_First days of the war in Paris.--Constant reverses of the French
arms.--Fall of Metz.--Paris turned into a fortress.--The Prussians
expelled from Paris.--Surrender of the Emperor Napoleon and his
army at Sedan.--Proclamation of the Republic.--Futile negotiations
for peace.--We determine to quit Paris.--This is prevented by my
illness.--When I recover the winter has set in, and Paris has long
been beleaguered.--Fall of Strasbourg.--Paris bombarded.--The
proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles.--Dreams of release
and future happiness suddenly interrupted by the arrest and
execution of my husband by the Communards._
“Oh monsieur! Oh madame! What happiness! What great news!” With these
words Frederick’s valet rushed into our room one day, and the cook after
him. It was the day of Wörth.
“What is it?”
“A telegram has been posted up at the Bourse. We have conquered. The
King of Prussia’s army is as good as annihilated. The city is adorning
itself with tricolour flags. There will be an illumination to-night.”
But in the course of the afternoon it turned out that the news was
false--a Bourse trick. Ollivier made a speech to the crowd from his
balcony. Well, so much the better; at least one would not be obliged to
illuminate. These joyful tidings of “armies annihilated”--_i.e._, of
numberless lives torn asunder, and hearts broken--awoke again in me too
the same wish as Flaubert’s--“Oh that I were with the Bedouins!”
On August 7, news of a catastrophe. The emperor hastened from St. Cloud
to the theatre of war. The enemy had penetrated into the country. The
newspapers could not give expression hot enough to their rage at the
“invasion”. The cry “À Berlin,” as it seemed to me, pointed to an
intended invasion; but in that there was nothing to cause anger. But
that these eastern barbarians should venture to make an incursion into
beautiful, God-beloved France--that was sheer savagery and sin. That
must be stopped, and quickly too.
The Minister of War _ad interim_ published a decree that all citizens
fit for service, from the age of thirty to forty, who did not belong to
the National Guard, should be immediately enrolled in that body. A
Ministry of the Defence of the Country was formed. The war loan of 500
millions, which had been voted, was raised to 1000. It is quite
refreshing to see how freely people always offer up the money and the
lives of others. A trifling financial unpleasantness, to be sure, was
soon perceptible to the public. If one wanted to change bank notes one
had to pay the money-changer ten per cent. There was not gold at hand to
meet all the notes which the Bank of France was authorised to issue.
And now, victory after victory on the German side.
The physiognomy of the city of Paris and its inhabitants altered.
Instead of its proud, magnificent, resplendent mood, came confusion and
savage indignation. The feeling spread ever wider and wider that a horde
of Vandals had descended on to the land--something terrible, unheard of,
like some cloud of locusts, or some such natural portent. That they had
themselves brought this plague on themselves by their declaration of
war--that they had considered such a declaration indispensable, in order
that no Hohenzollern, even in the distant future, should even conceive
the idea of succeeding to the Spanish throne--all that they had
forgotten. Hideous tales were circulated about the enemy. “The Uhlans!
the Uhlans!” These words had a fantastically-demoniacal sound, as if one
had said “the horde of savages”. In the imagination of the people this
kind of troops assumed a demoniacal shape. Wherever a bold stroke was
executed by the German cavalry, it was attributed to the Uhlans--a kind
of half-men, getting no pay, and therefore bound to live on their
plunder. Along with the rumours of terror arose rumours also of triumph.
To tell lies about successes is one of the duties of Chauvinism. Of
course, because courage must be kept up. The command, to tell truth,
like so many other commands, loses its obligation in war time. Frederick
dictated to me the following passage out of the newspaper _Le
Volontaire_ for my red book:--
Up to the 16th of August, the Germans have lost already 144,000
men. The rest are almost starving. The last reserves are coming up
from Germany--“la landwehr et la landsturm”. Old men of sixty, with
flint muskets, with an enormous tobacco pouch on their right side
and a still larger schnaps-flask on their left, a long clay pipe in
their mouth; stooping under the weight of the knapsack (on the top
of which there must not be omitted the coffee mill and the elder
tea inside), are crawling along, coughing and blowing their noses,
from the right to the left bank of the Rhine, cursing those who
have torn them from the embraces of their grandchildren, to lead
them on to certain death. “As to the news of victory, brought from
German sources,” it was said in the French newspapers, “they are
the usual Prussian lies.”
On August 20 Count Palikao announced in the Chamber that three army
corps which had coalesced against Bazaine had been thrown into the
quarries at Jaumont (Bravo! Bravo!). It is true that no one knew what
quarries these were, or where they were; nor did any one explain how
they could contain three army corps; but the joyous message went round
from mouth to mouth. “Have you heard? In the quarries----” “Oh yes! Of
Jaumont.” No one uttered a doubt or question. It was as if everybody had
been born at Jaumont, and knew these army-swallowing quarries as well as
his own pocket. About this time the rumour also prevailed that the King
of Prussia had _gone mad_ from despair at the condition of his army.
