DESCRIPTIVE PORTRAITURE 
 
 EUROPE 
 
 IN STORM AND CALM 
 
 TWENTY YEARS' EXPERIENCES AND REMINISCENCES 
 OF AN AMERICAN JOURNALIST 
 
 SKETCHES AND RECORDS OF .VOTED EVENTS, CELEBRATED PERSONS AND 
 
 PLACES, NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS IN FRAA UN, 
 
 GERMANY, GREAT BRITAIN, HOLLAND, BELGIUM, UISTRIA, 
 
 IIUXGA R J ', K< 1UMA NI. 1 , 77 'RKE I -IN-ECIRl 1PE, 
 
 SWITZERLAND, AXD ITALY 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD KING 
 
 AUTHOR OP "TUB GREAT SOUTH," "FRENCH POLITICAL LEADERS," " ECHOHS PROM THE ORIENT. 
 
 ETC., ETC 
 
 O-uer One 77 ,■ Work 
 
 By FELIX RE( 1AMEY, 
 And others 
 Bl J W] LLS < II WII'M N , Y,-;,. York 
 
 PUBLISHJ l> BY 
 
 C. A. NICHOLS & COMPANY 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, Mass 
 1S85 
 

 <\S 
 
 
 
 
 Copyright, 18S5. 
 Bx C. A. NICHOLS & CO. 
 
 All right* reserved. 
 
 Arnr. 
 
 ii?, 13, 1929 
 
->3* 
 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 IF the courteous reader will lake the trouble to pass in review bis memo- 
 ries of 1867 he will probably discover that it was at that period that 
 the current of travel from America to Europe assumed large proportions, 
 and that a consequent increase of interest in European affairs was felt l>y the 
 whole American public. Ep to the completion of the Atlantic cable that 
 public had but spasmodic tits of curiosity as to events beyond the seas, and 
 it had been so passionately absorbed in the strengthening and asserting of its 
 own national life in the midst of the throes of the great civil war, that it 
 thought of Europe only as a stately pleasure-ground, filled with ancient 
 castles, rivers fringed with picturesque ruins, and sovereigns who disposed, 
 pretty much at their will, of the lives of soldiers who occasionally fought 
 each other amid much pomp and pageantry. The amateur student, the man 
 of letters, the painter, and the millionaire, who had lived for a tew years in 
 Madrid, or Paris, or London, seemed to acquire in the eyes of their fellow- 
 townsmen, when they returned, an added romantic charm, from the fact 
 that they had been to Europe. Conscientious tourists have, perhaps, been 
 less numerous and less painstaking in their observation in the past few years 
 than in the days before 1830 or l<S4<s, when those who travelled at all 
 travelled by packet and by stage-coach, and enlivened the accounts of their 
 experiences with many references to their perils on flood and field, and their 
 vicissitudes by nights in country inns. But after the cable was hud, and 
 the panorama of Europe's events passed under the daily notice of the most 
 omnivorous readers in the world, there was an annual rush to Europe, and 
 he or she who had not been across seas felt a certain lack in education which 
 it was a trifle humiliating to admit. 
 
 It seemed, also, to those who had been to Europe to study the movements 
 of its varied populations, or to witness the strange march of its variegated 
 history, as if the Old World had entered upon a new process of evolution; 
 
vi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 whereas it was merely jogging along as before : only now the events which 
 had been Imt vaguely heard of, or told of long after they hud transpired, were 
 al once recited for the benefit of Americans with a minuteness and attention 
 to detail which were not accorded them even in the countries where they took 
 place. The cable made the appetite for Old-AVorld news so keen that the 
 American public presently found itself better informed as to what was occur- 
 ring in Paris - even as to the tittle-tattle of social circles — than about- the 
 same class of affairs orsjossip in New York or Philadelphia. Whole colonies 
 of newly enriched Americans settled in London, in Paris, in Vienna, and in 
 all the cities which, by their historic prestige or by their local charm, 
 exercised powerful attraction upon those who had large means at their 
 command. The American, with his open purse and genial manners, took 
 the place in the respect of the foreign landlord and shopkeeper which was 
 so long held by the English nobleman, with his post-chaise and his passion 
 for St. Julien. Europe was pleased with its new visitors, flattered at. their 
 undisguised delight, and, while it now and then laughed at their easy atti- 
 tude and their extreme frankness, it welcomed them as one always wel- 
 comes those who bring profit in their train. 
 
 At this same period, when the American had awakened or renewed his 
 interest in the parent lands from which his composite nationality had sprung, 
 the Old World was entering upon a season of terrible storm, interspersed, it 
 is true, with fitful calm, but storm quickly recurrent, violent, and sweeping 
 in its results. Europe had apparently settled down, after the wars of 1854- 
 55, and of 1859, to uninterrupted enjoyment of the rest which the "party 
 of order," in all the Continental countries, had endeavored to inaugurate 
 after 1848. 
 
 The era of conferences and expositions seemed almost to indicate! 
 the relinquishment of the old policy of plunder, partition, and political 
 gambling. Secular enemies protested their future eternity of friendship; 
 empires talked of founding themselves upon peace: small nations smiled 
 in their fancied security; and the "balance of power'" was still believed 
 in even by so clever a man as M. Thiers. 
 
 lhit suddenly the face of the European world was changed. The. great 
 movement of unification -the sublime work of this last half of the nine- 
 teenth century — was begun in earnest. Out of the sands of Brandenburg 
 stepped the uniliers of Germany; Austria lost her foothold in Italy, her 
 
INTRODUCTION. VII 
 
 supreme influence in the Germanic Stales; Sadowa was fought ; the balance 
 of power was almost a forgotten illusion ; the policy of compensation so long 
 talked of was scattered to the winds; the military strength of France was 
 broken; the English in their insular fortress trembled lest their own pecu- 
 liar position might be changed; llie German Emperor was crowned in 
 Versailles ; the kingdom of Italy took back: its rightful heritage of Rome ; the 
 temporal power of the Pope was broken; the Republic and its attendant 
 reforms were declared in France and Spain; and the Powers of the North 
 appeared no longer shadowy, but gigantic and imposing real forms, 
 asserting with emphasis and might their future supremacy. England. 
 with her vast domain scattered through the seas, seemed happily free 
 from the entanglements of politics upon the Continent, and found consola- 
 tion in the development of her so-called Imperial policy, waiting an early 
 opportunity of asserting her equality with these new masters of the 
 European situation. The great storm of the war of 1870—71, in which 
 the French empire and the last vestiges of monarchy in France disappeared : 
 the triumphs and the exactions of the Germans; the swiff uprising to im- 
 portance of the Italians, — were things which upset all European calculations. 
 The forward movement lor the division into large States — movement so 
 long checked by consummate statesmen, — had begun in earnest, and was 
 to be carried on with but trifling interruption henceforward. Then came 
 the enormous cataclysm of (he Commune, — the final and terrible effort of 
 Socialism on the soil of France; after which the gaunt spectre took up her 
 northward march, soon to terrify (he Germans, flushed with their victories. 
 and the Russians busy with their ambitious plans for conquest in Europe 
 and Asia. After this there was a lull, soon succeeded by another storm, — 
 the great convulsion out of which were horn new kingdoms, new nations 
 in South-Eastern Europe ; and then it was that England, seeing her oppor- 
 tunity, — perhaps using it with hesitation and too feebly, yet seeing and 
 seizing it, — maintained the place which she might have lost. The ashes 
 of national feeling in the scattered States in the South-East, which had 
 so long been tributary to the Turk, were fanned into flames. The work 
 of revolt was quick and hardy. The sympathy of England Was keen, far- 
 reaching, strong. There was a race between Russia and Great Britain for 
 mastery and prestige in the Balkan peninsula. The revolution in I he 
 Herzegovina and in Bosnia, the successful war in Servia, the exposure of 
 
VUl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the outrages in Bulgaria, were followed by the quick descent of a powerful 
 army from the North. The great Russo-Turkish war of 1877 was begun; 
 and (hen il was seen that the Eastern Question, which bad been so long 
 derided as an antique fossil, to be looked at, taken to pieces now and 
 again, and relegated to the comfortable obscurity where it was thought to 
 belong, was thenceforth a vital, all-important factor in European polities. 
 The hand of England was raised to prevent the complete triumph of the 
 conquering Russians ; Constantinople was saved from the invader; but both 
 those who wished to invade it and those who desired to protect it recognized 
 that its fate rnusl soon be sealed. Bulgaria, so long prostrate, rose to a 
 principality; Roumania and Servia became kingdoms; Lloumelia, almost a. 
 Russian province. Greece sprang to arms, and took Thessaly from the Turks. 
 The Emperors of the North already hinted at an alliance with the mysterious 
 empire, whose name means the Empire of the East, "Austria Lifelix," — 
 one day, perhaps, to be " Fortunate Austria ; " and the Latin Slates, alarmed, 
 disgusted, and amazed, felt constrained to spend their enemy upon internal 
 reforms and improvements. Beaconstield had shown a bold front at the 
 Berlin Congress, but he passed away, and the milder demeanor of Gladstone 
 left but little fear in the minds .it' the rulers of the North that their prestige 
 would lie wrested from them by any of those alliances once so easily made 
 and so easily broken. 
 
 The changes thus achieved in a few short years : the unification of two 
 great sets of States in Italy and Germany ; reduction to the second plan, as 
 the theatrical architects say, of France and Austria; the placing in doubt of 
 the exact status of England in relation to general European affairs; the 
 menace conveyed to the small European States like Belgium, Holland, 
 Switzerland, and others, which had long fancied themselves secure; the up- 
 rising of new States, and the release from barbarous despotism of all South- 
 Eastern Europe, soon to be seamed with through lines of rail, and by the 
 opening up of its vast resources to exercise new influence on European com- 
 merce; the secure and patient progress of Great Britain towards those re- 
 forms which to-day even the highest in rank other privileged classes admit 
 as necessary and just, — these, with their attendant weight of romantic, 
 picturesque, and pathetic occurrences, have tilled full with the wonderful 
 and the thrilling a period of half a. generation, some episodes from which the 
 author has embodied in his humble book. For, without special assumption 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 of humility, it would ill become him to assume any other motive, in present- 
 ing the following pages, than that of reviewing, here amply, there cursorily, — 
 now with the confidence horn of personal knowledge, now with the hesita- 
 tion which accompanies hearsay, — this splendid succession of events, large 
 and little, from 1867 to the present time. 
 
 So he, without further parley, invites the reader to witness with him the 
 downfall of the Second French Empire; the pageants of the great Exposi- 
 tion ; to look in at a sovereign's palace or an Empress's boudoir; assist at a 
 diplomatic intrigue or the production of a famous opera-boufle ; to be a guest 
 at a royal wedding or a bull-tight: get under fire at a barricade ; "do" a 
 revolution: follow the track of contending armies and be incarcerated as a 
 spy; see the declaration of a Republic and the execution of a noted criminal; 
 be besieged and besieger: help at the coronation of an Emperor and at the 
 flight of an Empress : go through from beginning to end the greatest and 
 most sanguinary insurrection of modern times; peep in on busy England, — 
 on its sports, its industries, its politics; see a Passion Play; be mobbed at an 
 Irish National Land League meeting; go down across the fields and through 
 the defiles of Bulgaria to the Balkans; talk of the Sultan and the Emperor 
 of Austria : see Bismarck at home ami abroad, on horseback and in his 
 study; eat roasted mutton in an insurgent camp with knives which have but 
 lately served to kill Turks : and, finally, to take a hasty glance at the great 
 colonial game on which all European Powers have entered in the last tew 
 years. 
 
 If the reader finds here and there too much of storm, let him turn to the 
 pages in which is reflected some little of that serenity and repose for which 
 European society is so much to be envied. If he will have it that the verdict 
 on certain men who stood high, and dazzled while they stood, is too severe, 
 let him reflect thai the author but expresses the opinion which has come to 
 he that of the majority in Europe; for there is no doubt that, in the 
 future, European majorities will be democratic, non-Imperial, progressive; 
 and it cannot be denied that, as in Vienna a new and beautiful capital has 
 been built like a ring round an ancient, black, and grimy town, so, spring- 
 ing up all round European tradition and formula are the light and bright 
 edifices of modern institutions. If Europe fights so much, she does not tight 
 in vain. Each period of storm and thunder makes the sky clearer, the 
 spectacle on the horizon more impressive, more beautiful. 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 IN this volume the author lias endeavored to embody the results of a 
 lengthy term of special correspondence in Europe, during which time 
 he has contributed letters and articles upon the political and general sit- 
 uation. During a large part of the epoch covered by the narrative in 
 this volume, the author enjoyed exceptional opportunities for observing 
 the conduct of affairs in the various European countries of which he lias 
 ventured to treat, and lias endeavored impartially and faithfully to de- 
 scribe events which are among the most important of the century. 
 
 In the task of this portrayal he has been aided by the talent and 
 skill of M. Felix Regamey, a distinguished Parisian illustrator, who has 
 contributed more than one hundred original sketches to the work; and 
 to the pencil of Mr. J. Wells Champney, well known in the artistic 
 world. 
 
 It would he impossible in the limits of a single volume to describe, 
 even in the simplest fashion, all the great events which have taken place 
 in Europe from liSGT to the present time. The author has contented 
 himself with embodying in his narrative those with which he was most 
 familiar; and he trusts that the public will acquit him of any attempt 
 to be either profound or sensational. He has tried to tell a simple storv 
 which may afford pleasure and profit to the general reader. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Volcanic Shimmer. — Paris in 1867. — The Second Empire at the Height of its Glory. 
 
 — The Crowning of the Edifice. — The Festival of Peace. — The Prophecy of Evil. — 
 Napoleon Receives Distinguished Guests. — Attempted Assassination of Alexander 
 
 II. — The Sultan in Paris. — The Luxembourg Panic. — The Hidden Forces at Work, 21 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Imperial Court at Compiegne. — An Historic City. — Luxury and Splendor. — Napoleon 
 III.'s Courtship. — The Countess of Montijo. — What an Imperial Hunting-Party Cost. 
 
 — Aping the First Empire. — The Imperial Family. — Parvenus and Princes. — The 
 Programme of the Season at Compiegne. — How the Guests were Received. — The Im- 
 perial Theatre. — What the People Paid for. — Prince Napoleon. — Princess Clothilde, 31 
 
 CHAPTER IIP 
 
 What was the Second Empire? — How was it Created? — The Perjury of the Prince Presi- 
 dent. — The Plebiscite. — The Massacres of December. — General Changarnier, and 
 his Fidelity to his Country. — The Protest of the Deputies. — Struggle of the Citizens. 
 
 — The Reign of Terror. — The Imperial Eagle. — A Period of Absolute Repression . 40 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Imperial Reforms Come Too Late. — Uprising of the Internationale. — The Com- 
 mune Foreshadowed . 4!) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Events in Spain. — The Outcropping of Revolution. — R6le of the Internationale. ■ — Brief 
 Review of Spanish Politics. — Dona Isabel. — Prim and Serrano. — A Journey 
 through the North of Spain. — Biarritz and San Sebastian. — A Wonderful Kail- 
 way. — The Approach to the Escurial. — An Impressive Edifice. — Looking at a Dead 
 Monarch f>5 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 In Revolution Time. — Saragossa. — A Quaint Old Spanish City. — The Protest against the 
 Reestablishment of Monarchy. — A Vigorous Fight. — The Church of the Virgin 
 Del Pilar. — On the Way to Valencia. — Down to the Mediterranean. — Alicante. — The 
 Grao. — Getting into Valencia before the Bombardment. — An Adventurous Prome- 
 nade. — Crossing the Streets under Fire. — A Barricaded Hotel. — Street Fighting in 
 Earnest. — Republicans and Regulars C4 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Nine Days' Fightin Valencia. — Alamenos and the. Bombardment. — The Insurgents 
 and their Tactics. — Departure of the Consuls. — Picturesque and Romantic Episode. 
 — An Interrupted Breakfast. — Meeting of the Brothers. —The Endol the Struggle. — 
 Scenes iii the Market-place. — In the Cathedral after the Battle. — Castelar and his 
 Endeavors for Liberty. — Spanish Politics since 1869. — Spanish Characteristics. — The 
 Religious Passion Plays. — The Sublime and the Ridiculous in Religion ... 72 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Ten Years After. — The Kingship Reestablished in Spain. — Going to a Royal Wedding. — 
 The French Gate of the Sea. — Marseilles. — Reminiscences of the Pestilence. — 
 Napoleon III. and Marseilles. — Barcelona. — The Catalonian People. — From l!ar- 
 celona to Valencia. — A Retrospect. -A Spanish Bishop. — Tortosa. — In the 
 Beautiful South. — In the Market-place of Valencia. — Out of the World into 
 Church 81 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Madrid and its Gloom. — The Royal Wedding in 1879. — Queen Christina and King 
 Alfonso. — The Puerta del Sol. — The Church of the Atocha. — Memories of Dona 
 Isabel. — Royal Rejoicings. — An Interview with Castelar. — Gambetta and Castelar 
 Compared ............... 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Bull-Fight in Madrid before the King and Queen. — Eight Bulls Slaughtered. — A 
 Strange Sport. — Excitement of the Populace. — The Matador. — Duels between 
 Men and Beasts 101 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The Famous Museum in Madrid. — The Palace of the Cortes. — Noted Tapestries. — A 
 Visit to Toledo. — The Spanish Cloak and its Character. — A Fonda. — Beggars. — 
 The Grotto of Hercules. — The Alcazar. — In the Ancient Church .... Ill 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Dead Celebrities. — Dm Alvaro de Luna and bis Famous Chapel in Toledo. — The Ancient 
 Gates. — The Cloister of San Juan de Los Reyes. — Cordova. — The Mezquita. — A 
 Relic of the Moors.— The Plain of Seville. —The Girahla. — The Cathedral. — The 
 Gardens of the Alcazar. — The Duke of Montpensier 121 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The French Empire in 1869. — Subterranean Throes. — Manifestations. — The Assassina- 
 tion of Victor Noir. — Pierre Bonaparte. — The RSle of Rochefort. — Two Hundred 
 and Fifty Thousand Workmen singing the .Marseillaise. — The Imperial Press Law, 132 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Emperor and his Speeches from the Throne. — Opening Day of the Corps Ligis- 
 latif. — The Opposition. — Sketches of the Leading Members. — M.Thiers and his 
 Attitude towards the Second Empire. — The Splendor of his Irony. — His Eloquence 
 Characterized. — Berryer, Lanjuinais, Jules Simon, and Jules Ferry. — Roehefort 
 and his Yellow Gloves ............. I 10 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Epoch of Unification. — Danger to France from the National Growth in Italy and Ger- 
 many. — Napoleon III. and his Policy of Greed. — How He was Duped by the 
 Northern Powers. — The King of Prussia at Compiegne. — The Coronation March. — 
 Bismarck in Paris. — The Luxembourg Affair. — Benedetti and Bismarck. — The 
 Downfall of the Policy of Compensation . . . . . . . . .148 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Prcvost-Paradol and his Fatal Error. — A Journalist who Yielded to the Seductions of the 
 Empire. — The Work which he had Done against Imperialism. — Danger of Riots in 
 1870. — The Execution of Troppmann. — An Experience of the Secret Police. — Gus- 
 tavo Flourens. — The Arrest of Roehefort. — Flourens and his Insurrection . . 156 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The Intrigue of Marshal Prim and Bismarck. — The Events which Led to the Declaration 
 of War. — The Protest, of M. Thiers. — Personal Reminiscences of the Excitement in 
 Paris. — Anecdotes of the Unreadiness of the Second Empire. — General Ducrot and 
 his Troubles in Strasbourg. — The < lorruption and Incapacity of the French Quarter- 
 master's Department. — No Rations. — No Ammunition ...... 1G5 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Departure of the Emperor for the War. — Volcanic Throes Renewed. — Movements of the 
 Internationale. — The German Workingmen's Address. — The Imperial Court at Blois 
 
 — Foreshadowing of the Commune. — M. Rothan's Revelations. — Bismarck and his 
 Views of the War. — Alarm of the German People. — Fears of a French Invasion. 
 
 — Emile Ollivier's Account of the Manner in which Hostilities were Decided upon. — 
 M. Rothan and the Duke de Gramont. — The French Minister of War is Surprised. — 
 Marshal Le Boeuf's Deceptions .174 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The Race for the Rhine. — Von Moltke's Mysterious Journeys before the War. — Captain 
 Samuel's Telegram. — The German Advance. — Scenes along the Historic Stream. — 
 At Coblentz. — At Mayence. — The Road to Wiesbaden. — The Crown Prince at 
 Speyer. — In the Pfalz. — The Bavarian Troops. — Their Appearance. — The Fright 
 of the Inhabitants 182 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The Spectacle in the Palatinate. — A Visit to Landau. — The Saxon Troops on the March. 
 — A Night Drive. — Echoes from Weissenburg. — Through the Glades t" Kaiserslau- 
 tern. — Tie- Narrative of Strange Adventures which there befell us. — A Military 
 Prison. — Challenging a Denunciator. — Arrested a Second Time .... 190 
 
 CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 Germersheim. — The Khine lied. — Across the Frontier. — Weissenburg. — ( >n to Woerth. 
 — The Disaster to the French. — The German Descent of the Hill under Fire. — 
 Charge of General Bonnemain's Cuirassiers.- -'['lie Valley of Hell. — MacMahon's 
 Defeat. — The Horrors of the Retreat. — Frossard's Negligence. — Bazaine's Jealousy, 19fi 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The Gnat Battles in fnmt of ami around Metz. — Friederich Karl. — The Saiirbruck 
 Affair. — Folly and Incompetence. — The Brandenburg Cavalry. — The Field of 
 Rezonville. — Gravelotte. — Saint l'rivat. — .Mars La Tour ..... 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 French and German Rumors. — The Jaumont Quarries. — Truth about this Incident. — 
 The Wounded at Frankfort. — Serving in an Extempore Sanitary Corps. — Paris in 
 ( 'onfusion. — The Spy Scare. — I (angerous to Speak the Truth. — A New Ministry. — 
 Comte De Palikao. — Jules Favre's Campaign against the Falling Empire. —The 
 Excited Crowds. — The Empire Ends, as it began, in blood ..... 214 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The Declaration of the Republic. — Exciting Scenes on the Place de la Concorde and the 
 Boulevards. — Invasion of the Corps Ligislatif. — Gambetta Pronounces the Down- 
 fall of tie' Imperial Family. —The Procession to the Hotel de Ville. —The Flight of 
 the Empress ............... 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Sedan. — Tin- March to the Ardennes. — The Headstrong Palikao. — The Crown Prince 
 of Saxony's Army. — General De Failly at Beaumont. — The Retreat to Sedan. — 
 General De Wimpffen comes upon the Seine. — The Prussians Open Fire in front of 
 Sedan. — 1 lisaster to MacMahon. — Slaughtered by Invisible Enemies. — The Battle 
 at Bazeilles. — De Wimpffen's Forlorn Hope ........ 241 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 The Quarrel between Ducrot and De Wimpffen. — The Interview with the Conquerors. — 
 The Question of Alsatia liaised. — Divergence of < (pinion between Bismarck and Von 
 Moltke. — The French Council of War. — Napoleon's Departure from Sedan. — Na- 
 poleon as a Prisoner. — Bismarck's Interview with Him. — fiver the Battle-field. — 
 Singular Appearance of the 1 lead. — King William on the Field. — His Meeting with 
 Napoleon. — The M's in the Bonaparte History 2">1 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 A Solemn Situation. — Return of the Exiles. — The Spoils at the Tuileries. — Advance of 
 the Germans. — The Military Strength of the French Capital. — The Sixteenth Siege 
 of Paris. — Closing in. — Curious Sights in the Capital. — Gen. Trochu's Review. — 
 A Visit to Asnieres. — Prussian Prisoners. — The Fight at Chatillon. — The French 
 Retreat. — The Occupation of Versailles. — The Crown Prince of Prussia Visits the 
 Old Home of Louis XIV 261 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Enemies Face to Face. Jules Favre ami Bismarck at Ferrieres. — Personal Character- 
 istics of the German Chancellor. — His Notions about France. — A Portrait of Him 
 by Favre. — His Opinion of Napoleon III. — He Deceived Everybody. — The Crush- 
 ing Terms Demanded of France. — The Force of Caricatures. — M. Favre Considers 
 his Mission at an End 269 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 The Army of Strasbourg. — General Uhrich and the Fortress which he had to Defend. — 
 The Forts. — The ( lathedral. — Fire and Bombardment. — The Tyranny of the Mob. — 
 Immense Destruction. — Loss of one of the most Valuable Libraries in the World. — 
 German Siege Tactics. — The Spectacle after the Surrender 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Through the Conquered Country. — Strasbourg after its Trial. — Railway Journeys under 
 Prussian Military Rule. — Nancy. — The Bavarians. — Epernay. — The Story of 
 Pere Jean. — Getting up to Versailles. — The Voices of the Forts .... L's'.t 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 The Period of Hope. — Splendid Improvisation of Defense. — What Paris did under 
 Pressure. — The Forts and their Armament. — The Departure of Gambetta in a Bal- 
 loon. — Outcroppings of the Commune. — Fights outside the Walls of the Capital. — 
 The Defense of Chateaudun. — A Bright Page in French Military Annals. — A Panic 
 at Versailles. — Von Moltke saves his Papers. — German Preparations for Defense . .">(>(> 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 The Siege of Metz. — Its Tragedies and its Humors. — Steinmetz the Terrible. — Bazaine's 
 Curious Indecision. — The Guerilla Warfare around the Fortress. — The Poisoned 
 Wells Legend. — Starving the Citizens. — The Odor of Death. — General Changar- 
 nier's Mission 308 
 
 CHAPTER XXXin. 
 
 The Surrender of Metz. — The Suspicious Nature of Bazaine's Negotiations. — The En- 
 voy from the Fallen Imperialists. — The Affair of the Flags. — The Prisoners in Front 
 of Metz and in Camps in Germany . . . . . . . . . .316 
 
CO X TENTS. 
 
 CHAPTKU XXXI Y 
 
 The Desperate Battles at Le Bourget. — Remarkable Valor of the French. — Episodes of 
 the Defense. — The Charge of the Marines. — Thiers and Bismarck. — The Insurrec- 
 tion of the 31st of October. — Brilliant Conduct of Jules Ferry . . . . . 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 Life at Head-quarters. — The Parades on the Place d'Armes. — Von Moltke in Versailles. 
 — King William's Daily Labors. — Bismarck's Habits. — The General Staff. — The 
 Hotel iles Reservoirs. — A Journey around Besieged Paris. — The Story of Mont 
 Valerien. — Maisons Larhtte in War Time. — Getting under Fire. — The French 
 and German Pickets. — In the Foremost Investment Lines. — Montmorency. — The 
 Fight near Enghien. — Saint Gratien. — The Day before Champigny .... 329 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 The Period of Despair. — The Final Effort. — The Great Sortie. — Champigny. — The 
 Fight at Villiers. — Ducrot and his Disaster. — Valorous Conduct of the French. — 
 The News of the Defeat of the Loire Army 338 
 
 CHAPTER XXXYII. 
 
 Panoramic View of the German Investment Lines. — Margency. — Gonesse. — Chelles. — 
 The Various Corps and their Appearance. — Pictures from Versailles during the Occu- 
 pation. — The Snow. — The Landwehrsmen. — The Christmas Festivities . . . :!+7 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 The Point of View. — The Campaign in the South. — The Phantom Mobile. — New Year's 
 1 lay. — Scene at the Palace. — The Bombardment of Paris. — Between the Fires. — In 
 Front of Fort Issy. — In the Batteries. — Coronation of King William of Prussia as 
 Emperor of Germany at Versailles .......... 356 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 Bourbaki and Belfort. — The Final Sortie of the French. — Montretout. — The Panic in 
 
 Versailles. — The Treaty for Peace. — The End of the Siege of Paris . . . . 3(i(i 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 Personal Reminiscences of the Close of the Siege. — The "Neutral Zone." — Wonders 
 and Comicalities. -Through the Park at St. Cloud. — The Crown Prince's Redoubt. 
 — Starving Parisians. — The Hungry Faces. — A Hundred People following a Hare . 376 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 A Great Historic Occasion. — The Assembly at Bordeaux. — Thiers in his New R6le. — A 
 
 Political Tragedy in the Theatre de la Comedie. — The Protest of the Alsatians. — 
 The Final Impeachment of the Empire. — A Strange Scene. — Louis Blanc, Victor 
 Hugo, and the Other Exiles. — The Votes for Peace. — A Stern Renunciation. — The 
 Mayor of Strasbourg Dies of a Broken Heart ........ 384 
 
CONTEXTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 Garibaldi and his Role. — New Italy. — The Upgrowth of her Nationality- — Causes that 
 Hindered it and ( onduced to it. — The Influence of Napoleon III. — His Fatal Mistake 
 in Counselling the Alliance of Prussia and Italy. — Downfall of the Old French 
 Monarchical Policy. — The Hesitation of France. — Occupation of Rome by the Italian 
 Government. — The Pontifical Zouaves. ......... 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 The Great Pier between the Mediterranean ami the Adriatic. — Brindisi and Naples. — 
 The Revival of Commerce. — Industrial Exhibitions. — Universal Progress. — The 
 Struggle between Church and State. — Pius IX. and Victor Emmanuel. — The High 
 Priest of European Conservatism. — The " Non Possumns "of the Vatican. — Familiar 
 Traits of Victor Emmanuel ............ 40:5 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 The Pope at the Vatican. — The Daily Life of Leo XIII. — Its Picturesque, Spiritual, and 
 Political Aspects. — The Continuance of the War between the Vatican and the Quiri- 
 nal. — The Aims and Ambitions of the Catholic Party in Italy. — Evolution or Revo- 
 lution. — Prophecies of the Catholics. — Unredeemed Italy . . . . . .ill 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 The German Paradeon Longchamps. — The Triumphal Entry into Paris. — Shadows of Civil 
 War. — Outbreak of " La Commune." — The Greatest Insurrection of Modern Times. 
 
 — Its Cause and its Hopes. — The Assassination of the Generals. — The First Fights. 
 
 — The Manifestation of the " Friends of Order" ....... 42") 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 Decrees of The Commune. — The First Important Battle. — ■ Flourens Loses his Life. — 
 Notes on Communal Journalism. — The Burning of the Guillotine. — Great Funerals. 
 
 — An Artillery Duel. — An Astonishing Spectacle ....... 437 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 Pictures of The Commune. — General Cluseret. — The Hostages.— A Visit to the Communal 
 Ministry of Public Instruction. — The Armistice. — Touching Incidents of the Fratri- 
 cidal Struggle 44:! 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 Dombrowski in the Saddle. — The Foreign Chiefs of the Commune. — General Cluseret. — 
 His Arrest. — Delescluze. — A Despairing Revolutionist. — Rossel. — Bergeret. — The 
 Declamatory Period. — The Combat at the Southern Forts. — A Hot Corner Under 
 Shell Fire. — The Women of the Commune . ........ 154 
 
 CHAPTER XL1X. 
 
 The Commune Suppresses the Conservative Journals. — Insincere Professions of Liberal- 
 ism. ■ — The Pere Ducheue. — The Unroofing of M. Thiers's House. — The Commu- 
 nistic Ideal of Society. — Invasion of the Convents. — Reminiscences of Auber the 
 Composer. — His Death. — The Fall of the Vendome Column. — The Communists 
 Rejoice over the Wreck of Imperial Splendor. — Measures against Social Vices . . 463 
 
10 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 The Narrow Escape from a Reign of Terror. — The Men who Composed the Communal 
 Councils. — Tin- Beginning of the End. — The Entering of the Regular Troops. The 
 Tocsin. — The Night Alarm 4.2 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 Street Fighting as a Science. — The Barricades. — A Ruse At Guerre. — Looking down on a 
 Battle. — The Burning of the Rue Royale. — The Defence of Montmartre. — Genera! 
 Dombrowski's Death 478 
 
 CHAPTER LII. 
 
 A Night of Fires. — The Petroleuses. —The Execution of Women. — Paris in Flames . 486 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 The New Fight of The Bastille. —The Hotel de Ville. —The Picturesque and Dramatic 
 
 Episodes of the Great Battles ........... 499 
 
 CHAPTER L1V. 
 
 The Retreat fmm the Chateau d'Eau. — Ruins of the Hotel de Ville. — The Burning of 
 Important Papers. — Piquet. — The Third Period of the Great Seven Days' Fight. — 
 At the Buttes Chaumont 504 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 Concessions of M. Thiers. — The Vindictivi ness of the Middle Classes. — Massacre of the 
 Prisoners. — English Comments on tin' Seven Hays' Fight. — Last Moments of the 
 Insurrectionists. — Testimonies of Eye-witnesses. — Statistics of the Slaughter. — A 
 Curious Photograph. — Out of Storm into Calm ........ 512 
 
 CHAPTER LVL 
 
 After Storm, Calm. — Loudou and Paris. — Points of Resemhlance and of Difference. — 
 
 L Ion and Paris Cockneys. — Old London. — Contrasts in Manners, Food and Drink. 
 
 — Sunday in the Two Capitals. — Mutual Respect and Comical Concealment of It 519 
 
 CHAPTER LVII. 
 
 The Germans at Dieppe. — The English Channel. — An Effective Fortification. — The 
 "Precious Isle set in the Silver Sea." — The North Sea Coast. — English Seaside 
 Resorts. — The White Cliffs of England. — The Great Commercial Highway. — George 
 Peabody at Portsmouth ............. "e_'7 
 
 CHAPTER LVIII. 
 
 England's "Silent Highway." — The Sources of her Greatness. — Her Protection of her 
 Trade. — Woolwich the Mighty. — Greenwich and its History. — The Procession of 
 Commerce. — London's Port. — The Docks and their Revenues. — London Bridge. — 
 Dore in London .............. 533 
 
CONTENTS. II 
 
 CHAFFER I.IX. 
 
 Up River. • — The Historic Thames. — The University Races. — Oxford and Cambridge. — 
 The Great Race of 1869. — Harvard vs. ( Ixford. — Putney. — Wimbledon. — Hammer- 
 smith. — Mortlake. — Thames Tactics. — A Reminiscence of Charles Dickens. — His 
 Powers as an After-Dinner Speaker .......... 539 
 
 CIIAFTER LX. 
 
 Richmond and its Romance. — Richmond Hill. — The " Star and Garter." — The Richmond 
 Theatre. —The Thames Valley. — Twickenham. — The Orleans Exiles and their 
 English Home. — Strawberry Hill. — Hampton Court. — Wolsey and Cromwell. — The 
 Royal Residence. — Windsor and its Origin ........ rAiV 
 
 CHAPTER LXI. 
 
 English Royalty. — The Court. — Memorials of Windsor. — St. George's Chapel. — Tin 
 Park at Windsor. — The Royal Palaces. — Drawing-Rooms at Buckingham Palace. - 
 Memorials of Buckingham Palace 
 
 CHAPTER I.XII. 
 
 St. James's Palace. — The Story of Kensington. — Its Gardens. — The Charges which 
 Royalty Entails. — The Prince of Wales. — An Industrious Heir Apparent. — Marlbo- 
 rough House. — -The Title of Prince of Wales. — National Views of Allowances to 
 Royal Personages. — Sandringham 
 
 CHAPTER LXIII. 
 
 Fortunes and Incomes of Members of the English Royal Family. — Ancient and Hereditary 
 Pensions. — The Invisible Court. — Its Functionaries. — Precedency. — The Aristo- 
 cratic Element in the House of Commons 566 
 
 CHAFFER LXIV. 
 
 The Parliament Palace. — History and Tradition. — The New Home of the Plutocrats. — 
 The Victoria Tower. — Westminster Hall. — The House of Lords. — Procedure in the 
 Hereditary Chamber. — The Force of Inertia. — Parliamentary Calm .... 
 
 CHAPTER LXY. 
 
 The Irish Members. ■ — The House of Commons. — The Speaker. — The Peers and the Cre- 
 ation of New Peers. — The Passion for the Possession of Land. — An Active Session. 
 — Procedure. — Bringing in Bills .......... 579- 
 
 CHAPTER LXVI. 
 
 The Treasury Whip. — Parliamentary Forms. — Oddities of the House of Commons.— 
 Authority of the Speaker. — The Home Rule Members. — Irishmen in London. — 
 Anomalies of English Representation. — "Reform." — The Reconstruction of Eon- 
 don's Municipal Government ........... 585 
 
12 aoxTEyrs. 
 
 CI I A ITER LXVTI. 
 
 Pagk 
 
 Tlie Evolution towards Democracy. — Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain. — English 
 Directness and Plainness of Speech. — Lord Hartington. — Mr. Labouchere. — Eng- 
 lish Sources of Revenue. — The Land Tax. — How it is Evaded. — Free Trade in 
 Land. — Taxing the Privileged Classes. — The Coming Struggle .... 591 
 
 CHAPTER LXVIII. 
 
 1'ublic and Popular Speakers. — Spurgeon in his Tabernacle. — The Temperance 
 Question. — The Financial Reform League. — Facts for Rich and Poor. — Bradlaugh 
 in the Hall of Science — Republican Meeting in Trafalgar Square. — Gladstone at 
 a Funeral. — " Oh ! bow Dreadful !" — Public Meetings in England. — The Lord 
 Mayor of London. — Banquets at the Mansion-House. — The City Companies. — 
 "Lord Mayor's Dav." — The Procession 598 
 
 CHAPTER LXIX. 
 
 " The City." — The Daily Pilgrimage to It. — Exact Limits of the City District. — Demo- 
 lition of Temple Bar. — The Griffin. — Fleet Street. — < 'bauccr's Battle in tins Famous 
 A venue. — The Newspaper Region. — The Temple. — The Inns. — The Law Students. 
 
 — St. Paul's and its Neighborhood. — The Crypt in St. Paul's. — The Publisher's 
 ILumts. — The Bank. — Lombard Street. — Christ's Hospital. — The " Times " . 609 
 
 CHAPTER LXX. 
 
 The Smoke and Dirt of London. — Temperature. — Poor People and Dirty People. — 
 Tiie London Season. — What it Is, and What it Means. —The Races. —The Derby. 
 
 — Going I town to Epsom. — The Return. — Goodw I. — Ascot. — The Royal Acade- 
 my. — John Millais. — Sir Frederick Leighton. — Music and .Musicians . . . 619 
 
 CHAPTER LXXI. 
 
 Queen's Weather. — The Coaching Meets. — The Flower Shows. — Simplicity of English 
 Manners. — Eccentricity and Excellence. — Foreigners and English Society. — The 
 London Theatres. — Ellen Ten v. — Mr. Wilson Barrett. — English Comedy Writers. 
 
 — In the Parks. — Rotten How. — Some Noble Houses in London. — A Town of Men. 
 
 — Political Influence. — The Clubs 628 
 
 CHAPTER LXXI1. 
 
 Tlie Strand. — A Historic Avenue. — The City and Country Types. — English Love for 
 Nature. — The Farmer anil His Troubles. — Rural Beauty in Warwickshire and 
 Derbyshire. — The Shakespeare Festival in 1879. — Stratford. — Birmingham, the 
 •Toy Shop of Europe" ............ 635 
 
 CHAPTER LXXI II. 
 
 The Lake Country. — The Home of Poets and Essayists. — Scotland. — Glasgow, its 
 Commerce and its Antiquities. — The Great Northern Seaport. — Edinburgh and its 
 Memorials. — The Home of Burns «42 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIY. 
 
 Scotland and Ireland. — The Scotch Highlands. — Scenes of Scott's Stories and Burns's 
 Poems. — Balmoral. — Over to Belfast. — The Irish Land League. — Imprisonment 
 of Parnell and his Partisans. — The Crimes Act and its Causes. — A Land League 
 Mass Meeting. — The Wild and Savage Peasantry ....... 648 
 
 CIIAPTEU LXXV. 
 
 Dublin and its Chief Features. — The Irish Climate. — Trinity College. — The Environs 
 
 of the Irish Capital. — The Great Western Gateways, Queenstown and Liverpool . C.'iS 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVI. 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield. — Mr. Gladstone. — -Two Careers Entirely Different in Character, 
 Purpose, and Result. — Personal Description of the two Great Premiers. — Imperial 
 Policy. — The Eastern Question in 1S75. — Mr. Gladstone's Attitude. — The Slavs 
 of the South. — Servia, Herzegovina, Bosnia, and Montenegro. .... G63 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVII. 
 
 A Day with a Voivoda. — An Insurgent Leader. — Among the Koeks. — A Picturesque 
 
 Experience. — Turk and Slav. — -Ljubibratic and his Men ...... 675 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVIII. 
 
 The Montenegrins. — The Inhabitants of the Black Mountain. — An Uncompleted 
 Race. — Among the Rocks. — The Implacable Enemies of the Turks. — A Valiant 
 Little Army. — The Montenegrin Women. —The Old Prince-Bishops of Montenegro, 688 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIX. 
 
 Prince Nicholas of Montenegro. — The Outpost of Russia. — The Montenegrin Capital. — 
 
 Battle with the Turks. — Legends of Tsernagora 697 
 
 CHAPTER LXXX. 
 
 Danubian Days. — Hungarians and Slavs. — A Turkish Fortress. — The Footprints of 
 Trajan. — Orsova the Fair. — Gypsies. — Animals in the East. — ■ Lower Hungary and 
 its Peculiar Features. — Wayside Inns along the Danube. — The Harvesters Coming 
 Home at Eventide. — Gypsies at Drenkova. — Through the Iron Gates . . . 702 
 
 CHAPTER LXXX I. 
 
 A Journey through Roumania in War Time. —A Khan. — Its Advantages and Disadvan- 
 tages. — Primitive Life of the Villagers. — On the Great Plains. — The Water Wells. 
 
 — The Approaches to Bucharest. — Roumanian Legends. — The Frontier of Europe. 
 
 — French Influence in Roumania. — Bucharest and New Orleans .... 71f, 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXII. 
 
 Notes on Bucharest. — -Streets and Street Types. — The Wallachian Soldiers. — Con- 
 scripted Peasantry. — Roumanian Independence. ■ — Priests and Churches . . . 723 
 
14 CONTENTS. 
 
 Pale 
 
 CHAPTER I.XXXIII. 
 
 The I lardcn of Herestreu. — Gypsy Music. — Roumanian Amusements. — Prince Gorts- 
 chakoff at Bucharest. — General tgnatieif. — Roumanian Houses. — Ploiesci. — A 
 Funeral in Roumania. — A Bit of History. — A Liberal Constitution. — King Charles. 
 — The Upgrowth of Literature ........... 730 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXIV. 
 
 The Early Roumanians — The Language. — Greek Plays. — Agriculture. — The Minor 
 Towns of Roumania. — Jassy. • — On the Bessarabian Frontier. — Galatz. — National 
 Manners. — .Roumanian Monasteries .......... 7;i'J 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXY. 
 
 With the Russians in Bulgaria. — On the Danube. — Simnitza. — 'The Extemporaneous 
 Imperial Head-quarters. — The Early Campaign in Bulgaria. — Singing of the Rus- 
 sian Troops. — Sistova. — Bulgarian Men. — The Fanners. — Manners of the Russian 
 Army Officers. —The Grand Duke Nicholas. — The Elder Skobeleff. — The Russian 
 Emperor in the Field 748 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXVI. 
 
 General Radetzky. — Russians on the March. — Infantry Men. — -Cossacks. — Dragimiroff. 
 
 — In Camp. — Reception of the Liberating Russians by the Bulgarians. ■ — Enthusiasm 
 of the Women and Children. — Welcome by the Monks ami Priests. — The Defile 
 lie side the Yantra. — The Arrival atTirnova. — Triumphal Procession. — The Grand 
 Duke Nicholas in Church. — The Picturesque City on the Yantra. — The t rreek Ladies. 
 
 — Fugitives from Eski Zaghra ........... 756 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXVII. 
 
 Previous Insurrection in Bulgaria. — A Retrospect. — Servia's Aid to Bulgaria. — -Russian 
 Agents. — The Triple Alliance. — Rustchuk, its Defence. — -Turkish Transports. — 
 The Road to the Balkans. — ( Iain-ova. — Turkish Time. — Bulgarian Schools and 
 their Varying Fortunes. — Renegades. — The Passes of the Balkans. — Prince Tser- 
 teleff. — The Shipka Pass. —Mount St. Nicholas. — .Suleiman Pasha and Radetzky . 703 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXVII I. 
 
 The Mutilation of the Russian Wounded. — A Convent of Women near (lahrova. and 
 Bulgarian Monasteries. — Through the Balkans. — Kezanlik. — Rose Culture and the 
 Rose Gardens. — EskiZaghra and the Massacre.- — The Malice of Suleiman Pasha. 
 — The Vengeance of the Agas. — The Bulgarian Army. — The National Life of the 
 Bulgarians ............... 
 
 CHAPTER LXXXIX. 
 
 Plevna and its Influence on the Russian Campaign. — The Roumanians. — Their Valor 
 in the Field. — Osman Pasha. ■ — The Despair of Skobeleff. — Across the Balkans. — 
 The Descent upon Constantinople. — Hostility of England to Russian Designs. — 
 The Berlin Congress. — Its Result. — The Partition of South-eastern Europe 
 
CONTENTS. 15 
 
 CHAPTER XC. 
 
 Page 
 
 Munich in its Stony Plain by the Isar. — The Cold Greek Architecture of the Bavarian 
 Capital. — The Monarchs of Bavaria. — The Present King Louis. — An Eccentric 
 Sovereign. — Wagner and Bayreuth. — Gambrinus in Munich ..... 702 
 
 CHAPTER XCI. 
 
 The Passion-Play at Ober-Ammergau. — The Theatre of the Passion. — Old Miracle 
 Plays. — The Chorus at Ober-Ammergau. — Bavarian Wood-carvers as Actors. — 
 The Personator of the Saviour. — Caiaphas. — The Figures of Peter and Judas. — 
 The Women Interpreters of the Passion. — The Departure from Bethany, and the 
 Last Supper. — Comments of a Distinguished American Actor. —The Scourging and 
 the Crown of Thorns. — The Despair of Judas. — Effective Portrayal of the Judg- 
 ment and Crucifixion. — A Beautiful, Holy, and Noble Dramatic Sketch of the Most 
 Wonderful Life and Death 7!)l! 
 
 CHAPTER XCII. 
 
 Vienna, where the East meets the West. — The Emperor of Austria. — His Simple Life. 
 
 — The Slavs and Hungarians. — Berlin and Bismarck. — The Aged German Emperor. 
 
 — Startling Progress of German Industry. — -The Thrones of the North. — Nihilism 
 and Socialism. — Colonial Schemes. — .Possible Absorption of the Small Countries 
 
 of Europe „ . . . . . . .812 
 
 CHAPTER XCI II. 
 
 The .Storm of Europe Diverted into Africa. — How Great Britain was Drawn into 
 Egyptian Affairs. — The Revolt of Arabi. — Rise of El Malidi. — Gordon to the 
 Rescue. — The Long Siege of Khartoum. — Fall of the Soudanese Stronghold and 
 Reported Death of Gordon. — The Recall of Wolseley 821 
 
 CHAPTER XCIV. 
 
 The Deatli of Victor Hugo. — The Greatest European Man of Letters since Goethe. — 
 Napoleon III. 's Irreconcilable Foe. — -His Obsequies. — The Pantheon Secularized. 
 
 — In State Beneath the Arch of Triumph. — -A Vast Procession. —The Demon- 
 stration of the French People . 8.'!<i 
 
 CHAPTER XCV. 
 
 Laborers for Peace. — -The New Territories given to European Powers by the Congo 
 Conference. — Impossibility of Permanent Peace.- — Believers in Arbitration. — M. 
 De Lesseps and Mr. Stanley. — The United States of Europe. — Victor Hugo's 
 Dream. — Republican Sentiment. — The Strengthening of the French Republic. — 
 Will Storm and Calm Forever Alternate in Europe? H42 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 The Imperial Family ....... 
 
 Napoleon III.'s Guests in the Champ do Mars Pavilion . 
 The French Emperor and Empress at Compiegne ■ 
 Episode of the Coup d'Etat ...... 
 
 A Parisian Journalist in Prison ..... 
 
 Proclaiming the Spanish Republic. 
 
