An Englishman In Paris Part 29

Meanwhile, pending the departure of the Emperor, Paris was in a ferment, but, to the careful observer, it was no longer the unalloyed enthusiasm of the first few days. There were just as many people in the streets; the shouts of "a Berlin!" though, perhaps, not so sustained, were just as loud every now and then; the troops leaving for the front received tremendous ovations, and more substantial proofs of the people's goodwill; the man who dared to p.r.o.nounce the word "peace" ran a great risk of being rent to pieces by the crowds--a thing which almost happened one night in front of the Cafe de Madrid, on the Boulevard Montmartre: still, the enthusiasm was not the same. "There seems to be a great deal of prologue to 'The Taming of that German Shrew,'" said a French friend, who was pretty familiar with Shakespeare; and he was not far wrong, for the Christopher Sly abounded. The bivouacs of the troops about to take their departure reminded one somewhat more forcibly of operatic scenes and equestrian dramas of the circus type than of the preparations for the stern necessities of war--with this difference, that the contents of the goblet were real, and the viands not made of cardboard. "They are like badly made cannons, these soldiers," said some one else: "they are crammed up to the muzzle, and they do not go off."

In short, the more sensible of the Paris population began to conclude that a little less intoning of patriotic strophes and a good deal more of juxtaposition with the German troops was becoming advisable. The reports of the few preliminary skirmishes that had taken place were no doubt favourable to the French; at the same time, there was no denying the fact that they had taken place on French and not on German territory, which was not quite in accordance with the spirit of the oft-repeated cry of "a Berlin!" In accordance with the programme of which that cry was the initial quotation, the French ought, by this time, to have been already half on their way to the Prussian capital.

That is what sensible, nay, clever people expressed openly.

Nevertheless, the cry continued, nor was there any escape from the "Ma.r.s.eillaise," either by day or night. Every now and then a more than usually dense group might be seen at a street corner. The centre of the group was composed of a woman, with a baby in her arms; the little one could scarcely speak, but its tiny voice reproduced more or less accurately the air of the "Ma.r.s.eillaise:" a deep silence prevailed during the performance in order to give the infant a fair chance; deafening applause greeted the termination of the solo, and a shower of coppers fell into the real or pseudo mother's lap. On the 18th of July, the day of the official declaration of war in Paris, the Comedie-Francaise performed "Le Lion Amoureux" of Ponsard.[78] At the end of the second act, the public clamoured for the "Ma.r.s.eillaise."

There was not a single member of the company capable of complying with the request, "so the stage manager for the week" had to come forward and ask for a two-days' adjournment, during which some one might study it.

Of course, _the honour_ of singing the revolutionary hymn was to devolve upon a woman, according to the precedent established in '48, when Rachel had intoned it. From what I learnt a few days afterwards, the candidates for the _distinguished task_ were not many, in spite of the tacit consent of the Government. The ladies of the company, most of whom, like their fellow-actors, had been always very cordially treated by the Emperor on the occasion of their professional visits to Saint-Cloud, Compiegne, and Fontainebleau, instinctively guessed the pain the concession must have caused the chief of the State, and under some pretext declined. Mdlle. Agar accepted, and sang the "Ma.r.s.eillaise," in all forty-four times, from the 20th of July to the 17th of September, the day of the final investment of the capital by the German armies.

[Footnote 78: I believe there exists an English version of the play, ent.i.tled "A Son of the Soil." I am not certain of the t.i.tle.--EDITOR.]

It must not be supposed, though, that the Government had waited until the day of the official declaration of war to sanction the performance of the "Ma.r.s.eillaise" in places of public resort. I remember crossing the Gardens of the Tuileries in the afternoon of Sunday, the 17th of July. One of the military bands was performing a selection of music. The custom of doing so during the summer months has prevailed for many years, both in the capital and in the princ.i.p.al garrison towns of the provinces. All at once they struck up the "Ma.r.s.eillaise." I looked with surprise at my companion, a member of the Emperor's household. He caught the drift of my look.

"It is by the Emperor's express command," he said. "It is the national war-song. In fact, it is that much more than a revolutionary hymn."

