Part 15 (2/2)

He appears, however, to have failed in taking La Celle St. Cloud, and from thence flanking La Bergerie, and marching on Garches. Everything is consequently very much where it was this morning before the engagement took place. It has been the old story. The Prussians did not defend their first line, but fell back on their fixed batteries, there keeping up a heavy fire until reinforcements had had time to be brought up. More troops are ordered out for to-morrow; so I presume that the battle is to be renewed. If it ends in a defeat, the consequences will be serious, for the artillery can only be brought back to Paris by one bridge. The wounded are numerous. In the American ambulance, which is close by in the Champs Elysees, there are about seventy. In the Grand Hotel they are arriving every moment. The National Guard at Buzenval behaved very fairly under fire. Many of them had not been above a few days in uniform. Their officers were in many cases as inexperienced as the men.

During the fight entire companies were wandering about looking for their battalions, and men for their companies. As citizen soldiers they did their best, and individually they were made of good stuff; but the moral is--do not employ citizen soldiers for offensive operations. When I returned into the town at about 5 o'clock this afternoon, the peninsula of Gennevilliers resembled the course at Epsom on a wet Derby Day. To my civilian eyes, cavalry, artillery, and infantry, seemed to be in inextricable confusion.

This morning the bread was rationed all over the city. No one is to have more than 300 grammes per diem; children only 150. I recommend anyone who has lived too high to try this regime for a week. It will do him good. No costermonger's donkey is so overloaded as the stomachs of most rich people. The Government on December 12 solemnly announced that the bread never would be rationed. This measure, therefore, looks to me very much like the beginning of the end. A perquisition is also being made in search of provisions in the apartments of all those who have quitted Paris. Another sign of the end. But it is impossible to know on how little a Frenchman can live until the question has been tested. I went yesterday into the house of a friend of mine, in the Avenue de l'Imperatrice, which is left in charge of a servant, and found three families, driven out of their homes by the bombardment, installed in it--one family, consisting of a father, a mother, and three children, were boiling a piece of horse meat, about four inches square, in a bucket full of water. This exceedingly thin soup was to last them for three days. The day before they had each had a carrot. The bread is scarce because the supply ceases before the demand in most quarters, so that those who come last get none. My friend's servant was giving a dinner to the English coachman. The sole dish was a cat with mice round it. I tasted one of the latter, crunching the bones as if it had been a lark. I can recommend mice, when nothing more substantial is to be obtained.

I hear that a pigeon has arrived this evening. Its despatch has not yet been published. The ”traitor-mania” still rages. Last night at the Belleville Club an orator announced an awful discovery--the bread was being poisoned by traitors. The Correspondent of one of your contemporaries, having heard that he had been accused of being a Prussian spy, went to-day to the Prefect of the Police. This august being told him that he did not suspect him, and then showed him a file of papers duly docketed relating to each London paper which is represented here. For my part, although I have not failed to blame what I thought blameable, and although I have not gone into ecstacies over the bombastic nonsense which is the legacy of the vile despotism to which the French were foolish enough to submit for twenty years, and which has vitiated the national character, I have endeavoured in my correspondence to be, as far as was consistent with truth, ”to all their virtues very kind, to all their faults a little blind.”

