Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day. Volume 2

"At noon, M. Peytral requested Durand (of the Loir) to enter his cabinet and offered him the portfolio of Minister of the Finances.

"Durand, who had never been minister, accepted with empressement.

"'I am acquainted with our financial system from the bottom up,' he said. 'This is, therefore, excellent.'

"'Truly,' replied Peytral. 'I was not aware of it.'

"But about half-past one of the afternoon, in consequence of the refusal of one of the members of the future cabinet, M. Peytral was obliged to change the combination. He summoned again M. Durand (of the Loir) and said to him:

"'My dear colleague, I appeal to your patriotism. I have need of the portfolio of the finances. Will you be good enough to do me the friendly office to accept the Public Works?'

"M. Durand reflected a second.

"'I came near being an engineer,' he replied, 'I believe that I could be able to render great service to the country in this new ministry.'

"And after having been Minister of the Finances from noon to half-past one, he was Minister of Public Works from half-past one to three.

"At two o'clock, M. Peytral sent a petit bleu [telegram, so called from the color of the official paper] to Durand (of the Loir) to invite him to call for the third time.

"'I have just perceived, my dear colleague,' he said to him, 'that my combination is not workable. It is not the Public Works that you require, nor the Finances, it is the Marine.'

"And Durand accepted the Marine, which he preserved up to half-past five, the hour at which the political necessities threw him upon the Public Instruction and Religion.

"But rivalries suddenly sprang up. It was necessary to make new arrangements in order to appease the Isambert group. Durand left the Public Instruction.

"He was, during twenty minutes, Minister of War; he had the Post-Office and Telegraphs three-quarters of an hour; he was Minister of Foreign Affairs at a quarter to seven.

"Finally, at seven o'clock, M. Peytral convoked him once again and said to him:

"'My dear colleague, I appeal in this moment to all your republican energy and to your patriotic disinterestedness. My cabinet is constituted. You are no longer a member of it.'

"'Good,' replied Durand, coldly. 'I hereby give notice of my intention to interpellate the government.'"

The second of these contemporary documents professes to relate actual facts. "We announced, the other day, that the ex-deputy Fabérot, not re-elected at the late elections, had philosophically resumed his former occupation of journeyman hatter.

"Another victim of universal suffrage, the barber Chauvin, has also returned to his dear razors. Is it quite certain, moreover, that he ever left them, even in the Chamber of Deputies?

"However this may be, he has just reopened his shop. Only, M. Chauvin has abandoned his former quarter of the Rue des Archives, and has established himself in Passage Tivoli, near the Gare Saint-Lazare, where, in the most democratic fashion, he will shave you for twenty centimes and cut your hair for six sous.

"This melancholy return to former surroundings has, moreover, nothing in it but what is very honorable,—only, it is necessary that the customers should be notified.

"Which we hereby do."

The great question of the army, of its relations with the civil authority and of the apparent hopelessness of any attempt to reconcile its maintenance and effectiveness with the democratic evolution of the age,—never a more burning question in France than at the present day,—scarcely admits of any of these pleasantries. But seldom have the amenities of discussion more completely disappeared than in the polemics now raging over the trial for treason of an officer of the general staff. One of the more recent of these dispassionate studies of the military problem appears in an article by M. Sully-Prudhomme in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and the failure of his attempt to solve the antinomy is striking. "To say, with Renan," he prefaces, "that 'war is essentially a thing of the ancien régime,' is to say that it is not of the essence of the new one; and as formerly war would be considered as destitute of any cause in the case where there were no enemies, that is equivalent to supposing that to-day no people have enemies. Such an assertion assuredly does not express Renan's meaning. He intended to say, doubtless, that in our day the use of force to decide international conflicts is in contradiction with the moral principles professed by civilized nations; in other terms, that, logically, they should never have enemies.

"Would to God that it were so! Unfortunately, we know only too well that in reality this is not so. Therefore, no people, having a due regard for their preservation and their independence, can reasonably diminish their military forces, nor even risk diminishing them, unless other peoples do as much. For any one who has informed himself in this respect as to the dispositions of the greater number of them, this simple remark will suffice to condemn in any one of them any attempt at individual reform in its military laws in any manner tending to compromise its security in the midst of the others."

