France in the Nineteenth Century Part 36

was the general's reply. All chance was over now, we thought; we should be shot in a few minutes. Our idea was that those who had been placed aside were to be spared, and those about me said: 'It is just. They would not shoot the aged and the wounded!' Alas! we were soon to be undeceived. Again we started, and were ordered to march arm in arm to the Bois de Boulogne. There those picked out of our ranks by General de Gallifet--over eighty in number--were all shot before our eyes; yet so great was our thirst that many, while the shooting was going on, were struggling for water, of which there was only a scant supply. I was not fortunate enough to get any.

"The execution being over, we proceeded, now knowing that our destination was Versailles. Oh, the misery and wretchedness of that weary march! The sun poured fiercely down on our uncovered heads, our throats were parched with thirst, our blistered feet and tired legs could hardly support our aching bodies. Now and again a man utterly worn out would drop by the wayside. One of our guard would then dismount, and try by kicks and blows to make him resume his place in the line. In all cases those measures proved unavailing, and a shot in the rear told us that one of our number had ceased to exist. The executioner would then fall into his place, laughing and chatting gayly with his comrades.

"Towards eight o'clock in the evening we entered Versailles. If the curses we had endured in Paris were frightful and numerous, here they were multiplied tenfold. We toiled up the hill leading to Satory, through mud ankle deep. 'There stand the _mitrailleuses_, ready for us,' said one of my companions. Then, indeed, for the first time I felt afraid, and wished I had been among those who had been executed in the daytime, rather than be horribly wounded and linger in my misery; for no sure aim is taken by a _mitrailleuse_.

"The order came to halt, and I waited for the whirring sound; but, thank G.o.d! I waited in vain. We set ourselves in motion once more, and soon were in an immense courtyard surrounded by walls, having on one side large sheds in which we were to pa.s.s the night. With what eagerness did we throw ourselves on our faces in the mud, and lap up the filthy water in the pools! There was another Englishman, as well as several Americans, among our number, also some Dutch, Belgians, and Italians. The Englishman had arrived in Paris from Brest on May 14 to 'better himself,' and had been immediately arrested and put in prison by the Commune. Being released on the 21st of May, he was captured the next day by the Versaillais. I remained all the time with him till my release.

"On Wednesday, May 31, we were despatched to Versailles to be examined at the _orangerie_. The _orangerie_ is about seven hundred feet long and forty broad, including two wings at either end. It is flagged with stone, on which the dust acc.u.mulates in great quant.i.ties.

According to my experience, it is bitterly cold at night, and very hot in the daytime. Within its walls, instead of fragrant orange-trees, were four to five thousand human beings, now herded together in a condition too miserable to imagine, a prey to vermin, disease, and starvation.

"The general appearance of the crowd of captives was, I must confess, far from prepossessing. They were very dirty, very dusty and worn out, as I myself was probably, and no wonder; the floor was several inches thick in dust, no straw was attainable, and washing was impossible. I gained some comparative comfort by gathering up dust in a handkerchief and making a cushion of it. Thursday, June 1, dragged on as miserably as its predecessor, the only event being the visit of a deputy, which gave rise to great antic.i.p.ations, as he said, in my hearing, that our condition was disgraceful, and that straw and a small portion of soup ought to be allowed us.

"The terrible scenes and sufferings we had gone through had deprived many of our number of their reason. Some of the madmen were dangerous, and made attempts to take the lives of their companions; others did nothing but shout and scream day and night. The second night we pa.s.sed in the _orangerie_ the Englishman and I thought we had secured a place where we might lie down and sleep in the side gallery; but at midnight we were attacked by one of the most dangerous of the madmen. It was useless to hope to find any other place to lie down in, and we had no more rest that night, for several maniacs persisted in following us wherever we went, and would allow us no repose. I counted that night forty-four men bereft of reason wandering about and attacking others, as they had done ourselves.

"The next day we found ourselves at last in the ranks of those who were to leave the _orangerie_. Our names were inscribed at eleven o'clock, and we stood in rank till seven in the evening, afraid to lose our places if we stirred. What our destination might be, was to us unknown; but there was not a man who was not glad to quit the place where we had suffered such misery."

