The year 1869 had come to an end under a cloud, which even the Empress’s triumphs in Egypt and at Constantinople had not brightened. Napoleon III. was worried, not only by the political situation, but also by the state of his health. Notwithstanding the absence of his Consort he invited people to Compiègne as usual, and there several persons besides myself noticed that he looked ill and tired, and that his eyes had an anxious expression which had never been observable before. He showed himself even more affectionate than usual towards his son, and was heard sometimes to sigh whilst watching him. Nevertheless, no one suspected that anything was radically wrong, and not a single man or woman among those who were gathered in the Castle thought that it was the last time that they would be the guests of the Sovereign who welcomed them with such kindness and affability. Among all those who passed their hours in amusement in the Salle des Gardes, or in the long gallery where meals were served, not one recognised that a hand was already writing on the wall the same fatal words that appeared during the Babylonian monarch’s last banquet.
CHAPTER V
Before the Storm
When the news of the candidature of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern to the Spanish throne reached me, together with a letter from my Ambassador urging my return to Paris, I was staying in a little village on the coast of Normandy. Though I started at once for the capital, I could hardly bring myself to believe in the possibility of a war between France and Prussia. The thing appeared to me to be quite impossible, especially in view of a conversation I had had with the Emperor immediately after the results of the Plebiscite of May, 1870, had become known. I had ventured to offer to the Sovereign my congratulations upon the new triumph he had obtained. Napoleon III. seemed also delighted, and though it was most unusual for him to be demonstrative, yet he did not, on that occasion, attempt to hide what he was feeling, going so far as to tell me that the results of the Plebiscite in his opinion “had not only consolidated the dynasty, but also had done away with the legend that represented him as desirous of a foreign war in order to add to his prestige.” “No one can say so at present,” added the Emperor, “because, after France has so positively affirmed its allegiance to the Empire, it would be madness for me to risk losing popularity through a war which, even if victorious, would always materially impoverish the country.”
Napoleon III. did not seem to have noticed that M. Rouher had at once observed that the vote of Paris had been distinctly hostile to him, and that as things were organised, it was Paris which overthrew dynasties and governments.
But that wisdom which is born of attentive observation of the events of the world, as well as of outward and sometimes insignificant circumstances that lead on to their development, seemed to be absent from the thoughts of the principal politicians who, at that particular moment of her history, held in their hands the destinies of France. Neither the Emperor nor his responsible advisers saw farther than the victory of the moment, and they all rejoiced together at the new triumph which they had won for themselves, as well as for the party which they represented.
A few days after the Plebiscite, I happened to be calling on a social celebrity, the Countess de Castiglione, about whom so much has been written and said. Nature had been generous to her in many ways, but she was not destined to keep her fairness much longer than a rose its freshness. At the time of which I am speaking, she had barely reached her thirtieth year, and was already the ghost of her former self. I don’t think I have ever met a woman who faded so quickly; I have often thought about it, and come to the conclusion that her beauty was so dazzling that it obliterated the imperfections it possessed, just as the Neapolitan or Sicilian sun prevents us from noticing aught else but the brilliance of the places it lights up with its rays. At the first glance, her loveliness literally took one’s breath away, as it did mine the first time I saw her in 1868, when already she was going down hill. I can therefore imagine what she must have been at the time she first startled Paris by her glorious complexion and extraordinary beauty, and conquered the senses if not the heart of the Emperor.
Madame de Castiglione, without being the very clever woman she has been represented by some, nor the stupid one she has been described by others, was possessed of an intelligence that was certainly above the average, but completely spoiled, her severe critics said, by an inordinate vanity, which prostrated her at the feet of her own beauty, and made everything in her life subservient to it. She firmly believed that she had only to show herself to conquer, and in a certain sense it was quite true, until the numerous victims of her charms learned to know her well. She had been sent to France by her cousin, the great Cavour, with a mission to influence Napoleon III. in favour of the cause of Italian independence. In a certain sense she succeeded, though much of her success can be attributed to the personal sympathies of the Emperor as well as to the rash promises of which had been so generous in regard to the various secret societies and associations with which he had been connected in his youth. But he was a master in the art of flattery, and it pleased his fancy to allow the young and lovely woman to think that she, and she alone, had been the means of Italy attaining her liberty. Madame de Castiglione thereafter took herself au sérieux, and believed she was a political heroine.
