Before we could regain the field of battle, darkness had set in. Firing had much diminished, though still proceeding heavily, the flames from guns and burning buildings around us lighting up from time to time portions of the plain on which the events of the day had taken place. A considerable number of Red Cross men had returned in the hope of succouring such of the wounded as were left on the ground. Bitterly cold was the night, as hour after hour, till well past midnight, all of us, with lamp in hand, and in small separate bodies pursued our search, our own frames benumbed, unsupported by sufficient food, and without the possibility of obtaining such comfort as hot coffee or tea could afford. While so engaged, to our surprise, there flashed over us from the Faisanderie a beam of bright white light. For a moment it illumined the Prussian position upon the heights of Villiers, then suddenly ceased. A shell flew through the air. There was a loud explosion, preceded by a blaze of flame. We were made aware that for the first time the electric light was made use of in this way. At last, wearied, tired, exhausted by cold, we were able in the early hours of morning to reach our respective hotels.

CHAPTER XXX
1870. DECEMBER. SIEGE CONTINUED

The day after battle—​Disaster—​Next day—​Paris “dead”—​Benevolence and clamour—​Citizen soldiers—​A possible significance—​Spy mania—​A duel—​Sortie on Le Bourget—​A lady on the field—​After the battle—​An Irishman in French Navy—​Christmas—​Public opinion—​First shell in Paris.

From early morning, and all next day,[302] ambulance equipages and men patrolled the field of battle in the performance of their merciful work, their search for wounded made difficult by the dense fog prevailing. Hostilities had ceased for the time, to permit of interment of the dead, and succour to the wounded. But unhappily the truce was taken advantage of by stragglers of many kinds, some of whom were bent on plunder. Everywhere on and near the scene of recent combat there was devastation; houses burnt and otherwise dilapidated; boundary walls reduced to fragments; trees broken and torn by shot; the ground furrowed by shells. Bivouacking in the open, or in small groups taking advantage of such shelter as remained against the bitterly cold wind, were soldiers, who, after the fight of yesterday, so spent the night where they had fought; more than half benumbed by cold, they kept up camp fires by means of fragments of furniture, some of great value, taken from neighbouring ruins. Their cooking utensils were supplied for the occasion by viande freshly cut from horses killed by Prussian shells. The carriages were soon filled with wounded. They were driven back to Paris, their loads appropriately disposed of; after which a second trip was made to the field, the carriages again filled, the wounded in them similarly distributed, the horses getting over more than thirty-six miles in the double journey. Rumours spread that in some few instances the rôle of the Red Cross had been departed from; intrenching tools conveyed in carriages bearing that emblem; information interchanged between contending forces, communication of which was beyond its proper sphere. The rumours applied to the one side as to the other.

Throughout the dreary night that followed, the French troops had to remain in bivouac among the scenes and wreck of battle, their physical strength, already lowered by privation, still further reduced by fatigue and cold, for the weather was now bitterly cold; their morale impaired by the scenes around them, added to the experiences of the previous day. As subsequently learned, conditions of the German troops were very different. All who had survived on the 30th were withdrawn from the field of battle and positions near it, their places taken by others who had not seen the carnage of that day, well fed, comfortably sheltered, and thus, in physical condition as in morale, better fitted than their opponents to renew the combat. At break of day on December 2 a furious onslaught was made by them upon the French, hundreds of whom were so benumbed by cold as to be unable to stand to their arms. No wonder, therefore, that to them the day became one of disaster. During all that day wounded in great numbers arrived from the field in Paris, all available accommodation for them became crowded. Eminent surgeons were busy in the performance of needful operations among the five thousand six hundred so brought to them. As to the dead, their probable numbers did not transpire; but at one point of the extensive range over which the fight extended, eight hundred were interred in one long trench. During the succeeding night the troops recrossed the Marne and bivouacked in the Bois de Vincennes.

The most determined effort yet made to break the besieging circle having failed, the fact was now apparent that unless aid came from the provinces, all within the beleaguered city were about to enter upon a condition of things more desperate than we had as yet experienced. On the day immediately following what undoubtedly was a withdrawal from the field of combat, the aspect of Paris and of its people was that of sadness, mourning, and uncertainty. The day was cold, a thick fog overhung the city, with occasional falls of snow. Along the great thoroughfares the usual traffic was replaced to a great extent by conveyances engaged in the transport of wounded; funeral processions, more or less imposing in their surroundings, met with in different parts of the city. The absence of sound of heavy guns in the early part of the day seemed to add to the sombreness of our conditions. It was in a manner a “relief,” as afternoon advanced, to hear the familiar boom from outlying forts, as their guns opened fire upon the German positions in front of them.

A week of sadness passed; Paris “dead”; its shroud a thick covering of snow; not a wheeled carriage in the streets; scarcely a foot-passenger to be seen. Winter more than usually severe was upon us; even the more unsettled classes of the populace seemed to give a thought to the seriousness of conditions present, and more particularly to those of the near future. As time advanced, so did the prevailing miseries among the besieged increase and assume different forms; in some disease and death, in others starvation in respect to food and fuel, insufficient clothing, want of necessary care and attendants among the poorer classes, and so on. As a result of exhausted fuel supplies, the streets were dimly lighted by oil or petroleum lamps; shops closed at nightfall; in streets and boulevards pedestrians had to grope their way along the distance that intervened between the flickering lamps. Meanwhile, by day and night, with hardly an interruption, the sound of heavy cannonading was heard with suggestive distinctness. An occasional hope expressed that help from the provinces would soon arrive, only to be destroyed by the receipt by pigeon post of news of defeat near Orleans.[303] Riot and a spirit of upheaval became manifest; the places where “demonstrations” by the dangerous classes were most pronounced, the Halles Centrales, and others where food was issued. Within the churches scenes of a different kind were enacted: some were nearly filled with men, women, and youths engaged in private devotion; in others were groups in the midst of which the Service for the Dead was being performed over a more or less richly draped coffin, according to the social position of him or her whose body it enclosed.

Now it was that noble efforts were made by individuals, municipalities, and by the Assistance Publique to lessen, as far as that was possible, some of the greatest straits prevailing among particular classes. Large sums of money were presented to the Paris Administration for that purpose by some wealthy residents, of whom Sir Richard Wallace gave 80,000 francs. Places of distribution of such fuel as could be procured, and of food to the poor, were arranged; nor was it long before the discovery was made that the persons who obtained the lion’s share in these respects were the most clamorous and dangerous, rather than the most necessitous for whom those measures of philanthropy were intended. But among all classes, notwithstanding everything possible in the way of help, the difficulties and privations incidental to our position increased apace.