Diplomatic Corps moves to Versailles.--Journey there and back.--Life
at Versailles.--German Princes.--Battle at Clamart.--Unburied
Insurgents.--Bitterness of Class Hatred.--Its Probable Causes.--United
States Post-office at Versailles.--The Archbishop of Paris.--Attempts
to save his Life.--Washburne's Kindness to him.--Blanqui.--Archbishop
murdered.--Ultramontanism.--Bombardment by Government.--My Apartment
struck.--Capricious Effects of Shells.--Injury to Arch of Triumph.
--Bas-reliefs of Peace and War.
As soon as the Government had moved to Versailles, the diplomatic
corps followed. Mr. Washburne hired a large room in the Rue de
Mademoiselle (the sister of Louis XIV.--all Versailles bears the
impress of the reign of that monarch). This room had to do for
office, bedroom, and sitting-room; for Versailles was crowded, and
we were lucky to get any thing so comfortable. As we had far more
to do at Paris than at Versailles, and Paris was then, as always,
the seat of attraction, Mr. Washburne spent four days of the week in
that city, and three at Versailles, and I alternated with him. We had
passes from both sides. I made the trip twice a week, and sometimes
under considerable difficulties. I have traveled more than thirty
miles to reach Paris from Versailles, a distance of nine miles,
partly in a diligence, partly on foot, partly in flat-boats to cross
the Seine where the French had most unnecessarily blown up their own
beautiful bridges, and partly by rail. I suppose that I am better
acquainted with the westerly environs of Paris than any foreigner but
a medical student. Some of the drives in the months of April and May,
especially one by Sceaux and Fontaine-les-Roses, and up the valley of
the Bièvre, are very lovely.
But after a while we had a regular organized line by St. Denis.
The Germans occupied this town, and insisted upon keeping open the
railroad into Paris, the Chemin de Fer du Nord. They said that under
the treaty they had a right to draw certain supplies from France,
and that Paris was the most convenient place to draw them from, and
from Paris they meant to draw them; and that if the Communists did
not keep the Porte St. Denis open, _they_ would. The Commune always
had a wholesome fear of the Germans; this was all that restrained
them from even greater outrages than they perpetrated; and they hated
the Germans less than they did their own countrymen at Versailles.
In going to Versailles we took the train to St. Denis; there we
hired a carriage, or took the public conveyance, and so drove to
our destination, a trip of about three hours in all: or we drove
out by the Porte St. Denis, and so all the way to Versailles. This
was generally my route, for a number of American and French friends
asked me to bring their horses and carriages from the ill-fated city.
If the Communist officers at the gates were close observers, they
must have thought that I was the owner of one of the largest and
best-appointed stables in Paris.
There was very little to do at Versailles, and perhaps less to
eat. The Government was there, and the Assembly, and the Corps
Diplomatique, and consequently the crowd of people who had business
with these bodies, thronged to that city. At the restaurants it
was a struggle to get any thing; and when you got it, it was not
precisely in the Café Anglais style. I found two or three pleasant
American families who had wintered here very quietly during the
German occupation. They had had no occasion to complain of their
treatment. At the Hôtel de France I found Dr. Hosmer, the intelligent
and cultivated principal correspondent of the _Herald_. That
enterprising journal had its staff of couriers, who were always at
our service during those days of irregular postal communication. At
the Hôtel des Réservoirs several German princes, officers of the
army, were lodged--intelligent, agreeable, cultivated gentlemen. They
were only too glad to have the pleasure of the society of American
ladies, for of course they could not visit the French; and no class
of men long for and appreciate ladies' society like educated officers
on campaign in an enemy's country. They eagerly accepted invitations
to dine with my friends for a double reason, the pleasure of their
society, and that of a good dinner; for the French cook never could
manage, though of course he did his best, to cook a good dinner for
the Germans, and the landlord was always just out of that favorite
brand of Champagne.
The day after my first arrival at Versailles I made an excursion to
the battle-field at Clamart, near Meudon. The Communists had been
defeated there the day before. I had "assisted" at the battle from
the Paris side. In attempting to reach Versailles in that direction,
I found myself in the midst of the insurgents, and under the fire
of the troops. The manner in which the insurgents behaved had not
given me a very exalted idea of their soldierly qualities. It was
all confusion, talking, drinking, and panic. A mob of them surged up
to the gate, and demanded admission. It was refused, and they were
ordered back to their regiments. But the crowd increased, and became
more clamorous. The principles of fraternity forbade the guard to
keep their brethren out in the cold, where the naughty Versaillais
might pounce upon them; so the draw-bridge fell, the gates opened,
and the runaways entered.
When I visited the battle-field, many of the dead still lay
unburied, while the soldiers lounged about with their hands in those
everlasting pockets, and looking with the most perfect indifference
upon their dead countrymen. The class hatred which exists in France
is something we have no idea of, and I trust that we never shall. It
is bitter, relentless, and cruel; and is, no doubt, a sad legacy of
the bloody Revolution of 1789, and of the centuries of oppression
which preceded it. At the beginning of the war the peasants in one of
the villages not far from Paris thrust a young nobleman into a ditch,
and there burned him to death with the stubble from the fields. They
had nothing particular against him, except that he was a nobleman.