Nothing but monstrous things were heard of. The excitement, the fever,
of the populace increased hourly. The war “_là-bas_” had ceased to be
regarded as an armed promenade. It was felt that the forces which had
been let loose were now bringing something terrible on the world.
Nothing was spoken of but armies annihilated, princes driven mad,
diabolical hordes, war to the knife. I listened to it thundering and
growling. It was the storm of rage and despair that was rising. The
battle at Bazeilles near Metz was described, and it was stated that
inhuman cruelties had been committed there by the Bavarians.
“Do you believe that?” I asked Frederick. “Do you believe that of the
gentle Bavarians?”
“It is quite possible. Bavarian or Turco, German, French, or Indian, the
warrior who is defending his own life, and lifting up his arm to kill
another, has ceased for the time to be ‘human’. What has been awakened
in him and stirred up with all possible force is nothing else than
bestiality.”
* * * * *
Metz fallen! The news resounded in the city like some strange and
overpowering cry of terror. To me the news of the taking of a fortress
was a message which brought rather a relief; for I thought, “Well, that
is decisive”. And it was only for this, that the bloody game might be
over, it was for this, only this that I longed. But no, there was
nothing decisive in it--more fortresses remained. After a defeat all
that is to be done is to pick yourself up again, and strike out again at
them twice as hard. The chance of arms may change at any time. Ah yes!
The advantage may be now on this side, now on that. It is only woe that
is certain--death that is certain--to be on both.
Trochu felt himself called upon to arouse the spirit of the populace by
a new proclamation, and in it appealed to an old motto of Bretagne,
“With God’s help for our fatherland”. That did not sound new to me. I
had met with something like it before in other proclamations. It did not
fail to have its effect. The people were inspirited. Now, the thing was
to turn Paris into a fortress.
Paris a fortress! I could not take in the idea. The city which V. Hugo
called “_la ville-lumière_,” which is the point of attraction for the
whole world of civilisation, riches, the pursuit of art, and the
enjoyment of life--the point from which radiate splendour, fashions,
_esprit_--this city is now to be “fortified”--_i.e._, become the point
at which hostile attacks are to be aimed; the target for shot; to close
itself against all intercourse, and expose itself to the danger of being
set in flames by bombardment, or starved by famine! And that is done by
these people, _de gaieté de cœur_, in the spirit of self-sacrifice,
with joyous emulation, as if it was a question of carrying out the most
useful, the most noble work! The work was proceeded with in feverish
haste. Ramparts had to be erected on which troops could be placed, and
shot holes cut in them; also trenches dug outside the gates, drawbridges
erected, covering works repaired, canals bridged over, and protected by
breastworks, powder magazines built, and a flotilla of gunboats placed
on the Seine. What a fever of activity! What expenditure of exertion and
industry! What gigantic expense in labour and money! How exhilarating
and ennobling all that would have been, if it had been expended on works
of public utility; but for the purpose of working mischief, of
annihilation--a purpose which is not even one’s own, but only a move on
the strategic chess-board--it is inconceivable!
In order to be able to stand a siege, which might possibly be a long
one, the city was provisioned. Up to the present time, according to all
experience, no such thing as an impregnable fortification has been
known, capitulation is always only a question of time. And yet
fortresses have always been erected anew, and provisioned anew with
necessaries, in spite of the mathematical _impossibility_ of protecting
oneself against the _duration_ of a blockade.
The measures taken were on a great scale. Mills were erected, and
cattle parks laid out, and yet at last the moment _must_ come when the
corn will give out and the meat be consumed. But people do not carry
their thoughts so far--by that time the enemy will be driven back over
the frontier, or annihilated in the country. Now the whole people are
joining the army of the fatherland. Every one offers himself for the
service, or is pressed into it; and all the firemen in the country were
called in to join the garrison of Paris. There might be fires in the
provinces, but what of that? Such little accidents disappear when a
national “disaster” is in question. On Aug. 17, 60,000 firemen had
already been enrolled in the capital. The sailors too were called in,
and new troops of soldiers were formed every day under various
names--_volontaires_, _éclaireurs_, _franc-tireurs_.
* * * * *
Events followed each other in ever-hastening movement. But now only
military events. Everything else was suspended. Nothing else was any
more thought of around us except “_mort aux Prussiens_”. A storm of
savage hatred collected: it had not yet broken out, but one heard it
rumble. In all official proclamations, in all the street cries, in all
public transactions, the conclusion was always “_mort aux Prussiens_”.
All these troops, regular and irregular, these munitions, these
work-people pressing to the fortifications with their tools and barrows,
these transports for weapons, everything that one sees and hears means,
in its every form and tone, in all its lightning and bluster, in all its
flame and rage, “_mort aux Prussiens_”. Or in other words, and then
indeed it sounds like a cry of love and warms even the softest hearts,
it means “_pour la patrie_,” but in essence it is the same.
