I have already said that the excitement did not abate, but the more serious-minded began to look critical, and, among the latter, curiously enough, there were a good many superior officers in the army. They were too loyal to express openly their want of confidence in their leaders, but it was evident enough to the careful listener that that want of confidencedid exist. I had a conversation during that week with one of the former, whose name, for obvious reasons, I must suppress; and this is, as far as I can remember, what he said, knowing that he could trust me. "There is not a single properly drawn ordnance map of France at the War Office; and if there were, there is not a single man in power there who would know how to use it. I doubt whether there is a settled plan of campaign; they'll endeavour to conduct this war as they conducted the Crimean, Italian, and Mexican wars—that is, on the principle which stood them in such good stead in Algeria, though they ought to know by this time how very risky those experiments turned out, especially in '59; and I have no need to tell you that we are going to confront a different army from that of the Austrians or the Russians, Todleben notwithstanding. The African school of warfare ought to be played out by now, but it is not. To a certain extent, the Emperor is to blame for this. You remember what his uncle said: 'There is not a single general of whose draught I am not aware. Some will go up to their waists; others up to their necks; others, again, to over their heads; but the latter number is infinitely small, I assure you.' The Emperor is not in the same position with regard to the capacity of his generals, let alone of his officers."
"But he ought to be," I objected; "he interviews a great many of them on Sunday mornings." I was alluding to the informal levée held at the Tuileries every week, to which the generals and the general officers by sea and by land were admitted.
"You are right—he ought to be," was the answer; "and if a great deal of conscientious trouble on his part could have put him in possession of such knowledge, he would have had it by this time. Of course, you have never been present at such a reception; for all civilians, with the exception of a few ministers, are rigorously excluded. I repeat, the intention is a good one, but it is not carried out properly. The very fact that at the outset it met with the most strenuous opposition from nearly all the ministers and high dignitaries of the Imperial household ought to have shown his Majesty the necessity of interviewing these officers alone, without as much as a chambellan in waiting. As it is, do you know what happens? I will tell you. The Emperor passes before these officers as they are standing around the room, stops before nearly every one to ask a question, inviting him, at thesame time, to lodge a protest if necessary against any standing abuse or to suggest a measure of reform. But the chambellan is close at his heels; the minister for war, the marshal commanding the Imperial Guard, the military governor of Paris, are standing but a few steps away. The officer to whom the question is addressed feels himself tongue-tied; he knows that all these can hear every word he says, and, rather than be marked by his superiors as a tiresome meddler, he prefers to hold his tongue altogether—that is, if he be comparatively honest. Call it cowardice if you like, but most men will tell you that such cowardice exists in all administrations whether civil or military. Consequently, the Emperor, though he may know a good many officers by name and by sight, in reality knows nothing of their capacities. I may safely say that, for the last fifteen or sixteen years, there have not been a dozen important promotions, either in the army or the navy, justified by the 'record of service' of the officer promoted. Divisions—nay, whole army corps—have been confided to men who, in the hour of need, will, no doubt, prove very dashing and very plucky, but who have no more notion of handling large masses of men than an ordinary drill-sergeant. To use a more striking metaphor—they have selected the most desperate punters at baccarat to work out complicated chess problems. What the result will be with such a champion as Von Moltke, Heaven only knows. There are men at the head of our cavalry forces who can scarcely hold themselves on horseback; there are others commanding divisions and even corps-d'armée who know all about bridges, pontoons, artillery, and so forth, but who could no more execute a regularly organized retreat or advance than a child. The theory is that their dash and courage, their reckless, happy-go-lucky, but frequently successful African system, will make up for their ignorance of tactics and strategy. Naturally this is an implied rather than an expressed opinion, for many of those favourites believe themselves to be the equals in these latter sciences of Jomini and Napoléon, perhaps of Moltke also. Do not misunderstand me; there are a number of officers in the French army who have made a careful study of the science of war, and who, in that respect, would favourably compare with an equal number of the best instructed German officers, but they have by this time resigned themselves to keep in the background, because any attempt on their part to raise the standard of military knowledgehas for years been systematically discountenanced by those nearest to the throne. On the other hand, the men thus kept at arm's length have not been altogether satisfied to suffer in silence. I do not mean to say that they have given vent to their grievances openly; they have done worse, perhaps, from the point of view of maintaining the discipline of the army. They have adopted a semi-critical, semi-hostile attitude towards their superiors. The officers' mess, such as it exists in England, is virtually unknown on the Continent, and least of all in France. The unmarried officer takes his daily meals at the table d'hôte of an hotel, and he does talk 'shop' now and then in the presence of civilians. The criticisms he utters do find their way to the barrack-room, so that by now the private has become sceptical with regard to the capabilities of the generals and marshals. The soldier who begins to question the fitness of his chiefs is like the priest who begins to question the infallibility of the pope; he is a danger to the institution to which he belongs."
In reality, my informant told me little that was new, though he perhaps did not suspect that I was so well informed. I had heard most of all this, and a great deal besides, from a connection of mine by marriage, whose strictures in the same direction came with additional force, seeing that he was a frequent and welcome guest at the Tuileries. He was a general officer, but, with a frankness that bordered on the cynical, maintained that but for his capital voice and skill at leading "the cotillon" he would probably have never risen beyond the rank of captain; "for there are a thousand captains that know a great deal more than I do, a couple of thousand that know as much as I do, and very few who know less, none of whom have ever been promoted, and never will be, unless they earn their promotion at the point of the sword." According to him, the "records of service" were not as much as looked into at the periods of general promotions. "A clever answer to one of the Emperor's questions, a handsome face and pleasing manners, are sufficient to establish a reputation at the Château. The ministers for war take particular care not to rectify those impulsive judgments of the Emperor and Empress, because they rightly think that careful inquiries into the candidates' merits would hurt their own protégés, and those of their fellow-ministers. This happy-go-lucky system—for a system it has become—foundedupon the most barefaced nepotism, is condoned, by those who ought to have opposed it with all their might and main at the very outset, on the theory that Frenchmen's courage is sure to make up in the end for all shortcomings, which theory in itself is a piece of impertinence, or at any rate of overweening conceit, seeing that it implies the absence of such courage in the officers of other nations. But there is something else. All these favourites are jealous of one another, and, mark my words, this jealousy will in this instance lead to disastrous results, because the Emperor will find it as difficult to comply with as to refuse their individual extravagant demands. The time is gone by for radical reforms. 'You cannot swap horses while crossing a stream,' said Abraham Lincoln; and we are crossing a dangerous stream. The Emperor has, besides, a horror of new faces around him, and to extirpate the evil radically he would have to make a clean sweep of his military household."
