At the Sign of the Sword: A Story of Love and War in Belgium

“An advocate is forced to serve whichever side engages him,” he replied. “That is why the profession of arms is so much more honest.”

“Granted,” his companion said. “It gives you an entrée to the better houses – you can become a member of the Cercle Militaire, and all that, but is it not all useless? The war, which has been predicted all these years, has never come – nor, in my belief, will it ever come. Germany only raises a bogey from time to time, in order to terrify Europe, as my father puts it,” the girl added.

“Ah! I fear the Baron is a little too optimistic,” replied her lover. “War, when it comes – as it most assuredly will – will come in the hour when we least expect it. Then, when the Teuton hordes burst their bonds, woe-betide the nations they attack.”

“Well, Edmond, we have one consolation, that they will never attack us. We are neutral, and the Powers – even Germany herself – have agreed to respect our neutrality.”

“Ah, Aimée, that remains to be seen,” was his slow, apprehensive reply. “Germany, when she fights, will fight for world-wide power, irrespective of treaties or of agreements. The Kaiser is the great War Lord, and his intention is to vindicate his self-assumed title, and to rule the world.”

“Father, who is behind the scenes of international politics, quite disputes that view.”

“The Baron will not admit it – nobody in Belgium will admit it – because no cloud appears to-day upon the political horizon. But the dark cloud will arise ere long, depend upon it, and then we shall, every man of us, be compelled to fight for our lives, and for all we hold most dear.”

A silence fell between them. The young man slowly stirred his coffee, and then, taking a cigarette from his case, lit it, with a word of apology at having expressed such words of warning, and daring to disagree with the view held by the Baron de Neuville.

“But do you really fear war, Edmond?” asked the girl at last, having reflected deeply upon her lover’s words.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to alarm you, dearest,” he laughed quickly. “War will, I believe, break out in Europe; but not yet – probably not for years to come. Germany is not ready; and besides, she fears both France and England. Nevertheless, she is preparing to conquer the world. Of that, one has evidence everywhere in Germany.”

“My father does not believe it.”

“Because, like so many others all the world over who are piling up their money and reaping rich dividends, he does not wish to believe it. He, like millions of others, is content in the blissful paradise which he himself creates. But there, dearest, enough of my controversial subjects. Let us enjoy this glorious day,” and he blew a cloud of blue cigarette smoke from his lips, and laughed at her merrily across the little coffee-cup which he raised to his lips.

Then presently, Edmond having settled the account, the blissful pair entered the great grey car, in which Antoine, the Baron’s clean-shaven chauffeur, loyal to his young mistress, drove them rapidly away, up the white, winding road which led due east into the heart of the peaceful, picturesque Ardennes.

Chapter Two.

The Rising Cloud

A fortnight later – the second day of August, to be exact.

The Taverne Joseph, that popular restaurant in the Boulevard d’Anspach, in Brussels, where, beneath the shadow of the Bourse, the business-man gets such delicious plâts du jour, was crowded, as it always is each day at noon. The many little tables set out upon the pavement, along which the life of the bright little Belgian capital ebbed and flowed, were filled by men who daily, year in and year out, ate their midday meal, gossiped, and drank long glasses of iced bock.

At one table, in a corner by the glass screen which divided the pavement before Joseph’s establishment from that belonging to a restaurant next door, Edmond Valentin sat alone.

He had every reason to congratulate himself most heartily. An hour ago, after making a most brilliant and impassioned speech for the defence in the Assize Court, the trial of the Affaire of the Rue du Trône had at last ended. The chemist’s assistant, Sigart, a cruel-hearted assassin who had killed his young wife by administering gelsiminium – as the prosecution had alleged – had been acquitted, and upon Edmond’s remarkable success he had been everywhere congratulated by his confrères in the great atrium of the Courts.

As he sat alone, idly watching the passers-by, he was wondering what Aimée would think. She would read in the Petit Bleu that night the account of the trial, which she was so closely following, he knew. What would she say when she saw that he had been successful – that he had made a name in the legal world at last!

He was in the act of lighting a cigarette, one of a special brand of Egyptians which were sold only at the little Mosque in the courtyard of the Grand Hotel opposite, when a strident voice reached his ear, and next second a perspiring young vendor of newspapers, in a peaked cap, thrust under his nose a newspaper, crying in French, “German Ultimatum to Belgium! —V’la Le Journal!” He paid his sou, and eagerly opened the thin damp sheet.

His quick eyes scanned the sinister news which the paper contained, to the effect that the German Minister in Brussels had, at seven o’clock on the previous evening, offered Belgium an entente with Germany in return for her facilitating German military operations. A pistol was held at Belgium’s head. She had been given till seven o’clock that morning to reply. A Council Meeting had been held which had lasted till midnight, after which Messieurs Hymans and Van den Heuvel had drafted a reply, which for three hours further had been discussed. Belgium relied upon the treaty to which Germany herself had been signatory, guaranteeing her neutrality, and had therefore replied that she could not accept the proposal.

Edmond Valentin held his breath as he read those significant lines of print.

Half the men in the restaurant eagerly bought papers, were silent for a moment, and then the greatest excitement was apparent everywhere.

