M. de Kératry has resigned his post of Prefect of the Police, and has been succeeded by M. Edmond Adam, who is said to be a man of energy. Yesterday M. Jules Ferry went down to Belleville, and delivered several speeches, which he informs us to-day in a letter were greatly applauded. The Official Gazette contains an intimation that M. Flourens is to be prosecuted, but I greatly question whether it is more than brutum fulmen. The Council of War has condemned five of the soldiers who ran away at the fight of Chatillon. Several others who were tried for the same offence have been acquitted. It is reported that an engagement took place this afternoon at Villejuif, but no details are yet known. There is no doubt that the Prussians have enlarged their circle round Paris, and that they have massed troops near Choisy-le-Roi. What these two manoeuvres portend, we are all anxiously discussing.
Several balloons went off this morning. I have deluged the Post-office with letters, but I doubt if they ever get any farther. Mr. Hore, the naval attaché of the British Embassy, also left this morning for Tours. As the Parisian fleet consists of one gunboat, I presume that he considers that his valuable services may be utilised elsewhere.
October 13th.
Frenchmen have none of that rough and tumble energy which enables Anglo-Saxons to shake themselves, no matter under what circumstances, into some sort of shape. Left to themselves they are as helpless as children, it takes a certain time to organize them, and to evolve order from chaos, but when once the process is effected, they surpass us in administrative mechanism, and in readiness to fall into new ways. The organization of Paris, as a besieged city, is now in good working trim, and it must be admitted that its results are more satisfactory than a few weeks ago could have been anticipated. Except when some important event is taking place at the front, there are no crowds in the streets, and even the groups which used to impede circulation are now rare. The National Guards go in turn to the ramparts, like clerks to their office. In the morning the battalions are changed, and those who come off duty march to their respective "quartiers" and quietly disband. Unless there is some extraordinary movement, during the rest of the day and night there is little marching of troops. In the evening the Boulevards are moderately full from eight to ten o'clock, but now that only half the number of street lamps are lit—they look gloomy even then—at half-past ten every café and shop is closed, and half-an-hour later every one has gone home. There are no quarrels and no drunkards. Robberies occasionally occur, but they are rare. "Social evils" have again made their appearance, but they are not so insolently conspicuous as they were under the paternal rule of the Empire. Paris, once so gay, has become as dull as a small German capital. Its inhabitants are not in the depths of despair, but they are thoroughly bored. They are in the position of a company of actors shut up in a theatre night and day, and left to their own devices, without an audience to applaud or to hiss them. "What do you think they are saying of us in England?" is a question which I am asked not less than a hundred times every day. My interrogator usually goes on to say, that it is impossible that the heroism of the population has not elicited the admiration of the world. It seems to me that if Paris submits to a blockade for another month, she will have done her duty by France; but I cannot for the life of me see that as yet she has done anything to entitle her to boast of having set the world an example of valour.
Yesterday, it appears by the official report, there was a reconnaissance in force under General Ducrot in the direction of Bougival and Rucil. The Mobiles, we are told, behaved well, but the loss on either side was insignificant. Our amateur strategists are divided as to the expediency of taking Versailles, with the whole Prussian quartier-général, or reopening communications with the provinces by the way of Orleans. The relative advantages of these two schemes is hotly debated in the newspapers and the pothouses. A more practical suggestion to form mobilised regiments of National Guards by taking the most active men from the existing battalions is being seriously considered by the Government. This is all the news, except that a battalion of Amazons is in course of formation. They are to wear trousers, kepis, and blouses, and to be armed like the National Guard. The walls are covered with large placards inviting enlistments. It is reported that the Government are in possession of evidence to show that many of those female ornaments of the Imperial Court who were called cocodettes, and who spent in dress every year three times the annual income of their husbands, were in the pay of Bismarck. This intelligent and unscrupulous gentleman also, it is said, has a corps of spies recruited from all nations, consisting of good-looking men of pleasant address and of a certain social standing, whose business it was to insinuate themselves into the good graces of the beauties of Parisian society, and then endeavour to pick up the secrets of their husbands and friends. I am inclined to think that there is a good deal of truth in this latter allegation, because for several years I have known fascinating foreigners who used to frequent the clubs, the Bois, and the salons of the great world, and lead a joyous life without having any recognised means of existence. I have been struck more than once with the anxiety of these gentry to hook themselves on to the train of any lady who was either the relative of a man in power or who was supposed to be on intimate terms with a minister or a courtier. Every man, said Sir Robert Walpole, has his price, and Bismarck might be justified in making the same reflection as far as regards what is called European good society.
The eighth livraison of the Tuileries papers has appeared; it contains two letters from General Ducrot to General Frossard, a despatch from the French Foreign-office to Benedetti, a report on France by Magne, and a letter from a prefect to Pietri. From the few papers of any importance which have been discovered in the Imperial palaces, our friend Badinguet must have had an inkling when he last left Paris that he might not return, and must have put his papers in order, i.e., in the fire-place.
CHAPTER VII.
Evening.
I am very much afraid that it will be some time before my letters reach you, if indeed they ever do. I had entrusted one to Lord Lyons' butler, a very intelligent man, who was to accompany Mr. Hore, our naval attaché, to Tours; but, alas, they did not get further than the Prussian lines at Epinay, and they are back again at the Embassy. Mr. Hore had with him a letter from the Nuncio to the Crown Prince, but the officer in command of the outpost declined to take charge of it. The Columbian Minister, too, who was charged with the protest of the Corps Diplomatique to Bismarck on account of his refusal to allow their despatches to go out, has also returned, to re-peruse Grotius and Puffendorf, in order to find more precedents with which to overwhelm Bismarck. The Greek Minister has managed to run the blockade. A son of Commodore Lynch made an attempt to get out, but after being kept twelve hours at the Prussian outposts, and fired on by the French, he has returned to share our imprisonment. This morning I read in one of the papers a wonderful account of what Mr. Lynch had seen when with the Prussians. Meeting him this evening, I asked him whether it was true. He told me that he had already been to the newspaper to protest against its appearance, as every statement in it was destitute of foundation. He could, however, get no redress; the editor or his locum tenens told him that one of their reporters had given it him, and that he knew nothing more about it. This is an instance of the reckless mode in which the business of journalism is conducted here.