Paris during the Siege. Translated from the French ... With a Map

Front matter

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH os' FRANCISQUE SARCEY. WITH A MAP. LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1871. LONDON I BRAI/BURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. $*bicaffrm. TO MR. RICHARD WALLACE. Sir, Pardon me for taking the liberty of dedicating to you this volume, without having the honour of your personal acquaintance, hut 3'our name is indissoluhly bound up with the siege of Paris, and it is the first which occurs to the mind of a Frenchman who under takes to write the history thereof. What has touched us all so profoundly is not so much the extent of your donations, which have been immense, as the spirit and way in which they have been offered. It is not enough that charity, when addressed to a delicate-minded people, should be hearty and well-conceived ; it needs still further the grand air.

Yours was typical, if I may be permitted the expression, of a gentleman. One day— nearly the last of the siege — a Prussian obus fell upon those wonderful hothouses of the Museum which have been the admiration of Europe, reducing the whole to powder, and leaving nothing untouched, save two camellias. It was to you that the directors of the Museum sent these two poor flowers, which had escaped from the general destruction, as a delicate recognition of the gratitude which the city of Paris felt for you. Condescend to accept in the same spirit this little book, which has grown upon ruins. I cannot foretell what will be its success ; but if b DEDICATION. VI I desire that it be much read, it is chiefly in order that it may spread far and wide the name of the generous foreigner who so nobly aided our sufferings and shared our perils during these terrible trials. Begging you to accept the expression of my profound esteem and lively sympathy, I am, yours, &c. FRANCISQUE SARCEY.

Preface

. It is not the history of the Siege of Paris, strictly speaking, which I lay a claim to narrate. That can scarcely be written, save by the politicians who, at that solemn moment, directed the destinies of the country, and by the military leaders who were charged with the defence of the city. It will be composed day by day7, and little by little, each one giving the information which he possesses and the evidence of his own experience ; and, by and by, some writer, a lover of the truth, will come forward and register the different versions, one by means of another, reconciling them with each other, and composing that veritable history7 which we have neither the power nor the wish to write to-day. We shad merely state what we have witnessed; the scenes which have been incessantly unfolding before our eyes during a period which has been as fertile in objects of curious observation for the philosopher as in sorrow and in wrath for the patriot ; we shall recount not so much the facts themselves, as the various impressions wiiich they created in our minds, now weighing us down

PREFACE.

. VIII with grief, now raising us to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. It wiU be a history, if you choose to call it so, but one purely picturesque, anecdotical and moral — the latter especially. I shall relate as accurately as possible the dady emotions which stirred the spirit of Paris, always so nervous and impressionable, which in the same week rises to the most heroic resolutions or submits to the most humiliating concessions. If the true nature of events, political or military, too often escapes us contem porary writers, we are, on tfie otlier hand, in an excellent position to gather the impressions which they have made on the public ; for we fiave ourselves felt them, and, to learn their extent, we have only to consult our own feelings. Perhaps this book, imperfect as it may be (for it has been written very rapidly and in the midst of terrible pre occupations), will be none the less curious to read nor less prolific in lessons.

It will let in fresh light to us on our own character ; nations, like individuals, reveal their true disposition at the moment of great misfortunes. It wdl throw a full light upon our defects — we are not with out them, alas ! and they have been cruelly punished ; it wdl instruct us, too, as to certain quahties which we were not aware that we possessed to so high a degree ; it will teach us to love still better, by appreciating her, this city in whom is bound up France, our beloved and unhappy country.

PREFACE.

. IX One last word as to its tendency ; this book is not written in a spirit of party. Whatever be the political opinions of tlie Author, he has endeavoured to be just to everyone, and to avoid touching upon those irritant questions which divide men's minds at the present moment, and which the future alone can resolve. FRANCISQUE SARCEY. CONTENTS. VABE DEDICATION v

PREFACE.

vii

MAP SHEWING THE OPERATIONS OF THE SIEGE OF PARIS PARIS DURING THE SIEGE.

Chapter I. Before The Siege

Part I. It was on the 19th July, 1870, that the declaration of war was handed to Prussia. I remember that, on the 22nd or 23rd, at a large dinner party, while talking about the coming campaign — there was scarcely any other subject of conversation just then — one of the guests, who had long been listening to us in silence as we told our hopes and our chances of success, inter rupted us with the grave remark, "Gentlemen, I know Germany very intimately. I have lived there for years, and am as perfectly acquamted with their forces as with ours. I will wager you that within two months the Prussians will be before the walls of Paris." There was one cry of haro upon this prophet of evil ! He was treated as if he were a bad Frenchman — a Prussian — a spj7 sold to Bismarck. He was finely worried by all of us who were in a humour to laugh, and who merely7 took this sally for the paradox of a rather cynical frequenter of the boulevards.

