Twilight of the Belle Epoque

by Mary McAuliffe

  Anna de Noailles and her family (along with the French government) headed to Bordeaux, while Proust, along with Countess Greffulhe and her aesthetic cousin, Count Robert de Montesquiou, withdrew to Cabourg, on the Norman coast. There, surrounded by much of the same society they had frequented in Paris, they prepared to sit out the war. Proust (now largely recovered from his grief over Agostinelli) remained closeted in his hotel room, catered to by Céleste, while the great society ladies amused themselves with the latest in fashions. This meant Coco Chanel, who seemed to float with the tide, opening shops in Deauville56 and Biarritz even while Paul Poiret and other leading designers were having to reduce or close their businesses in Paris. All the fashionable women who had retreated to these resort towns found Chanel fashions chic but sufficiently informal and adaptable to just about any circumstance, from fleeing the enemy to driving a car.

  Anna de Noailles, Proust, and others would return to Paris once the imminent danger of enemy occupation subsided, but still others, such as Marc Chagall, could not. A great event in his life, his first solo exhibition, had drawn him to Berlin; from there he traveled to Vitebsk, where he married his beloved Bella—over the strenuous objections of her parents (“You’ll starve with him, my daughter; you’ll starve for nothing”). He was madly in love (“She seemed to float over my canvases for a long time, guiding my art”),57 but once war broke out, he found himself stuck in Russia. Called up for military duty, he managed to serve in a military office in St. Petersburg rather than going to the front. It was a safe existence, at least for the moment, but soon life would become infinitely more precarious for him and countless other Russians.

  While Gertrude Stein and Alice roamed the English countryside, Michael and Sarah Stein were enduring a major loss, albeit not in human life. They had loaned nineteen of their finest Matisses for a Berlin exhibition, which were promptly confiscated when Germany declared war on France.58 Also in Berlin (for an air show) when war broke out, the renowned French pilot Roland Garros made a daring escape in his monoplane. He promptly flew to France, where he immediately enlisted.

  On August 5, Lieutenant Charles de Gaulle wrote in his private journal: “Goodbye, my rooms, my books, my familiar objects. How much more intense life does seem, and how the smallest trifles stand out in relief when perhaps everything may be coming to an end.”59

  General Charles Lanrezac, commander of France’s Fifth Army—of which Lieutenant de Gaulle’s 33rd Infantry Regiment (RI) was a part—had little respect for France’s military plan of action, including its underlying premise that a bold offense, fired by will and confidence, would inevitably lead to victory. “Are we to attack?” he commented contemptuously. “Then let us attack the moon!”60 Soon after the outbreak of war, in response to his own reconnaissance reports of massive German forces coming through Belgium, he tried in vain to alert headquarters to the danger. Headquarters, still persuaded that the principal German attack would not come from the north, finally tried to fob him off by allowing him to shift his left corps (the Fifth Army’s First Corps) to Dinant, a strategic river crossing in Belgium, on the River Meuse. When Lanrezac protested that his entire army should be shifted to the northwest, to prevent being encircled by the Germans, he was promptly denied.

  So it was that Lieutenant Charles de Gaulle, now responsible for the 1st Platoon in the 11th Company of the 33rd Infantry Regiment’s 1st Battalion (in turn part of the Fifth Army’s First Corps), marched eastward from Arras toward the mountainous and heavily forested Ardennes. Lanrezac’s army, most especially its First Corps, was on a collision course with hefty German forces intent on using the River Meuse as an entry into France. On August 13, with a German spotter plane watching overhead, de Gaulle and his fellow soldiers entered Belgium. On August 14 and 15 (as he later wrote from his hospital bed), “everyone feels we are going into battle, but everyone is determined and in high spirits.” After a fifty-mile night march they entered Dinant, where the exhausted men fell asleep in the streets. And then, at six in the morning, “boom! boom! the music begins.”61

