A Beleaguered City by Mrs. Oliphant

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A BELEAGUERED CITY

BEING

A NARRATIVE OF CERTAIN RECENT EVENTS IN THE CITY OF SEMUR, IN THE
DEPARTMENT OF THE HAUTE BOURGOGNE

A STORY OF THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN

by Mrs. Oliphant

1900

THE AUTHOR inscribes this little Book, with tender and grateful
greetings, to those whose sympathy has supported her through many and
long years, the kind audience of her UNKNOWN FRIENDS.

THE NARRATIVE OF M. LE MAIRE: THE CONDITION OF THE CITY.

I, Martin Dupin (de la Clairiere), had the honour of holding the office
of Maire in the town of Semur, in the Haute Bourgogne, at the time when
the following events occurred. It will be perceived, therefore, that no
one could have more complete knowledge of the facts--at once from my
official position, and from the place of eminence in the affairs of the
district generally which my family has held for many generations--by
what citizen-like virtues and unblemished integrity I will not be vain
enough to specify. Nor is it necessary; for no one who knows Semur can
be ignorant of the position held by the Dupins, from father to son. The
estate La Clairiere has been so long in the family that we might very
well, were we disposed, add its name to our own, as so many families in
France do; and, indeed, I do not prevent my wife (whose prejudices I
respect) from making this use of it upon her cards. But, for myself,
_bourgeois_ I was born and _bourgeois_ I mean to die. My residence, like
that of my father and grandfather, is at No. 29 in the Grande Rue,
opposite the Cathedral, and not far from the Hospital of St. Jean. We
inhabit the first floor, along with the _rez-de-chaussee,_ which has
been turned into domestic offices suitable for the needs of the family.
My mother, holding a respected place in my household, lives with us in
the most perfect family union. My wife (_nee_ de Champfleurie) is
everything that is calculated to render a household happy; but, alas one
only of our two children survives to bless us. I have thought these
details of my private circumstances necessary, to explain the following
narrative; to which I will also add, by way of introduction, a simple
sketch of the town itself and its general conditions before these
remarkable events occurred.

It was on a summer evening about sunset, the middle of the month of
June, that my attention was attracted by an incident of no importance
which occurred in the street, when I was making my way home, after an
inspection of the young vines in my new vineyard to the left of La
Clairiere. All were in perfectly good condition, and none of the many
signs which point to the arrival of the insect were apparent. I had come
back in good spirits, thinking of the prosperity which I was happy to
believe I had merited by a conscientious performance of all my duties. I
had little with which to blame myself: not only my wife and relations,
but my dependants and neighbours, approved my conduct as a man; and even
my fellow-citizens, exacting as they are, had confirmed in my favour the
good opinion which my family had been fortunate enough to secure from
father to son. These thoughts were in my mind as I turned the corner of
the Grande Rue and approached my own house. At this moment the tinkle of
a little bell warned all the bystanders of the procession which was
about to pass, carrying the rites of the Church to some dying person.
Some of the women, always devout, fell on their knees. I did not go so
far as this, for I do not pretend, in these days of progress, to have
retained the same attitude of mind as that which it is no doubt becoming
to behold in the more devout sex; but I stood respectfully out of the
way, and took off my hat, as good breeding alone, if nothing else,
demanded of me. Just in front of me, however, was Jacques Richard,
always a troublesome individual, standing doggedly, with his hat upon
his head and his hands in his pockets, straight in the path of M. le
Cure. There is not in all France a more obstinate fellow. He stood
there, notwithstanding the efforts of a good woman to draw him away, and
though I myself called to him. M. le Cure is not the man to flinch; and
as he passed, walking as usual very quickly and straight, his soutane
brushed against the blouse of Jacques. He gave one quick glance from
beneath his eyebrows at the profane interruption, but he would not
distract himself from his sacred errand at such a moment. It is a sacred
errand when any one, be he priest or layman, carries the best he can
give to the bedside of the dying. I said this to Jacques when M. le Cure
had passed and the bell went tinkling on along the street. 'Jacques,'
said I, 'I do not call it impious, like this good woman, but I call it
inhuman. What! a man goes to carry help to the dying, and you show him
no respect!'

This brought the colour to his face; and I think, perhaps, that he might
have become ashamed of the part he had played; but the women pushed in
again, as they are so fond of doing. 'Oh, M. le Maire, he does not
deserve that you should lose your words upon him!' they cried; 'and,
besides, is it likely he will pay any attention to you when he tries to
stop even the _bon Dieu_?'