I must preface the following notes by a personal remark. For private reasons, which I cannot and must not mention, I have decided not to put my name to these jottings, whether they are published before or after my death. I am aware that by doing this I diminish their value; because, although I never played a political or even a social part in France, I am sufficiently well known to inspire the reader with confidence. As it is, he must take it for granted that I was probably the only foreigner whom Frenchmen had agreed not to consider an enemy in disguise.
While my relative was giving me the above résumé, I was already aware that there existed in the French War Office a scheme of mobilization and a plan of campaign elaborated by Marshal Niel, the immediate predecessor of Marshal Lebœuf. I knew, moreover, that this plan provided for the formation of three armies, under the respective commands of Marshals MacMahon, Bazaine, and Canrobert, and that the disposition of these three armies had been the basis of negotiations for a Franco-Austrian alliance which had been started six weeks previous to the declaration of war by General Lebrun in Vienna. Up till the 22nd or 23rd of July the preparations were carried out in accordance with that original project; the respective staffs that had been appointed, the various regiments and brigades distributed long ago, were already hurrying to the front, when all of a sudden the whole of this plan was modified; the three armies were to be fused intoone, to be called "l'armée du Rhin," under the sole and exclusive command of the Emperor.
Whence this sudden change? The historians, with their usual contempt for small causes, have endeavoured to explain it in various ways. According to some, the change was decided upon in order to afford the Emperor the opportunity of distinguishing himself; the "armée du Rhin" was to revive the glories of the "grande armée;" there was to be a second edition of the Napoleonic epic. After the first startling successes, the Emperor was to return to the capital, and Marshal Niel's plan was, if practicable, to be taken up once more,—that is, the French troops, having established a foothold in the enemy's country, were to be divided again under so many Klebers, Soults, and Neys.
According to others, the Emperor, who until then had been living in a fool's paradise with regard to the quantity, if not with regard to the quality, of the forces at his disposal, suddenly had his eyes opened to the real state of affairs. The six hundred and fifty thousand troops supposed to be at his disposal had their existence mainly on paper: the available reality did not amount to more than a third;i. e.to about two hundred and fifteen thousand troops of all arms.
The facts advanced by these historians are true, but they did not determine the change referred to—at any rate, not so far as the assumption of the supreme command by the Emperor himself was concerned. Anxious as the latter may have been, in the interest of his dynasty, to reap the glory of one or two successful battles fought under his immediate supervision, he was fully aware of his unfitness for such a task, especially in his actual state of health. Louis-Napoléon believed in his star, but he was not an idiot who counted upon luck to decide the fate of battles. If he had ever fostered such illusions, the campaign of 1859 must have given a rude shock to them, for there he was, more than once, within an ace of defeat; and no one knew this better than he did. The fusing of the three armies into one was due, first, to the difficulty, if not impossibility, of constituting three armies with considerably less than three hundred thousand troops; secondly, to the inveterate jealousy of his marshals of one another. Napoléon feared, and justly, that if those three armies went forth under three separate commands, there would be a repetition of the quarrels that had occurred during the Austro-Franco war, when Niel accused Canrobert of nothaving properly supported him at the right time, and so forth. It will be remembered that the Emperor himself had to intervene to heal those quarrels. Under those circumstances, the Emperor thought it better to risk it, and to take the whole responsibility upon himself.
The Emperor left St. Cloud on the 28th of July. It is very certain that, even before his departure, his confidence in the late Marshal Niel as an organizer must have been considerably shaken, and that the words of Lebœuf, "We are ready, more than ready," sounded already a hollow mockery to his ear. Here are some of the telegrams which, after the 4th of September, were found among the papers at the Tuileries. They were probably copies of the originals, though I am by no means certain that they were forwarded to St. Cloud at the time of their reception. It would have been better, perhaps, if they had been.
"Metz, 20 July, 1870, 9.50 a.m. From Chief of Commissariat Department to General Blondeau, War Office, Paris. There is at Metz neither sugar, coffee, rice, brandy, nor salt. We have but little bacon and biscuit. Despatch, at least, a million rations to Thionville."
"General Ducrot to War Office, Paris. Strasburg, 20 July, 1870, 8.30 p.m. By to-morrow there will be scarcely fifty men left to guard Neuf-Brisach; Fort-Mortier, Schlestadt, la Petite-Pierre, and Lichtenberg are equally deserted. It is the result of the orders we are carrying out. The Garde Mobile and local National Guards might easily be made available for garrison duty, but I am reluctant to adopt such measures, seeing that your excellency has granted me no power to that effect. It appears certain that the Prussians are already masters of all the passes of the Black Forest."
"From the General commanding the 2nd Army Corps to War Office, Paris. Saint-Avold, 21 July, 1870, 8.55 a.m. The dépôt sends enormous parcels of maps, which are absolutely useless for the moment. We have not a single map of the French frontier. It would be better to send greater quantities of what would be more useful, and which are absolutely wanting at this moment."
"From General Michael to War Office, Paris. Belfort, 21 July, 1870, 7.30 a.m. Have arrived at Belfort; did not find my brigade, did not find a general of division. What am I to do? Do not know where are my regiments."
"From General commanding 4th Army Corps to Major-General,Paris. Thionville, 21 July, 9.12 a.m. The 4th Corps has as yet neither canteens, ambulances, nor baggage-waggons, either for the troops or the staff. There is an utter lack of everything."
I need quote no further; there were about two hundred missives in all, all dated within the week following the official declaration of war. It would be difficult to determine how many of these the Emperor was permitted to see, but there is no doubt that he had a pretty correct idea of the state of affairs, for here is a fact which I have not seen stated anywhere, but for the truth of which I can vouch. For full two years before the outbreak of hostilities, the Legislature seemed bent upon advocating all kinds of retrenchment in the war budget. During the first six months of 1870, the thing had almost become a mania with them, and the Emperor appealed to M. Thiers, through the intermediary of Marshal Lebœuf himself, to help him stem the tide of this pseudo-economy. Thiers promised his support, and faithfully kept his word; but his aid came too late. The Emperor, however, felt grateful to him, and, only thirty-six hours before his departure for the seat of war, he offered him the portfolio of war, again through the intermediary of Marshal Lebœuf. The offer was respectfully declined, but what must have been the state of mind of Louis-Napoléon with regard to his officers, to prefer to them a civilian at such a critical moment? I may state here that it was always the height of M. Thiers' ambition to be considered a great strategist and tactician, and also a military engineer. "Jomini was a civilian," he frequently exclaimed. Those who were competent to judge, have often declared that Thiers' pretensions in that direction were, to a certain extent, justified by his talents. Curiously enough, M. de Freycinet is affected by a similar mania.
