Part 3 (2/2)

The worst of a pa.s.s is, that it is no protection against arrest, for, say your captors, ”Prussian spies are so cunning that they would be precisely the persons to have papers, either forged or stolen.” Another trouble is, that if you are arrested, you are generally shut up, with half-a-dozen thieves and drunkards, for about twenty-four hours, before a Commissary condescends to inquire into your case. No one as yet has ever troubled me; but the spy mania certainly does not add to the charm of the residence of a stranger in Paris just now. I would rather run the chance of being hit during a bombardment, than affront the certainty of twenty-four hours in a filthy police cell. Suspicion is, no doubt, carried to a ridiculous excess; but it is equally true that unquestionable spies are arrested every day under every sort of disguise. Mr. Washburne told me yesterday that he saw a _soi-disant_ ”Invalide” arrested, who turned out to be a regular ”spectacled Dutchman.”

_September 28th._

Nothing new at the front. We suppose that the enemy are concentrating troops on the Sevres-Meudon plateau, and that they intend to attack on that side. We are confident that the guns of Mont Valerien will prevent the success of this attack. On the opposite side of Paris they are endeavouring to erect batteries; but they are unable to do so on account of the fire of Fort Nogent. It seems to me that we are shouting before we are quite out of the wood; but we are already congratulating ourselves upon having sustained a siege which throws those of Saragossa and Richmond into the shade. If we have not yet been bombarded, we have a.s.sumed ”an heroic att.i.tude of expectation;” and if the Prussians have not yet stormed the walls, we have shown that we were ready to repel them if they had. Deprived of our shepherd and our sheep-dogs, we civic sheep have set up so loud a ba-ba, that we have terrified the wolves who wished to devour us. In the impossible event of an ultimate capitulation we shall hang our swords and our muskets over our fire-places, and say to our grandchildren, ”I, too, was one of the defenders of Paris.” In the meantime, soldiers who have run away when attacked are paraded through the streets with a placard on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, requesting all good citizens to spit upon them. Two courts-martial have been established to judge spies and marauders, and in each of the nine sections there is a court-martial to sit upon peccant National Guards. ”The sentence,” says the decree, ”will at once be executed by the detachment on duty.” We are preparing for the worst; in the Place of the Pantheon, and other squares, it is proposed to take up the paving stones, because they will, if left, explode sh.e.l.ls which may strike them. The windows of the Louvre and other public edifices are being filled with sand bags. This morning I was walking along the Rue Lafayette, when I heard a cry ”A bas les cigares!” and I found that if I continued to smoke, it was thought that I should set light to some ammunition waggons which were pa.s.sing.

Yesterday evening there was a report, which was almost universally credited, that a revolution had broken out in London, because the English Government had refused to aid Paris in driving back the Prussians. The Parisians find it impossible to understand that the world at large can see little distinction between a French army entering Berlin and a Prussian army entering Paris. Their capital is to them a holy city, and they imagine that the Christian world regards the Prussian attack upon it much as the Mahometan world would regard a bombardment of Mecca. No doubt it will be a shocking thing to bombard a city such as this, filled with women and children; still, being an Englishman, I cannot see that it would be worse than to bombard London.

The newspapers of this morning contain a _precis_ of a letter from ”our Fritz” to William ”the mystic drunkard.” Our Fritz writes to his papa to say that he ought to have accepted peace when it was proffered by Jules Favre. How the contents of the letter are known in Paris is not stated.