I asked Frederick: “You are of Prussian extraction, how does all this
unfriendly feeling, which is now finding loud expression, affect you?”
“You said the same to me before, in 1866, and I answered you then as I
do to-day, that I suffer from these expressions of hatred not as the
subject of any country, but as a man. If I judge of the opinions of the
people here from a national point of view I cannot but think them right,
they call it _la haine sacrée de l’ennemi_, and that motive forms an
important element in warlike patriotism. They are now occupied with this
one thought, to liberate their country from a hostile invasion. That it
is themselves who provoked this invasion by declaring war, they have
forgotten. Indeed it was not they who did it, but their Government,
which they believed on its word; and now they lose no time over
reproaches or reflections, as to who called down this misfortune on
them: it has come, and all their force, all their enthusiasm must be
spent on turning it aside again, or else uniting with unthinking
self-sacrifice in a common ruin. Trust me, there is much noble capacity
for love in us children of men, the pity only is that we lavish it on
the old-world tracks of hatred.... And on the other side, the hated
ones, the invaders, ‘the red-haired eastern barbarians,’ what are they
doing? They were the challenged; and they are pressing forward into the
country of those who threatened to overrun theirs--‘_À Berlin, à
Berlin_’. Do not you recollect how this cry kept pealing through the
whole city, even down from the roofs of omnibusses?”
“And now these are marching ‘_Nach Paris_’. Why do the shouters of ‘_À
Berlin_’ attribute that as a crime to them?”
“Because there cannot be any logic or justice in that national sentiment
whose foundation is the assumption that _we_ are ourselves, that is the
first, and the others are barbarians. And this forward march of the
Germans from victory to victory strikes me with admiration. I have been
a soldier also, and I know with what a magical power victory fastens on
the mind, what pride, what joy are contained in it. It is in any case
the aim, the reward for all the sacrifices made, for the renunciation of
rest and happiness, for the risk of life.”
“But then why do not the conquered adversaries, since they too are
soldiers, and know what fame accompanies victory, why do they not admire
their conquerors? Why is it never said in an account of a battle by the
losing party: ‘The enemy has obtained a glorious victory’?”
“I repeat, because the war spirit and patriotic egotism are the _denial
of all justice_.”
So it came about--I can see it from all our conversations entered in the
red books in those days--that we did not and could not think of anything
at that time except the result of the present national duel.
Our happiness, our poor happiness, we had it, but we dared not enjoy it.
Yes, we possessed everything that might have procured for us a heaven of
delight on earth--boundless love, riches, rank, the charming, growing
boy Rudolf, our heart’s idol Sylvia, independence, ardent interest in
the world of mind; but before all this a curtain had fallen. How dared
we, how could we taste of our joys while around us every one was
suffering and trembling, shrieking and raving? It was as if one should
set oneself to enjoy oneself heartily on board a storm-tossed vessel.
“A theatrical fellow, this Trochu,” Frederick told me--it was on August
25. “Such a _coup de theâtre_ has been played off to-day! You will never
guess it.”
“The women called out for military service?” I guessed.
“Well, it does concern the women; but they are not called out. On the
contrary.”
“Then are the sutlers discharged? or the Sisters of Mercy?”
“You have not guessed it yet, either. There is something of dismissal in
it to be sure, and as to sutlers, too, in the sense that these ladies
minister the cup of pleasure, and in a sense the ladies dismissed are
merciful too; but in short, without more riddles, the _demimonde_ is
exiled.”
“And the Minister of War has taken that step? What connection----?”
“I cannot see any either. But the people are in ecstasies over the
regulation. In fact they are always glad when _anything_ happens. From
every new order they expect a change, like many sick folks who greet
every medicine which is given them as possibly a panacea. When vice is
driven out of the city--so think the pious--who knows whether Heaven,
now evidently angry, will not again extend its protection over the
inhabitants? And now, when people are preparing for the serious time of
the siege, with all its privations, what have these silly, wasteful
women of pleasure to do here? And so most people, excluding those
concerned, think the regulation a proper, moral, and besides, a
patriotic one, since a great number of these women are foreigners,
English, Southerners, nay even Germans, some of whom may perhaps be
spies. No, no; there is only room in the city now for her own children,
and only for her virtuous children!”
On August 28 occurred something still worse. Another banishment. _All
Germans_ had to quit Paris within three days.
The poison, the deadly, long-abiding poison, which lay in this
regulation those who wrote the decree possibly had not in any way
suspected. _The hatred of Germans_ was awakened by it. For how long a
time even after the war, this misfortune was to go on bearing its
terrible fruit, I know at this day. From that time forward, France and
Germany, those two great, flourishing, magnificent countries, were no
longer two nations whose armies had fought out a chivalrous conflict;
hatred for the whole of the opposed nation pervaded the entire people.