It is certain that, at that moment, the idea that Paris could ever be besieged — this B PAEIS DURING THE SIEGE. idea, so singular, impossible, and unlikely — never pre sented itself to any imagination on this side of the Khine. It was to no purpose that we were warned each day by our fortifications as to the serious nature of the eventu ality. We had never looked upon this long range of slopes, covered with turf, but as a promenade for enliven ing the circuit of the city; and the peaceful bastions, with their inoffensive cannons, seemed to us like those valorous National Guards, who, for form's sake, used to mount the guard with an unserviceable gun at the head-quarters in the Place Vendome. And, besides, Paris was in our eyes the holy city, the capital of civilisation, and, to use the Greek expression, the navel of the earth; to dare ever touch her was a sacrilege which no people would ever dream of committing !

Ah ! Berlin — that was another matter ! We considered it quite natural to make our entry there, after three or four great victories, with drums beating and colours fly ing. M. de Girardin had just written an article, which was famous for at least a week, to the effect that we must drive these Vandals back to Berlin with the butt ends of our bayonets applied to their backs. In using these words he expressed, in the language of a journalist, an idea which was quite Parisian. I do not think the war was very popular with us just at first. But as all knew that it was inevitable, sooner or later, they resigned themselves to it, saying to each other that it was better it should come at once. The very hastiness of the Government had a reassuring effect. Seehig on what a frivolous pre text it had pushed matters to the extreme and burnt its boats, people naturally thought that it felt itself to be quite prepared; and the general belief was that events would march rapidly, and that we should be at Berlin before the winter.

A Berlin ! A Berlin ! Such was the shout that greeted the regiments which went through Paris on their way to Alsace. The crowd sang the " Marseillaise" as it accompanied them to the railway stations, together with the "Mourir pour la Patrie," and other well-known songs of the kind. AVere people honest to themselves ? Were they as anxious for war as the shouts of the street brawlers woidd lead one to believe ? This is a point not yet altogether cleared up. My idea is that, once the glove thrown down, the bulk of the population gave itself up, with but little reflection, to that warlike spirit which was at the bottom of every real Frenchman's feelings. There is no dislike among us to the gathering of laurels; and the example of the preceding wars, which had all been brought to a pretty speed}7 and glorious termination, added still further to the confidence which we felt in our niilitaiy superiority.

Our invincible army! Our brave soldiers ! Our veteran generals of Africa ! One heard nothing but this on the boulevards and in the streets, and the most pacific tradesman sniffed the battle from afar. Several took the precaution already to provide themselves with flags and lanterns. In the theatres it was like the word of command. Scarcely had the curtain fallen on the piece of the evening when twenty, thirty, a hundred voices shouted for the " Marseillaise." The management, which was expecting this daily display of enthusiasm, had everything ready to satisfy it. The curtain rose, and one of the company sung the patriotic hymn. At the first notes some one of the audience alw7ays exclaimed, with a tone of command, " To your feet ! " and the whole house rose at the in junction, taking up the chorus.

This ceremony, renewed each clay, had a very grandiose B ■1 PARIS DURING THE SIEGE. character, the first time, when it sprung from the spon taneous enthusiasm of the mass. It was at the opera. The "Marseillaise" was not on the bill, but all Paris — the Paris of artists and the great world — knew that, if the public were to exact it, Madame Marie Sass was ready to sing it. At the third act of " Masaniello," when the beautiful hymn, " Amour Sacre de la Patrie," had stretched our heart-strings to the fullest, there was but one cry, from the orchestra to the roof, that of " The 'Marseillaise!' the 'Marseillaise!'" The noble song began. " To your feet ! " exclaimed a clear and piercing voice, which every one recognised as that of M. de Girardin. The public, as if struck by an electric shock, rose in a body, and an unutterable emotion ran through the audience.

Many men wept; the rest had tears not very far from their eyes. It was not exactly an opinion which was manifested ; this assemblage had none very fixed. It was rather an explosion of feeling ; a feeling ill defined, very undecided, a mixture of warlike chauvinism and weak credulity. A small group of men had alone preserved their sang froid, they alone had calculated, knowing as they did the strength of the two nations, the chances of this war so lightly declared, and they preserved in the midst of the universal enthusiasm a gloomy brow and apprehensions wdiich they feared to express in public for fear of being stoned. I knew personally several of them, and they were perhaps more numerous than I imagined at the time. But they kept their counsel from motives of personal prudence as much as from patriotic necessity.

