“Who serves to-day upon the list
Beside the served shall stand;
Alike the brown and wrinkled fist,
The gloved and dainty hand!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day,
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of grey.”
I went with my husband to Switzerland in the month of June of 1876 to
see the friends who were then preparing for the Congress of the
following year, and to seek among the mountains the calm of spirit which
we wished to possess, and to be able in a measure to impart in the midst
of the increasing conflict. We first visited Neuchâtel in order to
confer on the arrangements for the Congress with that master organizer,
M. Humbert, who accompanied us to a beautiful rural retreat on the Jura
for a short time of rest. A week or two later other representatives of
the Federation arrived in Switzerland, Giuseppe Nathan from Italy, and
Professor Stuart and one of my sons from England. My sister, Madame
Meuricoffre, and her family also came to their Swiss summer home. A
meeting was held at Berne, in July, for the purpose of forming a working
Committee to arrange for the Congress. The meeting and the Committee
were presided over by a distinguished Swiss gentleman, the Federal
Colonel Othon von Büren, whose memory lives in the hearts of his
countrymen. It was he who, in the disastrous Franco-German War, went to
Strasburg and drew out from that beleaguered city and other parts of
Alsatia a vast host of aged and feebled persons, women, and children,
and led them to Switzerland, to be received and nourished and protected
by that hospitable nation, which added in that year one more page of
heroic and pathetic beauty to the many noble pages of its past history.
Colonel von Büren performed this service with a patience, firmness,
military orderliness, and fatherly tenderness which endeared him to
every one. This service, added to his reputation as a soldier, and the
consistency of his Christian character, has made his name deservedly
renowned. He and two other well-known Swiss soldiers became from this
time staunch adherents of the Federation. Those others were Colonel
Steiger and Colonel de Perrot, the latter a Neuchâtelois. We were joined
later by another officer of high rank and noble character from Eastern
Switzerland, Colonel Kaiser, of Zug, who had, before our acquaintance
with him, written and published some excellent brochures on the work of
the Federation, “Letters to the Athenians,” addressed to the people of
Zurich, which was sometimes called the Modern Athens.
It was an overpoweringly hot day when we held this meeting at Berne in
the Hall of the Abbaye des Bouchers. It was in the afternoon, and
nothing less than the great interest of the approaching events about
which we were taking counsel together could have sufficed to keep us
awake! M. Humbert made a clear statement of plans and operations, M.
Nathan spoke with deep feeling concerning his own country, and my
husband explained the prominent position taken by women in this cause
with a force and gentleness which deeply impressed the ladies present,
and won many to leave their retirement and join our ranks. Our good
allies, Madame de Gingins, the two young Mesdames de Watteville, and
others, had already become leaders in the movement in their own country.
Once more my husband was obliged to leave me, being recalled, in the
month of August, by his imperative duties at the Liverpool College. I
went to stay with my sister, Madame Meuricoffre, at her home in the
Canton de Vaud. While there an unexpected invitation was sent to me to
address, the following day, a mass meeting of the working people of
Geneva in the Electoral Hall in that city. I had not yet addressed any
great popular assembly in French, and felt unable to do so at such short
notice. In my first tour in 1874–5 I had spoken in French and Italian,
but always with time for careful preparation. But as the invitation was
urgent I accepted it, on the condition that my sister, who was perfectly
at home in the French language, should accompany me, stand near me,
prompt me, and, if necessary, interpret for me. On the morning of the
day when the meeting was to take place I went to her room to confer with
and be strengthened by her concerning it, when I found to my dismay that
she was completely prostrated by an attack of faintness and severe pain
in the head. It was too late, however, to change my decision, and the
afternoon was a time to me of a good deal of anxiety.
Towards evening I went to say farewell to her before starting on the
short journey to Geneva. Her room was darkened, her eyes were closed,
and she spoke with difficulty on account of pain. I stooped to kiss her,
and she whispered to me, in a calm tone of conviction, the words, “_they
spake with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance_.” It was a
revelation to me, and I went in the strength of those words to the
dreaded meeting.
