THE LITTLE LEADEN SOLDIER
By Anatole France
TO MADAME GASTON MEYER
That particular night the fever induced by influenza prevented me from sleeping, and presently I heard very distinctly three smart taps on the glass door of a cabinet at the side of my bed, a cabinet in which I kept in an inextricable medley little figures in Dresden china or biscuit of Sèvres, terra-cotta statuettes from Tanagra or Myrina, little Renaissance bronzes, Japanese ivory carvings, Venetian glass, Chinese cups, boxes in Vernis Martin, lacquer trays, enamel caskets—in fact, a thousand nothings which a kind of fetish worship causes one to treasure, and which have the power of reviving memories of bygone hours, both gay and melancholy. The taps were faint but perfectly unmistakable, and by the light of the nightlight I perceived that they proceeded from a little leaden soldier installed amid the contents of the cabinet, who was making efforts to regain his liberty. He was successful, for soon beneath the weight of his fist the glazed door swung wide open. To tell the truth, I was not so surprised as might be expected. To my mind that little soldier had always worn a suspicious appearance. And during the two years since Madame G. M—— had given him to me, I had been prepared for all sorts of impertinences from him. His uniform is blue turned up with red; he is a Garde française, and it is common knowledge that that regiment was not remarkable for discipline.
“Ho, there!” I called out. “What’s your name, La Fleur, Brindamour, La Tulipe! can’t you make less noise and let me sleep in peace? I am anything but well.”
The rascal replied with a growl:
“I haven’t changed much, my good man, since I took the Bastille, a hundred years back. On top of that a good many cans of good liquor were emptied. I doubt if many leaden soldiers of my age are still in existence. Good night to you. I am off to parade.”
“La Tulipe,” I replied with severity, “your regiment was disbanded by order of Louis XVI on the 31st of August, 1789. There is no longer any reason for you to attend parade. Stay where you are in the cabinet!”
La Tulipe twirled his moustache, and then, throwing a sly glance of contempt in my direction, retorted:
“What! do you mean to say you don’t know that every year on the night of the 31st of December, when the children are asleep, our great review takes place, and the leaden soldiers march in procession over the roofs and between the chimneys still joyfully pouring forth the smoke arising from the dying embers of the Yule log? It’s a desperate charge, and many a rider takes part in it with never a head on his shoulders. The shades of all the leaden soldiers who have fallen in battle pass by in the rage of combat. Nothing but bent bayonets and broken swords is to be seen. And the spirits of dead dolls, all ashen-faced in the moonbeams, watch them as they go by.”
This harangue put me in a quandary.
“Come now, La Tulipe, you mean to say it is a custom, a solemn custom? I have the profoundest respect for all ancient customs and usages, traditions, legends, and popular beliefs. That is what we call folk-lore—a subject we find a great deal of amusement in studying. La Tulipe, it is a great satisfaction to me to learn that you are an observer of tradition. On the other hand, I am not at all sure that I ought to let you leave that cabinet.”
“Indeed you ought,” said a clear musical voice which I had not heard before, but which I instantly recognized for that of the young woman from Tanagra, who, wrapped in the folds of her himation, 0occupied a place next to the Garde française, on whom she looked down from the graceful dignity of her superior stature. “Indeed you ought. All customs handed down to us by our ancestors are equally worthy of respect. Our fathers knew better than we what is permissible and what forbidden, for they were nearer to the gods. It is only proper, then, to allow this Galatian to perform the warlike rites of his ancestors. In my time they did not wear a ridiculous blue dress turned up with red like our friend here. Their only covering was their buckler. And we held them in great awe. They were barbarians. You yourself are just as much of a Galatian and barbarian. It is all in vain that you have read the poets and historians: you have no true conception of the beauty of life. You were not in the market-place when I used to be spinning wool from Miletus in the courtyard of the house, under the old mulberry tree.”
I compelled myself to answer with moderation—
“Lovely Pannychis, your insignificant Greek folk conceived certain forms so beautiful that the eyes and hearts of the judicious will never tire of them. But every day in your market-place such a quantity of drivel was babbled as would give occupation to one of our municipal councils for a whole session. I have no regrets at never having been a citizen of Larissa or Tanagra. At the same time I admit that what you have said is reasonable. It is fitting that customs should be maintained, otherwise they would cease to be customs. Fair Pannychis, who didst spin wool from Miletus under the ancient mulberry tree, not in vain have you assailed my ears with words of good counsel; for on your advice I give La Tulipe permission to go whithersoever folk-lore may call him.”
Then a little dairymaid in biscuit of Sèvres, her hands resting on her churn, turned towards me with glances of entreaty.
“Monsieur, do not let him go. He has promised to marry me. He falls in love with every woman he meets. If he goes, I shall never set eyes on him again.”
And, hiding her plump cheeks in her apron, she began to weep uncontrollably.
La Tulipe had grown as red as the trimmings of his coat: he could not endure scenes, and he found it extremely distasteful to listen to reproaches which he had richly merited. I reassured my little dairymaid as well as I could, and begged my Garde française on no account to loiter about after the review in some Circe’s grot. He promised, and I said good-bye to him. But he made no attempt to start. It was extraordinary, but he remained perfectly still on his shelf, as motionless as the dainty trifles surrounding him. I let him perceive my surprise.