What may be affirmed is this, that at that time they formed but an imperceptible mass of the population. The French public, with whom the beat of the drum puts to flight so easily the wisest reasoning, was far readier to balance to the side of the "white blouses," whom the police subsidised to keep up, by means of cries and songs, a warlike agitation both in the streets, and in men's minds. Part II. This bellicose excitement went on increasing from the 19th of July until the beginning of August. It soon became complicated with a certain nervous impatience, which the admonitions of the journalists had a great deal of difficulty hi containing. Why,— so the people said, — war has been declared for a fortnight, and we havn't even got to Mayence yet ! What are our veteran generals of Africa, our brave soldiers and invincible army thinking about ?

It was not worth the trouble of buying maps and pins with flags attached to the head! This, indeed, is the general way in which the Parisians take their share in the trials of war. They purchase maps — I should not like to say how many were sold during the first fortnight; maps of Germany, of course, for it is needless to state there were no others, — and, arming themselves with long pins to mark the position of the contending armies, they make them fly over the paper. Nothing stops them in the execution of their plans. They leap over rivers, cross mountains, and capture fortified towns with a marvellous promptitude. One good dash with the pin, and the tricolor flag floats over Treves, Mayence, and Cologne. It would not have cost any further exertion to have planted it on the w7alls of Berlin.

This manner of manœuvring on the map is so simple that it generally has the effect of deceiving the good people of Paris as to the difficulties of the campaign. They can form no idea of the time it takes to get together 300,000 men and throw them into Germany. They felt So soon as the first days of August quite hint to think that at least one grand battle had not been won. If they had only known what w7as awaiting them ! the awful disorder of these troops, badly commanded, badly fed, insufficiently armed, and the want of discipline, and contempt for thenleaders, which had long been raging like an epidemic! Not that there were wanting with the army reporters who were capable of telling us the truth, but they were carefully kept away from head-quarters ; besides they themselves hardly dared to believe their own ey7es, and to break with that feeling of respect which a Frenchman, no matter under what circumstances, entertains for his uniform and colours ; and those of them who had the self-possession to see things as they were, scrupled to relate them and so let the enemy, as well as the Parisians, into the secret of our real weakness.

We were then up to our necks in illusions, and the an nouncement of a preliminary success at Saarbruck only served to confirm us in the good opinion which we had of ourselves. There was some little joking about the part which a telegraphic despatch, now famous, made the heir apparent to the throne take in it ; the Emperor related to his spouse how little Louis had picked up a ball that fell at his feet, and how the regiment had been affected to tears ; little Louis was henceforward caUed by no other name but that of enfant de la balle. This was a time when we still laughed and joked ! Two days afterwards was spread the news of a great victory : it was a Saturday, a lovely summer day. Never have I seen, nor doubtless shall I ever see again, anything like it. A whole population mad with joy, running hither and thither as if possessed.

People clasped hands and embraced, weeping with delight, and without being known to each other. On the square around the Bourse the crowd was enormous, agitating their hats in the air and shouthig. Madame Gueymard was recognised in an open carriage, and was asked to sing the " Marseillaise ; " she commenced it with her power ful voice, and fifty thousand men took up the strain. Every house was filled with flags as if by enchantment ; imagine the most noisy and tumultuous manifestations of a joy which seemed delirious. An hour later, a rumour began to circulate that the news was false. It ran like a train of gunpowder from one end of the city to the other. People rushed to the Ministries, to the offices of the papers, wherever, in fact, there was a chance of obtaining reliable information. It was no use doubting; this pretended victory was but a mystification of Count Bismarck, who had, no doubt, been amusing himself in testing the credulity of the Parisians.

From extreme delight we passed at once to an excess of fury beyond description. The crowd would have strangled the ministers if it had them in its power. The deception was too much to bear; it produced an explosion of rage which ended by being turned into a joke, as always happens in Paris. The next day none would admit having believed this gigantic canard. On the Boulevard everyone that one met had not been taken in — they had said so all along, &c, &c. So great is the feeling of vanity ! I have dwelt for a moment on this episode, for it was therein that the observer could for the first time form a true opinion as to the Parisian population ; how easily it is led away by sudden panics; how credulous, blind, passionate it is, and what little reliance can be placed on its good sense and discrimination.

