Part 13 (1/2)

_December 25th._

Real Christmas weather--that is to say, the earth is as hard as a brickbat, and the wind freezes one to the very marrow. To the rich man, with a good coal fire in his grate, turkey, roast beef, plum pudding, and mince pies on his table, and his family gorging themselves on the solid eatables, a frost at Christmas is very pleasant. Poor people cowering in their rags before the door of a union, cold, hungry, and forlorn, or munching their dry bread in some cheerless garret, may not perhaps so fully appreciate its advantages; but then we all know that poor people never are contented, and seldom understand the fitness of things. Here in Paris, the numbed soldiers out in the open fields, and the women and children, who have no fires and hardly any food, bitterly complain of the ”seasonable” weather. With plenty of money, with warm clothes, and a good house, a hard frost has its charms, without them it is not quite so agreeable. For my part I confess that I never have seen a paterfamilias with his coat tails raised, basking himself before his fire, and prating about the delights of winter, and the healthy glow which is caused by a sharp frost, without feeling an irresistible desire to transplant him stark naked to the highest peak of Mont Blanc, in order to teach by experience what winter means to thousands of his fellow-creatures. We are not having a ”merry Christmas,” and we are not likely to have a happy new year. Christmas is not here the great holiday of the year, as it is in England. Still, everyone in ordinary times tries to have a better dinner than usual, and usually where there are children in a family some attempt is made to amuse them. Among the bourgeoisie they are told to put their shoes in the grate on Christmas-eve, and the next morning some present is found in them, which is supposed to have been left during the night by the Infant Jesus.

Since the Empire introduced English ways here, plum-pudding and mincepies have been eaten, and even Christmas-trees have flourished.

This year these festive shrubs, as an invention of the detested foe, have been rigidly tabooed. Plum-puddings and mincepies, too, will appear on few tables. In order to comfort the children, the girls are to be given soup tickets to distribute to beggars, and the boys are to have their choice between French and German wooden soldiers. The former will be treasured up, the latter will be subjected to fearful tortures. Even the midnight ma.s.s, which is usually celebrated on Christmas-eve, took place in very few churches last night. We have, indeed, too much on our hands to attend either to fasts or festivals, although in the opinion of the _Univers_, the last sortie would have been far more successful had it taken place on the 7th of the month, the anniversary of the promulgation of the Immaculate Conception. Among fine people New Year's-day is more of a fete than Christmas. Its approach is regarded with dark misgivings by many, for every gentleman is expected to make a call upon all the ladies of his acquaintance, and to leave them a box of sugarplums. This is a heavy tax upon those who have more friends than money--300fr. is not considered an extraordinary sum to spend upon these bonbonnieres. A friend of mine, indeed, a.s.sured me that he yearly spent 1000fr., but then he was a notorious liar, so very possibly he was not telling the truth. ”Thank Heaven,” says the men, ”at least we shall get off the sugarplum tax this year.” But the ladies are not to be done out of their rights this way, and they throw out very strong hints that if sugarplums are out of season, anything solid is very much in season. A dandy who is known to have a stock of sausages, is overwhelmed with compliments by his fair friends. A good leg of mutton would, I am sure, win the heart of the proudest beauty, and by the gift of half-a-dozen potatoes you might make a friend for life. The English here are making feeble attempts to celebrate Christmas correctly. In an English restaurant two turkeys had been treasured up for the important occasion, but unfortunately a few days ago they antic.i.p.ated their fate, and most ill-naturedly insisted upon dying. One fortunate Briton has got ten pounds of camel, and has invited about twenty of his countrymen to aid him in devouring this singular subst.i.tute for turkey. Another gives himself airs because he has some potted turkey, which is solemnly to be consumed to-day spread on bread. I am myself going to dine with the correspondent of one of your contemporaries. On the same floor as himself lives a family who left Paris before the commencement of the siege. Necessity knows no law; so the other day he opened their door with a certain amount of gentle violence, and after a diligent search, discovered in the larder two onions, some potatoes, and a ham. These, with a fowl, which I believe has been procured honestly, are to const.i.tute our Christmas dinner.

