Part 24 (1/2)
I still remember this pa.s.sage, which stirred me like a trumpet:
”Citizens of the departments, this position of affairs imposes important duties upon you. The first of all is to allow no other occupation whatever to divert your attention from the war--from a struggle to the very last extremity; the second is, until peace shall be made, loyally to accept the Republican power, which has sprung equally from necessity and from right principle. You must have but one thought: to rescue France from the abyss into which it has been plunged by the Empire. There is no want of men: all that is wanting is determination, decision, and continuity in the execution of plans; what we have lost by the disgraceful capitulation of Sedan is arms. The whole of the resources of our nation had been directed upon Sedan, Metz, and Strasbourg; and we might justly conclude that by one final and guilty plot, the author of all our disasters had schemed, in falling, to deprive us of all means of repairing the ruin he had caused!”
”He is quite capable,” cried George. ”Yes, I am sure the _honest man_ contrived to leave himself a back door into Prussia.”
Cousin Desjardins continued: ”At this moment, thanks to the extraordinary exertions of patriotic men, arrangements have been concluded, the end and object of which is to draw to ourselves all the disposable muskets in all the markets of the globe. The difficulty of effecting this negotiation was very serious: it is now overcome. With regard to equipments and clothing, manufactories and workshops will be multiplied, and materials laid under requisition wherever needed; neither hands nor zeal on the part of workers are wanting, nor will money be lacking. All our immense resources must be called into play, the lethargy of the rural districts shaken into activity, partisan warfare spread in all directions. Let us, therefore, rise as one man, and suffer death rather than submit to the disgrace of a part.i.tion of our country.”
The enthusiasm of George rose with every sentence.
”Good! good!” cried he, ”this is speaking to some purpose. Once give the impulse, and the object will soon be gained. Our youths will take up arms _en ma.s.se_. One victory, only one, and all France would rise; we should fall like hail on the backs of the scoundrels; they would be looked out for at every corner in the woods: not a man would live to get back again!”
Cousin Desjardins, having folded up his papers, said nothing; I, too, was full of my own thoughts.
”And you, cousin,” said I, ”have you any confidence?”
And only after a minute's silence, and having taken a good pinch of snuff, to waken up his ideas--for he took snuff, like all the old folks, but did not smoke; after a minute he said: ”No, Christian, I have no hope; but it is not the Germans that I fear: they have taken Strasbourg; after a time they will have Metz by starvation--that is already settled. They are besieging Verdun; Soissons has just fallen into their hands; they have invested Paris; they are advancing upon Orleans. Well, in spite of all this, it is not the Germans that I fear.”
”Who then?” asked George.
Without noticing the question, he continued: ”France is so strong, so brave, so rich, so intelligent, that in a few months she could have flung these barbarians across the Rhine again; but what alarms me, is the enemies in our midst.”
”n.o.body is moving,” said I.
”It is just because no one is moving that the Germans are on the Loire,” said he, fixing his clear, gray eyes upon me. ”If the question was to restore Chambord, Ferdinand Philippe, or even Bonaparte IV., you would see all the old councillors-general, all the councillors of the arrondiss.e.m.e.nts, all the old prefets, sous-prefets, magistrates, police inspectors, receivers of taxes, comptrollers, _gardes generaux_, mayors, and deputy mayors in the field. No matter which of the three, for the princ.i.p.al object is to have a Monsieur who has crosses, promotions, pensions, and perquisites to give: whichever of the lot, it is all the same to them; they only want just one such man! These people would move heaven and earth for their man: they would put the peasants into lines by thousands, they would sing the Ma.r.s.eillaise, they would shout the 'country is in danger!' And the bishops, the priests, the cures, the vicars, would preach the holy war; France would drive the Prussians to the farthest corner of Prussia; arms, munitions of war, stores would be found for every day! But as it is a Republic, and as the Republic demands the separation of Church and State, free education, compulsory military service; as it declares that all must contribute to the public good, that a rich fool is not a better man than a poor but able man; and because, on this principle, merit would be everything, and intrigues and knavery go to the wall, they had rather see France dismembered than consent to a Republic! What would become of the good places of the senators, the peers of France, prefects, chamberlains, squires, receivers-general, stewards, marshals, influential deputies, and bishops under a Republic? They would all be put into one basket: and they don't want that. They would rather the King of Prussia than the Republic, if the King of Prussia would only engage to keep all the good places for them. Yes, in their eyes _la patrie_ means lucrative places and pensions. It is not the first time that the Germans have been relied upon to restore order in France.
Marie Antoinette had already ceded Alsace to Austria, to have her antechambers filled again with smooth-faced, obsequious old servitors.
Pa.s.sing events bring back those times again. Formerly the hunters after pensions, the egotists who wanted to snap up everything and leave nothing for the people, were called _n.o.bles_; now it is the _bourgeois_ trained by the Jesuits. But at that time the chiefs of the Republic were resolved upon the triumph of justice. They did not leave the functionaries and the generals of Louis XVI. at the head of the administrations and of the armies. These great patriots had common-sense. They established Republican munic.i.p.alities in every commune; they gave the command of our armies to Republican generals; they restrained the reactionnaires; and having cleared our territory of Germans, they judged those who had called them in; and France was saved.