_January 20th._

This morning several fresh regiments of National Guards were ordered to march out to the Peninsula of Gennevilliers. I accompanied one of them; but when we got into Neuilly a counter-order came, and they were marched back. Every house in Neuilly and Courbevoie was full of troops, and regiments were camping out in the fields, where they had pa.s.sed the night without tents. Many of the men had been so tired that they had thrown themselves down in the mud, which was almost knee-deep, and thus fallen asleep with their muskets by their sides. Bitter were the complaints of the commissariat. Bread and _eau de vie_ were at a high premium. Many of the men had thrown away their knapsacks, with their loaves strapped to them, during the action, and these were now the property of the Prussians. It is impossible to imagine a more forlorn and dreary scene. Some of the regiments--chiefly those which had not been in the action--kept well together; but there were a vast number of stragglers wandering about looking for their battalions and their companies. At about twelve o'clock it became known that the troops were to re-enter Paris, and that the battle was not to be renewed; and at about one the march through the gate of Neuilly commenced, colours flying and music playing, as though a victory had been won. I remained there some time watching the crowd that had congregated at each side of the road. Most of the lookers on appeared to be in a condition of blank despair. They had believed so fully that the grand sortie must end in a grand victory, that they could hardly believe their eyes when they saw their heroes returning into Paris, instead of being already at Versailles. There were many women anxiously scanning the lines of soldiers as they pa.s.sed by, and asking every moment whether some relative had been killed. As I came home down the Champs Elysees it was full of knots of three and four soldiers, who seemed to consider that it was a waste of time and energy to keep up with their regiments.

In the evening papers the despatch announcing the defeat of Chanzy has been published, and a request from Trochu to General Schmitz to apply at once for an armistice of two days to bury the dead. ”The fog,” he adds, ”is very dense,” and certainly this fog appears to have got into the worthy man's brain. Almost all the wounded have already been picked up by the French and the Prussian ambulances. Nearly all the dead are in what are now the Prussian lines, and will no doubt be buried by them. In the afternoon, as a suspension of arms for two hours was agreed to, our ambulances pushed forward, and brought back a few wounded, but not many.

Most of those who had fallen in the Prussian lines had already been moved, their officers said, to St. Germain and St. Cloud, where they would be cared for. At three P.M. Jules Favre summoned the Mayors to a consultation, and General Trochu also came in to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for half an hour, and then returned to Valerien. The feeling against him is very strong. It is said that he has offered to resign; and I think it very probable that he will be the Jonah thrown out to the whale. But will this sacrifice save the s.h.i.+p? All the Generals are roundly abused. Indeed, in France there is no medium between the Capitol and the Tarpeian Rock. A man who is not a victor must be a traitor. That undisciplined National Guards fresh from their shops, should be unable to carry by a.s.sault batteries held by German troops, is a thing which never can be admitted. If they fail to do this, it is the fault of their leaders. Among those who were killed yesterday is M. Regnault, the painter who obtained at the last salon, the gold medal for his picture of ”Salome.” He went into action with a card on his breast, on which he had written his name and the address of the young lady to whom he was engaged to be married. When the brancardiers picked him up, he had just strength to point to this address. Before they could carry him there he was dead. But the most painful scene during the battle was the sight of a French soldier who fell by French b.a.l.l.s. He was a private in the 119th Battalion, and refused to advance. His commander remonstrated. The private shot him. General Bellemare, who was near, ordered the man to be killed at once. A file was drawn up and fired on him; he fell, and was supposed to be dead. Some brancardiers soon afterwards pa.s.sing by, and thinking that he had been wounded in the battle, placed him on a stretcher. It was then discovered that he was still alive. A soldier went up to him to finish him off, but his gun missed fire. He was then handed another, when he blew out the wretched man's brains. From all I can learn from the people connected with the different ambulances, our loss yesterday does not amount to above 2000 killed and wounded. Most of the newspapers estimate it far higher. At Buzenval, where the only really sharp fighting took place, an officer who was in command tells me that there were about 300 killed. For the sake of humanity, it is to be hoped that we shall have no more of these blind sorties. The French get through the first Prussian lines; they are then arrested by the fire of the batteries from the second line; reinforcements are brought up by the enemy; and the well-known movement to the rear commences. ”Our losses,”

say the official reports the next morning, ”are great; those of the enemy enormous. Our troops fought with distinguished valour, but----”

_January 21st._

It was so wet last night that there were but few groups of people on the Boulevards. At the clubs Trochu was universally denounced. Almost every one is now in despair. Of what use, they say, are the victories of Bourbaki; he cannot be here in time. We had pinned our faith on Chanzy, and the news of his defeat, coupled with our own, has almost extinguished every ray of hope in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s even of the most hopeful.

