Children of the Siege

by Diney Costeloe

  ‘You wanted,’ repeated her father. ‘You wanted… Who are you to put your wants against the wishes, no, the orders, of your parents? Out there,’ he gesticulated vaguely in the direction of the city, ‘out there is a revolution. Out there people are fighting and dying, murdering and looting. The city is crammed with soldiers who’d think nothing of grabbing a child your age to satisfy them. As for that boy Jeannot, how dare he lead you into such danger after all I’ve done for him…’

  Hélène plucked up her last pinch of courage and said, ‘Jeannot didn’t take me there. I went by myself. I wanted to show the Prussians they couldn’t just walk into Paris and none of us do anything, so I went and threw some rotten apples at them. So they’d know we didn’t want them here.’ She stood with her head held high and, as her remarks were greeted with an astonished silence, added, ‘Jeannot found me. I got lost and he found me and brought me home.’

  She was not beaten, as she had truly expected to be, but was confined to an attic bedroom which contained nothing but an iron cot and a chamber pot. Marie-Jeanne had removed her stinking clothes, scrubbed her from head to foot, washing and brushing out her matted hair, and then had returned her to her father. Without speaking he led her upstairs and thrust her into the tiny room, locking the door behind her. There Hélène was left to ponder on her conduct on a diet of solitude, bread and water. She did not see the second parade of German soldiers as they left Paris after two days’ token occupation, nor hear of the patriot Parisians on their knees scrubbing the streets so defiled by the invaders’ feet. She remained locked in the attic for a whole week before she was received back into the family and treated, by her parents at least, as if the adventure had never occurred.

  With her sisters, however, she was something of a celebrity and they plied her with questions about her escapade, shivering with delicious fear as she described the angry face of the National Guardsman whom she had hit with the apple, and crying out in shocked delight as she recounted how she had bitten the man who had tried to catch her. They demanded descriptions of the parade, the proud, marching soldiers, the cavalry riding their splendid horses, the cannon drawn behind, and these became more and more graphic at each telling.

  Though the matter was never referred to again by her parents, several things happened as a direct consequence of her action. First, she discovered Jeannot had disappeared. Her denial of his involvement had not saved him and after receiving a hiding from Pierre and a tongue-lashing from Emile St Clair, he had been turned out into the street with his handcart and the tiny bundle of his possessions, and a piece of cheese in a twist of paper slipped into his hand by Berthe who, despite the enormity of his crimes, was sorry to see him go.

  ‘He went quite cheerfully really,’ she told Hélène one day when the girl had slipped down to the kitchen to see her. The regular visits to Berthe were no longer allowed, but Hélène had taken advantage of her mother retiring to bed with a headache to creep below stairs to ask about Jeannot. ‘Said he didn’t like being cooped up here. Trouble was they found he’d been thieving too.’

  Hélène looked up in astonishment. ‘Thieving? From us?’

  Cook shrugged. ‘Can’t say about that, but he had some bits and pieces in his pockets when Pierre searched him, which he couldn’t explain.’

  ‘Poor Jeannot,’ said Hélène as she thought of him once more living rough, scavenging food and in the company of Paul and the Monkey.

  ‘Don’t worry about him, Miss Hélène,’ said Berthe, and lowering her voice added, ‘I see he gets a piece of pie or a lump of cheese from time to time, and Pierre sees him too. He’s got fond of the lad.’

  Hélène’s face lit up. ‘Does he come here?’ she asked. ‘Tell me, so I can see him.’

  Berthe looked severe. ‘Certainly not. You and he’ve caused enough trouble as it is. Your papa would throw me out too if he thought I’d told you as much as I have. You’re not allowed down here now, you know. We’ll both be in trouble if you’re caught. Go on up now, before your ma misses you.’

