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Erica (Thorp) de Berry to Thorp family, 24 March 1918
Manuscript letter
March 24, 1918
(2nd day of the Bombardment of Paris)
HOTEL MONTANA
11, Rue de l’Échelle, 11
Avenue de l’Opéra
ADR. TÉL.: MONTANOTEL
PARIS
Dearest Aunt A.
This letter looks like one of Aunt Hattie’s cheery missives but I thought you might be amused by the “[??]” anecdotes, the drawings of Washington and Lafayette etc. by [??], and the various air-raid editorials.
Voilà le deuxième jour du bombardement by a long-range gun, and the thing is still so incredible to us that it [crossed out: still] seems a wild fabrication of the imagination. By the time you get this -- (crack! another distant shell) (page 2) it will be ancient history, but perhaps even then the world won’t quite have stopped wondering how the Germans could have done it!
You asked for a description of an air-raid, so I had mentally written out a detailed one of a “typical” night attack. But the last 36 hours with their series of “alertes” and “berloques” have so upset all one’s conventional air-raid standards that I don’t know how to give you a typical picture any longer. To have the “alerte” go off at 7.30 A.M. of a peaceful Palm Sunday morning, (page 3) when everyone was on their way to Mass in Presles village, or here at Paris yesterday as the working-day dawned – c’est quelque chose d’incroyable where one has grown to associate the weird Siren shriek with darkness and mystery. Yet here we are, listening to the intermittent “coups,” [crossed out: if] when the taxis don’t make too much noise en passant, not changing the daily routine of our lives; except when le metro ne marche pas and forces us to walk – and still it’s a heavenly balmy Spring day with forsythia in bloom and hundreds of birds, it seemed, to usher in the dawn. À propos of that, the Mother Superior (who I think slept hardly at all this night of many distractions) remarked that at the first signs of morning all the cocks in the village began simultaneously to crow bien fort as they did the day on which Jeanne d’Arc was borne. She felt sure that it predicted a miracle of some (page 4) sort. Would that it might be so, and that our little, humble Presles might send out a new Savioire[?]of France and us all!
As I shall write in detail to the family of the events of these last two days at the colonie and here, I won’t repeat to you, but tell you roughly what we do in any ordinary, common or garden raid.
Just as one is beginning to think of bed after a full day, or is perhaps comfortably (page 5) settled therein, from afar comes a low moan mounting to the heavens in a long-drawn out wail of misery. [crossed out: To the heavens.] Again it sounds, this time even nearer and more lugubrious, exactly like the voice of the Furies predicting, /or savagely rejoicing over the horror to come. Finally, it is just underneath the window, shrieking insanely, while a secondary, [???] wail like our fore-alarm swells the chorus. Then it has passed to spread in all directions over the city, (page 6) and along the street one hears hurrying footsteps the slamming of shutters and [crossed out: whirring] [???] of taxis homeward bound. Every visible spark of light is extinguished, and an expectant hush settles gloomily down. Then begin the guns – a low booming, steadily increasing in intensity – And [crossed out: sometimes] often even before the last wail of the Siren has died away, comes the sudden crrack-boom of a bomb. I wish I could give you an idea of the shattering, thundering, [crossed out: splintering] shivering crash it makes!
By this time we four have usually joined forces in the “salon”, trying to keep conscientiously away from the window, but lending [[crossed out: a listening ear] a furtive eye to its open crack, and a listening ear for le moteur boche. Once heard one never forgets it – boom, boom, brroom, brroom, menacing and heavy, characteristically different from the airy, French hum[?]. Then crash! ‘another bomb, and another’ and another, coups de canon from all sides, a general whirring and heavy throbbing of motors – and then – all has passed.
(page 7) Distant booming of anti-aircraft guns for sometime and final silence. Last of all, about 20 minutes later carolling over the city the joyous, heart-warming “Berloque” played on a bugle like the Siegfried sword-motif!
The next morning it all seems a dream, and one almost forgets to inquire for “dégâts”. I wish I could tell you where they all are, for I well realize how you must long to know. But (page 8) we’re not supposed to mention, I believe
After the first big raid, crowds surged the streets before them, tramping thro’ broken glass and powdered masonry. But now it’s become too familiar, and also la ville de Paris is very quick about its work of clearing up. Carts bear off the debris de bonne heure le matin, and the curious find only empty window frames and neatly-swept rubbish heaps.