Later on, however, clouds came to obscure the horizon of her successes; the sensation caused by the lovely Italian very soon vanished, and though she was talked about a great deal in society, though painters still raved about her, and old men devoured her with their eyes, whilst young ones sighed at her feet, though women grew green with envy when they saw her enter a room, certain it is that her success was neither a long nor a permanent one. As a dream she flitted through that brilliant, frivolous society of the Second Empire, and as a dream she vanished into the darkness of the night that overtook it.
The curious thing in the career of Madame de Castiglione was the way in which she used to come and go, the eclipses her personality underwent, and the notoriety that, now and then, arose in regard to her. There had been a day when she was asked to leave France altogether, but then she very soon returned to it, more arrogant, more haughty, more than ever ardent in resuming a political rôle. But she did not like Napoleon III., whom, perhaps, she did not forgive for the light-heartedness with which, after all, he had treated her. Though she would never have owned to it, she knew in her inmost heart that he had taken her as he would have taken any other pretty woman weak enough to have been dazzled. Madame de Castiglione was then in the glory of her youth and beauty, and she may well be forgiven. Principles she had few, religion and morals still less, or she would not, upon more occasions than one, have forgotten the great name she bore, or the high social position she enjoyed, and accepted, for instance, the banknotes of Lord Hertford, and of many others.
A curious trait in that celebrated woman’s character was her pride in what others generally hid from the eyes of the world. A characteristic anecdote can be told on this subject. One day, as one of the very few friends she had left was talking with her of that period of the Empire when she had been its brightest star, suddenly Madame de Castiglione exclaimed: “I shall take care that even after I am dead the world shall know how great I was whilst it lasted”; and with a cynicism such as she alone would have been capable of, she rang the bell, and turning towards the maid who had appeared in answer to it, “Luisa,” she said, “montrez à Monsieur, la chemise de nuit de Compiègne.” And when an elaborate garment all batiste and lace was brought to her, she added: “I shall leave instructions to bury it with me.”
To come back to what I was saying at the beginning of this chapter, I had called upon Madame de Castiglione just after the Plebiscite, and naturally the conversation turned towards that event. The Countess listened very seriously to all the remarks exchanged between the two or three people who were present in the room, and at last surprised us considerably by saying: “You are all mistaken; the Plebiscite will not consolidate the dynasty. Up to now neither Italy nor Prussia thought that it could maintain itself à la longue in France, where it was firmly believed that no political regime was able to last beyond a few years. The results of the Plebiscite have proved that this conviction was an erroneous one; and the consequences will be that both these nations will use their best endeavours to inveigle the Emperor into a war. It is very well known that France is unprepared. Such an event will naturally throw her back into a state of revolution, and for a time will wipe her off the European slate.”
No reply was made to this extraordinary remark, but when we went out together with Alphonse Rothschild, who had been one of those who had heard her, he turned to me and said with the clear insight of a financier, combined with the cleverness of a diplomat and his experience of the world: “How that woman hates the Emperor.”
And now as I was hastening back to Paris on that July day of the year 1870, I remembered both the remark of the Baron and the tone of animosity with which the Countess de Castiglione had spoken on that occasion, and something like apprehension suddenly seized me, apprehension I did not know of what, but of a danger which I felt rather than saw, swooping down upon this brilliant society of the Second Empire, which I had grown to like so much and so well.
I reached Paris late in the evening of July the 16th, twenty-four hours after war had been declared, and was struck by the extraordinary aspect of the people who crowded the boulevards. Much to my surprise they were singing the forbidden Marseillaise, and altogether they presented an excited appearance. The cafés were full, and from time to time someone would stand up, and scream loudly: “À Berlin!” whereupon the mob took up that cry, and vociferated in its turn, “À Berlin! À Berlin!” All Paris seemed to have gone mad, but already, in spite of what has been said to the contrary, remarks were heard hostile to the Emperor and to the government, who, it was said, had not soon enough tried to avenge the insult which France had received, but had done their best to prevent the outbreak of a war which, as someone remarked in my presence that same evening, “was indispensable to the dignity and the greatness of the country.” To attempt reasoning with such folly was out of the question. I stopped the cab which had brought me from the station, and, alighting near one of the cafés on the boulevards, sat down under the pretext of having something to drink, but in reality to observe the scenes that were taking place. All the windows and balconies were full of people looking down in the street below, and watching the movement of the crowd, listening to its warlike cries. And later, when the theatres were over, the boulevards seemed to fill even more than they had been before. Women appeared wearing the national colours, and above the noise, the shouts, the movements of that great agglomeration of human beings, resounded again one great acclamation, one immense cry: “À Berlin! À Berlin!”
