Droves of cattle passed all day along the Boulevards, going to be pastured in the Bois de Boulogne, where they were tended by Gardes Mobiles from the rural districts. The cattle, the camps, and the fortifications attracted crowds of curious spectators.
The tap of the drum was wellnigh incessant in the city; and while the enemy was drawing near, and bloody defeats followed each other in rapid succession, the Parisians seemed chiefly stimulated to write fresh libels in the newspapers, and to amuse each other with caricatures and satires.
Among other foolish measures was that of ordering all firemen from the departments up to Paris. They remained in the city a week, and were then sent home. In their absurd and heavy uniforms, and with nothing whatever to do, the poor country fellows presented a miserable appearance as they sat in rows along the curbstones of the avenues, with their helmets glittering in the August sun, "looking," as some one remarked, "like so many rare beetles on exhibition," the spectacle being all the more ludicrous from the extreme dejection of the innocent heroes.
Troops were always on the move. The Gardes Mobiles, formed into companies, were not wanted anywhere. Being too raw as yet for active service, they were transferred from one barrack to another, and were drilled in the open streets and in the public squares. The forts absorbed a number of them; others were employed as shepherds and drovers. The surplus was billeted on the citizens.
Towards the end of August there began to be a notion that the city was full of spies, and all suspected persons were called Prussians. The mania for spy-hunting became general, and was frequently very inconvenient to Americans and Englishmen. Germans in Paris, many of whom had intermarried with the French, naturally found themselves in a most unhappy situation. At first they were strictly forbidden to leave Paris; then suddenly they were ordered away, on three days' notice, under penalty of being treated as prisoners of war.
This decree affected eighty thousand persons in France, nearly all of whom were connected by family ties or business relations with the country of their adoption. The outcry raised by the English and German Press about this summary expulsion procured some modification of the order,—not, however, without a protest from the radicals, who clamored for the rigor of the law. Mr. Washburne, the American minister, the only foreign ambassador who remained in Paris during the siege, had accepted the charge of these unhappy Germans, and heart-breaking scenes took place daily at the American Legation.
Soon after the defeats in the first week in August, Mr. Washburne had his last interview with the Empress Eugénie.
"She had evidently," he says, "passed a sleepless and agitated night, and was in great distress of mind. She at once began to speak of the terrible news she had received, and the effect it would have on the French people. I suggested to her that the news might not be quite so bad as was reported (alas! it was far worse), and that the consequences might in the end be far better than present circumstances indicated. I spoke to her about the first battle of Bull Run, and the defeat that the Union army had there suffered, which had only stimulated the country to greater exertions. She replied: 'I only wish the French in these respects were like you Americans; but I am afraid they will get too much discouraged, and give up too soon.'"[1]
[Footnote 1: Recollections of a Minister to France.]
All this time the "Figaro" was publishing articles that held out hopes of victory and flattered the self-confidence of the Parisians. Marshals MacMahon and Bazaine were represented as leading the enemy craftily into a snare, and the illusion was kept up that the Germans would be cut to pieces by the peasantry "before they could lay their sacrilegious hands," said Victor Hugo, "upon the Mecca of civilization." Instead of this, the Crown Prince's army was marching in pursuit of MacMahon's forces through the great plains of Champagne. MacMahon had some design of turning back, uniting with another army corps, and attacking the Prussians in the rear, thus hemming in part of their army between himself and the troops of Bazaine in Metz; but he seems to have been really in the position of a pawn driven about a chess-board by an experienced player.