It is very strange what opposite opinions one hears about the condition of the poor. Some persons say that there is no distress, others that it cannot be greater. The fact is, the men were never better off, the women and children never so badly off. Every man can have enough to eat and too much to drink by dawdling about with a gun. As his home is cold and cheerless, when he is not on duty he lives at a pothouse. He brings no money to his wife and children, who consequently only just keep body and soul together by going to the national cantines, where they get soup, and to the Mairies, where they occasionally get an order for bread.

Almost all their clothes are in p.a.w.n, so how it is they do not positively die of cold I cannot understand. As for fuel even the wealthy find it difficult to procure it. The Government talks of cutting down all the trees and of giving up all the clothes in p.a.w.n; but, with its usual procrastination, it puts off both these measures from day to day.

This morning all the firewood was requisitioned. At a meeting of the Mayors of Paris two days ago, it was stated that above 400,000 persons are in receipt of parish relief.

The troops outside Paris are gradually being brought back inside. A trench has been dug almost continuously from Drancy to Aubervilliers, and an attempt has been made to approach Le Bourget by flying sap. The ground, is, however, so hard, that it is much like attempting to cut through a rock. To my mind the whole thing is merely undertaken in order to persuade the Parisians that something is being done. For the moment they are satisfied. ”The Prussians,” they say, ”have besieged us; we are besieging the Prussians now.” What they will say when they find that even these operations are suspended, I do not know. The troops have suffered terribly from the cold during these last few days. Twelve degrees of frost ”centigrade” is no joke. I was talking to some officers of Zouaves who had been twenty hours at the outposts. They said that during all this time they had not ventured to light a fire, and that this morning their wine and bread were both frozen. In the tents there are small stoves, but they give out little warmth. Even inside the deserted houses it is almost as cold as outside. The windows and the doors have been converted into firewood, and the wind whistles through them. The ambulance waggons of the Press alone have brought in nearly 500 men frost-bitten, or taken suddenly ill. From the batteries at Bondy and Avron there has been some sharp firing, the object of which has been to oblige the Prussians to keep inside the Forest of Bondy, and to disquiet them whenever they take to digging anywhere outside it. The plain of Avron is a very important position as it commands the whole country round. The end of Le Bourget, towards Paris appears entirely deserted. An ambulance cart went up to a barricade this morning which crosses the main street, when a Prussian sentinel emerged and ordered it to go back immediately. Behind Le Bourget, a little to the right, is a heavy Prussian battery at Le Blanc Mesnel which entirely commands it.

The Line and the Mobiles bitterly complain that they, and not the marching battalions, are exposed to every danger. The soldiers, and particularly those of the Mobiles, say that if they are to go on fighting for Paris, the Parisians must take their fair share in the battles. As for the marching battalions, they are, as soldiers, worth absolutely nothing. The idea of their a.s.saulting, with any prospect of success, any positions held by artillery, is simply ludicrous. The system of dividing an army into different categories, is subjected to a different discipline, is fatal for any united offensive operations. It is to be hoped that Trochu will at last perceive this, and limit his efforts to keeping the Prussians out of Paris, and hara.s.sing them by frequent and partial sorties. I hear that General Ducrot wanted to attempt a second a.s.sault of Le Bourget, but this was overruled at a council of war which was held on Thursday.

_December 26th._

The _Journal Officiel_ announces that military operations are over for the present, owing to the cold, and that the army is to be brought inside Paris, leaving outside only those necessary for the defence. This is a wise measure, although somewhat tardily taken. The Parisians will no doubt be very indignant; for if they do not like fighting themselves, they insist that the Line and the Mobiles should have no repose.

M. Felix Pyat gives the following account of Christmas in England:--”Christmas is the great English fete--the Protestant Carnival--an Anglo-Saxon gala--a gross, pagan, monstrous orgie--a Roman feast, in which the vomitorium is not wanting. And the eaters of 'bif'

laugh at us for eating frogs! Singular nation! the most Biblical and the most material of Europe--the best Christians and the greatest gluttons.

They cannot celebrate a religious fete without eating. On Holy Friday they eat buns, and for this reason they call it Good Friday. Good, indeed, for them, if not for G.o.d. They p.r.o.nounce messe ma.s.s, and boudin pudding. Their pudding is made of suet, sugar, currants, and tea. The mess is boiled for fifteen days, sometimes for six months; then it is considered delicious. No pudding, no Christmas. The repast is sacred, and the English meditate over it for six months in advance--they are the only people who put money in a savings'-bank for a dinner. Poor families economise for months, and take a s.h.i.+lling to a publican every Sat.u.r.day of the year, in return for which on Christmas Day they gorge themselves, and are sick for a week after. This is their religion--thus they adore their G.o.d.” M. Pyat goes on to describe the butchers' shops before Christmas; one of them, he says, is kept by a butcher clergyman, and over his door is a text.

