The Plébiscite; or, A Miller's Story of the War

Cousin Desjardins agreed with him; and when coffee was brought, Lise and her children went out. Pipes were lighted, and our cousin told us the latest news.

Desjardins had many books, like most of the Protestants, and received newspapers from all quarters; first of all, the Indépendance Belge, then papers from Cologne, Frankfort, Berne in Switzerland, Geneva, and elsewhere. At his age – having a son fifty years old – he did not trouble himself much now about dyeing or business, and spent his time in reading.

He was therefore a better-informed man than we were, and one in whom we could place full confidence. It was from him that we heard of the splendid defence of Chateaudun, the landing of Garibaldi at Marseilles, and his appointment as General of the Army of the Vosges, the march of the Bavarians under Von der Tann upon the Loire, and the arrival of the francs-tireurs in our mountains, in the direction of Epinal and Raon-l'Etape. He read to us that fine proclamation of Gambetta to the French people, setting forth the high purpose of the inhabitants of Paris, their inexhaustible means of defence, the organization of the citizens as National Guards, the union and harmony of all in this moment of difficulty, and the victualling of the city for several months, which would raise the spirit of the provinces and give them courage to follow so noble an example.

I still remember this passage, which stirred me like a trumpet:

"Citizens of the departments, this position of affairs imposes important duties upon you. The first of all is to allow no other occupation whatever to divert your attention from the war – from a struggle to the very last extremity; the second is, until peace shall be made, loyally to accept the Republican power, which has sprung equally from necessity and from right principle. You must have but one thought: to rescue France from the abyss into which it has been plunged by the Empire. There is no want of men: all that is wanting is determination, decision, and continuity in the execution of plans; what we have lost by the disgraceful capitulation of Sedan is arms. The whole of the resources of our nation had been directed upon Sedan, Metz, and Strasbourg; and we might justly conclude that by one final and guilty plot, the author of all our disasters had schemed, in falling, to deprive us of all means of repairing the ruin he had caused!"

"He is quite capable," cried George. "Yes, I am sure the honest man contrived to leave himself a back door into Prussia."

Cousin Desjardins continued: "At this moment, thanks to the extraordinary exertions of patriotic men, arrangements have been concluded, the end and object of which is to draw to ourselves all the disposable muskets in all the markets of the globe. The difficulty of effecting this negotiation was very serious: it is now overcome. With regard to equipments and clothing, manufactories and workshops will be multiplied, and materials laid under requisition wherever needed; neither hands nor zeal on the part of workers are wanting, nor will money be lacking. All our immense resources must be called into play, the lethargy of the rural districts shaken into activity, partisan warfare spread in all directions. Let us, therefore, rise as one man, and suffer death rather than submit to the disgrace of a partition of our country."

The enthusiasm of George rose with every sentence.

"Good! good!" cried he, "this is speaking to some purpose. Once give the impulse, and the object will soon be gained. Our youths will take up arms en masse. One victory, only one, and all France would rise; we should fall like hail on the backs of the scoundrels; they would be looked out for at every corner in the woods: not a man would live to get back again!"

Cousin Desjardins, having folded up his papers, said nothing; I, too, was full of my own thoughts.

"And you, cousin," said I, "have you any confidence?"

And only after a minute's silence, and having taken a good pinch of snuff, to waken up his ideas – for he took snuff, like all the old folks, but did not smoke; after a minute he said: "No, Christian, I have no hope; but it is not the Germans that I fear: they have taken Strasbourg; after a time they will have Metz by starvation – that is already settled. They are besieging Verdun; Soissons has just fallen into their hands; they have invested Paris; they are advancing upon Orleans. Well, in spite of all this, it is not the Germans that I fear."

"Who then?" asked George.

Without noticing the question, he continued: "France is so strong, so brave, so rich, so intelligent, that in a few months she could have flung these barbarians across the Rhine again; but what alarms me, is the enemies in our midst."

"Nobody is moving," said I.

