Part 26 (1/2)

After peace had been signed between Prussia and France, the emperor landed at Dover, where he was touched by the kindly and respectful reception he met with from the English people. The next day he was visited by Lord Malmesbury, an old friend in the days of his youth, before he entered on his life of adventure. Lord Malmesbury says:

”He came into the room alone to meet me, with that remarkable smile that could light up his dark countenance. I confess I never was more moved. His quiet and calm dignity, and absence of all nervousness or irritability, were grand examples of moral courage. All the past rushed to my memory. He must have seen what I felt, for he said: '_a la guerre comme a la guerre_. It is very good of you to come to see me.' In a quiet, natural way he then praised the kindness of the Germans at Wilhelmshohe, nor did a single plaint escape him during our conversation. He said he had been deceived as to the force and preparation of his armies, but without mentioning names, nor did he abuse anybody, till I mentioned Trochu, who had abandoned the empress, whom he had sworn to defend. During half an hour he conversed with me as in the best days of his life, with dignity and resignation, but when I saw him again he was much more depressed. He was grieving at the destruction of Paris, and at the anarchy prevailing over France, far more than he had done over his own misfortunes. That the Communists should have committed such horrors in the presence of their enemies, the Prussians, seemed to him the very acme of humiliation and national infamy.”

On Jan. 9, 1873, he died at Chiselhurst, in the presence of the empress, who never left him, released from the storms of a fitful existence and from intense physical suffering.

Let us return now to Paris and the Committee of Defence, its new Republican Government. Though the people of Paris, in the excitement consequent on the proclamation of a Republic, seemed to have forgotten the Prussians, the prospect of their speedy arrival stared the Government in the face. It was a Government, not of France, but of Paris. France had had no voice in making this new Republic, nor was it at all likely that it would be popular in the Provinces; but meanwhile work of every kind was pressing on its hands. The fortifications of Paris were unmanned, and, indeed, were not even completed, and there were hardly any soldiers in the capital.

The first thing to be done was to bring provisions into the city.

Cattle, grain, salt, hay, preserved meats, in short, everything edible that could be imagined, poured in so long as the railroads remained open. All public buildings became storehouses, but affairs were conducted with such recklessness and disorder that the live-stock suffered terribly, and half the hay was wasted. As to troops, General Vinoy arrived with twenty thousand soldiers, who had been stationed between Belgium and Sedan. They had never fought the p.u.s.s.ians, but were impatient of discipline and utterly demoralized. Stragglers and fugitives from Sedan came in also, but these were still less to be depended on. The National Guard had never enjoyed the favor of the emperor, and had been suffered to fall to pieces. It was now reorganized and armed as well as the Government was able. There was a body of Mobiles who had been sent away from the army by Marshal MacMahon because they were so insubordinate that he did not know what to do with them. Ninety thousand Mobiles came up from the Provinces before the gates of Paris closed,--excellent material for soldiers but wholly uninstructed,--and finally about ten thousand sailors arrived from Brest, who were kept in strict line by their officers, and were the most reliable part garrison.

The male population of Paris remained in the city, almost to a man, except those known to the police as thieves or ex-convicts, who were all sent away. Women and children also were removed, if their husbands and fathers could afford places of safety.

Around the city was a wall twelve yards high, forming a polygonal inclosure. At each corner of the polygon was a bastion, in which were stationed the big guns. The wall connecting the bastions is called a curtain. The bastions protected the curtains, and were themselves protected by sixteen detached forts, built on all the eminences around Paris. The most celebrated of these forts lies to the west of Paris, between it and Versailles, and is called Fort Valerien It is erected on a steep hill long called Mont Calvaire, from which is a magnificent view of the city. This and stony hill for several centuries used to be ascended by pilgrims on their knees; the mount, where once stood an altar of the Druids, became a consecrated place before the Revolution.

Louis Philippe, in 1841, had planned the fortifications of Paris, but in his time they had been only partially constructed. Even in 1870, as I have said, they were not complete. When the siege became imminent, the first thing to be done was to put them in good order; but for a week the working-men in Paris were so intoxicated with the idea of having a republic that they could not be made to do steady work upon anything. It was also considered necessary to cut down all trees and to destroy all villages between the forts and the walls of the city, so that they might afford no shelter to the Prussians. The poor inhabitants of these villages flocked into Paris, bringing with them carts piled with their household goods, their wives and children peeping out aghast between the chairs and beds. The beautiful trees in the Bois de Boulogne were cut down; the deer and the swans and other wild fowl on the lakes (long the pets of the Parisian holiday makers) were shot by parties of Mobiles sent out for that purpose.

No military man believed that Paris, defended by uncompleted fortifications, could withstand a direct attack from the Prussians; no one dreamed of a blockade, for it was thought that it would take a million and a quarter of men to invest the city, and the Prussians were known not to have that number for the purpose. The idea was that the enemy would choose some point, would attack it with all his forces, would lose probably thirty thousand men, and would take the city. But Bismarck and King William and Von Moltke had no idea of losing thirty thousand men. They were certain that there would be risings and disturbances in Paris. They believed that their forces might even be called in to save respectable Parisians from the outrages of the Reds. They knew that rural France, having little love for Paris or the Republic, was not likely to accept the Government formed without its own consent, nor march to the a.s.sistance of the capital. Even should the provincial population bestir itself, the troops it could send would be only raw levies, and there was no great leader to animate or to direct popular enthusiasm.