 The Escurial, near Madrid ...... 
 
 Fighting at a Barricade in Valencia .... 
 
 Mountaineers Going Home after the Siege 
 
 Wedding of Alfonso XII 
 
 Castelar at Home ........ 
 
 Bull-tight before the King and Queen 
 
 The Bull has the best of it ... . 
 
 Alcazar and Walls of Toledo. 
 
 The Puerta del Sol . . .... 
 
 A Patio in Seville ..... . . 
 
 Beggars at the Cathedral Door 
 
 The Murder of Victor Noir 
 
 Rochefort and the Working-men ridden down 
 Gambetta in the Baudin Prosecution .... 
 
 The Speech from the Throne ..... 
 
 Thiers in the Tribune ....... 
 
 The Man of Destiny on the Tuileries Terrace 
 
 Police breaking tip a Republican .Meeting 
 
 Dispersing a Parisian Riot ... . . 
 
 Head-quarters of Napoleon at Chalons .... 
 
 The End of the Empire. Assault by Police on Citizens in t 
 The Imperial Police protected by the Republican Guard 
 The President of the Corps Legislatif watching the Invasion 
 Invasion of the Corps Legislatif, Sept. 4, 1870 
 The Flight of the Empress ...... 
 
 Napoleon III. Prisoner at Wilhelmshohe 
 
 French Guard Mobile in the Camp of St. Main- 
 
 Camp of the French Marines at St. Vitry 
 
 Running away from the Siege ..... 
 
 The old and New Regime. Republican National Guard 
 perial Guard ........ 
 
 Up the Hill at Villiers 
 
 The Priests' Ambulance Corps at the Battle of Champigny 
 
 Episode in the Siege of Paris. No unite Bread 
 
 The French Troops abandoning the Plateau at Avron . 
 
 Arrest of a Supposed Spy 
 
 The Wall of Buzenval. Episode of the Siege of Pari- . 
 Garibaldi at Bordeaux ....... 
 
 Victor Hugo at Bordeaux ...... 
 
 lutin 
 
 ulev 
 
 g the 
 
 rd 1! 
 
 Hem 
 
 if tin 
 
 Im- 
 
 i ' \i.i 
 
 23 
 
 27 
 
 35 
 
 + 7 
 
 51 
 
 59 
 
 CI 
 
 7:: 
 
 77 
 
 95 
 
 99 
 
 105 
 
 107 
 
 117 
 
 1:':; 
 
 127 
 
 129 
 
 133 
 
 135 
 
 137 
 
 111 
 
 145 
 
 153 
 
 161 
 
 103 
 
 2ii7 
 
 22:1 
 
 227 
 
 231 
 
 233 
 
 237 
 
 259 
 
 268 
 
 301 
 
 303 
 
 339 
 343 
 344 
 
 :;4.-. 
 359 
 3fi7 
 369 
 
 287 
 391 
 
18 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 The Last Benediction of Pope Pius IX 
 
 Victor Emmanuel and Prince Humbert at the Quirinal . 
 Attendants and Officials at the Vatican ..... 
 Pope Leo XIII. in his Private Cabinet ..... 
 The Pope receives a Visitor ....... 
 
 The Top of Montmartre, where the Communist Ca n were installed 
 
 Funeral of Charles Hugo ........ 
 
 Communist Troops going to the Front ...... 
 
 Thiers and McMahon meeting at Longchamps .... 
 
 Death of Flourens 
 
 The Rue Perronet at Neuilly 
 
 Episode of the Commune. Hon. La Cecilia reviewing his Troops 
 
 Terrace at Meudon, occupied by Versailles Troops 
 
 Communist Funeral at Night . ....... 
 
 Episode of the Commune. The Fallen Cajsar. The Column Vendome 
 Fac-simile of a Title-page ....... 
 
 The Prisoners returning from Germany .... 
 
 Children of the Communist Prisoners eating Simp with the Versailles Soldie 
 Scene from the Commune. The Barricades of the Kuril'' Rennets 
 
 Burning of the Hotel de Ville 
 
 The Last Placard of the ( 'mi ine ...... 
 
 Sunday Market in Petticoat Lane . . .... 
 
 The Scotch Volunteers al Brighton ...... 
 
 On the Sands al Brighton 
 
 Types of English Lower Classes ....... 
 
 ( luardians of the Tom er ........ 
 
 Boat-race on the Thames ........ 
 
 Departure of the Prince of Wale, for India .... 
 
 Interior of the [louse of Commons ...... 
 
 Recent Dynamite Explosions at the House of < 'ommons in London 
 
 Mass-Meeting on Trafalgar Square 
 
 Lord Mayor's Day. Sailors in Procession 
 
 Dinner with the Lord Mayor 
 
 The Thames, from the Top of St. Paul's. Westminstet Palace in the Dista 
 Archbishop Manning preaching Temperance .... 
 
 At the Punch ami Judy Show 
 
 Saturday Night in Workman's Quarter 
 
 Salvation Army 
 
 The Queen's < !arriage ........ 
 
 The Queen conferring the Order of Knighthood . 
 
 (in the Road to Epsom 
 
 Fox-hunting in England ....... 
 
 Stopping the Hunting ........ 
 
 Deer-stalking in the Highlands 
 
 \ Land League Mass-Meeting 
 
 A Familiar Irish Scene ........ 
 
 The Western Gateway. The Landing Stage at Liverpool 
 
 Montenegrins on the Watch 
 
 The Russians crossing the Danube in Front of Sistova . 
 Hungarian Types ......... 
 
 Roumanian Types ......... 
 
 Bulgarians defending a Mountain Pass 
 
 Episode of the Siege of Ple\ ua 
 
 Signing the Treaty of San Stefano 
 
 Page 
 
 too 
 
 411 
 '17 
 418 
 419 
 427 
 429 
 433 
 435 
 439 
 441 
 44:1 
 159 
 401 
 17(1 
 471 
 489 
 to:; 
 495 
 
 .Mil 
 
 513 
 .",'_':: 
 529 
 530 
 
 535 
 538 
 543 
 564 
 
 601 
 603 
 
 005 
 007 
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 till 
 013 
 G18 
 620 
 021 
 024 
 02.". 
 637 
 0.4 7 
 655 
 o:,o 
 
 001 
 689 
 703 
 71.. 
 701 
 77ti 
 781 
 785 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 lit 
 
 The Berlin Congress 
 
 The Radziwill Palace, in which the Bei 
 
 Constantinople and the Islands 
 
 Palace of the Sultan at Constantinople 
 
 Embarkation of Troops for Egypt . 
 
 Departure of Troops for Egypt 
 
 The End of a Romance. Napoleon II 
 
 in ( longress was he] 
 
 on his Death-bed 
 
 7SS 
 789 
 790 
 830 
 833 
 S4 7 
 
 PORTRAITS. 
 
 Bismarck I Military) 
 
 IS 70 
 
 
 
 - » -• 
 
 Bismarck (Civilian ), 
 
 1884 
 
 
 
 276 
 
 Von Moltkc 
 
 
 
 
 331 
 
 Queen of Italy . 
 
 
 
 
 421' 
 
 King of Italy 
 
 
 
 
 423 
 
 Victor Hugo 
 
 
 
 
 :.:;i 
 
 Queen Victoria 
 
 
 
 
 :,:,:: 
 
 Prince of Wales 
 
 
 
 
 561 
 
 Princess of Wales and Family 
 
 
 563 
 
 Right Hon. John Bri 
 
 jln. M.P. 
 
 
 r.77 
 
 Joseph Chamberlain , 
 
 M.P. 
 
 
 593 
 
 Robert Browning 
 
 
 
 634 
 
 ( reorge Eliot 
 
 . 
 
 
 641 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield 
 
 
 
 
 665 
 
 Right Hon. W. E. i. 
 General Skobeleff 
 Emperor of Austria 
 Emperor William of 
 Emperor of Russia 
 El Mahdi . 
 Gen. C. G. Gordon 
 Lord Wolseley . 
 King of Belgium 
 Henry M. Stanley 
 M. Ferdinand 1 )e Le 
 Kin-' of Spain . 
 dales Grevy 
 
 riadstone, M !'. 
 
 667 
 
 
 7;,:. 
 
 
 S14 
 
 Germany 
 
 sir. 
 
 
 SIS 
 
 .' .' ! 
 
 825 
 
 
 83 1 
 
 
 842 
 
 
 si:; 
 
 esscps . 
 
 si! 
 
 
 846 
 
 
 84'J 
 
WESTERN EUROPE 
 
 DRA WN AND ENGRA VED 
 
 EXPRESSLY FOR 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM." 
 
 SCALE OF STATUTE MILES. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
WESTERN EUROPE 
 
 DRA WN AND ENGRA VED 
 EXPRESSLY FOR 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM.' 
 
 MATTHEWS. NORTMHuPi CO., ENGRAVERS A PRINTERS BUFFALO, N.y. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHARTER ONE. 
 
 The Volcanic Shimmer. — Paris in ISnT. — The Second Empire at the Height of its Glory. — The 
 "Crowning of the Edifice." — The Festival of Peace. — The "Prophecy of Evil." — Xapolcon 
 receives t>istinL, r uishe<l Guests. — Attempted Assassination of Alexander the Second.- The Sultan 
 in Paris. — The Luxembourg Panic. — Tin- Hidden Forces .-it Work. 
 
 THE traveller who climbs to the sum- 
 mit of Vesuvius on a day when the 
 great volcano is apparently at perfect 
 rest, and at a period when no manifesta- 
 tions of its wrath are expected, will ob- 
 serve, as he looks down into the vast 
 bowl of the crater, the delicate shimmer 
 caused by rising heat. The transparent 
 air is tremulous, and although the scene 
 upon which the visitor gazes from this 
 strange mountain is one of exquisite 
 beauty and tranquillity, he cannot restrain 
 the feeling of foreboding, as he thinks 
 of the tremor in the atmosphere. It is 
 the perpetual menace of the hidden forces, 
 ready to break forth, overturning all the 
 barriers interposed between themselves 
 and liberty ; and, in the mad rush of their 
 escape, likely to transform the smiling 
 landscapes, historic villages, and teem- 
 ing cities, into a chaos not unlike the 
 primal one. 
 
 In Paris, in 1807, the Second Empire 
 had reached the height of its glory and 
 renown. From all corners of the world, 
 from the most brilliant Oriental capitals, 
 from northern cities, from Asia and from 
 America, the chiefs of State and the 
 celebrities of the moment came to the 
 
 Queen City to offer their tribute of praise 
 and admiration, and to join in the cele- 
 bration of a festival of peace. To the cas- 
 ual observer the beautiful French capital 
 in this year of splendor and gayety at fust 
 seemed to offer a perfect example of the 
 wise results of sound administration and 
 willing devotion to the arts of peace; 
 but, in looking attentively, day by day. 
 upon the scene, it was easy to discover — 
 it was impossible in fact not to see — 
 the menacing volcanic shimmer, which 
 indicated a coming outbreak of forces in, . 
 long repressed, too certain to break forth 
 in wild disaster. 
 
 The Second Empire in France bad 
 passed into a proverb. It was no longer 
 the fashion to speak of its creation as 
 a crime. The passionate pages of 
 Kiug!ake, the stinging denunciations of 
 Hugo, were almost considered as partisan 
 and ungenerous. The French people 
 were condemned, as the punishment for 
 their culpable supineuess, day by day to 
 hear it said of themselves that they were 
 unfit for self-government, ami that the 
 Empire hail been for them an unmixed 
 blessing. It impresses one now, half a 
 generation after these last brilliant 
 
22 
 
 EUROPE !\ STOR '/ AXD CAL '/ 
 
 moments of the Second Empire, curi- 
 ously, to remember thai from the United 
 stales came a. greal pari of the moral 
 support accorded to Napoleon 111.: 
 not only did In' succeed iii grouping 
 about him potentates, who, fifteen years 
 before, had considered him the mosl 
 wretched of parvenus; not only did ho 
 invite to liis Court, and instal in 
 liis palace of the Tuileries, the Czar 
 of all the Russias, and tin' Sultan t<\' 
 Tux-key ; but he wooed from the ad- 
 miring bosoms of the fair Republi- 
 cans of the Wesl a homage which they 
 would never have paid to a /n in; nu at 
 home. 
 
 At this particular time the Repub- 
 licans in France were half inclined to 
 lower their bucklers for a while, and to 
 pause in their attacks upon the govern- 
 ment which they had so lone' detested, 
 irresolute as they were in presence of 
 the numerous experiments and reforms 
 so loudly announced by the Imperial 
 agents. The year of the great " Impo- 
 sition" was ushered in with a wonderful 
 
 flourish of trumpets by the Imperial 
 
 ministry. It was saiil ami printed, for 
 the first time since the CO up d'Mltat, that 
 the hour for a cessatiou of repressive 
 measures had arrived ; that the long 
 period of personal government, rendered 
 necessary by the .so-called anarchy of 
 L848, had come to an end. The 
 "crowning of the edifice," as the 
 political jargon of the moment had it, 
 was soon to take place. If one could 
 lit the assertions of all who were 
 interested in the support of the Imperial 
 dynasty in France, the one wish of the 
 Emperor was to give with liberal hand 
 as much freedom to his long-oppressed 
 people as they could conveniently digest, 
 lie and his were to be the judges of the 
 quantities of liberty to be dispensed, 
 and they confidently invited the judg- 
 
 ment of Europe upon their wisdom in 
 taking oil' some few of the screws. 
 
 Each foreign State vied with the other 
 in its endeavors to lie agreeable and 
 flattering to the Empire. A Parisian 
 was perhaps pardonable at this time for 
 his supposition that Paris was the sun 
 around which the society of the world 
 revolved. Paris fashions, Paris comic 
 music, and Parisian bric-a-brac, were 
 famous throughout Europe, ami had 
 made their way into the remotest 
 regions of Asia. Africa, and America, 
 ll is true, that when one turned to the 
 soberer domains of literature and high 
 art, it was found that the French Empire 
 had fostered the production of little or 
 nothing within them. The great artists 
 were not to he found at the Court. 
 They were voluntary or involuntary 
 exiles. The theatre had become so 
 frivolous that it was the scandal of 
 Europe, and among the few painters of 
 eminence who basked in the Imperial 
 sunshine were many who did not hesi- 
 tate to satirize, in the most bitter man- 
 ner, the reginu under which they lived. 
 The social corruption had reached such 
 a height that it could be paralleled 
 only by the corruption which was no 
 longer concealed in politics. Paris was 
 tilled with a throng of adventurers, or 
 newly enriched people, aristocratic iu 
 income, though not in breeding. They 
 came from everywhere, and at the first 
 whiff of smoke of the war in 1870 they 
 disappeared like demons in a pantomime. 
 Few of them have returned. They 
 seemed to belong to the especial epoch 
 which closed with the fall of the Empire ; 
 to have had their day as certain (lies 
 have theirs, and at its close to have 
 finished their existence. 
 
 However various might have been the 
 judgments passed upon the Empire and 
 the Emperor, there was no variance of 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 23 
 
 opinion as to the Exposition. It was it had really lost by the coup d'Etat ; and 
 a grand festival of art and industry, it kept up this policy faithfully until it 
 upon which the Imperial party had spent was no longer of any service. 
 
 THE IMPERIAL FAMILY. 
 
 much time and labor. The Empire The Exposition of 1867 was imagined 
 
 thoroughly understood the science of purely as a diversion. In 1865 the 
 
 diversions. It began by giving the Empire had already begun to decline. 
 
 public splendid shows, military reviews, The formidable Republican Opposition 
 
 and the glitter of foreign expeditious, grouped against it as long ago as 1857 
 
 hoping to divert its attention from what had at last become extremely powerful, 
 
24 EUROPE IN STORM A.VD CALM. 
 
 and in 1864 and 1865 was decidedly in Sehleswig-Holstem, and the brisk and 
 aggressive. This opposition was led by astounding campaign which culminated 
 politicians of the experience and impor- in the defeat 'if Austria at Sadowa in 
 tance of Thiers, Berryer, Lanjuiuais, I860, had one jot shaken French pres- 
 Jules Favre, Ernest Picard, Jules Simon, tine; hut Napoleon III. knew better. 
 Garnier-Pages, and Pelletau. Gam- lie was wiser than the people whom he 
 betta's voice had not yet been heard hail grouped around him. The insin- 
 outside the cafes of the Latin Quarter, cere, the corrupt, persisted in their 
 or the narrow boundaries of the court- theory that France would only have 
 room. Fniile Ollivier was a prominent to put forth an atom of her ancient 
 figure in this opposition to the govern- strength to maintain her historic influ- 
 ment and the majority in the Chamber, ence and to reduce to their proper pro- 
 He, like one or two other politicians port ions the newly arisen pretensions of 
 who were Republican in name, listened Prussia. In the loug years of his cap- 
 to the specious promises of tin- Impcri- tivity the Emperor had made careful 
 alists. ami allowed himself to be won studies in social and political science. 
 over to their cause of pretended liberal and he doubtless realized that the time 
 reform. Napoleon hail said that '• the had come for the unification of the ho- 
 F.mpirc was peace," at the outset of his mogeneous peoples in the numerous 
 Imperial career; but he had until this States of Germany. So, too, it is fair 
 year's first months been contradicting to suppose that he foresaw Italian 
 himself by maintaining, against even unification; and as both these were, 
 the opinion of the more enlightened of from the sellish political stand-point, 
 his own party, the shattered remnants dangers and menaces to the greatness 
 of the French expedition in Mexico, and of Fiance, perhaps he dreamed of sud- 
 was daily expecting to hear news of the deuly checking them. lie that as it 
 disaster which could no longer be avoided may. the Exposition period was grate- 
 there. The immense and cordial wel- fully recognized by all nations as a 
 come accorded to the Exhibition when it, breathing-space in a time of storm 
 opened, in tin 1 spring of 1867, was a upon which Europe had entered ; and 
 veritable godsend to the Empire. It none were more grateful in their recog 
 undoubtedly put back the clock of fate nitioii than the Prussians, who had fully 
 by many hours. believed that France would not submit 
 
 lint the clock of fate was not to be quietly to the results of Sadowa. 
 stopped, nor yet cracked or broken. It So Europeans and Americans alike 
 
 went on with remorseless ••tielc," and il forgot, or wilfully ignored, the volcanic 
 
 was with greater vexation and restless- shimmer, and united in the grand Pes- 
 
 ness than he had manifested at any tival of pleasure, feasting the senses. 
 
 previous time in his career that the and most of all the attention, upon the 
 
 Emperor began his large and splendid wonders spread before them in the most 
 
 series of festivals. He had been from beautiful capital of the Western World, 
 
 his youth too acute an observer of polit- The Imperial commission which directed 
 
 ical indications not to have perceived the Exhibition did its work with skill and 
 
 thai the position of France in Europe energy, and tilled the Champ de Mars 
 
 had greatly changed. It was the fash- with a grand epitome of European 
 
 ion at his Court to deny that the events material progress. It was remarked 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 25 
 
 that Germany had but little of an indus- 
 trial character to show, and the sprightly 
 chroniclers for the small journals of the 
 boulevard expended their wit upon the 
 mammoth cannon which filled the Ger- 
 man section of the Exhibition Palace, 
 little realizing that a few years after- 
 wards similar cannon would frown upon 
 Paris from the hills environing her. In 
 order and arrangement the Exhibition 
 was perhaps superior to any of its 
 successors, not excepting the mammoth 
 one held in Philadelphia in 1876. 
 
 The international craze was just begin- 
 ning in 1867. The current of travel 
 from America had already begun, and 
 European prices had not yet assumed that 
 vertiginous upward course which they 
 have latterly taken and maintained. 
 The trans-Atlantic stranger, with his 
 new fortune, found Paris the paradise 
 of cheapness and luxury. Rich Rus- 
 sians, innumerable Germans of medium 
 fortune, Turks and Austriaus, Greeks 
 and Hebrews. Scandinavians and Anglo- 
 Saxons, nightly thronged the newly 
 ornamented boulevards. Such crowds 
 have never been seen in Paris since. 
 In those days the electric light was 
 in its infancy, and few large cities 
 had had the courage to make experi- 
 ments with it. But Imperial Paris took 
 it, vised it generously, and perhaps 
 hoped that the volcanic shimmer would 
 be less perceptible beneath its artificial 
 glare. The pageants of the Exhibition 
 were very numerous, and some of them 
 will be famous in history. Paris was 
 filled with crack troops, well drilled, 
 well dressed, proud of the duties con- 
 stantly given them, and with their 
 national vanity yet untarnished by any 
 of those sad reverses which they were 
 called to suffer a little later. The Im- 
 perial Court was at Comptegne, but 
 Napoleon first received his royal guests 
 
 at the Tuileries. As these guests ar- 
 rived one by one, they were welcomed 
 with all the splendors befitting their 
 exalted stations. The liberal journals, 
 which had indulged in sinister prophe- 
 cies that the parvenu Emperor could not 
 bring to his side the legitimate sover- 
 eigns of Europe, gracefully acknowl- 
 edged their error, and joined in the 
 general enthusiasm. Napoleon affected 
 a slightly democratic demeanor, while 
 carefully maintaining with relation to 
 his guests all the etiquette to which they 
 attached so much importance, and of 
 which the Empress Eugenie was always 
 such a passionate devotee. 
 
 No doubt the visit of the Emperor 
 Alexander II. of Russia would have in 
 less dangerous times been productive of 
 a certain current of opinion in France 
 favorable to the maintenance of the Em- 
 pire there. The spectacle of the Czar of 
 all the Russias riding in the same car- 
 riage with Napoleon III., and accepting 
 his hospitality, was not without its weight. 
 It seemed as if the man who had so 
 long been called an adventurer had at 
 last enrolled himself in the society to 
 which he had always desired to belong. 
 
 Alexander II. of Russia had just en- 
 tered upon his repressive policy in Poland 
 when he made his visit to Paris, and he 
 was perhaps a little surprised, on arriv- 
 ing in the court-yard of the Tuileries, to 
 be saluted with a sonorous '■'■Vive la 
 Pologne, Monsieur!" which came from 
 the lips of that stanch republican Mon- 
 sieur Floquct. who subsequently became 
 one of the chief municipal authorities of 
 the French capital. In February of 
 1867 the Russian Emperor had sup- 
 pressed the Polish Council of State, and 
 had given the public instruction of the 
 country into the hands of Russian authori- 
 ties. This was preliminary to the great 
 measure which he took in 1868, when by 
 
1'li EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 an ukase be suppressed the Kingdom of now ami then seriously embarrassing 
 
 Poland, ami forbade Polish ladies ami innocent strangers, whose notions of 
 
 gentlemen to wear their national cos- free speech were brought from a less 
 
 tumes. Infinite precautions were taken exhausted atmosphere. If two people 
 
 by the authorities of the French Empire began a discussion on the street Hie 
 
 against any attempts upon the lives of third man who was sure to come up a.nd 
 
 the visiting sovereigns; but the legions listen was either a sert/ent tl< ville, as the 
 
 of police which swarmed in the city policemen were called in those days, or 
 
 were not sufficient to protect the Czar was a private detective. Any group of 
 
 Alexander from an attempted assassina- three, four, or live persons, standing to 
 
 tion. I chanced to he close to the Im- discuss ami appearing to he deeply in- 
 
 perial carriage when the fanatic Here- terested in conversation in any street 
 
 zowski, on the day of the review of the d -way of public building or in a square, 
 
 9th of June in the Bois de Boulogne, fired was immediately requested to "move 
 a pistol at Alexander's head. There was on." Any refusal to obey would have 
 an immense press of people returning been followed by arrest, and any offence 
 from the review, and much crowding and against the Imperial notions of order 
 confusion were caused by the sudden was qualified as criminal. 
 arrival of a great body of cavalry which The would-be assassin of the Emperor 
 was making its way at a vigorous trot out of Bussia was insane with passion, or he 
 of the wood. In common with thou- would not have dreamed of attempting 
 sands of others I was pressed forward the life of a sovereign in a town so tilled 
 to the main avenue, along which the Em- with private spies and police-officers as 
 peror of liussia was just returning. I Paris. The Sultan of Turkey, Abdul 
 heard a pistol shot, and then an im- Aziz, who afterwards had so tragic an 
 mense "Ah!" such as only a. Latin end, was highly gratified at the mas- 
 crowd can utter; and next, much to my telly manner in which he was surrounded 
 surprise, I saw the carriage filled with by a net-work of spies from the moment 
 ugly-looking fellows in black clothes, who of his arrival to that of his departure. 
 were doubtless the police agents, with lie was the most apprehensive, timid 
 which the crowds were plentifully infer- creature that I remember ever to have 
 
 spersed. seen ill public. ( )n one occasion lie was 
 
 There was no time during the clos- taken through the principal streets in one 
 
 ing days of the Second Empire when of the ^reat gala carriages of the time of 
 
 one could feel that in a miscellaneous Louis XIV., and his carriage was sur- 
 
 assembly of a, dozen persons, unless rounded in the line Royale by a crowd 
 
 it was by invitation in a private par- which was quite crazy with curiosity, 
 
 lor, there would not be one or two The Sultan sat cowering in a corner of 
 
 police spies. These spies were found this antique vehicle, sweltering in his 
 
 everywhere. They infested the cafes, heavy European uniform, loaded down 
 
 They offered for sale opera-classes and with gold ami silver decorations, ami 
 
 trifling trinkets, and peered impertinently looking very much more like a criminal 
 
 into travellers' faces. They assumed who had been detected than like the de- 
 
 every conceivable disguise, and fre- fender of the faithful and the successor 
 
 quently made report on matters which of Soliman the Magnificent. 
 
 were not of the slightest consequence, Among the guests of note who came 
 
EUROPE IN STORM ANT) CALM. 
 
 27 
 
 .-;■ ' 
 
 
 NAPOLEON III.'S GUESTS IN" THE CHAMP DE MAHS PAVILION. 
 
28 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AXD CAL I/. 
 
 to Paris in this gala year were two elderly 
 gentlemen of sober mien, who attracted 
 more attention than the Czar or the Sul- 
 tan, and whose visit was of more vital 
 significance than that of the above-men- 
 tioned potentates. These two person- 
 ages were King William of Prussia, and 
 Bismarck, who had left behind him in 
 Paris years ago, when he had been sta- 
 tioned there as a diplomat, the reputation 
 <>!' a brilliant wit and a cynical and gen- 
 erally successful wile-puller. The Pari- 
 sian rabble made fun of the shining 
 helmet and the white coat which Bismarck 
 wore when he mounted his steed to 
 attend the review at Longchamps, and 
 many pleasantries were indulged in at 
 the expense of the venerable Prussian 
 king. But the intelligent and cultivated 
 classes were careful to make no jokes 
 about the Prussians, and Improved to 
 the utmost their opportunities of cul- 
 tivating pleasant relations with them. 
 Napoleon and his followers had an 
 unbounded confidence in their ability 
 to arrange matters. They fancied that, 
 with the prestige of the First Empire be- 
 hind it, the Second could manage to 
 overawe aggression, even though it might 
 not possess the force suddenly to repel 
 it. King William and Bismarck were 
 carefully entertained at Compiegne, and 
 
 listened with feigned if not with leal in- 
 terest to the many political combinations 
 either proposed to them, or hinted at in 
 their presence. The Prussians would 
 certainly have been exacting had they 
 not approved of the policy of the Im- 
 perial party in France, for it was feeble 
 enough directly to serve their interests. 
 " France," says M. Simon, •■ as a neces- 
 sary consequence of the prodigious in- 
 crease of power in Prussia, consequent on 
 her victory at Sadowa, stepped down 
 from the first rank into the second. 
 Napoleon had made a fatal error in at- 
 
 tempting to observe the policy set forth 
 in the speech in which he abandoned 
 Austria to her fate. He said, • With 
 regard to Germany my intention is 
 henceforth to observe a policy of neu- 
 trality which, without hindering us now 
 and then from expressing our sympathies 
 or our regrets, leaves us strangers to ques- 
 tions in which our interests are not di- 
 rectly engaged.' " M. Thiers pointed out. 
 in 18GG, the danger of this indifference 
 which the Empire desired to manifest. 
 He said thai it was to be feared that 
 German}' would profit by it. Benedetti, 
 tin' ambassador to Berlin, who afterwards 
 became so notorious, at the time of the 
 declaration of war in 1870, wrote to his 
 government that in 1866 the simple 
 manifestation of French sympathies 
 would have completely checked the prog- 
 ress of Bismarck and enabled Austria 
 to escape the humiliation which she was 
 called on to suffer shortly afterwards. 
 M. Simon and many other impartial 
 writers on the Imperial policy express 
 their opinion that Napoleon III. allowed 
 Prussia l.o aggrandize herself because he 
 hoped to be paid in kind. He had am- 
 bitious notions as to Rhenish provinces 
 and to Belgium which were never des- 
 tined tO be realized. 
 
 The hidden forces in the volcanic 
 bosom gave one ominous rumble in 1867. 
 The Empire had just been obliged to 
 announce the disastrous end of the Mex- 
 ican expedition. It did not care to 
 enter into a struggle with the United 
 States, which at that moment had upon 
 the Mexican frontier an army large 
 enough to cope with any force that 
 France could muster. In presence of 
 the Mexican failure, and under [ires- 
 sure of the keen criticisms which the 
 directors of French policy received for 
 the danger in which they had left Maxi- 
 milian, Napoleon III. looked desperately 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 29 
 
 about him for some new project likely 
 to be popular, and was led, almost be- 
 fore he knew it. into imminent danger 
 of war with flushed and victorious Ger- 
 many. He had again begun his cam- 
 paign in favor of the annexation of 
 Belgium, and was secretly working- it 
 out before the early summer of 18G7. 
 It was. I fancy, during the visit of the 
 numerous sovereigns that lie at last got 
 full light on the question of a rectifica- 
 tion of French frontiers along the Rhine. 
 He found that this was impossible in a 
 pacific manner, and mi he began negotia- 
 tions with the King of Holland, who 
 was the Grand Duke of the Duchy of 
 Luxembourg, to obtain from him for a 
 fixed (nice the cession of that duchy. 
 This was speedily noised abroad, and 
 created the most intense excitement in 
 Germany, especially in Prussia. There 
 was a veritable alarm throughout France 
 anil Germany. For twenty days it 
 seemed as if the year of peace festivals 
 might lie interrupted by a long and 
 bloody war. To-day it seems impossible 
 that the French Empire should not have 
 learned, from the manner in which it was 
 treated by Germany on that occasion, its 
 own weakness, and the poor opinion 
 that its antagonists had of it. But so 
 much pains had been taken to prevent 
 anything like free discussions in the 
 Chambers that the truth did not come to 
 the surface, and the public was informed 
 by the Minister of Public Affairs that 
 the King of Holland, as Grand Duke of 
 Luxembourg, and not the Imperial gov- 
 ernment of France, had raised the Lux- 
 embourg question, and that the Duchy 
 would not he ceded to Fiance, because 
 of conditions which seemed unlikely to 
 lie fulfilled. As a clever French writer 
 has said, the public learned, from the 
 reading of debates on the question in 
 foreign parliaments, that the French 
 
 nation was not to have a war with Ger- 
 many simply because it was not to get 
 the Luxembourg Duchy. When this hope 
 vanished in smoke Napoleon III. must 
 have been convinced that he would get 
 nothing in exchange for his abstention 
 from interference with Prussia in carry- 
 ing out her elaborate scheme for her 
 aggrandizement of united Germany. 
 
 When the Luxembourg excitement had 
 died away, and the news of Maximil- 
 ian's execution at Queretaro had ar- 
 rived, the Imperial party did not make 
 any new professions of a desire to accord 
 liberties to the people. But the round 
 of festivities went on. The Exposition 
 was like a great international city where 
 all that was brightest and most beautiful 
 from fifty different countries met daily. 
 There were French, and Anglo-Saxon, 
 and Dutch, and Viennese, and North 
 German, and Spanish, and Danish, and 
 Swedish and Russian restaurants, and 
 English liars. There were parks filled 
 with imitations of Oriental palaces. 
 Chinese pavilions, Turkish bazaars, and, 
 in rather incongruous juxtaposition, Ba- 
 varian breweries. There wire noble 
 galleries of the history of labor ; line 
 collections of works of art; a grand ex- 
 hibit of machinery and of materials 
 suitable for application to the liberal 
 arts ; and there was a great park divided 
 into four quarters, the French and Bel- 
 gian. German, English, and Oriental. 
 Here were German and Scandinavian 
 houses. Russian cabins, and Cossack 
 tents. Greek churches and Turkish 
 mosques. Indian pagodas and Siamese 
 palaces, and buildings tilled with models 
 of everything from the Roman cata- 
 combs to the sanitary collections of 
 the American civil war. By night, in 
 the soft summer climate of northern 
 France, a visit to the Exhibition was 
 like a trip to fairy-land. The music of 
 
EL'UOI'E IX STORM A\/> CALM. 
 
 Strauss and Gmigl filled the air. There were anxious to throw off. He forgot, 
 
 was everything which could charm the amid the varied enchantments of Paris, 
 
 eve, and the visitor who journeyed in contemplating the vast municipal im- 
 
 horneward alouu tlie silent streets of provements, in reading the annouuce- 
 
 tlie capital late at night after a prome- meuts of the opening of new parks and 
 
 uade through the Exhibition found it gardens, and the schemes for an im- 
 
 diilii-ult to peisuaile himself that he was proved condition of the working-class, 
 
 living miller a despotic government, — he forgot the volcanic shimmer. 
 
 and one which the people of tli mulry 
 
EUROPE AV STORM AND CALM. 
 
 31 
 
 CHAPTER TWO. 
 
 The Imperial Court at Compiegne. — An Historic City. — Luxury ami Splendor. Napoleon III.'s 
 Courtship. — The Countess of Montijo. — What an Imperial Hunting-Party Cost. — Aping the 
 First Empire. — The Imperial Family. — Parvenus and Princes. — The Programme of the Season 
 at Compiegne. — How the Guests were Received. — The Imperial Theatre. — "What the People 
 Paid lor. — Prince Napoleon. Princess Clothilde. 
 
 IN this splendid year, Compiegne, as 
 well as Paris, was at the height of 
 its magnificence. Compiegne might til- 
 most have been called a second French 
 capital, for from the early days of tin- 
 Second Empire it had been the favorite 
 resort of the adroit and brilliant Empress, 
 and it was there that many of the events 
 most important in the history of the Em- 
 pire had their origin. The pretty and 
 interesting old town, on the borders of 
 the noble wood, had for many centuries 
 been a favorite resort lor French sov- 
 ereigns. The local historians even say 
 that it won the affection of Clovis ; but. 
 without going back so tar as this ancient 
 sovereign, we find in French history 
 plenty of romance, tragedy, and comedy 
 connected with Compiegne. The valor 
 of the inhabitants of the town decided 
 the victory of Bovines, which is one of 
 the most glorious in French annals. The 
 "Maiden's Tower." a part of the ruin of 
 the Porte du Yieux Pont, commemorates 
 the heroic maid of Oilcans, who was 
 taken near that place, in Compiegne, on 
 the 24th of May. 1430. There is tin in- 
 scription, scarcely complimentary to the 
 English, on this door, and in it occur-, 
 the famous line so often quoted by French 
 editors when they have found the policy 
 of France antagonized by England, — 
 
 Joan of Arc was taken by tin archer 
 of Picardy, disarmed and carried to the 
 head-quarters of Magny, where she was 
 literally sold at auction. She was tit 
 hist bought by John of Luxembourg, 
 who sold her t.. the English for 10,000 
 livres (francs) cash, and a pension of 
 300 livres. Compiegne is also full of 
 memories of La Yalliere, Madame De 
 Montespau, and Louis the Well-Beloved, 
 who had a nest for his famous Pompa- 
 dour in the shades of the park. The 
 petit chQteau, as it was called, where the 
 
 Pompadour lived, was demolished at the 
 
 ti «l' tin- great revolution. 
 
 Napoleon I. was very fond of Com- 
 
 piegne, and in the IV 
 
 if his devo- 
 
 Tous ceux-la d'Albion 
 jamais." 
 
 n'ont fait le bien 
 
 tion to Maria Louisa c structed there 
 
 the famous " Cradle," copied from that 
 of the park at Schoenbrunu. In Louis 
 Philippe's day the Court occasionally 
 had its seasons of gayety tit Compiegne, 
 and reviews were held there, at which 
 the young princes, who had been so 
 prominent in the conquest of Algeria, 
 inspected the troops. It is said that 
 Louis Philippe used to drive out to the 
 reviews in a huge carryall with a four- 
 in-hand, which he was very fond of man- 
 aging. At his side was the buy who 
 is to-day the Comte De Paris, and some- 
 times the Queen and the young Duchess 
 de Montpensier accompanied him. The 
 old King used to drive down the line of 
 troops, saluted by cheers. The last of 
 
:\-J EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 these reviews at Compiegne was held in legitimate leader of French society. This 
 1847. Nothing was more picturesque lady, who played such an important part 
 than the multitude of tents, of booths, in the career of Napoleon III.. was. ac- 
 of merchants and mountebanks, which cording to the Imperialist authorities, de- 
 sprang up under the hills of the forest, scended from two noble families of Spain 
 on the days preceding the reviews, and and England. Her father, the Count of 
 to which the Parisians flocked by him- Montijo. claimed a long desceul from 
 dreds of thousands. For a short time Spanish noblemen, who were celebrated 
 after the Revolution of 1848 the forest in the wars and politics of their native 
 was opened to the public, and the grocer, land, and among them the Count of 
 the butcher, and the candlestick-maker, Telia, who got his nobility at the end of 
 popped their guns at the royal stags and the fifteenth century from Ferdinand and 
 the scudding hares, which had hereto- Isabella, for the bravery which he dis- 
 t'ore been prev for the guns of the no- played before Granada. The mother of 
 bility alone. Mdlle. de Montijo was a descendant of 
 The chase in France has always been a Scotch family, driven out of Scotland 
 an aristocratic amusement. The middle at the fall of the Stuarts, and was the 
 class seems to have hut small liking for daughter of an English business-man 
 it ; and as the working-people have nev- named Fitz-Patrick, who was lone- Brit- 
 er been allowed to keep weapons of their ish Consul in Spain, and who seems to 
 own. they have naturally acquired but have laid but little stress upon an aristo- 
 small skill in shooting. It was but a cratic lineage. 
 
 little time alter the coup d'Etat that The Countess of Montijo and her 
 
 Napoleon III. made his appearance at daughter were well known in London, 
 
 Compiegne, and began to give hunting- Madrid, and Berlin, where they made 
 
 parties there, which were soon noted lone sojourns before they appeared in 
 
 throughout Europe for their magnificence, France, where their favorite resilience 
 
 for the excellence of the banquets, and was Fontaiuebleau. The beauty of the 
 
 the torch-light, fetes connected with them, daughter was so remarkable that in 
 
 and for the great numbers of beautiful 1850 and 1*.~>1 she was the observed of 
 
 ladies who were gathered at the newly all observers at thefetes of the Elysde. 
 
 established court. Mdlle. Eugenie de At Compiegne she conducted herself 
 
 Montijo, who was soon to become the with great prudence in the midst of a 
 
 Empress of the French, had been very corrupt Court, where she was sur- 
 
 prominent in the organization of the fes- rounded with all kinds of jealousy and 
 
 tivities at the Klysee Palace in Paris, envy; and. when the Emperor came to 
 
 anil society soon remarked that .she was declare his passion, she referred him 
 
 the leading spirit at Compiegne. The with much dignity and sweetness toher 
 
 first hunting-season under the Empire mother, who she feared would never 
 
 brought Mdlle. de Montijo and her moth- consent to the union because of the ex- 
 
 er very often before the French public, alted station of the suitor, and because 
 
 The voung beauty scandalized the chate- she felt that he ought to make a more 
 
 laiues of the neighborhood by galloping brilliant alliance with some one of the 
 
 about with the Emperor at all hours of noble families of Europe. The gossips, 
 
 the day and evening, but no one imag- since the fall of the Empire, say that the 
 
 iued that she was likely to become the Emperor's declaration was brought on 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 33 
 
 by a somewhat comical incident. They 
 relate that returning from the chase one 
 cvciiing with Millie, de Montijo, the Em- 
 peror ventured to present himself at the 
 door of her private room and to linger 
 there t'or a moment; whereupon he was 
 driven out without ceremony, and, the 
 story adds, with one or two vigorous 
 blows from a riding-whip. This, it was 
 said, confirmed his already decided 
 opinion as to the unimpeachable virtue 
 of the young countess ; and it was not 
 long before he talked of marriage. He 
 wrote a letter to the mother of the 
 adored one, and the good lady, after 
 having shown this precious document to 
 all her intimate friends, allowed herself 
 to be convinced, and the engagement 
 was soon announced to the company 
 gathered at Compiegne. 
 
 There was a great outpouring of 
 scandal as soon as this announcement 
 was made. The elder Countess of 
 Montijo had the dissatisfaction of see- 
 ing her (iast reviewed without mercy, 
 and the Legitimists and other factions of 
 the monarchical opposition to the new 
 Emperor gave full vent to their spleen 
 and their satire. The Prince Napoleon 
 was naturally very angry, as it put an 
 end to the hopes that he had begun to 
 cherish of being the legitimate succes- 
 sor of Napoleon III. Everywhere the 
 coining marriage was alluded to as 
 eccentric; and so wise and careful a 
 man as M. Thiers even ventured to have 
 his little joke at the Emperor's expense. 
 He said: "The Emperor has always 
 seemed to me to be a clever man. To- 
 day I see that he has plenty of fore- 
 sight, for by his marriage be is probably 
 reserving for himself the rank of a Span- 
 ish Grandee." This little pleasantry 
 contained a delicate allusion to the inse- 
 curity of the Emperor's position. 
 
 I In t Napoleon eared little for these 
 
 cynical remarks. He had some sup- 
 porters like M. Dupin, who said boldly 
 tli.it the Emperor had done perfectly 
 right in engaging himself to marry a 
 person who pleased him, and not allow- 
 ing himself to be snatched up by some 
 German princess with huge feet. When 
 Napoleon III. got his council of ministers 
 together and announced his projected 
 marriage there were numerous objec- 
 tions, politely but firmly made. The 
 Emperor met them all in the most per- 
 emptory fashion, saying, "There are no 
 objections to lie made, gentlemen, and 
 no discussion is to be begun on this 
 matter. The marriage is decided upon, 
 and I am decided to carry it out." There 
 whs a ripple of laughter in the European 
 Courts when the Emperor said, in his 
 speech at the Tuileries, in 1853, that the 
 union he was about to contract was not 
 exactly in accordance with the con- 
 ditions of the old traditional policy, but 
 that that was its special advantage. 
 "France," he said. " had by its succes- 
 sive revolutions separated itself from the 
 rest of Europe. A sensible government 
 ought to try to get it back into the circle 
 of the old monarchies ; but that result, 
 according to him, would be more certainly 
 brought about by a frank and straightfor- 
 ward policy, by loyalty in transactions, 
 than by royal alliances, which created a 
 false sense of security, and substituted 
 family for national interests." 
 
 This sounded very brave, and there 
 was a little swagger in the following 
 phrase, which forced even Napoleon's 
 enemies to admit that he at least had 
 the courage of his opinions: ■•When, 
 standing in full view of ancient Europe, 
 one is brought by the force of a new 
 principle up to the height of the ancient 
 dynasties, it is not by trying to give 
 additional age to one's coat of arms, 
 or by seeking by enterprise to get into 
 
34 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 a family of king's, that one makes bis ordered nol to reproduce it. and so the 
 position there. It is rather in always public remained in ignorance of the 
 remembering one's origin, in preserving Comte de Chambord's protest, 
 one's own character, and in taking The Empress seemed to have for her 
 frankly with regard to Europe the posi- chief aim the reestablishment of the 
 linn of a parvenu, which is a glorious rules of precedence and the Court cos- 
 title when one arrives at power by the tumes which had prevailed in the reign 
 free suffrage of a greal people." of Marie Antoinette at Versailles. It is 
 After the nuptial ceremony, which took even told of her that the Emperor and 
 place with great pomp at the Cathedral some of his more serious followers had a 
 <>!' Ndtre Dame in Paris, tin- Emperor severe struggle with her on the occasion 
 offered to the Duchess de Viceuce ami of a grand fancy ball, which was given 
 
 the Duchess ile Lesparre the highest at the Tuileries, to prevent her from 
 
 places in the household of the Empress ; appearing as a resuscitated Marie An- 
 
 but both these ladies refused to accept loinetle. She flattered herself that .she 
 
 the honors. This was only one of many resembled that unfortunate sovereign, 
 
 mortifications which the Imperial couple and was never weary of talking of her. 
 
 had to suffer for some months after their Without any desire at this late day to 
 
 union. The Duke de Bassauo, who was criticise the society of Compiegne or the 
 
 destined to bo the Emperor's Court chain- Empire, it is difficult to overlook the 
 
 berlain, at first said that he would take fact that the company was decidedly 
 
 good care that his family had no office mixed. A recent writer says on this 
 
 under the Empire. But he was prevailed subject: "At the advent of the Empire 
 
 upon, and the Duchess de Bassano soon all the noted parlors were closed, and 
 
 took high position among the ladies of politics. ;is in our day, sowed discord 
 
 the Empress's suite. After a. time the and disunion everywhere, so that good 
 
 Emperor rallied round him some of the society, whether per force or of its 
 
 members of the old aristocracy. It was choice, yielded place to a new monde, or 
 
 not difficult for him to do this, for he a kind of international demi-monde, 
 
 had the power of making senators, and which had Hocked together from the 
 
 of according to the members of the four cornel's of Europe to be merry at 
 
 Senate sums of 15,000, 20,000, or the Imperial Court. The new society, 
 
 30,000 francs, as he pleased. Dukes, horn of the Empire, was indeed most 
 
 princes, counts, and marquises Hocked strange. In it were found marchion- 
 
 arouml the -'Imperial parvenu," and esses, who were journalists; Italian 
 
 naturally brought their wives and daugh- princesses, who had been singers at 
 
 ters both to the Tuileries and to Com- Alcazars; and, from all countries, great 
 
 piegne. The Comte de Chambord felt ladies with regard to whose marriages 
 
 it his duty to address, from his post of there was something irregular." 
 
 exile, a letter to the Legitimist party, It was the fashion at the close of the 
 
 in which he administered a severe rebuke Empire to say that the Empress was 
 
 to those of his quondam adherents who responsible for a great part of the social 
 
 had allowed themselves to lie seduced demoralization; but this was unjust. 
 
 by the brilliant promises of the Empire. She made vigorous efforts at times to 
 
 But this letter did no good, for the sim- purge the Court of the disreputable 
 
 pie reason that the newspapers were personages who hung upon its out- 
 
EUROPE J.Y STORM AND CALM. 
 
 35 
 
 skirts, and she was now and then sue- after the opening of the first season at 
 cessful. Compiegne that an Empire was a costly 
 
 The French nation discovered shortly luxury. It would be difficult for Repub- 
 licans to understand the absolute 
 liberty which the Emperor had 
 of bestowing money upon his 
 favorites, and the license with 
 which he lavished the national 
 funds upon the amusements of 
 !'..■ Court. Marshal Magnan, 
 who had taken a vigorous part in 
 the coup d'Etat, was made grand 
 ceneur, or the Imperial Master of 
 the Hounds, with an annual salary 
 of 100,000 francs. This was more 
 money than Louis XIV. gave to 
 Rohan for the same service. Na- 
 
 TUE FRENCH EMI'EROK. AND EMPRESS AT COMPIEGNlfi. 
 
36 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 poleon treated his favorites with great 
 liberality, and this Marshal Magnan, he- 
 sides liis office al Conipiegue, had 40,000 
 francs as general-in-chief of the army of 
 Paris ; 40,000 francs as a marshal of 
 France; 30,000 francs as senator; and 
 6,000 francs as the perquisites of Ins 
 position in the Legion of Honor. Count 
 Edgar Ney, who was also a graad officer 
 in the Imperial chase, received 40,000 
 francs yearly, and aristocratic gentle- 
 men whose only labors during the year 
 consisted in keeping the packs of hounds 
 well furnished, in buying horses in 
 England or in Hungary, were paid 
 
 •JO, DIM), 15, or 12. iMIli franc. 
 