The _Gaulois_ gives an extract of a letter of mine from a German paper, in which I venture to a.s.sert that the Parisians do not know that Champigny is within the range of the guns of their forts, and accompanies it with the following note:--”The journal which has fallen into our hands has been torn, and consequently we are unable to give the remainder of this letter. What we have given is sufficient to prove that our Government is tolerating within our walls correspondents who furnish the enemy with daily information. What they say is absurd, perhaps, but it ought not to be allowed.” Does the _Gaulois_ really imagine that the German generals would have raised the siege in despair had they not learnt that, as a rule, the Parisians do not study the map of the environs of the city?

Old Vinoy has issued an order of the day denouncing the conduct of the soldiers and officers who ran away when the Prussians issued from the cellars at Villa Evrard. It requires a great deal of courage just now to praise the Line, and to find fault with the National Guard. But General Vinoy is a thorough soldier, and stands no nonsense. If anything happens to Trochu, and he a.s.sumes the command-in-chief, I suspect the waverers of the National Guard will have to choose between fighting and taking off their uniforms. The General is above seventy--a hale and hearty old man; sticks to his profession, and utterly ignores politics. He has a most unsurrendering face, but I do not think that he would either hold out vain hopes to the Parisians, or flatter their vanity. He would tell them the truth, and with perfect indifference as to the consequences. He is a favourite both with the soldiers and the officers, and hardly conceals his contempt for the military capacity of Trochu, or the military qualities of Trochu's civic heroes.

_December 28th._

The proverbial obstinacy of the donkey has been introduced into our systems, owing to the number of these long-eared quadrupeds which we have eaten. We ”don't care” for anything. We don't care if the armies of the provinces have been beaten, we don't care if we have been forced to suspend offensive operations, we don't care if the Prussians bombard us, we don't care if eventually we have to capitulate. We have ceased to reason or to calculate. We are in the don't-care mood. How long this will last with so impulsive a people it is impossible to say. Our stomachs have become omnivorous; they digest anything now; and even if in the end they be invited to digest the leek, as we shall not be called upon to eat this vegetable either to-morrow or the next day, we don't care. The cold is terrible, and the absence of firewood causes great suffering. The Government is cutting down trees as fast as possible, and by the time it thaws there will be an abundance of fuel. In the meantime it denounces in the _Official Journal_ the bands of marauders who issue forth and cut down trees, park benches, and garden palings. I must say that I don't blame them. When the thermometer is as low as it is now, and when there is no fire in the grate, the sanct.i.ty of property as regards fuel becomes a mere abstraction. Yesterday the Prussians unmasked several batteries, and opened fire against the plateau of Avron and the eastern forts. They fired above 3000 sh.e.l.ls, but little damage was done. We had only thirty-eight killed and wounded. One sh.e.l.l fell into a house where eight people were dining and killed six of them. The firing is going on to-day, but not so heavily. The newspapers seem to be under the impression that we ought to rejoice greatly over this cannonade. Some say that it proves that the Prussians have given up in despair the idea of reducing us by famine; others that it is a clear evidence that Prince Frederick Charles has been beaten by General Chanzy. On Monday, Admiral La Ronciere received a letter from a general whose name could not be deciphered about an exchange of prisoners. In this letter there was an allusion to a defeat which our troops in the North had sustained. But this we consider a mere wile of our insidious foe.

The _Gaulois_ continues its crusade against the English Correspondents in Paris. They are all, it says, animated by a hostile feeling towards France. ”We give them warning, and we hope that they will profit by it.”

