Recollections of My Childhood and Youth Part 27

National enthusiasm could vent itself in the theatres, in a most convenient manner, without making any sacrifice. As soon as the audience had seen the first piece at the Theatre Francais, the public clamoured for _La Ma.r.s.eillaise_, and brooked no denial. A few minutes later the lovely Mlle.

Agar came in, in a Greek costume. Two French flags were held over her head. She then sang, quietly, sublimely, with expression at the same time restrained and inspiring, the _Ma.r.s.eillaise_. The countless variations of her voice were in admirable keeping with her animated and yet sculptural gesticulation, and the effect was thrilling, although certain pa.s.sages in the song were hardly suitable to the circ.u.mstances of the moment, for instance, the invocation of Freedom, the prayer to her to fight for her defenders. When the last verse came, she seized the flag and knelt down; the audience shouted, "_Debout_!" All rose and listened standing to the conclusion, which was followed by mad applause.

People seized upon every opportunity of obtruding their patriotism. One evening _Le lion amoureux_ was given. In the long speech which concludes the second act, a young Republican describes the army which, during the Revolution, crossed the frontier for the first time and utterly destroyed the Prussian armies. The whole theatre foamed like the sea.

XXIV.

Those were Summer days, and in spite of the political and martial excitement, the peaceful woods and parks in the environs of Paris were tempting. From the Quartier Latin many a couple secretly found their way to the forests of St. Germain, or the lovely wood at Chantilly. In the morning one bought a roast fowl and a bottle of wine, then spent the greater part of the day under the beautiful oak-trees, and sat down to one's meal in the pleasant green shade. Now and again one of the young women would make a wreath of oak leaves and twine it round her companion's straw hat, while he, bareheaded, lay gazing up at the tree- tops. For a long time I kept just such a wreath as a remembrance, and its withered leaves roused melancholy reflections some years later, for during the war every tree of the Chantilly wood had been felled; the wreath was all that remained of the magnificent oak forest.

XXV.

The news of the battle of Weissenburg on August 4th was a trouble, but this chiefly manifested itself in profound astonishment. What? They had suffered a defeat? But one did not begin to be victorious at once; victory would soon follow now. And, indeed, next morning, the news of a victory ran like lightning about the town. It had been so confidently expected that people quite neglected to make enquiries as to how and to what extent it was authenticated. There was bunting everywhere; all the horses had flags on their heads, people went about with little flags in their hats. As the day wore on it turned out to be all a false report, and the depression was great.

Next evening, as I came out of the _Theatre Francais_, there stood the Emperor's awful telegram to read, several copies of it posted up on the columns of the porch: "Macmahon has lost a battle. Frossard is retreating. Put Paris in a condition of defence as expeditiously as possible!" Then, like everyone else, I understood the extent of the misfortune. Napoleon had apparently lost his head; it was very unnecessary to publish the conclusion of the telegram.

Immediately afterwards was issued the Empress' proclamation, which was almost silly. "I am with you," it ran--a charming consolation for the Parisians.

Astonishment produced a kind of paralysis; anger looked round for an object on which to vent itself, but hardly knew whom to select. Besides, people had really insufficient information as to what had happened. The _Siecle_ printed a fairly turbulent article at once, but no exciting language in the papers was required. Even a foreigner could perceive that if it became necessary to defend Paris after a second defeat, the Empire would be at an end.

The exasperation which had to vent itself was directed at first against the Ministers, and ridiculously enough the silence imposed on the Press concerning the movements of the troops (_le mutisme_) was blamed for the defeat at Weissenburg; then the exasperation swung back and was directed against the generals, who were dubbed negligent and incapable, until, ponderously and slowly, it turned against the Emperor himself.