 Nearly all these gentlemen were also 
 officers in the army, and received sala- 
 ries of from 12,000 to 40,000 francs for 
 military service. Napoleon gave them 
 horses and carriages, free lodgings in all 
 the Imperial palaces, and. in fact, so 
 heaped honors and splendors upon them 
 that they would have been base ingrates 
 if they had not fully espoused his cause. 
 The officers of sport were supposed to 
 pass three months of the year at Ram- 
 bouillet, three months at St. Germain, 
 three months at Fontainebleau, ami 
 three months at Compiegue, in which 
 place they were entitled to lodgings in 
 the crown buildings, to firing, lighting, 
 washing, etc. The grand veneur even 
 had a mansion specially rented for him 
 i:i Paris, and the expense of this was 
 paid by tin' people. 
 
 The Empress spent long mornings in 
 designing and adopting costumes for the 
 chase. Bottle-green hail been the livery 
 adopted by the Imperial Court of Napo- 
 leon I. ; ami so bottle-green was adopted 
 by the Imperial Court of Napoleon III. 
 Hut there were among others magnificent 
 costumes rich with red velvet striped 
 with gold. Everything was regulated in 
 the most careful manner. The Emperor 
 
 and Empress wore white feathers in their 
 hats, and no one else at Court was al- 
 lowed to do so. A special kind of hunt- 
 ing-hat was specified tor certain days, 
 and no frequenter of the Court would 
 have dared in the smallest detail to vent- 
 ure upon originality, as he or she would 
 [lave immediately incurred the Empress's 
 
 displeasure. It was considered a great 
 favor to he authorized to wear a hunting- 
 costume without being a member of the 
 hunt ni'iif the Emperor's household. The 
 chief officers of the crown, the Court 
 chamberlain, the master of horse, the 
 gland master of ceremonies, the prefects 
 of the police, the special grooms of the 
 Emperor and Empress, and the ladies 
 of the palace and the ladies of the chief 
 dignitaries, were all enrolled in this mas- 
 culine and feminine hunting-regiment; 
 and he or she who was not a good rider 
 had hut little chance at Court. All this 
 people, in the midst of their sports and 
 fantastic promenades in the leafy ave- 
 nues of the forest, almost forgot that 
 there was such a city as Paris or a great 
 nation of thirty-seven or thirty-eight 
 millions of striving and suffering work- 
 ers. The Emperor had taken possession 
 <>l' France as his particular prize, and 
 cared as little for the will of the people 
 as for the direction of the wind. 
 
 lint, although he cherished a supreme 
 disdain for the public will and for public 
 criticism, he was extremely attentive to 
 the remarks of foreign Courts, and con- 
 stantly made endeavors to attract to 
 ( 'ompicgne some representatives of Eu- 
 ropean royalty and aristocracy. The 
 King of Holland, who was a great ad- 
 mirer of the Empress, was one .if the 
 first sovereigns to come to Compiegne, 
 and great was the rejoicing when he ap- 
 peared. Afterward- there were numer- 
 ous important visits of .sovereigns ; and 
 among the most noted were those of Vie- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 37 
 
 tor Emanuel of Italy, the Emperor of 
 Austria, the Emperor of Russia, the King 
 of Prussia, and Prince Bismarck in 1867, 
 and the King of Portugal. 
 
 It was perhaps at the close of the 
 Crimean war that the Compiegnes, as 
 they were called, were most brilliant. 
 Enormous sums of money were spent at 
 that time upon the hunting-parties, and 
 Lord Stratford Canning. Lord Palmer- 
 ston, and other noted Englishmen, were 
 quite dazzled, although accustomed to 
 luxury at home, by the Imperial displays. 
 It is said that when Lord Palmerston 
 visited Compiegne, the daily expenses at 
 the Court were 45,000 francs. The Prin- 
 cess de Metternich, the interesting and 
 original wife of the Austrian ambassador, 
 was intimately associated with all the/etes 
 and shows of the Imperial Court. .She, 
 like the Empress, was foreign to French 
 manners ; but she had what the French 
 call the diable mi corps, and she was im- 
 mensely popular among the jeunesse 
 dorie, who moved in the upper circles of 
 society. Although the conduct of the 
 Empress was never for an instant criti- 
 cised during her whole reign, she was 
 frequently called upon to witness terri- 
 ble scandals at Court. 
 
 Compiegne was the fashion. The 
 Emperor and Empress arrived there on 
 All-Saints-day and left on the evening 
 before the opening of the Chambers in 
 Paris. When the Court arrived, a bat- 
 talion of infantry of the guards came 
 also, and there was music in the clear- 
 ings in the forest, and all the villas in 
 the neighborhood were filled with rich 
 foreigners. On the day of the Empe- 
 ror's arrival no one dined at the palace 
 with him except the officers of his house- 
 hold, who were, as the phrase went, 
 " on duty," and the ladies who belonged 
 to the train of the Empress. The uiider- 
 prefect, the mayor, and all the officers 
 
 of the garrison, went out to meet the 
 Emperor when he arrived at the railway 
 station ; and the inspectors of forests, 
 the game-keepers, and the hundred 
 smaller officials, came to pay their re- 
 spects in the evening. 
 
 On the next day the guests began to 
 arrive. It was the custom of the Court 
 to have five series of invited guests, 
 numbering about ninety in each series. 
 Persons of distinction in literature, or 
 science, or politics, on receiving an 
 invitation to Compiegne, understood 
 that they were invited for four days. 
 without counting the day of arrival or 
 that of departure. The special honor 
 was to be invited on the lath of No- 
 vember, because that was St. Eugenie's- 
 day, and the Empress's fete. On that 
 occasion there was a comedy given by 
 amateurs, followed by a grand ball, at 
 which all the Court society, and every- 
 body, of course, brought costly offerings 
 of flowers. The principal functionaries 
 of the town and the department, with 
 their families, were invited to dinner, 
 and the officers of the garrison came in 
 a group to offer the Empress a magnifi- 
 cent bouquet. 
 
 The Imperial family was quite numer- 
 ous, and when the Emperor arrived at 
 Compiegne a goodly number of the 
 members of his family came with him. 
 There was tiie young and pretty Princess 
 Anna Murat ; her brother Prince .Joa- 
 chim ; the Princess Mathilde, who had at 
 first pouted when she had heard of the 
 marriage, but who finally grew reconciled 
 to it and was later on a very affectionate 
 friend of the Empress; and the little 
 Prince Imperial. King Jerome and the 
 prince, his son, came rarely to Com- 
 piegne. They could not endure the 
 Empress, who liked them not, and who 
 did not conceal her dislike, and who, 
 after the lather dubious exploits of Prince 
 
38 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Napoleon in the Crimea, marie so much Marshal of the palace alone had the right 
 
 fun of him that he cherished a mortal to put his servants in the Imperial livery. 
 
 haired for her. The Emperor \v:is peri- The public called this the " Rachel 
 
 odically besieged by needy members of Decree." All the ceremonies of the Im- 
 
 his family, — needy because of their ex- perial Court were regulated in the most 
 
 aggerated wants; and many a good story punctilious fashion. Yet a certain free- 
 
 is (olil of the manner in which he evaded dom of manner always betrayed the tact 
 
 undue exactions on the part of his rela- that the Emperor ami Empress had led 
 
 tives. On one occasion Prince Napo- adventurous lives and had not been acens- 
 
 leon asked for such an enormous sum tomed to the atmosphere of courts, dur- 
 
 that the Emperor refused it point-blank, ing the early part of their careers. When 
 
 saj'ing that as he had already given him the beautiful and accomplished Princess 
 
 a capital of 2.300,000 francs a year he Clothilde came, as the wife of Prince 
 
 could do nothing more lor him The Napoleon, to Compi^gue, the Empress 
 
 Prince grew furious, and indulged in Eugenie undertook to give her some slight 
 
 some very strong language, finishing by advice as to her dress and manners. But 
 
 the remark, "There is nothing of the the Princess quietly remarked, ••You 
 
 Emperor about you." — " ( >h, yes, there forget, Madam, that I was born at ( lourl ." 
 
 is," answered Napoleon 111. without which caused a coolness between the 
 
 moving a muscle of his countenance; ladies for some time. 
 
 " there is his family." This story got The amusements offered the guests iu- 
 
 abroad, and was the delight of Paris for vited to Compiegnc were invariably the 
 
 many days. same. On the day of the arrival there 
 
 Prince Napoleon was lone deeply at- was a grand dinner, a charade, little 
 taehed to Rachel, the noted actress, games, and a "hop." The next day. 
 Their intimacy was quite public, as the after breakfast, there was hunting eithei 
 Prince made no mystery of any of his in the reserve park or in the pheasantry. 
 liaisons. In 1853 a certain prince, who The Emperor was very fond of shooting- 
 very likely was not friendly to the Em- matches, to which only ten or twelve 
 press, sent one of his carriages, which gmsts were admitted to the honor of 
 was exactly like those used by the Im- partaking this pleasure with him. These 
 perial pair, to Rachel, that she might go must be either sovereigns or foreign 
 to Longchamps in it. She accepted this princes staying at the palace, princes of 
 delicate attention, and the public, recog- the blood, ambassadors, marshals of 
 nizing the Imperial livery, took Rachel France, and the ministers, and two or 
 for the Empress and hailed her with three officers of the chase. Tin 1 guests 
 cheers and obsequious bows. When she who were of small consequence went 
 got home the actress said, " It is very hunting in the forest under the guidance 
 disagreeable to be taken fortheEmprcss." of a general guard, or shot at birds with 
 This pleased Prince Napoleon so much the ladies on the lawn. The Empress 
 that he could not help repeating it as was very fond of archery, and had a fas- 
 some slight revenge for the many occa- cinating train of beauties who could draw 
 sions upon which the Empress had ren- the bow with skill. In the evening after 
 dered him ridiculous. the grand hunting-match there was usu- 
 
 After this little incident a decree was ally a play in the palace theatre. The 
 
 published, announcing that the Grand companies of the subsidized theatres of 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CA1 V. 
 
 39 
 
 Paris were expected to perform at least 
 once during the season at Compiegnc be- 
 fore the Emperor and Empress. It is a 
 striking commentary on the taste of the 
 Imperial Court that the Palais Royal 
 Company was the most popular of all. 
 Neither tin- Emperor nor the Empress weir 
 fond of music. The theatrical represen- 
 tations cost from 20,000 to 40,000 francs 
 each. The artists of the Theatre Francais 
 were the only ones who were allowed to 
 go and salute the Emperor and Empress 
 and indulge in a few moments' conversa- 
 tion with them after the play. 
 
 The luxury of the Imperial theatre 
 was quite remarkable. The Imperial 
 box contained one hundred and fifty 
 seats, and on each side of it was a gal- 
 lery, so called, in which the most beau- 
 tiful women of the Court took their 
 places. At nine o'clock precisely, on 
 the evening of the play, the chief 
 chamberlain came into the hnje in 
 Court costume, with rapier at side, 
 and announced in a loud voice, "The 
 Pmiperor!" Then every one arose. 
 The Emperor and Empress came in, 
 bowing to right and left, and sat down 
 in their great gilded chairs, with a little 
 army of chamberlains and domestics 
 behind them. On a gala night this 
 theatre furnished a complete epitome of 
 society under the Empire. There might 
 be seen in sumptuous toilettes the Count- 
 
 ess de Persigny, the Countess Walewska, 
 the beautiful Countess Le Hon. the young 
 Duchess de Moray, the Duchess de 
 Bassano, and Madame Drouyn de Lhuys, 
 Madame de Sauley, ami the Marchioness 
 Aguado ; then, in the second rank, the 
 joyous ladies who were the especial fa- 
 vorites of the Empress, — the Countess 
 de Pourtales, the Marchionesses de Gal- 
 Iiffet, de Cadore, de Villa Marina, and 
 a host of beautiful foreign ladies, Amer- 
 ican. Italian, Spanish, German, and 
 English. 
 
 On these occasions the toilette de I»it 
 was rigorously exacted from all the 
 ladies. Xo Duchess of sixty was ex- 
 empted by the Empress from the rigid 
 rule which required her to bare her 
 shoulders. It is said that one day the 
 Empress's careful gaze detected an old 
 lady who had violated the rule, ami who 
 had hidden herself as well as she could 
 in the last row of seats in the loges. 
 The chamberlain was immediately sent 
 to order the lady at once to leave the 
 hall. 
 
 On certain occasions the Court was 
 invited to some aristocratic chateau in 
 the neighborhood. During the day 
 there was a hunting expedition, thecere- 
 mony of the curie, or the feeding of 
 the hounds by torch-light in the court- 
 yard ; and afterwards, in the parlors, a 
 great ball. 
 
4i) EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER THREE. 
 
 What was the Second Empire? — now was it Created ? -The Perjury of the Prince President. — The 
 Plebiscite. — The Massacres of December. — General Changarnicr and his Fidelity to his Coun- 
 try.— The Protest of the Deputies. — Struggle of the Citizens. — The Reign of Terror.— The 
 Imperial Eagle. — A Period of Absolute Repress 
 
 WE Lave seen the Second Empire :it befell Fiance before the foundation of 
 the height of its glory, its creator the Third Republic, 
 and master surrounded by brilliant pag- The story has been told in a hundred 
 cants, visited by neighboring monarchs, ways: with picturesque and poetic vi- 
 entertainiug the nations at a grand fes- vacity by Victor Hugo and Kinglake ; 
 tival of peace and industry, and inaugu- with force and sincerity by Taxile De- 
 rating in the same year a democratic ami lord ; anil with the unpitying and flawless 
 liberal policy. To the casual observer clearness of a judge summing tip the 
 this might have seemed a fitting cnlmi- career of one on trial before him, by 
 nation to a just and honorable career. Jules Simon. 
 
 But, while everything on the surface was The majority of those who voted for 
 fair to see, it was impossible to deny the Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte aa 
 presence of internal convulsions, which President of the French Republic, on 
 seemed likely to brine' speedy disrup- the 10th of December, 1848, doubtless 
 lion and ruin upon the Imperial party, expected that, in the course of his polit- 
 if not upon the nation which it governed, ical career, he would undertake a roup 
 What was the cause of the powerful d'Etat. As Jules Simon very neatly 
 opposition to the Empire which had puts it, " A nation does not give a Re- 
 grown up since 18G5? Why was it that public into the hands of :i prince when 
 the leading liberals of the country, who it wishes to stive a Republic." But 
 were naturally anxious at all cost to shortly after his election, the President, 
 maintain public order and to prevent the in obedience to the constitution, which 
 advent to power of the aggressive Social- had abolished the political oath for till 
 ists and Communists, — why was it that functionaries except for the chief magis- 
 they did not ralry to the support of this trate of the nation, took, before the 
 Empire, which professed its willingness national representatives in the Assem- 
 to give the country ample liberty, just as blv, the following oath: — 
 last, as it could demonstrate its fitness to " In the presence of God, and before 
 possess it? A sufficient answer to these the French people represented by the 
 questions may be found in a brief recital National Assembly, 1 swear to remain 
 of the origin of the Second Empire ; and faithful to the Republic, democratic. 
 this resume of one of the most remarka- nut: ft indivisible, and to fulfil till the 
 ble political events of modern times is duties which the constitution imposes 
 
 ui ssaiv to a complete understanding upon me." 
 
 of the dramatic series of disasters which This was certainly a formal engage- 
 
KUROI-E IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 41 
 
 merit, from which then' was no honora- 
 blc retreat, and the President of the 
 Assembly solemnly called upon God and 
 man to witness the oath which the Prince 
 had just taken. From that time for- 
 ward the French Republic rested entirely 
 upon the good faith of Prince Louis 
 Napoleon, who hail from his earliest 
 childhood announced publicly to his 
 friends and acquaintances that he would 
 one day lie Emperor of France, and who 
 had twice himself tried, by force of arms, 
 to gain power in the country to which he 
 felt himself called by fate. 1 do not 
 say called by Providence, for Providence 
 entered but little into the calculations of 
 the late Emperor of the French, lie 
 was a pure fatalist; far more so even 
 than the first Napoleon, and showed 
 ample proof of this in the manner in 
 which he submitted, without even a dem- 
 onstration of heroism, to his misfortune 
 at Sedan. lie felt, in short, that the 
 ■' game was up." that the stars were no 
 longer kindly ; and he was too strong to 
 complain, too much of a fatalist to 
 make any endeavor to change circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Louis Napoleon lost no time in con- 
 firming the assurances which he had given 
 in his oath. On the 20th of December, 
 1848, he said that the suffrages of the 
 nation and the oath that lie had taken 
 commanded his future conduct and 
 traced his public duty, so that he could 
 not mistake it. "I shall regard," he 
 said, " as enemies of the country all 
 those who try by illegal means to change 
 the form of government which you have 
 established." He hail previously said 
 (just before Iris election) that if elected 
 President he should devote himself en- 
 tirely, without any sort of reserve, to the 
 establishment of the Republic. " I will 
 pledge my honor," he said, " to leave 
 at the end of four years to mv succes- 
 
 sor power strengthened, liberty intact, 
 and real progress accomplished." 
 
 M. Jules Simon tells us that on the 
 12th of August, 1850, the President of 
 the Republic said to the mayor of Lyons, 
 "You may possibly have heard some 
 remarks about a coup d'Etat. You did 
 not believe them, and I thank you for 
 this proof of confidence." At a great 
 dinner, given in his honor at Strasbourg, 
 he alluded to the rumors of a possible 
 attack upon the Republic, and repudi- 
 ated them with scorn. "I know noth- 
 ing but my duty," he said. A year after- 
 wards, in November of 1851, he still 
 professed an unalterable devotion to the 
 Republic. The President of the Council 
 said of him to one of his colleagues, 
 •• lie is the most honest man in the 
 Republic. He will never betray his 
 oath ; I am sure of it ." 
 
 For more than three years, therefore. 
 Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte an- 
 nounced repeatedly, and on public and 
 private occasions, that he was faithful 
 to the Republic, and that he would con- 
 sider as a great criminal any one who 
 should become a traitor to that form of 
 government, so recently established in 
 France. But there seems little doubt 
 that as early as 1850 he had definitely 
 resolved to betray his trust. From that 
 time forward he began to have uses for 
 large sums of money, which his expen- 
 ditures merely as President of the Re- 
 public did not seem to justify. lie 
 received as salary 1,200,000 francs from 
 the nation, and perquisites : but he man- 
 aged to get bis appropriation increased 
 to 1,490,000 francs the first year, ami 
 to 3,410,000 the second year. In every 
 place of importance to which he could 
 appoint a functional'}' he put a man wdio 
 was devoted, not to the State or to the 
 Republic, but to himself. Never were 
 there so many men of small or no scru- 
 
42 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 pies placed i:i ministerial and other 
 positions of trust anil lionor. 
 
 In 18;")0 lie began to copy in many 
 ways the fashions of the First Empire, 
 and to talk everywhere of the Napoleonic 
 Legend, which had already been so use- 
 ful to him. In January of 1849, and al 
 the end of 1850, there were mysterious 
 movements of troops, which wen' 
 thought by the Republicans to indicate 
 attempts al a coup d'Etat. But nothing 
 came of either of them. A good story 
 is told of the clever manner in which 
 old General Changarnier managed to 
 prevent the Imperialist manifesto in 
 1850. A great review of troops had 
 been held on the heights of Satory near 
 Versailles. At this review the troops, 
 who had been thoroughly interested in 
 the Imperial cause, cried boldly, "Vive 
 VEmpereur!" Troops had been massed 
 around the Gare St. Lazare in Paris, 
 and it was intended that the Prince 
 President, when he arrived from the 
 review, should place himself at the head 
 of these troops, march to (he Tuileries, 
 and there proclaim his Dictatorship. 
 But those who had thus plotted had not 
 taken into account the cleverness of 
 General Changarnier, who had discov- 
 ered this plot, and who checked it by a 
 movement of supreme coolness and good 
 sense. The Prince President arrived at 
 the railway station with his proclamation 
 in his pocket, and surrounded by his 
 counsellors and by the ringleaders of the 
 conspiracv. He was moving to his car- 
 riage when General Changarnier stepped 
 up, complimented him upon the success 
 of the review, ceremoniously conducted 
 him to the carriage, shut the door of it 
 with his own hands, and said to the 
 coachman, " Drive to the Flysee." Na- 
 poleon was not devoid of esprit. lie 
 saw by something in Changarnier's de- 
 meanor that his plan had been discov- 
 
 ered. lh took can' not to countermand 
 the orders given to the coachman. 
 
 ( )ld General Changarnier was incor- 
 ruptible to the hist. lie used to say 
 that Napoleon hail frequently offered to 
 him, not onlv the dignity of marshal, 
 but various other important positions, if 
 the general would consent to enlist him- 
 self in the ranks of the conspirators. 
 When it was found that Changarnier 
 could not be corrupted, he was attacked 
 
 on all sides by the party in power, 
 finally he was removed from his post 
 as Commander of the Army and the 
 National Guard. ( >n that day Monsieur 
 Thiers, who was wiser than most of the 
 men of his time, said in the legislative 
 assembly, "The Empire is established." 
 In 1851 Napoleon and his men moved 
 rapidly forward to the conclusion of 
 their enterprise. The law of the .'list of 
 May. which suppressed three millions 
 of voters, and to establish which the 
 Prince President had himself helped, was 
 now used by him to increase his popu- 
 larity at the expense of that of the 
 National Assembly. Indeed, Napoleon 
 placed himself with great dexterity in 
 this secure position, that he might say 
 to the French people that if he over- 
 turned the Assembly it was to save 
 universal suffrage. The fust step tow- 
 ards absolute power was thus made by 
 causing a conflict of authority between 
 the Prince President and the representa- 
 tives of the people in the National As- 
 sembly. Then the Assembly proposed 
 what was known as the loi des questeurs, 
 which cave the right to the officers of 
 the Assembly to demand forces necessary 
 to scenic the legislative body against 
 armed interference. This was a sign of 
 weakness, of which the Imperial faction 
 speedily took advantage. While matur- 
 ing their plan, the Imperialists had natu- 
 rally bestowed great attention upon the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 43 
 
 army. As M. Jules Simon says, "The 
 generals were mere creatures of the Im- 
 perialist conspirators." Those honest 
 and courageous soldiers, who, like Lamo- 
 riciere, could not be counted upon to 
 betray the country's cause, were already 
 placed on a black list, and marked for 
 arrest and seclusion whenever the blow 
 should be struck. It is said that a 
 great part of the patrimony of Napoleon 
 was given away, in small and large .sums, 
 to people in the military service whom 
 he wished to corrupt. He even bor- 
 rowed large sums for the same use 
 both before and after his election as 
 President. 
 
 On the 1st of December, 1851, there 
 was the usual evening reception at the 
 Palace of the Elys6e. Various accounts 
 of the events which occurred on this even- 
 ing have been printed. Perhaps none 
 are more correct than those of M. Maxime 
 Ducampand M. Jules Simon. The Prince 
 President remained in the parlors talking 
 with the members of the diplomatic corps 
 and distinguished visitors on all sorts of 
 trivial matters, and making numerous 
 engagements for the following day. No 
 one saw in his face, or detected in his 
 words, any signs of preoccupation. 
 About ten o'clock, on this evening, the 
 President made a sign to a colonel who 
 had been named by the conspirators that 
 very evening the chief of staff of the 
 National Guard. " Colonel," said he, 
 smiling, " are you master enough of 
 your face not to let any great emotion ap- 
 pear upon it?" — "I fancy so, Prince," 
 replied the newly-promoted colonel. 
 "Very well, then, it is fur to-night," 
 replied the President, in a low voice. 
 " You do uot start? Very well ; we are 
 all right ! Can you give me your word 
 that, to-morrow, the rappel will not be 
 sounded anywhere, and that no assem- 
 bly of the National Guard will take 
 
 place?" The colonel proceeded to say 
 that he could and would cany out any 
 order of that nature. The fact is. that 
 when he left the Klysee that night he 
 had the skins taken off from all the drum- 
 heads, which was a very effective manner 
 of preventing the drummers from making 
 a noise on the fatal day. The Prince 
 President conversed a few moments 
 longer with the colonel, then said, "Go 
 to the Minister of "War : lint do not leave 
 at once, or it will be thought I have given 
 you an order." Then, taking the arm 
 of the Spanish Ambassador, who came 
 up at that moment, the Prince returned 
 to his guests. 
 
 ( >n the same day, but earlier in the 
 evening, the Prince President, in con- 
 versation with the Mayor of Nantes, 
 said to him, speaking of rumors of con- 
 spiracy which had been recently circu- 
 lated, " You, at least, M. Favre, do 
 not believe this story; is it not so? You 
 know that I am an honest man." The 
 Mayor of Nantes must have smiled 
 shortly afterwards, when he saw the 
 work which the honest man had done. 
 
 The next morning the French people, 
 and the world outside, learned that the 
 coup iFEtai had come at last. M.Thiers, 
 the Generals Cavaignac, Lamoriciere, 
 Bedeau, Changarnier, and other dis- 
 tinguished officers, had been dragged 
 from their beds and carried off to the 
 prison of Mazas. 
 
 All the streets surrounding the Flys^e 
 and the Palais Bourbon, where the Na- 
 tional Assembly held its sessions, were 
 blocked up with troops. The officers 
 commanding the few soldiers who were 
 guarding the Legislative Palace were 
 disarmed, and many of the officials of 
 the Assembly were arrested. When the 
 colonel charged with the duty of tak- 
 ing the Legislative Palace entered that 
 building he first went to the command- 
 
44 
 
 / i ROPE IX STORM AND 0A1 U 
 
 ant. There he found the lieutenant- 
 colonel, who, startled by the unusual 
 noise in the night, was just putting on 
 his clothes. The colonel seized a sword 
 which was lying upon the chair; where- 
 upon the Republican officer advanced, 
 pale with rage, and said, "You do well 
 to take it, for a moment later I would 
 have run you through the body with it." 
 This was, however, the only sign of re- 
 sistance then made. When the morning 
 of the "id of December dawned nearly 
 all the Liberal and Republican deputies 
 of tlie country had been locked up in 
 prison. Public buildings and offices 
 were taken possession of by the con- 
 spirators, and the hostile newspapers 
 were suppressed, ami a proclamation 
 posted on the walls announced, "in the 
 name of the French people and by de- 
 cree of the President of the Republic," 
 the dissolution of the National Assem- 
 bly, and the re-establishment of univer- 
 sal suffrage. New elections were de- 
 creed. A stale of siege was established 
 in what was called the first military 
 division. The Council of State was 
 dissolved. This was revolution indeed. 
 
 The proclamation of the Prince Presi- 
 dent to the French nation was headed 
 by the words, " Appeal to the People," 
 which has ever since (hat time been the 
 watchword of the Bonapartist party. 
 
 That everything was carried out on 
 this memorable night with such precision 
 and complete order is the best proof 
 that the coiq) d'Etat was prepared a long 
 time in advance. It is even said that 
 the Prince President had long had near 
 him in a sealed package these proclama- 
 tions ; and that on the package was 
 written the word " Rubicon :" from which 
 we may infer that he compared his forth- 
 coming adventurous enterprise to the 
 crossing of the Pill iic. ,n b) Ca'sar. 
 
 Tlie resistance to this astoundinedy 
 
 audacious act was prompt, hut feeble. 
 A few deputies and politicians got to- 
 gether hastily ami signed a protest, de- 
 claring that the Prince President by his 
 act. in virtue of an article in the Consti- 
 tution, had forfeited his position ; and in 
 this same document the convening of the 
 High Court of Justice was suggested. 
 This document was signed by many of 
 tlie most distinguished and eloquent men 
 in France. Victor Hugo, who afterward 
 became so prominent ami powerful an 
 enemy of the Imperialist cause, then 
 drew up an appeal to arms, which was 
 hastily struck off in the neighboring 
 printing-offices, ami scattered through 
 the crowd. Finally a few deputies got 
 
 together in the Palais Courb the Im- 
 perialist soldiers, meantime, Inning 
 closed most of the doors and locked 
 them, ami left the building. But no 
 sooner had the forty or fifty deputies, 
 who had got in through a. back door, 
 begun their session, than a new body 
 of soldiers arrived and drove them out. 
 The deputies, and about one hundred 
 and sixty or one hundred and seventy 
 others then took refuge in one of the 
 municipal buildings in the tenth ward, 
 and there unanimously voted the decree 
 which was drawn up by the great Per. 
 rver, and which proclaimed the downfall 
 of Bonaparte. 
 
 But all this- was of no avail. Troops, 
 police commissioners, and other authori- 
 ties, once more dispersed the represent- 
 atives of the country in the name of the 
 new 1'rcfect of Police. A young officer 
 coolly read a despatch which he had just 
 received from a general to whom had 
 been given the chief command of the 
 troops in Paris. By this despatch the 
 unlucky deputies learned that those who 
 offered any resistance were to be at 
 once arrested and taken to Mazas. 
 They therefore surrendered, an 1 went in 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 45 
 
 a body to the great prison, conducted, as 
 
 if they themselves were the insurrection- 
 ists, by a squad of troops. Some of 
 them were even taken by the collar, as 
 if they were thieves or pickpockets. 
 
 Then came the struggle of the citi- 
 zens Sghting for the constitution and 
 the laws against the corrupted army 
 and the representatives of the newly 
 arrived authority. Those days of barri- 
 cades and massacre are nut ye( forgot- 
 ten. The spirit of Baudin, who was 
 killed on the barricade in one of the 
 davs which followed the coup d'Etat, was 
 destined to rise sixteen years afterwai'ds 
 and strike terror into the hearts of the 
 supporters of the Empire. There were 
 plenty of heroic attempts at resistance, 
 but none were attended with any success 
 in the first two or three days. The 
 deputies who had escaped arrest went 
 from barricade to barricade, haranguing 
 the crowds who had gathered to light 
 the troops. Wherever the cry of " Vive 
 VAssemblie Nationale " was raised the 
 troops charged upon the citizens, and a 
 great many innocent and unarmed 
 people were killed. On the 4th of 
 December there was a veritable mas- 
 sacre on the boulevard, ami fifteen hun- 
 dred men made a vigorous defence 
 against more than forty thousand. It 
 is said that on this day more than 
 sixty people were killed between the 
 Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle and the 
 Boulevard des [taliens ; and the official 
 imperial papers six months after the 
 light admitted that three hundred and 
 eighty persons were killed upon that day. 
 On the 27th of January, 1853, M. de 
 Maupas, Minister of Police, presented 
 to the new Emperor a table, showing 
 that twenty-sis thousand six hundred 
 and forty-two persons were arrested or 
 prosecuted in France after the coup 
 d'Etat, Twenty thousand of these were 
 
 condemned to different terms of impris- 
 onment; the others were set at liberty. 
 Thousands of persons were subjected to 
 police surveillance, one of the most hu- 
 miliating afflictions which can befall a 
 human being. Nine hundred and fifteen 
 persons were sentenced by courts-martial 
 for crimes against the common law. so 
 called, which were really nothing but 
 political offences. Nearly ten thousand 
 political opponents of the new Empire 
 were transported to Algeria. Thousands 
 upon thousands were sent to linger in 
 unhealthy prisons and in transport-ships 
 waiting until there was an opportunity 
 to send them to Cayenne or Lambessa. 
 The least prejudiced and most careful 
 authorities believe that they are not 
 guilty of exaggeration in saying that the 
 Revolution of the I'd of December, 1851, 
 made, at least one hundred thousand 
 victims. 
 
 When the authors of the run/) d'Etat 
 were well established in power they pro- 
 ceeded to fortify their position. They 
 voted a •• law of general surety." which 
 placed every Frenchman at the arbitrary 
 disposition of the police, to be trans- 
 ported if he did, or even thought, any- 
 thing against the government. Jules 
 Simon says, '•The law of the L'Tth of 
 February, 1858, called the Law of 
 General Surety, placed every citizen at 
 the mercy of the Minister of the Inte- 
 rior." The whole country seemed bound 
 with iron bands. People who had be- 
 come accustomed, under the Republic 
 and under the comparatively mild mon- 
 archies which had succeeded each other 
 since the Fust Empire, to a reasonable 
 amount of liberty, were astounded be- 
 yond measure at the regime in which they 
 now entered. A respectable and respon- 
 sible citizen would be arrested upon the 
 denunciation of some political and private 
 enemy; would lie kept in prison without 
 
46 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 being allowed to communicate with his 
 family for weeks, sometimes for months ; 
 would then be brought up before a com- 
 missioner of police, who had very likely 
 never heard of him, being appointed from 
 the rank of the numerous Corsicans faith- 
 ful t<> the Imperialist cause, and would 
 be sentenced to transportation. lb' 
 would then be shackled with a criminal, 
 packed into a prison wagon, taken to a 
 seaport, and sent off to Cayenne, living, 
 eating, and sleeping with the vilest crimi- 
 nals, when his only offence might have 
 been a word spoken lightly in blame of 
 the Empire. 
 
 A discreet and moderate critic has 
 Slimmed up the reasons for the success of 
 the i-niij) d'Etat in a few words. " The 
 enterprise," he says, " only succeeded be- 
 cause it was supported by sixty thousand 
 men, and because at the first sign of re- 
 sistance M. I )e Morny, according to his 
 own expression, ■•knew how 'to take 
 the town by terror.' Immense fail! 
 France, with its military system, is in 
 the power of him who holds the control 
 of the armed forces in his hands." M. 
 de Sybel s:n s of the slaughter during 
 the days following the coup d'Etat on 
 the 4th of December : " When the Prince 
 saw that there was an armed resistance 
 the tiger in him got the uppermost. 
 The troops received an order to suppress 
 the movement witli pitiless energy. In 
 a few hours many hundreds of men, 
 simple spectators, women, old men, and 
 children, were maxxavred. It was the 
 same in the departments. Wherever 
 resistance broke out. it was /»»' down 
 
 with frightful cruelty. The Dumber of 
 those actually killed lias not been made 
 known, hut more than twenty-six thou- 
 sand men were sent across the ocean in 
 exile in a tew weeks. " 
 
 Immediately after the country had 
 been terrorized by the coup d'Etat and its 
 
 attendant massacres, the President an- 
 nounced "The Plebiscite." Now a ple- 
 biscite is the favorite arm of French 
 Imperialism. It is an election with appar- 
 ent fairness, yet an election so arranged 
 that it is impossible for citizens with 
 safety to vole against the interests of the 
 government which brings about the elec- 
 tion. The formula laid down by the new 
 
 authorities, to be voted upon, was as fol- 
 lows: '•The French people wishes the 
 maintenance of the authority of Louis 
 Napoleon Hon.- 1 parte, and delegates to 
 him the powers necessary to make a con- 
 stitution on the hasis proposed in his 
 proclamation of the "id of December." 
 Thus the country had first the dispersion 
 of iis regularly elected representatives 
 by an armed force ; then a proclamation 
 by the party employing that armed force 
 announcing new elections; then the new 
 elections held within the iron grooves 
 made by the party having possession of 
 power. It is therefore not startling that 
 the country, humiliated, crushed, and 
 fearful lest, if the embryo Empire were 
 swept away, civil war might ensue, gave 
 its coerced assent to the formula of the 
 plebiscite. The vote was as follows: 
 7,439,216, " Yes," against 640,737, 
 •• No." The Prince President professed 
 to be delighted with his triumph, and 
 went forward bravely to the construction 
 of the Constitution. With regard to this 
 •• plebiscite " it should he added, that 
 there were more than a million and a half 
 of abstentions in the country, and these 
 may be supposed to represent the men 
 who were loo honest to say yes, and too 
 weak to say no. These many millions 
 of votes, on which the claims of the Im- 
 perial party to power have been based 
 ever since, gave Louis Napoleon Bona- 
 parte the presidency of the Republic for 
 ten years. " France." he said, in joyous 
 indiscretion, " has responded to the royal 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 47 
 
 >f the 
 
 appeal which I made to her. She has 
 understood that I transgressed legality 
 only to get back to justice." More than 
 seven millions of votes had absolved 
 him. 
 
 Thenceforward the attitud 
 Prince President was void of 
 dissimulation. On the 1st of 
 January. 1852, he placed the 
 Imperial eagle on his flags, 
 chose the Tuileries for his 
 residence, even had a Te 
 I>< urn sung at the cathedral 
 of Notre Dame de Paris, and 
 otherwise imitated the pro- 
 ceedings of the First Empire. 
 In the same month he ex- 
 pelled from tile country all 
 the old representatives of the 
 Legislative Assembly who 
 had opposed him ; and among 
 them were such men as Victor 
 Hugo, Edouard Laboulaye, 
 Nadaud, Bancel, Pelletier, 
 Schoelcher, andGambon. lie 
 also sentenced to temporary 
 exile Changarnier, Thiers, de 
 Remusat, and many other dis- 
 tinguished Republicans. This 
 month of January was a fruit- 
 ful working time with him. 
 He promulgated the new Con- 
 stitution, of which he was the 
 author, and in which he at- 
 tributed to himself the initia- 
 tive of the laws, the appoint- 
 ing of the members of the 
 Senate, and defined the few 
 rights which were left to the lower 
 house of the Legislature. Next, lie 
 created a Minister of Police and confis- 
 cated the estates of the Orleans family ; 
 but it was not until September of this 
 same year that, while inaugurating the 
 equestrian statue of Napoleon I., at 
 Lyons, he hinted his intention of re- 
 
 establishing the Empire ; and in < >ctober, 
 at Bordeaux, he made a speech, in which 
 he used the celebrated phrase, •• ' L'Em- 
 pire e'est la paix.' It is peace because 
 France desires if ; and when France is 
 satisfied the rest of the world is tranquil." 
 
 MJ 
 
 EPISODE OF THE COUP D'ETAT. 
 
 On his return to Paris cries of " Vine 
 VEmpereur!" were raised by the official 
 chorus always in his train ; but the Prince 
 President was like Richard III., — he 
 liked to lie urged ; and, according to 
 him, it was only in obedience to public 
 opinion that he consented to consult the 
 Senate. This servile body voted the 
 
4S 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 establishment of the Empire, almost 
 unanimously, in November of 1852, and 
 a new plebiscite gave 7,824,129 votes 
 for the Empire and 253,149 against it. 
 
 Exactly one year after the coup oVEtat, 
 on the 1st. of December, 1852, at eight 
 o'clock in the evening, Louis Bonaparte 
 was solemnly proclaimed Emperor, by 
 the name of Napoleon III., at St. Cloud, 
 in the presence of the Senate and the 
 Corps Ligislatif. By a decree of the 
 18th of the same mouth he arranged 
 the order of succession to the throne. 
 richly dowered the newly made Impe- 
 rial family, and gave himself a civil list 
 of 25,000,000 francs, exclusive of the 
 revenues derived from the domain of 
 the crowu. 
 
 We need not pursue further our re- 
 view of the Second Empire. Its whole 
 history, from the creation of Napo- 
 leon as President to the brilliant year 
 
 of which we have sketched some of the 
 salient features, may be read in the fol- 
 lowing brief sentences from the pen of 
 Jules Simon : — 
 
 "I will pass over the eighteen years 
 of the reign inaugurated by the 2d of 
 December. They might he summed up 
 as to the internal rigime in these words : 
 the mixed commissions (which decreed 
 the executions and expulsions following 
 the cuiiji d'Etat) ; the general surety; 
 the repressive administration of the 
 Press, and the official candidateships ; no 
 liberties whatever ; and for the external 
 policy, this only: Sevastopol ; Italian 
 unity cleft in twain by the Peace of 
 Villafranca ; Mexico; Sadowa ; no al- 
 liance." 
 
 It was, in short, a period of absolute 
 repression, which was approaching its 
 close iii 1867, and which was to finish in 
 storm and blood. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 49 
 
 CHAPTER FOUR. 
 
 The Imperial Reforms come Too Late. — Uprising of the Internationale. — The Commune Foreshadowed. 
 
 WHEN the Emperor Napoleon III. 
 endeavored to save his tottering 
 Empire by inaugurating liberal reforms 
 in France, it was already too late. In 
 his own party there were few if any 
 statesmen, or even politicians of talent 
 and importance, who believed that it 
 was either safe or expedient to abandon 
 the practice of repression, which had 
 been kept up with such vigor for many 
 years ; and all the sincere friends of 
 real liberty were determined to postpone 
 the advent of freedom rather than to 
 accept it from the hands of " the man 
 of December." The Empire was in dan- 
 ger abroad from the constantly growing 
 influence of Prussia, and at home from 
 the skilful and insidious working of the 
 great "International Association," — a 
 mysterious bod} 7 of conspirators, with 
 which most of the talented working- 
 men of the great cities of France had 
 relations ; from the gradually growing 
 courage of the Press ; ami also from 
 the untameable eloquence of certain 
 young orators in Paris, who, like Gam- 
 betta, had not yet found a public out- 
 side of the cafe's of the Latin Quarter, 
 but who were not frightened by visions 
 of fine or imprisonment, and who man- 
 aged to tell the people a good deal of 
 truth. 
 
 The Emperor had in his early days 
 made careful studies of the condition of 
 the working-men in France and in other 
 European countries. He had written, 
 during his captivity at Ham, certain 
 pamphlets which caused him to be ac- 
 
 cused of socialistic tendencies ; and he 
 used laughingly to say of himself, when 
 lie was in the full tide of his power at 
 the Tuileries, that he was the only mem- 
 ber of the European family of sovereigns 
 who was a socialist. The real fact is 
 that Napoleon III. was not a socialist at 
 all, but that he was a skilful demagogue ; 
 and had his lot been cast in a Republi- 
 can country, where political campaigns 
 are conducted with the greatest freedom, 
 and even license, he would have been in 
 his youth at the head of a working-men's 
 party, which would have been powerful 
 and unscrupulous, because he would 
 have taken advantage of its ignorance. 
 The Empire at regular intervals made 
 bids for popularity among the working- 
 classes, and as regularly failed to achieve 
 it. The endowment of hospitals, and 
 occasional visits to industrial centres, did 
 not, in the eyes of the thoroughly grieved 
 and angered hi borer, compensate for the 
 lack of public schools, and for the main- 
 tenance of most of the old monarchical 
 oppressive formalities with regard to the 
 condition of the toiler for wages. 
 
 The retainers of the Empire had vivid 
 memories of the Revolution of 1848. 
 They took full advantage of their knowl- 
 edge of its follies and its failures, 
 and used them as an argument against 
 giving full liberties to the masses. Na- 
 poleon himself, by the famous letter of 
 the 19th of January, 1867, in which he 
 spoke with such apparent frankness of 
 past repression, and made such generous 
 promises of future liberality, meant to 
 
. r )(l EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 
 
 check in some measure the working- were gradually unsettling the social 
 
 men's movement against the Empire order, and at the same time by arrange- 
 
 aud against authority. lie had been inents with Prussia to offset the pre- 
 
 shrewd enough to observe this movement ponderanee which that aggressive nation 
 
 two or three years before it came to the had recently obtained, by getting some 
 
 surface. No man was better placed territorial aggrandizement for France, 
 
 than himself for obtaining a full appre- he might have died upon the throne of 
 
 ciation of the volcanic shimmer; none France. 
 
 better qualified to judge of the moment But the fates see d against him. 
 
 when the hidden forces might break and the Napoleons have always believed 
 forth. He knew the thinness of the crust in the fates. The ease with which he 
 upon which he stood; but, although he succumbed in 1*70 leads one to believe 
 knew it. his supporters and partisans, that he felt his cause lost when he failed 
 flushed with long maintenance of power, in 1867 and 1868 to cany out his plan, 
 and blinded by their contempt for the The first check which the Emperor 
 laboring classes, refused to appreciate it, received, in his endeavor to save the sit- 
 M. Rouher, so long in the service of nation, came from the efforts of a pow- 
 the Empire that he had come familiarly ei'ful and popular Parisian journalist, 
 to be called the "Vice-Emperor," was M. Emile de Girardin, an old war-horse 
 deeply grieved, and somewhat angered of combat, who had a reputation in 
 by Napoleon's letter. M. Rouher was France something like that won by 
 a robust Auvergnat, blessed with two Horace Greeley in America; who had the 
 tine elements of success, — a massive energy and bravery of a good soldier, 
 physique, which gave him an unbounded and the suppleness, the delicacy in in- 
 capacity for work; and an easy con- trigue, of a trained diplomat. M. de 
 science, which enabled him to find a Girardin was an uncompromising enemy 
 speedy apology for any misdeed which of the Emperor's new departure, and as 
 seemed to serve for the moment the ends early as March, 1867, he was so aggres- 
 of the Empire. Rouher was expected by sive as to come under the Imperial law, 
 his friends to resign his portfolio as Min- and he was lined 5,000 francs for a press 
 ister of State at the beginning of 18G7, offence. This was because he denied 
 because it was well known in Imperialist with much eloquence the Emperor's as- 
 circles that he was the greatest advocate sertion that he had brought the country 
 of a continuance of repressive policy, gradually, year by year, up to better 
 He used to say that the reforms of which things. Another journalist who dared to 
 the Emperor talked so airily would be beard the Emperor, and who did it with 
 the very abomination of desolation ; that a skill and daring of which Fiance had 
 the country had all the liberties it was rarely seen instances for half a genera- 
 fitted to possess, and that it was suicidal tion, was Henri Roehefort, whose roinan- 
 for the Empire to grant more. It is tic history since that time is now well 
 impossible to avoid the conclusion that known all over the world. Roehefort 
 Napoleon was gifted with greater fore- began to write in a sprightly Paris journal 
 sighl than that possessed by his Minister called the Fitj<ir>>, about the time that 
 of State. Had the Emperor been able to that paper became a daily in 1866. He 
 achieve his purpose of satisfying by par- won a brilliant reputation as a chroniqueur 
 tial reforms the clamorous workers wdio and critic of political events in 1867, 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 51 
 
 :iih1 the liberal public rallied around him. 
 The blows which he struck were so hard 
 that the Empire speedily put itself upon 
 the defensive, and the sale of the Figaro 
 upon the public street was forbidden by 
 law. This under the Empire was a 
 common occurrence. The purchaser of 
 a Republican or Liberal paper expected 
 at least once a month to find that his 
 journal had been seized, or that its 
 sale had been stopped in the little kiosks, 
 or wooden pavilions, where tin' news- 
 vendors sell their wares on the bovle- 
 
 writing against the Empire. They were 
 not always decent in their attacks, and 
 51. Rochefort must now and then blusb 
 when lie remembers the diatribes pub- 
 lished in his Lanterne, which was founded 
 by him, in 1868, expressly to combat the 
 Empire. 
 
 But they did their work, and did it 
 well. The more the Empire prosecuted, 
 the greater became the daring of the 
 journalists of these last days of the 
 Imperial rigime, and the Emperor was 
 bitterly perplexed. If he accorded com- 
 
 A PARISIAN .JOURNALIST IN PRISON. 
 
 vards; and he went philosophically to 
 the bookseller, behind whose sheltering 
 windows he would find the offending 
 journal, generally at an advanced price. 
 Do Girardin and Rochefort gave the first 
 impetus to the final revolt against the 
 Empire. They laughed to scorn the 
 promises of those who had so long 
 practised a different doctrine from that 
 which they now professed. They spoke 
 out with an earnestness all the more 
 striking because it was contrasted with 
 the irony, or the compressed wit, with 
 which Liberals like Prevost Paradol had 
 felt obliged to content themselves when 
 
 plete liberties he felt that he might be 
 swept away on account of them ; if he 
 did not accord complete liberties they 
 might be taken by force out of his 
 hands. 
 
 The International Association of 
 Workingmen was an enemy which the 
 faltering Empire strove to reach by 
 every means in its power. It tracked 
 down the humble artisans who met in 
 out of the way places to pass measures 
 which in America or England would 
 have been considered as in no way prej- 
 udicial to the safety of the State, and 
 not very dangerous to the property of 
 
52 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 the capitalist. It published decrees. 
 It strengthened its prohibitive measures 
 against secret societies, and put down 
 " strikes," which were becoming very 
 numerous, with the greatest promptness. 
 Rut tin.' Internationale, as it was called, 
 was ns difficult to kill as tin' Nihilist 
 organization has been at a later day in 
 Russia. '• It was," says the Vicomtc 
 de Reaumont-Vassy, in his " Authentic 
 History of the Commune of Paris." •• a 
 terrible secret society, which sought to 
 envelop the whole world in its invisible 
 snares, and seemed to us in the nine- 
 teenth century as if endeavoring t<> 
 execute upon governments such sen- 
 tences as the secret tribunals of Ger- 
 many in the middle ages executed Upon 
 sovereigns." 
 
