Last month, I picked up a gently used copy of short stories by Guy de Maupassant. I’d put off reading his work for too long and was happy when a friend from my book club chose the classic tale, Boule de Suif, for this quarter’s read. The short collection, titled Boule de Suif et autres récits de guerre, comprises sixteen fictional stories, most of which are set during the Franco-Prussian War. This short-lived and lesser-known conflict, which took place between July 1870 and January 1871, had a significant impact on Europe’s balance of power. When the cannon smoke settled, a newly formed German state had supplanted France as the dominant power. Not only had France (accused of starting the war) been humiliated, but it had also lost nearly 150,000 men.
A recent college graduate when the war broke out, Maupassant enlisted in the French Army, serving as a private in the field. There, he managed to survive combat until his father’s connections secured him a post in the quartermaster corps. This experience had a profound effect on Maupassant’s view of government and the people it claims to protect.
In 1883, using the pseudonym Maufrigneuse, Maupassant published an article in the newspaper Gil Blas, in which he wrote:
Pourquoi ne jugerait-on pas les gouvernants après chaque guerre déclarée? Pourquoi ne les condamnerait-on pas s’ils étaient convaincus de fautes ou d’insuffisance. Du jour où les peuples comprendront cela, du jour où ils feront justice eux-mêmes des gouvernements meurtriers, du jour où ils refuseront de se laisser tuer sans raison, du jour où ils se serviront, s’il le faut, de leurs armes contre ceux qui les leur ont données pour massacrer, la guerre sera morte. Et ce jour viendra.
Why do we not judge the rulers after each declared war? Why do we not condemn them if they were guilty of wrongdoing or inadequacy? From the day when peoples understand this, from the day when they themselves bring murderous governments to justice, from the day when they refuse to let themselves be killed without reason, from the day when they make use of, if necessary, their weapons against those who gave them these weapons to massacre others, war will be dead. And that day will come.
Boule de Suif
Considering the span of his œuvre, Maupassant’s literary career was remarkably brief. He published his first story, Boule de Suif, in 1880, and by 1890, his deteriorating health put an end to his writing. Over the course of those ten years, Maupassant published roughly 300 short stories, six novels, and three travel books.
Like his idol and mentor, Gustave Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant was a keen observer of human nature and chronicler of life in 19th-century France. Yet, I find the younger author’s prose to be lighter and more direct, with a biting wit that exposes humankind’s propensity for self-centered folly.
In Boule de Suif, Maupassant tells the story of a small group of travelers who are fleeing Rouen after Prussian troops have seized control of the city. Thrown together by fate, the ten passengers have one thing in common: the means by which to pay for an expensive stagecoach ride that will whisk them to safety in the port city of Le Havre. From there, they can cross to England if warranted by further Prussian advances.
Early in the story, Maupassant describes the overwhelming tension building in Rouen as the Prussians begin their invasion.
Des commandements criés d’une voix inconnue et gutturale montaient le long des maisons qui semblaient mortes et désertes, tandis que, derrière les volets fermés, des yeux guettaient ces hommes victorieux, maîtres de la cité, des fortunes et des vies, de par le « droit de guerre ». Les habitants, dans leurs chambres assombries, avaient l’affolement que donnent les cataclysmes, les grands bouleversements meurtriers de la terre, contre lesquels toute sagesse et toute force sont inutiles. Car la même sensation reparaît chaque fois que l’ordre établi des choses est renversé, que la sécurité n’existe plus, que tout ce que protégeaient les lois des hommes ou celles de la nature, se trouve à la merci d’une brutalité inconsciente et féroce. Le tremblement de terre écrasant sous des maisons croulantes un peuple entier ; le fleuve débordé qui roule les paysans noyés avec les cadavres des bœufs et les poutres arrachées aux toits, ou l’armée glorieuse massacrant ceux qui se défendent, emmenant les autres prisonniers, pillant au nom du Sabre et remerciant un Dieu au son du canon, sont autant de fléaux effrayants qui déconcertent toute croyance à la justice éternelle, toute la confiance qu’on nous enseigne en la protection du ciel et en la raison de l’homme.