I was met in Geneva by M. Humbert, M. Sautter de Blonay, of the Canton
de Vaud, Professor Stuart, and others. An eye-witness wrote to friends
in England of the meeting as follows: “We arrived punctually at the
hour, and soon perceived what sort of a meeting we were about to have by
the fact that hundreds of people, chiefly working men, were coming away
from the hall saying, ‘no use, not a place to be had, even to stand’;
while not only the hall itself, but a long outside gallery surrounding
it, and open to the air, was crowded. The crowd was so dense that Mrs.
Butler and her friends could with difficulty press in. Even such persons
as the President of the Grand Council of Geneva, and Père Hyacinthe
Loyson, were obliged to stand, not finding a seat unoccupied. It was a
hot and brilliant moonlight night, and from the body of the hall might
be seen outside the doors and windows a sea of faces of persons standing
patiently the whole time to catch what they could of the words spoken,
while groups of men sat on the ledges of the open windows, or hung on
where they could.”
It was affecting to observe, even in Geneva, where the consciences of
the working population were said to be, in a measure, falsified by the
influence of the system of Regulation, that the sentiments which were
responded to with the most evidence of feeling were those which
expressed pity and sympathy for the fallen, and indignation concerning
the principles of justice and equality outraged by the system we oppose.
M. Sautter de Blonay and M. Humbert spoke eloquently, and I was able, by
God’s grace, to deliver my message with comparative ease to that large
assembly. At one moment there was a movement in the lower part of the
hall, and evidence of some sinister presence and influence; an attempt
to utter coarse words of opposition and insult, which was immediately
quelled by the working men surrounding the person who had risen, and who
was finally carried off bodily by them and placed in the open street. We
found, afterwards, that this was the keeper of one of the notorious
houses of debauchery in the town under the protection of the Government
of Geneva—a person holding an official authorisation, in fact, who felt
he had a right to be heard; a man with a most hideous expression of
countenance resembling a vulture greedily scouring the face of the earth
for prey.
I had not at this time visited any German town in the interests of our
cause; I therefore accepted a proposal to travel homewards by the Rhine.
I stayed some days in Frankfort-s.M., and was there encouraged, by the
sympathy of several leading citizens, above all by that of Dr. André, a
medical man, and a philosophical writer, whose convictions on this
subject were very deep, and supported by a very considerable experience
as a doctor. M. Gerard, a pastor of Swiss origin, called a meeting in
his own house, in which I was very kindly received.
I went next to Cologne and Elberfeld. In the latter town I found a very
considerable group of ministers and ladies, who showed an intelligent
sympathy with our motives and work. Returning from Elberfeld, I visited
Liége and Brussels. M. Emile de Laveleye was absent at that time from
Liége, but some little initiatory work was done in that city, through
the kind help and zeal of Pastors Durand and Nicolet. The latter was a
strong and active adherent from that time forward. It was during this
visit to Belgium that I made my first acquaintance with the awful crimes
and cruelties resulting from the system of regulation long established
there, and which were brought fully to light, later, by the action of
the City of London Committee, and the investigations so courageously
undertaken by George Gillett and Alfred Dyer. In Brussels our chief
friends were, in those early days, Pastor Anet and Mr. Cor van der
Maaren, the famous champion of Free Trade principles in Belgium, who in
the early days of his political career was stoned in the streets of
Brussels, and who, after his death, when his principles had triumphed,
was honoured by having a statue erected of him in one of the public
squares. He at once took up our cause, and gave me an introduction to M.
Couvreu, a Member of Parliament. Madame Behrends also helped us, and
became one of our correspondents for some years.
