The young vocalist who sang it from the top of a Passy-Bourse omnibus on that fateful day of Wörth, claimed to be a tenor, but was more correctly a tenorino, his voice possessing far more sweetness than power. He was already well-known and popular, for he had taken the part of Romeo in Gounod's well-known opera based on the Shakespearean play. Like many another singer, Victor Capoul might have become forgotten before very long, but a curious circumstance, having nothing to do with vocalism, diffused and perpetuated his name. He adopted a particular way of dressing his hair, "plastering" a part of it down in a kind of semi-circle over the forehead; and the new style "catching on" among young Parisians, the "coiffure Capoul" eventually went round the world. It is exemplified in certain portraits of King George V.
In those war-days Capoul sang the "Marseillaise" either at the Opéra Comique or the Théâtre Lyrique; but at the Opera it was sung by Marie Sass, then at the height of her reputation. I came in touch with her a few years later when she was living in the Paris suburbs, and more than once, when we both travelled to the city in the same train, I had the honour of assisting her to alight from it—this being no very easy matter, as la Sass was the very fattest and heaviest of all the prime donne that I have ever seen.
On the same day that MacMahon was defeated at Wörth, Frossard was badly beaten at Forbach, an engagement witnessed by my elder brother Edward, [Born January 1, 1847, and therefore in 1870 in his twenty-fourth year.] who, as I previously mentioned, had gone to the front for an American journal. Finding it impossible to telegraph the news of this serious French reverse, he contrived to make his way to Paris on a locomotive- engine, and arrived at our flat in the Rue de Miromesnil looking as black as any coal-heaver. When he had handed his account of the affair to Ryan, the Paris representative of the New York Times, it was suggested that his information might perhaps be useful to the French Minister of War. So he hastened to the Ministry, where the news he brought put a finishing touch to the dismay of the officials, who were already staggering under the first news of the disaster of Wörth.
Paris, jubilant over an imaginary victory, was enraged by the tidings of Wörth and Forbach. Already dreading some Revolutionary enterprise, the Government declared the city to be in a state of siege, thereby placing it under military authority. Although additional men had recently been enrolled in the National Guard the arming of them had been intentionally delayed, precisely from a fear of revolutionary troubles, which the entourage of the Empress-Regent at Saint Cloud feared from the very moment of the first defeats. I recollect witnessing on the Place Venddme one day early in August a very tumultuous gathering of National Guards who had flocked thither in order to demand weapons of the Prime Minister, that is, Emile Ollivier, who in addition to the premiership, otherwise the "Presidency of the Council," held the offices of Keeper of the Seals and Minister of Justice, this department then having its offices in one of the buildings of the Place Vendôme. Ollivier responded to the demonstration by appearing on the balcony of his private room and delivering a brief speech, which, embraced a vague promise to comply with the popular demand. In point of fact, however, nothing of the kind was done during his term of office.
Whilst writing these lines I hear that this much-abused statesman has just passed away at Saint Gervais-les-Bains in Upper Savoy (August 20, 1913). Born at Marseilles in July, 1825, he lived to complete his eighty-eighth year. His second wife (née Gravier), to whom I referred in a previous chapter, survives him. I do not wish to be unduly hard on his memory. He came, however, of a very Republican family, and in his earlier years he personally evinced what seemed to be most staunch Republicanism. When he was first elected as a member of the Legislative Body in 1857, he publicly declared that he would appear before that essentially Bonapartist assembly as one of the spectres of the crime of the Coup d'Etat. But subsequently M. de Morny baited him with a lucrative appointment connected with the Suez Canal. Later still, the Empress smiled on him, and finally he took office under the Emperor, thereby disgusting nearly every one of his former friends and associates.
I believe, however, that Ollivier was sincerely convinced of the possibility of firmly establishing a liberal-imperialist regime. But although various reforms were carried out under his auspices, it is quite certain that he was not allowed a perfectly free hand. Nor was he fully taken into confidence with respect to the Emperor's secret diplomatic and military policy. That was proved by the very speech in which he spoke of entering upon the war with Prussia "with a light heart"; for in his very next sentences he spoke of that war as being absolutely forced upon France, and of himself and his colleagues as having done all that was humanly and honourably possible to avoid it. Assuredly he would not have spoken quite as he did had he realized at the time that Bismarck had merely forced on the war in order to defeat the Emperor Napoleon's intention to invade Germany in the ensuing spring. The public provocation on Prussia's part was, as I previously showed, merely her reply to the secret provocation offered by France, as evidenced by all the negotiations with Archduke Albert on behalf of Austria, and with Count Vimercati on behalf of Italy. On all those matters Ollivier was at the utmost but very imperfectly informed. Finally, be it remembered that he was absent from the Council at Saint Cloud at which war was finally decided upon.