It never acts but in caprice, and vacillates unceasingly, like a vessel without a helm on a sea swept by contrary winds, from one extreme to the other, between the most ungrounded confidence and the most profound depression. After this short space, during which Paris was illumi nated with a mad delight, it fell into the most extraor dinary despair. I confess that this incident, which went no further, did not inspire me, any more than it did several other dispassionate observers, with a very great belief in the capacity of such a population to resist misfortune. Nor did I foresee all those which were about to fall upon us, one after the other. General Douay beaten and killed on the 4th at Wissembourg, and on the 6th the ever-to-be-deplored defeat of MacMahon, whose army was entirely destroj-ed at Worth, Freischwiller, and Reichhofen.

Through the open breach the torrent of the German army7 precipitated itself: there was no mistake about it, it was invasion. It was, on this day, the first time that the Parisians saw the siege of their town pass like a spectre before their eyes. They knew scarcely anything of the truth, which only arrived to them at that time in falsified and incomplete shreds ; they had no idea that these three or four hundred thousand men, let loose upon France, would be followed by hundreds of thousands more, who would, in their turn, be succeeded by all the male population of Germany. Nevertheless, they had, as it were, a momentary vision of what threatened them. They at once took into consideration measures for the putting in order of the fortifications, and the driving from Paris with all possible speed of the Germans who were living there.

But it was only an idea. As for the German population, the economists proved scientifically that it would be a great fault to send them away. Who was to sweep the streets ? to make the boots ? to cut the coats ? to arrange the matters of high finance ? They were good worthy souls, these beer-drinkers ; very in dustrious, very sober ; they enriched us while making a profit for themselves, and it would be a gross violation of Leon Say's principles to deprive ourselves of their help. So reasoned the influential Michel Chevalier, Member of the Institute, Senator, apostle of free trade, and archangel of perpetual peace ; but the native care lessness of the Parisians had more to do with it even than his counsels. We are so by nature ; we exclaim, like people possessed, against an abuse which we feel, and the same evening we go off with a light heart to the play.

We soon forgot all about Bismarck's com patriots. It is true that it was not for long, and that their turn was soon to come round again. The anxiety concerning the fortifications did not last much longer. The journalists wrote numerous articles pointing out that Paris could never be invested by less than 1,500,000 men— 1,200,000 at the very lowest es timate ; — that a strong city which could revictual itself and maintain its free communications was impregnable, save by assault. And as to that we were there ready ! They went over the number of our troops, not forgetting that valiant army of 400,000 National Guards who would spring from the earth as soon as our leaders stamped their feet. Ah, yes, let them only come ! They would soon see what awaited them ! We fed ourselves on these chimeras, which we all took for realities.

But our passions persuades! us even more easily than all the demonstrations of professional men. We did not precisely ask ourselves whether it was necessary to make any great outlay on these fortifications, upon which we pretended to place so much reliance. We rather started from the idea — tenacious and deep-rooted, like all preconceived ideas — that it was impossible for the enemy to reach Paris, to besiege it, to cover it with his guns. The sacred soil of our country would doubtless open and swallow up the Prussian battalions, sooner than that so horrible a sacrilege should be consummated. There are nations whose imaginations, naturally melan choly, are haunted by black butterflies. The Parisians, on the other hand, are always full of credulity and sanguine hopes. They never look in the face an unpleasant truth; they are like the ostrich, which hides its head in the sand, so as not to see the hunter who is aiming at him.

They go on deceiving themselves with agreeable chimeras, and spontaneously turn away their eyes from misfortunes of which they can no longer deny the existence. In the press there was an avalanche of falsehoods which flattered the national vanity. It was scarcely possible to conceal the progress of the Germans, and their repeated successes whenever they encountered our troops. But we got out of them by excuses which were ready made, of a nature to save our wounded self-love. Our defeats were more glorious than victories, and the battle of Worth was called a triumphant reverse. The glory of our retreats, and of the soldiers who carried them out, was exalted in no measured terms. One day Edmond About arrived, and related how he had seen, after Beichshofen, MacMahon's troops in full rout, the Zouaves throwing away their arms, intoxicated, and pillaging ; tiie generals losing their head, and aban doning a hundred leagues of territory to the enemy without a blow, when 500 men would have sufficed to bar the passage of an army.

This revelation made, there was but one cry against the unfortunate journalist. He was treated as a Prussian. There were certain truths which ought not to be revealed, and to lay them before Europe was rank treason. Besides, nothing of all this was true ; he was mistaken ; he exaggerated. How was it possible to suppose that the heroes of the Alma, Magenta, and Sol ferino should have been put to a shameful flight by the Pandours ? Pandours ! Huns ! Vandals ! So we denominated them, and poured upon their heads all the insults which history and the dictionary supplied us with ; in good faith, unfortunately, for how few of us were capable of realising the progress which that small and humble little State, Prussia, which had turned out to be so formidable, had made, not only in the handling of arms, but in those arts and sciences which are the glory of peace.

