France in the Nineteenth Century

by Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer

Meantime Jules Favre, who had been appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs, had procured a safe-conduct from the Prussians, and had gone out to see Count Bismarck and King William, who had their headquarters at Baron Rothschild's beautiful country seat of Ferrières. His object was to obtain an armistice, that a National Assembly might be convoked which would consider the terms of peace with the Prussians.

The Chancellor of North Germany declared that he did not recognize the Committee of Defence, represented by Julus Favre, as a legitimate government of France competent to offer or to consider terms of peace. He treated M. Favre with the greatest haughtiness, utterly refusing any armistice, but at the close of their first interview he consented to see him again the next day.

"I was," says Jules Favre, "at the Château de Ferrières by eleven A. M., but Count Bismarck did not leave the king's apartments before twelve. I then gathered from him the conditions that he demanded for an armistice. They were written in German, and he read them over to me. He desired to occupy, as a guarantee, Strasburg, Toul, and Phalsbourg;[1] and as I had the day before named Paris as the place for the meeting of the Assembly, he wished in that case to have possession of some fort commanding the city. He named Fort Valérien. Here I interrupted him. 'You had better ask for Paris at once,' I said. 'How can a French Assembly be expected to deliberate when covered by your guns? I hardly know whether I dare to inform my Government that you have made such a proposal.' Tours was then named as a place for the Assembly. 'But,' said Bismarck, 'Strasburg must be surrendered. It is about to fall into our hands. All I ask is that the garrison shall constitute themselves prisoners of war.' At this I could restrain myself no longer. I sprang to my feet and said: 'Count Bismarck, you forget you are speaking to a Frenchman! To sacrifice an heroic garrison which has won our admiration and that of the whole world, would be an act of cowardice. Nor will I even promise to mention that you ever made such a demand.' He answered that he had not meant to wound my feelings, he was acting in conformity with the laws of war; but he would see what the king said about the matter. He returned in a quarter of an hour, and said that his master accepted my proposal as to Tours, but insisted on the surrender of the garrison of Strasburg."

[Footnote 1: Places still holding out against the Germans.]

At this, the negotiation was broken off, Jules Favre concluding by saying that "the inhabitants of Paris were resolved on making any sacrifices, and that their heroism might change the current of events."

The publication of this account of the interview with Bismarck produced through Paris a shiver of indignation. For a moment all parties were united, the very Reds crying out that there must be no more parties, only Frenchmen; and a slight success in a skirmish in one of the suburbs of Paris roused enthusiasm to its height in a few hours.

The National Guard now did duty as police, and was also placed on guard on the ramparts. Each man received thirty sous a day. The Guard was divided into the Old Battalions and the New. The Old Battalions were composed almost entirely of gentlemen and bourgeois, who returned their pay to the Government; the New Battalions, which were fresh levies of working-men, preferred in general a franc and a half a day for doing nothing, to higher wages for making shoes, guns, and uniforms. In vain the Government put forth proclamations assuring the people that the man who made a chassepot rifle was more of a patriot than he who carried one.

All through September the weather was delightful, and mounting guard upon the ramparts was like taking a pleasant stroll. The Mobiles occupied the forts outside of Paris, and were forbidden to come into the city in uniform. Of course there was much hunting for Prussian spies, and many people were arrested and maltreated, though only one genuine spy seems to have been found. The French in any popular excitement seem to have treachery upon the brain. One phase of their mania was the belief that any light seen moving in the upper stories of a house was a signal to the Prussians; and sometimes a whole district was disturbed because some quiet student had sat reading late at night with a green shade over his lamp, or a mother had been nursing a sick child.

As October went on, it became a sore trial to the Parisians to be cut off from all outside news. Not a letter nor a newspaper crossed the lines. Even the agents of Foreign Governments, and Mr. Washburne, the only foreign ambassador in Paris, were prohibited from hearing from their Governments, unless all communications were read by Bismarck before being forwarded to them. One great source of suffering to the men in Paris who had sent away their families was the knowledge that they must be in want of money. No one had anticipated a prolonged blockade.

Before the gates had been closed, two elderly members of the Committee of Defence—Crémieux and Garnier-Pagès—had been sent out to govern the Provinces. M. Thiers was visiting all the capitals of Europe, as a sort of ambassador-at-large, to enlist foreign diplomatic sympathy, and in October it was resolved to send out M. Gambetta, in the hope that he might organize a National Assembly, or perhaps induce the Southern Provinces (where he had great influence) to make a demonstration for the relief of the capital. Provincial France had long chafed under the idea that its government was made and unmade by the Parisians, and there was no great sympathy in the Provinces for Paris in her struggle with the Prussians, until it was shown how nobly the city and its inhabitants bore the hardships of the siege.