'The _bon Dieu!_' cried Jacques. 'Why doesn't He clear the way for
himself? Look here. I do not care one farthing for your _bon Dieu_. Here
is mine; I carry him about with me.' And he took a piece of a hundred
sous out of his pocket (how had it got there?) '_Vive l'argent_' he
said. 'You know it yourself, though you will not say so. There is no
_bon Dieu_ but money. With money you can do anything. _L'argent c'est le
bon Dieu_.'

'Be silent,' I cried, 'thou profane one!' And the women were still more
indignant than I. 'We shall see, we shall see; when he is ill and would
give his soul for something to wet his lips, his _bon Dieu_ will not do
much for him,' cried one; and another said, clasping her hands with a
shrill cry, 'It is enough to make the dead rise out of their graves!'

'The dead rise out of their graves!' These words, though one has heard
them before, took possession of my imagination. I saw the rude fellow go
along the street as I went on, tossing the coin in his hand. One time it
fell to the ground and rang upon the pavement, and he laughed more
loudly as he picked it up. He was walking towards the sunset, and I too,
at a distance after. The sky was full of rose-tinted clouds floating
across the blue, floating high over the grey pinnacles of the Cathedral,
and filling the long open line of the Rue St. Etienne down which he was
going. As I crossed to my own house I caught him full against the light,
in his blue blouse, tossing the big silver piece in the air, and heard
him laugh and shout _'Vive l'argent!_ This is the only _bon Dieu_.'
Though there are many people who live as if this were their sentiment,
there are few who give it such brutal expression; but some of the people
at the corner of the street laughed too. 'Bravo, Jacques!' they cried;
and one said, 'You are right, _mon ami_, the only god to trust in
nowadays.' 'It is a short _credo_, M. le Maire,' said another, who
caught my eye. He saw I was displeased, this one, and his countenance
changed at once.

'Yes, Jean Pierre,' I said, 'it is worse than short--it is brutal. I
hope no man who respects himself will ever countenance it. It is against
the dignity of human nature, if nothing more.'

'Ah, M. le Maire!' cried a poor woman, one of the good ladies of the
market, with entrenchments of baskets all round her, who had been
walking my way; 'ah, M. le Maire! did not I say true? it is enough to
bring the dead out of their graves.'

'That would be something to see,' said Jean Pierre, with a laugh; 'and I
hope, _ma bonne femme_, that if you have any interest with them, you
will entreat these gentlemen to appear before I go away.'

'I do not like such jesting,' said I. 'The dead are very dead and will
not disturb anybody, but even the prejudices of respectable persons
ought to be respected. A ribald like Jacques counts for nothing, but I
did not expect this from you.'

'What would you, M. le Maire?' he said, with a shrug of his shoulders.
'We are made like that. I respect prejudices as you say. My wife is a
good woman, she prays for two--but me! How can I tell that Jacques is
not right after all? A _grosse piece_ of a hundred sous, one sees that,
one knows what it can do--but for the other!' He thrust up one shoulder
to his ear, and turned up the palms of his hands.

'It is our duty at all times to respect the convictions of others,' I
said, severely; and passed on to my own house, having no desire to
encourage discussions at the street corner. A man in my position is
obliged to be always mindful of the example he ought to set. But I had
not yet done with this phrase, which had, as I have said, caught my ear
and my imagination. My mother was in the great _salle_ of the
_rez-de-chausee,_ as I passed, in altercation with a peasant who had
just brought us in some loads of wood. There is often, it seems to me, a
sort of _refrain_ in conversation, which one catches everywhere as one
comes and goes. Figure my astonishment when I heard from the lips of my
good mother the same words with which that good-for-nothing Jacques
Richard had made the profession of his brutal faith. 'Go!' she cried, in
anger; 'you are all the same. Money is your god. _De grosses pieces_,
that is all you think of in these days.'

'_Eh, bien,_ madame,' said the peasant; 'and if so, what then? Don't you
others, gentlemen and ladies, do just the same? What is there in the
world but money to think of? If it is a question of marriage, you demand
what is the _dot_; if it is a question of office, you ask, Monsieur
Untel, is he rich? And it is perfectly just. We know what money can do;
but as for _le bon Dieu_, whom our grandmothers used to talk about--'

And lo! our _gros paysan_ made exactly the same gesture as Jean Pierre.
He put up his shoulders to his ears, and spread out the palms of his
hands, as who should say, There is nothing further to be said.