Here is a certain correlative to the above-mentioned fact. When, a few months after the Commune, things were getting ship-shape in Paris, a large bundle of printed matter was unearthed in the erstwhile Imperial (then National) Printing Works. It contained, amongst others, a circular drawn up by the Emperor himself, entitled "A Bad Piece of Economy;" it was addressed to the deputies, and dated May, 1870; it showed the presumptive strength of the army of the North-German Confederation as compared with that of France, and wound up with the following sentence: "Ifwe compare the military condition of North-Germany with ours, we shall be able to judge how far those who would still further reduce our national forces are sufficiently enlightened as to our real interests."
It has always been a mystery to me, and to those who were aware of its existence, why this circular was not distributed at the proper time; though, by the light of subsequent events, one fails to see what good it could have done then. Were these events foreseen at the Tuileries as early as May? I think not. The majority of the Emperor's entourage were confident that war with Germany was only a matter of time; very few considered it to be so imminent. One cannot for a moment imagine that the suppression of this circular was due to accidental or premeditated neglect; for the sovereign, though ailing and low-spirited, was still too mindful of his prerogatives not to have visited such neglect of his wishes, whether intentional or not, with severe displeasure. Nor can one for a moment admit that the Emperor was hoodwinked into the belief that the circular had been distributed. His so-called advisers probably prevailed upon him to forego the distribution of the document, lest it should open the eyes of the nation to the inferiority of France's armaments. The only man who had dared to point out that inferiority, three years previously, was General Trochu, and his book, "l'Armée Française," had the effect of ostracizing him from the Tuileries. The smart and swaggering colonels who surrounded the Empress did not scruple to spread the most ridiculous slanders with regard to its author; but the Emperor, though aware that Trochu was systematically opposed to his dynasty, also knew that he was an able, perhaps the ablest soldier in the country. The subsequent failure of Trochu does not invalidate that judgment. "I know what Trochu could and would do if he were unhampered; but I need not concern myself with that, seeing that he will be hampered," said Von Moltke at the beginning of the siege. Colonel Stoffel, the French military attaché at Berlin, was severely reprimanded by Marshal Niel and by Lebœuf afterwards for his constant endeavours to acquaint the Emperor with the magnificent state of efficiency of the Prussian army and its auxiliaries. Ostensibly, it was because he had been guilty of a breach of diplomatic and military etiquette; in reality, because the minister for war and his "festive" coadjutors objected to being constantly harassedin their pleasures by the sovereign's suspicions of their mental nakedness. "Nous l'avons eu, votre Rhin allemand.... Où le père a passé, passera bien l'enfant," was their credo; and they continued to dance, and to flirt, and to intrigue for places, which, in their hands, became fat sinecures. They would have laughed to scorn the dictum of the first Napoléon, that "there are no bad regiments, only bad colonels;" in their opinion, there were no bad colonels, except those perhaps who did not constantly jingle their spurs on the carpeted floors of the Empress's boudoir, and the parqueted arena of the Empress's ball-room. The Emperor was too much of a dreamer and a philosopher for them; he could not emancipate himself from his German education. The best thing to do was to let him write and print whatever he liked, and then prevail upon him at the last moment not to publish, lest it might offend national vanity. Contemptuous as they were of the German spirit of plodding, they had, nevertheless, taken a leaf from an eminent German's book. "Let them say and write what they like, as long as they let me do what I like," exclaimed Frederick the Great, on one occasion. They slightly reversed the sentence. "Let the Emperor say and write what he likes, as long as he lets us do what we like; and one thing we will take care to do, namely, not to let him publish his writings." They had forgotten, if ever they knew them—for their ignorance was as startling as their conceit—the magnificent lines of the founder of the dynasty which they had systematically undermined for years by their dissipation, frivolity, and corruption: "The general is the head, the all in all of the army. It was not the Roman army that conquered Gaul, but Cæsar; it was not the Carthaginian army that made the republican army tremble at the very gates of Rome, but Hannibal; it was not the Macedonian army that penetrated to the Indus, but Alexander; it was not the French army which carried the war as far as the Weser and the Inn, but Turenne; it was not the Prussian army which defended, during seven years, Prussia against the three greatest powers in Europe, but Frederick the Great."
And she who aspired to play the rôle of a Maria-Theresa, when she was not even a Marie-Antoinette, and far more harmful than even a Marie-Louise, applauded the vapourings of those misguided men. "Le courage fait tout," had been the motto for nearly a score of years at the Tuileries. It dida good deal in the comedies à la Marivaux, in the Boccacian charades that had been enacted there during that time; she had yet to learn that it would avail little or nothing in the Homeric struggle which was impending.
The war — Reaction before the Emperor's departure — The moral effects of the publication of the draft treaty — "Bismarck has done the Emperor" — The Parisians did not like the Empress — The latter always anxious to assume the regency — A retrospect — Crimean war — The Empress and Queen Victoria — Solferino — The regency of '65 — Bismarck's millinery bills — Lord Lyons — Bismarck and the Duc de Gramont — Lord Lyons does not foresee war — The republicans and the war — The Empress — Two ministerial councils and their consequences — Mr. Prescott-Hewett sent for — Joseph Ferrari, the Italian philosopher — The Empress — The ferment in Paris — "Too much prologue to 'The Taming of the German Shrew'" — The first engagement — The "Marseillaise" — An infant performer — The "Marseillaise" at the Comédie-Française — The "Marseillaise" by command of the Emperor — A patriotic ballet — The courtesy of the French at Fontenoy — The Café de la Paix — General Beaufort d'Hautpoul and Moltke — Newspaper correspondents — Edmond About tells a story about one of his colleagues — News supplied by the Government — What it amounted to — The information it gave to the enemy — Bazaine, "the glorious" one — Palikao — The fall of the Empire does not date from Sedan, but from Woerth and Speicheren — Those who dealt it the heaviest blow — The Empress, the Empress, and no one but the Empress.
Even before the Emperor started for the seat of war it was very evident, to those who kept their eyes open, that a reaction had set in among the better classes. They were no longer confident about France's ability to chastise the arrogance of the King of Prussia. The publication of the famous "draft treaty" had convinced them "que Bismarck avait roulé l'empereur,"—anglicé, "that the Emperor had been bone;" and, notwithstanding their repeated assertions of being able to dispense with the moral support of Europe, they felt not altogether resigned about the animosity which the revelation of that document had provoked. Honestly speaking, I do not think that they regretted the duplicity of Louis-Napoléon in having tried to steal a march upon the co-signatories of the treaty guaranteeing the protection of Belgium; but it wounded their pride that he should have been found out to no purpose. The word "imbécile" began to circulate freely; and when it became known that he had conferred the regency upon the Empress, the expression ofcontempt and disapproval became stronger still. In spite of everything that has been said to the contrary, the Parisians did not like the Empress. I have already noted elsewhere that those frankly hostile to her did not scruple to apply the word "l'Espagnole" in a depreciating sense; those whose animosity did not go so far merely considered her "une femme à la mode," and by no means fitted to take the reins of government, especially under circumstances so grave as the present ones. On the other hand, the Empress always showed herself exceedingly anxious to exercise the functions of regent. The flatterers and courtiers around her had imbued her with the idea that she was a kind of Elizabeth and a Catherine in one, and the clerical element in her entourage was not the least blamable in that respect.