“Patience!” he exclaimed. “I cannot set out under your very eyes in that fashion, without infringing every law of the occult world. When you have gone to sleep I shall make off easily enough on a moonbeam, for I am full of expedients. But there is no great hurry, and I can still wait another hour or two. We have nothing better to amuse us than conversation. How would you like me to tell you some tale of days gone by? I know plenty such.”
“Yes, tell us one,” said Pannychis.
“Tell us one,” said the dairymaid.
“Go ahead, then, La Tulipe,” said I in my turn.
He sat down, filled his pipe, asked for a glass of beer, coughed, and began his tale with these words:—
THE LEADEN SOLDIER’S STORY
Ninety-nine years ago to the very day, I was standing on a round table with a dozen of my comrades, all of them as like me as if they had been my brothers. Some were standing, some lying down, several had sustained injuries to the head or legs: we were the heroic remnant of a box of leaden soldiers bought the previous year at the fair of Saint Germain. The room was hung with pale blue silk. It contained a spinet with the Prayer from Orpheus open upon it, a few chairs with lyre-shaped backs, a lady’s escritoire of mahogany, a white bed decked with roses; and all along the cornice were perched pairs of doves. Everything combined to convey an impression of affecting charm. The lamp diffused its soft light, and the flame on the hearth quivered like wings beating in the dusk. Clad in a dressing-gown, and seated in front of her escritoire, her delicate neck bending beneath the circling masses of her magnificent fair hair, Julie was turning over the letters tied up with ribbons, which had lain hidden in the drawers of the bureau.
Midnight strikes; the outward sign of the imaginary leap from one year to another. The dainty timepiece, on which is poised a laughing, golden Cupid, proclaims that the year 1793 has come to an end.
Just as the hands of the clock meet, a small phantom figure makes its appearance. Through a door which stands half open, a pretty child has crept out of the dressing-room, where he has his bed, and run in his nightshirt to fling himself into his mother’s arms and wish her a happy new year.
“A happy new year, Pierre?… Ah! thank you, thank you! But do you know what a happy year is?”
He thought he did; but, all the same, she wished to make quite sure that he knew.
“A year is happy, my darling, when it passes on its way bringing us neither hatreds nor fears.”
She embraces him; then she carries him back to the bed he has escaped from, and then returns to her seat in front of the escritoire. She glances first at the flames leaping on the hearth, and then at the letters from which dried flowers are falling. It is heartrending to have to burn them. Yet it must be done. For these letters, if they were discovered, would consign to the guillotine both him who wrote them and her who received them. If it was only herself that was in danger, she would not burn them, so weary is she of her contest for life with the executioners. But she thinks of him, proscribed, denounced, pursued, hidden away in some garret at the other end of Paris. A single one of these letters would be enough to put his pursuers on his track and deliver him over to death.
Pierre is sleeping snugly in the neighbouring dressing-room; the cook and Nanon have gone to their rooms in the upper regions. The intense silence of a snow-clad town reigns all around. The keen, clear air brightens the flame on the hearth. Julie has made up her mind to burn these letters, and it is a task she cannot carry out—how well she knows it!—without recalling events of the profoundest sadness. She will burn the letters, but not until she has read them through once again.
The letters are all arranged in succession, for Julie imparts to everything around her a measure of the orderliness which is natural to her.
These, already growing yellow, date from three years ago, and in the silence of the night Julie lives over again the magic hours. Not a single page is surrendered to the flames until she has conned it over at least ten times, syllable by treasured syllable.
The stillness all around her is unbroken. From time to time she goes to the window, raises the curtain, glances through the oppressive gloom at the tower of Saint Germain des Prés silvered by the moon, and then resumes her slow labours of pious destruction. Why should she not for the last time rejoice over these delicious pages? Why deliver to the flames these cherished lines ere she has for ever imprinted them on her heart. Stillness prevails everywhere, and her spirit leaps with youth and love.
She reads—
“Though absent, I behold you, Julie. I go on my way, surrounded by images which my mind conjures up. I behold you, not cold and unnerved, but alive, animated, ever changing, yet ever perfect. Around you in my dreams I gather the most gorgeous spectacles the world can yield. How happy is Julie’s lover! He finds charms in all things, since in all things he finds her. In loving her it is life he loves; he marvels at this world which she irradiates; he treasures this earth which she adorns. Love unveils to him the hidden mystery of things. He apprehends the infinite forms of creation; they all display to him symbols of Julie; he hears the unnumbered voices of nature; they all murmur in his ear the name of Julie. He plunges his gaze rapturously into the inmost heart of the daylight, with the thought that that fortunate light bathes also the countenance of Julie, and casts as it were a divine caress on the loveliest of human forms. This evening the earliest stars will thrill his being; he will say: ‘Perhaps at this very moment she too is gazing on them.’ He inhales her in all the odours borne on the air. He desires to kiss the very ground she treads on….