Then there occurred a still more remarkable repetition. My mother, as
may be supposed, being a very respectable person, and more or less
_devote_, grew red with indignation and horror.

'Oh, these poor grandmothers!' she cried; 'God give them rest! It is
enough to make the dead rise out of their graves.'

'Oh, I will answer for _les morts_! they will give nobody any trouble,'
he said with a laugh. I went in and reproved the man severely, finding
that, as I supposed, he had attempted to cheat my good mother in the
price of the wood. Fortunately she had been quite as clever as he was.
She went upstairs shaking her head, while I gave the man to understand
that no one should speak to her but with the profoundest respect in my
house. 'She has her opinions, like all respectable ladies,' I said,
'but under this roof these opinions shall always be sacred.' And, to do
him justice, I will add that when it was put to him in this way
Gros-Jean was ashamed of himself.

When I talked over these incidents with my wife, as we gave each other
the narrative of our day's experiences, she was greatly distressed, as
may be supposed. 'I try to hope they are not so bad as Bonne Maman
thinks. But oh, _mon ami!_' she said, 'what will the world come to if
this is what they really believe?'

'Take courage,' I said; 'the world will never come to anything much
different from what it is. So long as there are _des anges_ like thee to
pray for us, the scale will not go down to the wrong side.'

I said this, of course, to please my Agnes, who is the best of wives;
but on thinking it over after, I could not but be struck with the
extreme justice (not to speak of the beauty of the sentiment) of this
thought. The _bon Dieu_--if, indeed, that great Being is as represented
to us by the Church--must naturally care as much for one-half of His
creatures as for the other, though they have not the same weight in the
world; and consequently the faith of the women must hold the balance
straight, especially if, as is said, they exceed us in point of numbers.
This leaves a little margin for those of them who profess the same
freedom of thought as is generally accorded to men--a class, I must add,
which I abominate from the bottom of my heart.

I need not dwell upon other little scenes which impressed the same idea
still more upon my mind. Semur, I need not say, is not the centre of the
world, and might, therefore, be supposed likely to escape the full
current of worldliness. We amuse ourselves little, and we have not any
opportunity of rising to the heights of ambition; for our town is not
even the _chef-lieu_ of the department,--though this is a subject upon
which I cannot trust myself to speak. Figure to yourself that La
Rochette--a place of yesterday, without either the beauty or the
antiquity of Semur--has been chosen as the centre of affairs, the
residence of M. le Prefet! But I will not enter upon this question. What
I was saying was, that, notwithstanding the fact that we amuse ourselves
but little, that there is no theatre to speak of, little society, few
distractions, and none of those inducements to strive for gain and to
indulge the senses, which exist, for instance, in Paris--that capital of
the world--yet, nevertheless, the thirst for money and for pleasure has
increased among us to an extent which I cannot but consider alarming.
Gros-Jean, our peasant, toils for money, and hoards; Jacques, who is a
cooper and maker of wine casks, gains and drinks; Jean Pierre snatches
at every sous that comes in his way, and spends it in yet worse
dissipations. He is one who quails when he meets my eye; he sins _en
cachette_; but Jacques is bold, and defies opinion; and Gros-Jean is
firm in the belief that to hoard money is the highest of mortal
occupations. These three are types of what the population is at Semur.
The men would all sell their souls for a _grosse piece_ of fifty
sous--indeed, they would laugh, and express their delight that any one
should believe them to love souls, if they could but have a chance of
selling them; and the devil, who was once supposed to deal in that
commodity, would be very welcome among us. And as for the _bon
Dieu--pouff!_ that was an affair of the grandmothers--_le bon Dieu c'est
l'argent_. This is their creed. I was very near the beginning of my
official year as Maire when my attention was called to these matters as
I have described above. A man may go on for years keeping quiet
himself--keeping out of tumult, religious or political--and make no
discovery of the general current of feeling; but when you are forced to
serve your country in any official capacity, and when your eyes are
opened to the state of affairs around you, then I allow that an
inexperienced observer might well cry out, as my wife did, 'What will
become of the world?' I am not prejudiced myself--unnecessary to say
that the foolish scruples of the women do not move me. But the devotion
of the community at large to this pursuit of gain-money without any
grandeur, and pleasure without any refinement--that is a thing which
cannot fail to wound all who believe in human nature. To be a
millionaire--that, I grant, would be pleasant. A man as rich as Monte
Christo, able to do whatever he would, with the equipage of an English
duke, the palace of an Italian prince, the retinue of a Russian
noble--he, indeed, might be excused if his money seemed to him a kind of
god. But Gros-Jean, who lays up two sous at a time, and lives on black
bread and an onion; and Jacques, whose _grosse piece_ but secures him
the headache of a drunkard next morning--what to them could be this
miserable deity? As for myself, however, it was my business, as Maire
of the commune, to take as little notice as possible of the follies
these people might say, and to hold the middle course between the
prejudices of the respectable and the levities of the foolish. With
this, without more, to think of, I had enough to keep all my faculties
employed.

