A Tatter of Scarlet: Adventurous Episodes of the Commune in the Midi 1871

Later I retold Dennis Deventer the story of the coming trouble in Aramon and the despair of Keller Bey. He listened without surprise, his deep-set Irish eyes almost hidden under his twitching, bushy brows.

"There's a man that is obleeged to me, Angus me lad. He runs a copper ore boat from Huelva – that's in Spain – to Marseilles. If we could get the owld Keller man down there, I know a boatman in the Joliette who would give him shelter till the steamer lifts her anchor. There is no need for him to be desperate about any such thing. The world is wide and Governments in this country are made of cardboard and bad paste. He will be amnestied in a year or two. Can the man not be reasonable?"

I told him that the difficulty lay there. Keller Bey considered himself bound to those who had helped him to set up the Commune in Aramon. He would make no separate peace for himself.

"Separate fiddlesticks!" shouted Dennis Deventer. "Does he mean such comfortable old soup-bags as Père Félix, or wine-skins like Pipe-en-Bois, or alcohol gutters like the Marshal Soult? Let him set his mind at rest. They are safe. No Government while I live shall harm a hair of their heads. They will never stand behind a barricade – never fire a shot; if they will be careful not to fall downstairs after celebration suppers to the memory of Danton and Marat and the men of '48, they will all die in their beds and have their memories honoured in turn by the suppers of another and redder generation!"

There was truth in what Dennis said. These were not the men who would die fighting when the day of reckoning came. The young sullen wolf's breed of the sidelong glances and the whispered counsels – these were those who would line the last ditches of the defence of Aramon.

But, then, Keller Bey felt that he was responsible also for them. He was their chief and normal leader. He had the secrets of the Internationale and he had made proselytes, even among the young people. Could he leave them and flee? I knew very well Keller Bey's line of argument, and I put it to Dennis. He clapped his knee testily.

"Oh, for a good Scots or Ulster head on a man – even English would do because of the fine, solid underpinning and bodygear the Lord God puts into his southern-built vessels. But when a man gets this megrim of honour in his brain, there is no saying beforehand what he will or will not do – except that it will surely be eediocy."

"It's a pity, too," he added, after thought, "a man that can be talking the Arab or the Turkish with men like your father (God bless him) and old Professor Renard."

I suggested that there was one factor we were overlooking – that it was more than likely that before long the Conservative Commune of Aramon would be displaced and with it would disappear the rule of Keller.

No, I did not think they would kill him. They would probably expel the ex-Dictator and let him go where he would. Then would be the time to secure him, and send him to the captain of the Huelva cargo-boat.

Dennis patted me on the head.

"We cannot be sure of doing much," he said, "but we can always have a try. We shall probably be desperately busy ourselves if the wild rakes take the lead over the wall yonder. They will come at us, not this time in undisciplined rush, but with method and well armed – thanks to the folly of the National Assembly."

Still, Dennis Deventer had a card up his sleeve. "You must wait with us and see the rubber played out."

CHAPTER XXX

DEVILS' TALK

The black day which was coming upon Aramon was not long in dawning. Barrès and Imbert were the leaders of the anarchist party, which had always secretly opposed the Marxian communism of Keller Bey and his adherents.

These were the men of the opposition, dark-browed cub-engineers and piece-workers, not high in their professions – being far too careless and off-hand for regular work, but with a dashing strain in them, and a way of putting the matter which imposed upon the younger men.

Were they hungry? There was food in the shops. Was their miserable fifteen pence a day insufficient? Yonder were the villas of the traders who had sucked and grown rich on the money they had earned, inadequate as it was. Had any man a wrong? The Government had put arms in his hands – let him go and right it! – It may be imagined what was the outcome of this kind of talk. So long as Keller Bey kept his hold there was no night plundering, and several men caught playing at "individual expropriation" were first threatened with the provost marshal and then with a firing party. Instead they were sent to the care of Calvi in the prison of Monsieur le Duc because the heart of Keller was tender.

This gloomy, four-square hulk of a mediæval keep had been built in the thirteenth century by the Duke of Burgundy, to awe the riotous Frankish burghers of Aramon le Vieux, and stands still, machicolated and fossed, much as he left it.

