Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris

by Henry Du Pré Labouchere

The notions of a Pall Mall dandy respecting Southwark or the Tower Hamlets are not more vague than those of the Parisian bourgeois or the Professional French journalist respecting the vast Faubourgs peopled by the working men which encircle this city. From actual observation they know nothing of them. They believe them to be the homes of a dangerous class—communistic and anarchical in its tendencies, the sworn foes alike of law, order, and property. The following are the articles of faith of the journalist:—France is the world. Paris is France. The boulevards, the theatres, some fifty writers on the press, and the bourgeoisie of the fashionable quarters of the city, are Paris. Within this narrow circle he may reason justly, but he never emerges from it, and consequently cannot instruct others about what he does not know himself. Since the fall of the Emperor, the Parisian bourgeois has vaguely felt that he has been surrounded by two hostile armies—the Prussian without the walls, and the working men within. He has placed his trust in Trochu, as twenty years ago he did in Cavaignac. The siege had not lasted a week before he became convinced that the Prussians were afraid of him, because they had not attacked the town; and within the last few days he has acquired the conviction, upon equally excellent grounds, that the working men also tremble before his martial attitude. On Friday last he achieved what he considers a crowning triumph, and he is now under the impression that he has struck terror into the breasts of the advocates of the Commune by marching with his battalion to the Hôtel de Ville. "We"—and by "we" he means General Trochu and himself—"we have shown them that we are not to be trifled with," is his boast from morning to night. Now, if instead of reading newspapers which only reflect his own views, and passing his time, whether on the ramparts or in a café, surrounded by men who share his prejudices, the worthy bourgeois would be good enough to accompany me to Belleville or La Villette, he would perhaps realise the fact that, as usual, he is making himself comfortable in a fool's paradise. He would have an opportunity to learn that, while the working men have not the remotest intention to pillage his shop, they are equally determined not to allow him and his friends to make Paris the laughing-stock of Europe. With them the "Commune" is but a means to an end. What they want is a Government which will carry out in sober earnest M. Jules Favre's rhetorical figure that "the Parisians will bury themselves beneath the ruins of their town rather than surrender." The lull in the "demonstrations" to urge the Government either to carry out this programme, or to associate with themselves men of energy who are ready to do so, will not last long; and when next Belleville comes to the Hôtel de Ville, it will not be unarmed. The bourgeois and the working man worship different gods, and have hardly two ideas in common. The bourgeois believes in the Army of the Loire; believes that in sacrificing the trade profits of a few months, and in catching a cold by keeping guard occasionally for a night on the ramparts, he has done his duty towards his country, and deserves the admiration of all future ages. As for burying himself, beneath, the ruins of his shop, it is his shop as much as his country that he is defending. He is gradually wearying of the siege; the pleasure of strutting about in a uniform and marching behind a drum hardly compensates for the pecuniary losses which he is incurring. He feels that he is already a hero, and he longs to repose upon his laurels. When Bazaine has capitulated, and when the bubble of the Army of the Loire has burst, he will, if left to himself, declare and actually believe that Paris has surpassed in heroism and endurance Troy and Saragossa; and he will accept what is inevitable—a capitulation. The working man, on the other hand, believes in no Army of the Loire, troubles himself little about Bazaine, and has confidence in himself alone. Far from disliking the siege, he delights in it. He lives at free quarters, and he walks about with a gun, that occupation of all others which is most pleasing to him. He at least is no humbug; he has no desire to avoid danger, but rather courts it. He longs to form one in a sortie, and he builds barricades, and looks forward with grim satisfaction to the moment when he will risk his own life in defending them, and blow up his landlord's house to arrest the advance of the Prussians. What will be the upshot of this radical divergence of opinion between the two principal classes which are cooped up together within the walls of Paris, it is impossible to say. The working men have, as yet, no leaders in whom they place confidence, and under whose guidance they would consent to act collectively. It may be that this will prevent them from giving effect to their views before the curtain drops; they are strongly patriotic, and they are disinclined to compromise the success of the defence by internal quarrels. Very possibly, therefore, they will be deceived by promises on the part of the Government, and assurances that Paris will fight it out to the last ditch, until the moment to act has passed. As for the bourgeois and the Government, their most powerful ally is the cry, "No division; let us all be united." They are both, however, in a radically false position. They have called upon the world to witness how a great capital can die rather than surrender; and yet, if no external agency prevents the surrender, they have no intention to fulfil their boast of dying. Any loophole for escape from, the alternative in which they have thrust themselves they would welcome. "Our provisions will last three months," they say; "during this time something must happen to our advantage." "What?" I inquire. "The Army of the Loire will advance, or Bazaine will get out of Metz, or the Prussians will despair of success, or we shall be able to introduce convoys of provisions." "But if none of these prophecies are realised.—what then?" I have asked a hundred times, without ever getting a clear answer to my question. By some strange process of reasoning in what, as Lord Westbury would say, they are pleased to call their minds, they appear to have arrived at the conviction that Paris never will be taken, because they are unable to realise the possibility of an event which they seem to consider is contrary to that law of nature, which, has made her the capital and the mistress of the world. A victorious army is at their gates; they do not dare even to make a formidable sortie; there is no regular army in the field outside; their provisions have a limit; they can only communicate with the rest of the world by an occasional balloon; and yet they regard the idea of a foreign occupation of Paris much as we do a French invasion of England—a thing so improbable as to be barely possible.

