THE FRENCH DANCES THROUGHOUT THE AGES. DECORATION FOR THE GRANDE SALLE DE FÊTES IN THE NEW HOTEL DE VILLE. Painted by Aimé-N. Morot.THE FRENCH DANCES THROUGHOUT THE AGES. DECORATION FOR THE GRANDE SALLE DE FÊTES IN THE NEW HOTEL DE VILLE.Painted by Aimé-N. Morot.
This tendency gradually became accentuated in the successive ministries which the king called to his aid; the republican and liberal aspirations on the one hand and the Bonapartist and Imperial souvenirs—greatly strengthened by the imposing ceremonial attending the return of the ashes of Napoleon to the capital in December, 1840—combined to make difficult the task of the government. Paris, which, in the words of M. Duruy, "loves tofronderas soon as it ceases to be afraid," was entirely given over to the opposition. At the opening of the session of the Chambre in 1848, the ministers persuaded the king to declare in a discourse that a hundred of the deputies were enemies of the throne. The republicans planned a great reunion at a banquet to be given in the twelfth arrondissement, the ministry forbade the assembly, the conflicts began in the streets between the citizens and the soldiers, the préfet de police, who, in his daily reports, was able to dispose of the 12th of February in this paragraph: "Order and tranquillity continue to prevail in Paris: no extraordinary agitation is to be observed," was obliged, ten days later, to conclude a long account of the manifestations in the capital by a recommendation to hold the army in readiness for an organized attack "in case the insurrection recommences." It did recommence, that night, and the next day Marshal Gérard announced to the insurgents in the Palais-Royal the abdication of the king.
He abdicated in favor of his grandson, the Comte de Paris, with the Duchesse d'Orléans for regent, and the duchess was left in the Tuileries when the king, taking off his grand cordon and his uniform, depositing his sword on a table, arrayed himself with his wife's assistance in a bourgeois costume and took his departure for Saint-Cloud. The duchess, with her two sons, was escorted to the Chamber, where the president declared that her regency should be proclaimed by that body, and Lamartine was in the midst of a speech advising the constitution of a provisory government for that purpose when he was interrupted by the invasion of a revolutionary mob shouting: "A bas la Régence! Vive la République! A bas les corrompus!" The little Comte de Paris was seized by the throat by one of these demonstrative citizens, and only saved from being choked by the intervention of a national guardsman. The provisional government proclaimed the Republic; before the Hôtel de Ville, Lamartine, in a burst of eloquence, repelled the proposition of the mob to adopt the red flag and secured the adoption of the tricolor, and the provinces, following the lead of the capital, seemed to accept the Republic.
But a stable administration of the city and the nation seemed more unattainable than ever. The new government had to suppress popular uprisings in the streets of Paris in March, in May, and in June; the new Assemblée Nationale, elected by universal suffrage,—nine millions of electors, instead of 220,000, as under the late monarchy,—made haste to organize a new government consisting of a single president, to be elected, and a single legislative body. The new president, elected by an overwhelming majority, was Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, a nephew of the Emperor. He was given power to nominate all the innumerable employés of the government, to negotiate treaties, and to organize the army, but he could not take command of the latter nor dissolve the Assemblée, and he was not eligible for re-election. The two chief powers of the government were not long in coming into collision; the legislative body, divided into numerous factions, lacked decision and initiative, and it lost in popular favor by the law of the 31st of May, 1850, which struck three millions of electors from the lists by restricting the suffrage to those only who could prove a continuous residence of three years in the canton. The President, seizing his opportunity, demanded the repeal of this law (November 4, 1851), and on the 2d of December following, by a series of summary nocturnal arrests, succeeded in putting all the chiefs of the various parties in the Assemblée, and all his most formidable opponents, under lock and key. "I have broken out of the way of legality," said he, "to re-enter that of the right;" and the nation, by 7,437,216 votes against 640,737, accepted the new constitution which he proposed for it, the renewal of his power for ten years, the abolition of the law of the 31st of May, and the dissolution of the Assemblée Nationale. The Empire followed naturally, a year later, and was ratified by the nation by an even more overwhelming majority.
So much obloquy has been attached to the person and the reign of this sovereign, he has been made the object of such unlimited denunciation, deserved and undeserved, at home and abroad, that it will doubtless come as a surprise to many of our readers to find how liberal and enlightened were at least many of the aims of his administration, and how enthusiastically he was supported by the people that have since found no terms too strong to express their detestation. "Napoleon III," says M. Duruy, "at the very moment that he took possession of the throne, had promised that liberty should one day crown the new political edifice. After Solferino, he endeavored to introduce her again into our institutions. He began this work by the decree of the 24th of November, 1860, which associated the Corps Législatif more directly with the politics of the government. He continued it by the sénatus-consulte of the 2d of December, 1861, which deprived the Emperor of the power of decreeing extraordinary credits in the intervals of the sessions; by the letter of the 19th of January, 1867, which gave the ministers the right of appearing before the Chambers, in order that they might at any moment render an account of their acts to the nation; by the laws on the press, which was restored to its natural privileges, and on the popular assemblages, of which a few were useful and a great many detestable (11th of May and 6th of June, 1868). Finally, at the period when, abroad, the unfortunate issue of the expedition to Mexico, and the menacing position assumed in Germany by Prussia, after her victory of Sadowa over the Austrians; in the interior, the progress of public intelligence, favored by the general prosperity, had developed stronger desires for freedom which the elections of 1869 made evident, the Emperor renounced his personal authority, and by the sénatus-consulte of the 20th of April, 1870, proposed to the French people the transformation of the autocratic Empire into the liberal Empire. On the 8th of May, 7,300,000 citizens repliedyesto this question, against 1,500,000 who repliedno."
