As often as I could, I took the train to Blackheath to visit John Stuart Mill. He was good and great, and I felt myself exceedingly attracted by his greatness. There were fundamental features of his thought and mode of feeling that coincided with inclinations of my own; for instance, the Utilitarian theory, as founded by Bentham and his father and developed by him. I had written in 1868: "What we crave is no longer to flee from society and reality with our thoughts and desires. On the contrary, we wish to put our ideas into practice in society and life. That we may not become a nation of poetasters, we will simply strive towards actuality, the definite goal of Utility, which the past generation mocked at. Who would not be glad to be even so little useful?"
Thus I found myself mentally in a direction that led me towards Mill, and through many years' study of Comte and Littré, through an acquaintance with Mill's correspondence with Comte, I was prepared for philosophical conversations concerning the fundamental thoughts of empiric philosophy as opposed to speculative philosophy, conversations which, on Mill's part, tended to represent my entire University philosophical education at Copenhagen as valueless and wrong.
But what drew me the most strongly to Mill was not similarity of thought, but the feeling of an opposed relationship. All my life I had been afraid of going further in a direction towards which I inclined. I had always had a passionate desire to perfect my nature--to make good my defects. Julius Lange was so much to me because he was so unlike me. Now I endeavoured to understand Mill's nature and make it my own, because it was foreign to mine. By so doing I was only obeying an inner voice that perpetually urged me. When others about me had plunged into a subject, a language, a period, they continued to wrestle with it to all eternity, made the thing their speciality. That I had a horror of. I knew French well; but for fear of losing myself in French literature, which I could easily illustrate, I was always wrestling with English or German, which presented greater difficulties to me, but made it impossible for me to grow narrow. I had the advantage over the European reading world that I knew the Northern languages, but nothing was further from my thoughts than to limit myself to opening up Northern literature to Europe. Thus it came about that when the time in my life arrived that I felt compelled to settle outside Denmark I chose for my place of residence Berlin, the city with which I had fewest points in common, and where I could consequently learn most and develop myself without one-sidedness.
Mill's verbally expressed conviction that empiric philosophy was the only true philosophy, made a stronger impression upon me than any assertion of the kind that I had met with in printed books. The results of empiric philosophy seemed to me much more firmly based than those of the newer German philosophy. At variance with my teachers, I had come to see that Hume had been right rather than Kant. But I could not conform to the principle of empiric philosophy. After all, our knowledge is not ultimately based merely on experience, but on that which, prior to experience, alone renders experience possible. Otherwise not even the propositions of Mathematics can be universally applicable. In spite of my admiration for Mill's philosophical works, I was obliged to hold to the rationalistic theory of cognition; Mill obstinately held to the empiric. "Is not a reconciliation between the two possible?" I said. "I think that one mustchoosebetween the theories," replied Mill. I did not then know Herbert Spencer's profoundly thoughtful reconciliation of the teachings of the two opposing schools. He certainly maintains, as does the English school, that all our ideas have their root in experience, but he urges at the same time, with the Germans, that there are innate ideas. The conscious life of the individual, that cannot be understood from the experience of the individual, becomes explicable from the inherited experience of the race. Even the intellectual form which is the condition of the individual's apprehension is gradually made up out of the experience of the race, and consequently innate without for that reason being independent of foregoing experiences. But I determined at once, incited thereto by conversations with Mill, to study, not only his own works, but the writings of James Mill, Bain, and Herbert Spencer; I would endeavour to find out how much truth they contained, and introduce this truth into Denmark.
I was very much surprised when Mill informed me that he had not read a line of Hegel, either in the original or in translation, and regarded the entire Hegelian philosophy as sterile and empty sophistry. I mentally confronted this with the opinion of the man at the Copenhagen University who knew the history of philosophy best, my teacher, Hans Bröchner, who knew, so to speak, nothing of contemporary English and French philosophy, and did not think them worth studying. I came to the conclusion that here was a task for one who understood the thinkers of the two directions, who did not mutually understand one another.
I thought that in philosophy, too, I knew what I wanted, and saw a road open in front of me.
However, I never travelled it. The gift for abstract philosophical thought which I had possessed as a youth was never developed, but much like the tendency to verse-making which manifested itself even earlier, superseded by the historio-critical capacity, which grew strong in me. At that time I believed in my natural bent for philosophy, and did so even in July, 1872, when I sketched out and began a large book: "The Association of Ideas, conceived and put forward as the fundamental principle of human knowledge," but the book was never completed. The capacity for abstraction was too weak in me.
Still, if the capacity had no independent development, it had a subservient effect on all my criticism, and the conversations with Mill had a fertilising and helpful influence on my subsequent intellectual life.
Some weeks passed in seeing the most important public buildings in London, revelling in the treasures of her museums and collections, and in making excursions to places in the neighbourhood and to Oxford. I was absorbed by St. Paul's, saw it from end to end, and from top to bottom, stood in the crypt, where Sir Christopher Wren lies buried,--Si monumentum requiris, circumspice--mentally compared Wellington's burial-place here with that of Napoleon on the other side of the Channel, then went up to the top of the building and looked out to every side over London, which I was already so well acquainted with that I could find my way everywhere alone, take the right omnibuses, and the right trains by the underground, without once asking my way. I spent blissful hours in the National Gallery. This choice collection of paintings, especially the Italian ones, afforded me the intense, overwhelming delight which poetry, the masterpieces of which I knew already, could no longer offer me. At the Crystal Palace I was fascinated by the tree-ferns, as tall as fruit-trees with us, and by the reproductions of the show buildings of the different countries, an Egyptian temple, a house from Pompeii, the Lions' den from the Alhambra. Here, as everywhere, I sought out the Zoological Gardens, where I lingered longest near the hippopotami, who were as curious to watch when swimming as when they were on dry land. Their clumsiness was almost captivating. They reminded me of some of my enemies at home.
Oxford, with the moss-grown, ivy-covered walls, with all the poetry of conservatism, fascinated me by its dignity and its country freshness; there the flower of the English nature was expressed in buildings and trees. The antiquated and non-popular instruction, however, repelled me. And the old classics were almost unrecognisable in English guise, for instance, the anglicisedveni, vidi, vici, which was quoted by a student.
The contrast between the English and the French mind was presented to me in all its force when I compared Windsor Castle with Versailles. The former was an old Northern Hall, in which the last act of Oehlenschläger'sPalnatokewould have been well staged.
I saw all that I could: the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Hall and Abbey, the Tower and the theatres, the Picture Gallery at Dulwich with Rembrandt'sGirl at the Window, the one at Hampton Court, with the portrait of Loyola ascribed to Titian, sailed down the river to Greenwich and lingered in the lovely Gardens at Kew, which gave me a luxuriant impression of English scenery. I also saw the Queen's model farm. Every animal was as splendid a specimen as if it had been intended for an agricultural show, the dairy walls were tiled all over. The bailiff regretted that Prince Albert, who had himself made the drawings for a special kind of milk containers, had not lived to see them made. It was not without its comic aspect to hear him inform you sadly, concerning an old bullock, that the Queen herself had given it the name ofPrince Albert.
For me, accustomed to the gay and grotesque life deployed in an evening at the dancing-place of the Parisian students in theCloserie des lilas, it was instructive to compare this with a low English dancing-house, the Holborn Casino, which was merely sad, stiff, and repulsive.
