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
circumstances, 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. Massin, the lovely actress at the _Théâtre du
Gymnase_. The mother was all fire and flame, and raved, almost to
tears, over the present pass, cried shame on the cowardice of the
officers for not having turned out the Emperor; her one brother was a
prisoner at Königsberg; 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 passports 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 chinks of the rocks. The first
Swiss house.