"That afternoon we saw some French peasants brought in; they had fired on the men who were stealing their carts, horses, and cows, and were to be shot. It was very sorrowful. We heard afterwards that the Crown Prince had pardoned them. Some noble-looking Zouave prisoners[1] were also brought in, and the crowd cheered them.
[Footnote 1: Possibly some of the men who had shown "regrettable haste" the day before.]
"About one P. M. a squad of Uhlans, with long lances and black-and-white flags came in; then came other men leading horses, all very handsome, belonging to the Crown Prince. Then came the royal baggage, cart after cart, mostly painted purple, with a great gold crown; but some carts had once been French. One of the bands had a brass drum, with the imperial eagle and 3d Zouaves painted on it. They showed it to the bystanders and laughed. We found that the Crown Prince was to be received at the prefecture,—a handsome building with a large court in front, and a black-and-gilt grille, such as they have round the palace and park. We went there at once. A guard of honor was drawn up in front, and a full band on each side of the gate. The Crown Prince was surrounded by a splendid staff. He is quite handsome, with large bushy beard and moustache. He was dressed like his officers, and wore a cap such as they all wear, with a scarlet band; but he had lots of decorations and a splendid diamond star. They all had most beautiful horses, and the effect was very kingly. The bands played, and the troops presented arms. The prince rode in first, then all followed him into the courtyard. They took possession, and the gates were closed. The next day the prince left to join the king at Ferrières. The palace is appropriated to the Prussian wounded."
By September 23 the Prussians had completed their investment of Paris. They were only two hundred and fifty thousand men, but, disciplined as we can see they were by the letter I have quoted, they were more than a match for the four hundred thousand disorganized and undisciplined crowd within the walls of the capital, who called themselves soldiers.
Strasburg surrendered on the very day that the Crown Prince of Prussia and his brilliant suite entered Versailles. Strasburg is the capital city of Alsace, and is considered the central point in the defence of the Rhine frontier. It has a glorious cathedral, and a library unsurpassed in its collection of historical documents of antiquity. It is an arch-bishopric, and had always been defended by a large garrison. With Paris, Lyons, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Rouen, it had stood foremost among French cities. It contained, when invested, twenty thousand fighting men, and it was besieged at first by a corps of about sixty thousand. Its investment was one of the first acts of the Germans on entering France. Strasburg made an heroic resistance for six weeks, and surrendered on the day when Jules Favre was assuring Count Bismarck that France would never repay the services of its heroic garrison by consenting to give them up as prisoners of war. Before its surrender it suffered six days' bombardment. A bombardment is far more destructive to a small town than to a city of "magnificent distances" like Paris. By September 9, a week after Sedan, ninety-eight Prussian rifled cannon and forty mortars were placed in position and directed against the walls of Strasburg, while forty other pieces were to bombard the citadel. By September 12 the defences of the city were laid in ruins. Two weeks after, it surrendered. The Mobiles and National Guards, being Alsatians, were sent to their homes; the remaining five thousand men, who were regular soldiers, were marched as prisoners of war into Germany. Hardly a house in Strasburg remained untouched by shells. The ordinary provisions were exhausted. The only thing eatable, of which there was abundance, was Strasburg pie, paté de foie gras,—the year's production of that delicacy having been stored in Strasburg for exportation.
The famous library was greatly injured, but the cathedral was not materially hurt. A German who had been in Hamburg during the time of the great fire, assured an English reporter that the scene of desolation in that city on the morning after the conflagration was less heart-rending than that presented by the ruined quarters of Strasburg when the Prussian conquerors marched in. And yet the inhabitants, had General Ulrich been willing, would have still fought on.
Metz capitulated one month after Strasburg, Oct. 27, 1870. Three marshals of France, six thousand officers, and one hundred and seventy-three thousand men surrendered to the Germans. Many were entirely demoralized; but the Garde Impériale, a body of picked troops, was faithful to the last.
"That a vast army which had given ample proof of military worth in the two great battles of Gravelotte, and which moreover possessed the support of the most important stronghold in France, should have permitted a scarcely superior enemy to hem it in and to detain it for weeks, making no earnest attempt to escape, and finally, at the conqueror's bidding, should have laid down its arms without striking a blow, would before the event," says an English military authority, "have seemed impossible. It set the investing force free to crush the new-made Army of the Loire, and it occurred in the nick of time to prevent the raising of the siege of Paris, which the Germans had in contemplation."
Smaller places held out nobly,—Phalsbourg in Alsace, and Thionville and Toul, but above all Belfort. Garibaldi was there with a considerable body of Italians and a contingent of two hundred well-armed Greeks. There was great jealousy of Garibaldi and his Italians in the Southern army, and their outrageous conduct towards priests and churches set against them the women and the peasantry.
Belfort never surrendered. But the army under Bourbaki, called the Army of the East, nearly a hundred thousand strong, suffered horribly in the latter days of the struggle. It was not included in the armistice made at the close of January, 1871, between Bismarck and Jules Favre, for Favre was in total ignorance of its position. Bourbaki attempted suicide. His soldiers, shoeless, tentless, and unprovided with provisions, pushed into the defiles of the Jura in the depths of one of the coldest winters ever known in Europe, hoping to escape into Switzerland. Eighty thousand men made their way over the mountains; fifteen thousand were made prisoners. A few escaped to their homes. A correspondent who saw them after they reached safety, said,—