Along with the false news, some true intelligence also came to us—some whose truth was proved afterwards. Such as about a panic that broke out on the road of Grand Luce near Mans, in which horrible deeds took place—soldiers getting beyond control, throwing the wounded out of the railway carriages that were all standing ready, and taking their places themselves.
It became more difficult every day to get food. The supply of meat was exhausted; there had for a long time now been no longer any beeves or sheep in the cattle parks that had been formed; all the horses also were soon eaten up, and then the period began when the dogs and cats, the rats and mice, and finally the beasts in the Jardin des Plantes also, even the poor elephant, who was such a favourite, had to serve as food. Bread could now be hardly procured. The people had to stand in rows for hours after hours in front of the bakers’ shops in order to get their little ration, and still most of them had to go empty away. Exhaustion and sickness made Death’s harvest a rich one. Whilst ordinarily 1100 died in a week, the death-list of Paris in these times rose to between 4000 and 5000 weekly. That is, there were every day between 400 and 500 unnatural deaths—that is to say, murders. For if the murderer is not an individual man, but an impersonal thing, viz., war, it is not any the less murder. Whose is the responsibility? Does it not lie on those parliamentary swaggerers, who in their provocative speeches declared with proud self-assumption—as that Girardin did in the sitting of July 15—that they “took on themselves the responsibility for this war in the face of history”? Could, then, any man’s shoulders be sufficiently strong to bear such a load of guilt? Surely not. But no one thinks of taking such boasters at their word.
One day—it was about January 20—Frederick came into my room, with an excited look, on his return from a walk in the city.
“Take your diary in hand, my busy little historian,” he called out to me. “To-day a mighty despatch has come.” And he threw himself into a chair.
“Which of my books?” I asked. “The Protocol of Peace?”
Frederick shook his head.
“Oh that will be out of use for long. The war, which is now being fought out, is of too powerful a nature not to proceed to its end, and give rise to renewed war. On the side of the vanquished it has scattered such a plenty of the seeds of hatred and revenge, that a future harvest of war must grow out of them; and on the other side, it has brought such magnificent and bewildering successes to the victors, that for them an equally great seed-time of warlike pride must grow out of it.”
“What, then, has happened of such importance?”
“King William has been proclaimed German Emperor in Versailles. There is now one Germany—one single empire—and a mighty empire too. That forms a new chapter in what is called the history of the world. And you may think for yourself, how, from the birth of this empire, which is the product of war, that trade will be held high in honour. It is, therefore, from this time, the two continental states most advanced in civilisation which will chiefly nourish the war spirit—the one, in order to return the blow it has received, the other, in order to keep the position it has conquered amongst the powers—from hatred on that side, from love on this—on that side from lust of revenge, on this from gratitude—it comes to the same thing. Shut your Protocol of Peace—for a long time henceforth we shall abide under the blood-and-iron sign of Mars.”
“German Emperor!” I cried, “that really is grand;” and I got him to tell me the particulars of this event.