Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris Part 15

The real vital question, however, is how long the bread will last. In some arrondiss.e.m.e.nts the supply fails after 8 o'clock in the morning; at others, each resident receives 1 lb. upon production of a _carte de subsistance_. The distribution has been thrown into disorder by the people from the bombarded quarters flocking into the central ones, and wanting to be fed. The bread itself is poor stuff. Only one kind is allowed to be manufactured; it is dark in colour, heavy, pasty, and gritty. There is as little corn in it as there is malt in London beer when barley is dear. The misery among the poorer cla.s.ses is every day on the increase. Most of the men manage to get on with their 1fr. 50c. a day. In the morning they go to exercise, and afterwards loll about until night in cafes and pothouses, making up with liquids for the absence of solids. As for doing regular work, they scoff at the idea. Master tailors and others tell me that it is almost impossible to get hands to do the few orders which are now given. They are warmly clad in uniforms by the State, and except those belonging to the marching battalions really doing duty outside, I do not pity them. With the women and children the case is different. The latter, owing to bad nourishment and exposure, are dying off like rotten sheep; the former have but just enough food to keep body and soul together, and to obtain even this they have to stand for hours before the doors of the butchers and bakers, waiting for their turn to be served. And yet they make no complaints, but patiently suffer, buoyed up, poor people, by the conviction that by so doing they will prevent the Prussians from entering the town. If one of them ventures to hint at a capitulation, she is set on by her neighbours. Self-a.s.sertion, however, carries the day. Jules and Jaques will hereafter quaff many a pet.i.t verre to their own heroism; and many a story will they inflict upon their long-suffering friends redounding to their own special glory. Their wives will be told that they ought to be proud to have such men for husbands. But Jules and Jacques are in reality but arrant humbugs. Whilst they boozed, their wives starved; whilst they were warmly clad, their wives were in rags; whilst they were drinking confusion to their enemies in some snug room, their wives were freezing at the baker's door for their ration of bread. In Paris the women--I speak of those of the poorer cla.s.ses--are of more sterling stuff than the men. They suffer far more, and they repine much less. I admire the crowd of silent, patient women, huddling together for warmth every morning, as they wait until their pittance is doled out to them, far more than the martial heroes who foot it behind a drum and a trumpet to crown a statue, to visit a tomb, and to take their turn on the ramparts; or the heroes of the pen, who day after day, from some cosy office, issue a manifesto announcing that victory is certain, because they have made a pact with death.

_January 16th._

If I am to believe the Paris papers, the Fort of Issy is gradually extinguishing the guns of the Prussian batteries which bear on it. If I am to believe my eyes, the Fort of Issy is not replying at all to these said guns; and if I am to believe competent military authorities, in about eighteen days from now at the latest the Fort of Issy will cease to be a fort. The batteries at Meudon appeared to-day to be of opinion that its guns were effectually silenced; sh.e.l.ls fell thick and fast on the bastions at Point-du-Jour; and so well aimed were they, that between the bastions a looker-on was in comparative safety. The noise, however, of the duel between the bastions and the batteries was so deafening, that it was literally impossible for two persons to hear each other speak at a few feet distance; the sh.e.l.ls, too, which were pa.s.sing to the right and left, seemed to give the whole air a tremulous motion. At the bastions the artillerymen were working their guns, but the National Guards on duty were under cover. The houses, on both sides of the Seine, within the city, for about half a mile from the viaduct are deserted; not above a dozen of them, I should imagine, are still inhabited. Outside, in the villages of Vanvres and Issy, several fires have broken out, but they have been promptly extinguished, and there has been no general conflagration. The most dangerous spot in this direction is a road which runs behind the Forts of Vanvres and Montrouge; as troops are frequently marching along it the Prussians direct their guns from Clamart and Chatillon on it. In the trenches the danger is not great, and there are but few casualties; the sh.e.l.ls pa.s.s over them. If anyone, however, exposes himself, a ball about the size of an egg, from a _canon de rampart_, whizzes by him, as a gentle reminder to keep under cover. The area of the bombardment is slightly extending, and will, I presume, very soon reach the right bank. More people are killed in the daytime than at night, because they will stand in groups, notwithstanding every warning, and stare at any house which has been damaged.

The bill of mortality for the week ending January 13th, gives an increase on the previous week of 302; the number of deaths registered is 3982. This is at the rate of above twenty per cent. per annum, and it must be remembered that in this return those who die in the public hospitals, or of the direct effect of the war, are not included.

Small-pox is about stationary, bronchitis and pneumonia largely on the increase.

Bourbaki, we are told to-day, is at Freiburg, in the Grand Duchy of Baden. The latest German papers announce that Mezieres has fallen, and it seems to occur to no one that Gambetta's last pigeon despatch informed us that the siege of this place had been raised. _La Liberte_ thus sums up the situation:--"Nancy menaced; Belfort freed; Baden invaded; Hamburg about to be bombarded. This is the reply of France to the bombardment of Paris. The hour has arrived; the Prussians brought to bay, hope to find refuge in Paris. This is their last hope; their last resource."

In order to encourage us to put up with our short commons, we are now perpetually being told that the Government has in reserve vast stores of potted meats, cheese, b.u.t.ter, and other luxuries, of which we have almost forgotten the very taste; and that when things come to the worst we shall turn the corner, and enter into a period of universal abundance. These stores seem to me much like the mirage which lures on the traveller of the desert, and which perpetually recedes as he advances. But the great difficulty of the moment is to procure fuel. I am ready, as some one said, to eat the soles of my boots for the sake of my country; but then they must be cooked. All the mills are on the Marne, and cannot be approached. Steam mills have been put up, but they work slowly; and whatever may be the amount of corn yet in store, it is almost impossible to grind enough of it to meet the daily requirements.

