_December 18th._
Prisoners have before now endeavoured to while away their long hours of
captivity by watching spiders making their webs. I can understand this.
In the dreary monotony of this dreariest of sieges a spider would be an
event. But alas, the spider is outside, and we are the flies caught in
his toils. Never did time hang so heavily on human beings as it hangs on
us. Every day seems to have twice the usual number of hours. I have
ceased to wind up my watch for many a week. I got tired of looking at
it; and whether it is ten in the morning or two in the afternoon is much
the same to me; almost everyone has ceased to shave; they say that a
razor so near their throats would be too great a temptation. Some have
married to avoid active service, others to pass the time. "When I knew
that there was an army between my wife and myself," observed a cynic to
me yesterday, "I rejoiced, but even the society of my wife would be
better than this." There is a hideous old woman, like unto one of
Macbeth's witches, who makes my bed. I had a horrible feeling that some
day or other I should marry her, and I have been considerably relieved
by discovering that she has a husband and several olive branches. Here
is my day. In the morning the boots comes to call me. He announces the
number of deaths which have taken place in the hotel during the night.
If there are many he is pleased, as he considers it creditable to the
establishment. He then relieves his feelings by shaking his fist in the
direction of Versailles, and exit growling "Canaille de Bismarck." I get
up. I have breakfast--horse, _café au lait_--the _lait_ chalk and
water--the portion of horse about two square inches of the noble
quadruped. Then I buy a dozen newspapers, and after having read them,
discover that they contain nothing new. This brings me to about eleven
o'clock. Friends drop in, or I drop in on friends. We discuss how long
it is to last--if friends are French we agree that we are sublime. At
one o'clock get into the circular railroad, and go to one or other of
the city gates. After a discussion with the National Guards on duty,
pass through. Potter about for a couple of hours at the outposts; try
with glass to make out Prussians; look at bombs bursting; creep along
the trenches; and wade knee deep in mud through the fields. The
Prussians, who have grown of late malevolent even toward civilians,
occasionally send a ball far over one's head. They always fire too high.
French soldiers are generally cooking food. They are anxious for news,
and know nothing about what is going on. As a rule they relate the
episode of some _combat d'avantposte_ which took place the day before.
The episodes never vary. 5 P.M.--Get back home; talk to doctors about
interesting surgical operations; then drop in upon some official to
interview him about what is doing. Official usually first mysterious,
then communicative, not to say loquacious, and abuses most people except
himself. 7 P.M.--Dinner at a restaurant; conversation general; almost
everyone in uniform. Still the old subjects--How long will it last? Why
does not Gambetta write more clearly? How sublime we are; what a fool
everyone else is. Food scanty, but peculiar. At Voisins to-day the bill
of fare was ass, horse, and English wolf from the Zoological Garden. A
Scotchman informed me that this latter was a fox of his native land,
and patriotically gorged himself with it. I tried it, and not being a
Scotchman, found it horrible, and fell back upon the patient ass. After
dinner, potter on the Boulevards under the dispiriting gloom of
petroleum; go home and read a book. 12 P.M.--Bed. They nail up the
coffins in the room just over mine every night, and the tap, tap, tap,
as they drive in the nails, is the pleasing music which lulls me to
sleep. Now, I ask, after having endured this sort of thing day after day
for three months, can I be expected to admire Geist, Germany, or Mr.
Matthew Arnold? I sigh for a revolution, for a bombardment, for an
assault, for anything which would give us a day's excitement.
I enclose you Gambetta's latest pigeon despatch. His style is so
grandiloquently vague that we can make neither head nor tail of it. We
cannot imagine what has become of Aurelles de Paladine and of the army
of Kératry. The optimists say that Gambetta means that Bourbaki and
Chanzy have surrounded Frederick Charles; the pessimists, that Frederick
Charles has got between them. The general feeling seems to be that the
provinces are doing more than was expected of them, but that they will
fail to succour us. Here some of the newspapers urge Trochu to make a
sortie, in order to prevent reinforcements being sent to Frederick
Charles, others deprecate it as a useless waste of life. General Clément
Thomas, who succeeded Tamisier about a month ago in the command of the
National Guards, seems to be the right man in the right place. He is
making great efforts to convert these citizens into soldiers, and stands
no nonsense. Not a day passes without some patriotic captain being tried
by court-martial for drunkenness or disobedience. If a battalion
misbehaves itself, it is immediately gibbeted in the order of the day.
