The empress, who after she had governed France as regent in 1859, during her husband's absence in the Italian war, had been admitted to councils of state, by no means approved either her husband's domestic or foreign policy. We have seen that her influence was strongly exerted to bring about the unfortunate attempt to give an emperor and empress to Mexico; but on two other points that she had at heart she failed. She could not persuade her husband to undertake the reconstruction of the kingdom of Poland, nor to assist Queen Isabella of Spain when her subjects, exasperated at last by her excesses, drove her over the French frontier. The empress disliked many of the coterie who enjoyed her husband's intimacy, especially his cousin, Prince Napoleon. She resented the prince's opposition to her marriage; she disliked his manners, his political opinions, his aggressive opposition to all the offices of religion; and she succeeded in detaching him from the emperor's confidence, and in hindering his taking part in public affairs. To his wife—the Princess Clotilde—she was deeply attached; but that did not serve to reconcile her to the prince, her husband. Both ladies were opposed to any diminution of the pope's temporal power in Italy; but the private circle of the friends of the empress was too gay for the chastened nature of the Princess Clotilde, and by degrees her intimacy with the empress became less close and affectionate than it had been in the early days of her unhappy marriage.

An episode in the private life of the palace, in 1859, created considerable friction in Paris, and provoked remonstrances from the emperor's ministers.[1] This was the admission to the circle of intimates who surrounded the empress of the mesmerist and medium Home. This man gave himself out to be an American; but many persons suspected that his native land was Germany, and some said he was a secret agent of that court, which had emissaries all over France, in search of useful information. The empress, having heard of Home's strange feats of table-turning and spirit-rapping in fashionable salons of the capital, was eager to witness his performances. The women in the high society of Paris were greatly excited about them. Spiritualism was the fad of the season, and the empress caught the infection. The emperor, who was present at many of the exhibitions at the Tuileries, was also, it is said, much impressed by some of them, especially by a mysterious invisible hand laid firmly on his shoulder, and by an icy breath that passed over his face. But although the emperor, always indulgent to his wife, resisted at first the advice of his counsellors to get rid of Home, he was forced at last to put an end to the seances at the Tuileries, Fontainebleau, and Biarritz. The spirits "summoned" had had the imprudence to obtrude upon him their own views of his policy. When the alliance with Italy and a probable war with Austria were under discussion in the cabinet, the spirit-inspired pencil at the Tuileries scrawled these words: "The emperor should declare war and deliver Italy from the Austrians." Not long afterwards, the vulgar presumption of Home, who had accompanied the court to Biarritz, provoked the emperor, and caused him to give ear to the earnest remonstrances of his Minister for Foreign Affairs. He gave orders that Home should appear at the Tuileries no more.

[Footnote 1: Pierre de Lana.]

Home died not long after in Germany, forgotten by the world of fashion, but leaving behind him a little circle of ardent believers.

The story of the emperor's later life seems to me to be one full of pathos and of pain. It is the record of a man who knew himself to be slowly dying, whose physical strength was ebbing day by day, but who was bearing up under the vain hope of accomplishing the impossible. One admires his extreme patience, his uncomplaining perseverance, as he tried to roll the stone of Sisyphus, yet with unspoken misgivings in his heart that it would escape from him and crush the hopes of his life, as it rolled back out of his hands.

"Poor emperor!" says the eye-witness who beheld him in his hour of triumph, before the grand-stand, in 1867, at the great review. "He was a friend to all, and he fell through his friends. He was very true to England, whatever he may have been to other countries; but England failed him, unfortunately in Denmark, fortunately in Mexico, and fatally in 1870."[1]

[Footnote 1: Blackwood's Magazine.]

It seems, too, as if the world forgets now—what assuredly must be remembered hereafter in history—that it was he who relieved Europe from the treaties of Vienna, and asserted the claims of nationalities; that he brought about the resurrection of Italy; that through his policy we have a solution satisfactory to the world in general of the question of the pope's power as a temporal prince in Italy; that he was the builder of modern Paris, the promoter of agriculture, the railroad king of France, the peasant's and the workman's friend.

In early life he had been an adventurer; but a kind heart gave him gracious manners. He was grateful, faithful, and generous; terribly prodigal of money, and the victim of the needy men by whom he was surrounded. It seems as if, in spite of his coup d'etat (which, subtracting its massacres, may have been a measure of self-preservation), he deserves better of the world and of France than to have his memory spurned and spat upon, as men do now.

He gave France eighteen years of pre-eminent prosperity; he left her, to be sure, in ruins. In his fall he utterly obliterated the prestige of the name of Bonaparte. No Bonaparte, probably, will ever again awaken the enthusiasm of the French people,—an enthusiasm which Napoleon III. relied on, justly at first, and fatally afterwards, when a generation had arisen in France, from whom the feeling had passed away.

The emperor's malady, which was slowly sapping his strength, is said to be the most painful one that flesh is heir to. Every movement was pain to him. Absolute rest was what he needed, but cares pressed hard upon him on every side. He must die, and leave his empire in the hands of a woman and a child. His government had been wholly personal. He could not transmit his power, such is it was, to any other person,—least of all could he place it in feeble hands. There were no props to his throne. No Bismarck or Cavour stood beside him, to whom he might confide his wife and son, and feel that though his hand no longer held the helm, the ship would sail straight on the course he had laid down for her. The men about him were third and fourth rate men,—all of them enormously his own inferiors. They cheated and deceived and plundered him; and he knew it in a measure, though not as he knew it after his downfall.

The emperor said once: "There is but one Bonapartist among us, and that is Fleury. The empress is a Legitimist, I am a Socialist, and Prince Napoleon a Republican." As he contemplated the future, it seems to have occurred to him that the only thing that could be done was to teach France to govern herself,—to change his despotic authority into a constitutional government. He might live long enough, he thought, to make the new plan work, and if, by a successful war with Germany, a war impending and perhaps inevitable, he could gain brilliant military glory; if he could restore to France that frontier of the Rhine which had been wrested from her by Europe after the downfall of his uncle,—his dynasty would be covered with glory, and all might go on right for a few years, till his boy should be old enough to replace him.

Both these expedients he tried. In 1869 he announced that he was about to grant France liberal institutions. He put the empress forward whenever it was possible, and he made up his mind that as war with Germany was sure to come, the sooner it came, the better, that he might reap its fruits while some measure of life and strength was left him. Long before, Prince Albert had assured him that his policy, which made his ministers mere heads of bureaux, which never called them together for common action as members of one cabinet, which compelled each to report only to his master, who took on trust the accuracy of the reports made to him, was a very dangerous mode of governing. It was indeed very unlike his uncle's practice, though it might have been theoretically his system. Both uncle and nephew came into power by a coup d'etat,—the one on the 18th Brumaire (Nov. 9, 1799), the other on Dec. 2, 1851. Both were undoubtedly the real choice of the people; both really desired the prosperity of France: but the younger man was more genuine, more kindly, more human than the elder one. The uncle surrounded himself with "mighty men, men of renown,"—great marshals, great diplomatists, great statesmen. Louis Napoleon had not one man about him whom he could trust, either for honesty, ability, or personal devotion, unless, indeed, we except Count Walewski. All his life he had cherished his early ideas of the liberation of Italy, which he accomplished; of the resurrection of Poland, which he never found himself in a position to attempt; of the rectification of the frontier of France, which he in part accomplished by the attainment of Nice and Savoy; and, finally, his dream included the restoration to France of self-government, with order reconciled to liberty.

As early as January, 1867, the emperor was consulting, not only his friends, but his political opponents as to his scheme of transforming despotism into a parliamentary government. He wrote thus to M. Emile Ollivier, a leader of the liberal party in France:[1]—

[Footnote 1: Pierre di Lana.]

"Believe me, I am not pausing through indecision, nor through a vain infatuation as to my prerogatives; but my fear is of parting in this country, which is shaken by so many conflicting passions, with the means of re-establishing moral order, which is the essential basis of liberty. My embarrassment on the subject of a law of the Press is not how to find the power of repression, but how to define in a law what deserves repression. The most dangerous articles may escape repression, while the most insignificant may provoke prosecution. This has always been the difficulty. Nevertheless, in order to strike the public mind by decisive measures, I should like to effect at one stroke what has been called the crowning of the edifice. I should like to do this at once and forever; for it is important to me, and it is above all important to the country.... I wish to advance firmly in a straight line, without oscillating to the right or left. You see that I have spoken to you with perfect frankness."

We also see in this letter one of Louis Napoleon's characteristics,—a fondness for taking people by surprise. Nearly everything he did was a surprise to the public, and yet it had long been maturing in his own mind.

The next time M. Ollivier saw the emperor he was told of his intention to grant the right of holding political meetings; the responsibility of cabinet ministers to the Chamber; and the almost entire freedom of the Press. The emperor added, with a smile: "I am making considerable concessions, and if my government immediately succeeded that of the First Empire, this would be acknowledged; but since I came after parliamentary governments, my concessions will be considered small."