"But war has not been declared," I objected.

"It will be to-morrow," was the answer.

The public, which in this instance was mainly composed of the better cla.s.ses, apparently refused to consider the "Ma.r.s.eillaise" a national war-song, and applause at its termination was but very lukewarm.

I have already spoken of the scene I witnessed in connection with the departure of the Germans on that same Sunday early in the morning, and have also noted the demonstration in front of the German Emba.s.sy on the previous Friday night. I will not be equally positive with regard to the exact dates of the succeeding exhibitions of bad taste on the part of the Parisians, but I remember a very striking one which happened between the official declaration of war and the end of July. It was brought under my notice, not by a foreigner, but by a Frenchman, who was absolutely disgusted with it. We were sitting one evening outside the Cafe de la Paix, which, being the resort of some noted Imperialists, I had begun to visit more frequently than I had done hitherto. There was a terrible din on the Boulevards: the evening papers had just published a very circ.u.mstantial account of that insignificant skirmish which cost Lieutenant Winslow his life, and in which the French had taken a couple of prisoners. "They" (the prisoners), suggested an able editor, "ought to be brought to Paris and publicly exhibited as an example." "And, what is more," said my friend who had read the paragraph to me, "he means what he says. These are the descendants of a nation who prides herself on having said at Fontenoy, 'Messieurs, les Anglais tirez les premiers,'

which, by-the-by, they did not say.[79] If you care to come with me, I'll show you what would be the probable fate of such prisoners if the writer of that paragraph had his will."

[Footnote 79: It was, in fact, an English officer who shouted, "Messieurs des gardes francaises, tirez;" to which the French replied, "Messieurs, nous ne tirons jamais les premiers; tirez vous memes." But it was not politeness that dictated the reply; it was the expression of the acknowledged and constantly inculcated doctrine that all infantry troops which fired the first were indubitably beaten. We find the doctrine clearly stated in the infantry instructions of 1672, and subsequently in the following order of Louis XIV. to his troops: "The soldier shall be taught not to fire the first, and to stand the fire of the enemy, seeing that an enemy who has fired is a.s.suredly beaten when his adversary has his powder left." At the battle of Dettingen, consequently, two years before Fontenoy, the theory had been carried _beyond_ the absurd by expressly forbidding the Gardes to fire, though they were raked down by the enemy's bullets. Maurice de Saxe makes it a point to praise the wisdom of a colonel who, in order to prevent his troops from firing, constantly made them shoulder their muskets.--EDITOR.]

So said; so done. In about a quarter of an hour we were seated at the Cafe de l'Horloge, in the Champs elysees, and my friend was holding out five francs fifty centimes in payment for two small gla.s.ses of so-called "Fine Champagne," _plus_ the waiter's tip. The admission was gratis; and the difference between those who went in and those who remained outside was that the latter could hear the whole of the performance without seeing it, and without disbursing a farthing; while the former could see the whole of the performance without hearing a note, for the din there was also infernal. Shortly after our arrival, the band struck up the inevitable "Ma.r.s.eillaise," but the audience neither listened nor applauded.

This was, after all, but the overture to the entertainment to which my friend had invited me, and which consisted of a spectacular pantomime representing an engagement between a regiment or a battalion of Zouaves and Germans. As a matter of course, the latter had the worst of it; and, at the termination, a couple of them were brought in and compelled to sue for mercy on their knees. I am bound to say that the thing hung fire altogether, and that, but for the remarkable selection of handsome legs of the Zouaves, not even the hare-brained young fellows with which the audience was largely besprinkled would have paid any attention.