THE NARRATIVE OF M. LE MAIRE CONTINUED: BEGINNING OF THE LATE REMARKABLE
EVENTS.

I do not attempt to make out any distinct connection between the simple
incidents above recorded, and the extraordinary events that followed. I
have related them as they happened; chiefly by way of showing the state
of feeling in the city, and the sentiment which pervaded the
community--a sentiment, I fear, too common in my country. I need not say
that to encourage superstition is far from my wish. I am a man of my
century, and proud of being so; very little disposed to yield to the
domination of the clerical party, though desirous of showing all just
tolerance for conscientious faith, and every respect for the prejudices
of the ladies of my family. I am, moreover, all the more inclined to be
careful of giving in my adhesion to any prodigy, in consequence of a
consciousness that the faculty of imagination has always been one of my
characteristics. It usually is so, I am aware, in superior minds, and it
has procured me many pleasures unknown to the common herd. Had it been
possible for me to believe that I had been misled by this faculty, I
should have carefully refrained from putting upon record any account of
my individual impressions; but my attitude here is not that of a man
recording his personal experiences only, but of one who is the official
mouthpiece and representative of the commune, and whose duty it is to
render to government and to the human race a true narrative of the very
wonderful facts to which every citizen of Semur can bear witness. In
this capacity it has become my duty so to arrange and edit the different
accounts of the mystery, as to present one coherent and trustworthy
chronicle to the world.

To proceed, however, with my narrative. It is not necessary for me to
describe what summer is in the Haute Bourgogne. Our generous wines, our
glorious fruits, are sufficient proof, without any assertion on my part.
The summer with us is as a perpetual _fete_--at least, before the insect
appeared it was so, though now anxiety about the condition of our vines
may cloud our enjoyment of the glorious sunshine which ripens them
hourly before our eyes. Judge, then, of the astonishment of the world
when there suddenly came upon us a darkness as in the depth of winter,
falling, without warning, into the midst of the brilliant weather to
which we are accustomed, and which had never failed us before in the
memory of man! It was the month of July, when, in ordinary seasons, a
cloud is so rare that it is a joy to see one, merely as a variety upon
the brightness. Suddenly, in the midst of our summer delights, this
darkness came. Its first appearance took us so entirely by surprise that
life seemed to stop short, and the business of the whole town was
delayed by an hour or two; nobody being able to believe that at six
o'clock in the morning the sun had not risen. I do not assert that the
sun did not rise; all I mean to say is that at Semur it was still dark,
as in a morning of winter, and when it gradually and slowly became day
many hours of the morning were already spent. And never shall I forget
the aspect of day when it came. It was like a ghost or pale shadow of
the glorious days of July with which we are usually blessed. The
barometer did not go down, nor was there any rain, but an unusual
greyness wrapped earth and sky. I heard people say in the streets, and I
am aware that the same words came to my own lips: 'If it were not full
summer, I should say it was going to snow.' We have much snow in the
Haute Bourgogne, and we are well acquainted with this aspect of the
skies. Of the depressing effect which this greyness exercised upon
myself personally, greyness exercised upon myself personally, I will not
speak. I have always been noted as a man of fine perceptions, and I was
aware instinctively that such a state of the atmosphere must mean
something more than was apparent on the surface. But, as the danger was
of an entirely unprecedented character, it is not to be wondered at that
I should be completely at a loss to divine what its meaning was. It was
a blight some people said; and many were of opinion that it was caused
by clouds of animalculae coming, as is described in ancient writings, to
destroy the crops, and even to affect the health of the population. The
doctors scoffed at this; but they talked about malaria, which, as far as
I could understand, was likely to produce exactly the same effect. The
night closed in early as the day had dawned late; the lamps were lighted
before six o'clock, and daylight had only begun about ten! Figure to
yourself, a July day! There ought to have been a moon almost at the
full; but no moon was visible, no stars--nothing but a grey veil of
clouds, growing darker and darker as the moments went on; such I have
heard are the days and the nights in England, where the seafogs so often
blot out the sky. But we are unacquainted with anything of the kind in
our _plaisant pays de France_. There was nothing else talked of in Semur
all that night, as may well be imagined. My own mind was extremely
uneasy. Do what I would, I could not deliver myself from a sense of
something dreadful in the air which was neither malaria nor animalculae,
I took a promenade through the streets that evening, accompanied by M.
Barbou, my _adjoint_, to make sure that all was safe; and the darkness
was such that we almost lost our way, though we were both born in the
town and had known every turning from our boyhood. It cannot be denied
that Semur is very badly lighted. We retain still the lanterns slung by
cords across the streets which once were general in France, but which,
in most places, have been superseded by the modern institution of gas.
Gladly would I have distinguished my term of office by bringing gas to
Semur. But the expense would have been great, and there were a hundred
objections. In summer generally, the lanterns were of little consequence
because of the brightness of the sky; but to see them now, twinkling
dimly here and there, making us conscious how dark it was, was strange
indeed. It was in the interests of order that we took our round, with a
fear, in my mind at least, of I knew not what. M. l'Adjoint said
nothing, but no doubt he thought as I did.