The emperor's experiment was a failure. The moment restraint was taken off, and the French had liberty of speech and freedom of the Press, they became like boys released from school and its strict discipline. The brutal excesses of language in the Parisian newspapers, the fierceness of their attacks upon the Government, and the shamelessness of their slander, alarmed the emperor and the best of his personal adherents, who had been by no means supporters of his policy. But though the experiment gave signs of never being likely to succeed, and no one seemed pleased with the new system, the emperor persevered. He refused to withdraw his reforms; he declined to make what children call "an Indian gift" to his people: but the effect of the divided counsels by which he was embarrassed was that these reforms were accepted by the public merely as experiments, to be tried during good behavior, and not as the basis of a new system definitively entered upon.

All through the year 1869 the difficulties of the course which the emperor adopted grew greater and greater. The emancipated Press was rampant. It knew no pity and no decency. Its articles on the emperor's failing health (which he insisted upon reading) were cruel in the extreme. Terrible anxieties for the future must have haunted him. If his project for self-government in France must prove a failure, when he was dead, what then? Could a child and a woman govern as he had done by a despotic will? He had done so in his days of health and strength; but events now seemed to intimate that his government had been a failure rather than a success.

Lord Palmerston, writing from Paris in Charles X.'s time, said: "Bonaparte in the last years of his reign crushed every one else, both in politics and war. He allowed no one to think and act but himself."

Somewhat the same remark could be applied to the Third Napoleon. But Napoleon I. was a great administrator as well as a great general; his activity was inexhaustible, he corresponded with everybody, he looked after everything, he knew whether he was well or ill served; and his mode of obtaining power did not hinder his availing himself of the best talent in France. The case of his nephew was the reverse of this. His highest quality was his tenacity of purpose, and his disposition was inclined to kindly tolerance, even of pecuniary greed and slipshod service. He could rouse himself to great exertion; but in the later days of Imperialism, pain and his decaying physical powers had rendered him inert; moreover, in his general habits he had always been indolent and pleasure-loving. In carrying out the coup d'etat nine tenths of the public men in France had been subjected to humiliations and indignities, by which they were permanently outraged, and a host of co-conspirators and adventurers had acquired claims upon the emperor that it was not safe to disregard. Places and money were distributed among them with reckless profusion, and many a shady money transaction, throwing discredit on some men high in favor with the emperor, was passed over, to avoid exposure.

On the other hand, the emperor improved Paris till he made it the most beautiful city in the world. It was his aim to open wide streets through the old crowded quarters where revolution hid itself, hatching plots and crimes. He provided fresh air and drainage. He turned the Bois de Boulogne from a mere wild wood into the magnificent pleasure-ground of a great city. He completed the Louvre, and demolished the straggling, hideous buildings which disfigured the Carrousel in Louis Philippe's time. The working population, which his improvements drove out of the Faubourg Saint Antoine emigrated to high and healthy quarters in Montmartre and Belleville, where a beautiful park was laid out for them. No part of Paris escaped these improvements, though it took immense sums to complete them. But while their good results will be permanent, their immediate effect was to raise rents and make the increased cost of living burdensome to people of small incomes. The work brought also into Paris an enormous population of masons, carpenters, and day-laborers,—a population which was a good deal like the monster in the fairy tale, which had to be fed each day with the best; for if once it became hungry or dissatisfied, it might devour the man of science who had brought it into being.

Still, the French are ungrateful to Napoleon III. when they forget how much they are indebted to him for the extension of their commerce, the growth of their railroads, the improvement of their cities, and above all for his attention to sanitary science and to agriculture.

When he came to the throne, every traveller through France was struck by the poor breeds of swine, sheep, and cattle; the slovenly system of cultivation, the wide waste lands, the poor implements for farming, and the want of drainage. In his exile the emperor had lived much with English landowners, and he endeavored more than anything else to improve agriculture. He spent great sums of money himself in model farms for the purpose of showing how things could be done. But while commercial, agricultural, and manufacturing prosperity increased in France, so also did the cost of living; and the cry, "Put money in thy purse!" found its echo in the hearts of all men in all classes of society. Speculation of every kind ran rampant, and by the year 1869 the cost of the improvements in Paris alone became greater than France could patiently bear.

Personally, Louis Napoleon had strong sympathy with the working-classes, and was always seeking to benefit them. He favored co-operative societies; he was planning, when he fell, a system of state annuities to disabled or to aged workmen. He abolished passports between France and England, and also the French workman's character-book, or livret, which by law he had been compelled to have always at hand.

In the midst of the emperor's other perplexities, there came, during the first days of 1870, a most damaging occurrence connected with his own family,—an occurrence with which the emperor had no more to do than Louis Philippe had had with the Praslin murder; but it helped to impair the remaining prestige which clung to the name of Bonaparte.

Prince Pierre Bonaparte, grandson of Lucien, was a dissolute and irregular character. His cousin, the emperor, had repeatedly paid his debts and given him, as he did to every one connected with the name of Bonaparte, large sums of money. At last Prince Pierre's conduct grew so bad that this help ceased. Then he threatened his cousin; but the emperor would not even buy an estate he owned in Corsica. Prince Pierre went back, therefore, to the cradle of his family, and there got into a fierce quarrel with an opposition member of the Chamber of Deputies. The deputy, like a true Corsican, nourished revenge. He waited till he went up to Paris, and there laid his grievances against the emperor's cousin before his fellow deputies of the opposition. They at once made it a party affair. On Jan. 2, 1870,—the day the reformed Chamber of Deputies was opened,—two journalists of Paris, M. de Tourvielle and M. Victor Noir, went armed to Pierre Bonaparte's house at Auteuil to carry him a challenge. They found the prince in a room where he kept a curious collection of weapons. He was a coarse man, with an ungovernable temper. High words were exchanged. Victor Noir slapped the prince in the face, and the prince, seizing a pistol, shot him dead. He then turned on M. de Tourvielle; but the latter had time to draw a sword from his sword-cane, and stood armed. Victor Noir's funeral was made the occasion of an immense republican demonstration, and M. Rochefort reviled the emperor and all his family in the newspaper he edited, "La Lanterne," calling upon Frenchmen to make an end of the Bonapartes.

Prince Pierre was tried for murder, and acquitted; Rochefort was tried for seditious libel, and condemned. It was an ominous opening for the new Chamber. The emperor had been most anxious that it should contain no deputies violently opposed to his new policy, and the elections had been scandalously manipulated in the interest of his dynasty.

Thiers complained bitterly to an Englishman, who visited him, of the undisguised tampering with voters in this election. He said,—

"The Government pretends to believe in a Chamber elected by universal suffrage, and yet dares not trust the votes of the electors; but mark my words, this tampering with an election is for the last time. What will succeed the Empire, I know not. God grant it may not be our country's ruin! But the state of things under which we live cannot last long. It is incumbent on honest men to lay before the emperor the state of the country, which his ministers do their best to keep from him. For a long time I kept silent,—it was no use to knock one's head against a wall; but now we have revolution staring us in the face, as the alternative with the Empire."

As the little man said this, we are told that the fire in his eyes gleamed through his spectacles; and as he walked about the room, he seemed to grow taller and taller.[1]

[Footnote 1: Blackwood's Magazine.]

The new constitutional ministry, into whose hands the emperor proposed to resign despotic power and to rule thenceforward as constitutional sovereign, had for its chief M. Emile Ollivier; Marshal Le Boeuf (made marshal on the field of Magenta) was the Minister of War.

The debates in the Chamber were all stormy. The opposition might not be numerous, but it was fierce and determined. It scoffed at the idea of France being free when elections were tampered with to sustain the Government; and finally things came to such a pass that the emperor resolved to play again his tromp-card, and to call a plebiscite to say whether the French people approved of him and wished to continue his dynasty. They were to vote simply Yes or No.

There was not such open tampering this time with the vote as there had been in the election of the deputies, but all kinds of Government influences were brought to bear on prefects, maires, and other official personages, especially in the villages. The result was that 7,250,000 Frenchmen voted Yes, and one and a half million, No. But to the emperor's intense surprise and mortification, and in spite of all precautions, there were 42,000 Noes from the army. It was a terrible discovery to the emperor that there was disaffection among his soldiers. Promotion, many men believed, had for some years been distributed through favoritism. The men had little confidence in their officers, the officers complained loudly of their men. A dashing exploit in Algeria made up for irregularities of discipline. Even the staff officers were deficient in geography, and the stories that afterwards came to light of the way in which the War Department collected worthless stores, while serviceable ones existed only on paper, seem almost incredible. Yet when war was declared, Emile Ollivier said that he went into it with a light heart, and Marshal Le Boeuf was reported to have told the emperor that he would not find so much as one button missing on his soldiers' gaiters.

The discovery that the army was not to be depended on, and needed a war of glory to put it in good humor with itself and with its emperor, decided Napoleon III. to enter precipitately into the Franco-Prussian war while he still had health enough to share in it. Besides this, a struggle with Germany was inevitable, and he dared not leave it to his successor. Then, too, if successful,—and he never doubted of success,—all opposition at home would be crushed, and the prestige of his dynasty would be doubled, especially if he could, by a brilliant campaign, give France the frontier of the Rhine, at least to the borders of Belgium. This would indeed be a glorious crowning of his reign.

