My Days of Adventure Part 5

Captain Johnson, the Queen's Messenger of whom I have already spoken, also contrived to quit Paris again; but the Germans placed him under strict surveillance, and Blumenthal told him that no more Queen's Messengers would be allowed to pa.s.s through the German lines. About this same time, however, the English man-servant of one of Trochu's aides-de-camp contrived, not only to reach Saint Germain-en-Laye, where his master's family was residing, but also to return to Paris with messages. This young fellow had cleverly disguised himself as a French peasant, and on the Prefect of Police hearing of his adventures, he sent out several detectives in similar disguises, with instructions to ascertain all they could about the enemy, and report the same to him. Meantime, the Paris Post Office was endeavouring to send out couriers. One of them, named Letoile, managed to get as far as Evreux, in Normandy, and to return to the beleaguered city with a couple of hundred letters. Success also repeatedly attended the efforts of two shrewd fellows named Geme and Brare, who made several journeys to Saint Germain, Triel, and even Orleans. On one occasion they brought as many as seven hundred letters with them on their return to Paris; but between twenty and thirty other couriers failed to get through the German lines; whilst several others fell into the hands of the enemy, who at once confiscated the correspondence they carried, but did not otherwise molest them.

The difficulty in sending letters out of Paris and in obtaining news from relatives and friends in other parts of France led to all sorts of schemes. The founder and editor of that well-known journal _Le Figaro_, Hippolyte de Villemessant, as he called himself, though I believe that his real Christian name was Auguste, declared in his paper that he would willingly allow his veins to be opened in return for a few lines from his beloved and absent wife. Conjugal affection could scarcely have gone further. Villemessant, however, followed up his touching declaration by announcing that a thousand francs (40) a week was to be earned by a capable man willing to act as letter-carrier between Paris and the provinces. All who felt qualified for the post were invited to present themselves at the office of _Le Figaro_, which in those days was appropriately located in the Rue Rossini, named, of course, after the ill.u.s.trious composer who wrote such sprightly music round the theme of Beaumarchais' comedy. As a result of Villemessant's announcement, the street was blocked during the next forty-eight hours by men of all cla.s.ses, who were all the more eager to earn the aforesaid 40 a week as nearly every kind of work was at a standstill, and the daily stipend of a National Guard amounted only to 1_s._ 2-1/2_d._

It was difficult to choose from among so many candidates, but we were eventually a.s.sured that the right man had been found in the person of a retired poacher who knew so well how to circ.u.mvent both rural guards and forest guards, that during a career of twenty years or so he had never once been caught _in flagrante delicto_. Expert, moreover, in tracking game, he would also well know how to detect--and to avoid--the tracks of the Prussians. We were therefore invited to confide our correspondence to this sagacious individual, who would undertake to carry it through the German lines and to return with the answers in a week or ten days. The charge for each letter, which was to be of very small weight and dimensions, was fixed at five francs, and it was estimated that the ex-poacher would be able to carry about 200 letters on each journey.

Many people were anxious to try the scheme, but rival newspapers denounced it as being a means of acquainting the Prussians with everything which was occurring in Paris--Villemessant, who they declared had taken bribes from the fallen Empire, being probably one of Bismarck's paid agents. Thus the enterprise speedily collapsed without even being put to the proof.

However, the public was successfully exploited by various individuals who attempted to improve on Villemessant's idea, undertaking to send letters out of Paris for a fixed charge, half of which was to be returned to the sender if his letter were not delivered. As none of the letters handed in on these conditions was even entrusted to a messenger, the ingenious authors of this scheme made a handsome profit, politely returning half of the money which they received, but retaining the balance without making the slightest effort to carry out their contract.

Dr. Rampont, a very clever man, who was now our postmaster-general, had already issued a circular bidding us to use the very thinnest paper and the smallest envelopes procurable. There being so many failures among the messengers whom he sent out of Paris with correspondence, the idea of a balloon postal service occurred to him. Although ninety years or so had elapsed since the days of the brothers Montgolfier, aeronautics had really made very little progress. There were no dirigible balloons at all. Dupuy de Lome's first experiments only dated from the siege days, and Renard's dirigible was not devised until the early eighties. We only had the ordinary type of balloon at our disposal; and at the outset of the investment there were certainly not more than half a dozen balloons within our lines. A great city like Paris, however, is not without resources.

