TRAVELLING IN FROST.--AMMUNITION TRAIN IN DIFFICULTIES.--FERRIÈRES.--THE
CAMP OF CHÂLONS.--HOW GERMAN OFFICERS TREAT JEWS.
The snow-storm had given over, but it was freezing hard, and the road
was now almost impassable. Our horses were constantly falling, and we
were getting on very slowly indeed. At last we came to the hamlet of
Chivry,--it does not deserve the name of a village. We could see no inn;
it was stark midnight; and, except a lonely candle in one small cottage,
there was not a light in the place. At the cottage, therefore, we
knocked. A regular parley ensued; and after much explanation and fair
promises, the door was opened by an old woman, who admitted us into a
warm room, as clean and neat as any room could be, though everything
testified that the owners were in humble circumstances. The only other
inmate of the house, an old man, was in bed. All we asked was a cup of
coffee, and a mattress to lie upon, both of which our hostess readily
provided. As to eatables, we had brought a loaf of bread with us, which
we finished without delay, then took a pull at our flasks, and so made
a meal which for my part I relished as much as any I had ever eaten.
Next, divesting ourselves of our outer clothing, we threw ourselves on
our mattresses, and slept a deep and refreshing sleep until seven next
morning, when we made the acquaintance of a well in the yard, at which
we performed our ablutions, after the manner of professional tramps.
This done, we notified to the old lady that we were still hungry, and
asked her to get us some bread and meat. She replied civilly that she
had neither the one nor the other;--an unpleasant piece of news, for we
were famished. I enlarged to her on our inward sufferings, and at the
same time slipped four francs into her hand, bidding her get as good a
meal as she could, and as soon as possible.
This douceur had its effect. Madame, or "la bourgeoise," as
country-folks say, disappeared, only to return with a loaf of fresh
bread, though a few minutes before I had been assured by a peasant that
none was to be had for love or money. The truth was, that we were taken
for Prussians, and treated accordingly. After a while, the dame
announced that breakfast was ready, mentioning that she had a pot of
stewed rabbit for us, which we set about demolishing with the loaf of
new bread. As we sat devouring, neither of us spoke; but morsel after
morsel of the rabbit disappeared, and we eyed one another
significantly, for the same horrid suspicion was passing through our
minds, that this white, insipid stuff was not rabbit at all, though what
it might be we could not guess. Our natural history declared it to be
cat, but we could not tell, nor did we much care. However, I inquired
afterwards whether rabbits existed in the neighbourhood, and was assured
that never a one dwelt within ten miles of it.
Just as we were wishing ourselves at Lagny, who should pass through with
his waggon, but the driver of the convoy with whom we had started from
Corbeil? An accident to his waggon had delayed him on the road, which
was a great piece of luck for us; and we thanked our hostess at once for
her equivocal, but nourishing breakfast, put our traps in the buggy, and
drove off. It was the 10th of January. We found it still very difficult
to travel, but lest our driver should pull up as he did before, we plied
him with brandy and liqueur out of a stone jar, that I had bought at
Orleans. In consequence, he was in the best of humour all through the
journey, and not in the least disconcerted when the horses fell or
stumbled about.
Some miles of our route lay through the Forest of Champigny; but here
the road was impassable, for it had thawed during the small hours and
frozen again, making the causeway one solid sheet of ice. Wherever we
could we travelled along the edges; but it was dreadfully slow work, and
the horses themselves, poor beasts, were afraid. While we were loitering
at this funeral pace, I witnessed a sight that I never shall forget. We
fell in with an ammunition train, about half a mile in length, conveying
war material of all kinds to the positions before Paris. Our own waggon
we had to draw in among the trees for safety, as the horses were falling
every minute; and now when we looked along the line, we could see as
many as ten horses on the ground at once. Sometimes two of the animals
would slip down side by side, and fall again and again whenever they
attempted to pull on their traces. Nay, more, I saw a team of four
horses all come down simultaneously, not once, but twice. No
description, indeed, could exaggerate the confusion of the
scene,--drivers shouting, waggons slipping, and horses falling in all
directions; while the more their guides interfered the more they fell,
until the poor brutes became so terrified, that they trembled all over
from fright.
The ground was amazingly hard. In one place I saw a heavy ammunition
waggon drawn by four horses, when coming down a slight incline, slip
five or six yards along the road, and then glide off into the ditch,
without a single wheel having turned on its axle. As it was now evident
that they could not proceed through the Forest without inflicting grave
and perhaps fatal injuries on their cattle, the men began to pick out
the middle of the road where the horses trod, and strewed along it coal
dust, which they carried with them on purpose. This made the road
sufficiently passable to allow of the train to advance. But, meanwhile,
it was about two hours before we of the convoy could move, though when
we did we rattled on at a spanking pace. From time to time we met
numbers of newly organised cavalry,--with droves of horses led by
halters; and of these steeds I was ready to lay any odds that some were
Irish bred. Men and horses were on their way to the front to replace the
maimed, killed, and wounded, and to contribute themselves to a similar
contingent.
Early in the afternoon we came to Ferrières, where having dined, so to
call it, we paid a visit to the splendid château of M. de Rothschild.