At a very early hour on the morning of Sunday, August 7—the day following Wörth and Forbach—the Empress Eugénie came in all haste and sore distress from Saint Cloud to the Tuileries. The position was very serious, and anxious conferences were held by the ministers. When the Legislative Body met on the morrow, a number of deputies roundly denounced the manner in which the military operations were being conducted. One deputy, a certain Guyot-Montpeyroux, who was well known for the outspokenness of his language, horrified the more devoted Imperialists by describing the French forces as an army of lions led by jackasses. On the following day Ollivier and his colleagues resigned office. Their position had become untenable, though little if any responsibility attached to them respecting the military operations. The Minister of War, General Dejean, had been merely a stop-gap, appointed to carry out the measures agreed upon before his predecessor, Marshal Le Boeuf, had gone to the front as Major General of the army.
It was felt; however, among the Empress's entourage that the new Prime Minister ought to be a military man of energy, devoted, moreover, to the Imperial régime. As the marshals and most of the conspicuous generals of the time were already serving in the field, it was difficult to find any prominent individual possessed of the desired qualifications. Finally, however, the Empress was prevailed upon to telegraph to an officer whom she personally disliked, this being General Cousin-Montauban, Comte de Palikao. He was certainly, and with good reason, devoted to the Empire, and in the past he had undoubtedly proved himself to be a man of energy. But he was at this date in his seventy-fifth year—a fact often overlooked by historians of the Franco-German war—and for that very reason, although he had solicited a command in the field at the first outbreak of hostilities, it had been decided to decline his application, and to leave him at Lyons, where he had commanded the garrison for five years past.
Thirty years of Palikao's life had been spent in Algeria, contending, during most of that time, against the Arabs; but in 1860 he had been appointed commander of the French expedition to China, where with a small force he had conducted hostilities with the greatest vigour, repeatedly decimating or scattering the hordes of Chinamen who were opposed to him, and, in conjunction with the English, victoriously taking Pekin. A kind of stain rested on the expedition by reason of the looting of the Chinese Emperor's summer-palace, but the entire responsibility of that affair could not be cast on the French commander, as he only continued and completed what the English began. On his return to France, Napoleon III created him Comte de Palikao (the name being taken from one of his Chinese victories), and in addition wished the Legislative Body to grant him a dotation. However, the summer-palace looting scandal prevented this, much to the Emperor's annoyance, and subsequent to the fall of the Empire it was discovered that, by Napoleon's express orders, the War Ministry had paid Palikao a sum of about £60,000, diverting that amount of money (in accordance with the practices of the time) from the purpose originally assigned to it in the Estimates.
This was not generally known when Palikao became Chief Minister. He was then what might be called a very well preserved old officer, but his lungs had been somewhat affected by a bullet-wound of long standing, and this he more than once gave as a reason for replying with the greatest brevity to interpellations in the Chamber. Moreover, as matters went from bad to worse, this same lung trouble became a good excuse for preserving absolute silence on certain inconvenient occasions. When, however, Palikao was willing to speak he often did so untruthfully, repeatedly adding the suggestio falsi to the suppressio veri. As a matter of fact, he, like other fervent partisans of the dynasty, was afraid to let the Parisians know the true state of affairs. Besides, he himself was often ignorant of it. He took office (he was the third War Minister in fifty days) without any knowledge whatever of the imperial plan of campaign, or the steps to be adopted in the event of further French reverses, and a herculean task lay before this septuagenarian officer, who by experience knew right well how to deal with Arabs and Chinamen, but had never had to contend with European troops. Nevertheless, he displayed zeal and activity in his new semi-political and semi-military position. He greatly assisted MacMahon to reconstitute his army at Châlons, he planned the organization of three more army corps, and he started on the work of placing Paris in a state of defence, whilst his colleague, Clément Duvernois, the new Minister of Commerce, began gathering flocks and herds together, in order that the city, if besieged, might have the necessary means of subsistence.