Part 17 (2/2)

”We have been conquered in the field, but we have gained a moral victory.” What this phrase means I have not the remotest idea; but as it consoles those who utter it, they are quite right to do so. For the last two days long lines of cannon have issued from the city gates, and have been, without noise or parade, handed over to the Prussians at Issy and Sevran. Few are aware of what has taken place, or know that their surrender had been agreed to by M. Jules Favre. Representations having been made to Count Bismarck that 10,000 armed soldiers were insufficient for the maintenance of the peace of the capital, by an additional secret clause added to the armistice the number has been increased to 25,000.

The greatest ill-feeling exists between the Army and the National Guards in the most populous quarters. A general quartered in one of the outer faubourgs went yesterday to General Vinoy, and told him that if he and his men were to be subjected to insults whenever they showed themselves in the streets, he could not continue to be responsible for either his or their conduct. Most persons of sense appear to consider that the armistice was an error, and that the wiser policy would have been to have surrendered without conditions. M. Jules Favre is blamed for not having profited by the occasion, to disarm the National Guards. Many of their battalions, as long as they have arms, and receive pay for doing nothing, will be a standing danger to order. The sailors have been paid off; and the fears that were entertained of their getting drunk and uproarious have not been confirmed. They are peaceably and sentimentally spending their money with the ”black-eyed Susans” of their affections.

The princ.i.p.al journalists are formally agitating the plan of a combined movement to urge the population to protest against the Prussian triumphal march through the city, by absence from the streets through which the invading army is to defile. Several are, however, opposed to any action, as they fear that their advice will not be followed.

Curiosity is one of the strongest pa.s.sions of the Parisians, and it will be almost impossible for them to keep away from the ”sight.” Even in Coventry one Peeping Tom was found, and here there are many Peeping Toms. Mr. Moore and Colonel Stuart Wortley, the delegates of the London Relief Fund, have handed over 5,000l. of provisions to the Mayors to be distributed. They could scarcely have found worse agents. The Mayors have proved themselves thoroughly inefficient administrators, and most of them are noisy, unpractical humbugs. Colonel Stuart Wortley and Mr.

Moore are very anxious to find means to approach what are called here _les pauvres honteux_; that is to say, persons who are in want of a.s.sistance, but who are ashamed to ask for it. From what they told me yesterday evening, they are going to obtain two or three names of well-known charitable persons in each arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, and ask them to make the distribution of the rest of their provisions in store here, and of those which are expected shortly to arrive. Many families from the villages in the neighbourhood of Paris have been driven within its walls by the invaders, and are utterly dest.i.tute. In the opinion of these gentlemen they are fitting objects for charity. The fact is, the difficulty is not so much to find people in want of relief, but to find relief for the thousands who require it. Ten, twenty, or thirty thousand pounds are a mere drop in the ocean, so wide spread is the distress. ”I have committed many sins,” said a Bishop of the Church of England, ”but when I appear before my Maker, and say that I never gave to one single beggar in the streets they will be forgiven.” There are many persons in England who, like this prelate, are afraid to give to beggars, lest their charity should be ill applied. No money, no food, no clothes, and no fuel, if distributed with ordinary discretion, can be misapplied at present in Paris. The French complain that all they ever get from England is good advice and sterile sympathy. Now is the moment for us to prove to them that, if we were not prepared to go to war in order to protect them from the consequences of their own folly, we pity them in their distress; and that our pity means something more than words and phrases which feed no one, clothe no one, and warm no one.

The Prussian authorities appear to be deliberately setting to work to render the armistice as unpleasant to the Parisians as possible, in order to force them to consent to no matter what terms of peace in order to get rid of them; and I must congratulate them upon the success of their efforts. They refuse now to accept pa.s.ses signed by the Prefect of the Police, and only recognise those bearing the name of General Valdan, the chief of the Staff. To-morrow very likely they will require some fresh signature. Whenever a French railroad company advertises the departure of a train at a particular hour, comes an order from the Prussians to alter that hour. Every Frenchman who quits Paris is subjected to a hundred small, teasing vexations from these military bureaucrats, and made to feel at every step he takes that he is a prisoner on leave of absence, and only breathes the air of his native land by the goodwill of his conquerors. The English public must not forget that direct postal communications between Paris and foreign countries are not re-established. Letters from and to England must be addressed to some agent at Versailles or elsewhere, and from thence re-addressed to Paris. As in a day or two trains will run pretty regularly between Paris and London, had our diplomatic wiseacres been worth in pence what they cost us in pounds, by this time they would have made some arrangement to ensure a daily mailbag to England leaving Paris.