He believed in himself, he believed in his star, he believed in his own generalship, he believed that his army was ready (though his army and navy never had been ready for any previous campaign), and he believed, truly enough, that the prospect of glory, aggrandizement, and success would be popular in France.

Spain was at that time in want of a king. Several princes were proposed, and the most acceptable one would have been the Duc de Montpensier; but Napoleon III., who dreaded the rivalry of the Orleans family, gave the Spaniards to understand that he would never consent to see a prince of that family upon the Spanish throne. Then the Spaniards took the matter into their own hands, and possibly stimulated by a wish to make a choice disagreeable to the French emperor, selected a prince of the Prussian royal family, Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern. The Emperor Napoleon objected at once. To have Prussia on the eastern frontier of France, and Prussian influence beyond the Pyrenees, was worse in his eyes than the selection of Montpensier; and it was certainly a matter for diplomatic consideration. M. Benedetti, the French minister at Berlin, was instructed to take a very haughty tone with the king of Prussia, and to say that if he permitted Prince Leopold to accept the Spanish crown, it would be a cause of war between France and Prussia. The king of Prussia replied substantially that he would not be threatened, and would leave Prince Leopold to do as he pleased. Prompted, however, no doubt, by his sovereign, Prince Leopold declined the Spanish throne. This was intimated to M. Benedetti, and here the matter might have come to an end. But the Emperor Napoleon, anxious for a casus belli, chose to think that the king of Prussia, in making his announcement to his ambassador, had not been sufficiently civil.

A cabinet council was held at the Tuileries. The empress was now admitted to cabinet councils, that she might be prepared for a regency that before long might arrive. She and Marshal Le Boeuf were vehement for war. The populace, proud of their fine army, shouted with one voice, "A Berlin!" and on July 15, 1870, war was declared.

Let us relieve the sad closing of this chapter, which began so auspiciously with the emperor and empress in the height of their prosperity, by telling of an expedition in which the glory of the empress as a royal lady culminated.

The Suez Canal being completed, its opening was to be made an international affair of great importance. The work was the work of French engineers, led by M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, in every way a most remarkable man.

England looked coldly on the enterprise. To use the vulgar phrase both literally and metaphorically, she "took no stock" in the Suez Canal, and she sent no royal personage, nor other representative to the opening ceremonies; the only Englishman of official rank who was present was an admiral, whose flag-ship was in the harbor of Port Said.

The Emperor Napoleon was wholly unable to leave France at a time so critical; but he sent his fair young empress in his stead. He stayed at Saint-Cloud, and took advantage of her absence to submit to a severe surgical operation. The empress went first to Constantinople, where Sultan Abdul Aziz gave a beautiful fete in her honor, at which she appeared, lovely and all glorious, in amber satin and diamonds. She afterwards proceeded to Egypt as the guest of the khedive, entering Port Said Nov. 16, 1869, and returning to Paris on the 5th of December.



The opening of the canal across the isthmus of Suez, which was in a manner to unite the Eastern with the Western world, caused the eyes of all Christendom to be fixed on Egypt,—the venerable great-grandmother of civilization. The great work had been completed, in spite of Lord Palmerston's sincere conviction, which he lost no opportunity of proclaiming to the world, that it was impossible to connect the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. The sea-level, he said, was not the same in the two seas so that the embankments could not be sustained, and drift-sands from the desert would fill the work up rapidly from day to day. Ismail Pasha, the khedive of Egypt, had made the tour of Europe, inviting everybody to the opening, from kings and kaisers, empresses and queens, down to members of chambers of commerce and marine insurance companies. Great numbers were to be present, and the Empress Eugenie was to be the Cleopatra of the occasion. But suddenly the khedive was threatened with a serious disappointment: the sultan, his suzerain, wanted to join in the festivities; and if he were present, he must be the chief personage, the khedive would be thrust into a vassal's place, and all his glory, all his pleasure in his fete, would be gone.

The ancient Egyptians, whose attention was much absorbed in waterworks and means of irrigation, had, as far back as the days of Sesostris, conceived the idea of communication between the Nile and the Red Sea. Traces of the canal that they attempted still remain. Pharaoh Necho, in the days of the Prophet Jeremiah, revived the project. Darius and one of the Ptolemies completed the work, but when Egypt sank back into semi-barbarism, the canal was neglected and forgotten. It does not appear, however, that the Pharaohs ever thought of connecting the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. The canal of Sesostris and of Pharaoh Necho was a purely local affair, affecting Egyptian commerce alone.

Some modern Egyptian engineers seem first to have conceived the project of a Suez canal; but the man who accomplished it was the engineer and statesman, M. de Lesseps. In spite of all manner of discouragements, he brought the canal to completion, supported throughout by the influence and authority of the khedive. The first thing to be done was to supply the laborers and the new town of Ismailia with drinking water, by means of a narrow freshwater canal from the Nile. Till then all fresh water had been brought in tanks from Cairo. Next, a town—called Port Said, after the khedive who had first favored the plan of the canal—was built on the Mediterranean. The canal was to run a straight southerly course to Suez. At Ismailia, the new city, it would connect with the railroad to Cairo; between Port Said and Ismailia it would pass through two swampy lakes.

In seven years Port Said became a town of ten thousand inhabitants. The total length of the canal is about ninety miles, but more than half of it passes through the lakes, which had to be dredged. The width of the canal is a little over one hundred yards, its depth twenty-six feet. About sixty millions of dollars were expended on its construction and the preliminary works that it entailed,—these last all tending to the benefit and prosperity of Egypt.

The grand opening took place Nov. 16, 1869. The sultan was not present; he had been persuaded out of his fancy to see the sight, and the khedive was left in peace as master of ceremonies. The Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria was there in his yacht, and the Empress Eugenie, the "bright particular star" of the occasion, was on board the French war-steamer "L'Aigle." As "L'Aigle" steamed slowly into the crowded port, all the bands played,—

"Partant pour la Syrie, Le brave et jeune Dunois,"

the air of which had been composed by Queen Hortense, the mother of the emperor, so that it was dignified during his reign into a national air.

That afternoon there was a religious ceremony, which all the crowned heads and other great personages were expected to attend. Two of the sovereigns or heirs-apparent present were Roman Catholics, one was a Protestant, and one a Mohammedan. The Crescent and the Cross for the first time overshadowed worshippers joining in one common prayer. The empress appeared, leaning on the arm of the Emperor of Austria. She wore a short pale gray silk, with deep white Brussels lace arranged in paniers and flounces. Her hat and veil were black, and round her throat was a black velvet ribbon. The Mohammedan pontiff who officiated on the occasion was understood to be a man of extraordinary sanctity, brought from a great distance to lend solemnity to the occasion. He was followed by the chaplain of the empress, a stout, handsome Hungarian prelate named M. Bauer.[1]

[Footnote 1: Blackwood's Magazine.]

Even up to the morning of November 17, when the passage of the fleet was to be made through the canal, there were persons at Port Said who doubted if it would get through. The ships-of-war had been directed to enter the canal first, and there was to be between each ship an interval of a quarter of an hour. They were ordered to steam at the rate of five miles an hour. "L'Aigle" entered first. "La Pelouse," another French ship, had the greatest draught of water; namely, eighteen or nineteen feet.

The scenery from the Suez Canal was not interesting. Lakes, then undrained, stretched upon either side; the banks of the canal being the only land visible. But as evening fell, and the sun sank, a rich purple light, with its warm tones, overspread everything, until the moon rose, touching the waters with her silvery sheen. Before this, however, the foremost ships in the procession had safely reached Ismailia. There the khedive had erected a new palace in which to review his guests. They numbered about six thousand, and the behavior of many of them did little credit to civilization.

The khedive had arranged an exhibition of Arab horsemanship and of throwing the Jereed; but the sand was so deep that the horses could not show themselves to advantage. The empress, wearing a large leghorn hat and yellow veil, rode on a camel; and when an Italian in the crowd shouted to her roughly, "Lean back, or you will fall off, heels over head," the graceful dignity with which she smiled, and accepted the advice, won the hearts of all beholders.

That night a great ball was given by the khedive in his new palace. "It was impossible," says an English gentleman, "to overrate the gracious influence of the empress's presence. The occasion, great as it was, would have lost its romance if she had not been there. She it was who raised the spirit of chivalry, subdued the spirit of strife, enmity, and intrigue among rival men, and over commerce, science, and avarice spread the gauzy hues of poetry."