 The Internationale was a terrible 'ma- 
 llear to the bourgeois, or property-holding 
 man of the middle classes, and his fears 
 were not unfounded, as will he seen 
 later. 
 
 It is the fashion in France to say 
 that the Internationale had its origin 
 in Germany. I have no desire to 
 enter closely into the origin of the 
 Association. The supposition that it is 
 
 due to the theories so copiously written 
 upon by Leibnitz and Jacobi in Germany 
 has no better foundation than that which 
 gives us as its originators such great 
 and wrong-headed thinkers as Proudhon 
 ami Pierre Leroux. 
 
 A certain number of French writers 
 say that the first socialistic- notions of 
 the Internationale came into France with 
 the German workmen who emigrated 
 from their homes in great numbers to 
 the fertile lands and richer cities beyond 
 the Rhine, in the ten years preceding 
 the war of 1870. That which is estab- 
 lished beyond doubt is that the Inter- 
 nationale was a practical and active 
 organization, setting aside as useless the 
 
 vague and hollow theories of Louis Rhine 
 and other kindred spirits about the rela- 
 tions of labor to capital anil to the State. 
 The laborers of the new generation were 
 determined on emancipation. 
 
 In England, Karl Marx brought theln- 
 ternational Association of Working-men 
 fairh into good society for a time; and 
 in the countries where it was not harassed 
 and driven into hiding-places it did not 
 extensively advertise its socialistic pro- 
 pensities. In France, because the Em- 
 pire harried it without cessation, it 
 fomented strikes, provoked riots in the 
 cities, and published proclamations which 
 made the bourgeois tremble in his shoes. 
 I have heard Frenchmen seriously say 
 that Bismarck subsidized the Association 
 at the time of tin' great Creuzol strike. 
 The reason given for this was that 
 Prussia, always on the alert against at- 
 tacks by the Imperial Government, had 
 a direct interest in creating as much 
 embarrassment for that government as 
 possible. This is a doubtful story. 
 
 The programme of the International 
 Association was comprehensive and radi- 
 cal. It was printed for the first time 
 in London, and speedily got into print 
 in France, although any comment upon 
 its doctrines was sternly forbidden. The 
 document was as follows: — 
 
 •• Every man has a right to existence, 
 and. consequently, a right to work. 
 
 "The right to work is imprescriptible, 
 and, for that reason, ought to be accom- 
 panied by the right of instruction and of 
 liberty of action. 
 
 •■ As it is at present constituted, so- 
 ciety can offer no real guarantee to the 
 laborer. 
 
 '• In fact, an obstacle arises before 
 him at the very outset of his career. 
 This obstacle is capital. 
 
 •■ Whichever way the laborer turns, he 
 cannot battle against the inert force of 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 53 
 
 money, accompanied and supported by 
 
 the intelligent capitalist. 
 
 " To solve the problem some have tried 
 association; others, mutualism. They 
 thought they were settling, but in fact 
 they were only muddling, the question. 
 
 •'They did not perceive that, so long 
 as capital remained intact, the associa- 
 tion of mere brain and muscle would not 
 suffice ; but that they must have their 
 <>un capital, and that this is all the more 
 important, because the money capitalists 
 would oppose with all their force the 
 revolt of labor against their tyranny. 
 By this fact alone previous associations 
 of working-men are condemned. Mutual- 
 ism has done nothing for the working- 
 man or the laborer but to put him more 
 than ever under the domination of money ; 
 so that there is nothing to be hoped from 
 these methods. 
 
 " Now, it is not capital alone which 
 binds down the working-man. Swaddled 
 from his infancy in the triple long-clothes 
 of country, family, and religion ; cradled 
 in the respect for property, however it 
 may have been got, the proletariat can 
 
 become something only on c lition of 
 
 annihilating all this, of casting away 
 from it these old notions of paternal 
 barbarisms. 
 
 •' The International Association lias 
 and can have no other aim than thai of 
 aiding in the extinction of these mon- 
 strous prejudices. 
 
 •' It ought to become to workmen 
 of all countries a centre of action, an 
 energetic director, to show them how to 
 act together. It alone has the power 
 and the right to discipline the masses, 
 to hurl them upon their oppressors, who 
 will feel crushed beneath the shock. 
 
 "To this end its programme should 
 be the abolition of all religions, of prop- 
 erty, of the family, of the hereditary 
 principle, and of the nation. 
 
 " When the International Society of 
 Working-men has stamped out the germ 
 of these prejudices among all laborers 
 capital will be dead. Then society can 
 arise upon an indestructible basis; then 
 workmen will rally for the right to 
 work ; then women will lie free. The 
 child will have a real right to live under 
 the segis of a society which will no 
 longer abuse him. 
 
 ■■Hut let no one deceive himself; let 
 dreamers seek no system for arriving at 
 a solution that force alone can give. 
 
 •• Force ! this is what will give the 
 sceptre of the world to the laboring 
 classes ; outside of this nothing can lift 
 them from the rut of rotten modern civ- 
 ilization. 
 
 " When two contrary powers are op- 
 posed to one another one of the two 
 must be annihilated. 
 
 "To arms, laborers! Progress and 
 humanity count upon you." 
 
 Who cannot sec in this twaddling, 
 incoherent proclamation the germ of the 
 dread Socialism which crept into the 
 Commune of Paris shortly after its 
 proclamation in I.S71 , and which did such 
 dire mischief? Those followers of the 
 Empire who were blessed with sufficient 
 intelligence to review the shortcomings 
 of their party's career could not fail to 
 perceive that this programme of the 
 Internationale was the outcome of an 
 ignorance which might have been 
 amended, if not entirely swept away. 
 so far as the French working-men were 
 concerned. (luring the years between 
 1848 and 1867. In point of fact what 
 French workmen were clamoring for 
 was extremely simple. They needed 
 the abolition of the privileges of the 
 employing class; the abolition of the 
 livret, or ■• character-book," which made 
 each artisan in some sense a slavish 
 dependent on his employer; and they 
 
54 
 
 EUROPE f.X STORM AND CALM. 
 
 furthermore needed the right of public 
 assembly, unrestricted right to bear 
 arms, and the uninterrupted right to 
 
 strike when they hail a decent grievance. 
 But, because the Empire had persistently 
 denied them these things, they were 
 driven in their mad determination to 
 protest against the social order which 
 had done nothing for them, by affiliation 
 with the grotesque and abominable 
 theories of this so-called International 
 Association of Working-men. When 
 the Empire repented ami wished to give 
 
 them reforms the propitious hour was 
 passed. The germ of the Commune was 
 
 sown. The government, which had 
 usurped authority in France on the ex- 
 clusive plea that it had a mission to 
 maintain order, had at the end of its 
 career the disgrace of seeing a social 
 disorder, more profound and terrible than 
 any which has occurred elsewhere in this 
 century, uprising with dreadful speed, 
 ami in spite of the most vigorous en- 
 deavor to keep it down. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 5.5 
 
 CHAPTER FIVE. 
 
 Events in Spain.— The Outcropping of Revolution. — Btle of the Internationale. Brief Review of 
 Spanish Polities. — DoHa Isabel. ■ Prim and Serrano. — A Journey through the North of Spain. 
 Biarritz and San Sebastian. —A Wonderful Railway. — The Approach to the Escurial. — An Im- 
 pressive Edifice. — Looking at a Dead Monarch. 
 
 WHILE there were, thus, many pro- 
 tests in France against the re- 
 pressive government of the Second 
 Empire, few people fancied that the Re- 
 publican experiment was likely to begin 
 in earnest for many years ; and it is amus- 
 ing to look back and remember how 
 earnestly the French of liberal sympa- 
 thies watched the progress of events 
 beyond the Pyrenees, confident that in 
 Spain the Republic would first get a firm 
 hold. Spanish politics have rarely been 
 more interesting since the beginning of 
 this perturbed century than they were in 
 18G9. The rapid succession of pictu- 
 resque and dramatic events, which had 
 taken place since Queen Isabel fled from 
 her capital to San Sebastian, had turned 
 the gaze of all Europe to the country 
 which seemed suddenly to have awakened 
 from its long and slothful devotion to 
 priestcraft and to the least intelligent 
 form of monarchy. The famous Inter- 
 nationale, was said to have wide ramifi- 
 cations in Spain, and to be preparing 
 socialistic revolutions which were to 
 break forth simultaneously in the north- 
 ern and southern districts. The disturb- 
 ance in Spain undoubtedly contributed 
 somewhat to make the authorities of the 
 Second Empire in France nervous and 
 suspicious. Jt was believed by no one 
 in the Imperial party that intelligent Re- 
 publicanism was strong enough in either 
 France or Spain to establish itself; but 
 
 this mysterious and subterranean agent 
 known as the Internationale, working di- 
 rectly upon the passions and prejudices of 
 the uneducated or half-educated classes, 
 was dreaded and feared. In the autumn 
 of 1869 the Internationale was as much 
 talked of as the Nihilists have been in re- 
 cent years. Wherever a blow could be 
 struck at it in France, as in 1867, the 
 government never lost an opportunity. 
 
 It would be difficult to understand what 
 was taking place in Spain at this time 
 without briefly reviewing Spanish politi- 
 cal history from the beginning of the 
 century. We find Napoleon I. at Ba- 
 yonne shortly after Charles IV . had given 
 up his crown to his son. Ferdinand VII. ; 
 and the Corsican ogre has a curt inter- 
 view with these two Spanish kings, forc- 
 ing them to yield their rights to the 
 throne, carrying off the whole royal 
 family prisoners into France, and giving 
 the crown of Spain to his brother Joseph 
 Bonaparte. Victor Hugo has given us 
 some thrilling pictures of the life at the 
 French Court in Spain after 1808, when 
 the country rose as one man against the 
 hateful sovereignty which had been im- 
 posed upon it. Hugo's mother was in 
 the great retreat from Spain when Joseph 
 Bonaparte was summarily expelled ; and 
 there is no more disastrous withdrawal 
 of troops from tin unsuccessful campaign 
 in French history than was this. Welling- 
 ton and his men had driven the French 
 
56 EUROPE IX STURM AND CALM. 
 
 troops back upon the Hiiro. Napoleon so ruthlessly shattered. The cultivated 
 
 had corne to the aid of his brother, had and ambitious Liberals of Spain found 
 
 been conqueror at Burgos and Tudela, the air unhealthy for them, and pined 
 
 had even entered Madrid and summoned away in voluntary exile in foreign cities; 
 
 the authorities to give him up the sword or if they ventured to conspire, or to 
 
 which Francis I. had lostatPavia. But think and speak freely against the rotten 
 
 all this was in vain. The guerillas kept condition of the country, they incurred 
 
 up their redoubtable warfare, and. al- heavy penalties. The house of the 
 
 though Saragossa succumbed before the Bourbons, which had reigned in Spain 
 
 tremendous attack of Lannes, Napoleon since 1700, with the slight interregnum 
 
 had to own that he was fairly beaten ; caused by tin- intervention of Napoleon 
 
 and in 1813, Spain, after live years of and his brother, was destined to meet 
 
 most horrible convulsions, put Ferdinand with strange adventures. After Queen 
 
 VII. upon the throne. He was adespot, Isabel had been on the throne for a 
 
 and was soon surrounded by conspiracy, quarter of a century, in 1868 a revolu- 
 
 was frightened into taking an oath to the tion, which had been long foreseen by 
 
 Liberal constitution which hail been pie- the wise men of all countries in Europe, 
 
 pared in 1812, and liberty was springing broke forth with resistless power. Of- 
 
 up when the nobles banded together and lieers of the army, who had been exiled 
 
 stifled it in its cradle. because of Liberal sentiments, gave the 
 
 There was a, revolution, but the sov- signal for this great revolt against nioii- 
 ereigns of Europe saw that it would not arehy by a daring incursion into Spain, 
 do to let Liberal ideas blossom in Spain. The populations in the cities of the 
 and so one hundred thousand Frenchmen South suddenly rose in revolution, and 
 reestablished Ferdinand VII. in his ab- the Queen, after sending away so much 
 solute power. When this monarch died, of her fortune as she could realize bas- 
 in 1833, a civil war of succession broke tilv to banks in Paris and London, fled 
 out. Then came Dona Isabel, who was to St. Sebastian. A great joy seemed 
 proclaimed as Queen under the tutelage to run through the peninsula, and proc- 
 of the queen-mother Maria Christina, and lamations were posted in the cities and 
 Don Carlos, the brother of theKing, was in the towns, calling the people to arms, 
 excluded. In 1833 the queen-mother The parties unexpectedly coalesced. The 
 gave to her people a. constitutional char- exiled generals returned, and organized 
 ter. — a kind of weak compromise be- troops in the provinces. Prim and his 
 t ween absolutism and liberalism, — and men appeared in front of Cadiz, and 
 she hoped that this would strengthen her took the town. Concha, whom Queen 
 position. Meantime Don Carlos was Isabel had made her prime minister, 
 knocking furiously at her palace gales, look the most energetic measures in 
 What bloodshed, what anguish, have vain. All that the frightened queen 
 been caused by this Carlist faction dm- could secure was a promise that she' 
 ing the last half-century ■ might reenter Madrid without molesta- 
 
 Dona Isabel's reign was neither better timi if she would leave her favorite Mar- 
 
 nor wiser than that of many of her prede- fori behind. Dona Isabel said no; she 
 
 cessors. Espartero and Narvaez in turn would not give up her favorite. She 
 
 exercised their power on the country then received the news that a " provi- 
 
 which had seen its Republican ideals sional government " had been formed at 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 57 
 
 Madrid, and she crossed the frontier 
 into France, where she was offered a 
 refuge in the hospitable town of Pau. 
 Then came the fall of the Bourbons in 
 Spain. Universal suffrage was voted. 
 The Jesuits were expelled from the 
 country, and Spain had entered into a 
 Republic with the spilling of less blood 
 than is customary at a bull-fight. The 
 revolutionary chiefs announced their de- 
 termination to give up their powers to 
 the Cortes, and Europe marvelled at the 
 wisdom of a country usually so turbu- 
 lent in its politics. 
 
 This produced an immense impression 
 in France; but the press did not feel at 
 liberty to draw any conclusions from 
 the Republican triumph in Spain. At 
 the elections which followed the revolt 
 of 1868, a monarchical majority was 
 sent to the Cortes, and Marshal Ser- 
 rano was made Regent, until, so said 
 the monarchists, " a good king can be 
 found." It was at this time that Cas- 
 telar appeared upon the scene of Span- 
 ish politics. After the patriot Orense, 
 who had for a long time enjoyed the 
 honor of being the only veritable Span- 
 ish Republican, he took the direction of 
 the Democratic party, and came boldly 
 forward to demand of the provisional 
 government the immediate proclamation 
 of a Spanish Republic. 
 
 General Trim and Marshal Serrano, 
 who had opposed the Bourbons only that 
 they might get possession of power and 
 place upon the throne a king that suited 
 them, repelled Castelar's proposition. 
 Then the genius of the Spanish orator 
 began to declare itself. He made a 
 grand tour through all the principal cit- 
 ies of Spain, and in each of them made 
 ringing speeches in favor of the cause of 
 liberty and of republicanism. 
 
 Castelar and Gambetta made their 
 definite entry into public notoriety in 
 
 this same exciting year of 1868 ; each 
 was gifted with tremendous audacity ; 
 each was entirely reckless of conse- 
 quences to himself ; and each sowed seed 
 from which was afterwards reaped an 
 abundant harvest of good for France 
 and Spain. Despite Castelar's eloquence 
 and his almost superhuman exertions, 
 at the general elections for the Cortes in 
 the spring of 1869 only thirty-live Repub- 
 licans were elected. This was a minority, 
 and a decision not unlike that which in 
 1869, in the French Corps Ligislatif, 
 caused Napoleon III. and his minis- 
 ters so much trouble. Castelar dashed 
 into the attack upon the government 
 with the same energy that he had dis- 
 played in iiis campaign throughout the 
 country. He asked fur amnesty for all 
 political offences, and again demanded 
 the establishment of the Republic. Iu 
 this same spring, too, he began his fa- 
 mous assault upon religious fanaticism, 
 which had so long been the curse of 
 Spain. He won his battle and liberals 
 throughout Europe rejoiced when the tele- 
 graph announced, one morning in April, 
 1869, that Spain had at last granted lib- 
 erty of public worship : but although the 
 great man was powerful enough to thrill 
 to its very marrow the populations of 
 Spain, with his resounding language, 
 and to strike terrror into the hearts of 
 the reactionists who ventured even to 
 apologize for the horrors of the Spanish 
 Inquisition ; although he was popular 
 enough to have the right of citizenship 
 conferred upon him by more than five 
 hundred Spanish towns ami villages. — 
 he was without success in attacking the 
 law which definitely established Marshal 
 Serrano as Regent. 
 
 Yet, day by day, the republican move- 
 ment spread in wider and wider circles 
 throughout the country; and when the 
 government of the Regent was bold 
 
58 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 enougb to announce that it was search- madly. Biarritz was then the mosl 
 
 ing Europe for a new king for Spain, fashionable of French watering-places, 
 
 the revolution, which had been prepared It was the custom to stop at Bayonne, 
 
 by Castelar's subjects, burst forth with a the <>ld town which gave the bayonet its 
 
 violence and savagery quite different name, and to drive over to Biarritz in 
 
 from that of the outbreak in 1868. diligences, drawn by hardy little mules, 
 
 First the crown was offered to an ex- imported from beyond the Spanish 
 
 king of Portugal, who refused it : then frontier. 
 
 h, the little Duke of Genoa, Prince of Eugenie loved Biarritz and made its 
 the House of Savoy. For a few days fortune. Napoleon would never have 
 the candidateship of this boyish duke, thought of going so far si. nth to build 
 who was then at school at Harrow, in an Imperial residence ; but the Spanish- 
 England, seemed to have some chance born Impiratrke made her Todos, as she 
 in its favor. Castelar and the other Re- called him. build a beautiful palace by 
 publicans informed their supporters that the southern sea. The mute from 
 they might soon expect to see a king Biarritz winds over high hills, among 
 brought t<> Madrid ; and then came the avenues of poplars, which cast their 
 uprisings in Catalonia and in Andalusia, friendly shades to protect you from the 
 and the splendid protest against king- glaring sun. Suddenly the beauty of 
 ship at Saragossa and Valencia. lint the romantic coast of the Bay of Biscay 
 here the movement was checked. Va- bursts upon the view. Pretty villas dot 
 lencia. besieged and bombarded, had to the hills and peer out of luxuriant 
 surrender at the end of nine days' vio- foliage. I found plenty of amusement 
 lent battle, and Castelar, who. it is said, on the beach, in watching the Spaniards, 
 had sccreth based his hopes upon the who went in to bathe with their cigars 
 success of the insurrection, contented in their mouths, and who practised with 
 himself, for a time, with the withdrawal much dexterity tin- art of keeping their 
 of the proposition to make the Duke of heads unwet by the highest waves. 
 Genoa king. Long trains of mules, loaded with 
 
 Curious to see the revolution which screaming and laughing ladies, were 
 
 I fancied would result in the definite driven into t be most furious part of the 
 
 foundation of the Republic in Spain, I surf , and there the beauties amused them- 
 
 crossed the Pyrenees, and was an eye- selves by holding on as long as they 
 
 witness of many episodes of the combat, could against the incoming crests. Biar- 
 
 Early in October, in 1869,1 left Paris, ritz is still a favorite resort for the 
 
 where the Opposition to the Empire had French and Spanish aristocrats. The 
 
 suddenly assumed formidable propor- railway scarcely disturbs the tranquil 
 
 tions, and went to Madrid. Before en- seclusion of the place. Towards evening 
 
 tering Spain 1 paused at Biarritz, where, a charming silence pervades the town; 
 
 two years before, Bismarck had come to cool breezes blow inland; semi-tropical 
 
 pay his 1 age to the Empress Eugenie, trees hide the green, delicately-veined 
 
 It was still the bathing season in the insides of their leaves, not to turn them 
 
 late southern autumn, and I sat down till the morrow's dew invites. The peas- 
 
 upon the sand near the sleepy surf, and ants gather in groups, and softly sing 
 
 watched the bathers coming and going, melodies in patois to the gentle music of 
 
 singing merry songs, and gesticulating the guitar; and under the awning of the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 59 
 
 green-latticed cafes the Spanish peddlers, 
 who have trudged up from Burgos, or 
 Valladolid, offer blankets, long knives 
 with beautifully carved handles, and 
 scent-bottles from Tangiers. 
 
 On the Spanish coast at San Sebas- 
 tian, where Dona Isabel went in her 
 
 
 are no longer the same. The grave and 
 earnest Basque, ignoranl but conscien- 
 tious and virtuous, salutes the stranger 
 with solemn courtesy. Here and there 
 are touches upon a relic of the abortive 
 campaigns of successive Dun Carloses. 
 Priests saunter slowly by, smoking cigar- 
 ettes, and lazily swinging theii 
 umbrellas. The fields have a neg- 
 lected look. San Sebastian is a 
 delightful little city, coquettish, 
 fresh, flooded with brilliant sun- 
 light, set down at the base of lofty 
 mountains whose peaks shine like 
 blocksof crystal. It extendsfrom 
 the pretty bay of La Concha., at 
 the mouth of which is the island 
 of Santa Clara, to the mouth of 
 the Urremea river. Seaward from 
 
 PROCLAIMING THE SPANISH REPUBLIC. 
 
 flight, the sport of bathing goes on until 
 even the first days of November. From 
 Biarritz to San Sebastian is but an hour's 
 ride by diligence, but in that hour the 
 traveller feels as if he had in some un- 
 accountable maimer left Europe behind 
 him. Architecture has changed; the 
 costumes of the people by the wayside 
 are different ; manners, speech, gestures, 
 
 the promontory of Bilbao to Biarritz one 
 sees the waves lap the crags and masses of 
 stone, whose yellow and reddish colors 
 contrast strangely with the white foam 
 dashing now and then over their summits. 
 NearSan Sebastian one finds valleys I'ullof 
 shade and mystery ; deep gorges through 
 which bridle-paths wind in perplexing 
 fashion; pinnacles from which ho i in 
 
60 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 look up ti> mightier pinnacles beyond. 
 Priests, smugglers, muleteers, peasant- 
 girls in red and yellow petticoats, gra- 
 ciously salute the wanderer; and if one 
 stops :it a roadside inn he is treated with 
 utmost consideration and honesty. 
 
 On this my first journey to Madrid, 
 I thought the railway ran through one 
 of the most picturesque and impressive 
 countries in the universe. Just before 
 arriving at Iran, the frontier town, archi- 
 tecture had changed as rapidly as the 
 combinations in a pantomime. The 
 houses of southern Fiance, well built of 
 solid carved stone and with four-cornered 
 steep root's, were exchanged for the glar- 
 ing white walls, generally out of repair, 
 and the low and sloping roofs of Spanish 
 dwellings. From [run to Burgos the 
 
 scenery was of the wildest. The road 
 traverses yawning valleys, runs along the 
 edgi's of precipices, plunges into sombre 
 anddeserted plains, winds through passes 
 cut out of the solid rock, anil pierces the 
 hearts of the mountains sixty-nine times 
 before it reaches the environs of Madrid. 
 Everywhere the beautiful has a mixture 
 of rugged grandeur in it. Tunnel suc- 
 ceeds tunnel, under great balustrades 
 perched on rude, deep-ribbed layers of 
 the hardest rock. Sometimes the railway 
 line winds along an embankment which 
 gives the traveller a glance up some tre- 
 mendous defile, at the end of which blue 
 ranges of mountains melt softly into the 
 bluest sky. Through the defile winds a 
 white strip of mad, fringed with foliage, 
 and enlivened by a string of mules, car- 
 rying merchandise to the nearest town. 
 The posachis and haciendas are dirty, and 
 the sills of the windows are stained with 
 the refuse thrown carelessly out of doors ; 
 the walls are hung with tobacco-stalks 
 and Hags, and the pig reigns supreme in 
 the front door. .Some of the mountain 
 sides which ale cultivated are so steep 
 
 that the donkey drawing the primitive 
 plough has to press his feet and slide 
 down the furrows, dragging plough and 
 peasant after him. Agricultural imple- 
 ments are of the simplest character. The 
 plough is a straight piece of wood shar- 
 pened at one end, and fastened roughly to 
 a rude harness. Donkeys ami dwarf, 
 yellow-colored oxen do all the work of 
 teams. The shepherds along the road 
 look two or three centuries out of place, 
 as their costume has hardly undergone 
 any change since the time of Philip II. 
 
 I did not stop at Miranda or at Bur- 
 gos on this journey; but in later years 
 I learned to wonder at the incomparable 
 richness of the facade of the Burgos 
 cathedral, on every square on the walls 
 of which are the marks of the geuius of 
 the great sculptors of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury ; and I could not help marvelling at 
 the curious taste which placed this Cath- 
 olic wonder in this arid country, where a 
 cold wind, half the year, chills the very 
 marrow. Approaching the environs of 
 Madrid I was struck with the desolate 
 character of the country. Here were 
 pine forests ; huge rocks which overhung 
 narrow paths along mountain sides ; 
 caverns in which brigands might hide ; 
 little torrents leaping over precipices 
 close to the railway. Here were plains 
 filled with rocks shaken into strangest 
 forms by volcanic action, and high crags 
 shutting out the sunlight. Shortly before 
 arriving at the Escurial the route passes 
 Las Navas, one of the vilest and mosl 
 dangerous little places in Spain, as I 
 found in an excursion from Madrid. 
 The houses in Las Navas are built of 
 coarse stone, rudely carved. Black s\n ine 
 wander freely in and out of them. The 
 people are grossly ignorant ; dozens of 
 them confessed to me that they had 
 never visited Madrid, that they knew 
 nothing of politics, and as for reading 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 61 
 
 and writing, they were not even ac- 
 quainted with an}' one who possessed 
 these extraordinary accomplishments. 
 At Madrid, girls brown as Arabs of- 
 fered to the traveller fresh milk in little 
 clay pots. A hunter strolled by with a 
 hare upon his shoulder, and proposed to 
 sell it. A hare may lie had for ten cents. 
 
 proceeds across the rocky and uninvit- 
 ing country between the main Hue of 
 rail to Madrid and the Escurial. Leav- 
 ing the comfortable first-class carriages 
 to plod across the waste is not very 
 agreeable, but one is well repaid by the 
 treasures within the walls. The shep- 
 herds, beggars, and priests, who are 
 
 THE ESCUKIAL, NEAR MADRID. 
 
 A blight seems to overhang the whole 
 country round about. As I wandered 
 through these plains towards the frowning 
 Escurial, one dark October day, I could 
 not help thinking that a curse had fallen 
 on the locality where Philip II. lived, 
 prayed, and sang praises to the God 
 whom he offended while he fancied him- 
 self most zealously serving him. The 
 impression of blight is heightened as one 
 
 the only persons one encounters, answer 
 
 questions civilly, and point out the cross 
 perched on a high rock which marks 
 the spot where Philip II. 's dreadful or- 
 ders were carried out, where wretches 
 were hanged almost daily beneath the 
 lowest bit of rock. Until a few years 
 past bits of whitened cord, which crum- 
 bled as they were dug up, might still be 
 found. 
 
(J2 
 
 EUROTE JX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 A winding road between high rocks, 
 clothed in brown moss, leads one to a 
 ruined square, where a dismantled church 
 rears its forlorn front. A few steps up 
 a steep hill, beside a wall, bring one to 
 a point whence he can see the Escurial, 
 with its immense dome, and the four 
 gloomy towers rising at the angles. 
 Philip II. built (his edifice in the mid- 
 dle of the sixteenth century, to replace 
 the church of Kan Lorenzo, which was 
 demolished by cannon-balls during the 
 siege of San Quentin. The cynical 
 imagination of the over-religious archi- 
 tects of the period could devise no 
 better form for this immense monastic 
 palace than that of the gridiron upon 
 which the unhappy Lawrence suffered 
 martyrdom. The four towers are sup- 
 posed to represent the feet, and the royal 
 apartments the handle, of this frying- 
 instrument. Gloomy and unimpressive 
 gardens stretch away on all sides to 
 stone walls, which border greenish ponds 
 and lakelets. 
 
 The entrance to the edifice is wonder- 
 fully impressive. A massive gate leads 
 into the great gardens, bringing one face 
 to face with a portico of severe simplic- 
 ity. At the summit of Dorie columns 
 are six mighty caryatids, representing 
 the six Kings of Judea, supporting a tri- 
 angular portal of immense size. ( hit of a 
 block of granite the principal staircase is 
 cut. The church, decorated with Luca 
 Giordano's elating frescoes, reminds one 
 of the many (anions freaks of which 
 artists were guilty during the decadence 
 of the Italian school. Luca's tranquil 
 colors and highly executed designs 
 show clearly the struggles of a great 
 artist t<> rise above the follies and fail- 
 ings of his epoch. The rich reliquaries; 
 the delicately chiselled coffers in which 
 repose the hones of saints ; the massive 
 altar, built of jasper and marble, and 
 
 surrounded with gilded bronze statues of 
 Charles V. and Philip II. ; queens ami 
 infantas, kneeling with closed hands and 
 upturned eyes ; the stalls in precious 
 woods; (he missals, lilled with Gothic 
 vignettes ; heavily and coarsely decorated 
 ceilings — produce an effect of confused 
 magnificence. In the small chapel in the 
 rear the eye is dazzled by Benvenuto 
 Cellini's incomparable sculpture in white 
 marble of " Christ upon the Cross." In 
 the sacristy are innumerable paintings, 
 which chill the imagination, but lead 
 one to admire the artists. The painting 
 by Claudio Coello, representing the pro- 
 cession which received the Holy Host 
 scui to Philip by the Emperor of Ger- 
 many, is astonishingly rich in color. 
 
 Wandering through a labyrinth of 
 cold and gloomy corridors one at last 
 reaches a little staircase by which he may 
 climb to the dome of the Escurial and 
 look oyer the vast plain. Ear away out 
 of an indistinct mass of buildings rises 
 the roof of the Royal Palace in Madrid. 
 To the left one sees a dense forest, with 
 a few straggling hamlets on its edge, 
 and at the base of the monastic palace's 
 thick and frowning walls lies a village, 
 its precipitous streets paved with stones 
 set on end. A few wretched trees strug- 
 gle for existence in the market-place. 
 At a stone fountain's basin, a, bevy of 
 laughing girls are tilling water-jars, and 
 some dejected-looking donkeys are 
 greedily drinking and whisking their 
 tails. 
 
 The Pantheon of the Spanish Kings, 
 the great vault of the Escurial, where 
 lie the mortal remains of the mighty 
 Charles, of Philip 11.. III., and IV., 
 of Charles II. and Charles III., 
 of (he Queens Isabella and Margaret, 
 and Elizabeth of Bourbon, is an un- 
 wholesome cellar, from which one is 
 glad to escape into the open air. Even 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 63 
 
 the sublime and pathetic figure of Christ, 
 which surmounts one of the altars, seems 
 to bring no ray of tender hope, no 
 blessed promise of immortality, into this 
 royal charnel-house. It is impressive 
 and repulsive at once to look from the 
 present into the past, as one does in 
 peering into the sarcophagus of one of 
 tii.. greatest of emperors. At the time 
 of my visu one could see under the 
 glass lid which sealed the coffin of 
 Charles V. the body of the royal 
 dead man, but partially covered by its 
 shroud. The face was still in an al- 
 most perfect state of preservation. One 
 nostril and one of the ears, for the eyes 
 had crumbled because of contact with 
 the air, when the historic coffin was 
 opened, were still visible, and fragments 
 of the reddish beard still clung to the 
 chin. Philip II. the Terrible is securely 
 shut in a black marble sarcophagus, 
 ornamented only by a plain plate bear- 
 ing his name. One is curious to know 
 whether the calm of death gave any 
 sweetness to the imperious face of the 
 monk and tyrant who scourged Europe 
 in the bitterness of his malicious zeal. 
 
 Seeing all his private apartments left 
 just as they were when he passed into 
 the silences, one almost fears to en- 
 counter his spectre walking the narrow 
 
 chambers, or seated in the niche which 
 permitted him to hear mass without en- 
 tering the chapel, muttering his prayers, 
 and nursing his gouty limb, as he sup- 
 ported it upon a velvet cushion. One 
 could fancy him seated before his little 
 wooden table, brooding over the papers 
 containing secrets of the state, and 
 could almost see his face with grayish- 
 blue eyes, with thick and protruding 
 uniler lips, with lean and bony cheeks 
 covered with livid skin, with little ears 
 which caught the slightest sound, with 
 his ugly chin concealed beneath a sym- 
 metrical beard ; or one seemed to see 
 him musing in his quaint old chair, its 
 back studded with copper nails, riveti d 
 in the leathern bands ; and to watch him 
 as his hands wander over the breast of 
 his velvet doublet feeling for the chap- 
 let, which so rarely quitted his person. 
 This terrible mocking spectre of 
 Philip the Tyrant seems to pursue the 
 visitor as he roams through the museum. 
 to which an uncivil monk grudgingly 
 admits him to look at the paintings by 
 Ribera, Jiordans, Bosch, and Tinto- 
 retto, and does not quit him until he has 
 gained the open air and left the village 
 and the monaster}' of the Eseurial far 
 behind him. 
 
64 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER SIX. 
 
 In Revolution Time. — Savagossa. — A Quaint Old Spanish City. — The Protest against the Refistab- 
 
 lishmeut of M trchy. — A Vigorous Fight. — The Church of the Virgin Del Pilar. — < in the 
 
 Way to Valencia. — Down to the Mediterranean. — Alicante. — The Grao. —Getting into Valencia 
 before the Bombardment. — An Adventurous Promenade. — Crossing the Streets under Fire.— 
 A Barricaded ] Intel. — street Fighting in Earnest. — Republicans ami Regulars, 
 
 MADRID is usually a disappoint- 
 ment to the stranger. Saragossa 
 isa revelation. The approaches to it are 
 singularly beautiful. The train left me 
 outside the walls, ami I walked through 
 the olive-bordered avenues, finding with 
 some difficulty the gate which led into 
 the main part of the town. As T ap- 
 proached this gate I at once perceived 
 that the government had at last got an 
 iron hand on Saragossa. The narrow 
 and quaint streets were crowded with 
 soldiers. Officers, in their glittering blue 
 and red uniforms, passed up and down, 
 reviewing little' squads of men, who. re- 
 ceiving their orders, went out to parade 
 to solemn drum-beats in certain sections. 
 It was nine o'clock in the morning, but 
 little movement was visible among the 
 inhabitants. Sunburnt figures stood 
 here and there beneath the Gothic and 
 M ■ >• nish door-\\a\s talking quietly to- 
 gether; but when more than half a 
 dozen had gathered the soldiers arrived 
 and dispersed them. When Saragossa 
 "was tin 1 capital of the kingdom of Ara- 
 gou the people manifested the same 
 spirit that they had newly shown in this 
 insurrection of 1869, in saying to their 
 king, " We, wlto arc your equals and as 
 powerful as you. elect you king on the 
 condition that you guard our laws and 
 our liberties, and that there shall always 
 lie between you and us some one more 
 
 powerful than you ; if not, we will not 
 have you." The Aragonese of seven 
 hundred years ago understood the value 
 of constitutional liberty even better than 
 those of to-day, and practised it more 
 forcibly. When Augustus Csesar came 
 to Spain he looked upon the then ob- 
 scure little town as one destined to a 
 famous place in history, and christened 
 it Csesarea Augusta. This, in due time, 
 the Goths, when they came to levy con- 
 tributions on the then wealthy town, 
 tailed Csesar Agosta ; and later came the 
 Arabs, who softened the name into Sar- 
 acosta, but who hardened the manners 
 of the people until they were fittest rep- 
 resentatives of the haughty rule of the 
 Moors in Spain. 
 
 So powerful was the city that Charle- 
 magne himself trend iled when he had 
 paused before her gates, ami, lifting the 
 siege, went away still bleeding from 
 the scratches received at Roucesvalles. 
 Then came the Christian kings, slowly 
 invading Navarre and Aragon, and at 
 last, by their valor, they captured to 
 Catholicism the Zaragoza (pronounced 
 Tharagotha) of to-day. In the city 
 there tire but few hints of modernism. 
 such as here and there a noble square, or 
 a promenade planted with trees and or- 
 namented with statues, or a barrack, 
 in which the soldiers just at this time 
 were undulv numerous. But these few 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 65 
 
 innovations of modernism were soon 
 left behind. I plunged into a labyrinth 
 of narrow streets, where overhanging 
 roofs nearly kissed each other, and 
 where, nevertheless, every house had its 
 balconies in the upper stories. Antonio, 
 smoking a cigarette on his balcony, could 
 have tumbled the ashes into the dinner- 
 plate of his neighbor, tranquilly eating 
 under his awning across the way. The 
 shops are all very primitive in their 
 character, and some of them Oriental in 
 their disdain of modern furniture. Many 
 of the houses in the town are so old 
 that they are propped up with huge 
 beams. The great cathedral of Our 
 Lady of the Pillar, known as one of the 
 most celebrated Catholic shrines in the 
 world, has shown much evidence of 
 crumbling, and the devotees nearly died 
 of fear lest it might fall during the 
 cannonading of the October revolu- 
 tion. The history of this church is most 
 remarkable. All the inhabitants who 
 believe in their religion believe also that 
 " Our Lady of the Pillar" was founded 
 by St. .lames, the traditional Santiago, 
 forty years only after the beginning of 
 this Christian era. The old legend is 
 still preserved in these weirds: ••And 
 Jesus said, ' My dearly beloved mother, 
 I wish you to go to Saragossa, and order 
 St. James to erect a temple in your 
 honor, where you shall be invoked for 
 all time.'" This divinely imposed duty 
 St. James is supposed to have duly ac- 
 complished before his famous pilgrimage 
 to Jerusalem, and the church has grown 
 to gigantic proportions from the acorn of 
 the little chapel and pillar, on which the 
 Virgin's figure was raised, so says the 
 legend, eighteen hundred years ago. 
 The dark-eyed women, as well as the 
 lame, lousy, and dirty old beggars, of 
 Saragossa all daily kiss a little piece of 
 wood fixed in the cathedral wall, and 
 
 said to be the only fragment left of 
 the real pillar. Around this church, 
 which stands not far from the banks 
 of the Ebro, was some desperate fight- 
 ing in this October struggle, and the 
 blood-stains in several corners were still 
 visible at the time of my visit. 
 
 Here, as in Valencia and elsewhere, 
 the collision between the peasantry, who 
 had invaded the town, and the soldiers 
 representing the monarchical govern- 
 ment, was brought on exclusively by the 
 demand of the soldiers that the peasants 
 should lay down their arms. Most of 
 the peasants had been successful in their 
 determination to retain their weapons, 
 and had retired with all the honors of 
 war. But a few had been taken, and 
 the picture of the march of these prison- 
 ers through mute, solemn Saragossa 
 clings in my memory. The people had 
 postponed the festival annually held to 
 honor their patron saint, because the 
 aroma of blood still lingered over the 
 town. At the very portals of their 
 church were dark stains, telling of 
 human sacrifices. At tin' Duke's gate 
 curious crowds were lingering, wild- 
 eyed, round the spot where a general 
 and a dozen soldiers had fallen, pierced 
 by the bullets fired by workmen from a 
 priest's house. The government of 
 General Prim was disdainfully releasing 
 tin' few prisoners which it had taken. 
 In front marched a dozen stalwart sol- 
 diers bronzed, dirty, and tierce; behind 
 straggled perhaps two hundred insurrec- 
 tionists, their wives running beside them, 
 embracing them or weeping in silent joy. 
 A weird, fantastic set were these fellows, 
 with a tinge of the old Arabic blood in 
 their veins. The government had given 
 them back their long knives, which were 
 thrust in their sashes, or served to pin the 
 knots of the gayly colored handkerchiefs 
 which covered their heads. They shuffled 
 
66 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 forward to the grand plaza, and before tuuate lias not crept into this half- 
 tin. 1 famous Convent of Jerusalem, where barbaric country. On the evening of the 
 Spain's most beautiful daughters spend first uprising in Saragossa a party of 
 their lives in honoring the Virgin, insane people were passing through the 
 they were drawn up in grim order, streets with the straw which they had 
 ragged as FalstafFs army. With dis- been taught to plait into mats and 
 grace and with rage in their swarthy panniers. One of them, to whom I had 
 faces they listened to the order which the honor of being presented during my 
 forbade them, under heavy penalties, to stay in the town, bad been excited by 
 take up arms again, and then shambled the news of the lighting, and had been 
 away to the churches to kneel ami seen a number of times in the thick of 
 silently pray for one more chance, the fray. 
 
 Those of thi' inhabitants of Saragossa, More lighting was impossible in Sara- 
 the veritable citizens of the city, who gossa. The soldiers swarmed every- 
 had participated in the light, did not es- where, and I desired to press on to 
 cape so easily. New arrests were eon- Catalonia. But the railway agents re- 
 stantly going on, and, when I left, the fused :. ticket to Barcelona, saying that 
 towns-people scarcely dared to open their the road was open only half-way. The 
 shops. Nearly all the proud Aragonese rebels bad that very morning burned for 
 who were wounded to the death in the the second time a railway bridge, and 
 second day's fighting managed to crawl strolling bands along the line hail coin- 
 to their houses and die at home, proud mitted numerous crimes. The last local 
 of having saved their bodies from the trains had narrowly escaped stoppage, 
 soldiers. One man, wounded in a and I was compelled to return to Madrid. 
 dozen places, crawled on to the roof of Six of the revolutionary Saragossa news- 
 his domicile, and maintained from it a papers had been suppressed ; the official 
 deadly lire upon the soldiers until be journals gave only glaring lies about the 
 had slain seven. When at last he felt insurrection, and I returned to the cap- 
 death's hand at his throat he jumped ital convinced that all the interest now 
 down into the street, falling heavily centred on Barcelona and Valencia. 
 upon the piled-up stones, and was used At Madrid the news from Valencia 
 as an additional breastwork or a barri- was meagre. The sweet Mediterranean 
 cade for his companions. This barri- town, the city of the Cid, surrounded by 
 cade, near the Duke's gate, resisted the lovely gardens and luxuriant fields, was 
 fire of artillery for nearly two hours, known to be in the hands of the in- 
 These same men who leaped upon the surrectionists, and the authorities had 
 cannons, knife in hand, when they were threatened a siege. Every morning a 
 forced t<, retreat to tin- barricades, perturbed crowd waited at the railway 
 heaped 141 the stones and beams as fast station to hear the news, and each day 
 as they were torn down by the shots. they retired unsatisfied. Prim had 
 Al Saragossa it is the custom, as in suppressed even private telegrams. The 
 some parts of the Orient, to allow luna- journals were ominously silent, but the 
 tics, who are not positively uncontrol- military trains were laden. " Impossi- 
 lable. to wander about the streets, mill- ble to go there by rail," said one. " Im- 
 gling freely with the sane. The custom possible to go at all," said another. 
 of making prisoners of Cod's unfor- " Bombarded two days ago." said those 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 67 
 
 who should have been well-informed. 
 '■ In possession of the insurgents," still 
 asserted the equally reliable. This much 
 was known: The rebels were at least 
 eighteen thousand strong in a city of two 
 hundred thousand people; had taken the 
 great market-place ; had installed them- 
 selves therein, and refused to be ousted. 
 What were they? A mad mass of infu- 
 riated towns-people, who by stratagem 
 had possessed the greater part of the 
 town, torn up the pavements, and re- 
 fused to yield. Headed by the republican 
 deputy Guerrero, they were well armed 
 and equipped. At first eight thousand 
 troops had gone forward, next twelve 
 thousand, — many said sixteen thousand, 
 — under General Alamenos. I took the 
 evening train for ICuciua, whence a 
 branch line leads to Valencia. 
 
 The memories of the next few days 
 rise vividly before me. I can see the 
 mass of , --taring faces at the railway sta- 
 tion, as, iu company with him of famous 
 Abyssinian and African prestige, whose 
 name is like a perfume to all lovers of 
 journalistic enterprise, I take my place 
 in the night express, bound for the shores 
 of the Mediterranean. This is my first 
 meeting with Stanley, and a strange one, 
 with the spirit of competition lightly 
 roused, so as to firing into our acquaint- 
 ance just that spice of jealousy which 
 makes us both alert. Iu the train are 
 parents, and husbands, and brothers 
 going to Valencia, to bring loved ones 
 away from the horrors which are always 
 associated with a Spanish siege. So we 
 fare forward, past Aranjuez, where there 
 is a noble royal residence and town, to 
 Albacete. As morning dawns, with that 
 glorious poetry of sky only known in 
 Spain, we i ome into the wonderful region 
 of paradoxes between Albacete and Al- 
 mansa. Imagine fertile fields stretching 
 miles along the railway line, but framed 
 
 in the backgrounds by mountains barren 
 as the pyramids, acclivities that rise 
 superb above yawning precipices. 
 
 The vineyards are numerous, and dark- 
 haired, bare-limbed women are plucking 
 the purplish-blue clusters of grapes from 
 dwarf vines, that bend heavily under the 
 pressure of the vintage. At many points 
 huge rocks, rising in perpetual affront 
 to heaven, are crowned with castles, 
 which, in the sun's golden haze, seem to 
 melt their outlines into the net-work of 
 nature, and to be but a freak of her fancy. 
 The well-made roads, smooth, white, 
 and suffocatingly dusty, trend away in 
 serpentine curves to the liases of the 
 mountain rocks, and are bordered at long 
 distance by low houses, whose white walls 
 and tiled roofs glitter in the sun. The 
 muleteers and the peasant women are 
 singing, or rather droning, while they 
 ride or work, and naked children dispor: 
 in the glow of the morning without 
 shame. The costume of the peasants 
 along the route is at first quiet in color 
 and sober in arrangement; but, as we 
 draw towards the south and the sea, it is 
 scarlet, and green, and yellow, in glaring 
 contrast, and falling in graceful folds 
 close to the form. 
 
 At seven in the morning we come to 
 Encina, a small junction just below the 
 hug' town of Almansa, where the Va- 
 leucian railway blanches off. Here there 
 are hordes of soldiers, and on the moun- 
 tains we can see the vigilantes protecting 
 the railway. The wild-looking peasants 
 come up with sneering curiosity, if any 
 inquiry be made about Valencia, to say 
 that the Republicans have captured it 
 long ago, and that they will never sur- 
 render. But the railway to Valencia is 
 not in order. No trains have passed for 
 several days, and skirmishing along the 
 line is frequent. Is there no way to send 
 a message, or to go to Valencia? Yes ! 
 
68 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 We may go to Alicante, and :iloiig the 
 Mediterranean coast; from Alicante a 
 Bteamer will sail that afternoon. So we 
 take a wheezy train upon the branch 
 railway, and arc soon among the palm- 
 trees. Towards ten o'clock we pass into 
 a huge ravine between two ledges of jag- 
 ged rock, the railway running on a nar- 
 row bank. Weseebeyond, attheopening, 
 a bridge over a yawning chasm and a 
 host of figures clustering around it. The 
 train comes to a halt. The engineer 
 goes back to talk to the guard, and half 
 an hour is lost before it is decided that 
 the figures must hi' those of soldiers 
 rather than of insurgent enemies. We 
 move slowly into the midst of a company 
 of the civil guard, who have improvised a 
 habitation of boughs at the bridge's side, 
 ami are watching the structure night and 
 day. At last, as we are leaving a little 
 station among the mountains, we turn a 
 curve, and before us lies the placid Med- 
 iterranean, iis purple water rippling softly 
 to the shores, and in the distance is a 
 huge acclivitv, around whose top hovers a 
 glorious breezy wreath of mist. — one of 
 those fragrant heaven breaths, to which 
 only the waves of the Mare Tyrrhenum 
 cequor can give shape and substance. 
 