Everything needed for the construction of balloons could be found there.

Gas also was procurable, and we had amongst us quite a number of men expert in the science of ballooning, such as it then was. There was Nadar, there was Tissandier, there were the G.o.dard brothers, Yon, Dartois, and a good many others. Both the G.o.dards and Nadar established balloon factories, which were generally located in our large disused railway stations, such as the Gare du Nord, the Gare d'Orleans, and the Gare Montparna.s.se; but I also remember visiting one which Nadar installed in the dancing hall called the Elysee Montmartre. Each of these factories provided work for a good many people, and I recollect being particularly struck by the number of women who were employed in balloon-making. Such work was very helpful to them, and Nadar used to say to me that it grieved him to have to turn away so many applicants for employment, for every day ten, twenty, and thirty women would come to implore him to "take them on."

Nearly all their usual workrooms were closed; some were reduced to live on charity and only very small allowances, from fivepence to sevenpence a day, were made to the wives and families of National Guards.

But to return to the balloon postal-service which the Government organized, it was at once realized by my father and myself that it could be of little use to us so far as the work for the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_ was concerned, on account of the restrictions which were imposed in regard to the size and weight of each letter that might be posted.

The weight, indeed, was fixed at no more than three grammes! Now, there were a number of artists working for the _Ill.u.s.trated_ in Paris, first and foremost among them being M. Jules Pelcoq, who must personally have supplied two-thirds of the sketches by which the British public was kept acquainted with the many incidents of Parisian siege-life. The weekly diary which I helped my father to compile could be drawn up in small handwriting on very thin, almost transparent paper, and despatched in the ordinary way. But how were we to circ.u.mvent the authorities in regard to our sketches, which were often of considerable size, and were always made on fairly substantial paper, the great majority of them being wash-drawings? Further, though I could prepare two or three drafts of our diary or our other "copy" for despatch by successive balloons--to provide for the contingency of one of the latter falling into the hands of the enemy--it seemed absurd that our artists should have to recopy every sketch they made. Fortunately, there was photography, the thought of which brought about a solution of the other difficulty in which we were placed.

I was sent to interview Nadar on the Place Saint Pierre at Montmartre, above which his captive balloon the "Neptune" was oscillating in the September breeze. He was much the same man as I had seen at the Crystal Palace a few years previously, tall, red-haired, and red-s.h.i.+rted. He had begun life as a caricaturist and humorous writer, but by way of b.u.t.tering his bread had set up in business as a photographer, his establishment on the Boulevard de la Madeleine soon becoming very favourably known. There was still a little "portrait-taking" in Paris during those early siege days. Photographs of the celebrities or notorieties of the hour sold fairly well, and every now and again some National Guard with means was anxious to be photographed in his uniform. But, naturally enough, the business generally had declined. Thus, Nadar was only too pleased to entertain the proposal which I made to him on my father's behalf, this being that every sketch for the _Ill.u.s.trated_ should be taken to his establishment and there photographed, so that we might be able to send out copies in at least three successive balloons.

When I broached to Nadar the subject of the postal regulations in regard to the weight and size of letters, he genially replied: "Leave that to me.

Your packets need not go through the ordinary post at all--at least, here in Paris. Have them stamped, however, bring them whenever a balloon is about to sail, and I will see that the aeronaut takes them in his pocket.

Wherever he alights they will be posted, like the letters in the official bags."

That plan was carried out, and although several balloons were lost or fell within the German lines, only one small packet of sketches, which, on account of urgency, had not been photographed, remained subsequently unaccounted for. In all other instances either the original drawing or one of the photographic copies of it reached London safely.