A good deal of discussion is going on as to the time which it will take to revictual Paris; it is thought that it can be done in seven days, but I do not myself see how it is to be done in anything like this time. One of the princ.i.p.al English bankers here has, I understand, sent an agent by balloon to buy boats of small draught in England, in order to bring provisions up the Seine. As a speculation, I should imagine that the best plan would be to ama.s.s them on the Belgian or Luxemburg frontier.

About two-thirds of the population will be without means to buy food, even if the food were at their doors. Trade and industry will not revive for some time; they will consequently be entirely dependent upon the State for their means of subsistence. Even if work is offered to them, many of them not be able at once to rea.s.sume their habits of daily industry; the Bohemian life which they have led for the last four months, and which they are still leading, is against it. A siege is so abnormal a condition of things, that the State has been obliged to pay them for doing practically nothing, as otherwise they would have fallen into the hands of the anarchists; but this pottering about from day to day with a gun, doing nothing except play at billiards and drink, has been very demoralising, and it will be long before its effect ceases to be felt.

The newspapers are somewhat irreverent over the diplomatic protest against the bombardment. They say that while Paris is deserted by the Great European Powers, it is a source of pleasure to think that the Princ.i.p.ality of Monaco and the Republics of San Marino and Honduras still stand by her. They suggest that M. Jules Favre should go to Andorre to endeavour to induce that republic also to reason with the Prussians upon the bombardment. I am told that the "proud young porter,"

who now the sheep is dead, represents alone the Majesty of England at the British Emba.s.sy is indignant at not having been invited to add his signature to the protest. He considers--and justly I think--that he is a far more important personage than the Plenipotentiary of his Highness of Monaco; a despot who exercises sway over about 20 acres of orange trees, 60 houses, and two roulette tables. The diplomatists are not, however, alone in their protest. Everybody has protested, and is still protesting. If it is a necessity of war to throw sh.e.l.ls into a densely populated town like this; it is--to say the least--a barbarous necessity; but it seems to me that it is but waste of time and paper to register protests against it; and if it be thought desirable to do so, it would be far more reasonable to protest against human beings--women and children--being exposed to its effects, than to indite plaintive elegies about the possibility of the Venus de Milo being damaged, or the orchids in the hot-houses being killed. I know that, for my part, I would rather that every statue and every plant in the world were smashed to atoms by sh.e.l.ls, than that I were. This, in an aesthetical point of view, is selfish; but it is none the less true. _Chacun pour soi._ The Pantheon was struck yesterday. What desecration! everyone cries; and I am very sorry for the Pantheon, but very glad that it was the Pantheon, and not me. The world at large very likely would lose more by the destruction of the Pantheon than of any particular individual; but each particular individual prefers his own humble self to all the edifices that architects have raised on the face of the globe.

I have been endeavouring to discover, whether in the councils of our rulers, the question as to what is to be done in the possible contingency of a capitulation becoming necessary, has been raised. As far as I can hear, the contingency is not yet officially recognised as within the realms of possibility, and it has never been alluded to.

General Trochu has officially announced "that the Governor of Paris will never capitulate." His colleagues have periodically said much the same thing. The most practical of them, M. Ernest Picard, has, I believe, once or twice endeavoured to lead up to the subject, but he has failed in the attempt. Newspaper articles and Government proclamations tell the population every day that they only have to persevere in order ultimately to triumph. If the end must come, it is difficult to see how it will come. I have asked many intelligent persons what they think will happen, but no one seems to have a very distinct notion respecting it.

Some think the Government will issue some day a notice to say that there are only provisions for a week longer; and that at the end of this time the gates of the city will be opened, and the Prussians told that, if they insist upon entering, there will be nothing to prevent them. Others think that the Government will resign their power into the hands of the mayors, as the direct representatives of Paris. Trochu rides about a good deal outside, and says to the soldiers, "Courage, my children, the moment is coming." But to what moment he alludes no one is aware. No word is more abused in the French language than "sublime." To call a folly a sublime folly is considered a justification of any species of absurdity. We call this refusal to antic.i.p.ate a contingency which certainly is possible, if not probable, sublime. We are proud of it, and sleep on in our fool's paradise as though it were to last for ever.

CHAPTER XVII.

_January 17th._

The papers publish reports of the meetings of the clubs. The following is from the _Debats_ of to-day:--

"At the extremity of the Rue Faubourg St. Antoine is a dark pa.s.sage, and in a room which opens into this pa.s.sage is the Club de la Revendication.

The audience is small, and consists mainly of women, who come there to keep warm. The club is peaceable--hardly revolutionary--for Rome is Rome no more, and the Faubourg St. Antoine, formerly so turbulent, has resigned in favour of Belleville and La Villette. Yesterday evening the Club de la Revendication was occupied, as usual, in discussing the misery of the situation, and the necessity of electing a Commune. An orator, whose patriotic enthusiasm attained almost to frenzy, declared that as for himself he scorned hams and sausages in plenty, and that he preferred to live on the air of liberty. (The women sigh.) Another speaker is of opinion that if there were a Commune there would also be hams and sausages in plenty. We still pay, he says, the budget of the clergy, as though Bonaparte were still on the throne, instead of having rationed the large appet.i.tes and forced every one to live on 1fr. 50c. a day. In order to make his meaning clear the orator uses the following comparison. Suppose, he says, that I am a peasant, and that I have fattened a chicken. (Excitement.) Were I obliged to give the wings to the clergy, the legs to the military, and the carca.s.s to civil functionaries, there would be nothing of my chicken left for me. Well, this is our case. We fatten chickens; others eat them. It would be far wiser for us to keep them for ourselves. (Yes, yes.) A Pole, the Citizen Stra.s.snowski, undertakes to defend the Government. He obtains a hearing, but not without difficulty. You complain that the Government, he says, has not cast more cannon. Where were the artillerymen? (Ourselves.) But three months ago you were citizens, you were not soldiers. In making you march and counter-march in the streets and on the ramparts you have been converted into soldiers. The Government was right therefore to wait.

