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His renown was already universal when he undertook to pay a visit to general headquarters. General Pellé consented, desirous, as he said, to see this 'phenomenon.' Hutin arrived at Chantilly in an automobile, very proud of the honor which was done him, at once humble, and yet bold as usual. At once he began, in a high-pitched voice, to give the general advice as to what must be done to obey the wishes of the country, adding that he took it upon himself to keep the public spirit firm. The general was much amused at the presumption of this journalist who, having come with the intention of learning something, had done all the talking himself without listening for a moment. But the next day the general got more light on this method of interviewing, when he read that he had stated as the intentions of the high command, the very things that Hutin had himself proposed.

If general headquarters held itself aloof, from some obscure hostility to writers, the generals of the fighting units, on the other hand, had the most cordial welcome for them. Many were invited to the headquarters of armies or army corps. They went directly, without the knowledge of Chantilly, although this was contrary to formal orders. In fact, the generals did not disdain to secure popularity by this means. They knew that in this way they would get the attention of the writers, who would take it upon themselves to spread among the public the legend of their exploits. Yet it is not always the chiefs who are to be held responsible for prop

aganda which was sometimes carried on without their knowledge. Their staffs, eager for the reputation of their chiefs, were often the principal authors.

This explains the unequal renown of the generals of the war, the best known of whom are not always the best. That is the way fame goes in a democracy. I admit that it seems natural enough for staff officers to feel faithful attachment toward men for whom they have nothing but praise; but in so delicate a matter, in the interest of the country, the strictest justice ought to reign. These habits of comradeship, the relation as between client and patron, hitherto reserved for politics, are so implanted in our habits of thought, that at present whoever tries to establish a classification according to merit in war finds himself suspected of trying to help his friends.

The more I examine what is written, and what is taught, the more I doubt all history—a tissue of legends, of illusions, and of counterfeits. A man is so deceived in his opinions by clever people that one may think that the greater part of the time it is error that has succeeded in imposing itself. Why should our epoch be different from others? It has been given me, a living man, devoted to the truth, to witness events which I am, moreover, compelled to set in their true light. Every day the greater part are wrested from their true significance to the profit of some idea or of some man. If it has always been so, as there is ground enough for thinking, then history is nothing but a ro

mance.

THE BURNING OF MOSCOW

BY ÉTIENNE SAINT-DENIS

[This account of the burning of Moscow is taken from the memoirs of a humble follower of Napoleon, who was an eye-witness of the conflagration. It is now published for the first time.]

From Le Figaro, June 4
(PARIS LIBERAL NATIONALIST Daily)

PERFECT quiet reigned in the Palace of the Tsars. The silence was broken only by the heavy breathing of my companions, when I suddenly awoke, about midnight or one o'clock. Opening my eyes, I rubbed them with astonishment at seeing the room perfectly light. That certainly was extraordinary. I rose and went to the window, to discover the source of this illumination. Imagine my startled surprise at discovering that the whole city was on fireat least the southern and western portions; for our windows looked out toward the west, across the Moskova.

It was a beautiful but terrible sight. Imagine a city, I should say as large as Paris, all in flames, viewed at midnight from one of the towers of Notre Dame. I aroused my companions, telling them to come and see. They were up in a moment and joined me at the window, watching the immense conflagration that was devouring the city. Since it was important for the Emperor to be informed at once, Constant decided to go to his apartments without delay. His first valet de chambre returned a moment later; and since he brought us no orders, we again retired; for there was nothing that we could do until daylight.

By morning the fire was raging, if possible, more furiously than ever; but it did not afford such an impressive sight in the daytime, and besides, you

get used to everything. Knowing that the Emperor was close at hand, we did not concern ourselves.

I was one of the first to get up. I always like to take an early morning walk, and went out at once for my usual promenade around the Kremlin. Everything was in confusion. Several detachments of guards had bivouacked in the great empty space in front of this part of the palace. Some of the soldiers were lying down, others sat smoking their pipes by the embers of their campfires. Parties were constantly coming and going. Empty bottles scattered around the fires indicated how the soldiers had spent the night. Every soldier I met had lost something or other. Dragoons were looking for bridles, saddles, or blankets, and in some cases even for their mounts.

