“Since that’s the case,” the Maire replied, “We’ll honor our promise. I’ll alert the curator of the Palais. He’ll expect you in an hour, and will doubtless give satisfaction to the desire of Monsieur...”
He stood up, not knowing how to conclude the sentence, and bowed hesitantly to the man who had not spoken.
Having dismissed the strange visitors he telephoned the curator. “I’m sending you two lunatics, who don’t seem malevolent. If you can’t get rid of them, put them up in the Palais tonight.”
When he went out into the courtyard, however, the latest edition of the Marseilles newspapers was being touted loudly. He found information in large print therein, which gave him pause for thought:
The telegraph from Turin, where the King of Italy is resident, announces that graved events must have occurred in Rome. Il Duce has been assassinated. Details are lacking. All telephonic and aerial communications with the capital are cut off.
“Damn!” said the Maire. “I’ve got a big affair on my hands.”
Little attention was paid on the streets of Avignon to the two priests who asked a passer-by the way to the Archbishopric. No one knew what was said in the Monseigneur’s drawing room during the hour they spent there, nor was their arrival at the Palais noticed, at the moment when the last visitors were leaving.
Dr. Colombe was not merely a scholarly historian of the monument confided to his care but also a moving spirit who was capable of dreaming. The newspapers had just opened up to him the dream that he had often formulated of receiving a Papal visit.
When the two priests introduced themselves to him, he had no difficulty recognizing them, and placed himself under the orders of the Sovereign Pontiff.
“We want,” said the later, “before accepting the hospitality of Milord the Archbishop, to do honor the appeal that was once addressed to us in the name of the people of Avignon. We shall spend tonight, with your permission, under the roof of our venerated predecessors.”
The curator unhooked his bundle of keys and conducted the Pope through the vast deserted rooms. On the way, he indicated the steps and passages that would take him, if he so wished to the Angel Tower, the library and the Chapel of St. John.
“I offer to Your Holiness,” he said, finally, “the bedchamber of Clement VI and John XXII. It’s the smallest of our rooms and the least comfortable. I’ll have two camp beds set up for you here. The Holy Father will be perfectly tranquil, and no noise will hinder his sleep.”
The visitors gazed with astonishment at the profane hunting scenes that covered the walls.
“These paintings are our most precious treasures,” said the doctor. “They were the décor of private audiences. The memories with which this room is crowded render it particularly dear to us.”
The Pope smiled and went to the window. The setting sun reddened the roofs that huddled beneath the high walls. A golden light covered Provence. Pius XII extended his arms as if to embrace the beautiful country and murmured: “The Vicar of Christ is at home everywhere that he finds his children. Nowhere is the Papacy in exile.”
Avignon will never forget the weeks of that sojourn. The people, who are not astonished by anything, found it perfectly natural that the Pontiff had returned.
On the very first morning, at dawn, all the bells in the diocese sounded the great carillon, and the people on the other side of the Rhône wondered what unexpected festival was putting the land of the Mistral in a festive mood.
Then the series of pilgrimages to our Midi began. Whole parishes arrived from the mountains or the sea, in carts, in automobiles, and most often on foot in the white dust, led by exuberant priests who sowed enthusiasm along the roads. The Archbishopric was never empty of these rustic visitors, who brought ecstatic eyes, and medallions for blessing.
There was a rush from every region on the day when it became known that Pius XII would give the apostolic blessing from the height of the Rocher des Doms. The night before, fifty thousand people slept on the pavement under the stars. Whoever did not see that fête has never seen anything. The hills, the squares and the windows were overflowing with people. The city was clad in yellow and white oriflammes from the stalls in the street to the summits of the towers.
During the ceremony, tambourines and tabors accompanied the canticles, and the Pope’s ears heard more Provençal than Latin. Then, the white robes and the bishops descended into the streets again, swallowed up by a tumultuous and good humored crowd. The black, white and gray penitents rubbed shoulders with the municipal council without hostility. As it was not a procession but a cortege, the Maire was able to take part in it without violating his edicts. Delighted with his city’s good luck, he flattered himself with the thought that he had brought it about.