(Murmurs.) The orator is not angry with the German nation; he is angry only with the potentates who force the people to kill each other; and he hopes that the day will come when the European nations will shake hands over the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Balkan, and the mountains of Carpathia.

(Feeble applause and murmurs.) A citizen begs the audience to have patience with the Citizen Stra.s.snowski, who is a worthy man and a volunteer; but the citizen then reproaches the worthy man for having attempted to defend a Government whose incapacity is a matter of notoriety. Come now, Citizen Stra.s.snowski, he says, what has the Government done to merit your praise? It has armed us and exercised us; but why? To deliver us over with our guns and our cannons to the Prussians after we have all caught cold on the ramparts. Has it tried to utilise us? No, it has pa.s.sively looked on whilst the Prussians surrounded Paris with a triple circle of citadels. We are told every day that the armies of the provinces will deliver us. We do not see them. We are not even secure in Paris. Every kind of story is afloat. Yesterday it was reported that General Schmitz had betrayed us; to-day it is an actress who has arrested a spy whose cook was on intimate terms with a cook of the member of the Government. Why these reports? Because the Government has no moral support, and no one feels confidence in it. In the meantime the food gets less and less, and this morning at eight o'clock all the bakers in this arrondiss.e.m.e.nt had closed their shops.

(True, true; we waited five hours at the closed doors.) When we get the bread, it is more like plaster than bread. In the third arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, on the other hand, it is good and plentiful. So much for the organising spirit of the Government. We have to wait hours for bread, hours for wood, and hours for meat; and frequently we do not get either bread, meat, or wood. Things cannot last long like this, my worthy Stra.s.snowski. The speaker concludes by urging the people to take the direction of their affairs into their own hands. (Cries of "Vive la Commune.") The President urges his hearers to subscribe towards a society, the object of which is civic instruction. The club breaks up, the President is applauded."

Here is another description of a club meeting from the same journal:--

"The laurels of Belleville prevented La Villette from sleeping. La Villette, therefore, determined to have, like her rival, a central democratic and social club, and yesterday she inaugurated in the Salle Ma.r.s.eillaise an opposition to the "Club Favie." In some respects the Ma.r.s.eillaise club is even more democratic than her parent. The Salle is a sort of barn, and the _sans culottes_ themselves, notwithstanding their horror of all luxury, hardly found its comforts sufficient for them. The Club Favie, with its paintings on the walls and its l.u.s.tres, has a most aristocratic air in comparison with this new hall of democracy. To judge by its first seance, the Club Ma.r.s.eillaise promises well. Last night enough treasons were unveiled to make the fortune of most other clubs for a week at least. From the commencement of the war we have been in the meshes of a vast network of treason; and these meshes can only be broken through by the Commune and the Republic. The conspiracy was hatched long ago between the Emperors and the Kings, and the other enemies of the people. The war had been arranged amongst them, and it is an error to suppose that we were beaten at Rhichshofen or Sedan. "No," cried an orator, with conviction, "we have never been defeated; but we have been betrayed." ("True." Applause. "We are still betrayed.") The men of the Hotel de Ville imitate Bonaparte, and, like him, they have an understanding with the Prussians, to enslave the people, after having betrayed the country. To whom then must we turn to save the country? To the Legitimists? To the Orleanists?" (No, no.) The orator does not hesitate to avow that he would turn to them if they could save France. (Impossible.) Yes, it is impossible for them. The orator admits it; and all the more because Legitimists and Orleanists are enrolled in the conspiracy against the nation. The people can be the only saviours of the people, by the establishment of the commune; and this is why the men of the Hotel de Ville and the Reactionists are opposed to its establishment. A second speaker abandons the question of the Commune and of the conspiracy, in order to call attention to the resignation of Citizen Delescluze, late mayor of the nineteenth arrondiss.e.m.e.nt. While this orator thinks that it would be unjust to accuse the patriot Delescluze of treason, he ought not the less to be blamed for having abandoned a post to which he had been called by his fellow citizens. The people elected him, and he had no right to put his resignation in the hands of the men of the Hotel de Ville in the critical circ.u.mstances in which we find ourselves--at a moment when the tide of misery is mounting--when the mayors have a great mission to fulfil. What has been the consequence of this act of weakness? The men of the Hotel de Ville have named a commission to administer the nineteenth arrondiss.e.m.e.nt exactly as was done under Bonaparte. This is what we citizens of Belleville have gained by the desertion of Delescluze. (Applause.) A citizen pushes his way to the tribune to justify the mayor. He admits that at first sight it is difficult to approve of a magistrate who has been elected by the people resigning his office at the very moment when the people have the greatest need of him, but--and again we get into the dark mystery of the conspiracy--if he gave in his resignation, it was because he would not be an accomplice of treason. In a meeting presided over by Jules Favre, what do you suppose the mayors were asked to do? (Here the orator pauses a moment to take breath. The curiosity of the audience is intense.) They were asked to take part in the capitulation. (Violent murmurs--Infamous.) Well yes--Delescluze would have nothing to do with this infamy, and he withdrew. Besides, there was another reason. In the division of the succour afforded to necessitous citizens the nineteenth arrondiss.e.m.e.nt was only supposed to have 4000 indigent persons, whilst in reality the number is 50,000, and by this means it was hoped that the popularity of this pure Republican would suffer, and perhaps riots break out which would be put down--(the divulgation of this plot against the mayor of the nineteenth arrondiss.e.m.e.nt is received in different ways. A person near us observes--"All the same, he ought not to have resigned.") This incident over, the discussion goes back to the treasons of the Hotel de Ville. It is well known, says a speaker, that a sortie had been determined on in a Council composed of four generals, presided over by Trochu, and that the next morning the Prussians were informed of it. Who told them, who betrayed us. Was it Schmitz, or another general. (A voice: "It was the man who eats pheasants." Indignation.) In any case, Trochu is responsible, even if he was not the traitor himself. ("Yes, yes; it was Trochu!") Another citizen, not personally known to the audience, but who announces that he lives in the Rue Cha.s.son, says that he has received by accident a confidential communication which, perhaps, may throw some light on the affair. This citizen has some friends who are the friends of Ledru Rollin and of the citizen Tibaldi; and one of these friends heard a friend say that either Ledru Rollin or Tibaldi had heard Trochu say that it was impossible to save Paris; but that he would have 30,000 men killed, and then capitulate. (Murmurs of indignation.) The citizen of the Rue Cha.s.son has received a second confidential communication, which corroborates the first. He has been told by one of his neighbours that everything is ready for a capitulation, and he thinks that he will soon be enabled to communicate something still more important on this subject; but in the meanwhile he entreats the energetic citizens of Belleville--(indignation "This is not Belleville")--pardon, of La Villette and of the other Republican faubourgs, to keep their eyes on the Government. They must have no confidence in the _quartiers_ inside the town. The Rue Cha.s.son, in which he lives, is utterly demoralised. La Villette, with Belleville and Montmartre, must save Paris. (Applause.) Another citizen says that he has of late frequently heard the odious word capitulation. How can it be otherwise? Everything is being done to make it necessary. We, the National Guard, who receive 1fr. 50c. a-day, are called the indigent.