When at last I reached our Embassy, I found that consternation prevailed; not at the war, though everybody agreed that anything more foolish than the circumstances that had led to it had never been seen, but at the weakness displayed by the government, which certainly ought to have checked that exuberance of public opinion, and prevented manifestations that at any moment might turn against itself. Then surprise was expressed at the disorderly attitude displayed by the troops when starting for the frontier, as already one or two regiments had done that morning. No one ventured to make a prediction as to what the future was holding in reserve, but serious apprehensions were entertained concerning the ultimate fate of the Emperor and of his dynasty.
That last feeling was very general, and I found it prevailed among all the foreigners then at Paris. Two or three days after my return to the capital, I called upon an old friend of mine, Madame Jules Lacroix, an extraordinary old woman, a Russian by birth, whose sister was the widow of the novelist Balzac, and who had made her home in France ever since her marriage with M. Lacroix, the brother of the famous novelist known under the pseudonym of “Bibliophile Jacob.” Madame Lacroix presided over one of the pleasantest salons of the time; within its walls one was always sure to meet some important and interesting persons. She had been a great friend of Morny, and though her family had been Legitimists—she used to boast of her alliances with the Bourbons through Queen Marie Leszczinska, her aunt many times removed—all her sympathies were with the Napoleonic dynasty. She possessed a villa in St. Germain, where she used to spend her summers, and was there at the time the war broke out. I went to dine with her in the endeavour to find out something about the events that had brought about the present crisis.
Madame Lacroix received me with effusion, and talked of little else than the war, and of the consequences it would have. To my great surprise, however, I did not find her by any means so enthusiastic as I had expected, rather she was subdued and anxious. She related to me that her great friend General Castelnau, one of the aides-de-camp of the Emperor, who was later on to share his captivity, did not look at the situation with over-confident eyes, and that he had given her to understand that he had some apprehensions as to the ability of the army to come out victorious from the struggle it was about to enter.
“The Emperor is more ill than one supposes,” added Madame Lacroix, “and should his strength fail him, who can take his place at the head of the army? Indeed, it would be far better if he did not attempt at all to lead it, because his presence in Paris will be more necessary than at the frontier. Suppose a revolution breaks out here, who is to confront it? The Empress is too unpopular through her clerical leanings to inspire confidence in a nation that has lost every respect for priests and their protectors.”
Several episodes were then related concerning the deliberations which had taken place at St. Cloud during the momentous days before the solemn question of war or peace had been decided. It seems that when the first telegrams from Berlin announcing the candidature of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern for the Spanish throne had arrived in Paris, the Duke de Gramont had immediately sent them to the Emperor, though it was in the middle of the night, and that in a long conversation which he had subsequently held with his Sovereign, he had insisted on the affront such a candidature represented for France. Why it was an affront probably the Duke himself could not have properly explained.
On the contrary, the Empress, who was afterwards to be represented as having done all that was in her power to decide Napoleon to declare war against Prussia, had been far from urging him to it, if we are to believe what I heard on that day at Madame Lacroix’s. It seems that when it was found to be impossible to resist the public clamour for revenge against this insolence of Prussia, as the chauvinists, who held the upper hand at that moment, were pleased to call the Hohenzollern candidature, the Empress was very much upset, and to General Castelnau, who saw her come out from her room with red eyes and in great agitation, she said that she felt very anxious and very much afraid at the responsibility that was to become hers when she would be left as Regent alone in Paris. The General then advised her not to allow the Prince Imperial to accompany his father to the frontier, upon which she exclaimed: “Oh! I can’t keep him here, he will be much safer amidst the army than with me!” Singular remark for a mother to make.
Altogether it seems to me, from what I had opportunity to hear, that at this crisis of her life Eugénie entirely lost her head, and that from its very outset allowed outward circumstances and impressions to obscure her clear judgment. I have been told that she was extremely superstitious, and firmly believed that what she once described in one of her conversations with an intimate friend as “the obstinacy” of the Emperor in not imposing the weight of his authority upon King Victor Emmanuel, to oblige him to abandon his secret ambitions to annex to his crown the territory of the Holy See, would prove fatal to him as well as to the Bonaparte dynasty. She was a fervent and devout Catholic and, in addition to her misgivings as to the future, feared the wrath of God.