  The enemy soon seized the citadel that commanded the town and opened heavy rifle fire. Soon after, the first French wounded began to come in—at first a trickle, then a flood. The French artillery were not answering (indeed, had not yet arrived), and now the 11th Company, including de Gaulle’s platoon, was ordered to go in with bayonet (and without artillery cover) to prevent the Germans from taking the bridge. “I shouted ‘First platoon, advance with me!’” de Gaulle recalled, “and I raced forward, knowing that our only chance of success was acting very fast.” But he had only advanced about twenty yards “when something struck my knee like a whip-lash,” and he fell, with his sergeant on top of him, killed outright. He heard “an appalling hail of bullets all round me,” and managed to extricate himself from his neighbors, “corpses or little better,” and crawled along under a hail of bullets. Somehow, limping “and in a bad way,” he dragged himself to the bridge, where he gathered together “what was left of the regiment in Dinant.”62 By night, some of the residents of Dinant removed the wounded in carts, and de Gaulle got into one of them. His entire company had been decimated. He would not see the ghastly German execution of more than six hundred men, women, and children of Dinant that followed.

  De Gaulle was evacuated to Arras and then to Paris, where he was operated on. There, while recuperating, he wrote his account of the battle, including this dramatic conclusion, which represented a complete turnaround for him: “It is clear,” he wrote, “that all the courage and valour in the world cannot prevail against gunfire.”63

  Everything continued to go badly for the French throughout the month of August. France’s high command could no longer ignore the Germans’ rapid advance through Belgium and into France, and after a series of disastrous encounters, the French, now joined by their British allies, were unable to prevent the Germans from pushing as far as Senlis, less than thirty miles from Paris. By August 29, gunfire “was audible in Paris.”64 It was a terrifying development, whose import the Germans had underscored by burning, massacring, and pillaging all along the way.65 Paris, and all of France, awaited their arrival with terror and despair. The Germans had already spread the word that entire quarters of Paris might well be destroyed in the course of their invasion. The streets of Paris emptied, shops shuttered, and any remaining tourists vanished, leaving even the Ritz deserted.

  The Allies had failed to stop the German onslaught—their efforts to shift the entire battle map westward to halt the Germans were too late, and now all that was left was the supreme effort to fight in retreat, hold off pursuit, and, ultimately, protect their armies from destruction.

  Gathering its armies in retreat, France’s high command prepared to make its last defense at the Seine. On September 3, the newly appointed military governor of Paris, Joseph-Simon Gallieni, issued a notice to the citizens of Paris that the Government of the Republic (ingloriously decamped to Bordeaux) had given him the mandate “to defend Paris against the invader,” a mandate that he intended “to carry out to the end.”66 This included, as last resort, dynamiting the many bridges and other strategic structures at the city’s periphery and center, including even the beloved Pont Neuf and the beautiful new Pont Alexandre III.

  In addition, citizens previously not eligible for military duty were set to work erecting barricades across all entries to the city, including the sewers. Ammunition was stockpiled; bakers, butchers, and market gardeners were organized; cattle were brought to graze in the Bois de Boulogne. Among those senior citizens who did their part was Squadron Chief Alfred Dreyfus, now almost fifty-five and only partially recovered from his horrendous (and horrendously unjust) imprisonment on Devil’s Island. Despite his remaining infirmities, Dreyfus returned to active service on behalf of his city and country. Although he requested assignment to the combat zone, he was at first assigned to the entrenched city’s Artillery Staff.

  According to the Schlieffen Plan, the Ge
rmans could count on victory over France between the thirty-sixth and the fortieth days following mobilization. It was on the thirty-fourth day, September 3, that a French reconnaissance plane definitely confirmed scattered reports of a gap that had opened in the German line as German General von Kluck, previously on a southward course toward Paris, swung southeast toward the River Marne in pursuit of the retreating French, exposing his flank. Soon a second French airplane confirmed the first report, followed by a third from British aviators. Suddenly, there was hope.

