An Englishman In Paris Part 34

I transcribe my informant's statement in brief and from memory, but I am positive as to main facts. Up till the end of August the transactions at the central office, which virtually include those of the whole of the capital, presented nothing abnormal, but the moment the investment became an almost foregone conclusion, there was a positive run on the Mont-de-Piete. The applicants for loans, however, were by no means of the poorest or even of the lower-middle cla.s.s, but the well-to-do people, whose chief aim was to place their valuables in safety, and who looked upon the 9-1/2 per cent. interest they had to pay on the advances received as a premium for warehousing and insurance. They knew that nothing could be more secure than the fire and burglar proof receptacles of the Mont-de-Piete, and that, come what might, the State would be responsible for the value of the articles deposited.

This run ceased when the investment was an accomplished fact, but, as a matter of course, the financial resources had been put to a severe test, and, at the time my informant spoke to me, they had dwindled from nearly eight millions of francs, at which they were computed in the beginning of August, to about three-quarters of a million. The order of the mayor of Paris, intended to prevent this, had come too late. The decree of 1863, limiting the maximum of a loan to ten thousand francs at the chief office, and to five hundred francs at any of the auxiliary ones, had been suspended in favour of a decision that, during the investment, no loan should exceed fifty francs.[88] From the 19th of September to the end of October, the cessation from _all_ labour, and, consequently, the non-receipt of wages throughout the capital, had to be faced in the acceptance of thousands of pledges, consisting of household goods, apparel, etc.; but, curiously enough, workmen's tools and implements formed but a small proportion of these. At present, the whole of the business was at a standstill; there was no redemption of pledges, and few were offered.[89]

[Footnote 88: A similar measure had been decided upon in 1814, under a.n.a.logous circ.u.mstances, but the maximum was twenty francs instead of fifty francs.--EDITOR.]

[Footnote 89: A curious feature in connection with the pledging of tools and implements may be recorded here. At the termination of the siege, a committee in London transmitted 20,000 francs (800) for the express purpose of redeeming these. The Paris committee entrusted with the task, while grateful for the solicitude shown, rightly considered that it would not _go_ very far, considering that, at the time, the Mont-de-Piete held a total of 1,708,549 articles, representing loans to the amount of 37,502,743 francs. The authorities took particular pains to publish the receipt of the 20,000 francs, and the purposes thereof. Within a given time, they returned 6,430 francs to the committee. Only 2,383 tools (or sets of tools) had been redeemed, representing a lent value of 13,570 francs.]

Meanwhile, Christmas and the New Year were at hand, and not a single sortie had led to any practical modification of the situation. The cold was intense. Coal and c.o.ke could be obtained for neither money nor love.

The street lamps had not been lighted for nearly a month; up till the end of October, one had been lighted here and there; then there had been an attempt to supply the absence of gas by paraffin in the public thoroughfares, but the stock of mineral oil was also getting lower. Most of the shops were closed, but, at the advent of the festive season, a few took down their shutters and made a feeble display of bonbons in sugar and chocolate, and even of marrons glaces. I doubt whether these articles found many purchasers. The toy-shops never took the trouble of exhibiting at all. They were wise in their abstention, for even the most ignorant Parisian was aware that nine-tenths of the wares in these establishments hailed from Germany, and he would a.s.suredly have smashed the windows if they had been offered for sale. Nay, the booths that make their appearance on the Boulevards at that time of the year displayed few toys, except of a military kind. It was very touching, in after years, to hear the lads and la.s.sies refer to the 1st of January, 1871, as _the New Year's Day without the New Year's gifts_.

Nevertheless, it must not be thought that Paris was given over to melancholy on these two days. Crowds perambulated the streets and sat in the cafes. In spite of all that has been said by ultra-patriotic writers, I am inclined to think that the Parisians no longer cherished any illusions about the possibility of retrieving their disasters, though many may have thought that the besiegers would abstain, at the last moment, from sh.e.l.ling the city. The Government--whether with the intention of cheering the besieged or for the purpose of exhausting their stock of provisions as quickly as possible, in order to capitulate with better grace--had made the city a magnificent New Year's gift of

104,000 kilogrammes of preserved beef, 52,000 " " dried haricot beans, 52,000 " " olive oil, 52,000 " " coffee (not roasted), 52,000 " " chocolate;

which gift elicited the reply of a group of artists and litterateurs that, though thankful for their more epicurean brethren and sisters, they, the litterateurs and artists, had fared very well on Christmas Day and would meet again on New Year's Day to discuss the following menu:--

"Consomme de Cheval au millet.