It was difficult now to think of the Aramon with its strong guild of hammer men, its coppersmiths swarming from their clattering toil, its tanners and booth-men pouring out of these same ruelles and squares, now grey with mistral or dreamy in the white sunshine. To-day not a cat would jump for a dozen Dukes of Burgundy, but seven hundred years ago Aramon le Vieux had a fierce élan of its own and knew how to singe the beard of an oppressor, especially if he were at some considerable distance.

After the building of the great feudal keep on the opposite bank, we hear little more of the turbulent traders, and the likelihood is that they paid their dues and gave no trouble ever afterwards, especially after the Duke constructed a bridge of boats which opened at both sides to allow of traffic.

Now, however, the lofty walls of the fortress of Monsieur le Duc became the rallying place of revolt. Every evening in front of the grand entrance, or upon the fossé bridge, Georges Barrès preached the doctrine of plunder and petroleum. There were in Aramon a certain number of "haves" – let those who heard him see to it that there were ten times that number of "takes"! For what were their brethren shut up there (he pointed to the Loches-like cliff of masonry above him, nearly twice the height of Rochester Castle), and answered, "For retaking their own – for redressing the wrongs of the poor!"

"For plain theft – they stole hens!" proclaimed a voice in the crowd.

"Down with the spy – kill the royalist – dismember the traitor!" howled the mob. And to show their honesty they fell upon a good citizen of Aramon, a respectable apothecary, come there almost at random. He had been discreetly silent. It was not he who had made the outcry, but wore he not a black frock-coat and looked he not sleek and well fed? If he were not a spy, what was he doing there? So they threw him in the Rhône. He was fished out half a mile below, where for a long distance the workshop wall skirts the river. Jack Jaikes did the job with grumbling thoroughness and the man of drugs was brought to with a science and celerity unknown in his own pharmacy.

Having thus asserted its power, the crowd turned with self-approval to listen to its favourite orator.

"Here in Aramon we have a Government, and over it presides a Great Shadow which has been sent us from the Internationale. What did ever the Internationale do for us? Did it stop this war? Did it force back the Germans? You tell me that we owe to this shadow the thirty sous a day on which we starve. What of that? It is a bribe to keep us from taking all they possess. Every day in that Château yonder the silver gleams on the white table-cloth, the red wine mantles in the glass, the champagne foams, and – my great God! you can hear them laughing – from the miserable lairs where your children are clamouring for bread, and your wives are weeping because there is none to give them!"

Now the soul of such crowds is most strange. In all that listening assembly there was no single man who did not know that every word was false. There was a special grant for families, and if any worker's children had not enough bread, it was because the patriot himself had spent the money on absinthe! Every worker knew this. Yet tears started to their eyes, and a deep-throated roar of anger went out against the Government which had arranged such a monstrous iniquity.

"Yonder lie the workshops – the place where money is spun – money such as you have no idea of – millions a week – all the fruit of your toil. Do not break the machinery. We will set it spinning money on our own account – but first we must be quit of Dennis Deventer and his foreign gang. Keller Bey will tell you that they are workers like yourselves – citizens, of equal rights before the Internationale. Why then did they collect together yonder, these brave citizens, these honest workers, these noble revolutionaries? Why are they not walking about these streets and taking their turn at mounting guard? I will tell you. Because they are the guardians of the treasures of the masters – they are keeping locked in Dennis Deventer's safes the millions which have been wrung from you in cruelty and blood and tears!"

Such a roar as went up from that black assembly in which the white caps of women were dotted and the massed blue knots of the National Guard could be seen! It reached the council, drearily debating in the town house, and there was a general desire to adjourn. The air was electric with coming trouble. These duly elected members of the Commune felt themselves caught between two great unknown forces – the Government of Versailles, which was represented by the pushing surveyors of the engineers' corps, the first skirmishers of an army which was certain to come upon them from the north, and this uprising of the idlers and workspoilers of their own kind.

Personally their Socialism was not deep-rooted. They had the national respect for small property-holders, and even if they possessed none themselves, Oncle Jean Marie or Tante Frizade were propriétaires in their own right. When these heritages fell in none of their loving nephews and nieces would fight harder for their share than the red-begirt members of the Commune of Aramon.

Only men like Keller Bey and Gaston Cremieux lived in a world beyond such things – and on the other hand were those who, like Barrès and Imbert, had nothing to gain or to lose however fortune's wheel might turn.