In Paris the mob threw the gendarmes, when they caught them, into
the Seine, and when they attempted to struggle out upon the banks
hacked off their hands. On the battle-field I have referred to, the
_frères chrétiens_, a most devoted and excellent body of men, were
moving about on their errands of mercy. Seeing these unburied bodies,
they went to the commanding officer, and begged him to detail a
party to bury them. He did it to oblige them. As the soldiers lifted
one of the dead, a young American who accompanied me said, "Why, he
hasn't a bad face after all!" At once the soldiers looked at him with
suspicion, the officer asked him who he was, and, upon being told,
advised him not to express any such sentiments again.
Our principal occupation at Versailles was keeping a post-office
for Americans in Paris. M. Rampont, the _directeur des postes_,
had escaped, with all his staff, and established the office at
Versailles. The archives of the bureau of the Avenue Joséphine
were placed in our Legation. The Communists were angry enough to
find themselves cut off from all postal communication with the
departments. It diminished their chances of success. The only means
Americans had of communicating with their friends in Paris was to
send their letters to the care of the Legation at Versailles. We
have received as many as fifty in one day. Two or three times a
week we took or sent them to Paris. They were there mailed by the
Legation, and distributed by the rebel post-office. It cost Uncle
Samuel a penny or two, but he and his representatives at Washington
did not grumble.
The only episode of interest that occurred at Versailles was our
attempt to save the life of the Archbishop of Paris. He had been
arrested by the Commune, and held as a hostage for the release of
some of their own rag, tag, and bobtail. One day the Pope's Nuncio
called to see Mr. Washburne. He was in Paris. The Nonce thereupon
explained his business to me, and afterward sent two canons of the
Metropolitan Church to see me. They came to beg Mr. Washburne to
do all in his power to save the life of the Archbishop, which they
considered to be in imminent danger. They had already tried one or
more European embassies, but were met with the answer that they could
have nothing to do with the Commune. They handed me their papers,
and I went at once to Paris. Mr. Washburne took up the matter with
his accustomed energy and kindliness. He got permission to see the
prisoner. He took him books and newspapers and old wine. He did
all in his power to negotiate an exchange with Blanqui, a veteran
agitator held by the Government. The Commune consented, but the
Versailles authorities would not. M. Thiers consulted his ministers
and his council of deputies. They were unanimously of opinion that
they could hold no dealings with the Commune. It was then proposed to
let Blanqui escape, and that thereupon the Archbishop should escape
too, and that there need be no negotiations whatever. This M. Thiers
declined.
Matters were complicated by the conduct of the Vicar-general Lagarde.
He had been a prisoner with the Archbishop, and had been released
for the purpose of bringing letters to Versailles with a view to
negotiate the proposed exchange, and on condition that he should
return. Once safely at Versailles, he declined to go back. His
pretext was that M. Thiers's letter in reply to the Archbishop's was
sealed, and that he could not carry back a sealed letter in reply to
one unsealed. I remember the sad and resigned, but not bitter tone,
in which the Archbishop wrote of this desertion, and the exceedingly
cautious terms in which the Pope's Nuncio referred to it.
But Mr. Washburne's untiring efforts were in vain. He had to contend
with the _vis inertia_ of French bureaucracy, and he who can move
this mass must be ten times a Hercules.
The Archbishop was murdered; but Blanqui, whom the French Government
held with so relentless a grip, was condemned to a year or two's
imprisonment only.
I thought at that time, and think still, that no determined effort
was made to save the Archbishop's life, except by two or three canons
of his Church, and by the Minister of the United States. The French
authorities certainly were lukewarm in the matter. The Archbishop
was a Gallican, a liberal Catholic, notably so. Had he been an
Ultramontane, I think that the extreme Right of the Assembly--the
Legitimists--would have so exerted themselves that his life would
have been saved. M. Thiers occupied a difficult position. He was
suspected by the Legitimists of coquetting with the radicals, and of
having no serious intention of putting down the insurrection. The
suspicion was, of course, unfounded; but it may have prevented him
from entering upon those informal negotiations which would probably
have resulted in the release of the prisoner.
I once expressed these views to a lady in Paris, herself a liberal
Catholic. She would not admit them to be true. Some weeks later, I
met her again, and she told me that she believed that I was right;
that she had heard such sentiments expressed by Legitimist ladies,
that she was satisfied that there was an influential, if not a large,
class of Ultramontanes, to whom the death of the Archbishop was not
unwelcome. He has been succeeded by a noted Ultramontane.
Meantime the army was being rapidly reorganized. The Imperial Guard,
and other _corps d'élite_, had returned from Germany, where they had
been prisoners of war. Marshal MacMahon took command. Why M. Thiers
did not then assault the city, and carry it, as he undoubtedly could
have done, was a matter of surprise to every one, and especially to
those whose lives and property lay at the mercies of the Commune.
