Part 11 (1/2)
”Yes, I reckon on that, and we have got them twelve feet deep. It will be a job to get them out as we want them, but there won't be anything else to do and it will keep us in health.”
Cuthbert had asked all the students to come in and smoke a pipe that evening in his room, and had ordered supper to be sent in.
”I am going to have it there instead of one of the usual places,” he said, ”because I don't think it is decent to be feasting in a public at a time like this. I expect it is about the last time we shall have anything like a supper. Things will be altogether beyond the reach of our purses in another week. Besides, I hope we shall be outside before long.”
Arnold Dampierre was the first to come in.
”I am disgusted with the Parisians,” he said, moodily.
”Well, yes, I am not surprised. It is not quite the spirit in which your people entered on their struggle, Dampierre.”
”No, we meant it; the struggle with us was to get to the front. Why, do you know, I heard two or three of the National Guard grumbling in the highest state of indignation, and why, do you think? Because they had to sleep in the open air last night. Are these the men to defend a city?
There will be trouble before long, Cuthbert. The workmen will not stand it; they have no faith in the Government nor in Trochu, nor in any one.”
”Including themselves, I hope,” Cuthbert smiled.
”They are in earnest. I have been up at----” and he hesitated, ”Montmartre this afternoon, and they are furious there.”
”They are fools,” Cuthbert said, scornfully, ”and no small proportion are knaves besides. They read those foul pamphlets and gloat over the abuse of every decently dressed person. They rave against the Prussians, but it is the Bourgeois they hate. They talk of fighting, while what they want is to sack and plunder.”
”Nothing of the kind,” the American said, hotly. ”They want honesty and purity, and public spirit. They see vice more rampant than it was in the days of the Empire. They see the Bourgeois s.h.i.+rking their duty. They see license and extravagance everywhere.”
”It is a pity they don't look at home,” Cuthbert laughed good-temperedly. ”I have not yet learnt that either purity or honesty, or a sense of duty are conspicuous at Montmartre or Belleville. There is just as much empty vaporing there as there is down the Boulevards. As to courage, they may have a chance presently of showing whether they have more of it than the better cla.s.s. Personally, I should doubt it.” Then he added more seriously, ”My dear Dampierre, I can of course guess where you have learnt all this. I know that Minette's father is one of the firebrands of his quarter, and that since she has been earning an income here he has never done a stroke of work, but has taken up the profession of politician. I am not doubting his sincerity. He may be for aught I know perfectly in earnest, but it is his capacity I doubt. These uneducated men are able to see but one side of the question, and that is their own.
”I am not at all blind to the danger. I believe it is possible that we are going to have another red revolution. Your men at Belleville and Montmartre are capable of repeating the worst and most terrible features of that most awful time, but you know what came of it and how it ended.
Even now some of these blackguard prints are clamoring for one man to take the supreme control of everything. So far there are no signs of that coming man, but doubtless, in time, another Bonaparte may come to the front and crush down disorder with an iron heel; but that will not be until the need for a saviour of society is evident to all. I hope, my dear fellow, you will not be carried away with these visionary ideas. I can, of course, understand your predilections for a Republic, but between your Republic and the Commune, for which the organs of the mob are already clamoring, there is no shadow of resemblance. They are both founded, it is true, on the will of the majority, but in the States it is the majority of an educated and distinctly law-abiding people--here it is the majority of men who would set the law at defiance, who desire power simply for the purposes of spoliation.”
Dampierre would have replied angrily, but at this moment the door opened and two or three of the other students entered.
”Have you heard about that affair at Clamart,” they demanded eagerly.
”They say the line behaved shamefully, and that Trochu declares they shall be decimated.”
”You may be quite sure that if he said so he will not carry it out,”
Cuthbert said. ”The army has to be kept in a good humor, and at any rate until discipline is fully restored it would be too dangerous a task to venture on punis.h.i.+ng cowardice. It is unfortunate certainly, but things will get better in time. You can hardly expect to make the fugitives of a beaten army into heroes all at once. I have not the least doubt that if the Germans made an attack in full force they would meet with very slight resistance; but they won't do that. They will go to work in a regular and steady way. They will erect batteries, commanding every road out of the town, and will then sit down and starve us out, hastening the process, perhaps, by a bombardment. But all that will take time. There will be frequent fighting at the outposts, and if Trochu and the rest of them make the most of the material they have at hand, poor as much of it is, they will be able to turn out an army that should be strong enough to throw itself upon any point in the German line and break its way out; but it must be an army of soldiers, not a force composed of disheartened fugitives and half-drilled citizens.”
”The National Guard are drilling earnestly,” Rene Caillard said. ”I have been watching them this afternoon, they really made a very good show.”
”The father of a family with a comfortable home and a prosperous business can drill as well as the most careless vaurien, Rene; better, perhaps, for he will take much greater pains; but when it comes to fighting, half a dozen reckless daredevils are worth a hundred of him. I think if I had been Trochu I would have issued an order that every unmarried man in Paris between the ages of sixteen and forty-five should be organized into, you might call it, the active National Guard for continual service outside the walls, while the married men should be reserved for defending the _enceinte_ at the last extremity. The outside force might be but a third of the whole, but they would be worth as much as the whole force together. That is why I think that our corps may distinguish itself. We have none of us wives or families and nothing much to lose, consequently we shall fight well. We shan't mind hards.h.i.+ps for we have not been accustomed to luxuries. We are fighting as volunteers and not because the law calls us under arms.
”We are educated and have got too much self-respect to bolt like rabbits. I don't say we may not retire. One can't do impossibilities, and if others don't stand, we can't oppose a Prussian Army Corps. There is one thing you must do, and that is preserve good discipline. There is no discipline at all in the National Guard. I saw a party of them yesterday drilling, and two or three of them quietly marched out of the ranks and remonstrated on terms of the most perfect equality, with their colonel as to an order he had given. The maxim of the Republic may do for civil life, though I have not a shadow of belief either in equality or fraternity; nor have I in liberty when liberty means license; whether that be so or not equality is not consistent with military discipline.
An army in which the idea of equality reigns is not an army but a mob, and is no more use for fighting purposes than so many armed peasants.
The s.h.i.+bboleth is always absurd and in a case like the present ruinous.
The first duty of a soldier is obedience, absolute and implicit, and a complete surrender of the right of private judgment.”
”And you would obey an officer if you were sure that he were wrong, Cuthbert?”
”Certainly I would. I might, if the mistake did not cost me my life, argue the matter out with him afterwards, if, as might happen among us, we were personal acquaintances; but I should at the same time carry out the order, whatever it might be, to the best of my power. And now I propose that for this evening we avoid the subject of the siege altogether. In future, engaged as we are likely to be, we shall hardly be able to avoid it, and moreover the bareness of the table and the emptiness of the wine-cups will be a forcible reminder that it will be impossible to escape it. Did you show Goude your sketch for your picture for the Salon, Rene?”