Enmity was erected into an institution which was not restricted to the
duration of the war, but ensured its continuance as “hereditary enmity,”
even to future generations.
Exiled. Obliged to leave the city within three days. I had occasion to
see how hardly, how inhumanly hardly, this command pressed on many
worthy, harmless families. Among the business people who were supplying
us with goods for the decoration of our house, several were Germans--one
a carriage-builder, one an upholsterer, one an art-furniture
manufacture--settled from ten to twenty years in Paris, where they had
got their domestic hearth, where they had allied themselves in marriage
with Parisians, where they had the whole of their business connection;
and now they had to go out, out in three days--shut up their house,
leave all that was dear and familiar to them, lose their fortune, their
customers, their inheritance. The poor creatures came running to us in
consternation, and told us of the misery that had fallen on them. Even
the work which they were on the point of delivering to us had to be put
aside, and the workshops closed. Wringing their hands and with tears in
their eyes, they complained of their sufferings to us. “I have an old
father an invalid,” said one, “and my wife is looking for her
confinement any day; and now we must go in three days!” “I have not a
sou in the house,” another complained; “all my customers who owe me
money will be in no hurry to meet their obligations. A week hence I
should have completed a large order which would have made me comfortably
off, and now I must leave all in confusion!”
And why, _why_ was all this misery brought on these poor people? Because
they belonged to a nation whose army did its duty successfully, or
because (to go further back in the chain of causes) a Hohenzollern might
possibly have allowed it to enter into his mind to assume the Spanish
throne if offered to him? No; this “because,” too, has not arrived at
the ultimate reason. All this is only the pretext--not the cause of that
war.
* * * * *
_Sedan! “The Emperor Napoleon has given up his sword.”_
The news overwhelmed us. Now there had really occurred a great, an
historical catastrophe. The French army beaten, its leader checkmated.
Then the game was over, won triumphantly by Germany. “Over! over!” I
shouted. “If there were people who have the right to call themselves
citizens of the world they might illuminate their windows to-day. If we
had temples of Humanity yet, _Te Deums_ would have to be sung in them on
this occasion--the butchery is over!”
“Do not rejoice too soon, my darling,” said Frederick in a warning tone.
“This war has now for some time lost the character of a game fought out
on the chess-board of the battlefield. The whole nation is joining in
the fight. For _one_ army annihilated ten others will start out of the
earth.”
“But would that be just? It is only German soldiers who have forced
themselves into the country--not the German people--and so they ought
only to oppose them with French soldiers.”
“How you keep on appealing to justice and reason, you unreasonable
creature, in dealing with a madman! France is mad with pain and rage;
and from the point of view of loss of country, her pain is pious, her
rage justifiable. Whatever desperate thing she may do now is inspired,
not by personal self-seeking, but by the highest spirit of sacrifice. If
only the time were come when the powers of virtue, which is the
essential thing that binds men together, were diverted from the work of
destruction and devoted to the work of felicity! But this unholy war has
again thrown us back a long distance from that goal.”
“No, no! I hope the war is over now.”
“If it were so (and I despair of it) there would be sown the seeds of
future wars, and it could only be the seed of hatred which is contained
in this expulsion of the Germans. Such a thing as that has an effect far
beyond the present generation.”
September 4. Another act of violence, an outbreak of passion, and, at
the same time, a remedy tried for the salvation of the country--the
emperor is deposed. France proclaims herself a republic. Whatever
Napoleon III. and his army may have done matters not. Mistakes,
treachery, cowardice, all these faults have been committed by
individuals, the emperor and his generals; but France has not committed
them, she is not answerable for it. When the throne was overturned, the
leaves in France’s history, on which Metz and Sedan were inscribed, were
simply torn out of the book. From this time the country itself would
carry on the war, if, at least, Germany dared to continue this infamous
invasion.
“But how if Napoleon had conquered?” I asked, when Frederick
communicated this to me.
“Oh, then, France would have taken his victory and his glory as the
country’s victory and glory.”
“Is that just?”
“Cannot you get out of the habit of putting that question?”
I had soon to see my hopes, that the catastrophe of Sedan would put an
end to the campaign, vanish. All around us seemed as warlike as ever.
The air was laden with savage rage and hot lust of vengeance. Rage
against the enemy, and almost as much against the fallen dynasty. The
scandalous talk, the pamphlets which now poured down against the
emperor, the empress, and the unfortunate generals; the contempt, the
slanders, the insults, the jests--it was disgusting. In this way the
uncultured masses thought they could lay the whole burden of the defeats
of the country on the shoulders of one or two persons, and, now that
these persons were down, pelted them with dung and stones. And this was
the beginning of the time when the country was to show that she was
invincible!