The very first balloon to leave Paris (in the early days of October) was precisely Nadar's "Neptune," which had originally been intended for purposes of military observation. One day when I was with Nadar on the Place Saint Pierre, he took me up in it. I found the experience a novel but not a pleasing one, for all my life I have had a tendency to vertigo when ascending to any unusual height. I remember that it was a clear day, and that we had a fine bird's-eye view of Paris on the one hand and of the plain of Saint Denis on the other, but I confess that I felt out of-my element, and was glad to set foot on _terra firma_ once more.

From that day I was quite content to view the ascent of one and another balloon, without feeling any desire to get out of Paris by its aerial transport service. I must have witnessed the departure of practically all the balloons which left Paris until I myself quitted the city in November.

The arrangements made with Nadar were perfected, and something very similar was contrived with the G.o.dard brothers, the upshot being that we were always forewarned whenever it was proposed to send off a balloon.

Sometimes we received by messenger, in the evening, an intimation that a balloon would start at daybreak on the morrow. Sometimes we were roused in the small hours of the morning, when everything intended for despatch had to be hastily got together and carried at once to the starting-place, such, for instance, as the Northern or the Orleans railway terminus, both being at a considerable distance from our flat in the Rue de Miromesnil.

Those were by no means agreeable walks, especially when the cold weather had set in, as it did early that autumn; and every now and again at the end of the journey one found that it had been made in vain, for, the wind having s.h.i.+fted at the last moment, the departure of the balloon had been postponed. Of course, the only thing to be done was to trudge back home again. There was no omnibus service, all the horses having been requisitioned, and in the latter part of October there were not more than a couple of dozen cabs (drawn by decrepit animals) still plying for hire in all Paris. Thus Shanks's pony was the only means of locomotion.

In the earlier days my father accompanied me on a few of those expeditions, but he soon grew tired of them, particularly as his health became affected by the siege diet. We were together, however, when Gambetta took his departure on October 7, ascending from the Place Saint Pierre in a balloon constructed by Nadar. It had been arranged that he should leave for the provinces, in order to reinforce the three Government delegates who had been despatched thither prior to the investment. Jules Favre, the Foreign Minister, had been previously urged to join those delegates, but would not trust himself to a balloon, and it was thereupon proposed to Gambetta that he should do so. He willingly a.s.sented to the suggestion, particularly as he feared that the rest of the country was being overlooked, owing to the prevailing opinion that Paris would suffice to deliver both herself and all the rest of France from the presence of the enemy. Born in April, 1838, he was at this time in his thirty-third year, and full of vigour, as the sequel showed. The delegates whom he was going to join were, as I previously mentioned, very old men, well meaning, no doubt, but incapable of making the great effort which was made by Gambetta in conjunction with Charles de Freycinet, who was just in his prime, being the young Dictator's senior by some ten years.

I can still picture Gambetta's departure, and particularly his appearance on the occasion--his fur cap and his fur coat, which made him look somewhat like a Polish Jew. He had with him his secretary, the devoted Spuller. I cannot recall the name of the aeronaut who was in charge of the balloon, but, if my memory serves me rightly, it was precisely to him that Nadar handed the packet of sketches which failed to reach the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_. They must have been lost in the confusion of the aerial voyage, which was marked by several dramatic incidents. Some accounts say that Gambetta evinced no little anxiety during the preparations for the ascent, but to me he appeared to be in a remarkably good humour, as if, indeed, in pleasurable antic.i.p.ation of what he was about to experience.

When, in response to the call of "Lachez tout!" the seamen released the last cables which had hitherto prevented the balloon from rising, and the crowd burst into shouts of "Vive la Republique!" and "Vive Gambetta!" the "youthful statesman," as he was then called, leant over the side of the car and waved his cap in response to the plaudits. [Another balloon, the "George Sand," ascended at the same time, having in its car various officials who were to negotiate the purchase of fire-arms in the United States.]

The journey was eventful, for the Germans repeatedly fired at the balloon.

