In the evening I strolled with my father to the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, where many people were congregated, A fairly large body of National Guards was posted in front of the building, most of whose windows were lighted up. The members of the New Government of National Defence were deliberating there. Trochu had become its President, and Jules Favre its Vice-President and Minister for Foreign Affairs. Henri Rochefort, released that afternoon by his admirers from the prison of Sainte Pélagie, was included in the administration, this being in the main composed of the deputies for Paris. Only one of the latter, the cautious Thiers, refused to join it. He presided, however, that same evening over a gathering of some two hundred members of the moribund Legislative Body, which then made a forlorn attempt to retain some measure of authority, by coming to some agreement with the new Government. But Jules Favre and Jules Simon, who attended the meeting on the latter's behalf, would not entertain the suggestion. It was politely signified to the deputies that their support in Paris was not required, and that if they desired to serve their country in any way, they had better betake themselves to their former constituencies in the provinces. So far as the Legislative Body and the Senate, [Note] also, were concerned, everything ended in a delightful bit of comedy. Not only were the doors of their respective meeting halls looked, but they were "secured" with strips of tape and seals of red wax. The awe with which red sealing-wax inspires Frenchmen is distinctly a trait of the national character. Had there been, however, a real Bonaparte in Paris at that time, he would probably have cut off the aforesaid seals with his sword.
[Note: The Senate, over which Rouher presided, dispensed quietly on hearing of the invasion of the Chamber. The proposal that it should adjourn till more fortunate times emanated from Rouher himself. A few cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" were raised as the assembly dispersed. Almost immediately afterwards, however, most of the Senators, including Rouher, who knew that he was very obnoxious to the Parisians, quitted the city and even France.]
On the morning of September 5, the Charivari—otherwise the daily Parisian Punch—came out with a cartoon designed to sum up the whole period covered by the imperial rule. It depicted France bound hand and foot and placed between the mouths of two cannons, one inscribed "Paris, 1851," and the other "Sedan, 1870"—those names and dates representing the Alpha and Omega of the Second Empire.
IV
FROM REVOLUTION TO SIEGE
The Government of National Defence—The Army of Paris—The Return of Victor Hugo—The German advance on Paris—The National Guard reviewed—Hospitable Preparations for the Germans—They draw nearer still—Departure of Lord Lyons—Our Last Day of Liberty—On the Fortifications—The Bois de Boulogne and our Live Stock—Mass before the Statue of Strasbourg—Devout Breton Mobiles—Evening on the Boulevards and in the Clubs—Trochu and Ducrot—The Fight and Panic of Chatillon—The Siege begins.
As I shall have occasion in these pages to mention a good many members of the self-constituted Government which succeeded the Empire, it may be as well for me to set down here their names and the offices they held. I have already mentioned that Trochu was President, and Jules Favre Vice-President, of the new administration. The former also retained his office as Governor of Paris, and at the same time became Generalissimo. Favre, for his part, took the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. With him and Trochu were Gambetta, Minister of the Interior; Jules Simon, Minister of Public Instruction; Adolphe Crémieux, Minister of Justice; Ernest Picard, Minister of Finance; Jules Ferry, Secretary-General to the Government, and later Mayor of Paris; and Henri Rochefort, President of the Committee of Barricades. Four of their colleagues, Emmanuel Arago, Garnier-Pagès, Eugène Pelletan, and Glais-Bizoin, did not take charge of any particular administrative departments, the remainder of these being allotted to men whose co-operation was secured. For instance, old General Le Flô became Minister of War—under Trochu, however, and not over him. Vice-Admiral Fourichon was appointed Minister of Marine; Magnin, an iron-master, became Minister of Commerce and Agriculture; Frédéric Dorian, another iron-master, took the department of Public Works; Count Emile de Kératry acted as Prefect of Police, and Etienne Arago, in the earlier days, as Mayor of Paris.
The new Government was fully installed by Tuesday, September 6. It had already issued several more or less stirring proclamations, which were followed by a despatch which Jules Favre addressed to the French diplomatic representatives abroad. As a set-off to the arrival of a number of dejected travel-stained fugitives from MacMahon's army, whose appearance was by no means of a nature to exhilarate the Parisians, the defence was reinforced by a large number of Gardes Mobiles, who poured into the city, particularly from Brittany, Trochu's native province, and by a considerable force of regulars, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, commanded by the veteran General Vinoy (then seventy years of age), who had originally been despatched to assist MacMahon, but, having failed to reach him before the disaster of Sedan, retreated in good order on the capital. At the time when the Siege actually commenced there were in Paris about 90,000 regulars (including all arms and categories), 110,000 Mobile Guards, and a naval contingent of 13,500 men, that is a force of 213,000, in addition to the National Guards, who were about 280,000 in number. Thus, altogether, nearly half a million armed men were assembled in Paris for the purpose of defending it. As all authorities afterwards admitted, this was a very great blunder, as fully 100,000 regulars and mobiles might have been spared to advantage for service in the provinces. Of course the National Guards themselves could not be sent away from the city, though they were often an encumbrance rather than a help, and could not possibly have carried on the work of defence had they been left to their own resources.
Besides troops, so long as the railway trains continued running, additional military stores and supplies of food, flour, rice, biscuits, preserved meats, rolled day by day into Paris. At the same time, several illustrious exiles returned to the capital. Louis Blanc and Edgar Quinet arrived there, after years of absence, in the most unostentatious fashion, though they soon succumbed to the prevailing mania of inditing manifestoes and exhortations for the benefit of their fellow-countrymen. Victor Hugo's return was more theatrical. In those famous "Châtiments" in which he had so severely flagellated the Third Napoleon (after, in earlier years, exalting the First to the dignity of a demi-god), he had vowed to keep out of France and to protest against the Empire so long as it lasted, penning, in this connection, the famous line:
"Et s'il n'en reste qu'un, je serai celui-là!"