In the whole of Paris there was no surer centre of information of the state of affairs at the front than the Cafe de la Paix. It was the princ.i.p.al resort of the Bonapartists. There were Pietri, the prefect of police, Sampierro, Abatucci, and a score or two of others; all cultivating excellent relations with the Chateau. There was also the General Beaufort d'Hautpoul, to whom Bismarck subsequently, through the pen of Dr. Moritz Busch, did the greatest injury a man can do to a soldier, in accusing him of drunkenness when he came to settle some of the military conditions of the armistice at Versailles. He was, as far as I remember, one of the two superior French officers who estimated at its true value the strategic genius of Von Moltke. The other was Colonel Stoffel. But General d'Hautpoul was even better enabled to judge; he had seen Moltke at work in Syria more than thirty years before. He was in reality the Solomon Eagle of the campaign, before a single shot had been fired. "I know our army, and I know Helmuth von Moltke," he said, shaking his head despondingly. "If every one of our officers were his equal in strategy, the chance would then only be equal. Moltke has the gift of the great billiard-player; he knows beforehand the exact results of a shock between two bodies at a certain angle. We are a doomed nation."

As a matter of course, his friends were very wroth at what they called "his unpatriotic language," and when the news of the engagement at Saarbruck arrived they crowed over him; but he stuck to his text. "It is simply a feint on Moltke's part, and proves nothing at all. In two or three days we'll get the news of a battle that will decide, not only the fate of the whole campaign, but the fate of the Empire also."

Two days afterwards, I met him near the Rue Saint-Florentin; he looked absolutely crestfallen. "We have suffered a terrible defeat near Wissembourg, but do not breathe a word of it to any one. The Government is waiting for a victory on some other point, and then it will publish the two accounts together."

The Government was reckoning without the newspapers, French and foreign.

The latter might be confiscated, and in fact were, such as the _Times_ and _l'Independance Belge_; but the French, notwithstanding the temporary law of M. emile Ollivier, were more difficult to deal with. I am inclined to think that if they had foreseen the terrible fate that was to befall the French armies they would have been more amenable, but in the beginning they antic.i.p.ated nothing but startling victories, and, as such, looked upon the campaign in the light of a series of brilliant spectacular performances, glowing accounts of which were essentially calculated to increase their circulation. When MM. Cardon and Chabrillat, respectively of the _Gaulois_ and _Figaro_, were released by the Prussians, they told many amusing stories to that effect, unconsciously confirming the opinion I have already expressed; but the following, which I had from the lips of Edmond About himself, is better than any I can remember.

A correspondent of one of the best Paris newspapers, on his arrival at the head-quarters of "the army of the Rhine," applied to the aide-major-general for permission to follow the operations. He had a good many credentials of more or less weight; nevertheless the aide-major-general, in view of the formal orders of the Emperor and Marshal Leboeuf, felt bound to refuse the request. The journalist, on the other hand, declined to take "no" for an answer. "I have come with the decided intention to do justice, and more than justice, perhaps, to your talent and courage, and it would be a pity indeed if I were not given the opportunity," he said.

"I am very sorry," was the reply; "but I cannot depart from the rules for any one."

"But our paper has a very large circulation."

"All the more reason to refuse you the authorization to follow the staff."

The journalist would not look at matters in that light. He felt that he was conferring a favour, just as he would have felt in offering the advantage of a cleverly written puff of a premiere to a theatrical manager. Seeing that his arguments were of no avail, he delivered his parting shot.

"This, then, general, is your final decision. I am afraid you'll have cause to regret this, for we, on our side, are determined not to give this war the benefit of publicity in our columns."

M. emile Ollivier's original decision was the right one, but, instead of embodying it in a temporary and exceptional order, he ought to have made it a permanent law in times of peace as well as war. On Sat.u.r.day, the 16th of July, Count Culemburg, the Prussian Minister of the Interior, addressed a circular to the German papers, recommending them to abstain from giving any news, however insignificant, with regard to the movements of the troops. As far as I remember, the German editors neither protested, nor endeavoured to s.h.i.+rk the order; they raised no outcry against "the muzzling of the press." Five days later, the French minister was attacked by nearly every paper in France for attempting to do a similar thing, and, rather than weather that storm in a teacup, he consented to a compromise, and condescended to ask where he might have commanded. In addition to this, he undertook that the Government itself should be the purveyor of war-news to the papers. Every editor of standing in Paris knew that this meant garbled, if not altogether mythical, accounts of events, and that even these would be held back until they could be held back no longer. In a few days their worst apprehensions in that respect were confirmed. While Paris was still ignorant of the terrible disaster at Wissembourg, the whole of Europe rang with the tidings. Then came the false report of a brilliant victory from the Government agency. It made the Parisians frantic with joy, but the frenzy changed into one of anger when the truth became known through the maudlin and lachrymose despatches from the Imperial head-quarters, albeit that they by no means revealed the whole extent of the defeats suffered at Woerth and Spicheren.