Unheeded and unhindered, we roamed through this lovely demesne,
marvelling at the beauty of house and grounds which, as all the world
knows, would not disgrace the abode of royalty. The mansion of cut
stone, the terraces with their marble statues, the flower-gardens,
shrubberies, stables,--these last, a wonder in themselves,--all were in
perfect preservation. Not a stick or a stone in the whole place had been
touched by the Prussians, nor did a soldier set foot in it. Such was the
good pleasure of William I. who had taken up his quarters here, such
the reverence paid to the kings of finance by the House of Hohenzollern!
We started again on our journey, but had proceeded only half a mile,
when we fell in with a train of siege guns, some of them drawn by six
horses. They were on the road to Paris, and would do service there. I
remarked that some of the smaller guns were of brass, and shone in the
sun like gold.
The country we passed through was charmingly wooded, and looked pretty
enough in its garment of snow. It was night when we arrived at Lagny. On
demanding our billet, we were directed to the sick officers' quarters,
in the upper portion of the station house, where we should find plenty
of room. There we came upon two of our friends who had been quartered at
Orleans. They, also, were on their way out of France, and we engaged to
make a party of it. At four o'clock next morning a couple of soldiers
called us, and at five we started. There were several officers in the
carriage, from whom Sherwell and I received every civility. Passing
Meaux we arrived at Épernay, and later on traversed the great camp at
Châlons, which now presented a vast and beaten plain of enormous extent.
By way of Vitry and Chaumont we came on to Toul and Nancy, of the
fortifications round both of which we got an excellent view, in
particular at Nancy, where we halted for some time, and were able to
look about us.
None of these places, however, was of so much interest to me as the
little town of Lunéville. I knew nothing of the famous treaty concluded
there by the First Consul, and had never heard of the Court of King
Stanislaus, or of Voltaire and Madame la Marquise du Châtelet, in
connection with it; I simply admired the view. Lunéville is situated on
a hill, with some of its fortifications overlooking a steep precipice
which serves as a natural protection for perhaps a third of its extent.
From the railway which runs along the flat country, below the town, it
appeared to be an impregnable stronghold; for where nature's protecting
barriers were wanting, there were huge embankments, deep fosses, and
steep artificial declivities. A picturesque place too. The face of the
cliff and the old turreted walls were covered with ivy, a broad stream
ran beneath the hill, which on the lowest slope was well wooded all
round,--and now imagine all this clad in new-fallen snow, and you will
have as lovely a scene as I remember.
Close to the town we passed a bridge which had been blown up, but was
now reconstructed on timber piles. It had been destroyed, not by the
regular army, but by a band of Francs-Tireurs. This I learned from one
of the officers who knew all about the place.
I had seen Ferrières, the palace of a Frankfort Jew, with admiration,
all the more that it had been respected as a sanctuary by orders from
the Prussians. Yet it was during this same journey that I witnessed an
incident in which a Jew was the hero or the victim, that filled me with
astonishment, as it may do my readers who happen not to be acquainted
with the ways of the Fatherland. I had frequently heard the Jews spoken
of by my German friends in language of supreme contempt; but never did I
realise the depth of that feeling until now.
In the railway compartment in which I travelled, all were German
officers except myself and one civilian. The latter had got in at a
wayside station, and sat at the furthest corner opposite me. My
companions began without delay to banter and tease him unmercifully, all
the while addressing him as Lemann. He was a small stunted person, in
make and features an Israelite, and not more than twenty-five. The
behaviour of his fellow-travellers seemed to give him no concern; as
they fired off at him their sneering jests, he scanned them with his
sharp eyes, but did not move a muscle.
I inquired of the officer next me, who spoke English well, how it came
to pass that they knew this stranger's name. He explained that Lemann
was the common term for a Jew in their language, going on to describe
how much the sons of Jacob were detested throughout Germany; and for
his part he thought they were a vile horde, who laid hands on everything
they could seize, in a way which we English were incapable of fancying.
The officers, he added, were all getting down to have some beer at the
next station, and by way of illustration he would show me what manner of
men these Jews were; and as he said the words, he took off his hairy
fur-lined gloves, and threw them across the carriage to our man in the
corner, remarking, "There, Lemann! it is a cold day". The Jew picked up
the gloves eagerly, which he had missed on the catch, and pulled them
on. When we were nearing the station, the officer who had thrown the
gloves at him, took off his fur rug, and flung that also to the Jew.
Once more he accepted the insulting present, and quickly rolled the rug
about him. Finally, a third threw off his military cloak, and slung it
on the Jew's back as he was passing out. This, again, the wretched
creature put on; and their absence at the buffet left him for the next
ten minutes in peace.
Presently the horn sounded, and our Germans came back. One seized his
rug, another his cloak, and finally, my first acquaintance recovered his
gloves by one unceremonious tug from Lemann's meekly outstretched
fingers. My own face, I think, must have flushed with indignation; but
the others only laughed at my superfluous display of feeling; and
Lemann, shrugging his shoulders,--but only because of the sudden change
of temperature when his wraps were pulled away,--took out of his pocket
a little book with red print, which he began to read backwards, and,
turning up the sleeve of his coat, began to unwind a long cord which was
coiled round his wrist and forearm as far as the elbow. Every now and
then he would stop the unwinding, and pray with a fervour quite
remarkable, then unwind his cord again, and so on till the whole was
undone. For a time the officers resumed their jeering; but, seeing that
it was like so much water on a stone, they turned the conversation, and
allowed the unhappy Jew to continue his devotions unmolested till he got
out at Strasburg.
What would these officers have done, had they travelled in the same
railway carriage with M. de Rothschild?