Thus this dignified and candid historian does not hesitate to lay the responsibility of the war of 1870-71, "most certainly, on the ministers, the deputies, and the unreasoning folly of Paris." "Paris," says another writer, an eye-witness, "was inflamed with a peculiar fever, and even words changed their meaning. Workmen were maltreated on the Boulevard des Italiens for having traversed it crying: 'Vive la Paix, vive la Travail!' ['Give us Peace! Hurrah for Labor!'] The courts themselves interfered, and citizens were condemned to prison for having uttered publicly this seditious cry: 'Vive la Paix!'" The latest historian of the war, the Commandant Rousset, who "has summed up, with more clearness and force than any other, the political and military considerations which explain its issue," in the opinion of the critics, defines as one of the three principal causes of its disasters after the 4th of September, the excessive importance attributed to the capital. The necessity of delivering Paris paralyzed all the efforts of the armies of the provinces, in depriving them of all liberty of action. "Enough can never be said of the fatal incubus which weighed upon us in the shape of the specious theory which certain pontiffs of the high strategy had erected upon the abstract value of positions, and of entrenched camps, nor of the amount of profit which the German army derived from the disdain which it entertained for this theory." This inordinate importance of the capital, as we have already seen in many instances, is one of the most striking facts in the history of France.
"THE PROGRESS OF MUSIC." PLAFOND OF THE GRANDE SALLE DES FÊTES IN THE NEW HOTEL DE VILLE. Painted by H. Gervex."THE PROGRESS OF MUSIC." PLAFOND OF THE GRANDE SALLE DES FÊTES IN THE NEW HOTEL DE VILLE.Painted by H. Gervex.
The capital once more effected a change in the government, and by the familiar methods,—on the 4th of September, 1870, the mob invaded the Chamber and overturned the Empire. In the civil war that followed the withdrawal of the Germans—brought about by theCommuneand theInternationale, the former, with the pretext of restoring to the city its legitimate rights by giving back to it the election of its municipal officers, and the second, a socialism which was practical anarchy, repudiating patriotism, denouncing capital as theft, aiming to overthrow all society—it was again the capital which acted. In the private correspondence of one of those leaders of revolt, the nihilist Bakounine, lately published, he writes to his confidant: "What do you think of this desperate movement of the Parisians? Whatever the result may be, it must be confessed that they are brave enough. That strength which we have vainly sought in Lyon and in Marseille has been found in Paris. There is there an organization, and men determined to go to the bitter end. It is certain that they will be beaten, but it is equally certain that there will be henceforth no salvation for France outside the social revolution. The French state is dead, and cannot be revived."
In the number of theContemporary Reviewfor March, 1898, may be found an admirable condensation of the history of France for the last hundred years (quoted, without comment, in a Parisian journal), in the shape of a résumé of the various street cries heard in Paris during that period. (It is probably scarcely necessary to explain thatA basis "Down with" andConspuez, practically, "Spit upon.") In 1788, the people cried:Vive le roi! Vive la noblesse! Vive le clergé!In 1789:A bas la noblesse! A bas la Bastille! Vivent Necker et Mirabeau! Vivent d'Orléans et le clergé!In 1791:A bas les nobles! A bas les prêtres! Plus de Dieu![No more God!]A bas Necker! Vivent Bailly et Lafayette! A bas Bailly!In the first half of 1793:A bas Louis Capet! A bas la Monarchie et la Constitution de 1791! Vive la République! Vivent la liberté, l'égalité, la fraternité! Vivent les Girondins!In the second half of the same year:A bas les nobles, les riches et les prêtres! Vivent les Jacobins! Vive Robespierre! Vive Marat, l'ami du peuple! Vive la Terreur!In 1794:A bas les Girondins! Vive la Guillotine!In 1794 and 1795:A bas la Terreur et ses exécuteurs! A bas Robespierre!From 1795 to 1799:Vive le Directoire! Vive Bonaparte! A bas le Directoire! Vive le Premier Consul! A bas la République! Vive Napoléon empereur! Hourrah pour la guerre et la Legion d'honneur! Vive la Cour! Vive l'impératrice Joséphine!From 1809 to 1813:A bas le Pape! A bas Joséphine! Vive Marie-Louise! A bas Napoléon, l'oppresseur, le tyran! A bas les Aigles! Vive le Roi légitime! Vive les Alliés!In March, 1815:A bas les Alliés! A bas les Bourbons et les Légitimistes! Vive Napoléon!In June of the same year:A bas l'aventurier corse![the Corsican adventurer!]A bas l'armée! A bas les traitres Ney et Lavalette! Vive le roi Louis le Desiré!From 1816 to 1830:Vive Charles X le Bien-aimé! A bas Charles X et les Bourbons! Vive Louis-Philippe, le roi citoyen!In 1848:A bas Louis-Philippe! Vive Lamartine!In 1849:A bas Lamartine! Vive le Président! A bas la liberté de la Presse et les Clubs!In 1850:Vive Napoléon!In 1851:A bas l'Assemblée! Vive l'Empereur!In 1852:A bas la République! Vive l'Empire!In 1855:A bas la Russie!In 1859:A bas l'Autriche! Vive l'Italie! Vive Garibaldi!In 1869:A bas l'Empire autoritaire! Vive l'Empire parlementaire! Vive Ollivier!In May, 1870:Vive la Constitution! Vive la Dynastie impériale!In July:A Berlin! A Berlin!In September:A bas l'Empire! Vive la République! Vive Trochu!In October:A bas Trochu! Vive la Commune! Vive Gambetta!In 1871:Vive Thiers! A bas Gambetta!In March:Vive la Commune! A bas Thiers!In May:Vive Thiers! Vive Mac-Mahon! A bas la Commune!In 1872:Vive Thiers! Vive la République!In 1873:Vive Mac-Mahon!In 1874:Vive l'Amnistie! A bas Mac-Mahon!In 1879:Vive Grèvy! A bas Gambetta!In 1881:Vive Gambetta! A bas Grèvy! Vive Lesseps!In 1887:Vive Carnot! Vive Boulanger!In 1889:A bas les Panamistes! A bas Boulanger!In 1895:Vive le Tsar!In 1898:Vivent la liberté, égalité, la fraternité! A bas les Juifs! Vive l'Armée! Conspuez Zola!
