An Englishman in Paris: Notes and Recollections

by Albert D. Vandam

I am bound to say that, though the noise on the Boulevards was terrific, and the crowds the densest I have ever seen in Paris or anywhere, they refrained from that horse-play so objectionable in England under similar circumstances. Of course there were exceptions; such as, for instance, the demonstration at the Prussian Embassy: but, in the main, the behaviour was orderly throughout. I do not know what might have been the result of any foreigners—German or otherwise—showing themselves conspicuously, but they were either altogether absent, or else concealed their nationality as much as possible by keeping commendably silent.

Nevertheless, the Parisian shopkeeper, who is the most arrant coward on the face of the earth where a crowd is concerned, put up his shutters during the whole of Saturday and Sunday, except those who professed for cater for the inner man. I doubt whether, on the first-named day, there was a single stroke of work done by the three or four hundred thousand of Parisian artisans. I exclude cabmen, railway porters, and the like. They had their hands full, because the exodus began before the war news was four and twenty hours old. Our own countrymen seemed in the greatest hurry to put the Channel between themselves and France. If the enemy had been already at the gates of Paris their retreat could have been scarcely more sudden. The words "bouches inutiles" had as yet not been pronounced or invented officially; but I have a notion that a cabman suggested them first, in a conversation with a brother Jehu. "Voilà des bouches utiles qui s'en vont, mon vieux," he said, while waiting on the Place Vendôme to take passengers to the railway. Until then I had never heard the word used in that sense.

Apropos of cabmen, I heard a story that day for the truth of which I will, however, not vouch. There was a cab-stand near the Prussian Embassy, and most of the drivers knew every one of the attachés, the latter being frequent customers. On the Saturday morning, a cab was called from the rank to take a young attaché to the eastern railway station. He was going to join his regiment. On alighting from the cab, the attaché was about to pay his fare; the driver refused the money. "A man does not pay for his own funeral, monsieur; and you may take it that I have performed that office for you. Adieu, monsieur." With that he drove off. True or not, the mere invention of the tale would prove that, at any rate, the lower middle classes were cocksure of the utter annihilation of the Germans.

I happened to have occasion to go to the northern station on the Sunday, to see some one off by the mail. That large, cold, bare hall, which does duty as a waiting-room, was crowded, and a number of young Germans were among the passengers; respectable, stalwart fellows who, to judge by their dress, had occupied good commercial positions in the French capital. Most of them were accompanied by friends or relations. They seemed by no means elated at the prospect before them, and scarcely spoke to one another. As a matter of course, they were scattered all over the place, in groups of three and four. I noticed that there was an exceedingly strong contingent of sergents de ville, and several couples of officiers de paix—what in England we should call superintendents of police. The latter had evidently received particular instructions, for they had posted, as much as possible, a sergent de ville close to every group. At first I mistook the drift of the supervision, but it was soon explained to me when one of the officiers de paix came up to a group somewhat larger than the others. "Messieurs," he said very politely, "vous êtes Allemands, et je vous prierai de vous mettre ensemble, afin de pouvoir vous protéger, s'il y a besoin." I heard afterwards that, amidst all his weighty occupations, the Emperor himself had given orders to have the Germans especially protected, as he feared some violence on the part of the Parisians.

During the next week the excitement did not abate, but, save for some minor incidents, it was the same thing over and over again: impromptu processions along the main thoroughfares to the singing of the "Marseillaise" and the "Chant du Départ," until the crowds had got by heart Alfred de Musset's "Rhin Allemand," of which, until then, not one in a thousand had ever heard.

Meanwhile the news had spread of the suicide of Prévost-Paradol, the newly appointed French ambassador at Washington, and the republicans were trying to make capital out of it. According to them, it was political shame and remorse at having deserted his colours, despair at the turn events were taking, that prompted the step. These falsehoods have been repeated until they became legends connected with the fall of the Second Empire. To the majority of Englishmen, Prévost-Paradol is not even a name; talented as he was, Frenchmen would have scarcely known more about him if some politicians, for purposes of their own, had not chosen to convert him into a self-immolated martyr to the Imperialist cause—or, rather, to that part of the cause which aimed at the recovery of the left banks of the Rhine. I knew Prévost-Paradol, and he was only distinguished from hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen in that his "France Nouvelle" was a magnificent attempt to spur his countrymen's ambition in that direction; but this very fact is an additional argument against the alleged cause of his self-destruction. He shot himself during the night of the 10th and 11th of July, when not the most pessimistically inclined could foresee the certainty of a war, and, least of all, the disastrous result of it to France. Those who would know the real cause of Prévost-Paradol's suicide had better read a short tale that appeared anonymously in the Revue des Deux Mondes of February, 1860. The hero of "Madame de Marçay" is none other than the brilliant journalist himself, and the germs of suicidal mania were so plainly discernible in him, as to make those who knew the writer wonder that he had not killed himself long before he did.

I have already said that the excitement did not abate, but the more serious-minded began to look critical, and, among the latter, curiously enough, there were a good many superior officers in the army. They were too loyal to express openly their want of confidence in their leaders, but it was evident enough to the careful listener that that want of confidence did exist. I had a conversation during that week with one of the former, whose name, for obvious reasons, I must suppress; and this is, as far as I can remember, what he said, knowing that he could trust me. "There is not a single properly drawn ordnance map of France at the War Office; and if there were, there is not a single man in power there who would know how to use it. I doubt whether there is a settled plan of campaign; they'll endeavour to conduct this war as they conducted the Crimean, Italian, and Mexican wars—that is, on the principle which stood them in such good stead in Algeria, though they ought to know by this time how very risky those experiments turned out, especially in '59; and I have no need to tell you that we are going to confront a different army from that of the Austrians or the Russians, Todleben notwithstanding. The African school of warfare ought to be played out by now, but it is not. To a certain extent, the Emperor is to blame for this. You remember what his uncle said: 'There is not a single general of whose draught I am not aware. Some will go up to their waists; others up to their necks; others, again, to over their heads; but the latter number is infinitely small, I assure you.' The Emperor is not in the same position with regard to the capacity of his generals, let alone of his officers."