Poverty in London was very much more conspicuous than in Paris; it spread itself out in side streets in the vicinity of the main arteries in its most pitiable form. Great troops, regular mobs of poor men, women and children in rags, dispersed like ghosts at dawn, fled away hurriedly and vanished, as soon as a policeman approached and made sign to them to pass on. There was nothing corresponding to it to be seen in Paris. Crime, too, bore a very different aspect here. In Paris, it was decked out and audacious, but retained a certain dignity; here, in the evening, in thickly frequented streets, whole swarms of ugly, wretchedly dressed, half or wholly drunken women could be seen reeling about, falling, and often lying in the street.
Both the tendency of the English to isolate themselves and their social instincts were quite different from those of the French. I was permitted to see the comfortably furnished Athenaeum Club in Pall Mall, membership of which was so much desired that people of high standing would have their names on the list for years beforehand, and these clubs corresponded to the cafés in Paris, which were open to every passer-by. I noticed that in the restaurants the tables were often hidden behind high screens, that the different parties who were dining might not be able to see one another.
The house in London where I was happiest was Antonio Gallenga's. A letter from the Hauchs was my introduction there, and I was received and taken up by them as if they had known me and liked me for years.
Antonio Gallenga, then a man of seventy, who nevertheless gave one an impression of youthfulness, had a most eventful life behind him. He had been born at Parma, was flung into prison at the age of twenty as a conspirator under Mazzini, was banished from Piedmont, spent some time at Malta, in the United States and in England, where he earned his living as a journalist and teacher of languages, and in 1848 returned to Italy, where he was active as a liberal politician. After the battle of Novara, he was again obliged to take refuge in London; but he was recalled to Piedmont by Cavour, who had him elected deputy for Castellamonte. He wrote an Italian Grammar in English, and, likewise in English, theHistory of Piedmont, quarrelled with Mazzini's adherents, withdrew from parliamentary life, and in preference to settling down permanently in Italy elected to be war correspondent to theTimes. In that capacity he took part from 1859 onwards in the campaigns in Italy, in the North American States, in Denmark, and in Spain. His little boy was still wearing the Spanish national costume. Now he had settled down in London, on the staff of theTimes, and had just come into town from the country, as the paper wished him to be near, on account of the approaching war. Napoleon III., to whom Gallenga had vowed an inextinguishable hatred, had been studied so closely by him that the Emperor might be regarded as his specialty. He used the energetic, violent language of the old revolutionary, was with all his heart and soul an Italian patriot, but had, through a twenty years' connection with England, acquired the practical English view of political affairs. Towards Denmark, where he had been during the most critical period of the country's history, he felt kindly; but our war methods had of course not been able to excite his admiration; neither had our diplomatic negotiations during the war.
Gallenga was a well-to-do man; he owned a house in the best part of London and a house in the country as well. He was a powerful man, with passionate feelings, devoid of vanity. It suited him well that theTimes, as the English custom is, printed his articles unsigned; he was pleased at the increased influence they won thereby, inasmuch as they appeared as the expression of the universal paper's verdict. His wife was an Englishwoman, pleasant and well-bred, of cosmopolitan education and really erudite. Not only did she know the European languages, but she wrote and spoke Hindustani. She was a splendid specimen of the English housekeeper, and devoted herself enthusiastically to her two exceedingly beautiful children, a boy of eleven and a little girl of nine. The children spoke English, Italian, French, and German with equal facility and correctness.
Mrs. Gallenga had a more composite and a deeper nature than her husband, who doubted neither the truth of his ideas, nor their salutary power. She shared his and my opinions without sharing our confidence in them. When she heard me say that I intended to assert my ideas in Denmark, and wage war against existing prejudices, she would say, in our long conversations:
"I am very fond of Denmark; the people there seem to me to be happy, despite everything, and the country not to be over-populated. In any case, the population finds ample means of outlet in sea-life and emigration. Denmark is an idyllic little country. Now you want to declare war there. My thoughts seek down in dark places, and I ask myself whether I really believe that truth does any good, whether in my secret heart I am convinced that strife is better than stagnation? I admire Oliver Cromwell, but I sympathise with Falkland, who died with 'Peace! Peace!' [Footnote: Sir Lucius Cary, second Viscount Falkland, who fell at Newbury, Sept. 20, 1643.] on his lips. I am afraid that you will have to bear a great deal. You will learn that the accoutrements of truth are a grievously heavy coat of mail. You will call forth reaction. Even that is the least. But reaction will come about in your own mind; after a long time, I mean. Still, you are strong; it will be a reaction of the kind that keeps aloof in order to spring farther and better. Your unity will not go to pieces. You are a kind of cosmos."
When the conversation turned upon England and English conditions, she protested against the opinion prevalent on the continent since Byron's day, that English society was infested with hypocrisy.
"I do not think that hypocrisy is characteristic of English thought. We have, of course, like every serious people, our share of hypocrites; in a frivolous nation hypocrisy has no pretext for existence. But its supremacy amongst us is over. Apathetic orthodoxy, and superficial ideas of the correct thing, ruled England during the first half of the century. The intellectual position of the country is different now. No one who has not lived in England has any idea how serious and real the belief here is in the tough doctrine of the Trinity, who, in human form, walked about in Galilee. Good men, noble men, live and work for this dogma, perform acts of love for it. We, you and I, have drunk from other sources; but for these people it is the fountain of life. Only it is depressing to see this doctrine in its Roman Catholic form winning greater power everywhere every day. In Denmark, intellectual stagnation has hindered it hitherto; you have political, but not yet religious, freedom. Belgium has both, and Belgium is at the present time the most fiery Catholic power there is. France is divided between extreme materialism and Madonna worship. When European thought--between 1820 and 1860, let us say--rebelled against every kind of orthodoxy, and, as always happens with rebellion, made mistakes and went too far, France played a wretched rôle. It is a Celtic land, and Celtic it will remain; it desires, not personal freedom, but a despotic levelling, not equality before the law, but the base equality which is inimical to excellence, not the brotherhood that is brotherly love, but that which gives the bad the right to share with the good. That is why the Empire could be victorious in France, and that is why the Roman Catholic Church, even in its most modern, Byzantine form, is triumphant there."
So thoroughly English was Anna Gallenga's way of looking at things, in spite of an education which had included the chief countries in Europe. So blindly did she share the prejudice that the French are essentially Celtic. And so harshly did she judge, in spite of a scepticism, feminine though it was, that was surprising in a woman.
Don Juan Prim, Count of Reus, Marques de los Castillejos, would now be forgotten outside Spain were it not that Régnault's splendid equestrian picture of him, as he is receiving the homage of the people (on a fiery steed, reminding one of Velasquez), keeps his memory green in everyone who visits the Gallery of the Louvre. At that time his name was on every tongue. The victorious general and revolutionary of many years' standing had since 1869 been Prime Minister of Spain, and had eagerly endeavoured to get a foreign prince for the throne who would be dependent upon him and under whom he would be able to keep the power in his own hands. He had now offered the throne of Spain to Leopold of Hohenzollern, but without having assured himself of the consent of the Powers. That of Prussia was of course safe enough, and for six weeks Napoleon had looked on benevolently at the negotiations, and acted as though the arrangement had his approval, which Prim had the more reason to suppose since Leopold was related to the Murat family, and the Emperor had raised no objection to a Hohenzollern ascending the throne of Roumania. Consequently, Prim was thunderstruck when France suddenly turned round and seized upon this trivial pretext for a breach of the peace.