And in the latter part of the same year may be added:Vive Picquart,Vive la Révision! Vive Zola!and, naturally,A bas!andConspuez!all three.
As to the administration of the Third Republic, it may be illustrated with tolerable exactness, and without too much malice, by two extracts from theFigaroof the summer of 1898, in which will be recognized certain great theories of universal aptitude on the part of its citizens not at all unlike those which prevail on the part of the public functionaries of our own beloved country. The first of these articles appeared at the period when the precarious Brisson ministry was in process of formation, after several ineffectual attempts on the part of other statesmen summoned to this task by the President of the République. It may be premised that the care taken to identify M. Durand by the department which he represents is rendered necessary by the fact that his family is as prevalent in France as Smith or Jones in English-speaking lands.
"At noon, M. Peytral requested Durand (of the Loir) to enter his cabinet and offered him the portfolio of Minister of the Finances.
"Durand, who had never been minister, accepted withempressement.
"'I am acquainted with our financial system from the bottom up,' he said. 'This is, therefore, excellent.'
"'Truly,' replied Peytral. 'I was not aware of it.'
"But about half-past one of the afternoon, in consequence of the refusal of one of the members of the future cabinet, M. Peytral was obliged to change the combination. He summoned again M. Durand (of the Loir) and said to him:
"'My dear colleague, I appeal to your patriotism. I have need of the portfolio of the finances. Will you be good enough to do me the friendly office to accept the Public Works?'
"M. Durand reflected a second.
"'I came near being an engineer,' he replied, 'I believe that I could be able to render great service to the country in this new ministry.'
"And after having been Minister of the Finances from noon to half-past one, he was Minister of Public Works from half-past one to three.
"At two o'clock, M. Peytral sent apetit bleu[telegram, so called from the color of the official paper] to Durand (of the Loir) to invite him to call for the third time.
"'I have just perceived, my dear colleague,' he said to him, 'that my combination is not workable. It is not the Public Works that you require, nor the Finances, it is the Marine.'
"And Durand accepted the Marine, which he preserved up to half-past five, the hour at which the political necessities threw him upon the Public Instruction and Religion.
TYPE OF THE GARDE MUNICIPALE. MILITARY OF THE CITY OF PARIS. After a drawing by L. Marchetti.TYPE OF THE GARDE MUNICIPALE. MILITARY OF THE CITY OF PARIS. After a drawing by L. Marchetti.
"But rivalries suddenly sprang up. It was necessary to make new arrangements in order to appease the Isambert group. Durand left the Public Instruction.
"He was, during twenty minutes, Minister of War; he had the Post-Office and Telegraphs three-quarters of an hour; he was Minister of Foreign Affairs at a quarter to seven.
"Finally, at seven o'clock, M. Peytral convoked him once again and said to him:
"'My dear colleague, I appeal in this moment to all your republican energy and to your patriotic disinterestedness. My cabinet is constituted. You are no longer a member of it.'
"'Good,' replied Durand, coldly. 'I hereby give notice of my intention to interpellate the government.'"
The second of these contemporary documents professes to relate actual facts. "We announced, the other day, that the ex-deputy Fabérot, not re-elected at the late elections, had philosophically resumed his former occupation of journeyman hatter.
"Another victim of universal suffrage, the barber Chauvin, has also returned to his dear razors. Is it quite certain, moreover, that he ever left them, even in the Chamber of Deputies?
"However this may be, he has just reopened his shop. Only, M. Chauvin has abandoned his former quarter of the Rue des Archives, and has established himself in Passage Tivoli, near the Gare Saint-Lazare, where, in the most democratic fashion, he will shave you for twenty centimes and cut your hair for six sous.
"This melancholy return to former surroundings has, moreover, nothing in it but what is very honorable,—only, it is necessary that the customers should be notified.
"Which we hereby do."