The preparations for intrenching Paris were carried on zealously. The
buildings in the fighting area of the chief _enceinte_ were abandoned or
taken down entirely. The suburbs became deserts. Troops of men kept
coming from outside into the city with all their belongings. Oh, those
sorrowful trains of carts and pack horses, and laden men, who were
trailing the ruins of their desolated hearths through the streets! I had
already seen the same thing once in Bohemia, when the poor country folk
were flying from the enemy; and now I had to look on the same picture of
wretchedness in the joyous, brilliant capital of the world. There were
the same frightened, sorrowful visages, the same weariness and haste,
the same woe.
At last, God be praised, once more a good piece of news! On the proposal
of a mediation on the part of England, a meeting was arranged at
Ferrières between Jules Favre and Bismarck. Now surely they would
succeed in coming to an agreement--in making peace!
On the contrary, it was not till now that the extent of the gulf was
seen. For some little time before this there had been some talk in the
German papers of the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine. A desire was
shown to incorporate once more the land which had formerly been German.
The historical argument for the claim on these provinces appearing only
partially sustainable, the _strategic_ argument was brought forward to
support it--“indispensable as a fortress in future wars which may be
expected”. And it is well known, of course, that the strategic grounds
are the weightiest, the most impregnable; and that in comparison with
them a moral ground can only reckon as secondary. On the other hand, the
war game had been lost by France; was it not fair that the prize should
fall to the winners? In case _they_ had won, would not the French have
seized the Rhine provinces? If the result of a war is not to have for
its consequence an extension of territory for one side or the other,
what good would it be to make war at all?
Meantime the victorious army made no halt in its onward march. The
Germans were already before the gates of Paris. The cession of Alsace
and Lorraine was officially demanded; to which came the well-known
reply: “Not an inch of our territory, not a stone of our
fortresses”--(“Pas un pouce--pas une pierre”).
Yes, yes--thousands of lives, but not an inch of ground. That is the
rooted idea of the patriotic spirit. “They wish to humble us,” cried the
French patriots. “No! sooner shall exasperated Paris bury itself under
its own ruins!”
Away! away! was now our resolution. Why should we stay in a beleaguered
foreign city without any necessity; why live among people full of no
other thoughts than those of hate and vengeance, who looked at us with
sidelong glances and often with clenched fists, when they heard us
talking German? It is true, we could no longer leave Paris, or leave
France, without difficulty. One had in all directions to pass over war
districts, the railway traffic was frequently suspended for private
travellers. To leave our new building in the lurch was unpleasant, but
this was of no consequence, for our stay was impossible. In fact we had
already stayed far too long. The events which I had experienced recently
had shaken me so much that my nerves had suffered grievously from it. I
was seized often with shivering, and once or twice also with crying
fits.
Our boxes were all ready packed, and everything prepared for departure,
when I had another attack, and this time so violent that I had to be
carried to bed. The physician who was sent for said that either a
nervous fever or even an inflammation of the brain was commencing, and
for the present it was not to be thought of to expose me to the fatigues
of travelling.
I lay in bed for long, long weeks. Only a very dreamy recollection of
that whole time remains with me. And strangely enough, a pleasant
recollection. I was, it is true, very ill, and everything in the place
where I resided was unceasingly mournful and terrible; and yet when I
look back on it it was a singularly joyful time. Yes, joy, perfectly
intense joy, such as children are in the habit of feeling. The cerebral
affection which I was suffering, and which brought with it an almost
continuous absence, or at least only half-presence of consciousness,
caused all thoughts and judgments, all reflections and deliberations, to
vanish out of my head, and there remained only a vague enjoyment of
existence, just like that which children experience, as I said just now,
and especially those children who are tenderly watched over. There was
no want of tender watching for me. My husband, thoughtful and loving and
untiring, was with me day and night. He brought the children also often
to my bedside. How much my Rudolf had to tell me! For the most part I
did not understand it, but his beloved voice sounded to me like music,
and the babbling of our little Sylvia, our heart’s idol, how sweetly
that began to charm me! Then there were a hundred little jokes and
intelligences between Frederick and me about the tricks of our little
daughter. What these jokes were about I have quite forgotten, but I know
that I laughed and enjoyed myself quite unrestrainedly. Each one of the
customary jests seemed to me the height of wit, and the oftener repeated
the more witty and more precious; and with what delight did I not
swallow the draughts given me--for every day at a given hour I took a
glass of lemonade. Such nectar I have never tasted during my whole life
of health; and how entirely refreshing was a medicine with opium in it,
whose softly soothing action, putting me into a conscious slumber, sent
a thrill of happy calm through my soul. I knew all the while that my
beloved husband was by my side, protecting me and watching over me as
his heart’s dearest treasure. Of the war, which was raging at my door, I
had now hardly any cognisance; and if, for all that, some remembrance of
it flashed on me sometimes, I looked on it as something situated as far
away and as completely without any concern for me, as if it was being
played out in China or on another planet. My world was here, in this
sick-room, or rather in this chamber of recovery; for I felt myself
getting better, and all tended to happiness.