Yesterday there were a few groups on the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, but they were rather curious spectators than "manifesters." At about two o'clock the rappel was beaten in the Place Vendôme, and several battalions of the National Guard of the quartier marched there and broke up these groups. M. Jules Ferry's head then appeared from the window, and he aired his eloquence in a speech congratulating the friends of order on having rallied to the defence of the Government. It is a very strange thing that no Frenchman, when in power, can understand equal justice between his opponents and his supporters. The present Government is made up of men who clamoured for a Municipal Council during the Empire, and whose first step upon taking possession of the Hôtel de Ville was to decree the immediate election of a "Commune." Since then, yielding to the demands of their own supporters, they have withdrawn this decree, and now, if I go unarmed upon the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville and cry "Vive la Commune," I am arrested; whereas if any battalion of the National Guard chooses, without orders, to go there in arms and cry, "à bas la Commune," immediately it is congratulated for its patriotism by some member of the Government.

Nothing new has passed at the front since yesterday. I learn from this morning's papers, however, that Moltke is dead, that the Crown Prince is dying of a fever, that Bismarck is anxious to negotiate, but is prevented by the obstinacy of the King, that 300 Prussians from the Polish provinces have come over to our side, and that the Bavarian and Wurtemberg troops are in a state of incipient rebellion. "From the fact that the Prussian outposts have withdrawn to a greater distance from the forts," the Electeur Libre, tells me, "it is probable that the Prussians despair of success, and in a few days will raise the siege." Most of the newspapers make merry over the faults in grammar in a letter which has been discovered and published from the Empress to the Emperor, although I doubt if there is one Frenchman in the world who could write Spanish as well as the Empress does French.

Evening.

It appears that yesterday the cheques signed by M. Flourens were not recognised by the Etat Major of his "secteur." On this he declared that he would beat the "generale" in Belleville and march on the Hôtel de Ville. The quarrel was, however, patched up—no disturbance occurred. For some reason or other M. Flourens, until he gave in his resignation, commanded five battalions of the National Guard; he has been told that he can be re-elected to the command of any one of them, but that he cannot be allowed to be at the head of more than one. This man is an enthusiast, and, I am told, not quite right in his head. In personal appearance he is a good-looking gentlemanly fellow. As long as Belleville acts under his leadership there is no great fear that any danger will arise, because his own men distrust, not his good faith, but his sense.

Gambetta has sent a despatch from Montdidier, by a pigeon. He says, "Everywhere the people are rising; the Government of the National Defence is universally acclaimed."

The Papal Nuncio is going to try to get through on Thursday. He says he is anxious about the Pope—no wonder.

October 12th.