The newspapers cry out against this. They say that Clément Thomas
forgets that the National Guards are his children, and that dirty linen
ought to be washed at home. "If this goes on, posterity," they complain,
"will say that we were little more than a mob of undisciplined
drunkards." I am afraid that Clément Thomas will not have time to carry
out his reforms; had they been commenced earlier, there is no reason why
Paris should not have had on foot 100,000 good troops.
Mr. Herbert tells me that there are now above 1,000 persons on the
English fund, and that every week there are about 30 new applications.
Unknown and mysterious English emerge from holes and corners every day.
Mr. Herbert thinks that there cannot be less than 3,000 of them still in
Paris, almost all destitute. The French Government sold him a short time
ago 30,000 lbs. of rice, and this, with the chocolate and Liebig which
he has in hand will last him for about three weeks. If the siege goes on
longer it is difficult to know how all these poor people will live.
Funds are not absolutely wanting, but it is doubtful whether even with
money it will be possible to buy anything beyond bread, if that. Mr.
Herbert thinks that it would be most desirable to send, if possible, a
provision of portable food, such as Liebig's extract of meat, as near to
Paris as possible; so that, whenever the siege ceases, it may at once be
brought into the town, as otherwise it is very probable that many of
these English will die of starvation before food can reach them. It does
seem to me perfectly monstrous that for years we should have, in
addition to an Embassy, kept a Consul here, and that he should have been
allowed to go off on leave to some watering place at the very moment at
which his services were most required. When the Embassy left, a sort of
deputy-consul remained here; but with a perfect ingenuity of stupidity,
the Foreign-office officials ordered this gentleman to withdraw with Mr.
Wodehouse, the secretary. Heine said of his fellow-countrymen, "they are
born stupid, and a bureaucratic education makes them wicked." Had he
been an Englishman instead of a Prussian he would have said the same,
and with even more truth, of certain persons who, not for worlds would I
name, but who do not reside 100 miles from Downing-street.
_December 21st._
When the Fenians in the United States meditate a raid upon Canada, they
usually take very great care to allow their intentions to be known. Our
sorties are much like these Hibernian surprises. If the Prussians do not
know when we are about to attack, they cannot complain that it is our
fault. The "Après vous, Messieurs les Anglais," still forms the
chivalrous but somewhat naïf tactics of the Gauls. On Sunday, as a first
step to military operations, the gates of the city were closed to all
unprovided with passes. On Monday a grand council of generals and
admirals took place at the Palais Royal. Yesterday, and all last night,
drums were beating, trumpets were blowing, and troops were marching
through the streets. The war battalions of the National Guard, in their
new uniforms, spick and span, were greeted with shouts, to which they
replied by singing a song, the chorus of which is "Vive la guerre,
Piff-Paff," and which has replaced the "Marseillaise." As the ambulances
had been ordered to be ready to start at six in the morning, I presumed
that business would commence at an early hour, and I ordered myself to
be called at 5.30. I was called, and got out of my bed, but, alas for
noble resolutions! having done so, I got back again into it and remained
between the sheets quietly enjoying that sleep which is derived from the
possession of a good conscience, and a still better digestion, until the
clock struck nine.
It was not until past eleven o'clock that I found myself on the outside
of the gate of La Villette, advancing, as Grouchy should have done at
Waterloo, in the direction of the sound of the cannon. From the gate a
straight road runs to Le Bourget, having the Fort of Aubervilliers on
the right, and St. Denis on the left. Between the fort and the gate
there were several hundred ambulance waggons, and above a thousand
"brancardiers," stamping their feet and blowing on their fingers to keep
themselves warm. In the fields on each side of the road there were
numerous regiments of Mobiles drawn up ready to advance if required. Le
Bourget, everyone said, had been taken in the morning, our artillery was
on ahead, and we were carrying everything before us, so towards Le
Bourget I advanced. About a mile from Le Bourget, there is a cross-road
running to St. Denis through Courneuve. Here I found the barricade which
had formed our most advanced post removed. Le Bourget seemed to be on
fire. Shells were falling into it from the Prussian batteries, and, as
well as I could make out, our forts were shelling it too. Our artillery
was on a slight rise to the right of Le Bourget, in advance of Drancy;
and in the fields between Drancy and this rise, heavy masses of troops
were drawn up in support. Officers assured me that Le Bourget was still
in our possession, and that if I felt inclined to go there, there was
nothing to prevent me. I confess I am not one of those persons who snuff
up the battle from afar, and feel an irresistible desire to rush into
the middle of it. To be knocked on the head by a shell, merely to
gratify one's curiosity, appears to me to be the utmost height of
absurdity. Those who put themselves between the hammer and the anvil,
come off generally second best, and I determined to defer my visit to
the interesting village before me until the question whether it was to
belong to Gaul or Teuton had been definitely decided. So I turned off to
the left and went to St. Denis.
