Part 12 (1/2)
_December 15th._
Still no news from the outer world. I trust that M. Jansen, who was dispatched the other day in a balloon to witness the eclipse of the sun, will be more fortunate in his endeavours to discover what is going on in that luminary, than we are in ours to learn what is happening within twenty miles of us. Search has been made to find the peasant who announced that he had seen a French army at Corbeil, but this remarkable agriculturist is not forthcoming. Persons at the outposts say that they heard cannon in the direction of Fontainebleau, when they put their ears to the ground, but none believe them. Four officers, who were taken prisoners on the 12th of the month near Orleans, have been sent in, as an exchange for the Prussian officers who were insulted at a restaurant, but they are so stupid that it has been impossible to glean anything from them except that their division was fighting when they were taken prisoners. A dead, apathetic torpor has settled over the town. Even the clubs are deserted. There are no groups of gossips in the streets. No one clamours for a sortie, and no one either blames or praises Trochu.
The newspapers still every morning announce that victory is not far off.
But their influence is gone. The belief that the evil day cannot be far off is gradually gaining ground, and those who are in a position to know more accurately the precise state of affairs, take a still more hopeless view of them than the ma.s.ses. The programme of the Government seems to be this--to make a sortie in a few days, then to fall back beneath the forts; after this to hold out until the provisions are eaten up, and then, after having made a final sortie, to capitulate. Trochu is entirely in the hands of Ducrot, who, with the most enterprising of the officers, insists that the military honour of the French arms demands that there should be more fighting, even though success be not only improbable but impossible. The other day, in a council of war, Trochu began to speak of the armies of the provinces. ”I do not care for your armies of the provinces,” replied Ducrot. Poor Trochu, like many weak men, must rely upon some one. First it was the neutrals, then it was the armies of the provinces, and now it is Ducrot. As for his famous plan, that has entirely fallen through. It was based, I understand, upon some impossible manoeuvres to the north of the Marne. The members of the Government of National Defence meddle little with the direction of affairs. M. Picard is openly in favour of treating at once. M. Jules Favre is very downcast; he too wishes to treat, but he cannot bring himself to consent to a cession of territory. Another member of the Government was talking yesterday to a friend of mine. He seemed to fear that when the people learn that the stock of provisions is drawing to a close, there will be riots. The Government dares not tell them the truth. Several members of the Government, I hear, intend to leave shortly in balloons, and Trochu, as military Governor of Paris, will be left to his own devices. He himself says that he never will sign a capitulation, and it is suggested that when there is no more food, the Prussians shall be allowed to enter without opposition, without any terms having been previously agreed to. The Parisians are now contending for their supremacy over the provinces, and they seem to think that if they only hold out until famine obliges them to give in, that supremacy will not hereafter be disputed.
It is impossible to give precise data respecting the store of provisions now in Paris, nor even were I able would it be fair to do so. As a matter of private opinion, however, I do not think that it will be possible to prolong the resistance beyond the first week in January at the latest. Last Sunday there were incipient bread-riots. By one o'clock all the bakers had closed their shops in the outer faubourg. There had been a run upon them, because a decree had been issued in the morning forbidding flour to be sold, and requisitioning all the biscuits in stock. Government immediately placarded a declaration that bread was not going to be requisitioned, and the explanation of the morning's decree is that flour and not corn has run short, but that new steam-mills are being erected to meet the difficulty. _La Verite_, a newspaper usually well informed, says that for some days past the flour which had been stored in the town by M. Clement Duvernois has been exhausted, and that we are now living on the corn and meal which was introduced at the last moment from the neighbouring departments. It gives the following calculation of our resources--flour three weeks, corn three months, salt meat fifteen days, horse two months. The mistake of all these calculations seems to be that they do not take into account the fact that more bread or more corn will be eaten when they become the sole means of providing for the population. Thus the daily return of flour sold in Paris is about one-third above the