"It is just because no one is moving that the Germans are on the Loire," said he, fixing his clear, gray eyes upon me. "If the question was to restore Chambord, Ferdinand Philippe, or even Bonaparte IV., you would see all the old councillors-general, all the councillors of the arrondissements, all the old préfets, sous-préfets, magistrates, police inspectors, receivers of taxes, comptrollers, gardes généraux, mayors, and deputy mayors in the field. No matter which of the three, for the principal object is to have a Monsieur who has crosses, promotions, pensions, and perquisites to give: whichever of the lot, it is all the same to them; they only want just one such man! These people would move heaven and earth for their man: they would put the peasants into lines by thousands, they would sing the Marseillaise, they would shout the 'country is in danger!' And the bishops, the priests, the curés, the vicars, would preach the holy war; France would drive the Prussians to the farthest corner of Prussia; arms, munitions of war, stores would be found for every day! But as it is a Republic, and as the Republic demands the separation of Church and State, free education, compulsory military service; as it declares that all must contribute to the public good, that a rich fool is not a better man than a poor but able man; and because, on this principle, merit would be everything, and intrigues and knavery go to the wall, they had rather see France dismembered than consent to a Republic! What would become of the good places of the senators, the peers of France, prefects, chamberlains, squires, receivers-general, stewards, marshals, influential deputies, and bishops under a Republic? They would all be put into one basket: and they don't want that. They would rather the King of Prussia than the Republic, if the King of Prussia would only engage to keep all the good places for them. Yes, in their eyes la patrie means lucrative places and pensions. It is not the first time that the Germans have been relied upon to restore order in France. Marie Antoinette had already ceded Alsace to Austria, to have her antechambers filled again with smooth-faced, obsequious old servitors. Passing events bring back those times again. Formerly the hunters after pensions, the egotists who wanted to snap up everything and leave nothing for the people, were called nobles; now it is the bourgeois trained by the Jesuits. But at that time the chiefs of the Republic were resolved upon the triumph of justice. They did not leave the functionaries and the generals of Louis XVI. at the head of the administrations and of the armies. These great patriots had common-sense. They established Republican municipalities in every commune; they gave the command of our armies to Republican generals; they restrained the reactionnaires; and having cleared our territory of Germans, they judged those who had called them in; and France was saved.

"The same thing would happen to-day, in spite of all the preparations of Germany, in spite of the treason of Bonaparte, who, seeing his dynasty sacrificed by his own incapacity, gave up our last army at Sedan to stay the victory of the Republic.

"Yes, notwithstanding the egotism of this unhappy man, we might yet beat the Germans, if the Royalists were not at the head of our affairs; but they are everywhere. In Paris, they command the National Guard and the army; in the provinces, they are forming those famous councils-general, whence have been drawn the juries to acquit Pierre Bonaparte, and who would without shame sentence Gambetta to death if they were assembled to try him. Instead of helping this brave man, this good patriot, to save France, they will obstruct him; they will run sticks between the spokes of his wheels; they will hinder him from getting the necessary levies; they will clamp the enthusiasm of the people. See what all these German papers say: they cannot sufficiently abuse Gambetta, who is defending his country, nor sufficiently flatter the councils-general named under the Empire."

"But, then," said George, "must we surrender?"

"No," replied Desjardins. "Although we are sure of being vanquished, we must show that we are still the old race: that its roots are not dead, and that the tree will sprout again. If we had reeled and fallen under the blow of Sedan, the contempt of Europe and of the whole world would have covered us forever. The nation has risen since. It seems incredible. Without armies, or guns, or muskets, or victuals, or military stores, betrayed, surprised, overrun in all directions, this nation has risen again! It defends itself! One brave man has been found sufficient to raise its courage. What other nation would have done as much? I am, therefore, of opinion that the struggle must be maintained to the end, that the Germans may be made, as it were, ashamed of their victory. They have been fifty years preparing; they have hidden themselves from us, to spy upon us in time of peace; they have dissembled their hatred; they have brought their whole power to bear upon us; they have studied the question under every aspect; they threw against us, at the opening of the campaign, 600,000 men against 220,000; they are going to attack our raw conscripts with their best troops; they will be five and six against one; they will call Russia to their help if they want it; and then they will proclaim, 'We are the conquerors!' They will not be ashamed to say, 'We have vanquished France. Now it is we who are La Grande Nation!'"

"All that," said George, "is possible. But in the meantime, we may win a battle; and, if we gain a victory, things will be different. We shall gain fresh courage, and the Landwehr who are sent against us – almost all fathers of families – will ask no better than to return home."

"The Landwehr have not a word to say," replied Desjardins: "they are not consulted; those fellows march where they are ordered; they have long been subject to military discipline. It is a machine: nothing but a machine; but a machine of crushing weight."

Then Cousin Desjardins told us that, having travelled long in Germany before and after 1848, on business, he had seen how these people detested us: that they envied us; that we were an offence to them; that hatred of the French was taught in their schools; that they thought themselves our superiors, on account of their religion, which is simple and natural; while ours, with all its ceremonies, its Latin chants, its tapers and its tinsel, induced them to look upon us as an inferior race, like the negroes, who are only fond of red, and hang rings in their noses; that, especially, they deemed their women more virtuous and more worthy of respect than ours: this they attribute also to their superior religion, which keeps them at home, while ours pass their time in all sorts of ceremonies, and neglect their first duties.