Nevertheless, the _agency_ continued the even--or rather uneven--tenor of its way up to the last. The Republicans subsequently adopted the tactics of the Imperial Government, the Communists adhered to the system of those they had temporarily ousted. In the present note, I will deal only with events up to the 4th of September. Patent as it must have been to the merest civilian, that the commanders were simply committing blunder after blunder, the movements of Bazaine were represented by the _agency_ as the result of a masterly and profound calculation. Even such a pessimist as General Beaufort d'Hautpoul was taken in by those representations. He considered the "masterly inactivity" of Bazaine as an inspiration of genius. "He is keeping two hundred thousand German troops round Metz," he said several times. "These two hundred thousand men are rendered absolutely useless while we are recruiting our armies and reorganizing our forces." He seemed altogether oblivious of the fact that these two hundred thousand Germans were virtually the gaolers of France's best army.

I am unable to say whether General d'Hautpoul was in direct or indirect communication with the _agency_, or whether some ingenious scribe belonging to it had overheard his expressions of admiration and wilfully adopted them; certain it is that the _agency_ was the first to inspire the reporters of those papers who took their cue from it with the flattering epithet of "glorious Bazaine."

It was the same with regard to Palikao. His sententious commonplaces were reported as so many oracular revelations dragged reluctantly from him. Had they been more familiar with Shakespeare than they were, or are, the scribes would have made Palikao exclaim with Macbeth, "The greatest is behind." And all the while the troops were marching and countermarching at haphazard, without a preconceived plan, jeering at their leaders, and openly insulting the "phantom" Emperor, as they did at Chalons, for he was already no more than that. The fall of the Empire does not date from Sedan, but from Woerth and Spicheren; and those most pertinently aware of it were not the men who dealt it the final blow less than a month later, but the immediate entourage of the Empress at the Tuileries.

For from that moment (the 6th or 7th of August) the entourage of the Empress began to think of saving the Empire by sacrificing, if needs be, the Emperor. "There is only one thing that can avert the ruin of the dynasty," said a lady-in-waiting on the Empress, to a near relative of mine; "and that is the death of the Emperor at the head of his troops.

That death would be considered an heroic one, and would benefit the Prince Imperial."

I do not pretend to determine how far the Empress shared that opinion, but here are some facts not generally known, even to this day, and for the truth of which I can unhesitatingly vouch.

The Empress did not know of the consultation that had taken place on the 1st of July, and to which I have already referred. But she did know that the Emperor was suffering from a very serious complaint, and that the disease had been aggravated since his departure through his constantly being on horseback. M. Franceschini Pietri, the private secretary of the Emperor, had informed her to that effect on the 7th of August, when Forbach and Woerth had been fought. He also told her that the Emperor was not unwilling to return to Paris, and to leave the command-in-chief to Bazaine, but that his conscience and his pride forbade him to do so, unless some pressure were brought to bear upon him. I repeat, I can vouch for this, because I had it from the lips of M. Pietri, who was prefect of police until the 4th of September.

Meanwhile, others, besides M. Franceschini Pietri, had noticed the evident moral and mental depression of the Emperor, increased, no doubt, by his acute physical sufferings, which were patent to almost every one with whom he came in immediate contact; for an eye-witness wrote to me on the 4th of August: "The Emperor is in a very bad state; after Saarbruck, Lebrun and Leboeuf had virtually to lift him off his horse.

The young prince, who, as you have probably heard already, was by his side all the time, looked very distressed, for his father had scarcely spoken to him during the engagement. But after they got into the carriage, which was waiting about a dozen yards away, the Emperor put his arm round his neck and kissed him on the cheeks, while two large tears rolled down his now. I noticed that the Emperor had scarcely strength to walk that dozen yards."

