An Englishman in Paris: Notes and Recollections

by Albert D. Vandam

"Being in Paris for the Christmas and New Year's holidays, your excellency, I thought it my duty to pay my respects to you."

"Is that all you want with me?" asked the marshal.

"That is all, your excellency," stammered the visitor.

"Very well: then I'll wish you good morning."

I suppose I must have looked somewhat shocked at this very unceremonious proceeding, for, when the door was closed, the marshal explained.

"You need not think that I have done him an injustice. When fellows like this present their respects it always means that they want me to present them with something else; that is why I cut them short."

Sometimes these interviews took a comical turn, for the marshal could be very witty when he liked. In the land of "equality," everybody is always on the look-out for greater privileges than his fellows, and in no case were and are favours more indiscriminately requested than with the view of avoiding military service. A thousand various pretexts, most of them utterly ridiculous, were brought forward by the parents to preserve their precious sons from the hated barrack life. In many instances, a few years of soldiering would have done those young hopefuls a great deal of good, because those who clamoured loudest for exemption were only spending their time in idleness and mischief. In the provinces there was a chance of influencing the conseil de révision by means of the préfet, if the parents were known to be favourable to the government; by means of the bishops, if they still had a hankering after the former dynasties; and, not to mince matters, if they were simply rich, by means of bribery. In Paris the matter was somewhat more difficult; the members of the council were frequently changed at the last moment, and at all times the recruits to be examined were too numerous for a parent to trust to the memory of those members. The military authorities had introduced a new rule, to the effect that the names of the recruits to be examined should not be called out until their examination was finished; and, with the best will in the world, it is often difficult to distinguish between un fils de famille and a downright plebeian if both happen to come before you "as God made them." Consequently, notwithstanding the considerable ingenuity of the parties interested to let the examining surgeon-major known "who was who," mistakes frequently occurred; the young artisan, who had no more the matter with him than the young wealthy bourgeois, was dismissed as unfit for the service, while the latter was pronounced apt in every respect.

Apropos of this, I know a good story, for the truth of which I can vouch, because it happened to a member of the family with which I became connected by marriage afterwards. He had a son who was of the same age as his coachman's. Both the lads went to draw at the same time, both drew low numbers. The substitute system was still in force, but, just at that moment, there was a war-scare—not without foundation—and substitutes reached high prices. It would not have mattered much to the rich man. Unfortunately, he was tight-fisted, and the mother pleaded in vain. The wife was just as extravagant as the husband was mean; she had no savings, and she cudgelled her brain to find the means of preserving her darling from the vile contact of his social inferiors without putting her hand in her pocket—which, moreover, was empty. She went a great deal into society, was very handsome, clever, and fascinating. By dint of ferreting, she got to know the probable composition of the conseil de révision—barring accidents. History does not say how, but she wheedled the surgeon-major into giving her a distinct promise to do his best for her dear son. Of course, in order to do some good, the surgeon had to see the young fellow first; and there was the difficulty, because madame had made the acquaintance of the officer under peculiar circumstances, and could not very well introduce him to her home: besides, just on account of the war-scare, the authorities had become very strict, the practices of many officers were suspected, and it would never have done for the gentleman to give his superiors as much as a loophole for their suspicion by visiting the lady. Time was getting short; the acquaintance had ripened into friendship very quickly, because, three days before the time appointed for the sitting of the council, madame had never seen the surgeon, and on the eve of that sitting the final arrangement had been concluded. It was to this effect: that madame's son would pretend to have hurt his hand, and appear with a black silk bandage round his wrist. The thing is scarcely credible, but the coachman's son, an engine-fitter, had hurt his wrist, and put a strip of black ribbon round it. The coachman's family name began with a B, the lady's name with a C. The coachman's son was taken for the other, and declared unfit for military service by reason of his chest, to his great surprise and joy, as may be imagined. But the surprise, though not the joy, of the examining officer was greater still when, in the next batch, another young fellow appeared with a strip of black ribbon round his wrist. To ask his name was an impossibility. The surgeon was afraid that he had been betrayed, or that his secret had leaked out, and, without a moment's hesitation, declared the real Simon Pure sound in lungs and limb.

I am afraid I have drifted a little bit from Marshal Vaillant's comical interviews, but am coming back to them in a roundabout way. The common, or garden trick to get those young fellows exempted, where bribery was impossible or private influence out of the question, was to make them sham short-sightedness, or deafness, or impediment in the speech. We have heard before now of professors who cure people of stammering: it is a well-known fact that in those days there was a professor who taught people to stammer; while, personally, I know an optician on the Boulevard des Italians whose father made a not inconsiderable fortune by spoiling young fellows' sights—that is, by training them, for a twelvemonth before the drawing of lots, to wear very powerful lenses. Of course, this had to be done gradually, and his fee was a thousand francs. I have known him to have as many as twenty or thirty pupils at a time. No doubt the authorities were perfectly aware of this, but they had no power to interfere. The process for "teaching deafness" was even a more complicated one, but it did succeed for a time in imposing upon the experts, until, by a ministerial decree, it was resolved to draft all these clever stammerers, and even those who were really suffering from the complaints the others simulated, into the transport and medical services.

It was then that Marshal Vaillant was overwhelmed with visits from anxious matrons who wanted to save their sons, and that the comical interviews took place.