I was not present when the Emperor left St. Cloud and looked for the last time on his home of so many happy years, but I am told that nothing could be sadder than this departure, so very different from that other occasion, some ten years before, when, amidst the hurrahs of the Parisian population, he had started for the Italian frontier to take part in a struggle the end of which had been so glorious. And yet the present war was a great deal more popular than had been that of 1859. Not only was it desired, but almost imposed on the Sovereign, by a nation who would never have forgiven him had he not acceded to her wishes. And yet, when Napoleon took leave of his wife, his Ministers, and the members of his household, on that eventful 28th of July, though few eyes were dry in bidding him good-bye, the country over which he had ruled for eighteen years did not unite in wishing him God-speed. On the eve of the greatest catastrophe of modern times, an atmosphere of foreboding was already making itself felt in the sadness of that early departure.
When the Sovereign had gone, a period of anxious waiting ensued. Paris got wilder and wilder, became more and more riotous. One of the Empress’s familiar friends called upon her one day at St. Cloud, before she had left that residence to return to the capital, and thought it his duty to draw her attention to that fact, and to express to her his apprehensions that the excitement might have serious consequences should any reverse happen to the army. She replied with vivacity: “Oh, not only in case of reverse, also in case of victory, the nation only wants a pretext to get rid of us.”
These words are remarkable, and, so far as I know, no one had voiced such sentiments before; they reveal on the part of the Regent a state of discouragement which explains, perhaps, her total collapse when the dreaded crisis at last occurred; maybe it was this belief which led to the indifference with which she submitted to a destiny which she had accepted as foreordained, and against which she had recognised the utter futility of rebelling.
She was leading a feverish existence, which left her little time to think over her difficult position, or to make plans concerning her own future. After having tried to imbibe the enthusiasm with which she was told the declaration of war against Prussia had been received in the whole of France, she was now realising how little grounds there had been for it. Before even the earliest news of the first disasters of this deplorable campaign had been brought to her, she had prepared herself for the worst, and believed in the worst, though when that worst came it was to surpass all that she had most dreaded or imagined.
Before she decided to leave St. Cloud, she went for a walk in the park with one of her ladies in waiting. On the last evening she gave way to the apprehensions that were torturing her soul. The sun was setting after a glorious day, and the Imperial residence had never seemed so beautiful, nor so peaceful; a peace in such contrast to the agitation of the country, that the Empress could not refrain from remarking upon it. Her companion tried to cheer her with words of hope and encouragement: “No,” replied Eugénie, “I have no hope left, and if I could still wish for something, it would be to stop the course of time; to have a few more hours to look upon St. Cloud and its gardens; but see,” she added, and pointed with her hand towards the sun that was slowly disappearing below the horizon, “see, this is how our prosperity is also setting, and who knows what will happen in the night that is falling upon us!”
And covering her face with her hands, she who was still Empress of the French sobbed bitterly.
CHAPTER VI
The Disaster
When the war broke out, I had just obtained a long leave which I intended to spend in Russia, and immediately after my return to Paris began to make preparations for my departure. The situation, however, was getting so very interesting that I kept putting off my vacation from day to day, especially after the first reverses had proved to every impartial observer that the days of the Bonaparte dynasty were numbered.
No one, however, imagined that the campaign would so very quickly decide the momentous questions that were hanging in the balance. The government was doing its very best to prevent news from leaking out and to hide from Paris, as well as from the country in general, the extent of the first reverses that the French army had encountered. This was a great mistake in more senses than one, because it allowed the wildest rumours to get about, which would not have been possible had the truth been made known at once. Had she only shown frankness and decision, the Regent might still have succeeded in rallying around her a considerable proportion of the people desirous of maintaining public order. To secure that, her best course would have been to appeal publicly to the whole nation; to point out that the refusal of the Chambers to grant the necessary military credits the government had asked for a year before had contributed to the disaster that had overtaken France; and then to declare that she was going to do her best to negotiate an honourable peace. Above all things she should never have convoked the Chambers, the more so that constitutionally she had no real right to do so. The Emperor himself pointed this out later on, in a memorandum which he wrote for one of his great friends, Le Comte de la Chapelle, and he very justly remarked that by doing it a pretext was given for revolution to break out. But the impulsive Empress only thought that the return of Napoleon, vanquished and defeated in his capital, would expose him to insult, and endanger the dynasty; therefore, she urged him to keep away.
