An Englishman in Paris: Notes and Recollections

by Albert D. Vandam

"Don't let that trouble you, madame," is the answer; "if you will honour us with your presence next week, one of our learned friends from the Jardin des Plantes will tell you how to grow salads, and perhaps asparagus, on your balcony and in front of your windows, in less than a fortnight."

The learned professor is not trying to mystify his charming interlocutor; he honestly believes in what he says: and, a week later, when "the friend from the Jardin des Plantes" has spoken, there is a wonderful run on all the seed-shops near the Châtelet, every one tries to borrow flower-pots from his neighbours, and barrow-loads of mould are being trundled in long lines into Paris. Wherever one goes, the eye meets careful housewives bending over wooden boxes on the balconies; M. Philippe Lockroy, the eminent actor and dramatist, the father of M. Edouard Lockroy, the future minister of the Third Republic, asks seriously why we should not revive the hanging gardens of Semiramis, and sets the example by converting his fifth floor balcony into a market garden, to the discomfiture of his son, who finds his erstwhile bedroom converted into a storehouse for tools and less agreeable matter. I may mention that M. Lockroy did not abandon his project after a mere fleeting attempt, nor when the necessity for it had disappeared, but that at the hour I write (1883) he has taken a prize for pears grown on that same balcony.

The mania spreads, and every one becomes, for the time being, a market-gardener in chambers. Even M. Pierre Joigneux, the well-known horticulturist, and equally clever writer, is bitten with it. That the thing was perfectly feasible, was proved subsequently by M. Lockroy, but the latter did not imitate the nigger who dug up the potatoes an hour after he had planted them, to see if they were growing. That thoroughly inexperienced persons should have indulged in such wild fancies is perhaps not to be wondered at; but M. Joigneux was not one of these, yet he provided an Englishman, who had come to propose the experiment to him, with all the necessary funds. "I was perfectly certain that I should never see him again," he said afterwards; but, with all due deference, we may take this as a shamefaced denial of his credulity. "Contrary to my expectations," M. Joigneux went on, when he told us the tale a few nights afterwards at the Café de la Paix—he lived in the Rue du 4 Septembre,—"my Englishman did come back, accompanied by a porter who carried the requisite material. I did not interfere with him in the least, but merely watched him. I knew that in England they did produce 'greenstuff' in that way; though I was also aware of the difference between a few blades and a serious crop."

Others, more ingenious still, began to argue that if it was possible to produce vegetables in a fortnight by means of light and a few handfuls of mould, it could not be difficult to produce mushrooms with a much thicker layer of mould and in the darkness of a cellar.

Fortunately there is, as yet, a very decent kitchen-garden to fall back upon. It lies between the fortifications and the forts; it has been somewhat pillaged at first, but the authorities have organized several companies of labourers from among those whom they have not been able to provide with arms, and those who do not dig or delve keep watch against depredation. They have a very simple uniform—a black kepi with crimson piping, and a crimson belt round their waists. They are exposed to a certain danger, for every now and then a stray German bullet lays one of them low, but, upon the whole, their lot is not a hard one.

"We have still nearly everything we want," writes a facetious journalist; "and now that good and obliging fellow, Gambetta, is going to fetch us some cream cheese from the moon for our dessert."

In fact, during the last few days, we have been informed of the Minister of the Interior's impending departure for Tours by balloon on the 7th of October, and by twelve o'clock on that day the little Place St. Pierre, right on the heights of Montmartre, is simply black with people. "The great statesman," the "hero who is to rouse the provinces to unheard-of efforts for the deliverance of the sacred soil of France from the polluting presence of the Teutonic barbarian," has not arrived yet when I edge my way through the crowd, accompanied by an officer on General Vinoy's staff, who is a near relative of mine. With the recollection of my adventure in the Avenue de Clichy fresh upon me, I would not have ventured to come by myself. There is a military post on the Place St. Pierre, and I am wondering whether it will turn out to pay honours to "the great statesman;" and whether Nadar, the famous Nadar, whom I can see towering above the crowd, and giving instructions, will treat Gambetta with the same scant courtesy he once treated Louis-Napoléon, when the latter went to see the ascent of his balloon, "Le Géant," from the Champ-de-Mars. Nadar's behaviour on that occasion reminds one of Elizabeth's with the wife of Bishop Parker. "'Madam,'" said the queen, "I may not call you, and 'mistress' I am loth to call you." Nadar was too fervent a republican to call Louis-Napoléon "Majesty;" he was too well-bred to insult his guest by addressing him as "Monsieur:" so, when he saw the sovereign advancing, he backed towards his car, and, before he could come up with him, gave orders to "let go."

I do not know whether Gambetta came in a carriage. It did not make its appearance on the Place St. Pierre; he probably left it, like meaner mortals, at the foot of the very steep hill. The cheering was immense, and he took it as if to the manner born. He was accompanied by M. Spuller, who was to take the journey with him, and who, even at that time, bore a curious likeness to Mr. Spurgeon. M. Spuller did not appear to claim any of the cheers for himself, for he kept perfectly stolid. Gambetta, on the other hand, bowed repeatedly, at which Nadar grinned. Nadar was always honest, if outspoken. He did not seem particularly pleased with the business in hand, and was evidently determined to get it over as soon as possible. Gambetta was still standing up, bowing and waving his hands, when Nadar gave the order to "let go" the ropes, and the dictator fell back into the lap of his companion. The balloon rose rather quickly, and about nine that same night we had the news that the balloon had safely landed in the Department of the Oise, about twelve miles from Clermont.

From that moment, the ascent of a balloon with its car containing one or two, sometimes three, wicker cages of carrier-pigeons, becomes a favourite spectacle with the Parisians, who would willingly see the departure of a dozen per day. For each departure means not only the conveyance of a budget of news from the besieged city to the provinces, it means the return of the winged messengers with perhaps hopeful tidings that the provinces are marching to the rescue. I am bound to say, at the same time, that the terrible anxiety for such rescue did not arise solely from a wish to escape further physical sufferings and privations. Three-fourths of the Parisians would have been willing to put up with worse for the sake of one terrible defeat inflicted upon the Germans by their levies or by those in the provinces.

But though the gas companies did wonders, fifty-two balloons having been inflated by them during the siege, they could do no more. Nevertheless, the experiments continue: the brothers Goddard have established their head-quarters at the Orléans Railway; MM. Dartois and Yon at the Northern; Admiral Labrousse, who has already invented an ingenious gun-carriage, is now busy upon a navigable balloon; the Government grants a subsidy of forty thousand francs to M. Dupuy de Lôme to assist him in his research; and at the Grande Hôtel there is a permanent exhibition of appliances for navigating the air under the direction of MM. Horeau and Saint-Felix. The public flock to them, and for a moment there is the hope that if we ourselves cannot come and go as free as birds, there will be at least a means of permanent communication with the outer world that way. M. Granier has proposed to make an aerial telegraph without the support of poles. The wire is to be enclosed in a gutta-percha tube filled with hydrogen gas, which will enable it to keep its altitude a thousand or fifteen hundred meters above the earth. The cable is to be paid out by balloons. M. Gaston Tissandier, a well-known authority in such matters, looks favourably upon the experiment; but, alas, it comes to nothing, and we have to fall back upon less ingenious, more commonplace means.