Alas! poor empress. Ten months later, she was hurrying as a fugitive on board an English yacht on her way into exile, having passed through anxieties and griefs that had streaked her hair with gray. Even in the midst of her personal triumphs in the East, there were clouds on the horizon of her life which she could see darkening and increasing. A few days before the fetes of the opening of the canal, she writes to her husband, who, though unfit for exertion, had gone into Paris on some state occasion,—

"I was very anxious about you yesterday, thinking of you in Paris without me; but I see by your telegram that everything passed off well. When we observe other nations, we can better perceive the injustice of our own. I think, however, in spite of all, that you must not be discouraged, but continue in the course you have inaugurated. It is right to keep faith touching concessions that have been granted. I hope that your speech to the Chamber will be in this spirit. The more strength may be wanted in the future, the more important it is to prove to the country that we act upon ideas, and not only on expedients. I speak thus while far away, and ignorant of what has passed since my departure, but I am thoroughly convinced that strength lies in the orderly sequence of ideas. I do not like surprises, and I am persuaded that a coup d'etat cannot be made twice in one reign. I am talking in the dark, and to one already of my opinion, and who knows more than I can know; but I must say something, if only to prove, what you know, that my heart is with you both, and that if in calm days my spirit loves to roam in space, it is with you both I love to be in times of care or trouble."



CHAPTER XII.

PARIS IN 1870: JULY, AUGUST, AND SEPTEMBER.

As soon as relations became "strained" between France and Germany, according to the term used in diplomacy, the king of Prussia ordered home all his subjects who had found employment in France, especially those in Alsace and Lorraine.[1] Long before this, those provinces had been overrun with photographers, pedlers, and travelling workmen, commissioned to make themselves fully acquainted with the roads, the by-paths, the resources of the villages, and the character of the rural officials. In the case of France, however, though all the reports concerning military stores looked well on paper, the old guns mounted on the frontier fortresses were worthless, and the organization of the army was so imperfect that scarcely more than two hundred thousand troops could be sent to defend the French frontier from Switzerland to Luxemburg; while Germany, with an army that could be mobilized in eleven days, was ready by the 1st of August to pour five hundred thousand men across the Rhine. The emperor placed great reliance on his mitrailleuses,—a new engine of war that would fire a volley of musketry at once, but which, though horribly murderous, has not proved of great value in actual warfare. Towards the Rhine were hurried soldiers, recruits, cannon, horses, artillery, ammunition, wagons full of biscuit and all manner of munitions of war. The roads between Strasburg and Belfort were blocked up, and in the disorder nobody seemed to know what should be done. Every one was trying to get orders. The telegraph lines were reserved for the Government. Quartermasters were roaming about in search of their depots, colonels were looking for their regiments, generals for their brigades or divisions. There were loud outcries for salt, sugar, coffee, bacon, and bridles. Maps of Germany as far as the shores of the Baltic were being issued to soldiers who, alas! were never to pass their own frontier. But while this was the situation near the seat of war, in other parts of France the scene was different, especially in Brest and other seaports. These towns were crowded with soldiers and sailors; the streets were filled with half-drunken recruits bawling patriotic sentiments in tipsy songs. And now, for the first time since the Empire came into existence, might be heard the unaccustomed strains of the "Marseillaise." It had been long suppressed in France; but when war became imminent, it was encouraged for the purpose of exciting military ardor.

[Footnote 1: Erckmann-Chatrian, La Plebiscite.]

Every day in the provincial towns the war fever grew fiercer. The bugle sounded incessantly in the streets of any place where there were troops in garrison. Regiment followed regiment on its way into Paris, changing quarters or marching to depots to receive equipments. Orderlies galloped madly about, and heavy ammunition wagons lumbered noisily over the pavements. Everybody shouted "A Berlin," and took up the chorus of the "Marseillaise." The post-offices and telegraph-offices were crowded with soldiers openly dictating their messages to patient officials who put them into shape, and it was said that nearly every telegram contained the words, "Please send me..." Alas, poor fellows! it is probable that nothing sent them in reply was ever received.[1]

[Footnote 1: I am indebted for much in this chapter to a private journal.]

Parisians or residents in Paris all believed at that time in the prestige of the French army; only here and there a German exile muttered in his beard something about Sadowa.

On July 27 all Paris assembled on the Boulevards to see the Garde Imperiale take its departure for the frontier. This Imperial Guard was a choice corps created by Napoleon III. at the outset of the Crimean War. It was a force numbering nominally twenty thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry. It was a very popular corps, and the war with Germany was popular; consequently the march from its barracks to the railroad station was one continued triumph. At every halt the Parisians pressed into the ranks with gifts of money, wine, and cigars. "Vive l'armee!" shouted the multitude. "A Berlin!" responded the troops; and now and then, as the bands struck up the "Marseillaise," the population and the troops burst out in chorus with the solemn, spirit-stirring words.

At the head of this brilliant host rode Marshal Le Boeuf, who was minister of war and military tutor to the Prince Imperial. After the departure of the main body of the corps, large detachments of cavalry and artillery which belonged to it were expected to follow; but they remained behind in the provinces, because Lyons, Marseilles, and Algeria, all centres of the revolutionary spirit, could not, it was found, be left without armed protection. Therefore only a portion of the crack corps of the French army went forward to the frontier,—a fact never suspected by the public until events, a few weeks later, made it known.

Paris was jubilant. The theatres especially became centres of patriotic demonstrations. At the Grand Opera House, Auber's "Massaniello" (called in France the "Muette de Portici") was announced. For many years its performance had been interdicted under the Second Empire, the story being one of heroic revolt. The time had come, however, when its ardent patriotism entitled it to resuscitation. Faure, the most remarkable baritone singer of the period, suddenly, at the beginning of the second act, which opens with a chorus of fishermen inciting each other to resist oppression, appeared upon the stage bearing the French flag. The chorus ranged themselves to right and left as he strode forward and waved the tricolor above the footlights. The house broke into wild uproar, cheer after cheer rose for the flag, for the singer, for France.

"The violence of the applause," says one who was present, "continued until all were breathless; then a sudden silence preceded the great event of the evening. In clear, firm tones, Faure launched forth the first notes of the 'Marseillaise;' and as the first verse ended, he bounded forward, and unfurling the flag to its full length and breadth, he waved it high above his head as he electrified the audience with the cry, 'Aux armes citoyens!' and subsequently, when in the last verse he sank upon one knee, and folding the standard to his heart, raised his eyes towards heaven, he drew all hearts with him; tears flowed, hand grasped hand, and deeply solemn was the intonation of the volunteer chorus following the call to arms!

"The month of July was drawing to a close when the emperor took his departure for Metz, where he was to assume the post of generalissimo. With him went gayly the young Prince Imperial, then fourteen years old. Their starting-point was the small rustic summer-house in the park of Saint-Cloud, the termination of a miniature branch railroad connecting with the great lines of travel. There the father and son parted from the empress, who removed the same day to the Tuileries, where she administered the imperial government under the title of empress-regent.

"It would have been injudicious for the emperor at this time to risk a public departure from Paris. The Parisians were so full of confidence and enthusiasm that he might have received an inconvenient ovation in advance."

Skirmishing had been going on along the frontier between the French and German outposts since July 21. On August 2 the campaign began in earnest. After luncheon on that day, the emperor and the Prince Imperial set out by rail from Metz, and returned to Metz to dinner, having invaded German territory and opened the war. They had alighted at Forbach, and proceeded thence to make a reconnaissance into the enemy's territory near Saarbrueck,—a small town of two thousand inhabitants, where, strange to say, an International Peace Congress had held its session not many months before. This place had an ordinary frontier garrison, and lay two and a half miles beyond the boundary of France. General Frossard, under the emperor's direction and supervision, led on his men to attack the place. The first gun was fired by the Prince Imperial, who here, as his father's telegram that night reported to the empress, received his "baptism of fire." The garrison returned the fire, and then, having lost two officers and seventy-two men, it retired, leaving the French in possession of the heights above the town. Poor Prince Imperial! Some harsh lines concerning his first exploit were published in the London "Spectator:"—

"'How jolly, papa! how funny! How the blue men tumble about! Huzza! there's a fellow's head off,— How the dark red blood spouts out! And look, what a jolly bonfire!— Wants nothing but colored light! Oh, papa, burn a lot of cities, And burn the next one at night!' "'Yes, child, it is operatic; But don't forget, in your glee, That for your sake this play is playing, That you may be worthy of me. They baptized you in Jordan water,— Baptized as a Christian, I mean,— But you come of the race of Caesar, And thus have their baptisms been. Baptized in true Caesar fashion, Remember, through all your years, That the font was a burning city, And the water was widows' tears,'"

When these lines were written, how little could any man have foreseen the fate of the poor lad, lying bloody and stark on a hillside of South Africa, deserted by his comrades, and above all by a degenerate descendant of Sir Walter Raleigh, who should have risked his life to defend his charge!

The day after the attack on Saarbrueck compact masses of Germans were moving across the frontier into France, and the next day (August 4), a division of MacMahon's army corps was surprised at Wissembourg, while their commander was at Metz in conference with the emperor. The French troops were cut to pieces, and the fugitives spread themselves all over the country. The battle had been fought on ground covered with vineyards, and the movements of the French cavalry had been impeded by the vines. In this battle the French were without artillery, but they took eight cannon from the enemy. The Prussians, however, being speedily reinforced, recovered their advantage and gained a complete victory. Wissembourg, a small town in Alsace, was bombarded and set on fire. There seemed no officer among the defeated French to restore order. They had never anticipated such a rout, and were, especially the cavalry, utterly demoralized.

