It is unfortunately true that Dumas is dead. This has been ascertained
through the German newspapers. He died on December 5 at the home of his
son at Puys, near Dieppe.
I am being urged more strongly than ever, to enter the Government. The
Minister of Justice, M. Emmanuel Arago, called and stopped to dinner. We
talked. Louis Blanc dropped in after dinner. I persist in my refusal.
Besides Emmanuel Arago and the friends who usually dine with me on
Thursdays, Rochefort and Blum came. I invited them to come every
Thursday if we have many more Thursdays to live. At desert I drank
Rochefort’s health.
The cannonade is increasing. The plateau of Avron had to be evacuated.
December 31.--D’Alton-Shée paid a visit to me this morning. It appears
that General Ducros wants to see me.
Within three days the Prussians have sent us 12,000 shells.
Yesterday I ate some rat, and then hiccoughed the following quatrain:
_O mesdames les hétaires
Dans vos greniers, je me nourris:
Moi qui mourais de vos sourires,
Je vais vivre de vos souris_.
After next week there will be no more washing done in Paris, because
there is no more coal.
Lieutenant Farcy, commander of the gunboat, dined with me.
It is bitterly cold. For three days I have worn my cloak and hood
whenever I have had to go out.
A doll for little Jeanne. A basketful of toys for Georges.
Shells have begun to demolish the Fort of Rosny. The first shell has
fallen in the city itself. The Prussians to-day fired 6,000 shells at
us.
In the Fort of Rosny a sailor working at the gabions was carrying a sack
of earth. A shell knocked it off his shoulder. “Much obliged,” commented
the sailor, “but I wasn’t tired.”
Alexandre Dumas died on December 5. On looking over my notebook I see
that it was on December 5 that a large hearse with an “H” on it passed
before me in the Rue Frochot.
We have no longer even horse to eat. *Perhaps* it is dog? *Maybe* it is
rat? I am beginning to suffer from pains in the stomach. We are eating
the unknown!
M. Valois, representing the Société des Gens de Lettres, came to ask me
what was to be done with the 3,000 francs remaining from the proceeds of
the three readings of Les Châtiments, the guns having been delivered and
paid for. I told him that I wanted the whole amount turned over to Mme.
Jules Simon for the fund for the victims of the war.
January 1, 1871.--Louis Blanc has addressed to me through the newspapers
a letter upon the situation.
Stupor and amazement of little Georges and little Jeanne at their
basketful of New Year presents. The toys, when unpacked from the basket,
covered a large table. The children touched all of them and did not know
which to take. Georges was nearly furious with joy. Charles remarked:
“It is the despair of joy!”
I am hungry. I am cold. So much the better. I suffer what the people are
suffering.
Decidedly horse is not good for me. Yet I ate some. It gives me the
gripes. I avenged myself at dessert with the following distich:
_Mon diner m’inquiete et même me harcêle,
J’ai mange du cheval et je songe a la selle_.
The Prussians are bombarding Saint Denis.
January 2.--Daumier and Louis Blanc lunched with us.
Louis Koch gave to his aunt as a New Year gift a couple of cabbages and
a brace of living partridges!
This morning we lunched on wine soup. The elephant at the Jardin des
Plantes has been slaughtered. He wept. He will be eaten..
The Prussians continue to send us 6,000 bombs a day.
January 3.--The heating of two rooms at the Pavillon de Rohan now costs
10 francs a day.
The Mountaineers’ club again demands that Louis Blanc and I be added to
the Government in order to direct it. I continue to refuse.
There are at present twelve members of the French Academy in
Paris, among them Ségur, Mignet, Dufaure, d’Haussonville, Legouvé,
Cuvillier-Fleury, Barbier and Vitet.
Moon. Intense cold. The Prussians bombarded Saint Denis all night.
From Tuesday to Sunday the Prussians hurled 25,000 projectiles at us.
It required 220 railway trucks to transport them. Each shot costs 60
francs; total, 1,500,000 francs. The damage to the forts is estimated at
1,400 francs. About ten men have been killed. Each of our dead cost the
Prussians 150,000 francs.
January 5.--The bombardment is becoming heavier. Issy and Vanves are
being shelled.
There is no coal. Clothes cannot be washed because they cannot be dried.
My washerwoman sent this message to me through Mariette:
“If M. Victor Hugo, who is so powerful, would ask the Government to give
me a little coal-dust, I could wash his shirts.”