A first attempt at descent had to be abandoned when the car was at an alt.i.tude of no more than 200 feet, for at that moment some German soldiers were seen almost immediately beneath it. They fired, and before the balloon could rise again a bullet grazed Gambetta's head. At four o'clock in the afternoon, however, the descent was renewed near Roye in the Somme, when the balloon was caught in an oak-tree, Gambetta at one moment hanging on to the ropes of the car, with his head downward. Some countryfolk came up in great anger, taking the party to be Prussians; but, on learning the truth, they rendered all possible a.s.sistance, and Gambetta and his companions repaired to the house of the mayor of the neighbouring village of Tricot. Alluding in after days to his experiences on this journey, the great man said that the earth, as seen by him from the car of the balloon, looked like a huge carpet woven chance-wise with different coloured wools.

It did not impress him at all, he added, as it was really nothing but "une vilaine chinoiserie." It was from Rouen, where he arrived on the following day, that he issued the famous proclamation in which he called on France to make a compact with victory or death. On October 9, he joined the other delegates at Tours and took over the post of Minister of War as well as that of Minister of the Interior.

His departure from the capital was celebrated by that clever versifier of the period, Albert Millaud, who contributed to _Le Figaro_ an amusing effusion, the first verse of which was to this effect:

"Gambetta, pale and gloomy, Much wished to go to Tours, But two hundred thousand Prussians In his project made him pause.

To aid the youthful statesman Came the aeronaut Nadar, Who sent up the 'Armand Barbes'

With Gambetta in its car."

Further on came the following lines, supposed to be spoken by Gambetta himself whilst he was gazing at the German lines beneath him--

"See how the plain is glistening With their helmets in a ma.s.s!

Impalement would be dreadful On those spikes of polished bra.s.s!"

Millaud, who was a Jew, the son, I think--or, at all events, a near relation--of the famous founder of _Le Pet.i.t Journal_, the advent of which const.i.tuted a great landmark in the history of the French Press--set himself, during several years of his career, to prove the truth of the axiom that in France "tout finit par des chansons." During those anxious siege days he was for ever striving to sound a gay note, something which, for a moment, at all events, might drive dull care away. Here is an English version of some verses which he wrote on Nadar:

What a strange fellow is Nadar, Photographer and aeronaut!

He is as clever as G.o.dard.

What a strange fellow is Nadar, Although, between ourselves, as far As art's concerned he knoweth naught.

What a strange fellow is Nadar, Photographer and aeronaut!

To guide the course of a balloon His mind conceived the wondrous screw.

Some day he hopes unto the moon To guide the course of a balloon.

Of 'airy navies' admiral soon, We'll see him 'grappling in the blue'-- To guide the course of a balloon His mind conceived the wondrous screw.

Up in the kingdom of the air He now the foremost rank may claim.

If poor Gambetta when up there, Up in the kingdom of the air, Does not find good cause to stare, Why, Nadar will not be to blame.

Up in the kingdom of the air He now the foremost rank may claim.

At Ferrieres, above the park, Behold him darting through the sky, Soaring to heaven like a lark.

At Ferrieres above the park; Whilst William whispers to Bismarck-- 'Silence, see Nadar there on high!'

At Ferrieres above the park Behold him darting through the sky.

Oh, thou more hairy than King Clodion, Bearer on high of this report, Thou yellower than a pure Cambodian, And far more daring than King Clodion, We'll cast thy statue in collodion And mount it on a gas retort.

Oh, thou more hairy than King Clodion, Bearer on high of this report!

Perhaps it may not be thought too pedantic on my part if I explain that the King Clodion referred to in Millaud's last verse was the legendary "Clodion the Hairy," a supposed fifth-century leader of the Franks, reputed to be a forerunner of the founder of the, Merovingian dynasty.

Nadar's hair, however, was not long like that of _les rois chevelue_, for it was simply a huge curly and somewhat reddish mop. As for his complexion, Millaud's phrase, "yellow as a pure Cambodian," was a happy thought.

These allusions to Millaud's sprightly verse remind me that throughout the siege of Paris the so-called _mot pour rire_ was never once lost sight of.

