The Plebiscite Part 1

The Plebiscite.

by emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The present volume serves to emphasize the important connection, so generally now lost sight of, between the _plebiscite_ of 1870 in France and the war with Prussia which so speedily followed. Under the administration of Ollivier, which promised an attractive extension of popular liberties, it will be remembered, the _plebiscitum_ of the Roman Const.i.tution was borrowed, to give an air of popular approval to the strongly attacked Imperial regime by taking the sense of the people through universal suffrage as to the continuance of the Imperial authority on its then existing basis. Of the web of chicane and corruption by which the election was brought out an overwhelming triumph for Imperialism, MM. Erckmann-Chatrian give a clearer and more impressive notion in this book than could be obtained from entire volumes of parliamentary reports and whole files of newspapers. But they make it especially clear how the people were persuaded to return a majority of "yeses" so enormous as to make it impossible to account for it on the theory of mere corruption and chicane. It is evident from this narrative that the people were made to believe that the Empire meant peace abroad and freedom from foreign complications then threatening, as well as tranquillity at home, and that therefore one of the profoundest instincts of twenty millions of peasantry was utilized in order to be subsequently betrayed.

No authors could have been so happily chosen to write the story of the struggle which followed. Alsace and Lorraine, at once the scene of the earliest campaign of the war and the victims of its result, furnish the most appropriate background of such a picture. In reading these adventures, sufferings, meditations, and discussions of the simple yet shrewd Alsatian miller and his neighbors, the reader will take in almost at a glance the causes, incidents, and consequences of one of the greatest of modern wars. The corruption of the office-holding cla.s.ses, the ignorance of the army officers whose ranks had been filled by favoritism, the bravery of the private soldier ill-equipped, ill-fed, and disastrously led, the contrasting system and discipline of the Prussians, the awakening by Gambetta of the national enthusiasm, and the determined and dogged fighting under Chanzy, Faidherbe, and Bourbaki, how the peasants fared at the hands of the enemy, and how the enemy conducted themselves during the brief campaign are all unfolded before the reader with a combined fulness and incisiveness difficult to encounter elsewhere in narratives of this momentous conflict.

THE PLeBISCITE

OR

A MILLER'S STORY OF THE WAR

CHAPTER I

I am writing this history for sensible people. It is my own story during the calamitous war we have just gone through. I write it to show those who shall come after us how many evil-minded people there are in the world, and how little we ought to trust fair words; for we have been deceived in this village of ours after a most abominable fashion; we have been deceived by all sorts of people--by the sous-prefets, by the prefets, and by the Ministers; by the cures, by the official gazettes; in a word, by each and all.

Could any one have imagined that there are so many deceivers in this world? No, indeed; it requires to be seen with one's own eyes to be believed.

In the end we have had to pay dearly. We have given up our hay, our straw, our corn, our flour, our cattle; and that was not enough.

Finally, they gave up _us_, our own selves. They said to us: "You are no longer Frenchmen; you are Prussians! We have taken your young men to fight in the war; they are dead, they are prisoners: now settle with Bismarck any way you like; your business is none of ours!"

But these things must be told plainly: so I will begin at the beginning, without getting angry.

You must know, in the first place, that I am a miller in the village of Rothalp, in the valley of Metting, at Dosenheim, between Lorraine and Alsace. It is a large and fine village of 130 houses, possessing its cure Daniel, its school-master Adam Fix, and princ.i.p.al inhabitants of every kind--wheelwrights, blacksmiths, shoemakers, tailors, publicans, brewers, dealers in eggs, b.u.t.ter, and poultry; we even have two Jews, Solomon Kaan, a pedler, and David Hertz, cattle-dealer.

This will show you what was our state of prosperity before this war; for the wealthier a village is, the more strangers it draws: every man finds a livelihood there, and works at his trade.

We had not even occasion to fetch our butcher's-meat from town. David killed a cow now and then, and retailed all we wanted for Sundays and holidays.

I, Christian Weber, have never been farther than thirty leagues from this commune. I inherited my mill from my grandfather, Marcel Desjardins, a Frenchman from the neighborhood of Metz, who had built it in the time of the Swedish war, when our village was but a miserable hamlet. Twenty-six years ago I married Catherine Amos, daughter of the old forest-ranger. She brought me a hundred louis for her dowry. We have two children--a daughter, Gredel, and a son, Jacob, who are still with us at home.