Desjardins had even had a serious dispute upon this subject with a school-master, being unable to hear an open avowal of such an opinion of Frenchwomen; amongst whom we number Jeanne d'Arc and other heroines, whose grandeur of character German women are unable to comprehend.

He told us that, from this point of view, the Germans, and especially the Prussians, considered us Alsacians and Lorrainers as exiles from fatherland, and unfortunate in being under the dominion of a debased race kept in ignorance by the priests.

George, on hearing this, became furious, and cried that we had more intelligence and more sense than all the Germans put together.

"Yes, I believe so, too," replied Cousin Desjardins; "only we ought to use it; we ought to set up schools everywhere; the lowest Frenchman should be able to read and write our own language; and this is exactly what the lovers of good places don't wish for. If the people had been educated, we should have known what was going on upon the other side of the Rhine; we should have had national armies, able generals, a watchful commissariat, a sound organization, enlightened and conscientious deputies; we should have had all that we are now wanting; we should not have placed the power of making war or peace in the hands of an imbecile; we should not have stupidly attacked the Germans, and the Germans, seeing us ready to receive them, would have been careful not to attack us. All our defeats, all our divisions, our internal troubles, our revolutions, our battles and massacres in the streets; the transportations, the hatred between classes – all this comes of ignorance; and this abominable ignorance is the doing of the selfish statesmen who have governed us for seventy years. Good sense, justice, and patriotism would lead them to inform the people; they preferred an alliance with the Jesuits to degrade the people; can any treason be worse?"

George, who had long entertained the same view, had nothing to add; but he still argued that we might gain a victory, and that then we should be saved.

Cousin Desjardins shook his head, saying: "Our forces are of too inferior a quality; Gambetta will never have time to organize them; and if the traitors thought that he would, they would deliver up Metz at once, in order that the second German army, Prince Frederick Charles's, might reach the Loire in time to prevent our army from raising the siege of Paris: for then, I think, the country might be saved. But this will not come to pass. When I saw generals coming out of Metz to go and consult the Empress in England, I knew that our cause was lost. And then the forces of King William are immense. Those 300,000 Russians who, as the papers tell us, are ready to march upon Constantinople, are only waiting the nod of the King of Prussia to start by the railways and come to overwhelm us, if the Germans don't think themselves numerous enough to vanquish us with 1,200,000 men. The decisive opinion of Europe is that there shall be no republic in France – no, not at any price; for, if the republic was established here, every monarchy would be shaken; the nations would all follow our example, and there would be an end of war; we should have a European confederation; kings, emperors, princes, courtiers, and professional soldiers might all be bowed off the stage. Only commerce, industry, science and arts would be thought of; to be anything, a man would have to know something. The talent of drawing up men in line to be mown down by cannon and mitrailleuses, would be relegated to the rear ranks; and a hundred years hence, men would hardly believe that such things have ever been; it would be too stupid."

Desjardins then told us how, in 1830, travelling about Solingen to buy dye-stuffs, he had noticed that the Prussians thought of nothing but war. From that very time they exhausted themselves to keep on foot, and ready to march, an army of 400,000 disciplined men. Since then, after their fusion with the forces of North Germany, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Baden, the total would amount to more than a million of men, without reckoning the landsturm: composed, it is true, of men in years, but who have all served, and can handle a rifle, load a gun, and ride well.

"Here, then, is what Monsieur Bonaparte has brought upon our shoulders without necessity," said he; "and it is against such a power that Gambetta is undertaking to organize in haste the youth that are left, and of whom the greater part have never served. I confess my hopes are small. God grant that I may be mistaken; but I fear that Alsace and Lorraine are for the time ingulfed in Germany. The war will continue for a time; treachery will go on working; and, finally, after all our sufferings, messieurs the sometime Ministers and councillors-general, the former préfets and sous-préfets, the old functionaries of every grade, in a word, all the egotists will be on the look-out, and will say: 'Let us make an arrangement with Bismarck. Let us make peace at the expense of Alsace and Lorraine; and let us name a king who shall find us first-rate places; France will still be rich enough to find us salaries and pensions.'"

Thus spoke Cousin Desjardins; and George, growing more and more angry, striking the table with his fist, said, "What I cannot understand is that the English desert us, and that they should allow the Prussians to extend their territory as they like."

"Ah," said Desjardins, smiling, "the English are not what they once were. They have become too rich; they cling to their comforts. Their great statesmen are no longer Pitts and Chathams, who looked to the future greatness of their nation and took measures to secure it: provided only that business prospers from day to day, future generations and the greatness of Britain give them no concern."