But with the haste that characterises French emotion, and the rapidity with which events succeeded one another, even this exasperation was of short duration. It raged for a few days, and then subsided for want of contradiction of its own accord, for the conviction spread that the Emperor's day was irrevocably over and that he continued to exist only in name. A witness to the rapidity of this _volte face_ were three consecutive articles by Edmond About in _Le Soir_. The first, written from his estate in Saverne, near Stra.s.sburg. was extremely bitter against the Emperor; it began: "_Napoleone tertio feliciter regnante_, as people said in the olden days, I have seen with my own eyes, what I never thought to see: Alsace overrun by the enemy's troops." The next article, written some days later, in the middle of August, when About had come to Paris, called the Emperor, without more ado, "The last Bonaparte," and began: "I see that I have been writing like a true provincial; in the provinces at the moment people have two curses on their lips, one for the Prussians, and one for those who began the war; in Paris, they have got much farther; there they have only one curse on their lips, one thought, and one wish; there are names that are no more mentioned in Paris than if they belonged to the twelfth century."

What he wrote was, at the moment, true and correct. I was frequently asked in letters what the French now said about the government and the Emperor. The only answer was that all that side of the question was antiquated in Paris. If I were to say to one of my acquaintances: _"Eh! bien, que dites-vous de l'empereur_?" the reply would be: _"Mais, mon cher, je ne dis rien de lui. Vous voyez si bien que moi, qu'il ne compte plus. C'est un homme par terre. Tout le monde le sait; la gauche meme ne l'attaque plus."_ Even General Trochu, the Governor of the capital, did not mention Napoleon's name in his proclamation to Paris. He himself hardly dared to send any messages. After having been obliged to surrender the supreme command, he followed the army, like a mock emperor, a kind of onlooker, a superfluous piece on the board.

People said of him: "_On croit qu'il se promene un peu aux environs de Chalons._"

As can be seen from this, the deposition of the Emperor had taken place in people's consciousness, and was, so to speak, publicly settled, several weeks before the battle of Sedan brought with it his surrender to the King of Prussia and the proclamation of the French Republic. The Revolution of September 4th was not an overturning of things; it was merely the ratification of a state of affairs that people were already agreed upon in the capital, and had been even before the battle of Gravelotte.

In Paris preparations were being made with the utmost energy for the defence of the city. All men liable to bear arms were called up, and huge numbers of volunteers were drilled. It was an affecting sight to see the poor workmen drilling on the Place du Carrousel for enrolment in the volunteer corps. Really, most of them looked so bloodless and wretched that one was tempted to think they went with the rest for the sake of the franc a day and uniform.

XXVI.

Anyone whose way led him daily past the fortifications could see, however technically ignorant he might be, that they were exceedingly insignificant. Constantly, too, one heard quoted Trochu's words: "I don't delude myself into supposing that I can stop the Prussians with the matchsticks that are being planted on the ramparts." Strangely enough, Paris shut herself in with such a wall of masonry that in driving through it in the Bois de Boulogne, there was barely room for a carriage with two horses. They bored loop-holes in these walls and ramparts, but few doubted that the German artillery would be able to destroy all their defences with the greatest ease.

Distribute arms to the civil population, as the papers unanimously demanded, from readily comprehensible reasons, no one dared to do. The Empress' Government had to hold out for the existing state of things; nevertheless, in Paris,--certainly from about the 8th August,--people were under the impression that what had been lost was lost irrevocably.

I considered it would be inc.u.mbent upon my honour to return to Denmark, if we were drawn into the war, and I lived with this thought before my eyes. I contemplated with certainty an approaching revolution in France; I was vexed to think that there was not one conspicuously great and energetic man among the leaders of the Opposition, and that such a poor wretch as Rochefort was once more daily mentioned and dragged to the front. Of Gambetta no one as yet thought, although his name was respected, since he had made himself felt the last season as the most vehement speaker in the Chamber. But it was not speakers who were wanted, and people did not know that he was a man of action.

The Ministry that followed Ollivier's inspired me with no confidence.