I have besides a cousin, George Weber, who went off more than thirty years ago to serve in the Marines in Guadeloupe. He has even been on active service there. It was he who beat the drum on the forecastle of the ship _Boussole_, as he has told me a hundred times, whilst the fleet was bombarding St. John d'Ulloa. Afterward he was promoted to be sergeant; then he sailed to North America, for the cod fisheries; and again into the Baltic, on board a small Danish vessel engaged in the coal-trade. George was always intent upon making a fortune. About 1850 he returned to Paris, and established a manufactory of matches in the Rue Mouffetard in Paris; and as he is really a very handsome tall man, with a dark complexion, bold looking, and with a quick eye, he at last married a rich widow without children, Madame Marie Anne Finck, who was keeping an inn in that neighborhood. They grew rich. They bought land in our part of the country through the agency of Monsieur Fingado, the solicitor, to whom he sent regularly the price of every piece of land. At last, on the death of the old carpenter, Joseph Briou, he became the purchaser of his house, to live there with his wife, and to keep a public-house on the road to Metting.

This took place last year, during the time of the Plebiscite, and Cousin George came to inspect his house before taking his wife, Marie Anne, to it.

I was mayor; I had received orders from M. le Sous-prefet to give public notice of the Plebiscite, and to request all well-disposed persons to vote "_Yes,_" _if they desired to preserve peace_; because all the ruffians in the country were going to vote _No_, to have war.

This is exactly what I did, by making everybody promise to come without fail, and sending the _bangard_* Martin Kapp to carry the voting tickets to the very farthest cottages up the mountains.

* An old word, probably from _ban garde_; now _garde champetre_, a kind of rural policeman.

Cousin George arrived the evening before the Plebiscite. I received him very kindly, as one ought to receive a rich relation who has no children. He seemed quite pleased to see us, and dined with us in the best of tempers. He carried with him in a small leathern trunk clothes, shoes, shirts--everything that he required. He was short of nothing. That day everything went on well; but the next day, hearing the notices cried by the rural policeman, he went off to Reibell's brewery, which was full of people, and began to preach against the Plebiscite.

I was just then at the mayoralty house wearing my official scarf receiving the tickets, when suddenly my deputy Placiard came to tell me, in high indignation, that certain miserable wretches were attacking the rider; that one of them was at the "Cruchon d'Or," and that half the village were very nearly murdering him.

Immediately I went down and ran to the public-house, where my cousin was calling them all a.s.ses, affirming that the Plebiscite was for war; that the Emperor, the Ministers, the prefects, the generals, and the bishops were deceiving the people; that all those men were acting a part to get our money from us, and much besides to the same purpose.

I, from the pa.s.sage, could hear him shouting these things in a terrible voice, and I said to myself, "The poor fellow has been drinking."

If George had not been my cousin; if he had not been quite capable some day of disinheriting my children, I should certainly have arrested him at once, and had him conveyed under safe keeping to Sarrebourg; but, on giving due weight to these considerations, I resolved to put an end to this awkward business, and I cried to the people who were crowding the pa.s.sage, "Make room, you fellows, make room!"

Those enraged creatures, seeing the scarf, gave way in all directions; and then discovering my cousin, seated at a table in the right-hand corner, I said: "Cousin! what are you thinking of, to create such a scandal?"

He, too, was abashed at the sight of the scarf, having served in the navy, and knowing that there is no man who claims more respect than a mayor; that he has a right to lay hands upon you, and send you to the lock-up, and, if you resist, to send you as far as Sarrebourg and Nancy. Reflecting upon this, he calmed down in a moment, for he had not been drinking at all, as I supposed at first, and he was saying these things without bitterness, without anger, conscientiously, and out of regard for his fellow-citizens.

Therefore, he replied to me, quietly: "Mr. Mayor, look after your elections! See that certain rogues up there--as there are rogues everywhere--don't stuff into the ballot-box handfuls of _Yeses_ instead of _Noes_ while your back is turned. This has often happened! And then pray don't trouble yourself about me. In the Government Gazette, it is declared that every man shall be free to maintain his own opinions, and to vote as he pleases; if my mouth is stopped, I shall protest in the newspapers."

Hearing that he would protest, to avoid a worse scandal I answered him: "Say what you please; no one shall declare that we have put any constraint upon the elections; but, you men, you know what you have to do."

"Yes, yes," shouted all the people in the room and down the pa.s.sage, lifting their hats. "Yes, Monsieur le Maire; we will listen to nothing at all. Whether they talk all day or say nothing, it is all the same to us."

And they all went off to vote, leaving George alone.

M. le Cure Daniel, seeing them coming out, came from his parsonage to place himself at their head. He had preached in the morning in favor of the Plebiscite, and there was not a single _No_ in the box.

If my cousin had not had the large meadow above the mill, and the finest acres in the country, he would have been an object of contempt for the rest of his days; but a rich man, who has just bought a house, an orchard, a garden, and has paid ready money for everything, may say whatever he pleases: especially when he is not listened to, and the people go and do the very opposite of what he has been advising them.

