille. Two minutes later, about two-thirds of the regiment reached the opposite ascent. We were immediately engaged in a desperate hand-to-hand fight. A scene of hellish confusion it was. But there, amidst the awful din of battle, I heard Gajeski's death-cry, as he fell from his horse three or four yards from me, and I saw a horrible gash on his fair young head.
The poor boy had paid France for the hospitality she had extended to his father.
I fought like a madman, seeing nothing but that dear mutilated face before my eyes. I say "like a madman," for it was not through courage or bravery. In a mêlée you fight like a madman – like a savage.
I had no brother, but he had been more than a brother to me. I had had no other companion or friend, but he was a friend of a thousand.
Poor fellow!
I had been in captivity in a stronghold on the Rhine for five months, when the preliminaries of peace were signed between France and Germany in January, 1871, and the French prisoners were sent back to their country.
About five hundred of us were embarked at Hamburg on board one of the steamers of the Compagnie Transatlantique, and landed at Cherbourg.
Finding myself near home, I immediately asked the general in command of the district for a few days' leave, to go and see my mother.
Since the day I had been taken prisoner at Sedan (2d of September, 1870), I had not received a single letter from her, as communications were cut off between the east and the west of France; and I learned later on that she had not received any of the numerous letters I had written to her from Germany.
This part of Normandy had been fortunate enough to escape the horrors of war, but, for months, the inhabitants had had to lodge soldiers and militia-men.
At five o'clock on a cold February morning, clothed, or rather covered, in my dirty, half-ragged uniform, I rang the bell at my mother's house.
Our old servant appeared at the attic window, and inquired what I wanted.
"Open the door," I cried; "I am dying of cold."
"We can't lodge you here," she replied; "we have as many soldiers as we can accommodate – there is no room for you. Go to the Town Hall, they will tell you we are full."
"Sapristi, my good Fanchette," I shouted, "don't you know me? How is mother?"
"Ah! It is Monsieur!" she screamed. And she rushed down, filling the house with her cries: "Madame, madame, it is Monsieur; yes, I have seen him, he has spoken to me, it is Monsieur."
A minute after I was in my mother's arms.
Was it a dream?
She looked at me wildly, touching my head to make sure I was at her side, in reality, alive; when she realized the truth she burst into tears, and remained speechless for some time. Such scenes are more easily imagined than described, and I would rather leave it to the reader to supply all the exclamations and interrogations that followed.
I could only spend two days at home, as my regiment was being organized in Paris, and I had to join it.
On the 18th of March, 1871, the people of Paris, in possession of all the armament that had been placed in their hands to defend the French capital against the Prussians, proclaimed the Commune, and, probably out of a habit just lately got into by the French army, we retreated to Versailles, leaving Paris at the mercy of the Revolutionists.
This is not the place to account for this revolution.
An explanation of it, which always struck me as somewhat forcible, is the one given by a Communist prisoner to a captain, a friend of mine, who was at the time acting as juge d'instruction to one of the Versailles courts-martial.
"Why did you join the Commune?" he asked a young and intelligent-looking fellow who had been taken prisoner behind some barricade.
"Well, captain, I can hardly tell you. We were very excited in Paris; in fact, off our heads with rage at having been unable to