Told in a French Garden | Page 4

Fate would have it, the second night we sat down to dinner in
that garden, news had come of the assassination of Franz
Ferdinand-Charles-Louis Joseph-Marie d'Autriche-Este, whom the
tragic death of Prince Rudolphe, almost exactly twenty-four years and
six months earlier to a day, had made Crown Prince of
Austria-Hungary--and the tone of our gathering was changed. From
that day the party threatened to become a little Bedlam, and the garden
a rostrum.
In the earlier days it did not make so much difference. The talk was
good. We were a travelled group, and what with reminiscences of
people and places, and the scandal of courts, it was far from being dull.
But as the days went on, and the war clouds began to gather, the
overcharged air seemed to get on the nerves of the entire group, and
instead of the peaceful summer we had counted upon, every one of us
seemed to live in his own particular kind of fever. Every one of us,

down to the Youngster, had fixed ideas, deep-set theories, and
convictions as different as our characters, our lives, our callings, and
our faiths. We were all Cosmopolitan Americans, but ready to spread
the Eagle, if necessary, and all of us, except the Violinist, of New
England extraction, which means really of English blood, and that will
show when the screws are put on. We had never thought of the
Violinist as not one of us, but he was really of Polish origin. His
great-grandfather had been a companion of Adam Czartoriski in the
uprising of 1830, and had gone to the States when the amnesty was not
extended to his chief after that rebellion, Poland's last, had been
stamped out.
As well as I can remember it was the night of August 6th that the first
serious dispute arose. England had declared war. All our male servants
had left us except two American chauffeurs, and a couple of old outside
men. Two of our four cars, and all our horses but one had been
requisitioned. That did not upset us. We had taken on the wives of
some of the men, among them Angéle, the pretty wife of one of the
French chauffeurs, and her two-months-old baby into the bargain. We
still had two cars, that, at a pinch, would carry the party, and we still
had one mount in case of necessity.
The question arose as to whether we should break up and make for the
nearest port while we could, or "stick it out." It had been finally agreed
not to evacuate--yet. One does not often get such a chance to see a
country at war, and we were all ardent spectators, and all unattached. I
imagine not one of us had at that time any idea of being useful--the
stupendousness of it all had not dawned on any of us--unless it was the
Doctor.
But after the decision of "stick" had been passed unanimously, the
Critic, who was a bit of a sentimentalist, and if he were anything else
was a Norman Angel-lite, stuck his hands in his pockets, and remarked:
"After all, it is perfectly safe to stay, especially now that England is
coming in."
"You think so?" said the Doctor.

"Sure," smiled the Critic. "The Germans will never cross the French
frontier this time. This is not 1870."
"Won't they, and isn't it?" replied the Doctor sharply.
"They never can get by Verdun and Belfort."
"Never said they could," remarked the Doctor, with a tone as near to a
sneer as a good-natured host can allow himself. "But they'll invade fast
enough. I know what I am talking about."
"You don't mean to tell me," said the Critic, "that a nation like
Germany--I'm talking now about the people, the country that has been
the hot bed of Socialism,--will stand for a war of invasion?"
That started the Doctor off. He flayed the theorists, the people who
reasoned with their emotions and not their brains, the mob that looked
at externals, and never saw the fires beneath, the throng that was unable
to understand anything outside its own horizon, the mass that pretended
to read the history of the world, and because it changed its clothes
imagined that it had changed its spirit.
"Why, I've lived in Germany," he cried. "I was educated there. I know
them. I have the misfortune to understand them. They'll stick together
and Socialism go hang--as long as there is a hope of victory. The
Confederation was cemented in the blood of victory. It can only be
dissolved in the blood of defeat. They are a great, a well-disciplined,
and an obedient people."
"One would think you admired them and their military system,"
remarked the Critic, a bit crest-fallen at the attack.
"I may not, but I'll