  Without hesitation, Gallieni decided that now was the moment to launch an attack on the flank of the German right wing, and he successfully pressured the French high command to seize the opportunity. The Germans—whose troops were hungry and exhausted—were convinced that the French did not have it in them to mount a counteroffensive. French troops, who had been fighting and retreating for days, were as exhausted as the Germans. Nevertheless, as Commander-in-Chief Joffre put it, the “supreme moment” had arrived. “Gentlemen,” he told his assembled officers, “we will fight on the Marne.”67

  The French poured everything into this battle, including the six thousand reinforcing troops that six hundred Paris taxis rushed to the front—each taxi proudly carrying five soldiers and making the sixty-kilometer trip twice. The bloody battle that followed turned the tide and put an abrupt halt to German assumptions of a quick victory.

  Yet as it soon became clear, the Battle of the Marne stopped short of achieving victory for France and its British ally. This and subsequent battles held the German line, but they did not extricate the Germans from Belgium or from the industrial heart of northern France. By year’s end, the rival armies had dug in, confronting one another from opposing trenches along a front that stretched from Switzerland to the Channel.

  Still, without anticipating the horrors that lay ahead, the Battle of the Marne figured as a miracle for the French. Like a bolt from heaven, the German juggernaut had been halted, and Paris was saved.

  Gertrude Stein was not the only one who, on hearing news of the battle’s outcome, wept with relief and joy.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “This war which never ends”

  (1914–1915)

  French casualties in the month of August 1914 alone (including those killed, wounded, and missing) reached more than two hundred thousand, and probably came closer to three hundred thousand. One French eighteen-year-old who was not mobilized due to illness found that by Christmas he was the only one of his class of twenty-seven boys who was still alive.1

  By autumn, there was enough grief to touch virtually every household in France, and Paris’s notables suffered with the rest. Clemenceau’s son was wounded in August, while Renoir’s two oldest sons, Jean and Pierre, were wounded in October. Jean Renoir was wounded again the following spring, this time more severely, and then became a reconnaissance pilot.

  Monet, who had recently lost his wife and eldest son (who died early in the year after a long illness), now faced the uncertain fate of his younger son, Michel. Despite being declared physically unfit for military service, Michel nonetheless volunteered and soon would serve in active combat at Verdun.

  Artists in the camouflage section painting a cannon (on the left, the painter Jean-Louis Forain) at Sailly-au-Bois (Pas-de-Calais), 1914–1915. Photo: Pascal Segrette. Musée de l’Armée, Paris, France. © Musée de l’Armée / Dist. RMN–Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.

  Escoffier’s younger son, Daniel, was killed in action on November 1, leaving four children whom his parents took in and raised. André Citroën’s beloved brother, Bernard, died that October while trying to rescue a wounded comrade under fire, receiving a posthumous Croix de Guerre for his bravery. The poet Charles Péguy died in action, shot in the forehead the day before the Battle of the Marne. The painter Moïse Kisling was shot in the chest, and his fellow artist Georges Braque received a severe wound to the head and was left for dead after leading his platoon over the top. Found the next day by stretcher-bearers, Braque was trepanned in a field hospital and sent to Paris, where he remained blinded and was given little chance of surviving.

  French and Belgian casualties included whole towns destroyed in the path of the German advance. The burning and sack of the medieval Belgian town of Louvain, including its irreplaceable library, aroused global disbelief and anger, as did the destruction of the treasured cathedral of Reims, which the Germans shelled in September, following the Battle of the Marne. “Oh, God!” wrote Ravel to Maurice Delage upon learning the news. “When I think that they just destroyed Rheims cathedral!”2 Rodin was similarly despairing, and Debussy angrily wrote a former pupil, “I won’t get on to the subject of German barbarity. It’s exceeded all expectations.”3

  For the moment, Debussy found it impossible to compose, even though he and his wife had evacuated Paris for Angers. “Anyway,” he added to Jacques Durand, he didn’t “want this music played until the destiny of France is decided: she can’t laugh or cry while so many of our men are dying heroes’ deaths!”4 It would be many months before Debussy would be able to compose again.

