Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: HE ROBBED YOU, THAT'S ALL.]
HISTORICAL ROMANCES OF FRANCE
THE PLEBISCITE
OR
A MILLER'S STORY OF THE WAR
BY ONE OF THE 7,500,000 WHO VOTED "YES"
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF
ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN
ILLUSTRATED
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK::::::::::::::::::::::1911
COPYRIGHT, 1889, 1898
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
ILLUSTRATIONS
"_He robbed you, that's all_" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
"_The grapeshot has mown them down. There are none left_"
_They drew two poor old men from their cellar_
_There he was, leaning forward to listen_
"_Good-by, my father! Good-by, my mother!_"
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 Constitution 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
classes, 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 principal inhabitants of
every kind--wheelwrights, blacksmiths, shoemakers, tailors, publicans,
brewers, dealers in eggs, butter, 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 asses, 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 passage, 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
passage, "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 passage,
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 arrondissement 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 arrondissement, 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 _petit 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 amass 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 chassepots--which have no existence! So much munition of war,
of which no one knows anything. So much for retiring pensions; so much
for the substitutes' 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 arsenals and examining into the
accounts--what a farce it is! Why, yesterday, passing 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."
He broke out into a laugh, and I could have sent him back to Paris.
"Do you know what you want?" said he then, filling his pipe and
lighting it, for I made no reply, being too much annoyed; "what you
want is not good sense, it is not honesty. All of us peasants, we
still possess some good sense and honesty. And we believe, moreover,
in the honesty of others, which proves that we ourselves have a little
left! No, what you want is education; you have asked for bells, and
bells you will get; but all the school you have is a miserable shed,
and your only school-master is old Adam Fix, who can teach his children
nothing because he knows nothing himself. Well now, if you were to ask
for a really good school, there would be no money in the public funds.
There is money enough for bells, but for a good school-master, for a
large, well-ventilated room, for deal benches and tables, for pictures,
slates, maps, and books, there is nothing; for if you had good schools,
your children could read, write, keep accounts; they would soon be able
to look into the Ministers' budgets, and that is exactly what his
Majesty wishes to avoid. You understand now, cousin; this is the
reason why you have no school and you have bells."
Then he looked knowingly at me:
"And, do you know," said he, after a few moments' thought, "do you know
how much all the schools in France cost? I am not referring to the
great schools of medicine, and law, and chemistry, the colleges, and
the lyceums, which are schools for wealthy young men, able to keep
themselves in large cities, and to pay for their own maintenance. I am
speaking of schools for the people, elementary schools, where reading
and writing are taught: the two first things which a man must know, and
which distinguish him from the savages who roam naked in the American
forests? Well, the deputies whom the people themselves send to protect
their interests in Paris, and whose first thought, if they are not
altogether thieves, ought to be to discharge their duty toward their
constituencies--these deputies have never voted for the schools of the
people a larger sum than seventy-five millions. The state contributes
ten millions as its share; the commune, the departments, the fathers
and mothers do the rest. Seventy-five millions to educate the people
in a great country like ours! it is a disgrace. The United States
spends six times the amount. But on the other hand, for the war budget
we pay five hundred millions; even that would not be too much if we had
five hundred thousand men under arms, according to the calculation
which has been made of what it costs per diem for each man; but for an
army of two hundred and fifty thousand men, it is too much by half.
What becomes of the other three hundred millions? If they were made
available to build schools, to pay able masters, to furnish retreats
for workmen in their declining days, I should have nothing to say
against it; but to jingle in the pockets of MM. the senators and to
ring the bells of MM. the cures, I consider that too dear."
As Cousin George bothered my mind with all his arguments, I felt a wish
to go to bed, and I said to him:
"All that, cousin, is very fine, but it is getting late: and besides it
has nothing to do with the Plebiscite."
I had risen; but he laid his hand upon my arm and said: "Let us talk a
little longer--let me finish my pipe. You say that this has nothing to
do with the Plebiscite; but that Plebiscite is for all this nice
arrangement of things to go on. If the nation believes that all is
right, that enough money is left to it, and that it can even spare a
little more; that the ministers, the senators, and the princes are not
yet sufficiently fat and flourishing; that the Emperor has not bought
enough in foreign countries; well, it will say with this Plebiscite,
'Go on, pray go on--we are quite satisfied.' Does that suit your
ideas?"
"Yes. I had rather that than war," said I, in a very bad temper. "The
Empire is peace; I vote for peace."
Then George himself rose up, emptying his pipe on the edge of the
table, and said: "Christian, you are right. Let us go to bed. I
repent having bought old Briou's house; decidedly the people in these
parts are too stupid. You quite grieve me."
"Oh, I don't want to grieve you," said I, angrily; "I have quite as
much sense as you."
"What!" said he, "you the mayor of Rothalp, in daily communication with
the sous-prefet, you believe that the object of this Plebiscite is to
confirm peace?"
"Yes, I do."
"What, you believe that? Come now. Have we not peace at the present
moment? Do we want a Plebiscite to preserve it? Do you suppose that
the Germans are taken in by it? Our peasants, to be sure, are misled;
they are indoctrinated at the cure's house, at the mayoralty-house, at
the sous-prefecture; but not a single workman in Paris is a dupe of
this pernicious scheming. They all know that the Emperor and the
Ministers want war; that the generals and the superior officers demand
it. Peace is a good thing for tradesmen, for artisans, for peasants;
but the officers are tired of being cramped up in the same rank
perpetually without a rise. Already the inferior officers have been
disgusted with the profession through the crowds of nobles, Jesuits,
and canting hypocrites of all sorts who are thrust into the army. The
troops are not animated with a good spirit; they want promotion, or
they will end by rousing themselves into a passion: especially when
they see the Prussians under our noses helping themselves to everything
they please without asking our leave. You don't understand that!
There," said he, "I am sleepy. Let us go to bed."
Then I began to understand that my cousin had learned many things in
Paris, and that he knew more of politics than I did. But that did not
prevent me from being in a great rage with him, for the whole of that
day he had done nothing but cause trouble; and I said to myself that it
was impossible to live with such a brute.
My wife, at the top of the landing, had heard us disputing; but as we
were going upstairs, she came all smiles to meet us, holding the
candle, and saying: "Oh, you have had a great deal to tell each other
this evening! You must have had enough. Come, cousin, let me take you
to your room; there it is. From your window you may see the woods in
the moonlight; and here is your bed, the best in the house. You will
find your cotton nightcap under the pillow."
"Very nice, Catherine, thank you," said George.
"And I hope you will sleep comfortably," said she, returning to me.
This wise woman, full of excellent good sense, then said to me, while I
was undressing: "Christian! what were you thinking of, to contradict
your cousin? Such a rich man, and who can do us so much good by and
by! What does the Plebiscite signify? What can that bring us in?
Whatever your cousin says to you, say 'Amen' after it. Remember that
his wife has relations, and she will want to get everything on her
side. Mind you don't quarrel with George. A fine meadow below the
mill, and an orchard on the hill-side, are not found every day in the
way of a cow."
I saw at once that she was right, and I inwardly resolved never to
contradict George again: he might himself alone be worth to us far more
than the Emperor, the Ministers, the senators, and all the
establishment together; for everyone of those people thought of his own
interests alone, without ever casting a thought upon us. Of course we
ought to do the same as they did, since they had succeeded so well in
sewing gold lace upon all their seams, fattening and living in
abundance in this world; not to mention the promises that the bishops
made to them for the next.
Thinking upon these things, I lay calmly down, and soon fell asleep.