What do the robbers and the beggars who thus insult us do? They indulge in orgies in the fashionable restaurants. The Zoological Gardens have been shut. Why? Because the elephants, the tigers, and other rare animals have been sold in order to enable wretches who laugh at the public misery to gorge themselves. What can we, the indigent, as they call us, do with 30 sous, when a few potatoes cost 30fr., and a piece of celery 2fr. And they talk now of capitulating, because they have grown rich on the war. Every one knows that it was made in order that speculators should make fortunes. As long as they had goods to sell at ten times their value they were for resistance to the death. Now that they have nothing more to sell, they talk of capitulating. Ah! when one thinks of these scandals one is almost inclined to blow one's brains out. (Laughter and applause.) A fourth citizen takes up the same theme with the same energy and conviction. He knows, he says, a restaurant which is frequented by bank clerks, and where last week there were eaten two cows and a calf, whilst the ambulance opposite was without fresh meat. (Violent murmurs.) This is a part of the system, of Trochu and his colleagues. They starve us and they betray us. Trochu, it is true, has said that he would not capitulate, but we know what that means. When we are worn out and demoralised he will demand a fresh plebiscite on the question of a capitulation, and then he will say that the people, and not he, capitulated. ("True, he is a Jesuit.") We must make an end of these speculators and traitors. ("Yes, yes, it is time,") We must have the Commune. We have not more than eighteen days of provisions, and we want fifteen of them, to revictual. If the Commune is not proclaimed in three days we are lost ("True. La Commune! La Commune!") The orator explains how the Commune will save Paris. It will establish domiciliary visits not only among the shopkeepers, but among private persons who have stores of provisions. Besides, he adds, when all the dogs are eaten we will eat the traitors. (Laughter and applause.) The Commune will organise at the same time a sortie _en ma.s.se_, the success of which is infallible. From statistics furnished by Gambetta it results that at this moment there are not above 75,000 Prussians round Paris. And shall our army of 500,000 men remain stationary before this handful of Germans? Absurd. The Commune will burst through this pretended circle of iron. It will put an end to treason. It will place two commissaries by the side of each general. (The evening before, at the club in the Rue Blanche, one commissary with a revolver had been proposed. At the Ma.r.s.eillaise two were thought requisite. This evening, probably at the Club Favie, in order to beat La Villette, three will be the number. The position of a general of the Commune will not be an easy one.) These commissaries, continues the orator, will watch all the movements of the general. At the first sign he gives of yielding, they will blow his brains out. Inexorably placed between victory and death, he will choose the former. (General approbation.) The hour is getting late, but before concluding the sitting, the President announces that the moment is approaching when Republicans must stand shoulder to shoulder. Patriots are invited to give in their names and addresses, in order to be found when they are wanted. This proposal is adopted by acclamation. A certain number of citizens register their names, and then the meeting breaks up with a shout of "Vive la Commune de Paris!"

_January 19th._

All yesterday artillery was rolling and troops were marching through Paris on their way to the Porte de Neuilly. The soldiers of the line were worn and ragged; the marching battalions of the National Guards, spick and span in their new uniforms. All seemed in good spirits, the soldiers, after the wont of their countrymen, were making jokes with each other, and with everyone else--the National Guards were singing songs. In some instances they were accompanied by their wives and sweethearts, who carried their muskets or clung to their arms. Most of them looked strong, well-built men, and I have no doubt that in three or four months, under a good general, they would make excellent soldiers.

In the Champs Elysees, there were large crowds to see them pa.s.s.