Now, we know pretty well what French journalists term a hostile feeling towards their country. We were told at the commencement of the war that the English press was sold to Prussia, because it declined to believe in the Imperial bulletins of victories. That a correspondent should simply tell the truth, without fear or favour, never enters into the mind of a Gaul. For my part, I confess that my sympathies are with France; and I am glad to hear, on so good authority, that these sympathies have not bia.s.sed my recital of events. Notwithstanding the denunciations of the _Gaulois_, I have not the remotest intention to describe the National Guards as a force of any real value for offensive operations. If, as the _Gaulois_ insists, they are more numerous and better armed than the Prussians, and if the French artillery is superior to the Prussians, they will be able to raise the siege; and then I will acknowledge that I have been wrong in my estimate of them. As yet they have only blown their own trumpets, as though this would cause the Prussian redoubts, like the walls of Jericho, to fall down. I make no imputation on their individual courage; but I say that this siege proves once more the truth of the fact, that unless citizen soldiers consent to merge for a time the citizen in the soldier, and to submit to discipline, as troops they are worthless. The _Gaulois_ wishes to antic.i.p.ate the historical romance which will, perhaps, be handed down to future generations. Posterity may, if it pleases, believe that the Parisians were Spartans, and that they fought with desperate valour outside their walls. I, who happen to see myself what goes on, know that all the fighting is done by the Line and the Mobiles, and that the Parisians are not Spartans. They are showing great tenacity, and suffering for the sake of the cause of their country many hards.h.i.+ps. That General Trochu should pander to their vanity, by telling them that they are able to cope outside with the Prussians, is his affair. I do not blame him. He best knows how to deal with his fellow-countrymen. I am not, however, under the necessity of following his example.

The usual stalls which appear at this season of the year have been erected on the Boulevards. They are filled with toys and New Year's gifts. But a woolly sheep is a bitter mockery, and a ”complete farmyard”

in green and blue wood only reminds one painfully of what one would prefer to see in the flesh. The customers are few and far between. I was looking to-day at a fine church in chalk, with real windows, price 6fr., and was thinking that one must be a Mark Tapley to buy it, and walk home with it under one's arm under present circ.u.mstances. Many of the stallkeepers have in despair deserted the toy business, and gone in for comforters, kepis, and list soles.

Until the weather set in so bitterly cold, elderly sportsmen, who did not care to stalk the human game outside, were to be seen from morning to night pursuing the exciting sport of gudgeon-fis.h.i.+ng along the banks of the Seine. Each one was always surrounded by a crowd deeply interested in the chase. Whenever a fish was hooked, there was as much excitement as when a whale is harpooned in more northern lat.i.tudes. The fisherman would play it for some five minutes, and then, in the midst of the solemn silence of the lookers-on, the precious capture would be landed. Once safe on the bank, the happy possessor would be patted on the back, and there would be cries of ”Bravo!” The times being out of joint for fis.h.i.+ng in the Seine, the disciples of Isaac Walton have fallen back on the sewers. The _Paris Journal_ gives them the following directions how to pursue their new game:--”Take a long, strong line, and a large hook, bait with tallow, and gently agitate the rod. In a few minutes a rat will come and smell the savoury morsel. It will be some time before he decides to swallow it, for his nature is cunning. When he does, leave him five minutes to meditate over it; then pull strongly and steadily. He will make convulsive jumps; but be calm, and do not let his excitement gain on you, draw him up, _et voila votre diner_.”

_December 29th._

So we have withdrawn from the plateau of Avron. Our artillery, says the _Journal Officiel_, could not cope with the Krupp cannons, and, therefore, it was thought wise to withdraw them. The fire which the Prussians have rained for the last two days upon this position has not been very destructive of human life. It is calculated that every man killed has cost the Prussians 24,000lbs. of iron. We are still speculating upon the reasons which induced the Prussians at last to become the a.s.sailants. That they wished to drive us from this plateau, which overlooks many of their positions, is far too simple an explanation to meet with favour. The _Verite_ of this morning contains an announcement that a Christmas Session of the House of Commons has turned out Mr. Gladstone by a hostile vote, and that he has been succeeded by a ”War Minister.” We are inclined to think that the Prussians, being aware of this, have been attempting to terrify us, in order that we may surrender before Sir Disraeli and Milord Pakington come to our rescue. The Parisians, intelligent and clever as they are, are absolutely wanting in plain common sense. I am convinced that if 500 of them were boiled down, it would be impossible to extract from the stew as much of this homely, but useful quality, as there is in the skull of the dullest tallow-chandler's apprentice in London.

