An Englishman in Paris: Notes and Recollections

by Albert D. Vandam

"All the more reason to refuse you the authorization to follow the staff."

The journalist would not look at matters in that light. He felt that he was conferring a favour, just as he would have felt in offering the advantage of a cleverly written puff of a première to a theatrical manager. Seeing that his arguments were of no avail, he delivered his parting shot.

"This, then, general, is your final decision. I am afraid you'll have cause to regret this, for we, on our side, are determined not to give this war the benefit of publicity in our columns."

M. Émile Ollivier's original decision was the right one, but, instead of embodying it in a temporary and exceptional order, he ought to have made it a permanent law in times of peace as well as war. On Saturday, the 16th of July, Count Culemburg, the Prussian Minister of the Interior, addressed a circular to the German papers, recommending them to abstain from giving any news, however insignificant, with regard to the movements of the troops. As far as I remember, the German editors neither protested, nor endeavoured to shirk the order; they raised no outcry against "the muzzling of the press." Five days later, the French minister was attacked by nearly every paper in France for attempting to do a similar thing, and, rather than weather that storm in a teacup, he consented to a compromise, and condescended to ask where he might have commanded. In addition to this, he undertook that the Government itself should be the purveyor of war-news to the papers. Every editor of standing in Paris knew that this meant garbled, if not altogether mythical, accounts of events, and that even these would be held back until they could be held back no longer. In a few days their worst apprehensions in that respect were confirmed. While Paris was still ignorant of the terrible disaster at Wissembourg, the whole of Europe rang with the tidings. Then came the false report of a brilliant victory from the Government agency. It made the Parisians frantic with joy, but the frenzy changed into one of anger when the truth became known through the maudlin and lachrymose despatches from the Imperial head-quarters, albeit that they by no means revealed the whole extent of the defeats suffered at Woerth and Spicheren.

Nevertheless, the agency continued the even—or rather uneven—tenor of its way up to the last. The Republicans subsequently adopted the tactics of the Imperial Government, the Communists adhered to the system of those they had temporarily ousted. In the present note, I will deal only with events up to the 4th of September. Patent as it must have been to the merest civilian, that the commanders were simply committing blunder after blunder, the movements of Bazaine were represented by the agency as the result of a masterly and profound calculation. Even such a pessimist as General Beaufort d'Hautpoul was taken in by those representations. He considered the "masterly inactivity" of Bazaine as an inspiration of genius. "He is keeping two hundred thousand German troops round Metz," he said several times. "These two hundred thousand men are rendered absolutely useless while we are recruiting our armies and reorganizing our forces." He seemed altogether oblivious of the fact that these two hundred thousand Germans were virtually the gaolers of France's best army.

I am unable to say whether General d'Hautpoul was in direct or indirect communication with the agency, or whether some ingenious scribe belonging to it had overheard his expressions of admiration and wilfully adopted them; certain it is that the agency was the first to inspire the reporters of those papers who took their cue from it with the flattering epithet of "glorious Bazaine."

It was the same with regard to Palikao. His sententious commonplaces were reported as so many oracular revelations dragged reluctantly from him. Had they been more familiar with Shakespeare than they were, or are, the scribes would have made Palikao exclaim with Macbeth, "The greatest is behind." And all the while the troops were marching and countermarching at haphazard, without a preconceived plan, jeering at their leaders, and openly insulting the "phantom" Emperor, as they did at Châlons, for he was already no more than that. The fall of the Empire does not date from Sedan, but from Woerth and Spicheren; and those most pertinently aware of it were not the men who dealt it the final blow less than a month later, but the immediate entourage of the Empress at the Tuileries.

For from that moment (the 6th or 7th of August) the entourage of the Empress began to think of saving the Empire by sacrificing, if needs be, the Emperor. "There is only one thing that can avert the ruin of the dynasty," said a lady-in-waiting on the Empress, to a near relative of mine; "and that is the death of the Emperor at the head of his troops. That death would be considered an heroic one, and would benefit the Prince Imperial."

I do not pretend to determine how far the Empress shared that opinion, but here are some facts not generally known, even to this day, and for the truth of which I can unhesitatingly vouch.

The Empress did not know of the consultation that had taken place on the 1st of July, and to which I have already referred. But she did know that the Emperor was suffering from a very serious complaint, and that the disease had been aggravated since his departure through his constantly being on horseback. M. Franceschini Pietri, the private secretary of the Emperor, had informed her to that effect on the 7th of August, when Forbach and Woerth had been fought. He also told her that the Emperor was not unwilling to return to Paris, and to leave the command-in-chief to Bazaine, but that his conscience and his pride forbade him to do so, unless some pressure were brought to bear upon him. I repeat, I can vouch for this, because I had it from the lips of M. Pietri, who was prefect of police until the 4th of September.