Here everybody was in the streets, asking everybody else for news. The
forts all round it were firing heavily. On the Place before the
Cathedral there was a great crowd of men, women, and children. The
sailors, who are quartered here in great numbers, said that they had
carried Le Bourget early in the morning, but that they had been obliged
to fall back, with the loss of about a third of their number. Most of
them had hatchets by their sides, and they attack a position much as if
they were boarding a ship. About 100 prisoners had been brought into the
town in the morning, as well as two Frères Chrétiens, who had been
wounded, and for whom the greatest sympathy was expressed. Little seemed
to be known of what was passing. "The Prussians will be here in an
hour," shouted one man; "The Prussians are being exterminated," shouted
another. "What is this?" cried the crowd, as Monseigneur Bauer, the
bishop _in partibus infidelium_ of some place or other, now came riding
along with his staff. He held up his two fingers, and turned his hand
right and left. His pastoral blessing was, however, but a half success.
The women crossed themselves, and the men muttered "farceur." The war
which is now raging has produced many oddities, but none to my mind
equal to this bishop. His great object is to see and be seen, and most
thoroughly does he succeed in his object. He is a short, stout man,
dressed in a cassock, a pair of jack-boots with large spurs, and a hat
such as you would only see at the opera. On his breast he wears a huge
star. Round his neck is a chain, with a great golden cross attached to
it; and on his fingers, over his gloves, he wears gorgeous rings. The
trappings of his horse are thickly sprinkled with Geneva crosses. By his
side rides a standard-bearer, bearing aloft a flag with a red cross.
Eight aides-de-camp, arrayed in a sort of purple and gold fancy uniform,
follow him, and the _cortége_ is closed by two grooms in unimpeachable
tops. In this guise, and followed by this état major, he is a
conspicuous figure upon a field of battle, and produces much the same
effect as the head of a circus riding into a town on a piebald horse,
surrounded by clowns and pets of the ballet. He was the confessor of the
Empress, and is now the aumônier of the Press; but why he wears
jack-boots, why he capers about on a fiery horse, why he has a staff of
aides-de-camp, and why he has two grooms, are things which no one seems
to know. He patronises generals and admirals, doctors and commissariat
officers, and they submit to be patronised by him. Half-priest,
half-buffoon, something of a Friar Tuck and something of a Louis XV.
abbé, he is a sort of privileged person, who by the mere force of
impudence has made his way in the world. Most English girls in their
teens fall in love with a curate and a cavalry officer. Monseigneur
Bauer, who combines in himself the unctuous curate and the dashing
dragoon, is adored by the fair sex in Paris. He knows how to adapt his
conversation to the most opposite kind of persons, and I should not be
surprised if he becomes a Cardinal before he dies.
The arrival of Dr. Ricord was the next event. He was in a basket
pony-chaise, driving two ponies not much larger than rats. A pole about
twelve feet high, bearing the flag of the Geneva Cross, was stuck beside
him, and it was knocking against the telegraph wires which ran along the
street. The eminent surgeon was arrayed in a long coat buttoned up to
his chin and coming down to his feet. On his head was a kepi which was
far too large for him. He looked like one of those wooden figures of
Noah, when that patriarch with his family is lodged in a child's ark.
Having inspected the bishop and the doctor with respectful admiration,
and instituted a search for some bread and wine, I thought it was time
to see what was going on outside. On emerging from St. Denis everything
except the guns of the forts appeared quiet. I had not, however, gone
far in the direction of Le Bourget, which was still burning, when I was
stopped by a regiment marching towards St. Denis, some of the officers
of which told me that the village had been retaken by the Prussians--the
artillery, too, which I had left on the rise before Drancy, had
disappeared. At a farmyard close by Drancy I saw Ducrot and his staff.