  By year’s end, Paris had become a much sadder and quieter place, and the entire city appeared to be in mourning. Everyone wore black or the darkest blue, even those who had lost no one—yet.

  Living in the apartment beneath Helen Pearl Adam were two elderly women from Normandy who, between their two families, had already lost fourteen dead plus twenty-six wounded and missing. And yet, Adam noted, “a lame sort of life goes on, with an air of wishing to be taken for normal.”5 Some department stores and a few luxury shops remained open, and the cinemas had recently reopened; but most theaters remained closed, except for special matinees to benefit war charities. All public buildings, including the museums, were closed, with the exception of the newly opened war museum at the Invalides, where crowds gathered to see trophies such as an airplane propeller or a collection of German helmets. Omnibuses were nonexistent (they would not run again until 1918), and although the Métro and the commuter boats still ran, it was on an erratic schedule. Food remained plentiful, but the prices for food and fuel had soared, causing considerable anxiety.

  Stricter orders about lighting came in January 1915, and with the resulting complete blackout, streets at night were dark. “The physical beauty of the town is quite startling,” wrote Adam, noting the more visible night sky. “The sky seems to have more colours, the night more stars than ever before.” The Etoile district was “almost empty,” she continued, except for hospitals and a few workshops. Without its “maddening glitter of lamps,” the Place de la Concorde seemed “absolutely vast,” capturing the imagination like never before.6

  Entertaining simply was not done, “and if any one played the piano, protests were certain to be made by passersby against such frivolity.”7 Still, there were an abundance of canteens, where good, cheap meals were served and where, once a week, a musical and dramatic program might be given, usually by some of those very musicians and performers benefiting from the inexpensive meals.

  Probably the most famous of these canteens was the one run by a former student of Matisse’s, Marie Vassilieff. Aware that those artists who remained in Montparnasse were suffering as the art market dwindled and stipends dried up or failed to arrive, Vassilieff in early 1915 opened a canteen in her studio in the impasse at 21 Avenue du Maine. Vassilieff furnished her canteen with flea market finds and decorated it with paintings and drawings by Chagall, Modigliani, Picasso, and Léger, as well as sculptures by Zadkine. Somehow, with only a couple of burners, Vassilieff’s cook made hearty meals for as many as forty-five hungry artists, who paid a pittance for soup, meat, vegetable, and salad or dessert. Saturdays featured planned concerts, but impromptu concerts frequently broke out throughout the week as the artists entertained one another.

  Some of the larger restaurants remained open, but they were restricted to serving meals of only two courses. They struggled on,
with greatly reduced staff and clientele, and were required to close by 10:30 p.m.—startlingly early by Paris standards. When Edith Wharton joined friends for a dismal dinner at the Ritz, they all had to sit on the same sofa to keep warm, while “a ghost of a waiter in a long apron shuffled up and down the endless empty vista of the hall.”8

  Absinthe was banned (by an overwhelming vote in the Chamber), leaving cafés as well as their clientele in the lurch. Women stopped buying clothes—many would wear the same clothing throughout the war—and an aura of dedication to troops and country pervaded the entire city. Most women and girls knitted or had some kind of work always at hand, and almost every street had a hospital, a workroom, and a storehouse of necessities for the combatants or their families.9

  Parisians subscribed readily to that year’s National Defense Loan and became accustomed to following the weather closely for the front, learning that too much rain prevented fighting, and too much wind hindered aerial observation. Wounded soldiers walked the streets, creating murmurs of sympathy as they passed. Jules Bertaut noted that “in the poorer parts of the town, the people would hang around all night, women with children in their arms, sitting on the ground, waiting for news, leaning against the walls, passing round rumours and airing their grievances.” Yet there were “no general agitations, no outbursts, hardly a voice raised.” Amazingly, for a city with as volatile a history as Paris, “the most catastrophic disasters were received silently and without public demonstration.” Paris, and the nation, had realized that “the war had come to stay for a very long time.”10