Page images
PDF
EPUB

but beaten in battle, she would be all interested quite as much as the head, right again within two years, for her ma- French mothers might perhaps jump at terial elasticity is prodigious, and her re- the new sensation which they would expecuperative power almost unlimited. But rience by setting the example, as far as in her malady is graver than defeat it is in them lay, of a change in the exis ing forms the very heart-blood of her people. They of example and teaching. Frenchwomen have gone in for money-making, and for of our generation are not, however, Roman easy pleasurable existence with small ex- matrons. They attach a vastly higher pen e. They have been pursuing little price to the conservation of home joys, as things and little ends, and they have grown they view them, than to the salvation of incapable of big ones. They have suddenly the State. The latter, according to their been overwhelmed by a staggering disas-appreciation, concerns the Government. ter, and they can neither face it coolly Centralization has suffocated patriotism, nor deal with it practically. Two gener- in the real meaning of the word. Mothers ations of vitiated education have led them strive to make good sons, not to make unknowingly to this. The late Emperor good citizens or solid men. The affections confirmed the debasing system, but he did are placed upon an altar in France: all not originate it. It came in with Lou's that can contribute to their development Philippe, if not with Charles X. If France and their display is sought for not only is content to produce agreeable men and eagerly, but naturally; all that can charming women, to show Europe how to strengthen and adorn their manifestation talk and dress, and to set up science and is carefully watched and practised so art as the objects of her public life, then much so, indeed, that notwithstanding the she can go on as she is, without a change: indisputable sincerity of family attachbut if she wants to seize her place once ments in France, there almost seems to be more as a great political power; if she a certain amount of acting in the way in wishes to regain the respect and esteem which they are exhibited. Emotions may of the world, instead of asking only for its be said to have become the object of existsympathy; if she desires to reign, and not ence; and emotions imply so much exterto amuse and please, then she must be- nal exposition, especially where they are gin by remodelling the whole education unchecked, that whether their direction be of her boys. There is no reason why her tragic or comic, they often assume a somehome life should be affected by such a what theatrical character, which may inchange it would not necessarily become duce the erroneous impression that they graver or less lightsome; there would not are put on more than they are really felt. be less laughter or less love; the boys If this powerful leverage could be applied need not lose their present merits be- for a healthy purpose; if, by a reaction cause they would acquire new ones. consequent upon bitter experience, it could be set to work to elevate principles to the rank of sensations; if thereby pure duty could be raised to a par with love, and manly self-devotion to an equality with tenderness, then we might hope to see France rally. There seems to be no other way out of the mess into which she has fallen: the first step towards a solution must be made by the mothers.

If so radical a modification in the whole tendencies and habits of the nation can be brought about at all, it is far more likely to be effected by the women than by the men. Frenchwomen, as has been already observed, are generally capable of noble action; they are singularly unselfish; and, despite their sensibility, they would not rest content with their present highlystrained adoration of the gentler elements of character, if ever they could be led to see that something higher could be added to it in their sons. It is to them, to their aid, that the true friends of France should appeal. They cannot themselves upset the unworthy schools where their boys are now taught how not to become real men; but they can so agitate the question that their husbands will be forced to take it up and deal with it. The influence of women need not be purely social and moral: in moments of national crisis it ought to be exercised for other ends; and in the particular case before us, where the heart is