But here we know everything. We know that at a council of war held two days ago at Versailles a majority declared that it was impossible to take Paris. We know that the German soldiers are dying of starvation and clothed in rags. We know that they are forced by their officers, against their will, to attack their French brothers. Did not yesterday a National Guard himself take five Prussian prisoners? They were starving, and thankfully accepted a piece of bread. They had a wounded companion in a wheelbarrow, who continually shook his fist in the direction of the ”mystic drunkard,” and plaintively moaned forth the only French word he knew, ”Miserable, miserable!” Did not another National Guard go into a house recently occupied by ”Bavarians,” and find the following words written on a shutter--”Poor Frenchmen, we love you: they force us to fight against you?” I believe all this, and many other strange facts, because I see them in print in the newspapers. Can it possibly be that I am over-credulous? Am I wrong, too, in believing that France is rising _en ma.s.se_, that Moltke did not understand his business in advancing on Paris, and that he will be crushed by the armies of the Loire and a dozen other places--if, indeed, our gallant heroes congregated in Paris give their brethren outside time to share in the triumph of defeating him? _En attendant_, we eat, drink, and are reasonably merry; our defenders mount guard, and drill when they are off guard. Our wary Mobiles outside not only refuse to allow Prussians to pa.s.s, but such is their vigilance, they generally arrest officers of any regiment except their own who come within their ken. These worthy fellows will, I believe, fight with bravery. The working men, too, are engaged in heaping up barricades, and are ready to allow themselves to be killed and their landlords' houses to be blown up rather than surrender. The sailors in the forts are prepared to hold them like s.h.i.+ps against all comers. The ”infantry of the marine” is commanded by an old tar who stands no nonsense. A few days ago he published an order complaining that the marines ”undulated under fire.” Some of his officers went to him as a deputation to protest against this slur on them and their men; but he cut their remonstrances short by immediately cas.h.i.+ering the spokesman. To-day he announces that if his men are supplied with drink within the limits of his command he will burn down all the pothouses. It is greatly to be deplored that the determined spirit of this Admiral does not animate all his brother commanders; they are perpetually engaged in discussing with those who are under their orders, and appear to be afraid to put down insubordination with a high hand. If ever they venture upon any act of rigour, they are called upon by the Ultra press to justify it, and they generally do so in a lengthy letter.

I have been, as the Americans say, much exercised of late respecting certain persons whom I have seen strolling about the streets, avoiding as much as possible their species. Whenever anyone looked at them they sneaked away with deprecating glances. They are dressed in a sort of pea-jacket, with hoods, black trousers, and black caps, and their general appearance was a cross between a sailor and a monk. I have at length discovered with surprise that these retiring innocents are the new sergents-de-ville of M. Keratry, who are daily denounced by the Ultras as ferocious wolves eager to rend and devour all honest citizens.

If this be true, I can only say that they are well disguised in sheep's clothing.

Letters from Paris, if ever they do get to London, must necessarily be so dull, that they can hardly repay the trouble of reading them. Life here is about as lively as life on board a s.h.i.+p. The two main subjects of conversation, the military preparations within the town, and the amount of food, are in honour tabooed to correspondents. With respect to the former I will only say, that if the Prussians do carry the forts and the enceinte, they will not have taken Paris; with regard to the latter, I can state that we shall not be starved out for some time. Besides the cattle which have been acc.u.mulated, we have 90,000 horses; and although a cab horse may not taste as good as Southdown mutton, I have no doubt that Parisian cooking will make it a very palatable dish for hungry men; there are, too, a great many dogs, and the rats have not yet left the sinking s.h.i.+p. As for coffee and sugar we have enough to last for six months; and, unless the statistics of the Government are utterly worthless, come what may we shall not lack bread for many a day.

The Rump of the Corps Diplomatique has held a second meeting, and a messenger has been sent to Bismarck to know--1st, whether he means to bombard the city; 2nd, whether, if he does, he intends to give the usual twenty-four hours' notice. Diplomates are little better than old women when they have to act on an emergency. Were it not for Mr. Washburne, who was brought up in the rough-and-ready life of the Far West, instead of serving an apprentices.h.i.+p in Courts and Government offices, those who are still here would be perfectly helpless. They come to him at all moments, and although he cannot speak French, for all practical purposes he is worth more than all his colleagues put together. Lord Lyons would, I believe, have remained, had he not been over persuaded by timid colleagues, who were ordered to do as he did. It is a great pity that he did not act according to his own judgment; but Republics, we know, are not in good odour with courtiers. As for that poor creature Metternich, he was utterly demoralized. He was more of a Chamberlain of Badinguet than an Amba.s.sador, and, of course, when his friend disappeared, he took the earliest opportunity to follow his example.