  Hélène went back up to the schoolroom where her sisters were dutifully learning a poem to recite to Maman later, and though she too settled down with a poetry book in her lap, her thoughts were far from the enclosed warmth of the schoolroom. She gazed out over the walled garden in which she and her sisters were allowed to play, and thought of Jeannot. He had never joined their sedate games of ball and hide and seek in that garden; he had been confined to the courtyard behind the kitchen, but now even that was forbidden to him. He had the freedom of Paris, the streets were his world, not the cloistered life Hélène must lead, and despite the dirt and hunger she knew he faced, she envied him his freedom. She longed to talk to him again and wondered if Pierre might tell her when he came, as Berthe would not. She thought it was worth a try and decided to watch for an opportunity to ask the coachman.

  This opportunity presented itself a few days later, on a chilly but sunny afternoon when the girls had been sent out into the garden for some fresh air. They decided to play hide and seek and Hélène, covering her eyes, counted to one hundred while her sisters hid. As she began to search for them she noticed that the door in the wall between the garden and the courtyard was open. Wondering if Clarice had dared to go there to hide, Hélène peeped through. The yard was empty but the door to the stables was open and Hélène realised that this was the chance she’d been looking for. With a furtive glance behind her, she slipped through the door and, running across the courtyard, went in to the stables to see if Pierre was there.

  If anyone asks what I’m doing if I get caught out here, she thought, I’ll tell them we were playing hide and seek and I was looking for Clarice.

  Quietly she crept along, peering into each loose box; they were all empty so she moved on to the tack room at the end and there she found them.

  Her approach was so silent that she was able to stand in the doorway for several seconds before they saw her. Jeannot, sitting on the floor beside the old iron stove, was devouring bread and cheese from a tin plate, and Pierre, perched on an old saddle horse with his back to the door, was asking him about the street fighting on the previous evening.

  Jeannot glanced up to answer and saw Hélène standing at the door, half-poised for flight. He grinned at her cheerfully.

  ‘Hello,’ he said.

  Pierre spun round and relief spread over his face as he saw who it was.

  ‘You didn’t ought to be here, Miss Hélène,’ he said gruffly. ‘Your pa’ll be after you for running off again.’

  ‘I haven’t run off,’ said Hélène indignantly, approaching the stove to warm her hands. ‘We’re playing hide and seek and I’m looking for Clarice.’

  ‘Well she’s not here, so you’d better get back into the garden, sharpish, before they all start to look for you,’ advised Pierre.

  ‘But I want to talk to Jeannot,’ said Hélène. ‘I was going to ask you to tell me when he came to see you, but now I don’t have to, he’s here already.’

  She was about to join the boy sitting in the dust by the stove when Pierre said testily, ‘Well, don’t sit down then, or you’ll get that dress dirty.’

  Hélène, seeing the wisdom of this, remained standing and asked, ‘Are you all right, Jeannot? They locked me up for a week.’

  ‘Good thing they didn’t try nothing like that with me,’ said Jeannot darkly. ‘Don’t like being shut in, I don’t.’

  ‘I’m sorry they sent you away,’ said Hélène. ‘I told them it wasn’t your fault. I said you brought me home when I was lost.’

  ‘Did you?’ Jeannot seemed impressed. ‘You always was a game kid. Not like most prissy misses. Don’t worry, I’d had enough of this place anyway.’

  ‘Jeannot!’ protested Pierre, uneasy at the boy’s casual conversation with a member of the family. ‘Take no notice of him, Miss Hélène, he was grateful enough to your pa at the time he was took on, I can tell you.’

  ‘So I was,’ agreed Jeannot with his mouth full, ‘but I don’
t like being tied down… do this, do that. I like to come and go as I please.’

  ‘But how do you live?’ asked Hélène. ‘How do you buy food?’

  Jeannot winked at her knowingly. ‘I get by. I always have, always will. I’m a survivor, me.’

  ‘There’s someone calling you,’ said Pierre tersely. ‘Go back to the garden quickly, or I’ll be out on the street like young Jeannot.’

  Solemnly Hélène held out her hand to the boy, and he, getting to his feet, wiped his grubby hands on his grubbier clothes before taking it in his and shaking it.

  ‘Go on, Miss Hélène,’ said Pierre urgently, ‘or we’ll all be found.’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s our secret, Pierre,’ said Hélène and darted out of the stables into the sunshine. She was only just in time. As she reached the gate in the garden wall she met the new governess, Mademoiselle Corbine, coming through to look for her.