In the late autumn of this year a “newspaper war” on this subject broke
out suddenly in France. It was probably kindled by numerous cases of
Police brutality, and frequent arrests both of men and women for
resisting, or even speaking against, the _Police des Mœurs_. But a
deeper source of resistance was the growing force of public opinion
against that immoral system. So systematic did this Press conflict
become that every week the _Droits de l’homme_ had an article summing up
its results, and pronouncing upon the attitude of the different
journals, not only in Paris, but in the provinces. The journals which
demanded the instant and complete abolition of the Regulations were the
_Droits de l’homme_, _La Révolution_ and _La France_. Others which
attacked it, but without demanding its total abolition, were the
_Tribune_, the _Siècle_, the _Rappel_, the _Ralliement_, the _Nation_,
the _Estafette_, and the _Gaulois_. Beside these papers, which wrote on
the question continuously for several weeks, the following had single
articles in favour of abolition:—The _Republicain_, of St. Etienne; the
_Bien public_, Paris; _La Liberté_, Paris; _La Gironde_, Bordeaux; the
_Tribune des Travailleurs_, Lyons; the _Petit Lyonnais_, Lyons; and the
_Critique Philosophique_, Paris.
A meeting of citizens was held in Paris to draw up a petition to the
Government. It was a weighty and noble petition. Private letters were
poured in upon members of the Senate and the Chambers praying for the
redress of this great wrong so long endured in France. This
extraordinary awakening was compared by M. Aimé Humbert to the bursting
of a mine under our feet. Five or six respectable citizens were sent to
prison for various terms for taking the part of helpless women in the
streets. Many of the highest Municipal authorities ranged themselves on
the side of the Abolitionists. The conflict became more bitter every
week, and we looked on in wonder, almost in awe. A writer in one of the
Paris journals on November 13th said that M. Lecour “deigns not to
answer nor to argue; he only arrests. But his hour is come. It is
written up against him, ‘thou art weighed in the balances, and art found
wanting.’” Literary men, such as Pillon, Assolant, Tacussel, etc., wrote
nobly on the subject. Even the opponents of our movement, represented
chiefly by the Imperialistic journals, gave daily well-attested cases of
honourable women who were arrested by the Morals’ Police.
The Municipal Council of Paris now began to move with vigour. Two of its
members, M. Yves Guyot and M. Lacroix, brought before the council
towards the close of November a charge against the Police of Morals, and
made at the same time a proposal that the money which the Municipal
Council had always been called upon to provide for the expenses of the
Morals’ Police should be stopped. There followed soon after this a
prosecution by the Prefect of Police of M. Yves Guyot, of which I shall
presently speak. That that prosecution did not take place until after M.
Guyot had brought forward this resolution in the Municipal Council
suggested that it was an act of revenge, an attempt to terrify M. Guyot
into silence. One of the first steps taken by the Council was the
appointment of a special Committee to report on the matter. The report
of that Committee was to this effect:—That it was unendurable that such
an arbitrary power should exist in Paris as that exercised by the
_Police des Mœurs_; and that this same _Police des Mœurs_ had no legal
foundation for its existence. After a long discussion on the subject, M.
Thulié, the President of the Council, rose and said, “I do not think
this matter will be finally settled either by stopping the supplies, as
proposed by M. Lacroix, or by referring the matter to the Chambers. We
must first have a Commission appointed by the Municipal Council to
inquire into the whole question, with the view of having this system
completely abolished.” This proposition being carried, MM. Guyot and
Lacroix withdrew for the time their proposal to stop the supplies.
We learned later that the prosecution of M. Guyot had been instituted by
M. Voisin, the Prefect of the Correctional Police, at the instigation of
his personal friend the powerful and haughty Prefect of the Morals’
Police, M. Lecour. The report of the trial was full of interest. The
charge against M. Guyot was that of “Publishing false news,” he having
recorded the assault by the police on a well-known actress of good
character and reputation, Mlle. Rousseil, by an agent of the Morals’
Police. Mlle. Rousseil, made strong by the force of her just
indignation, had flung the man who attempted to arrest her with such
violence from her that he measured his length on the pavement. A crowd
gathered round, and as the young actress was a popular favourite, the
news of the scene spread rapidly. M. Lecour afterwards asserted that the
man who made this arrest was a private individual who had pretended to
be one of his agents. This was never believed by the public. M. Guyot’s
sole fault, then, was that he had said “an agent of the Morals’ Police,”
instead of “a person calling himself an agent.” For this he was
condemned to six months’ imprisonment and a fine. It was never proved
that the man was not an agent of police. The outcry in the Press had
alarmed M. Lecour, who gave orders to his police to appear at once to be
engaged in an energetic search for the false agent. The man was found
and tried. He came into Court frankly confessing—rather too frankly,
indeed—that he was merely a silly fellow who had done this for
amusement. He accepted a very brief imprisonment without more ado.