"What is truth?" said jesting Pilate, and would not wait for an answer; the Parisians of 1870 are as indifferent about truth as this unjust Roman judge was. It is strange that their own want of veracity does not lead them to doubt that of others; they are alike credulous and mendacious. A man comes into a café, he relates every detail of an action in which he says he was engaged the day before; the action has never taken place, but every one believes him; one of the auditors then perhaps says that he has passed the night in a fort, and that its guns destroyed a battery which the enemy was erecting; the fort has never fired a shot, but the first speaker goes off convinced that a battery has been dismounted. For my part I have given up placing the least faith in anything I hear or read. As for the newspapers they give currency to the most incredible stories, and they affect not only to relate every shot that has been fired, but the precise damage which it has done to the enemy, and the number of men which it has killed, and wounded. They have already slain and taken prisoner a far greater number of Prussians than, on any fair calculation, there could have been in the besieging army at the commencement of the siege. Since the commencement of the war the Government, the journalists, the generals, and the gossips have been engaged apparently in a contest to test the limits of human credulity. Under the Republic the game is still merrily kept up, and although the German armies are but a few miles off, we are daily treated to as many falsehoods respecting what goes on at the front as when they were at Sedan, or huddled together in those apocryphal quarries of Jaucourt. "I saw it in a newspaper," or "I was told it by an eye-witness," is still considered conclusive evidence of the truth of no matter what fact. To-day, I nearly had a dispute with a stout party, who sat near me as I was breakfasting in a café, because I ventured, in the mildest and most hesitating manner, to question the fact that an army of 250,000 men was at Rouen, and would in the course of this week attack the Prussians at Versailles. "It is here, sir," he said indignantly pointing to his newspaper; "a peasant worthy of belief has brought the news to the Editor; are we to believe no one?" There were a dozen persons breakfasting at the same time, and I was the only one who did not implicitly believe in the existence of this army. This diseased state of mind arises mainly, I presume, from excessive vanity. No Parisian is able to believe anything which displeases him, and he is unable not to believe anything which flatters his amour propre. He starts in life with a series of delusions, which all he has read and heard until now have confirmed. No journal dares to tell the truth, for if it did its circulation would fall to nothing. No Parisian, even if by an effort he could realise to himself the actual condition of his country, would dare to communicate his opinion to his neighbour, for he would be regarded as a traitor and a liar. The Bostonians believe that Boston is the "hub of the universe," and the Parisian is under the impression that his city is a species of sacred Ark, which it is sacrilege to touch. To bombard London or Berlin would be an unfortunate necessity of war, but to fire a shot into Paris is desecration. For a French army to live at the expense of Germany is in the nature of things; for a German army to live at the expense of Frenchmen is a barbarity which the civilised world ought to resent. If the result of the present campaign is to convince Frenchmen that, as a nation, they are neither better nor worse than other nations, and to convince Parisians that Paris enjoys no special immunity from the hardships of war, and that if it sustains a siege it must accept the natural consequences, it will not have been waged in vain, but will materially conduce to the future peace of the world. As yet—I say it with regret—for I abominate war and Prussians, and there is much which I like in the French—this lesson has not been learnt. Day by day I am becoming more convinced that a lasting peace can only be signed in Paris, and that the Parisians must be brought to understand by hard experience that, if victory means an accession of military glory, defeat means humiliation, and that the one is just as possible as the other. If the siege were raised to-morrow, the occupation of Alsace and Lorraine by an enemy would be disbelieved within six months by this vain, frivolous populace; and even if the German army does ever defile along the Boulevards, I shall not be surprised if we are told, as soon as they have withdrawn, that they never were there. Shut up in this town with its inhabitants, my sympathies are entirely on their side, but my reason tells me that Bismarck is right in insisting upon treating in Paris. Let him, if he can, come in here; let him impose upon France such a war indemnity, that every man, woman, and child in the country will curse the folly of this war for the next fifty years; and let him give up his scheme of annexation, and he will then have acted in the interests of Europe, and ultimately in those of France herself. Prussia, after the battle of Jena, was as low as France is now. Napoleon stripped her of her provinces, and she acceded to the treaty of her spoliation, but at the first favourable opportunity she protested her signature, and the world has never blamed her for so doing. France, if she is deprived of Alsace, will do the same. If she signs the treaty, it will only be binding on her until she is strong enough to repudiate it. A treaty of territorial spoliation imposed by force never has and never will bind a nation. The peace of Europe will not be lasting if France hawks about her alliance, and is ready to tender it to any Power who wishes to carry out some scheme of aggrandisement, and who will aid her to re-conquer the provinces which she has lost. I have always regarded the Prussians as a disagreeable but a sensible nation, but if they insist upon the annexation of Alsace, and consider that the dismemberment of France will conduce to the unity of Germany, I shall cease to consider them as more sensible than the Gauls, with whom my lot is now cast. The Austrians used to say that their defensive system rendered it necessary that they should possess the Milanese and Venetia; but the possession of these two Italian provinces was a continual source of weakness to them, and in the end dragged them into a disastrous war. The Prussians should meditate over this, and over the hundred other instances in history of territorial greed overreaching itself, and they will then perhaps be more inclined to take a fair and impartial view of the terms on which peace ought to be made. "Moderation in success is often more difficult to practise than fortitude in disaster," says the copy-book. My lecture upon European politics is, I am afraid, somewhat lengthy, but it must be remembered that I am a prisoner, and that Silvio Pellico, under similar circumstances, wrote one of the most dreary books that it ever was my misfortune to read and to be required to admire. I return to the recital of what is passing in my prison house.