Orders shouted in an unknown and guttural tongue rose along the houses that seemed dead and
deserted; while behind closed shutters anxious eyes awaited these victorious men, masters of the city, its fortunes and its lives, according to the “rules of war.” The inhabitants, in their
darkened rooms, were stricken with the panic brought on by cataclysms, by earth’s deadly upheavals, against which all human skill and strength are useless. For the same sensation reappears whenever the established order of things is turned on its head, when security no longer exists, when all that protected the laws of man or those of Nature are at the mercy of an unthinking and savage brutality. The earthquake beneath crumbling houses that crush an entire people; the flooded river that carries off drowned peasants alongside dead oxen and roof beams; or the vainglorious army slaughtering those who defend themselves, taking others prisoner, pillaging in the name of the sword and giving thanks to God at the sound of cannon fire; these are the terrifying scourges that trouble all belief in eternal justice, all confidence in what one has been taught regarding the protection of God and the reason of mankind.
Among the travelers are a blustery Democrat who scorns Imperial rule; a bourgeois shop-owning couple; a wealthy factory owner and his wife; the Comte and Comtesse of Bréville; two nuns, and a buxom prostitute who goes by Boule de Suif. Due to a winter storm, the coach makes little progress. The passengers, who are initially appalled by their close proximity to a working woman, gradually extend her a modicum of respect. She is the only traveler who has thought to bring food, and her basket of provisions is beyond ample.
She generously shares her bounty, but when the party arrives at an inn where they can spend the night, the customary social order resumes. Much to the party’s chagrin, they are blocked from leaving the next morning. A Prussian officer has taken control of the town, and he will not allow their departure until he has slept with Boule de Suif. De Maupassant does an artful job of unfurling each character’s self-interested justification for why their fellow traveler should engage in a sinful and illegal act. Only Boule de Suif, who might well be called a common whore, has the moral conviction to deny the enemy his request.
The nine “representatives of Virtue”, however, are loath to take no for an answer.
La Mère Sauvage
Most of Maupassant’s stories feature the lives of unassuming peasants who have had nothing to do with the decisions that led to war. They are the innocent pawns and victims of men who rule behind well-guarded gates. It is their simple existence, one that brought harm to no one, that will be sacrificed for some notion of the greater good.
La Mère Sauvage tells the story of Mother Savage, who lives alone, far from the local village, after Prussian troops kill her husband and her son leaves to join the French army. Forced to house four Prussian soldiers, she does so grudgingly at first. But over time, she comes to appreciate the young men and treats them with kindness. Maupassant writes:
Mais elle pensait sans cesse au sien, la vieille, à son grand maigre au nez crochu, aux yeux bruns, à la forte moustache qui faisait sur sa lèvre un bourrelet de poils noirs. Elle demandait chaque jour, à chacun des soldats installés à son foyer :
« Savez-vous où est parti le régiment français, vingt-troisième de marche ? Mon garçon est dedans. »
Ils répondaient : « Non, bas su, bas savoir tu tout. »
Et, comprenant sa peine et ses inquiétudes, eux qui avaient des mères là-bas, ils lui rendaient mille petits soins. Elle les aimait bien, d’ailleurs, ses quatre ennemis ; car les paysans n’ont guère les haines patriotiques ; cela n’appartient qu’aux classes supérieures. Les humbles, ceux qui paient le plus parce qu’ils sont pauvres et que toute charge nouvelle les accable, ceux qu’on tue par masses, qui forment la vraie chair à canon, parce qu’ils sont le nombre, ceux qui souffrent enfin le plus cruellement des atroces misères de la guerre, parce qu’ils sont les plus faibles et les moins résistants, ne comprennent guère ces ardeurs belliqueuses, ce point d’honneur excitable et ces prétendues combinaisons politiques qui épuisent en six mois deux nations, la victorieuse comme la vaincue.
But [the old woman] always thought of her own son, of his tall leanness and hooked nose, of his brown eyes and thick mustache that formed a roll of black whiskers on his lip. Every day she would ask each of the soldiers installed in her home:
“Do you know where the twenty-third French provisional regiment was sent? My boy is with them.”
They would answer, “No, not known, no know at all.” And, understanding her pain and her worries, they, who had mothers themselves, would render her a thousand little services. She liked them well, actually, her four enemies, because peasants have barely any patriotic hatred; this only belongs to members of the upper class. The humble, those who pay the most because they are poor and because every new burden overwhelms them, those who are killed in mass, who make the true cannon fodder because they are the majority, those who ultimately suffer the cruelest atrocious miseries of war, because they are the weakest and least resistant, barely understand such belligerent fervors, this excitable point of honor and these alleged political stratagems which exhaust two nations in six months, the victor as well as the vanquished.
When a letter arrives, however, announcing the death of her son, the earnest and openhearted woman resorts to catastrophic action.
