Part 5 (2/2)
I fully recognise the fact that the leaders of the ouvriers talk a great deal of nonsense, and that they are actuated as much by personal ambition as by patriotism; but it is certain that the individual working man is the only reality in this population of corrupt and emasculated humbugs; everyone else is a windbag and a sham.
A decree has been issued, informing all who have no means of subsistence that they will receive a certain amount of bread per diem upon application at their respective mairies. We are also told that if we wish to make puddings of the blood of oxen, we must mix pigs' blood with it, otherwise it will be unwholesome.
It has been showery to-day, and I never have witnessed a more dismal Sunday in Paris. A pigeon from. Gambetta's balloon has returned, but this foolish bird lost _en route_ the message which was attached to its neck.
CHAPTER VI.
_October 10th._
It is very curious how close, under certain conditions of wind and temperature, the cannonade appears to be, even in the centre of the town. This morning I was returning home at about two o'clock, when I heard a succession of detonations so distinctly, that I literally went into the next street, as I imagined that a house must be falling down there. It is said that the palace of St. Cloud has been destroyed.
As well as I can learn, General Burnside came into Paris mainly to discuss with Mr. Washburne the possibility of the American families who are still here being allowed to pa.s.s the Prussian lines. He saw Jules Favre, but, if he attempted any species of negotiation, it could have led to nothing, as we are so absolutely confident that the Army of the Loire will in a few days cut off the Prussian supplies, and we are so proud of our att.i.tude, that I really believe if Jules Favre were to consent to pay a war indemnity as a condition of peace, he and his friends would be driven from power the next day.
Having nothing particularly to boast of to-day, the newspapers request the world to be good enough to turn its eyes upon Gambetta traversing s.p.a.ce in a balloon. A nation whose Minister is capable of this heroic feat must eventually drive the enemy from its soil. The _Figaro_, in fact, hints that in all probability peace will be signed at Berlin at no very distant date. The _Gaulois_, a comparatively sensible newspaper, thus deals with this aerial voyage:--”As the balloon pa.s.sed above the Prussian armies, amid the clouds and the birds, the old William probably turned to Bismarck and asked, 'What is that black point in the sky?' 'It is a Minister,' replied Bismarck; 'it is the heroic Gambetta, on his way to the Loire. In Paris he named prefects; on the Loire he will a.s.semble battalions.' Favourable winds wafted the balloon on her course; perhaps Gambetta landed at Cahors, his natal town, perhaps somewhere else--perhaps in the arms of Cremieux, that aged lion. To-morrow the provinces will resound with his voice, which will mingle with the rattling of arms and the sound of drums. Like a trumpet, it will peal along the Loire, inflaming hearts, forming battalions, and causing the manes of St. Just and Desmoulins to rise from their graves.”
Yesterday a battalion of the National Guard was drawn up before the Hotel de Ville, but there was no demonstration of the Ultras. M. Arago, the Mayor of Paris, made a few speeches from a window, which are described as inflaming the hearts of these heroic soldiers of the country. The rain, however, in the end, sent the heroic soldiers home, and obliged M. Arago to shut his window. A day never pa.s.ses without one or more of our rulers putting his head out of some window or other, and what is called ”delivering himself up to a fervid improvisation.” The Ultra newspapers are never tired of abusing the priests, who are courageously and honestly performing their duty. Yesterday I read a letter from a patriot, in which he complains that this caste of crows are to decree the field of battle, and asks the Government to decree that the last moments of virtuous citizens, dying for their country, shall not be troubled by this new Horror. To-day a citizen writes as follows:--”Why are not the National Guards installed in the churches?
Not only might they find in these edifices dedicated to an extinct superst.i.tion, shelter from the weather, but orators might from time to time in the pulpits deliver speeches. Those churches which are not required by the National Guard might serve as excellent stables for the oxen, the sheep, and the hogs, which are now parked out in the open air.”
Next to the priests and the churches, the streets named after members and friends of the late Imperial family excite the ire of patriots. The inhabitants of the quartier Prince Eugene, have, I read to-day, decided that the Boulevard Prince Eugene shall henceforward be called the Boulevard Dussault, ”the n.o.ble child of the Haute Vienne, who was murdered by the aides of the infamous Bonaparte.”
We are not, as you might perhaps suppose, wanting in news. The French journalists, even when communications with the rest of the world were open, preferred to evolve their facts from their moral consciousness--their hand has not lost its cunning. Peasants, who play the part here of the intelligent contraband of the American civil war, bring in daily the most wonderful stories of the misery which the Prussians are suffering, and the damage which our artillery is causing them--and these tales are duly published. Then, at least three times a week we kill a Prussian Prince, and ”an army” relieves Bazaine. A few days ago a troop of 1500 oxen marched into our lines, ”they were French oxen, and they were impelled by their patriotism.” This beats the ducks who asked the old woman to come and kill them.