Brochettes de Foie de Chien a la Maitre d'Hotel.

emince de Rable de Chat, Sauce Mayonnaise.

epaules et Filets de Chien braises a la Sauce Tomate.

Civet de Chat aux Champignons.

Cotelettes de Chien aux Champignons.

Gigots de Chien flanques de Ratons.

Sauce Poivrade.

Begonias au Jus.

Plum-pudding au Rhum et a la Moelle de Cheval."

Simultaneously with the publication of the menu, a dealer in the St.

Germain Market put up a new signboard:--

"ReSISTANCE a OUTRANCE.

"GRANDE BOUCHERIE CANINE ET FeLINE.

"L'heroque Paris brave les Prussiens; Il ne sera jamais vaincu par la famine!

Quand il aura mange la race chevaline Il mangera ses rats, et ses chats, et ses chiens."

The proprietor of a cookshop in the Rue de Rome had confined himself to prose, but prose which, to those who could read it aright, was much cleverer than the poetry of his transpontine fellow-tradesman.

"VIN a DIX-HUIT SOUS ET EAU-DESSUS, Rosse Beef.

Rat Gout de Mouton."[90]

[Footnote 90: Here are the two English readings, as far as I am able to give them:--

"WINE AT EIGHTEEN SOUS THE LITRE AND UPWARDS.

Roast Beef.

Ragout of Mutton."

"WINE AT EIGHTEEN SOUS THE LITRE AND WATER ATOP.

Old Crock's Flesh.

Rat Tasting of Mutton."--EDITOR.]

Personally, I have eaten the flesh of elephants, wolves, ca.s.sowaries, porcupines, bears, kangaroos, rats, cats, and horses. I did not touch dog's-flesh knowingly after I had been warned by our ex-lieutenant. The proprietor of the English butcher-shop, M. Debos, who was not an Englishman at all, supplied most of these strange dishes; for he bought nearly all the animals from the Zoological Gardens at tremendous prices.

These were only the animals from the Jardin d'Acclimatation in the Bois, which had been sent as guests to the Jardin des Plantes. The elephants belonged to the latter establishment, and were sold to M. Debos for twenty-seven thousand francs. In January I was elected a member of the Jockey Club, but I had dined there once before by special invitation. I give the menu as far as I remember:--

"Soupe au Poireau.

Aloyau de Boeuf.

Poule au Riz.

Flageolets aux Jus.

Biscuits de Reims glaces.

Charlotte aux Pommes."

In spite of the hope that Paris would escape being sh.e.l.led, minute instructions how to act, in the event of such a calamity, had been posted on the walls. In fact, if speechifying and the promulgation of decrees could have saved the city, Trochu first, and the rest afterwards, would have so saved it. But I have solemnly promised myself at the outset of these notes not to be betrayed into any criticism of the military operations, and I will endeavour to keep my promise to myself.

The first and foremost result of those directions on the part of the Government was a display of water-b.u.t.ts, filled to the brim, in the pa.s.sage, and of sand-heaps in the yard of every building. As the months went by, and there was no sign of a bombardment, the contents of the casks became so much solid ice, and the sand-heaps disappeared beneath the acc.u.mulated snow, to be converted into slush and mire at the first thaw, which gave us, at the same time, a kind of miniature deluge, because, as a matter of course, the barrels had sprung leaks which were not attended to at the time.