Père Félix pushed his way into the dense masses about the entrance of the prison keep. He was sure of himself, but very indignant at those of the Commune who had allowed him to come alone. Of course it was not fitting that Keller Bey should expose his person, but if the twenty of Aramon had marched together in a body, each with his crimson scarf of office girding him, they might have dominated the mob and silenced the hair-brained Barrès. Still, all the more honour to himself, when he should go back to twit them with their fears and tell them the story of his triumph!

"We don't want to hear Père Félix! Down with the traitor! Trample him, spit upon him!"

He could not believe his ears. For then began a din such as he had never heard. The young men on the outskirts had seized the instruments of the band of the National Guard and were now blowing, bellowing, and clanging upon them. He stood beside Barrès, who looked at him contemptuously, tossing the light fall of hair off his brow with a regular movement, as a challenged bull tosses his horns.

"Comrades and citizens, in the name of the Commune of Aramon, elected by you, I address you – "

Brazen horns brayed, tin trays and kettles were beaten, the big drum thundered just underneath. Words issued from the mouth of Père Félix. They must have done so, for his lips were moving, but not even himself heard a word, and the sardonic smile on the face of the Catalan Barrès became a grin.

The old orator, who had swayed all meetings of the plebs in Aramon ever since '48, threw up his hands in hopeless misery.

"They will not hear me," he cried, so that this time the words reached the ear of Barrès. "Why will they not hear me?"

Now Barrès was by this time content with his triumph, and he put his hand to the old man's ear and shouted, "Because your day is past – you are down, you and all your gang. You silenced me at the Riding School meeting three months ago, but then you had Gaston Cremieux to help you. You had better go home. I shall see to it that you do go home, and let not Aramon see your face again. Keep on the farther side of the Durance and no man shall meddle with you. But from this day forth take notice that Aramon means to do without you!"

He beckoned a few determined-looking fellows from the crowd, each armed with a rifle and cartridge-belt. A few instructions, a determined push through the crowd which divided to right and left, shouting hateful words all the time he was passing, and Père Félix found himself thrust ignominiously out of the northern gate of Aramon. His captors had treated him with a certain hasty roughness, but had up till now refrained from insult. Now they tore the red scarf of office from about his body and trampled it in the dust. The rule of the Twenty was over in Aramon.

Slowly and mournfully Père Félix took the way under the beautiful trees of the water road toward the Durance. He did not see where he was going. His foot caught more than once in twisted roots from which the soil had been washed away by the winter floods. Under the willows and among the glimmering poplars shedding blue and gold, he drew nearer the broken pier and the little height of sandy dune from which he could see the blue reek curl upward from the kitchen chimney of the restaurant of the Sambre-et-Meuse.

When he saw it his heart gave a sudden throb, as if he had recognised suddenly the face of a friend unseen and neglected for years.

"This is mine," he muttered, "and what have I been caring for? The popular applause! Mariana told me they would turn upon me and kick me at the last. Then perhaps I would remember that I had a home. They trampled my red sash in the dust. It was they who gave it to me – it was their own authority vested in me. They ought to have remembered!"

There were tears in the eyes of Père Félix. The tribune of the people could not all at once bring himself to accept a final defeat. But as he looked a different feeling gathered warm about his heart. Yonder was Jeanne bringing back a boat-load of firewood gathered from the flood mark. How tall she was, and how beautiful! He had not noticed these things before. How nobly and regularly she stood in the stern and poled the boat with the current – a splash or two and she was safe within the little backwater. Beyond was Mariana, busy with her fowls, scattering feed for them with the shrill chook—chook-chookychooks used on such occasions by the hen-wives of all nations. Père Félix could see the birds running stumblingly with wings outspread to the feast. Mariana turned, glanced across the water, put on her spectacles, and called aloud to Jeanne without any surprise.

"There is your father, Jeanne – go, fetch him home!"

And suddenly, as his daughter leaped lightly out of the boat and kissed him on both cheeks, the colour flushing to her face and her bosom heaving, Père Félix felt himself no more ashamed and outcasted.

"Father," said Jeanne, "I have found such a nest of logs – fine burning wood. You are just in time to cut it into faggots for me. Then I can go and bring away the rest while you are at work."

"Félix, you are just in time for dinner," his wife cried out at sight of him. "There is roast lamb and green peas from Les Cabannes. You old gourmand, I'll wager you knew and came home on purpose!"

No, Père Félix had not known, but he certainly did come on purpose and on purpose he meant to stay.

CHAPTER XXXI