September 19th.
I don't know whether my letter of yesterday went off or not. As my messenger to the post-office could get no authentic intelligence about what was passing, I went there myself. Everybody was in military uniform, everybody was shrugging his shoulders, and everybody was in the condition of a London policeman were he to see himself marched off to the station by a street-sweeper. That the Prussian should have taken the Emperor prisoner, and have vanquished the French armies, had, of course, astonished these worthy bureaucrats, but that they should have ventured to interfere with postmen had perfectly dumbfounded them. "Put your letter in that box," said a venerable employé on a high stool. "Will it ever be taken out?" I asked. "Qui sait?" he replied. "Shall you send off a train to-morrow morning?" I asked. There was a chorus of "Qui sait?" and the heads disappeared still further with the respective shoulders to which they belonged. "What do you think of a man on horseback?" I suggested. An indignant "Impossible" was the answer. "Why not?" I asked. The look of contempt with which the clerks gazed on me was expressive. It meant, "Do you really imagine that a functionary—a postman—is going to forward your letters in an irregular manner?" At this moment a sort of young French Jefferson Brick came in. Evidently he was a Republican recently set in authority. To him I turned. "Citizen, I want my letter to go to London. It is a press letter. These bureaucrats say that they dare not send it by a horse express; I appeal to you, as I am sure you are a man of expedients." "These people," he replied, scowling at the clerks, "are demoralised. They are the ancient valets of a corrupt Court; give me your letter; if possible it shall go, 'foi de citoyen.'" I handed my letter to Jefferson, but whether it is on its way to England, or still in his patriotic hands, I do not know. As I passed out through the courtyard I saw postmen seated on the boxes of carts, with no horses before them. It was their hour to carry out the letters, and thus mechanically they fulfilled their duty. English Government officials have before now been jeered at as men of routine, but the most ancient clerk in Somerset House is a man of wild impulse and boundless expedient compared with the average of functionaries great and small here. The want of "shiftiness" is a national characteristic. The French are like a flock of sheep without shepherds or sheep-dogs. Soldiers and civilians have no idea of anything except doing what they are ordered to do by some functionary. Let one wheel in an administration get out of order, and everything goes wrong. After my visit to the post-office I went to the central telegraph office, and sent you a telegram. The clerk was very surly at first, but he said that he thought a press telegram would pass the wires. When I paid him he became friendly. My own impression is that my twelve francs, whoever they may benefit, will not benefit the British public.
From the telegraph-office I directed my steps to a club where I was engaged to dine. I found half-a-dozen whist tables in full swing. The conversation about the war soon, however, became general. "This is our situation," said, as he dealt a hand, a knowing old man of the world, a sort of French James Clay: "generally if one has no trumps in one's hand, one has at least some good court cards in the other suits; we've got neither trumps nor court cards." "Et le General Trochu?" some one suggested. "My opinion of General Trochu," said a General, who was sitting reading a newspaper, "is that he is a man of theory, but unpractical. I know him well; he has utterly failed to organise the forces which he has under his command." The general opinion about Trochu seemed to be that he is a kind of M'Clellan. "Will the Garde Nationale fight?" some one asked. A Garde National replied, "Of course there are brave men amongst us, but the mass will give in rather than see Paris destroyed. They have their families and their shops." "And the Mobiles?" "The Mobiles are the stuff out of which soldiers are made, but they are still peasants, and not soldiers yet." On the whole, I found the tone in "fashionable circles" desponding. "Can any one tell me where Jules Favre has gone?" I asked. Nobody could, though everybody seemed to think that he had gone to the Prussian headquarters. After playing a few rubbers, I went home to bed at about one o'clock. The streets were absolutely deserted. All the cafés were shut.
Nothing in the papers this morning. In the Figaro an article from that old humbug Villemessant. He calls upon his fellow-citizens in Paris to resist to the death.
"One thing Frenchmen never forgive," he says,—"cowardice."
The Gaulois contains the most news. It represents the Prussians to be all round Paris. At Versailles they have converted the Palais into a barrack. Their camp fires were seen last night in the forest of Bondy. Uhlans have made their appearance at St. Cloud. "Fritz" has taken up his quarters at Ferrières, the château of Baron Rothschild. "William"—we are very familiar when we speak of the Prussian Royal family—is still at Meaux. "No thunderbolt," adds the correspondent, "has yet fallen on him." The Prussian outposts are at the distance of three kilometres from St. Denis. Near Vitry shots have been heard. In the environs of Vincennes there has been fighting. It appears General Ambert was arrested yesterday. He was reviewing some regiments of Nationaux, and when they cried, "Vive la République" he told them that the Republic did not exist. The men immediately surrounded him, and carried him to the Ministry of the Interior, where I presume he still is. The Rappel finds faults with Jules Favre's circular. Its tone, it says, is too humble. The Rappel gives a list of "valets of Bonaparte, ce coquin sinistre," who still occupy official positions, and demands that they shall at once be relieved from their functions. The Rappel also informs its readers that letters have been discovered (where?) proving that Queen Victoria had promised before the war to do her best to aid Germany.
Butler of a friend of mine, whose house is close by the fortifications, and who has left it in his charge, has just been to see me. The house is a "poste" of the National Guard. Butler says the men do not sleep on the ramparts, but in the neighbouring houses. They are changed every twenty-four hours. He had rather a hard time of it last night with a company from the Faubourg St. Antoine. As a rule, however, he says they are decent, orderly men. They complain very much that their business is going to rack and ruin; when they are away from their shops, they say, impecunious patriots come in to purchase goods of their wives, and promise to call another day to pay for them. On Saturday night the butler reports 300 National Guards were drawn up before his master's house, and twenty-five volunteers were demanded for a service of danger. After some time the twenty-five stepped forward, but having heard for what they were wanted, eighteen declined to go.
A British coachman just turned up offers to carry letters through—seems a sharp plucky fellow. I shall employ him as soon as the Post-office is definitely closed. British coachman does not think much of the citizen soldiers in Paris. "Lor' bless you, sir, I'd rather have 10,000 Englishmen than the lot of them. In my stable I make my men obey me, but these chaps they don't seem to care what their officers says to them. I seed them drill this morning; a pretty green lot they was. Why, sir, giving them fellow Chassepots is much like giving watches to naked savages."
The Breton Mobiles are making pilgrimages to the churches. I hope it may do them good. I hear the curés of Paris have divided the ramparts between them, and are on the fortifications—bravo! curés. By-the-bye, that fire-eater, Paul de Cassagnac, has not followed the example of his brother Imperial journalists. He enlisted as a Zouave, fought well, and was taken prisoner at Sedan. He is now employed by his captors in making bread. I hope his bread will be better than his articles.
1.30 p.m.