"Pauvres garcons," I heard many girls say, "who knows how many will return!" And it was indeed a sad sight, these honest bourgeois, who ought to be in their shops or at their counters, ill-drilled, unused to war, marching forth with stout hearts, but with little hope of success, to do battle for their native city, against the iron legions which are beleaguering it. They went along the Avenue de la Grande Armee, crossed the bridge of Neuilly over the Seine, and bivouacked for the night in what is called the "Peninsula of Genevilliers." This peninsula is formed by a loop in the Seine. Maps of the environs of Paris must be plentiful in London, and a glance at one will make the topography of to-day's proceedings far clearer than any description. The opening of the loop is hilly, and the hills run along the St. Cloud side of the loop as far as Mont Valerien, and on the other side as far as Rueil. About half a mile from Mont Valerien following the river is St. Cloud; and between St.

Cloud and the Park of the same name is Montretout, a redoubt which was commenced by the French, but which, since the siege began, has been held by the Prussians. The enemy's line extends across the loop from Montretout through Garches to La Malmaison. The latter lies just below Rueil, which is a species of neutral village. The troops pa.s.sed the night in the upper part of the loop. In numbers they were about 90,000, as far as I can ascertain, and they had with them a formidable field artillery. The object of the sortie was a vague idea to push forward, if possible, to Versailles. Most of the generals were opposed to it, and thought that it would be wiser to make frequent sudden attacks on the enemy's lines; but General Public Opinion insisted upon a grand operation; and this anonymous but all powerful General, as usual, carried the day. The plan appears to have been this: one half the army was under General Vinoy, the other half under General Ducrot. The former was to attack Montretout and Garches, the latter was to push forward through Rueil and La Malmaison, carry the heights of La Jonchere, and then unite with Vinoy at Garches. General Trochu, from an observatory in Mont Valerien, commanded the whole movement. At 7 o'clock troops were pushed forward against Montretout. This redoubt was held by about 200 Poles from Posen; and they made so determined a resistance that the place was not taken until 9.30. No guns were found in the redoubt. At the same time General Bellemare, who commands one of Vinoy's divisions, advanced on Garches, and occupied the wood and park of Buzenval, driving in the Prussian outposts. Here several battalions of the National Guards were engaged. Although their further advance was arrested by a stone wall, from behind which the Prussians fired, they maintained themselves in the wood and the park. The Prussians now opened a heavy fire along the line. At Montretout it was impossible to get a single gun into position. This went on until a little after three o'clock. By this time reinforcements had come up from Versailles, and were pushed forward against the centre of the French line. At the same time sh.e.l.ls fell upon the reserves, which consisted of National Guards, and which were drawn up upon the incline of the heights looking towards Paris. They were young troops, and for young troops nothing is so trying as being sh.e.l.led without being allowed to move. They broke and fell back. Their companions who were in advance, and who held the crest of the heights, saw themselves deserted, and at the same time saw the attacking column coming forward, and they too fell back. The centre of the position was thus lost. A hurried consultation was held, and Montretout and Buzenval were evacuated. As night closed the French troops were falling back to their bivouacs of the previous night, and the Prussians were recrossing the trench which formed their advanced posts in the morning. The day was misty, the mud was so deep that walking was difficult, and I could not follow very clearly the movements of the troops from the house in which I had ensconced myself. What became of General Ducrot no one seemed to know. I have since learnt that he advanced with little resistance through Rueil and La Malmaison, and that he then fought during the day at La Jonchere, detaching a body of troops towards the Park of Buzenval.

He appears, however, to have failed in taking La Celle St. Cloud, and from thence flanking La Bergerie, and marching on Garches. Everything is consequently very much where it was this morning before the engagement took place. It has been the old story. The Prussians did not defend their first line, but fell back on their fixed batteries, there keeping up a heavy fire until reinforcements had had time to be brought up. More troops are ordered out for to-morrow; so I presume that the battle is to be renewed. If it ends in a defeat, the consequences will be serious, for the artillery can only be brought back to Paris by one bridge. The wounded are numerous. In the American ambulance, which is close by in the Champs Elysees, there are about seventy. In the Grand Hotel they are arriving every moment. The National Guard at Buzenval behaved very fairly under fire. Many of them had not been above a few days in uniform. Their officers were in many cases as inexperienced as the men.

During the fight entire companies were wandering about looking for their battalions, and men for their companies. As citizen soldiers they did their best, and individually they were made of good stuff; but the moral is--do not employ citizen soldiers for offensive operations. When I returned into the town at about 5 o'clock this afternoon, the peninsula of Gennevilliers resembled the course at Epsom on a wet Derby Day. To my civilian eyes, cavalry, artillery, and infantry, seemed to be in inextricable confusion.

This morning the bread was rationed all over the city. No one is to have more than 300 grammes per diem; children only 150. I recommend anyone who has lived too high to try this regime for a week. It will do him good. No costermonger's donkey is so overloaded as the stomachs of most rich people. The Government on December 12 solemnly announced that the bread never would be rationed. This measure, therefore, looks to me very much like the beginning of the end. A perquisition is also being made in search of provisions in the apartments of all those who have quitted Paris. Another sign of the end. But it is impossible to know on how little a Frenchman can live until the question has been tested. I went yesterday into the house of a friend of mine, in the Avenue de l'Imperatrice, which is left in charge of a servant, and found three families, driven out of their homes by the bombardment, installed in it--one family, consisting of a father, a mother, and three children, were boiling a piece of horse meat, about four inches square, in a bucket full of water. This exceedingly thin soup was to last them for three days. The day before they had each had a carrot. The bread is scarce because the supply ceases before the demand in most quarters, so that those who come last get none. My friend's servant was giving a dinner to the English coachman. The sole dish was a cat with mice round it. I tasted one of the latter, crunching the bones as if it had been a lark. I can recommend mice, when nothing more substantial is to be obtained.