Un Duel
A great example of Maupassant’s concise wordcraft lies in “Un Duel.” This shorter short story takes place in the immediate aftermath of the war. The following opening paragraphs offer the reader a glimpse of the bitter and heart-sickening recognition of defeat.
La guerre était finie; les Allemands occupaient la France; le pays palpitait comme un lutteur vaincu tombé sous le genou du vainqueur.
De Paris affolé, affamé, désespéré, les premiers trains sortaient, allant aux frontières nouvelles, traversant avec lenteur les campagnes et les villages. Les premiers voyageurs regardaient par les portières les plaines ruinées et les hameaux incendiés. Devant les portes des maisons restées debout, des soldats prussiens, coiffés du casque noir à la pointe de cuivre, fumaient leur pipe, à cheval sur des chaises. D’autres travaillaient ou causaient comme s’ils eussent fait partie des familles. Quand on passait les villes, on voyait des régiments entiers manœuvrant sur les places, et, malgré le bruit des roues, les commandements rauques arrivaient par instants.
The war was over; the Germans occupied France; the country twitched like a defeated wrestler pinned beneath the victor’s knee.
The first trains were leaving the distraught, starving, desperate city of Paris, heading to new frontiers, slowly traversing the villages and countryside. The first travelers looked through the windows at the ruined plains and charred hamlets. Standing in front of house doors were Prussian soldiers, wearing black helmets adorned with copper spikes, smoking their pipes, straddling chairs. Others were working or chatting as if they were part of the families. When you passed the towns, you would see entire regiments maneuvering in the squares, and despite the noise of the wheels, hoarse commands could be heard from time to time.
Maupassant paints a dismal picture before turning to one of the train’s prosperous passengers who hopes to leave the war’s ugly consequences behind.
M. Dubuis, qui avait fait partie de la garde nationale de Paris pendant toute la durée du siège, allait rejoindre en Suisse sa femme et sa fille, envoyées par prudence à l’étranger, avant l’invasion.
La famine et les fatigues n’avaient point diminué son gros ventre de marchand riche et pacifique. Il avait subi les événements terribles avec une résignation désolée et des phrases amères sur la sauvagerie des hommes. Maintenant qu’il gagnait la frontière, la guerre finie, il voyait pour la première fois des Prussiens, bien qu’il eût fait son devoir sur les remparts et monté bien des gardes par les nuits froides.
Il regardait avec une terreur irritée ces hommes armés et barbus installés comme chez eux sur la terre de France, et il se sentait à l’âme une sorte de fièvre de patriotisme impuissant, en même temps que ce grand besoin, que cet instinct nouveau de prudence qui ne nous a plus quittés.
M. Dubuis, who during the entire siege had served in the National Guard of Paris, was heading to join his wife and daughter in Switzerland, where he had prudently sent them before the invasion.
Famine and hardship had not diminished the large belly of this wealthy and peace-loving merchant. He had suffered the war’s terrible events with bleak resignation and bitter platitudes regarding the savagery of men. Now as he was reaching the border, the war over, he saw some Prussians for the first time, although he had done his duty on the ramparts and mounted guards on many a cold night.
He watched with angry terror these armed and bearded men, installed on French soil as if they were at home, and he sensed in his soul a kind of powerless fever of patriotism, coincident with this great need, with this new instinct of prudence which has not left us since.
A Slow Evolution
Maupassant’s prediction that the day would come when people would recognize the treachery of murderous governments and hold them accountable has not occurred with much permanency. Why humans repeatedly allow themselves to act in the interests of the wealthy, committing injustices and violating the fundamental rights of fellow human beings, remains uncertain. It’s clear, however, that fear, greed, pugnacity, and short-term thinking are likely factors. Throughout human history, we’ve oscillated between rulers who knew how to exploit such instincts and rulers who worked to diminish them. With any luck, the general population is getting better at discerning the difference.
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Maupassant clearly had quite a gift for painting pictures with words, as well as evoking the kinds of feelings to which extreme situations give rise. The snobbery of “respectable” people toward a prostitute who had actually proved smarter in preparing for a crisis reflects a form of hypocrisy still very familiar today. And I can well believe that the underprivileged would be less infected with hatred toward members of an enemy nation — they have, after all, plenty of experience to show them that their real enemies are the privileged classes of their own nation.
While his efforts at philosophy are understandable, there are times when philosophy is a luxury people cannot afford. Some wars do indeed consist of nothing but avaricious rulers exploiting people’s “fear, greed, pugnacity, and short-term thinking” to embroil them in pointless conflict, but the majority of wars are not like that. When a people is a target of aggression, especially when there is a clear threat to their very existence or freedom, they have no choice but to resist with whatever means are available. The Poles in 1939 or the Chinese in 1937, like the Ukrainians or Israelis today, did not have the luxury of waxing philosophical about the ethics of their leaders. Faced with a powerful aggressor intent on wiping them out, they fought back because they had no choice.