"But he ought to be," I objected; "he interviews a great many of them on Sunday mornings." I was alluding to the informal levée held at the Tuileries every week, to which the generals and the general officers by sea and by land were admitted.

"You are right—he ought to be," was the answer; "and if a great deal of conscientious trouble on his part could have put him in possession of such knowledge, he would have had it by this time. Of course, you have never been present at such a reception; for all civilians, with the exception of a few ministers, are rigorously excluded. I repeat, the intention is a good one, but it is not carried out properly. The very fact that at the outset it met with the most strenuous opposition from nearly all the ministers and high dignitaries of the Imperial household ought to have shown his Majesty the necessity of interviewing these officers alone, without as much as a chambellan in waiting. As it is, do you know what happens? I will tell you. The Emperor passes before these officers as they are standing around the room, stops before nearly every one to ask a question, inviting him, at the same time, to lodge a protest if necessary against any standing abuse or to suggest a measure of reform. But the chambellan is close at his heels; the minister for war, the marshal commanding the Imperial Guard, the military governor of Paris, are standing but a few steps away. The officer to whom the question is addressed feels himself tongue-tied; he knows that all these can hear every word he says, and, rather than be marked by his superiors as a tiresome meddler, he prefers to hold his tongue altogether—that is, if he be comparatively honest. Call it cowardice if you like, but most men will tell you that such cowardice exists in all administrations whether civil or military. Consequently, the Emperor, though he may know a good many officers by name and by sight, in reality knows nothing of their capacities. I may safely say that, for the last fifteen or sixteen years, there have not been a dozen important promotions, either in the army or the navy, justified by the 'record of service' of the officer promoted. Divisions—nay, whole army corps—have been confided to men who, in the hour of need, will, no doubt, prove very dashing and very plucky, but who have no more notion of handling large masses of men than an ordinary drill-sergeant. To use a more striking metaphor—they have selected the most desperate punters at baccarat to work out complicated chess problems. What the result will be with such a champion as Von Moltke, Heaven only knows. There are men at the head of our cavalry forces who can scarcely hold themselves on horseback; there are others commanding divisions and even corps-d'armée who know all about bridges, pontoons, artillery, and so forth, but who could no more execute a regularly organized retreat or advance than a child. The theory is that their dash and courage, their reckless, happy-go-lucky, but frequently successful African system, will make up for their ignorance of tactics and strategy. Naturally this is an implied rather than an expressed opinion, for many of those favourites believe themselves to be the equals in these latter sciences of Jomini and Napoléon, perhaps of Moltke also. Do not misunderstand me; there are a number of officers in the French army who have made a careful study of the science of war, and who, in that respect, would favourably compare with an equal number of the best instructed German officers, but they have by this time resigned themselves to keep in the background, because any attempt on their part to raise the standard of military knowledge has for years been systematically discountenanced by those nearest to the throne. On the other hand, the men thus kept at arm's length have not been altogether satisfied to suffer in silence. I do not mean to say that they have given vent to their grievances openly; they have done worse, perhaps, from the point of view of maintaining the discipline of the army. They have adopted a semi-critical, semi-hostile attitude towards their superiors. The officers' mess, such as it exists in England, is virtually unknown on the Continent, and least of all in France. The unmarried officer takes his daily meals at the table d'hôte of an hotel, and he does talk 'shop' now and then in the presence of civilians. The criticisms he utters do find their way to the barrack-room, so that by now the private has become sceptical with regard to the capabilities of the generals and marshals. The soldier who begins to question the fitness of his chiefs is like the priest who begins to question the infallibility of the pope; he is a danger to the institution to which he belongs."

In reality, my informant told me little that was new, though he perhaps did not suspect that I was so well informed. I had heard most of all this, and a great deal besides, from a connection of mine by marriage, whose strictures in the same direction came with additional force, seeing that he was a frequent and welcome guest at the Tuileries. He was a general officer, but, with a frankness that bordered on the cynical, maintained that but for his capital voice and skill at leading "the cotillon" he would probably have never risen beyond the rank of captain; "for there are a thousand captains that know a great deal more than I do, a couple of thousand that know as much as I do, and very few who know less, none of whom have ever been promoted, and never will be, unless they earn their promotion at the point of the sword." According to him, the "records of service" were not as much as looked into at the periods of general promotions. "A clever answer to one of the Emperor's questions, a handsome face and pleasing manners, are sufficient to establish a reputation at the Château. The ministers for war take particular care not to rectify those impulsive judgments of the Emperor and Empress, because they rightly think that careful inquiries into the candidates' merits would hurt their own protégés, and those of their fellow-ministers. This happy-go-lucky system—for a system it has become—founded upon the most barefaced nepotism, is condoned, by those who ought to have opposed it with all their might and main at the very outset, on the theory that Frenchmen's courage is sure to make up in the end for all shortcomings, which theory in itself is a piece of impertinence, or at any rate of overweening conceit, seeing that it implies the absence of such courage in the officers of other nations. But there is something else. All these favourites are jealous of one another, and, mark my words, this jealousy will in this instance lead to disastrous results, because the Emperor will find it as difficult to comply with as to refuse their individual extravagant demands. The time is gone by for radical reforms. 'You cannot swap horses while crossing a stream,' said Abraham Lincoln; and we are crossing a dangerous stream. The Emperor has, besides, a horror of new faces around him, and to extirpate the evil radically he would have to make a clean sweep of his military household."