Last night and early this morning I had an opportunity to inspect the bars of the cage in which I am confined. I happened to say before a superior officer that I was very desirous to see what was going on on the ramparts and in the forts at night, but that I had as yet been foiled in my endeavours to do so, when he told me that he would take me to both, provided in any account that I might give of them I would not mention localities, which might get him into trouble, or in general anything which might afford aid and comfort to the enemy. Of course I accepted his offer, and at eleven o'clock P.M. we started on horseback. We soon struck the Rue des Remparts, and dismounted. Along the top of the ramparts there was a line of sentinels. They were so numerous in some places that they almost touched each other. Every few minutes the cry, "Sentinelles, prenez gardé à vous," went along. Behind them grandes gardes and other patrols were continually passing, and we could hardly move a step without being obliged to give the password, with a bayonet in close proximity to our chests. The National Guards were sleeping, in some places in tents, in others in huts, and I found many more in the neighbouring houses. Here and there there was a canteen, where warm coffee and other such refreshments were sold, and in some places casemates were already built. In the bastions there were camps of Artillerymen, Mobiles, and Nationaux. All was very quiet, and I was agreeably surprised to find with what order and method everything was conducted. At about four o'clock this morning we passed through one of the gates, outside there were patrols coming and going, and I could see numerous regiments on each side of the road, some in tents, others sleeping in the open air, or trying to do so, for the nights are already very chilly. We were stopped almost every two minutes, and my friend had to explain who and what he was. At last we reached a fort. Here we had a long parley before we were admitted. When we got in, the day was breaking. We were taken into the room of the Commandant, with whom my friend had some business to transact. He was a sailor, and from his cool and calm demeanour, I am convinced that he will give a good account of himself if he is attacked. In the fort there were Mobiles and soldiers, and by the guns stood the sailors. I talked to several of them as they leant against their guns, or walked up and down as though they were keeping watch on deck. None of them had left the fort for the last three weeks, and they seemed to have no particular desire to go "on shore," as they called Paris. Their fire, they said, had, they believed, done considerable damage to the works which the Prussians had tried to erect, within their range. The Commandant now came out with some of his officers, and we tried to search with telescopes the distant woods which were supposed to conceal the enemy. I confess that I saw absolutely nothing except trees and some houses, which were in ruins, "Throw a shell into those houses," cried the Commandant, and off went one of the great guns. It fell wide. "Try again," he said. This time we could see through the glasses that the house had been hit, for a portion of one of the walls toppled over, and a column of dust arose. No Prussians, however, emerged. A few shots were then fired promiscuously into the woods, in order to sound the lines; and then Commandant, officers, friend and I, withdrew to breakfast. I was, of course, cautious in my conversation, and all that was said I do not care to repeat—the general feeling, however, seemed to be that the prospects of Paris defending itself successfully were considerably weakened by the "lot of lawyers" who interfered with matters about which they knew nothing. The National Guards, who I hear are to occupy the forts, were laughed at by these warriors; as for the Mobiles, it was thought that in two months they might become good soldiers, but that their discipline was most defective. "When we get them in here," said a gruff old Captain, "we do not stand their nonsense; but outside, when they are alone with their officers, they do very much what they please." The soldiers of the regular army, I was told, had recovered their morale, and if well led, might be depended upon. As was natural, the sailors were greatly extolled, and I think they deserved it; the best come from Brittany; and like Joe Bagstock, they are tough, sir, very tough—what are called in French, "wolves of the sea." Breakfast