I hear that a pigeon has arrived this evening. Its despatch has not yet been published. The "traitor-mania" still rages. Last night at the Belleville Club an orator announced an awful discovery--the bread was being poisoned by traitors. The Correspondent of one of your contemporaries, having heard that he had been accused of being a Prussian spy, went to-day to the Prefect of the Police. This august being told him that he did not suspect him, and then showed him a file of papers duly docketed relating to each London paper which is represented here. For my part, although I have not failed to blame what I thought blameable, and although I have not gone into ecstacies over the bombastic nonsense which is the legacy of the vile despotism to which the French were foolish enough to submit for twenty years, and which has vitiated the national character, I have endeavoured in my correspondence to be, as far as was consistent with truth, "to all their virtues very kind, to all their faults a little blind."

_January 20th._

This morning several fresh regiments of National Guards were ordered to march out to the Peninsula of Gennevilliers. I accompanied one of them; but when we got into Neuilly a counter-order came, and they were marched back. Every house in Neuilly and Courbevoie was full of troops, and regiments were camping out in the fields, where they had pa.s.sed the night without tents. Many of the men had been so tired that they had thrown themselves down in the mud, which was almost knee-deep, and thus fallen asleep with their muskets by their sides. Bitter were the complaints of the commissariat. Bread and _eau de vie_ were at a high premium. Many of the men had thrown away their knapsacks, with their loaves strapped to them, during the action, and these were now the property of the Prussians. It is impossible to imagine a more forlorn and dreary scene. Some of the regiments--chiefly those which had not been in the action--kept well together; but there were a vast number of stragglers wandering about looking for their battalions and their companies. At about twelve o'clock it became known that the troops were to re-enter Paris, and that the battle was not to be renewed; and at about one the march through the gate of Neuilly commenced, colours flying and music playing, as though a victory had been won. I remained there some time watching the crowd that had congregated at each side of the road. Most of the lookers on appeared to be in a condition of blank despair. They had believed so fully that the grand sortie must end in a grand victory, that they could hardly believe their eyes when they saw their heroes returning into Paris, instead of being already at Versailles. There were many women anxiously scanning the lines of soldiers as they pa.s.sed by, and asking every moment whether some relative had been killed. As I came home down the Champs Elysees it was full of knots of three and four soldiers, who seemed to consider that it was a waste of time and energy to keep up with their regiments.

In the evening papers the despatch announcing the defeat of Chanzy has been published, and a request from Trochu to General Schmitz to apply at once for an armistice of two days to bury the dead. "The fog," he adds, "is very dense," and certainly this fog appears to have got into the worthy man's brain. Almost all the wounded have already been picked up by the French and the Prussian ambulances. Nearly all the dead are in what are now the Prussian lines, and will no doubt be buried by them. In the afternoon, as a suspension of arms for two hours was agreed to, our ambulances pushed forward, and brought back a few wounded, but not many.

Most of those who had fallen in the Prussian lines had already been moved, their officers said, to St. Germain and St. Cloud, where they would be cared for. At three P.M. Jules Favre summoned the Mayors to a consultation, and General Trochu also came in to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for half an hour, and then returned to Valerien. The feeling against him is very strong. It is said that he has offered to resign; and I think it very probable that he will be the Jonah thrown out to the whale. But will this sacrifice save the ship? All the Generals are roundly abused. Indeed, in France there is no medium between the Capitol and the Tarpeian Rock. A man who is not a victor must be a traitor. That undisciplined National Guards fresh from their shops, should be unable to carry by a.s.sault batteries held by German troops, is a thing which never can be admitted. If they fail to do this, it is the fault of their leaders. Among those who were killed yesterday is M. Regnault, the painter who obtained at the last salon, the gold medal for his picture of "Salome." He went into action with a card on his breast, on which he had written his name and the address of the young lady to whom he was engaged to be married. When the brancardiers picked him up, he had just strength to point to this address. Before they could carry him there he was dead. But the most painful scene during the battle was the sight of a French soldier who fell by French b.a.l.l.s. He was a private in the 119th Battalion, and refused to advance. His commander remonstrated. The private shot him. General Bellemare, who was near, ordered the man to be killed at once. A file was drawn up and fired on him; he fell, and was supposed to be dead. Some brancardiers soon afterwards pa.s.sing by, and thinking that he had been wounded in the battle, placed him on a stretcher. It was then discovered that he was still alive. A soldier went up to him to finish him off, but his gun missed fire. He was then handed another, when he blew out the wretched man's brains. From all I can learn from the people connected with the different ambulances, our loss yesterday does not amount to above 2000 killed and wounded. Most of the newspapers estimate it far higher. At Buzenval, where the only really sharp fighting took place, an officer who was in command tells me that there were about 300 killed. For the sake of humanity, it is to be hoped that we shall have no more of these blind sorties. The French get through the first Prussian lines; they are then arrested by the fire of the batteries from the second line; reinforcements are brought up by the enemy; and the well-known movement to the rear commences. "Our losses,"

say the official reports the next morning, "are great; those of the enemy enormous. Our troops fought with distinguished valour, but----"

_January 21st._

It was so wet last night that there were but few groups of people on the Boulevards. At the clubs Trochu was universally denounced. Almost every one is now in despair. Of what use, they say, are the victories of Bourbaki; he cannot be here in time. We had pinned our faith on Chanzy, and the news of his defeat, coupled with our own, has almost extinguished every ray of hope in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s even of the most hopeful.

