The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1914-01-23

book, and began to translate the in
structioRs into cipher for safety's sake.
/ Where the Vosges mountains lowered
| in obscurity a curtain of rain joined
earth and sky. The rivers ran yellow,
! brimful, foaming at the fcfAs. Some
where in that spectral forest Prussian
| cavalry were hidden, watching the
, heights where our drenched divisions
| lay Behind that forest German army
was massing. fresh from the combat in
! the north, where the tragedy of Wis
! semboure had been enacted only the
| day before, in the presence of the en-
| tire French army-the awful spectacle
| Of a single division of seven thousand
men suddenly enveloped and crushed
/ by seventy thousand Germans.
The rain fell steadily but less heavi-
ly. | changed my civilian clothes for
a hussar uniform, sent trooper to
! find me horse, and sat down by the
window to stare at the downpour and
| think how best / might carry out my
! Instructions to a successful finish.
| The colony at La Trappe was, as far
as / could judge, a product of condi-
lions which had. a hundred years be-
! fore, eliminated in the French ReVolu-
ton. Now, in 1870, but under different
! circumstances, all France was once
more disintegrating socially. Oprosi-
! ton to the Empire, to the dynasty, to
the government, had been seething for
| years; now the separate crystals which
| formed on the edges of the boiling un-
| dercurrents began to grow into masses
| which, adhering to other masses, in
| terfered with the healthy functions of
national life. First among these came
the International Society of Working
men, with all its affiliations-the In
! ternationale," as it was called. In its
wake trailed minor societies, some
! mild and harmless, some dangerous
and secret, some violent, advocating
| openly the destruction of all existing
| conditions.
! With one exception. all those whom
the police and the government regard
| ed as inclined to violence left the
| group. There remained, with this one
exception, a nucleus OF earnest,
| thoughtful people whose creed was in
| part the creed of the Internationale,
the creed of universal brotherhood,
! equality before the law, purity of in
dividual living as an example and an
incentive to national purity.
To this inoffensive group came one
day young widow, the Countess de
Vassart, placing at their disposal her
great wealth, asking only to be re-
ceived among them as a comrade.
Her history, as known to the police,
was peculiar and rather sad: at six
! teen she had been betrothed to an ell
derby, bull-necked colonel of cavalry,
! the notorious Count de Vassart, who
needed what money she might bring
him TO maintain his reputation as the
most brilliantly dissolute old rake in
| Paris
| Her dossier--for, alas, the young
| girl already had dossier-was inter
| esting, particularly in it's summing up
of her personal character:
ITO the naive ignorance of 3 con-
vent pensionnaice, she adds an inno-
| cence of mind, purity OF conduct, and
I
| prey to the adroit. who play upon her
sympatlies. She is dangerous only as
source of revenue for dangerous
| men,
1t was from her salon that young
| Victor Noir went to his death at
/ Auteuil on the 10th of January; and
| possibly the shock Of the murder and
the almost universal conviction that
| Justice under the Empire was hope
less drove the young Countess to seek
refuge in the country where, at her
| house of La Trappe, she could quietly
devote her life to helping the desper
ately wretched, and where she could
| in security, hold counsel with those
who had chosen to give their lives to
the noblest of all works-charity and
the propaganda of universal brother
! hood.
And here. at La Trappe, the young
! aristOcrat first donned the robe of
| democracy, dedicated her life and for
tune to the cause, and worked with
her own delicate hands, for every
! morsel of bread that passed her lips.
But the simple life at La Trappe,
the negative protest against the EN-
pire and all existing social conditions,
the purity of motive, the serene and
inspired self-abnegation, could not
save the colony at La Trappe nor the
young chatelaine from the claws of
those who prey upon the innocence
of the generous.
And so came to this ideal communi-
~ one John Buckhurst, stranger,