Macaulay, that wise and prudent observer, declared, so far back as 1843, that the Prussian Monarchy (the youngest of the great European States, and which its population as well as its revenues relegated to the fifth rank) occupied the second place — next after England — in regard to solid instruction, a taste for the arts, and a capacity for all kinds of science. And we were not even mentioned ! Macaiday was, no doubt, mistaken ; for he did not like us overmuch in his quality of true Englishman, and hatred leads one astray. But how astonished we should have been had we been told what was the opinion given by a man who passed for being one of the profoundest and most impartial critics in -Europe. Us, the great nation, in the third place ! We, who thought we had the eyres of the universe fixed upon us, because all the cosmopolitan upper ten got thenclothes from Paris and hummed our airs !

It was necessary that we should undergo many a fresh disaster before taking to ourselves such unwelcome truths, to say nothing about their not being quite such undeniable facts as Macaulay seemed to fancy. Part III. The first moments of stupefaction over, Paris, with the natural elasticity of its optimism, regained its sanguine ness. The Ollivier Ministry was swept away in the twinkling ofan eye, and General Cousin-Montauban, Count de Palikao, was made head of the Government. He w7as a cunning old fellow, who had no difficulty in duping us. I would even say, if the strong expression be permitted me, that he " put us all in the hole." He had remarked what a bad effect was produced among the population by the boastings and fanfaronade of the fallen Ministry; with great ability he adopted the very opposite system.

He ceased giving any hiformation as to the military operations. Each day, after the sitting of the Legislative Body, he took two or three of his intimate acquaintances on one side and whispered mysteriously in their ear a few enigmatical sentences, such as — " If Paris knew what I do, she would illuminate to-night ; " adding, " Not a word," as he placed his finger on his lips. Hush ! shouted Paris at the top of her voice from the Boulevard Montmartre to the Chaussee d'Autin. And when a member of the Left, impatient of this silence, took the liberty of asking in the Chamber for more positive information, the Minister replied that all was going on well ; and, if he was too much pressed, he added, " I have work to get through ; I must leave the House." Or again, "I cannot speak louder or at greater length, for I have had a ball in my chest for the last twenty 37ears, which prevents me from making long speeches."

And people went into ecstasies over these evasive replies, saying, "What a man! to have lived thirty years with a ball in his chest ! " The newspapers did not preserve the same silence as Count Palikao. A host of ridiculous stories, which kept up the confidence and good humour of the Parisians, swarmed every morning in the kiosks. One day we learnt that ten Prussian regiments, driven to the edge of some perpendicular quarries, had been precipitated into the abyss, and that 20,000 men, heaped one upon the other, had perished. The next day we learnt that some French soldiers, who appeared to be innocently washing their linen on the banks of a lake, had decoyed there the bulk of the enemy's forces, whom Bazaine had at once turned by a rapid vertical movement, and then exterminated. We calculated the number of Prussians killed since the commencement of the war ; it was by hundreds of thousands that the corpses were to be counted.

Never had the Greeks, those Gascons of ancient history, in recounting the defeat of Xerxes, effected so fearful a carnage among the Persians. Paris literally devoured these stories. An acquaintance of urine, who was very clever but slightly sceptical, had the privilege of inventing several most absurd and im probable ones, which he had the pleasure of seeing swallowed by the credulous public. He had put half-a dozen of his own creation in circulation, and, as one afternoon, after having heard him relate, with the most serious face possible, one of his usual fibs, I asked him what pleasure he could find in the practice — " Pleasure ? Why, none. I do it philanthropically," he replied. " These people will go to bed happy; they will have the pleasantest dreams imaginable ; they will be happy till to-morrow.

Do you call that nothing ?" What is most astonishing is that I have seen him put the credulity of the Parisians to the very highest test without ever wear ing it out. Such is their love for being fed upon flattering news that, even had he humbugged them by telling them a story out of the "Arabian Nights," he would have been believed. One evening, when he had perhaps been a little too far, a frequenter of the Boule vards who had been listening to him turned round to me, saying, with a tone of regret, " I know very7 well there is not a word of truth in any of these stories ; still it is always pleasant to hear them." Just so ; that is the solution of the riddle. The hard truth is always awkward to face, and it is so agreeable to cradle consolatory illusions. And }7et certain austere voices dropped timidly as it were a few hints.