The Government, it is thought, is preparing the public mind for a capitulation. _La Liberte_, until now its strongest supporter, bitterly complains that it should publish the truth! Chandordy's despatch went first to Jules Favre. He stood over the man who was deciphering it. When he read the opening sentence, ”Un grand malheur,” he refused to read more, and sent it undeciphered to Trochu. When it reached the Governor, no one on his staff could decipher it, so it had to be returned to the Foreign-office. The moment for the quacks is at hand. A ”General” offers to raise the siege if he be given 50,000 men. A magician offers a sh.e.l.l which will destroy the Prussians root and branch. M. Felix Pyat, in his organ, observes that Sparta never was taken, and that the Spartans used to eat in common. He proposes, therefore, as a means to free Paris, that a series of public suppers should be inaugurated. I can only say that I hope that they may be, for I certainly shall attend. Even Spartan broth would be acceptable. The bread is all but uneatable. If you put it in water, straw and bits of hay float about. A man, who ought to know, solemnly a.s.sured me this morning that we had only food for six days; but then men who ought to know are precisely those who know nothing. I do not think that we are so badly off as this; but the end is a question no longer of months, but of days, and very soon it will be of hours. Those who desire a speedy capitulation are called _les capitulards_, and they are in a majority of nine to one. There are still many who clamour for a grand sortie, but most of those who do so, are persons who, by no possibility, can themselves share in the operation. The street orators are still at poor Jonah Trochu, and their hearers seem to agree with them. These sages, however, do not explain who is to replace him. Some of the members of the Government, I hear, suggest an admiral; but what admiral would accept this _d.a.m.nosa haereditas_? Among the generals, each has his partisans, and each seems to be of opinion that he himself is a mighty man of war, and all the others fools. Both Vinoy and Ducrot declined to attend the Council of War which sat before the late sortie.

They were generals of division, they said, and they would obey orders, but they would accept no further responsibilities. Ducrot, who was the _fidus Achates_ of Trochu, is no longer in his good graces. The _Reveil_ of this afternoon, which is usually well-informed on all matters which concern our Mayors, gives the following account of the meeting of yesterday: ”At three o'clock the meeting took place in the presence of all the members of the Government. M. Trochu declared formally that he would fight no more. M. Favre said that the Government was 'disappearing.' M. Favre proposed that the Government should give up its power to the Mayors. The Mayors refused. The discussion was very violent. Several propositions, one more absurd than another, were brought forward by some of the members of the Government. They were not discussed. As usual, the meeting broke up without any result.” The best man they have is Vinoy; he is honest, disinterested, and determined. It is to be hoped that if Trochu resigns, he will take his place.

_January 22nd._

So poor Jonah has gone over, and been swallowed up by the whale. He still remains the head of the civil government, but it only is as a figure-head. He is an upright man; but as a military chief he has proved himself a complete failure. He was a man of plans, and never could alter the details of these plans to suit a change of circ.u.mstances. What his grand plan was, by which Paris was to be saved, no one now, I presume, ever will know. The plans of his sorties were always elaborately drawn up; each divisional commander was told in the minutest details what he was to do. Unfortunately, General Moltke usually interfered with the proper development of these details--a proceeding which always surprised poor Trochu--and in the account the next day of his operations, he would dwell upon the fact as a reason for his want of success. That batteries should be opened upon his troops, and that reinforcements should be brought up against them, were trifles--probable as they might seem to most persons--which filled him with an indignant astonishment. At the last sortie Ducrot excuses himself for being late at La Malmaison because he found the road by which he had been ordered to advance occupied by a long line of artillery, also there by Trochu's orders.