In any case, there was more in Avignon than parties. Hearts became papal again, and the most miscreant, in order to make amends, whistled the familiar couplets of the old song of Clement V in the cafés. There was even talk of definitively fitting out the old palace and the millions to spend danced in the imagination of architects.
It was more serious, a few days later, when the French and foreign cardinals were seen arriving. When Poznan, Cologne and Westminster were present, Pius XII held a Consistory.
The affairs of the Church were in dire need of one. Those in Italy were hopeful; the provinces faithful to the House of Savoy had rid themselves of Soviet Republics; the army and militias were preparing to march on Rome; the great kingdom would not perish.
However, the return of the Pope to the Vatican seemed impossible. Destruction had completed the work of pillage. It was said that the Raphael frescos once spared by Charles V’s knights had been lacerated. Even the Archives had been destroyed, burned or thrown into the Tiber. An entire history had disappeared with them and crumbled into the past.
The government in Paris was not unembarrassed. The Pope had thanked it without saying a word about his intentions. The religious effervescence of the Midi, which the prefects had declared “a straw fire,” was beginning to cause anxiety. Would it influence the imminent elections? It was to be feared so. At least there was no danger of any interpellation in the Chambres; the habit had set in of only convening them rarely, which permitted government.
The Ministry sent the Republic’s finest diplomat to Avignon. That was the President himself. A southerner, like so many others, an alert mind and a disabused freemason, he came to salute deferentially the man whom the press unanimously described as “the foremost moral authority in the world.”
The archbishopric’s visitor went to the prefecture, and the meeting lasted a long time. All that was learned was that the pontiff had received urgent invitations to go to America, where several states of the Union were offering installations worthy of the Church of Rome, Pius XII had refused the installations, but had agreed to cross the Ocean.
The Council of Ministers breathed out; the Republic was no longer in peril! And the only change that the President remarked on his return from the trip was that low masses were sometimes held on Sundays at the Madeleine.
On the day when the dreadnought that came to fetch him quit the coast of America, Pius XII crossed the Pont d’Avignon and traveled through the Languedoc. The parishes sounded the passage of the autos from one bell-tower to the next, and the Pope paused at the threshold of churches to bless the children. In the Montagne Noire, Catholics and Protestants lined both sides of the road, the former clutching rosaries and the later offering flowers.
At Toulouse, the pontifical high mass celebrated at Saint Sernin was quite an event. Pius XI wanted to make the pious visit to Lourdes that five Popes had desired for such a long time; around the miraculous grotto, a hundred thousand people proclaimed their fidelity to him. On both sides of the Pyrenees the Basque country testified its own with arches of foliage set up at the entrances to towns.
The Pope headed for Santiago de Compostela following the route of the Medieval pilgrims, still decorated with its chapels and calvaries. Entire provinces watched
him pass by on their knees. He waited in the illustrious monastery, beside the relics of the apostle, for the promised vessel to anchor at Corunna.
On the staged decks of the iron ship, white-clad crews were on parade. To the accompaniment of cannon shots, cheers from the shore mingled with the solemn Anglo-Saxon hurrahs as the Star and Stripes carried the Church toward a new destiny...
At daybreak, when he was woken up by the bells of St. Peter’s, His Holiness Pius XII asked for news from the Palais de Venise. Il Duce, in perfect health, had just mounted his horse for his daily excursion.
Pierre de Nolhac: A Lovely Summer’s Day
(1932)
On coming out of the Academy, where our session was brief, I go over the Pont des Arts. The physician has recommended that I take a short walk every day. We have been working on the Dictionnaire; the letter A is going to take a long time, and my age leaves me little hope of reaching the letter B.