If we turn from these considerations to the purely home aspect of the question, we must acknowledge that it presents a very different picture. On that side of the subject nearly everything is pleasant and attractive. The French get out of their home ties pretty nearly all that home can give; and if they do not attain perfection the fault does not lie with them, or with their system, but in the impossibility of making anything complete by human means. The importance assigned to children, their early and constant intermingling with their parents' daily existence, the rapid growth in them of the

qualities which repay and consequently and their villages? Will any one mainstimulate affection,all this is practical tain that they came and drew up in lines as well as charming. Boys and girls alike facing our guns for their private satisfacare taught that home is a nest in which tion, with an officer behind them, pistol in they are cherished, and which all its in- hand, to shoot them in the back if they mates are bound to adorn to the best of gave way? Do you suppose they found their ability; and if we could forget that any amusement in this? Come now, was all this enfeebles men, and renders them not his excellency Monsieur Ollivier the unfit for the outside struggle, we might, only man who went into war, as he himnot unjustly, say that the French plan is self said, "with a light heart?" He was the right one. But we cannot forget; the safe to come back, he was he had not facts and the results glare at us too dis- much to fear; he is quite well; he made a tinctly. We can acknowledge, if our in- fortune in a very short time! But the lads dividual prejudices enable us to do so, of our neighborhood, Mathias, Heitz, Jean that the system looks excellent for girls; Baptiste Werner, my son Jacob, and hunbut we must maintain our conviction that dreds of others, were in no such hurry it is deplorable for boys, and that to it they would much rather have stayed in must be assigned a large part of the re- their villages. sponsibility of the past disasters and present disorder of France.

From The Cornhill Magazine.

STORY OF THE PLEBISCITE

Later on it was another matter, when you were fighting for your country; then, of course, many went off as a matter of duty, without being summoned, whilst Monsieur Ollivier and his friends were hiding. God knows where! But at that particular moment, when all our misfortunes might have been averted, it is a falsehood to say that we went enthusiastically to

TOLD BY ONE OF THE SEVEN MILLION FIVE HUN- have ourselves cut to pieces for a pack of

DRED THOUSAND WHO VOTED YES."

IV.

THE day following this declaration, Cousin George, who could never look upon anything cheerfully started for Belfort. He had ordered some wine at Dijon, and he wished to stop it from coming. It was the 22nd July-George only returned five days after, on the 27th, having had the greatest difficulty in getting there in time.

During these five days I had a hard time. Orders were coming every hour to hurry on the reserves and the Gardes Mobiles, and to cancel renewable furloughs; the gendarmerie had no rest. The Government gazette told us of the enthusiasm of the nation for the war-it was pitiable; cannot you imagine young men sitting quietly at home, thinking: "In five or six months I shall be exempt from service, I may marry, settle, earn money; and who, without either rhyme or reason, all at once become enthusiastic to go and knock over men they know nothing of, and to risk their own bones against them. Is there a shadow of good sense in such notions?

[ocr errors]

And the Germans! Will any one persuade us that they came for their own pleasure, all these thousands of workmen, tradesmen, manufacturers, good citizens, who were living in peace in their towns

intriguers and stage-players, whom we were just beginning to find out.

When we saw our son Jacob, in his blouse, his bundle under his arm, come into the mill, saying, "Now, father, I am going; you must not forget to pull up the dam in half-an-hour for the water will be up: " when he said this to me, I tell you my heart trembled; the cries of his mother in the room behind made my hair stand on end; I could have wished to say a few words, to cheer up the lad, but my tongue refused to move; and if I had held his excellency, M. Ollivier or his respected master by the throat in the corner, they would have made a queer figure I should have strangled them in a moment! At last Jacob went.

All the young men of Sarrebourg, of Château Salins, and our neighbourhood, fifteen or sixteen hundred in number, were at Phalsbourg to relieve the 84th, who at any moment might expect to be called away, and who were complaining of their colonel for not claiming the foremost rank for his regiment. The officers were afraid of arriving too late; they wanted promotion, crosses, medals; fighting was their trade.

What I have said upon enthusiasm is true-it is equally true of the Germans and the French; they had no desire to exterminate one another. Bismarck and our honest man alone are responsible; at their

door lies all the blood that has been of the Prussians carries further and is shed.

Cousin George returned from Belfort on the 27th in the evening. I fancy I still see him entering our room at nightfall; Grédel had returned to us the day before, and we were at supper, with the tin lamp upon the table; from my place, on the right, near the window, I was able to watch the mill-dam. George arrived. "Ah! cousin, here yon are back again! Did you get on all right?"

