In other words, we are offering tempting fees to plucky individuals who will attempt to cross the Prussian lines. Several do make the attempt, and for a week or so the newspapers and the walls swarm with advertisements of a private firm who will forward and receive despatches at the rate of ten francs per letter. A good many messengers depart; a good many return almost at once, finding the task impossible; those that do not return have presumably been shot by the Prussians, for not a single one reached his destination.
Then we begin to turn our thoughts to the sheep-dog as a carrier of messengers, or rather to the smuggler's dog, thousands of which are known to exist on the Belgian and Swiss frontiers. The postal authorities go even so far as to promise two hundred francs for every batch of despatches if delivered within twenty-four hours of the animal's departure from his starting-place, and fifty francs less for every twenty-four hours' delay; but the animals fall a prey to the Prussian sentries, not one of them succeeds in reaching the French outposts. The carrier-pigeon is all we have left.
Still, we are not discouraged; and in less than a month after the investment, the Parisians begin to clamour for their favourite amusement—the theatre. There are, of course, many divergencies of opinion with regard to the fitness of the measure, and we get some capital articles on the subject, studded with witty sentences and relieved by historical anecdotes, showing that, whatever they may not know, French journalists have an inexhaustible fund of parallels when it becomes a question of the playhouse. "In '92 the Lillois went peacefully to the theatre while the shells were pouring into the devoted city. Why should we be less courageous and less cheerful than they?" writes one. "Nero was fiddling while Rome was burning," writes another, "but Paris is not on fire yet; and, if it were, the Nero who might be blamed for the catastrophe is at Wilhelmshöhe, where, we may be sure, he will not eat a mouthful less for our pangs of hunger. If he does not fiddle, it is because, like his famous uncle, he has no ear for music."
"Whatever may happen," writes M. Francisque Sarcey in the Gaulois, "art should be considered superior to all things; the theatre is not a more unseemly pleasure under the circumstances than the perusal of a good book; and it is just in the darkest and saddest hours of his life that a man needs a diversion which will, for a little while, at least, prevent him from brooding upon his sufferings."
To which "Thomas Grimm," of Le Petit Journal, who is on the opposite side, replies: "If I may be allowed to intervene in so grave a question, I have no hesitation in saying that the time for singing and amusing ourselves has not arrived. It seems to me very doubtful whether the spectators would not be constantly thinking of scenes enacted in other spots than behind the footlights. And in such moments, when they might concentrate the whole of their attention on the pleasant fiction enacted before them, the sound of the cannon thundering in the distance would more than once recall them to the reality."
The ice was virtually broken, and on Sunday, the 23rd of October, the Cirque National opened its doors for a concert. During the last five years, as my readers will perceive by the almost involuntary break in these notes, I had not been so assiduous a frequenter of the theatre and the concert hall as I used to be, and though I was during the siege overburdened with business, on the nature of which I need not dwell here, I felt that I wanted some amusement. The evenings were becoming chilly, one of my cherished companions was doing his duty with General Vinoy, and, though I had practically unlimited means at my command for my necessities, and am by no means sparing of money at any time, I grudged the price of fuel. As yet, wood only cost six francs the hundredweight, but it was such wood! If the ancient proverb-coiner had been seated in front of the hearth in which it was trying to burn, he might have hesitated to write that "there is no smoke without a fire." The friendly chats by the fireside, which I had enjoyed for many years, had almost entirely ceased. Nearly all my familiars were "on duty," and the few hours they could snatch were either spent in bed, to rest from the fatigue and discomforts of the night, or else at the cafés and restaurants, where the news, mostly of an anecdotal kind, was circulating freely. In fact, the cafés and restaurants, as long as there was fuel and light, were more amusing during the siege than I had known them to be at any time. Perhaps the most amusing feature of these nightly gatherings was the presentation of the bill after dinner. The prices charged at the Café de Paris in its palmiest days were child's play compared to the actual ones. I have preserved the note of a breakfast for two at Durand's.
| frs. | |
| Hors d'Œuvres (Radishes and Sausage) | 10 |
| Entrée (Navarin aux Pommes) | 18 |
| Filet de Bœuf aux Champignons | 24 |
| Omelette Sucrée (3 œufs) | 12 |
| Café | 1 |
| 1 Bouteille de Mâcon | 6 |
| —— | |
| Total frs. | 71 |
The bread and butter were included in the hors-d'œuvres, and I may remark that the entrée and the filet de bœuf were only for one. Durand's was the cheapest of the five restaurants which still retained their ordinary clientèle. Bignon, Voisin, the Cafés de la Paix and Anglais were much dearer. The latter gave its patrons white bread as late as the 16th of December.
I made up my mind, then, to go to that concert at the Cirque National, and to as many of the entertainments as might be offered. I have rarely seen such a crowd outside a theatre; and I doubt whether the fact of the performance being for a charitable purpose had much to do with it, because, if so, those who were denied admission might have handed their money at the box-office, but they did not, they only gave the reverse of their blessing. If charity it was, it did not want to end at home that afternoon.
The entertainment began with a charity sermon by the Abbé Duquesnay, a hard-working priest in one of the thickly populated quarters of Paris. I would willingly give another ten francs to hear a similar sermon. I am positive that the Abbé had taken Laurence Sterne for his model. I have never heard anything so brilliant in my life. Not the slightest attempt at thrusting religion down one's throat. A good many quotations on the advantages of well-doing, notably that of Shakespeare, admirably translated, probably by the speaker himself. Then the following to wind up with: "I do not know of a single curmudgeon who has ever been converted into what I should call 'a genuine almsgiver,' by myself, or by my fellow-priests. When he did give, he looked upon the gift as a loan to the Lord in virtue of that gospel precept which you all know. Now, my good friends, allow me to give you my view of that sentence: God is just, and no doubt He will repay the loan with interest, but after He has settled the account, He will indict the lender before the Highest tribunal for usury. Consequently, if you have an idea of placing your money in that way with God as a security, you had better keep it in your purses."