I had my two aunts living at The Hague, but the question was, Were they there at this time? I no longer knew, and from that moment I never ceased suffering the most anxious and torturing mental distress.
I was doing all in my power just then to have some wood for burning. Comte de Kératry had sent me a large provision before his departure to the provinces, in a balloon, on the 9th of October. I was now very short, and I would not allow the stock we had in the cellars to be touched, so that we should not be quite without fuel in case of an emergency. I had all the little footstools belonging to the theater used for firewood, all the wooden cases in which the accessories were kept, a good number of old Roman benches, armchairs, and curule chairs that were stowed away under the Odéon, and, indeed, everything which came to hand. Finally, taking pity on my despair, pretty Mlle. Hocquigny sent me about twenty thousand pounds’ weight of wood, and I then took courage again.
I had been told about some new system of keeping meat, by which the meat neither lost its juices nor its nutritive quality. I sent Mme. Guérard to the Council House, in the neighborhood of the Odéon, where such provisions were distributed, but some brute answered her that when I had removed all the Buddhistic images from my ambulance I should receive the necessary food. M. Herisson, the mayor, with some functionary holding an influential post, had been to inspect my ambulance. The important personage had requested me to have the beautiful white Virgins, which were on the mantelpieces and tables, taken away, as well as the Divine Crucified One, hanging on the wall of each room in which there were any of the wounded. I refused in a somewhat insolent and very decided way to act in accordance with the wish of my visitor; whereupon, the famous republican turned his back on me, and gave orders that I should be refused everything at the Council House. I was very determined, however, and I moved heaven and earth until I succeeded in being included for the distribution of food, in spite of the orders of the chief. It is only fair to say that the mayor was a charming man. Mme. Guérard returned after her third visit, with a child pushing a hand barrow containing ten enormous bottles of the miraculous meat. I received the precious consignment with infinite joy, for my men had been almost without meat for the last three days; and the beloved pot-au-feu was an almost necessary resource for the poor wounded fellows. On all the bottles were directions as to opening them: “Let the meat soak so many hours, etc., etc.”
Mme. Lambquin, Mme. Guérard, and I, together with all the staff of the infirmary, were soon grouped, anxiously and inquisitively, around these glass receptacles.
I told the head attendant to open the largest of the bottles, in which through the glass we could see an enormous piece of beef, surrounded by thick, muddy-looking water. The string, fastened round the rough paper which hid the cork, was cut and then, just as the man was about to put the corkscrew in, a deafening explosion was heard, and a rank odor filled the room. Everyone rushed away terrified. I called them all back, scared and disgusted as they were, and showed them the following words on the directions: “Do not be alarmed at the bad odor on opening the bottle.” Courageously, and with resignation, we took up our work once more, though we felt sick all the time from the abominable exhalation. I took the beef out and placed it on a dish that had been brought for the purpose. Five minutes later this meat turned blue, and then black, and the stench from it was so unbearable that I decided to throw it away. Mme. Lambquin was wiser, though, and more reasonable.
“No, oh, no, my dear girl,” she said; “in these times it will not do to throw meat away, even though it may be rotten. Let us put it in the glass bottle again and send it back to the Council House.” I followed her wise advice, and it was a very good thing I did, for another ambulance, installed at Boulevard de Medicis, on opening these bottles of meat had been as horrified as we were and had thrown the contents into the street. A few minutes after the crowd had gathered round in a mob and, refusing to listen to anything, had yelled out insults addressed to “the aristocrats,” “the clericals,” and “the traitors,” who were throwing good meat, intended for the sick, into the street, so that the dogs were enjoying it, while the people were starving with hunger. It was with the greatest difficulty that the wretched, mad people had been prevented from invading the ambulance, and when one of the unfortunate nurses had gone out, later on, she had been mobbed, and beaten, until she was left half dead from fright and blows. She did not want to be carried back to her own ambulance, and the druggist begged me to take her in. I kept her for a few days, in one of the boxes in the second gallery of the theater, and when she was better she asked if she might stay with me as a nurse. I granted her wish, and kept her with me afterwards as a maid.
She was a fair-haired girl, gentle and timid, and was predestined for misfortune. She was found dead in the Père Lachaise Cemetery after the skirmish between the Communists and the Versailles troop. A stray bullet had struck her in the back of the neck as she was praying at the grave of her little sister, who had died two days before from smallpox. I had taken her with me to St. Germain, where I had gone to stay during the horrors of the Commune. Poor girl! I had allowed her to go to Paris very much against my own will.
As we could not count on this preserved meat for our food, I made a contract with a knacker, who agreed to supply me, at rather a high price, with horseflesh, and until the end this was the only meat we had to eat. Well prepared and well seasoned, it was very good.
Hope had now fled from all hearts and we were living in the expectation of we knew not what. An atmosphere of misfortune seemed to hang like lead over us, and it was a sort of relief when the bombardment commenced on the 27th of December. At last, we felt that something fresh was happening. It was an era of fresh suffering. There was some stir, at any rate, for the last fortnight the fact of not knowing anything had been killing us.
On the 1st of January, 1871, we lifted our glasses to the health of the absent ones, to the repose of the dead; and the toast choked us with a lump in our throats.