average. The reason is simple, and yet it seems to occur to no one. French people, more particularly the poorer cla.s.ses, can exist upon much less than Englishmen; but the prospect for any one blessed with a good appet.i.te is by no means rea.s.suring. In the Rue Blanche there is a butcher who sells dogs, cats, and rats. He has many customers, but it is amusing to see them sneak into the shop after carefully looking round to make sure that none of their acquaintances are near. A prejudice has arisen against rats, because the doctors say that their flesh is full of trichinae. I own for my part I have a guilty feeling when I eat dog, the friend of man. I had a slice of a spaniel the other day, it was by no means bad, something like lamb, but I felt like a cannibal. Epicures in dog flesh tell me that poodle is by far the best, and recommend me to avoid bull dog, which is coa.r.s.e and tasteless. I really think that dogs have some means of communicating with each other, and have discovered that their old friends want to devour them. The humblest of street curs growls when anyone looks at him. _Figaro_ has a story that a man was followed for a mile by a party of dogs barking fiercely at his heels. He could not understand to what their attentions were due, until he remembered that he had eaten a rat for his breakfast. The friend of another journalist, who ate a dog called Fox, says that whenever anyone calls out ”Fox” he feels an irresistible impulse which forces him to jump up. As every Christmas a number of books are published containing stories about dogs as remarkable as they are stale, I recommend to their authors these two veracious tales. Their veracity is guaranteed by Parisian journalists.
Can better evidence be required?
We are already discussing who will be sent to Germany. We suppose that the army and the Mobiles, and perhaps the officers of the National Guard will have to make the journey. One thing, I do hope that the Prussians will convey across the Rhine all the Parisian journalists, and keep them there until they are able to pa.s.s an elementary examination in the literature, the politics, the geography, and the domestic economy of Germany. A little foreign travel would do these blind leaders of the blind a world of good, and on their return they would perhaps have cleared their minds of their favourite delusion that civilization is co-terminous with the frontiers of France.
How M. Picard provides for the financial requirements of his colleagues is a mystery. The cost of the siege amounts in hard cash to about 20,000,000. To meet the daily draw on the exchequer no public loan has been negotiated, and nothing is raised by taxation. The monthly instalments which have been paid on the September loan cannot altogether amount to very much, consequently the greater portion of this large sum can only have been obtained by a loan from the bank and by _bons de tresor_ (exchequer bills). What the proportion between the bank loan and the _bons de tresor_ in circulation is I am unable to ascertain. M.
Picard, like all finance ministers, groans daily over the cost of the prolongation of the siege, and it certainly appears a very doubtful question whether France will really benefit by Paris living at its expense for another month.
Military matters remain _in statu quo_. The army is camped in the wood of Vincennes. The forts occasionally fire. The Prussians seem to be of opinion that our next sortie will be in the plain of Genevilliers, as they are working hard on their fortifications along their lines between St. Denis and St. Cloud, and they have replaced the levies of the smaller States by what we call here ”real” Prussians. Our engineer officers consider that the Prussians have three lines of investment, the first comparatively weak, the second composed of strategical lines, by which a force of 40,000 men can be brought on any point within two hours; the third consisting of redoubts, which would prevent artillery getting by them. To invest a large town, say our officers, is not so difficult a task as it would appear at first sight. Artillery can only move along roads, and consequently all that is necessary is to occupy the roads solidly. General Blanchard has been removed from his command, and is to be employed in the Third Army under Vinoy. His dispute with Ducrot arose from a remark which the latter made respecting officers who did not remain with their men after a battle; and as Blanchard had been in Paris the day before, he took this general stricture to himself.
Personalities of a very strong nature were exchanged between the two warriors, and it was thought well that henceforward they should, as much as possible, be kept apart. General Fave also, who commanded the redoubt near Joinville, which arrested the advance of the Prussians on the second battle of Villiers, has ”had words.” It appears that he declined to obey an order which was forwarded to him, on the ground of its absurdity, saying that he was responsible to his conscience.