He was in regular correspondence with the Gallengas, whom he had seen a good deal of during the years, after the unsuccessful rebellion against Queen Isabella, that he had spent in London. At that time he had been a man of fifty, and, with his little body and large head, had looked very strange among Englishmen. He was of modest birth, but denied the fact. He was now a Spanish grandee of the first class, but this was through a patent bestowed on him for courage in the war with Morocco; he had little education, did not know a word of English, wrote French with a purely fantastic orthography, but had excellent qualities as a Liberal, an army chief, and a popular leader. Still, he was not pleased that Régnault had painted him greeted by the enthusiastic cheers of an untidy, ragged mob of rebels; he would have preferred to be receiving the acclamations of regular troops, and of the highest men and women in the nation, as now, at the conclusion of his career, he really was. Only a few months later (in December, 1870), he was shot by an assassin in the streets of Madrid.
In Prim's communications to Gallenga, the attitude of the French government appeared to me in a most unfavourable light. Ollivier, the Premier, I had long despised; it did not need much political acumen to see that he was an ambitious and conceited phrase-monger, who would let himself be led by the nose by those who had disarmed him. The Emperor himself was a wreck. I had had no doubt of that since I had one day seen him at very close quarters in the Louvre, where he was inspecting some recently hung, decorative paintings. It was quite evident that he could not walk alone, but advanced, half-sliding, supported by two tall chamberlains, who each gave him an arm. His eyes were half-closed and his gaze absolutely dulled. The dressed and waxed moustache, which ran to a needle-like point, looked doubly tasteless against his wax mask of a face. He was the incarnation of walking decrepitude, vapid and slack. Quite evidently he had committed the blunder of trusting to a split in Germany. In his blindness he explained that he had come to free the Germans, who had, against their will, been incorporated into Prussia, and all Germany rose like one man against him. And in his foolish proclamation he declared that he was waging this war for the sake of the civilising ideals of the first Republic, as if Germany were now going to be civilised for the first time, and as if he, who had made an end of the second Republic by acoup d'état, could speak in the name of Republican freedom. His whole attitude was mendacious and mean, and the wretched pretext under which he declared war could not but prejudice Europe against him. In addition to this, as they knew very well in England, from the earlier wars of the Empire, he had no generals; his victories had been soldier victories.
I was very deeply impressed, in the next place, by the suicide of Prévost-Paradol. I had studied most carefully his book,La France Nouvelle; I had seen in this friend and comrade of Taine and of Renan the political leader of the future in France. No one was so well acquainted with its resources as he; no one knew better than he what policy ought to be followed. If he had despaired, it was because he foresaw that the situation was hopeless. He had certainly made mistakes; first, in believing that in January it had been Napoleon's serious intention to abrogate personal control of the state, then that of retaining, despite the long hesitation so well known to me, his position as French Envoy to North America, after the plebiscite. That he should now have turned his pistol against his own forehead told me that he regarded the battle as lost, foresaw inevitable collapse as the outcome of the war. When at first all the rumours and all the papers announced the extreme probability of Denmark's taking part in the war as France's ally, I was seized with a kind of despair at the thought of the folly she seemed to be on the verge of committing. I wrote to my friends, would have liked, had I been permitted, to write in every Danish paper a warning against the martial madness that had seized upon people. It was only apparently shared by the French. Even now, only a week after the declaration of war, and before a single collision had taken place, it was clear to everyone who carefully followed the course of events that in spite of the light-hearted bragging of the Parisians and the Press, there was deep-rooted aversion to war. And I, who had always counted Voltaire'sMicromégasas one of my favourite tales, thought of where Sirius, the giant, voices his supposition that the people on the earth are happy beings who pass their time in love and thought, and of the philosopher's reply to him: "At this moment there are a hundred thousand animals of our species, who wear hats, engaged in killing a hundred thousand more, who wear turbans, or in being killed by them. And so it has been all over the earth from time immemorial." Only that this time not a hundred thousand, but some two million men were being held in readiness to exterminate each other.
What I saw in London of the scenic art at the Adelphi Theatre, the Prince of Wales' Theatre and the Royal Strand Theatre was disheartening. Molière was produced as the lowest kind of farce, Sheridan was acted worse than would be permitted in Denmark at a second-class theatre; but the scenic decorations, a greensward, shifting lights, and the like, surpassed anything that I had ever seen before.
More instructive and more fascinating than the theatres were the parliamentary debates and the trials in the Law Courts. I enjoyed in particular a sitting of the Commons with a long debate between Gladstone and Disraeli, who were like representatives of two races and two opposed views of life. Gladstone was in himself handsomer, clearer, and more open, Disraeli spoke with a finer point, and more elegantly, had a larger oratorical compass, more often made a witty hit, and evoked more vigorous response and applause. Their point of disagreement was the forthcoming war; Disraeli wished all the documents regarding it to be laid before parliament; Gladstone declared that he could not produce them. In England, as elsewhere, the war that was just breaking out dominated every thought.
The Paris I saw again was changed. Even on my way from Calais I heard, to my astonishment, the hitherto strictly forbiddenMarseillaisehummed and muttered. In Paris, people went arm in arm about the streets singing, and theMarseillaisewas heard everywhere. The voices were generally harsh, and it was painful to hear the song that had become sacred through having been silenced so long, profaned in this wise, in the bawling and shouting of half-drunken men at night. But the following days, as well, it was hummed, hooted, whistled and sung everywhere, and as the French are one of the most unmusical nations on earth, it sounded for the most part anything but agreeable.
In those days, while no collision between the masses of troops had as yet taken place, there was a certain cheerfulness over Paris; it could be detected in every conversation; people were more lively, raised their voices more, chatted more than at other times; the cabmen growled more loudly, and cracked their whips more incessantly than usual.
Assurance of coming victory was expressed everywhere, even among the hotel servants in the Rue Racine and on the lips of the waiters at every restaurant. Everybody related how many had already volunteered; the number grew from day to day; first it was ten thousand, then seventy- five thousand, then a hundred thousand. In the Quartier Latin, the students sat in their cafés, many of them in uniform, surrounded by their comrades, who were bidding them good-bye. It was characteristic that they no longer had their womenfolk with them; they had flung them aside, now that the matter was serious. Every afternoon a long stream of carriages, filled with departing young soldiers, could be seen moving out towards the Gare du Nord. From every carriage large flags waved. Women, their old mothers, workwomen, who sat in the carriages with them, held enormous bouquets on long poles. The dense mass of people through which one drove were grave; but the soldiers for the most part retained their gaiety, made grimaces, smoked and drank.
Nevertheless, the Emperor's proclamation had made a very poor impression. It was with the intention of producing an effect of sincerity that he foretold the war would be long and grievous, (longue et pénible); with a people of the French national character it would have been better had he been able to write "terrible, but short." Even now, when people had grown accustomed to the situation, this proclamation hung like a nightmare over them. I was all the more astonished when an old copy of theDaily Paperfor the 30th of July fell into my hands, and I read that their correspondent (Topsöe, recently arrived in Paris) had seen a bloused workman tear off his hat, after reading the proclamation, and heard him shout, "Vive la France!" So thoughtlessly did people continue to feed the Danish public with the food to which it was accustomed.