Palikao, the Prime Minister, was termed in the papers an _iron man_ (the usual set phrase). It was said that he "would not scruple to clear the boulevards with grape"; but the genius needed for such a performance was not overwhelming. What he had to do was to clear France of the Germans, and that was more difficult.

Renan had had to interrupt the journey to Spitzbergen which he had undertaken in Prince Napoleon's company; the Prince and his party had only reached Tromsoe, when they were called back on account of the war, and Renan was in a state of the most violent excitement. He said: "No punishment could be too great for that brainless scoundrel Ollivier, and the Ministry that has followed his is worse. Every thinking man could see for himself that the declaration of this war was madness. (_A-t-on jamais vu pareille folie, mon Dieu, mon Dieu, c'est navrant. Nous sommes un peuple desarconne._)" In his eyes, Palikao was no better than a robber, Jerome David than a murderer. He considered the fall of Strasburg imminent. He was less surprised than I at the unbounded incapacity shown by the French fleet under the difficult conditions; all plans for a descent on Northern Germany had already been given up, and the French fleet was unable to set about even so much as a blockade of the ports, such as the Danes had successfully carried out six years before.

Taine was as depressed as Renan. He had returned from Germany, where he had gone to prepare a treatise on Schiller, on account of the sudden death of Madame Taine's mother. As early as August 2d, when no battle had as yet been fought, he felt exceedingly anxious, and he was the first Frenchman whom I heard take into consideration the possibility of the defeat of France; he expressed great sorrow that two nations such as France and Germany should wage national war against each other as they were doing. "I have just come from Germany," he remarked, "where I have talked with many brave working-men. When I think of what it means for a man to be born into the world, nursed, brought up, instructed, and equipped; when I think what struggling and difficulties he must go through himself to be fit for the battle of life, and then reflect how all that is to be flung into the grave as a lump of bleeding flesh, how can I do other than grieve! With two such statesmen as Louis Philippe, war could certainly have been averted, but with two quarrelsome men like Bismarck and Napoleon at the head of affairs, it was, of course, inevitable."

Philarete Chasles saw in the defeats a confirmation of the theory that he proclaimed, day in, day out, namely: that the Latin races were on the rapid down-grade; Spain and Portugal, Italy, Roumania, the South American republics, were, in his opinion, in a state of moral putrefaction, France a sheer Byzantium. It had been a piece of foolhardiness without parallel to try to make this war a decisive racial struggle between the nation that, as Protestant, brought free research in its train and one which had not yet been able to get rid of the Pope and political despotism. Now France was paying the penalty.

Out in the country at Meudon, where he was, there had--probably from carelessness--occurred repeated explosions, the last time on August 20th. Twenty cases of cartridges had just been sent to Bazaine; a hundred still remained, which were to start the day that they were urgently required. They blew up, and no one in the town doubted that the explosion was the work of Prussian spies. For things had come to such a pa.s.s that people saw Prussian spies everywhere. (During the first month of the war all Germans were called Prussians.) Importance was attached to the fact that General Frossard's nephew, a young lieutenant who lay wounded in Chasles' tower-house, from a sword-thrust in the chest, and was usually delirious, at the crash had jumped up and come to his senses, crying out: "It is treachery! It is Chamber No. 6 blowing up!"

As a matter of fact, that was where the cartridges were. It was said that at Meudon traces had been found of the same explosive as had been used in bombs against the Emperor during the first days of May (a plot that had probably been hatched by the police). The perpetrator, however,--doubtless for good reasons--was not discovered.

