There were, however, a few authentic instances of spying, one case being that of a young fellow whom Etienne Arago, the Mayor of Paris, engaged as a secretary, on the recommendation of Henri Rochefort, but who turned out to be of German extraction, and availed himself of his official position to draw up reports which were forwarded by balloon post to an agent of the German Government in London. I have forgotten the culprit's name, but it will be found, with particulars of his case, in the Paris journals of the siege days. There was, moreover, the Hardt affair, which resulted in the prisoner, a former lieutenant in the Prussian army, being convicted of espionage and shot in the courtyard of the Ecole Militaire.
Co-existent with "spyophobia" there was another craze, that of suspecting any light seen at night-time in an attic or fifth-floor window to be a signal intended for the enemy. Many ludicrous incidents occurred in connexion with this panic. One night an elderly bourgeois, who had recently married a charming young woman, was suddenly dragged from his bed by a party of indignant National Guards, and consigned to the watch-house until daybreak. This had been brought about by his wife's maid placing a couple of lighted candles in her window as a signal to the wife's lover that, "master being at home," he was not to come up to the flat that night. On another occasion a poor old lady, who was patriotically depriving herself of sleep in order to make lint for the ambulances, was pounced upon and nearly strangled for exhibiting green and red signals from her window. It turned out, however, that the signals in question were merely the reflections of a harmless though charmingly variegated parrot which was the zealous old dame's sole and faithful companion.
No matter what might be the quarter of Paris in which a presumed signal was observed, the house whence it emanated was at once invaded by National Guards, and perfectly innocent people were often carried off and subjected to ill-treatment. To such proportions did the craze attain that some papers even proposed that the Government should forbid any kind of light whatever, after dark, in any room situated above the second floor, unless the windows of that room were "hermetically sealed"! Most victims of the mania submitted to the mob's invasion of their homes without raising any particular protest; but a volunteer artilleryman, who wrote to the authorities complaining that his rooms had been ransacked in his absence and his aged mother frightened out of her wits, on the pretext that some fusees had been fired from his windows, declared that if there should be any repetition of such an intrusion whilst he was at home he would receive the invaders bayonet and revolver in hand. From that moment similar protests poured into the Hôtel-de-Ville, and Trochu ended by issuing a proclamation in which he said: "Under the most frivolous pretexts, numerous houses have been entered, and peaceful citizens have been maltreated. The flags of friendly nations have been powerless to protect the houses where they were displayed. I have ordered an inquiry on the subject, and I now command that all persons guilty of these abusive practices shall be arrested. A special service has been organized in order to prevent the enemy from keeping up any communication with any of its partisans in the city; and I remind everybody that excepting in such instances as are foreseen by the law every citizen's residence is inviolable."
We nowadays hear a great deal about the claims of women, but although the followers of Mrs. Pankhurst have carried on "a sort of a war" for a considerable time past, I have not yet noticed any disposition on their part to "join the colours." Men currently assert that women cannot serve as soldiers. There are, however, many historical instances of women distinguishing themselves in warfare, and modern conditions are even more favourable than former ones for the employment of women as soldiers. There is splendid material to be derived from the golf-girl, the hockey-girl, the factory- and the laundry-girl—all of them active, and in innumerable instances far stronger than many of the narrow-chested, cigarette-smoking "boys" whom we now see in our regiments. Briefly, a day may well come when we shall see many of our so-called superfluous women taking to the "career of arms." However, the attempts made to establish a corps of women-soldiers in Paris, during the German siege, were more amusing than serious. Early in October some hundreds of women demonstrated outside the Hôtel-de-Ville, demanding that all the male nurses attached to the ambulances should be replaced by women. The authorities promised to grant that application, and the women next claimed the right to share the dangers of the field with their husbands and their brothers. This question was repeatedly discussed at the public clubs, notably at one in the Rue Pierre Levée, where Louise Michel, the schoolmistress who subsequently participated in the Commune and was transported to New Caledonia, officiated as high-priestess; and at another located at the Triat Gymnasium in the Avenue Montaigne, where as a rule no men were allowed to be present, that is, excepting a certain Citizen Jules Allix, an eccentric elderly survivor of the Republic of '48, at which period he had devised a system of telepathy effected by means of "sympathetic snails."