General Vinoy, who has replaced him, is a hale old soldier about seventy years old. He has risen from the ranks, and in the Crimea was a very intimate friend of Lord Clyde. When the latter came, a few years before his death, to Paris, the English Amba.s.sador had prepared a grand breakfast for him, and had gone to the station to meet him. On the platform was also Vinoy, who also had prepared breakfast for his old comrade in arms; and this breakfast, very much to the disgust of the diplomatist, Lord Clyde accepted. General Vinoy has to-day issued a proclamation to the troops, which in its plain, simple, modest language contrasts very favourably with the inflated bombast in which his predecessor was so great an adept.

The newspapers are already commencing to prove to their own satisfaction that the battle of last Thursday was not a defeat, but an ”incomplete victory.” As for the National Guard, one would suppose that every one of them had been in the action, and that they were only prevented from carrying everything before them by the timidity of their generals. The wonderful feats which many of these heroes have told me they performed would lead one to suppose that Napoleon's old Guard was but a flock of sheep in comparison with them. I cannot help thinking that by a certain indistinctness of recollection they attribute to themselves every exploit, not only that they saw, but that their fertile imaginations have ever dreamt to be possible. In all this nonsense they are supported by the newspapers, who think more of their circulation than of truth. To read the accounts of this battle one would suppose that neither the Line nor the Mobiles had been in it. A caricature now very popular represents a lion in the uniform of a National Guard held back by two donkeys in the uniforms of generals, and vainly endeavouring to rush upon a crowd of terrified Germans. As a matter of fact--about 5,000 National Guards were in the thick of it--the men behaved tolerably well, and many of the officers very well. The great majority of the marching battalions which were in the peninsula ”did not give,” to use the French phrase; and some of them, notwithstanding the efforts of their officers, were unable to remain steady as soon as the Prussian bombs reached them. This _sic vos non vobis_ which, is meted out to the Mobiles and the Line makes me indignant. As for the sailors, they are splendid fellows--and how we always manage to beat them afloat increases my admiration of the British tars. They are kept under the strictest discipline by their captains and admirals, one of whom once said to me when I asked him whether his men fraternized with the soldiers, ”If I saw one of them a.s.sociating with such _canaille_, I would put him under arrest for twenty-four hours.” In the forts they are perfectly cool under the heaviest fire, and both at Le Bourget and at Chatillon they fought like heroes. ”Ten thousand of them,” observed a general to me the other day, ”are worth more than the whole National Guards.”

The bombardment still continues. Bombs fall into the southern part of the town; but habit in this world is everything, and no one troubles himself much about them. At night the Trocadero has become a fas.h.i.+onable lounge for the _cocottes_, who still honour us with their presence. The line of the Prussian batteries and the flash of their guns can be seen.

The hissing, too, of the bombs can be heard, when the _cocottes_ crouch by their swains in affected dread. It is like Cremorne, with its ladies and its fireworks. Since yesterday morning, too, St. Denis has been bombarded. Most of its inhabitants have taken refuge in Paris, but it will be a pity if the cathedral, with the tombs of all the old French Kings, is damaged. St. Denis is itself a species of fort. Its guns are not, a friend tells me who has just come from there, replying with vigour. The Prussians are firing on it from six separate batteries, and it is feared that it will fall. Our attention to-day has been diverted from the Prussians outside by a little domestic quarrel at home, and we have been shooting each other, as though the Prussian missiles were not enough for our warlike stomachs, and death were not raging around our prison.

Between twelve and one this morning a band of armed patriots appeared before the prison of Mazas, and demanded the release of Flourens and the political prisoners who were shut up there. The director, instead of keeping the gate shut, allowed a deputation to enter. As soon as the gate was opened, not only the deputation, but the patriots rushed in, and bore off Flourens and his friends in triumph. With the Mayor at their head, they then went to the Mairie of the 20th Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, and pillaged it of all the rations and bread and wine which they found stored up there. Then they separated, having pa.s.sed a resolution to go at twelve o'clock to the Hotel de Ville, to a.s.sist their ”brothers” in turning out the Government. I got myself to the Place of the Hotel de Ville at about two o'clock. There were then about 5000 persons there.

