Hetzel reported in Juliette’s salon how he had just seen Mérimée. In the previous winter, at Bruyères, Juliette had found her friend obsessed by the impending calamity.[168] “You republicans,” he had said, “you have disarmed France; and we imperialists, asleep in our false security, have abandoned her.” “Now,” said Hetzel, “Mérimée is deploring his country’s unpreparedness.” “We have soldiers, but we have no generals,” he lamented.... “Je supplie le grand Mécanicien, si nous devons être vaincus, de faire cesser mes tours de roue.”[169] Mérimée’s prayer was granted: dying on the 24th of September, 1870, he did not live to see the consummation of his country’s defeat.[170]
Paul de Saint-Victor, Juliette’s Catholic friend, was furious against Renan, whom he accused of being pro-German. It was true that Renan had admired much that was German, and that he had often despaired of the future of France. He believed that the Germans would be the teachers of the world.[171]
“Several of the University professors,” remarks Mme. Adam, “have not yet been able to bring themselves to love France as much as they have admired Germany.”[172]
Nevertheless, despite these differences of opinion, a great wave of patriotism swept through the country. “Il n’y a plus de petits crevés,” writes Juliette, “ils ont disparu comme par miracle et sont devenus les soldats de notre France.”[173]
“People are beginning once more to use the word patrie.[174] It had been forgotten, buried beneath humanitarianism. Now it returns. It is uttered with reverence and devotion. Adam and I, when we pronounce it, feel that to us both it is equally sacred.”
Mérimée had deplored the lack of generals in France. Bixio had said, “You have neither a Moltke, nor a Bismarck, nor a William.” When Bazaine was appointed to command the Lorraine army, Mme. Adam went to see her old friend Toussenel, who had known Bazaine at the time of the Mexican expedition. “He is no soldier,” said Toussenel; “I am more of one than he. He may be a politician. He is probably not lacking in diplomacy, neither will he be above intrigue.”[175]
The hesitations and inactivity of the French army during the first days of the war filled with misgiving the Adams and their friends. “We had thought,” writes Juliette,[176] “that we could arrest the Prussian advance by throwing ourselves before the enemy with all our furia francese and our united forces. But already our troops are scattered. There are marches and countermarches, but no advance. As during the Italian war, so now, there is no unity of command.” In those days Parisians, like ourselves during the present war, were troubled by the lack of news. Silence, suspense, were harder to bear than anything. “A frightful silence fills the boulevard,” writes Edmond de Goncourt. “There is not a carriage to be heard, not a child’s cry of joy, and on the horizon is a Paris where sound itself seems dead.” When it did arrive the news was as bad as could be. All through August came tidings of defeat after defeat: Wissembourg on the 4th; Forbach and Woerth on one day, the 6th; then, on the 9th, the fall of Ollivier and the Ministry; finally, on the 1st of September, the rout of Sedan.
On the evening of the 3rd, when about six o’clock the terrible tidings began to spread like wild-fire through Paris, people came out into the streets, crowds thronged the boulevards, growing every hour. By ten o’clock, Paris between the Rue Montmartre and the Grand Opéra presented the appearance of one immense forum. Juliette went down and mingled with the people, listening to their conversation.
Everywhere the humiliation and disgrace of France were described as unbearable. All manner of charges were brought against the Emperor. Napoléon was said to have surrendered, not himself alone, but the munitions of the army. His own personal baggage, however, that long train of wagons encumbering the march of his soldiers, which had won for him the nickname of Empereur Colis (Luggage Emperor), he had saved from the hands of the enemy.[177]
“The Prussians will be at Laon to-morrow, and in three days before Paris,” murmured one. “Wherever you look it is ruin. Our last army has capitulated. We are a nation no longer. We are nothing but a troop of prisoners.”