In the case of the 1870 Franco-Prussian war, both governments played a role in provoking an unnecessary conflict, so it is more fair to say that both peoples were victims of the bull-headedness and incompetence of their leaders. Even so, Maupassant himself repeatedly invokes the humiliation of German occupation, something which even he apparently feels would have been worth preventing by force if possible.
There have been a few cases where leaders guilty of starting wars or ordering atrocities were held accountable — but only if they lost. The Nuremberg trials are often cited as an example, but while the Nazi leaders richly deserved punishment, the Soviet leaders — guilty of almost equal horrors and aggressions — were never tried or punished. It sometimes happens that despotic rulers are punished by being overthrown by their own subjects, as with Argentina after the Falklands war — but, again, only if they lose.
Regarding Madame Sauvage’s caretaking of the German soldiers, I think this was especially true in the Alsace-Lorraine region that flipped between France and Germany several times. Many living there, just wanted to be left alone and didn’t have strong feelings about which country was governing them. The same holds true in various parts of the world today.
You’re right that Maupassant wanted the Germans out of France and that his bourgeois station in society allowed him the luxury of observation, reflection, and philosophizing. You also wrote the “majority of wars are not like that”. Aren’t almost all started by “avaricious rulers”? Also, there’s a question of degree to which a country retaliates. The United States went into Afghanistan after 9/11 to punish the perpetrators who carried out the attack then stayed for nearly 20 years. Some Afghanis benefitted, especially women. But, the people who profited heavily were defense contractors and various corrupt leaders in Afghanistan. In the end, what was gained? I shudder to think about all of the corruption that took place and the funds that were misappropriated over that time. Those responsible, should perhaps not be jailed but it would be great if they had to suffer some consequences–like losing their jobs for example.
Thanks for adding the examples of rulers who have been held accountable.
Aggressors who start wars may be motivated by avarice (though they’re often motivated by religion or ideology), but my point is that to the country suffering the aggression, the philosophizing is irrelevant. When a people is attacked, as in the examples I gave, it has no choice but to fight back. Its leaders may or may not be avaricious or otherwise less than morally pure — most leaders are — but the existential imperative to resist aggression is unaffected by that.
Very true. Thanks for further explanation.
I may be too cynical but in the case of wars that are motivated by religious ideology, I don’t see much difference. Religion is just a tool that the power-hungry use to manipulate the masses. As Susan B. Anthony so aptly put it, “I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”
I don’t want to get too far off topic, but to be blunt, this is flatly untrue. Most Western people are so secularized now that they cannot grasp the mentality of profoundly-religious people and societies, and consequently think that religious motives must be some kind of cover for something else. That’s not reality. The Islamic wars of expansion actually were motivated by religion. The Crusades actually were motivated by religion. The September 11 attacks actually were motivated by religion. Certainly in the West today some religious leaders are cynical hypocrites, but the West today is an extremely unusual society by global or historic standards.
Excellent, Carol.
I only read one Maupassant book. (Still have it on my shelves, I think)
That first excerpt you posted is excellent.
And regardless of current events, I still think Dictators will lose. In the end. Even still can’t do all he wants. And that’s because people are resisting. Now the big question is the scope of resistance. You guys need to march every weekend. Not every coupla months… (I know, easier said than done. But it has to be done. Do you remember the fall of the Berlin wall? The Hungarians started it if I recall. By coming out every weekend… (If memory serves me right)
Which Maupassant did you read, Brieuc? Do you recall your impressions?
I agree that dictators eventually fall. It would be great, however, if we already knew how to recognize and avoid them in the first place.
It could be “Le Horla”. Not sure.
And yes, avoiding dictators from the start would a good learning…
You are probably thinking of the Monday Demonstrations in DDR – East Germany. They were in Leipzig and in other cities, not always on Monday. Most famous chant ‘Wir sind das Volk’, ‘We are the people’. It was very brave of the East Germans. Hungary played a different but important role.
You’re right, “Wissper”. As far as I remember, it was a slow rising of the people (das Volk) across Eastern Europe. And it was particularly brave on the part of East Germans: Honecker was a mean one…
And thank you for reminding me of that song. “Wir sind das Volk”.
Maybe we could all start singing that song again? Just about anywhere?