Towards the 8th or 9th of August I met repeatedly the author of the article. He told me that the Duc de Cadore had appeared in Copenhagen on a very indefinite errand, but without achieving the slightest result. Topsöe, for that matter, was extraordinarily ignorant of French affairs, had only been four weeks in France altogether, and openly admitted that he had touched up his correspondence as well as he could. He had never yet been admitted to theCorps législatif, nevertheless he had related how the tears had come into the eyes of the members and the tribunes the day when the Duc de Grammont "again lifted the flag of France on high." He said: "I have been as unsophisticated as a child over this war," and added that Bille had been more so than himself.
One could hardly praise the attitude of the French papers between the declaration of war and the first battles. Their boasting and exultation over what they were going to do was barely decent, they could talk of nothing but the victories they were registering beforehand, and, first and last, the entry into Berlin. The insignificant encounter at Saarbrücken was termed everywhere thepremière victoire!The caricatures in the shop-windows likewise betrayed terrible arrogance. One was painfully reminded of the behaviour of the French before the battle of Agincourt in Shakespeare'sHenry V.
It was no matter for surprise that a populace thus excited should parade through the streets in an evening, shouting"A Berlin! A Berlin!"
National enthusiasm could vent itself in the theatres, in a most convenient manner, without making any sacrifice. As soon as the audience had seen the first piece at the Théâtre Français, the public clamoured forLa Marseillaise, and brooked no denial. A few minutes later the lovely Mlle.
Agar came in, in a Greek costume. Two French flags were held over her head. She then sang, quietly, sublimely, with expression at the same time restrained and inspiring, theMarseillaise. The countless variations of her voice were in admirable keeping with her animated and yet sculptural gesticulation, and the effect was thrilling, although certain passages in the song were hardly suitable to the circumstances of the moment, for instance, the invocation of Freedom, the prayer to her to fight for her defenders. When the last verse came, she seized the flag and knelt down; the audience shouted, "Debout!" All rose and listened standing to the conclusion, which was followed by mad applause.
People seized upon every opportunity of obtruding their patriotism. One eveningLe lion amoureuxwas given. In the long speech which concludes the second act, a young Republican describes the army which, during the Revolution, crossed the frontier for the first time and utterly destroyed the Prussian armies. The whole theatre foamed like the sea.
Those were Summer days, and in spite of the political and martial excitement, the peaceful woods and parks in the environs of Paris were tempting. From the Quartier Latin many a couple secretly found their way to the forests of St. Germain, or the lovely wood at Chantilly. In the morning one bought a roast fowl and a bottle of wine, then spent the greater part of the day under the beautiful oak-trees, and sat down to one's meal in the pleasant green shade. Now and again one of the young women would make a wreath of oak leaves and twine it round her companion's straw hat, while he, bareheaded, lay gazing up at the tree- tops. For a long time I kept just such a wreath as a remembrance, and its withered leaves roused melancholy reflections some years later, for during the war every tree of the Chantilly wood had been felled; the wreath was all that remained of the magnificent oak forest.
The news of the battle of Weissenburg on August 4th was a trouble, but this chiefly manifested itself in profound astonishment. What? They had suffered a defeat? But one did not begin to be victorious at once; victory would soon follow now. And, indeed, next morning, the news of a victory ran like lightning about the town. It had been so confidently expected that people quite neglected to make enquiries as to how and to what extent it was authenticated. There was bunting everywhere; all the horses had flags on their heads, people went about with little flags in their hats. As the day wore on it turned out to be all a false report, and the depression was great.
Next evening, as I came out of theThéâtre Français, there stood the Emperor's awful telegram to read, several copies of it posted up on the columns of the porch: "Macmahon has lost a battle. Frossard is retreating. Put Paris in a condition of defence as expeditiously as possible!" Then, like everyone else, I understood the extent of the misfortune. Napoleon had apparently lost his head; it was very unnecessary to publish the conclusion of the telegram.
Immediately afterwards was issued the Empress' proclamation, which was almost silly. "I am with you," it ran--a charming consolation for the Parisians.
Astonishment produced a kind of paralysis; anger looked round for an object on which to vent itself, but hardly knew whom to select. Besides, people had really insufficient information as to what had happened. TheSiècleprinted a fairly turbulent article at once, but no exciting language in the papers was required. Even a foreigner could perceive that if it became necessary to defend Paris after a second defeat, the Empire would be at an end.
The exasperation which had to vent itself was directed at first against the Ministers, and ridiculously enough the silence imposed on the Press concerning the movements of the troops (le mutisme) was blamed for the defeat at Weissenburg; then the exasperation swung back and was directed against the generals, who were dubbed negligent and incapable, until, ponderously and slowly, it turned against the Emperor himself.
But with the haste that characterises French emotion, and the rapidity with which events succeeded one another, even this exasperation was of short duration. It raged for a few days, and then subsided for want of contradiction of its own accord, for the conviction spread that the Emperor's day was irrevocably over and that he continued to exist only in name. A witness to the rapidity of thisvolte facewere three consecutive articles by Edmond About inLe Soir. The first, written from his estate in Saverne, near Strassburg. was extremely bitter against the Emperor; it began: "Napoleone tertio feliciter regnante, as people said in the olden days, I have seen with my own eyes, what I never thought to see: Alsace overrun by the enemy's troops." The next article, written some days later, in the middle of August, when About had come to Paris, called the Emperor, without more ado, "The last Bonaparte," and began: "I see that I have been writing like a true provincial; in the provinces at the moment people have two curses on their lips, one for the Prussians, and one for those who began the war; in Paris, they have got much farther; there they have only one curse on their lips, one thought, and one wish; there are names that are no more mentioned in Paris than if they belonged to the twelfth century."
What he wrote was, at the moment, true and correct. I was frequently asked in letters what the French now said about the government and the Emperor. The only answer was that all that side of the question was antiquated in Paris. If I were to say to one of my acquaintances:"Eh! bien, que dites-vous de l'empereur?" the reply would be:"Mais, mon cher, je ne dis rien de lui. Vous voyez si bien que moi, qu'il ne compte plus. C'est un homme par terre. Tout le monde le sait; la gauche même ne l'attaque plus."Even General Trochu, the Governor of the capital, did not mention Napoleon's name in his proclamation to Paris. He himself hardly dared to send any messages. After having been obliged to surrender the supreme command, he followed the army, like a mock emperor, a kind of onlooker, a superfluous piece on the board. People said of him: "On croit qu'il se promène un peu aux environs de Châlons."
As can be seen from this, the deposition of the Emperor had taken place in people's consciousness, and was, so to speak, publicly settled, several weeks before the battle of Sedan brought with it his surrender to the King of Prussia and the proclamation of the French Republic. The Revolution of September 4th was not an overturning of things; it was merely the ratification of a state of affairs that people were already agreed upon in the capital, and had been even before the battle of Gravelotte.
In Paris preparations were being made with the utmost energy for the defence of the city. All men liable to bear arms were called up, and huge numbers of volunteers were drilled. It was an affecting sight to see the poor workmen drilling on the Place du Carrousel for enrolment in the volunteer corps. Really, most of them looked so bloodless and wretched that one was tempted to think they went with the rest for the sake of the franc a day and uniform.