  ‘Hélène, where have you been? Why were you in the courtyard? You know you are not allowed to leave the garden.’ Mademoiselle Corbine spoke crossly. She had been afraid Hélène had slipped away again and knew the responsibility would have been hers this time.

  ‘Sorry, mademoiselle,’ said Hélène meekly. ‘Only I couldn’t find Clarice in the garden so when I saw the gate open I thought she might have hidden in the yard.’

  ‘Clarice knows she’s not allowed to leave the garden, the same as you do,’ said Mademoiselle Corbine tightly. ‘You will learn three extra stanzas of your poem tonight as a punishment for disobedience.’

  Hélène hung her head and murmured, ‘Yes, mademoiselle.’ But she was not dismayed, three stanzas would be no trouble; Hélène learned easily enough, and it had been worth it to see Jeannot even if only for a moment or two. He was her link with the world, the real world, outside the regulated confines of the Avenue Ste Anne.

  ‘Come inside now,’ said her governess, ‘your mother wishes to see you.’

  Mademoiselle Angèle Corbine had been a second consequence of Hélène’s day out with Jeannot. A young lady of refined but reduced circumstances, she was hastily engaged to become the girls’ governess, while Hélène was in the attic, paying the price for her adventure. On her return to the family she discovered Mademoiselle Corbine already installed in the schoolroom.

  Angèle Corbine was kind and she was sensible and she made her charges work hard. Clarice grumbled about their lessons, but Hélène enjoyed them. She had an enquiring mind and was interested in the other countries that Mademoiselle Corbine showed them on the globe, the movement of the planets in the sky, the stories she told them from history, and her explanation of how numbers worked. During the day the girls were seldom out of her sight and after they had spent a comfortable hour with their mother in the evening, Mademoiselle Corbine handed them over to Marie-Jeanne. There was never a moment when they were unsupervised, and though they did not know it, this was entirely intentional. Hélène’s excursion had terrified her parents. They were under no illusions as to the worsening situation in Paris, there was increasing unrest in the streets of the city. The killing of the ‘spy’ in the Place de la Bastille during the demonstration at the July Column had been bad enough, and soon after, some of the rioters had dared to break out prisoners from the Ste-Pélagie gaol. But none of this had occurred anywhere near their home, and though Rosalie was anxious to leave the city once again for the safety of St Etienne, Emile would have none of it.

  ‘I need to stay in the city to protect our interests,’ he maintained.

  ‘We need to leave to protect our children,’ countered Rosalie.

  ‘Provided they remain in the house they are in no danger,’ Emile said. ‘The unrest is in the slum quarters of the city, not round here. We have nothing to fear provided we are careful where we go. We shall not run away at exaggerated news of the squabbles of a rabble.’

  There was no moving him on this point and for the moment Rosalie held her peace. She was used to his intransigence and usually managed to soften it in time.

  The days passed and it seemed that Emile was right. The continued unrest and outbreaks of violence were elsewhere in the city. Gradually he began to gather the reins of his business, and though the rebuilding of the city after the pounding it had received during the siege was yet a long way off, he was determined to keep his other sources of income safe in his hands.

  With this in mind, Emile set out one Saturday morning to collect some of his rents.

  He would go and visit the several houses he owned in Montmartre. They were only small, each comprising two rooms, huddled together as if for mutual support, built in a tiny lane that wound up the hill, the homes of street cleaners and washerwomen. Nothing to fear from them, but as Emile approached, entering the winding lanes that led up the hill, he heard the rumble of a gathered crowd, like the growling of a large and predatory animal. Pausing, he contemplated turning back, recognising that something extraordinary was going on, but then decided to press on. He was only going to visit a few houses, after all, so what was there to fear?