The great question of the army, of its relations with the civil authority and of the apparent hopelessness of any attempt to reconcile its maintenance and effectiveness with the democratic evolution of the age,—never a more burning question in France than at the present day,—scarcely admits of any of these pleasantries. But seldom have the amenities of discussion more completely disappeared than in the polemics now raging over the trial for treason of an officer of the general staff. One of the more recent of these dispassionate studies of the military problem appears in an article by M. Sully-Prudhomme in theRevue des Deux Mondes, and the failure of his attempt to solve the antinomy is striking. "To say, with Renan," he prefaces, "that 'war is essentially a thing of the ancien régime,' is to say that it is not of the essence of the new one; and as formerly war would be considered as destitute of any cause in the case where there were no enemies, that is equivalent to supposing that to-day no people have enemies. Such an assertion assuredly does not express Renan's meaning. He intended to say, doubtless, that in our day the use of force to decide international conflicts is in contradiction with the moral principles professed by civilized nations; in other terms, that, logically, they should never have enemies.
"Would to God that it were so! Unfortunately, we know only too well that in reality this is not so. Therefore, no people, having a due regard for their preservation and their independence, can reasonably diminish their military forces, nor even risk diminishing them, unless other peoples do as much. For any one who has informed himself in this respect as to the dispositions of the greater number of them, this simple remark will suffice to condemn in any one of them any attempt at individual reform in its military laws in any manner tending to compromise its security in the midst of the others."
But he finds, very naturally, that all the qualities of the military spirit, and those conducive to military power, are becoming "more and more incompatible with the inclinations of the individual, and contrary to the expansion of his intellectual and impassioned life." None of the methods proposed to diminish this incompatibility—civilizing war by an attempt to reduce its horrors, modifying the rigors of discipline, specializing and restricting the military service—are available; the last two, indeed, are directly at variance with the necessities of the actual situation. For the acceptance thus rendered necessary of this survival of the past, this persistence of war and all its consequences, he finds that the intelligence may recognize the fact that to place itself under the direction of those more competent is not necessarily to abdicate, that an unprejudiced examination will demonstrate the necessity of military obedience. For the soul, for the spiritual qualities, he finds nothing in the progress of modern ideas "to aid in the perfecting of the instruments and the apprenticeship of death." The blind fanaticism of the Mohammedans, the unquestioning faith of the early Christians, which faced extinction even with joy, have been replaced among modern men by sceptical, questioning, and even material philosophies which "offer us really nothing which is worthy a sincere faith in a dream, in a survival eternal and heavenly." So true is this, that, were he able, by enlightening him, to detach a Breton conscript from his blind faith which enables him to die bravely for the honor of the country, he would not do so, he would "prefer to betray philosophy." "A ridiculous compromise, perhaps, but certainly less disastrous than a defeat. This is one of the ironical inconsequences to which war condemns us, and for which it alone is responsible. Whilst waiting for its suppression, let us resign ourselves to submit to it, and let us endeavor to make the best of its violences; it imposes upon us at least the cultivation of the virile virtues, the esteem of a labor which does not enrich, and which places us in a position to interrogate very closely, willingly or unwillingly, the profundity of the tomb."
Another writer, who concerns himself more exclusively with military matters, M. Abel Veuglaire, arrives at an equally depressing conclusion. He, too, finds nothing to quite replace the old-time qualities which fed the military spirit. The soldier of the last century, under the rod of his corporal, did not rebel because he had been made an artificial being, brutalized, deprived of all those sentiments which, if they could excite enthusiasm, could also produce discouragement. In him, the desire for wine and pillage, the eagerness for quarrel, the sentiment of a point of honor, were carefully substituted for the family affections and the consciousness of moral duties. The promise of plunder and the fear of the gallows, a certain pride in his corps or his regiment, a certainesprit cocardier, made of him a soldier. But the moral worth of the modern recruit is derived from his family or from his school. "Very scarce, indeed, are those whom the regiment transforms. Scarcer still are those whom it will transform in the future. We are dupes of an illusion. We see the young men leave the military service very different from what they were when they entered it. We exclaim that the discipline is wholesome, that the air of the barracks is vivifying, that the regiment is a school of moral tendencies at the same time that it is a sanitary establishment. Ah, no!... I do not believe, in fact, that the moral qualities, that the civic virtues, are acquired in the caserne. If they exist in a condition more or less latent in the recruit when he arrives, they may be developed in him through the care of the officers, as, moreover, they run the risk of shrivelling up if their cultivation is neglected. But the result of this tardy education is always sufficiently meagre. The evil natures, the vicious characters, accentuate their defects, instead of attenuating them, under the compression of discipline. It is not strong enough to master the souls rebellious at the bottom. It chastises misconduct; it has no authority over thought.... Therefore, it would be logical to diminish the duration of the military service strictly to the minimum necessary to learn the trade."
LIFE IN THE CASERNE: AN ESCAPADE. From a drawing, in colors, by George Scott.LIFE IN THE CASERNE: AN ESCAPADE.From a drawing, in colors, by George Scott.
And in summing up, after describing the "moral degradation" of the old soldiers, he concludes: "Imagine what, in our modern society, can be a soldier who re-enlists. He is a man who definitely bids adieu to family affections, who desires simply a small, tranquil existence, regular, well secured. This man is most decidedly a mediocre. Perhaps he may render some service to thebleus; but he cannot be offered to them as a model nor as a guide."