But he finds, very naturally, that all the qualities of the military spirit, and those conducive to military power, are becoming "more and more incompatible with the inclinations of the individual, and contrary to the expansion of his intellectual and impassioned life." None of the methods proposed to diminish this incompatibility—civilizing war by an attempt to reduce its horrors, modifying the rigors of discipline, specializing and restricting the military service—are available; the last two, indeed, are directly at variance with the necessities of the actual situation. For the acceptance thus rendered necessary of this survival of the past, this persistence of war and all its consequences, he finds that the intelligence may recognize the fact that to place itself under the direction of those more competent is not necessarily to abdicate, that an unprejudiced examination will demonstrate the necessity of military obedience. For the soul, for the spiritual qualities, he finds nothing in the progress of modern ideas "to aid in the perfecting of the instruments and the apprenticeship of death." The blind fanaticism of the Mohammedans, the unquestioning faith of the early Christians, which faced extinction even with joy, have been replaced among modern men by sceptical, questioning, and even material philosophies which "offer us really nothing which is worthy a sincere faith in a dream, in a survival eternal and heavenly." So true is this, that, were he able, by enlightening him, to detach a Breton conscript from his blind faith which enables him to die bravely for the honor of the country, he would not do so, he would "prefer to betray philosophy." "A ridiculous compromise, perhaps, but certainly less disastrous than a defeat. This is one of the ironical inconsequences to which war condemns us, and for which it alone is responsible. Whilst waiting for its suppression, let us resign ourselves to submit to it, and let us endeavor to make the best of its violences; it imposes upon us at least the cultivation of the virile virtues, the esteem of a labor which does not enrich, and which places us in a position to interrogate very closely, willingly or unwillingly, the profundity of the tomb."

Another writer, who concerns himself more exclusively with military matters, M. Abel Veuglaire, arrives at an equally depressing conclusion. He, too, finds nothing to quite replace the old-time qualities which fed the military spirit. The soldier of the last century, under the rod of his corporal, did not rebel because he had been made an artificial being, brutalized, deprived of all those sentiments which, if they could excite enthusiasm, could also produce discouragement. In him, the desire for wine and pillage, the eagerness for quarrel, the sentiment of a point of honor, were carefully substituted for the family affections and the consciousness of moral duties. The promise of plunder and the fear of the gallows, a certain pride in his corps or his regiment, a certain esprit cocardier, made of him a soldier. But the moral worth of the modern recruit is derived from his family or from his school. "Very scarce, indeed, are those whom the regiment transforms. Scarcer still are those whom it will transform in the future. We are dupes of an illusion. We see the young men leave the military service very different from what they were when they entered it. We exclaim that the discipline is wholesome, that the air of the barracks is vivifying, that the regiment is a school of moral tendencies at the same time that it is a sanitary establishment. Ah, no!… I do not believe, in fact, that the moral qualities, that the civic virtues, are acquired in the caserne. If they exist in a condition more or less latent in the recruit when he arrives, they may be developed in him through the care of the officers, as, moreover, they run the risk of shrivelling up if their cultivation is neglected. But the result of this tardy education is always sufficiently meagre. The evil natures, the vicious characters, accentuate their defects, instead of attenuating them, under the compression of discipline. It is not strong enough to master the souls rebellious at the bottom. It chastises misconduct; it has no authority over thought.... Therefore, it would be logical to diminish the duration of the military service strictly to the minimum necessary to learn the trade."

And in summing up, after describing the "moral degradation" of the old soldiers, he concludes: "Imagine what, in our modern society, can be a soldier who re-enlists. He is a man who definitely bids adieu to family affections, who desires simply a small, tranquil existence, regular, well secured. This man is most decidedly a mediocre. Perhaps he may render some service to the bleus; but he cannot be offered to them as a model nor as a guide."

It is to be said, however, that not all the pictures drawn of this life in the caserne are as gloomy as these. On this subject there is indeed abundant information. Notwithstanding the respectable number of exceptions provided by the more or less merciful various laws of conscription,—the eldest of a family of orphans, the only brother of six sisters, the eldest of a family of seven children, the elder of two brothers drawn at one time or the younger brother of one actually doing service,—the experience of the class of the bleus, as the raw recruits are called, is sufficiently common among French citizens of very varying classes of society. Naturally, the gentlemen find this very democratic experience more trying than do the peasants and the bumpkins. Every visitor to Paris who has passed the inoffensive looking and very youthful infantry sentinels on duty, or seen their comrades crowding in the open windows of the great, bare barracks, has experienced some desire to know something of the interior life of these great military warehouses. Our illustrations may serve to suggest many of the more picturesque and, so to speak, domestic of these minor incidents, and one of the most cheerful of the scribes who have participated in them, M. Henri de Noussanne, can give us further information. His experience lay in the daily life of an infantry soldier, but the general lines are the same for all arms of the service.