The Government, it is thought, is preparing the public mind for a capitulation. _La Liberte_, until now its strongest supporter, bitterly complains that it should publish the truth! Chandordy's despatch went first to Jules Favre. He stood over the man who was deciphering it. When he read the opening sentence, "Un grand malheur," he refused to read more, and sent it undeciphered to Trochu. When it reached the Governor, no one on his staff could decipher it, so it had to be returned to the Foreign-office. The moment for the quacks is at hand. A "General" offers to raise the siege if he be given 50,000 men. A magician offers a sh.e.l.l which will destroy the Prussians root and branch. M. Felix Pyat, in his organ, observes that Sparta never was taken, and that the Spartans used to eat in common. He proposes, therefore, as a means to free Paris, that a series of public suppers should be inaugurated. I can only say that I hope that they may be, for I certainly shall attend. Even Spartan broth would be acceptable. The bread is all but uneatable. If you put it in water, straw and bits of hay float about. A man, who ought to know, solemnly a.s.sured me this morning that we had only food for six days; but then men who ought to know are precisely those who know nothing. I do not think that we are so badly off as this; but the end is a question no longer of months, but of days, and very soon it will be of hours. Those who desire a speedy capitulation are called _les capitulards_, and they are in a majority of nine to one. There are still many who clamour for a grand sortie, but most of those who do so, are persons who, by no possibility, can themselves share in the operation. The street orators are still at poor Jonah Trochu, and their hearers seem to agree with them. These sages, however, do not explain who is to replace him. Some of the members of the Government, I hear, suggest an admiral; but what admiral would accept this _d.a.m.nosa haereditas_? Among the generals, each has his partisans, and each seems to be of opinion that he himself is a mighty man of war, and all the others fools. Both Vinoy and Ducrot declined to attend the Council of War which sat before the late sortie.

They were generals of division, they said, and they would obey orders, but they would accept no further responsibilities. Ducrot, who was the _fidus Achates_ of Trochu, is no longer in his good graces. The _Reveil_ of this afternoon, which is usually well-informed on all matters which concern our Mayors, gives the following account of the meeting of yesterday: "At three o'clock the meeting took place in the presence of all the members of the Government. M. Trochu declared formally that he would fight no more. M. Favre said that the Government was 'disappearing.' M. Favre proposed that the Government should give up its power to the Mayors. The Mayors refused. The discussion was very violent. Several propositions, one more absurd than another, were brought forward by some of the members of the Government. They were not discussed. As usual, the meeting broke up without any result." The best man they have is Vinoy; he is honest, disinterested, and determined. It is to be hoped that if Trochu resigns, he will take his place.

_January 22nd._

So poor Jonah has gone over, and been swallowed up by the whale. He still remains the head of the civil government, but it only is as a figure-head. He is an upright man; but as a military chief he has proved himself a complete failure. He was a man of plans, and never could alter the details of these plans to suit a change of circ.u.mstances. What his grand plan was, by which Paris was to be saved, no one now, I presume, ever will know. The plans of his sorties were always elaborately drawn up; each divisional commander was told in the minutest details what he was to do. Unfortunately, General Moltke usually interfered with the proper development of these details--a proceeding which always surprised poor Trochu--and in the account the next day of his operations, he would dwell upon the fact as a reason for his want of success. That batteries should be opened upon his troops, and that reinforcements should be brought up against them, were trifles--probable as they might seem to most persons--which filled him with an indignant astonishment. At the last sortie Ducrot excuses himself for being late at La Malmaison because he found the road by which he had been ordered to advance occupied by a long line of artillery, also there by Trochu's orders.

General Vinoy, who has replaced him, is a hale old soldier about seventy years old. He has risen from the ranks, and in the Crimea was a very intimate friend of Lord Clyde. When the latter came, a few years before his death, to Paris, the English Amba.s.sador had prepared a grand breakfast for him, and had gone to the station to meet him. On the platform was also Vinoy, who also had prepared breakfast for his old comrade in arms; and this breakfast, very much to the disgust of the diplomatist, Lord Clyde accepted. General Vinoy has to-day issued a proclamation to the troops, which in its plain, simple, modest language contrasts very favourably with the inflated bombast in which his predecessor was so great an adept.

The newspapers are already commencing to prove to their own satisfaction that the battle of last Thursday was not a defeat, but an "incomplete victory." As for the National Guard, one would suppose that every one of them had been in the action, and that they were only prevented from carrying everything before them by the timidity of their generals. The wonderful feats which many of these heroes have told me they performed would lead one to suppose that Napoleon's old Guard was but a flock of sheep in comparison with them. I cannot help thinking that by a certain indistinctness of recollection they attribute to themselves every exploit, not only that they saw, but that their fertile imaginations have ever dreamt to be possible. In all this nonsense they are supported by the newspapers, who think more of their circulation than of truth. To read the accounts of this battle one would suppose that neither the Line nor the Mobiles had been in it. A caricature now very popular represents a lion in the uniform of a National Guard held back by two donkeys in the uniforms of generals, and vainly endeavouring to rush upon a crowd of terrified Germans. As a matter of fact--about 5,000 National Guards were in the thick of it--the men behaved tolerably well, and many of the officers very well. The great majority of the marching battalions which were in the peninsula "did not give," to use the French phrase; and some of them, notwithstanding the efforts of their officers, were unable to remain steady as soon as the Prussian bombs reached them. This _sic vos non vobis_ which, is meted out to the Mobiles and the Line makes me indignant. As for the sailors, they are splendid fellows--and how we always manage to beat them afloat increases my admiration of the British tars. They are kept under the strictest discipline by their captains and admirals, one of whom once said to me when I asked him whether his men fraternized with the soldiers, "If I saw one of them a.s.sociating with such _canaille_, I would put him under arrest for twenty-four hours." In the forts they are perfectly cool under the heaviest fire, and both at Le Bourget and at Chatillon they fought like heroes. "Ten thousand of them," observed a general to me the other day, "are worth more than the whole National Guards."