Whatever vanity there was about old Philarete Chasles left him altogether during this critical time, which seemed to make good men better still. His niece, too, who used to be loud-voiced and conceited, was quite a different person. One day that I was at their house at Meudon, she sat in a corner for a long time crying quietly. Out there, they were all feverishly anxious, could not rest, craved, partly to hear the latest news, partly to feel the pulse of Paris. One day after dinner, Chasles invited me to go into town with him, and when we arrived he took a carriage and drove about with me for two hours observing the prevailing mood. We heard countless anecdotes, most of them apocryphal, but reflecting the beliefs of the moment: The Empress had sent three milliards (!) in French gold to the Bank of England. The Emperor, who was jealous of Macmahon since the latter had rescued him at Magenta, had taken the command of the Turcos from the Marshal, although the latter had said in the Council of War: "The Turcos must be given to me, they will not obey anyone else." And true it was that no one else had any control over them. If one had committed theft, or misbehaved himself in any other way, and Macmahon. whom they called only "Our Marshal," rode down the front of their lines and scolded them, they began to cry, rushed up and kissed his feet, and hung to his horse, like children asking for forgiveness. And now someone had made the great mistake of giving them to another general. And, the commander being anxious to dazzle the Germans with them, they and the Zouaves had been sent first into the fire, in spite of Bazaine's very sensible observation: "When you drive, you do not begin at a galop." And so these picked troops were broken up in their first engagement. It was said that of 2,500 Turcos, only 29 were left.

An anecdote like the following, which was told to us, will serve to show how popular legends grow up, in virtue of the tendency there is to reduce a whole battle to a collision between two generals, just as in the Homeric age, or in Shakespeare: The Crown Prince of Prussia was fighting very bravely at Worth, in the front ranks. That he threw the Turcos into confusion was the result of a ray of sunlight falling on the silver eagle on his helmet. The Arabs thought it a sign from Heaven.

Macmahon, who was shooting in the ranks, was so near the Crown Prince that the latter shouted to him in French: "_Voila un homme!_" but the Frenchman surpa.s.sed him in chivalrous politeness, for he saluted, and replied: "_Voila un heros!_"

XXVII.

After my return to Paris, I had taken lessons from an excellent language teacher, Mademoiselle Guemain, an old maid who had for many years taught French to Scandinavians, and for whom I wrote descriptions and remarks on what I saw, to acquire practise in written expression. She had known most of the princ.i.p.al Northerners who had visited Paris during the last twenty years, had taught Magdalene Th.o.r.esen, amongst others, when this latter as a young woman had stayed in Paris. She was an excellent creature, an unusual woman, intellectual, sensitive, and innocent, who made an unforgettable impression upon one. Besides the appointed lesson- times, we sometimes talked for hours together. How sad that the lives of such good and exceptional women should vanish and disappear, without any special thanks given to them in their life-times, and with no one of the many whom they have benefitted to tell publicly of their value. She possessed all the refinement of the French, together with the modesty of an old maid, was both personally inexperienced, and by virtue of the much that she had seen, very experienced in worldly things. I visited her again in 1889, after the lapse of nineteen years, having learned her address through Jonas Lie and his wife, who knew her. I found her older, but still more charming, and touchingly humble. It cut me to the heart to hear her say: _"C'est une vraie charite que vous me faites de venir me voir."_

Mlle. Guemain was profoundly affected, like everyone else, by what we were daily pa.s.sing through during this time of heavy strain. As a woman, she was impressed most by the seriousness which had seized even the most frivolous people, and by the patriotic enthusiasm which was spreading in ever wider circles. She regarded it as deeper and stronger than as a rule it was.

XXVIII.

The temper prevailing among my Italian friends was very different. The Italians, as their way was, were just like children, laughed at the whole thing, were glad that the Prussians were "drubbing" the French, to whom, as good patriots, they wished every misfortune possible. The French had behaved like tyrants in Italy; now they were being paid out.