“My Julie, if I am fated to fall beneath the axe of the persecutor, and like Algernon Sidney to die for liberty, death itself will be unable to restrain my indignant ghost in the land of shades which holds not you. I shall fly to you, my beloved. Often will my spirit return to hover around you.”
She reads and dreams. Night is coming to a close. Already a pallid light pierces the curtains: it is morning. The servants have begun their work. She must finish her own. Has she caught the sound of voices? No; all around her is silence, still….
Yes, all around is silence, for the snow deadens the tramp of feet. They are coming; they halt outside. Blows fall heavily on the door.
She has not time to hide the letters, to close the escritoire. All she can do she does; she takes the papers in armfuls and throws them underneath the sofa, the valance of which touches the floor; a few letters are scattered on the carpet; she pushes them under with her foot, seizes a book, and flings herself into a chair.
The president of the district enters, followed by a dozen of his pikemen. He is an elderly chair-caner named Brochet, who shivers with ague, and whose bloodshot eyes roam in an unspeakably loathsome fashion.
He makes a sign to his men to keep guard over the approaches, and then turning to Julie, announces—
“We have just received information, citizeness, that you are in correspondence with the agents of Pitt, and with émigrés and conspirators in the prisons. In the name of the law, I am here to take possession of your papers. It is now some time since you were pointed out to me as an aristocrat of the most dangerous type. Citizen Rapoix, whom you see before you” (here he indicated one of his followers), “has confessed that in the severe winter of 1789, you gave him both money and clothes with a view to corrupting him. Magistrates of a timid tendency and wanting in patriotism have shown you leniency over long. But I am master now, in my turn, and you shall not escape the guillotine. Deliver up your papers, citizeness!”
“Take them yourself,” said Julie; “my escritoire is unlocked.”
There still remained in the drawers certain certificates of births, marriages, and deaths, tradesmen’s bills, and title-deeds, which one by one Brochet examined. He fumbled with them, and laid them aside with the suspicious air of a man who reads but poorly, and from time to time exclaimed: “Scandalous! The name of the so-called king is not effaced. Scandalous, scandalous, I call it!”
From his manner Julie concludes that his visit will be lengthy and scrupulous. She cannot resist taking a furtive glance at the side of the sofa, and she sees at once the corner of a letter peeping out from under the valance like the white ear of a cat. At this sight her agony vanishes suddenly. The certainty that she is lost brings back to her a quiet assurance, and her face takes on a calm indistinguishable from an expression of complete security. She has no doubt that the men will observe this scrap of paper so patent to her own eyes. Its whiteness on the red carpet positively screams at her. But she cannot guess whether they will discover it at once or whether some time must first elapse. This doubt occupies and distracts her mind. At this tragic moment she indulges in a sort of joke with herself as she watches the patriots moving further away from or nearer to the sofa.
Brochet, who has finished with the papers in the escritoire, becomes impatient, and declares that he will certainly find what he has come in search of.
He overthrows the furniture, turns the pictures round, and raps the panelling with the pommel of his sword to detect hiding-places. He can discover nothing. He smashes a panel of looking-glass to see if anything is concealed behind it. There is nothing.
Whilst this is going on his men raise some of the squares of parquet. They declare with oaths that a beggarly aristocrat is not going to have the laugh of honest sans-culottes. But never one of them espies the little white wisp which peeps from under the valance of the sofa.
They march Julie into the other rooms of the suite and demand all her keys. They burst open the cupboards, shiver the windows to splinters, smash up the chairs, drag the stuffing from the upholstery. And they find nothing.
Still Brochet is not yet despondent; he returns to the bedroom.
“In God’s name! the papers are here; I’m certain of it!”
He examines the sofa, declares that it has a suspicious appearance, probes it five or six times with his sword from end to end. Still he finds no traces of what he seeks, utters a horrible oath, and gives his men orders to depart.
He is already at the door, when, returning a step or two towards Julie, he raises his fist and shouts—
“Live in dread of my return! I am the sovereign people!”
And he goes out, last of all.
At length all are gone. She hears the clatter of their tread grow fainter on the staircase. She is saved! Her imprudence has not betrayed him—him whom she loves! She runs, with a jubilant little laugh, to embrace the tiny Pierre, who is sleeping with his fists clenched, just as though everything round his cradle had not been turned upside down.
When he had finished his tale, La Tulipe relighted his pipe, which had gone out, and emptied his glass.
“My friend,” I said, “justice is a virtue. For a Garde française it must be admitted that you are a finished story-teller. But I have a strong impression that I have already heard that story somewhere.”
“It may be that Julie herself related it. She was a creature of infinite wit.”
“And what became of her?”
“She knew some happy times in the days of the Consulate. Nevertheless, of an evening she would whisper sorrowful secrets to the trees in her park. You see, Monsieur, she was better armed against death than against love.”
“And he who wrote such elegant letters?”
“He became a baron and prefect under the Empire.”
“And little Pierre?”
“He died a colonel of gendarmerie at Versailles, in 1859.”
“The deuce he did!”