But Thiers had built the fortifications of Paris. He looked upon
them with a paternal eye. To him they were not like other men's
fortifications. They were impregnable to ordinary assault, and could
only be taken by regular approaches. How I wished that Guizot had
built them! We might have been saved a month of danger, loss, and
intense anxiety.
On my weekly visit to Paris I had a better opportunity to observe the
progress of events than if I had staid there without interruption,
while my residence of three days gave me ample occasion to appreciate
the full pleasures of the bombardment. It must always be a mystery
why the French bombarded so persistently the quarter of the Arch of
Triumph--the West End of Paris--the quarter where nine out of ten
of the inhabitants were known friends of the Government. They had
their regular hours for this _divertissement_, for so they seemed
to regard it. They took a turn at it before breakfast, to give them
an appetite; and at five o'clock in the morning I was waked by the
shells from Mont Valérien bursting and crashing in the Place de
l'Etoile. About noon they went at it again, and when I went home to
breakfast (_anglice_ lunch), I had to dodge round corners, and take
refuge behind stone columns. Then, just before sunset, they always
favored us with an evening gun, for good-night. The days, too, were
so confoundedly long at that season of the year--April and May--and
the weather provokingly fine. How I longed for a delicious London fog!
I remember one day, as I dodged behind a stone pillar in the Rue
de Presbourg to avoid a coming shell, the _concierge_ called me in.
I went into his _loge_, but declined to go into the cellar, where
his wife and children had taken refuge. He had two _loges_, and I
strongly advised him to move into the unoccupied one as the safer of
the two, for I had observed that the shells generally passed easily
enough through one stone wall, but were arrested by a second. He took
my advice. The next day a shell from one of their evening guns fell
into the window of the _loge_ he had left, passed through the floor
into the cellar, and there exploded, and tore every thing to pieces.
My own apartment was struck eight times by fragments of shells.
Fortunately but one exploded in the house, and that two stories above
me. It shattered the room into which it fell fearfully, but, strange
to say, did no damage in the adjoining rooms. Happily the apartment
was unoccupied. The tenants, a few days before, had taken advantage
of a law of the Commune which released all tenants from their rent if
they found it inconvenient to pay it, and had decamped, furniture and
all.
Mr. Washburne advised me to change my residence, as it was not safe.
But I felt that the dignity of the great American people would not
permit even one of its subordinate representatives to leave the
building while a Frenchman remained in it. Mr. Washburne's practice,
too, was not in accordance with his precepts. If we heard of any part
of Paris where shells were likely to burst and bullets to whistle,
Washburne was sure to have important business in that direction.
I was not in my house when the shell exploded. I generally came home
to dinner after dark. If there is any thing thoroughly disagreeable,
it is to have shells tumbling and bursting about you when you are at
dinner. It is bad enough at breakfast, but the dinner-hour should be
sacred from vulgar intrusion.
I recollect one day after my midday breakfast, as I left my house,
I saw a knot of men standing on the corner of the Avenue de
l'Impératrice and the Rue de Presbourg; I thought that I would go and
see what was up. Mont Valérien was blazing away at a great rate. As I
joined the group, one of them said, "They'll fire at us soon, seeing
half a dozen people here." He had hardly said so, when there was a
flash, and a puff of smoke, and in a minute we heard the huge shell
hurtling through the air. It missed us, of course, and fell in the
Place, and exploded. All these men were friends of the Government,
and they were looking to Mont Valérien for help, longing for the
troops to come in. This was the protection the Government gave its
friends, "the protection which the vulture gives the lamb, covering
and devouring it."
About once a week I was called in by some neighboring _concierge_ to
note the damage done by shells in apartments belonging to Americans.
Shells are strangely capricious. One end of No. 8 Rue de Presbourg,
opposite my own residence, was nearly torn to pieces; the other end
was untouched. At No. 12, shell after shell penetrated the kitchen
departments, while the _salons_ were uninjured. I was called to see
the damage done to the _premier_ of No. 8, a beautiful apartment
belonging to a New York lady. A shell had entered the _salon_ and
exploded. I have never seen more thorough destruction. The mirrors
were shattered; the floors and ceilings rent and gaping; sofas,
chairs, and tables upset and broken. In the midst of all this
destruction stood a little table with a lady's work-basket upon it,
the needle in the work, the thimble and scissors on the table, as if
she had left them five minutes before--the only objects unhurt in the
room. It was a touching souvenir of peaceful domestic life in the
midst of the worst ravages of war.
Mr. Washburne and Lord Lyons complained to Jules Favre of this
persistent bombardment, for the property destroyed and the lives
endangered were largely American and English. He replied that it
was "bad shooting," but he smiled as he said so, and evidently did
not believe it himself. It was sheer wantonness, that irrepressible
desire of artillery-men, of which I have before spoken, to hit
something--an enemy if possible, a friend if no enemy offers.
It was singular that while so many shells fell in the immediate
neighborhood of the Arch of Triumph, so little serious injury was
done to it. I remarked a curious circumstance in this connection.
The bas-reliefs on the arch facing the Avenue de la Grande Armée are
Peace and War--on the right, as you face the Arch, War; on the left,
Peace. War was very much injured; Peace was scarcely touched.