During the Crimean war, Lord Clarendon had already been compelled to combat the project, though he could not do so openly. Napoléon III. had several times expressed his intention of taking the command of the army. His ministers, and especially MM. Troplong and Baroche, begged of him not to do so. Even Queen Victoria, to whom the idea was broached while on her visit to Paris, threw cold water upon it as far as was possible. But the Empress encouraged it to her utmost. "I fail to see," she said to our sovereign, "that he would be exposed to greater dangers there than elsewhere." It was the prospect of the regency, not of the glory that might possibly accrue to her consort, that appealed to the Empress; for in reality she had not the least sympathy with the object of that war, any more than with that of 1859. Russia was ostensibly fighting for the custody of the Holy Sepulchre; and the defeat of Austria, she had been told by the priests, would entail the ruin of the temporal power of the pope. And Empress Eugénie never attained to anything more than parrot knowledge in the way of politics.
However, in 1859 she had her wish, and, before the opening of the campaign, she declared to the Corps Législatif that "she had perfect faith in the moderation of the Emperor when the right moment for peace should have arrived." Her ladies-in-waiting and the male butterflies around her openly discounted the political effects of every engagement on the field of battle. The Emperor, according to them, would make peace with Austria with very few sacrifices on the latter's part, for it was a Conservative and Catholic power, which could not be humiliated to the bitter end, while Italywas, after all, but a hotbed of conspiracy, revolutionary, anti-Catholic, and so forth.
And I know, for a positive fact, that the Emperor was, as it were, compelled to suspend operations after Solferino, because the Minister for War had ceased to send troops and ammunitions "by order of the regent." The Minister for Foreign Affairs endeavoured by all means in his power to alarm his sovereign.
Nevertheless, in 1865, when he went to Algeria to seek some relief from his acute physical sufferings, Napoléon III. was badgered into confiding the regency once more to his wife. There is no other word, because there was no necessity for such a measure, seeing that he did not leave French territory. We have an inveterate habit of laughing at the "henpecked husband," and no essayist has been bold enough as yet to devote a chapter to him from a purely historical point of view. The materials are not only at hand in France, but in England, Germany, and Russia also; above all, in the latter country. He, the essayist, might safely leave Catherine de Medici out of the question. He need not go back as far. He might begin with Marie de Medici and her daughter, Henrietta-Maria. Sometimes the "henpecking" turns out to be for the world's benefit, as when Sophie-Dorothea worries her spouse to let her first boy wear a heavy christening dress and crown, which eventually kill the infant, who makes room for Frederick the Great. But one could have very well spared the servant-wench who henpecked Peter the Great, and Scarron's widow who henpecked Louis XIV., and Marie-Antoinette and the rest.
The regency of '65, though perhaps not disastrous in itself, was fraught with the most disastrous consequences for the future. It gave the Empress the political importance which she had been coveting for years; henceforth she made it a habit to be present at the councils of ministers, who in their turn informed her personally of events which ought to have remained strictly between them and the chief of the State. This went on until M. Émile Ollivier came into power, January 2, 1870. The Italian and Austrian ambassadors, however, continued to flatter her vanity by constantly appealing to her; the part they played on the 4th of September shows plainly enough how they profited in the interest of their governments by these seemingly diplomatic indiscretions on their own part.
As for Bismarck, as some one who was very much behind the political scenes in Berlin once said, "His policy consisted in paying milliners' and dressmakers' bills in Paris for ladies to whose personal adornment and appearance he was profoundly indifferent." I am bound to say that Lord Lyons courteously but steadfastly refused to be drawn out "diplomatically" by the Empress. While paying due homage to the woman and to the sovereign, he tacitly declined to consider her a pawn in the political game, and, though always extremely guarded in his language, could scarcely refrain from showing his contempt for those who did. I do not know whether Lord Lyons will leave behind any "memoirs;" if he do, we shall probably get not only nothing but the truth, but the whole truth, with regard to the share of the Empress in determining the war; and we shall find that that war was not decided upon between the Imperial couple between the 14th and 15th of July, '70, but between the 5th and 6th of July. Meanwhile, without presuming to anticipate such revelations on the part of our ambassador, I may note here my own recollections on the subject.
On Tuesday, the 5th of July, about 2.30 p.m., I was walking along the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, when, just in front of the Embassy, I was brought to a standstill by Lord Lyons' carriage turning into the courtyard from the street. His lordship was inside. We were on very good terms, I may say on very friendly terms, and he beckoned me to come in. I was at the short flight of steps leading to the hall almost as soon as the carriage, and we went inside together. I do not suppose I was in his private room for more than ten minutes, but I brought away the impression that, although the Duc de Gramont and M. Émile Ollivier might think it necessary to adopt a bellicose tone in face of the Hohenzollern candidature, there was little or no fear of war, because the Emperor wasdecidedlyinclined to peace. I remember this the more distinctly, seeing that Lord Lyons told me that he had just returned from an interview with the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I am not certain of the exact words used by his lordship, but positive as to the drift of one of his remarks; namely, that the Duc de Gramont was the last person who ought to conduct the negotiations. "There is too much personal animosity between him and Bismarck, owing mainly to the latter having laughed his pretensions to scorn as a diplomatist while the duke was at Vienna." I am certainthe words were to that effect. Then he added, "I can understand though I fail to approve De Gramont's personal irritation, but cannot account for Ollivier's, and he seems as pugnacious as the other. Nevertheless, I repeat, the whole of this will blow over: William is too wise a man to go to war on such a pretext, and the Emperor is too ill not to want peace. I wish the Empress would leave him alone. I am going to Ollivier's to-night, and I'll know more about it by to-morrow morning."
It is very evident from this that the historians were subsequently wrongly informed as to M. Émile Ollivier's attitude at that moment, which they have described as exactly the reverse from what Lord Lyons found it. I knew little or nothing of M. Ollivier, still he did not give me the impression of being likely to adopt a hectoring tone just in order to please the gallery, the gallery being in this instance the clientèle of the opposition, whom the Emperor feared more than any one else. From all I have been able to gather since, Louis-Napoléon seemed racked with anxiety, but, as one of my informants, who was scarcely away from his side at the time, said afterwards, he was not pondering over the consequences of war which he fancied he was able to prevent, he was pondering the consequences of peace. Translated into plain language, it meant that the republican minority, with its recent accession of representatives in the chambers and its still more unscrupulous adherents outside, were striving with might and main, not to goad the Emperor into a war, but to make him keep a peace which, if they had had the chance, they would have denounced as humiliating to France.