Leboeuf, who, like a great many more, has suffered to a certain extent for the faults of Marshal Niel, perceived well enough that something had to be done to cheer the Emperor in his misfortunes. It was he who proposed that the latter should return to Paris, accompanied by him, while the corps d'armee of Frossard, which had effected its retreat in good order, and several other divisions that had not been under fire as yet, should endeavour to retrieve matters by attacking the armies of Von Steinmetz and Frederick-Charles, which at that identical moment were only in "course of formation." But Louis-Napoleon, while admitting the wisdom of the plan, sadly shook his head, and declared that he could not relinquish the chief command in view of the double defeat the army had suffered under his leaders.h.i.+p.

What had happened, then, during the twenty-four hours immediately following the telegram of M. Franceschini Pietri? Simply this: not only had the Empress refused to exercise the pressure which would have afforded her husband an excuse for his return, but she had thrown cold water on the idea of that return by a despatch virtually discountenancing that return. The cabinet had not been consulted in this instance.

Nay, more; the cabinet on the 7th of August despatched, in secret, M.

Maurice Richard, Minister of Arts, which at that time was distinct from the Ministry of Public Instruction, to inquire into the state of health of the Emperor and the degree of confidence with which he inspired the troops. That was on the 7th of August. He went by special train to Metz.

Two hours after he was gone, Adolphe Ollivier told me and Ferrari at the Cafe de la Paix. A few hours after his return next day, he told us the result of those inquiries. M. Richard had brought back the worst possible news.

At a council of ministers, held early on the 9th, M. emile Ollivier, in view of the communication made to him by his colleague, proposed the immediate return of the Emperor, fully expecting M. Richard to support him. The Empress energetically opposed the plan, and when M. Ollivier turned, as it were, to M. Richard, the latter kept ominously silent. Not to mince matters, he had been tampered with. M. Ollivier found himself absolutely powerless.

A day or so before that--I will not be positive as to the date--M.

Ollivier telegraphed officially to the head-quarters at Metz, to request the return of the Prince Imperial, in accordance with the generally expressed wish of the Paris papers. M. Pietri told me that same day that the minister's telegram had been followed by one in the Empress's private cipher, expressing her wish that the Prince Imperial should remain in the army. She did not explain why. She merely recommended the Emperor to make the promise required, and then to pay no further heed to it.

The regent had no power to summon parliament, nevertheless she did so, mainly in order to overthrow the Ollivier ministry. I am perfectly certain that the Emperor never forgave her for it. If those who were at Chislehurst are alive when these notes appear, they will probably bear me out.

What, in fact, could a parliament summoned under such circ.u.mstances be but a council of war, every one of whose decisions was canva.s.sed in public and made the enemy still wiser than he was before? Of course, the Empress felt certain that she would be able to dismiss it as easily as it had been summoned; she evidently did not remember the fable of the horse which had invited the man to get on his back in order to fight the stag. There is not the slightest doubt that, as I have already remarked, the Empress's main purpose was the overthrow of the Ollivier administration; if proof were wanted, the evidence of the men who overthrew the Empire would be sufficient to establish the fact, and not one, but half a dozen, have openly stated that the defeat of the Ollivier ministry was accomplished with the tacit approval of the court party: _read_, "the party of the Empress," to which I have referred before.

The list of the Empress's blunders, involuntary or the reverse, is too long to be transcribed in detail here; I return to my impressions of men and things after my meeting with General Beaufort d'Hautpoul in the Rue de Rivoli.

I do not suppose that in the whole of Paris there were a dozen sensible men who still cherished any illusions with regard to the possibility of retrieving the disasters by a dash into the enemy's country. The cry of "a Berlin!" had been finally abandoned even by the most chauvinistic.

