Le Temps des Cerises (26 page)

He dressed hurriedly, pulling on his old uniform, dragging a comb through his hair and finishing off the remains of last night's repast – two eggs, a hunk of cheese, and the dregs from an old wine bottle. Then he raced down the stairs past the concierge who was surprisingly awake for once and smugly gloating with the news.

‘There has been a collision,' he announced with just the right air of gravity, though his eyes shone at being the first to convey the tremendous events. ‘Between the red National Guards and the regular troops.'

What sort of collision, Laurie wanted to know, but the concierge wasn't saying much more. He simply knew there had been a collision on the Buttes Montmartre between the red National Guardsmen and the bourgeois battalions or regular troops.

‘I am no follower of
Thiers,' he confided, his face waxing pale behind his cubicle of glass, ‘but I am no hot-blooded revolutionary either. Not at my age. The best one can hope for at my age is sleep, food and a few good dreams.'

Laurie nodded politely and left the building, his thoughts in turmoil. If there had been a clash between the red National Guardsmen and the regular troops or bourgeois battalions then it was an insurrection of some kind. On this icy grey morning in the middle of March there had been an insurrection! He huddled into his greatcoat and made for the heights, stopping now and then to ask a passer-by for news, but nobody seemed to know any more than he did. People were heading in the same direction or milling about on corners, gesticulating with excitement. Women stood slipshod and bloomered on their doorsteps with their frozen pails of water; while children peeped from behind closed shutters. The mood seemed disbelieving, angry and celebratory all at the same time; and dogs were barking nervously at the relentless roll of the drums. A young man raced past, holding his képi up on the end of his bayonet. ‘The red flag is flying in the Place de Bastille!' he shouted; and Laurie's heart pounded with excitement.

When he reached the heights via the Rue Marcadet, he could see little at first, for a huge and swelling crowd blocked his sight. He pushed his way through, catching a glimpse of a General on a white horse and a line of ragged and shambolic-looking soldiers surrounding the gun park and he knew in a flash exactly what was happening. They were trying to steal the guns! The government was trying to disarm the National Guard of its guns and cannon, the guns and cannon that had been paid for by public conscription and manufactured during the siege. Laurie gave a low, disgusted whistle. What idiots! Was Thiers so frightened of revolution that he had to disarm the National Guard? It was the one sure way of starting a revolution for the guns were sacred to the whole of the city not just the red battalions. They were a symbol of hope and suffering, of valour and determination; and he could see them glinting in between the chestnut trees of the park, polished and pristine as always, even in this dull grey mist.
The Kaiser
was there, and
Bill
and the
Savage Chieftain
, their barrels pointing down into the soft brown mud. He recognised
The Dancer
with its brightly painted wheels and
Butterfly
with her winged motif – two cannon paid for by a group of women from Mabille's – taking pride of place in the front line beside the
Kaiser
and the
Savage Chieftan.

He pressed forward to get a better look at the General and the men who guarded the park, gaping inwardly at the government's foolishness. It was one thing to secrete the guns off in the middle of the night and present the whole situation as something of a fait accompli, but to be still standing here at eight o'clock in the morning in front of a pack of civilians was another thing entirely. It was madness. Did they think they could get away with it? Did they think the crowd would let them pass? It was jaunty and bantering for now but it was a banter that could so easily flare into anger – he'd seen it before in the political meetings and he trembled at the prospect. Even the soldiers looked dispirited to Laurie, seemingly aware of their absurdity. They were trapped like bears in a net; it was stalemate, an impasse. They had come to get the guns and now they could not – it was as simple as that – without wreaking havoc on a crowd that was full of women and children, matrons and old men and swelling by the moment as the rappel sounded through the neighbourhood. One or two grinned sheepishly at the crowd when the General's back was turned or sloped off in the direction of the nearest café, fed up with the whole proceedings. Most of them looked pretty much on the verge of collapse, their faces blue with cold; and Laurie felt a little sorry for them, wondering how long they'd been there. The General was cantering up and down on his little white pony, lifting the fallen with the end of his bayonet.