All the important (page 9) monuments are sand bagged now, as neatly as a child’s playhouse. There’s something so indescribably pathetic and almost comic about it – scores of serious laborers slaving away to build a [??] little shelter of neatly-placed sacs to protect rich carving from the bad fairy that comes in the night to smash it. Where[?] one sees sedate buildings pockmarked with most undignified gouges all along their front, or bitten off at the corners, it all seems perfectly incredible – some huge, practical joke!
But don’t think that I see only the light side of it. On the contrary, the oftener it occurs the [crossed out: more] less one feels the excitement and spectacular side [crossed out: of it], and the more the brutal destruction and ghastly cruelty.
If one has once seen a real dégât, and then thinks that that same thing is going to happen again to perfectly helpless beings – and again and again, at the will of a merciless force from on high, ce n’est pas trop gai! However, on commence à [?]se habituer, as with everything else in this strange life.
So much love, dearest Aunt A.
From your Bun --
[Written up the left side of the first page:]
have made an artistic decoration of a necessity[?], & one sees beautiful étoiles, trellions[?] etc.
[Bun drew a small rectangle with a circle in the center surrounded by what could be rays coming off the sun. Perhaps this is meant to be a star with light coming off it.]
[Written down the left side of the final page:]
Shop-windows are all braced with [??] of paper, to prevent breaking of glass. True to their nature, the Parisians
(2nd day of the Bombardment of Paris)
HOTEL MONTANA
11, Rue de l’Échelle, 11
Avenue de l’Opéra
ADR. TÉL.: MONTANOTEL
PARIS
Dearest Aunt A.
This letter looks like one of Aunt Hattie’s cheery missives but I thought you might be amused by the “[??]” anecdotes, the drawings of Washington and Lafayette etc. by [??], and the various air-raid editorials.
Voilà le deuxième jour du bombardement by a long-range gun, and the thing is still so incredible to us that it [crossed out: still] seems a wild fabrication of the imagination. By the time you get this -- (crack! another distant shell) (page 2) it will be ancient history, but perhaps even then the world won’t quite have stopped wondering how the Germans could have done it!
You asked for a description of an air-raid, so I had mentally written out a detailed one of a “typical” night attack. But the last 36 hours with their series of “alertes” and “berloques” have so upset all one’s conventional air-raid standards that I don’t know how to give you a typical picture any longer. To have the “alerte” go off at 7.30 A.M. of a peaceful Palm Sunday morning, (page 3) when everyone was on their way to Mass in Presles village, or here at Paris yesterday as the working-day dawned – c’est quelque chose d’incroyable where one has grown to associate the weird Siren shriek with darkness and mystery. Yet here we are, listening to the intermittent “coups,” [crossed out: if] when the taxis don’t make too much noise en passant, not changing the daily routine of our lives; except when le metro ne marche pas and forces us to walk – and still it’s a heavenly balmy Spring day with forsythia in bloom and hundreds of birds, it seemed, to usher in the dawn. À propos of that, the Mother Superior (who I think slept hardly at all this night of many distractions) remarked that at the first signs of morning all the cocks in the village began simultaneously to crow bien fort as they did the day on which Jeanne d’Arc was borne. She felt sure that it predicted a miracle of some (page 4) sort. Would that it might be so, and that our little, humble Presles might send out a new Savioire[?]of France and us all!
As I shall write in detail to the family of the events of these last two days at the colonie and here, I won’t repeat to you, but tell you roughly what we do in any ordinary, common or garden raid.
Just as one is beginning to think of bed after a full day, or is perhaps comfortably (page 5) settled therein, from afar comes a low moan mounting to the heavens in a long-drawn out wail of misery. [crossed out: To the heavens.] Again it sounds, this time even nearer and more lugubrious, exactly like the voice of the Furies predicting, /or savagely rejoicing over the horror to come. Finally, it is just underneath the window, shrieking insanely, while a secondary, [???] wail like our fore-alarm swells the chorus. Then it has passed to spread in all directions over the city, (page 6) and along the street one hears hurrying footsteps the slamming of shutters and [crossed out: whirring] [???] of taxis homeward bound. Every visible spark of light is extinguished, and an expectant hush settles gloomily down. Then begin the guns – a low booming, steadily increasing in intensity – And [crossed out: sometimes] often even before the last wail of the Siren has died away, comes the sudden crrack-boom of a bomb. I wish I could give you an idea of the shattering, thundering, [crossed out: splintering] shivering crash it makes!