Meanwhile the courageous Town Councillor, M. Guyot, accepted his
sentence cheerfully, assuring us in England that it would do good to the
persecuted cause. Three times during these events did M. Lecour stand
before the Municipal Council of Paris and plead passionately and with
tears in favour of the honour and purity of his own motives and those of
his women-hunters (men who were recruited from the very scum of society
in all countries).
A Commission of Enquiry was appointed by the Municipal Council, the
following being the text of its appointment:—
“(1) Considering that the Municipal Council cannot avoid being concerned
with the question of the _Police des Mœurs_, which is a question of
great importance to the security of the Parisian population;
“(2) Considering that it has the right to control the services for which
it pays, and to study the ameliorations which they may require;
“(3) Considering that the acts of the _Police des Mœurs_ are not
authorised by any laws, and that they lead to the perpetration of crimes
punishable by the penal code;
“(4) Considering that at present it being difficult to propose to the
Municipal Council to refuse the money required for the _Police des
Mœurs_, a Commission of twelve members be nominated to study the service
of the _Police des Mœurs_, and to propose either its entire suppression
or such reforms as it requires.”
The Prefect of Police objected that the Municipal Council had no
jurisdiction in the matter of the Police des Mœurs, and signified his
intention to appeal to the Minister of the Interior; and, in effect, at
the next meeting of the Municipal Council, he laid on the table an order
signed by Marshal MacMahon annulling the appointment of the Commission,
because of the direct imputations on the conduct of the police which the
resolutions contained. M. Lecour therefore had “energetically defended
the Police des Mœurs, he had condemned a Municipal Councillor to prison,
and had secured the annulling of the Council’s Decree.” The Municipal
Council, however, were not to be beaten, and three days later they
passed a resolution in place of that annulled, simply providing for the
nomination of a Commission, without giving any reasons for its
nomination, and at once elected twelve of their members to act upon it.
Mr. Herrison, who had become President of the Municipal Council, was
elected President of the Commission.
That Commission invited a certain number of persons from different
countries, who had studied the question, to give evidence before it.
From Switzerland came M. Sautter de Blonay and M. Humbert; from Italy,
M. Nathan; from Belgium, M. Nicolet; and from England, Messrs.
Stansfeld, Stuart, my husband and myself. The Commission sat day by day
in a large room of the old Palace of the Luxembourg; their labours were
very conscientious and prolonged. When summoned there we were struck by
the old-fashioned stateliness of the ancient royal residence, now used
as Government offices, but still more were we impressed by the kind and
courteous reception which we met with. It was a true pleasure to me to
appear as a witness there, contrasting strongly with the effect produced
on me by the ordeal which I, with others, had passed through in 1871,
when giving evidence before the Royal Commission in our House of Lords.
All the foreign witnesses here sat round a large table, at the upper
part of which were the twelve Commissioners. We felt at once that there
was _here_ (though we were in Paris) no cynicism, no wish to perplex or
entrap the witnesses, no motive, in fact, except the desire to elicit
the truth, and to profit by the experience of other countries, in order
that the Commission might do the best possible for their own country, by
returning, in this matter, to the principles of just law, in place of
the arbitrary and illegal police rule which was, they felt, destroying
the foundations of liberty. The members of the Commission were not
wholly of one mind on all points, and it was rather a severe exercise of
brain and memory to meet and satisfy the various questions of a company
of quick-witted, logical Frenchmen. It was an exercise, however, which
left one feeling stronger and happier, because of the sincerity of
motive which we felt animated the questioners.
Some days after giving our evidence at the Palais du Luxembourg, a great
meeting was held (on the 21st January) in the Salle des Écoles, Rue
d’Arras. No public meeting could at that time be held in Paris without
the authorisation of the Government, which would not have been granted
for a meeting on the subject of the Police des Mœurs. It was, therefore,
styled a “private meeting,” to attend which several thousands of
invitations were sent out. These were fully responded to, and the hall
was densely crowded. The meeting had been arranged chiefly by M. Yves
Guyot and M. Lacroix. There was a considerable proportion of “blue
blouses,” working men from the St. Antoine and Belleville quarters,
students from the Latin Quarter, and some members of the Chambers and of
the Senate, besides Municipal Councillors. There was also a good
attendance of women. M. Laurent Pichat (_Senateur Inamovible_) presided.