And when, early on the 5th of January, the first projectiles crashed down upon some houses in the south of Paris, the people were simply astonished, but still deluded themselves into the belief that it was a mistake, that the "trajectory" had been miscalculated, and the sh.e.l.ls had carried farther than was intended. To a certain extent they had good grounds for their supposition. They had heard the big cannon boom and roar at frequent intervals ever since the morning of the 27th of December, and been given to understand that it was merely a big artillery duel for the possession of the plateau d'Avron, between the positions of Noisy-le-Grand and Gournay on the enemy's side, and the forts of Nogent, Rosny, and Noisy on that of the French. They were, furthermore, under the impression that the sh.e.l.ling of the city would be preceded by a final summons to surrender: they had got that notion mostly from their military dramas and popular histories. But there were men, better informed than the majority of the ma.s.ses, who made sure that, if not the Parisians themselves, the foreign consuls and the aliens under their charge would receive a sufficiently timely notice, in order to leave the city if they felt so minded.

The 5th of January was a bitterly cold day; it had been freezing hard during the whole of the night, and, as I wended my way across the Seine, about noon, the mist, which had been hanging over the river, was slowly rising in banked and jagged ma.s.ses, with only a rift here and there for the pitilessly glacial sun to peer through and mock at our shivering condition. When I got to the Boulevard Montparna.s.se, I met several stretchers, bearing sentries who had been absolutely frozen to within an ace of death.

I know nothing of the military import of a bombardment, but have been told that even the greatest strategists only count upon the moral effect it produces upon the besieged inhabitants. I can only say this: if Marshal von Moltke took the "moral effect" of his projectiles into his calculations to accelerate the surrender of Paris, he might have gone on sh.e.l.ling Paris for a twelvemonth without being one whit nearer his aim; that is, if I am to judge by the scene I witnessed on that January morning, before familiarity with the destruction-dealing sh.e.l.ls could have produced the proverbial contempt. At the risk of offending all the sensation-mongers, foreign and native, with pen or with pencil, I can honestly say that a broken-down omnibus and a couple of prostrate horses would have excited as much curiosity as did the sight of the battered tenements at Vaugirard, Montrouge, and Vanves. On the Chaussee du Maine, the roadway had been ploughed up for a distance of about half a dozen yards by a sh.e.l.l; in another spot, a sh.e.l.l had gone clean through the roof and killed a woman by the side of her husband; in a third, a sh.e.l.l had carried away part of the wall of a one-storied cottage, and the whole of the opposite wall: in short, there was more than sufficient evidence that life was no longer safe within the fortifications, and yet there was no wailing, no wringing of hands, no heart-rending frenzied look of despair, either pent up or endeavouring to find vent in shrieks and yells, nay, not even on the part of the women. There was merely a kind of undemonstrative contempt--very unlike the usual French way of manifesting it--blended with a considerable dash of _badauderie_,--for which word I cannot find an English equivalent, because the Parisian loafer or idler is unlike any of his European congeners. To grasp the difference between the former and the latter, one must have had the good fortune to see the same incident in the streets of Paris, London, Madrid, Florence, and Rome, Vienna, Berlin, and St. Petersburg, not to mention Brussels, the Hague, Amsterdam, Munich, and Dresden. The "Monsieur Prudhomme" of Charles Monnier shows but one facet of the Paris badaud's character. The nearest approach to him is the middle-cla.s.s English tourist on the Continent, who endeavours to explain to his wife and companions things he does not know himself, and blesses his stars aloud for having made him an Englishman.

But even the Paris badaud, who is not unlike his Roman predecessor in his craving for circuses, must have bread; and when the cry arises, a fortnight later, that "there is no more bread," the siege is virtually at an end.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Some men of the Commune -- Cluseret -- His opinion of Rossel -- His opinion of Bergeret -- What Cluseret was fighting for -- Thiers and Abraham Lincoln -- Raoul Rigault on horseback -- Theophile Ferre -- Ferre and Gil-Peres, the actor -- The comic men of the Commune -- Gambon -- Jourde, one of the most valuable of the lot -- His financial abilities -- His endeavours to save -- Jourde at G.o.dillot's -- Colonel Maxime Lisbonne -- The Editor's recollections of him -- General Dombrowski and General la Cecilia -- A soiree at the Tuileries -- A gala-performance at the Opera Comique -- The death-knell of the Commune.