It is to be said, however, that not all the pictures drawn of this life in the caserne are as gloomy as these. On this subject there is indeed abundant information. Notwithstanding the respectable number of exceptions provided by the more or less merciful various laws of conscription,—the eldest of a family of orphans, the only brother of six sisters, the eldest of a family of seven children, the elder of two brothers drawn at one time or the younger brother of one actually doing service,—the experience of the class of thebleus, as the raw recruits are called, is sufficiently common among French citizens of very varying classes of society. Naturally, the gentlemen find this very democratic experience more trying than do the peasants and the bumpkins. Every visitor to Paris who has passed the inoffensive looking and very youthful infantry sentinels on duty, or seen their comrades crowding in the open windows of the great, bare barracks, has experienced some desire to know something of the interior life of these great military warehouses. Our illustrations may serve to suggest many of the more picturesque and, so to speak, domestic of these minor incidents, and one of the most cheerful of the scribes who have participated in them, M. Henri de Noussanne, can give us further information. His experience lay in the daily life of an infantry soldier, but the general lines are the same for all arms of the service.
Unfortunately, to begin with, as there is always a possibility of war with the return of the swallows, the usage has been established of summoning to the colors the neophytes in the month of November. The rigors of the wintry season are thus added to those inherent in the rudiments of military discipline. Consequently, and as the State provides her budding warriors with but one handkerchief, two pairs of gloves, and no stockings, M. de Noussanne earnestly counsels the mothers and sisters to furnish these young men with thick underclothing and warm woollen stockings. Behold them finally enrolled in "the grand class, the real class, the most sympathetic of classes, that of thebleus," parading the streets, escorted by parents and relatives in tears and by joyous and unsympathetic urchins! At the sight of the great caserne which yawns to swallow them, their respect for authority becomes definite and concrete; otherwise, their ideas are like their marching, much bewildered. Once entered, theancienstake them in hand,tutoyingthem fraternally: "Thou, thou art my bleu.... Don't be afraid.... No one willmistoufflethee.... I will fix thy affairs." They even show them maternally how best to tuck themselves in their narrow beds; and the regulations no longer permit hazing of any kind. So that the first night is apt to be one of the repose that follows various and conflicting emotions.
Theréveilsounds at six o'clock. The great operation of shedding citizens' garments and assuming the uniform is at hand, and is one of the most amusing in the life of the caserne. The captain of the company oversees it with the utmost care. "He has to verify everything, see everything. In the exact terms of the regulations, he is the father of the company. Hisrôleis of capital importance. No detail of the instruction, of thetenue, of the discipline, should escape him. Two hundred men are confided to his care, for whom he is responsible to the colonel and thechef de bataillon, who, to reward or to punish, govern themselves by his notes. At every moment he is called upon to dispense justice, for in a family of two hundred members the conflicts are frequent. He can inflict only two weeks in thesalle de police, or a week in prison, but his decrees are brought to the knowledge of the superior authority, which takes upon itself to increase their severity.
THE FRENCH ARMY OF TO-DAY. ARRIVAL OF A RICH CONSCRIPT.THE FRENCH ARMY OF TO-DAY. ARRIVAL OF A RICH CONSCRIPT.
"The captain is not only a judge, a father, an instructor, he is also an administrator. To his paternal duties are added maternal ones. The nourishment, the clothing, and the care of the men depend upon him. Certain funds are allowed him which he uses at his discretion. The material and moral comfort of a company depend absolutely upon the skill and the character of its captain, who is seconded in his delicate functions by the lieutenant, the sous-lieutenant, the sous-officiers, and the corporals. Theperfectionnementof the whole of this organization concerns him. The captain is, in a word, the keystone of the vault of the military edifice. Everything depends upon him. It is not then surprising that the smallest details interest him. It is specially on the occasion of the arrival of thebleusthat he multiplies himself.
"I was very much surprised, on arriving at the regiment, at the attention which the commander of the company gave to the selection of the shoes. At every moment he could be heard exclaiming;
"'Chaussez-vous large, chaussez-vous long[get your shoes long and wide]!'
"When we were shod, he passed us in review, causing all our foot-gear to be felt by a sergeant kneeling to assure himself that they were of a sufficient length, and this is the little speech with which he gratified us:
"'My children, there are no good soldiers without good shoes. All the strength of Samson lay in his hair, all the strength of the foot-soldier is in his shoes. Never forget my principle:Chaussez-vous large, chaussez-vous long!... Rompez!'"
Rompezsignifies: Be off! scatter! clear out!
Then comes the initiation into the mysteries of thepaquetage, the arrangement of the soldier's few effects, the regulation method of folding and disposing and hanging up, each on its peculiar hook. One of the first lessons in theCode militaireis that of the salute, and the language of the corporals is energetic in proportion to the dulness of the recruit. "Salute in three times.... Attention, Fouillon, listen to what I am saying to you!... You throw out the right arm, the hand flat, open, and the fingers together.—Un!... Mark time, animal!" (Fouillon begins again; it is better, the corporal continues): "You carry the hand up straight as high as the button on the right side of the peak of your cap.—Deux!" (Here, a horrible roar): "Lift your elbow!..." (Fouillon, terrified, menaces the sky with an obedient elbow.) "Trois: you turn your head toward the superior officer whom you are saluting and throw the hand back quickly into position six paces after having passed him.—Trois!... Go, now, and defile before the lieutenant and try a little to commence the salute six paces in advance, without marching as if you had a broomstick in your back!"
One of the favorite of the many jokes on the new recruit turns on the zeal with which, after he has mastered this lesson, he salutes everything in the street that has the slightest appearance of an officer, even the sergents de ville and the many cocked hats worn by municipal officials of various grades. There are various minute regulations concerning this ceremony, it is always obligatory, but there is a certain amount of elasticity provided to prevent its becoming absurd, as in the case where the soldier encounters his officer every few minutes, in a gallery of a museum, etc.