 Below lies Alicante in the slumbrous 
 noon. Alone' the coast, where the sleepy 
 surf comes rolling slowly in, are groves 
 of palm. Barelegged fishermen are push- 
 ing out their boats. The long quay, 
 guarded by soldiers, runs out to sea ; and 
 at the base edge towers a gigantic rock 
 with its antique Moorish citadel. Here 
 we find that the boat will leave for Va- 
 lencia at three o'clock, also that the fight- 
 ing has Keen brisk there for the last two 
 days ; now a surrender is talked of. 
 Meantime, in the port, we find a noble 
 hark, of American build, the William 
 Wilcox of New York, commanded by 
 Philip Johnson, of New Bedford ; and, 
 
 visiting it, receive gracious attention 
 from the stanch captain and his young- 
 wife, whose first trip beyond seas is to 
 agitated Spain. 
 
 As we steam out of the port that after- 
 noon, in a boat crowded with Spanish 
 officers going to the front, the American 
 banner flutters up to the mast-head of 
 the William Wilcox ami down again in 
 graceful salute to us, much to the aston- 
 ishment of all the olive-complexioned, 
 jauntily uniformed Spaniards round 
 alioiit us. Next morning the boat is 
 lying in the harbor of Valencia. 
 
 The Grao, Valencia's port of entry, is 
 three miles from the city itself, and has 
 a well-sheltered harbor, with a. little town 
 built along its banks. We hind at seven 
 o'clock, and find the streets crowded 
 with men, women, and children, whom 
 fright has forced out of Valencia. The 
 carriages which usually run from the 
 port to the city are drawn ii[> in a long 
 line, near the avenue leading to the en- 
 trance, and it is with difficulty that we can 
 prevail on the driver to take us so far as 
 the outer line of the siege. "The thing 
 is to commence at eight," he says. '• We 
 should hardly reach there before then, 
 aud we might be shol by the insurrectos." 
 For eight days the fighting has been 
 growing more severe daily. Who are 
 masters of the situation? The insur- 
 rectos, decidedly. 
 
 We drive up a long avenue bordered 
 with sycamores. On our way we pass 
 many women weeping bitterly, anil bend- 
 ing almost double under the hastily 
 prepared burdens of their household 
 
 g Is. This seems to indicate that the 
 
 bombardment is beginning, and the hare 
 suggestion of this so frightens our driver 
 that he refuses to go farther, and. turn- 
 ing his horse's nose to the hedge, invites 
 us to get out. Nothing can persuade 
 him, and we find ourselves in a hubbub 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 69 
 
 of cavalry and infantry, teams loaded 
 with furniture, going out under flags of 
 truce, and hundreds of people sitting by 
 the roadside, their faces turned in listen- 
 ing attitude towards the town. A com- 
 pany <>f Lancers gallops up to us, gives us 
 a suspicious glance, and passes on. Fi- 
 nally we are told to ask permission of a 
 certain officer to pass into the town. He 
 shrugs his shoulders to his ears, spreads 
 out his hands, says lie will not hinder us, 
 and we pass in, carrying our own baggage. 
 Our first idea is to seek the Fonda de 
 Paris, — a well-known hotel, standing in 
 the Calle del Mar (the street of the sea) , 
 where we think we can learn how far it 
 will be safe for us to go. We look for 
 some oue to take our baggage, and show 
 us the way ; tint every person appealed 
 to makes a frightened face, says that the 
 tiring has begun, and that it is unsafe. 
 The suspense of waiting in this mass of 
 humanity is unbearable. At last we 
 appeal to a dare-devil-looking boy, who, 
 without comments, takes up tin- travel- 
 ling-bags, and goes forward. We are 
 continually jostled by soldiers, running 
 from poiut to point, dodging behind cor- 
 ners, casting suspicious glances at win- 
 dows or balconies above. We have now 
 entered a labyrinth of narrow streets, 
 like those I had seen at Saragossa. The 
 brave boy, who runs ahead of us, bend- 
 ing under the weight of our baggage, 
 stops short, and compresses his lips, as 
 he hears a sharp thud around the comer, 
 and sees the soldiers rushing back. We 
 are in the midst of a guerilla warfare, 
 where shots are fired from balconies and 
 from house-tops; where a chance bullet 
 may meet us, and semi life vaporing 
 before we can defend ourselves. From 
 time to time the boy halts, says huskily, 
 " Fiit'tjn" (firing), and then, like a little 
 lion at bay, turns anew to seek another 
 route to the Fonda de Paris, 
 
 At last we come into a long, narrow 
 avenue, leading to a square. Sud- 
 denly we are pulled into a door by a 
 friendly citizen, and the boy turns pale; 
 but my companion, who has seen battles 
 numerous, trampson ahead, and we follow. 
 
 We arrive in tie- si pun.'. We hear 
 the dull roar away up in the city, and 
 the ping of wandering bullets. People 
 follow us with their gaze; but, at the 
 entrance of another long avenue, we 
 hear above us, at the windows, hands 
 softly clapped, and soft hisses. Again 
 the boy turns, almost crying with fright 
 and determination. We cross the square ; 
 we try another street, and push on des- 
 perately. We hear shooting close at 
 hand. We enter still another square. 
 Here great preparations are going on. 
 Soldiers crowd the side opposite us, but 
 there is one yawning gap, — the entrance 
 to a street, which no one enters, and no 
 one stands in front of. We are in the 
 Plaza de la Congregacion. A soldier 
 stares at us. lie sees we are foreigners, 
 and says, in broken French, " Grand 
 Wan I Don't go across the square, or 
 you will be shot." Put while lie is talk- 
 ing my comrade and the boy step bravely 
 across the square, and I rush after them. 
 A soldier at the corner raises his musket 
 warningly. What is it? Something be- 
 yond the corner. 
 
 A barricade ! 
 
 To reach the hotel we must brave this 
 barricade. We cannot stay in the street, 
 so we make three leaps ; and, as Stanley 
 turns the corner of the little avenue 
 which leads behind the hotels, three bul- 
 lets fly past, and strike in the Valencia 
 Bank windows. We are hurried into a 
 back door, amid a crowd of soldiery. 
 and a little French landlord comes for- 
 ward to congratulate us on our escape; 
 for the insurgents had sworn to shoot 
 am' one who crossed that street. 
 
70 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 We press the poor boy's hand, and by a Republican deputy lately withdrawn 
 
 cannot but admire him. He takes shel- from the Cortes. In and around the 
 
 ter with ns for a short time. town are ten thousand irregular troops, 
 
 This incident illustrates well the manner General Alamenos commanding. Don 
 
 of the siege, and the struggle which has Francis de la Riviera, captain-general, 
 
 been in progress seven days when wo is a vacillating old man, full of much 
 
 arrive; not a siege with artillery at long caution. The sub-commandant, Don 
 
 distance, nor one where lines are dis- Martin Rosalcs, is energetic, so says 
 
 tinctly drawn, but one where every street our landlord ; adding that the fighl which 
 
 and house are beleaguered. This ave- has lasted so long may continue for 
 
 nue, for instance, is narrow, long, and weeks, or, so strange are the caprices 
 
 straight. At its end is a barricade, and of insurrection in Spain, may be ended 
 
 in tin' houses on each side are at least in ten minutes. 
 
 six hundred soldiers. This is repeated The Republicans here, as in Saragossa, 
 
 two or three streets further on ; but away are mostly pajanos, or peasants. They 
 
 up in the city's centre, in the great mar- are all of one type, with swarthy faces. 
 
 ket-place, and the twenty-eight streets olive complexions, strong limbs, and are 
 
 leading from it, the Republicans hold clad in a curious costume, trousers reach- 
 
 evcrvthing. Long-range shooting is all ing only to the knee, long hose, and san- 
 
 that they have to fear. Every private dais of undressed hide. A handkerchief 
 
 house is a fortress, insurgent or govern- is bound about their heads, and huge 
 
 mental. The landlord takes us over the blankets of brilliant coloring arc slum: 
 
 hotel, shows us furniture riddled with lml- across their shoulders. They never wear 
 
 lets, and his mattresses all in use, to pro- coats, hats, or boots, and are so sun- 
 
 teet the soldiers who occupy his balconies, burnt that they look like their African 
 
 The' side windows look on the barricade, neighbors, or like the Apaches of our 
 
 and near them soldiers are crouching American plains. 
 
 expectant. This is in the first story. The barricades are only shoulder high, 
 
 In the next still more destruction: mir- made of a double row of paving-stones, 
 
 rot's smashed, curtains in shreds, and and protected at the top by a few beams 
 
 tables in fragments. We are given a and well-filled sacks of sand or grain, 
 
 room on the third floor, fronting on the But there are so many, each corner being 
 
 street we have just crossed. We open made a va liable, that even were the sol- 
 
 our window cautiously, and look across diery to reduce one, as. for instance, this 
 
 the way. The large stone building is the before our street, they would have to 
 
 Yalencian Credit Institution. Soldiers take twenty, forty, or fifty behind it be- 
 
 are firing from the balcouies of this bank, fore they could possess the town. The 
 
 and dodging the bullets from the bam- dull, dead roar, that breaks in now and 
 
 cade. In tin 1 square below, through then on the comparative silence at each 
 
 which we have just come, a regiment end of Valencia, comes from the outside, 
 
 is quietly arriving. whence General Alamenos is throwing 
 
 The Valeiiciaii Republicans, including shell into a barricade. Now and then a 
 
 the mountaineers, who have comedown shot from a rebel cannon comes whizzing 
 
 from their homes to protest against the into the square, on which we can look, 
 
 restoration of monarchy, are from twelve and we can see confusion among the sol- 
 
 to fifteen thousand strong, commanded diers, and sometimes a faintly palpitat- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 71 
 
 ing mass, from which surges life-blood, 
 staining the canvas thrown over it. By 
 and by a great number of troops are 
 massed in the plaza, and we hear inces- 
 sant bullet-tiring from the adjacent bar- 
 ricade. In the square the buglers are 
 sounding the charge, and Prim's Hunters 
 — the scum of Madrid, vet the most dar- 
 ing soldiery in Spain : reckless devils in 
 dirty uniforms, with straw sandals to 
 their stockingless feet — come up slowly 
 into line. Other companies fall in be- 
 hind, and it is plain that we are to have 
 a battle. All this time the soldiers do 
 not face death at the barricade in our 
 street. They mass together in front of 
 the college in the plaza, ami two bat- 
 talions go charging towards the centre 
 of the town. Those who come running 
 back wounded bring stories of the bar- 
 ricades. Irresolute, all go on. The 
 government volunteers, the small por- 
 tion of the mountaineers who have not 
 taken part in the insurrection, have been 
 captured in a body, and their noses have 
 been cut oft', their ears slit, ami their 
 bodies piled on the barricades. So the 
 survivors come back trembling with fear, 
 bearing their dead, on litters and crossed 
 muskets, and it is getting gradually 
 towards dusk. 
 
 As the church clocks are striking 
 seven the senior bishop of the diocese 
 and some of the city authorities go to 
 General Alamenos with a flag of truce, 
 ami pray for some arrangement to stay 
 the How of blood. The commission is 
 received with the greatest kindness by 
 Alamenos; but in their passage through 
 the streets the would-be peacemakers are 
 saluted with hisses from many of the bar- 
 ricades. No arrangement is reached, 
 and the commission goes back late in the 
 evening, mortified and alarmed. So we 
 must wait the morrow in our fortress. 
 
 and meantime get a retrospect of the 
 seven previous days. 
 
 As soon as the order commanding 
 the restoration of arms by the Republi- 
 cans to the military authorities is made 
 Guerrero, the Republican seceder from 
 the Cortes, visits the captain-general, and 
 tells him that he must be responsible for 
 any acts of violence provoked by the 
 order. The barricades rise as if by 
 magic, and four attacking columns, 
 formed by the military authorities, on 
 the next morning, the 8th of October, 
 start by different routes for the great 
 market-square, w T here the insurrection- 
 ists are in possession. The troops suf- 
 fer severely by the hostile lire from the 
 houses along the way, and are almost 
 inclined to retreat. But they succeed in 
 placing artillery in another square, that 
 of Santa Catalena, not far from the mar- 
 ket, and demolish one barricade. Upon 
 this the sharp-shooters pick off the 
 officers until there is absolutely none left 
 to command, and the artillery retreat in 
 disorder. 
 
 A second attack follows, for the gov- 
 ernment forces are confident of easy vic- 
 tory ; but they arc soon convinced to 
 the contrary. A bravo meets the 
 colonel of the first advancing regi- 
 ment, and discharges a revolver into 
 his face. Irregular tiring then begins 
 from the houses on all sides, and a sec- 
 ond retreat follows. Yet the same col- 
 umns finally rally and get possession of 
 the telegraph offices, not far from the 
 Bourse; from thence they traverse the 
 streets behind the market under an ap- 
 palling fire from windows ami from the 
 roofs. They succeed in occupying one 
 or two of these streets, but soon find 
 themselves besieged instead of besiegers, 
 as the Republicans have shut them in on 
 every side. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN. 
 
 The Nine Days' Fight in Valencia. — Alamenos and the Bombardment. — The Insurgents and their 
 Tactics. — Departure of the Consuls. -Picturesque and Romantic Episode. -An Interrupted 
 Breakfast. Meeting of the Brothers. — The End of the Struggle. -Scenes in the Market-place.— 
 In the Cathedral after the Battle. — Castelar and his Endeavors for Liberty.- -Spanish Politics 
 since 1869. — Spanish Characteristics. — The Heligious Passion Plays. — The Sublime and the 
 Ridiculous in Religion. 
 
 THE third struggle, on the 8th of Oc- 
 tober, occurs when six companies 
 attempt to occupy the theatres and to 
 approach the market. The seventh de- 
 tachment, ('(insisting' of two hundred 
 men, comes up an hour afterwards, — the 
 artillery firing over them, — to carry by 
 assaull two barricades in the small streets 
 lending into the market. The battle 
 continues after dark, and is horrible. 
 Seventy-five or eighty soldiers are killed 
 (luting the last half-hour, and this awa- 
 kening the authorities to the fact that 
 resistance to the death is determined on, 
 they draw off the badly cut-up troops, 
 and concentrate them during the night 
 at ten different points, four of which are 
 in the immediate neighborhood of the 
 Fonda de Paris, and a fifth, the Fonda 
 itself. It, is said that there wore eight 
 hundred soldiers killed ill the first day's 
 fighting. 
 
 This may be exaggerated, although 
 
 the American consul thought he could 
 verify it The 9th brings no lighting. 
 bill irregular firing all day, the troops 
 being too much disorganized to move. 
 • >n the 10th couriers are sent to Ali- 
 cante and to Madrid to demand re- 
 inforcements, and the slaughter by the 
 firing from both sides is kept up irregu- 
 larly until evening, when large reinforce- 
 ments arrive. ( )n the 11th forces pour 
 in by steamers and march over the 
 
 broken rail routes. They are fought 
 desperately on the outskirts of the city, 
 
 and there is much slaughter. The TJth, 
 13th. and llth see no actual encounter, 
 hut on the night of the li'th a party of 
 daring Republicans having attempted a 
 surprise, they are fallen on and massa- 
 cred. < )n the 1-ltli Alamenos, receiving 
 extensive reinforcements, is ready for 
 the reduction of the city. Then comes 
 the Peace Commission on the 15th, as 
 alluded to. 
 
 Sixty officers were killed in the seven 
 days before our arrival, and many of 
 them were great losses to the Spanish 
 army. Prim's volunteers and one or 
 two other fine regiments were badly cut 
 up. I saw. after the surrender, a group 
 of them pointing out the ambuscade 
 where several of their comrades had been 
 killed. And we had arrived at the ninth 
 day of this terrible episode of civil war. 
 
 All night the insurgents watch in the 
 barricades ; all night the soldiers sleep on 
 their arms. Alamenos has got the tele- 
 graph working to Madrid, and its tem- 
 porary station erected in a bull-ring, and 
 receives news that fresh troops will be 
 on hand in the morning. New pleas for 
 caution come from the timid Cortes in 
 Madrid ; but the generals now announce 
 as sure to take place at ten o'clock on the 
 ninth day, if surrender is not accom- 
 plished by that time, the bombardment 
 
EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 
 
 T,\ 
 
 o 
 > 
 
 
 
 < 
 
 > 
 
 M 
 *i 
 
 o 
 
74 
 
 EUROPE IX storm AND CALM. 
 
 which was threatened when we arrived. 
 AN e can now go <'ii our balconies with 
 little fear; hostilities are by mutual con- 
 sent .suspended after sunset. The rough 
 mountaineers throw themselves on the 
 sands and sleep, and the soldiers of the 
 government are only too glad of respite. 
 An odor of dead bodies is perceptible on 
 the night air. For eight days the streets 
 have not been cleaned; and in many 
 places bodies are lying in heaps as they 
 fell. Now and then a strange light 
 flares up the sky over towards the mar- 
 ket-place. It comes from some burning 
 house fired by the troops. In the pale 
 moonlight we sometimes catch a gleam 
 of the white folds of a flag of truce, pre- 
 ceding a load of household stores ; some- 
 times a white-bonneted sister of charity 
 glides by, bearing a heavy bundle of 
 lint and bandages. In the j>1h;ji the 
 old captain-general sits, near the foun- 
 tain, smoking, and earnestly discussing 
 the situation with a few officers. 
 
 We sleep soundly that night ; even the 
 tramp of soldiers through the corridors 
 does not awaken us. Morning dawns, 
 fiery-red, warm, almost airless. At 
 seven we look out. As far as we can 
 see, nothing but compact masses of 
 soldiers. The commotion is intense. 
 Ah ! there is the British flag, upheld by 
 the English consul. The English resi- 
 dents are leaving the town in proces- 
 sion, under a flag of truce. The consul 
 shakes the captain-general's hand, and 
 bids him farewell. Presently come the 
 women anil children. Each one bears 
 those of their household possessions 
 which the) can ill-afford to leave behind. 
 By and by the French consul comes to 
 our hotel f«>r the delegation of Frenchmen 
 who wish to leave. The bombardment is 
 to begin in half anhour. From the bank 
 opposiie. officers look out and direct 
 their men. Bugles sound everwhere. 
 
 The deadly street is vacant once more. 
 Flags of truce now appear, and it is ap- 
 parent that a parley is going to lie held. 
 Crash! a tremendous volley breaks 
 from the barricade. Suddenly several 
 prisoners are brought into the square, 
 and kicked brutally along towards the 
 prison. It is eight o'clock, and the first 
 
 flag of truce is to be sent to the barri- 
 cades. An officer commands a soldier 
 to go forward with the white emblem of 
 conciliation. The man hesitates. " An- 
 da !" (< io on ! ) . says the officer, striking 
 him with his sword-hilt . At last the man 
 moves. A bullet whizzes past him : still 
 he goes on. He is met half-way up the 
 street by a tall, swarthy youth with 
 coal-black flowing hair. The two wind 
 the flag, which is a sheet, around their 
 shoulders, ami thus insurgent ami be- 
 sieger, with true Spanish sense of the 
 graceful and aesthetic, come back together 
 to the square. 
 
 The rebel bows gracefully to the offi- 
 cers, listens to the terms proposed, — 
 '•surrender without conditions," — un- 
 winds himself out of the sheet, and turns 
 on his heel to go back. As soon as he 
 reaches the barricade defiance in flame 
 and bullets bursts from the rifles of the 
 men. 
 
 Another truce; and now it is again 
 announced that if surrender is not ef- 
 fected at ten o'clock bombardment will 
 be continued until every stone is blown 
 from every barricade. At. the same 
 time a charge of" five thousand troops is 
 arranged to come up through each 
 street. The thunder in the market-place 
 grows louder and louder. 
 
 We wait anxiously until ten. The 
 insurgents are now firing round shot, 
 and chips of stone, heavy enough for 
 two men to lift, fly from the Yalencian 
 Bank's handsome front. Despite these 
 formidable missiles the fat old sub-corn- 
 
EUh'OPE IiV STORM AND CALM. 
 
 7. r ) 
 
 mandant walks across the street, shield- 
 ing his belt so that the rebels cannot see 
 it, buttoning his coat, and waving an- 
 other white Hag. It seems almost as if 
 we were the besieged. 
 
 But the sappers and miners, although 
 we do not know it, are getting into the 
 town's centre, and if we could get news 
 in our hostelry, we should learn that 
 eight hundred or one thousand insurgents 
 have already fled. Alamenos therefore 
 counsels his artillery-men to have 
 patience. At eleven an attack is or- 
 ganized in our square, and just as we 
 are wild with excitement, in anticipation 
 of a battle under our very noses, there 
 is a knock at our door. Are we to be 
 compelled to fly? 
 
 No, indeed ! It is the cheeky little 
 French landlord, pen in hand, saying, 
 " Gentlemen, breakfast is ready." 
 
 In the barricaded dining-room one 
 window is open, and through it we see 
 at least one thousand soldiers crowding 
 through a big hole. We snatch some 
 bread and wine, and rush back to our 
 rooms to hear and see what we may. A 
 wild rush of soldiery, a sound like rapid 
 hammering on some hollow substance, are 
 followed by cheers too tremulous to be in- 
 spiring, but rather husky ; and, horrified, 
 we look out at the risk of our heads. 
 The charge is over : the soldiers have 
 vanished up a side street. They could 
 not take the barricade in front. Six 
 men there could keep sis hundred at 
 bay, and the bloody litters coming back 
 testify to the steadiness of the aim of 
 those mountaineers who boast that they 
 can kill a pigeon with a rifle-ball. 
 
 Again a lull. One, two, three 
 o'clock! At least twenty Hags of truce 
 have been exchanged. Why does not 
 the bombardment begin in earnest? All 
 at once, as the hour of four approaches, 
 there is a simultaneous rush of people 
 
 and soldiers from the square. The sun- 
 burnt fellows in the windows opposite 
 us brandish their guns with Spanish 
 enthusiasm. Can it be that the town 
 has surrendered? The barricade is 
 covered with soldiers, hut they are not 
 fighting. Heaven and earth cannot keep 
 the curiosity of mortals suppressed in 
 such a case. We rush downstairs. The 
 insurgents at the barricade have sur- 
 rendered, — conditions, that they be 
 allowed to go free ; and the soldiers are 
 knocking down the stones with the butts 
 of their muskets. We go out and are 
 borne along in the press, reaching the 
 spot which, twenty minutes before, live 
 thousand soldiers could not have faced. 
 A rare and dramatic incident, not with- 
 out its frequent parallel in our own civil 
 war, is the cause of surrender here. 
 The soldiers make the attack, and arc 
 falling rapidly, when the leader of the 
 insurgents hears a familiar voice. lb' 
 leaps forward and stands amid the 
 whistling bullets. His brother, whom 
 he has not seen for eight years, is calling 
 to him. That brother's voice brings the 
 black-haired insurrectionist to the ground 
 outside the barricade. He leaps among 
 the soldiers, elasps his brother in his 
 arms, and weeps and laughs by turns. 
 The insurgents stand irresolute, and the 
 key-note of the siege and surrender of 
 Valencia has been struck. The govern- 
 ment soldier tells his brothel', captain of 
 the insurgents, to withdraw his men and 
 they shall all go free. " I myself," says 
 he, with a charming lack of discipline, 
 "will respond for their liberty." The 
 two brothers, arm in arm, sit down upon 
 the curb-stone to look each other in the 
 face, and to recover their senses. 
 
 The word that the outer barricade has 
 surrendered lias passed up into the town, 
 yet there is a violent resistance at the 
 next one beyond. When we reach it, 
 
76 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 at half-past four, the soldiers arc lmild- stones on the barricades have their 
 
 ing fires to burn out the bl< od-stains. mouths filled with bread. 
 
 Carefully we go round corners, where a At an angle in the market-place is a 
 
 few in. uni'iit s before we had heard little street where a sharp corner had 
 
 firing, only ti> see the proud Republican been availed of as a chance for a very high 
 
 peasants marching away with their heads barricade. Peering through a rent in it 
 
 erect, and their rifles tightly grasped in I see a most affecting scene : an old man. 
 
 their hands. At times that day the neatly dressed, is standing in the midst 
 
 market-place of Valencia had been a hell of the insurgents, who have just thrown 
 
 upon earth. At live in the afternoon down their arms, clasping the hands of a 
 
 we are standing among the insurgents slight hoy. whose face is pale with ex- 
 
 in its centre, and not a shot is fired, citement. Ar 1 the boy's head is 
 
 The Exchange is filled with temporary wound a red handkerchief. On the 
 
 prisoners, who can hardly he persuaded ground lies a huge cavalry revolver, to 
 
 to lay down their anus; but as fast as which the boy is pointing with e r xcited 
 
 they do deliver them up the soldiers gestures. The old man is crazy to get 
 
 take them, and pile them in the cellars his loved on< — son, or ward, or employ^ 
 
 of the strongest houses. The mountain- — out of the horrible place, and urges him 
 
 eel's are not to lie urged to surrender to retire, while the little fellow insists 
 
 their rifles, as they might renew the upon lingering to tell the story of his 
 
 struggle if pressed too hard for con- battle. 
 
 ditions. The grand old church of San Blood runs afresh in the market-place, 
 
 Juan is frightfully scarred and torn, but it is now from the butchers' cleavers. 
 
 The huge portal over the statue of the Half-starved people surround the stands 
 
 Virgin is rent almost in twain. The in the meat-market, and stalwart fellows 
 
 scattered trees in the market-place are slay, and cut, and cut again, until they 
 
 cut in two. A wooden building is as are exhausted. "On Sunday." says 
 
 full of holes as a sieve. The great the merchant accompanying us, •• the 
 
 fountain is almost ruined. There are same insurrectionists who have fought 
 
 ten or fifteen barricades in a straight line here will conic in market-carts to offer 
 
 through tin 1 place. The streets radiat- their farm produce at the high price 
 
 ing fromitare very narrow, and each one caused by tin 1 insurrection." 
 
 is doubly and trebly fortified. It seems I have dwelt thus upon this nine 
 
 as if no force could have ever taken days' insurrection in Valencia, because it 
 
 the position without fust destroying the is in a certain way typical of all the 
 
 town 1 >v shell. civil struggles which occur in Spain, in 
 
 The citizens, so long imprisoned, its picturesque features; but also be- 
 
 those in the centre not having been able to cause it is entitled to a place in history, 
 
 fly from the expected bombardment, run as being founded upon a vigorous pro- 
 
 to and fiei. The first thought of the in- lest against kingship. It was too full 
 
 surgents seems to be for food. They of dignity at its outbreak to he consid- 
 
 almost crush the bakers who dare to ered as a mere riot, and too grand and 
 
 open their shops. Many soldiers share thrilling towards its close to be called 
 
 their rations with them. Howtheinsur- even a battle. There were more than 
 
 gents managed to live for nine days is a one thousand people killed during the 
 
 mystery. Soldiers [lulling down the nine .lays' fighting, and three times that 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 77 
 
 Dumber seriously wounded. The Repub- 
 licanos quite astonished the Monarchists, 
 
 who fancied that they could so easily 
 reestablish what they consider the natu- 
 ral order of things after the uprising of 
 18G8. These simple peasants awed and 
 astonished the constitutional govern- 
 
 cians can never be forgotten. Alamenos 
 could have crushed them with bombs; 
 but lie could never have taken the town 
 so long as they remained alive. Their 
 protest over, they withdrew with that 
 dignity which is one of the imposing 
 elements in the Spanish character. On 
 
 MOUNTAINEERS (iOINO HOME AFTER THE SIEGE. 
 
 ment. They neither sacked nor wantonly 
 injured the beautiful Valencian mansions, 
 some of which are almost fairy-like in 
 their gorgeous splendor, with fronts of 
 alabaster, carved in ornate and fantastic 
 designs, and with marble, jasper, por- 
 phyry, precious or costly stones, in their 
 interior decorations. As a sublime 
 democratic protest against monarchy of 
 anv hue the struggle of these Valen- 
 
 the morning after the surrender we saw 
 regiments marching into the mountains, 
 
 and were told that great numbers of 
 arrests would be made. But we fancied 
 that our lively friends, who hail done so 
 well behind the barricades, would know 
 how to get out of the reach of Alamenos 
 and his men when their feet were on 
 their native heaths. 
 
 Castelar was not discouraged at the 
 
78 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 failure of the revolution which he had '-'1st of December, 1872, that Castelar 
 
 been instrumental in fomenting A made his great speech in favor of the 
 
 brief sketch of his political career and abolition of slavery in the Spanish pos- 
 
 of Spanish politics from those wild days sessious. This, and his address on the 
 
 of 1869 until the advent of Alfonso may liberty of public worship, mentioned else- 
 
 liot be Out of place here. Castelar eon- where, are enough to make any orator's 
 
 tinued to sit in the Cortes, where he was memory immortal. 
 
 one of the most, formidable members of In 1873 the Republic had a second 
 the opposition to the reactionary policy triumph. King Amadeo abdicated, and 
 of the Regent Serrano. In the troubles Republican institutions were proclaimed 
 which came upon France in consequence by a great majority in the Cortes. The 
 of her indiscreet interference in the can- ministry in which Castelar held the port- 
 didateship of the Prince Leopold Von folio < f foreign affairs was at once 
 Hohenzollern for the throne of Spain, named. From this time forward until 
 Castelar manifested his Republican sym- the last days of 1874 Castelar and his 
 pathies in the most, straightforward followers seemed likely, as the result 
 and uncompromising manner. When he of the vigorous revolutions of 18G8 and 
 heard of the revolution which broke out 1869, definitely to matt Republican insti- 
 in Paris after the fall of Sedan, and tutions upon the Spanish nation. The 
 which resulted iii the declaration of the year of 1873 was highly encouraging to 
 Republic, he drew up and signed with the Liberals throughout the country. A 
 Republican minority in the Cortes anad- counter-revolution was prepared with 
 dress which was sent to the government much dexterity, but it was thwarted by 
 of National Defense, saluting in it the the vigor of the Republicans. Castelar 
 triumph of law and the inauguration of repeatedly risked his own life by his 
 a new era of peace and liberty for all courageous intervention in tumultuous 
 Europe. In the following October he public Catherines. In the spring of 1873 
 even went to Tours, where Gambetta he had laid before the country the pro- 
 and Gai-ibaldi had arrived nearly worn gramme, and in this programme the 
 out after their desperate endeavors to ministry declared for complete deeen- 
 organize the defence in the South. At, tralization, suppression of Church and 
 Tours Castelar made a great speech, as- State, the abolition of slavery, modifioa- 
 suring the French of the sympathy of t ion of the abuses in recruiting in the 
 Republican Spain. Like Victor Hugo army, and improvement of the adminis- 
 he has always cherished the dream of a tration of justice. Castelar and his col- 
 federal union, a United States of Europe, leagues then resigned, believing that they 
 which is not likely to be realized in our could be of more use as simple deputies, 
 time; and be amplified his notion of this and a Federal Republic was shortly af- 
 union in the speech at, Tours. He was terwanls proclaimed, after new elections 
 one of the strongest opponents to the had brought into jiower a thoroughly 
 candidacy of Amadeo of Italy for the representative body of Spanish Liberals. 
 Spanish throne; ami after Amadco's Shortly after this the new Republic 
 election, and during the two years of his was overwhelmed with troubles. The 
 reign, he vigorously attacked the policy Radicals came forward with the most 
 of Serrano and Sagasta. It was during extravagant propositions, ami seemed 
 this interruption of the Republic, on the likely to throw the nation into anarchy. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 79 
 
 A Carlist invasion in the north, and a 
 Communistic rising in the south, the 
 disorganization of the army and an 
 almost bankrupt condition of the treas- 
 ury, discouraged all but Castelar, who 
 had meantime become President of the 
 Cortes, and who, anxious to save the 
 Republic, allowed himself to be made 
 Dictator. He did for Spain in a few 
 short months what Gambetta did for 
 France in the trying days of the autumn 
 of 1870. Out of the complete chaos he 
 organized an army of nearly one hundred 
 thousand men ; he reestablished military 
 discipline, and punished with the great- 
 est severity all breaches of army law. 
 By a wise and just system of taxation 
 lie managed to reestablish the public 
 funds, and it is remarkable that lie did 
 not get into debt a single penny, yet 
 found what money was wanted on better 
 terms than was ever obtained by the 
 luckiest ministers or preceding monarchs. 
 It is scarcely necessary to say here that 
 it was entirely due to his political clever- 
 ness that war with the United States 
 was avoided at the time of the Virginius 
 affair. All the time that he was harassed 
 and weighed down with a thousand 
 details of military and civil administra- 
 tion he had also carefully to watch the 
 intrigues and menacing movements of 
 the Serrano party, which was already 
 moving heaven and earth to put the son 
 of Dona Isabel upon the throne. He 
 went on with wonderful skill, and might 
 have been in power now, had it not been 
 for his own generosity. His desire to 
 rally to the government of the Republic- 
 an Liberals, without distinction of party, 
 made him the antagonist of Salmerou, 
 who had meantime become the President 
 of the Cortes ; and on the 2d of January. 
 1*74, Castelar found himself among the 
 members of the minority. He at once 
 resigned, and the next day came General 
 
 Pavia, with his coup ri'fttitt, a weak and 
 detestable imitation of the original crime 
 of the same species in France. The 
 Deputies were expelled from the Cham- 
 ber, ami Marshal Serrano and his politi- 
 cal friends took power into their own 
 hands, to do with it as they saw lit. 
 Castelar went back to private life with 
 the profound conviction that the Repub- 
 lic must wait a new opportunity, as he 
 saw that political wisdom had not yet 
 been developed in the peninsula. 
 
 Towards the close of 1S74 he had 
 numerous interviews with Sagasta, who, 
 as minister, had much influence, and 
 who seemed to favor the idea of found- 
 ing in Spain a conservative Republic on 
 the basis proposed in France. Hut then 
 came the revolution of December. 1*74, 
 the proclamation of Alfonso XII. as 
 King of Spain, and Castelar, disgusted 
 and disheartened, gave his resignation as 
 professor in the University of Madrid, 
 and departed from Spain on a long jour- 
 ney. But in 1*70 he stepped back into 
 the political arena, and was elected to I lie 
 Cortes from the independent and demo- 
 cratic city of Barcelona. 
 
 His programme, then given in his 
 speech to the voters of Barcelona, is as 
 far from fulfilment in Spain to-day as it 
 would have been a quarter of a century 
 ago. •' I wish," said the great orator, 
 " an organization of the State, in close 
 harmony and intimate relation with lib- 
 erty and democracy. I demand the 
 fundamental rights of humanity, univer- 
 sal suffrage, the incontestable basis of 
 all democratic government, complete 
 religious liberty with its immediate con- 
 sequences, national instruction, and the 
 State independent of every Church, re- 
 establishment of the institution of trial 
 by jury, and the faithful practice of the 
 laws as they are written down." 
 
 At Valencia, as at Barcelona and To- 
 
80 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 ledo and numerous other Spanish cities, his head from draughts, or when they are 
 
 religious mystery plays and processions told that Magdalene rolls cigarettes 
 
 form one of the chief amusements of the behind the scenes and chats with the 
 
 populace. In the principal theatres of dancing-girls. Sometimes the most mon- 
 
 Valencia, the ••Passion of Christ" is strous absurdities occur upon the stage, 
 
 annually performed. The passion com- In the tableau of the Resurrection, one 
 
 bines reverential treatment of sacred evening, in a Valencia theatre, the figure 
 
 subjects and common-place dramatic of the risen Redeemer, as it passed 
 
 effects in the most peculiar manner, through the air, toppled over, and hung 
 
 The curtain rises on a scene loaded head downwards, until the person filling 
 
 with Arabic decorations. Magdalene the /'"/< was nearly suffocated. This 
 
 is disclosed combing her long tresses, passion has such an excitable effect upon 
 
 looking at herself in a silver mirror, the populace that the bishops of Bar- 
 
 and soliloquizing upon her affection for celona and Madrid forbade, at one time, 
 
 the Saviour. Suddenly Judas enters its representation in their cities, old 
 
 and tells her of his love for her. She women would s|iit upon the ground with 
 
 repels him in the most ignominious lash- rage when Judas appeared upon the 
 
 ion. Judas departs furious, crying out scene, and it' the poor artist were recog- 
 
 that he will have revenge. At this point uized on the street any night after the 
 
 a few of the native spectators wain performance he ran serious risk of being 
 
 Judas to desist, or they will come upon torn in pieces. 
 
 tin 1 stage and punish him. The scene On the festival day of St. Vicente, 
 
 changes. The Saviour is seen bidding his patron of Valencia, the tradesmen or- 
 
 mother adieu. Mary is overcome by a gani/.e lay processions in his honor, and 
 
 presentiment of danger, and urges him to the young people of the upper classes 
 
 remain with her. But the curtain opens erect platforms in the open air, upon 
 
 at the back of the stage, and discloses which tableaux, showing the principal 
 
 the purgatory tilled with choristers, rep- events in the life of the holy man, are 
 
 resenting the spirits of the condemned given. Every hundredth year witnesses 
 
 bewailing their sail fate. " Mother, of the grandest festivals of the 
 
 these souls suffer unutterable anguish," Roman Church in St. Vicente's honor, 
 
 are the words of the Saviour; --I iiiusl Even the materials of the ecclesiastical 
 
 deliver them." treasury are exhibited in the narrow 
 
 All the phases of the final passion Valenciai) streets. Twelve stout fellows 
 
 succeed in regular order, and are often carry a heavy cross, which they are 
 
 portrayed with rough, realistic vigor, strictly enjoined not to set down. If, 
 
 The flagellation is sometimes so alarm- overcome with fatigue, they disobey this 
 
 inch real in appearance that the mouu- injunction, they are fined, and the cross 
 
 taineers menace with death those who are then belongs to the church upon whose 
 
 applying the sc 'ges. So serious and parish soil it falls. Gigantic figures of 
 
 reverent are the lookers-on that tiny St. Christopher bearing the child Jesus 
 
 refuse to lie startled from their equa- upon his shoulder, of Methuselah, and of 
 
 nimity, even when they see St. John at numerous other saints and worthies of 
 
 the winus wearing a slouch hat to protect holy writ, till the ranks of this pageant. 
 
EUROPE IX STURM AND CALM. 
 
 81 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT. 
 
 Ten Years After. — Kingship Reestablished in Spain. — Going to a Royal Wedding. — Tlie French Gate 
 of the Sea. — Marseilles. — Reminiscences of the Pestilence. — Napoleon III. and Marseilles. — 
 Barcelona. — The Catalonian People. — From Barcelona to Valencia. — A Retrospect. — A Spanish 
 Bishop. — Tortosa. — In the Beautiful South. — In the Market-place of Valencia. — Out of the 
 World into Church. 
 
 I LITTLE thought, when witnessing 
 these numerous protests against the 
 reestablishment of royalty in Spain, 
 that the very question of monarchical 
 restoration would be the indirect cause of 
 the greatest war of modern times ; and 
 that the son of Dona Isabel would come 
 to the throne from which his mother had 
 been compelled to flee in 1868. With 
 the vanishing of j'outh go a host of 
 cherished illusions, and the reaction, 
 which I should have thought impossible 
 in 1869, seemed to me, at least, expli- 
 cable in 1879. It so happened that, ex- 
 actly ten years after witnessing the great 
 insurrection in Valencia, I found myself 
 once more in that battle-scarred old 
 town, on the way to witness the second 
 weddiug of young King Alfonso, at the 
 court where he has so peacefully main- 
 tained himself despite the revolutions in 
 the south, and the Carlists' wars in the 
 north, since the wise men interfered, as 
 they said, in the interests of order, and 
 placed him on the throne in Madrid. 
 History had been made with great 
 rapidity in Spain during the decade just 
 flown ; but the greater events north of 
 the Pyrenees had dwarfed the Carlists' 
 campaigns and the Andalusian revolts, 
 so that they seemed of small interest to 
 the European public. Yet progress had 
 been made. Hundreds of monasteries 
 and nunneries had been closed. In Bar- 
 celona and other seaport towns a new 
 
 commerce was springing up vigorously, 
 and defied even the most crushing taxa- 
 tion of the monarchy to keep it down. 
 Bands of English engineers were explor- 
 ing the mountain chains, in which lay 
 hidden such a rich store of minerals; for 
 Spain is the treasure-house of the future, 
 and every man, woman, and child within 
 her limits might lie rich if they were 
 blessed with systematic industry. The 
 Carlists had been literally laughed out 
 of existence. Their beggarly exchequer 
 and the protracted nature of their impo- 
 tent campaigns had been powerful aids 
 to the then little army which King Al- 
 fonso had at his disposal. The Republic 
 had come into view four or live times, 
 and had gone back again into obscurity, 
 because of the excesses of its disciples. 
 So I was compelled, in my southward 
 journey, in 1879, to pocket my illusions, 
 and to confess that, for the present, 
 Spain seemed wedded to monarchy, to 
 Catholicism, and to the indolence which 
 has long been her curse. 
 
 I went down from Paris to Marseilles, 
 and thence to Barcelona, that I might 
 on the way to Madrid travel across the 
 great stretch of country lying between 
 Barcelona and Valencia ; the country over 
 which young Hannibal tramped with his 
 forces many a time, and which offers 
 some of the most striking contrasts in 
 scenery to be found in Europe. The 
 whole journey from Paris to Madrid by 
 
82 
 
 EUROPE I.X STORM AND CALM. 
 
 tliis roundabout route is :i series of pict- 
 uresque and delightful surprises. Per- 
 haps there is no change more striking in 
 France than that between the northern 
 plains on which Paris stands, surrounded 
 by gently rolling hills, and the wild coun- 
 try of the Midi. Six hundred miles from 
 the French capital one is in a land which 
 seems to have felt but little, if at all, 
 the modern influence. These vast Hats, 
 covered with diminutive olive-trees wav- 
 ing their shaggy tufts of leaves violently 
 beneath the rude caresses of the Mistral ; 
 and these ancient towns, hemmed in by 
 walls which must have been built long 
 before Columbus discovered America; 
 these hills, covered with ruined castles 
 and strongholds, — are all part of a past, 
 that appears to have been invaded by 
 
 no features of the present, except, the 
 railroad, which is a kind of anachro- 
 nism. The olive-orchards, the old cement 
 mills, the wine-presses, and the quaint 
 silk and ceramic factories, are the only 
 evidence of trade; yet the populations 
 must trade busily, lor the thickness with 
 which the population is sown through 
 certain sections of this southern France 
 is quite wonderful. Every five minutes 
 the rapid train passes through towns of 
 ten thousand, fifteen thousand, or twenty 
 thousand inhabitants, — towns where not 
 a building has been erected perhaps for 
 hundreds of years; where the inhabit- 
 ants consider a cathedral of the four- 
 teenth or fifteenth century as new. The 
 route passes ancient Valence, where sat 
 the famous political council in 1563 ; 
 where Pius VI. died, and where a cer- 
 tain youth, known as Napoleon Bona- 
 parte, completed his military education. 
 Valence is full of memories of the Prot- 
 estants, and the valiant way in which 
 they defended their principles in the old 
 days ; and not very far away is Livron, 
 which deserves a commemorative poem. 
 
 In the good old stirring times of 1574 
 Henry 111. besieged the fortress into 
 which the Protestant Montbrun had with- 
 drawn, after having given the kingiau 
 uncommonly good thrashing in a battle 
 not far from that point. Henry sum- 
 moned Montbrun to surrender; but the 
 latter sent forth a refusal almost as con- 
 temptuous as the reputed response of 
 Cambronne at Waterloo. So the royal 
 and Catholic army sat down before the 
 citadel of Livron, and was just beginning 
 to think that the Protestants would come 
 out with ropes about their necks, would 
 acknowledge that they had been very 
 naughty and mutinous, and would solicit 
 the favor of being executed in the pres- 
 ence of the king, when it was surprised 
 to see the said Protestants charging 
 down upon it; and before it could re- 
 cover from its astonishment it had 
 been very thoroughly walked over twice 
 or thrice. This made the Catholic be- 
 siegers angry, and they assaulted in 
 their turn. Then Montbrun, to show- 
 that he feared them not. at all, when he 
 had repulsed their attack, came out with 
 fiftv chosen men, and. sword in hand, 
 these gallant fifty-one chased back to 
 their tents the armies of Henry III. 
 The siege had begun in June of 1574; 
 it lasted with but little intermission until 
 January of 1575, when the beaten and 
 humiliated Henry withdrew his forces 
 
 On every hand, up and down the length 
 and breadth of the Midi, from the charm- 
 ing coast where the rugged and many- 
 colored rocks are bathed by purple and 
 blue and violet water, to the fat plains 
 and teeming vineyards in the midmost 
 section, are interesting historic memo- 
 rials. The term " Midi " is in the north 
 indefinitely applied to the whole southern 
 portion of France ; but the inhabitants 
 of the south are as proud of their local 
 divisions as our own American people is 
 
EUROTE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 83 
 
 of its States, and the people of Provence 
 are noted for their bigoted devotion to 
 their fair land. Tell them of the delights 
 and wonders of the great capital, and 
 they point to their orange-groves, their 
 laurel roses, their myrtles, their palm- 
 trees towering high in air, their blue hills 
 clad in garments of vapor, their rich 
 earth, from which springs with tropical 
 abundance such variety of fruits, and 
 they say that the Parisians have none of 
 these. The Marseillais is confident that 
 there is no city so beautiful, so bewitch- 
 ing, as his own. 
 
 Marseilles is a huge, cosmopolitan, in- 
 dustrious, vigorous city, offering the 
 strongest and strangest contrast to the 
 sleepy Spanish and Italian towns easily 
 reached from it. The Cannebiere, the 
 principal promenade, is crowded all day 
 long with thousands of men, women, 
 and children ; but no one seems really 
 idle. This is the French gate of the sea. 
 On the majestic quays one sees Aralis, 
 Nubians, Greeks, Turks, and the motley 
 and speckled peoples of the Orient. No 
 one turns to stare at them. In Paris a 
 black Mollah, in a gown of bedticking, 
 would be gazed at for hours; in Mar- 
 seilles he passes unnoticed. Paris 
 possesses nothing finer than the Rue de 
 la Republique in Marseilles. It is a 
 veritable avenue of palaces, and sweeps 
 majestically over the brow of a fine hill. 
 On the front of the Exchange, fitly situ- 
 ated near the water, which brings Mar- 
 seilles her wealth, the prows of galleys 
 are sculptured in marble, and remind 
 one of the origin of the town. How 
 little did the old Phoenicians fancy, when 
 they came prowling along this coast in 
 their galleys, that one day the little 
 colony, which they were here to fouud, 
 would become the chief seaport of a rich 
 and powerful nation ! These Phoenicians 
 started on their expedition in obedience 
 
 to the oracle of Ephesus, six hundred 
 years before the birth of Christ. Com- 
 merce has been going on in the port ever 
 since that time ; but all the great im- 
 provements have been made within the 
 last sixty years, and it is astonishing to 
 nod- what has been done in that time. 
 In 1850 the basins and docks covered a 
 space of little more than sixty acres ; 
 to-day they spread over three times that 
 area. Liverpool, Antwerp, Marseilles, 
 and Genoa strive for commercial su- 
 premacy in Europe. Marseilles will 
 not lie last in the race. Its warehouse 
 frontage is enormous; those of London 
 and New York alone arc larger. From 
 this port goes forth the great fleet of 
 the Messageries Maritimes, which pos- 
 sesses fifty-six steamers, sailing to al- 
 most every important point in the East ; 
 and four other great companies own 
 seventy-five first-class sea-going steam- 
 ships. The Mediterranean and eastern 
 seas are covered with craft, plying from 
 Marseilles ; and every sunset sees a 
 dozen bows which have been washed by 
 the surges of the Orient grating against 
 the quays. China, South America, and 
 all the Mediterranean ports pour their 
 riches into the lap of Marseilles. Italy, 
 Spain, Algeria, and Corsica are almost 
 dependent upou her. Cereals, oils, silks, 
 and alcohol lie packed in the enormous 
 warehouses. 
 
