We could not stay long in the cellars. The water was getting deeper in them and rats tormented us. I therefore decided that the ambulance must be moved, and I had the worst of the patients taken to the Val-de-Grâce Hospital. I kept about twenty men who were on the way to convalescence. I rented an immense empty flat for them in the Rue de Provence, and it was there that we awaited the armistice.
I was half dead with anxiety, as I had had no news from my own family for so long. I could not sleep and had become the very shadow of my former self.
Jules Favre was entrusted with the negotiations with Bismarck. Oh, those two days of preliminaries! They were the most unnerving days of any for the besieged. False reports were spread. We were told of the maddest, and most exorbitant demands on the part of the Germans, who certainly were not tender to the vanquished.
There was a moment of stupor when we heard that we had to pay two hundred million francs down, for our finances were in such a pitiful state that we shuddered at the idea that we might not be able to make up the sum of two hundred millions immediately.
Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, who was shut up in Paris with his wife and brothers, gave his signature for the two hundred millions. This fine deed was soon forgotten, and there are even people who gainsay it.
When we heard in Paris that the armistice was signed for twenty days, a frightful sadness took possession of us all, even of those who most ardently wished for peace.
Every Parisian felt on his cheek the hand of the conqueror. It was the brand of shame, the blow given by the abominable treaty of peace.
Oh, that 31st of January, 1871! I was anæmic from the siege, undermined by grief, tortured with anxiety about my family, and I went out with Mme. Guérard and two friends toward the Parc Monceau. Suddenly one of my friends, M. De Plancy, turned pale as death. I looked to see what was the matter, and noticed a soldier passing by. He had no weapons. Two others passed and they, also, had no weapons. And they were so pale, too, these poor, disarmed soldiers, these humble heroes. There was such evident grief and hopelessness in their very gait; and their eyes, as they looked at us women, seemed to say: “It is not our fault!” It was all so pitiful, so touching I burst out sobbing, and went back home at once, for I did not want to meet any more disarmed French soldiers.
CHAPTER XIII
A WARTIME JOURNEY