Unfortunately for France, they found an unexpected ally in the Empress. The latter urged on the war with Prussia, in order to secure to her son the imperial crown which was shaking on the head of her husband; the former were playing the game known colloquially as "Heads, I win; tails, you lose." Peace preserved by means of diplomatic negotiations would give them the opportunity of holding up the Empire to scorn as being too weak to safeguard the national honour; war would give them the opportunity of airing their platitudes about the iniquity of standing armies and the sacrifice of human life, etc. I go further still, and unhesitatingly affirm that, if any party was aware of the corruption in the army, it was the republican one. The plébiscite of May, with its thousands of votes adverse to the Imperial régime—amongwhich votes there were those of a great many officers—had not only given them a chance of counting their numbers, but of obtaining information, not available to their adversaries in power. This is tantamount to an indictment of having deliberately contributed to the temporary ruin of their country for political purposes, and such I intend it to be. I am not speaking without good grounds.
On the day I met Lord Lyons, two ministerial councils were held at Saint-Cloud, both presided over by the Emperor. Between the first and the second, the peaceful sentiments of the chief of the State underwent no change. So little did the Emperor foresee or desire war, that on the evening of that same day, while the second council of ministers was being held, he sent one of his aides-de-camp to my house for the exact address of Mr. Prescott-Hewett, the eminent English surgeon. I was not at home, and on my return, an hour later, sent the address by telegraph to Saint-Cloud. I have since learnt that, on the same night, a telegram was despatched to London, inquiring of Mr. Hewett when it would be convenient for him to hold a consultation in Paris. An appointment was made, but Mr. Hewett eventually went in August, to the seat of war, to see his illustrious patient. I believe, but am not certain, that he saw him at Châlons.
On the 6th of July, there was a third council of ministers at Saint-Cloud, at ten o'clock in the morning, in order to draw up the answer to M. Cochery's interpellation on the Hohenzollern candidature. The latter was supposed to have been inspired by M. Thiers, but I will only state what I know positively with regard to the Emperor. At a little after two that afternoon, I happened to be at the Café de la Paix, when my old friend, Joseph Ferrari, came up to me.[77]He was a great friend of Adolphe and Élysée, the brothers of Émile Ollivier. He looked positively crestfallen, and, knowing him to be a sincere advocate of peace, I had no need to ask him for the nature of the news he brought. I could see at a glance that it was bad. He, however, left me no time to put a question.
"It's all over," he said at once, "and, unless a miracle happens, we'll have war in less than a fortnight." He immediatelywent on. "Wait for another hour, and then you'll see the effect of De Gramont's answer to Cochery's interpellation in the Chamber. Not only the Prussians, but the smallest nation in Europe would not stand it."
"But," I remarked, "about this time yesterday I was positively assured, and on the best authority, that the Emperor was absolutely opposed to any but a pacific remonstrance."
"Your informant was perfectly correct," was the answer; "and as late as ten o'clock last night, at the termination of the second council of ministers, his sentiments underwent no change. Immediately after that, the Empress had a conversation with the Emperor, which I know for certain lasted till one o'clock in the morning. The result of this conversation is the answer, the text of which you will see directly, and which is tantamount to a challenge to Prussia. Mark my words, the Empress will not cease from troubling until she has driven France into a war with the only great Protestant power on the Continent. That power defeated, she will endeavour to destroy the rising unity of Italy. She little knows that Victor-Emanuel will not wait until then, and that, at the first success of the French on the Rhine, he will cross the Alps at a sign of Prussia; that at the first success of Prussia, the Italian troops will start on their march to Rome. Nay, I repeat, it is the Empress who will prove the ruin of France."
That playful cry of the Empress, which she was so fond of uttering in the beginning of her married life, "As for myself, I am a Legitimist," without understanding, or endeavouring to understand its import, had gradually grafted itself on her mind, although it had ceased to be on her lips. Impatient of contradiction, self-willed and tyrannical, both by nature and training, her sudden and marvellous elevation to one of the proudest positions in Europe could not fail to strengthen those defects of character. Superstitious, like most Spaniards, she was firmly convinced that the gipsy who foretold her future greatness was a Divine messenger, and from that to the conviction that she occupied the throne by a right as Divine as that claimed by the Bourbons there was but one short step. A corollary to Divine right meant, to her, personal and irresponsible government. That was her idea of legitimism. Though by no means endowed with high intellectual gifts, she perceived well enough, in the beginning,that the Second Empire was not a very stable edifice, either with regard to its foundations or superstructure, and, until England propped it up by an alliance, and a State visit from our sovereign, she kept commendably coy. But from that moment she aspired to be something more than the arbiter of fashion. As I have already said, she failed in prevailing upon the Emperor to go to the Crimea. In '59 she was more successful, in '65 she was more successful still. In the former year, she laid the foundation of what was called the Empress's party; in the latter, the scaffolding was removed from the structure, henceforth the work was done inside. She, no more than her surroundings, had the remotest idea that France was gradually undergoing a political change, that she was recovering her constitutional rights. Her party was like the hare in the fable that used the wrong end of the opera-glass, and lived in a fool's paradise with regard to the distance that divided them from the sportsman, until he was fairly upon them, in the shape of the liberal ministry of the 2nd of January, 1870.
M. Émile Ollivier, to his credit be it said, refused to be guided by his predecessors. He studiously avoided informing the Empress of the affairs of State, let alone discussing them with her. Apart from the small fry of the Imperial party, he made two powerful enemies—the Empress herself, and Rouher, who saw in this refusal to follow precedent an implied censure upon himself. Rouher, I repeat once more, was honest to the backbone, but fond of personal power. The Empire to him meant nothing but the Emperor, the Empress, and the heir to the throne; just as Germany meant nothing to Bismarck but the Hohenzollern dynasty. He was one of the first to proclaim, loudly and openly, that the plébiscite of the 8th of May meant an overwhelming manifestation, not in favour of the liberal Empire, but in favour of the Emperor; and when the latter, to do him justice, declined to look at it in that light, he deserted him for the side of his wife. It is an open secret that the first use the Empress meant to make of her power as regent, after the first signal victory of French arms, was to sweep away the cabinet of the 2nd of January. The Imperial decree conferring the regency upon her, "during the absence of the Emperor at the head of his army," and dated the 22nd of July, invested her with very limited power.
