“If the kaiser walks away with half of France,” I argued, “he’ll come back for a chunk of Britain too. He’ll take your home, culture, and livelihood—to say nothing of your freedom to spout off like that. Real reform for the workers of the world requires a complete repudiation of this barbarism. Not indifference to it.”
I was forceful—perhaps even unladylike—but I felt that I was right.
From bars, we went to the East End of London to comfort victims of the latest air raid and to promise that America was with them now, through thick and thin. We even received an invitation for an audience with the king.
How strange to realize that however many doors in my life had been opened because of my husband’s fame and fortune, the great doors of Buckingham Palace opened for me because of my war work. I took a fierce pride in that as the red carpet fanned out beneath me. I pinched myself, wanting to reach back in time and tell Minnie, One day I’ll be presented to a king and queen.
But of course, royals were just people like any others.
The king said, “I hope especially the lady representatives from America may give a satisfactory report of the manner in which women have come forward to replace men called from various national industries to the fighting ranks, and how efficiently they are carrying out the work entrusted them.”
Yes, I thought, because it’s our war too, and it’s about time someone noticed.
The king seemed desperately hopeful that America could give his war-weary people some relief. It was the same impression I took away from Mr. Lloyd George at 10 Downing Street. Yet everyone we spoke to—hotel owners and hotel chambermaids, motorcar aficionados and taxicab drivers, shopkeepers and doormen—all showed the same qualities. They were suffering and had sustained terrible bereavements; they were enduring privations, but not one complained. All showed calm courage and wonderful steadiness. Which is why I said in the papers: No one can ever beat a people like this, not if the war goes on one year or ten years.
From England we went to France to meet the exiled government of Belgium, Marshal Joffre, and the president of the French Republic—the latter of whom gave us a reception at the H?tel de Ville, where so much French history had been made. I looked to where I expected a bust of Lafayette, but of course, that had been destroyed during the French Revolution.
I’d just have to take inspiration from walking in his footsteps.
Though even he, I daresay, would have been stunned by the unimaginable destruction on the battlefields, the rubble of Verdun, not far from where my nephew had died. I had wanted to go, in part because we had no grave site for Victor, and to pay respects, Verdun was as close as I could get.
It was also there that I was reunited with Max Furlaud.
At the first sight of his officer’s cap, I wanted to run into his embrace, but we had to pretend to be only acquaintances. It took all my thespian talent to disguise my relief that he was alive and well, whereas he could not hide his concern for me. “Don’t scold me for coming,” I said when we finally stole away for privacy in one of the underground galleries beneath the citadel. “I’m doing important work.”
“More than you realize,” Max admitted.
“Is it true there’s been mutiny on the French line?”
He hesitated for a long moment. “Non.”
“You’re lying,” I said gently.
“I’m sorry you think so.”
“Do you worry I’m Mata Hari?” I asked, referring to the infamous double agent who had recently been captured and shot by firing squad. “That I am prying state secrets out of you with my feminine wiles? In the first place, I was a better dancer in my day, and in the second place, I’m asking on behalf of an allied nation.”
He stiffened, his breath puffing in the cold air. “And I’m answering in my capacity as a French officer.”
It didn’t seem right that French mutinies should be kept secret from American generals, and it pained me that there seemed always something between Maxime and me. If it wasn’t my husband, or the war, it was separate duties. I would learn later—much later—that nearly half of French infantry divisions had been hobbled by mutinies—exhausted men despairing the Americans would ever come. Thousands of secret court-martials had been held, but all Max would admit was, “Russian propaganda flyers encourage soldiers to desert, and workers to abandon our munitions factories. If not for Pétain, the Germans would this moment be marching under the Arc de Triomphe.”