* * * * *
To happiness? No. With recovery, understanding came back too, and the
perception of the horrors that surrounded us. We were in a beleaguered,
famishing, freezing, miserable city. The war was still raging on.
The winter had come in the meantime--icy cold. I now, for the first
time, learned all that had taken place during my long unconsciousness.
The capital of “the brotherland,” Strasbourg--the “lovely,” the “true
German,” the city “German to its core,” had been bombarded, its library
destroyed. One hundred and ninety-three thousand seven hundred and
twenty-two shots had been poured into the town--four or five a minute.
Strasbourg was taken.
The country fell into wild despair--such a despair as issues in raving
madness. People began to hunt in _Nostradamus_ to find prophecies for
the present events, and new seers began to put out fresh predictions.
Still worse, _possessed_ folks came forward. It was like falling back
into a ghost-night of the middle ages, lighted by the fire of hell. “Oh
that I could be among the Bedouins!” cried Gustave Flaubert. “Oh that I
could be back in the half-conscious dreamland of my illness,” cried I,
weeping. I was well again now, and had to hear and comprehend all the
terrible things that were going on around us. Then began again the
entries in the red books, and I have lit on the following notes:--
December 1. Trochu has established himself on the heights of
Champigny.
December 2. Obstinate fight around Brie and Champigny.
December 5. The cold is becoming constantly more powerful. Oh! the
trembling, bleeding, wretched wights, who are lying out there in
the snow, _and dying_. Even here in the city, there is terrible
suffering from cold. Business has fallen to nothing. There is no
firing to be had. What would not many an one give if there were
only two little pieces of wood to be had--even the certainty of the
throne of Spain!
December 21. Sortie out of Paris.
December 25. A small detachment of Prussian cavalry was saluted
with musket shot (that is a patriotic duty) from the houses of the
villages of Troo and Sougé. General Kraatz commanded the punishment
of the villages (that is a commander’s duty) and had them burnt.
“Set them on fire,” was the word of command, and the men, probably
gentle, good-natured fellows, obeyed (that is the soldier’s duty),
and set fire to them. The flames burst up to heaven, and the poor
homesteads fell crashing, on man, wife, and child--on flying,
weeping, roaring, burning men and beasts.
What a joyous, happy, holy Christmas night!
* * * * *
Is Paris to be starved out, or bombarded as well?
Against the last supposition the civilised conscience revolts. To
bombard this _ville-lumière_, this point of attraction of all nations,
this brilliant home of the arts--bombard it with its irreplaceable
riches and treasures, like the first fort that comes to hand! It is not
to be thought of. The whole neutral press (as I found out afterwards)
protested against it. On the other hand, the press of the war party in
Berlin was favourable to it: that would be the only way to bring the war
to a close--and to conquer the city on the Seine, what glory! Besides,
it was just these protests which determined certain circles at
Versailles to seize this strategic weapon; and, after all, a bombardment
is nothing. And so it came about that on December 28 I was writing in
shaking characters: “Here it is--another heavy stroke--a pause--and
again----”
I wrote no further, but I well remember the feelings of that day. In
those words: “Here it is,” there lay, along with the terror, a kind of
freedom, a relief, a cessation of the nervous expectation that had by
that time become well nigh insufferable. What one had been for so long
partly expecting and fearing, partly thinking hardly humanly possible,
is now come. We were sitting at _déjeûner à la fourchette_, _i.e._, we
were taking bread and coffee--food was getting scarce already--Frederick,
Rudolf, the tutor and I--when the first stroke resounded. All of us
raised our heads and exchanged glances. Is that it? But no. It may have
been a house door slamming, or something of that sort. Now all was
quiet. We resumed the talk that had been interrupted, without saying
anything about the thought which that sound had caused. Then, after two
or three minutes it came again. Frederick started up. “That is the
bombardment,” he said, and hurried to the window. I followed him. A
hubbub came in from the street. Groups had formed; the people were
standing and listening, or were exchanging excited words.
Now our _valet de chambre_ came rushing into the room, and at the same
time a fresh salvo resounded.
“Oh monsieur et madame--c’est le bombardment.”
And now all the other men and maids, down to the kitchen-maid, came
pushing into the room. In such catastrophies--in the exigencies of war,
fire, or water, all distinctions of society fall away, and those
threatened all cluster together. All feel equal before danger--much more
than before the law--much more than before Death, which in its burial
ceremonies knows so much of distinction of rank. “C’est le bombardment,
c’est le bombardment.” Every one who came into the room uttered the same
cry.
It was horrible, and yet I recollect quite well what I felt--a sort of
admiring shudder, a kind of satisfaction at such a mighty experience--to
be present at a situation so freighted with destiny and not to fear the
danger to my own life in it. My pulses beat, and I felt--what shall I
call it?--the pride of courage.
* * * * *
The thing was on the whole less terrible than it had seemed at the first
instant. No flaming buildings, no crowds shrieking with terror, no
bombshells whizzing continually through the air; but only always this
heavy, far-off thunder, with long and still longer intervals between.
