Part 27 (1/2)

All kinds of meats were eaten. Mule was said to be delicious,--far superior to beef. Antelope cost eighteen francs a pound, but was not as good as stewed rabbit; elephant's trunk was eight dollars a pound, it being esteemed a delicacy. Bear, kangaroo, ostrich, yak, etc., varied the bill of fare for those who could afford to eat them.

Men of wealth who had lost everything, took their misfortunes cheerfully. While the worst qualities of the Parisians came out in some cla.s.ses, the best traits of the French character shone forth in others. A great deal of charity was dispensed, both public and private and on the whole, the very poorest cla.s.s was but little the worse for the privations of the siege.

The houses left empty by their owners were made over to the refugees from the villages, and many amusing stories are told of their embarra.s.sment when surrounded by objects of art, and articles of furniture whose use was unknown to them.

At first the theatres were closed, and some of them were turned into military hospitals; but by the beginning of November it was thought better to reopen them. At one theatre, Victor Hugo's ”Les Chatiments” was recited,--that bitterest arraignment of Napoleon III. and the Second Empire; at another, Beethoven and Mendelssohn were played, with apologies for their being Germans.

The hospital parts of the theatres were railed off, and in the corridors ballet-girls, actors, and sisters of charity mingled together.

Victor Hugo was in Paris during the siege, but he lent his name to no party or demonstration. The recitation of his verses at the theatre afforded him great delight, but the triumph was short-lived.

The attraction of ”Les Chatiments” soon died away.

The most popular places of resort for idle men were the clubs. On November 21, one of these was visited by our American observer.

He says,--

”The hall was filled to suffocation. Every man present had a pipe or cigar in his mouth. It was a sulphurous place, a Pandemonium, a Zoological Garden, a Pantomime, a Comedy, a Backwoods Fourth of July, and a Donnybrook Fair, all combined. Women too were there, the fiercest in the place. Orators roared, and fingers were shaken.

One speech was on the infringement of the liberties of the citizen because soldiers were made to march left or right according to the will of their officers. Another considered that the sluggards who went on hospital service with red crosses on their caps were no better than cowards. Then they discovered a spy (as they supposed) in their midst, and time was consumed in hustling him out. Lastly an orator concluded his speech with awful blasphemy, wis.h.i.+ng that he were a t.i.tan, and could drive a dagger into the Christian's G.o.d.”

The most terrible suffering in Paris during the siege was probably mental, suffering from the want of news; but by the middle of November the balloon and pigeon postal service was organized. Balloons were manufactured in Paris, and sent out whenever the wind was favorable.

It was found necessary, however, to send them off by night, lest they should be fired into by the Germans. A balloon generally carried one or two pa.s.sengers, and was sent up from one of the now empty railroad stations. It also generally took five small cages, each containing thirty-six pigeons. These pigeons were of various colors, and all named. They were expected to return soon to their homes, unless cold, fog, a hawk, or a Prnssian bullet should stop them on the way. Each would bring back a small quill fastened by threads to one of its tail-feathers and containing a minute square of flexible, waterproof paper, on which had been photographed messages in characters so small as to be deciphered only by a microscope. Some of these would be official despatches, some private messages. One pigeon would carry as much as, printed in ordinary type, would fill one sheet of a newspaper. The Parisians looked upon the pigeons with a kind of veneration; when one, drooping and weary, alighted on some roof, a crowd would collect and watch it anxiously. Sometimes they were caught by the Germans, and sent back into Paris with false news.

On November 15 a pigeon brought a despatch saying that the South of France had raised an army for the relief of Paris, and that it was in motion under an old general with the romantic name of Aurelles des Paladines, that it had driven the Prussians out of Orleans, and was coming on with all speed to the capital. The Parisians were eager to make a sortie and to join this relieving army. General Trochu was not so eager, having no great confidence in his _francs-tireurs_, his National Guard, and his Mobiles. They numbered in all four hundred thousand men; but eighty thousand serviceable soldiers would have been worth far more.

On November 28, however, the sortie was made; and had the expected army been at hand, it might have been successful. The Parisians crossed the Marne, and fought the Prussians so desperately that in two days they had lost more men than in the battles at Gravelotte.

But on the third day an order was given to return to Paris; the Government had received reliable information that the Army of the Loire (under Aurelles des Paladines) had met with a reverse, and would form no junction with the Parisian forces.

By the end of November cannon had been cast in the beleaguered city, paid for, not by the Government, but by individual subscription.

These guns were subsequently to playa tragic part in the history of the city. Some carried farther than the Prussian guns. All of them had names. The favorite was called Josephine, and was a great pet with the people.

Christmas Day of that sad year arrived at last, and New Year's Day, the great and joyful fete-day in all French families. A few confectioners kept their stores open, and a few boxes of bonbons were sold; but presents of potatoes, or small packages of coffee, were by this time more acceptable gifts. Nothing was plenty in Paris but champagne and Colman's mustard. The rows upon rows of the last-named article in the otherwise empty windows of the grocers reminded Englishmen and Americans of Grumio's cruel offer to poor Katherine of the mustard without the beef, since she could not have the beef with the mustard.

Here is the bill-of-fare of a dinner given at a French restaurant upon that Christmas Day:--

Soup from horse meat.

Mince of cat.

Shoulder of dog with tomato sauce.

Jugged cat with mushrooms.

Roast donkey and potatoes.

Rat, peas, and celery.

Mice on toast.

Plum pudding.

One remarkable feature of the siege was that everybody's appet.i.te increased enormously. Thinking about food stimulated the craving for it, and by New Year's Day there were serious apprehensions of famine. The reckless waste of bread and breadstuffs in the earlier days of the siege was now repented of. Flour had to be eked out with all sorts of things, and the bread eaten during the last weeks of the siege was a black and sticky mixture made up of almost anything but flour. All Paris was rationed. Poor mothers, leaving sick children at home, stood for hours in the streets, in the bitter cold, to obtain a ration of horseflesh, or a few ounces of this unnutritious bread.

After news came of the retreat of the Army of the Loire, great discouragement crept over the garrison. The Mobiles from the country, who had never expected to be shut up in Paris for months, began to pine for their families and villages. What might not be happening to them? and they far away!