News was received yesterday that Gambetta had resigned, and it has been published this morning in the _Journal Officiel_. A witness of the Council at which it was agreed to send the three old women of the Government to Bordeaux to replace him, tells me that everybody kissed and hugged everybody for half an hour. The old women were ordered to arrest Gambetta if he attempted resistance. It was much like telling a street-sweeper to arrest a stalwart Guardsman. ”Do not be rash,” cried Trochu. ”We will not,” replied the old women; ”we will remain in one of the suburbs of Bordeaux, until we learn that we can enter it with safety.” This reply removed from the minds of their friends any fear that they would incur unnecessary risks in carrying out their mission.

Provisions are arriving pretty freely. All fear of absolute famine has disappeared. To-day the bread is far better than any we have had of late. Some sheep and oxen were seen yesterday in the streets.

The walls are covered with the professions of faith of citizens who aspire to the honour of a seat in the National a.s.sembly. We have the candidate averse to public affairs, but yielding to the request of a large number of supporters; the candidate who feels within himself the power to save the country, and comes forward to do so; the candidate who is young and vigorous, although as yet untried; the candidate who is old and wise, but still vigorous; the man of business candidate; the man of leisure candidate, who will devote his days and nights to the service of the country; then there is the military candidate, whose name, he modestly flatters himself, has been heard above the din of battle, and typifies armed France. I recommend to would-be M.P.'s at home, the plan of M. Maronini. He has as yet done nothing to ent.i.tle him to the suffrages of the electors beyond making printing presses, which are excellent and very cheap; so he heads his posters with a likeness of himself. Why an elector should vote for a man because he has an ugly face, I am not aware; but the Citizen Maronini seems to be under the impression that, from a fellow-feeling at least, all ugly men will do so; and perhaps he is right. Another candidate commences his address: ”_Citoyens, je suis le representant du_ go ahead.” In the clubs last night everyone was talking, and no one was listening. Even the Citizen Sans, with his eternal scarlet shawl girt round his waist, could not obtain a hearing. The Citizen Beaurepaire in vain shouted that, if elected, he would rather hew off his own arm than sign away Alsace and Lorraine. This n.o.ble figure of rhetoric, which has never been uttered by a club orator during the siege without eliciting shouts of applause, was received with jeers. The absurdity of the proceedings at this electoral gathering is, that a candidate considers himself insulted if any elector ventures to ask him a question. The president, too, loses his temper half a dozen times every hour, and shakes his fist, screams and jabbers, like an irate chimpanzee, at the audience. If the preliminary electoral meetings are ridiculous, the system of voting, on the other hand, is perfect in comparison with ours. Paris to-day in the midst of a general election is by far more orderly than any English rotten village on the polling-day. Three days ago each elector received at his own house a card, telling him where he was to vote. Those who were ent.i.tled to the suffrage, and by accident did not get one of these cards, went the next day to their respective mairies to obtain one. I have just come from one of the rooms in which the votes are taken. I say rooms; for the Parisians do not follow our silly example, and build up sheds at the cost of the candidate. At one end of this room was a long table. A box was in the middle of it, and behind the box sat an employe. To his right sat another. The elector went up to this latter, gave in his electoral card, and wrote his name; he then handed to the central employe his list of names, folded up. This the employe put into the box. About thirty National Guards were on duty in or about the room. The box will remain on the table until to-night, and the National Guards during this time will not lose sight of it; they will then carry it to the Hotel de Ville, where it, and all other voting boxes, will be publicly opened, the votes counted up, and the result, as soon as it is ascertained, announced. How very un-English, some Briton will observe. I can only say that I regret it is un-English. Our elections are a disgrace to our civilisation, and to that common-sense of which we are for ever boasting that we possess so large a share. Last year I was in New York during a general election; this year I am in Paris during one; and both New York and Paris are far ahead of us in their mode of registering the votes of electors.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 2: Several complaints having been received from Germans respecting these charges against the German armies, the following extract from an Article--quoted by the _Pall Mall Gazette_--in his new paper _Im Neuen Reich_, by the well-known German author, Herr Gustav Freytag, will prove that they are not unfounded:--”Officers and soldiers,” he says, ”have been living for months under the bronze clocks, marble tables, damask hangings, artistic furniture, oil-paintings, and costly engravings of Parisian industry. The musketeers of Posen and Silesia broke up the velvet sofas to make soft beds, destroyed the richly inlaid tables, and took the books out of the book-cases for fuel in the cold winter evenings.... It was lamentable to see the beautiful picture of a celebrated painter smeared over by our soldiers with coal dust, a Hebe with her arms knocked off, a priceless Buddhist ma.n.u.script lying torn in the chimney grate.... Then people began to think it would be a good thing to obtain such beautiful and tasteful articles for one's friends. A system of 'salvage' was thus introduced, which it is said even eminent and distinguished men in the army winked at. Soldiers bargained for them with the Jews and hucksters who swarm at Versailles; officers thought of the adornment of their own houses; and such things as could be easily packed, such as engravings and oil-paintings, were in danger of being cut out of their frames and rolled up for home consumption.” Herr Freytag then points out that these articles are private property, and that the officers and soldiers had no right to appropriate them to their own use. ”We are proud and happy,” he concludes, addressing them, ”at your warlike deeds; behave worthily and honourably also as men. Come back to us from this terrible war with pure consciences and clean hands.”]