The bombardment still continues. Bombs fall into the southern part of the town; but habit in this world is everything, and no one troubles himself much about them. At night the Trocadero has become a fashionable lounge for the _cocottes_, who still honour us with their presence. The line of the Prussian batteries and the flash of their guns can be seen.

The hissing, too, of the bombs can be heard, when the _cocottes_ crouch by their swains in affected dread. It is like Cremorne, with its ladies and its fireworks. Since yesterday morning, too, St. Denis has been bombarded. Most of its inhabitants have taken refuge in Paris, but it will be a pity if the cathedral, with the tombs of all the old French Kings, is damaged. St. Denis is itself a species of fort. Its guns are not, a friend tells me who has just come from there, replying with vigour. The Prussians are firing on it from six separate batteries, and it is feared that it will fall. Our attention to-day has been diverted from the Prussians outside by a little domestic quarrel at home, and we have been shooting each other, as though the Prussian missiles were not enough for our warlike stomachs, and death were not raging around our prison.

Between twelve and one this morning a band of armed patriots appeared before the prison of Mazas, and demanded the release of Flourens and the political prisoners who were shut up there. The director, instead of keeping the gate shut, allowed a deputation to enter. As soon as the gate was opened, not only the deputation, but the patriots rushed in, and bore off Flourens and his friends in triumph. With the Mayor at their head, they then went to the Mairie of the 20th Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, and pillaged it of all the rations and bread and wine which they found stored up there. Then they separated, having pa.s.sed a resolution to go at twelve o'clock to the Hotel de Ville, to a.s.sist their "brothers" in turning out the Government. I got myself to the Place of the Hotel de Ville at about two o'clock. There were then about 5000 persons there.

The gates were shut. Inside the rails before them were a few officers; and soldiers could be seen at all the windows. Some few of the 5000 were armed, but most of them were unarmed. Close in by the Hotel de Ville there seemed to be some sort of military order in the positions occupied by the rioters. I took up my stand at the corner of the Rue de Rivoli.

Every moment the crowd increased. It was composed partly of sightseers, for on Sunday every one is out of doors; partly of sympathisers. These sympathisers were not, as on October 31, working men, but mainly what Count Bismarck would call the populace. Their political creed may be summed up by the word "loot;" their personal appearance by the word "hangdog." I found myself in the midst of a group of hangdogs, who were abusing everyone and everything. On one side of me was a lady of expansive figure, whose breath showed that she had partaken lately of ardent spirits, and whose conversation showed that if she was a "matron of Cornelia's mien," her morals were better than her conversation. "The people are slaves," she perpetually yelled, "they will no longer submit to traitors; I say it to you, I, the mother of four children." The maternal vantage ground which she a.s.sumed evidently gave her opinions weight, for her neighbours replied, "Oui, elle a raison, la mere." A lean, bilious-looking fellow, who looked as though through life he had not done an honest day's work, and whose personal charms were not heightened by a grizzled beard and a cap of cat-skin, close by the matron, was bawling out, "The Hotel de Ville belongs to us, I am a taxpayer;" whilst a youth about fifteen years old, hard by, explained in a shrill treble the military errors which Trochu and the generals had committed. At a little after three o'clock, a fresh band, all armed, with a drum, beating the charge, appeared, and as they neared the chief entrance of the Hotel de Ville, just one shot, and then a number of shots were fired. Everybody who had a gun then shot it off with an eager but general idea of doing something, as he fled, like a Parthian bowman.

The stampede soon became general; numbers of persons threw themselves on the ground. I saw the mother of four children sprawling in the mire, and the bilious taxpayer fall over her, and then I followed the youthful strategist into an open door. Inside were about twenty people. The door was shut to, and for about twenty minutes we heard muskets going off.

Then, as the fight seemed over, the door was opened and we emerged. The Place had been evacuated by the mob, and was held by the troops. Fresh regiments were marching on it along the quay and the Rue de Rivoli.

Wounded people were lying about or crawling towards the houses. Soon some _brancardiers_ arrived and picked up the wounded. One boy I saw evidently dying--the blood was streaming out of two wounds. The windows of the Hotel de Ville were broken, and the facade bore traces of b.a.l.l.s, as did some of the houses round the Place. I remained until dusk. Even when I left the streets were full of citizens. Each man who had rolled in the mire, and whose clothes showed traces of it, was the centre of a group of sympathisers and non-sympathisers, to whom he was explaining how the Breton brigands had fired on him, a poor innocent lamb, who had done no harm. The non-sympathisers, however, were in the majority, and "served him right" seemed to be the general verdict on those who had been shot, or who had spoilt their clothes. Every now and then some window would slam or a cart would rumble by, when there would be a general scamper for a few yards. After dinner I again returned to the Hotel de Ville. The crowd had dispersed, and the Place was militarily occupied; so we may suppose that this little domestic episode is over.

_January 23rd, morning._

The clubs are closed, and the _Reveil_ and the _Combat_ suppressed.

Numbers of people are coming in from St. Denis, where the bombardment is getting very hot. Bombs last night fell in one of the islands on the Seine; so the flood is mounting, and our dry ground is every day diminishing. I see in an extract from a German paper, that it has been telegraphed to England that the village of Issy has been entirely destroyed by the Prussian fire. This is not the case. I was there the other day, and the village is still there. It is not precisely the spot where one would wish one's property to be situated, but most of the houses are, as yet, intact.