While we were thus patrolling the city with a special eye to the
prevention of all seditious assemblages, such as are too apt to take
advantage of any circumstances that may disturb the ordinary life of a
city, or throw discredit on its magistrates, we were accosted by Paul
Lecamus, a man whom I have always considered as something of a
visionary, though his conduct is irreproachable, and his life
honourable and industrious. He entertains religious convictions of a
curious kind; but, as the man is quite free from revolutionary
sentiments, I have never considered it to be my duty to interfere with
him, or to investigate his creed. Indeed, he has been treated generally
in Semur as a dreamer of dreams--one who holds a great many
impracticable and foolish opinions--though the respect which I always
exact for those whose lives are respectable and worthy has been a
protection to hire. He was, I think, aware that he owed something to my
good offices, and it was to me accordingly that he addressed himself.

'Good evening, M. le Maire,' he said; 'you are groping about, like
myself, in this strange night.'

'Good evening M. Paul,' I replied. 'It is, indeed, a strange night. It
indicates, I fear, that a storm is coming.'

M. Paul shook his head. There is a solemnity about even his ordinary
appearance. He has a long face, pale, and adorned with a heavy, drooping
moustache, which adds much to the solemn impression made by his
countenance. He looked at me with great gravity as he stood in the
shadow of the lamp, and slowly shook his head.

'You do not agree with me? Well! the opinion of a man like M. Paul
Lecamus is always worthy to be heard.'

'Oh!' he said, 'I am called visionary. I am not supposed to be a
trustworthy witness. Nevertheless, if M. Le Maire will come with me, I
will show him something that is very strange--something that is almost
more wonderful than the darkness--more strange,' he went on with great
earnestness, 'than any storm that ever ravaged Burgundy.'

'That is much to say. A tempest now when the vines are in full
bearing--'

'Would be nothing, nothing to what I can show you. Only come with me to
the Porte St. Lambert.'

'If M. le Maire will excuse me,' said M. Barbou, 'I think I will go
home. It is a little cold, and you are aware that I am always afraid of
the damp.' In fact, our coats were beaded with a cold dew as in
November, and I could not but acknowledge that my respectable colleague
had reason. Besides, we were close to his house, and he had, no doubt,
the sustaining consciousness of having done everything that was really
incumbent upon him. 'Our ways lie together as far as my house,' he said,
with a slight chattering of his teeth. No doubt it was the cold. After
we had walked with him to his door, we proceeded to the Porte St.
Lambert. By this time almost everybody had re-entered their houses. The
streets were very dark, and they were also very still. When we reached
the gates, at that hour of the night, we found them shut as a matter of
course. The officers of the _octroi_ were standing close together at the
door of their office, in which the lamp was burning. The very lamp
seemed oppressed by the heavy air; it burnt dully, surrounded with a
yellow haze. The men had the appearance of suffering greatly from cold.
They received me with a satisfaction which was very gratifying to me.
'At length here is M. le Maire himself,' they said.

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