66

66

worked more rapidly than ours, which would enable the Germans to dismount our batteries and our mitrailleuses without getting any harm themselves. It seems that our great man never thought of that."

Then George began to laugh, and, as we said nothing, he went on: "And the enemy -the Prussians, Bavarians, Badeners, Wurtembergers, the Courrier du Bas-Rhin declares that they are coming by regiments Yes, I have nothing to complain of," and divisions from Frankfort and Munich said he, taking a chair. "I arrived just in to Rastadt, with guns, munitions, and protime to countermand my order, but it was visions in abundance; that all the country only by good luck. What confusion all swarms with them from Karlsruhe to Bathe way from Belfort to Strasbourg! the den; that they have blown up the bridge troops, the recruits, the guns, the horses, of Kehl, to prevent us from outflanking the munitions of war, the barrels of bis-them; that there are not troops enough cuits, all are arriving at the railway in at Wissembourg. But what is the use of heaps. You would not know the country. complaining? Our commander-in-chief Orders are asked for everywhere. The knows better than the Courrier du Bastelegraph-wires are no longer for private Rhin; he is an iron-clad fellow, who takes use. The commissaries don't know where no advice: a man must have some courage to find their stores, colonels are looking to offer him advice!" for their regiments, generals for their brigades and divisions. They are seeking for salt, sugar, coffee, bacon, meat, saddles and bridles and they are getting charts of the Baltic for a campaign in the Vosges! Oh!" cried my cousin, uplifting his hands, "is it possible? Have we come to that we! we! Now it will be seen how expensive is a government of thieves! I warn you, Christian, it will be a failure! Perhaps there will not even be found rifles in the arsenals after the hundreds of millions voted to get rifles. You will see - you

will see!

And all at once, stopping short, "Christian, I have come to give you advice." "What?"

"Hide all the money you have got; for, from what I have seen down there, in a few days the enemy will be in Alsace."

Imagine my astonishment at hearing these words. George was not the man to joke about serious matters, nor was he a timid man; on the contrary, you would have to go far to find a braver man. Therefore, fancy my wife's and Grédel's alarm.

"What, George," said I, "do you think that possible?

He had begun to stride to and fro excitedly; and we, sitting on our chairs, "Listen to me," said he. "When on were looking at him open-mouthed, staring the one side you see none but empty befirst right and then left. His anger rose ings, without education, without judgment, higher and higher, and he said, "Here is prudence, or method; and on the other the genius of our honest man! He con- men who for fifty years have been preparducts everything; he is our Commander- ing a mortal blow- anything is possible. in-Chief. A retired artillery captain, with Yes, I believe it; and in a fortnight the whom I travelled from Schlestadt to Stras- Germans will be in Alsace. Our mounbourg, told me that in consequence of the tains will check them, the fortresses of bad organization of our force, we should Bitche, of Petite Pierre, of Phalsbourg and be unable to place more than two hundred Lichtenberg, the abattis and the intrenchand fifty thousand men in line along our ments which will be formed in the passes, frontier from Luxembourg to Switzerland; the ambuscades of every kind which will and that the Germans, with their superior be set, the bridges and the railway tunnels and long-prepared organization, could op- that they will blow up all this will prepose to us, in eight days, a force of five to vent them from going further for three or six hundred thousand men, so that they four months until winter; but, in the will be more than two to one at the out-meantime, they will send this way reconset; and they will crush us in spite of the noitring parties - Uhlans, hussars, brigvalour of our men. This old officer, full ands of every kind—who will snap up of good sense, and who has travelled in everything, pillage everywhere-wheat, Germany, told me besides that the artillery 'flour, hay, straw, bacon, cattle, and prin