The French army was divided into seven army corps, the German into twelve. Each German army corps was greatly stronger in men, and incomparably better officered and equipped, than the French. The Germans began the war with nearly a million men; the French with little more than two hundred thousand on the frontier, though their army was five hundred thousand strong on the official records. The habit of the War Office had been to let rich men who were drawn for the conscription pay four hundred francs for a substitute, which substitute was seldom purchased, the money going into the pockets of dishonest officials.

The two hundred thousand French were stretched in a thin line from Belgium to the mountains of Dauphine. A German army corps could break this line at almost any point; and throughout the whole campaign the French suffered from the lack of reliable information as to the movements of the enemy.

On August 6, two days after the defeat at Wissembourg, the battle of Woerth, or Reichshofen, was fought between the German corps d'armee under the Prussian Crown Prince and the corps of MacMahon, which was completely defeated, and only enabled to leave the field of battle in retreat rather than rout, by brilliant charges of cavalry. The French lost six mitrailleuses, thirty guns, and four thousand unwounded prisoners. On the same day the German reserves retook Saarbrueck, and put to flight General Frossard's division. After these reverses Napoleon III. proposed to retreat on Paris and to cover the capital. This also was the counsel of MacMahon; but the empress-regent opposed it strongly, considering it a movement that must prove fatal to the dynasty. She even refused to receive back her son. And indeed it did not seem unlikely that the good people of Paris, who ten days before had cheered clamorously their beloved emperor, might have tom him in pieces, had he come back to them after such a succession of disasters.

On the 7th of August, the very day after the battle of Worth, while MacMahon was retreating before the victorious army of the Prussian Crown Prince, the Parisians were made victims of an extraordinary deception. A great battle was reported, in which the Crown Prince had been made prisoner, together with twenty-six thousand of his men.

All Paris turned into the streets to exult over this victory; everyone rushed in the direction of the Bourse, where details of the great victory were said to have been posted. In every street, from every house, people were summoned to hang out flags and banners. An excited crowd filled up the Bourse, many men clinging to the railings, all shouting, singing, and embracing each other. No one for a long time had any clear idea what the rejoicing was about, yet the crowd went on shouting and singing choruses, waving hats, and reiterating the "Marseillaise." The carriage of Madame Marie Sasse, the prima donna, who was on her way to a rehearsal at the Grand Opera House, was stopped, and she was requested to sing the "Marseillaise." She stood up on the seat of her carriage and complied at once. "There was profound silence," wrote a gentleman who was in the crowd, "when she gave the first notes of the 'Marseillaise;' but all Paris seemed to take up the chorus after each stanza. There was uproarious applause. The last verse was even more moving than when Faure had sung it, on account of the novelty of the surroundings and the spontaneous feeling of the people. There were real tears in the singer's eyes, and her voice trembled with genuine emotion as she came to the thrilling appeal to Liberte."

At the same moment Capoul also was singing the "Marseillaise" in another street, and in the Rue Richelieu the mob, having stopped a beer cart and borrowed some glasses from a restaurant, were drinking healths to the army and the emperor.

"All this time," says the American, who mingled in the crowd and shouted with the rest in his excitement, "it never occurred to me to doubt the accuracy of the news that had so stirred up Paris; for the newspapers on the preceding days had prepared us to expect something of the kind. All at once, upon the Boulevard, I was aware of a violent altercation going on between a respectable-looking man and a number of infuriated bystanders. He seemed to be insisting that the whole story of the victory was untrue, and that despatches had been received announcing heavy disasters. I saw that unlucky citizen hustled about, and finally collared and led off by a policeman, the people pursuing him with cries of 'Prussian!' But some time later in the day some persons in a cab drove down the Boulevards with a white banner, inscribed: THE AUTHOR OF THE FALSE NEWS IS ARRESTED! This, however, was not the case, for the news was never traced to any person."

The mob as soon as it began to believe that it had been the victim of some stockjobbing operators, rushed to the Bourse, determined to pull everything to pieces; but the military were there beforehand, and it had to content itself with requiring all householders to pull down the flags which two hours before it had insisted must be hung out.

The Parisians were not easily appeased after this cruel deception, and took their revenge by spreading damaging reports about the Government of the regency, especially accusing the ministers of basely suppressing bulletins from the army, that they might gamble on the stock-exchange. The chief of the cabinet, Emile Ollivier, was very nearly mobbed; but he pacified the people by a speech made from the balcony of his residence. He was at the time really unaware that more than one defeat had been sustained.

Hour after hour alarming reports kept coming in; and at last, on August 9, the fatal news of three successive defeats was posted all over the city. Soon an ominous message, sent by Napoleon III., revealed the full horror of the situation: "Hasten preparations for the defence of Paris."

The greatest dismay prevailed. The Chambers were summoned to an evening session. The legislators were guarded by cavalry from the mob which surged round the Chamber. Ollivier and his cabinet were forced to resign, and a new cabinet was hastily installed in office, calling itself the Ministry of National Defence. Its head was Count Montauban, a man seventy-five years old, who had gained the title of Count Palikao by his notorious campaign in China in 1860, when he sacked the summer palace at Pekin. M. Thiers had pronounced him far more of a soldier than a statesman. He was in command of the fourth army corps at Lyons when summoned by the empress-regent to take up the reins of government; but in the course of the unvaried succession of misfortunes which made up the history of the French arms during the month of August, the public statements of Palikao proved as unreliable as those of his predecessor. His favorite way of meeting inquiries was to say oracularly: "If Paris knew what I know, the city would be illuminated."

Confidence increased after the empress-regent had proclaimed a levee en masse. There were no arms for those who responded to the call, and most of them had to be sent back to their homes; but it was considered certain that the mere idea of a general call to arms would intimidate the Prussians. Indeed, there was a popular delusion, shared even by foreigners, that the Prussian soldiery, on their march to Paris, would be cut to pieces by the peasantry. The conduct of the peasantry proved exactly the reverse of belligerent. The penalties inflicted by the invaders for irregular warfare, and the profits made by individuals who remained neutral, were cleverly calculated to render the peasantry, not only harmless, but actually useful to the enemy.

Meantime the French were rapidly evacuating Alsace, and preparing to make their stand on the Moselle. General Failly's corps of thirty thousand men, which had failed to come up in time to help MacMahon at Woerth, were in full retreat, without exchanging a shot with the enemy.

The Germans continued to march steadily on. The country was systematically requisitioned for supplies. The maire or other high official of each village was informed twenty-four hours beforehand how many men he was expected to provide with rations; namely, to each man daily, 1-1/2 lb. bread, 1 lb. Meat, 1/4 lb. coffee, five cigars, or their equivalent in tobacco, a pint of wine or a quart of beer, and horse feed. If these demands were not complied with, he was assured that the village would be set on fire; and after a few examples had been made, the villagers became so intimidated that they furnished all that was required of them.

Here is a description of one night's work done by a Prussian general. It is taken from a work by Erckmann-Chatrian;[1] but those graphic writers took all their descriptions from the mouths of Alsatian peasants who had been eye-witnesses of the scenes which they described:—

[Footnote 1: La Plebiscite.]

"The first thing the Prussian commander did on entering his chamber in a cottage where he had quarters for the night, was to make three or four soldiers turn out every article of furniture. Then he spread out on the floor an enormous map of the country. He took off his boots and lay down on the map flat on his stomach. Then he called in six or seven officers, all captains or lieutenants. Each man pulled out a small map. The general called to one of them by name: 'Have you got the road from here to Metting?' 'Yes, General.' 'Name all the places between here and there.' Then the officer, without hesitation, told the names of all the villages, farms, streams, bridges, and woods, the turnings of the roads, the very cow-paths. The general followed him on the large map with his finger. 'That's all right. Take twenty men and go as far as St. Jean by such a road. You will reconnoitre. If you want any assistance, send me word.' And so on, one by one, to all the others."

Such was the system and order of the Germans; while the French, full of amazement at their own defeat, unled, unofficered, and disorganized, are thus described by Edmond About as he saw them entering Saverne after the disastrous day at Woerth.

"There were cuirassiers," he says, "without cuirasses, fusileers without guns, horsemen on foot, and infantry on horseback. The roads taken by the army in its flight were blocked by trains of wagons loaded with provisions and clothing, and the woods were filled with stragglers wandering about in a purposeless way. Among the spoils of that day which fell into the hands of the Prussians were several railroad freight-cars loaded with Paris confectionery: and two days after the battle it was easier to obtain a hundredweight of bonbons at Forbach than a loaf of bread."

All this happened in one week, from August 2 to August 6. During this week the emperor stayed at Metz, having been implored by his generals to keep away from the army.

A week later, Strasburg was besieged. MacMahon, the remnants of whose corps had been driven out of Alsace by the Crown Prince, was endeavoring to effect a juncture with the army corps of De Failly.