Anyone whose way led him daily past the fortifications could see, however technically ignorant he might be, that they were exceedingly insignificant. Constantly, too, one heard quoted Trochu's words: "I don't delude myself into supposing that I can stop the Prussians with the matchsticks that are being planted on the ramparts." Strangely enough, Paris shut herself in with such a wall of masonry that in driving through it in the Bois de Boulogne, there was barely room for a carriage with two horses. They bored loop-holes in these walls and ramparts, but few doubted that the German artillery would be able to destroy all their defences with the greatest ease.
Distribute arms to the civil population, as the papers unanimously demanded, from readily comprehensible reasons, no one dared to do. The Empress' Government had to hold out for the existing state of things; nevertheless, in Paris,--certainly from about the 8th August,--people were under the impression that what had been lost was lost irrevocably.
I considered it would be incumbent upon my honour to return to Denmark, if we were drawn into the war, and I lived with this thought before my eyes. I contemplated with certainty an approaching revolution in France; I was vexed to think that there was not one conspicuously great and energetic man among the leaders of the Opposition, and that such a poor wretch as Rochefort was once more daily mentioned and dragged to the front. Of Gambetta no one as yet thought, although his name was respected, since he had made himself felt the last season as the most vehement speaker in the Chamber. But it was not speakers who were wanted, and people did not know that he was a man of action.
The Ministry that followed Ollivier's inspired me with no confidence. Palikao, the Prime Minister, was termed in the papers aniron man(the usual set phrase). It was said that he "would not scruple to clear the boulevards with grape"; but the genius needed for such a performance was not overwhelming. What he had to do was to clear France of the Germans, and that was more difficult.
Renan had had to interrupt the journey to Spitzbergen which he had undertaken in Prince Napoleon's company; the Prince and his party had only reached Tromsöe, when they were called back on account of the war, and Renan was in a state of the most violent excitement. He said: "No punishment could be too great for that brainless scoundrel Ollivier, and the Ministry that has followed his is worse. Every thinking man could see for himself that the declaration of this war was madness. (A-t-on jamais vu pareille folie, mon Dieu, mon Dieu, c'est navrant. Nous sommes un peuple désarçonné.)" In his eyes, Palikao was no better than a robber, Jérôme David than a murderer. He considered the fall of Strasburg imminent. He was less surprised than I at the unbounded incapacity shown by the French fleet under the difficult conditions; all plans for a descent on Northern Germany had already been given up, and the French fleet was unable to set about even so much as a blockade of the ports, such as the Danes had successfully carried out six years before.
Taine was as depressed as Renan. He had returned from Germany, where he had gone to prepare a treatise on Schiller, on account of the sudden death of Madame Taine's mother. As early as August 2d, when no battle had as yet been fought, he felt exceedingly anxious, and he was the first Frenchman whom I heard take into consideration the possibility of the defeat of France; he expressed great sorrow that two nations such as France and Germany should wage national war against each other as they were doing. "I have just come from Germany," he remarked, "where I have talked with many brave working-men. When I think of what it means for a man to be born into the world, nursed, brought up, instructed, and equipped; when I think what struggling and difficulties he must go through himself to be fit for the battle of life, and then reflect how all that is to be flung into the grave as a lump of bleeding flesh, how can I do other than grieve! With two such statesmen as Louis Philippe, war could certainly have been averted, but with two quarrelsome men like Bismarck and Napoleon at the head of affairs, it was, of course, inevitable."
Philarète Chasles saw in the defeats a confirmation of the theory that he proclaimed, day in, day out, namely: that the Latin races were on the rapid down-grade; Spain and Portugal, Italy, Roumania, the South American republics, were, in his opinion, in a state of moral putrefaction, France a sheer Byzantium. It had been a piece of foolhardiness without parallel to try to make this war a decisive racial struggle between the nation that, as Protestant, brought free research in its train and one which had not yet been able to get rid of the Pope and political despotism. Now France was paying the penalty.
Out in the country at Meudon, where he was, there had--probably from carelessness--occurred repeated explosions, the last time on August 20th. Twenty cases of cartridges had just been sent to Bazaine; a hundred still remained, which were to start the day that they were urgently required. They blew up, and no one in the town doubted that the explosion was the work of Prussian spies. For things had come to such a pass that people saw Prussian spies everywhere. (During the first month of the war all Germans were called Prussians.) Importance was attached to the fact that General Frossard's nephew, a young lieutenant who lay wounded in Chasles' tower-house, from a sword-thrust in the chest, and was usually delirious, at the crash had jumped up and come to his senses, crying out: "It is treachery! It is Chamber No. 6 blowing up!" As a matter of fact, that was where the cartridges were. It was said that at Meudon traces had been found of the same explosive as had been used in bombs against the Emperor during the first days of May (a plot that had probably been hatched by the police). The perpetrator, however,--doubtless for good reasons--was not discovered.
Whatever vanity there was about old Philarète Chasles left him altogether during this critical time, which seemed to make good men better still. His niece, too, who used to be loud-voiced and conceited, was quite a different person. One day that I was at their house at Meudon, she sat in a corner for a long time crying quietly. Out there, they were all feverishly anxious, could not rest, craved, partly to hear the latest news, partly to feel the pulse of Paris. One day after dinner, Chasles invited me to go into town with him, and when we arrived he took a carriage and drove about with me for two hours observing the prevailing mood. We heard countless anecdotes, most of them apocryphal, but reflecting the beliefs of the moment: The Empress had sent three milliards (!) in French gold to the Bank of England. The Emperor, who was jealous of Macmahon since the latter had rescued him at Magenta, had taken the command of the Turcos from the Marshal, although the latter had said in the Council of War: "The Turcos must be given to me, they will not obey anyone else." And true it was that no one else had any control over them. If one had committed theft, or misbehaved himself in any other way, and Macmahon. whom they called only "Our Marshal," rode down the front of their lines and scolded them, they began to cry, rushed up and kissed his feet, and hung to his horse, like children asking for forgiveness. And now someone had made the great mistake of giving them to another general. And, the commander being anxious to dazzle the Germans with them, they and the Zouaves had been sent first into the fire, in spite of Bazaine's very sensible observation: "When you drive, you do not begin at a galop." And so these picked troops were broken up in their first engagement. It was said that of 2,500 Turcos, only 29 were left.
An anecdote like the following, which was told to us, will serve to show how popular legends grow up, in virtue of the tendency there is to reduce a whole battle to a collision between two generals, just as in the Homeric age, or in Shakespeare: The Crown Prince of Prussia was fighting very bravely at Wörth, in the front ranks. That he threw the Turcos into confusion was the result of a ray of sunlight falling on the silver eagle on his helmet. The Arabs thought it a sign from Heaven. Macmahon, who was shooting in the ranks, was so near the Crown Prince that the latter shouted to him in French: "Voilà un homme!" but the Frenchman surpassed him in chivalrous politeness, for he saluted, and replied: "Voilà un héros!"
After my return to Paris, I had taken lessons from an excellent language teacher, Mademoiselle Guémain, an old maid who had for many years taught French to Scandinavians, and for whom I wrote descriptions and remarks on what I saw, to acquire practise in written expression. She had known most of the principal Northerners who had visited Paris during the last twenty years, had taught Magdalene Thoresen, amongst others, when this latter as a young woman had stayed in Paris. She was an excellent creature, an unusual woman, intellectual, sensitive, and innocent, who made an unforgettable impression upon one. Besides the appointed lesson- times, we sometimes talked for hours together. How sad that the lives of such good and exceptional women should vanish and disappear, without any special thanks given to them in their life-times, and with no one of the many whom they have benefitted to tell publicly of their value. She possessed all the refinement of the French, together with the modesty of an old maid, was both personally inexperienced, and by virtue of the much that she had seen, very experienced in worldly things. I visited her again in 1889, after the lapse of nineteen years, having learned her address through Jonas Lie and his wife, who knew her. I found her older, but still more charming, and touchingly humble. It cut me to the heart to hear her say:"C'est une vraie charité que vous me faites de venir me voir."