I have before now spoken of a young medical student in whose company I spent several evenings at a cafe on the Boulevard St. Michel, during the Empire. He, like myself, remained in Paris during the siege, and refused to stir at the advent of the Commune. As a matter of course, whenever we met, while the latter lasted, we rarely spoke of anything else. He sympathized, to a certain extent, with the principle, though not with the would-be expounders of it. I knew few, if any, of the leaders even by sight, though I had heard of some, such as, for instance, Jules Valles, in connection with their literary work. My admiration was strictly confined to those performances, and I often said so to my friend. "You are mistaken in your estimate of them," he invariably replied. "There are men of undoubted talent among them, for instance, Cluseret; but most of them are like square pegs in round holes. Come with me to-night, and you will be able to judge for yourself; for he is sure to be at the Bra.s.serie Saint-Severin."

I had never been to the Bra.s.serie Saint-Severin, though I had paid two or three visits several years before to the cafe de la Renaissance opposite the Fontaine Saint-Michel, at which establishment the Commune may be said to have been hatched. It was there that, in 1866, Raoul Rigault, Longuet, the brothers Levraud, Dacosta, Genton, Protot, and a dozen more were arrested by the Commissary of Police, M. Clement.

That night, about eight o'clock, we crossed the Pont Saint-Michel, and, in a minute or so, found ourselves amidst some of the shining lights of the Commune.

Save on review days I had never seen so many brilliant uniforms gathered together. As far as I can recollect, there was only one civilian in the group pointed out to me. He looked a mere skeleton, was misshapen, and one of the ugliest men I have ever met. I asked his name, and was told it was Tridon. The name was perfectly familiar to me as belonging to one of the most remarkable polemists during the late regime. A little while afterwards, Cluseret came in.

My friend introduced me, and we sat talking for more than two hours; and I have rarely been more interested than I was that night. Cluseret spoke English very well, for he had been in America several years, and our conversation was carried on in that language. I have already remarked that I had no intention, at that time, to jot down my recollections, still I was so impressed with what I had heard that I made some rough memoranda when I got home. They are among the papers I have preserved.

Cluseret fostered no illusions as to the final upshot of the Commune.

"If every man were as devoted to the cause as Kossuth and Garibaldi were to theirs, we should not be able to establish a permanent Commune; but this is by no means the case. Most of the leaders, even those who are not self-seekers, are too visionary in their aims; they will not abate one jot of their ideal. The others think of nothing but their own aggrandis.e.m.e.nt, and though many are no doubt capable to a degree, they are absolutely useless for the posts they have chosen for themselves.

There are certainly exceptions; such as, for instance, Rossel. His technical knowledge is very considerable. If I had to describe him in two words, I should call him Lothario-Cromwell. For, notwithstanding his military apt.i.tudes and his Puritan stiffness in many things, he has too many petticoats about him. In addition to this, he is overbearing and absolutely eaten up with ambition; he is a republican who despises the proletariat; he would fain imitate the axiom of Napoleon I., 'The tools to those who can use them;' but he forgets that it will not do for a socialistic regime such as we would establish, because it is exactly those that cannot use the tools who wish to be treated as if they could.

If they had intelligence enough to use the tools, they would have lifted themselves out of their humble, unsatisfactory positions without any aid. Rossel is no doubt a better strategist than I am, and I do not in the least mind his letting me know it, but if Dombrowski or Bergeret was 'Delegate for War,' Rossel would have been in prison or shot a fortnight ago."

"For," continued Cluseret, "Bergeret especially thinks himself a heaven-born general. He shows well on horseback, because, I believe, he began life as a stable-lad: so did Michel Ney; but then, Michel Ney served his apprenticeship at fighting, while Bergeret became a compositor, a chef-de-claque, a proof-reader, and, finally, a traveller for a publishing firm. All these are, no doubt, very honourable occupations, but they are scarcely calculated to make a good general.

Still, you should see him: he wears his sash as your officers wear theirs when on duty; he would like the people to mistake it for the grand-cordon of the Legion d'Honneur; and his staff is more numerous than that of the late Emperor. You should go and dine at the head-quarters of the military governor of Paris; I am sure you would be very welcome. Marast at the Palais-Bourbon in '48 was nothing to it. If the Commune lasts another three months there will be servants in livery, gold lace, and powder, like in your country. At present, Bergeret has to put up with attendants in faultless black.