At all times and in respect to everything there was a superabundance of jests--jests on the Germans, the National and the Mobile Guard, the fallen dynasty, and the new Republic, the fruitless sorties, the wretched rations, the failing gas, and many other people and things. One of the enemy's generals was said to have remarked one day: "I don't know how to satisfy my men. They complain of hunger, and yet I lead them every morning to the slaughterhouse." At another time a French colonel, of conservative ideas, was said to have replaced the inscription "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," which he found painted on the walls of his barracks, by the words, "Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery," declaring that the latter were far more likely to free the country of the presence of the hated enemy. As for the "treason" mania, which was very prevalent at this time, it was related that a soldier remarked one day to a comrade: "I am sure that the captain is a traitor!" "Indeed! How's that?" was the prompt rejoinder. "Well,"

said the suspicious private, "have you not noticed that every time he orders us to march forward we invariably encounter the enemy?"

When Trochu issued a decree incorporating all National Guards, under forty-five years of age, in the marching battalions for duty outside the city, one of these Guards, on being asked how old he was, replied, "six-and-forty." "How is that?" he was asked. "A few weeks ago, you told everybody that you were only thirty-six." "Quite true," rejoined the other, "but what with rampart-duty, demonstrating at the Hotel-de-Ville, short rations, and the cold weather, I feel quite ten years older than I formerly did." When horseflesh became more or less our daily provender, many Parisian _bourgeois_ found their health failing. "What is the matter, my dearest?" Madame du Bois du Pont inquired of her husband, when he had collapsed one evening after dinner. "Oh! it is nothing, _mon amie_" he replied; "I dare say I shall soon feel well again, but I used to think myself a better horseman!"

Directly our supply of gas began to fail, the wags insinuated that Henri Rochefort was jubilant, and if you inquired the reason thereof, you were told that owing to the scarcity of gas everybody would be obliged to buy hundreds of "_Lanternes_." We had, of course, plenty of sensations in those days, but if you wished to cap every one of them you merely had to walk into a cafe and ask the waiter for--a railway time-table.

Once before I referred to the caricatures of the period, notably to those libelling the Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie, the latter being currently personified as Messalina--or even as something worse, and this, of course, without the faintest shadow of justification. But the caricaturists were not merely concerned with the fallen dynasty. One of the princ.i.p.al cartoonists of the _Charivari_ at that moment was "Cham,"

otherwise the Vicomte Amedee de Noe, an old friend of my family's.

It was he, by the way, who before the war insisted on my going to a fencing-school, saying: "Look here, if you mean to live in France and be a journalist, you must know how to hold a sword. Come with me to Ruze's.

I taught your uncle Frank and his friend Gustave Dore how to fence many years ago, and now I am going to have you taught." Well, in one of his cartoons issued during the siege, Cham (disgusted, like most Frenchmen, at the seeming indifference of Great Britain to the plight in which France found herself) summed up the situation, as he conceived it, by depicting the British Lion licking the boots of Bismarck, who was disguised as Davy Crockett. When my father remonstrated with Cham on the subject, reminding him of his own connexion with England, the indignant caricaturist replied: "Don't speak of it. I have renounced England and all her works." He, like other Frenchmen of the time, contended that we had placed ourselves under great obligations to France at the period of the Crimean War.

Among the best caricatures of the siege-days was one by Daumier, which showed Death appearing to Bismarck in his sleep, and murmuring softly, "Thanks, many thanks." Another idea of the period found expression in a cartoon representing a large mouse-trap, labelled "France," into which a company of mice dressed up as German soldiers were eagerly marching, their officer meanwhile pointing to a cheese fixed inside the trap, and inscribed with the name of Paris. Below the design ran the legend: "Ah! if we could only catch them all in it!" Many, indeed most, of the caricatures of the time did not appear in the so-called humorous journals, but were issued separately at a penny apiece, and were usually coloured by the stencilling process. In one of them, I remember, Bismarck was seen wearing seven-league boots and making ineffectual attempts to step from Versailles to Paris. Another depicted the King of Prussia as Butcher William, knife in hand and attired in the orthodox slaughter-house costume; whilst in yet another design the same monarch was shown urging poor Death, who had fallen exhausted in the snow, with his scythe lying broken beside him, to continue on the march until the last of the French nation should be exterminated. Of caricatures representing cooks in connexion with cats there was no end, the _lapin de gouttiere_ being in great demand for the dinner-table; and, after Gambetta had left us, there were designs showing the armies of succour (which were to be raised in the provinces) endeavouring to pa.s.s ribs of beef, fat geese, legs of mutton, and strings of sausages over several rows of German helmets, gathered round a bastion labelled Paris, whence a famished National Guard, eager for the proffered provisions, was trying to spring, but could not do so owing to the restraining arm of General Trochu.