Mlle. Guémain was profoundly affected, like everyone else, by what we were daily passing through during this time of heavy strain. As a woman, she was impressed most by the seriousness which had seized even the most frivolous people, and by the patriotic enthusiasm which was spreading in ever wider circles. She regarded it as deeper and stronger than as a rule it was.
The temper prevailing among my Italian friends was very different. The Italians, as their way was, were just like children, laughed at the whole thing, were glad that the Prussians were "drubbing" the French, to whom, as good patriots, they wished every misfortune possible. The French had behaved like tyrants in Italy; now they were being paid out. Besides which, the Prussians would not come to Paris. But if they did come, they would be nice to them, and invite them to dinner, like friends. Sometimes I attempted to reply, but came off badly. One day that I had ventured a remark to a large and ponderous Roman lady, on the ingratitude of the Italians towards the French, the good lady jumped as if a knife had been stuck into her, and expatiated passionately on the infamy of the French. The Romans were,--as everyone knew,--the first nation on earth. The French had outraged them, had dared to prevent them making their town the capital of Italy, by garrisoning it with French soldiers who had no business there, so that they had themselves asked for the Nemesis which was now overtaking them, and which the Italians were watching with flashing eyes. She said this, in spite of her anger, with such dignity, and such a bearing, that one could not but feel that, if she were one day called upon to adorn a throne, she would seat herself upon it as naturally, and as free from embarrassment, as though it were nothing but a Roman woman's birthright.
In the meantime, defeats and humiliations were beginning to confuse the good sense of the French, and to lead their instincts astray. The crowd could not conceive that such things could come about naturally. The Prussians could not possibly have won by honourable means, but must have been spying in France for years. Why else were so many Germans settled in Paris! The French were paying now, not for their faults, but for their virtues, the good faith, the hospitality, the innocent welcome they had given to treacherous immigrants. They had not understood that the foreigner from the North was a crafty and deceitful enemy.
It gradually became uncomfortable for a foreigner in Paris. I never went out without my passport. But even a passport was no safeguard. It was enough for someone to make some utterly unfounded accusation, express some foolish, chance suspicion, for the non-Frenchman to be maltreated as a "spy." Both in Metz and in Paris, in the month of August, people who were taken for "Prussians" were hanged or dismembered. In the latter part of August the papers reported from the Dordogne that a mob there had seized a young man, a M. de Moneys, of whom a gang had asserted that he had shouted"Vive la Prusse!"had stripped him, bound him with ropes, carried him out into a field, laid him on a pile of damp wood, and as this would not take fire quick enough, had pushed trusses of straw underneath all round him, and burnt him alive. From theQuartier La Vilettein Paris, one heard every day of similar slaughter of innocent persons who the people fancied were Prussian spies. Under such circumstances, a trifle might become fatal. One evening at the end of August I had been hearingL'Africaineat the grand opera, and at the same time Marie Sass' delivery of theMarseillaise--she sang as though she had a hundred fine bells in her voice, but she sang the national anthem like an aria. Outside the opera-house I hailed a cab. The coachman was asleep; a man jogged him to wake him, and he started to drive. I noticed that during the drive he looked at his watch and then drove on for all that he was worth, as fast as the harness and reins would stand. When I got to the hotel I handed him his fare and a four sous' tip. He bawled out that it was not enough; he had beende remise; he had taken me for someone else, being waked so suddenly; he had been bespoken by another gentleman. I laughed and replied that that was his affair, not mine; what had it got to do with me? But as all he could demand, if he had really beende remise, was two sous more, and as, under the ordinances prevailing, it was impossible to tell whether he was or not, I gave him the two sous; but no tip with it, since he had no right to claim it, and I had not the slightest doubt that he was lying. Then he began to croak that it was a shame not to give apourboire, and, seeing that did not help matters, as I simply walked up the hotel steps, he shouted in his ill-temper, first"Vous n'êtes pas Français!"and then"Vous êtes Prussien!"No sooner had he said it than all the hotel servants who were standing in the doorway disappeared, and the people in the street listened, stopped, and turned round. I grasped the danger, and flew into a passion. In one bound I was in the road, I rushed at the cabman, seized him by the throat and shook my hand, with its knuckle-duster upon it, threateningly at his head. Then he forgot to abuse me and suddenly whined:"Ne frappez pas, monsieur!"mounted his box, and drove very tamely away. In my exasperation I called the hotel waiters together and poured scorn on them for their cowardice.
In spite of the season, it was uncomfortable weather, and the temper of the town was as uncomfortable as the weather. As time went on, few people were to be seen about the streets, but there was a run on the gunmakers' and sword-smiths'. By day no cheerful shouts or songs rang out, but children of six or seven years of age would go hand in hand in rows down the street in the evenings, singing"Mourir pour la patrie,"to its own beautiful, affecting melody. But these were the only gentle sounds one heard. Gradually, the very air seemed to be reeking with terror and frenzy. Exasperation rolled up once more, like a thick, black stream, against the Emperor, against the ministers and generals, and against the Prussians, whom people thought they saw everywhere.
Foreigners were requested to leave Paris, so that, in the event of a siege, the city might have no unnecessary mouths to feed. Simultaneously, in Trochu's proclamation, it was announced that the enemy might be outside the walls in three days. Under such circumstances, the town was no longer a place for anyone who did not wish to be shut up in it.
One night at the end of August, I travelled from Paris to Geneva. At the departure station the thousands of German workmen who had been expelled from Paris were drawn up, waiting, herded together like cattle,--a painful sight. These workmen were innocent of the war, the defeats, and the spying service of which they were accused; now they were being driven off in hordes, torn from their work, deprived of their bread, and surrounded by inimical lookers-on.
As it had been said that trains to the South would cease next day, the Geneva train was overfilled, and one had to be well satisfied to secure a seat at all. My travelling companions of the masculine gender were very unattractive: an impertinent and vulgar old Swiss who, as it was a cold night, and he had no travelling-rug, wrapped himself up in four or five of his dirty shirts--a most repulsive sight; a very precise young Frenchman who, without a vestige of feeling for the fate of his country and nation, explained to us that he had long had a wish to see Italy, and had thought that now, business being in any case at a standstill, the right moment had arrived.
The female travellers in the compartment were a Parisian, still young, and her bright and charming fifteen-year-old daughter, whose beauty was not unlike that of Mlle. Massin, the lovely actress at theThéâtre du Gymnase. The mother was all fire and flame, and raved, almost to tears, over the present pass, cried shame on the cowardice of the officers for not having turned out the Emperor; her one brother was a prisoner at Königsberg; all her male relations were in the field. The daughter was terror-struck at the thought that the train might be stopped by the enemy--which was regarded as very likely--but laughed at times, and was divided between fear of the Prussians and exceeding anxiety to see them:"J'aimerais bien pouvoir dire que j'aie vu des Prussiens!"