Their destination proved to be Brest, which they reached at midnight of the next day, after travelling in cattle-cars for about thirty hours. They were transferred at once to a hulk lying in the harbor, clean shirts and water to wash with were given them, which seemed positive luxuries. Their treatment was not bad; they had hammocks to sleep in, and permission to smoke on deck every other day. But the sufferings they had gone through, and the terribly foul air of the _orangerie_, had so broken them down that most of them were stricken by a kind of jail-fever. Many, without warning, would drop down as if in a fit, and be carried to a hospital ship moored near them, to be seen no more.

Our Englishman remained three weeks on board this hulk, and then escaped; but by what means he did not, in October, 1871, venture to say.

He concludes his narrative with these words:--

"When I think of those who were with me who still remain in the same condition, and apparently with no chance of release, my heart grows sick within me, and I can only be thankful to Almighty G.o.d for my miraculous and providential escape. In conclusion let me say, as one who lived and suffered among them, that so far from speaking hardly of the miserable creatures who have been led astray, one ought rather to pity them. The greater part of those who served the Commune (for all in Paris, with but few exceptions, did serve) were 'pressed men' like myself. But those who had wives and children to support and were without work--nay, even without means of obtaining a crust of bread (for the siege had exhausted all their little savings)--were forced by necessity to enroll themselves in the National Guard for the sake of their daily pay.

"In the regular army of the Commune (if I may so style the National Guard) there were but few volunteers, and these were in general orderly and respectable men; but the irregular regiments, such as the _Enfants Perdus, Cha.s.seurs Federes, Defenseurs de la Colonne de Juillet_, etc., were nothing but troops of blackguards and ruffians, who made their uniforms an excuse for robbery and pillage. Such men deserved the vengeance which overtook the majority of them."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _PRESIDENT ADOLPH THIERS._]

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC.

The fall of the Commune took place in the last week of May, 1871.

We must go back to the surrender of Paris, in the last week of January of the same year, and take up the history of France from the election of the National a.s.sembly called together at Bordeaux to conclude terms of peace with the Prussians, to the election of the first president of the Third Republic, during which time France was under the dictatorship of M. Thiers.

Adolphe Thiers was born in Ma.r.s.eilles, April 16, 1797. He was a poor little baby, whose father, an ex-Jacobin, had fled from France to escape the counter-revolution. The doctor who superintended his entrance into the world recorded that he was a healthy, active child, with remarkably short legs. These legs remained short all his life, but his body grew to be that of a tall, powerful man.

His appearance was by no means aristocratic or dignified if seen from a distance, but his defects of person were redeemed by the wondrous sparkle in his eyes. The family of his mother, on the maternal side, was named Lhommaca, and was of Greek origin. It came from the Levant, and its members spoke Greek among themselves.

Madame Thiers' father was named Arnic, and his descent was also Levantine. Mademoiselle Arnic made a love-match in espousing Thiers, a widower, who after the 9th Thermidor had taken refuge under her father's roof. A writer who obtained materials for a sketch of Thiers from the Thiers himself, says,--

"She pitied him, she was dazzled by his brilliant parts, charmed by his plausible manners, and regardless of his poverty and his inc.u.mbrance of many children, she insisted on marrying him. Her family was indignant, and cast her off; nor did she long find comfort in her husband. She was a Royalist, and remained so to the end of her days; he was a Jacobin. Moreover, she soon found that his tastes led him to drink and dissipation."

This man, the father of Thiers, was small of stature, mercurial in temperament, of universal apt.i.tudes, much wit, and a perennial buoyancy of disposition. His weakness, like his son's, was a pa.s.sion for omniscience. Some one said of him: "He talks encyclopedia, and if anybody asked him, would be at no loss to tell you what was pa.s.sing in the moon." He had been educated for the Bar, and belonged to a family of the _haute bourgeoisie_ of Provence; but everything was changed by the revolutionary see-saw, and shortly before his son was born, he had been a stevedore in the docks of Ma.r.s.eilles. His father (the statesman's grandfather) had been a cloth merchant and a man of erudition. He wrote a History of Provence, and died at the age of ninety-five. The Thiers who preceded him lived to be ninety-seven, and was a noted gastronome, whose house at Ma.r.s.eilles in the early part of the eighteenth century was known far and wide for hospitality and good cheer. He was ruined by speculative ventures in the American colonies.