The clubs appear to be divided upon the question of the ”commune.” In most of them, however, resolutions have been pa.s.sed reaffirming their determination to hold the elections with or without the consent of the Government. Rochefort to-day publishes a sensible reply to Flourens, who called upon him to explain why he does not resign. ”I have,” he says, ”descended into the most impenetrable recesses of my conscience, and I have emerged with the conviction that my withdrawal would cause a conflict, and this would open a breach to the Prussians. You will say that I am capitulating with my convictions; if it be so, I do not necessarily capitulate with the Prussians. I silence my political instincts; let our brave friends in Belleville allow theirs to sleep for a time.” I understand that in the council which was held to decide upon the advisability of adjourning these elections, Rochefort, Simon, Ferry, and Arago voted against the adjournment, and Pelletan, Garnier Pages, Picard, and Favre in favour of it. Trochu then decided the question in the affirmative by a threat that, if the elections were allowed to take place, he would resign.
_October 11th._
The notions of a Pall Mall dandy respecting Southwark or the Tower Hamlets are not more vague than those of the Parisian bourgeois or the Professional French journalist respecting the vast Faubourgs peopled by the working men which encircle this city. From actual observation they know nothing of them. They believe them to be the homes of a dangerous cla.s.s--communistic and anarchical in its tendencies, the sworn foes alike of law, order, and property. The following are the articles of faith of the journalist:--France is the world. Paris is France. The boulevards, the theatres, some fifty writers on the press, and the bourgeoisie of the fas.h.i.+onable quarters of the city, are Paris. Within this narrow circle he may reason justly, but he never emerges from it, and consequently cannot instruct others about what he does not know himself. Since the fall of the Emperor, the Parisian bourgeois has vaguely felt that he has been surrounded by two hostile armies--the Prussian without the walls, and the working men within. He has placed his trust in Trochu, as twenty years ago he did in Cavaignac. The siege had not lasted a week before he became convinced that the Prussians were afraid of him, because they had not attacked the town; and within the last few days he has acquired the conviction, upon equally excellent grounds, that the working men also tremble before his martial att.i.tude.
On Friday last he achieved what he considers a crowning triumph, and he is now under the impression that he has struck terror into the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the advocates of the Commune by marching with his battalion to the Hotel de Ville. ”We”--and by ”we” he means General Trochu and himself--”we have shown them that we are not to be trifled with,” is his boast from morning to night. Now, if instead of reading newspapers which only reflect his own views, and pa.s.sing his time, whether on the ramparts or in a cafe, surrounded by men who share his prejudices, the worthy bourgeois would be good enough to accompany me to Belleville or La Villette, he would perhaps realise the fact that, as usual, he is making himself comfortable in a fool's paradise. He would have an opportunity to learn that, while the working men have not the remotest intention to pillage his shop, they are equally determined not to allow him and his friends to make Paris the laughing-stock of Europe. With them the ”Commune” is but a means to an end. What they want is a Government which will carry out in sober earnest M. Jules Favre's rhetorical figure that ”the Parisians will bury themselves beneath the ruins of their town rather than surrender.” The lull in the ”demonstrations” to urge the Government either to carry out this programme, or to a.s.sociate with themselves men of energy who are ready to do so, will not last long; and when next Belleville comes to the Hotel de Ville, it will not be unarmed. The bourgeois and the working man wors.h.i.+p different G.o.ds, and have hardly two ideas in common. The bourgeois believes in the Army of the Loire; believes that in sacrificing the trade profits of a few months, and in catching a cold by keeping guard occasionally for a night on the ramparts, he has done his duty towards his country, and deserves the admiration of all future ages. As for burying himself, beneath, the ruins of his shop, it is his shop as much as his country that he is defending. He is gradually wearying of the siege; the pleasure of strutting about in a uniform and marching behind a drum hardly compensates for the pecuniary losses which he is incurring. He feels that he is already a hero, and he longs to repose upon his laurels. When Bazaine has capitulated, and when the bubble of the Army of the Loire has burst, he will, if left to himself, declare and actually believe that Paris has surpa.s.sed in heroism and endurance Troy and Saragossa; and he will accept what is inevitable--a capitulation. The working man, on the other hand, believes in no Army of the Loire, troubles himself little about Bazaine, and has confidence in himself alone. Far from disliking the siege, he delights in it. He lives at free quarters, and he walks about with a gun, that occupation of all others which is most pleasing to him. He at least is no humbug; he has no desire to avoid danger, but rather courts it. He longs to form one in a sortie, and he builds barricades, and looks forward with grim satisfaction to the moment when he will risk his own life in defending them, and blow up his landlord's house to arrest the advance of the Prussians. What will be the upshot of this radical divergence of opinion between the two princ.i.p.al cla.s.ses which are cooped up together within the walls of Paris, it is impossible to say. The working men have, as yet, no leaders in whom they place confidence, and under whose guidance they would consent to act collectively. It may be that this will prevent them from giving effect to their views before the curtain drops; they are strongly patriotic, and they are disinclined to compromise the success of the defence by internal quarrels. Very possibly, therefore, they will be deceived by promises on the part of the Government, and a.s.surances that Paris will fight it out to the last ditch, until the moment to act has pa.s.sed. As for the bourgeois and the Government, their most powerful ally is the cry, ”No division; let us all be united.” They are both, however, in a radically false position. They have called upon the world to witness how a great capital can die rather than surrender; and yet, if no external agency prevents the surrender, they have no intention to fulfil their boast of dying. Any loophole for escape from, the alternative in which they have thrust themselves they would welcome.