The object of the emperor and Marshal MacMahon was to concentrate as large a force as possible before the very strongly fortified city of Metz. But as soon as they reached Metz the armies of General Steinmetz and Prince Frederic Charles, two hundred and fifty thousand strong, began to close in upon them. There seemed no safety but in further retreat. The emperor wanted to give up Lorraine, and to concentrate all his forces in an intrenched camp at Chalons; but advices from Paris warned him that a revolt would break out in the capital if he did so. He therefore resigned his position as commander-in-chief to Marshal Bazaine. He was coldly received in the camp at Chalons, and his presence with several thousand men as a body-guard was an impediment to military operations. He was therefore virtually dropped out of the army, and from August 18, when this news was known in Paris, his authority in France was practically at an end. On the same day (August 18) Bazaine's army was driven into Metz after the battle of Gravelotte, at which battle the French, though defeated, distinguished themselves by their bravery. Bazaine had one hundred and seventy thousand men with him when he retired behind the walls of Metz. Here he was closely besieged till October 27, when he surrendered.

The news that reached Paris of these events (just one month after the emperor had signed the declaration of war) not only resulted in his practical deposition, but caused a notoriously anti-Bonapartist general to be appointed military governor of the capital. Imperialism remained an empty name. France was without one ally, nor had the emperor one friend. Meantime Palikao, to appease the irritation of the public, continued to announce victory after victory. Of all his fantastic inventions, the most fantastic was one published immediately after Bazaine had shut himself up with his army in Metz. A despatch was published, and universally accepted with confidence and enthusiasm, announcing that three German army corps had been overthrown at the Quarries of Jaumont. There are no quarries at Jaumont, there were no Prussians anywhere near the spot, and none had been defeated; but the Parisians were well satisfied.

After the first panic caused by the despatch that Paris must prepare for defence, means were taken for provisioning the city. Clement Duvernois, an ex-radical, an ex-Bonapartist, and one of the members of the Ministry of Defence, gave ignorant and reckless orders for supplies, which, in spite of the gravity of the situation, amused the Parisians immensely.

Droves of cattle passed all day along the Boulevards, going to be pastured in the Bois de Boulogne, where they were tended by Gardes Mobiles from the rural districts. The cattle, the camps, and the fortifications attracted crowds of curious spectators.

The tap of the drum was wellnigh incessant in the city; and while the enemy was drawing near, and bloody defeats followed each other in rapid succession, the Parisians seemed chiefly stimulated to write fresh libels in the newspapers, and to amuse each other with caricatures and satires.

Among other foolish measures was that of ordering all firemen from the departments up to Paris. They remained in the city a week, and were then sent home. In their absurd and heavy uniforms, and with nothing whatever to do, the poor country fellows presented a miserable appearance as they sat in rows along the curbstones of the avenues, with their helmets glittering in the August sun, "looking," as some one remarked, "like so many rare beetles on exhibition," the spectacle being all the more ludicrous from the extreme dejection of the innocent heroes.

Troops were always on the move. The Gardes Mobiles, formed into companies, were not wanted anywhere. Being too raw as yet for active service, they were transferred from one barrack to another, and were drilled in the open streets and in the public squares. The forts absorbed a number of them; others were employed as shepherds and drovers. The surplus was billeted on the citizens.

Towards the end of August there began to be a notion that the city was full of spies, and all suspected persons were called Prussians. The mania for spy-hunting became general, and was frequently very inconvenient to Americans and Englishmen. Germans in Paris, many of whom had intermarried with the French, naturally found themselves in a most unhappy situation. At first they were strictly forbidden to leave Paris; then suddenly they were ordered away, on three days' notice, under penalty of being treated as prisoners of war.

This decree affected eighty thousand persons in France, nearly all of whom were connected by family ties or business relations with the country of their adoption. The outcry raised by the English and German Press about this summary expulsion procured some modification of the order,—not, however, without a protest from the radicals, who clamored for the rigor of the law. Mr. Washburne, the American minister, the only foreign ambassador who remained in Paris during the siege, had accepted the charge of these unhappy Germans, and heart-breaking scenes took place daily at the American Legation.

Soon after the defeats in the first week in August, Mr. Washburne had his last interview with the Empress Eugenie.

"She had evidently," he says, "passed a sleepless and agitated night, and was in great distress of mind. She at once began to speak of the terrible news she had received, and the effect it would have on the French people. I suggested to her that the news might not be quite so bad as was reported (alas! it was far worse), and that the consequences might in the end be far better than present circumstances indicated. I spoke to her about the first battle of Bull Run, and the defeat that the Union army had there suffered, which had only stimulated the country to greater exertions. She replied: 'I only wish the French in these respects were like you Americans; but I am afraid they will get too much discouraged, and give up too soon.'"[1]

[Footnote 1: Recollections of a Minister to France.]

All this time the "Figaro" was publishing articles that held out hopes of victory and flattered the self-confidence of the Parisians. Marshals MacMahon and Bazaine were represented as leading the enemy craftily into a snare, and the illusion was kept up that the Germans would be cut to pieces by the peasantry "before they could lay their sacrilegious hands," said Victor Hugo, "upon the Mecca of civilization." Instead of this, the Crown Prince's army was marching in pursuit of MacMahon's forces through the great plains of Champagne. MacMahon had some design of turning back, uniting with another army corps, and attacking the Prussians in the rear, thus hemming in part of their army between himself and the troops of Bazaine in Metz; but he seems to have been really in the position of a pawn driven about a chess-board by an experienced player.

Continually retreating, the emperor, who was with MacMahon's army, at last found himself at Sedan, safe, as he hoped, for a brief breathing space, from the attacks of the two Prussian army corps which were following in his rear. He had been warned repeatedly that he must not return to Paris without a victory. "The language of reason," he remarked, "is no longer understood at the capital."

On Aug. 30, 1870, the retreating French were concentrated, or rather massed, under the walls of Sedan,[1] in a valley commonly called the Sink of Givonne. The army consisted of twenty-nine brigades, fifteen divisions, and four corps d'armee, numbering ninety thousand men.

[Footnote 1: Victor Hugo, Choses vues.]

"It was there," says Victor Hugo, "no one could guess what for, without order, without discipline, a mere crowd of men, waiting, as it seemed, to be seized by an immensely powerful hand. It seemed to be under no particular anxiety. The men who composed it knew, or thought they knew, that the enemy was far away. Calculating four leagues as a day's march, they believed the Germans to be at three days distance. The commanders, however, towards nightfall, made some preparations for safety. The whole army formed a sort of horse-shoe, its point turning towards Sedan. This disposition proved that its chiefs believed themselves in safety. The valley was one of those which the Emperor Napoleon used to call a 'bowl,' and which Admiral Van Tromp designated by a less polite name. No place could have been better calculated to shut in an army. Its very numbers were against it. Once in, if the way out were blocked, it could never leave it again. Some of the generals,—General Wimpfen among them—saw this, and were uneasy; but the little court around the emperor was confident of safety. 'At worst,' they said, 'we can always reach the Belgian frontier.' The commonest military precautions were neglected. The army slept soundly on the night of August 31. At the worst they believed themselves to have a line of retreat open to Mezieres, a town on the frontier of Belgium. No cavalry reconnoissance was made that night; the guards were not doubled. The French believed themselves more than forty miles from the German army. They behaved as if they thought that army unconcentrated and ill-informed, attempting vaguely several things at once, and incapable of converging on one point, namely, Sedan. They thought they knew that the column under the Prince of Saxony was marching upon Chalons, and that the Crown Prince of Prussia was marching upon Metz.

"But that night, while the French army, in fancied security, was sleeping at Sedan, this is what was passing among the enemy.

"By a quarter to two A. M. the army of the Prince of Saxony was on its march eastward, with orders not to fire a shot till five o'clock, and to make as little noise as possible. They marched without baggage of any kind. At the same hour another division of the Prussian army marched, with equal noiselessness, from another direction, on Sedan, while the Wuertemburgers secured the road to Mezieres, thereby cutting off the possibility of a retreat into Belgium.

"At the same moment, namely, five o'clock,—on all the hills around Sedan, at all points of the compass, appeared a dense, dark mass of German troops, with their commanders and artillery. Not one sound had been heard by the French army, not even an order. Two hundred and fifty thousand men were in a circle on the heights round the Sink of Givonne. They had come as stealthily and as silently as serpents. They were there when the sun rose, and the French army were prisoners."

The battle was one of artillery. The German guns commanded every part of the crowded valley. Indeed, the fight was simply a massacre. There was no hope for the French, though they fought bravely. Their best troops, the Garde Imperiale, were with Bazaine at Metz. Marshal MacMahon was wounded very early in the day. The command passed first to General Ducrot, who was also disabled, and afterwards to Wimpfen, a brave African general who had hurried from Algeria just in time to take part in this disastrous day. He told the emperor that the only hope was for the troops to cut their way out of the valley; but the army was too closely crowded, too disorganized, to make this practicable. One Zouave regiment accomplished this feat, and reached Belgium.

That night—the night of September 1—an aide-de-camp of the Emperor Napoleon carried this note to the camp of the king of Prussia:—

MONSIEUR MON FRERE,—Not having been able to die in midst of my troops, it only remains for me to place my sword in the hands of your Majesty.