One came after a time to get almost accustomed to it. The Parisians
chose as objects for a walk those points where the cannon music was best
heard. Here and there a bomb would fall in the street and burst; but how
rarely did it occur to any given person to happen to be near? It is true
that many shells did fall which carried death, but in the city of a
million men these cases were heard of in the same scattered way in which
at other times one is accustomed to see in one’s newspaper various cases
of accident, without its coming specially near to oneself. “A bricklayer
fell from a scaffold four storeys high,” or “A genteelly dressed female
threw herself over the balustrades of the bridge into the river,” and so
forth. The real grief, the real terror of the populace, was not for the
bombardment, but hunger, cold, and starvation. But _one_ such account of
the death-dealing shot gave me a deep shock. It came in the form of a
black-bordered mourning-card sent to the house:--
Monsieur and Madame R---- inform you of the death of their two
children, François aged eight, and Amélie aged four, who were
struck by a bomb coming through the window. Your silent sympathy is
requested.
Silent sympathy! I gave a loud shriek as I read the paper. A thought--a
picture flashing before my inner eye with lightning clearness, showed me
the whole of the woe which lay in this simple mourning-notice. I saw
_our_ two children, Rudolf and Sylvia--no! I could not pursue the
thought!
The tidings which one got were scanty. All communication by post was, of
course, cut off. It was by carrier pigeons and balloons only that we had
intercourse with the world outside. The rumours that cropped up
everywhere were of the most contradictory nature. Victorious sallies
were announced, or the information was spread that the enemy was on the
point of storming Paris, with a view of setting it on fire in all
corners, and levelling it to the ground, or it was asseverated that
sooner than allow one German to get within the walls, the commandants of
the forts would blow up themselves and the whole of Paris into the air.
It was related that the whole population of the country, especially of
the south (_le midi se lève_), were falling on the besiegers’ rear, in
order to cut off their retreat, and annihilate them to the last man.
Along with the false news, some true intelligence also came to us--some
whose truth was proved afterwards. Such as about a panic that broke out
on the road of Grand Luce near Mans, in which horrible deeds took
place--soldiers getting beyond control, throwing the wounded out of the
railway carriages that were all standing ready, and taking their places
themselves.
It became more difficult every day to get food. The supply of meat was
exhausted; there had for a long time now been no longer any beeves or
sheep in the cattle parks that had been formed; all the horses also were
soon eaten up, and then the period began when the dogs and cats, the
rats and mice, and finally the beasts in the Jardin des Plantes also,
even the poor elephant, who was such a favourite, had to serve as food.
Bread could now be hardly procured. The people had to stand in rows for
hours after hours in front of the bakers’ shops in order to get their
little ration, and still most of them had to go empty away. Exhaustion
and sickness made Death’s harvest a rich one. Whilst ordinarily 1100
died in a week, the death-list of Paris in these times rose to between
4000 and 5000 weekly. That is, there were every day between 400 and 500
unnatural deaths--that is to say, _murders_. For if the murderer is not
an individual man, but an impersonal thing, _viz._, _war_, it is not any
the less murder. Whose is the responsibility? Does it not lie on those
parliamentary swaggerers, who in their provocative speeches declared
with proud self-assumption--as that Girardin did in the sitting of July
15--that they “took on themselves the responsibility for this war in the
face of history”? Could, then, any man’s shoulders be sufficiently
strong to bear such a load of guilt? Surely not. But no one thinks of
taking such boasters at their word.
One day--it was about January 20--Frederick came into my room, with an
excited look, on his return from a walk in the city.
“Take your diary in hand, my busy little historian,” he called out to
me. “To-day a mighty despatch has come.” And he threw himself into a
chair.
“Which of my books?” I asked. “_The Protocol of Peace_?”
Frederick shook his head.
“Oh that will be out of use for long. The war, which is now being fought
out, is of too powerful a nature not to proceed to its end, and give
rise to renewed war. On the side of the vanquished it has scattered such
a plenty of the seeds of hatred and revenge, that a future harvest of
war must grow out of them; and on the other side, it has brought such
magnificent and bewildering successes to the victors, that for them an
equally great seed-time of warlike pride must grow out of it.”
“What, then, has happened of such importance?”
“King William has been proclaimed German Emperor in Versailles. There is
now _one_ Germany--one single empire--and a mighty empire too. That
forms a new chapter in what is called the history of the world. And you
may think for yourself, how, from the birth of this empire, which is
the product of war, that trade will be held high in honour. It is,
therefore, from this time, the two continental states most advanced in
civilisation which will chiefly nourish the war spirit--the one, in
order to return the blow it has received, the other, in order to keep
the position it has conquered amongst the powers--from hatred on that
side, from love on this--on that side from lust of revenge, on this from
gratitude--it comes to the same thing. Shut your _Protocol of
Peace_--for a long time henceforth we shall abide under the
blood-and-iron sign of Mars.”