 Marseilles is, of course, Republican. 
 All the great cities of France are; but 
 there are reactionary elements at work 
 there all the time. The church has a 
 feeble hold in the city. Until a com- 
 paratively recent epoch the city had no 
 church of any considerable dimensions. 
 The great revolution swept away all of 
 the principal ones, and they were never 
 rebuilt. The women are still scrupulous 
 in their observance of Catholic form, but 
 the mass of the men pay no attention to 
 
84 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 the formulas of the church. Perhaps 
 we must except the fishermen, who I 
 believe fancy themselves under the pro- 
 tection of "Our Lady of Lagarde," who 
 has a handsome church on such a con- 
 spicuous hill that it serves as a landmark 
 for the bome-eoming seamen. From 
 this hill cine can look out miles over the 
 van-colored sea, and over the hills sur- 
 rounding Marseilles; hills where vine- 
 yards and olive-gardens are interspersed 
 with tracts of wretched deserts, tit only 
 for the habitation of the horrid swine 
 that one sees trotting about them. 
 
 Napoleon III. was fond of Marseilles, 
 and built there a vast prefecture, which 
 is a local wonder, like Monte-Cristo 
 and the Cannabiere. The prefecture 
 is in the correct and monotonous style 
 of the Second Empire. Large and line 
 avenues, bordered with beautiful trees, 
 radiate from it in every direction. 
 
 The northerner in these southern lands 
 will never tire of studying the popula- 
 tions. The singing workmen and the 
 chattering and laughing Provencal 
 maidens, with eves like sloes, and 
 hair like the raven's wing, and the 
 tawny Italians, who have come to Mar- 
 seilles in search of the work which 
 they cannot find at home, — are all 
 interesting. The Provencal language, 
 when one listens to it from a short 
 distance, sounds so much like English, 
 with the inflection which is given to 
 it in America, that he involuntarily 
 turns his head when he hears it, ex- 
 pecting to be hailed by au acquaintance 
 or to recognize his own national type. 
 Full of Greek and Latin, this sono- 
 rous and musical language, when well 
 spoken, by cultivated people, has a 
 grace which must be denied to the 
 French with its staccato note and to the 
 Spanish with its collection of hisses and 
 gutturals. 
 
 Marseilles pays great attention to the 
 rules of health to-day, because she has 
 had several terrible lessons in the past. 
 The pest came in the old times, none 
 knew how or whence, and smote the 
 population with dreadful force in 1720 
 and 1721. It fell upon Marseilles, and 
 did not depart until it had made eighty 
 thousand victims. It is supposed that 
 the plague was originally brought in 
 an eastern vessel ; but this was never 
 proved. It was even the custom to bury 
 the dead in the vaults of the churches, 
 and this deplorable habit contributed to 
 spread the disease. The Bishop of 
 Marseilles was visiting at the Court in 
 Versailles, when the news of the out- 
 break of the plague reached him in a 
 note conceived as follows, and preserved 
 in the archives of the city : " Monseig- 
 neur, — The Hock calls its shepherd. 
 (omI has chastised Marseilles. The pest 
 is slaving us. The rich have tied. The 
 poor are dying. The desolation is gen- 
 eral. People believe that they see in 
 the air the angel which slew with the 
 plague the legions of Sennacherib. 
 Come, and die with us." 
 
 The heroic bishop left the Court at 
 midnight to escape the objections to his 
 departure which he knew would be made 
 by the dissolute monarch of the time. 
 He travelled twelve days, with relays of 
 horses, and on the evening of the 
 thirteenth day he reached Marseilles. 
 The city was indeed desolate. The 
 galley-slaves had been mustered to clear 
 away the corpses which encumbered the 
 streets. People were dying by hundreds 
 on the very thresholds of their houses. 
 A kind of leprosy was in the air. The 
 bishop inarched into the church, where 
 lay the unburied dead, and celebrated 
 high mass. Confidence returned to the 
 cowards who had run away, when they 
 learned that their pastor was in the city, 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 and people e.ame back. The bishop 
 ordered mass to be celebrated a few days 
 thereafter in the open air in the very 
 midst of the plague ; and the church 
 brought forth all its splendors for the 
 occasion. The bells of the convents 
 rang ; the cannon of the forts thundered ; 
 and, when the Dens in Adjutorium was 
 intoned, eighty thousand voices took up 
 the chorus. For weeks thereafter the 
 bishop, bareheaded and with cross in 
 hand, went about, adjuring the people 
 to be courageous ; and, proper measures 
 having been taken, the plague soon died 
 entirely away, and for more than a 
 century and a half the authorities of 
 Marseilles have taken almost infinite 
 precautions against the return of the 
 dreaded visitor. 
 
 The park of the Prado is one of the 
 loveliest in Europe. It is rather an 
 avenue than a park, yet partakes of the 
 character of both. Noble trees border 
 it, and from any point on the promenade 
 one may look around on exquisite villas, 
 Italian in architecture ; or densely wooded 
 hills, over which a bluish vapor seems 
 perpetually to hover ; or on naked sum- 
 mits of rock ; on ancient convents, tran- 
 quil amid their groves ; on bastides, as 
 the country-seats are called ; and, finally, 
 on the magic surface of the southern 
 sea. 
 
 From Marseilles I went straight to 
 Barcelona, where I found the Catalans 
 but little interested in the royal festivi- 
 ties soon to occur in Madrid. The land- 
 lord at the principal hotel shrugged his 
 shoulders, and said he knew nothing 
 about the king's wedding ; and I was 
 informed that the railways did not find it 
 worth their while to organize excursion 
 trains from Barcelona to the capital for 
 the wedding. A queer character is the 
 Catalan of the fields, with his rough 
 dialect, his contempt for everything 
 
 outside his native province. But the 
 city people are by no means rough or 
 ignorant. Barcelona seems to give the 
 lie to the assertion that Spain alone, of 
 all European countries, refuses to be 
 modernized. On every hand are spring- 
 ing up beautiful promenades and stately 
 streets around the ancient Barcelona's 
 labyrinthine alleys ami obscure lanes. 
 The exquisite leafy Rambla, the grand 
 central street of Barcelona, is one of the 
 prettiest sights in the world on a sun- 
 shiny winter Sunday morning, when the 
 yellow leaves of the sycamores seem like 
 a gulden canopy over the thousands of 
 men and women promenading with Span- 
 ish insouciance. The shop-keeping ele- 
 ment is, of course, prominent in a com- 
 mercial seaport like Barcelona, but the 
 people are renowned for the elegance of 
 their dress and their manners. A deli- 
 cacy of taste, which is one of the praise- 
 worthy qualities of the Spanish charac- 
 ter, is observable in the deportment of 
 the soft-voiced girls, dressed in black, 
 with the traditional lace veils adjusted 
 carefully upon their glossy braids as 
 they accompany their mammas home 
 from the morning service at some one 
 of the many churches. The whole ex- 
 tent of the Rambla, from the water-side 
 to the Saragossa railway station, resem- 
 bles, at noon on a Sunday, a vast salon, 
 in which all classes of society are repre- 
 sented. On either side of the broad 
 avenue run paved streets, lined with 
 immensely high, solid houses containing 
 the principal hotels and shops of the 
 quarter. Soldiers are a frequent sight 
 in the large cities of Spain. The sol- 
 dier, the priest, and the gendarme, are 
 like the poor in these sunshiny lands, 
 — you have them always with you. The 
 Sunday parade brings together in Barce- 
 lona two or three thousand soldiers, 
 dressed in admirably fitting uniforms of 
 
8(3 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 blue coats, rod trousers, and green 
 gloves, and these defenders of the mon- 
 archy are always marshalled by hand- 
 some officers. The sellers of lottery 
 tickets, and itinerant venders of almost 
 every useless object conceivable, are the 
 pests of the stranger in Barcelona. The 
 clubs, the great Liceo Theatre, said to 
 be the largest in the world, and the su- 
 perb plan for municipal improvements, 
 are worth careful attention from the 
 traveller. The citizens of Barcelona 
 have had the best features of Vienna 
 and Paris mapped out in an unoccupied 
 space in the most beautiful outlying 
 district of the city, lint it will take 
 half a century and a population of one 
 million to bring Barcelona anywhere 
 near the level of the plan. The Athe- 
 naeum Club of Barcelona has a thousand 
 members, chosen from the liberal profes- 
 sions. No Spanish city has more induce- 
 ments as an agreeable place of residence 
 tor a few months to those who wish 
 mild winter weather. The climate is 
 singularly soft and free from sudden 
 changes. The last leaf does not flutter 
 down to the ground until mid-Decem- 
 ber, and the trees are green again almost 
 before one has noticed the absence of 
 leaves. 
 
 But I have not space to tell you 
 all the curiosities of Barcelona: the 
 strange old cathedral, with its three 
 vast naves ami its subterranean chapel 
 of wonderful richness of design and or- 
 nament; the mansions of the Diputa- 
 eion, built in the sixteenth century, and 
 enriched with many of Fortune's master- 
 pieces: or the great rambling square on 
 which the Exchange stands; or the 
 pretty fountain, around which are grouped 
 statues representing the cities of north- 
 ern Spain. A striking effect in the 
 cathedral is produced by the subdued 
 and many-colored lights which fall 
 
 through the stained-glass windows upon 
 the hundreds of worshippers, kneeling 
 at early morning in one of the central 
 aisles under soft tints, which seem to 
 tremble down upon them like benedic- 
 tions. 
 
 It is a far cry from Barcelona to Va- 
 lencia, ami I travelled thither in company 
 with a tall and stately Spanish bishop, 
 who in the country of proverbially hand- 
 some men would readily pass for one of 
 the finest specimens. He was accom- 
 panied by an elderly lady, witli a slightly 
 apparent beard, who was evidently his 
 sister. Had this priest been an army offi- 
 cer he would have broken a hundred 
 hearts before he gained his retiring pen- 
 sion. But there was no trace of world- 
 liness in his calm ami serene countenance, 
 or in the deep black eyes, from which 
 shone a softened spiritual light. Every- 
 thing about his person bespoke an aristo- 
 cratic gentility, completely at the service 
 of the church. His shapely form was 
 encased in a black silk gown, which 
 descended to his plain shoes, and [ could 
 only now and then catch a gleam of a 
 line silk stocking as he moved. A low 
 linen collar and a black clerical band 
 were the only ornaments at his neck. On 
 
 his head he wore a small skull-cap, which 
 left bare a rich expanse of brow, with 
 but few wrinkles upon it. His lips 
 were thin, and his speech was refined 
 1 fancied thai this was not at all the 
 tvpe of a man whom Philip II. would 
 have liked to have had near him. 
 The fanatical monarch would have ban- 
 ished him from his presence, and would 
 have replaced him by some one of 
 sterner, fiercer type. I imagined, too, 
 that my fellow-traveller, the bishop, 
 would have been shocked, rather than 
 offended or angered, if some light-headed 
 free-thinker hail attacked him in con- 
 versation, endeavoring to prove to him 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 87 
 
 that the church is doomed to decay. 
 This bishop was certainly one of those 
 who are firm in the faith. For him the 
 beautiful forms of madonnas, saints, 
 and martyrs, the sonorous chants of 
 monkish choirs, and the incense-laden 
 interiors of immense cathedrals, were 
 profoundly touching, and represented 
 realities from which no weak human 
 assertion or argument could detract. 
 I would have given much to have heard 
 his opinion on socialism, nihilism, and 
 a dozen other isms now making their 
 blind way through this world. I am 
 sure that his statements would have 
 been deliberate and gentle, devoid of 
 wrath, and the fruit of honest conviction. 
 If he had been told that he and his 
 were standing obstacles to modern 
 progress in Spain I am confident that 
 he would have answered, with a winning 
 smile, that progress must bow before 
 the immutable, omnipresent, all-power- 
 ful church. I was so interested in the 
 bishop that 1 forgot to look at Tarragona ; 
 but just beyond it there were exquisite 
 bits of scenery : here and there, gardens 
 through which soft breezes were blow- 
 ing, lazily moving the leaves of the 
 semi-tropical trees ; bits of oriental green 
 framed in rugged rock ; a superb bridge, 
 with its squat arch of red, standing out 
 in fine relief against a brilliant back- 
 ground of green, — a bridge named, it 
 is said, after the devil, although 1 
 suppose his grace, the bishop, would 
 have been puzzled to tell me why the 
 structure, which dates back to Hannibal. 
 should be devoted to his Satanic majesty. 
 How little the warriors who spurred up 
 and down these fields with Hannibal 
 dreamed that some day a demon with 
 its belly full of steam would draw trav- 
 ellers across the lands from one city to 
 another, in less time than it took them to 
 go half-a-dozen leagues ! 
 
 Southward and inward we went, across 
 the fertile plains just below Tarragona, 
 past villages nestling among vines and 
 orange-groves, past wild almond-trees 
 and mulberries, and now the villagers 
 began to look more uncouth and savage 
 than those between Barcelona and Tarra- 
 gona. The men were clothed in linen 
 trousers caught up at the knee, and their 
 feet were encased in rawhide and straw 
 sandals. For head-gear they wore only 
 a handkerchief, colored and dirty. I 
 recognized my old friends of ten years 
 before, and the same types that I saw 
 fighting behind the barricades in Valen- 
 cia. Most of them carried knives in 
 their belts and blankets slung over their 
 shoulders. When they engage in a 
 quarrel they either whip the blanket 
 around their loins or over one arm, using 
 it as a protector against the dreadful 
 thrusts which all of them know how to 
 give with the knife. The women are 
 dressed as simply as the men, and some- 
 times wear so little clothing that it quite 
 astonishes the stranger from more deco- 
 rous regions. 
 
 At Tortosa I lost my companion, the 1 
 bishop, a might) - crowd of black-frocked 
 and rotund clerical gentry coming down 
 and bearing him off most reverently to 
 some Episcopal residence. The sister 
 with the dimly perceptible beard occu- 
 pied herself with the parcels, and the 
 bishop departed with a sonorous " Fare- 
 well," which had all the unctuous flavor 
 of a benediction. 
 
 The tram- passed through a stone- 
 strewn plain, where grew scarcely herbage 
 enough for the flocks ; yet every mile 
 or two were sheepfolds skilfully con- 
 structed of stone and earth, so that the 
 fierce winds which sometimes rage there 
 could not tear them down. As we left 
 Tortosa we caught a glimpse of a lone- 
 street, winding up a steep hill, and in 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 the middle of this avenue swept by the 
 penetrating sun we saw three figures, 
 which sum up the civilization of Spain. 
 One was a soldier, the second a priest, 
 and the third a peasant, looking enough 
 like a bandit to have been garroted on 
 suspicion. There were mysterious bal- 
 conies protruding from still more mys- 
 terious houses ; shady alley-ways, in 
 which roses were growing in the open 
 air; cool nooks, where the old women 
 sat, spinning, here and anon, in the 
 kaleidoscopic vision that we had of 
 Tortosa, before we were trundled out of 
 it into the open (.lain, and began to draw 
 near to a rocky range of mountains. 
 
 Once past the mountains we were in 
 the real south, where the tig, the olive, 
 the vine, the orange, the almond, were 
 common in the tields, in this soft De- 
 cember weather. The odor of orange- 
 leaves perfumed the air; the delicate 
 darkness seemed to heighten the value 
 of the perfume, and to lender the foliage 
 even more bewitching than when dis- 
 tinctly seen. Here and there were 
 superb estates, and near them lands 
 lying as ineult as they were two thousand 
 years ago. The farm-houses and the 
 adjoining buildings were all fortified and 
 connected together in a manner which 
 indicated that the country is not safe. 
 At Saguntum, near the rather ugly 
 modern town of Murviedro, we found 
 several dozens of old women, who ex- 
 pected to sell us candles, with which to 
 visit the Roman ruins by night. We 
 declined to stop, and went on to Valen- 
 cia, through beautiful vineyards and 
 orange-orchards; and at ten o'clock, on 
 a beautiful moonlight night, 1 was in 
 Valencia. A period of ten years had in 
 no way sufficed to soften the horrors of 
 the tartana, or native omnibus. I went 
 out into the market-place and tried to 
 picture anew the scene which I had wit- 
 
 nessed. Oddly enough, Stanley was at 
 this place exactly three years after the 
 insurrection of 1860, and saw a second 
 light, much like that which we had seen 
 together. That night I had visions of 
 battle whenever the night-watchman, 
 who insisted on passing every hour 
 through the narrow street and yelling 
 forth his protest that all was serene, 
 would let me get, a momentary nap. 
 This wretched watchman, with lantern 
 and spear in hand, ought, to have been 
 garroted for shrieking " Las doce tie la 
 noche : sereno." •' Go home, you misera- 
 ble wretch, and impale yourself upon 
 vour own spear," I cried to him in 
 frenzy ; but he shouted on. 
 
 Twelve o'clock, and all serene. Alas, 
 yes ! — serene in conscious servitude, in 
 slavery to a youthful monarch, Va- 
 lencia, tin' pretty city of the Cid Cam- 
 peador, calmly wearing her chains. At 
 last 1 went to sleep, and dreamed that 
 the ('id came back to the world on his 
 famous steed, and carried away young 
 Alfonso XII. and his palace on the point 
 of his gigantic lance. About three 
 o'clock an enterprising cock and a roar- 
 ing watchman made a combined attempt 
 on my slumbers ; but this time I escaped 
 the snare, and when I awoke it was 
 broad daylight, and under my windows 
 two children were singing sweetly. 
 
 In the morning I went through the 
 market-place. The square in which ten 
 years ago I had seen dead men lying, 
 — the steam, as Francois Coppee says, in 
 his •• Legend of Saragossa," rising from 
 their blood on the pavement, as the hot 
 sun beat down upon it, — was now tilled 
 with almond-eyed, dark-haired rustic 
 maidens, shielded under dirty-colored 
 awnings, and announcing in their musi- 
 cal voices the excellence of the fruits 
 and Mowers which they desired to sell. 
 From the church, which I had seen 
 
EVROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 8!) 
 
 beleaguered one day and turned into 
 a hospital the next, turned forth a cur- 
 rent of nurse-maids carrying bright ba- 
 bies, and followed by anxious mothers, 
 who had been attending some ceremony 
 for the good of the most Catholic infants. 
 How bright the babies are in this land 
 of sunshine and politics ! They totally 
 disarrange one's theories about the race 
 in decadence. Personal beauty of a ro- 
 bust, vigorous, and enduring type is as 
 common in Spain as flowers in the hedge 
 or birds in the thatches. 
 
 The cathedral was full of memories for 
 me, for I had seen it ten years before, 
 when the fighting had just ceased to 
 rage around it, and when the wounded, 
 with bandaged heads, were grouped 
 against its yellow ami ancient walls. I 
 remembered how in the holy dimness I 
 had seen a handsome young engineer, 
 with pale face and huge moustache, kneel- 
 ing in an attitude of intense thankfulness 
 In tore the altar, doubtless stirred to his 
 heart's core with thanksgiving because 
 his life had been spared. I remembered 
 the mountaineers strolling about the sa- 
 cred door-ways with cigarettes at their 
 lips, and their gleaming rifles in their 
 hands. 
 
 I took off my hat, and went in. The 
 old beggar woman squatting on the 
 stones pulled back the leathern curtain, 
 and held out her withered hand for char- 
 ity. For a moment, after the sharp 
 sunlight of the streets, the dimness 
 was embarrassing to the vision ; but 
 presently my eyes became used to the 
 place, and I saw that everything was as 
 it had been for two or three centuries ; 
 that nothing had been changed in these 
 ten years. The revolution had come and 
 gone, but the church remained. The 
 revolution had despoiled monasteries and 
 convents, but here was no sign of dis- 
 turbance. By letting the leathern cur- 
 
 tain fall behind me I had shut the nine- 
 teenth century completely out and away. 
 
 As I strolled up to the central i-urn, 
 or vast church within a church, which is 
 a peculiar feature of Spanish ecclesias- 
 tical edifices, and looked in through the 
 opening, which was surrounded with 
 sculptured angels, cardinals, popes, 
 bishops, and cherubims, in lovely and 
 somewhat incongruous confusion, I 
 saw long rows of aged priests seated on 
 carved benches, holding books open be- 
 fore them and singing praises unto the 
 Lord, delivered in solemn refrain. On 
 rolled the stately Latin, until my sense 
 of rhythm was so excited that I could not 
 stir from the spot. I tried to count the 
 priests, but I could not, for in the far 
 corner the shade was so deep that I 
 could see nothing save now and then 
 white hair glistening indistinctly, or the 
 momentary display of a wrinkled face, 
 patient and serene. I wondered what 
 these celibates, sitting in the artistic 
 gloom of the cathedral, thought, if they 
 thought at all, of insurrections and 
 things political ; of Alfonso's marriage, 
 or the insidious workings of the Black 
 Hand. How did the outer world impinge 
 on their senses? I might have been 
 speculating there until now, had not 
 the round-voiced singing gradually died 
 away, and the lights grown more and 
 more dim, until it seemed as if the 
 veteran chanters had melted into the 
 incense-laden air. Presently two or 
 three dignitaries, in trailing robes, came 
 out of the obscurity, and, traversing the 
 nave of the church, went away by the 
 side doors, each courteously begging the 
 other to precede him, with as much 
 dignity and deference as would have 
 been shown by two courtiers. 
 
 Why do not the mortal remains of 
 the Cid lie in this old church, in the town 
 which he took, sword in hand, from the 
 
90 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 Moors? The cathedral was not begun 
 until more than a century after his death ; 
 but he should have had a niche here. 
 The treasures of the cathedral are count- 
 less. There are few churches in the 
 world which would so richly repay an in- 
 vading army for pillaging its sacristy. 
 Gold and silver, and marble and bronze, 
 have been lavished upon it in such pro- 
 fusion that now and then the beggars in 
 the streets must ask themselves why it 
 is that the good God, who sent his Son 
 down to earth to lie horn in a manger, 
 needs so much luxury in his earthly 
 biding-place, when they are. perforce, 
 content with a crust of bread, onions for 
 dessert, and more kicks than half-pence? 
 This little visit to the cathedral in Va- 
 lencia enabled me to appreciate more 
 fully what Castelar said to me a few 
 
 days later, in Madrid. " No republic," 
 said he. '■ however durable it might be, 
 would lie likely to interfere with the 
 church in .Spain." — "Our country," 
 said Don Ernilio, with solemnity, "is 
 Catholic." And it is Catholic, because 
 the sensuous temperament, which is so 
 prominent in even the rudest of the 
 Spaniards, cannot permanently escape 
 from the enchantment of a religion so 
 abounding in the picturesque and the 
 impressive. 
 
 I had not promised to carry vou to 
 tin 1 royal wedding in this chapter, but we 
 will now no longer loiter by the way, 
 Come to Madrid, which is, in winter, in 
 the midst of the desolate plains, acold 
 contrast to the warmth anil gloom of Va- 
 lencia and its environing valleys. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 91 
 
 CHAPTER NINE. 
 
 Madrid and its Gloom. — The Royal Wedding in 1.S79. — Queen Christina and Kins Alfonso. — 
 The Puerta del Sol. — The Church of the Atocha. — Memories of DoSa Isabel. —Royal Rejoicings. 
 — An Interview with Castelar. — Gambetta and Castclar Compared. 
 
 AFTER the laughing landscapes of 
 southern Spain, the vistas of bine 
 mountains, of plains filled with olive 
 and pomegranate trees, and the superb 
 gardens of Seville and Cordova, the 
 barren hills and wind-swept plains near 
 the Spanish capital are far from inspir- 
 ing. The sparkling saying of John 
 Hay, that "Madrid is a capital with 
 malice aforethought," is unlike most 
 epigrams, in this respect, that it is quite 
 true. There is, too, a kind of ill-nature 
 in the landscape about Madrid ; one falls 
 inevitably to thinking of the Inquisition 
 and the cruel Spauiards of the older 
 days. Here and there a monastery is 
 perched on a crag, or rounded hill. A 
 few suspicious-looking peasants stand 
 huddled together, as if meditating an 
 attack upon the train. Even the bulls 
 grazing near the tracks lift their noble 
 heads, and gaze at the passer-by witli a 
 kind of latent ferocity. At Aranjuez, 
 where I arrived just at sunset after the 
 journey from Valencia, there was a hint 
 of modernism in the architecture ; and 
 the well-kept gardens and the view of 
 the handsome summer palace of the 
 kings of Spain called to mind the mem- 
 orable occasion when the people went 
 in noisy procession to that place, to 
 signify to the trembling monarch of that 
 time — the stormy days of 1808 — that 
 they had had enough of him. Castelar 
 dates the decline of Spanish monarch}' 
 as an institution from that period. 
 
 Very beautiful were the groves and 
 the parks around Aranjuez. The yellow 
 leaves — -yes, the golden leaves, for in 
 the brilliant November sunshine they 
 seem tinged with gold — had fallen in 
 great masses, and strewn the long tree- 
 bordered alley-ways with carpets such 
 as the hand of man could not rival. 
 The valleys were filled with rich bouquets 
 of foliage. The retreat seemed more 
 like the abode of peace and philosophy 
 than like a royal residence around which 
 revolution has often raged. After 
 Aranjuez the barrenness begins again, 
 and the contrast is all the more striking 
 because of the beautiful oasis which one 
 has just quitted. 
 
 I found the Madrid railway-station 
 crowded with gayly dressed officers and 
 with dirty omnibus-drivers. The former 
 class was so occupied with saluting each 
 other that it gave me no trouble; but 
 the latter tribe was so aggressive that I 
 was compelled to fray a passage through 
 them, and to threaten as well as coax 
 before I could ensure attention at a rea- 
 sonable price, even for Spain. Presently, 
 seated with a travelling-companion, in 
 one of the large four-sealed omnibuses, 
 which are numerous in Madrid, and are 
 marked " Servicio publico," I found my- 
 self dashing at breakneck pace through 
 muddy and irregularly paved streets. 
 My vehicle had three horses, an old black 
 hitched ahead of two venerable white 
 ones; but when this equine trio started 
 
92 
 
 II iml'E IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 it really seemed .is if the prince of witch- 
 craft had applied the lash. Away we 
 went, nearly knocking down the unhappy 
 octroi officers, who desperately endeav- 
 ored to climb up on the steps and in- 
 quire if we had anything dutiable. We 
 had only tune to cry, '■'■Nada " (nothing) , 
 and to cling on, before we were rushing 
 pasl half a hundred tall white and yellow 
 buildings. We soon passed the olive 
 avenues of the Prado, and were mount- 
 ing the hill of the Calle Alcala. We 
 firmly expected to be lolled against the 
 curb-stones; but the black horse, :is if 
 inspired, tore around every obstruction, 
 and the whites sprang after him. 
 
 And the Puerta del Sol? It was a 
 vision of an immense square, with a 
 vast fountain in the centre, and lofty 
 buildings, with balconies on every side. 
 Ten streets open into this place, and 
 from each one of them, as we arrived, 
 came forth interminable processions of 
 mules laden with straw, ami hay, ami 
 wine, and oil; of soldiers in long coat, 
 and .short coals, in white jackets covered 
 with silver braid, in blue surtouts and red 
 trousers; of little brown-faced boys, 
 selling photographs of doubtful morality ; 
 of old women, screaming forth the names 
 of newspapers ; of asthmatic old men, 
 wrapped to the eyes in lone- cloaks, and 
 with sombreros drawn over their lean 
 faces ; of priests, majestic in their 
 ample robes of black; of cavaliers re- 
 turning from the park; of a group of 
 conscripts singing merrily to the music 
 of jingling guitars; ami of senoritas of 
 all classes, morals, and conditions, each 
 with a black lace veil falling gracefully 
 about her pretty head. Every third man 
 was a soldier, and seemed quite- con- 
 tented to be such. He was always neat. 
 and uniformed with excellent taste. I 
 soon found myself installed in a hand- 
 some room in the Hotel de la Paix, 
 
 looking down upon the great square. 
 From below came up a roar such as one 
 hears when near a camp. This was the 
 roar of the sovereign people of Madrid, 
 discussing, selling, buying, threatening, 
 laughing, snarling. There is not such 
 another noisy place in Europe, nor one 
 that in the course of a single day pre- 
 sents such an enormous variety of 
 aspects. In 1869, during the revolu- 
 tion, it was amusing to watch the news- 
 venders, who possess all the impetuous 
 energy of their American prototypes. 
 In a few days eighteen or twenty mush- 
 room journals sprang into existence in 
 Madrid, their columns tilled with the 
 most exaggerated political jargon. Old 
 women, barefooted and bareheaded, 
 stalked to and fro, screaming forth the 
 merits of the Equality, the Discussion, 
 and the Combat. In their wake followed 
 ragged urchins, urging the claims of the 
 Impartial, the Diary of the People, the 
 Epoch, and the Correspondence. I re- 
 member that, curious to hold in my 
 hand one of the smallest and newest- of 
 the journals, I beckoned to an old crone 
 lo follow me to a neighboring cafe, there 
 selected my paper, ami searched my 
 pockets for the proper coin with which 
 to pay; but I found no small change. 
 The venerable vernier had none, refused 
 my proffered gold piece, demanded her 
 paper back, and overwhelmed me with 
 expletives and objurgations. A tall, 
 grave Spaniard seated near me arose, 
 touched his hat courteously, produced 
 from his pocket the proper money, paid 
 the woman, handed me the paper, which 
 she had already taken from me, and, 
 when I desired to pay him, held up his 
 hands in sign of protestation. Then he 
 resumed his seat, and straightway ig- 
 nored my existence. 
 
 But to the Royal Wedding! A mat- 
 rimonial alliance with the Austrian ladv 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 93 
 
 was felt to be au important movement, 
 and was doubtless recognized by the 
 church as a kind of moral support for 
 it ; for Austria and Spain are eminently 
 Catholic, and their united action might 
 now and then offset the invading in- 
 fluence of the northern Protestant 
 powers in a great European struggle. 
 The aristocratic society of Europe was 
 invited to the festivities attendant upon 
 this Spanish wedding ; and to welcome 
 the hundreds of fashionable guests, the 
 old Spanish Court brought forth the 
 remnants of its ancient splendor, and 
 succeeded in impressing every one with 
 the luxury of its ceremonials and the 
 stateliness of its dignity. The pro- 
 gramme of the royal wedding comprised 
 a grand riveille, or "Diana," ;is it is 
 called in Spain, to begin at seven. This 
 was on the morning after my arrival. 
 All the troops of the garrison and thou- 
 sands sent in from the neighboring towns 
 took part in this early bugle call. The 
 places of the Atocha, the Botanico, the 
 Prado, the Calle Alcala, the Calle 
 Mayor, the Arco dela Armcria, the Plaza 
 de Oriente, and all the other principal 
 avenues and squares of the capital, 
 rang with the inspiring martial music. 
 Presently came the soldiers, marching 
 with the long swinging step for which 
 they are renowned, and looking neither 
 to right nor left. The impression which 
 strangers received was that the govern- 
 ment was inclined to take no chances on 
 this important occasion, and had made 
 the ''Diana" a pretext for tilling 
 Madrid with troops, which could, if 
 necessary, overawe any revolutionary 
 crowds. The decorations were profuse 
 on the hotels and chief commercial es- 
 tablishments, but few private mansions 
 had either flags or illuminations. Over 
 the door of the Ministerio de la Gober- 
 naciou was a gigantic "Viva Alfonso 
 
 XII." in gas-jet letters, and upon it was 
 a crown, which when lighted had an 
 enormously unsteady air. By ten 
 o'clock in the morning the masses of 
 the people were arranged in rows along 
 the whole royal line of march, from the 
 palace to the Atocha church, where 
 the ceremony was to take place. 
 
 This Atocha is a rather inferior-looking 
 religious edifice, which belonged originally 
 to a, convent of the Dominican order, 
 founded under Charles V. by one of his 
 officers. It was destroyed in 1808. 
 Ferdinand VII. had it rebuilt under the 
 direction of the celebrated architect Isi- 
 doro Velasquez, and the church served 
 as a Court chapel. The tradition 
 requires that the kings of Spain should 
 go every Saturday to attend service at 
 the Atocha. There is an ancient statue 
 of the Virgin in this church, which is 
 held in high veneration in Spain. In 
 the clnipel, on the left on entering, is 
 the mausoleum raised to the memory of 
 Marshal Prim, who unwittingly did good 
 work for the young king, and whose end 
 was tragic enough to have pleased bis 
 worst enemies. I observed with some 
 amusement that two members of the 
 corps of gendarmes were sufficient to 
 control the movements of six or seven 
 thousand impatient people on the Puerta 
 del Sol. In New York or Paris two 
 hundred policemen certainly would have 
 been necessary. The soldiers, who 
 were ranged in rows on either side of 
 the route chosen for the royal pair to 
 pass over going to and coming from the 
 church, were treated with small deference 
 by the crowd ; but it was mortally afraid 
 of the gendarmes. 
 
 It was announced that the king would 
 leave the palace at eleven o'clock; but 
 this was too much to expect of a Span- 
 iard, who is never ready at the appointed 
 time, although exactitude is said to be 
 
94 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 the politeness of sovereigns; and it was 
 nearly mid-day when a hum in tin 1 crowd, 
 and the music of the military bands 
 announced the young monarch's coming. 
 The first item in the royal procession 
 was a very gayly liveried gentleman, 
 mi mntcd on a horse laden with two 
 drums. He looked something like the 
 advance-guard of a rustic circus. From 
 time to time 1 he heat a doleful measure 
 on the drums, .lust behind him were 
 twelve trumpeters, clad in ancient cos- 
 tumes, and next came twenty-two led- 
 horses, beautifully caparisoned. Behind 
 the heralds ami the lcd-horses were 
 lancers, gendarmes, and a few Court 
 officials; then came a long procession of 
 state carriages, twenty-three in number. 
 These ancient vehicles, swung high be- 
 tween ponderous wheels and balance- 
 springs, with which not even the miser} 
 of a Spanish highway could interfere, 
 lumbered past the throng without elicit- 
 ing a single cheer. It was amusing to 
 witness the coldness of the reception. 
 One might have fancied the populace 
 contemplating the passage of an enemy's 
 troops through its country. On the Pu- 
 erto, del Sol not a hat was lilted, and but 
 few ladies waved handkerchiefs when the 
 king's carriage came in sight. This car- 
 riage was an enormous structure, with a 
 crown on its roof, and with great win- 
 dows, through which the crowd might 
 note every movement of its sovereign. 
 It was preceded by four and six horse 
 carriages, and by a multitude of out- 
 riders, footmen, and jockeys. The dis- 
 play of plumes and rich silver and gold 
 trappings, and of housings centuries 
 old, was quite dazzling. The king's car- 
 riage was drawn by eight white horses, 
 covered with plumes and with silver dee- 
 orations. The young king was sedate, 
 and bowed repeatedly to right and hit, 
 although no one paid the slightest atten- 
 
 tion to nis comtesies. As the king's 
 
 carriage passed the Ministerio de la Go- 
 bernacion a long procession of state car- 
 riages, containing the Archduchess Chris- 
 tina — so soon to be the queen — and her 
 suite, came into view, and bugles sounded 
 anew. A thrill of music ran along the 
 martial lines, and the monarch and his 
 bride moved on to the Atocha through 
 the Carera de San Jeronirao. Nothing 
 could have been prettier than the rich 
 contrasts of color in velvets lined with 
 silver, banners and uniforms; and the 
 military display was quite beautiful. 
 Tin- officials of the Court were legion. 
 
 Queen Isabel always had a special 
 affection for the Atocha. ami bestowed 
 upon it the most magnificent gilts. 
 After the events of 1872 it was in this 
 same church that one of her successors, 
 King Amadeo the first and last, went to 
 view the corpse of General Prim, whose 
 murder had added another and notable 
 one. to the long list of Spanish political 
 assassinations. Doha Isabel was quite 
 overcome by her visit to the church on 
 the wedding-day ; and when she entered 
 with the procession, and the patriarch of 
 the Indies came bowing forward to offer 
 her thi' holy water, she wept, and appeared 
 likely to faint. Perhaps she was think- 
 ing of the fleeting nature of this world's 
 pleasures, and that the church in which 
 her son was then to be married might 
 serve in the future for more melancholy 
 ceremonies in connection with her family 
 than those of matrimony. 
 
 There was a stately company in the 
 little church. The gentlemen of the 
 household seemed numerous enough for 
 a legislature. There was the suite of 
 the Infanta Dona Christina, the suite of 
 ex-Queen Isabel, the first groom, the 
 major domo of service, the Dukes of 
 Sexto and Encedo, and the Count of 
 Pilar. The ex-queen entered the church 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 95 
 
 to the music of the Royal March, and 
 she, as well as the king and the arch- 
 duchess were received at the door by the 
 Papal Nuncio, who is a most important 
 personage in such a Catholic country as 
 Spain, and by a multitude of richly 
 robed priests. Among the great ladies 
 
 the archduchess; and a host of pretty 
 princesses. Dona Isabel wore a crown 
 of diamonds, and a sumptuous mantle 
 covered with gold lace and ornaments, 
 the train of which was upheld by two 
 stately gentlemen. The king was in the 
 uniform of a captain-general, with the 
 
 f ii" ;; ' ' ' c 
 
 WEDDING OF ALFONSO XII. 
 
 present, looking intensely, and some of 
 them rather sternly, at the future queen as 
 she came up the central aisle, were the 
 Duchesses of Medina Cadi, Almodova 
 del Valle ; the Countess of Toveno Caste- 
 jon and Viamanuel ; the Marchioness of 
 Santa Cruz ; the Duchess of Fernand- 
 Nunez, of Ahumada; the Duchess of 
 Bailen, wife of him who was sent to 
 Vienna officially to demand the hand of 
 
 Order of the Golden Fleece and an 
 Austrian field-marshal's scarf. 
 
 The young archduchess seemed to float 
 into, the church in a cloud, so voluminous 
 was her veil of white, heavily bordered 
 with silver lace. When it was lifted 
 back, her toilette excited a general cry of 
 admiration, so rich was it in embroideries 
 of flowers and leaves in gold and silver, 
 and laurels and white roses in profusion. 
 
:m; 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 The diadem which crowned her head was 
 of pearls, such as only the Ilapsburgs, 
 the richest family in the world, can show. 
 The archduchess was mortally pale. 
 The spiteful ladies of the Court said it 
 was because of the weight of the robe 
 and the velvets which she wore. But 
 she soon recovered, and arrived, smiling, 
 at the grand altar, which was illuminated 
 with hundreds of lights; and there she 
 met the King, who took her by the hand. 
 Then came the usual Catholic ceremonial 
 of marriage, the signing of the act, and 
 the benediction by the Patriarch of the 
 Indies, — -all of which was of brief dura- 
 tion. Those who have never seen the 
 splendors <>f a Court can form but a, 
 small idea of tin' richness of the toilettes 
 of the ladies who witnessed this spec- 
 tacle. Many of the beauties wore two 
 bands of velvet embroidered with silver, 
 which are emblematic of their rank ; ami 
 on their glossy braids diadems worth 
 fortunes rested. The mantles, the 
 dresses, the collars, the corsages, were 
 all of the richest material. One could 
 well have fancied, in looking at this 
 superb display of luxurious dresses. 
 that Spain was one of the richest, rather 
 than one of the poorest, countries in 
 Europe. It is a source of perpetual 
 wonder to a stranger in Spain, where the 
 money comes from for the tens of thou- 
 sands of soldiers and officers elegantly 
 dressed, as well as for the luxury of 
 private and public palaces and mansions. 
 The wedding afforded the chance for a 
 grand display of foreign uniforms. Lord 
 Napier was magnificent in his scarlet, 
 and was accompanied by some extremely 
 handsome young Englishmen. The 
 French Embassy shone like a golden 
 star. The sombre blue-black of the 
 Prussians stood out in bold relief against 
 the splendors of the garments of their 
 late enemies, the Austrians and the 
 
 Gauls. The delegation of the belles of 
 Vienna, who accompanied the arch- 
 duchess, made the beautiful Madrid 
 women handle their fans with as nervous 
 and jealous an air as if they had been 
 stilettoes. 
 
 Alter the wedding came the visits of 
 the legislative bodies, the Council of 
 State, and the municipal organizations, 
 to the palace ; ami on the following day 
 was held a ceremonial which is seen in 
 few monarchical countries, the Baise- 
 main, or a defile before the king and 
 queen at the palace, and the kissing of 
 the hitter's hand by all the represent- 
 atives of all the different branches of 
 the national authority. This was a 
 brilliant reception which repeated the 
 splendors of the gathering in the Atocha 
 chapel. The Council of State arrived 
 at the palace in a lot of old carriages, 
 which looked as if they were invented 
 before the time of Columbus, as very 
 likely they were. The royal palace is 
 very grand within, though it is not very 
 impressive without. In the great Hall 
 of the Ambassadors, the young king 
 stood in front of his throne, with the 
 new queen on his right, looking very 
 pale and pretty in her splendid gar- 
 ments, laden with embroideries and cov- 
 ered with golden fleurs-de-lis. On her 
 head she wore a golden crown, gar- 
 nished witli costly diamonds. Near her 
 stood the Princess of the Asturias, 
 dressed in rose-colored satin, and the 
 king's two other sisters in faille rose. 
 Not far from the king and queen stood 
 the Court, a brilliant collection of all 
 the ladies and gentlemen of rank in 
 the kingdom, the representatives at the 
 Court and the generals of the army. 
 The ceremonial required that no one 
 should touch the king's hand with his 
 or with her hand, but only with the 
 lips, and that after having used the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM A.Y/t CALM. 
 
 97 
 
 pocket-handkerchief. Doha Isabel re- 
 ceived in her own rooms in another 
 wing of the palace, and the day finished 
 with a grand ball at the opera. 
 
 Five years have passed since the 
 wedding, and the young king is still in 
 his place, although revolution lias sev- 
 eral times raised its head. The strength 
 of his position is due merely to the in- 
 numerable petty differences of the Lib- 
 erals, and to the weakness of the lower 
 classes, because of their ignorance. 
 Out of the sixteen or seventeen mil- 
 lions of people in Spain not more than 
 one-fourth can claim acquaintance with 
 the accomplishments of reading and 
 writing. Furthermore, the knowledge 
 of events transpiring in the outside 
 world is so limited that a campaign 
 speaker, if he were allowed by the gov- 
 ernment any chance to express hi:.; 
 views, would scarcely be understood 
 by his constituents or by those whom 
 he desired to make his constituents. 
 Even rich peasants and men of high 
 rank are grossly ignorant of what is 
 transpiring in their own country. The 
 perpetual " I don't know," with which 
 every question is answered in Spain, 
 becomes exasperating to a stranger. 
 The facilities for anything like rapid 
 intercommunication are so limited that 
 the masses mingle hut little together. 
 Each remains rooted to his place, sur- 
 rounded by a flowering growth of tra- 
 ditions, superstitions, and prejudices. 
 Each imagines that an army which can 
 act as mediator in any important dis- 
 pute is a good thing, and it seems as 
 natural to a Spaniard to hear the trum- 
 pets sound tin- death-knell of a short- 
 lived revolution as to note the ringing 
 of the vesper bells in the old cathedral 
 which easts its shadow on his dwelling. 
 
 The monarchists are very fond of re- 
 minding Castelar that when he was 
 
 president of the short-lived Republic 
 he found it necessary to become Dicta- 
 tor, and that, at Carthagena and else- 
 where he had announced that one of 
 the principal needs of Spain was more 
 infantry, more cavalry, and more artil- 
 lery. In short, monarchy finds an 
 excuse for its existence in the assump- 
 tion that it alone can maintain order. 
 When the people cease to believe this, 
 anil are united, some great convulsion, 
 like that at Valencia, will take place in 
 each of the principal cities and districts, 
 ami — But we will not prophesy. 
 
 I have spoken of Castelar, who is 
 undoubtedly the greatest Spaniard of 
 his time, and towers like a giant even 
 among the celebrities with whom he is 
 surrounded. Madrid is tilled with 
 scholars, poets, and men of letters, 
 whose reputation ought, although it 
 does not succeed in doing so, to cross 
 the Pyrenees. There are notable poets 
 and romancers in Spain, who are quite 
 the equals, if not in some respects the 
 superiors, of their French contempora- 
 ries. 
 
 The gentlemen who are liberal and re- 
 publican in sentiment are grouped about 
 Castelar. and at the private receptions in 
 the capital politics and literature are 
 carefully and earnestly discussed, al- 
 though in the newspapers and in public 
 halls the government would forbid such 
 license. I was glad of an opportunity 
 to meet Castelar in his own house, and 
 at one of his weekly receptions, which 
 tool; place a day or two after the con- 
 clusion of the wedding festivities. Senor 
 Castelar was not seen in public during 
 these festivals, although he is by no 
 means shunned by the royal family, all 
 of whom have the most cordial admira- 
 tion for his talents. 
 
 Castelar lives in the Calle de Serrano, 
 in a line new quarter of Madrid, in one 
 
98 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 of those huge apartment-houses which 
 the Spaniards have built in imitation of 
 those in Paris and Vienna. The orator 
 and statesman receives once or twice a 
 week ; but as he is a bachelor, residing 
 with his sister, who has always cared for 
 his household affairs, he has only gentle- 
 men at his entertainments. The deputies, 
 journalists, poets, novelists, savants, 
 come and go in the most informal fashion. 
 I found the great orator in one of his 
 good moods, when he felt like talking, and 
 discovered that when he was in this vein 
 everybody listened with reverence ami 
 attention. There is a rare magnetism in 
 his presence, which is peculiarly fascinat- 
 ing. An impression of superabundant 
 vitality, an infinite reservoir, from which 
 he can. freely draw at unexpected moments 
 for sudden and unlooked-for inspiration, 
 is always gained from a conversation 
 with Castelar. lie is one of the men 
 horn under a happy star. Dowered with 
 strange ami peculiar gifts, lie combines 
 the richness of a poetic nature with the 
 forethought and sagacity of a patriot and 
 politician. Perhaps there are those who 
 would deny Castelar the union of these 
 two qualities, hut time will show (hat he 
 possesses them in high degree. 
 
 Castelar does not look as if the world 
 wearied him. lie is still young and 
 active, and full of the Spanish politeness 
 and grace, lie has a noble, animated 
 face, firm, and full of decision, and a 
 pair of well-made lips, shaded by a 
 dense black mustache. The lop of the 
 head is bald, — a tribute paid to hard 
 study. He is quite unostentatious in 
 dress and manner. In conversation he 
 expressed the liveliest sympathy and 
 admiration for the United States, and 
 especially for the talents of Mr. James 
 Russell Lowell, who was so acceptable 
 a minister to .Madrid. " I was," said 
 Castelar, " a firm friend to the North 
 
 during the revolution of the Southern 
 States against the general government, 
 and sometimes I had to encounter for- 
 midable opposition." This led to a great 
 debate on the slavery question of Cuba, 
 which was then pending in the Cortes. 
 Castelar said little concerning the future 
 of Cuba, except that there was no longer 
 dancer of its being a bone of contention 
 between Spain and the United States. 
 He said in the debate he should be found 
 as usual on tin 1 side of liberty, and in 
 favor of emancipation of every wretched 
 black in Cuba. 
 
 I asked Castelar if he felt that the 
 Republic would come again in Spain. 
 " Most certainly." he said ; " the country 
 is republican. The restored monarchy 
 has not taken root. Republican princi- 
 ples are well enough established in the 
 public mind, but they are not entirely 
 understood, (heat numbers of our peo- 
 ple still have a certain fondness for ab- 
 solutism." A moment afterwards he 
 alluded in a jocose vein to the great 
 number of constitutions which Spain has 
 promulgated within the last two genera- 
 tions, lie lias a profound contempt for 
 those politicians who fancied that the\ 
 could make the Spanish people all over 
 in a day by writing them a creed to live 
 under. Castelar did good work during 
 his brief tenure of executive power. He 
 did not hesitate to break away from the 
 project in favor of federalism when he 
 saw it was doing the country harm. If 
 tile assembly had not been weak and 
 vacillating he would not have been com- 
 pelled to resign, ami the Spanish Repub- 
 lic might have been in existence to-day. 
 He drove the spectres of socialism and 
 extreme federalism back to the darkness 
 out of which they had come. He insisted 
 upon the necessity of education. When 
 he demanded the renewal of his powers 
 by the Assembly, iu January. 1874, he set 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 99 
 
 down as a cardinal principle, that theeraof 
 popular uprising and pronunciamientos 
 must be closed forever. But Pavia with 
 his troops came in, and, said Castelar, 
 it was too late. There was uot a more 
 deserted man in Spain 
 than himself. So Serrano 
 took up the burden of 
 power, and carried it 
 until the arrival of the 
 young Alfonso. 
 