Émile Ollivier, who had judged differently, entreated her to insist on Napoleon’s return to Paris, but Eugénie, instead of listening to his advice, did her best to thwart it, under the mistaken idea that with another Cabinet she had more chances to meet the difficulties of the situation. From some strange reasoning she interfered with MacMahon’s plan to draw his army back towards Paris in order to defend the capital, and gave him peremptory command to join Marshal Bazaine’s army. Stranger still, MacMahon, who, being responsible for his troops, should not have allowed politics to interfere with his plan of campaign, acceded to her request, and marched to his destruction in the direction of Sedan.
That initial mistake of the Regent was the principal cause of the revolution which followed upon the surrender of the French army to the Prussians. I do not mean to say that this revolution might have been averted in the long run, but certainly it might have been delayed, and some attempts might have been made to save the dynasty. Unfortunately the Empress thought she was acting very cleverly by seeming to give no thought to that dynasty, and affecting indifference as to its fate. She allowed the romantic side of her character to take the upper hand even in that supreme disaster of her life, and refused to give the necessary orders that might, perhaps, have averted a catastrophe not only where the Imperial regime was concerned, but also to the country. She refused to defend the Tuileries; she refused to defend the cause of order which she represented; she refused to defend her throne and that of her son; she refused to act energetically, in order to subdue the insurrection that was already making itself heard under her windows; she refused to meet the mob that was invading the palace; and ultimately she fled.
It has been said that she was betrayed by those upon whose devotion she had the right to count. It is not to be contested that the conduct of General Trochu was cowardly, but the misfortune of Eugénie was that she had never succeeded in inspiring any other feeling than admiration for her beauty.
It is extraordinary, when one remembers all that happened at that time, to realise how each and all lost their heads. There was still a government in Paris on the 4th of September, there was an army, a responsible ministry that might have appealed to it, and yet no one seemed to have thought it possible to resist the demands of the mob—and such a mob, too. I think I may affirm that none were more surprised at the easy way the Empire was overturned than the members of the government that succeeded to the administration of the country. As a proof of this, I may mention a remark made to me many years later by Gambetta in the course of a conversation which we had on the subject: “I did not know when I left the Hotel de Ville after the proclamation of the new government, whether I should not find the police waiting to arrest me when I reached my home,” was what he said.
Had the Empress personally gone to the Corps Législatif and given orders to sweep away the mob about to invade it, and to arrest Trochu, it is probable that the Parisians, cowed by her personal courage, would have acclaimed her, and cried out: “Vive l’Impératrice!” It is certain that no one would have harmed her, but Eugénie lost her presence of mind upon finding herself so utterly abandoned, and fled from the Tuileries, forgetting everything in the disorder of that moment.
Vague news concerning the disaster of Sedan had reached Paris in the course of the evening of the 2nd of September, rumours with no official authority to explain them, but which, nevertheless, circulated everywhere. Later on the Empress was reproached for not acting at once upon them by rallying around her the few partisans that were still left to the Empire. But she was not to blame for this apparent inactivity, because it was only the next day that she received the telegram from the Emperor confirming the dreadful news.
Among the diplomatic corps it had been known earlier, and commented upon as it deserved. In the late afternoon of the 3rd of September, I went out, and directed my steps towards the Tuileries. The palace seemed quite peaceful. The usual sentinels that were guarding it were all at their posts, and a crowd on the Place de la Concorde was neither numerous nor hostile, certainly nothing that pointed to insurrection.
Among the curious people that were standing in front of the palace I could hear remarks and comments on the catastrophe of the day before, but what struck me was that these remarks were not hostile to the Empire; on the contrary, words of regret were continually expressed, and many sympathised with the Emperor, and especially the Prince Imperial. After having waited for some time I turned my steps towards the Cercle de la Rue Royale, where, meeting some friends, I told them that I was surprised to find the capital so quiet, and that I thought that the Empress would be well advised if she took advantage of this sympathetic attitude of the public, to attempt to negotiate a peace. Every well-wisher of France felt that peace was indispensable in order to avoid worse calamities. I was very much surprised when a man whom I knew to be well informed as a rule, replied that very probably the next day would see a proposition promulgated to depose the Emperor. He added the remarkable news—which surely was absurd—that this would be done at the secret instigation of the Regent, who believed the Prince Imperial’s only chance of ascending the throne consisted in the removal of his father from the political scene.