Before the investment began Paris was already afflicted with a spy mania.

Sala's adventure, which I recounted in an earlier chapter, was in a way connected with this delusion, which originated with the cry "We are betrayed!" immediately after the first French reverses. The instances of so-called "spyophobia" were innumerable, and often curious and amusing.

There was a slight abatement of the mania when, shortly before the siege, 188,000 Germans were expelled from Paris, leaving behind them only some 700 old folk, invalids, and children, who were unable to obey the Government's decree. But the disease soon revived, and we heard of rag-pickers having their baskets ransacked by zealous National Guards, who imagined that these receptacles might contain secret despatches or contraband ammunition. On another occasion _Le Figaro_ wickedly suggested that all the blind beggars in Paris were spies, with the result that several poor infirm old creatures were abominably ill-treated. Again, a fugitive sheet called _Les Nouvelles_ denounced all the English residents as spies. Labouchere was one of those pounced upon by a Parisian mob in consequence of that idiotic denunciation, but as he had the presence of mind to invite those who a.s.sailed him to go with him to the nearest police-station, he was speedily released. On two occasions my father and myself were arrested and carried to guard-houses, and in the course of those experiences we discovered that the beautifully engraved but essentially ridiculous British pa.s.sport, which recited all the honours and dignities of the Secretary of State or the Amba.s.sador delivering it, but gave not the slightest information respecting the person to whom it had been delivered (apart, that is, from his or her name), was of infinitely less value in the eyes of a French officer than a receipt for rent or a Parisian tradesman's bill. [That was forty-three years ago. The British pa.s.sport, however, remains to-day as unsatisfactory as it was then.]

But let me pa.s.s to other instances. One day an unfortunate individual, working in the Paris sewers, was espied by a zealous National Guard, who at once gave the alarm, declaring that there was a German spy in the aforesaid sewers, and that he was depositing bombs there with the intention of blowing up the city. Three hundred Guards at once volunteered their services, stalked the poor workman, and blew him to pieces the next time he popped his head out of a sewer-trap. The mistake was afterwards deplored, but people argued (wrote Mr. Thomas Gibson Bowles, who sent the story to The Morning Post) that it was far better that a hundred innocent Frenchmen should suffer than that a single Prussian should escape. Cham, to whom I previously alluded, old Marshal Vaillant, Mr. O'Sullivan, an American diplomatist, and Alexis G.o.dillot, the French army contractor, were among the many well-known people arrested as spies at one or another moment. A certain Mme: de Beaulieu, who had joined a regiment of Mobiles as a _cantiniere_, was denounced as a spy "because her hands were so white." Another lady, who had installed an ambulance in her house, was carried off to prison on an equally frivolous pretext; and I remember yet another case in which a lady patron of the Societe de Secours aux Blesses was ill-treated. Matters would, however, probably be far worse at the present time, for Paris, with all her apaches and anarchists, now includes in her population even more sc.u.m than was the case three-and-forty years ago.

There were, however, a few authentic instances of spying, one case being that of a young fellow whom Etienne Arago, the Mayor of Paris, engaged as a secretary, on the recommendation of Henri Rochefort, but who turned out to be of German extraction, and availed himself of his official position to draw up reports which were forwarded by balloon post to an agent of the German Government in London. I have forgotten the culprit's name, but it will be found, with particulars of his case, in the Paris journals of the siege days. There was, moreover, the Hardt affair, which resulted in the prisoner, a former lieutenant in the Prussian army, being convicted of espionage and shot in the courtyard of the Ecole Militaire.