“War with Germany!” yelled the newsvendors in strident tones as they rushed along the Boulevard, and even the police – the most correct in Europe – were so dumbfounded that they did not raise a voice in protest at this unseemly breach of the regulation which prohibits the crying of news.

Belgium had defied the great and terrible machine of Prussian militarism. She had told the Kaiser, openly and plainly, that she would, like Holland, remain neutral, in accordance with the solemn treaty to which the Powers had put their signatures.

“Well, my friend,” remarked a fat stockbroker, to whom Valentin was known as having his lunch daily at the Joseph. “This is defiance – eh? We have held up our hand to stop the great War Lord of Germany. We have no quarrel with our neighbours. This is only newspaper gossip. There will be no war, I assure you. A Bourse canard – perhaps.”

“But if Germany attacks us?” queried the young lawyer, placing his newspaper on the table.

“Bah! that she will never do. We know the Kaiser and his mailed fist of old. If Russia has mobilised, surely it cannot concern us?”

“But France and Great Britain are Russia’s allies, remember.”

“Exactly. Germany will never dare to face Europe with only Austria, an effete nation, as an ally. Your agreement supports mine, my dear friend,” laughed the fat over-dressed man, who wore a large diamond in his cravat.

“But are there not already violations of the French frontier, and also in Luxembourg? The Germans have also occupied frontier towns in Russia,” Edmond argued.

“Bien! But it is only a menace on the part of Germany – and menace is not war. Do not forget the Agadir incident. No, no, m’sieur. The coming war is not yet – not yet, although I quite admit that we have felt the unrest on the Bourse this morning.”

“Unrest?” echoed Edmond. “I tell you that to-day there is war in the air, m’sieur! The German Emperor has created, by his clever chicanery, a diplomatic position in Europe which is impossible. The preparations of Prussia are complete. That the Emperor means war is apparent to those who have studied events, as I have, ever since the deplorable assassinations in Sarajevo.”

“Ah! mon ami, I see you are pessimistic,” laughed the stockbroker, draining his glass of Benedictine. “It would be bad for Belgium if all her sons were alarmists like yourself.”

“No, m’sieur, pardon?” was Edmond Valentin’s quick response. “If all were like yourself, we should be lulled to deep by the assurances of our bitter enemy – the enemy who intends to march through this capital of ours to Antwerp, and the sea.”

“Bah! The old story told to us for so many years!” laughed the man at the next table as he rose slowly and took his straw hat. “We shall meet here again – say this day week, and then you will be forced to admit the truth of my argument.”

“Well – let us hope so, m’sieur. We shall see,” Valentin replied with a gesture of apprehension, which showed him to be concerned.

The fat man wished him a merry “bon jour,” and passed out upon the sun-baked pavement, where the excited crowds were now hurrying, eagerly discussing the alarming news.

“War! War! WAR!”

The word was upon everyone’s lips throughout the length and breadth of the animated little capital of les braves Belges– the people so long sneered at by their superiors in Paris until the very expression had become synonymous of a populace actuated by timid arrogance, and who merely aped all the culture and most of the vices of the Parisians.

When the optimistical stockbroker had gone, Edmond again took up his paper and read how Sir Edward Grey had made a statement in the House of Commons, in London, regarding the obligations of honour, and of national security involved in the maintenance by Great Britain of Belgian neutrality. France and Russia were already in a state of war with Germany. Would Great Britain stand by Belgium?

Upon the terrasse of the crowded restaurant and within, the sole topic of the excited conversation was the seriousness of the situation. Old men who had been scared times without number by the war-clouds which had risen over Europe, laughed to scorn the idea of a great conflict.

“My dear Jules?” shouted a thin-faced, white-bearded man – the head of a great commercial house – across the restaurant. “Do not give it another thought. There will be no war. The Germans are not yet ready, and the diplomats will arrange it all, as they always do. They are paid for it. The Kaiser’s bark is worse than his bite.”

Whereat many laughed.

But not so Edmond Valentin. He had been a close student of international politics, and in order to supplement his income at the criminal bar, he had often written articles upon international politics for the Indépendance Belge, and the Matin of Antwerp. What he had feared and predicted was, alas! coming rapidly true.

Germany, with her horde of spies everywhere in Belgium, France, and England, and her closely guarded military and naval secrets had deceived Europe. She was fully prepared – and her Emperor intended to make war, and to crush civilisation beneath the despotic heel of Prussian militarism. The cross of Christ was to be overthrown by the brutal agnosticism of Nietzsche, the blasphemous “philosopher” who died in a madhouse.

Edmond Valentin held his breath, and replacing the paper again upon the table, while the buzz of dispute and argument was still in his ears, stared straight before him into the busy, glaring thoroughfare.

War! War! WAR!

At length he rose, and making his way blindly to the Bourse, only a few steps away, he boarded one of the open-air trains, and ascended the steep, winding streets, the narrow Marche aux Herbes, and the Rue de la Madeline, until he reached the broad Rue de la Régence, which led straight up to the great façade of the domed Palais de Justice. Half-way up the street he alighted and, entering a block of offices, ascended to his bureau.