”The same thing would happen to-day, in spite of all the preparations of Germany, in spite of the treason of Bonaparte, who, seeing his dynasty sacrificed by his own incapacity, gave up our last army at Sedan to stay the victory of the Republic.
”Yes, notwithstanding the egotism of this unhappy man, we might yet beat the Germans, if the Royalists were not at the head of our affairs; but they are everywhere. In Paris, they command the National Guard and the army; in the provinces, they are forming those famous councils-general, whence have been drawn the juries to acquit Pierre Bonaparte, and who would without shame sentence Gambetta to death if they were a.s.sembled to try him. Instead of helping this brave man, this good patriot, to save France, they will obstruct him; they will run sticks between the spokes of his wheels; they will hinder him from getting the necessary levies; they will clamp the enthusiasm of the people. See what all these German papers say: they cannot sufficiently abuse Gambetta, who is defending his country, nor sufficiently flatter the councils-general named under the Empire.”
”But, then,” said George, ”must we surrender?”
”No,” replied Desjardins. ”Although we are sure of being vanquished, we must show that we are still the old race: that its roots are not dead, and that the tree will sprout again. If we had reeled and fallen under the blow of Sedan, the contempt of Europe and of the whole world would have covered us forever. The nation has risen since. It seems incredible. Without armies, or guns, or muskets, or victuals, or military stores, betrayed, surprised, overrun in all directions, this nation has risen again! It defends itself! One brave man has been found sufficient to raise its courage. What other nation would have done as much? I am, therefore, of opinion that the struggle must be maintained to the end, that the Germans may be made, as it were, ashamed of their victory. They have been fifty years preparing; they have hidden themselves from us, to spy upon us in time of peace; they have dissembled their hatred; they have brought their whole power to bear upon us; they have studied the question under every aspect; they threw against us, at the opening of the campaign, 600,000 men against 220,000; they are going to attack our raw conscripts with their best troops; they will be five and six against one; they will call Russia to their help if they want it; and then they will proclaim, 'We are the conquerors!' They will not be ashamed to say, 'We have vanquished France. Now it is we who are _La Grande Nation_!'”
”All that,” said George, ”is possible. But in the meantime, we may win a battle; and, if we gain a victory, things will be different. We shall gain fresh courage, and the Landwehr who are sent against us--almost all fathers of families--will ask no better than to return home.”
”The Landwehr have not a word to say,” replied Desjardins: ”they are not consulted; those fellows march where they are ordered; they have long been subject to military discipline. It is a machine: nothing but a machine; but a machine of crus.h.i.+ng weight.”
Then Cousin Desjardins told us that, having travelled long in Germany before and after 1848, on business, he had seen how these people detested us: that they envied us; that we were an offence to them; that hatred of the French was taught in their schools; that they thought themselves our superiors, on account of their religion, which is simple and natural; while ours, with all its ceremonies, its Latin chants, its tapers and its tinsel, induced them to look upon us as an inferior race, like the negroes, who are only fond of red, and hang rings in their noses; that, especially, they deemed their women more virtuous and more worthy of respect than ours: this they attribute also to their superior religion, which keeps them at home, while ours pa.s.s their time in all sorts of ceremonies, and neglect their first duties.
Desjardins had even had a serious dispute upon this subject with a school-master, being unable to hear an open avowal of such an opinion of Frenchwomen; amongst whom we number Jeanne d'Arc and other heroines, whose grandeur of character German women are unable to comprehend.
He told us that, from this point of view, the Germans, and especially the Prussians, considered us Alsacians and Lorrainers as exiles from fatherland, and unfortunate in being under the dominion of a debased race kept in ignorance by the priests.
George, on hearing this, became furious, and cried that we had more intelligence and more sense than all the Germans put together.
”Yes, I believe so, too,” replied Cousin Desjardins; ”only we ought to use it; we ought to set up schools everywhere; the lowest Frenchman should be able to read and write our own language; and this is exactly what the lovers of good places don't wish for. If the people had been educated, we should have known what was going on upon the other side of the Rhine; we should have had national armies, able generals, a watchful commissariat, a sound organization, enlightened and conscientious deputies; we should have had all that we are now wanting; we should not have placed the power of making war or peace in the hands of an imbecile; we should not have stupidly attacked the Germans, and the Germans, seeing us ready to receive them, would have been careful not to attack us. All our defeats, all our divisions, our internal troubles, our revolutions, our battles and ma.s.sacres in the streets; the transportations, the hatred between cla.s.ses--all this comes of ignorance; and this abominable ignorance is the doing of the selfish statesmen who have governed us for seventy years. Good sense, justice, and patriotism would lead them to inform the people; they preferred an alliance with the Jesuits to degrade the people; can any treason be worse?”