I could not bring myself to believe such an unfair canard. Whatever has been said to the contrary since, Napoleon was always popular with a large section of people; the Parisian workmen especially liked him, and felt grateful for the care with which he had seen to their welfare. It is true there were some who screamed that he was responsible for the military disasters which had overtaken the country, but these belonged to that section of unruly spirits that take every possible opportunity to attack every government. It must not be forgotten that in spite of the Lanterne and other revolutionary organs of the same kind, the influence wielded by the press had not reached the power it now possesses; after eighteen years of Imperialistic rule, the country was disciplined and trained to obedience, and it is most probable that had the Emperor personally been able to make an appeal to it, it would have responded heartily. If the Regent could have obtained the liberation of her husband, and so secured his help to conclude peace with Prussia, such an ending to the campaign might have been possible at that particular moment—it was certainly not the time to talk of the sovereignty of the people and of bowing to the will of the country.
The evening passed off quietly. I walked along the boulevards after eleven o’clock; the night was beautiful, and the streets as animated as usual. I could not discern much consternation among the crowds, everyone seemed only to be more subdued than had been the case lately. And when I left my house on the morning of the 4th there were certainly no signs whatever of a revolution in the streets, nor any atmosphere of impending disaster.
I was living in the Avenue de l’Impératrice, now Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, and as I reached the Champs Elysées, I found that everything was as quiet as usual. The fountains were playing in front of the Palais de l’Industrie, children were romping in the walks, and there was no indication that anything unusual was going on. I went to breakfast at the Cercle, and it was only after leaving that I was accosted by a friend on the Place de la Concorde who told me that the Corps Législatif had been invaded by the mob. Curious as I am by nature, I turned my steps towards the Palais Bourbon, and found really an enormous crowd assembled there; but even then, there was nothing hostile in its attitude, it was rather good-humoured than anything else. Some leaders, however, were shouting: “La déchéance! La déchéance,” at the top of their voices. No one seemed to offer any resistance, and the attitude of the deputies, when I managed to enter the gallery reserved to the Corps Diplomatique in order to obtain a view of what was going on inside the House, was rather one of surprise than anything else. Amidst the hum of voices could be heard the deep tones of M. Jules Ferry urging those present to go to the Hotel de Ville and to proclaim the Republic, but with the exception of Jules Favre, and of M. de Kératry, no one seemed to share his opinion. I am convinced that if, at that moment, the Regent had occupied the Palais Bourbon with a military force, the Revolution would never have succeeded, and to this day I fail to understand how it was that no member of the government had the presence of mind to take upon himself the responsibility for such a measure, which might have changed the whole history of France. It is quite certain that even when the three leaders of the Revolutionary movement started for the Hotel de Ville, they did not possess the sympathy of many of their colleagues, rather, the latter only wanted the support of the government then in power, to get rid of them. None would have objected to the arrest of these three men, had there been found but one person strong enough to put such a measure into execution.
The fact is, the majority of the members of the Corps Législatif seemed to be quite dazed by what was happening; they did not at all understand what was going on. I am convinced that they left the hall where the sitting had taken place, without having realised that it was for the last time. As soon, however, as they had done so, the mob invaded the Palais; but the scenes of disorder that are asserted to have followed, never took place. I remained some time unobserved at my post, and failed to see the excesses of which some speak as occurring. Of course, shouts were heard, a boy of about eighteen years old sat down in the Presidential armchair, and rang the bell with all his might, but this was done more in childish amusement than anything else. I repeat that the slightest appearance of a military force would have restored order at once, and this makes the subsequent events more unpardonable still.
After having spent about an hour watching the scenes that attended the end of the Legislature which, under Napoleon III., had ruled France for eighteen years, I left the Palais Bourbon and turned my steps towards the Tuileries. There the crowd was more hostile, especially the Garde Nationale. The men had turned their rifles upside down, and some of them were screaming aloud they would never fire against “la nation.” Now and then a cry resounded: “La déchéance! La déchéance,” and the accents of the Marseillaise made themselves heard; but it must be remarked that no cries of “Vive la République!” were to be noticed, at least I did not hear any. Another strange feature of this pacific revolution was that the mutineers were in small bands, which were each followed by a considerable crowd of onlookers, which probably would have dispersed at sight of the first company of soldiers. The police had mysteriously vanished, and the whole aspect of the crowd was good-natured in the extreme; it was composed of as many women, children and dogs as of insurgés, and seemed more on amusement bent than on anything else. Even when the gates of the Tuileries were at last forced, and the mob found itself in the big courtyard, it did not attempt to enter the interior of the Palace; the people merely walked about the garden and the inner courtyard that led from the Carrousel to the private gardens. Had the Empress remained she would not even have noticed the invasion, and the best proof of what I say here lies in the fact that when the members of the new government arrived a few hours later in the Tuileries, they found everything in the same state as usual; nothing had been disturbed, and even the papers forgotten by the Empress on her writing table had been left untouched, the servants were all there, but had only taken care to take off their liveries, with the alacrity which people of their class always display in turning against their former masters as soon as misfortune comes in any shape or form.