Unfortunately, to begin with, as there is always a possibility of war with the return of the swallows, the usage has been established of summoning to the colors the neophytes in the month of November. The rigors of the wintry season are thus added to those inherent in the rudiments of military discipline. Consequently, and as the State provides her budding warriors with but one handkerchief, two pairs of gloves, and no stockings, M. de Noussanne earnestly counsels the mothers and sisters to furnish these young men with thick underclothing and warm woollen stockings. Behold them finally enrolled in "the grand class, the real class, the most sympathetic of classes, that of the bleus," parading the streets, escorted by parents and relatives in tears and by joyous and unsympathetic urchins! At the sight of the great caserne which yawns to swallow them, their respect for authority becomes definite and concrete; otherwise, their ideas are like their marching, much bewildered. Once entered, the anciens take them in hand, tutoying them fraternally: "Thou, thou art my bleu.... Don't be afraid.... No one will mistouffle thee.... I will fix thy affairs." They even show them maternally how best to tuck themselves in their narrow beds; and the regulations no longer permit hazing of any kind. So that the first night is apt to be one of the repose that follows various and conflicting emotions.

The réveil sounds at six o'clock. The great operation of shedding citizens' garments and assuming the uniform is at hand, and is one of the most amusing in the life of the caserne. The captain of the company oversees it with the utmost care. "He has to verify everything, see everything. In the exact terms of the regulations, he is the father of the company. His rôle is of capital importance. No detail of the instruction, of the tenue, of the discipline, should escape him. Two hundred men are confided to his care, for whom he is responsible to the colonel and the chef de bataillon, who, to reward or to punish, govern themselves by his notes. At every moment he is called upon to dispense justice, for in a family of two hundred members the conflicts are frequent. He can inflict only two weeks in the salle de police, or a week in prison, but his decrees are brought to the knowledge of the superior authority, which takes upon itself to increase their severity.

"The captain is not only a judge, a father, an instructor, he is also an administrator. To his paternal duties are added maternal ones. The nourishment, the clothing, and the care of the men depend upon him. Certain funds are allowed him which he uses at his discretion. The material and moral comfort of a company depend absolutely upon the skill and the character of its captain, who is seconded in his delicate functions by the lieutenant, the sous-lieutenant, the sous-officiers, and the corporals. The perfectionnement of the whole of this organization concerns him. The captain is, in a word, the keystone of the vault of the military edifice. Everything depends upon him. It is not then surprising that the smallest details interest him. It is specially on the occasion of the arrival of the bleus that he multiplies himself.

"I was very much surprised, on arriving at the regiment, at the attention which the commander of the company gave to the selection of the shoes. At every moment he could be heard exclaiming;

"'Chaussez-vous large, chaussez-vous long [get your shoes long and wide]!'

"When we were shod, he passed us in review, causing all our foot-gear to be felt by a sergeant kneeling to assure himself that they were of a sufficient length, and this is the little speech with which he gratified us:

"'My children, there are no good soldiers without good shoes. All the strength of Samson lay in his hair, all the strength of the foot-soldier is in his shoes. Never forget my principle: Chaussez-vous large, chaussez-vous long!… Rompez!'"

Rompez signifies: Be off! scatter! clear out!

Then comes the initiation into the mysteries of the paquetage, the arrangement of the soldier's few effects, the regulation method of folding and disposing and hanging up, each on its peculiar hook. One of the first lessons in the Code militaire is that of the salute, and the language of the corporals is energetic in proportion to the dulness of the recruit. "Salute in three times.... Attention, Fouillon, listen to what I am saying to you!… You throw out the right arm, the hand flat, open, and the fingers together.—Un! … Mark time, animal!" (Fouillon begins again; it is better, the corporal continues): "You carry the hand up straight as high as the button on the right side of the peak of your cap.—Deux!" (Here, a horrible roar): "Lift your elbow!…" (Fouillon, terrified, menaces the sky with an obedient elbow.) "Trois: you turn your head toward the superior officer whom you are saluting and throw the hand back quickly into position six paces after having passed him.—Trois! … Go, now, and defile before the lieutenant and try a little to commence the salute six paces in advance, without marching as if you had a broomstick in your back!"