It was quite true that the respectable cla.s.ses in Paris had as much to fear from the Reds as from the Prussians. The mob of Paris was wild for a commune.

It is not always known what is meant by a commune, and I may be pardoned if I pause to define it here.

In feudal times cities all over Europe won for themselves charters.

By these charters they acquired the right to govern themselves; that is, the burghers elected their own mayor and their councilor aldermen, and this body governing the community was called the commune. When the feudal system fell in France, and all power was centralized in the king, city governments were established by royal edict only. Paris, for instance, was governed by the Prefect of the Seine,--he had under him the _maires_ of twenty Arrondiss.e.m.e.nts; and thus it was in every French city. All public offices in France were in the gift of the Throne.

To Americans, who have mayors and city councils in every city, munic.i.p.al taxation, munic.i.p.al elections, and munic.i.p.al laws, a commune appears the best mode of city government. But if we can imagine one of our large cities possessing the same power over the United States that Paris wields over France, we shall take a different view of the matter. Paris governed by a commune, that commune being elected by a mob and aspiring to give laws to France, might well indeed have alarmed all Frenchmen. We may judge of its feeling towards the Provinces from the indignation expressed by Parisian Communists when during the Commune, Lyons and some other cities talked of setting up communes of their own.

In olden times, in France, Italy, and Germany (as in Great Britain at the present day), it was not the mob, but the burghers, whose interests depended upon the prosperity of their city, who voted in munic.i.p.al elections. France had established universal suffrage, and the restless ”men of Belleville,”--the ”white blouses,”--were liable in any time of excitement to be joined by roughs from other cities, and by all working-men out of employment. These apprehensions of the respectable citizens of Paris were horribly realized in 1871. The new Republic, meantime, was not Red, not Communistic, not Socialistic, but Republican.

During the Revolution of 1848 there had been little intoxication in Paris; but in the twenty-two years that followed, the French had learned to drink absinthe and to frequent such places as ”L'a.s.sommoir.” All accounts speak of the drunkenness in France during the Franco-Prussian war.

Meantime, during the two weeks that preceded the arrival of the Prussians, the streets of Paris were crowded with men in every variety of uniform,--_francs-tireurs_ in their Opera Comique costume, cuira.s.siers, artillerymen, lancers, regulars, National Guards, and Mobiles. Carriages were mixed up with heavy wagons loaded sometimes with worthless household goods, sometimes with supplies. Peasants'

carts were seen in the midst of frightened flocks of sheep driven by bewildered shepherds. Everybody was in some one's way. All was confusion, excitement,--and exhilaration.

Till September 19 the railways continued to run. Then the fifty-one gates of Paris were closed, the railroad entrances were walled up, and the following notice appeared upon the walls:--

”Citizens! The last lines which connected Paris with France and Europe were cut yesterday evening. Paris is left to herself. She has now only her own courage and her own resources to rely on.

Europe, which has received so much enlightenment from this great city, and has always felt a certain jealousy of her glory, now abandons her. But Paris, we are persuaded, will prove that she has not ceased to be the most solid rampart of French independence.”

To _hold out_ was the determination of all cla.s.ses; but the very next day the Reds put forth a manifesto demanding a commune, the dismissal of the police, the sequestration of the property of all rich or influential men, and a public declaration that the king of Prussia would not be treated with so long as his armies occupied one foot of French soil. ”Nothing less than these things,” said the doc.u.ment, ”will satisfy the people.”

Here we see the usual a.s.sumption of the Parisian Communists that they are ”the people.” They have always a.s.sumed that thirty-two millions of Frenchmen outside the walls of Paris counted for nothing.

As the Prussian armies pa.s.sed to the southward of Paris to take possession of Versailles, an attack, authorized by General Trochu and by General Ducrot (who had escaped from Sedan), was made upon the German columns. The Zouaves, who had come back to Paris under General Vinoy, demoralized by the disasters of their comrades, were the first to break and run. The poor little Mobiles stood firm and did their duty.

The official report said: ”Some of our soldiers took to flight with regrettable haste,”--a phrase which became a great joke among the Parisians.

That night the Reds breathed fire and fury against the Government, ”and the respectable part of Paris,” says M. de Sarcey, the great dramatic critic, ”saw themselves between two dangers. It would be hard to say which of them they dreaded most. They hated the Prussians very much, but they feared the men of Belleville more.”

Meantime Jules Favre, who had been appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs, had procured a safe-conduct from the Prussians, and had gone out to see Count Bismarck and King William, who had their headquarters at Baron Rothschild's beautiful country seat of Ferrieres.

His object was to obtain an armistice, that a National a.s.sembly might be convoked which would consider the terms of peace with the Prussians.