Thiers' grandfather, the cloth merchant, was a Royalist, who brought down upon himself the wrath of the Jacobins by inciting the more moderate party in Ma.r.s.eilles to seize the commissioners sent to them by the Convention, and imprison them in the Chateau d'If. His son (Thiers' father), being himself a Jacobin, helped to release the prisoners, and accepted an office under them in Ma.r.s.eilles. This was the reason why he had to conceal himself during the reaction that followed the fall of Robespierre. But all his life he bobbed like a cork to the surface of events, or with equal facility sank beneath them. He seems to have been "everything by turns, and nothing long." Among other employments he became an _impressario_, and went with an opera _troupe_ to Italy. There for a time he kept a gaming table, and finally turned up at Joseph Bonaparte's court at Naples. He became popular with King Joseph, and followed him to Madrid. He was a French Micawber, without the domestic affections of his English counterpart, but with far more brilliant chances.

His wife was left to struggle at Ma.r.s.eilles with her own boy to support, and with a host of step-children. What she would have done but for the kindness of her mother, Madame Arnic, it is hard to tell.

Meantime Adolphe was adopted and educated by Madame Arnic. She had provided him from his birth with influential patrons in the persons of two well-to-do G.o.dfathers. The boy was brought up in one of those beautiful _bastides_, or sea-and-country villas, which adorn the sh.o.r.es of Provence. There he ran wild with the little peasant boys, and subsequently in Ma.r.s.eilles with the _gamins_ of the city.

His cousin, the poet Andre Chenier, got him an appointment to one of the _lycees_, or high-schools, established by Napoleon; but his grandmother would not hear of his "wearing Bonaparte's livery."

The two G.o.d-fathers had to threaten to apply to the absent Micawber on the subject, if the boy's mother and grandmother stood in the way of his education. They yielded at last, and accepted the appointment offered them. Adolphe pa.s.sed with high marks into the inst.i.tution, and it cost him no trouble to keep always at the head of his cla.s.ses.

But in play hours there was never a more troublesome boy. He so perplexed and annoyed his superiors that they were on the eve of expelling him, when a new master came to the _lycee_ from Paris, and all was changed. This master had ruined his prospects by writing a pamphlet against the Empire. A warm friendship sprang up between him and his brilliant pupil. The good man was an unbending republican.

When Thiers became Prime Minister of France under Louis Philippe, he wrote to his old master and offered him an important post in the Bureau of Public Instruction; but the old man refused it. He would not accept Louis Philippe as "the best of republics," and ended his letter by saying: "The best thing I can wish you is that you may soon retire from office, and that for a long time."

The influence of this new teacher roused all Thiers' faculties and stimulated his industry. From that time forward he became the most industrious man of his age. The bulletins and the victories of Napoleon excited his imagination. He would take a bulletin for his theme, and write up an account of a battle, supplementing his few facts by his own vivid imagination. His idea was that France must be the strongest of European powers, or she would prove the weakest; she could not hold a middle place in the federation of European nations.

When Thiers had finished his school course his grandmother mortgaged her house to supply funds for his entrance into the college at Aix. He could not enter the army on account of his size, and he aspired to the Bar. His family was very poor at that period. Thiers largely supported himself by painting miniatures, which it is said he did remarkably well.

At Aix he found good literary society and congenial a.s.sociations.

His friendship with his fellow-historian, Mignet, began in their college days. At Aix, too, where he was given full liberty to enjoy the Marquis d'Alberta's gallery of art and wonderful collection of curiosities and bronzes, he acquired his life-long taste for such things. Aix was indeed a place full of collections,--of antiquities, of cameos, of marbles, etc.

Thiers' first literary success was the winning a prize at Nimes for a monograph on Vauvenargues, a moralist of the eighteenth century, called by Voltaire the master-mind of his period. He won this prize under remarkable circ.u.mstances. The commission to award it was composed, largely of Royalists, who did not like to a.s.sign it to a compet.i.tor, who, if not a Republican, was at least a Bonapartist.