There is hardly anyone in Paris that August. There are four of us, with our director Pierre Benoît. He has grown old without losing his gaiety; it distracted us from care with public affairs, which are going badly. Although our colleague Herriot has been President of the Republic for some time, nothing has been settled. Strikes are multiplying in the vicinity of Paris; the Bourse is at a new low; I no longer have an automobile.45 Although one is accustomed to such crises, the gravity of this one seems astonishing; even our old administration seems out of kilter. For two hours it has been impossible to obtain any telephonic communication from the Institut.
I watch the Seine flowing in that placid afternoon. A slight breeze is agitating the foliage on the quay. There is not a cloud in the pure sky of our dear city. It really is a lovely summer’s day.
At the exit from the bridge I find a surprising barrier of policemen. There are bare-headed individuals among them who appear to be assisting them in their service. I am asked for my papers. That is truly incredible. I stand on my dignity: “Member of the Acad…”
“Let the old man pass,” says a voice. “He won’t bother anyone.”
I pass on, a trifle shocked. Monsieur Chiappe’s agents used to be more polite.46
How restful it is in the courtyard of the Louvre, and what beautiful solitude! Two centuries of the noblest history of France are inscribed on these walls. One feels glad to belong to a nation that leaves such monuments to its glory. “At your own risk,” said that imbecile of a Brigadier—as if there were any risk in taking a taxi to the Palais-Royal!
Anyway, there are no taxis in the square—no circulation at all. I notice that the Ministry of Finance is guarded by a troop similar to the one of the bridge.
I go to buy my Débats from the kiosk whose seller is familiar to me, but her display is empty and she is in the process of closing up.
“No papers today, my dear Monsieur.”
The idea of going home on foot scarcely makes me. The Avenue Hoche is a long way off. I decide to take the Metro, but there too, no one is allowed in.
“But I can hear the trains moving,” I say.
“That’s not for you, it’s for the service.”
A singular service that obliges Parisians, in broad daylight, to walk for three kilometers. Doubtless I’ll find vehicles in the Rue Saint-Honoré, and I’ll take advantage of it to go into my bookshop, which ought to have a small order waiting for me.
“Here’s your book, Maître,” says the clerk at Giraud-Badin, “You’re just in time, we’re about to close the shop, like all the neighbors. Anyway, we haven’t sold a book for a week. It’s not worth the trouble of staying in Paris—you’d be better off in the country.”
The fellow puts up the shutters, and I perceive that, indeed, almost all the shop windows are already sealed off. There are very few people in the streets. It’s a rare pleasure nowadays to be able to leaf through a book on the sidewalk. Mine is a delight. It’s an incunabula for which I’ve been searching for a long time, the exceedingly rare edition of the letters of Aeneas Silvius, which must have been printed in Rome by Eucharius Silber in 1490 or thereabouts. It has no date on the colophon, but its beautiful characters justify the supposition.
Perhaps I encounter other barriers, but the only one that stops me seriously is in the Rue Royale. There is no means of getting through that one, and Aeneas Silvius and I are turned away rather harshly. What can I do? Fortunately, I perceive someone that I recognize in an animated and noisy group. It really is Octave, our electrician, who comes to my house to repair the wiring and the lights, and stays for a little chat. What is the worthy fellow doing here, bare-headed like the others? He seems to be giving orders.
I call out to him: “Octave! Monsieur Octave!”
He comes toward me, astonished and condescending. I ask him to get me out of difficulty.
“That’s easy,” he said. “I’m just about to carry out my inspection in your direction. We’ll go together. You’re in luck, for you’d never have got home on a day like today.
We cross the street and soon reach the Champs-Élysées.
“What the devil is all this?” I ask him. “What’s happening in Paris? I no longer recognize it.”
“Why,” he says, laughing, “it’s the Revolution. It’s started, hasn’t it? We’ve chosen a good time, and you have to admit that it’s rather successful.”
“We had no inkling of it at the Institut.”
“You never have any inkling of anything at the Institut,” Octave replied, indulgently. “Fortunately, the world doesn’t need astronomers to turn.”