One of the favorite of the many jokes on the new recruit turns on the zeal with which, after he has mastered this lesson, he salutes everything in the street that has the slightest appearance of an officer, even the sergents de ville and the many cocked hats worn by municipal officials of various grades. There are various minute regulations concerning this ceremony, it is always obligatory, but there is a certain amount of elasticity provided to prevent its becoming absurd, as in the case where the soldier encounters his officer every few minutes, in a gallery of a museum, etc.

The young recruit is strongly advised not to let the pleasures of his first sortie in the streets in all the splendor of his new uniform (duly arranged with the regulation folds in the back by his particular ancien) tempt him to prolong this promenade unduly. "Above all, no frasques! One is young, and the sunny Sunday jacket sets a man off admirably. Love beckons.... Take care! take care! The recall is sounded. It is necessary to return at a double-quick. Ten minutes late, that is four days in the boîte. If passion carries thee away, my poor Pitou, and if, with thy pays Dumanet, thou 'jumpest the wall' after recall, that will be la grosse. It is not gay, my friend, la grosse. A demi-fourniture, two soups, 'one of which without meat' and, for an aperative and digestive, the peloton de chasse, three hours in the morning, three hours in the afternoon, the knapsack charged according to the regulations. B-r-r-r!

"Believe me, youth, no fredaines.... Thou wilt be caught!"

Other writers who might be cited, more definite and unsparing in their details, give unquotable descriptions of the nights in the chambrée, or great dormitories, the uncouth associates, the language, the manners, the practical jokes, the quarrels, the hideous lack of ventilation at night and the rancid odor of so many imperfectly washed bodies, cheap tobacco, and soiled linen. Even M. de Noussanne is obliged to omit the termination of one of his recitals of the amusements of the caserne: "No; it is better to slide over this passage. The nude is difficult to paint. This is a pity; it plays a very important rôle in the facetiousness of the caserne. Would you have another example?

"The evening call has sounded; the sous-officiers are at mess or outside, and the men are preparing to go to sleep. All at once, charivari in the adjoining chambrée! The door opens, and two lapins, clothed only in a sack … on the back, enter, rifle in hand, fixed bayonet, and in this picturesque costume parade round the room, leaping, cavorting, howling, whilst their comrades roll in delicious enjoyment of the joke." And he adds: "You amuse yourself the best way you can in the regiment; for, it is only justice to say for it, the military authority does nothing to render the caserne agreeable to the soldier.

"Whenever there is an officer who, having a care for the private comfort of his men, looks after them outside of the service regulations and brings himself in contact with them, he very quickly becomes a target for the jests of his obliging little comrades who leave the club of the Caricature or the Annuaire only to go and swing censers before 'Madame la Présidente,' who has a mania for match-making.

"Even if this officer be the commander of a corps d'armée, the whole of France will badger him if he lays himself open ever so little to criticism. Nevertheless, if it be true that everything is becoming ameliorated and humanized, what is there surprising in the supposition that the army should become less rude, since it declares itself better instructed? But no: routine rules, and no minister concerns himself to enliven the life in the caserne.

"How simple it would be to put at the disposition of the men games of skittles, of bowls, of crocket, to organize in bad weather amusing and instructive entertainments with magic-lantern slides and dramatic spectacles. Actors, musicians, singers, they are all to be had.... But it is the business of the officers to organize everything, to conduct everything. Now, our officers think their duties ended when, at five o'clock, they leave the caserne."

Fortunately, correspondence is not forbidden, and the arrival of the mail from home is always a great event. It is Saturday evening in the chambrée, and Pitou has arrived at the end of the week without a reprimand. His heart feels the need of expansion, and he is laboriously writing out a letter to his betrothed, down in the country. "The sweat stands on his forehead.... It is, perhaps, his method of showing tenderness, for he is greatly moved. I watch him out of the corner of my eye, and can see that his heart has returned to the paternal dwelling in the province, in the familiar chamber, where his promise, Françoise, has come to spend the evening, and says to herself as she knits:

"'At this moment, what is he doing, my Pierre?'

"He is writing to thee, my poor Françoise; he has commenced a second letter, on beautiful lace paper ornamented with an immense rose, arranged like a transformation scene in a theatrical spectacle. When you unfold the sheet, the flower blooms out. It is a small prodigy of ingenuity, of open-work, and of coloration. This marvel resembles a symbolic cabbage; you look to see issue from it an infant newly born.

"But Pitou ceases writing and looks toward me with anguish. What has happened to him? Finally, confiding, he comes to a decision, and, in a low voice:

"'I say, thou, embaume, how dost thou write that?'