All were watching the spread of the conflagration, which was rapidly consuming street by street those parts of the city which had not already fallen victims to its voracity. Orders were issued to save certain establishments; but we were helpless. We had no pumps, no pails, no water. We did not know where to find anything in this great city, deserted by its inhabitants. So we let things burn, merely taking from the houses things likely to be of immediate service to us.

What did the Emperor think of this sublime but tragic spectacle, this ocean

of fire which surrounded him and made an island of the Kremlin? His generals, discovering that the government offices had been reduced to a mass of cinders, and that the fire was already attacking the great bell-tower, urged the Emperor to leave the Kremlin and the city. He finally yielded to their urgent solicitations, though very reluctantly. After breakfast he thought the matter over, and about eleven or twelve o'clock, mounting his horse, and followed by his personal suite, he left the Kremlin and Moscow for Petrovskoy, a country mansion situated a few miles west of the city. His personal baggage, that of the guard, and the guard itself, followed. However, it took us some time to get ready, and we did not leave until rather late in the afternoon.

We had much difficulty in getting out of the city. The streets were blocked by burning timbers, fallen walls, and at some places by the flames themselves. We were constantly obliged to change our course, and even to retrace our steps, in order to escape being cut off. A strong wind added to the disaster. It carried before it dense clouds of ashes and smoke, which blinded us and our horses. Moreover, the highways still open were packed by a throng of soldiers of every branch of the service, carrying on their backs, on their horses, and in such native vehicles as they were able to seize, all kinds of food and booty taken from warehouses, shops, private residences, and cellars. It was a picturesque but chaotic scene.

Just before dark we luckily managed to get clear of the city. We drew a deep breath of relief, not only because we had escaped without harm, but also because we could again respire the pure air, free from the strangling odors of the smoking ruins. We reached Petrovskoy late at night. Wagons were parked around the Château, where the Emperor had arrived several hours previously.

If I remember rightly, Napoleon, with the Guard, the members of his personal household, and his baggage, returned to the Kremlin the next day. The silence of ruin brooded over the city. Whatever had been of wood was burned; whatever was of brick was for the most part crumbling. Only the churches, which were mostly of brick and masonry, had escaped the fire. Smoke was still rising from the vast sea of cinders, and nearly strangled us as we rode through them. I estimated roughly that two thirds of the buildings in Moscow had been destroyed.

We found the Kremlin and the Royal Palace just as we had left them. Probably guards had been placed there during our absence. The Emperor resided here as long as he stayed in Moscow.

Every day Prince Eugene dined with the Emperor. The latter was fond of talking with Grand-Marshal Duroc at table. One day their conversation turned upon the best way to die. His Majesty said that he would prefer to be killed by a bullet on the field of battle, but he feared he would not be so lucky. 'I'll die in my bed like a d―d dog.'

Every day, about two or three P.M., the Emperor, accompanied by his officers and guards, would take a horseback ride through the city and suburbs, returning only in time for dinner.

some ten

A troop of French actors or twelve, as I recall it had been in Moscow, and remained after the Russians evacuated the city. These poor people lost practically everything they owned in the fire, and having no means of support, came to the Kremlin to ask assistance. There were two women in the party. When the Emperor was informed of their presence and their distress, he gave orders that they be cared for. From that time they were allotted rations. On one or two occasions, when the Emperor gave a party, the comedians were commanded to appear.

When we evacuated Moscow these poor people followed us, accompanying the baggage-train. The two unhappy ladies had to endure much hardship. One of them was already elderly, but a woman of strong will-power and physique. The other was younger and more delicate. One day, during our tragic retreat, I saw the older woman standing among a party of marines around a little camp-fire. The cold was already intense. The marines, who came from Southern France, were badly demoralized, and grumbled over the fearful hardships they had to endure. They blamed the Emperor for all their troubles, especially for bringing them to this accursed country. In fact, they vented their ill-humor upon him in the most violent terms. The woman tried to revive their courage, and I overheard her say:

'So you blame the Emperor. Don't you know that he is suffering as much as you; that it must grieve him deeply to be unable to save so many brave men who have followed him faithfully, as you have done? Don't you see him every day in your midst, marching on foot, and sharing your own sufferings and misfortunes? Remember that you are Frenchmen, and soldiers. . . . Here I am, a poor woman, already old. I have lost everything I owned. I am completely destitute. I have nothing to look forward to. However, I am bearing my hardships with resignation. What is the use of complaining, when that only makes us worse off than we already are? Have hope. Every day we are getting nearer friends and home. But we must be brave and hold out. Nothing ought to daunt young men like you.'