cipally money. War will be made upon! Michel. This man told me that the Moour backs. We Alsacians and Lorrainers, biles had not yet been called out, and that we shall have to pay the bill. I know all they were lounging from one public-house about it. I have been all over the coun- to another in gangs to kill time; that they try-side: believe me. Hide everything; had received no rifles; that they were not that is what I mean to do; and, if any-quartered in the barracks; and that they thing happens, at least it will not be our did not get a farthing for their food. fault. I would not go to bed without giv- This disorder disgusted me; and I reing you this warning; so good-night, flected that an Emperor who sends for all Christian-good-night, everybody!" the young men in harvest-time, ought at least to feed them, and not leave them to be an expense to their parents. For all that I sent money to Jacob. I could not allow him to suffer hunger; but it was a trouble to my mind to keep him down there with my money, sauntering about with his hands in his pockets, whilst I, at my age, was obliged to carry sacks up into the loft, to fetch them down again, to load the carts alone, and, besides, to watch the mill; for no one could be met with now, and the old day-labourer, Donadieu, quite a cripple, was ali the help I had. After that, only imagine our anxiety, our fatigue, and our embarrassment to know what to do.

He left us, and we sat a few moments gazing stupidly at each other. My wife and Grédel wanted to hide everything that very night. Grédel, ever since she had got her Jean Baptiste Werner into her head, thought of nothing but her marriage-portion. She knew that we had about a hundred louis in cent-sous pieces in a basket at the bottom of the cupboard: she said to herself, That's my marriage-portion!" And this troubled her more than anything. She even grew bolder, and wanted to keep the keys herself; but her mother is not a woman to be led. Every minute she cried: "Take care, Grédel! mind what you are about!"

[ocr errors]

She looked daggers at her; and I was continually obliged to come and maintain peace between them, for Catherine is not gifted with patience. And so all our troubles came together.

But, in spite of what George had just been saying, I was not afraid. The Germans were less than sixteen leagues from us, it is true, but they would have first to cross the Rhine; then we knew that at Niederbronn the people were complaining of the troops cantoned in the villages: this was a proof that there was no lack of soldiers; and then MacMahon was at Strasbourg; the Turcos, the Zouaves, and the Chasseurs d'Afrique were coming up.

So I said to my wife that there was no hnrry yet; that Cousin George had long detested the Emperor; but that all that did not mean much; and that it was better to see things for oneself; that I should go to Saverne market, and, if things looked bad, then I would sell all our corn and flour, which would come to a hundred louis, and which we would bury directly with the rest.

My wife took courage; and if I had not had a great deal to grind for the bakers in our village, I should have gone next day to Saverne, and I should have seen what was going on. Unfortunately, ever since Frantz and Jacob had left, the mill was on my hands, and I scarcely had time to turn round.

Jacob was a great trouble to me besides, asking for money by the postman

The other people in the village were not in better spirits than ourselves. The old men and women thought of their sons shut up in the town, and the great drought continuing, we could rely upon nothing. The small-pox had broken out too. Nothing would sell, nothing could be sent by railway- - planks, beams, felled timber, building-stone, all lay there at the saw-pits or the stone-quarry. The sous-préfet kept on troubling me to search and find out three or four scamps who had not reported themselves, and the consequence of all this was that I did not get to Saverne that week.

Then it was announced that at last the Emperor had just quitted Paris, to place himself at the head of his armies; and five or six days after came the news of his great victory at Sarrebrück, where the mitrailleuses had mown down the Prussians; where the little Prince had picked up bullets, "which made old soldiers shed tears of emotion."

On learning this the people became crazy with joy. On all sides were heard cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" and Monsieur le Curé preached the extermination of the heretic Prussians. Never had the like been seen. That very day, towards evening, just after stopping the mill, all at once I heard in the distance, towards the road, cries of “ Aux armes, citoyens! formez vos bataillons!"