The General had his hood drawn over his head, and both he and his
aide-de-camp looked so glum, that I thought it just as well not to
congratulate him upon the operations of the day. In and behind Drancy
there were a large number of troops, who I heard were to camp there
during the night. None seemed exactly to know what had happened. The
officers and soldiers were not in good spirits. On my return into Paris,
however, I found the following proclamation of the Government posted on
the walls:--"2 p.m.--The attack commenced this morning by a great
deployment from Mont Valérien to Nogent, the combat has commenced and
continues everywhere, with favourable chances for us.--Schmitz." The
people on the Boulevards seem to imagine that a great victory has been
gained. When one asks them where? They answer "everywhere." I can only
answer myself for what occurred at Le Bourget. I hear that Vinoy has
occupied Nogent, on the north of the Marne; the resistance he
encountered could not, however, have been very great, as only seven
wounded have been brought into this hotel, and only one to the American
ambulance. General Trochu announced this morning that 100 battalions of
the National Guards are outside the walls, and I shall be curious to
learn how they conduct themselves under fire. Far be it from me to say
that they will not fight like lions. If they do, however, it will
surprise most of the military men with whom I have spoken on the
subject. As yet all they have done has been to make frequent "pacts with
death," to perform unauthorised strategical movements to the rear
whenever they have been sent to the front, to consume much liquor, to
pillage houses, and--to put it poetically--toy with Amaryllis in the
trench, or with the tangles of Nearas' hair. Their General, Clément
Thomas, is doing his best to knock them into shape, but I am afraid that
it is too late. There are cases in which, in defiance of the proverb, it
is too late to mend.
Officers in a position to know, assure me that no really serious sortie
will be made, but that after two or three days of the sham fights, such
as took place to-day, the troops will quietly return into Paris. The
object of General Trochu is, they say, to amuse the Parisians, and if he
can by hook or by crook get the National Guard under the mildest of
fires, to celebrate their heroism, in order that they may return the
compliment. I cannot, however, believe that no attempt will be made to
fight a battle; the troops are now massed from St. Denis to the Marne;
within two hours they can all be brought to any point along this line,
and I should imagine that either to-morrow or the next day, something
will be done in the direction of the Forest of Bondy. Trochu, it is
daily felt more strongly, even by calm temperate men, is not the right
man in the right place. He is a respectable literary man, utterly unfit
to cope with the situation. His great aim seems now to be to curry
favour with the Parisian population by praising in all his proclamations
the National Guards, and ascribing to them a courage of which as yet
they have given no proof. This, of course, injures him with the Line and
the Mobiles, who naturally object to their being called upon to do all
the fighting, whilst others are lauded for it. The officers all swear by
Vinoy, and hold the military capacity both of Trochu and Ducrot very
cheap. In the desperate strait to which Paris is reduced, something more
than a man estimable for his private virtues, and his literary
attainments is required. Trochu, as we are frequently told, gave up his
brougham in order to adopt his nephews. Richard III. killed his; but
these are domestic questions, only interesting to nephews, and it by no
means follows that Richard III. would not have been a better defender of
Paris than Trochu has proved himself to be. His political aspirations
and his military combinations are in perpetual conflict. He is ever
sacrificing the one to the other, and, consequently, he fails both as a
general and as a statesman.
In order to form an opinion with regard to the condition of the poorer
classes, I went yesterday into some of the back slums in the
neighbourhood of the Boulevard de Clichy. The distress is terrible.
Women and children, half starved, were seated at their doorsteps, with
hardly clothes to cover them decently. They said that, as they had
neither firewood nor coke, they were warmer out-of-doors than in-doors.