Thiers had read pa.s.sages from his essay to friends, and the commissioners were aware of its authorship. They therefore postponed their decision. Meantime Thiers wrote another essay on the same subject. Mignet had it copied, and forwarded to Nimes from Paris, with a new motto. This essay won the first prize; and Thiers' other essay won the second prize, greatly to his amus.e.m.e.nt and delight, and to the annoyance and discomfiture of the Committee of Decision.

With six hundred francs in his pocket ($120), he went up to Paris, making the journey on foot. Having arrived there, he made his way to his friend Mignet's garret, weary and footsore, carrying his bundle in his hand. Mignet was not at home; but in the opposite chamber, which Thiers entered to make inquiries for his friend, was a gay circle of Bohemians, who were enjoying a revel. The traveller who broke in upon their mirth is thus described:--

"He wore a coat that had been green, and was faded to yellow, tight buff trousers too short to cover his ankles, and dusty, and glossy from long use, a pair of clumsy blucher boots, and a hat worthy of a place in the cabinet of an antiquary. His face was tanned a deep brown, and a pair of bra.s.s-rimmed spectacles covered half his face."

That was about 1821. Thiers was then not a profound politician, nor was he very clear as to theories about republicanism; but he was an enthusiast for Napoleon, an enthusiast for France. He employed his leisure in making notes in the public libraries on the events between 1788 and 1799,--the year of the 18th Brumaire. His future History of the Revolution, Consulate, and Empire began, unconsciously to himself, to grow under his hand. He had hoped to be called to the Bar in Paris; but as his want of height had prevented his entering the army, so his want of money prevented his entrance to the ranks of the lawyers of the capital. The council which recommends such admissions required at that period that the person seeking admittance should show himself possessed of a well-furnished domicile and a sufficient income. Thiers' resources fell far short of this. For a while he supported himself in Paris as best he could, partly by painting fans; he then returned to Aix, where he was admitted to the Bar. But he could not stay long away from Paris. He returned, and again struggled with poverty, painting and making applications for literary and newspaper work in all directions. At last, about the time of Louis XVIII.'s death, Manuel, the semi-republican deputy from Ma.r.s.eilles, took him up. He was then engaged upon his History, and was private secretary to the Duc de Liancourt, to whose notice he had been brought by Talleyrand in a letter which said: "Two young men have lately brought me strong recommendations. One is gentlemanly and appears to have the qualifications you desire in a secretary; the other is uncouth to a degree, but I think I can discern in him sparks of the fire of genius." The duke's reply was brief: "Send me the second one."

In 1826 Thiers began to attract public notice as a clever and somewhat turbulent opponent of the priest party under Charles X. He got his first journalistic employment from the editor of a leading paper in Paris, the "Const.i.tutionnel." He had a letter of introduction to the editor, who, nowise impressed by his appearance, and wishing to get rid of him, politely said he had no work vacant on the paper except that of criticising the pictures in the Salon, which he presumed M. Thiers' could not undertake. On the contrary, Thiers felt sure he could do the work, which the editor, confident of his failure, allowed him to try. The result was a review that startled all Paris, and Thiers was at once engaged on the "Const.i.tutionnel" as literary, dramatic, and artistic critic. He proved to have a perfect genius for journalism, and all his life he considered newspaper work his profession. Before long he aspired to take part in the management of his paper, and to that end saved and sc.r.a.ped together every cent in his power, a.s.sisted by a German bookseller named Schubert, the original of Schmuke, in Balzac's "Cousin Pons." The "Const.i.tutionnel" grew more and more popular and more and more powerful; but still Thiers' means were very small, and he was bent on saving all he could to establish a new newspaper, the "National."

He was engaged to be married to a young lady at Aix, whose father thought he was neglecting her, and came up to Paris to see about it. Thiers pleaded for delay. He had not money enough, he said, to set up housekeeping. A second time the impatient father came to Paris on the same errand, and on receiving the same answer, a.s.saulted Thiers publicly and challenged him. The duel took place.

Thiers fired in the air, and his adversary's ball pa.s.sed between his little legs. n.o.body was hurt, but the match was broken off, and the young lady died of the disappointment. Thiers kept every memorial he had of her sacredly to the day of his death, and in the time of his power sought out and provided for the members of her family.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about M. Thiers was the unusual care he took to prepare himself fully before writing or speaking.