At one station some soldiers in rout, with torn and dusty clothes, got into our carriage; they looked repulsive, bespattered with mud and clay; they were in absolute despair, and you could hear from their conversation how disorganised discipline was, for they abused their officers right and left, called them incapable and treacherous, yet themselves gave one the impression of being very indifferent soldiers. The young sergeant major who was leading them was the only one who was in anything like spirits, and even he was not much to boast of. It was curious what things he believed: Marshal Leboeuf had had a Prussian officer behind his chair, disguised as a waiter, at Metz, and it had only just been discovered. Russia had lent troops to Prussia, and put them into Prussian uniforms; otherwise there could not possibly be so many of them. But Rome, too, was responsible for the misfortunes of France; the Jesuits had planned it all, because the country was so educated; they never liked anybody to learn anything.
After Culoz commenced the journey through the lovely Jura mountains. On both sides an immense panorama of high, wooded mountain ridges, with poverty-stricken little villages along the mountain sides. At Bellegarde our passports were demanded; no one was allowed to cross the frontier without them--a stupid arrangement. The Alps began to bound our view. The train went on, now through long tunnels, now between precipices, now again over a rocky ridge, whence you looked down into the valley where the blue-green Rhone wound and twined its way between the rocks like a narrow ribbon. The speed seemed to be accelerating more and more. The first maize-field. Slender poplars, without side-branches, but wholly covered with foliage, stood bent almost into spirals by the strong wind from the chinks of the rocks. The first Swiss house.
There was Geneva, between the Alps, divided by the southern extremity of Lake Leman, which was spanned by many handsome bridges. In the centre, a little isle, with Rousseau's statue. A little beyond, the Rhone rushed frothing and foaming out of the lake. From my window I could see in the distance the dazzling snow peak of Mont Blanc.
After Paris, Geneva looked like a provincial town. The cafés were like servants' quarters or corners of cafés. There were no people in the streets, where the sand blew up in clouds of dust till you could hardly see out of your eyes, and the roads were not watered. In the hotel, in front of the mirror, the New Testament in French, bound in leather; you felt that you had come to the capital of Calvinism.
The streets in the old part of the town were all up and down hill. In the windows of the booksellers' shops there were French verses against France, violent diatribes against Napoleon III. and outbursts of contempt for the nation that had lost its virility and let itself be cowed by a tyrant. By the side of these, portraits of the Freethinkers and Liberals who had been driven from other countries and found a refuge in Switzerland.
I sailed the lake in every direction, enraptured by its beauty and the beauty of the surrounding country. Its blueness, to which I had never seen a parallel, altogether charmed me in the changing lights of night and day. On the lake I made the acquaintance of a very pleasant Greek family, the first I had encountered anywhere. The eldest daughter, a girl of fourteen, lost her hat. I had a new silk handkerchief packed amongst my things, and offered it to her. She accepted it and bound it round her hair. Her name was Maria Kumelas. I saw for the first time an absolutely pure Greek profile, such as I had been acquainted with hitherto only from statues. One perfect, uninterrupted line ran from the tip of her nose to her hair.
I went for excursions into Savoy, ascended La Grande Salève on donkey- back, and from the top looked down at the full length of the Leman.
I drove to the valley of Chamounix, sixty-eight miles, in a diligence and four; about every other hour we had relays of horses and a new driver. Whenever possible, we went at a rattling galop. Half-way I heard the first Italian. It was only the wordquattro; but it filled me with delight. Above the high, wooded mountains, the bare rock projected out of the earth, at the very top. The wide slopes up which the wood ascended, until it looked like moss on stone, afforded a view miles in extent. The river Arve, twisting itself in curves, was frequently spanned by the roadway; it was of a greyish white, and very rapid, but ugly. Splendid wooden bridges were thrown over it, with abysms on both sides. Midway, after having for some time been hidden behind the mountains, Mont Blanc suddenly appeared in its gleaming splendour, positively tiring and paining the eye. It was a new and strange feeling to be altogether hemmed in by mountains. It was oppressive to a plain- dweller to be shut in thus, and not to be able to get away from the immutable sheet of snow, with its jagged summits. Along the valley of the stream, the road ran between marvellously fresh walnut-trees, plane- trees, and avenues of apple trees; but sometimes we drove through valleys so narrow that the sun only shone on them two or three hours of the day, and there it was cold and damp. Savoy was plainly enough a poor country. The grapes were small and not sweet; soil there was little of, but every patch was utilised to the best advantage. In one place a mountain stream rushed down the rocks; at a sharp corner, which jutted out like the edge of a sloping roof, the stream was split up and transformed into such fine spray that one could perceive no water at all; afterwards the stream united again at the foot of the mountain, and emptied itself with frantic haste into the river, foaming greyish white, spreading an icy cold around. The changes of temperature were striking. Under shelter, hot Summer, two steps further, stern, inclement Autumn, air that penetrated to the very marrow of your bones. You ran through every season of the year in a quarter of an hour.
The other travellers were English people, all of one pattern, unchangeable, immovable. If one of them had buttoned up his coat at the beginning of the drive, he did not unbutton it on the way, were he never so warm, and if he had put leather gloves on, for ten hours they would not be off his hands. The men yawned for the most part; the young ladies jabbered. The English had made the whole country subservient to them, and at the hotels one Englishman in this French country was paid more attention to than a dozen Frenchmen.
Here I understood two widely different poems: Hauch's Swiss Peasant, and Björnson's Over the Hills and Far Away. Hauch had felt this scenery and the nature of these people, by virtue of his Norwegian birth and his gift of entering into other people's thought; Björnson had given unforgettable expression to the feeling of imprisoned longing. But for the man who had been breathing street dust and street sweepings for four months, it was good to breathe the strong, pure air, and at last see once more the clouds floating about and beating against the mountain sides, leaning, exhausted, against a declivity and resting on their journey. Little children of eight or ten were guarding cattle, children such as we know so well in the North, when they come with their marmots; they looked, without exception, like tiny rascals, charming though they were.
I rode on a mule to Montanvert, and thence on foot over the Mer de Glace, clambered up the steep mountain side to Chapeau, went down to the crystal Grotto and rode from there back to Chamounix. The ride up in the early hours of the morning was perfect, the mountain air so light; the mists parted; the pine-trees round the fresh mountain path exhaled a penetrating fragrance. An American family with whom I had become acquainted took three guides with them for four persons. One worthy old gentleman who was travelling with his young daughter, would not venture upon this feat of daring, but his daughter was so anxious to accompany us that when I offered to look after her she was entrusted to my care. I took two mules and a guide, thinking that sufficient. From Montanvert and down to the glacier, the road was bad, a steep, rocky path, with loose, rolling stones. When we came to the Ice Sea, the young lady, as was natural, took the guide's hand, and I, the last of the caravan, strode cautiously along, my alpenstock in my hand, over the slippery, billow-like ice. But soon it began to split up into deep crevasses, and farther on we came to places where the path you had to follow was no wider than a few hands' breadth, with yawning precipices in the ice on both sides. I grew hot to the roots of my hair, and occasionally my heart stood still. It was not that I was actually afraid. The guide shouted to me: "Look neither to right nor left; look at your feet, and turn out your toes!" I had only one thought--not to slip!--and out on the ice I grew burningly hot. When at last I was across, I noticed that I was shaking. Strangely enough, I was trembling at thethoughtof the blue, gaping crevasses on both sides of me, down which I had barely glanced, and yet I had passed them without a shudder. The beginning of the crossing had been comparatively easy; it was only that at times it was very slippery. But in the middle of the glacier, progress was very uncomfortable; moraines, and heaps of gigantic blocks lay in your path, and all sorts of stone and gravel, which melted glaciers had brought down with them, and these were nasty to negotiate. When at last you had them behind you, came leMauvais Pas, which corresponded to its name. You climbed up the precipitous side of the rock with the help of an iron railing drilled into it. But foothold was narrow and the stone damp, from the number of rivulets that rippled and trickled down. Finally it was necessary at every step to let go the railing for a few seconds. The ascent then, and now, was supposed to be quite free from danger, and the view over the glaciers which one gained by it, was a fitting reward for the inconvenience. Even more beautiful than the summit of Mont Blanc itself, with its rounded contours, were the steep, gray, rocky peaks, with ice in every furrow, that are calledl'Aiguille du Dru. These mountains, which as far as the eye could range seemed to be all the same height, although they varied from 7,000 to 14,800 feet, stretched for miles around the horizon.