One Sunday afternoon in October the lady members of this club, being in urgent need of funds, decided to admit men among their audience at the small charge of twopence per head, and on hearing this, my father and myself strolled round to witness the proceedings. They were remarkably lively. Allix, while reading a report respecting the club's progress, began to libel some of the Paris convents, whereupon a National Guard in the audience flatly called him a liar. A terrific hubbub arose, all the women gesticulating and protesting, whilst their présidente energetically rang her bell, and the interrupter strode towards the platform. He proved to be none other than the Duc de Fitz-James, a lineal descendant of our last Stuart King by Marlborough's sister, Arabella Churchill. He tried to speak, but the many loud screams prevented him from doing so. Some of the women threatened him with violence, whilst a few others thanked him for defending the Church. At last, however, he leapt on the platform, and in doing so overturned both a long table covered with green baize, and the members of the committee who were seated behind it. Jules Allix thereupon sprang at the Duke's throat, they struggled and fell together from the platform, and rolled in the dust below it. It was long before order was restored, but this was finally effected by a good-looking young woman who, addressing the male portion of the audience, exclaimed: "Citizens! if you say another word we will fling what you have paid for admission in your faces, and order you out of doors!"
Business then began, the discussion turning chiefly upon two points, the first being that all women should be armed and do duty on the ramparts, and the second that the women should defend their honour from the attacks of the Germans by means of prussic acid. Allix remarked that it would be very appropriate to employ prussic acid in killing Prussians, and explained to us that this might be effected by means of little indiarubber thimbles which the women would place on their fingers, each thimble being tipped with a small pointed tube containing some of the acid in question. If an amorous Prussian should venture too close to a fair Parisienne, the latter would merely have to hold out her hand and prick him. In another instant he would fall dead! "No matter how many of the enemy may assail her," added Allix, enthusiastically, "she will simply have to prick them one by one, and we shall see her standing still pure and holy in the midst of a circle of corpses!" At these words many of the women in the audience were moved to tears, but the men laughed hilariously.
Such disorderly scenes occurred at this women's club, that the landlord of the Triat Gymnasium at last took possession of the premises again, and the ejected members vainly endeavoured to find accommodation elsewhere. Nevertheless, another scheme for organizing an armed force of women was started, and one day, on observing on the walls of Paris a green placard which announced the formation of a "Legion of Amazons of the Seine," I repaired to the Rue Turbigo, where this Legion's enlistment office had been opened. After making my way up a staircase crowded with recruits, who were mostly muscular women from five-and-twenty to forty years of age, the older ones sometimes being unduly stout, and not one of them, in my youthful opinion, at all good-looking, I managed to squeeze my way into the private office of the projector of the Legion, or, as he called himself, its "Provisional Chef de Bataillon." He was a wiry little man, with a grey moustache and a military bearing, and answered to the name of Félix Belly. A year or two previously he had unjustly incurred a great deal of ridicule in Paris, owing to his attempts to float a Panama Canal scheme. Only five years after the war, however, the same idea was taken up by Ferdinand de Lesseps, and French folk, who had laughed it to scorn in Belly's time, proved only too ready to fling their hard-earned savings into the bottomless gulf of Lesseps' enterprise.
I remember having a long chat with Belly, who was most enthusiastic respecting his proposed Amazons. They were to defend the ramparts and barricades of Paris, said he, being armed with light guns carrying some 200 yards; and their costume, a model of which was shown me, was to consist of black trousers with orange-coloured stripes down the outer seams, black blouses with capes, and black képis, also with orange trimmings. Further, each woman was to carry a cartridge-box attached to a shoulder-belt. It was hoped that the first battalion would muster quite 1200 women, divided into eight companies of 150 each. There was to be a special medical service, and although the chief doctor would be a man, it was hoped to secure several assistant doctors of the female sex. Little M. Belly dwelt particularly on the fact that only women of unexceptionable moral character would be allowed to join the force, all recruits having to supply certificates from the Commissaries of Police of their districts, as well as the consent of their nearest connexions, such as their fathers or their husbands. "Now, listen to this," added M. Belly, enthusiastically, as he went to a piano which I was surprised to find, standing in a recruiting office; and seating himself at the instrument, he played for my especial benefit the stirring strains of a new, specially-commissioned battle-song, which, said he, "we intend to call the Marseillaise of the Paris Amazons!"
Unfortunately for M. Belly, all his fine projects and preparations collapsed a few days afterwards, owing to the intervention of the police, who raided the premises in the Rue Turbigo, and carried off all the papers they found there. They justified these summary proceedings on the ground that General Trochu had forbidden the formation of any more free corps, and that M. Belly had unduly taken fees from his recruits. I believe, however, that the latter statement was incorrect. At all events, no further proceedings were instituted. But the raid sufficed to kill M. Belly's cherished scheme, which naturally supplied the caricaturists of the time with more or less brilliant ideas. One cartoon represented the German army surrendering en masse to a mere battalion of the Beauties of Paris.