Part 10 (1/2)
It is not, however, beyond the bounds of possibility that the Prussians will not wait until our great administrator has completed his preparations for attack, but will be beforehand with him, and open fire upon the southern posts from their batteries, which many think would effectually reduce to silence the guns of Vanves, Issy, and of the advanced redoubts. These Prussian batteries are viewed with a mysterious awe. We fire on them, we walk about within less than a mile of them, and they maintain an ominous silence. On the heights of Chatillon it is said at the advanced posts that there are 108 siege guns in position; some of them we can actually distinguish without a gla.s.s, and yet not a shot comes from them. Yesterday, the gates of the Bois de Boulogne were opened, and a crowd of several thousand persons walked and drove round the lake. Over their heads one of the bastions was throwing sh.e.l.ls into Montretout, but it seemed to occur to no one that Montretout might return the compliment, and throw a few sh.e.l.ls, not over their heads, but into their midst. One of the most curious phases in this remarkable siege is, that the women seem to consider the whole question a political one, which in no way regards them--they neither urge the men to resist, nor clamour for peace. _Tros Tyriusque_ seems much the same to them; a few hundreds have dressed themselves up as vivandieres, the others appear to regret the rise in the price of provisions, but to trouble their heads about nothing else. If they thought that the cession of Alsace and Lorraine would reduce the price of butchers' meat, they would in a sort of apathetic way be in favour of the cession; but they are so utterly ignorant of everything except matters connected with their toilettes and M. Paul de k.o.c.k's novels, that they confine themselves to shrugging their shoulders and hoping for the best, and they support all the privations to which they are exposed owing to the siege without complaint and without enthusiasm. The word armistice being beyond the range of their vocabulary, they call it ”l'amnistie,” and imagine that the question is whether or not King William is ready to grant Paris an amnesty. As aeneas and Dido took refuge in a cave to avoid a shower, so I for the same reason found myself with a young lady this morning under a porte cochere. Dido was a lively and intelligent young person, but I discovered in the course of our chance conversation that she was under the impression that the Russians as well as the Prussians were outside Paris, and that both were waging war for the King of Spain. Sedan, I also learnt, was in the neighbourhood of Berlin.
The _Temps_ gives the following details of our provisions--Beef will fail in a week, horse will then last a fortnight; salt meat a further week; vegetables, dried fruits, flour, &c., about three weeks more. In this calculation I think that the stock of flour is understated, and that if we are contented to live on bread and wine we shall not be starved out until the middle of January. The ration of fresh meat is now reduced in almost all the arrondiss.e.m.e.nts to thirty grammes a head.
There is no difficulty, however, in obtaining for money any quant.i.ty of it in the restaurants. In the bouillons only one portion is served to each customer. Cats have risen in the market--a good fat one now costs twenty francs. Those that remain are exceedingly wild. This morning I had a salmis of rats--it was excellent--something between frog and rabbit. I breakfasted with the correspondents of two of your contemporaries. One of them, after a certain amount of hesitation, allowed me to help him to a leg of a rat; after eating it he was as anxious as a terrier for more. The latter, however, scornfully refused to share in the repast. As he got through his portion of salted horse, which rejoiced in the name of beef, he regarded us with horror and disgust. I remember when I was in Egypt that my feelings towards the natives were of a somewhat similar nature when I saw them eating rat.
The older one grows the more tolerant one becomes. If ever I am again in Africa I shall eat the national dish whenever I get a chance. During the siege of Londonderry rats sold for 7s. each, and if this siege goes on many weeks longer, the utmost which a person of moderate means will be able to allow himself will be an occasional mouse. I was curious to see whether the proprietor of the restaurant would boldly call rat, rat in my bill. His heart failed him--it figures as a salmi of game.
