On the 14th of April, 1871, my regiment received the order to attack the Neuilly bridge, a formidable position held by the Communists.
What the Prussians had not done some compatriot of mine succeeded in doing. I fell severely wounded.
After my spending five months in the Versailles military hospital, and three more at home in convalescence, the army surgeons declared that I should no longer be able to use my right arm for military purposes, and I was granted a lieutenant's pension, which would have been just sufficient to keep me in segars if I had been a smoker.
But of this I do not complain. Poor France! she had enough to pay!
At the end of the year of grace, 1871, my position was very much like that of my beloved country: all seemed lost, fors l'honneur.
Through my friends, however, I was soon offered a choice between two "social positions."
The first was a colonel's commission in the Egyptian army (it seemed that the state of my right arm was no objection).
I was to draw a very good salary. My friends in Cairo, however, warned me that salaries were not always paid very regularly, but sometimes allowed to run on till cash came into the Treasury. It was during the good times of Ismail Pacha. This made me a little suspicious that my salary might run on so fast that I should not be able to catch it.
The other post offered me was that of London correspondent to an important Parisian newspaper.
I had had enough of military "glory" by this time. Yet the prospect of an adventurous life is always more or less fascinating at twenty-three years of age.
Being the only child of a good widowed mother, I thought I would take her valuable advice on the subject.
I am fortunate in having a mother full of common sense. With her French provincial ideas, she was rather startled to hear that a disabled lieutenant could all at once become an active colonel. She thought that somehow the promotion was too rapid.
Alas! she, too, had had enough of military "glory."
Her advice was to be followed, for it was formulated thus: "You speak English pretty well; we have a good many friends in England; accept the humbler offer, and go to England to earn an honest living."
This is how I was not with Arabi Pacha on the wrong side at Tel-el-Kebir, and how it became my lot to make one day the acquaintance of the British school-boy of whom I shall have more to say by-and-by.
On the 8th of July, 1872, I took the London train at the Gare du Nord, Paris.
Many relations and friends came to the station to see me off. Some had been in England, some had read books on England, but all seemed to know a great deal about it. Advice, cautions, suggestions, were poured into my ears.
"Be sure you go and see Madame Tussaud's to-morrow," said one.
"Now," said another, "when you get to Charing Cross, don't fail to try and catch hold of a fellow-passenger's coat, and hold fast till you get to your hotel. The fog is so thick in the evening that the lamp-lights are of no use, you know."
All information is valuable when you start for a foreign country. But I could not listen to more. Time was up.
I shook hands with my friends and kissed my relations, including an uncle and two cousins of the sterner sex. This will sound strange to English or American ears. Well, it sounds just as strange to mine, now.
I do not know that a long residence in England has greatly improved me (though my English friends say it has), but what I do know is, that I could not now kiss a man, even if he were a bequeathing uncle ready to leave me all his money.
II
Arrival at Charing Cross. – I have Nothing to Declare to the Exciseman but Low Spirits. – Difficulty in Finding a Good Residence. – Board and Lodging. – A House with Creepers. – Things look Bad. – Things look Worse. – Things look Cheerful.
8.30 P.M. – Landed at Folkestone. The London train is ready. The fog is very thick. I expected as much. My English traveling companions remark on it, and exclaim that "this is most unusual weather." This makes me smile.
10.15 P.M. – The train crosses the Thames. We are in London. This is not my station, however, I am told. The train restarts almost immediately, and crosses the river again. Perhaps it takes me back to Paris. Hallo! how strange! the train crosses another river.
"This is a town very much like Amsterdam," I say to my neighbor.
He explains to me the round taken by the South-Eastern trains from Cannon Street to Charing Cross.
10.25 P.M. – Charing Cross! At last, here I am. The luggage is on the platform. I recognize my trunk and portmanteau.
A tall official addresses me in a solemn tone:
"Have you any thing to declare?"
"Not any thing."
"No segars, tobacco, spirits?"
"No segars, no tobacco."
My spirits were so low that I thought it was useless to mention them.
In France, in spite of this declaration of mine, my luggage would have been turned inside out. The sturdy Briton takes my word1 and dismisses my luggage with:
"All right. Take it away."
11 P.M. – I alight at an hotel near the Strand. A porter comes to take my belongings.
"I want a bedroom for the night," I say.
"Très bien, monsieur."
He speaks French. The hotel is French, too, I see.
After a wash and brush-up, I come down to the dining-room for a little supper.
I do not like the look of the company.
They may be French, and this is a testimonial in their favor, but I am afraid it is the only one.
Three facetious bagmen exercise their wit by puzzling the waiter with low French slang.
I think I will remove from here to-morrow.
I go to my bedroom, and try to open the window and have a look at the street. I discover the trick.
How like guillotines are these English windows!
I pull up the bottom part of mine, and look out. This threatening thing about my neck makes me uncomfortable. I withdraw.
English windows are useful, no doubt, but it is evident that the people of this country do not use them to look out in the street and have a quiet chat à la française.
Probably the climate would not allow it.
A friend comes to see me. He shares my opinion of the French hotel, and will look for a comfortable apartment in an English house for me. We breakfast together, and I ask him a thousand questions.
He knows every thing, it seems, and I gather valuable information rapidly.
He prepares a programme of sight-seeing which it will take me a good many days to work through.
The weather is glorious.
My