By this time we four have usually joined forces in the “salon”, trying to keep conscientiously away from the window, but lending [[crossed out: a listening ear] a furtive eye to its open crack, and a listening ear for le moteur boche. Once heard one never forgets it – boom, boom, brroom, brroom, menacing and heavy, characteristically different from the airy, French hum[?]. Then crash! ‘another bomb, and another’ and another, coups de canon from all sides, a general whirring and heavy throbbing of motors – and then – all has passed.
(page 7) Distant booming of anti-aircraft guns for sometime and final silence. Last of all, about 20 minutes later carolling over the city the joyous, heart-warming “Berloque” played on a bugle like the Siegfried sword-motif!
The next morning it all seems a dream, and one almost forgets to inquire for “dégâts”. I wish I could tell you where they all are, for I well realize how you must long to know. But (page 8) we’re not supposed to mention, I believe
After the first big raid, crowds surged the streets before them, tramping thro’ broken glass and powdered masonry. But now it’s become too familiar, and also la ville de Paris is very quick about its work of clearing up. Carts bear off the debris de bonne heure le matin, and the curious find only empty window frames and neatly-swept rubbish heaps.
All the important (page 9) monuments are sand bagged now, as neatly as a child’s playhouse. There’s something so indescribably pathetic and almost comic about it – scores of serious laborers slaving away to build a [??] little shelter of neatly-placed sacs to protect rich carving from the bad fairy that comes in the night to smash it. Where[?] one sees sedate buildings pockmarked with most undignified gouges all along their front, or bitten off at the corners, it all seems perfectly incredible – some huge, practical joke!
But don’t think that I see only the light side of it. On the contrary, the oftener it occurs the [crossed out: more] less one feels the excitement and spectacular side [crossed out: of it], and the more the brutal destruction and ghastly cruelty.
If one has once seen a real dégât, and then thinks that that same thing is going to happen again to perfectly helpless beings – and again and again, at the will of a merciless force from on high, ce n’est pas trop gai! However, on commence à [?]se habituer, as with everything else in this strange life.
So much love, dearest Aunt A.
From your Bun --
[Written up the left side of the first page:]
have made an artistic decoration of a necessity[?], & one sees beautiful étoiles, trellions[?] etc.
[Bun drew a small rectangle with a circle in the center surrounded by what could be rays coming off the sun. Perhaps this is meant to be a star with light coming off it.]
[Written down the left side of the final page:]
Shop-windows are all braced with [??] of paper, to prevent breaking of glass. True to their nature, the Parisians
Archives Number: 1006/004.006.002-006#014
U. S. National Park Service
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Courtesy of National Park Service, Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site; Archives Number 1006/004.006.002-006#014
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Erica Thorp deBerry Papers (1006/004.006), (LONG-SeriesName)
, Correspondence, Outgoing (1006/004.006.002), (LONG-SubseriesName)
, 1918 (1006/004.006.002-006), (LONG-FileUnitName)
, Correspondence, Outgoing (1006/004.006.002), (LONG-SubseriesName)
, 1918 (1006/004.006.002-006), (LONG-FileUnitName)
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Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site, Code: LONG
Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Latitude: 42.3769989013672, Longitude: -71.1264038085938
Latitude: 42.3769989013672, Longitude: -71.1264038085938
NPS Museum Number Catalog : LONG 27930
Title: Finding Aid to the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) Family Papers, 1768-1972 (Bulk dates 1825-1950)
URL: https://www.nps.gov/long/learn/historyculture/archives.htm#HWLFP
URL: https://www.nps.gov/long/learn/historyculture/archives.htm#HWLFP
2018-11-29
03/24/1918
Manuscript letter in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Family Papers, Erica Thorp deBerry Papers, Correspondence, Outgoing. (1006/004.006.002)
Public Can View
Organization: Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site
Address: 105 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Email: LONG_archives@nps.gov
Address: 105 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Email: LONG_archives@nps.gov
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