_November 15th._
We have pa.s.sed from the lowest depths of despair to the wildest confidence. Yesterday afternoon a pigeon arrived covered with blood, bearing on its tail a despatch from Gambetta, of the 11th, announcing that the Prussians had been driven out of Orleans after two days'
fighting, that 1,000 prisoners, two cannon, and many munition waggons had been taken, and that the pursuit was still continuing. The despatch was read at the Mairies to large crowds, and in the _cafes_ by enthusiasts, who got upon the tables. I was in a shop when a person came in with it. Shopkeeper, a.s.sistants, and customers immediately performed a war dance round a stove; one would have supposed that the war was over and that the veracity of Gambetta is unimpeachable. But as though this success were not enough in itself, all the newspapers this morning tell us that ”Chartres has also been retaken,” that the army of Keratry has effected a junction with that of the Loire, and that in the North Bourbaki has forced the Prussians to raise the siege of Amiens. Everyone is asking when ”they” will be here. Edmond About, in the _Soir_, eats dirt for having a few days ago suggested an armistice.
At the Quartier-General I do not think that very great importance is attached to Gambetta's despatch, except as an evidence that the provinces are not perfectly apathetic. It is considered that very possibly the Prussians may have concentrated their whole available force round Paris, in order to crush our grand sortie when it takes place.
General Trochu himself takes the most despondent view of the situation, and bitterly complains of the ”spirit” of the army, the Mobiles, and the Parisians. This extraordinary commander imagines that he will infuse a new courage in his troops by going about like a monk of La Trappe, saying to every one, ”Brother, we must die.”
Mr. Washburne received yesterday a despatch from his Government--the first which has reached him since the commencement of the siege--informing him that his conduct in remaining at Paris is approved of. With the despatch there came English newspapers up to the 3rd.
Extracts from them will, I presume, be published to-morrow. I pa.s.sed the afternoon greedily devouring the news at the American Legation. It was a curious sight--the Chancellerie was crowded with people engaged in the same occupation. There were several French journalists, opening their eyes very wide, under the impression that this would enable them to understand English. A Secretary of Legation was sitting at a table giving audiences to unnumbered ladies who wished to know how they could leave Paris; or, if this was impossible, how they could draw on their bankers in New York. Mr. Washburne walked about cheerily shaking everyone by the hand, and telling them to make themselves at home. How different American diplomatists are to the prim old women who represent us abroad, with a staff of half-a-dozen dandies helping each other to do nothing, who have been taught to regard all who are not of the craft as their natural enemies. At the English Emba.s.sy Colonel Claremont and a porter now represent the British nation. The former, in obedience to orders from the Foreign Office, is only waiting for a reply from Count Bismarck to his letter asking for a pa.s.s to leave us. Whether the numerous English who remain here are then to look to Mr. Washburne or to the porter for protection, I have been unable to discover.
M. Felix Pyat has been let out of prison. He says that he rather prefers being there than at liberty, for in his cell he can ”forget that he is in a town inhabited by cowards,” and devote himself to the works of M.
Louis Blanc, which he calls the ”Bibles of democracy.”
Although Trochu is neither a great general nor a great statesman, he is a gentleman. I am therefore surprised that he allows obscene caricatures of the Empress to be publicly sold in the streets and exhibited in the kiosks. During the time that she occupied the throne in this most scandal-loving town, no scandal was ever whispered against her. She was fond, it is true, of dress, but she was a good mother and a good wife.
Now that she and her friends are in exile, ”lives of the woman Bonaparte” are hawked about, which in England would bring their authors under Lord Campbell's statute. In one caricature she is represented stark naked, with Prince Joinville sketching her. In another, called ”the Spanish cow,” she is made a sort of female Centaur. In another she is dancing the Can-can, and throwing her petticoats over her head, before King William, who is drinking champagne, seated on a sofa, while her husband is in a cage hung up to the wall. These scandalous caricatures have not even the merit of being funny, they are a reflection upon French chivalry, and on that of Trochu. What would he say if the Government which succeeds him were to allow his own wife to be insulted in this cowardly manner?
Anything more dreary than the Boulevards now in the evening it is difficult to imagine. Only one street lamp in three is lighted, and the _cafes_, which close at 10.30, are put on half-allowance of gas. To mend matters, everyone who likes is allowed to put up a shed on the side walk to sell his goods, or to collect a crowd by playing a dirge on a fiddle.