I am your Majesty's good brother,

NAPOLEON.

The king of Prussia replied,—

MONSIEUR MON FRERE,—Regretting the circumstances under which we meet, I accept the sword of your Majesty, and I invite you to designate one of your officers, provided with full powers, to treat for the capitulation of the army which has so bravely fought under your command. On my side I have named General von Moltke for that purpose.

I am your Majesty's good brother,

WILLIAM.

Before Sedan, Sept. 1, 1870.

"The next morning early, a carriage containing four French officers drove out from Sedan, and came into the German lines. The carriage had an escort of only three horsemen. When it had reached the Germans, one of its occupants put out his head and asked, in German, for Count von Bismarck? The Germans replied that he was at Donchery. Thither the carriage dashed away. It contained the French emperor."

With Napoleon III. fell not only his own reputation as a ruler, but the glory of his uncle and the prestige of his name.

The fallen emperor and Bismarck met in a little house upon the banks of the Meuse. Chairs were brought out, and they talked in the open air. It was a glorious autumn morning. The emperor looked care-worn, as well he might. He wished to see the king of Prussia before the articles of capitulation were drawn up: but King William declined the interview. When the capitulation was signed, however, he drove over to visit the captive emperor at a chateau where the latter had taken refuge.

Their interview was private; only the two sovereigns were present. The French emperor afterwards expressed to the Crown Prince of Prussia his deep sense of the courtesy shown him. He was desirous of passing as unnoticed as possible through French territory, where, indeed, exasperation against him, as the first cause of the misfortunes of France, was so great that his life would have been in peril. The next day he proceeded to the beautiful palace at Cassel called Wilhelmshoehe, or William's Rest. It had been built at ruinous expense by Jerome Bonaparte while king of Westphalia, and was then called Napoleon's Rest.

Every consideration that the German royal family could show their former friend and gracious host was shown to Louis Napoleon. This told against him with the French. Was the man who had led them into such misfortunes to be honored and comforted while they were suffering the consequences of his selfishness, recklessness, negligence, and incapacity?

Thus eighty thousand men capitulated at Sedan, and were marched as prisoners into Germany; one hundred and seventy-five thousand French soldiers remained shut up in Metz, besides a few thousands more in Strasburg, Phalsbourg, Toul, and Belfort. But the road was open to Paris, and thither the various German armies marched, leaving the Landwehr, which could not be ordered to serve beyond the limits of Germany, to hold Alsace and Lorraine, already considered a part of the Fatherland. The Prussians did not reach Paris till September 19, two weeks after the surrender at Sedan,—which seemed rather a lull in the military operations of a war in which so much had occurred during one short month.



CHAPTER XIII.

THE SIEGE OF PARIS.

Though the surrender of the emperor and his army at Sedan took place on September 2, nothing whatever was known of it by the Parisian public until the evening of September 4, when a reporter arrived at the office of the "Gaulois" with a Belgian newspaper in his pocket. The "Gaulois" dared not be the first sheet to publish the news of such a disaster; but despatches had already reached the Government, and by degrees rumors of what had happened crept through the streets of the capital. No one knew any details of the calamity, but every one soon understood that something terrible had occurred.

The Legislative Assembly held a midnight session; but nothing was determined on until the morning, when the Empire was voted out, and a Republic voted in.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning. Every Parisian was in the street, and, wonderful to say, all faces seemed to express satisfaction. The loss of an army, the surrender of the emperor, the national disgrace, the prospect of a siege, the advance of the Prussians,—were things apparently forgotten. Paris was charmed to have got rid of so unlucky a ruler,—the emperor for whom more than seven millions of Frenchmen had passed a vote of confidence a few months before. He seemed to have no longer a single friend, or rather he had one: in the Assembly an elderly deputy stood up in his place and boldly said that he had taken an oath to be faithful to the Emperor Napoleon, and did not think himself absolved from it by his misfortunes.



It was almost in a moment, almost without a breath of opposition, that on the morning of Sept. 5, 1870, the Empire was voted at an end, and a Republic put in its place. The duty of governing was at once confided to seven men, called the Committee of Defence. Of these, Arago, Cremieux, and Gamier-Pages had been members of the Provisional Government in 1848, while Leon Gambetta, Jules Favre, Jules Ferry, and Jules Simon afterwards distinguished themselves. Rochefort, the insurrectionist, made but one step from prison to the council board, and was admitted among the new rulers. But the two chief men in the Committee of Defence were Jules Favre and Gambetta.

Gambetta, who before that time had been little known, was from the South of France, and of Italian origin. He was a man full of enthusiasm, vehement, irascible, and impulsive. The day came when these qualities, tempered and refined, did good service to France, when he also proved himself one of those great men in history who are capable of supreme self-sacrifice. At present he was untried.

Jules Favre was respected for his unstained reputation and perfect integrity, his disinterestedness and civic virtues, as also for his fluency of speech. In person he was a small, thin man, with a head that was said to resemble the popular portraits of General Jackson.

General Jules Trochu, who was confirmed as military commander of Paris, had written a book, previous to the war, regarding the inefficiency of the French army; he had been therefore no favorite with the emperor. His chief defect, it was said, was that he talked so well that he was fond of talking, and too readily admitted many to his confidence.

The Council of Regency had in the night melted away. A mob was surging round the Tuileries. Where had the empress-regent fled?

When disasters had followed fast upon one another, the empress had in her bewilderment found it hard to realize that the end of the empire was at hand. Bazaine was the man whom she relied on. She had no great liking for Marshal MacMahon, and she does not appear to have been conscious that all was lost till, on the night of September 4, she found M. Conti, the emperor's secretary, busy destroying his private papers. To burn them was impossible; they were torn into small bits and put in a bath-tub, then hot water was poured over them, which reduced them to pulp. Vast quantities, however, remained undestroyed, some of them compromising to their writers.

When the truth of the situation broke upon the empress, she was very much frightened. Her dread was that she might be torn in pieces by a mob that would invade the Tuileries. In a fortnight her fair face had become haggard, and white streaks showed themselves in her beautiful hair.

It is safest in such cases to trust foreigners rather than subjects. Two foreigners occupied themselves with plans for the empress's personal safety. The first idea was that if flight became inevitable, she should take refuge with the Sisters of the Sacre Coeur, in their convent in the Rue Picpus; and arrangements had been made for this contingency.

The life of the empress was strange and piteous during her last days upon the throne. She was up every morning by seven, and heard mass. Her dress was black cashmere, with a white linen collar and cuffs. All day she was the victim of every person who claimed an audience, all talking, protesting, gesticulating, and generally begging. The day the false rumor arrived that the Prussians had been defeated at the Quarries of Jaumont she flew down to the guard-room, where the soldiers off duty were lounging on their beds, waving the telegram over her head.

The news of the capitulation at Sedan and of the decree deposing the emperor, roused the Parisian populace. By one o'clock on September 5 the mob began to threaten the Tuileries. Then the Italian ambassador, Signor Nigra, and the Austrian ambassador, Prince Richard Metternich, insisted that the empress must seek a place of safety. As it was impossible to reach the street from the Tuileries, they made their way through the long galleries of the Louvre, and gained the entrance opposite the parish church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois.[1] The street was blocked with people uttering cries against the emperor. A gamin recognized the fugitives, and shouted, "Here comes the empress!" De Nigra gave him a kick, and asked him how he dared to cry: "Vive l'Empereur?" At this the crowd turned upon the boy, and in the confusion the empress and her lady-in-waiting were put into a cab, driven, it is said, by Gamble, the emperor's faithful English coachman. If this were so, the empress did not recognize him, for after proceeding a little way, she and Madame le Breton, her companion, finding they had but three francs between them, and dreading an altercation with the cabman if this were not enough to pay their fare, got out, and proceeded on foot to the house of the American dentist, Dr. Thomas Evans. There they had to wait till admitted to his operating-room. The doctor's amazement when he saw them was great; he had not been aware of what was passing at the Tuileries, but he took his hat, and went out to collect information. Soon he returned to tell the empress that she had not escaped a moment too soon.

[Footnote 1: Temple Bar, 1883.]

His wife was at Deauville, a fashionable watering-place in Normandy. The doctor placed her wardrobe at the disposal of the empress, who had saved nothing of her own but a few jewels. It is said she owned three hundred dresses, and her collection of fans, laces, etc., was probably unique. Her own servants had begun to pillage her wardrobe before she left the Tuileries. It is said that she would have gone forth on horseback and have put herself at the head of the troops, but that no riding-habit had been left her, except a gay green-and-gold hunting dress worn by her at Fontainebleau. That morning no servant in the Tuileries could be found to bring her breakfast to her chamber.

The next day Dr. Evans, in his own carriage, took her safely out of Paris, in the character of a lady of unsound mind whom he and Madame le Breton were conveying to friends in the country. Two days later they reached Deauville after several narrow escapes, the empress, on one occasion, having nearly betrayed herself by an effort to stop a man who was cruelly beating his horse.