‘Never mind,' grinned an old man in the crowd to one who had been treated thus and was shaking his head like a dog and looking daggers at the back of the General. ‘If you're lucky you'll be away by lunchtime.'

The soldier scratched his head and said he God only hoped so. His mate had had the sense to bugger off hours ago in the company of a girl from Mabille's just off duty no less. He was probably toasting his feet or something else by now the lucky sod. ‘The General's an evil bastard,' he offered up suddenly and then shut up as the man himself cantered back on his little white pony.

‘Stop fraternising, 206,' he barked, his yellow face pinched and alert. ‘You're not here to make smalltalk.'

‘Where are you taking the cannon?' the old man jeered then with a raucous laugh. ‘Berlin? Take your time! No rush! When you're ready!'

‘Old man, old man,' the General sneered in response, jerking his pony about with hard and heavy hands, ‘why don't you get back into your armchair!'

The old man was startled into silence and somebody else in the crowd took up the fight on his behalf. ‘At least he's not riding one! Where did you get that thing from? The circus?'

A roar of laugher met this little gem for indeed on closer inspection the pony the General rode looked quite unfit for military use. It was small and slender with a carthorse mane and tail and an odd way of splaying out its feet when it moved. It looked more like something a butcher drove or an undertaker.

‘Have the rest all been eaten?' a woman cackled in delight. ‘Or has Mr Tom Thumb
19
reduced them all in size for his own sake?'

The crowd was making merry now at the expense of
Thiers and the mad­cap situation, already celebrating victory over the fools in government.

‘Where is the little hero, anyway? Hiding under a blade of grass? He'd need a horse just to come over my knees!'

‘What a mastermind! What a plan! Hey, I've got a plan. Better than Trochu's. Why don't you drag the guns off yourselves!'

It suddenly dawned on Laurie what was happening as he listened to the shouts. They were waiting for the horses! They were waiting for the horses to tow away the guns!

‘How long have they been here?' he asked a woman next to him in astonishment.

The woman, who had a face like a little old schoolmarm, looked pleased to be asked. ‘Well,' she began thoughtfully, ‘I was up and doing my rounds at four o'clock in the morning – I live just opposite the Place Pigalle – when I heard this little riot so I imagine they were pushed out of their barracks at the crack of dawn. The trouble was that in their...' her lips chewed over the word, ‘...precipitousness to steal our guns, they forgot to bring refreshment for the men – look at them all dropping like flies – and, believe it or not, they forgot to bring the horses!'

‘Forgot to bring the horses?' Laurie parroted in disbelief and the woman nodded in amusement. ‘Right. They appear to be a little thin on the ground these days. Either they've all been eaten,' she chuckled, ‘or simply evaporated! I believe that is why the General is mounted on little Bucephalus over there.'

What a superb farce, thought Laurie, standing agog at the ineptitude of the whole affair. It was just another superb little farce playing through his head though this time, it seemed to him, he was right in the middle of it. Almost an active participant. No wonder the men looked ashamed and embarrassed, not knowing whether to throw in the towel and tear off their uniforms or stand on guard as they had been ordered. He didn't envy them. The crowd was surging forward, a swollen river – there was barely a hand's breadth between the front of the queue and the line – and any moment now it was sure to burst and flood the ranks. The General kept trying to back his pony into the crowd but a few hearty thwacks from the angry mob sent the poor little animal careening off in another direction, much to everyone's amusement.

‘Load your bayonets!' the General shouted, turning purple with fury. ‘Load your bayonets.'

One or two feebly attached their bayonets but most of them disobeyed the command. Some even raised the butts of their rifles in the air to signify their disapproval, despite the General's threat to shoot any deserter in the back.

‘Fix your bayonets,' the General ordered again, jagging so hard on the reins that the froth at the edge of the horse's mouth turned pink with blood.