 " Castelar," said a 
 Spanish nobleman to me, 
 " is the republican party 
 in Spain. Without him 
 it would fall into a hun- 
 dred fragments. He puts 
 the breath of life into 
 its nostrils. If he were 
 to withdraw his support 
 from it, it would expire 
 of inanition." Another 
 influential Spanish gen- 
 tleman said that Castelar 
 was impracticable and 
 unworldly to a certain 
 extent in many things, 
 but possessed the exact 
 knowledge of the (■(in- 
 flicting elements of Span- 
 ish Republicanism neces- 
 sary to bring out of them 
 the little harmony possi- 
 ble. Castelar learned 
 Opportunism from Gam- 
 betta ; in fact, he would, 
 I think, be willing to 
 admit this. If he is an 
 Opportunist to-day it is 
 because he has seen 
 that little can be ac- 
 accomplished in a day or a mouth in re- 
 establishing liberty, but that the slow 
 progress of years alone can give impor- 
 tant results. After the flight of Dona 
 Isabel and the uprising of Cariists, Mod- 
 
 erates, Communists, Progressists, Mon- 
 archical Democrats, and Republicans 
 desirous of federal form, and after the 
 dazzling events from 1868 until the 
 " Restoration," he is justified in suppos- 
 
 CASTELAR AT HOME. 
 
 ing that the country needs rest before 
 venturing upon a final effort for the re- 
 establishment of her ancient liberties. 
 
 Castelar in the Legislative Assembly as 
 an orator is a demigod. Gambetta at 
 
100 EUROPE IS STORM AND CALM. 
 
 limes was wonderful. Castelar is often control. One might almost fancy him 
 
 siililiiiir. Gambetta had electric effects at these times a school-boy about to 
 
 of eloquence which appalled and some- speak his first piece ; but when once he 
 
 times annihilated his enemies. Castelar has begun, in sonorous voice, everything 
 
 seems to lift his hearers into the seventh like tear vanishes, and he pours forth a 
 
 heaven, and to move them with him flood of irresistible argument, clothed in 
 
 among the golden vapors of the dawn, exquisitely felicitous language. It is 
 
 Gambetta was crushing: Castelar is odd that Castelar's voice, which in ordi- 
 
 persnasive. Gambetta was vindictive; nary conversation has a certain soft, 
 
 Castelar is of too large a mould to con- feminine quality in it, is clear, robust, 
 
 descend to vengeance. Both orators will and harmonious in the tribune. When he 
 
 be chronicled in history as having pos- is tremendously excited, as on the occa- 
 
 sessed unlimited command of metaphors sion of his meat speech in favor of 
 
 and lovely imagery, never degenerating liberty of conscience and freedom of 
 
 into the commonplace. Castelar says public worship, made in April of 1869, 
 
 that he is nervous on days when he is the voice is inexpressibly "rand. One 
 
 to speak in the Cortes. He wanders seems to hear the soul speaking without 
 
 about restlessly among his friends, ex- any hindrance whatever, 
 pressing doubts as to his power of self- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 101 
 
 CHAPTER TEN. 
 
 The Bull-Fight in Madrid before the King and Queen. — Eight Hulh Slaughtered. — A Strange Sport. 
 — Excitement of the Populace — The Matador.— Duels between Men and Beasts. 
 
 AT one of the exhibitions of paint- 
 ings in the Paris Palace of indus- 
 try a promising American artist showed 
 a picture of a combat between an As- 
 syrian monarch and a lion in an 
 arena, where thousands of spectators 
 were assembled to witness the daring of 
 their king. As I sat in the Piaza de 
 Toros of the Spanish capital on the oc- 
 casion of the great bull-fight given in 
 celebration of the wedding festivities of 
 King Alfonso and Queen Christina, 
 while watching the bull who had jusl 
 bounded in from his cage and was stand- 
 ing with his head proudly raised, eying 
 the populace of Madrid and the gayly 
 uniformed butchers awaiting hint, — this 
 picture came distinctly before my 
 eyes, and I was startled by the thought, 
 that, in our modern day, more than nine- 
 teen centuries after the inauguration of 
 an era supposed to be one of mercy, 
 forbearance, and peace, the world is as 
 brutal and unmerciful as ever it was in the 
 dim ages of barbarism. I cannot explain 
 the revolt which then took place in my 
 spirit; I might call it an insurrection 
 of conscience, because I had allowed 
 myself to have assisted at so murderous 
 and bloody a sport as a bull-light. 1 
 defy any one who has not been hardened 
 to this monstrous sight, to feel otherwise 
 than criminal when he first gets an idea 
 of the atrocious horror of it. But enough 
 of preliminary moralizing. 
 
 When the royal wedding was an- 
 nounced it was naturally decided that 
 bull-lights should lie among the festivi- 
 
 ties. Had there been any disposition 
 to refuse them there might have been 
 something like a riot. Time has been 
 when the people in the immense plaza 
 have cried out, " Death to the Mayor! " 
 because he would not allow them to wit- 
 ness the killing of one or two more bulls 
 than were promised in the programme. 
 "Bread and Shows" were the necessities 
 which not even tyrants dared deny the 
 ancient Romans. - v Bread and Bulls, 
 Pan y Toros," are the prime needs of 
 the modern Spaniards. Not even the 
 gentlest Spanish woman finds it extraor- 
 dinary that her children should witness 
 a bull-light. In Madrid there are 
 twenty-four exhibitions yearly : on Mon- 
 days, from April to October, or some- 
 times on Sundays, — Cor Sunday is in 
 Spain, as in France, the people's favorite 
 holiday. All over Spain there are bull- 
 rings which rival the colossal dinien- 
 sionsofthe amphitheatres of the Romans. 
 Valencia possesses one, which, at a dis- 
 tance, looks as imposing as the Roman 
 Coliseum. •• And what ! " say the Span- 
 iards ; •• what ! shall we give up a game 
 inaugurated by him of illustrious ami 
 immortal memory, the Cid Campeador : 
 he who, in the arena, with his own lance, 
 slew wild bulls by the score?" 
 
 The Arabs have the credit of introduc- 
 ing the cruel pastime into Spain ; but it 
 was the Cid who gave it its real impetus. 
 After he had set the example all the 
 youths of the nobility copied it, and at 
 solemn festivals the corrida de toros 
 was one of the main features. The 
 
102 
 
 ECROFE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 honor of fighting the bull on great days 
 was accorded only to the nobility. An 
 ordinary mortal was not supposed to 
 possess the requisite strength and sci- 
 ence. Throughout the middle ages bull- 
 fighting was the favorite amusement of 
 warriors in these southern lands. When 
 Isabel the Catholic tried to prohibit the 
 ghastly fun she found she did not pos- 
 sess influence enough to do it. After her 
 time the sport became so popular that 
 Charles the Great did not disdain with 
 his own hand to slay a bull upon the 
 market-place of Valladolid. Pizarro, 
 who conquered Peru, was a brave bull- 
 fighter, and so was King Sebastian of 
 Portugal. Philip III. adorned the bull- 
 ring of Madrid with statues and banners ; 
 Philip IV. fought therein: Charles II. 
 loved the game; Philip V. issued an 
 otlieial order that bull-rings should he 
 constructed throughout the kingdom. 
 
 Ail these days no man of the people 
 was allowed to enter the arena, ami it 
 was not until the middle of the eigh- 
 teenth century that peasants and com- 
 mon folk in general were permitted to 
 become professional toreros. Francisco 
 Romero de Ronda introduced the usage 
 of fighting the hull on foot, sword in 
 hand ; and from his time date the fixed 
 rules of this difficult art. which in our 
 days have had such illustrious professors 
 as Frascuelo, Lagartijo, and Alonzo. 
 Queen Isabel was an enthusiastic patron 
 of the sport. Amadeo. of Italy, pre- 
 tended to like it, while lie was King of 
 Spain ; hut it is to lie presumed that his 
 delicate and refined nature suffered tor- 
 tures at the sight. How can the present 
 king refuse to attend upon and support 
 with all his influence an institution as 
 truly national in Spain as the Sabbath- 
 school in the United States? 
 
 The Plaza de Toros of Madrid is 
 supposed by dint of much crowding 
 
 to accommodate sixteen thousand per- 
 sons, although there are seats for only a 
 few more than twelve thousand. For 
 the two courses in honor of the royal 
 wedding festivities there were more 
 than fifty thousand applicants above the 
 number which could he accommodated. 
 Theoretically, no tickets were sold, and 
 every one was invited ; but I will not 
 dwell on that point, as, through the 
 courtesy of Setior Saturnino Esteban 
 Collantes, deputy in the Cortes, and a 
 gentleman of distinction. I received in- 
 vitations for both occasions. Hundreds 
 of people from Madrid. Vienna, and 
 London went away growling and disap- 
 pointed, because they could not succeed 
 in gaining admission. The tickets of 
 invitation were conceived as follows: — 
 
 
 
 Plaza 
 
 he Toros 
 
 
 
 
 La 
 
 Corrii 
 
 a Extraordinaria 
 
 
 
 Cim 
 
 motivo 
 
 del Regio E 
 
 nlace 
 
 
 
 
 Ten 
 
 lido Num. 
 
 
 
 E 
 
 te billete es 
 
 de convite 
 
 v lie 
 
 puede 
 
 vein 
 
 erse. 
 
 El contraventor 
 
 sera 
 
 puesto 
 
 a dis 
 
 iPcsici 
 
 m de 1. 
 
 Autor idad. 
 
 
 
 There were several thousand guests of 
 rank and importance to place, for the 
 ambassadors extraordinary of the Aus- 
 trian delegation which accompanied the 
 archduchess, now* become the Queen of 
 Spain, had brought in their train half 
 the fashionable world. So there re- 
 mained small place for the populace; 
 yet the populace was there. How it 
 got in I do not know; but there it was, 
 palpitating with savage delight at every 
 pitiful throe of disembowelled horse or 
 dying bull, yelling maledictions upon an 
 unsuccessful picador or capeador, and 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 103 
 
 breaking forth into the most extravagant 
 expressions of delight and affection 
 when an espada did his work well. 
 
 The bull-ring, to call it by the prosaic 
 English term, which best translates the 
 high-sounding Plaza de Toros, is about 
 a mile and a half from the centre of the 
 city, on the outskirts of the barren plains 
 which environ Madrid. It is reached by 
 passing a superb archway, erected by 
 Charles III., on the hill overlooking the 
 Prado and the surrounding country, and 
 thence by a long avenue, bordered on 
 either hand by elegant mansions, superb 
 villas, and finally by manufactories, 
 slaughter-houses, forges, and all the 
 unsavory and unsightly appendages of a 
 great city. On the day of this bull-light 
 the crowd, the invited and the uninvited, 
 all went in a long procession down the 
 broad and handsome Calle de Alcala, 
 past the Prado, and through the gardens 
 and avenues, in delighted haste, anxious 
 to note every detail of the festival. 
 Hundreds of omnibuses, tilled with holi- 
 day-makers, pushed madly towards the 
 centre of attraction. I will spare the 
 reader any account of the epithets which 
 the drivers of these vehicles applied to 
 their horses, as few of the words are 
 suited to Saxon ears polite. Men, 
 women, and children, dressed with ex- 
 cellent taste, hurried to the plaza with 
 anticipations of joy written on their 
 features. The beggars forgot to beg 
 as they watched the lords and ladies. 
 Brown Andalnsians, in tattered cloaks, 
 once magnificent, gazed sharply, as if 
 picking out the person whom they had 
 been told to assassinate. Muleteers and 
 merchants, foreigners and natives, beau- 
 ties and hags, old and young, poured 
 along the roadways, babbling open-lipped 
 and merrily; and when they reached the 
 yawning gate of the ring they ran tuinnlt- 
 uously through the lines of gendarmes 
 
 to their appointed places, as if fearful 
 lest they might lose a single detail of the 
 performance. 
 
 The ring is solidly built, and the gates 
 through which the animals are admitted 
 are of immense thickness. Huge corri- 
 dors run round it, between the seats and 
 the outer wall, and doors open upon 
 stairways which lead to the various gal- 
 leries. The politeness of Sehor C'ollantes 
 IkmI placed me in the front rank in the 
 lower gallery, in what we should call an 
 orchestra stall in a theatre, and at a 
 point from whence I could well observe 
 the king and queen and their suite. 
 Once or twice during the afternoon it 
 seemed to me that my seat was decidedly 
 too near the ring, and 1 should have been 
 glad to move. 
 
 I had not been long seated before I 
 discovered that the audience, or collec- 
 tion of on-lookers. was intensely excited. 
 Shouts arose answering shouts. The 
 vast arena seemed to tremble under the 
 concussion of sound. The arrival of any 
 well-known person was the signal for a 
 roar, which must have made the bulls 
 quake in their prison. Officials ran to 
 and fro, settling disputes between new- 
 comers ; water-carriers and cigar-sellers 
 screamed out the virtues of their wares, 
 and from the upper galleries came clam- 
 ors for the appearance of the popular 
 favorites. The balconies were sumptu- 
 ously decorated with orange and yellow, 
 and with red velvet ; and crowns and 
 coats-of-arms in different places indicated 
 the presence of nobility. High up above 
 all the galleries save one was the royal 
 loge; and, hearing the band playing the 
 march which announced the arrival of 
 the King, I turned to see him. 
 
 Alfonso XII. arrived briskly, dressed 
 in a captain-general's uniform, with a 
 cap entirely covered with gold lace. He 
 had much improved in appearance since 
 
104 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 his residence in Paris tmd Vienna. Side- mounted on starved-looking horses, came 
 whiskers and mustache gave a manly the picadors, wicked fellows, clad in 
 look t" his face, and his manners were braided jackets, buckskin hose, gar- 
 simple and unaffected. The young nished within with stiff iron supports, 
 Queen wore a white mantilla upon her so that when their horses fell upon them 
 glossy braids. She sat down beside the they might not have their legs broken. 
 King on the front rank, and there soon These picadors were armed with enoi- 
 appeared behind the youthful pair the mous lances, pointed with sharp blades, 
 benevolent faces of numerous venerable Next in order was a small army of 
 Spanish and Austrian generals. Next servants, dressed in scarlet jackets 
 came Doha Isabel and her pretty daugh- (forsooth, in a bull-ring!), and the rear 
 ters, and then an enormous following of was brought up with teams of mules, 
 Indies and gentlemen of the Court, who harnessed three abreast, and driven by 
 took possession of either side of the bal- picturesque brigands, whose duty was to 
 cony. A large delegation of Austrian be the clearing of the ring of the dead 
 officers, their breasts glittering with horses and hulls encumbering it. The 
 dozens of decorations, sat on the side procession wheeled round in front of the 
 next the Queen. Alfonso XII. took up royal loge, and every person in it made 
 his opera glass, and surveyed the audi- low hows, to which the King responded 
 ence. When the royal inarch was tin- by a, still' military salute. The trum- 
 ished he raised his handkerchief, and pets sounded loudly, ami (he procession 
 made a signal. A chorus of bugles went its ways, breaking up into fragments 
 sounded from a balcony opposite (he in various places in the 1 ling. In front 
 Kino- and Queen. Gates were thrown of the series of galleries which led to the 
 ..pen just beneath this balcony, ami royal box, and directly in the ring, stood 
 there entered — a large corps of halberdiers, without any 
 No, — not a bull, but a long and stately protection. The mishaps of these gen- 
 procession, which transported us back to tlemeii at arms at frequent intervals 
 (he days <>f chivalry. First came (he during the performance were sources of 
 masters of ceremonies, dressed in Court immense and long-continued merriment 
 suits of black velvet, and mounted on to the crowd, 
 prancing steeds. Next followed a And now the picadors, on their horses, 
 
 drummer on horseback, a large drum held their lances at rest ; (he marshals 
 
 suspended on either side of his horse's retired I" a corner, looking somewhat 
 
 saddle. Then came lour heralds, sound- uneasy ; the corps of capt adors, matadors, 
 
 in" bugles ; alguazils;a provincial dele- and esjxtdas approached the barrier of 
 
 gation ; then, in state carriages, the the ring, behind which ran a. corridor 
 
 protectors of the toreadors of the occa- separating us, the spectators, by a short 
 
 sion. These protectors are gentlemen of distance from the arena.. This corridor 
 
 rank, who deign to confer the shallow was patrolled by gendarmes, court offl- 
 
 of their dignity on the popular favorites, cials in black, and by the friends of the 
 
 Beside these coaches, glittering in satin performers in the ling. There were a 
 
 costumes in which all the colors of few moments of silence; then a deep 
 
 tin' rainbow were inextricably mingled, " Ah !" burst from the assemblage, and, 
 
 walked (he men who were to fight (he looking over across the ring. I saw a 
 
 bulls on foot; while behind (hem, magnificent bull standing in front of the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 105 
 
 1*1 
 
106 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 gates, which were closing behind him. 
 The Queen had given the signal with her 
 handkerchief. 1 looked up at her, and 
 she had half risen from her seat, as 
 though she were anxious to go away. 
 But an instant after she sat down again, 
 and was apparently calm. 
 
 The bull took a careful look at every- 
 body- He seemed good-natured, and I 
 thought that if 1 had been near him 1 
 should have liked to pull his tail. Hut 
 what was ray surprise when he advanced 
 with a long "lope," which quickly 
 changed into a wild run; and before 
 any one could divert his attention he 
 had plunged his horns into the Hanks of 
 the horse of one of the masters of cere- 
 monies. The poor beast darted forward, 
 the blood gushing from his wounds, and 
 the spectators began to yell to their 
 favorites — the men in satin and rainbow 
 colors — to begin the combat. At once 
 an agile fellow sprang directly in front 
 of the bull, holding a bright red cloak 
 before the infuriated animal's eyes. 
 Master bull made a lunge at it. The 
 nimble cape-bearer stepped aside, and 
 another fluttered an orange-colored cloak 
 at the bull's nose. Then half-a-dozen 
 others appeared. The bull did not know 
 which way to turn. He pawed the earth ; 
 he snorted. Suddenly', selecting one 
 who was most daring, he went after him 
 with such vindictive force that the man 
 puled, ran, and lightly as a feather 
 leaped the barrier unhurt. The bull 
 turned to another. Up and away went 
 the airy fellow, almost between the bull's 
 horns; yet safe, and grinning with the 
 excitement. 
 
 The bull was now terrible in his wrath ; 
 and at this moment he noted a picador, 
 sitting motionless on his horse, with his 
 lance ready. I arose inmyseat, and, if 
 I could, I should have fled, for it iced 
 my blood to see both rider and horse go 
 
 into tlie air. and the next moment to 
 witness the agonies Of the disembowelled 
 horse. The picador was lying beneath 
 his beast. Was he dead ? No. He was 
 helped up, looking black and ugly, and 
 betook off his hat to the King What, 
 had he done? There was a gaping 
 wound in the bull's shoulders, and the 
 bull had withdrawn a few paces, and was 
 thinking what to do next. Around him 
 once more were fluttering the agile 
 capeadors; capes ami cloaks were danc- 
 ing before the bull's vision. lie rushed 
 hither and von, aiming at death ami de- 
 struction. What was my horror to sec 
 the horse which had just been gored 
 once more in the fray, his merciless rider 
 charging him down upon the bull, while 
 the entrails dragged on the ground. 
 Some Spaniards laughed ; others, more 
 merciful, shouted, "Fuera!" (Out with 
 the horse). lint no; the bull had him 
 once more on his horns, and tore and 
 rent him. while the picador, lying coolly 
 behind the dying creature, lacerated the 
 Hank of his antagonist. It was horrible. 
 I looked up at the young Queen. She 
 had turned her eyes away, but a moment 
 later, at the intimation of the King, she 
 made a signal. 
 
 Trumpets sounded, and the picador 
 was extricated from his perilous position, 
 
 while the men with the capes occupied 
 the bull's attention. This was the signal 
 to retire tin 1 horses, and to let the bande- 
 rilleros begin their work. The bande- 
 rillero comes on at the second stage of a 
 bull-light. I felt glad to see the horses 
 retire, and I noticed that I no longer felt 
 sorry for the bull, since I had seen how 
 devilish he was in his work'. I was glad 
 to know that it was to be put out of the 
 way. Probably 1 was becoming brutal- 
 ized. 
 
 The bull was enraged because the 
 horses were withdrawn, but thus far he 
 
EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 107 
 
 felt that he had had the best of it. 
 Still he looked his antagonists over in 
 his steady, resolved way, and seemed 
 saying to them, " What will yon have 
 next? " 
 
 He was not long without an answer. 
 A daring fellow, in green tights, white 
 silk stockings, and a jacket blazing with 
 gold and jewels, ran up in front of him, 
 holding in each hand a flexible dart, en- 
 
 in the bull was aroused ; his motions 
 were twice as rapid as before. Thou- 
 sands of voices were screaming advice 
 from the benches: Rafael, mind your 
 steps! Well, well ! Muybien! Lagar- 
 tijo I demonio ! Anda! Anda! Now, 
 run for it! Hombrel What an ass! 
 burro! burrito! Go home and bury 
 yourself. Fuera! Caramba! There he 
 had it! O my angel! O Alonzo ! 
 
 THE BULL HAS THE BEST OF IT. 
 
 veloped in straw at one end. Quick as 
 lightning the bull sprang at him, hut the 
 man went to one side, and the two darts 
 were sticking in the animal's neck. Itwas 
 as swift as thought. Thebanderillosm&de 
 the bull crazy with rage. He shook him- 
 self, but they entered more deeply into 
 the skin ; he foamed at the mouth ; he 
 was terrible. He ran at a knot of his 
 enemies, and frightened them so that 
 they fled in coufusion, leaping the barrier. 
 But others came ; new banderillos were 
 stuck in the poor brute's hide. They 
 whizzed through the air, some of them 
 bearing little bauners. Now all the devil 
 
 Bravo! Here he comes! Es mi toro! 
 Idiot! Can't you throw? Look out — 
 lookout — lookout! Is he dead? No, 
 not even scratched, but rather pale. Ah ! 
 the bull's tongue is out. No no I Si si ! 
 No hombre! Si Caballero! Oh! oh! 
 oh! Dios! Enough, enough of bande- 
 rillos! La Espada! The matador, — 
 where is the killer, the brave, the beautiful 
 matador? Ah! there he is ! See! He 
 is coining ! How beautiful his costume ! 
 'T'is satin. Ho.'ho.'Iio! La Espada I 
 Hist! There he is, kneeling before the 
 king ! Now he takes off his hat and 
 raises his arm. Now he makes his 
 
108 EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM 
 
 speech, and thrusts his cap away with a applauded with his white-gloved hands, 
 great sweeping gesture. It is us if he And the spectators! It was Bedlam. 
 threw away his life al the same time. The hull struggled, hul the dreadful 
 Si, Hombre! Bravo Turn! Bravo el sword sapped his life. He rushed and 
 matador! Ho! ho! h'>! ho! ho-o-o-o-o! ran, frothing, upon the agile cloak-bear- 
 Cararnba!" ers. They decamped, hut returned as 
 Then a great silence fell. they saw the poor animal walk away a 
 The matador took a red cloak in his short distance and lie down, with his 
 hand, holding concealed beneath it a tongue out. They tlew to him, .and be- 
 sword, short and stout of blade. He gan to tempi him to a renewal of the 
 stepped gracefully and briskly to the contest.. This was most piteous of all. 
 bull, and held the red cloak directly I Ie looked up at them with glazing eves, 
 before bis eyes. Bull flew at it. The out. of which all brutish malice had de- 
 matador made a false step, saved himself, parted, as the great mystery of death 
 ami looked up, pale and quivering, to overtook him, and he seemed struggling to 
 hear a tempest of maledictions. Thehull say, "Conic, caballeros, this is not fair, 
 was after him again, and followed him. 1 am hurt and down, and there are too 
 Lightly as thistledown tlew to the rescue many of von ! 1 did not intend to carry 
 a dozen capeador.i, who fluttered their it so far." In short, the bull seemed 
 cloaks in the bull's vision until he was humanized, and the men brutalized, at 
 diverted from his victim. Then they this moment. I forgot, about the gored 
 gradually brought him to a stand-still, horse. One of the executioners took a 
 and the matador came before him anew, short, dagger, drove it into the spina! 
 Now began a horrible duel between marrow of the animal, anil the trumpets 
 man and beast. The cloth was within sounded. The first fight was over. The 
 the bull's reach. lie plunged at it. and 1 mil fell on his side, and the gayly capar- 
 seemed to annihilate the matador. But isoned mules came in and dragged him 
 no; the man was always out. of reach, ignominiously awav. 
 and his gleaming blade was playing in Then the >u<tht<hir came forward to 
 the aii'. The bull was at hand. The receive the compliments of the spectators 
 cloak was before him. Ssst ! Down for his final adroit sword-thrust. His 
 Came the sword between the animal's name was rapturously shouted ten thou- 
 fore-shouldcrs. But the bull, with a noble sand times. Hats rained upon him, and 
 and impetuous motion, threw it out of the he tossed them back to their owners 
 wound, from which the blood poured in until his arms ached. Young swells 
 large streams. The matador drew an- threw their cloaks down to him that he 
 Other sword, and the duel began again. might walk upon them. Cigars, fruit, 
 Each time that he stabbed the beast hut and money were cast at him. He re- 
 slightlv the crowd cursed him. Then tired proud and contented. Had he 
 he redoubled his energy, and seemed to been unsuccessful he would have re- 
 lose his prudence. [By and by he made ceived sticks and stones upon his huinil- 
 a flying leap. Every one stood up, think- iated head. 
 
 ing to see him gored to death. Hut no; We had shorl respite. The trumpets 
 
 he stood some yards away, pointing to the sounded; the picadors reappeared, and 
 
 bull, in whose shoulders a sword was a new bull burst into the arena. This 
 
 planted I > the hilt. The King languidly animal wasted no time. II" drove all 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 10!) 
 
 the cape-flutterers out of the ring, killed 
 a horse in less than two minutes, sent 
 a picador off on a stretcher, and took a 
 tremendous dive at the Ii<ill><T<lii j rK, who 
 received him with lowered spears, hut 
 with blanching faces. lie broke one or 
 two of their spear-blades, kicked at 
 them contemptuously, gored a second 
 horse ; but here his star began to pale, 
 for he received a terrific lance wound. 
 This sobered him, and seemed to exhaust 
 his energies. The capes could no lon- 
 ger excite him. A spry and deft man 
 pulled his tail, and stole the rosette from 
 his back. He was no giant with a lance 
 wound. The only thing which he did 
 was mercifully to finish the second 
 horse, which was in convulsions of 
 agony. Then the banderittos were planted 
 in his neck, and a new matador finally 
 despatched him. The crowd grew im- 
 patient, and were glad when he was 
 dead. He had promised well, but fin- 
 ished badly. His debut as an artist was 
 meteoric; his career tame. Thus often 
 in human life ; hut no matter about the 
 moral. 
 
 Once more the trumpets, and another 
 bull. It took him some time to realize 
 the situation, but when he did realize it lie 
 proceeded to business with an energy far 
 superior to that of his immediate prede- 
 cessor. He did not like the ring, and he 
 leaped out of it. It seemed impossible 
 for him to do it; hut he did it, knocking 
 down half-a-dozen people in the corridor 
 before mentioned. I was horrified to 
 sir him. as the door was opened to let 
 him in again, tossing a gendarme on his 
 horns. The unhappy man turned over 
 and over. His sword fell from its 
 sheath, and he was carried out. when the 
 bull's attention had been diverted from 
 
 him, covered with hi 1 and wounds. 
 
 The bull ran up and down once or twice, 
 engaged in a tremendous duel with a 
 
 picador, who was too much for him, and 
 even kept him from goring his horse. 
 This hull in his turn submitted to the 
 agony of the banderittos and the duel 
 with the matador, who prolonged the 
 animal's life so that the crowd execrated 
 him because he had done much harm, 
 and then sold his life dearly. 
 
 And so. one after another, during al- 
 most four hours, we saw eight hulls 
 slaughtered. The only animals which 
 were really terrifying were the third and 
 the eighth. One of them was so in- 
 dignant at a cape-bearer, who shook a 
 red cloak in his face, that he followed 
 him right over the barrier, causing an 
 immense burst of laughter. In truth 
 the sight was irresistibly comical. 1 
 thought of the Yankee phrase about the 
 man who was '•hurried over" the fence 
 by the hull. This same animal charged 
 
 the halberdiers twice; but they tilled 
 his skin full of holes and put out one of 
 his eyes. There were one or two fright- 
 ful half-hours in this strange afternoon: 
 half-hours, when a bull, dying, gored 
 the horse which he had already slain; 
 when the odor of death arose from the 
 ring; when the smell of blood seemed 
 to put savagery into all our souls; when 
 we felt a grim joy in each new wound 
 inflicted on the bull, and when the flit- 
 ting corps of executioners seemed en- 
 dowed with supernatural skill. The 
 last bull, which had not promised well 
 at first, turned out to be :> master 
 fighter, and the principal matador hail 
 to use all his skill to bring him to his 
 knees. The manner in which the hull 
 looked at the matador had something 
 awful in it. something so inexpressible 
 that I w ill not try to define it 
 
 The King and < v >ueen tried to retire 
 
 when the seventh bull had been de- 
 spatched ; but the people would not hear 
 of it. They cried, "■Otro l<>r<>.' Otro 
 
110 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 turn!" (another bull), in thunderous horses which had been their victims 
 
 unison, and the King yielded. It must were lying- in a row. The amphitheatre, 
 
 have been a severe trial for the Queen ; with its stone seats and blood-stained 
 
 but she sat through it- all the while, and sands, seemed Roman rather than Spau- 
 
 1 observed that towards the last she ish ; but Spanish it emphatically was. 
 
 looked on all the time. One speedily The bulls slain at this royal festival 
 
 becomes accustomed to the spectacle, were furnished from the estates of dif- 
 
 horrid as it is. So soon as the last bull ferent gentlemen, who take great pride 
 
 was despatched, the thousands of per- in raising them. The local journals 
 
 sons dispersed peaceably, and so dense publish the names of these gentry as 
 
 was the throng that carriages and well as the pedigrees of the bulls. On 
 
 pedestrians alike could only move at a the day following the first great corrida 
 
 snail's pace. Tin 1 arena was wet with there was a second bull-light, at which 
 
 lil 1. In a recess of one of the outer eight bulls were to be slain. Hut 1 did 
 
 corridors the eight bulls and the seven not go; I had seen enough. 
 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Ill 
 
 CHAPTER ELEVEN. 
 
 The Famous Museum in Madrid. — The Palace of the Cortes. — Noted Tapestries. — A Visit to Toledo. — 
 The Spanish Cloak and its Characters. — A Fonda. — Beggars. — The Grotto of Hercules. — The 
 Alcazar. — In the Ancient Church. 
 
 THE great museum of painting in 
 Madrid is one of the finest in the 
 world; and, for the lover of art, a 
 ramble through its galleries is a rich 
 compensation for the troubles and 
 trials which he has hail in his journey 
 across the Pyrenees and down through 
 the strange wastes, alternated with rich 
 fields and fertile valleys, of northern 
 Spain. The Spanish masses, although 
 so rudely ignorant, have a general respect 
 for art, and I was struck with the fact, 
 during the Revolution of 1869, that no- 
 where in the peninsula were the rich 
 treasures of art in any way disturbed 
 or injured. Even in the monasteries, 
 through which the vindictive crowds of 
 Valencian peasantry poured in 1868 and 
 1869, the paintings were not touched. 
 There was none of the iconoclastic bru- 
 tality of the Belgian mobs in the days 
 when the Spaniard carried persecution 
 into the north. The museum of the 
 Prado, as it is generally called, was 
 founded in 1735, under the reign of 
 Charles III., and according to the plans 
 of a famous architect named Villa Nueva. 
 It was originally designed to receive col- 
 lections illustrating natural history ; but 
 King Ferdinand VII. brought together 
 there the great numbers of paintings 
 which had been scattered through the 
 different royal palaces; and in 1819, 
 after immense sums had been expended, 
 the museum was opened to the public. 
 It offers, like so many things in Spain, a 
 curious contrast of magnificence aud 
 
 meanness. Many of the corridors and 
 halls are badly lighted, and insufficiently 
 fitted for the display of the splendid 
 canvases which adorn them. The works 
 of the masters are huddled together 
 without any particular attempt at ar- 
 rangement, and even the most adroit 
 student of art comes away from the 
 Prado with a bad headache and a confused 
 vision of Titian, Tintoretto, Michael 
 Angelo, Correggio, Guido, Mantegna, 
 Andrea del Sarto, Paul Veronese, Velas- 
 quez. Goya, Murillo, and Ribera, float- 
 ing before his eyes. The Flemish school 
 is naturally well represented, for the 
 Spaniard has had ample opportunity to 
 make rich collections in the northern 
 lands ; and the Rubens gallery is remark- 
 able both for the splendor of the canvases 
 and for the great number of them. The 
 citizens of Madrid are especially proud 
 of the specimens of the Spanish school 
 of painting, particularly of those of 
 Velasquez, who was a great favorite of 
 King Philip IV., and who died in Madrid 
 in 1660. There are threescore paintings 
 from the hand of this noble artist in the 
 Madrid Museum, and among the most 
 celebrated of them are the famous 
 "Christ on the Cross," — an admirable 
 study of the nude of most elevated and 
 startling realism ; the noted " Bor- 
 rachos," the " Vulcan's Forge ; " the 
 '• Surrender of Breda ; " and the won- 
 derful " Menines." This celebrated pict- 
 ure, which Luca Giardano called the 
 " theology of paintiug," represents Velas- 
 
1 1 -J EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 quez engaged upon the portraits of a fine painting. In gems and jewels 
 
 Philip IV. and others of the royal family, the Prado Museum is very rich, perhaps 
 
 who are surrounded b\ their ladies of richer than any of the great museums 
 
 honor, the officers of the palace and their in Paris and London, 
 dwarfs. This dazzling page of color, Bui in public buildings Madrid is 
 
 and the other equally remarkable picture, almost us poor as American cities which 
 
 known to art lovers as the " Fileuses," only date from the beginning of this 
 
 appear to justify the extravagant note century. The Royal Palace is medi- 
 
 of praise sounded by a French critic, who ocre in appearance. The Opera-house 
 
 said thai it seemed as it' the hand of is plain and unimposiug. The Palace of 
 
 Velasquez had taken no part in the the Cortes, where the legislative bodies 
 
 execution of his works, but thai all of assemble; the Archaeological Museum, 
 
 theni had been created by a pure act of and the Palace of St. Ferdinand, an- not 
 
 volition on his part. In the Prado especially striking, although the facade 
 
 there are also forty-six pictures from the of the Palace of the Cortes is decorated 
 
 hand of Murillo ; and Ribera, the great with two noble lions in bronze, the work 
 
 naturalist, is represented by fifty-eighl of the sculptor Ponzano, and moulded 
 
 pictures, almost Shakespearian in their out of the bronze cannons taken in the 
 
 variety of manner, composition, and old campaign in Morocco. In the 
 
 style. Of Morales, of the amusing, Royal Palace is one of the most ample 
 
 touching, and sometimes terrible, pictures collections of tapestries in the world, and 
 
 of Goya, there is little room to speak here, this is reckoned among one of the chief 
 
 One is Idl to inquire how it is that riches of the domain of the Spanish 
 
 foreign scl Is of ait are so much better crown. It is said that there are more 
 
 represented in this vast and splendid than eight hundred of these tapestries, 
 
 museum than the Spanish school; and most of them extremely interesting from 
 
 one soon learns that the accumulation of an historical as well as an artistic point 
 
 these treasures of the Italian and the of view. Among the most noted of the 
 
 Flemish school was made during the cen- compositions is the Conquest of Tunis, 
 
 tin -valid a half when Spain was mistress of by Charles V. This merits a few words 
 
 Italy and Flanders; when she had the of description. The original designs 
 
 treasures from the two Americas floating were the work of Jehan Cornelius \ er- 
 
 in steady streams into her coffers, and may, known in Flanders under the name 
 
 when the kings of Spain were the best of dan Mel de Baar; in Spain he was 
 
 patrons of men like Titian and Rubens, sometimes called Barba Longa, the ori- 
 
 Velasquez was twice sent into Italy by gin of which name is easily traced. lie 
 
 Philip IV., with orders to buy the best came into Spain from Flanders in 1534, 
 
 pictures he could find without any refer- called thither by Charles V.. who took 
 
 nee to economy in price. The Spanish him along to Tunis, thai he might per- 
 
 royalty, too, took advantage of the petuate, in tapestry, the presumable 
 
 auction sale of the gallery of King glories of the expedition. Charles came 
 
 Charles I., of England, in 1648; and. home successful from his campaign ; and 
 
 furthermore, it was the fashion for all in 1546 Vermay had finished his compo- 
 
 thc Spanish grandees, al least once sitious illustrative of the different battles 
 
 during the reign of a sovereign, to and victories. Yet it was not until 1554 
 
 present to him some artistic gift, usually that the designs. had been reproduced in 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 113 
 
 tapestry. Six years and a half the webs 
 were on the looms. The artist, it is 
 curious to note, who made the designs, 
 was paid but 1,800 florins, while the 
 master-worker in tapestry received 
 14,570 florins, besides which he was 
 paid 8,500 florins for gold thread, 6,600 
 livres for silks, which had been dyed in 
 Granada in sixty different dyes. Another 
 tapestry illustrates the Acts of the 
 Apostles. It, is not only in the royal 
 palaces that tapestries of value are to he 
 found. Hundreds of impoverished Span- 
 ish families still possess, stowed away in 
 garrets, or hung, floating in some windy 
 corridor of their decaying mansions, 
 tapestries, which, if their pride would 
 allow them to sell them, would keep them 
 comfortably provided with money for 
 many a year. A rich amateur. American 
 or English, occasionally makes an ex- 
 cursion into the peninsula, and ransacks 
 these Madrid garrets, generally with 
 marked profit and success. 
 
 On my first visit to Spain I did not 
 see ancient and romantic Toledo, a 
 strange, quaint city, which lingers like 
 a protest against the present, on its 
 bluffs beside the foaming Tagus. But I 
 hastened to repair my error on the oc- 
 casion of my second visit, ami accord- 
 ingly set forth in the evening train on 
 the two hours' journey between Madrid 
 and the old fortress town. Spanish 
 suburban railways are as capriciously 
 managed as are the main lines. One is 
 never certain that he will arrive at bis 
 destination at the hour iudieated by the 
 time-taliles ; in fact, he is never sure 
 that he will arrive at all. I fell asleep 
 on the way to Toledo, and. suddenly 
 being awakened by a cold wind striking 
 on my lace, found that we had come to 
 a dead halt in a melancholy plain, and 
 that one of the doors of the carriage 
 was open. In a corner near me sat a 
 
 mysterious person, entirely enveloped in 
 his cloak, so that had I made the most 
 persistent effort to see his face I could 
 not have done so. The Spanish cloak has 
 a vast amount of character in it. When 
 hanging loosely from the shoulders it 
 conveys the impression that its owner is 
 free from guile ; but when wound about 
 him. and half concealing his face, it im- 
 parts to the most innocent the air of an 
 assassin, or. at least, a fugitive from 
 justice. When it quite swallows up the 
 man in its voluminous folds it has 
 something ghostly and enchanted about 
 it. which quite controls the attention. I 
 could not refrain from looking again and 
 again at my mysterious fellow -passenger 
 in the corner. I expected to sec a noble 
 cavalier, with a tremendous frown, come 
 forth; but at the end of the journey, 
 when the man condescended to uncloak, 
 he turned out to be nothing but a rather 
 ordinary commercial traveller in a shabby 
 tweed suit. 
 
 Judging by the liuhis gleaming on an 
 acclivity beyond the plain that we were 
 near the end of our railway ride, I rescued 
 my fellow-passenger from the mass of 
 rugs, blankets, overcoats, valises, and 
 guide-books, into which he had fallen in 
 the unconsciousness of sleep, and we set 
 our gaze forward, as many a. traveller did 
 when exploring his way across those 
 dreary plains at nightfall centuries ago, 
 when roads were unsafe, and when men- 
 at-arms went in twos and threes for 
 mutual aid and protection. The superb 
 moonlight lent a, poetical glamor to the 
 most common and vulgar objects on this 
 December evening in the south. The 
 pools in some of the marshes which we 
 passed were lik( flakes of molten silver. 
 Shadows in the long grass rose up and 
 disappeared with strange rapidity. A 
 cottage or a hovel, with a well-sweep be- 
 fore it, a fortified grange, or a grove be- 
 
114 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 side a rippling stream, looked eminently 
 picturesque. In one place we caught a 
 glimpse of a belated shepherd, hurrying 
 his bleating flock to shelter; in another 
 we saw a lew rude men seated on the 
 ground around a blazing fire. Few 
 houses which we passed had any lights 
 at the windows; indeed, many of them 
 had no windows worthy of the name. 
 The interior of a Spanish dwelling of the 
 ordinary elass has made small progress 
 iu embellishment and comfort since the 
 time when Cervantes wrote. We felt that 
 we should have preferred to arrive in a 
 diligence, or on horseback, rather than hi 
 the extremely prosaic railway-ear. Pres- 
 ently we rolled into a small station, and 
 there was a cry of " Toledo." Then 
 every one made a simultaneous rush for 
 the omnibus. 
 
 In. this gloomy, although roomy, convey- 
 ance we obtained some ideas as to the 
 discomforts which we should have suffered 
 in a diligence, and repented of our late 
 desire for it. We were packed in as 
 tightly as nails in a board, and while we 
 were suffocating, fat Spaniards dropped 
 their valises upon our toes, and heaped 
 their parcels upon our laps, while they 
 proceeded with great, gravity to light 
 their cigarettes. The roof of the crazy 
 conveyance was heaped with luggage ; 
 we could hear the driver indulge in a 
 hundred untranslatable imprecations; 
 then tlie mules jumped, and away we 
 went into the seemingly open country. 
 We crossed an ancient bridge, beneath 
 which a river was roaring. 
 
 Presently we began to climb a hill, 
 and then the brilliant moonlight showed 
 us an antique parapet guarding the 
 brinks of precipitous cliffs, around 
 which we wound our upward way, the 
 tower surrounded with walls far above 
 us. and nates proudly uplifting their 
 venerable heads against time. All that 
 
 we had dreamed of fascinating as be- 
 longing to the approaches to Toledo 
 was here more than fulfilled. Far 
 below us, on the uneven plain, a few 
 lights danced and flickered like will-of- 
 the-wisps, as perhaps they were. Not 
 a sound came from the city; I could 
 have fancied it spellbound by a magi- 
 cian. 
 
 Now we crossed a tiny square, sur- 
 rounded by tall, narrow, many-balconied 
 buildings; and now our omnibus clat- 
 tered through streets so narrow that 
 the sleek sides of the mules seemed to 
 graze the sides of the houses on either 
 hand. But the Spanish Jehu landed us 
 safely at last in front of a hostelry, 
 which, humble enough of exterior, proved 
 capacious and comfortable within. It 
 was a veritable fonda ; with huge wooden 
 shutters to the windows, and with bra- 
 zeros to warm the apartments; with a 
 profusion of dark passages and mys- 
 terious retreats, and sunny house-tops, 
 where the guests made their rendezvous 
 
 in the morning; and with a dining-room, 
 the walls of which were lined with pict- 
 ures illustrative of the chivalrous career 
 of tlie Knight of La Mancha, as well as 
 with daggers and Toledo blades innu- 
 merable. 
 
 It was in this chamber, suggestive of 
 duels and sudden deaths, and with ra- 
 piers hanging almost literally over our 
 heads, that we took our frugal midnight 
 supper ; and while \ve ate fresh eggs and 
 lean cutlets, fried in oil, ami drank 
 thimblefuls of musty wine, we heard 
 the voice of the sereno, not unmusically 
 proclaiming tlie fact that it was twelve 
 o'clock ami serene. Toledo seemed 
 more than serene. It seemed more ami 
 more to us as if the old town were iu 
 an enchanted sleep. 
 
 We dressed next morning, shivering 
 in the cool air; for it was December, 
 
EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 115 
 
 and December has its asperities in 
 Spain as well as in more northward 
 climates. We opened the windows, 
 hoping to get warm. This sounds odd, 
 but it is the literal truth: go out of the 
 house into the open air if you wish to 
 be warm in Spain. The sun is the life, 
 the heat, the universal rejoicer. When 
 he goes down to rest at night every- 
 thing seems to take on a sinister and 
 melancholy aspect for an hour or two 
 as if in sullen dejection because of the 
 departure of the monarch of day. 
 When a Spaniard passes from the shade 
 to the sunlight his face brightens in- 
 voluntarily, even though he may have 
 his nose enveloped in his gloomy cloak. 
 So we opened the windows, and looked 
 out over the plain which Toledo so 
 proudly dominates; and here, before 
 we went down to visit the town, we 
 read the pretty legend about the origin 
 of the Moorish victories over I he Goths. 
 Toledo, as all the world knows, passed 
 with the rest of Spain in the fifth century 
 from the hands of the Romans into 
 those of the Goths ; and in Toledo the 
 Gothic kings held their Court in the 
 sixth century. Two hundred years 
 after that, Rodriguez, the last of the 
 Gothic kings, was conquered on the 
 hanks of the Guadalete by the Moors, 
 swarming in from Africa. 
 