Many of the National Guards, instead of bringing their money home to
their families, spent it in drink; and there are many families, composed
entirely of women and children, who, in this land of bureaucracy, are
apparently left to starve whilst it is decided to what category they
belong. The Citizen Mottu, the Ultra-Democratic Mayor, announced that in
his arrondissement all left-handed marriages are to be regarded as
valid, and the left-handed spouses of the National Guards are to receive
the allowance which is granted to the legitimate wives of these
warriors. But a new difficulty has arisen. Left-handed polygamy prevails
to a great extent among the Citizen Mottu's admirers. Is a lady who has
five husbands entitled to five rations, and is a lady who only owns the
fifth of a National Guard to have only one-fifth of a ration? These are
questions which the Citizen Mottu is now attempting to solve. As for the
future, he has solved the matrimonial question by declining to celebrate
marriages, because, he says, this bond is an insult upon those who
prefer to ignore it. As regards marriage, consequently--and that
alone--his arrondissement resembles the kingdom of heaven. I went to
see, yesterday, what was going on in the house of a friend of mine in
the Avenue de l'Impératrice, who has left Paris. The servant who was in
charge told me that up there they had been unable to obtain bread for
three days, and that the last time that he had presented his ration
ticket he had been given about half an inch of cheese. "How do you live,
then?" I asked. After looking mysteriously round to see that no one was
watching us, he took me down into the cellar, and pointed to some meat
in barrel. "It is half a horse," he said, in the tone of a man who is
showing some one the corpse of his murdered victim. "A neighbouring
coachman killed him, and we salted him down and divided it." Then he
opened a closet in which sat a huge cat. "I am fattening her up for
Christmas-day, we mean to serve her up surrounded with mice, like
sausages," he observed. Many Englishmen regard it as a religious duty to
eat turkey at Christmas, but fancy fulfilling this duty by devouring
cat. It is like an Arab in the desert, who cannot wash his hands when he
addresses his evening prayer, and makes shift with sand. This reminds me
that some antiquarian has discovered that in eating horse we are only
reverting to the habits of the ancient Gauls. Before the Christian
religion was introduced into the country, the Druids used to sacrifice
horses, which were afterwards eaten. Christianity put an end to these
sacrifices, and horse-flesh then went out of fashion.
_La France_ thus speaks of the last despatch of Gambetta:--"At length we
have received official news from Tours. We read the despatch feverishly,
then we read it a second time with respect, with admiration, with
enthusiasm. We are asked our opinion respecting it. Before answering, we
feel an irresistible impulse to take off our hat and to cry 'Vive la
France.'" The _Electeur Libre_ is still more enraptured with the
situation. It particularly admires the petroleum lamp, so different, it
says, to those orgies of light, which under the tyrant, in the form of
gas, gave a fictitious vitality to Paris. The _Combat_ points out that
no fires have broken out since September 4--a coincidence which is
ascribed to the existence since that date of a Republican form of
government. I recommend this curious phenomenon to insurance companies.
The newspapers, one and all, are furious, because they hear that the
Prussians contest our two victories at Villiers. "How singular,"
observes the _Figaro_, with plaintive morality, "is this rage, this
necessity for lying." It is notorious that, having gained two glorious
victories, we returned into Paris to repose on our laurels, and I must
beg the Prussians not to be so mean as to contest the fact.
_December 23rd._
Since Wednesday the troops--Line, Mobiles, and marching battalions of
the National Guard--have remained outside the enceinte. There has been a
certain amount of spade work at Drancy, but beyond this absolutely
nothing. The cold is very severe. This afternoon I was outside in the
direction of Le Bourget. The soldiers had lit large fires to warm
themselves. Some of them were lodged in empty houses, but most of them
had only their little _tentes d'abri_ to shelter them. The sentinels
were stamping their feet in the almost vain endeavour to keep their
blood in circulation. There have been numerous frost-bitten cases. When
it is considered that almost all of these troops might, without either
danger to the defence, or without compromising the offensive operations,
have been marched back into Paris, and quartered in the barracks which
have been erected along the outer line of Boulevards, it seems monstrous
cruelty to keep them freezing outside. The operations, however, on
Wednesday are regarded as very far short of a success. General Trochu
does not venture, in the state of public opinion, to bring the troops
back into Paris, and thus confess a failure. The ambulances are ordered
out to-morrow morning; but I cannot help thinking that the series of
operations which were with great beating of drums announced to have
commenced on Wednesday, will be allowed gradually to die out, without
anything further taking place. The National Guards are camped in the
neighbourhood of Bondy and Rosny. They have again, greatly to the
disgust of the Mobiles and Line, been congratulated in a general order
upon their valorous bearing. As a matter of fact, there was a panic
among these braves which nearly degenerated into a rout. Several
battalions turned tail, under the impression that the Prussians were
going to attack them. One battalion did not stop until it had found
shelter within the walls of the town. General Trochu's attempt, for
political ends, to force greatness upon these heroes, is losing him the
goodwill of the army. On Wednesday and Thursday several regiments of the
Line and of the Mobiles bitterly complained that they should always be
ordered to the front to protect not only Paris but the National Guards.