I was one of the persons who visited the Tuileries on the evening of that memorable 4th of September, which saw the fall of Napoleon III.’s dynasty. No one knew at that moment what had happened to the Empress, nor where she had fled, and rumours were going about in some quarters that she had tried to join the Emperor, and in others that she had directed her steps towards Metz with the intention of seeking a refuge with the army of Bazaine, and establishing there the seat of government.
When I visited the Palace I found that no one there believed she had gone away for ever; indeed—and this is a detail that I believe has never been recorded elsewhere—I found one of her maids preparing her bed just as usual! It was evident the flight had been a hurried one. In the private rooms, letters never meant to be seen by a stranger’s eye were scattered about; a gold locket with the portrait of a lovely woman, the Duchesse d’Albe; another one with that of a baby in long robes, the first picture of the Prince Imperial; one small golden crucifix; a note just begun, and addressed no one knows now to whom, but of which the first words ran thus: “Dans la terrible position où je me trouve, je ne——” The writing stopped there; evidently she who had started it had been interrupted by the bearer of some evil message, and there it lay forgotten, in the midst of the tragedy which had put an end to so many things and to so many hopes.
The Revolution of the 4th of September was especially remarkable for the inconsiderable impression it produced in Paris itself. Life went on just as usual, and save for a few expressions of wonder, no one seemed quite to realise the importance of it. The capital began to prepare for the siege, rather with mirth than anything else. To tell the truth no one seemed to believe in its possibility, and I remember one day, when visiting a friend who was living on the Quai Malaquais, she pointed to the Seine flowing softly under her windows, saying at the same time: “Croyez-vous que les Prussiens arriveront devant mes fenêtres comme les Normands jadis sont entrés à Paris?” (“Do you think that the Prussians will arrive in front of my windows as the Normans entered Paris in days of yore?”)
I reproduce this remark just to show how very little those in the capital realised either the present or the future at this particular moment.
Another thing which struck me, was that existence out of doors seemed to go on much as usual, in spite of the bad news that continued to pour in. The theatres were full, and people seemed to make the most of the late summer days that were coming to a close. There was very little excitement, and the feeling that predominated was one of curiosity. Some people were departing, but not in large numbers, and it was only towards the end of September that people began seriously to look at the situation. By that time I had already left Paris. I went on the 15th of September, hoping to return in January, not suspecting then that the war would drag on as it did. I, together with many reasonable people, still hoped that the new government would see the necessity of ending a hopeless struggle before it was too late.
All my suppositions turned out to be wrong, however, and it was only towards the end of February that I was once more to find myself at my old post, by which time the unfortunate Emperor, languishing in captivity, seemed to be forgotten, and the Republic had grown to be an established fact.
CHAPTER VII
Letters from Paris during the Siege
Paris was already invested when I succeeded in leaving it with the help of a diplomatic passport, and it was in Vienna that I read in the papers the news of the useless interview that took place between Prince, at that time still Count, Bismarck, with M. Jules Favre at Férrières. I never understood how the German Chancellor, who at that time had not the slightest intention to conclude peace, consented to receive the representative of a government which he had not acknowledged. I was told later on, that it was at the request of the King of Prussia he had given his assent to Favre’s arrival at the German headquarters.
The results of this hopeless attempt are well known. Jules Favre talked as only an advocate can talk. But he pleaded sentimental reasons where hard facts only had to be considered. When he returned to Paris, it was with the conviction that as the government of the Défense Nationale was neither strong enough nor respected enough to compel the country to accept a shameful peace, the only thing was to allow matters to drift.
A good many of my friends, and of my colleagues, had elected to remain in the capital, and there await the end of the war, and I must own that I regretted later on that I had not been given the same opportunity. That period was most interesting, and I have always felt that to understand the genesis of the events which happened later on, one ought to have experienced those months of anxiety, when the great capital was abandoned to her fate, with the Prussian guns levelled against her.
I was not, however, left entirely without news, and as regularly as was possible received letters from besieged Paris, sent either by balloon or by carrier pigeons. I have kept them all, and from their pages now give extracts which will give an idea of the feelings of the Parisians during the trial they had to undergo.