_September 29th._

We still are cut off from the outer world, but neither ”the world forgetting,” nor, we imagine, ”by the world forgot.” The inhabitants of the ”Mecca of civilization” are still, like Sister Anne, looking out for some one to come to their a.s.sistance. I am utterly sick and tired of the eternal brag and bombast around me. Let the Parisians gain some success, and then celebrate it as loudly as they please: but why, in the name of common sense, will they rejoice over victories yet to come? ”We are preserving,” they say, ”a dignified expectative att.i.tude.” Mr. Micawber put the thing in more simple vernacular when, he said that he was waiting for something to turn up. ”First catch your hare” is a piece of advice which our patriots here would scoff at. They have not yet caught the Prussians, but they have already, by a flight of imagination, cooked and eaten them. Count Moltke may as well--if I am to believe one quarter of what I hear--like the American c.o.o.n, come down. In a question of military strategy between the grocers of Paris and the Prussian generals I should have thought that the odds were considerably in favour of the latter, but I am told that this is not so, and that in laying siege to Paris they are committing a mistake for which a schoolboy would be deservedly whipped. If you eliminate the working-cla.s.s element, which has not been corrupted by the Imperial system, the population of this town is much what I imagine that of Constantinople to have been when it was taken by the Turks. They are Greeks of the lower empire. Monsieur sticks his kepi on one side of his head, and struts and swaggers along the Boulevard as though he were a bantam c.o.c.k. We have lost the _pet.i.ts creves_ who formed so agreeable an element in society, but they have been replaced by the military dandy, a being, if possible, still more offensive. This creature mounts some sorry screw and parades the Boulevard and the Champs Elysees, frowning dismally upon the world in general, and twirling his moustache with the one hand, whilst he holds on to the saddle with the other. His sword is of the longest, his waist is of the tightest, and his boots are of the brightest. His like is only to be seen in England when the _Battle of Waterloo_ is played at Astley's, but his seat is not as good as that of the equestrian warriors of that establishment. As he slowly paces along he gazes slyly to see how many people are looking at him, and it must be owned that those who do see him, vastly admire him. What manner of beings these admirers are may be imagined from their idol. No contrast can be greater than that which exists between the Parisian Bobadils and the Provincial Mobiles.

The latter are quiet and orderly, eager to drill and without a vestige of bl.u.s.ter--these poor peasants are of a very different stuff from the emasculated, conceited sc.u.m which has palmed itself off on Europe as representative Frenchmen. The families with whom they lodge speak with wonder of their sobriety, their decency, and their simple ways, and in their hearts almost despise them because they do not ravish their daughters or pillage their cellars; and neither swear every half-hour to die for their country, nor yell the ”Ma.r.s.eillaise.” If Paris be saved, it will be thanks to them and to the working men of the capital. But it will be the old _sic vos non vobis_ story; their brave deeds and undemonstrative heroism will be forgotten, and Jules and Alphonse, the dandies and braggarts of the Boulevard, will swear to their own heroism.

I trust that the Prussians will fail to take Paris, because I think that the French are right to fight on rather than submit to the dismemberment of their country; and because I prefer a Republic to a Monarchy where a King reigns by right divine. But when I read the bombastic articles in the newspapers--when I see the insane conceit and the utter ignorance of those with whom I am thrown--when I find them really believing that they are heroes because they are going, they say, to win battles, it is difficult to entertain any great sympathy for them. How utterly must poor old Badinguet, before whom they cringed for years--who used them, bought them, and made his market out of their vanity, their ignorance, and their love of theatrical claptrap, despise them, as he dreams again through life's dream in the gardens of his German prison. They call him now a ”sinister scoundrel” and a ”lugubrious stage player.” But he was their master for many a long year, and they owe their emanc.i.p.ation from his yoke to Prussian arms and not to themselves.