Meanwhile, pending the departure of the Emperor, Pariswas in a ferment, but, to the careful observer, it was no longer the unalloyed enthusiasm of the first few days. There were just as many people in the streets; the shouts of "À Berlin!" though, perhaps, not so sustained, were just as loud every now and then; the troops leaving for the front received tremendous ovations, and more substantial proofs of the people's goodwill; the man who dared to pronounce the word "peace" ran a great risk of being rent to pieces by the crowds—a thing which almost happened one night in front of the Café de Madrid, on the Boulevard Montmartre: still, the enthusiasm was not the same. "There seems to be a great deal of prologue to 'The Taming of that German Shrew,'" said a French friend, who was pretty familiar with Shakespeare; and he was not far wrong, for the Christopher Sly abounded. The bivouacs of the troops about to take their departure reminded one somewhat more forcibly of operatic scenes and equestrian dramas of the circus type than of the preparations for the stern necessities of war—with this difference, that the contents of the goblet were real, and the viands not made of cardboard. "They are like badly made cannons, these soldiers," said some one else: "they are crammed up to the muzzle, and they do not go off." In short, the more sensible of the Paris population began to conclude that a little less intoning of patriotic strophes and a good deal more of juxtaposition with the German troops was becoming advisable. The reports of the few preliminary skirmishes that had taken place were no doubt favourable to the French; at the same time, there was no denying the fact that they had taken place on French and not on German territory, which was not quite in accordance with the spirit of the oft-repeated cry of "À Berlin!" In accordance with the programme of which that cry was the initial quotation, the French ought, by this time, to have been already half on their way to the Prussian capital. That is what sensible, nay, clever people expressed openly. Nevertheless, the cry continued, nor was there any escape from the "Marseillaise," either by day or night. Every now and then a more than usually dense group might be seen at a street corner. The centre of the group was composed of a woman, with a baby in her arms; the little one could scarcely speak, but its tiny voice reproduced more or less accurately the air of the "Marseillaise:" a deep silence prevailed during the performance in order to give the infant a fair chance; deafening applausegreeted the termination of the solo, and a shower of coppers fell into the real or pseudo mother's lap. On the 18th of July, the day of the official declaration of war in Paris, the Comédie-Française performed "Le Lion Amoureux" of Ponsard.[78]At the end of the second act, the public clamoured for the "Marseillaise." There was not a single member of the company capable of complying with the request, "so the stage manager for the week" had to come forward and ask for a two-days' adjournment, during which some one might study it. Of course,the honourof singing the revolutionary hymn was to devolve upon a woman, according to the precedent established in '48, when Rachel had intoned it. From what I learnt a few days afterwards, the candidates for thedistinguished taskwere not many, in spite of the tacit consent of the Government. The ladies of the company, most of whom, like their fellow-actors, had been always very cordially treated by the Emperor on the occasion of their professional visits to Saint-Cloud, Compiègne, and Fontainebleau, instinctively guessed the pain the concession must have caused the chief of the State, and under some pretext declined. Mdlle. Agar accepted, and sang the "Marseillaise," in all forty-four times, from the 20th of July to the 17th of September, the day of the final investment of the capital by the German armies.
It must not be supposed, though, that the Government had waited until the day of the official declaration of war to sanction the performance of the "Marseillaise" in places of public resort. I remember crossing the Gardens of the Tuileries in the afternoon of Sunday, the 17th of July. One of the military bands was performing a selection of music. The custom of doing so during the summer months has prevailed for many years, both in the capital and in the principal garrison towns of the provinces. All at once they struck up the "Marseillaise." I looked with surprise at my companion, a member of the Emperor's household. He caught the drift of my look.
"It is by the Emperor's express command," he said. "It is the national war-song. In fact, it is that much more than a revolutionary hymn."
"But war has not been declared," I objected.
"It will be to-morrow," was the answer.
The public, which in this instance was mainly composed of the better classes, apparently refused to consider the "Marseillaise" a national war-song, and applause at its termination was but very lukewarm.
I have already spoken of the scene I witnessed in connection with the departure of the Germans on that same Sunday early in the morning, and have also noted the demonstration in front of the German Embassy on the previous Friday night. I will not be equally positive with regard to the exact dates of the succeeding exhibitions of bad taste on the part of the Parisians, but I remember a very striking one which happened between the official declaration of war and the end of July. It was brought under my notice, not by a foreigner, but by a Frenchman, who was absolutely disgusted with it. We were sitting one evening outside the Café de la Paix, which, being the resort of some noted Imperialists, I had begun to visit more frequently than I had done hitherto. There was a terrible din on the Boulevards: the evening papers had just published a very circumstantial account of that insignificant skirmish which cost Lieutenant Winslow his life, and in which the French had taken a couple of prisoners. "They" (the prisoners), suggested an able editor, "ought to be brought to Paris and publicly exhibited as an example." "And, what is more," said my friend who had read the paragraph to me, "he means what he says. These are the descendants of a nation who prides herself on having said at Fontenoy, 'Messieurs, les Anglais tirez les premiers,' which, by-the-by, they did not say.[79]If you care to come with me, I'll show you what would be the probablefate of such prisoners if the writer of that paragraph had his will."
So said; so done. In about a quarter of an hour we were seated at the Café de l'Horloge, in the Champs Élysées, and my friend was holding out five francs fifty centimes in payment for two small glasses of so-called "Fine Champagne,"plusthe waiter's tip. The admission was gratis; and the difference between those who went in and those who remained outside was that the latter could hear the whole of the performance without seeing it, and without disbursing a farthing; while the former could see the whole of the performance without hearing a note, for the din there was also infernal. Shortly after our arrival, the band struck up the inevitable "Marseillaise," but the audience neither listened nor applauded.
This was, after all, but the overture to the entertainment to which my friend had invited me, and which consisted of a spectacular pantomime representing an engagement between a regiment or a battalion of Zouaves and Germans. As a matter of course, the latter had the worst of it; and, at the termination, a couple of them were brought in and compelled to sue for mercy on their knees. I am bound to say that the thing hung fire altogether, and that, but for the remarkable selection of handsome legs of the Zouaves, not even the hare-brained young fellows with which the audience was largely besprinkled would have paid any attention.