M. Yves Guyot introduced the strangers of different nationalities to the
audience with a few words explaining the object of their visit to Paris
and of this meeting.
The several addresses given were listened to with extraordinary
attention and interest, and in a quietness which was remarkable,
considering the mercurial and excitable nature of a portion of that
audience. So keen was the sympathy (having its roots deep in bitter
experience) of the poorer part of the audience, especially the working
men, that it was necessary in some degree to restrain all that it might
have been in our hearts to say on the injustice and cruelty of the
system of which the victims were drawn so largely from their own ranks.
On our return to England we found that a bitter attack had been made in
the _Standard_ and other journals on my husband’s action in accepting
the invitation of the Municipal Council in Paris, and speaking at the
Salle des Écoles. “A clergyman of the Church of England,” the writers
asserted, “had no business to be addressing Republican mobs in Paris.”
My husband’s weighty and dignified reply is given in the Recollections
of him, which I have published.[11] It was our rule not to reply to
attacks of a purely personal nature, but in this case the censures were
directed against him in his character as the Principal of a great
College, and he thought it due to the parents of the boys entrusted to
his charge to place the matter in its true light. We have seen how
varied a gathering it was in Paris, and as to its being a “Republican
mob,” my husband reminded his traducers that “France being a Republic,
it was natural that any audience there should be a Republican audience!”
Several other meetings were held before we left Paris. One of those was
in the Salle de la Redoute, which was crowded with respectable working
women of Paris. There were also a few ladies of the highest social
position. M. Charles Lemonnier presided. M. Auguste Desmoulins, an
ardent friend of our cause, spoke in a most beautiful manner to the
working people present. A very affecting address was given also by Mlle.
Raoult, a working woman of powerful understanding and a loving heart,
and the chief organiser of a league of working women for their own
protection. I give a few sentences from her address:—
“It is at the _root_ that we must strike. Is the moment opportune? I
believe so. It is time to act; for our generation, corrupted by many
years of a nameless _régime_, presents deep wounds which must be
healed.” After describing the network of unhappy circumstances which
causes the fall of so many girls into evil, she continued: “But while so
many people make light of their morality, there are to be found in Paris
young girls who are faithful to the lessons learned from their mothers,
and to the memory of their homes, and who work and suffer without
complaining. To be known, they must be seen in their wretched garrets,
fabricating the most beautiful toilettes for the ladies of the high
Society, working from morning till night, and _dying without a murmur,
rather than yield_. These are indeed virtuous! It is an exact
acquaintance with all these sufferings which has constrained me to
depict them to you. No, lady, it is not in the wilderness that your
voice has sounded, but rather in the conscience of every man of feeling
those especially of the working class, who are invaded in their dignity,
and in their most cherished affections, by this horrible plague which we
are endeavouring to combat.”
Adhémard Le Clerc, a leading working man, confirmed in the most terrible
manner the facts given by Mlle. Raoult. He said: “Society with us has
come to a dead-lock, because of the condition of our women. It is an
accepted axiom in Paris that _a woman can no longer live by the work of
her own hands_. The great social evil lies in the miserable wages
granted to the work of women. This in itself, I say without hesitation,
is debauchery justified, necessary, inevitable. There are some workwomen
in Paris who have a father or husband, in which case the poor woman’s 10
or 20 sous a day help a little towards the _ménage_; but there are
thousands of single women in Paris who have no creature on earth to look
to for support. Marriage has long been on the decrease. Many of these
poor girls do not know their origin. As Dr. Desprès has said, ‘the
population is bastardised to such an extent that thousands of poor girls
know not of any relationship which they have ever possessed.’ They come
handicapped into the world, bastards, orphans, and outcasts. Their life,
if virtuous, is one terrible struggle from the cradle to the grave; but
by far the greater number of them are drilled from childhood by
exploiters and the police in the public service of debauchery. Ten
thousand women every year go through the prison of St. Lazare. Every one
of these, though she may have been imprisoned only for being homeless
and wandering in the streets, or for begging, leaves the St. Lazare with
the indelible mark upon her of shame and outlawry, which that word—St.