The gates were shut. Inside the rails before them were a few officers; and soldiers could be seen at all the windows. Some few of the 5000 were armed, but most of them were unarmed. Close in by the Hotel de Ville there seemed to be some sort of military order in the positions occupied by the rioters. I took up my stand at the corner of the Rue de Rivoli.

Every moment the crowd increased. It was composed partly of sightseers, for on Sunday every one is out of doors; partly of sympathisers. These sympathisers were not, as on October 31, working men, but mainly what Count Bismarck would call the populace. Their political creed may be summed up by the word ”loot;” their personal appearance by the word ”hangdog.” I found myself in the midst of a group of hangdogs, who were abusing everyone and everything. On one side of me was a lady of expansive figure, whose breath showed that she had partaken lately of ardent spirits, and whose conversation showed that if she was a ”matron of Cornelia's mien,” her morals were better than her conversation. ”The people are slaves,” she perpetually yelled, ”they will no longer submit to traitors; I say it to you, I, the mother of four children.” The maternal vantage ground which she a.s.sumed evidently gave her opinions weight, for her neighbours replied, ”Oui, elle a raison, la mere.” A lean, bilious-looking fellow, who looked as though through life he had not done an honest day's work, and whose personal charms were not heightened by a grizzled beard and a cap of cat-skin, close by the matron, was bawling out, ”The Hotel de Ville belongs to us, I am a taxpayer;” whilst a youth about fifteen years old, hard by, explained in a shrill treble the military errors which Trochu and the generals had committed. At a little after three o'clock, a fresh band, all armed, with a drum, beating the charge, appeared, and as they neared the chief entrance of the Hotel de Ville, just one shot, and then a number of shots were fired. Everybody who had a gun then shot it off with an eager but general idea of doing something, as he fled, like a Parthian bowman.

The stampede soon became general; numbers of persons threw themselves on the ground. I saw the mother of four children sprawling in the mire, and the bilious taxpayer fall over her, and then I followed the youthful strategist into an open door. Inside were about twenty people. The door was shut to, and for about twenty minutes we heard muskets going off.

Then, as the fight seemed over, the door was opened and we emerged. The Place had been evacuated by the mob, and was held by the troops. Fresh regiments were marching on it along the quay and the Rue de Rivoli.

Wounded people were lying about or crawling towards the houses. Soon some _brancardiers_ arrived and picked up the wounded. One boy I saw evidently dying--the blood was streaming out of two wounds. The windows of the Hotel de Ville were broken, and the facade bore traces of b.a.l.l.s, as did some of the houses round the Place. I remained until dusk. Even when I left the streets were full of citizens. Each man who had rolled in the mire, and whose clothes showed traces of it, was the centre of a group of sympathisers and non-sympathisers, to whom he was explaining how the Breton brigands had fired on him, a poor innocent lamb, who had done no harm. The non-sympathisers, however, were in the majority, and ”served him right” seemed to be the general verdict on those who had been shot, or who had spoilt their clothes. Every now and then some window would slam or a cart would rumble by, when there would be a general scamper for a few yards. After dinner I again returned to the Hotel de Ville. The crowd had dispersed, and the Place was militarily occupied; so we may suppose that this little domestic episode is over.

_January 23rd, morning._

The clubs are closed, and the _Reveil_ and the _Combat_ suppressed.

Numbers of people are coming in from St. Denis, where the bombardment is getting very hot. Bombs last night fell in one of the islands on the Seine; so the flood is mounting, and our dry ground is every day diminis.h.i.+ng. I see in an extract from a German paper, that it has been telegraphed to England that the village of Issy has been entirely destroyed by the Prussian fire. This is not the case. I was there the other day, and the village is still there. It is not precisely the spot where one would wish one's property to be situated, but most of the houses are, as yet, intact.

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