September 25th, 1870.
“My very dear Friend,—You will be wondering what is happening to us, and I do not want to let pass the present opportunity to send you some news concerning us. We are now quite resigned to the prospect of a siege, and the only question that is agitating the public mind is how long it will last. The most contradictory rumours are spread, and some of them even attribute to Jules Favre the intention of trying to restore the Empire, after having assured himself that he would remain its Prime Minister. Of course this is nothing but humbug, and I only mention it to you to show you to what extent public imagination can cajole itself. What is not humbug, however, is the difficulty the government finds in attempting anything in the way of peace negotiations. It begins to see the great mistake which was made when a small minority overthrew the Empire so unexpectedly. Had it been left standing, all the onus of the disastrous peace, which, whether France likes it or not, will have to be concluded, would have fallen upon its shoulders, whilst at the present moment, it is the Défense Nationale which will bear the brunt of anger at the dismemberment of our France. This may sound the death knell of the Republic, and those who are at its head know it but too well. I think that the unlucky phrase of Jules Favre, when he said that he would never give up ‘un pouce de notre territoire, ni une pierre de nos forteresses,’ was more a calculated pronouncement than the result of an enthusiasm too strong to think of the consequences its imprudent words might have. He wanted to ward off the evil moment when he would be called upon to do that which the Empire he had helped to overthrow would have done had it been left in power; and feeling this to be inevitable, had tried to keep the knowledge of this bitter fact from the public. One begins to realise the mistake one has made, I repeat it, but unfortunately one does not see what ought to be done to mend it. The public feeling in the city is very different from that which was prevailing on the 4th of this month. The Parisians begin to realise the seriousness of the situation, but there is no talk of a surrender, and the confidence that victory will return to France is very dominant among the lower classes, whilst it is recognised among the higher ones that the deal has been irrevocably lost, and that peace ought to be concluded, else serious disturbances may occur among the Garde Nationale and the numerous militia.
“The government does nothing, and when I have said this, I say everything. They say that they can do nothing and that it is to the Tours delegation they must look for an attempt to stop the progress of the Prussian army. So long as Gambetta was here there was some activity in ministerial offices; now he has gone there is absolute stagnation. All these ministers, suddenly called upon to exercise functions for which they were totally unprepared, seem lost, and Jules Favre looks at the political situation with the same eye he would look at some big criminal or civil law case—from the outlook of an advocate, not from that of a statesman. They say he actually cried during his conversation with Bismarck. The question arises whether these tears were genuine ones of grief, or simply a rhetorical incident. How much more dignity there was in the conduct of General Wimpffen and his colleagues, when they discussed with the German Minister and the German General Staff the conditions of the capitulation of Sedan! No one likes Jules Favre, whom even his partisans consider to be a demagogue of talent, but nothing more. And certainly France does not need demagogues at the present time.
“There are comical notes in the gravity of the situation. People talk about never surrendering, about dying for their country, whilst running about buying hams and butter, and as many provisions as they can, in view of the siege. Vegetables are at a premium, meat will soon become a luxury, bread is already looked upon in the same light that cakes were formerly, and frivolous women are getting excited at the thought of the many privations which they expect they will be called upon to endure. Yet comparatively few people have left the capital, where, after all, perhaps, one is safer than in the provinces. News leaks out sometimes from the outside, mostly false; for instance, it was related the other day, that the Prince Imperial had reached Metz, and put himself under the protection of Marshal Bazaine. All the partisans of the Empire believed it, but serious people did not attach any faith to this rumour. The Legitimists are full of hope that out of the present complications a monarchical restoration may ensue; the Radicals, on their part, are sure that, sooner or later, the government will fall into their hands. The principal question that is agitating the public mind, is as to who would eventually have the right to conclude peace with Prussia. No one, to begin with the members of the present administration (for one can hardly call it a government), believes that the King of Prussia would consent to treat with them. Therefore the calling together of a National Assembly is imperative, but would this Assembly be the expression of the will of the nation, when the elections would have to be held under the muzzles of the enemy’s guns? In a word, we live in a state of uncertainty such as France has never yet experienced, no one knows what the morrow holds in reserve, and though there is a government of the National Defence, yet there is no one to defend the country.”
I have reproduced this letter in its entirety, because it seems to me that it explains very well the state of opinion in besieged Paris. Later on, I was to receive another communication from the same correspondent, written immediately after the insurrection of the 18th of October. This one is more alarming even than the first.