”Our provisions will last three months,” they say; ”during this time something must happen to our advantage.” ”What?” I inquire. ”The Army of the Loire will advance, or Bazaine will get out of Metz, or the Prussians will despair of success, or we shall be able to introduce convoys of provisions.” ”But if none of these prophecies are realised.--what then?” I have asked a hundred times, without ever getting a clear answer to my question. By some strange process of reasoning in what, as Lord Westbury would say, they are pleased to call their minds, they appear to have arrived at the conviction that Paris never will be taken, because they are unable to realise the possibility of an event which they seem to consider is contrary to that law of nature, which, has made her the capital and the mistress of the world. A victorious army is at their gates; they do not dare even to make a formidable sortie; there is no regular army in the field outside; their provisions have a limit; they can only communicate with the rest of the world by an occasional balloon; and yet they regard the idea of a foreign occupation of Paris much as we do a French invasion of England--a thing so improbable as to be barely possible.
Yesterday there were a few groups on the Place de l'Hotel de Ville, but they were rather curious spectators than ”manifesters.” At about two o'clock the rappel was beaten in the Place Vendome, and several battalions of the National Guard of the quartier marched there and broke up these groups. M. Jules Ferry's head then appeared from the window, and he aired his eloquence in a speech congratulating the friends of order on having rallied to the defence of the Government. It is a very strange thing that no Frenchman, when in power, can understand equal justice between his opponents and his supporters. The present Government is made up of men who clamoured for a Munic.i.p.al Council during the Empire, and whose first step upon taking possession of the Hotel de Ville was to decree the immediate election of a ”Commune.”
Since then, yielding to the demands of their own supporters, they have withdrawn this decree, and now, if I go unarmed upon the Place de l'Hotel de Ville and cry ”Vive la Commune,” I am arrested; whereas if any battalion of the National Guard chooses, without orders, to go there in arms and cry, ”a bas la Commune,” immediately it is congratulated for its patriotism by some member of the Government.
Nothing new has pa.s.sed at the front since yesterday. I learn from this morning's papers, however, that Moltke is dead, that the Crown Prince is dying of a fever, that Bismarck is anxious to negotiate, but is prevented by the obstinacy of the King, that 300 Prussians from the Polish provinces have come over to our side, and that the Bavarian and Wurtemberg troops are in a state of incipient rebellion. ”From the fact that the Prussian outposts have withdrawn to a greater distance from the forts,” the _Electeur Libre_, tells me, ”it is probable that the Prussians despair of success, and in a few days will raise the siege.”
Most of the newspapers make merry over the faults in grammar in a letter which has been discovered and published from the Empress to the Emperor, although I doubt if there is one Frenchman in the world who could write Spanish as well as the Empress does French.
_Evening._
It appears that yesterday the cheques signed by M. Flourens were not recognised by the Etat Major of his ”secteur.” On this he declared that he would beat the ”generale” in Belleville and march on the Hotel de Ville. The quarrel was, however, patched up--no disturbance occurred.
For some reason or other M. Flourens, until he gave in his resignation, commanded five battalions of the National Guard; he has been told that he can be re-elected to the command of any one of them, but that he cannot be allowed to be at the head of more than one. This man is an enthusiast, and, I am told, not quite right in his head. In personal appearance he is a good-looking gentlemanly fellow. As long as Belleville acts under his leaders.h.i.+p there is no great fear that any danger will arise, because his own men distrust, not his good faith, but his sense.
Gambetta has sent a despatch from Montdidier, by a pigeon. He says, ”Everywhere the people are rising; the Government of the National Defence is universally acclaimed.”
The Papal Nuncio is going to try to get through on Thursday. He says he is anxious about the Pope--no wonder.
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