‘Ignore the circus master!' yelled the old man at the front, nearly losing his footing as the crowd surged forward; and the soldiers glared at the General sullenly, even derisively. Why should they fix their bayonets? They'd come to take the guns, not threaten civilians – old men, women and children. They had more of an eye for the women from Mabille's who were coming straight from work in their droves, glowing and garish as tinsel after a party, flaunting bare bosoms and bacon soup under the men's very noses.

‘You wouldn't fire on us,' they wheedled, winding their way through the line, batting their painted eyelids.

‘Not on your life,' a soldier replied jocosely, staring longingly at a tin of bacon soup.

The General suddenly lost his temper, charging a girl in a peacock-blue dress and knocking her to the ground. Scalded, she leapt up, shouting obscenities and spat in his face; and the scene suddenly became chaos.

Laurie wasn't exactly sure whether the crowd attacked the General or the General attacked the crowd but a few moments later he was dragged from his horse and borne aloft on the shoulders of two Guardsmen. Nobody stirred their stumps to help him. None of the men seemed to care that their General was being carried off like a prize piece of meat. Some even cheered or stuck their finger in the air at the yellowing face still bellowing orders and threatening court martials as it disappeared from view. One or two had the grace to look dutifully aghast but were prevented from following by the women from Mabille's with their tins of bacon soup. Laurie watched the crowd swallowing up its prey – ‘Just deserts' somebody shouted, ‘he's only getting his just deserts' – and the sun peered feebly out for a moment as if to herald the faint dawn of a promising new day. ‘Wake up,' Laurie muttered to himself as he'd once bade fruiterers and fancy hat-box makers. ‘A new day! Wake up!'

The rest of it seemed to pass in a dream, however, or maybe a nightmare depending on how you looked at it. The mob raced on down the dusty Clignancourt and Laurie was swept along like a piece of debris between the little old schoolmarm and a man with a lantern jaw. For the first time in his life he gave in to a sense of abandon, a loss of control, allowed his identity to merge with this seething mass of humanity. For the first time in his life he was free of all logic, all rational thought. In the anonymity of the crowd he was free of himself, yet a part of every other: every grimace, roar, caterwaul and wail, every gap-toothed mouth and callous shout. Free of himself yet bound to every other and subject to one will, one merciless intent.

‘Where are they taking him?' whispered the women on the doorsteps of the Rue des Rosiers, a little washing line of women, clean and brightly smocked. It was a pretty, green-leafed street, the Rue des Rosiers, largely untouched by the Prussian bombardment and made up of painted houses and law-abiding citizens. The sort Laurie had woken up in the early hours for it was a long walk from here to the bustling heart of the city. Many of them had heard the rappel and covered their ears or hidden under their beds; but this wild procession passing by right before their eyes had brought them out by the dozen. They hung out to dry on their doorsteps, poking fun at the crowd.
My, but didn't revolutionaries come in all shapes and sizes: doddering old granddads, mop-haired gangly youths, dirty prostitutes dressed to kill… What did they think they looked like, screaming like banshees and brandishing their rifles. As for the General frogmarching along poor thing. With his black eye. Quite a dish, no doubt, without it. Bellowing orders to no one in particular…

‘He can give me an order,' declared one bright smock, staring at the General's long and dazzling sword, ‘any day of the week!'

The crowd rushed on pell-mell down the street, Laurie still wedged between the little old schoolmarm and the man with the lantern jaw. The little old schoolmarm was working up a sweat.

‘Listen everybody,' she kept yelling, as if she were trying to educate the lot of them. ‘Listen everybody, the people have won, you fools, the people have won!'

‘The people have won!' Laurie echoed in delight, filled with a sudden sense of elation. It was true. The people had won. They had toppled a General and confounded a military manoeuvre. They had risen en masse to defend their rights, taken power into their own hands. For the first time in his life he was experiencing events as they happened, not reading about them second hand in history books (and yet, what a letter to his mother it would make!). As the sun pouted down on the Rue des Rosiers, he realised the city was in the grip of transformation, in the grip of revolution. Right here. Right now. He smiled at the thought that Alphonse was missing out on the action for once. For once Alphonse was in the wrong place at the wrong time and he, Laurie, was right where it mattered.