A committee of ”subsistence” has been established. The feud between the butchers and the public still continues, and most of the meat stalls are closed. The grocers, too, are charging absurd prices for their goods.

_La Liberte_ suggests that their clients should do themselves justice, and one of these mornings, unless these gentry abate their prices, some grocer will be found hanging before his door. Although provisions are plentiful, the misery is very great. Beggars increase in number every day--they are like one of the plagues of Egypt. I was taking a cup of coffee this morning before a cafe, and I counted twenty-three beggars who asked me for money whilst I was sitting there. We still derive much comfort from caricaturing Badinguet, William, and Bismarck. The latest effort represents Badinguet and William as Robert Macaire and Bertrand.

Another represents Badinguet eating an eagle. ”Coquin,” says William, ”what are you doing with your eagle?” ”Eating it,” replies Badinguet; ”what else can I do with it?” Little statuettes, too, of the ”two friends,” Badinguet and William, are in great request. William, with an immense moustache, scowls at Badinguet, who humbly kneels before him.

M. Jules Favre, in reply to the English press deputation, sent last night to say that each correspondent must make a personal application to General Trochu. I know what that means already. All I ask is that my letters should be put up in a balloon. As for pa.s.ses, I have one already, and it has not been of the slightest service to me. _Les Nouvelles_ heads an article ”English Spies,” and proposes that to simplify the question of whether they are spies or not, all English in Paris should at once be shot. I cannot say that I personally have found any ill-feeling to exist against me because I am an Englishman.

Yesterday afternoon I was in a crowd, and some one suggested that I was a spy; I immediately mounted on a chair and explained that I was a ”journaliste Anglais,” and pointed out to my friends that they ought to be obliged to me for remaining here. ”If any one doubts me,” I added, ”let us go to the nearest commissary.” No one did doubt me, and fifty patriots immediately shook hands with me. The French people are apt to form hasty judgments sometimes, and to act on them still more hastily, but if one can get them to listen for a moment, they are reasonable, and soon their natural good nature a.s.serts itself. The zealous but well-intended Mobiles are the most dangerous, for they shoot you first and then apologise to your corpse. An order is placarded to-day of Governor Trochu's, announcing that anyone trying to pa.s.s the lines will be sent before the Courts Martial, or if he or she runs away when ordered to stop, will be shot on the spot. This latter clause allows a very great lat.i.tude for zeal, more particularly as the ”lines” just now are little more than a geographical expression. Their Emperor is a prisoner, the enemy is thundering at their gates, they are shut up here like rats in a hole; they have been vanquished in the only engagement they have had with their besiegers, and yet the Parisians believe that, compared with them, the Germans are an inferior race, and, like the slave before Marius, will shrink abashed before the majesty of Paris.

”If we,” say their newspapers, ”the wisest, the best, the n.o.blest of human beings, have to succ.u.mb to this horde of barbarians that environ us, we shall cease to believe in the existence of a Providence.”

The movement on the part of the ”Ultras” to elect at once a munic.i.p.ality is gaining strength. Yesterday several chiefs of the faubourg battalions of the National Guard interviewed Jules Ferry on the subject. Ledru Rollin has declared himself in favour of it, and this morning there are evidences that the Government is inclined to give way to the pressure, for a decree is published in the _Journal Officiel_ ordering a registration of voters. The worst of Frenchmen is that, no matter how patriotic each one may be, he is convinced that the interests of his country require that he should be one of its rulers. The men of '48 who have returned from exile are surprised that they are almost forgotten by the present generation, which regards them as interesting historical relics, and puts its faith in new G.o.ds. At the clubs every evening the Government is denounced for refusing to admit into its ranks this or that patriot, or adjourning the munic.i.p.al elections, and for not sending revolutionary agents into the provinces. A newspaper this morning makes the excellent suggestion that M. Blanqui, M.F. Pyat, and their princ.i.p.al adherents should be invited to proceed at once to the provinces in a balloon, invested with the rank of Government agents. ”They cannot,” it adds, ”do so much harm there as they are doing here; and then, too, the balloon may burst.” Personally, I should be glad to see a moderate Republic established here, for I regard a Court as a waste of public money; but it seems to me that Republicans should remember that it is for the nation, and not for them, to decide what shall henceforward be the form of government.