CHAPTER XX.

CALAIS, _February 10th._

At 4 o'clock p.m. on Wednesday I took my departure from Paris, leaving, much with the feelings of Daniel when he emerged from the lions' den, its inhabitants wending their way to the electoral ”urns;” the many revolving in their minds how France and Paris were to manage to pay the little bill which their creditor outside is making up against them; the few--the very few--still determined to die rather than yield, sitting in the cafes on the boulevard, which is to be, I presume, their ”last ditch.” Many correspondents, ”special,” ”our own,” and ”occasional,” had arrived, and were girding up their loins for the benefit of the British public. Baron Rothschild had been kind enough to give me a pa.s.s which enabled me to take the Amiens train at the goods station within the walls of the city, instead of driving, as those less fortunate were obliged to do, to Gonesse. My pa.s.s had been signed by the proper authorities, and the proper authorities, for reasons best known to themselves--I presume because they had elections on the brain--had dubbed me ”Member of the House of Commons, rendering himself to England to a.s.sist at the conferences of the Parliament.” I have serious thoughts of tendering this doc.u.ment to the doorkeeper of the august sanctuary of the collective wisdom of my country, to discover whether he will recognise its validity.

The train was drawn up before a shed in the midst of an ocean of mud. It consisted of one pa.s.senger carriage, and of about half a mile of empty bullock vans. The former was already filled; so, as a bullock, I embarked--I may add, as an ill-used bullock; for I had no straw to sit on. At St. Denis, a Prussian official inspected our pa.s.ses, and at Gonesse about 200 pa.s.sengers struggled into the bullock vans. We reached Creil, a distance of thirty miles, at 11.30. I and my fellow-bullocks here made a rush at the buffet. But it was closed. So we had to return to our vans, very hungry, very thirsty, very sulky, and very wet; for it was raining hard. In this pleasant condition we remained until 9 o'clock on Thursday; occasionally slowly progressing for a few miles; then making a halt of an hour or two. Why? No one--not even the guard--could tell. All he knew was, that the Prussians had hung out a signal ordering us, their slaves, to halt, and therefore halt we must. We did the forty miles between Creil and Breteuil in ten hours. There, in a small inn, we found some eggs and bread, which we devoured like a flight of famished locusts. It was very cold, and several of us sought shelter in a room at the station, where there was a fire. In the middle of this room there were two chairs, on one of them sat a Prussian soldier, on the other reposed his legs. He was a big red-haired fellow, and evidently in some corner of his Fatherland pa.s.sed as a man of wit and humour. He was good enough to explain to us, with a pleasant smile, that in his eyes we were a very contemptible sort of people, and that if we did not consent to all the terms of peace which were proposed by ”the Bismarck,” he and his fellow warriors would burn our houses over our heads, and in many other ways make things generally uncomfortable to us. ”Ah! speak to me of Manteuffel,” he occasionally said: and as no one did speak to him of Manteuffel, he did so himself, and narrated to us many tales of the wondrous skill and intelligence of that eminent general. As he called, after the manner of his nation, a _batterie_ a _paderie_, and otherwise Germanized the French language, much of his interesting conversation was unintelligible.

We had been at Breteuil about an hour when a Prussian train came puffing up. I managed to induce an official to allow me to get into the luggage van; and thus, having started from Paris as a bullock, I reached Amiens at twelve o'clock as a carpet-bag. The Amiens station, a very large one covered in with gla.s.s, was crowded with Prussian soldiers; and for one hour I stood there the witness of and sufferer from unmitigated ruffianism. The French were knocked about, and pushed about. Never were negro slaves treated with more contempt and brutality than they were by their conquerors. I could not stand on any spot for two minutes without being gruffly ordered to stand on another by some officer. Twice two soldiers raised their muskets with a general notion of staving in my skull ”pour pa.s.ser le temps.” Frenchmen, whatever may be their faults, are always extremely courteous in all their relations with each other, and with strangers. In their wildest moments of excitement they are civil. They may poison you, or run a hook through you; but they will do it, as Isaac Walton did with the worm, ”as though they loved” you. They were perfectly cowed with the rough bullying of their masters. It is most astonis.h.i.+ng--considering how good-natured Germans are when at home, that they should make themselves so offensive in France, even during a truce. At one o'clock I left this orgie of German terrorism in a train, and from thence to Calais all was straight sailing. At Abbeville we pa.s.sed from the Prussian into the French lines. Calais we reached at seven p.m., and right glad was I to eat a Calais supper and to sleep in a Calais bed.

THE END.

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