The ice grotto here was very different from the sky-blue glacier grotto into which I had wandered two years earlier at Grindelwald. Here the ice mass was so immensely high that not the slightest peep of daylight penetrated through it into the excavated archway that led into the ice. It was half-dark inside, and the only light proceeded from a row of little candles stuck into the crevices of the rock. The ice was jet black in colour, the light gleaming with a golden sheen from all the rounded projections and jagged points. It was like the gilt ornamentation on a velvet pall.
When I returned from Chamounix to Geneva, the proprietor of the hotel was standing in the doorway and shouted to me: "The whole of the French army, with the Emperor, has been taken prisoner at Sedan!"-- "Impossible!" I exclaimed. "It is quite certain," he replied; "it was in the German telegrams, and so far there has not come a single unveracious telegram from the Germans."
The next day a Genevese paper published the news of the proclamation of the Republic in France.
Simultaneously arrived a letter from Julius Lange, attacking me for my "miserly city politics," seriously complaining that "our declaration of war against Prussia had come to nothing," and hoping that my stay in France had by now made me alter my views.
In his opinion, we had neglected "an opportunity of rebellion, that would never recur."
Lake Leman fascinated me. All the scenery round looked fairy-like to me, a dream land, in which mighty mountains cast their blue-black shadows down on the turquoise water, beneath a brilliant, sparkling sunshine that saturated the air with its colouring. My impressions of Lausanne, Chillon, Vevey, Montreux, were recorded in the first of my lectures at the University the following year. The instruments of torture at Chillon, barbaric and fearsome as they were, made me think of the still worse murderous instruments being used in the war between France and Germany. It seemed to me that if one could see war at close quarters, one would come to regard the earth as peopled by dangerous lunatics. Political indifference to human life and human suffering had taken the place of the premeditated cruelty of the Middle Ages. Still, if no previous war had ever been so frightful, neither had there ever been so much done to mitigate suffering. While fanatic Frenchwomen on the battlefields cut the noses off wounded Germans, and mutilated them when they could, and while the Germans were burning villages and killing their peaceful inhabitants, if one of them had so much as fired a shot, in all quietness the great societies for the care of the wounded were doing their work. And in this Switzerland especially bore the palm. There were two currents then, one inhuman and one humane, and of the two, the latter will one day prove itself the stronger. Under Louis XIV. war was still synonymous with unlimited plundering, murder, rape, thievery and robbery. Under Napoleon I. there were still no such things as ambulances. The wounded were carted away now and again in waggons, piled one on the top of each other, if any waggons were to be had; if not, they were left as they lay, or were flung into a ditch, there to die in peace. Things were certainly a little better.
In Geneva, the news reached me that--in spite of a promise Hall, as Minister, had given to Hauch, when the latter asked for it for me--I was to receive no allowance from the Educational Department. To a repetition of the request, Hall had replied: "I have made so many promises and half-promises, that it has been impossible to remember or to keep them." This disappointment hit me rather hard; I had in all only about £50 left, and could not remain away more than nine weeks longer without getting into debt, I, who had calculated upon staying a whole year abroad. Circumstances over which I had no control later obliged me, however, to remain away almost another year. But that I could not foresee, and I had no means whatever to enable me to do so. Several of my acquaintances had had liberal allowances from the Ministry; Krieger and Martensen had procured Heegaard £225 at once, when he had been anxious to get away from Rasmus Nielsen's influence. It seemed to me that this refusal to give me anything augured badly for the appointment I was hoping for in Denmark. I could only earn a very little with my pen: about 11s. 3d. for ten folio pages, and as I did not feel able, while travelling, to write anything of any value, I did not attempt it. It was with a sort of horror that, after preparing for long travels that were to get me out of the old folds, I thought of the earlier, narrow life I had led in Copenhagen. All the old folds seemed, at this distance, to have been the folds of a strait-waistcoat.
With abominable slowness, and very late, "on account of the war," the train crawled from Geneva, southwards. Among the travellers was a rhetorical Italian master-mason, from Lyons, an old Garibaldist, the great event of whose life was that Garibaldi had once taken lunch alone with him at Varese. He preserved in his home as a relic the glass from which the general had drunk. He was talkative, and ready to help everyone; he gave us all food and drink from his provisions. Other travellers told that they had had to stand in queue for fully twelve hours in front of the ticket office in Paris, to get away from the town.
The train passed the place where Rousseau had lived, at Madame de Warens'. In an official work on Savoy, written by a priest, I had recently read a summary dismissal of Rousseau, as a calumniator of his benefactress. According to this author, it certainly looked as though, to say the least of it, Rousseau's memory had failed him amazingly sometimes. The book asserted, for instance, that the Claude of whom he speaks was no longer alive at the time when he was supposed to be enjoying Madame de Warens' favours.
We passed French volunteers in blouses bearing a red cross; they shouted and were in high good humour; passed ten districts, where numbers of cretins, with their hideous excrescences, sat by the wayside. At last we arrived,--several hours behind time,--at St. Michel, at the foot of Mont Cenis; it was four o'clock in the afternoon, and I was beginning to feel tired, for I had been up since four in the morning. At five o'clock we commenced the ascent, to the accompaniment of frightful groanings from the engine; all the travellers were crowded together in three wretched little carriages, the small engine not being able to pull more. Gay young French girls exulted at the idea of seeing "Italy's fair skies." They were not particularly fair here; the weather was rough and cloudy, in keeping with abysms and mountain precipices. But late at night the journey over Mont Cenis was wonderful. High up on the mountain the moonlight gleamed on the mountain lake. And the way was dominated, from one rocky summit, by the castle of Bramans with its seven imposing forts.
The locomotive stopped for an hour, for want of water. We were thus obliged to sleep at the little Italian town of Susa (in a glorious valley under Mont Cenis), the train to Turin having left three hours before. Susa was the first Italian town I saw. When the train came in next morning to the station at Turin, a crowd of Italian soldiers, who were standing there, shouted: "The Prussians for ever!" and winked at me. "What are they shouting for?" I asked a young Turin fellow with whom I had had some long conversations. "It is an ovation to you," he replied. "People are delighted at the victory of the Prussians, and they think you are a Prussian, because of your fair moustache and beard."