All the openings to the sewers are guarded. At every post, Octave exchanges a few words, and while we go up the avenue he explains things to me.
“It’s quite simple, you see. We have friends everywhere, the sewer workers foremost among them. A thirteen forty-five, our zero hour, as you say in your wars, all the electric cables were cut. The airwaves have been jammed. Paris is completely cut off. No orders are being transmitted except ours.”
“What about the police?”
“The police! The majority are with us and the rest are directing traffic. That’s their métier, isn’t ii?”
“Oh!” I said, nonplussed. “It’s you who are maintaining order?”
“And how! Look at our cyclists going by. Hey, Charlot, are you coming from the Prefecture? What did the Prefect say when he was banged up?”
The cyclist drew away triumphantly, a black flag on his handlebars.
Octave continued. “So, at thirteen fifty, our men were at all the strategic points. The Metro transported many of them, like good employees who seemed to be on their way to the office. At each Ministry, however, a coup de théâtre. From the manholes in the sidewalk, up the iron ladders, strong crews surge forth with sturdy cudgels. At the same time, our ushers close the doors. Not a single clerk can get in. Same thing for the banks. Everything is going well. Method, you see, method! Then again, the ministries were well hollowed-out!”
“Come on, Octave, at least respect the French language.”
We go past the Figaro.
“F the French language,” says Octave, roundly. He points at the carefully-guarded building.
“Look, there’s a barber who won’t get in our way anymore. He’s shaved for the last time this morning.”
Higher up it’s the old Revue de Paris. It was about to publish a major study of mine, “L’Humanisme éternel” on the fifteenth.
Workers appear at the windows of the offices, throwing proofs and manuscripts down in to the roadway. An editor comes out without a hat, his face bloodied.
“Literary quarrels,” Octave explains. “The shop’s been closed. Others will go the same way.”
“Surely not the Revue des Deux-Mondes!” I protest. “It’s an institution. No regime would dare to touch it!”
He seems amazed, looks at me for a moment, and bursts out laughing.
“You’re magnificent, dear Maître. You still believe in your papers. They don’t interest anyone any more. All that’s worn out, obsolete,
dead and gone. The cinema, with a nice, amusing daily rumor, will be sufficient for our comrades. And you’ll see, you can write for us.”
Alas, I think, what future is there for intelligence? What will become of “L’Humanisme éternel”? A double anxiety.
The man is following another train of thought, for he takes out his watch.
“Seventeen thirty! Your ministers will be peeved when they’ve been collected at the doors. Everyone’s taking a stroll today—it’s such lovely weather! A pity we haven’t got our hands on your Foreign Affairs, whose banqueting in Switzerland or the Colonies, whose palavering in the colonies, nor all those who are taking the waters, at the seaside or at their lady friends’ châteaux.” He pointed at a carriage coming down the avenue. “But there’s the general, picked up at the Porte de Saint-Cloud on his way back from Versailles. He won’t be sleeping at the Invalides anymore.”
“You can’t have done that to Général Gouraud, I’m sure,” I say, with an indignation that was beginning to grow. “He’d have shot you down first!”47
“We’ll see about that! But you no longer have Gouraud or anyone else—nothing but the toads at the end of the bridge. And if there’s only those birds to defend you…”
“I disregard those discourteous metaphors for the national representation. “There’s also the army,” I say. “Our barracks...”
“Let’s talk about them. Naturally, the class is liberated. The fellows don’t need to be told twice. Look, see how happy they are!”
At that moment, a cheerful troop of soldiers comes down the Champs-Élysées, arms linked, singing a hymn in which I don’t recognize: the Marseillaise.
“But what have you done with the Élysée?”
“The President of your Republic? He’s in Lyon, at the coronation of the rose-bushes. The comrades will furnish him with roses today, thorns and all.”
“What! The provinces...”
“Of course! Marseilles, Nantes, Le Havre are all hotting up now. It might be a little harder there than here, where everything’s going along peacefully.”
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