Besides which, the Prussians would not come to Paris. But if they did come, they would be nice to them, and invite them to dinner, like friends. Sometimes I attempted to reply, but came off badly. One day that I had ventured a remark to a large and ponderous Roman lady, on the ingrat.i.tude of the Italians towards the French, the good lady jumped as if a knife had been stuck into her, and expatiated pa.s.sionately on the infamy of the French. The Romans were,--as everyone knew,--the first nation on earth. The French had outraged them, had dared to prevent them making their town the capital of Italy, by garrisoning it with French soldiers who had no business there, so that they had themselves asked for the Nemesis which was now overtaking them, and which the Italians were watching with flashing eyes. She said this, in spite of her anger, with such dignity, and such a bearing, that one could not but feel that, if she were one day called upon to adorn a throne, she would seat herself upon it as naturally, and as free from embarra.s.sment, as though it were nothing but a Roman woman's birthright.

XXIX.

In the meantime, defeats and humiliations were beginning to confuse the good sense of the French, and to lead their instincts astray. The crowd could not conceive that such things could come about naturally. The Prussians could not possibly have won by honourable means, but must have been spying in France for years. Why else were so many Germans settled in Paris! The French were paying now, not for their faults, but for their virtues, the good faith, the hospitality, the innocent welcome they had given to treacherous immigrants. They had not understood that the foreigner from the North was a crafty and deceitful enemy.

It gradually became uncomfortable for a foreigner in Paris. I never went out without my pa.s.sport. But even a pa.s.sport was no safeguard. It was enough for someone to make some utterly unfounded accusation, express some foolish, chance suspicion, for the non-Frenchman to be maltreated as a "spy." Both in Metz and in Paris, in the month of August, people who were taken for "Prussians" were hanged or dismembered. In the latter part of August the papers reported from the Dordogne that a mob there had seized a young man, a M. de Moneys, of whom a gang had a.s.serted that he had shouted _"Vive la Prusse!"_ had stripped him, bound him with ropes, carried him out into a field, laid him on a pile of damp wood, and as this would not take fire quick enough, had pushed trusses of straw underneath all round him, and burnt him alive. From the _Quartier La Vilette_ in Paris, one heard every day of similar slaughter of innocent persons who the people fancied were Prussian spies. Under such circ.u.mstances, a trifle might become fatal. One evening at the end of August I had been hearing _L'Africaine_ at the grand opera, and at the same time Marie Sa.s.s' delivery of the _Ma.r.s.eillaise_--she sang as though she had a hundred fine bells in her voice, but she sang the national anthem like an aria. Outside the opera-house I hailed a cab. The coachman was asleep; a man jogged him to wake him, and he started to drive. I noticed that during the drive he looked at his watch and then drove on for all that he was worth, as fast as the harness and reins would stand. When I got to the hotel I handed him his fare and a four sous' tip. He bawled out that it was not enough; he had been _de remise_; he had taken me for someone else, being waked so suddenly; he had been bespoken by another gentleman. I laughed and replied that that was his affair, not mine; what had it got to do with me? But as all he could demand, if he had really been _de remise_, was two sous more, and as, under the ordinances prevailing, it was impossible to tell whether he was or not, I gave him the two sous; but no tip with it, since he had no right to claim it, and I had not the slightest doubt that he was lying. Then he began to croak that it was a shame not to give a _pourboire_, and, seeing that did not help matters, as I simply walked up the hotel steps, he shouted in his ill-temper, first _"Vous n'etes pas Francais!"_ and then _"Vous etes Prussien!"_ No sooner had he said it than all the hotel servants who were standing in the doorway disappeared, and the people in the street listened, stopped, and turned round. I grasped the danger, and flew into a pa.s.sion. In one bound I was in the road, I rushed at the cabman, seized him by the throat and shook my hand, with its knuckle-duster upon it, threateningly at his head. Then he forgot to abuse me and suddenly whined: _"Ne frappez pas, monsieur!"_ mounted his box, and drove very tamely away. In my exasperation I called the hotel waiters together and poured scorn on them for their cowardice.