Well, this is the way with the elections for the Plebiscite with us, and just the same thing went on throughout our canton: at Phalsbourg--which had been abundantly placarded against the Plebiscite, and where they carried their audacity even to watching the mayor and the ballot-box--out of fifteen hundred electors, military and civil, there were only thirty-two _Noes_.

It is quite clear that things were making favorable progress, and that M. le Sous-prefet could not be otherwise than perfectly satisfied with our behavior.

I must also mention that we were in want of a parish road to Hangeviller; that we had been promised a pair of church-bells, and the _Glandee_, or right of feeding our hogs upon the acorns in autumn; and that we were aware that all the villages which voted the wrong way got nothing, whilst the others--in consideration of the good councillors they had sent up, either to the arrondiss.e.m.e.nt or the department--might always reckon upon a little money from the tax-collector for the necessities of their parish. Monsieur le Sous-prefet had pointed out these advantages to me; and naturally a good mayor will inform his subordinates. I did so. Our deputies, our councillors-general, our councillors of the arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, were all on the right side! By these means we have already gained the right to the dead leaves and our great wash-houses. We only sought our own good, and we much preferred seeing other villages pay the ministers, the senators, the marshals, the bishops, and the princes, to paying them ourselves. So that all that Cousin George could say to us about the interest of all, and the welfare of the nation, made not the least impression upon us.

I remember that that very day of the Plebiscite, when it was already known that we had all voted right, and that we should get our two bells with the parish road--I remember that my cousin and I had, after supper, a great quarrel, and that I should certainly have put him out, if it had not been he.

We were taking our _pet.i.t verre_ of _kirsch_, smoking our pipes, with our elbows on the table; my wife and Gredel had already gone to bed, when all at once he said to me: "Listen to me, Christian. Save the respect I owe you as mayor, you are all a set of geese in this village, and it is a very fortunate thing that I am come here, that you may have, at least, one sensible man among you."

I was going to get angry, but he said:

"Just let me finish; if you had but spent a couple of years at Paris, you would see things a little plainer; but at this moment, you are like a nest of hungry jays, blind and unfeathered; they open their bills, and they cry 'Jaques,' to call down food from heaven. Those who hear them climb up the tree, twist their necks, put them into the pot and laugh. That is your position. You have confidence in your enemies, and you give them power to pluck you just as they please. If you appointed upright men in your districts as deputies, councillors-general, instead of taking whoever the prefecture recommends, would not the Emperor and the other honorable men above be obliged then to leave you the money which the tax-collector makes you pay in excess? Could all those people then enrich themselves at your expense, and ama.s.s immense fortunes in a few years? Would you then see old baskets with their bottoms out, fellows whom you would not have trusted with a halfpenny before the _coup-d'etat_--would you see them become millionnaires, rolling in gold, gliding along in carriages with their wives, their children, their servants, and their ballet-dancers?

The prefets, the sous-prefets say to you: 'Go on voting right, and you shall have this, you shall have that'--things which you have a right to demand in virtue of the taxes you pay, but which are granted to you as favors--roads, wash-houses, schools, etc. Would you not be having them in your own right, if the money which is taken from you were left in the commune? What does the Emperor do for you? He plunders you--that is all. Your money, he shows it to you before each election, as they show a child a stick of sugar-candy to make it laugh; and when the election is over he puts it back into his pocket. The trick is played."

"How can he put that money into his pocket?" I asked, full of indignation. "Are not the accounts presented every year in the Chambers?"

Upon this he shrugged his shoulders and answered: "You are not sharp, Christian; it is not so difficult to present accounts to the Chambers.

So many cha.s.sepots--which have no existence! So much munition of war, of which no one knows anything. So much for retiring pensions; so much for the subst.i.tutes' fund; so much for changes of uniform. The uniforms are changed every year; that is good for business. Do the deputies inquire into these matters? Who checks the Ministers'

budgets? And the deputies whom the Minister of the Interior has recommended to you, whom you have appointed like fools, and whom the Emperor would throw up at the very first election, if those gentlemen breathed a syllable about visiting the a.r.s.enals and examining into the accounts--what a farce it is! Why, yesterday, pa.s.sing through Phalsbourg, I got upon the ramparts, and I saw there guns of the time of Herod, upon gun-carriages eaten up by worms and painted over to conceal the rottenness. These very guns, I do believe, are recast every third or fourth year--upon paper--with your money. Ah, my poor Christian, you are not very sharp, nor the other people in our village either. But the men you send as deputies to Paris--they _are_ sharp, too sharp."