63 CHAPTER X. ST. CLOUD. "Waiting for Spring! The nations in their anger, C. F. ALEXANDER. Louis had been much pleased and impressed with his visit to his friend Antoine Meunier at St. Cloud. His thoughts constantly reverted to the beautiful little cottage, so clean and neat in its trim and pretty garden. He could not remove the image of Cécile-so simple, so charming, so affectionate to her father-from his mind. He longed to go again, but his military duties as well as the help he had to give his mother, to purchase and store her provisions for the siege, had hitherto prevented him. He had not seen Meunier since; he began to be uneasy; he thought perchance he had left for some other part of France. If he had not, what could he be doing? Surely he would not remain at St. Cloud to await the Prussians, who would destroy everything and slaughter everybody? Louis therefore determined he would take the first opportunity of going to St. Cloud to see what had become of his friend and his daughter. Accordingly, one fine afternoon, Louis, dressed in his new uniform, started for St. Cloud. In those days crowds of Parisians went at all times of the day to the gates to watch the preparations for the defence. The most melancholy of these was the destruction of the surrounding villages-a work which did not progress speedily enough to please some, for it was no trifling matter to destroy so many houses, to annihilate the wealth accumulated by sixty years of prosperity. Louis beheld a sad sight when he reached the barrier. Paris was encircled by a belt of villages as rich as any in the world, elegantly and beautifully built, and filled by a well-to-do population. These must be demolished in order to have a clear space round the walls, and to gain a free field to the guns from the ramparts. Half-destroyed buildings might be seen on all sides, while hundreds of carts were bearing from these devastated places, beams, stones, and furniture. Heaps of débris and rubbish blocked up the way. Among these wandered, mingling with the destroyers, the heart-broken owners of the condemned buildings, their children playing among the ruins with the light-heartedness and unconsciousness of their age. When Louis reached the Bois de Boulogne, the spectacle was equally melancholy. The best of the trees indeed were still standing; their leaves were just beginning to assume the beautiful russet tints of autumn. The avenues were quite deserted; the lakes, round which formerly all the fashion of Paris walked or drove, were silent or forsaken; even the swans and ducks had disappeared with the Empire which protected them, having fallen by the merciless bullets of the mischievous Mobiles. Advancing further, Louis perceived wood-cutters and soldiers armed with axes, and heard the dull sounds of the iron upon the trunks of the trees, which bent, and then fell with a crash. The birds, finding their homes destroyed, were flying hither and thither, raising notes of distress. Louis continued his walk through all these sad scenes, foreboding sadder ones, till he reached the Seine, and saw before him the houses of St. Cloud rising on its opposite shore. He crossed the bridge, passed through the town, and soon found himself before Meunier's pretty little residence. The barking of a dog, as he lifted the latch of the gate, proved to him that the cottage was not altogether empty. Louis knocked at the door, which was opened by Cécile, who started back in dismay when she saw a soldier before her, for she did not recognize Louis at first in his altered dress, and she had heard so many stories of robberies, depredations, and acts of violence committed by the undisciplined soldiery and Mobile Guards that she had reason for her fears. The dog approached Louis growling. "Oh, mademoiselle! I see you don't recognize me," said Louis; "I am your father's friend and fellow-workman, Louis Laforce. Is he at home? is he well?" "Go back, Nero," she said to the dog, who did not seem at all inclined to welcome the visitor; "come in, monsieur, my father will soon be at home." Louis now entered the cottage, which looked as neat and attractive as on his previous visit. "What! no preparations for moving, mademoiselle? why the Prussians will be at St. Cloud in a week, or perhaps less!" exclaimed Louis. "No, my father will not leave till he is obliged, and where are we to go? what are we to do? We have no property but this little cottage, we live on my father's wages, and the product of our garden! Though my father has no longer any work, we still make enough by selling our vegetables, for now we get double the usual price for them, so it is not to be wondered at, if we stay as long as we can." "But is it wise, mademoiselle? Think of all the horrors the Prussians have committed everywhere; how they burn, destroy, murder, in every spot they come to," said Louis. "Very true, monsieur, very true," replied Cècile; "but still I hope we shall escape in time.” At that moment Meunier entered the room, looking very anxious and careworn. He greeted Louis warmly. "I am surprised to find you still here," said the latter; "I could not think what had become of you. I have not seen you since I last came here, Do you never come to Paris now?" F "Very rarely; but I suppose ere long we shall be driven into the city," rejoined Meunier sadly. "Surely you won't linger here much longer?" said Louis. "Cécile must go into Paris in a day or two. It would not be safe for her to remain here, but I think sometimes that I shall stay till the Prussians come." "I will never be separated from you, father!" said Cécile decidedly. "But, Meunier," said Louis; "if the Prussians found you here, they would shoot you at once, and burn your cottage. Moreover, however much you wished it then, you could never get into Paris, as the gates will be shut, the Prussians will be all round the city, and there will be no going out or in." "Louis, I am at my wits' ends! I don't know what to do. If I leave my cottage, it will be pillaged and destroyed by French marauders before the Prussians come. When we go into Paris, how are we to live? I can't get work. I shall enlist in the army or the Mobiles; but then my pay won't keep us both, for how dear provisions will be during the siege. On Monday I mean to go into Paris, and try if I can find a lodging, and next day I shall bring Cécile to it." "But I won't be left without you, father, remember," said Cécile; "we will share all the dangers and sufferings together." "Well, Cécile, we shall see," said her father sadly. Louis remained till late, chatting with Meunier and his daughter, and consulting what was best to be done in the present dilemma. He found Cécile's society so very delightful, that it was with difficulty he could make up his mind to leave, for in such times as these, when or where could they hope to meet again? All the way back, too, his thoughts reverted to Cécile, he quite forgot all about the siege, and the demolished houses round Paris, and the dreaded Prussians, and the new Republic, and how he was to distinguish himself as a soldier in the approaching combats, for the charming young girl in the cottage at St. Cloud had completely taken possession of his heart. During the next few days, Louis was so occupied by his military duties, that he had no time to look out for his friend Meunier, though he knew he would be in Paris, much less to make another expedition to St. Cloud. The Prussians were coming nearer and nearer; on the 11th September, they were seen to be approaching Meaux; on the 17th, the train for Orleans was attacked by them at Choisy, just out of Paris. Versailles even was threatened, while on the 19th, the newspapers announced that the last railroad which united Paris with France and the rest of Europe had been cut the previous evening, that the capital was thus iolated, and that the siege would now commence in earnest. An attempt was made to cut the Prussian army in two at Chatillon, which signally failed; and in the evening, fugitive soldiers hurried into the town, in a state of indescribable disorder. They were received by an immense crowd, who welcomed them with cries, curses, laughter, and tears, the groans of the wounded were mingled with the oaths of the waggoners, while above both, was that indistinct murmur of the multitude, like the distant roar of the ocean, on the day of a tempest. Some even shook the drunken disbanded soldiers by their collars, spat in their faces, and drove them with blows to the Place Vendôme; others demanded that these cowards should be immediately shot, without even the form of a trial. So utterly demoralized, so full of strife and division was the city that night, that had the Prussians only made a rapid advance, they might probably have entered it, and saved themselves the toils and losses of the long siege. "We see but little of Louis now," Madame Laforce remarked to Josephine, a few days after this; "I suppose he will rarely be able to come home, even to sleep, he is so much with his regiment, and he'll have to take his turn, too, as sentry on the walls." |