The consequence is that the circulation is rendered almost impossible. I suggested to a high authority that the police ought at least to interfere to make these peripatetic musicians ”move on,” but he told me that, were they to do so, they would be accused of being ”Corsicans and Reactionaries.” These police are themselves most ludicrous objects; anyone coming here would suppose that they are members of some new sect of peripatetic philosophers; they walk about in pairs, arrayed in pea jackets with large hoods; and when it is wet they have umbrellas. Their business appears to be, never to interfere with the rights of their fellow-citizens to do what they please, and, so helpless do they look, that I believe if a child were to attack them, they would appeal to the pa.s.sers-by for protection.
I see in an English paper of the 3rd that it is believed at Versailles that we have only fresh meat for twelve days. We are not so badly off as that. How many oxen and cows there still are I do not know; a few days ago, however, I counted myself 1,500 in a large pen. The newspapers calculate that at the commencement of the siege there were 100,000 horses in Paris, and that there are now 70,000; 30,000 will be enough for the army, consequently 40,000 can be eaten. The amount of meat on each horse averages 500 lb., consequently we have twenty million pounds of fresh horse-flesh, a quant.i.ty which will last us for more than three months at the present rate of the meat consumption. These figures are, I think, very much exaggerated. I should say that there are not more than 40,000 horses now in Paris. The _Pet.i.tes Voitures_ (Cab) Company has 8,000, and offered to sell them to the Government a few days ago, but that proposal was declined. As regards salt meat, the Government keep secret the amount. It cannot, however, be very great, because it is only derived from animals which have been killed since the siege commenced.
The stock of flour, we are told, is practically unlimited, and as no attempt is made to prevent its waste in pasty and fancy cakes, the authorities are acting apparently on this a.s.sumption.
The health of Paris is far from satisfactory, and when the winter weather regularly sets in there will be much sickness. No one is absolutely starving, but many are without sufficient nourishment. The Government gives orders for 10c. worth of bread to all who are in want, and these orders are accepted as money by all the bakers. In each arrondiss.e.m.e.nt there are also what are called cantines economiques, where a mess of soup made from vegetables and a small quant.i.ty of meat can be bought for five centimes. Very little, however, has been done to distribute warm clothing among the poor, and when it is considered that above 100,000 persons have come into Paris from the neighbouring villages, most of whom are dependent upon public or private charity, it is evident that, even if there is no absolute want, there must be much suffering. Count Bismarck was not far wrong when he said that, if the siege be prolonged until our stock of provisions is exhausted, many thousands in the succeeding weeks will die of starvation. I would recommend those charitable persons who are anxious to come to the aid of this unfortunate country to be ready to throw provisions into Paris as soon as communications with England are reopened, rather than to subscribe their money to ambulances. All things considered, the wounded are well tended. In the hotel in which I am residing the Societe Internationale has established its headquarters. We have now 160 wounded here, and beds are prepared for 400. The ambulance occupies two stories, for which 500 francs a day are paid; and an arrangement has been made with the administration of the hotel to feed each convalescent for 2.50 francs per diem. As in all French inst.i.tutions, there appear to me to be far too many officials; the corridors are pervaded with young healthy men, with the red cross on their arms, who are supposed to be making themselves useful in some mysterious manner, but whose main object in being here is, I imagine, to s.h.i.+rk military service. The ambulance which is considered the best is the American. The wounded are under canvas, the tents are not cold, and yet the ventilation is admirable. The American surgeons are far more skilful in the treatment of gun-shot wounds than their French colleagues. Instead of amputation they practise resection of the bone. It is the dream of every French soldier, if he is wounded, to be taken to this ambulance. They seem to be under the impression that, even if their legs are shot off, the skill of the aesculapii of the United States will make them grow again. Be this as it may, a person might be worse off than stretched on a bed with a slight wound under the tents of the Far West.