The dust from the road rose up into the clouds. It was the 84th departing from

Phalsbourg; they were going to Metz, and the people who were working in the fields, near the road, said, in returning at night, that the poor soldiers, with their knapsacks on their shoulders, could scarcely march for the heat, that the people were treating them with eau-de-vie and wine at all the doors in Metting, and that they said, "Good-bye! long life to you!" that the officers, too, were shaking hands with everybody, whilst the people shouted, "Vive l'Empereur!"

Yes, this victory of Sarrebrück had changed the face of things in our villages; the love of war was returning. War is always popular when it is profitable, and there is a prospect of extending our own territory into other people's countries.

[blocks in formation]

I had never before seen any of these men; their yellow skins, their thick lips, the conspicuous whites of their eyes, surprised me; and I said to myself, seeing the long strides they took with their thin legs, that the Germans would find them unpleasant neighbours. Their officers, too, with their swords at their sides, and their pointed beards, looked splendid soldiers. At every public-house door, a few Chasseurs d'Afrique had tied their small light horses, all alike, and beautifully formed like deer. No one refused them anything; and in all directions, in the inns, the talk was of ambulances and collections for the wounded. Well, seeing all this, George's ideas seemed to me more and more opposed to sound sense, and I felt sure that we were going to crush all resistance.

As I

That night, about nine o'clock, I went to caution my cousin to hold his tongue; for after this great victory one word against the dynasty might send him a very long way off. He was alone with his wife, and said to me, "Thank you, Christian, I have seen the despatch. A few brave fellows have been killed, and they have shown the young Prince to the army. That poor little weakly creature has picked up a few bullets on the battle-field. He is the heir of his uncle, the terrible captain of Jena and Austerlitz! Only one officer has been killed; it is not much; but if the heir of the dynasty had had but a scratch, the gazettes would have shed tears, and it would have been our duty to fall fainting." Then I drew my waggon to one side to "Do try to be quiet," said I, looking to see all these men march past me, sitting see if the windows were all close. Do immovable in their saddles as if they were take care, George. Don't commit your- sleeping, the head inclined forward, and self to Placiard and the gendarmes." the moustaches hanging, riding strong, "Yes," said he, "the enemies of the dy-square-built horses, the canvas bag susnasty are at this moment in worse danger than the little Prince. If victories go on, they will run the risk of being feathered pretty closely. I am quite aware of that, my cousin; and so I thank you for having

About two o'clock, having dined at the Boeuf. I took the way to the village through Phalsbourg, to see Jacob in passing. [went up the hill, something glittered from time to time on the slope through the woods, when all at once hundreds of cuirassiers came out upon the road by the Alsace fountain. They advanced at a slow pace by twos, their helmets and their cuirasses threw back flashes of light upon all the trees, and the trampling of their hoofs rolled like the rush of a mighty river.

come to warn me."

pended from the side, aud the sabre ringing against the boot. Thus they filed past me for half-an-hour. They extended their long lines, and stretched on yet to the Schlittenbach. I thought there would be no end to them. Yet these were only two

This is all that he said to me, and I re-regiments; two others were encamped turned home full of thoughts.

upon the glacis of Phalsbourg, where I arNext day, Thursday, market-day, I rived about five in the afternoon. They drove my first two wagon-loads of flour to were driving the pickets into the turf with Saverne, and sold them at a good figure. axes; they were lighting fires for cooking; That day I observed the tremendous move-the horses were neighing, and the townsment along the railroads of which cousin people - men, women, and children George had spoken: the carriage of mi- were standing gazing at them. trailleuses, guns, chests of biscuits, and the enthusiasm of the people pouring out wine for the soldiers.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

I passed on my way, reflecting upon the strength of such an army, and pitying, by anticipation, the ill-fated Germans whom they were going to encounter. Entering through the gate of Germany, I saw the officers looking for lodgings, the Gardes Mobile, in blouses, mounting guard. They had received their rifles that morning; and

« PreviousContinue »