The young recruit is strongly advised not to let the pleasures of his first sortie in the streets in all the splendor of his new uniform (duly arranged with the regulation folds in the back by his particularancien) tempt him to prolong this promenade unduly. "Above all, nofrasques! One is young, and the sunny Sunday jacket sets a man off admirably. Love beckons.... Take care! take care! The recall is sounded. It is necessary to return at a double-quick. Ten minutes late, that is four days in theboîte. If passion carries thee away, my poor Pitou, and if, with thypaysDumanet, thou 'jumpest the wall' after recall, that will bela grosse. It is not gay, my friend,la grosse. Ademi-fourniture, two soups, 'one of which without meat' and, for an aperative and digestive, thepeloton de chasse, three hours in the morning, three hours in the afternoon, the knapsack charged according to the regulations. B-r-r-r!
"Believe me, youth, nofredaines.... Thou wilt be caught!"
Other writers who might be cited, more definite and unsparing in their details, give unquotable descriptions of the nights in thechambrée, or great dormitories, the uncouth associates, the language, the manners, the practical jokes, the quarrels, the hideous lack of ventilation at night and the rancid odor of so many imperfectly washed bodies, cheap tobacco, and soiled linen. Even M. de Noussanne is obliged to omit the termination of one of his recitals of the amusements of the caserne: "No; it is better to slide over this passage. The nude is difficult to paint. This is a pity; it plays a very importantrôlein the facetiousness of the caserne. Would you have another example?
"The evening call has sounded; the sous-officiers are at mess or outside, and the men are preparing to go to sleep. All at once, charivari in the adjoining chambrée! The door opens, and twolapins, clothed only in a sack ... on the back, enter, rifle in hand, fixed bayonet, and in this picturesque costume parade round the room, leaping, cavorting, howling, whilst their comrades roll in delicious enjoyment of the joke." And he adds: "You amuse yourself the best way you can in the regiment; for, it is only justice to say for it, the military authority does nothing to render the caserne agreeable to the soldier.
"Whenever there is an officer who, having a care for the private comfort of his men, looks after them outside of the service regulations and brings himself in contact with them, he very quickly becomes a target for the jests of his obliging little comrades who leave the club of theCaricatureor theAnnuaireonly to go and swing censers before 'Madame la Présidente,' who has a mania for match-making.
"Even if this officer be the commander of a corps d'armée, the whole of France will badger him if he lays himself open ever so little to criticism. Nevertheless, if it be true that everything is becoming ameliorated and humanized, what is there surprising in the supposition that the army should become less rude, since it declares itself better instructed? But no: routine rules, and no minister concerns himself to enliven the life in the caserne.
"How simple it would be to put at the disposition of the men games of skittles, of bowls, ofcrocket, to organize in bad weather amusing and instructive entertainments with magic-lantern slides and dramatic spectacles. Actors, musicians, singers, they are all to be had.... But it is the business of the officers to organize everything, to conduct everything. Now, our officers think their duties ended when, at five o'clock, they leave the caserne."
THREE-YEAR MEN IN BARRACKS. A GOOD JOKE. After a water-color by Georges Scott.THREE-YEAR MEN IN BARRACKS. A GOOD JOKE.After a water-color by Georges Scott.
Fortunately, correspondence is not forbidden, and the arrival of the mail from home is always a great event. It is Saturday evening in the chambrée, and Pitou has arrived at the end of the week without a reprimand. His heart feels the need of expansion, and he is laboriously writing out a letter to his betrothed, down in the country. "The sweat stands on his forehead.... It is, perhaps, his method of showing tenderness, for he is greatly moved. I watch him out of the corner of my eye, and can see that his heart has returned to the paternal dwelling in the province, in the familiar chamber, where hispromise, Françoise, has come to spend the evening, and says to herself as she knits:
"'At this moment, what is he doing, my Pierre?'
"He is writing to thee, my poor Françoise; he has commenced a second letter, on beautiful lace paper ornamented with an immense rose, arranged like a transformation scene in a theatrical spectacle. When you unfold the sheet, the flower blooms out. It is a small prodigy of ingenuity, of open-work, and of coloration. This marvel resembles a symbolic cabbage; you look to see issue from it an infant newly born.
"But Pitou ceases writing and looks toward me with anguish. What has happened to him? Finally, confiding, he comes to a decision, and, in a low voice:
"'I say, thou,embaume, how dost thou write that?'
"'Embaume?'
"'Yes,embaume.... "The rose, may itembaume[perfume] this letter...."' (With a sly smile): "'I am writing to mypayse.... I am not sure.... She was with the Sisters three years.'
"'Ah, well! embaume: E-m-b-a-u-m-e.'
"'B-a-u.'
"'M-e.'
"'M-e....Merci, pays.'
"And he continues, without deigning to reply to thelousticwho has remarked our colloquy, and who calls to him:
"'Hé! Pitou, say to thy people that thou hast lost the umbrella of the squad, and that they send thee a hundred sous to buy a new one with.'"