The French have a notion that, go where you may, to the top of a pyramid or to the top of Mont Blanc, you are sure to meet an Englishman reading a newspaper; in my experience of the world, the American girl is far more inevitable than the Britisher; and, of course, under the Stars and Stripes which wave over the American tents she is to be found, tending the sick, and, when there is nothing more to be got for them, patiently reading to them or playing at cards with them. I have a great weakness for the American girl, she always puts her heart in what she is about.
When she flirts she does it conscientiously, and when she nurses a most uninviting-looking Zouave, or Franc-tireur, she does it equally conscientiously; besides, as a rule, she is pretty, a gift of nature which I am very far from undervaluing.
_November 16th._
It is reported in ”official circles” that a second pigeon has arrived with intelligence from the French Consul at Bale, that the Baden troops have been defeated, and that some of them have been obliged to seek refuge in Switzerland. The evident object of Trochu now is to get up the courage of our warriors to the sticking point for the grand sortie which is put off from day to day. The newspapers contain extracts from the English journals which came in the day before yesterday. By a process, in which we are adepts at believing everything which tells for us, and regarding everything which tells against us as a fabrication of perfidious Albion, we have consoled ourselves with the idea that ”the situation is far better than we supposed.” As for Bazaine, we cannot make up our minds whether we ought to call him a traitor or a hero. We therefore say as little about him as possible.
I have just come back from the southern outposts. The redoubts of Moulin Saqui and Hautes Bruyeres were firing heavily, and the Prussians were replying from Chatillon. Their shrapnell, however, fell short, just within our advanced line. From the sound of the guns, it was supposed that they were only using field artillery. The sailors insist that the enemy has been unable to place his siege-guns in position, and that our fire knocks their earthworks to pieces. I am inclined to think that behind these earthworks there are masked batteries, for surely the Prussian Engineer Officers cannot be amusing themselves with making earthworks for the mere pleasure of seeing them knocked to pieces.
Anyhow they are playing a deep game, for, as far as I can hear, they have not fired a single siege-gun yet, either against our redoubts or forts.
_November 19th._
Burke, in his work on the French Revolution, augured ill of the future of a country the greater number of whose legislators were lawyers. What would he have said of a Government composed almost exclusively of these objects of his political distrust? When history recounts the follies of the French Republic of 1870, I trust that it will not forget to mention that all the members of the Government, with the exception of one; six ministers; 13 under-secretaries of State; the Prefet of Police; 24 prefets and commissaries sent into the provinces; and 36 other high functionaries; belonged to the legal profession. The natural consequence of this is that we cannot get out of ”Nisi prius.” Our rulers are unable to take a large statesmanlike view of the situation. They live from hand to mouth, and never rise above the expedients and temporizing policy of advocates. They are perpetually engaged in appealing against the stern logic of facts to some imaginary tribunal, from which they hope to gain a verdict in favour of their clients. Like lawyers in England, they entered public life to ”get on.” This is still the first object of each one of them; and as they are deputies of Paris, they feel that, next to themselves, they owe allegiance to their electors. To secure the supremacy of Paris over the provinces, and of their own influence over Paris, is the Alpha and Omega of their political creed. With an eye to the future, each of them has his own journal; and when any decree is issued which is not popular, the public is given to understand in these semi-official organs, that every single member of the Government voted against it, although it pa.s.sed by a majority.
It is somewhat strange that the military man who, by the force of circ.u.mstances, is the President of this Devil's own Government is by nature more of a lawyer than even if he had been bred up to the trade.
His colleagues own in despair that he is their master in strength of lungs, and that when they split straws into two he splits them into four. In vain they fall back on their pens and indite letters and proclamations, their President out-letters and out-proclaims them.
Trochu is indeed a sort of military Ollivier. He earned his spurs as a military critic, Ollivier as a civil critic. Both are clever, and eminently respectable in their private relations, and both are verbose, unpractical, and wanting in plain common sense. Ollivier had a plan, and so has Trochu. Ollivier complained when his plan failed, that it was the fault of every one except himself, and Trochu is already doing the same.