There is a story of a boy Lieutenant, von Schramm, who found himself suddenly in a crowd of Frenchmen. He leapt from his horse and hid in a house, in the hope of escaping by the back-door; but his pursuers caught him, and were taking him towards St. Denis, which lies to the north of Paris. In going through the park of Le Bourget the officer who carried von Schramm’s sword was shot and fell. The boy made a dash for his own sword, grasped the hilt and cut down the man on his other side, rushed for the small lake, dived to avoid pursuing bullets, and swam safely across to rejoin his regiment. The strange thing was that he had been on the sick-list before his winter ducking, but now he was blessed with a boy’s appetite.
It spoke well for the German besiegers that they got on so cordially with the villagers round Paris. These were mostly of the humbler sort; or servants left behind to take care of their master’s house. There were lovely country houses inhabited by a few German officers, and, were it not for the rents made by shot and shell, the owners would not have grumbled much at their condition when they returned to them, though, of course, there were cases where the boisterous fun of German Lieutenants played havoc with ormolu and gilding. I remember hearing[A] of a grand piano which gave forth reluctant sounds when the notes were pressed down. It was discovered that the strings had been plentifully smeared with jams and sweetmeats! But these jests were the exception.
The bombardment by the big guns had begun late in December with much excited wonder on the part of the Germans. Surely in a few days the Parisians will have had enough of exploding shells! Now here was almost the middle of January, and no effect visible. But the forts round Paris had no living population: no houses to be burnt, no women and children to mutilate. They had to be battered to bits, if possible; and Paris was behaving very heroically now. By the middle of January she was living very poorly indeed, but she endured yet another fifteen days longer.
As for the German soldiers, they began now to feel bored to death, as so often happens in a long siege. The first excitement evaporates; each day’s unlovely duties recur with abominable sameness—and the Germans could find no beer to drink. A German is used to drink plenty of beer, and can carry it without ill effects; but when Fritz took to drinking rum, schnapps, or arrack, he began to reel about the village streets and look rather disreputable.
It was a strange sight to mount some hill and get a view of Paris surrounded by its fifteen forts, and in a yet wider circle by the German lines. The foam of white smoke surged up all round; the thundering roar of cannon, the dull echo of distant guns made dismal music to the ear. The air of Paris is so clear compared to our English cities that all was quite visible; and now that wood was scarce and fires few, it was easy to mark the outlines of the larger buildings, though above them hung a brown pall of smoke, caused by exploding shells or houses that had caught fire.
Day after day there were rumours of this or that fort having been silenced. Now it was St. Denis, on the north side; now Valérien, on the west; now Vincennes, on the east; but the respite was only given to cool the guns or renew the emplacements, and all was as it had been. Besides this there was the daily fear of a new sortie, as Issy or Ivry broke out into fierce clamour on the south-west and south-east. Then troops would be hurriedly transferred along frozen or sometimes muddy roads, while splinters of shell were whizzing about rather too familiarly.
It was calculated that on a fierce day of firing the Germans shot away 10 tons of powder, and nearly 200 tons of heavy matter—iron and steel—were hurled upon the forts and city in twenty-four hours.
There is a story of the Crown Prince of Prussia which illustrates his kindness of heart. In the 3rd Würtemberg Dragoons was a certain Jacob, who had an aged and anxious father. This father had not heard from his son Jacob for so long a time that the old man, in his rustic simplicity, sat down and laboriously wrote a letter to the Crown Prince, asking, “Can Your Highness find out anything about my son?” The old man knew his son had fought at Wörth and at Sedan, but nothing later than Sedan. The Crown Prince did not throw this letter into the waste-paper basket, but sent it to the officer commanding the 3rd Würtembergers, requesting that the old man’s mind should be set at ease. Jacob was sent for by his commanding officer and asked why he had not written home.
“Do you know that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince wants to know why you have not written home for many weeks?”
The man saluted. His purple face was a study.