At ten o'clock the bugle sounds: "Lights out!" and the dormitory sinks into darkness and slumber. "In the silence of the night, when sleep has already dulled all the caserne, a sound as gentle as a caress comes from outside, mysterious and far-away. Theclaironhas transformed itself into something soft and cradling, and modulates tenderly an old, old song:
At two o'clock in the morning, a heavy step is heard on the stair, the door of the room is pushed violently open, and a hoarse voice, without any respect for the slumber of the others, calls out the name of the unlucky "cook for the day." The latter gets out of bed, feels around for his blouse and his sabots, and departs with an equal amount of unnecessary noise. Outside, he finds the corporal commanding the culinary department, with the keys of the store-house; between them, they open the kitchen, light the fires, and prepare the morning meal, first the soup and then the coffee,—five kilogrammes of the latter for a battalion. When réveil sounds, the beverage is ready, the men of thecorvéecarry it up into the dormitory in great earthenware jugs, one in each hand. If their iron-pegged shoes should happen to slip on the ice or snow of the court-yard, not only would the unlucky bearer run a strong chance of being frozen on one side as he fell, and scalded on the other, but he would also have to face the wrath of some thirty hungry warriors. This coffee is notexquis, but it is hot, and the men receive a good allowance of it; if the corporal be good-natured, they drink it sitting on their beds, and steeping their bread in it in the inelegant fashion dear to all their compatriots.
Finally, when the conscript has become a soldier, mastered the intricacies of theThéorieand the details of the manual of arms, learned the secret of keeping his accoutrements in parade order, taken part in the interminable drills in the secrecy of the caserne that prepare for the great ones in public, he departs for the grand manœuvres. When they are over, theclassefor that year is dismissed, except those unfortunates who are detained as many days longer as they have served days in prison. The cheerfulness with which the soldiers undergo the fatigues and discomforts of these annual exercises is rightfully considered as an excellent sign of the efficiency of the service. In the present year of grace, these manœuvres were rendered unusually trying by the persistent abnormal midsummer heat, and by the blinding dust that blotted out whole parades. And yet, says a correspondent of theTemps, "if thearmoire à glace(the knapsack) be heavy, the road dusty, and the march across cultivated fields laborious, it is none the less true than in the ranks of each detachment there are to be found certainlousticswhose inexhaustible repertory is sufficient to unwrinkle the most morose brows.
"The ancient French gaiety is dead, you say; follow, then, for a couple of hours a column of infantry on the march, and you will not be long in being undeceived. You will recognize very quickly that, in the army, this gaiety is still in very good condition, even though it be at times a little too gross. And, if you know your authors a little, you will see things that would astonish them.
"You will hear chanted theBoîteuse, which was hummed, some two hundred and odd years ago, by the troops of Louis XIV, and the couplets of which swarm with allusions to the infirmity of Mlle. de la Vallière;Auprès de ma blonde... song addressed to Mme. de Montespan, and a multitude of others bearing witness to the passage of noble sovereigns, or of illustrious chiefs now long since disappeared."
You will also, if you are a foreigner, see many other interesting traits of national character, and, not improbably, some such curiously unmilitary proceeding as that represented on our page, engraved from the record of an unsympathetic photograph. This particular incident took place at the manœuvres at Châteaudun in 1894; the President of the Republic, M. Casimir-Perier, is distributing the cross of the Legion of Honor to a number of specially deserving officers and sous-officiers.
That very modern instrument of warfare, the bicycle, appeared in the manœuvres of this present year of grace with more importance than ever. One correspondent, writing from Dompierre-sur-Besbre, on the 11th of September, says: "Thecompagnie cycliste, covering the advance of the march of the thirteenth corps, threw itself into Thiel at the moment when the advance guard of the division was attacked by superior forces. Taking advantage of the shelter of the woods, of the hedges, of the houses, it held the enemy at bay long enough to permit the division to come up, and the company bivouacked with the division." Another writes: "I rejoined the column by a cross-road at the end of which the dragoons were defiling past at a hard trot, followed by thecompagnie cycliste, whose support at this moment was most valuable. It protected the retreat by delivering at certain distances volleys which momentarily arrested the pursuit. It was wonderful to see with what rapidity the men of Captain Gérard's command threw themselves into their saddles, covered a distance of five or six hundred mètres, faced about and opened fire. If they had been more numerous, what service would they not have rendered! The cavalry officers who see them every day at work are the first to recognize their usefulness." The employment of these instruments has even been extended to thegendarmerieby an order of the Minister of War, at the close of the manœuvres,—two legions of this force having been furnished with them. In 1897, some machines constructed by the artillery were distributed to a legion near Paris, as an experiment, with very satisfactory results,—the transmission of orders, maintenance of communication, etc., being thus assured in a satisfactory manner. There is, of course, some opposition manifested to this innovation, and the employment of mounted gendarmes is not yet discontinued. As may be seen from the illustrations on page 139, the French military bicycle, the invention of Captain Gérard, is constructed in such a manner as to fold up and be transported on the soldier's back.
THE PRESIDENT CASIMIR-PERIER, KISSING ON THE CHEEK A RECIPIENT OF THE RIBBON OF THE ORDER OF THE LEGION OF HONOR.THE PRESIDENT CASIMIR-PERIER, KISSING ON THE CHEEK A RECIPIENT OF THE RIBBON OF THE ORDER OF THE LEGION OF HONOR.
