CHAPTER I
PARIS BESIEGED
The Political Situation
It was the last week in the month of October, 1870. M. Jules Favre, at that time Vice-President and Minister for Foreign Affairs in the National Defence Government, summoned me to his office in the Quai d’Orsay and said:
“You will find it very strange, but since yesterday I have changed my mind. I now wish to entrust you with another mission. I want you to go to Vienna and London. The last news which has reached us makes me hope for a change of public opinion in Europe. There is beginning to be anxiety for our fate; public sympathy seems to be turning in our favour and coming back to us. Europe admires the resistance we are making and is perhaps not far from wishing us successful.”
In his grave and wonderfully modulated voice he described the situation as it appeared to him. Paris was splendid in its courage and enthusiasm; the whole of France was up and decided for resistance; South Germany was discontented with the iron hand weighing upon her, and anxious to finish a war into which she had been dragged against her will, and which was devouring her strength and ruining her country. Finally, Europe returned from her apathy, was deeply impressed by France’s efforts, and looked forward to the end of what threatened to degenerate into a war of destruction which would seriously shatter the equilibrium and general interests of Europe.
I am well aware that this picture was not true at all points; I know that there was much illusion in the hope which animated the Minister’s patriotic heart, of seeing Europe cast aside her inertia and raise her voice on behalf of conquered France against the conqueror ... in favour of a great and generous people which had fought so much for others, and which was now defending its own hearths and the integrity of its national soil against a formidable invasion.
To-day we know all the springs of that steel ring which encircled France and checkmated the whole of Europe by robbing her of all initiative and liberty of movement. To-day it is certainly easy to laugh at these generous hopes, but at that moment they were shared by all. And it would have been difficult in the great, brave town of Paris, where so much devotion, energy and patriotism had united for a supreme struggle for existence, to find spirits sober enough to consider the enterprise a vain one, or sufficiently far-sighted or discouraged to regard such generous promptings as illusions.
You who have lived through the siege of Paris, try and recollect the tremendous change which the situation had undergone since the 4th of September, and admit I am not exaggerating.
After the disaster of Sedan, when the enemy’s columns were marching without obstacle against a Paris shorn of troops, materials and munitions of war,—lacking everything that might allow of further resistance—everyone thought that the war was finished, that the defeat of France was consummated, and that resistance, even for a day, would be absolutely impossible.
We were told at that time to “hold out” a little longer, to resist for only a few weeks, in order to allow public opinion in Europe to awaken. If Paris could defend herself, if she could only maintain herself a few weeks, we were told, the impression in Europe would be immense, and sympathy for us would revive. The provinces would have time to form an army and to come to our rescue, and Europe would be able to raise her voice in favour of an honourable peace.