XXVI.
Anyone whose way led him daily past the fortifications could see, however technically ignorant he might be, that they were exceedingly insignificant. Constantly, too, one heard quoted Trochu's words: "I don't delude myself into supposing that I can stop the Prussians with the matchsticks that are being planted on the ramparts." Strangely enough, Paris shut herself in with such a wall of masonry that in driving through it in the Bois de Boulogne, there was barely room for a carriage with two horses. They bored loop-holes in these walls and ramparts, but few doubted that the German artillery would be able to destroy all their defences with the greatest ease.
Distribute arms to the civil population, as the papers unanimously demanded, from readily comprehensible reasons, no one dared to do. The Empress' Government had to hold out for the existing state of things; nevertheless, in Paris,--certainly from about the 8th August,--people were under the impression that what had been lost was lost irrevocably.
I considered it would be incumbent upon my honour to return to Denmark, if we were drawn into the war, and I lived with this thought before my eyes. I contemplated with certainty an approaching revolution in France; I was vexed to think that there was not one conspicuously great and energetic man among the leaders of the Opposition, and that such a poor wretch as Rochefort was once more daily mentioned and dragged to the front. Of Gambetta no one as yet thought, although his name was respected, since he had made himself felt the last season as the most vehement speaker in the Chamber. But it was not speakers who were wanted, and people did not know that he was a man of action.
The Ministry that followed Ollivier's inspired me with no confidence. Palikao, the Prime Minister, was termed in the papers an iron man (the usual set phrase). It was said that he "would not scruple to clear the boulevards with grape"; but the genius needed for such a performance was not overwhelming. What he had to do was to clear France of the Germans, and that was more difficult.
Renan had had to interrupt the journey to Spitzbergen which he had undertaken in Prince Napoleon's company; the Prince and his party had only reached Tromsöe, when they were called back on account of the war, and Renan was in a state of the most violent excitement. He said: "No punishment could be too great for that brainless scoundrel Ollivier, and the Ministry that has followed his is worse. Every thinking man could see for himself that the declaration of this war was madness. (A-t-on jamais vu pareille folie, mon Dieu, mon Dieu, c'est navrant. Nous sommes un peuple désarçonné.)" In his eyes, Palikao was no better than a robber, Jérôme David than a murderer. He considered the fall of Strasburg imminent. He was less surprised than I at the unbounded incapacity shown by the French fleet under the difficult conditions; all plans for a descent on Northern Germany had already been given up, and the French fleet was unable to set about even so much as a blockade of the ports, such as the Danes had successfully carried out six years before.
Taine was as depressed as Renan. He had returned from Germany, where he had gone to prepare a treatise on Schiller, on account of the sudden death of Madame Taine's mother. As early as August 2d, when no battle had as yet been fought, he felt exceedingly anxious, and he was the first Frenchman whom I heard take into consideration the possibility of the defeat of France; he expressed great sorrow that two nations such as France and Germany should wage national war against each other as they were doing. "I have just come from Germany," he remarked, "where I have talked with many brave working-men. When I think of what it means for a man to be born into the world, nursed, brought up, instructed, and equipped; when I think what struggling and difficulties he must go through himself to be fit for the battle of life, and then reflect how all that is to be flung into the grave as a lump of bleeding flesh, how can I do other than grieve! With two such statesmen as Louis Philippe, war could certainly have been averted, but with two quarrelsome men like Bismarck and Napoleon at the head of affairs, it was, of course, inevitable."
Philarète Chasles saw in the defeats a confirmation of the theory that he proclaimed, day in, day out, namely: that the Latin races were on the rapid down-grade; Spain and Portugal, Italy, Roumania, the South American republics, were, in his opinion, in a state of moral putrefaction, France a sheer Byzantium. It had been a piece of foolhardiness without parallel to try to make this war a decisive racial struggle between the nation that, as Protestant, brought free research in its train and one which had not yet been able to get rid of the Pope and political despotism. Now France was paying the penalty.
Out in the country at Meudon, where he was, there had--probably from carelessness--occurred repeated explosions, the last time on August 20th. Twenty cases of cartridges had just been sent to Bazaine; a hundred still remained, which were to start the day that they were urgently required. They blew up, and no one in the town doubted that the explosion was the work of Prussian spies. For things had come to such a pass that people saw Prussian spies everywhere. (During the first month of the war all Germans were called Prussians.) Importance was attached to the fact that General Frossard's nephew, a young lieutenant who lay wounded in Chasles' tower-house, from a sword-thrust in the chest, and was usually delirious, at the crash had jumped up and come to his senses, crying out: "It is treachery! It is Chamber No. 6 blowing up!" As a matter of fact, that was where the cartridges were. It was said that at Meudon traces had been found of the same explosive as had been used in bombs against the Emperor during the first days of May (a plot that had probably been hatched by the police). The perpetrator, however,--doubtless for good reasons--was not discovered.
Whatever vanity there was about old Philarète Chasles left him altogether during this critical time, which seemed to make good men better still. His niece, too, who used to be loud-voiced and conceited, was quite a different person. One day that I was at their house at Meudon, she sat in a corner for a long time crying quietly. Out there, they were all feverishly anxious, could not rest, craved, partly to hear the latest news, partly to feel the pulse of Paris. One day after dinner, Chasles invited me to go into town with him, and when we arrived he took a carriage and drove about with me for two hours observing the prevailing mood. We heard countless anecdotes, most of them apocryphal, but reflecting the beliefs of the moment: The Empress had sent three milliards (!) in French gold to the Bank of England. The Emperor, who was jealous of Macmahon since the latter had rescued him at Magenta, had taken the command of the Turcos from the Marshal, although the latter had said in the Council of War: "The Turcos must be given to me, they will not obey anyone else." And true it was that no one else had any control over them. If one had committed theft, or misbehaved himself in any other way, and Macmahon. whom they called only "Our Marshal," rode down the front of their lines and scolded them, they began to cry, rushed up and kissed his feet, and hung to his horse, like children asking for forgiveness. And now someone had made the great mistake of giving them to another general. And, the commander being anxious to dazzle the Germans with them, they and the Zouaves had been sent first into the fire, in spite of Bazaine's very sensible observation: "When you drive, you do not begin at a galop." And so these picked troops were broken up in their first engagement. It was said that of 2,500 Turcos, only 29 were left.
An anecdote like the following, which was told to us, will serve to show how popular legends grow up, in virtue of the tendency there is to reduce a whole battle to a collision between two generals, just as in the Homeric age, or in Shakespeare: The Crown Prince of Prussia was fighting very bravely at Wörth, in the front ranks. That he threw the Turcos into confusion was the result of a ray of sunlight falling on the silver eagle on his helmet. The Arabs thought it a sign from Heaven. Macmahon, who was shooting in the ranks, was so near the Crown Prince that the latter shouted to him in French: "Voilà un homme!" but the Frenchman surpassed him in chivalrous politeness, for he saluted, and replied: "Voilà un héros!"