In the whole of Paris there was no surer centre of information of the state of affairs at the front than the Café de la Paix. It was the principal resort of the Bonapartists. There were Pietri, the prefect of police, Sampierro, Abatucci, and a score or two of others; all cultivating excellent relations with the Château. There was also the General Beaufort d'Hautpoul, to whom Bismarck subsequently, through the pen of Dr. Moritz Busch, did the greatest injury a man can do to a soldier, in accusing him of drunkenness when he came to settle some of the military conditions of the armistice at Versailles. He was, as far as I remember, one of the two superior French officers who estimated at its true value the strategic genius of Von Moltke. The other was Colonel Stoffel. But General d'Hautpoul was even better enabled to judge; he had seen Moltke at work in Syria more than thirty years before. He was in reality the Solomon Eagle of the campaign, before a single shot had been fired. "I know ourarmy, and I know Helmuth von Moltke," he said, shaking his head despondingly. "If every one of our officers were his equal in strategy, the chance would then only be equal. Moltke has the gift of the great billiard-player; he knows beforehand the exact results of a shock between two bodies at a certain angle. We are a doomed nation."
As a matter of course, his friends were very wroth at what they called "his unpatriotic language," and when the news of the engagement at Saarbruck arrived they crowed over him; but he stuck to his text. "It is simply a feint on Moltke's part, and proves nothing at all. In two or three days we'll get the news of a battle that will decide, not only the fate of the whole campaign, but the fate of the Empire also."
Two days afterwards, I met him near the Rue Saint-Florentin; he looked absolutely crestfallen. "We have suffered a terrible defeat near Wissembourg, but do not breathe a word of it to any one. The Government is waiting for a victory on some other point, and then it will publish the two accounts together."
The Government was reckoning without the newspapers, French and foreign. The latter might be confiscated, and in fact were, such as theTimesandl'Indépendance Belge; but the French, notwithstanding the temporary law of M. Émile Ollivier, were more difficult to deal with. I am inclined to think that if they had foreseen the terrible fate that was to befall the French armies they would have been more amenable, but in the beginning they anticipated nothing but startling victories, and, as such, looked upon the campaign in the light of a series of brilliant spectacular performances, glowing accounts of which were essentially calculated to increase their circulation. When MM. Cardon and Chabrillat, respectively of theGauloisandFigaro, were released by the Prussians, they told many amusing stories to that effect, unconsciously confirming the opinion I have already expressed; but the following, which I had from the lips of Edmond About himself, is better than any I can remember.
A correspondent of one of the best Paris newspapers, on his arrival at the head-quarters of "the army of the Rhine," applied to the aide-major-general for permission to follow the operations. He had a good many credentials of more or less weight; nevertheless the aide-major-general, in view of the formal orders of the Emperor and Marshal Lebœuf, feltbound to refuse the request. The journalist, on the other hand, declined to take "no" for an answer. "I have come with the decided intention to do justice, and more than justice, perhaps, to your talent and courage, and it would be a pity indeed if I were not given the opportunity," he said.
"I am very sorry," was the reply; "but I cannot depart from the rules for any one."
"But our paper has a very large circulation."
"All the more reason to refuse you the authorization to follow the staff."
The journalist would not look at matters in that light. He felt that he was conferring a favour, just as he would have felt in offering the advantage of a cleverly written puff of a première to a theatrical manager. Seeing that his arguments were of no avail, he delivered his parting shot.
"This, then, general, is your final decision. I am afraid you'll have cause to regret this, for we, on our side, are determined not to give this war the benefit of publicity in our columns."
M. Émile Ollivier's original decision was the right one, but, instead of embodying it in a temporary and exceptional order, he ought to have made it a permanent law in times of peace as well as war. On Saturday, the 16th of July, Count Culemburg, the Prussian Minister of the Interior, addressed a circular to the German papers, recommending them to abstain from giving any news, however insignificant, with regard to the movements of the troops. As far as I remember, the German editors neither protested, nor endeavoured to shirk the order; they raised no outcry against "the muzzling of the press." Five days later, the French minister was attacked by nearly every paper in France for attempting to do a similar thing, and, rather than weather that storm in a teacup, he consented to a compromise, and condescended to ask where he might have commanded. In addition to this, he undertook that the Government itself should be the purveyor of war-news to the papers. Every editor of standing in Paris knew that this meant garbled, if not altogether mythical, accounts of events, and that even these would be held back until they could be held back no longer. In a few days their worst apprehensions in that respect were confirmed. While Paris was still ignorant of the terrible disaster at Wissembourg, the whole of Europe rang with the tidings. Then came the false report of a brilliant victoryfrom the Government agency. It made the Parisians frantic with joy, but the frenzy changed into one of anger when the truth became known through the maudlin and lachrymose despatches from the Imperial head-quarters, albeit that they by no means revealed the whole extent of the defeats suffered at Woerth and Spicheren.
Nevertheless, theagencycontinued the even—or rather uneven—tenor of its way up to the last. The Republicans subsequently adopted the tactics of the Imperial Government, the Communists adhered to the system of those they had temporarily ousted. In the present note, I will deal only with events up to the 4th of September. Patent as it must have been to the merest civilian, that the commanders were simply committing blunder after blunder, the movements of Bazaine were represented by theagencyas the result of a masterly and profound calculation. Even such a pessimist as General Beaufort d'Hautpoul was taken in by those representations. He considered the "masterly inactivity" of Bazaine as an inspiration of genius. "He is keeping two hundred thousand German troops round Metz," he said several times. "These two hundred thousand men are rendered absolutely useless while we are recruiting our armies and reorganizing our forces." He seemed altogether oblivious of the fact that these two hundred thousand Germans were virtually the gaolers of France's best army.
I am unable to say whether General d'Hautpoul was in direct or indirect communication with theagency, or whether some ingenious scribe belonging to it had overheard his expressions of admiration and wilfully adopted them; certain it is that theagencywas the first to inspire the reporters of those papers who took their cue from it with the flattering epithet of "glorious Bazaine."
It was the same with regard to Palikao. His sententious commonplaces were reported as so many oracular revelations dragged reluctantly from him. Had they been more familiar with Shakespeare than they were, or are, the scribes would have made Palikao exclaim with Macbeth, "The greatest is behind." And all the while the troops were marching and countermarching at haphazard, without a preconceived plan, jeering at their leaders, and openly insulting the "phantom" Emperor, as they did at Châlons, for he was already no more than that. The fall of the Empire does not date from Sedan, but from Woerth and Spicheren; and those most pertinentlyaware of it were not the men who dealt it the final blow less than a month later, but the immediate entourage of the Empress at the Tuileries.
For from that moment (the 6th or 7th of August) the entourage of the Empress began to think of saving the Empire by sacrificing, if needs be, the Emperor. "There is only one thing that can avert the ruin of the dynasty," said a lady-in-waiting on the Empress, to a near relative of mine; "and that is the death of the Emperor at the head of his troops. That death would be considered an heroic one, and would benefit the Prince Imperial."
I do not pretend to determine how far the Empress shared that opinion, but here are some facts not generally known, even to this day, and for the truth of which I can unhesitatingly vouch.