Indiscipline has been the curse of the French army since the commencement of the war, and it will continue to be so to the end.
During the siege there have been many individual traits of heroism, but the armed force has been little better than a mob, and Trochu has not had the moral courage to enforce his will on his generals. Ducrot says that he is determined to take the war battalions of the National Guards under fire at the next sortie, but whether he will succeed remains to be seen. In these marching battalions there are undoubtedly many brave men, but both officers and soldiers are inexperienced, and when they see men falling before them, struck down by an invisible enemy, they lose all presence of mind.
I do not think, as far as regards the Parisians, Count Bismarck is right in his opinion that the French will for many years to come attempt to reverse the verdict of the present war. The Parisian bourgeois is fond of saving money. As long as war meant a military promenade of the army across the Rhine, followed by a triumphal entry into Paris, he was by no means averse to it, for he considered that a French victory reflected itself on him, and made him a hero in the eyes of the world. Now, however, that he has discovered that there is a reverse to this picture, and that it may very possibly mean ruin to himself, he will be very cautious before he again risks the hazard of the die. Should the disasters of France result in the emanc.i.p.ation of the provinces from the rule of Paris, they will be a positive benefit to the nation. If the thirty-eight million Frenchmen outside Paris are such fools as to allow themselves to be ruled by the two million amiable, ignorant, bragging humbugs who are within it, France will most deservedly cease to be a power of Europe. If this country is to recover from the ruin in which it is overwhelmed it is absolutely essential that Paris should cease to be its political capital, and that the Parisians should not have a greater share in moulding its future policy than they are numerically ent.i.tled to.
CHAPTER XIV.
_December 18th._
Prisoners have before now endeavoured to while away their long hours of captivity by watching spiders making their webs. I can understand this.
In the dreary monotony of this dreariest of sieges a spider would be an event. But alas, the spider is outside, and we are the flies caught in his toils. Never did time hang so heavily on human beings as it hangs on us. Every day seems to have twice the usual number of hours. I have ceased to wind up my watch for many a week. I got tired of looking at it; and whether it is ten in the morning or two in the afternoon is much the same to me; almost everyone has ceased to shave; they say that a razor so near their throats would be too great a temptation. Some have married to avoid active service, others to pa.s.s the time. ”When I knew that there was an army between my wife and myself,” observed a cynic to me yesterday, ”I rejoiced, but even the society of my wife would be better than this.” There is a hideous old woman, like unto one of Macbeth's witches, who makes my bed. I had a horrible feeling that some day or other I should marry her, and I have been considerably relieved by discovering that she has a husband and several olive branches. Here is my day. In the morning the boots comes to call me. He announces the number of deaths which have taken place in the hotel during the night.
If there are many he is pleased, as he considers it creditable to the establishment. He then relieves his feelings by shaking his fist in the direction of Versailles, and exit growling ”Canaille de Bismarck.” I get up. I have breakfast--horse, _cafe au lait_--the _lait_ chalk and water--the portion of horse about two square inches of the n.o.ble quadruped. Then I buy a dozen newspapers, and after having read them, discover that they contain nothing new. This brings me to about eleven o'clock. Friends drop in, or I drop in on friends. We discuss how long it is to last--if friends are French we agree that we are sublime. At one o'clock get into the circular railroad, and go to one or other of the city gates. After a discussion with the National Guards on duty, pa.s.s through. Potter about for a couple of hours at the outposts; try with gla.s.s to make out Prussians; look at bombs bursting; creep along the trenches; and wade knee deep in mud through the fields. The Prussians, who have grown of late malevolent even toward civilians, occasionally send a ball far over one's head. They always fire too high.
French soldiers are generally cooking food. They are anxious for news, and know nothing about what is going on. As a rule they relate the episode of some _combat d'avantposte_ which took place the day before.
