When the Column was pulled down, all the shop-windows within half a mile were pasted over with strips of paper to prevent their being broken by the shock. It fell, and people two hundred yards off did not know that any thing unusual had happened. It was a question much discussed how far the prostrate Column would reach. Its length was generally much overestimated. It was thought that it would extend at least one hundred feet into the Rue de la Paris. It did not enter the street, nor even cross the Place Vendôme. The bronze plates were nearly all saved. Some few were disposed of by the Communist soldiers. One was sold by a sailor to a lady for five hundred francs. He afterward denounced her to the Government, and got five hundred francs more for doing so. A profitable transaction! One was sold to an American, and made the voyage to New York, where it was found by the French Consul, reclaimed, and returned to Paris.
[CHAPTER XXI.]
Diplomatic Corps moves to Versailles.—Journey there and back.—Life at Versailles.—German Princes.—Battle at Clamart.—Unburied Insurgents.—Bitterness of Class Hatred.—Its Probable Causes.—United States Post-office at Versailles.—The Archbishop of Paris.—Attempts to save his Life.—Washburne's Kindness to him.—Blanqui.—Archbishop murdered.—Ultramontanism.—Bombardment by Government.—My Apartment struck.—Capricious Effects of Shells.—Injury to Arch of Triumph.—Bas-reliefs of Peace and War.
As soon as the Government had moved to Versailles, the diplomatic corps followed. Mr. Washburne hired a large room in the Rue de Mademoiselle (the sister of Louis XIV.—all Versailles bears the impress of the reign of that monarch). This room had to do for office, bedroom, and sitting-room; for Versailles was crowded, and we were lucky to get any thing so comfortable. As we had far more to do at Paris than at Versailles, and Paris was then, as always, the seat of attraction, Mr. Washburne spent four days of the week in that city, and three at Versailles, and I alternated with him. We had passes from both sides. I made the trip twice a week, and sometimes under considerable difficulties. I have traveled more than thirty miles to reach Paris from Versailles, a distance of nine miles, partly in a diligence, partly on foot, partly in flat-boats to cross the Seine where the French had most unnecessarily blown up their own beautiful bridges, and partly by rail. I suppose that I am better acquainted with the westerly environs of Paris than any foreigner but a medical student. Some of the drives in the months of April and May, especially one by Sceaux and Fontaine-les-Roses, and up the valley of the Bièvre, are very lovely.
But after a while we had a regular organized line by St. Denis. The Germans occupied this town, and insisted upon keeping open the railroad into Paris, the Chemin de Fer du Nord. They said that under the treaty they had a right to draw certain supplies from France, and that Paris was the most convenient place to draw them from, and from Paris they meant to draw them; and that if the Communists did not keep the Porte St. Denis open, they would. The Commune always had a wholesome fear of the Germans; this was all that restrained them from even greater outrages than they perpetrated; and they hated the Germans less than they did their own countrymen at Versailles. In going to Versailles we took the train to St. Denis; there we hired a carriage, or took the public conveyance, and so drove to our destination, a trip of about three hours in all: or we drove out by the Porte St. Denis, and so all the way to Versailles. This was generally my route, for a number of American and French friends asked me to bring their horses and carriages from the ill-fated city. If the Communist officers at the gates were close observers, they must have thought that I was the owner of one of the largest and best-appointed stables in Paris.
There was very little to do at Versailles, and perhaps less to eat. The Government was there, and the Assembly, and the Corps Diplomatique, and consequently the crowd of people who had business with these bodies, thronged to that city. At the restaurants it was a struggle to get any thing; and when you got it, it was not precisely in the Café Anglais style. I found two or three pleasant American families who had wintered here very quietly during the German occupation. They had had no occasion to complain of their treatment. At the Hôtel de France I found Dr. Hosmer, the intelligent and cultivated principal correspondent of the Herald. That enterprising journal had its staff of couriers, who were always at our service during those days of irregular postal communication. At the Hôtel des Réservoirs several German princes, officers of the army, were lodged—intelligent, agreeable, cultivated gentlemen. They were only too glad to have the pleasure of the society of American ladies, for of course they could not visit the French; and no class of men long for and appreciate ladies' society like educated officers on campaign in an enemy's country. They eagerly accepted invitations to dine with my friends for a double reason, the pleasure of their society, and that of a good dinner; for the French cook never could manage, though of course he did his best, to cook a good dinner for the Germans, and the landlord was always just out of that favorite brand of Champagne.
The day after my first arrival at Versailles I made an excursion to the battle-field at Clamart, near Meudon. The Communists had been defeated there the day before. I had "assisted" at the battle from the Paris side. In attempting to reach Versailles in that direction, I found myself in the midst of the insurgents, and under the fire of the troops. The manner in which the insurgents behaved had not given me a very exalted idea of their soldierly qualities. It was all confusion, talking, drinking, and panic. A mob of them surged up to the gate, and demanded admission. It was refused, and they were ordered back to their regiments. But the crowd increased, and became more clamorous. The principles of fraternity forbade the guard to keep their brethren out in the cold, where the naughty Versaillais might pounce upon them; so the draw-bridge fell, the gates opened, and the runaways entered.
When I visited the battle-field, many of the dead still lay unburied, while the soldiers lounged about with their hands in those everlasting pockets, and looking with the most perfect indifference upon their dead countrymen. The class hatred which exists in France is something we have no idea of, and I trust that we never shall. It is bitter, relentless, and cruel; and is, no doubt, a sad legacy of the bloody Revolution of 1789, and of the centuries of oppression which preceded it. At the beginning of the war the peasants in one of the villages not far from Paris thrust a young nobleman into a ditch, and there burned him to death with the stubble from the fields. They had nothing particular against him, except that he was a nobleman. In Paris the mob threw the gendarmes, when they caught them, into the Seine, and when they attempted to struggle out upon the banks hacked off their hands. On the battle-field I have referred to, the frères chrétiens, a most devoted and excellent body of men, were moving about on their errands of mercy. Seeing these unburied bodies, they went to the commanding officer, and begged him to detail a party to bury them. He did it to oblige them. As the soldiers lifted one of the dead, a young American who accompanied me said, "Why, he hasn't a bad face after all!" At once the soldiers looked at him with suspicion, the officer asked him who he was, and, upon being told, advised him not to express any such sentiments again.