The Empress did not know of the consultation that had taken place on the 1st of July, and to which I have already referred. But she did know that the Emperor was suffering from a very serious complaint, and that the disease had been aggravated since his departure through his constantly being on horseback. M. Franceschini Pietri, the private secretary of the Emperor, had informed her to that effect on the 7th of August, when Forbach and Woerth had been fought. He also told her that the Emperor was not unwilling to return to Paris, and to leave the command-in-chief to Bazaine, but that his conscience and his pride forbade him to do so, unless some pressure were brought to bear upon him. I repeat, I can vouch for this, because I had it from the lips of M. Pietri, who was prefect of police until the 4th of September.
Meanwhile, others, besides M. Franceschini Pietri, had noticed the evident moral and mental depression of the Emperor, increased, no doubt, by his acute physical sufferings, which were patent to almost every one with whom he came in immediate contact; for an eye-witness wrote to me on the 4th of August: "The Emperor is in a very bad state; after Saarbruck, Lebrun and Lebœuf had virtually to lift him off his horse. The young prince, who, as you have probably heard already, was by his side all the time, looked very distressed, for his father had scarcely spoken to him during the engagement. But after they got into the carriage, which was waiting about a dozen yards away, the Emperor put his arm round his neck and kissed him on the cheeks, while twolarge tears rolled down his now. I noticed that the Emperor had scarcely strength to walk that dozen yards."
Lebœuf, who, like a great many more, has suffered to a certain extent for the faults of Marshal Niel, perceived well enough that something had to be done to cheer the Emperor in his misfortunes. It was he who proposed that the latter should return to Paris, accompanied by him, while the corps d'armée of Frossard, which had effected its retreat in good order, and several other divisions that had not been under fire as yet, should endeavour to retrieve matters by attacking the armies of Von Steinmetz and Frederick-Charles, which at that identical moment were only in "course of formation." But Louis-Napoléon, while admitting the wisdom of the plan, sadly shook his head, and declared that he could not relinquish the chief command in view of the double defeat the army had suffered under his leadership.
What had happened, then, during the twenty-four hours immediately following the telegram of M. Franceschini Pietri? Simply this: not only had the Empress refused to exercise the pressure which would have afforded her husband an excuse for his return, but she had thrown cold water on the idea of that return by a despatch virtually discountenancing that return. The cabinet had not been consulted in this instance.
Nay, more; the cabinet on the 7th of August despatched, in secret, M. Maurice Richard, Minister of Arts, which at that time was distinct from the Ministry of Public Instruction, to inquire into the state of health of the Emperor and the degree of confidence with which he inspired the troops. That was on the 7th of August. He went by special train to Metz. Two hours after he was gone, Adolphe Ollivier told me and Ferrari at the Café de la Paix. A few hours after his return next day, he told us the result of those inquiries. M. Richard had brought back the worst possible news.
At a council of ministers, held early on the 9th, M. Émile Ollivier, in view of the communication made to him by his colleague, proposed the immediate return of the Emperor, fully expecting M. Richard to support him. The Empress energetically opposed the plan, and when M. Ollivier turned, as it were, to M. Richard, the latter kept ominously silent. Not to mince matters, he had been tampered with. M. Ollivier found himself absolutely powerless.
A day or so before that—I will not be positive as to thedate—M. Ollivier telegraphed officially to the head-quarters at Metz, to request the return of the Prince Imperial, in accordance with the generally expressed wish of the Paris papers. M. Pietri told me that same day that the minister's telegram had been followed by one in the Empress's private cipher, expressing her wish that the Prince Imperial should remain in the army. She did not explain why. She merely recommended the Emperor to make the promise required, and then to pay no further heed to it.
The regent had no power to summon parliament, nevertheless she did so, mainly in order to overthrow the Ollivier ministry. I am perfectly certain that the Emperor never forgave her for it. If those who were at Chislehurst are alive when these notes appear, they will probably bear me out.
What, in fact, could a parliament summoned under such circumstances be but a council of war, every one of whose decisions was canvassed in public and made the enemy still wiser than he was before? Of course, the Empress felt certain that she would be able to dismiss it as easily as it had been summoned; she evidently did not remember the fable of the horse which had invited the man to get on his back in order to fight the stag. There is not the slightest doubt that, as I have already remarked, the Empress's main purpose was the overthrow of the Ollivier administration; if proof were wanted, the evidence of the men who overthrew the Empire would be sufficient to establish the fact, and not one, but half a dozen, have openly stated that the defeat of the Ollivier ministry was accomplished with the tacit approval of the court party:read, "the party of the Empress," to which I have referred before.
The list of the Empress's blunders, involuntary or the reverse, is too long to be transcribed in detail here; I return to my impressions of men and things after my meeting with General Beaufort d'Hautpoul in the Rue de Rivoli.
I do not suppose that in the whole of Paris there were a dozen sensible men who still cherished any illusions with regard to the possibility of retrieving the disasters by a dash into the enemy's country. The cry of "À Berlin!" had been finally abandoned even by the most chauvinistic. But the hope still remained that the Prussians would be thrust back from the "sacred soil of France" by some brilliant coup de main, although I am positive that the Empirewould have been doomed just the same if that hope had been realized. Among those who had faith in the coup de main were M. Paul de Cassagnac and, curiously enough, General Beaufort d'Hautpoul. He had suddenly conceived great hopes with regard to Bazaine. M. de Cassagnac seriously contemplated enlisting in the Zouaves. Strange to relate, M. Paul de Cassagnac, in spite of his well-known attachment to the Imperialist cause, was looked upon, by the most determined opponents of that cause among the masses, as a man to be trusted and consulted in a non-official way. I remember being on the Boulevard one evening after the affair at Beaumont, when the rage of the population was even stronger than after the defeats at Woerth and Forbach. All of a sudden we perceived a dense group swaying towards us—we were between the Rues Laffite and Le Peletier—and in the centre towered the tall figure of M. de Cassagnac. For a moment we were afraid that some mischief was being contemplated, the more that we had noticed several leaders of the revolutionary party—or, to speak by the card, of the Blanqui party—hovering near the Café Riche. But the demonstration was not a hostile one; on the contrary, it had a friendly tendency, and showed a tacit acknowledgment that, whosoever else might hide the truth from them, M. de Cassagnac would not do so. "What about rifles, M. Paul?" was the cry; "are there sufficient for us all?" It must be remembered that thelevée en massehad been decreed. M. de Cassagnac could not tell the truth, and would not tell a lie. He frankly said, "I don't know." We noticed also that at his approach the Blanquists slunk away. The Empire had been tottering on its base until then; after Beaumont it was virtually doomed.