GAUTIER'S ESTIMATE OF BAUDELAIRE

BY MARCEL CLAVIÉ

From La Nouvelle Revue, May 15
(PARISIAN SEMI-MONTHLY REVIEW)

VERY recently, in conducting preliminary researches for a study which we intend to devote to Charles Baudelaire and his work, we were led to run through the principal publications of 1867, the year in which perished one of the poets of the nineteenth century whose literary conscience was finest and worthiest. The Moniteur Universel, the official journal of the Empire (which is to-day replaced by the Journal Officiel), for September 9, 1867, gives an extremely interesting and curious article by Théophile Gautier, of which

the greater part is devoted to Charles Baudelaire.

Although we may regret that in this literary study Théophile Gautier committed a serious blunder, in asserting that Baudelaire was born in India, when the official civil registry of Paris enrolls his birth at Paris, April 11, 1821, it is still a good thing, useful, even salutary, to read over the essay in which one of the masters of nineteenthcentury literature gives careful and final judgment on the author of the Flowers of Evil.

When he had but recently learned of the death of Charles Baudelaire, Théophile Gautier wrote at the head of his article: 'For a long time death has been hovering over Charles Baudelaire; she had placed her bony finger on his forehead, and paralysis had rendered inert that body which was once so supple and agile. Then she withdrew, grimly certain that henceforward she would find him, motionless, in the place where she had left him. Later she returned, to deprive him of speech, taking the word away from the idea and rendering mute that ever-active brain. His hands could write no longer; and what could they have written, since to them there came no longer anything from those mysterious folds of the cerebral pulp, on which are traced, in invisible characters, that lexicon which the soul must con when it would hold communion with its fellow men? Yet the thought, which could not be transmitted, glowed in the eyes of the sick man; the thought translated itself by unknown formulas, images, gleams, sonorities, harmonies, which replaced the vanished language. Intelligence was not extinct, but glowed like a lamp in a dungeon-cell, visible only through the narrow slits leading up to the air. What a horrible torture! To understand and yet not be able to reply, and to feel the words, once so docile and obedient, take flight at the first attempt to use them, like a swarm of savage birds. Death at last took pity, and the torture reached its end. The executioner let fall the finishing stroke, that had been so long suspended.'

In reading over these pages one can realize easily how great was the influence of Baudelaire upon the generation of 1867; how all its literature was saturated with the works of certain contemporary authors; and to what degree Théophile Gautier had himself felt the influence of Baudelaire's spirit in writ

ing the lines which I have just quoted, and those which are to follow.

Théophile Gautier then devotes some courageous and vigorous thinking to the literary personality of Baudelaire. 'Although his life was short (he lived scarcely forty-six years), Charles Baudelaire had time to express himself and to write his name on the wall of the nineteenth century, already crowded with signatures of which many can no longer be read. His name will remain there, we do not doubt; for it designates a vigorous and original talent, disdainful, even to excess, of the banalities which win a vogue, caring for nothing but the rare, the difficult, and the strange, with a keen literary conscience, never, for the necessities of life, abandoning a work until he saw that it was perfect, weighing every word as misers weigh a doubtful ducat, looking over a proof ten times, submitting the poem to the subtle criticism of which he was capable, and searching with an indefatigable effort after the particular ideal which he had set up for himself.

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'Born in India [a gross error on Gautier's part, against which we warned the reader at the beginning of this article], and understanding English perfectly, he began by translations of Edgar Allan Poe translations so excellent that they seemed to be original works, and the thought of the author gained in passing from one idiom to the other. Baudelaire naturalized in France this cunningly bizarre spirit, compared to whom Hoffman is merely a Paul de Kock of fantasy.'

The author of Emaux et Camées could not help writing a few lines on the subject of the Fleurs du Mal, in which so many of the poets of to-day and yesterday, without even questioning whether it is from the form, the freedom of the thought, or the richness of the images, find themselves akin to Charles Baudelaire. With much liter

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