The marching battalions are composed of unmarried men between
twenty-five and thirty-five, and why they should not be called upon to
incur the same risks, and submit to the same discipline as the Mobiles,
it is difficult to understand. We may learn from the experience of this
siege that in war, armed citizens who decline to submit to the
discipline of soldiers are worse than useless. The lesson, however, has
not profited the Parisians. The following letter appears in the
_Combat_, signed by the "adjoint" of the 13th arrondissement. The
defence on the part of this municipal functionary of a marching
battalion, which, at the outposts, broke into a church, and there
parodied the celebration of the mass, is a gem in its way:--
"The marching companies of this battalion left Paris on the morning of
the 16th to go to the outposts at Issy. The departure was what all
departures of marching battalions must fatally be--copious and
multiplied libations between parting friends, paternal handshakings in
cabarets, patriotic and bacchic songs, loose and indecent choruses--in a
word, the picturesque exhibition of all that arsenal of gaiety and
courage which is the appanage of an ancient Gallic race. The old
troopers, who pretend to govern us by the sword, do not approve of this
joyous mode of regarding death; and all the writers whose pens are
dipped in the ink of reaction and Jesuitism are eager to discover any
eccentricity in which soldiers who are going under fire for the first
time permit themselves to indulge. The Intendance, with that
intelligence which characterises our military administrations, had put
off the departure of the battalion for several hours. What were the men
to do whilst they were kept waiting, except drink? This is what these
brave fellows did. Mars, tired of Venus, sung at the companionship of
Bacchus. If the God of Wine too well seconded the God of War, it is only
water drinkers who can complain; it is not for us, Republicans of the
past and of the future, to throw stones at good citizens in order to
conceal the misconduct of the old Bonapartist Administration which still
is charged with the care of our armies."
General Blaise has been killed at Villa Evrard. The buildings, which go
by this name, were occupied on Wednesday by General Vinoy's troops. In
the night a number of Prussians, who had concealed themselves in the
cellars, emerged, and a hand-to-hand fight took place. Some of the
Prussians in the confusion got away, and some were killed. Several
French officers who ran away and rushed in a panic into the presence of
General Vinoy, who was at Fort Rosney, announcing that all was lost, are
to be tried by Court Martial. The troops when they heard this were very
indignant; but old Vinoy rode along the line, and told them that they
might think what they pleased, but that he would have no cowards serving
under him. Pity that he is not General-in-Chief.
A curious new industry has sprung up in Paris. Letters supposed to be
found in the pockets of dead Germans are in great request. There are
letters from mothers, from sisters, and from the Gretchens who are, in
the popular mind, supposed to adore warriors. Unless every corpse has
half a dozen mothers, and was loved when in the flesh by a dozen
sweethearts, many of these letters must be fabricated. They vary in
their style very little. The German mothers give little domestic details
about the life at home, and express the greatest dread lest their sons
should fall victims to the valour of the Parisians, which is filling the
Fatherland with terror and admiration. The Gretchens are all
sentimental; they talk of their inner feelings like the heroines of
third-rate novels, send the object of their affections cigars and
stockings knitted by their own fair hands, and implore him to be
faithful, and not forget, in the toils of some French syren, poor
Gretchen. But what is more strange is that in the pocket of each corpse
a reply is found which he has forgotten to post. In this reply the
warrior tells a fearful tale of his own sufferings, and says that
victory is impossible, because the National Guards are such an
invincible band.
The number of the wounded in my hotel has considerably diminished owing
to the deaths among them. For the Société Internationale to have made it
their central ambulance was a great mistake. Owing to the want of
ventilation the simplest operations are usually fatal. Four out of five
of those who have an arm or a leg amputated die of pyæmia. Now, as in
the American tents four out of five recover; and as French surgeons are
as skilful as American surgeons, the average mortality in the two
ambulances is a crucial proof of the advantage of the American tent
system. Under their tents there is perfect ventilation, and yet the air
is not cold. If their plan were universally adopted in hospitals, it is
probable that many lives which are now sacrificed to the gases which
are generated from operations, and which find no exit from buildings of
stone or brick, would be saved. "Our war," said an American surgeon to
me the other day, "taught us that a large number of cubic inches of air
is not enough for a sick man, but that the air must be perpetually
renewed by ventilation."
