This lesson seemed to be more for the benefit of Alfred than of Northey who, crumpled forehead, looked extremely puzzled.
Alfred said, ‘My American colleague tells me that you are going to accept the European Army, however.’
‘Your American colleague has a beautiful wife whom everybody wants to please. No Frenchman can bear to see somebody so exquisite looking sad for a single moment. So wherever she goes, in Paris or the provinces, the deputies and mayors and ministers and IGAMEs say “of course” to whatever she tells them. And she tells them, most beguilingly, that they are going to accept the European Army. We shall never accept. This government, as you see, is tottering. It will fall during the night, no doubt. But no French government could pass such a measure. We may be weak – nobody can say we are very strong at present – but we have an instinct for self-preservation. We shall appear to be about to give way, over and over again, but in the end we shall resist.’
‘And over the Minquiers,’ said Alfred, ‘you will appear to resist, but in the end you will give way?’
‘You have said it, M. l’Ambassadeur, not I.’
‘And then what about Europe? If the C.E.D. fails?’
‘It will be built up on a more peaceful and workable foundation. My great hope is, that when the time comes, you will not oppose it.’
After luncheon M. Bouche-Bontemps said, ‘Shall I take Mees to the Chambre? She could then see the state of France in action.’
‘Oh, you are kind. The only thing is, M. Cruas said he would come at five.’
‘Who is M. Cruas?’
‘He teaches me French.’
‘Ring him up. Say you have another lesson today.’
‘He’s poor. He hasn’t got a telephone.’
‘Send a pneumatique,’ said the Minister, impatiently.
He had a word on the staircase with Alfred and then left the house accompanied by Northey, who hopped, skipped and jumped across the marble paving of the hall, Alfred said, like a child going to a pantomime. I saw no more of her that day. Philip, in and out of the Chambre, reported during the evening that she seemed perfectly entranced, determined to stay to the end. The government fell in the early hours and Northey slept until luncheon-time.
‘So what was it like?’ I said, when she finally appeared.
‘Terribly like that dread school I went to. Desks with inkpots and a locker. From where I sat you could see there are lollipops in the lockers and when they are pretending to listen to the lecturer or read lesson books they are really having a go at the illustrated mags. All the same they do half-listen because suddenly all the Madames get up and stamp and roar and shout and the master has to ring a bell and shout back at them.’
I had a vision of ghastly women, Erinyes, tricoteuses, obstructing the business of the Chambre. ‘Madames? Women deputies?’
‘No, Fanny,’ said Northey as one explaining a well-known fact to a child. ‘Madames are the Social Republicans, so called because their party head-quarters are in the rue Madame. The Republican Socialists, whose H.Q. is in the rue Monsieur, are called les Monsieurs. They are each other’s worst enemies. You see how sweet M. Bouche-Bontemps was quite right and going is better than reading.’
‘What was the debate about?’
‘Really, Fanny, I’m surprised that you should ask me that. Have you not seen your Figaro this morning? I hear that it is very well reported. Pensions for remarried war widows, of course.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure. There was a nice person in the box called Mrs Jungfleisch who told me all about it. And an Englishwoman married to one of the deputies – a marquis I suppose because when he got up to speak the Communists chanted “imbécile de Marquis” and he became quite giggly and lost his place.’
‘That must be Grace de Valhubert,’ I said, pleased to think that she was back in Paris.
‘Yes. She knows Fabrice and Charlie and she sent you her love. She talks with such a pretty French accent and Fanny! her clothes! Sweet M. Bouche-Bontemps came and took me out to dinner. He said if he fell he would be able to devote himself to my education. Well, he has fallen, so – Philip brought me home,’ she added, nonchalantly.
I thought I understood now why she had stayed so late.
7
Now that the French were comfortably without a government, Alfred received instructions from the Foreign Office to make strong representations at the Quai d’Orsay about Les Îles Minquiers. These islands, which were to occupy his waking thoughts for many a long month to come, are described in Larousse as dangerous rocks near St Malo and given no independent notice in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. There are three of them and at high tide they are completely submerged. During the liberation of France, General de Gaulle found time to have a tricolour run up, at low tide, on the Île Maîtresse or middle island. Never has the adage ‘let sleeping dogs lie’ been more justified. This flag was immediately spotted by the Argus-eyed Intelligence Service and the Admiralty found time to send a frogman, at high tide, to haul it down again.