He had every subject clearly and fully in his own mind before he put pen to paper, and when he began to write, he did so with extraordinary rapidity; nor would he write any account of anything, either in a newspaper or in his history, till he had visited localities, conversed with eye-witnesses, and picked up floating legends.

By an accident he became acquainted before other Parisian journalists with the signing of the Ordinances by Charles X., July 26, 1830.

He had also good reason to think that Louis Philippe, if offered the crown of France or the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom, would accept it. While fighting was going on in Paris, he and Ary Scheffer, the artist, were the two persons deputed to go to Neuilly and sound the Duke of Orleans. As we have seen, Marie Amelie, the duke's wife, indignantly refused their overtures in the absence of her husband, while Madame Adelade, his sister, encouraged them.

Thiers, Laffitte, and Lafayette became the foremost men in Paris at this crisis, and at the end of some days Louis Philippe became king of the French. He wanted to make Thiers one of his ministers, but Thiers characteristically declined so high an office until he should have served an apprenticeship to ministerial work in an under secretary-ship, and knew the machinery and the working of all departments of government.

Thus far I have not spoken of Thiers' "History of the Revolution."

It appeared first in monthly parts. Up to the publication of the first number, in 1823, no writer in France had dared to speak well of any actor in the Revolution. Thiers' History, as it became known, created a great sensation. Thiers himself was supposed by the general public (both of his own country and of foreign nations) to be a wild revolutionist. At first the critics knew not how to speak of a book that admired the States-General and defended the Const.i.tutional Convention; but by the time the third volume was completed, in 1827, it was bought up eagerly. The work was published afterwards in ten volumes, and the "History of the Consulate and Empire," which appeared between 1845 and 1861, is in twenty volumes; but it is only fair to say that the print is very large and the ill.u.s.trations are very numerous, and that the portraits especially are beyond all praise.

From 1831 to 1836, Thiers was one of Louis Philippe's ministers, and from 1836 to 1840 he was Prime Minister, or President of the Council.

As soon as Thiers rose to power his mercurial father made his appearance in Paris. Thiers was disposed to receive him very coldly. "What have you ever done for me that you have any claim on me?" he asked. "My son," replied the prodigal parent, "if I had been an ordinary father and had stayed by my family and brought up a houseful of children in obscurity, do you suppose you would have been where you are now?"

At this Thiers laughed, and gave his father a post-mastership in a small town in the South of France called Carpentras. There the old gentleman lived, disreputable and extravagant to the last, surrounded by a large family of dogs.

Thiers provided at the earliest possible moment for his mother and grandmother, buying for the latter a pretty little property which she had always coveted, near Aix, and taking his mother to preside over his own home. But Madame Thiers felt out of place in her son's life, and preferred to return to the property given to Madame Arnic, where she spent the rest of her days with the old lady. Lamartine tells a pretty anecdote of Thiers' relations with his mother. The poet and the statesman had been dining together at a friend's house, in 1830, when Thiers was already a cabinet officer.

On leaving together after dinner, they found in the ante-room an elderly woman plainly and roughly dressed. She was asking for M.

Thiers, who, as soon as he saw her, ran to her, clasped her in his arms, kissed her, and then, leading her by both hands up to the poet, cried joyously: "Lamartine, this is my mother!"

In 1834 Thiers married a beautiful young girl fresh from her _pension_, Mademoiselle Dosne, who was co-heiress with her mother and her father to a great fortune. Unhappily Thiers had fallen first in love with the mother; but he accepted the daughter instead. The early married life of Madame Thiers was saddened by her knowledge of this state of things. She was devoted to the interests of her husband, and watched over him as a mother might have watched over a child. She was an accomplished woman and most careful housekeeper, and had received an excellent education. She knew many languages, and turned all English or German doc.u.ments required by her husband into French. She was also a charming hostess, but she lived under the shadow of a great sorrow.

When Thiers was to be married, he paid his father twelve thousand francs (about $2,500) for the legal parental consent which is necessary in a French marriage; but he was by no means anxious to have his irrepressible parent at his wedding. For three weeks before the event he hired all the places in all the stage-coaches running through Carpentras to Lyons.