Lazare—conveys to all. Her character is gone; and thus are the ranks of
prostitutes recruited by the high hand of the Administration itself. The
cry now, as formerly, of our women in Paris is for _bread_: they must
have bread; they are ready to work for it, but when work cannot be found
they will sell themselves to have it. Society is responsible for this
misery and sin, for Society is _solidaire_, and must one day pay the
debt it owes to outraged and maddened womanhood. Our ruined monuments
are themselves prophetic of this. It will be again as it has been
before. The handiwork of ruined women is visible in the blasted walls of
the Tuileries. Their history is written in black smoke on the crumbling
walls of our palaces in flames. There is no need of a Daniel here to
decipher the handwriting on the wall. All the world can read, plainly
written there, the words, _La femme déchue_—the ruined woman.”
With this picture in my mind, and the memory of all I had seen and heard
in Paris of the condition of the honest working woman, hunted from
street to street and from room to room by the police, and looking at the
troubled and earnest faces all turned towards me, I could not refrain
from uttering these words: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the
air have their nests; but the honest workwoman of Paris has not where to
lay her head.” Many burst into tears, or hid their faces in their hands.
In coming out from the meeting several poor girls came to me, their
faces swollen with weeping, and said: “Ah, Madam, how true those words
were about the foxes!”
The “Union Chrétienne,” a Protestant Society of Paris, invited us to
hold a meeting in their own hall. This meeting was interrupted and
closed by the police. Towards the conclusion of my brief address, during
which were present several police officers of high rank, I alluded to
what had been asserted by one of Lecour’s agents shortly before, _i.e._,
that parents of young girls sometimes came themselves to the Prefecture
and requested to have their daughter’s name placed on the register, and
how, he asked, could the Prefect refuse in such a case? I found it
difficult to believe that this was anything but a very rare occurrence;
but I asserted that in such a case the Prefecture was none the less
morally responsible. “Let us suppose,” I said, “that a father came to
the Prefect and said, ‘Cut my daughter’s throat for me’; if he consented
to do so, would not the Administration by such an act render itself the
accomplice of assassins?” The officials present, it seems, did not like
this; the order was given, the gas was turned out, and in a few moments
every seat was empty. The same officers reported to M. Lecour, that I
had said he was an assassin! The next morning the President of the
Association was summoned to the Prefecture, and a verbatim report of
what I had said was demanded. Three days later several members of the
“Union Chrétienne” were again summoned to the Prefecture and questioned.
Eventually they had to pay a small fine, and their hall was closed for a
time; but they were in no way dejected by this result. The same could
not have been said of the _Police des Mœur_ itself. Several persons who
had been present during M. Lecour’s consultations with his agents
reported to us that he had said “that the actual _régime_” was lost, and
that certain changes or ameliorations of an external kind would have to
be introduced, in order to calm the present agitation.
A final meeting during this visit to Paris was held in the large
Protestant Chapel in the Rue Roquepine. It was presided over by Dr.
Gustave Monod, and addresses were given by M. de Pressensé and M.
Theodore Monod. The speakers denounced freely the system we opposed; but
the police did not interfere with this meeting, the Protestant community
of Paris being too formidable a body, and too highly respected to have
one of their principal places of worship, and the words spoken in it,
interfered with even by so insolent a tyranny as that of the Prefecture.
M. Yves Guyot’s sentence of imprisonment was not immediately carried
into practice. He was allowed to postpone its execution for a few weeks.