The vital question of food is now rarely alluded to in the journals. The Government is, however, called to task for not showing greater energy, and the feeling against the unfortunate Trochu is growing stronger. He is held responsible for everything--the frost, the dearth of food, the ill-success of our sorties, and the defeats of the armies of succour. I am sorry for him, for he is a well-meaning man, although unfitted for such troubled waters. But to a great extent he has himself to thank for what is occurring. He has risked his all upon the success of his plan, and he has encouraged the notion that he could force the Prussians to raise the siege. In the meantime no one broaches the question as to what is to be done when our provisions fail. The members of the Government still keep up the theory that a capitulation is an impossible contingency. The nearer the fatal moment approaches the less anyone speaks of it, just as a man, when he is growing old, avoids the subject of death. Frenchmen have far more physical than civic courage. They prefer to shut their eyes to what is unpleasant than to grapple with it.

How long our stores of flour will last it is difficult to say, but if our rulers wait to treat until they are exhausted, they will perforce be obliged to accept any terms; and, for no satisfactory object, they will be the cause that many will starve before the town can be revictualled.

They call this, here, sublime. I call it folly. Its sublimity is beyond me. As is the case with a sick man given over by the physicians, the quacks are ready with their nostrums. The Ultra journals recommend that the Government should be handed over to a commune. The Ultra clubs demand that all generals and colonels should be cas.h.i.+ered, and others elected in their place. One club has subscribed 1,600frs. for Greek fire; another club suggests blowing up the Hotel de Ville; another sending a deputation clothed in white to offer the King of Prussia the presidency of the Universal Republic; another--and this comes home to me--pa.s.sed a vote yesterday evening demanding the immediate arrest of all English correspondents.

I am looking forward with horrible misgivings to the moment when I shall have no more money, so that perhaps I shall be thankful for being lodged and fed at the public expense. My banker has withdrawn from Paris, and his representative declines to look at my bill, although I offer ruinous interest. As for friends, they are all in a like condition, for no one expected the siege to last so long. At my hotel, need I observe that I do not pay my bill, but in hotels the guests may ring in vain now for food. I sleep on credit in a gorgeous bed, a pauper. The room is large.

I wish it were smaller, for the firewood comes from trees just cut down, and it takes an hour to get the logs to light, and then they only smoulder, and emit no heat. The thermometer in my grand room, with its silken curtains, is usually at freezing point. Then my clothes--I am seedy, very seedy. When I call upon a friend, the porter eyes me distrustfully. In the streets the beggars never ask me for alms; on the contrary, they eye me suspiciously when I approach them, as a possible compet.i.tor. The other day I had some newspapers in my hand, an old gentleman took one from me and paid me for it. I had read it, so I pocketed the halfpence. My wardrobe is scanty, like the sage _omnia mea mec.u.m porto_. I had been absent from Paris before the siege, and I returned with a small bag. It is difficult to find a tailor who will work, and even if he did I could not send him my one suit to mend, for what should I wear in the meantime? Decency forbids it. My pea jacket is torn and threadbare, my trousers are frayed at the bottom, and of many colours--like Joseph's coat. As for my linen, I will only say that the washerwomen have struck work, as they have no fuel. I believe my s.h.i.+rt was once white, but I am not sure. I invested a few weeks ago in a pair of cheap boots. They are my torment. They have split in various places, and I wear a pair of gaiters--purple, like those of a respectable ecclesiastic, to cover the rents. I bought them on the Boulevard, and at the same stall I bought a bright blue handkerchief which was going cheap; this I wear round my neck. My upper man resembles that of a dog-stealer, my lower man that of a bishop. My b.u.t.tons are turning my hair grey. When I had more than one change of raiment these appendages remained in their places, now they drop off as though I were a moulting fowl. I have to pin myself together elaborately, and whenever I want to get anything out of my pocket I have cautiously to unpin myself, with the dread of falling to pieces before my eyes. For my food, I allowance myself, in order to eke out as long as possible my resources. I dine and breakfast at a second-cla.s.s restaurant. Cat, dog, rat, and horse are very well as novelties, but taken habitually, they do not a.s.similate with my inner man. Horse, doctors say, is heating; I only wish it would heat me. I give this description of my existence, as it is that of many others. Those who have means, and those who have none, unless these means are in Paris, row in the same boat.