"Just so," said George. "If you had sailed, as I have done, in the North Sea and the Baltic, if you had seen what an enormous maritime power North Germany may possibly become in a few years, with her hundred and sixty leagues of seacoast, her harbors of Dantzig, Stettin, Hamburg, and Bremen, whither the finest rivers bring all the best products of Central Europe, all kinds of raw material, not only from Germany and Poland, but also from Russia; if you had seen that population of sailors, of traders, which increases daily, you would be unable to understand the indifference of the English. Have they lost the use of their eyes? Has the love of Protestantism and comfort deprived them of all discernment? I cannot tell; but they must see that if King William and Bismarck want Alsace and Lorraine, it is not exactly for the love of us Alsacians and Lorrainers, but to hold the course of the Rhine from its source in the German cantons of Switzerland down to its outfall at Rotterdam; and that in holding this great river they will control all the commerce of our industrial provinces and be able to feed the Dutch colonies with their produce, which will make them the first maritime power on the Continent; and that, to carry out their purpose without being molested – whilst the Russians are attacking Constantinople, they will install themselves quietly in the Dutch ports, as they did in the case of Hanover, and will offer us Belgium, and perhaps even something more! All this is evident."

"No doubt, cousin," said Desjardins. "I also believe that every fault brings its own punishment: the English will suffer for their faults, as we are doing for ours; and the Germans, after having terrified the world with their ambition, will one day be made to rue their cruelty, their hypocrisy, and their robberies. God is just! But in the meantime, until that day shall arrive, we are confiscated, and all our observations are useless."

And so the conversation went on: I cannot remember it entirely, but I have given you the substance of it.

CHAPTER XI

We remained with Cousin Desjardins all that day. Cousin Lise had our shirts washed, our clothes cleaned, and our shoes dried before the fire, after having first filled them with hot embers; and the next day we took our leave of these excellent people, thanking them from the bottom of our hearts.

We were very impatient to see our native place again, of which we had had no news for a month; and especially our poor wives, who must have supposed us lost.

The weather was damp; there were forebodings of a hard winter.

At Dieuze the rumor reached us that Bazaine had just surrendered Metz, with all his army, his flags, his guns, rifles, stores, and wounded, unconditionally!

The Prussian officers were drinking champagne at the inn where we halted. They were laughing! George was pale; I felt an oppression on my heart.

Some people who were there, carriers – German Jews, who followed their armies with carts, to load them with the clocks, the pots and pans, the linen, the furniture, and everything which the officers and soldiers sold them after having pillaged them in our houses – told us how horses were given away round Metz for nothing; that Arab horses were sold for a hundred sous, but that nobody would have them, horses' provender selling at an exorbitant price; that these poor beasts were eating one another – they devoured each other's hair to the quick, and even gnawed the bark off trees to which they were tied; that our captive soldiers dropped down with hunger in the ditches by the roadside, and then the Prussians abused them for drunkards. We heard, also, that the inhabitants of Metz, on hearing the terms of capitulation, had meant to rise and put Bazaine to death, but that all through the siege three mitrailleuses had been placed in front of his head-quarters, and that he had escaped the day before this shameful capitulation was to take place.

All this appeared to us almost impossible. Metz surrender unconditionally! Metz, the strongest town in France, defended by an army of a hundred thousand well-seasoned troops: the last army left to us after Sedan!

But it was true, nevertheless!

And in spite of all that can be said of the ignorance and the folly of the chiefs, to account for this terrible disaster, I cannot but believe that our honest man gave his orders to the very last; that Bazaine obeyed, and that they did everything together. Besides, Bazaine went to join him immediately at Wilhelmshöhe, where the cuisine was so excellent; there they reposed after their toils, until the opportunity should return of recommencing a campaign after the fashion of the 2d of December, in which men were entrapped by night in their beds, while they were relying upon the honest man's oath; or in the style of the Mexican war, where he ran away, deserting the men he had sworn to defend! In this sort of campaign, and if the people continue to have confidence in such men, as many assert will happen, they may begin again some fine morning, and once more get hold of the keys of the treasury; they will once more distribute crosses, and salaries, and pensions to their friends and acquaintances; and in a few years Bismarck will discover that the Germans possess claims upon Champagne and Burgundy.

Well, everything is possible; we have seen such strange things these last twenty years.

At Fénétrange, through which we passed about two o'clock, nothing was known.

At six in the evening we arrived upon the plateau of Metting, near the farm called Donat, and saw in the dim distance, two leagues from us, Phalsbourg, without its ramparts, and its demilunes; its church and its streets in ashes! The Germans were hidden by the undulations of the surrounding country, their cannon were on the hill-sides, and sentinels were posted behind the quarries.

There was deep silence: not a shot was heard: it was the blockade! Famine was doing quietly what the bombardment had been unable to effect.