He employed the interval of freedom by continued assiduous work on the
Commission of the Council, and in other ways, for the exposure and
condemnation of the _Police des Mœurs_. A number of Parisians were
examined on the subject by the Commission—among them Drs. Deprés,
Fournier and Mauriac, whose evidence threw some useful and curious light
on the hygienic inefficacy of the system. Dr. Cléve, head physician of
the Prefecture, was called; but the Prefect forbade him to give any
information to the Commission. “This is a proof,” said one of the
Liberal journals, “that many things take place at the Prefecture which
it is necessary to hide.” Another official of the Prefecture, being
called upon to appear, said furiously to the President, “Ah! if you
think we will give you information, you are mistaken; you shan’t have
any at all.” The Prefecture regards itself as an irresponsible Pashalik,
which, though it has a right to receive money from the Municipal
Council, is not bound to render any account thereof.
The following is a portion of a letter which I addressed to friends at
home at this time:—
“PARIS, _February, 1877_.
“I think I told you how many poor working men and women appeal to us
after our meetings, some of them very shabby and ill-dressed, but with
much shrewdness and aspiration. Among these is Adhémard le Clerc, a
working man, whose powerful verdict on the state of Paris I will send
you. Among the waifs and strays who always follow us, the outcasts, the
diamonds hidden away among the dust, who come to join in our train, are
several of whom I should like to give you a sketch as an indication of
the varied character of those who gather to this work:—
“1. A tall medical student, of modest, gentlemanly manner, looking
rather delicate and absent, and not happy. You know, perhaps, what the
medical students of Paris are as a rule; but among them we have many
adherents of a character much raised above the rest. Indeed, many of the
young men of France are rebelling against the odious teaching of their
elders concerning the ‘necessity of vice.’ It seems to me that a deep
melancholy and disgust with life has taken possession of some of these
boys of eighteen or twenty; while together with this there is often a
readiness to grasp at some higher aim if it is set before them. The
student I speak of came shyly to our hotel to ask if we would think him
too bold were he to try to get up a meeting of students and workmen to
hear our message. We encouraged him to gather a meeting of these
students, which was held a little later.
“2. A poor and elderly woman, very wretchedly dressed, whom the master
of the Hotel where I stayed might have hesitated to admit had I not
counselled him never to turn away poor people, or oddities of any class
whatever. She had the appearance of having suffered years of hunger. Her
large eyes were sunk in their bony sockets, but had in them a look of
self-forgetfulness. To show me what she was she drew from her pocket a
very old, soiled prospectus of her school. She had started, fifteen
years before, a little school for girls in a very poor quarter of Paris,
to teach them small handicrafts which she herself had learned, and to
watch over them and to keep them from temptation. Her labour of love
still lives, in spite of police persecutions, her own poverty, the war,
and the revolution. She is put down as one of the ‘dangerous class.’ She
spoke very little of herself, but I heard of her from others, who said
her life was one long act of self-denial and secret heroism. At one
time, through want of food, her mind had given way, and she was taken
for a short time to an asylum. Some of her friends, seeing her fainting
on her walks through the streets on errands of mercy and helpful love,
would ask her if she had had any food that day. Sometimes she had a dry
crust in her pocket, which had to serve for to-morrow as well as to-day.
To all such I speak, as well as I can, words of courage. Sometimes, like
this woman, they would stand holding my hand silently, with tears
rolling down their poor faces. They seemed to have a vague idea that a
day of deliverance was at hand.
“We all know something of the wickedness of Paris; we do not yet know
the sorrows of the poor of this city—of those who are the least guilty.
A saying I commonly hear from them is, ‘The people have suffered more
than they can bear.’
“3. A Radical leader, Citizen ——, a ‘dangerous man,’ came evening after
evening to see us, alone, sometimes in the dusk before our seven o’clock
meal, sometimes later. His face is fixed in my memory as he sat at one
side of the little table in our receiving parlour, shading his keen
thoughtful eyes from the lamp with both his thin hands, and eagerly
looking, as it were, into one’s soul for an answer to his questions.
Supposed to be an atheist, yet he spoke of God and of Jesus of Nazareth,
not as men talk so often, but as if his life depended on the existence
of a Divine Saviour. He spoke low, almost in a whisper. He is a true
patriot, and his heart is almost broken for his country’s woes. He asked
us what hope we had for his ‘beloved poor France.’ He lingered on, and
said he would come again if we would allow him. There was a deep pathos
in his words and tones. His hair was almost white. He said, ‘I am older
than most of my radical confrères, and perhaps I have fewer prejudices
and illusions; but I think that France will accept your great idea. Yes,
the day will come when she will accept it, and not fear to argue it out.