The episodes never vary. 5 P.M.--Get back home; talk to doctors about interesting surgical operations; then drop in upon some official to interview him about what is doing. Official usually first mysterious, then communicative, not to say loquacious, and abuses most people except himself. 7 P.M.--Dinner at a restaurant; conversation general; almost everyone in uniform. Still the old subjects--How long will it last? Why does not Gambetta write more clearly? How sublime we are; what a fool everyone else is. Food scanty, but peculiar. At Voisins to-day the bill of fare was a.s.s, horse, and English wolf from the Zoological Garden. A Scotchman informed me that this latter was a fox of his native land, and patriotically gorged himself with it. I tried it, and not being a Scotchman, found it horrible, and fell back upon the patient a.s.s. After dinner, potter on the Boulevards under the dispiriting gloom of petroleum; go home and read a book. 12 P.M.--Bed. They nail up the coffins in the room just over mine every night, and the tap, tap, tap, as they drive in the nails, is the pleasing music which lulls me to sleep. Now, I ask, after having endured this sort of thing day after day for three months, can I be expected to admire Geist, Germany, or Mr.
Matthew Arnold? I sigh for a revolution, for a bombardment, for an a.s.sault, for anything which would give us a day's excitement.
I enclose you Gambetta's latest pigeon despatch. His style is so grandiloquently vague that we can make neither head nor tail of it. We cannot imagine what has become of Aurelles de Paladine and of the army of Keratry. The optimists say that Gambetta means that Bourbaki and Chanzy have surrounded Frederick Charles; the pessimists, that Frederick Charles has got between them. The general feeling seems to be that the provinces are doing more than was expected of them, but that they will fail to succour us. Here some of the newspapers urge Trochu to make a sortie, in order to prevent reinforcements being sent to Frederick Charles, others deprecate it as a useless waste of life. General Clement Thomas, who succeeded Tamisier about a month ago in the command of the National Guards, seems to be the right man in the right place. He is making great efforts to convert these citizens into soldiers, and stands no nonsense. Not a day pa.s.ses without some patriotic captain being tried by court-martial for drunkenness or disobedience. If a battalion misbehaves itself, it is immediately gibbeted in the order of the day.
The newspapers cry out against this. They say that Clement Thomas forgets that the National Guards are his children, and that dirty linen ought to be washed at home. ”If this goes on, posterity,” they complain, ”will say that we were little more than a mob of undisciplined drunkards.” I am afraid that Clement Thomas will not have time to carry out his reforms; had they been commenced earlier, there is no reason why Paris should not have had on foot 100,000 good troops.
Mr. Herbert tells me that there are now above 1,000 persons on the English fund, and that every week there are about 30 new applications.
Unknown and mysterious English emerge from holes and corners every day.
Mr. Herbert thinks that there cannot be less than 3,000 of them still in Paris, almost all dest.i.tute. The French Government sold him a short time ago 30,000 lbs. of rice, and this, with the chocolate and Liebig which he has in hand will last him for about three weeks. If the siege goes on longer it is difficult to know how all these poor people will live.
Funds are not absolutely wanting, but it is doubtful whether even with money it will be possible to buy anything beyond bread, if that. Mr.
Herbert thinks that it would be most desirable to send, if possible, a provision of portable food, such as Liebig's extract of meat, as near to Paris as possible; so that, whenever the siege ceases, it may at once be brought into the town, as otherwise it is very probable that many of these English will die of starvation before food can reach them. It does seem to me perfectly monstrous that for years we should have, in addition to an Emba.s.sy, kept a Consul here, and that he should have been allowed to go off on leave to some watering place at the very moment at which his services were most required. When the Emba.s.sy left, a sort of deputy-consul remained here; but with a perfect ingenuity of stupidity, the Foreign-office officials ordered this gentleman to withdraw with Mr.
Wodehouse, the secretary. Heine said of his fellow-countrymen, ”they are born stupid, and a bureaucratic education makes them wicked.” Had he been an Englishman instead of a Prussian he would have said the same, and with even more truth, of certain persons who, not for worlds would I name, but who do not reside 100 miles from Downing-street.