There were two English yachts lying at Deauville. On board of one of these Dr. Evans went. It belonged to Sir John Burgoyne, grandson of the General Burgoyne who surrendered at Saratoga. Sir John, with his wife, was on a pleasure cruise. His yacht, the "Gazelle," was very small, only forty-five tons' burden, and carried a crew of six men.

As soon as Sir John Burgoyne had satisfied himself that it was really the empress who was thus thrown on his protection, he placed himself and his yacht at her disposal, insisting, however, that she must not come on board till nearly midnight, when he would meet her on the quai. It was fortunate that he made this arrangement, for, after dark, a police agent and a Russian spy came on board and searched every corner of the little vessel. When at last they departed, Sir John went on to the quai, and shortly afterwards met two ladies, and a gentleman who carried a hand-bag. One of the ladies stepped up to him and said, "I believe you are the English gentleman who will take me to England. I am the empress." She then burst into tears. On reaching the yacht, her first eager demand was for newspapers. Happily Lady Burgoyne could tell her that the Prince Imperial was safe in England; from the English papers she also learned particulars of the disaster at Sedan, of the proclamation of the Republic in the Corps Legislatif at Paris, and of the treatment of the emperor.

It was an anxious time for all on board the "Gazelle," for the tide would not serve to leave the harbor till seven o'clock the next morning, and Deauville was wildly riotous all night. At last they worked out of the harbor and were at sea; but a tempest was raging in the Channel, and so violent was it that at half-past one the next morning the great English ironclad "Captain," commanded by Sir Hugh Burgoyne, Sir John's cousin, went down, with all on board, not far from where the little "Gazelle" was battling with the gale. The "Gazelle" had a terrible passage, shipping tremendous seas. She danced and rolled like a cork; but the ladies were brave, and were encouraged by Lady Burgoyne's composure. "There was no affectation of courage in Lady Burgoyne," said the empress afterwards; "she simply acted as if nothing were the matter."

After about eighteen hours of this stormy passage the "Gazelle" was safe at anchor off Ryde, in the Isle of Wight. The empress was anxious that no one should know she was in England; but Sir John told her it was his duty to inform the Foreign Office immediately. An answer was at once returned by Lord Granville, assuring the empress of welcome and protection; but he added in a postscript to Sir John: "Don't you think you may have been imposed upon?"

The fact was that the Foreign Office had already received news of the escape of the empress by way of Ostend, under the charge of two English gentlemen, who had been themselves deceived. The ladies they had assisted to leave Paris were Princess Clotilde and an attendant.

After the emperor's release from Wilhelmshoehe he received Sir John Burgoyne at Chiselhurst, and thanked him, with tears in his eyes, for his care of the empress, adding that no sailors but the English could have got across the Channel on such a night in so small a craft.

After peace had been signed between Prussia and France, the emperor landed at Dover, where he was touched by the kindly and respectful reception he met with from the English people. The next day he was visited by Lord Malmesbury, an old friend in the days of his youth, before he entered on his life of adventure. Lord Malmesbury says:

"He came into the room alone to meet me, with that remarkable smile that could light up his dark countenance. I confess I never was more moved. His quiet and calm dignity, and absence of all nervousness or irritability, were grand examples of moral courage. All the past rushed to my memory. He must have seen what I felt, for he said: 'A la guerre comme a la guerre. It is very good of you to come to see me.' In a quiet, natural way he then praised the kindness of the Germans at Wilhelmshoehe, nor did a single plaint escape him during our conversation. He said he had been deceived as to the force and preparation of his armies, but without mentioning names, nor did he abuse anybody, till I mentioned Trochu, who had abandoned the empress, whom he had sworn to defend. During half an hour he conversed with me as in the best days of his life, with dignity and resignation, but when I saw him again he was much more depressed. He was grieving at the destruction of Paris, and at the anarchy prevailing over France, far more than he had done over his own misfortunes. That the Communists should have committed such horrors in the presence of their enemies, the Prussians, seemed to him the very acme of humiliation and national infamy."

On Jan. 9, 1873, he died at Chiselhurst, in the presence of the empress, who never left him, released from the storms of a fitful existence and from intense physical suffering.

Let us return now to Paris and the Committee of Defence, its new Republican Government. Though the people of Paris, in the excitement consequent on the proclamation of a Republic, seemed to have forgotten the Prussians, the prospect of their speedy arrival stared the Government in the face. It was a Government, not of France, but of Paris. France had had no voice in making this new Republic, nor was it at all likely that it would be popular in the Provinces; but meanwhile work of every kind was pressing on its hands. The fortifications of Paris were unmanned, and, indeed, were not even completed, and there were hardly any soldiers in the capital.

The first thing to be done was to bring provisions into the city. Cattle, grain, salt, hay, preserved meats, in short, everything edible that could be imagined, poured in so long as the railroads remained open. All public buildings became storehouses, but affairs were conducted with such recklessness and disorder that the live-stock suffered terribly, and half the hay was wasted. As to troops, General Vinoy arrived with twenty thousand soldiers, who had been stationed between Belgium and Sedan. They had never fought the Pussians, but were impatient of discipline and utterly demoralized. Stragglers and fugitives from Sedan came in also, but these were still less to be depended on. The National Guard had never enjoyed the favor of the emperor, and had been suffered to fall to pieces. It was now reorganized and armed as well as the Government was able. There was a body of Mobiles who had been sent away from the army by Marshal MacMahon because they were so insubordinate that he did not know what to do with them. Ninety thousand Mobiles came up from the Provinces before the gates of Paris closed,—excellent material for soldiers but wholly uninstructed,—and finally about ten thousand sailors arrived from Brest, who were kept in strict line by their officers, and were the most reliable part garrison.

The male population of Paris remained in the city, almost to a man, except those known to the police as thieves or ex-convicts, who were all sent away. Women and children also were removed, if their husbands and fathers could afford places of safety.

Around the city was a wall twelve yards high, forming a polygonal inclosure. At each corner of the polygon was a bastion, in which were stationed the big guns. The wall connecting the bastions is called a curtain. The bastions protected the curtains, and were themselves protected by sixteen detached forts, built on all the eminences around Paris. The most celebrated of these forts lies to the west of Paris, between it and Versailles, and is called Fort Valerien It is erected on a steep hill long called Mont Calvaire, from which is a magnificent view of the city. This and stony hill for several centuries used to be ascended by pilgrims on their knees; the mount, where once stood an altar of the Druids, became a consecrated place before the Revolution.

Louis Philippe, in 1841, had planned the fortifications of Paris, but in his time they had been only partially constructed. Even in 1870, as I have said, they were not complete. When the siege became imminent, the first thing to be done was to put them in good order; but for a week the working-men in Paris were so intoxicated with the idea of having a republic that they could not be made to do steady work upon anything. It was also considered necessary to cut down all trees and to destroy all villages between the forts and the walls of the city, so that they might afford no shelter to the Prussians. The poor inhabitants of these villages flocked into Paris, bringing with them carts piled with their household goods, their wives and children peeping out aghast between the chairs and beds. The beautiful trees in the Bois de Boulogne were cut down; the deer and the swans and other wild fowl on the lakes (long the pets of the Parisian holiday makers) were shot by parties of Mobiles sent out for that purpose.

No military man believed that Paris, defended by uncompleted fortifications, could withstand a direct attack from the Prussians; no one dreamed of a blockade, for it was thought that it would take a million and a quarter of men to invest the city, and the Prussians were known not to have that number for the purpose. The idea was that the enemy would choose some point, would attack it with all his forces, would lose probably thirty thousand men, and would take the city. But Bismarck and King William and Von Moltke had no idea of losing thirty thousand men. They were certain that there would be risings and disturbances in Paris. They believed that their forces might even be called in to save respectable Parisians from the outrages of the Reds. They knew that rural France, having little love for Paris or the Republic, was not likely to accept the Government formed without its own consent, nor march to the assistance of the capital. Even should the provincial population bestir itself, the troops it could send would be only raw levies, and there was no great leader to animate or to direct popular enthusiasm.

It was quite true that the respectable classes in Paris had as much to fear from the Reds as from the Prussians. The mob of Paris was wild for a commune.

It is not always known what is meant by a commune, and I may be pardoned if I pause to define it here.

In feudal times cities all over Europe won for themselves charters. By these charters they acquired the right to govern themselves; that is, the burghers elected their own mayor and their councilor aldermen, and this body governing the community was called the commune. When the feudal system fell in France, and all power was centralized in the king, city governments were established by royal edict only. Paris, for instance, was governed by the Prefect of the Seine,—he had under him the maires of twenty Arrondissements; and thus it was in every French city. All public offices in France were in the gift of the Throne.

To Americans, who have mayors and city councils in every city, municipal taxation, municipal elections, and municipal laws, a commune appears the best mode of city government. But if we can imagine one of our large cities possessing the same power over the United States that Paris wields over France, we shall take a different view of the matter. Paris governed by a commune, that commune being elected by a mob and aspiring to give laws to France, might well indeed have alarmed all Frenchmen. We may judge of its feeling towards the Provinces from the indignation expressed by Parisian Communists when during the Commune, Lyons and some other cities talked of setting up communes of their own.