She will, moreover, put it in the purest formulæ and dress it in the
most beautiful language. She will see it clearly and announce it
clearly. All your people will be indebted to her for this. Yes, I think
my poor France will bring forth this beautiful idea, and in bringing it
forth she will die.’ He uttered these words very slowly and mournfully,
repeating the last words,—‘elle mourira.’ I do not quite know what he
meant.
“4. Victorine S——, a washerwoman, tall and gaunt, with bright red hair
and a small, shabby, black velvet hat on her red head, with a very old
feather in it, a feather which has a look of misery, as if it had been
plucked from a very indigent bird. I love and revere her. You are
impressed in talking with her by her calm, womanly strength and good
sense. And slowly you see also her profound pity for her unfortunate
fellow women. Though big and bony, she has a remarkably soft and gentle
voice; she does not gesticulate, but holds her arms stiffly and
ungracefully by her side. Her hands, seamed with wash-tub operations, do
not fit well into her poor, brown cotton gloves. She made a speech at a
Working-man’s Congress. It was a masterly speech, filled with statistics
and facts illustrating the misery of Paris workwomen. She will do: one
trusts her.
“5. The Marquis de B—— came and sat down on a bench beside me in the
Tuileries Gardens. He is young, with yellow hair starting back from a
fair face which wears a very innocent expression. He always has the most
exquisite lavender kid gloves and shining boots, and belongs to an old
aristocratic family. I asked him—‘Where do you live? and with whom?’
“‘Alone,’ he replied.
“‘Have you no father or mother?’
“‘No; both dead.’
“‘Brothers or sisters, uncles or cousins?’
“‘No, not one.’
“‘Are you rich?’
“‘I have some money.’
“‘Have you finished your education?’
“‘Oh yes,’ looking rather proud, ‘long ago. I am twenty-eight years of
age.’
“‘Ah, that is good,’ I said. ‘Now what do you intend to do?’
“‘I wish,’ he replied, blushing a good deal, ‘to be a servant of your
cause. Ah! if I might, I should like to be one of the teachers in it.’
“A lady who knew him said to me one day, ‘he is a good youth. Make him
run messages or be useful in any way. He will do whatever you bid him.’
“Some time afterwards I was touched to see him addressing a group of
poor men and a few porters and students and odds and ends of humanity.
They were laying their heads together to think what they could do. ‘We
can at least,’ they said, ‘collect a little money from house to house,
and sign petitions, and perhaps we could even save a few of our poor
sisters.’ They spoke together with much humility and deep earnestness of
the small beginnings of what they could do. God will bless them. On this
occasion the young Marquis had taken off his lavender kid gloves and put
them in his pocket, and had become simply Citizen B——.
“6. A poor actor in a very inferior theatre; a man about thirty-five.
His life had been a failure. His voice was not good, and he had to take
the place of a kind of supernumerary. His life was a continual struggle
for existence, shouting and acting night after night, and returning home
to an attic with a very miserable bed in it. His poor soul took fire
concerning our cause. He did not put himself forward at all, but we
found he had been working really hard for us. He tells us he has now but
one aim in life; he must still sing for a living, but he can give his
days to our work. In conversation with him I could see that that poor
man had been pining for some work of redress, and grieving over the sin
and woe around him. He sees the whole of our objects with a clearness
which not one in a hundred of our English Members of Parliament do, I
fear; and his soul is filled with zeal for justice. He will pass on the
burning torch he carries to other hands, and increase his own fire in
doing so. I often think how sweet must be the sudden sense of
companionship in a good cause to such a solitary being. He does not mind
now the very feeble applause given to his poor singing on the stage, for
he has found an interest and treasure of which the audience know
nothing.
“I could go on multiplying these pictures, but these are enough to
indicate to you the very varied character of the people who flock to our
standard. My husband’s tender feelings are very much drawn out towards
the working women who call on me.”