Besides my usual Thursday guests I had Louis Blanc, Rochefort and Paul
de Saint Victor to dinner. Mme. Jules Simon sent me a Gruyère cheese. An
extraordinary luxury, this. We were thirteen at table.
January 6.--At dessert yesterday I offered some bonbons to the ladies,
saying as I did so:
_Grace a Boissier, chêre colombes,
Heureux, a vos pieds nous tombons.
Car on prend les forts par les bombes
Et les faibles par les bonbons_.
The Parisians out of curiosity visit the bombarded districts. They go
to see the shells fall as they would go to a fireworks display. National
Guards have to keep the people back. The Prussians are firing on the
hospitals. They are bombarding Val-de-Grâce. Their shells set fire to
the wooden booths in the Luxembourg, which were full of sick and wounded
men, who had to be transported, undressed and wrapped up as well as they
could be, to the Charité Hospital. Barbieux saw them arrive there about
1 o’clock in the morning.
Sixteen streets have already been hit by shells.
January 7.--The Rue des Feuillantines, which runs through the place
where the garden of my boyhood used to be, is heavily bombarded. I was
nearly struck by a shell there.
My washerwoman having nothing to make a fire with, and being obliged to
refuse work in consequence, addressed a demand to M. Clémenceau, Mayor
of the Ninth Arrondissement, for some coal, which she said she was
prepared to pay for. I endorsed it thus:
“I am resigned to everything for the defence of Paris, to die of hunger
and cold, and even to forego a change of shirt. However, I commend my
laundress to the Mayor of the Ninth Arrondissement.”
And I signed my name. The Mayor gave her the coal.
January 8.--Camille Pelletan brought us good news from the Government.
Rouen and Dijon retaken, Garibaldi victorious at Nuits, and Fraidherbe
at Bapaume. All goes well.
We had brown bread, now we have black bread. Everybody fares alike. It
is well.
The news of yesterday was brought by two pigeons.
A shell killed five children in a school in the Rue de Vaugirard.
The performances and readings of _Les Châtiments_ have had to be
stopped, the theatres being without gas or coal, therefore without light
or heat.
Prim is dead. He was shot and killed at Madrid the day the king after
his own heart, Amedeus, Duke of Genoa, entered Spain.
The bombardment was a furious one to-day. A shell crashed through the
chapel of the Virgin at Saint Sulpice, where my mother’s funeral took
place and where I was married.
January 10.--Bombs on the Odéon Theatre.
Chifflard sent me a piece of a shell. This shell, which fell at Auteuil,
is marked with an “H.” I will have an inkstand made out of it.
January 12.--The Pavilion de Rohan demands of me from to-day on 8 francs
a head for dinner, which with wine, coffee, fire, etc., brings the cost
of dinner up to 13 francs for each person.
We had elephant steak for luncheon to-day.
Schoelcher, Rochefort, Blum and all the usual Thursday guests dined with
us. After dinner Louis Blanc and Pelletan dropped in.
January 13.--An egg costs 2 francs 75 centimes. Elephant meat costs 40
francs a pound. A sack of onions costs 800 francs.
The Société des Gens de Lettres asked me to attend the presentation of
the cannon to the city at the Hotel de Ville. I begged to be excused. I
will not go.
We spent the day looking for another hotel. Could not find one
suitable. All are closed. Expenses for the week at the Pavilion de Rohan
(including the cost of a broken window-pane), 701 francs 50 centimes.
Remark by a poor woman anent some newly felled wood:
“This hapless green wood is under fire; it didn’t expect that it would
have to face it, and weeps all the time!”
January 15.--A furious bombardment is in progress.
I have written a piece of poetry entitled “Dans le Cirque.” After dinner
I read it to my Sunday guests. They want me to publish it. I will give
it to the newspapers.
January 17.--The bombardment has been going on for three nights and
three days without cessation.
Little Jeanne was cross with me because I would not let her play with
the works of my watch.
All the newspapers publish my verses “Dans le Cirque.” They may be
useful.
Louis Blanc called this morning. He urged me to join with Quinet and
himself in bringing pressure to bear upon the Government. I replied: “I
see more danger in overturning the Government than in supporting it.”
January 18.--M. Krupp is making cannon for use specially against
balloons.
There is a cock in my little garden. Yesterday Louis Blanc lunched with
us. The cock crowed. Louis Blanc paused and said:
“Listen!”
“What is it?”
“A cock is crowing.”
“Well, what of it?”
“Don’t you hear what it says?”
“It is calling: ‘Victor Hugo!’”
We listened and laughed. Louis Blanc was right It did sound as if the
cock were crowing my name.