WARLIKE EXCITEMENT IN PARIS.
(By Telegraph from our Special Correspondent, Mr. D. Christie Murray.)
Paris, April 30.
Paris to-night is in a state of the maddest ferment. For some days past the public have followed with breathless interest the rapid development of events on the Russo-German frontier, and the news of the first skirmish at Alexandrovo, which was printed in Le Soir this evening, has roused the wildest enthusiasm. Long and anxious consultations of Ministers have been held daily, and the Press, with hardly an exception, have been urging on the Government an immediate declaration of war. Many of the better-class Germans have been hurrying from Paris—a precaution which, in the issue, has been shown to be judicious. When to-day’s news became known, every trade and artifice was instantly abandoned, and the streets since three o’clock till now have been thronged by vast crowds, pulsating to a more and more impassioned excitement. By four o’clock there were literally fifty thousand people standing in the street with newspapers in their hands, and every reader was the centre of an excited throng. I was standing opposite the Vaudeville when a man, bearing a prodigious bundle of newspapers wet from the press, came staggering swiftly towards the kiosque. The mob fell upon him, despoiled him of his burden, and tore open his parcel. There was such a wild hurry to learn the news, and everybody was so eager to be first with it, that scores of the journals were torn to ribbons, and hundreds more were trampled into the mud of the pavement. The proprietress of the kiosque wrung her hands and wept over the spectacle, and a gentleman who, by pressure of the crowd, was forced half-way through one of the windows, vociferously demanded to know the value of the lost journals. The woman instantly became business-like, and appraised them roughly at a hundred francs. The gentleman produced a pocket-book and paid her twice over, shouting noisily, ‘I present this glorious news to Paris! Vive la Russie! A bas la Prusse!’ That was the first signal I heard, and in one minute the whole boulevard rang with frenzied roar on roar. Omnibuses, public carriages, and vehicles of every description were wedged immovably in the crowd which thronged the horse-road. The drivers rose from their seats, the passengers and occupants of the carriages stood up in their places and roared and gesticulated with the rest. Hundreds of people at once strove to make speeches, and the combined result was such a charivari as can scarcely have been heard since the great day of the Confusion of Tongues.
I, myself, had occasion to be thankful for that inconquerable English accent which has always disfigured my French. A blond beard and spectacles have always helped me to something of a German look, and to-day has given the few Germans who happen to be left in Paris such a scare as the bravest of them is not likely to forget. At one moment I was surrounded by a wild section of the mob, whose yells of ‘Down with Prussia!’ were far too obviously intended to be personal to me. There was nothing for it but to join in the shouting, and I cried ‘Vive la France!’ and ‘A bas la Prusse!’ as lustily as any of them. There was an instantaneous laugh at the English accent, and I was left alone; but I could not help thinking what would have happened had I chanced to learn my French mainly in Berlin rather than in London. One unfortunate German is reported fatally injured by the violence of a mob at the Gare du Nord. He had booked for London, and is said to have carried with him only a small handbag, and to have left all the rest of his belongings at the hotel, in his hurry to catch the train for Calais. The director of the Opera came near to paying with his life for his artistic allegiance to Wagner. Happily for him he was able to take refuge in the house of a friend, and the mob contented itself by keeping up a ceaseless boo-hooing for an hour or more.