“German Emperor!” I cried, “that really is grand;” and I got him to tell
me the particulars of this event.
“I cannot help, Frederick,” I said, “being pleased at this news. The
whole work of slaughter has not then been for nothing, if a great new
empire has grown out of it.”
“But from a French point of view it has been for less than nothing. And
we two must have surely the right of looking at this war, not from one
side--the German side--only. Not only as men, but even from the narrow
national conception, we should have the right to bewail the successes of
our enemies and conquerors in 1866. However I agree with you that the
union of dismembered Germany, which has now been attained, is a _fine_
thing--that this agreement of the rest of the German princes to give the
Imperial Crown to the old victor, has something inspiring, something
admirable about it. The only pity is that this union did not arise from
a peaceful, but from a warlike exploit. How was it then that there was
not enough love of country, enough popular power in Germany, even though
Napoleon III. had never sent the challenge of July 19, to form, of their
own will, that entity on which their national pride is now to rest--‘one
single people of brothers’? Now they will be jubilant--the poet’s wish
is fulfilled. That only four short years ago all were at daggers drawn
with each other, that for Hanoverians, Saxons, Frankforters, Nassauers,
there was no name more hateful than ‘Prussians,’ will luckily be
forgotten. In place of this, however, the hatred of Germans in this
country, how it will ripen from this time!”
I shuddered. “The mere word, hatred----” I began.
“Is hateful to you? You are right. As long as this feeling is not
banished and outlawed, so long is there no humane humanity. Religious
hatred is conquered, but national hatred forms still part of civil
education. And yet there is only one ennobling, cheering feeling on this
earth, and that is Love. We could say something about that, Martha,
could we not?” I leaned my head on his shoulder, and looked up at him,
while he tenderly stroked the hair off my forehead.
“We know,” he went on, “how sweet it is that so much love should reside
in our hearts for our little ones, for all the brothers and sisters of
the Great Family of Man, whom one would so gladly--aye, so gladly--spare
the pain that threatens them. But they will not----”
“No, no, Frederick. My heart is not yet so comprehensive. I cannot love
all the haters.”
“You can, however, pity them?”
And so we talked on a long while in this strain. I still know it all so
exactly, because at that time I often--along with the events of the
war--entered also fragments of our conversation which bore upon them
into the red volumes. On that day we talked again once more about the
future; Paris would now capitulate, the war would be over, and then we
could be happy with a safe conscience. Then we recapitulated all the
guarantees of our happiness. During the eight years of our married life
there had never been a harsh or unfriendly word between us--we had
passed through so many sorrows and joys together--and so our love, our
unity, was of such a solid kind, that no diminution of it was any longer
to be feared. On the contrary, we should only be ever more intimately
joined together, every new experience in common would at the same time
result in a new tie. When we had become a pair of white-haired old
folks, with what joy should we look back on the untroubled past, and
what a softly glowing evening of life would then lie before us! This
picture of the happy old couple, into which we should then have turned,
I had set before myself so often and so livelily, that it became quite
clearly stamped on my mind, and even reproduced itself in dreams, as if
it had really happened, with various details--Frederick in a velvet
skull-cap, and with a pair of gardening shears--I have no notion why,
for he had never shown any love for gardening, and there had yet been no
talk of any skull-cap--I with a very coquettishly arranged black lace
mantilla over my silvery hair, and as a surrounding for all this a
corner of the park warmly lighted by the setting summer sun; and
friendly looks and words smilingly exchanged the while. “Do you know
now----” “Do you recollect that time when----”
* * * * *
Many of the previous pages have I written with shuddering and with
self-compulsion. It was not without inward horror that I could describe
the scenes through which I passed in my journey to Bohemia, and the
cholera week at Grumitz. I have done it in order to obey my sense of
duty. Beloved lips once gave me the solemn command: “In case I die
before you, you must take my task in hand and labour for the work of
Peace”. If this binding injunction had not been laid on me, I could
never have so far prevailed over myself as to tear open the agonised
wounds of my reminiscences so unsparingly.
Now, however, I have come to an event, which I will relate, but which I
will not, nor can I describe.
No--I cannot, I cannot!
I have tried--ten half-written torn pages are lying on the floor by the
side of my writing-table--but a heart-pang seized me; my thoughts froze
up, or got into wild entanglement in my brain, and I had to throw the
pen aside and weep, bitter hot tears, with cries like a child.
Now a few hours afterwards I resume my pen. But as to describing the
particulars of the next event, as to relating what I felt when it
happened, I must give that up--the thing itself is sufficient.
Frederick--my own one--was, in consequence of a letter from Berlin that
was found in his house, suspected of espionage--was surrounded by a mob
of fanatics, crying: “_A mort--à mort le Prussien_”--dragged before a
tribunal of patriots, and on February 1, 1871, shot by order of a
court-martial.