_December 24th._
The papers publish extracts from German newspapers which have been found
in the pockets of the prisoners who were taken on Wednesday. The news
from the provinces is not considered encouraging. Great stress is laid
upon a proclamation addressed by King William to his troops on December
6, in which it is considered that there is evidence that the Prussians
are getting tired of the war. We hear now, for the first time, that
Prussia has "denounced" the Luxemburg Treaty of '67, and forgetting that
the guarantee of neutrality with respect to these lotus-eaters was
collective, and not joint and several, we anxiously ask whether England
will not regard this as a _casus belli_. "As soon as Parliament
assembles," says _La Vérité_, "that great statesman Disraeli will turn
out Mr. Gladstone, and then our old ally will be restored to us." The
_Gaulois_ observes that "the English journalists residing at Paris keep
up the illusion that Paris must fall by sending to their journals false
news, which is reproduced in the organs of Prussia." "These
journalists," adds the _Gaulois_, "who are our guests, fail in those
duties which circumstances impose upon them." Every correspondent
residing abroad must be the guest, in a certain sense, of the country
from which he is writing; but that this position should oblige him to
square his facts to suit the wishes of his hosts appears to me a strange
theory. Had I been M. Jules Favre, I confess that I should have turned
out all foreign journalists at the commencement of the siege. He,
however, expressed a wish that they should remain in Paris, and his
fellow-citizens must not now complain that they decline to endorse the
legend which, very probably, will be handed down to future generations
of Frenchmen as the history of the siege of Paris. The Prussians will
not raise the siege for anything either French or English journalists
say. The Parisians themselves must perceive that the attempt to frighten
their enemies away by drum-beating and trumpet-blowing has signally
failed. Times have altered since Jericho. It is telling the Prussians
nothing new to inform them that the National Guard are poor troops. For
my part, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to learn some
morning that the German armies round Paris had met with the fate which
overwhelmed Sennacherib and his hosts. I should be delighted to be able
to hope that the town will not eventually be forced to capitulate; but I
cannot conceal from myself the truth that, if no succour comes from
without, it must eventually fall. I blame the French journalists for
perpetually drawing upon their imagination for their facts, and in their
boasts of what France will do, not keeping within the bounds of
probability; but I do not blame them for hoping against hope that their
armies will be successful. I am ready to admit that the Parisians have
shown a most stubborn tenacity, and that they have disappointed their
enemies in not cutting each other's throats; but this is no reason why I
should assert that they are sublime. After all, what is patriotism? The
idea entertained by each nation that it is braver and better and wiser
than the rest of the world. Does not every Englishman feel this to be
true of his own countrymen? It is consequently not absurd that Frenchmen
should think the same of themselves. The French are intensely
patriotic--country with them is no abstraction. They moan over its ruin
as though it were a human being, and far then be it from me to laugh at
them for doing so. When, however, I find persons dressing themselves up
in all the paraphernalia of war, visiting tombs and statues in order to
register with due solemnity that they intend to die rather than yield,
and when, after all this nonsense, these same persons decline to take
their share in the common danger on the score that they have a mother,
or a sister, or a wife, or a child, dependent upon them, and when month
after month they drum and strut up and down the Boulevards, I consider
that they are ridiculous, and I say so. When a man does a silly thing it
is his own fault--not that of the person who chronicles it. Was it wise,
for instance, of General Ducrot to announce a fortnight ago that he was
about to lead his soldiers against the enemy, and that he himself
intended either to conquer or die? Was it wise of General Trochu six
weeks ago to issue a proclamation pledging himself to force the
Prussians to raise the siege of Paris. The Prussians will have read
these manifestoes, and they will form their own estimate respecting
them. That I call them foolish does not "keep up illusions in Germany."
The other day the members of an Ultra club, in the midst of a discussion
respecting the existence of a divinity, determined to decide the
question by a general scrimmage. I think that these patriots might have
been better employed. It does not follow, however, that I do not regret
that they were not better employed. The siege of Paris is in the hands
of General Moltke, and the _Gaulois_ may depend upon it that this wary
strategist is not at all likely to give up the task by any number of
journalists informing him that he is certain to fail.
I have got a cold, so I have not been out this morning. I hear that some
of the troops have come in from Aubervilliers, and several regiments
have marched by my windows. At Neuilly-sur-Marne and Bondy, it is said,
earthworks are being thrown up; and it is supposed that Chelles will, as
the Americans say, be the objective point of any movement which may take
place in that direction. The _Patrie_ has been suspended for three days
for alluding to military operations. It did more than allude, it
ventured to doubt the wisdom of our generals. As many other journals
have done the same I do not understand why the _Patrie_ should have been
singled out for vengeance.