But the hope still remained that the Prussians would be thrust back from the "sacred soil of France" by some brilliant coup de main, although I am positive that the Empire would have been doomed just the same if that hope had been realized. Among those who had faith in the coup de main were M. Paul de Ca.s.sagnac and, curiously enough, General Beaufort d'Hautpoul. He had suddenly conceived great hopes with regard to Bazaine. M. de Ca.s.sagnac seriously contemplated enlisting in the Zouaves. Strange to relate, M. Paul de Ca.s.sagnac, in spite of his well-known attachment to the Imperialist cause, was looked upon, by the most determined opponents of that cause among the ma.s.ses, as a man to be trusted and consulted in a non-official way. I remember being on the Boulevard one evening after the affair at Beaumont, when the rage of the population was even stronger than after the defeats at Woerth and Forbach. All of a sudden we perceived a dense group swaying towards us--we were between the Rues Laffite and Le Peletier--and in the centre towered the tall figure of M. de Ca.s.sagnac. For a moment we were afraid that some mischief was being contemplated, the more that we had noticed several leaders of the revolutionary party--or, to speak by the card, of the Blanqui party--hovering near the Cafe Riche. But the demonstration was not a hostile one; on the contrary, it had a friendly tendency, and showed a tacit acknowledgment that, whosoever else might hide the truth from them, M. de Ca.s.sagnac would not do so. "What about rifles, M.

Paul?" was the cry; "are there sufficient for us all?" It must be remembered that the _levee en ma.s.se_ had been decreed. M. de Ca.s.sagnac could not tell the truth, and would not tell a lie. He frankly said, "I don't know." We noticed also that at his approach the Blanquists slunk away. The Empire had been tottering on its base until then; after Beaumont it was virtually doomed.

CHAPTER XXI.

The 4th of September -- A comic, not a tragic revolution -- A burlesque Harold and a burlesque Boadicea -- The news of Sedan only known publicly on the 3rd of September -- Grief and consternation, but no rage -- The latter feeling imported by the bands of Delescluze, Blanqui, and Felix Pyat -- Blanqui, Pyat, & Co. _versus_ Favre, Gambetta, & Co. -- The former want their share of the spoil, and only get it some years afterwards -- Ramail goes to the Palais-Bourbon -- His report -- Paris spends the night outdoors -- Thiers a second-rate Talleyrand -- His journey to the different courts of Europe -- His interview with Lord Granville -- The 4th of September -- The Imperial eagles disappear -- The joyousness of the crowd -- The Place de la Concorde -- The gardens of the Tuileries -- The crowds in the Rue de Rivoli scarcely pay attention to the Tuileries -- The soldiers fraternizing with the people, and proclaiming the republic from the barracks' windows -- A serious procession -- Sampierro Gavini gives his opinion -- The "heroic struggles" of an Empress, and the crownless coronation of "le Roi Petaud" -- Ramail at the Tuileries -- How M. Sardou saved the palace from being burned and sacked -- The republic proclaimed -- Illuminations as after a victory.

Only those who were at a distance from Paris on the 4th of September, 1870, can be deluded into the belief that the scenes enacted there on that day partook of a dramatic character. Carefully and scrupulously dovetailed, they const.i.tute one vast burlesque of a revolution. It is not because the overthrow of the Second Empire was accomplished without bloodshed that I say this. Bloodshed would have only made the burlesque more gruesome, but it could have never converted it into a tragedy, the recollection of which would have made men think and shudder even after the lapse of many years. As it is, the recollection of the 4th of September can only make the independent witness smile. On the one hand, a burlesque Harold driven off to Wilhelmshohe in a landau, surrounded by a troop of Uhlans; and a burlesque Boadicea slinking off in a hackney cab, _minus_ the necessary handkerchiefs for the cold in her head,--"fleeing when no one pursueth," instead of poisoning herself: on the other, "ceux qui prennent la parole pour autrui," _i. e._ the lawyers, prenant le pouvoir pour eux-memes. Really, the only chronicler capable of dealing with the situation in the right spirit is our old and valued friend, Mr. Punch. Personally, from the Sat.u.r.day afternoon until the early hours on Monday, I saw scarcely one incident worthy of being treated seriously; nor did the accounts supplied to me by others tend to modify my impressions.