“A spy! a traitor! a Prussian! A l’eau! à la lanterne!” And away they flew in hot pursuit of the luckless Alsatian, whose German accent had raised the devil in them. The orator stood by the column alone in his glory, pelted by the jargon of cries that shot across him on every side from the boulevards and the many streets running out of the Place. “Marchons! à l’eau! à Berlin! un espion!” It was like the clash of contending tongues from Babel.
This was our last adventure till we reached St. Roch. As might have been expected, we were late. The wedding was over, and the bride was undergoing the ceremony of congratulations in the sacristy. We elbowed our way through the throng of guests, and were in due time admitted to embrace the Marquise de Chassedot, née Hélène de Karodel, and to shake hands with the bridegroom, and sprinkle our compliments in proper proportion over the friends and relatives on both sides.
At the wedding breakfast, the conversation naturally turned, to the exclusion of all other topics, on the happy event which had brought us all together; but as soon as the bride left the table, to change her bridal dress for a travelling one, everybody, as if by common consent, burst out into talk about the war and the news that had thrown the city into such commotion. The cautious incredulity with which the bulletin was discussed contrasted strangely with the tumult of enthusiasm which we had just witnessed outside. It was quite clear no one believed in the “famous victory.” Some went so far as to declare that it was only a blind to hide some more shameful disaster that had yet befallen us; others, less perverse, thought it might be only a highly colored statement of a slight success. As to the authorities, it was who would throw most stones at them. The government was a rotten machine that ought to have been broken up long ago; it was like a ship that was no longer seaworthy, and just held together while she lay at anchor in the port, but must inevitably fall to pieces the first time she put out to sea, and go down before the wind with all her crew. The only exceptions to the rule were those government officials who happened to be present, and these were, of course, the life-boats that had been left behind by the stupidity of the captain. But this had always been the way. In the downfall of every government, we see the same short-sighted jealousy—the men who might have saved it shoved aside by the selfish intriguers who sacrifice the country to their own aims and interests. Some allusion was made to the threatened siege of Paris; but it was cut short by the irrepressible merriment of the company. The most sober among them could not speak of such an absurdity without losing their gravity. It was, in fact, a heavy joke worthy of those beer-drinking, German braggarts, and no sane Frenchman could speak of it as anything else without being laughed at. As a joke, however, it was discussed, and gave rise to many minor pleasantries that provoked a good deal of fun. An interesting young mother wished the city might be invested and starved, because it would be so delightful to starve one’s self to death for one’s baby; to store up one’s scanty food for the innocent little darling, and see it grow fat on its mother’s dénouement. A young girl declared she quite longed for the opportunity of proving her love to her father. The Grecian daughter would be a pale myth compared to her, and the daughter of Paris would go down to posterity as a type of filial duty such as the world had never seen before. The kind and quantity of provisions to be laid in for the contingency gave rise to a vast deal of fun. One young crévé hoped his steward would provide a good stock of cigars; he could live on smoke by itself, rather than without smoke and with every other sort of nourishment; but it should be unlimited smoke, and of the best quality. His sister thought of buying a monster box of chocolate bonbons, and contemplated herself, with great satisfaction, arrived at her last praline, which she heroically insisted on her brother’s accepting, while she embraced him and expired of inanition at his feet.
“Do you intend to stay for the tragedy, madame?” said the gentleman who was to live on smoke, addressing himself to Berthe.
“If I believed in the tragedy, certainly not,” she replied; “but I don’t. Paris is not going to be so obliging as to furnish us with an opportunity for displaying our heroism.”
“Not of the melodramatic sort,” observed her Austrian friend, with a touch of sarcasm in his habitually serene manner; “but those who have any prosaic heroism to dispose of can take it to the ambulances, and it will be accepted and gratefully acknowledged. I went yesterday to see a poor fellow who is lying in great agony at Beayon. His mother and sisters are watching him day and night. They dare not move him to their own home, lest he should die on the way. He lost both arms at Gravelotte.”
Berthe shuddered.
“Thank God, I have no brothers!” she murmured, under her breath.
“What is to be the end of it all?” I said. “Admitting that the siege of Paris is an utter impossibility, half Europe must be overhauled before peace is definitely re-established.”
“So it will be,” asserted the Austrian, coolly. “Wait a little, and you will see all the powers trotted out. First, Russia will put her finger in the mêlée, and then England’s turn will come.”