over, we returned to Paris in company with two or three officers, who had been given leave of absence for the day. This afternoon, hearing that egress was allowed at the Barrière de Neuilly, I started out in a fiacre, to see what was to be seen in that direction. Along the Avenue de Neuilly there were encampments of soldiers of the line and Mobiles. At the bridge of Neuilly my fiacre was stopped, but having explained to the commander of the picket that I wanted to take a walk, and shown my papers, for some reason best known to himself, he allowed me to go forward on foot. In Courbevoie all the houses were shut up, except those occupied by troops, and the windows of these were filled with sandbags. Right and left trees were being cut down, and every moment some old poplar was brought to the ground. I passed through Courbevoie, as no one seemed to notice me, and held on to the right until I struck Asnières. It is a species of French Greenwich, full of hotels, tea-gardens, and restaurants. The last time I had been there was on a Sunday, when it was crowded with Parisian bourgeois, and they were eating, drinking, dancing, and making merry. The houses had not been destroyed, but there was not a living soul in the place. On the promenade by the river the leaves were falling from the trees under which were the benches as of old. The gay signs still hung above the restaurants, and here and there was an advertisement informing the world that M. Pitou offered his hosts beer at so much the glass, or that the more ambitious Monsieur Some One Else was prepared to serve an excellent dinner of eels for 2fr., but I might as well have expected to get beer or eels in Palmyra as in this village where a few short weeks ago fish, flesh, and fowl, wine and beer were as plentiful as at Greenwich and Richmond during the season. Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," I said to myself, and I should have repeated some lines from this admirable poem had I remembered any; as I did not, I walked on in the direction of Colombes, vaguely ruminating upon Pompeii, Palmyra, fish dinners at Greenwich, and the mutability of human things. I had hardly left Asnières, however, and was plodding along a path, when I was recalled to the realities of life by half-a-dozen Mobiles springing up from behind a low wall, and calling upon me to stop, while they enforced their order by pointing their muskets at my head. I stood still, and they surrounded me. I explained that I was an Englishman inhabiting Paris, and that I had come out to take a walk. My papers were brought out and narrowly inspected. My passport, that charter of the Civis Romanus, was put aside as though it had been a document of no value. A letter from one of the authorities, which was a species of unofficial laisser passer, was read, and then a sort of council of war was held about what ought to be done with me. They seemed to be innocent and well meaning peasants; they said that they had orders to let no one pass, and they were surprised that I had got so far without being stopped. I told them that they were quite right to obey their consigne, and that I would go back the way I had come. One of them suggested that I might be a spy, but he accepted my assurance that I was not. Another proposed to keep me as a captive until some officer passed; but I told them that this was contrary to all law, human and divine, civil and military. "Well, gentlemen," I at last said, "I will now wish you good day, my mother will be anxious about me if I do not return, otherwise I should have been happy to remain in such good society;" and with this speech I turned back and went towards Asnières; they did not follow me, but remained with their mouths open, utterly unable to grasp the idea why an Englishman should be taking a walk in the neighbourhood of Paris, and why he should have an aged mother anxiously awaiting his return in the city. (N.B.—If you want to inspire a Frenchman with a sort of sentimental respect, always talk of your mother; the same effect is produced on a German by an allusion to your bride.) At the bridge of Neuilly the guard had been changed, and I had a lengthy discussion whether I ought to be imprisoned or allowed to pass. I was inclined to think that I owe the latter motion being carried, to a very eloquent speech which I threw off, but this may perhaps be vanity on my part, as Mont Valérien was also discoursing at the same time, and dividing with me the attention of my auditors.