As in all old armies, very many of the regiments have records which date back to the last century, and of which they are very proud;—one of the cavalry regiments, the Fourth Chasseurs, celebrated in 1890 the anniversary of its creation in 1744 with an historical restoration and a military carrousel of the most picturesque character. In the immense court of their caserne in the Quartier Gramont of Saint-Germain-en-Laye there might be seen to defile a cavalcade of all the uniforms worn by the regiment, and of all the standards borne by it since the date of its organization. The tendency of modern warfare is to abolish more and more the picturesque and artistic, but the wars of the Republic and the First Empire have contributed a series of costumes among the most martial and the most imposing known to history.
Something of this contrast of costume may be seen in the reproduction of M. Orange's painting from the Salon of 1891, the "Medallists of Saint Helena," on page 175,—the annual ceremony of the old soldiers of the First Empire depositing their memorial wreaths at the base of the Vendôme column; and it is with a very natural impulse that the French citizen and the French soldier of to-day turn from the bitter memories of their last war to recall the images of those great days when the nation was afire as it has never been since. The curious revival of Napoleonic literature which we have witnessed within the last few years may doubtless be ascribed in part, at least, to this longing to dispel somewhat the national depression. There is not wanting in these memoirs abundant testimony to the strange transformation which the casting off of the ancient régime wrought in the whole people. In theConsulat et l'Empire, M. Thiers quotes the testimony of an astonished Prussian officer after the astonishing battle of Auerstadt in which Davout with twenty-six thousand men overthrew sixty thousand of the soldiers trained in the school of the great Frederick, repulsed twenty times the charges of the cavalry considered the best in Europe, and took with his forty-four cannon one hundred and fifteen of the enemy's. "If we had to fight the French only with our fists, we would be vanquished. They are small and weakly; one of our Germans could beat four of them; but under fire they become supernatural beings. They are carried away by an inexpressible ardor, of which no trace can be seen in our own soldiers." In much more recent publications, theMémoires du sergent Bourgogne, theSouvenirs d'un officier danois, the Lieutenant Frisenberg, there is further testimony as to the quality of thisGrande Armée. The latter, a young soldier, records the strong impression made upon him by the French officers when he first met them, their sobriety, their moderation, wonderful in the conquerors of Europe, their easy acceptance of orders. "What will not a Frenchman dare!" he exclaims. It is this apotheosis of military valor and efficiency which we see apostrophized in so much contemporary national art,—as in Karbowsky's "Drums of the Republic," Bac's spirited sketch of the return of the troops to Paris after Marengo, Marold's "Review in the Carrousel," under the eyes of the Emperor, and Le Blant's return of the veterans of the Republic and their fierce impatience under the supercilious inspection of the dandies andincroyablesof the capital.
The military souvenirs of the Second Empire are much less imposing. Among the most interesting of those recently published are those of Marshal Canrobert, taken down from his verbal recitals by M. G. Bapst, afterward written out and corrected by the old soldier. His portrait of Louis Napoleon is interesting; he came to Paris on the eve of the Coup d'État and was presented to the Prince-President. "The man whom I saw before me was small in stature; his eyes, very small, were dull and very mild; while they were professedly looking at me, they had the appearance, at the same time, of being directed at some much more distant object; his black hair, smooth on his head, very much pomaded, was long and fell below his ears and on his collar; his heavy moustache, not waxed, covered his lower lip. He wore a frock-coat, buttoned up, and a very high collar which enclosed the lower part of his face. He stood with his side rather toward me, the left arm considerably in advance, and offered me his hand with a constrained gesture. I felt, in clasping it, as though I were grasping the hand of a paralytic, almost an anchylosed one. He addressed to me some commonplace phrase, so commonplace even that I no longer remember it; but he spoke with a peculiar accent, which you would have taken for an Alsatian accent. This was all that happened."
In the military operations of the 2d of December, Canrobert took part as general of brigade: according to his own account, he constantly exerted himself to suppress the fire of the troops on the citizens and to save the lives of the latter. But when he was offered the grade of general of division afterward, he refused it, and thereby, says one of his commentators, "violated military discipline and condemned, himself, his action of the day before."
Among the recent minor monographs relating to this epoch is one devoted to the Imperial picked body-guard of a hundred men, the Cent-Gardes, by M. Albert Verly, a fervent Bonapartist. One of his incidents is worth quoting. One day, the Empress Eugénie, traversing her apartments, accompanied by Colonel Verly, stopped before one of these sentries, whose rigid immobility in the correct military attitude made her smile. "Admit, colonel," she said, "that this perfect motionlessness is only an appearance, and that the slightest thing would cause it to disappear." "Your Majesty may assure yourself to the contrary," replied the colonel. "And if I were to offer him an insult?" "I have nothing to reply to your Majesty. You might ascertain yourself!" The Empress, knitting her brows in an attempt to frown, approached the sentry and reproached him severely for some imaginary infraction of discipline; stiff as a statue in his position of salute, he made no sign whatever. Whereupon, pretending to take offence at his silence, she dealt him a vigorous blow on the cheek. She might as well have struck a statue! So she returned to her apartments.
But, not willing that the affair should rest there, she ascertained his name, and the next day, through his superiors, sent the soldier a note of five hundred francs as some recompense for the gratuitous insult offered him. And he immediately returned it, through the same channel, answering that he esteemed himself as "too happy in having received on his face the hand of his well-beloved sovereign." M. Verly considers this response as very fine, and as justifying all that has been said concerning the correctness of appearance and attitude, and the intelligent and affectionate devotion which all the men of the squadron of the Cent-Gardes maintained toward their Imperial Majesties.