In spite of the season, it was uncomfortable weather, and the temper of the town was as uncomfortable as the weather. As time went on, few people were to be seen about the streets, but there was a run on the gunmakers' and sword-smiths'. By day no cheerful shouts or songs rang out, but children of six or seven years of age would go hand in hand in rows down the street in the evenings, singing _"Mourir pour la patrie,"_ to its own beautiful, affecting melody. But these were the only gentle sounds one heard. Gradually, the very air seemed to be reeking with terror and frenzy. Exasperation rolled up once more, like a thick, black stream, against the Emperor, against the ministers and generals, and against the Prussians, whom people thought they saw everywhere.

x.x.x.

Foreigners were requested to leave Paris, so that, in the event of a siege, the city might have no unnecessary mouths to feed.

Simultaneously, in Trochu's proclamation, it was announced that the enemy might be outside the walls in three days. Under such circ.u.mstances, the town was no longer a place for anyone who did not wish to be shut up in it.

One night at the end of August, I travelled from Paris to Geneva. At the departure station the thousands of German workmen who had been expelled from Paris were drawn up, waiting, herded together like cattle,--a painful sight. These workmen were innocent of the war, the defeats, and the spying service of which they were accused; now they were being driven off in hordes, torn from their work, deprived of their bread, and surrounded by inimical lookers-on.

As it had been said that trains to the South would cease next day, the Geneva train was overfilled, and one had to be well satisfied to secure a seat at all. My travelling companions of the masculine gender were very unattractive: an impertinent and vulgar old Swiss who, as it was a cold night, and he had no travelling-rug, wrapped himself up in four or five of his dirty shirts--a most repulsive sight; a very precise young Frenchman who, without a vestige of feeling for the fate of his country and nation, explained to us that he had long had a wish to see Italy, and had thought that now, business being in any case at a standstill, the right moment had arrived.

The female travellers in the compartment were a Parisian, still young, and her bright and charming fifteen-year-old daughter, whose beauty was not unlike that of Mlle. Ma.s.sin, the lovely actress at the _Theatre du Gymnase_. The mother was all fire and flame, and raved, almost to tears, over the present pa.s.s, cried shame on the cowardice of the officers for not having turned out the Emperor; her one brother was a prisoner at Konigsberg; all her male relations were in the field. The daughter was terror-struck at the thought that the train might be stopped by the enemy--which was regarded as very likely--but laughed at times, and was divided between fear of the Prussians and exceeding anxiety to see them: _"J'aimerais bien pouvoir dire que j'aie vu des Prussiens!"_

At one station some soldiers in rout, with torn and dusty clothes, got into our carriage; they looked repulsive, bespattered with mud and clay; they were in absolute despair, and you could hear from their conversation how disorganised discipline was, for they abused their officers right and left, called them incapable and treacherous, yet themselves gave one the impression of being very indifferent soldiers.

The young sergeant major who was leading them was the only one who was in anything like spirits, and even he was not much to boast of. It was curious what things he believed: Marshal Leboeuf had had a Prussian officer behind his chair, disguised as a waiter, at Metz, and it had only just been discovered. Russia had lent troops to Prussia, and put them into Prussian uniforms; otherwise there could not possibly be so many of them. But Rome, too, was responsible for the misfortunes of France; the Jesuits had planned it all, because the country was so educated; they never liked anybody to learn anything.

After Culoz commenced the journey through the lovely Jura mountains. On both sides an immense panorama of high, wooded mountain ridges, with poverty-stricken little villages along the mountain sides. At Bellegarde our pa.s.sports were demanded; no one was allowed to cross the frontier without them--a stupid arrangement. The Alps began to bound our view.

The train went on, now through long tunnels, now between precipices, now again over a rocky ridge, whence you looked down into the valley where the blue-green Rhone wound and twined its way between the rocks like a narrow ribbon. The speed seemed to be accelerating more and more. The first maize-field. Slender poplars, without side-branches, but wholly covered with foliage, stood bent almost into spirals by the strong wind from the c.h.i.n.ks of the rocks. The first Swiss house.