CHAPTER IV

_September 30th._

We are still beating our tom-toms like the Chinese, to frighten away the enemy, and our braves still fire off powder at invisible Uhlans. The Prussians, to our intense disgust, will not condescend even to notice us. We jeer at them, we revile them, and yet they will not attack us.

What they are doing we cannot understand. They appear to have withdrawn from the advanced positions which they held. We know that they are in the habit of making war in a thoroughly ungentlemanly manner, and we cannot make up our minds whether our ”att.i.tude” is causing them to hesitate, or whether they are not devising some new trick to take us by surprise. That they are starving, that their communications with Germany are cut off, that their leaders are at loggerheads, that the Army of the Loire will soon be here to help us to demolish them, we have not the slightest doubt. The question is no longer whether Paris will be taken--that we have solved already--it is whether the Prussians will be able to get back to the Rhine. We are thankful that Bismarck did not accept Jules Favre's offer of a money indemnity. We would not give a hundred francs now to ensure peace or an armistice. I went this morning into a shop, the proprietor of which, a bootmaker, I have long known, and I listened with interest to the conversation of this worthy man with some of his neighbours who had dropped in to have a gossip, and to congratulate him on his martial achievements, as he had been on guard in a bastion. We first discussed why the Army of the Loire had not arrived, and we came to the conclusion that it was engaged in rallying Bazaine.

”I should like to read your English newspapers now,” said one; ”your _Tims_ told us we ought to cede Alsace and Lorraine, but its editor must now acknowledge that Paris is invincible.” I told him that I felt convinced that he did so regularly every morning. ”No peace,” shouted a little tailor, who had been prancing about on an imaginary steed, killing imaginary Prussians, ”we have made a pact with death; the world knows now what are the consequences of attacking us.” The all-absorbing question of subsistence then came up, and some one remarked that beef would give out sooner than mutton. ”We must learn,” observed a jolly-looking grocer, ”to vanquish the prejudices of our stomachs. Even those who do not like mutton must make the sacrifice of their taste to their country.” I mildly suggested that perhaps in a few weeks the stomachs which had a prejudice against rats would have to overcome it.

At this the countenance of the gossips fell considerably, when the bootmaker, after mysteriously closing the door, whispered, ”A secret was confided to me this morning by an intimate friend of General Trochu.

There is a tunnel which connects Paris with the provinces, and through it flocks and herds are entering the town.” This news cheered us up amazingly. My bootmaker's wife came in to help him off with his military accoutrements; so, with a compliment about Venus disarming Mars, I withdrew in company with an American, who had gone into the shop with me. This American is a sort of transatlantic Bunsby. He talks little, but thinks much. His sole observation to me as we walked away was this, ”They will squat, sir, mark my words, they will squat.” I received this oracular utterance with respect, and I leave it to others to solve its meaning, I am myself a person of singular credulity, but even I sometimes ask myself whether all I hear and read can be true. Was there really, as all the newspapers this morning inform me, a meeting last Sunday at London of 400,000 persons, who were addressed by eminent M.P's, and by the princ.i.p.al merchants and owners of manufactories in England, at which resolutions were adopted denouncing the Queen, and calling upon Mr. Gladstone either to retire from office, or to declare war against Prussia?

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