  As he continued to make his way up the hill, he considered his approach. He knew that he was going to have trouble collecting the rents after such a harsh winter. During the siege the back rent had accumulated, but there had been no one there to collect it. Normally, Marc, a lad from Emile’s office, went weekly to each house to take the few francs Emile charged for this very minimal housing. During the siege, when he had been at St Etienne, this had not happened and Emile had been afraid that he would never be able to claim the money owed to him. But now the newly elected government had passed two laws, one declaring all debts, on which there had been a moratorium during the war, must be paid within forty-eight hours, and the other, that a landlord could now demand payment of all back rent accumulated during the siege. Because his tenants would be reluctant to pay, Emile realised he must collect these monies himself. Marc would have neither the authority nor the courage to demand such payment. Emile actually considered that forty-eight hours was too harsh a timescale for the people who lived in his properties, and he was planning to offer them a week, say, or possibly two, to find the back rent, for as he said to Rosalie over the breakfast table that morning, ‘I’m a reasonable man. These people will have to have a chance to find the money, and so I will give them time to pay.’

  His thoughts were unexpectedly interrupted by the rattle of gunfire, shots ringing out across the hillside, which brought him to an abrupt halt. More shots and a triumphant roar from the throats of a mob. Emile turned to flee, but he was too late. Moments later he was engulfed by a tide of humanity sweeping down through the lanes.

  Emile had not reckoned on the increasing power of the National Guard. Since the siege had ended and the French Army was being reduced in numbers by the unpopular Peace Treaty, the Paris National Guard had become more and more powerful, banding together to form their own Central Committee. Determined not to give up any of their armaments to the victorious Prussians who were about to occupy the city, they had moved the two hundred cannon within its walls and dragged them up the hill into the Republican stronghold of Montmartre. Here they were determined to keep them from the clutches of both the French and the German armies. The new government led by Adolphe Thiers, however, had other ideas and sent a force under the command of General Lecomte to retrieve the stolen artillery. At first all went well and the cannon were soon back in the hands of government troops, but due to an incompetence which had dogged them throughout the war, the army had failed to bring the horses needed to tow the cannon away.

  Alerted to what was going on, it was all the opportunity the revolutionary Fédérés needed, and before they knew it, the inexperienced French troops were surrounded by angry National Guardsmen and an irate local populace. Many of the young soldiers refused to fight, throwing down their weapons, and mob violence took over. Lecomte was pulled down from his horse and beaten up, but this wasn’t enough to satisfy the madness of the mob, who then grabbed and attacked a much-hated former general of the Nat
ional Guard, dragging both him and Lecomte through the streets into a garden where they were both set against a wall and shot out of hand.

  The mob were fired up now and burst back out into the streets, shouting and yelling, carried forward by the lust for blood that the executions had unleashed, and it was this surging crowd erupting down the hill that engulfed Emile, dragging him along amid the screeching swirl of people, unable to break free, at risk of being trampled if he tried. Keeping his head down and allowing himself to be carried with them was the only way he was going to survive. If the rabble had not been so incensed by the invasion of their territory, their Montmartre, their revolutionary fury whipped up into a frenzy, they might have noticed from his dress that Emile was not one of them; that he was one of the hated bourgeoisie, and he might never have reached the safety of his home again. As it was, after what seemed to him an age of being pushed and shoved by men and women, some armed with sticks and clubs, a few with guns, others waving their fists, all shouting invective, crying down curses on the government and all those who supported them, he managed to ease his way to the edge of the churning horde and slide sideways into the mouth of an alleyway and escape from the mania of the crowd.

  Without looking back, he scurried to the end of the lane, ducking round the corner, hurrying along another narrow passageway leading to a third. He had no idea where he was, but by always heading downhill, Emile managed to find his way through the labyrinth of lanes and alleys, back to the river and the wider boulevards that led him eventually to his own neighbourhood. He had lost his hat and his cane in the crush, but once back into civilisation, he straightened his dishevelled clothes, drew a deep breath and set out for home. That he had been afraid, he had to admit. Never an emotional man, the mob hysteria he’d just encountered frightened him more than he would have believed possible, but it was a fear he would never admit to anyone but himself. He walked slowly to the Avenue Ste Anne breathing deeply, and by the time he stood outside his own front door, the first rush of fear had dissipated somewhat, and he was able to enter the house without it being apparent that he had passed anything but a normal day. It wasn’t until he was back in his own bedroom that he realised his wallet was no longer in his pocket.