 The legend tells of the mysterious 
 grotto of Hercules, a subterranean laby- 
 rinth, which is said to extend for more 
 than three leagues outside the walls of 
 Toledo. The entrance to this labyrinth, 
 says the story, was closed by an iron 
 gate, studded with massive bolts and 
 nails, and was on the highest site in the 
 town, at the place now occupied by a 
 shabby Catholic church. The entrance, 
 it is said, was walled up, by order of 
 Cardinal Siliceo, in 1546. Here stood, 
 in the ancient days, the palace founded 
 
 by Tubal, and restored and enlarged by 
 Hercules, who was a magician before the 
 Greeks made a god of him, and who here 
 built the enchanted tower containing 
 many talismans and menacing inscrip- 
 tions. Among these latter was one which 
 read: "A ferocious and barbaric- nation 
 will invade Spain whenever any one shall 
 enter into this magic circle." Every 
 Gothic king, trembling with fear lest this 
 terrible and mysterious prophecy might 
 lie realized, felt it his duty to add new bolts 
 and locks to the mysterious door- way lead- 
 ing into the grotto. But Rodriguez, not 
 having the fear of magic before his eves, 
 and hopingto find important treasure con- 
 cealed in the labyrinth, one day banished 
 his courtiers and his guard, and went 
 along to the old iron door, on which for 
 centuries had stood respected the inscrip- 
 tion in Greek letters: "The king who 
 shall open this door and discover the mar- 
 vels beyond it will see much good and evil." 
 Rodriguez, with sudden resolution, or- 
 dered the bolts to be torn away, and went 
 into the grotto. lie soon arrived in a 
 vast chamber, with walls of hewn stone, 
 in the middle of which stood a bronze 
 statue of terrible aspect. It held in its 
 hand weapons with which it struck upon 
 the floor. But Rodriguez went straight 
 up to the statue and asked permission to 
 go farther on. The bronze warrior then 
 ceased to strike upon the floor, and Rod- 
 riguez, pushing on, soon found a coffer, 
 on the cover of which was written : " He 
 who opens me will see marvels." It was 
 too late to hesitate now, so lie opened 
 the box. but was annoyed to find in it 
 nothing except a canvas which he un- 
 rolled. Upon it were figured troops of 
 strange men. their heads girt with tur- 
 bans, and with lances and bucklers in their 
 hands ; and underneath them ran the 
 inscription : " He who shall have opened 
 this box will have ruined Spain, and will 
 
111! EUROPE IS STORM AND CALM. 
 
 be conquered by a nation like those Toledo;" and I warrant you thai each 
 
 painted on this canvas." one is registered in sonic huge black 
 
 King Rodriguez went out of the grotto book, and lias to give some small per- 
 
 lilled with sadness and presentiment of centage of his receipts to a grasping 
 
 trouble. That night a terrible tempest official. Men or women must be of very 
 
 broke over Toledo, and the Tower of little account in Spain to escape govern- 
 
 Hercules was destroyed, it was not mental cupidity. A good part of the 
 
 long after these events that the Arabs frightful hubbub which we now heard 
 
 began to pour into Spain, where they were was due to the fancy of some other trav- 
 
 destined to remain for many centuries, ellers, who from the balcony next ours 
 
 Toledo was at first governed in the name were tossing coppers to the beggars, and 
 
 of i he Caliphs of the Orient by chiefs or watching the struggles of the wretches to 
 
 by officers, who soon, however, declared gel them from each other. An evil-ej'ed 
 
 their independence. The Moorish kings old man, in a soiled hat, a tattered 
 
 of Toledo kept their sovereignty there blanket, a patriarchal beard, and a pair 
 
 until 1085, when Alfonso VI., King of of red soldier trousers, had incurred the 
 
 Castile, drove them out, after a siege animosity of all the other beggars by his 
 
 which had lasted many vears. Then agility ; and the travellers were now a trifle 
 
 Toledo became the capital of the kings appalled to see that their generosity 
 
 of Castile, and remained so until the might possibly be the cause of a fray. 
 
 middle of the sixteenth century, when In fact, a woman and two overgrown 
 
 Philip II. took the Court to Madrid. boys, who had succeeded in picking up 
 
 We were so engrossed in our hooks none of die pence, were threatening the 
 
 that for some time we did nol notice the old man with instant dissolution unless 
 
 hubbub in the street below ; but presently he agreed to divide. lie defended liis 
 
 we looked down, where two or three booty as he could, ami already windows 
 
 straggling ravs of sunshine had found were opened on the other side of the 
 
 their way to the very flag-stones, and street, and ladies appeared, making ap- 
 
 lighted up as picturesque a group of pealing gestures to the travellers not to 
 
 vagabonds as ever sprouted on (he soil encourage this cupidity any farther. 
 
 of Spain. ■• Are all the beggars in the Oaths, entreaties, words neither tit for 
 
 province aware of our arrival?" said my ears polite norimpolite, flew from beggar 
 
 companion. It really seemed as if they to beggar, with great rapidity, and aston- 
 
 were, and were overjoyed to see us, for ished us. The red-legged sinner, disdain- 
 
 they set up a yell of delight when our ing the danger in which lie stood, took 
 
 attention rested upon them, and all. ex- off his hat, and solicited or begged our 
 
 cept one or two lame ones, began dancing patronage anew, with a whining " Por 
 
 about a.s if possessed with the devil. Dins, Senores ! " 
 
 Poorsoulsl they were certainly possessed Whether or not it would have ended 
 
 of little else, for there were scarcely in bl 1 I do not know, for it was luckily 
 
 rags among the lot decently to cover the interrupted by the music of a tine mili- 
 
 nakedness of one-half their number ; and tary baud and by sharp words of com- 
 
 yet these rascals were all licensed to beg. mand from officers. Before the beggars 
 
 Each one wore round his or her neck had had time to eel well ranged on the 
 
 a string, from which depended a brass sunshiny side of the street, with their 
 
 bad'je. bearing tile words. ■• Pobre <U backs against tin' walls, one of the tin- 
 
EUROPE /.V STORM AND r.U.M 
 
 17 
 
 est-looking regiments I had ever seen 
 marched past. I doubt if any country 
 could have produced a liner collection of 
 shapely and intelligent young men than 
 thai embodied in this regiment. There 
 were traces of refinement and culture in 
 every face, and we could not help think- 
 ing that it was a sad waste to concentrate 
 all this young talent upon such a branch 
 
 Toledo we found two or three of these 
 eadels, promenading or standing beneath 
 balconies, conversing with ladies who 
 were as invisible to them as to us. 
 After seeing a few interviews of this 
 fashion one can understand the strange 
 surprises of which old Spanish comedies 
 are full. One needs to be extremely 
 careful when doing his Sunday courting. 
 
 Wp 7 ' ) fpJ> iw^ 1 ' 
 
 ALCAZAR AND WALLS OF TOLEDO. 
 
 of the public service as the army, when 
 good men are needed in so many other 
 professions in Spain. These youths 
 were the pupils of the great military 
 school of Toledo, whence six hundred 
 cadets an' sent forth at frequent periods. 
 Their college was formerly the Hospital 
 of the Holy Cross, and is one of the 
 most interesting monuments of the town. 
 Wherever we went during our stay in 
 
 to make sure that 
 
 ,j3*f" itis his love, and nother 
 
 mother, or her maiden 
 
 aunt, whom he is talking 
 
 up to. 
 
 When the regiment 
 had passed we closed our windows 
 to discourage the beggars, and pres- 
 ently sallied forth to view the town, 
 beginning, as wise travellers always 
 do, with a purposeless stroll hither 
 and yon. In the course of this per- 
 ambulation we discovered that Toledo 
 is wonderfully clean for a Spanish town ; 
 that order and decency seem every- 
 where to prevail, and that one might 
 pass a comfortable existence there if he 
 were a good son of the Church, and 
 passionately devoted to its history, an- 
 tiquities, observances, and splendors; 
 for Toledo is nought but an ancient 
 
118 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AMI CALM. 
 
 fortress, filled with churches and convents 
 and with the ruins of convents and 
 churches. The railway and the govern- 
 ment manufactory of arms, the only two 
 tilings distinctly modern, are a long way 
 outside the town limits. On the high 
 hills, where old Toledo sits enthroned, 
 erailled with walls which have defied the 
 centuries, no spindles hum, no looms 
 clash. You wonder in vain on what the 
 population lives; you cannot find out. 
 But it certainly does live, and live well ; 
 for as the hour of the mid-day meal 
 approaches you see hundreds of pretty 
 olive-colored servant-girls, hurrying to 
 their employers' homes, with market- 
 baskets piled high with appetizing dis- 
 play of vegetables, fruits, and meat, 
 and with sundry fat bottles protruding 
 from among the other treasures. There 
 arc eighteen thousand or twenty thou- 
 sand people in Toledo, and only a small 
 percentage of the number subsists by 
 begging. The others live. Ah! how- 
 do theV live ? 
 
 They evidently cared little for our 
 opinion of them. They looked down 
 from their windows at us with a cer- 
 tain delicate scorn in their glances as if 
 thinking, "Here are more barbarians 
 come to view the proofs of our former 
 grandeur." We finished our ramble at 
 the Alcazar, a beautiful edifice, which 
 stands upon the site of an old Gothic 
 fortress. It was almost entirely I milt 
 by Charles V. and by Philip II. It was 
 burned in 1710 by the armies, German, 
 English, Dutch, and Turk, during the 
 war of the Succession. Charles III. had 
 the magnificent staircase and many other 
 parts of tin' structure restored in 1772; 
 hut it was again burned in 1812, and 
 now the Spaniards have courageously 
 rebuilt it anew. The patio, or interior 
 court, with its majestic columns and the 
 staircase of honor, won our respect and 
 
 reverence. From the Alcazar we went 
 down to the large irregular square, sur- 
 rounded by uneven arcades, where the 
 populace collects in crowds when the 
 sun is hot; and on this day it was hot 
 indeed. People sat motionless on the 
 greatstone benches, absorbing, as I have 
 seen them do in Florida, the divine 
 beauty of the air and the sun. Mule- 
 teers from the country round about had 
 cast themselves on the ground near their 
 beasts, and were lazily smoking and 
 dreaming. None of these men, of what- 
 ever class, felt worried about the uses or 
 abuses of life, the shadow of the grave, 
 or any such nonsense ; and I felt sure 
 that had they possessed intelligence 
 enough to comprehend the purport of 
 
 Mr. Mallock's I k, "Is Life worth 
 
 Living?" they would have waved it 
 gently aside as an intellectual atrocity, 
 not worth their serious attention. Some- 
 thing of the calm and dignity of the Moor- 
 ish gateways and the massive cathedral 
 walls seems to have crept into the de- 
 meanor and the thought of these good 
 people of Toledo. 
 
 The shopkeepers do not seem much 
 in earnest. There were no rich shops, 
 filled with articles of luxury for sale, 
 such as one would be sure to find in a 
 town of twenty thousand inhabitants in 
 America. People have finished their 
 buying of furniture, pictures, and plate, 
 and so great bazaars, filled with such 
 things, are lacking. The chemist and 
 the tailor had a melancholy look. They 
 did not seem to be over-confident of a 
 paying patronage ; but saddle and har- 
 ness, horse-gear and mule-gear, stirrups 
 and belts, daggers and pistols, guns and 
 knives, were evidently in constant de- 
 mand. Spain is still the country of the 
 wandering horseman, armed to the teeth, 
 and ready for adventures on hill or in 
 valley. From this sun-blessed square. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Hit 
 
 with its dozing crowd, we wont down to 
 the smaller place in front of the mighty 
 cathedral. Here, again, we found dozens 
 of persons basking in the sun, a few 
 children gambolling in a slow, lazy fash- 
 ion, not even deigning to get out of 
 our way, but allowing us to walk over 
 them. 
 
 This great church, which men labored 
 at for two hundred and fifty years 
 before its exterior was complete, and 
 which is a pearl of Gothic architecture, 
 threw a frowning shadow across our 
 path. It seemed warning us to set aside 
 the light and trifling spirit of the super- 
 cilious traveller, in which we had been 
 viewing and commenting upon things all 
 that morning, and to approach its won- 
 ders in reverential attitude. I sat down 
 on a bench in front of the church and 
 studied the rich portals until quite lost 
 to everything else. The men who wrote 
 in this stone book, as Victor Hugo would 
 say, of hell, of pardon, and of the judg- 
 ment, were blessed with elevated imagi- 
 nation. It is not a little suggestive of 
 the spirit of the Catholic church, that 
 the page, or the portal, devoted to par- 
 don is the most elaborately rich. This 
 is exquisitely beautiful, worth journey- 
 ing hundreds of miles by Spanish railway 
 to see. The others are sometimes rude in 
 detail, but powerful in ensemble. From 
 the right of this monstrous facade, the 
 stones in which seem to breathe forth 
 life, springs the graceful church-tower, 
 ninety yards high, and holding in its 
 belfry a chime, one bell of which weighs 
 forty thousand pounds. On the left is 
 the renowned Mozarabic chapel, sur- 
 mounted by a handsome octagonal cu- 
 pola. This fronts the west, and the 
 glories of the setting sun linger on it 
 winter and summer evenings before they 
 settle down to turn the ruddy waters of 
 the Tagus for a moment into a flood of 
 
 molten gold. There are no less than 
 twenty-three chapels, which are so many 
 little churches, all grouped around the 
 greater cathedral, and they were spe- 
 cially constructed, at widely divided 
 epochs, as places of burial for celebrated 
 warriors and churchmen. It was in G67, 
 if we may believe the pious tradition, 
 that the Virgin appeared to St. Ilde- 
 fonso, Bishop of Toledo ; Imt this church 
 had been founded a century before by 
 a Gothic king converted to Catholicism. 
 After the invasion of the Moors the 
 cathedral, of course, became a mosque, 
 and the Moors kept it as their place of 
 worship even after the triumphal entry of 
 Alfonso VI., until one night the Chris- 
 tians arose, and, violating their prom- 
 ise, took back the old cathedral, and 
 consecrated it anew to their own worship. 
 The foundations of the present cathedral 
 were laid in 1227, and the edifice was fin- 
 ished in 1493. When we had concluded 
 our study of this facade we went round to 
 the southern one. to the Door of the 
 Lions, as it is called. We tried in vain 
 to examine the beautiful small statues 
 with which the portal was studded. 
 The effort made our heads ache and 
 brought black spots before our eyes. 
 Northward arose the high and forbidding 
 wnlls of the cloister and dozens of an- 
 cient houses, with carveu fronts and 
 windows protected with iron railings, 
 also carved with hundreds of quaint de- 
 vices. Behind the church, in a gloomy 
 building, now a posada, once sat the 
 Holy Inquisition, and from the vaults 
 sometimes were heard, in the old days, 
 the shrieks and groans of tortured i ris- 
 oners. 
 
 We went into the cathedral and found 
 preaching in progress. After a long 
 walk through the shades we came to 
 the central structure, found in all 
 Spanish churches, and which in this im- 
 
120 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM 1X0 CALM. 
 
 pressive cathedral is of must fabulous 
 magnificence. Our eyes wandered from 
 alabaster figures of saints and martyrs 
 <lii\\n to the precious and richly carved 
 walls of wood on which they rested, and 
 then up to the frowning and monstrous 
 columns of marble. One could but 
 faintly describe this coro, for the amount 
 of detail fatigues the sense of observa- 
 tion. In a high pulpit, which seemed to 
 spring as lightly as the blossom <>t' a 
 honeysuckle from among the gigantic 
 pillars, was a priest, lecturing a large 
 procession of red-cloaked seminarists, 
 who sat submissively below him. The 
 
 OX-like beatitude of these youths' l'aees 
 
 impressed me. 1 wondered if they hail 
 really got the vocation, or if their pas- 
 sions were still asleep. We thought 
 that, considering the absolute humility of 
 his audience, the priest was rather em- 
 phatic and declamatory. In the live 
 enormous naves of the church and in all 
 the chapels ran an odor of incense, soft, 
 sweet, and penetrating. It seemed to 
 enter our very souls. My companion 
 rebelled against it. He said lie felt as 
 if there were a kind of moral taint, a 
 species of spiritual subjection in it, and 
 he longed to get into the open air. 
 
 Hut even he was half persuaded 
 to bow in adoration before a deli- 
 cate and perfect marble group, repre- 
 senting the Virgin and the Child, on 
 the spot where the Virgin is supposed 
 to have appeared to St. Ildefonso when 
 lie brought down the holy chasuble. He 
 stood and watched the faithful as they 
 came one by one to touch the stone on 
 which the divine mother was said to 
 
 have set her feet, and his l'aee took" on a 
 kind of awe as he saw the fervor and 
 sincerity of these simple ones, who 
 believe that the stone has certain power- 
 ful virtues. All the beautiful French and 
 Knglish cathedrals sink into insignifi- 
 cance beside this of Toledo. Spaniards 
 themselves think that the exterior archi- 
 tecture of this church is inferior to that 
 of tiie Cathedral of Burgos; but the 
 superb mass of seemingly inexhaustible 
 riches collected within tin: walls over- 
 whelms the spectator. Here the past is 
 crystallized. This is at once cemetery 
 and temple of worship, volume of his- 
 tory, ami museum of antiquities. Poetry 
 and romance are in every corner. Knights 
 and ladies, famous long ago, seem to 
 sleep lightly on their sculptured tombs 
 ami to be ready to arise at a signal. The 
 red hat of a cardinal hangs above a mar- 
 ble sarcophagus. How long has it been 
 there? Longer than the United States 
 has been a nation. 
 
 And when the priest had finished his 
 sermon, and the red-cloaked seminarists 
 had gone forth, and the women who 
 had been squatting on the stone pave- 
 ment had arisen and departed, tremulous 
 organ-music stole through the air, and 
 came to us like a benediction. From 
 the hidden choir rose the pure voices of 
 boy choristers, singing praises over and 
 over again, while the round voices of 
 monks chimed the responses. We 
 were about to leave the cathedral, but 
 we could not. The magic of the music 
 was all-powerful. We sat down in a 
 corner and listened. 
 
El ROPE TN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 J 21 
 
 CHAPTER TWELVE. 
 
 Dead Celebrities. — Don Alvaro tie I. una and his Famous Chapel in Toledo. — The Ancient Gates. — The 
 Cloister of San Juan dc I.<>^ Reyes. — Cordova. — The Mezquita. — A Tit-lie of the Moors. — The 
 Plain of Seville. — The Giralda. — The Cathedral. — The Gardens of the Alcazar. — The Duke oi 
 Montpensicr. 
 
 OPAIX lias more dead than living 
 k_? celebrities within her limits, and 
 among them nunc is more worthy of a 
 note of respectful admiration than the 
 old constable Don Alvaro De Lima, 
 whose tomb is in this ancient Cathedral 
 of Toledo, in the Santiago Chapel, one 
 of the best specimens of the highest 
 period of florid Gothic art. In this ex- 
 quisite chapel reposes on a white marble 
 tomb the body of the great constable, 
 who had such a romantic history, and 
 who finished his career upon the scaffold 
 in 1453. The Spaniards say that the 
 constable, who was very pious, had 
 arranged, years before any thought of 
 death had touched his spirit, that his 
 mausoleum should have a statue which 
 should kneel down during mass, and 
 might rise up again at the end of the 
 holy office. This strange order was 
 carried into effect, and the statue was, 
 so the legend runs, placed in the cathe- 
 dral ; but the great Isabel ordered it to 
 be removed because of the irreverent 
 nature of the curiosity which it provoked 
 among the faithful. 
 
 Don Alvaro first makes his appearance 
 in history as a page in the service of the 
 young King John II., in 1408, while the 
 king was still under the tutelage of the 
 queen mother. The two young people 
 were united in the closest bonds of 
 friendship, hut the courtiers became 
 jealous of the influence which the page 
 
 had upon the king, anil separated the 
 
 two children ; whereupon the young 
 monarch fell into such a profound mel- 
 ancholy that his beloved Don Alvaro 
 was summoned hack to court at once. 
 Thenceforward the path of the ambi- 
 tious page was strewn with proofs of 
 royal favor, and it, was not many years 
 before he attained the highest office in 
 the kingdom. — that of Constable <>f 
 Castile. 
 
 In 1431 he was victorious in the famous 
 battle in which the Moors were pursued 
 even to the walls of Granada. The vic- 
 tory of Olmedo delivered King John II. 
 from the ambitious intrigues of his 
 cousin; and for this feat of arms, which 
 was, perhaps, the proudest in Don 
 Alvaro's career, he received every honor 
 and courtesy which his royal master could 
 bestow upon him. Hut thereafter his 
 fortunes declined. John II. became 
 jealous of him, and was, so the legend 
 says, anxious to seize upon the immense 
 riches which the constable had accumu- 
 lated. 
 
 So he ruthlessly exiled his favorite, 
 and then Don Alvaro, for the first time 
 in his life, committed a crime. He be- 
 lieved that he had been supplantedin the 
 favor of the king by a certain Alonzo 
 Perez, who had been his own secretary. 
 He managed to get this ungrateful servi- 
 tor a fatal fall from the top of his house 
 in Burgos, having had the balustrade 
 sawn away, ami pitched after the victim, 
 in order to make the public believe that 
 
122 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AXI) CALM. 
 
 the murder was an accident. Don Alvaro 
 was arrested and handed over to the 
 executioner. His head was exposed in 
 the market-place of Valladolid for nine 
 days, and he who had been for thirty 
 years the most powerful man in Spain 
 was buried by public charity. But in 
 process of time his evil deeds were for- 
 gotten, and Iiis glorious oues seemed to 
 entitle him to the bright place which he 
 
 occupies to-day in the noblest cathedral 
 in northern Spain. 
 
 Another chapel of marked interest is 
 thai of ••The new Kings," which was 
 built under Charles V.. ami in which are 
 many tombs of kings and queens of the 
 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. One 
 begins to understand the reverent awe 
 with which the citizens of Toledo speak 
 of the great, cathedral when he has 
 wandered among those royal tombs, and 
 has learned that within those noble walls 
 is a great epitome of Spanish history. 
 
 From the church we went out for a 
 walk around the old walls of Toledo, and 
 visited in turn the beautiful (late of the 
 Sun ( Puerta del Sol), in which the widely 
 varying styles of the Moresque, the 
 Gothic, and the Renaissance epochs are 
 so strangely united ; and that other 
 ancient gateway, the Al'CO del C'risto de 
 la Luz, under which Alfonso VI. made 
 his triumphal entry into the Toledo which 
 he had won by his sword. We looked 
 down upon the Tagus from the Bridge of 
 Alcantara, which springs airily across a. 
 gigantic chasm, its single arch, in light- 
 ness and beauty, surpassing anything of 
 the kind we had ever seen in northern 
 lands. But of all the treasures of old 
 Toledo none so won our fancy, not even 
 the cathedral so appealed to our poetic 
 sense, as did the Church of San Juan de 
 los Reyes, which stands high above the 
 Bridge of St. Martin, proudly overlook- 
 ing the Tagus. No written description 
 
 can more than faintly reproduce the 
 beauties of this Gothic monument, once 
 a vast church and cloister, which must 
 have been a very haven of delight for 
 the weary churchmen and warriors who 
 reached it alter toiling across the bleak 
 plains and through the dangerous moun- 
 tain passes. It was built in 1470 , by 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, as a votive 
 offering after the famous victory of Toro, 
 gained over their neighbor, the King of 
 Portugal, who was always covetous, ami 
 who supported the intriguing pretender 
 to'the crown of Castile. The portal of 
 the church, a century younger than the 
 church itself, is supremely beautiful ; 
 but the chief gem of the monastery 
 was its cloister, which is the most mirac- 
 ulous specimen of carving in stone that 
 I have ever seen. Its beautiful arches 
 are to-day half-ruined ; the garlands of 
 leaves, of flowers, of birds, of chimeras, 
 and of dragons, are degraded, and many 
 of them have been taken down to be re- 
 produced by the restorer's chisel. The 
 finely carved colonnades, the little 
 groups of pillars, within which lurk the 
 statues of some shy saints, who look 
 down from their refuge as if half afraid 
 of the invading hand of modernism; the 
 rich pedestals, and the standards and 
 dais, worked through and through by the 
 cunning artisans, until they are almost 
 like lace ; the quaint and extravagant 
 fancies of the mediaeval stone-cutters, — 
 all this one despairs of rendering in 
 weak prose. Outside the cloister, and 
 above the door of the convent, through 
 which, to-day. one enters the provincial 
 museum, is a great cross in Gothic style, 
 surmounted by a pelican. On the right, 
 and on tin 1 left are statues of St. John 
 and the Virgin Mary, in the face of 
 which, so say the guides, one sees the 
 veritable lineaments of the Catholic 
 monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. All 
 
EUROPE TN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 123 
 
 felt as if 
 
 around the outside of the church hang 
 uncomfortable masses of iron chains and 
 fetters. These are the votive offerings 
 of the Christian captives, who were given 
 back to liberty at the surrender of 
 Granada. 
 
 When we left Toledo w 
 we had been in an en- 
 chanted city for one 
 hundred years, and had 
 suddenly been thrown 
 back into the cold light 
 of the natural world. 
 We went away, our eyes 
 still dazzled with the 
 treasures which we had 
 seen in the Sacristy of 
 the Cathedral, on the 
 morning before our de- 
 parture. The superb 
 custodia , which was made 
 for the church in 1524, 
 all of gilded silver, in the 
 Cutliie style, was deco- 
 rated with more than two 
 hundred and sixty stat- 
 uettes, and literally cov- 
 ered with diamonds, with 
 emeralds, and with other 
 precious stones. Its cen- 
 tral part, in massive 
 gold, said the pious clerk 
 who showed it to us, was 
 made with the first ore 
 brought back from Amer- 
 ica by Christopher Co- 
 lumbus. There, too, we 
 saw the processional cross in gilded silver, 
 made by a noted craftsman of Toledo in 
 the sixteenth century ; and the standard 
 which was planted by the valiant Car- 
 dinal Mendoza and his men on the for- 
 tress of the Alhambra in Granada in 
 1492. The clerk showed us a Bible 
 of the twelfth century, written upon 
 golden leaves, each leaf beautifully en- 
 
 circled with emeralds and with painted 
 miniatures ; and we could not help cov- 
 eting the reliquaries, of which this good 
 man showed us at least fivescore. 
 
 We went on from cathedral to cathe- 
 dral until we were almost persuaded 
 that all Spain was but tributary to the 
 
 THE rUERTA DEL SOL. 
 
 Catholic shrines, and that the revolu- 
 tionary movements which we had seen 
 in favor of modern progress ami liberty 
 were but the " baseless fabric of a vi- 
 sion." From Toledo we went down, past 
 Aranjuez, to the Alcazar de San Juan, 
 a wretched and ancient town, chiefly 
 memorable in the diaries of travellers 
 because of the discomforts which they 
 
124 EUROPE IN STORM AM> CALM. 
 
 have been obliged to endure at its huge sculptor, all in excellent degree; the 
 
 and comfortless railway station. This borne of the great captain of the fifteenth 
 
 Alcazar was once the capital of the century, Fernandez de Cordova, — isnow 
 
 commanderies of the Knights of St. a melancholy spectacle. Commerce seems 
 
 John. to take wings to itself and fly away from 
 
 We continued our journey into Anda- places which it had mice Messed with its 
 
 lusia. across the barren and monoto- beneficial presence. Under the Romans, 
 
 nous plains of La Mancha, through the under the Moors, even under the Castil- 
 
 country which Cervantes has immortal ians. Cordova was one of the great in- 
 
 ized in ''Don Quixote," through defiles dustrial cities of the world. Its silk 
 
 and along the edges of precipices as factories swarmed with workmen and 
 
 wonderful as those of northern Spain, workwomen, and the manufacture of its 
 
 until we came to old ( 'ordova, half de- stamped and gilded leathers employed 
 
 sert 'd, hut still as picturesque as it was thousands of artisans; hut one by one 
 
 in the time of the Caliphs, when it pos- the sources of its commercial greatness 
 
 sessed two hundred thousand houses, fell away, and there has been no internal 
 
 and. if we may believe the enthusiastic policy, political or commercial, worthy 
 
 Spaniards, eighty thousand palaces, seven the name, in Spain, since the beginning 
 
 hundred mosques, and more than twelve of the century. So it is not wonderful 
 
 thousand villages in its suburbs. The that Cordova shows no si^ns of the 
 
 railway to Cordova passes near the site awakening so perceptible in Barcelona 
 
 of the famous battle of Las Xavas. and the other cities of the north. There 
 
 fought on tin' 12th of .Inly. 1212, when are to-day but a few wretched nmnu- 
 
 the Moors were defeated with a loss of factories of ribbons and of oilt in the 
 
 many thousands of men, and were town ; hut the jewellers are numerous, 
 
 forced to give into the hands of the and their windows are tilled with gold 
 
 Christians the fertile domain of Andalu- and silver work, which is massive and 
 
 sia. where they had been so happy. honestly made, although without much 
 
 It is stupefying to the traveller from delicacy or elegance. 
 
 the Occident to wander through Cor- Cordova had been but little touched 
 
 dova. From whole quarters of the city by the revolutions which succeeded each 
 
 the inhabitants have gone away: long other with such rapidity in the peninsula 
 
 streets are lilhd with houses entirely un- after 1868; but since the revival of the 
 
 occupied, ami here one may learn to un- monarchy of Alfonso XII. there has 
 
 del-stand the gradual ruin which overtook mown up. all through the fertile domain 
 
 the cities of the Last. of Andalusia, a socialistic movement, 
 
 'l'h,' aneient town of the Senecas ami which perhaps had its origin in the suh- 
 
 of Lucan ; the illustrious cradle of the terranean workings of the Internationale 
 
 poets of Cordova, of whom Cicero spoke in 18G9, and the years directly preceding 
 
 with so much enthusiasm; the city in it. The taxation of the present mon- 
 
 which Moorish physicians, surgeons, ami arehy has been almost ruinous for many 
 
 philosophers, jurisconsults, and minis- of the industries of Andalusia, and it is 
 
 ters of state, wrote works which have remarkable with what persistence one 
 
 been translated into half the languages Spanish monarchy follows another Span- 
 
 of Europe; the birthplace of Cespedes. ish monarchy in neglecting to develop 
 
 who was poet, painter, architect, ami the resources of the country. Shortly 
 
EUROPE IJS STORM AND CALM. 
 
 L25 
 
 after returning from a journey in Spain 
 I took up the descriptive itinerary of 
 that country, written nearly fifty years 
 ago by (unite de Laborde, and in it the 
 author, who was a painstaking and care- 
 ful observer, laments that the -whole 
 country between Seville and Jerez de la 
 Frontera, which is naturally one of the 
 most fertile hits of land in the world, is 
 left to run to waste, because the oppres- 
 sive taxation, and the indisposition of 
 the local authorities to aid in making 
 improvements in the provinces, had dis- 
 couraged the farmers. What the Comte 
 de Laborde said fifty years ago is per- 
 fectly true to-day. If progress is made 
 in Spain, always excepting the recent 
 vigorous movements in Catalonia and 
 elsewhere in the north, it may he set 
 down as certain that it is the work of 
 the English or some other enterprising 
 strangers. Andalusia, wrote our observ- 
 ing friend fifty years ago, so abounds 
 in wheat that it has been called the 
 granary of Spain ; but to-day the poorer 
 classes find it difficull to get enough to 
 eat. Probably one of the reasons for 
 tiiis extreme poverty is their unwilling- 
 ness to work ; but there is little induce- 
 ment to labor in a country where the 
 government takes the larger part of 
 one's earnings so soon as one has earned 
 them. 
 
 The society of the Mano Negra, or 
 the Black Hand, was formed a, few 
 years ago in Andalusia, its direct objects 
 being the plunder of the rich and the 
 assassination of the oppressors ; and the 
 creation of this society was provoked 
 exactly like that of the Nihilists in 
 Uussia, by intolerable abuses aud 
 tyranny, from which there seemed no 
 appeal except by conspiracy and vio- 
 lence. 
 
 The jewel of Cordova is its ancient 
 mosque, still called the Mezquita. To- 
 
 day the Holy Church has baptized it as 
 a cathedral; but to the eyes of all the 
 poetically inclined it will still remain the 
 uios(|iie which the splendid Caliph Ab- 
 derahman built in the year 170 of the 
 Hegira, as the Arab chroniclers tell us, 
 and in which have been seen so many 
 splendid parades of Moorish military and 
 civic grandeur. This beautiful structure 
 occupies the site of the first cathedral 
 that the Goths had built on the place 
 where they had found traces of the 
 temple of Janus, which the Romans had 
 erected there. The Mezquita is even 
 built out of the ruins of the two preced- 
 ing structures, and nearly all the columns 
 which are so striking a feature of the 
 mosque are very ancient. The edifice 
 is live hundred and thirty-four feet lone-, 
 and nearly four hundred feet wide 
 within. The walls are built out of 
 Luge stones, hewn coarsely, and uneven 
 in size. The northern side is covered 
 with ornaments in stucco, which are 
 carved with the greatest delicacy ; and 
 at the principal entrance arc six jasper 
 columns of exquisite beauty. A massive 
 square tower rises at one side of this 
 strange building. Its windows are 
 ornamented with white and red marble 
 columns ; and at the top are little arches, 
 in the form of festoons, sustained b\ a 
 great number of diminutive columns. 
 
 The court-yard, nearly two hundred 
 feet long, with a marble fountain in its 
 centre, is another curious feature in 
 the mosque. This is tin- place where 
 the faithful made their daily ablutions 
 after they had left their shoes at the 
 foot of the tower near the entrance 
 This superb court-yard is surrounded on 
 three sides by a tine portico, supported 
 by seventy-two columns. In the middle 
 are planted orange and lemon trees, 
 cypress, palms, and many other tropical 
 and semi-tropical shrubs. Here nature 
 
120 
 
 EUR Or E IN STORM ANT) CALM. 
 
 and art are married in the happiest 
 manner, with that felicity and harmony 
 which the .Moors so well understood. 
 When the troops who accompanied 
 Joseph Bonaparte into Andalusia en- 
 tered this dazzling court-yard for the 
 first time they could not suppress shouts 
 of admiration. The chapter of the 
 cathedral, in its most brilliant costumes, 
 came forward to meet the new monarch, 
 who was destined to have such a short 
 stay ; the people pressed in crowds round 
 the cortige ; and the great enclosure, 
 with its antique, oriental stones, with its 
 African palm-trees spreading above the 
 verdure of the low orange shrubs, which 
 mingled the perfume of their flowers 
 with the incense escaping from the 
 censers ; the branches, which were dee- 
 orated with thousands of ribbons and 
 flags of all colors ; the clash of the drums, 
 and the noise of the artillery outside ; 
 the superb vault of the sky, —in a word, 
 the unusual beauty of animate and inan- 
 imate things formed such an ensemble 
 that the troops, who had French eves 
 for the picturesque, were ravished, ami 
 swore that they would never depart from 
 such a beautiful place. This mosque 
 has seventeen doors, covered with bronze 
 plates. Within the vast structure are 
 nineteen naves, each three hundred and 
 fifty feet long, and more than fourteen 
 feet wide, running from the south to the 
 north; and across these, from east to 
 west, run nineteen smaller naves. All 
 these are formed by long lines of columns, 
 and the effect is as fantastic as beautiful. 
 Many of the columns are of jasper, 
 which closely resembles turquoise ; others 
 are of the finest red, white, and reddish- 
 yellow marble. Most of them ha ve Co- 
 rinthian capitals, and few are more than 
 eleven feet high. There are in this 
 wonderful mosque no less than one then- 
 Band and eighteen of these columns. 
 
 Here are no vaults, but the ceilings are 
 made of simple wood, without ornamen- 
 tation, but beautifully joined together. 
 The mosque was left in its original form 
 until the beginning of the tenth century, 
 at which time the zealous chapter ob- 
 tained from the king, although the citi- 
 zens of Cordova protested against the 
 mutilation of the beautiful monument, 
 permission to build in the centre of the 
 structure a huge chapel, which is like a 
 church within a church. But, in spite of 
 its rich accumulations of marbles, of 
 paintings, of tapestries, and of frescoes, 
 it looks cold and out of place in this 
 Moorish mosque, which seems to attract 
 to it the heat and the translucent color 
 of Africa. 
 
 After a day's wandering in and about 
 this mosque we felt that Cordova had no 
 further charm for us. We did not stay 
 to visit the great Episcopal Palace, with 
 its marble staircase, the balustrades of 
 which are lined with ornaments in bad 
 taste, nor to inspect the seemingly innu- 
 merable portraits of the bishops of Cor- 
 dova, nor the remains of the palace of 
 the Moorish kings, which I fancied ex- 
 isted only in the imagination of the Span- 
 ish chroniclers ; nor to the Royal Palace, 
 which, surrounded by its gloomy walls. 
 
 looks like a citadel occupied by a foreign 
 invader, who is compelled to protect him- 
 self from the inhabitants. Indeed, this 
 might be construed, perhaps, as the 
 present position of the monarchy in 
 Spain. At Cordova one of the old 
 palaces is used as a stable for the splen- 
 did Andalusian horses which are raised 
 in the neighborhood; and in this stable, 
 in 1792, stood six hundred almost price- 
 less horses, the very perfection of their 
 race. The Spanish monarehs of this 
 century have not paid so much attention 
 io horses as to bulls. Here and there in 
 Cordova one sees the spacious enclosures 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 127 
 
 into which the wild bulls are driven when 
 
 they are brought up from the plains to be 
 partially subjugated before they are given 
 over to the pleasures of the 
 populace in the ring. f ; 
 
 From Cordova to Seville is ',. 
 
 a pleasant excursion through 
 one of the most fertile plains 
 in Spain, among the vims 
 and olive trees, through groves 
 of cactus and of palm. The 
 railway is even hedged in by 
 rows of gigantic cacti, which 
 grow in the most fantastic 
 form. Seville stands in the 
 midst of this plain, which is 
 traversed by the Guadalqui- 
 vir. At first sight it is not 
 imposing. The streets are nar- 
 row, tortuous, badly paved. 
 The eleven thousand or 
 twelve thousand houses in 
 the town are very solidly 
 built, and any one of any 
 importance has a great court- 
 yard surrounded by galleries, 
 supported by columns, and 
 has fountains in the centre. 
 The entrance to each of these 
 patios, as the courts are 
 called, is closed by a door of 
 open iron-work, in which the 
 artisans of Seville are very 
 adroit. In summer, when 
 the intense heat falls upon 
 this plain, the inhabitants 
 of Seville live entirely in these open 
 courts, over which they spread gayly 
 colored awnings. They desert their 
 sleeping-rooms and lie on cool couches in 
 the corridors, lulled to rest by the music 
 of the fountains. Hut, as nothing is per- 
 fect in this life, they have a compensat- 
 ing torment in the omnipresent mosquito. 
 
 The foundation of Seville is variously 
 attributed to Hercules, to Bacchus, to 
 
 the Hebrews, to the Chaldeans, and to 
 the Phoenicians. What is certain about 
 the old town's history is, that its inhab- 
 
 A PATIO IX SEVILLE. 
 
 Hants have always manifested a Parisian 
 discontent with their sovereigns and 
 forms of government ; that they have 
 
 sustained three sieges, two of which are 
 among the most remarkable in history; 
 that they revolted against the King of 
 Cordova in the eleventh century, and 
 set up a King of Seville for themselves ; 
 were brought back under the empire of 
 the sovereigns of Cordova ; raised anew 
 
128 EUROPE IN STORM AXD CADI. 
 
 the standard of rebellion in 1111. and point of departure and arrival for the 
 
 again chose a king whose descendants huge fleets which traded to the land of 
 
 laid down the law to Cordova. When the setting sun; when troops of hardy 
 
 Ferdinand II.. Kin",' of Castile and adventurers thronged the quays of the 
 
 Leon, took possession of Cordova ami Guadalquivir, anxious to embark for 
 
 Jaen. in 1236, Seville threw off all an- adventure in America. "Seville," says 
 
 thoritv and declared herself a Republic; a melancholy Spanish writer of thepres- 
 
 that her people should he governed by enl day, " is now a body without a soul; 
 
 the laws which they made for themselves, and yet" — he adds with quaint sad- 
 
 I'.ut Ferdinand II. circled Seville with ness — ••the vessels could go up the 
 
 his forces, and set siege to it in 1217, Guadalquivir to-day as readily as they 
 
 and after twelve months of grim resist- did four hundred years ago." Here 
 
 anee the town succumbed, and was came the gold and silver from the colo- 
 
 thenceforward to lie a jewel in the crown nies ; here were furled the sails of the 
 
 of Castile. galleons after they had been chased 
 
 Tin' two chief beauties of Seville are along the shores by piratical or inimi- 
 
 the Alcazar, the ancient palace of tin' cal fleets, which laid in wait for them 
 
 Moorish kings, which, since the fall of as they came home from the rich West; 
 
 the Moors, has been restored and much here were thousands of workers in 
 
 enlarged, especially in the reign of the silks, in gold and silver tissues, in flax 
 
 sombre and terrible refer the Cruel; and cotton stuffs; but now they are all 
 
 and the Metropolitan church, or cathe- gone. In 160] the seventeen guilds 
 
 dral, a noble twin to that of Toledo, of the city of Seville made a report 
 
 and one of the most splendid edifices in concerning the prosperity of the town. 
 
 Europe. The cathedral, the old tower There were then a great many silk 
 
 of the Giralda, built by El <!el>ir, the factories, employing thirteen thousand 
 
 inventor of Algebra, which is named men and women. Two centuries later 
 
 after him ; the archiepiscopal palace, there were hardly two thousand silk 
 
 and the old library in which lie the weavers in the town, 
 
 thousands of manuscript records con- During two visits in Seville I found 
 
 cerning the discovery of the New World, that the Cathedral commanded and ab- 
 
 — are all grouped together in a beauti- sorbed my attention. As in Venice the 
 
 fill square bordered with orange-trees, stranger naturally makes his way twice 
 
 We were admitted to the library, where or thrice daily to the Place of St. Mark, 
 
 we saw infinite portraits of archbishops so in Seville, whether or not one be 
 
 of Seville, but not many of the discov- piously inclined, he pushes aside the 
 
 erers of America ; ami where we found leathern curtains on the door-ways at 
 
 no books of more recent date than the the entrance of the Cathedral several 
 
 close of the las;, century. But why times each day ; and at each visit to the 
 
 should the library of the church have interior of the great church he finds 
 
 books of recent issue? Seville seems something new on which to feast his eyes, 
 
 to have fallen asleep in its sunny plain Now it is a dance of pages, in mediaeval 
 
 beside the broad, lazy river, and to cost lime, before the great central altar; 
 
 have forgotten the glorious days when now it is a procession, — and where are 
 
 it was the centre of the commerce and the religious processions so picturesque 
 
 the wealth of Spain; when it was the and so rich in color as in Spain? — now 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 1 -20 
 
 a sermon by some buxom friar to a con- sixteen thousand dollars of our money, 
 gregation of one or two thousand ladies, This is carried in the procession on the 
 who are seated on the flag-stones, humbly day of the festival of the Holy Sacrament. 
 taking in the word of the 
 gospel ; now, it is the fu- 
 neral of some nobleman, 
 with majestic singing by 
 seores of monks in the 
 carven stalls of the coro : 
 in short, it is a perpetual 
 succession of spectacles, 
 each one of which has its 
 peculiar charm. 
 
 In the Sacristy are the 
 famous (allies given by 
 Alfonso the < tood to this 
 historic church. They are 
 of gilded silver without, 
 and of gold within, and 
 covered with chiseUings 
 encrusted with precious 
 stones. There, also, is 
 the great silver key, on 
 the wards of which is the 
 inscription, " God will 
 open and the King will 
 enter." Underneath the 
 ringof this key are graven 
 ships, lions, and castles. 
 The custodians say that 
 this was the key given by 
 the Moors to King Fer- 
 dinand when they gave 
 up the city of Seville. 
 There, too, is a majestic 
 chandelier of bronze, 
 which serves for the office 
 of the Holy Week when 
 the streets of Seville are 
 transformed into a vast 
 religious fair, and when the hotels are 
 thronged with visitors from the four quar- 
 ters of the world. This chandelier is tilled 
 with columns, caryatids, statues, and other 
 ornaments in relief. In this Sacristy is the 
 
 BEGGARS AT THE CATHEDRAL I B 
 
 Tabernacle, worth fifteen thousand or 
 
 It is of incomparable richness, and is 
 covered with most curious figures of 
 angels and of saints. 
 
 From the top of the Giralda Tower 
 we looked down upon the great square 
 in which the Inquisition used to roast its 
 
130 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 unhappy victims, and tried to imagine the gallant princes who took part in the 
 
 the scene : but it seemed to us incredible first campaigns in Algeria. Bravery has 
 
 that so sunny, so peaceful, and so beau- always been one of his chief qualities, 
 
 til'ul a place should have been chosen and it stood out in strong relief ill hie 
 
 for the exercise of the rage of the most fatal duel with his cousin, the Infante 
 
 bigoted monks the world has ever known. Don Enrique de Bourbon. The Duke 
 
 We preferred to dismiss from our married, in 184G, the sister of Queen 
 
 thoughts the remembrance of these hoc- Isabel of Spain, a marriage which at the 
 
 rors, recollecting that the Inquisition has time was considered a very adroit piece 
 
 long ago had its teeth drawn, and to call of management on the part of Louis 
 
 up, as we looked over beautiful Seville, Philippe, and caused great irritation, ami 
 
 the poetic figures <>f the great painters almost open rupture, between France and 
 
 and sculptors who have made the town England. 
 
 illustrious. The school of Seville counts The Duke has Keen much disturbed by 
 
 among its glories, Zurbaran, Fernandez, revolutions. After the events of Feb- 
 
 Velasquez, ami Herrera. Murillo was. ruary, 1848, in Paris, he Med to England 
 
 in point of fact, not a native of Seville, with his family; thence to Holland, and 
 
 although the Se\ illans claimed him as afterwards to Seville, where he has 
 
 01 f their own. But hehaslefl in the finally settled in the charming palace 
 
 town n hundred evidences of his great- just mentioned. He was compelled to 
 
 ness. and none more striking than the leave Spain after the fright of Queen 
 
 paintings in the chapel of the hospital Isabel in 1868; gave up his rank in the 
 
 for indigent old men. In this chapel the army, his title of Infante, and his deco- 
 
 paintings are kept reverently screened by rations which he had received from the 
 
 curtains, which the attendant nuns will Queen ; but, under the provisional gov- 
 
 draw away for the stranger who bestows eminent, he got permission to return to 
 
 charity upon the hospital. Seville, and then set up his candidature 
 
 The gardens of the Alcazar seemed for the empty throne. About that time, 
 
 more like the sudden embodiment of a however, his chances were ruined by the 
 
 poet's dream than like the result of the above-mentioned duel, which must cause 
 
 carefully planned luxury of Moorish ami him many a twinge of conscience, al- 
 
 Spanish sovereigns. They are still though his attitude, as men of the world 
 
 maintained in their pristine beauty, and consider such things, was strictly correct, 
 
 are filled with fountains, groves of orange There had long been a quarreJ between 
 
 and lemon trees, and with a profusionof the Duke and his cousin, which was 
 
 delicate tropical plants and flowers. brought to a sanguinary conclusion by 
 
 Not far from these gardens of the Don Enrique's letter, talking about the 
 
 Alcazar is a palace in which resides, for " suborned villains " who were ready to 
 
 some portion of each year, the Duke de proclaim Montpensier King of Spain. 
 
 Montpensier, otherwise known as An- The Duke immediately challenged his 
 
 toine Marie Philippe. Louis d'Orleans. cousin, and met him on the 12th of 
 
 The Duke de Montpensier is a well-known March. Ls7(». on the artillery ground 
 
 figure in half-a-dozen European capitals, about three miles from Madrid. Three 
 
 as he is almost as inveterate a traveller shots were exchanged, the Duke, the third 
 
 as Daniel Pratt. He is the fifth son of time, taking deadly aim and shooting his 
 
 King Louis Philippe, and was among cousin through the head. For this little 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 131 
 
 incident in his career he was tried by 
 court-martial, sentenced to one month's 
 banishment from the capital, and to pay 
 
 an indemnity to the family of bis slain 
 cousin. His political ambitions are per- 
 haps over, for he is now an old man, 
 although still erect and strong, and fond 
 of constant bustle and excitement. In 
 Paris he makes his head-quarters at the 
 H6tel de Londres, which has long been 
 
 a favorite resort for the Orleans family, 
 and from his balcony in the hotel he 
 looked down upon the funeral of Gambetta 
 not long ago. It is sometimes the fash- 
 ion to say that the Duke helps his 
 younger cousins to conspire, but nothing 
 has transpired to prove this. lie is. and 
 will probably remain, as the Comte de 
 Chambord was at the time of his death, 
 a monarchical candidate in partibus. 
 
132 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN. 
 
 The French Empire in 1S69. —Subterranean Throes.— Manifestations. — The As-a—i nation of Victor Noir. 
 - Pierre 1! inapartc. — The /.'•/, of Rochefort.— Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Workmen sing- 
 ing the Marseillaise. — The imperial Press Law. 
 
 WHEN I returned from Spain, in the 
 autumn of 1869, the subterranean 
 throes winch had been announced by the 
 volcanic shimmer were clearly perceptible. 
 The Empire had met with serious reverses 
 since the close of its splendid festival of 
 1867, and then- was a strange irony in 
 the fate which fashioned the instruments 
 of its destruction out of the power which 
 it had persecuted most unrelentingly 
 since the rimji cVEtat. 
 
 Nothing could be inure interesting to 
 a journalist than to natch the battle of 
 French journalism with the French Em- 
 pire in this autumn of i860. The two 
 powers were fairly pitted against each 
 other, neither desiring to give nor to take 
 quarter. Rochefort had arisen into a 
 power with which the Empire was com- 
 pelled to count. He had grouped around 
 him many unruly and some disreputable 
 personages, and was recognized as a 
 possible leader in any riot or revolution 
 which mightoccur. Rochefort had been, 
 since the annihilation of his Lanterne in 
 Paris, publishing this little paper at 
 Brussels, and having it smuggled into 
 France. The 1 Empire, which had at one 
 time lined him 10,000 francs, sen- 
 tenced him to a year's imprisonment, 
 and deprived him for a year of his civil 
 rights, in vain heaped upon him new 
 sentences. From his secure retreat in 
 Belgium he sent forth most virulent 
 attacks upon the Empire and all the Im- 
 perial personages; and to crown his 
 triumph he was elected by the Irrecon- 
 
 cilable Democrats to the Corps Ligi&latij 
 from one of the wards of Paris. He 
 came boldly into France, ami was. of 
 course, arrested on crossing the Belgian 
 frontier; but the Emperor, who did not 
 dare to treat Rochefort otherwise than 
 with consideration, gave the journalist a 
 sale conduct, allowing him to remain ill 
 the country until after the election. 
 
 Rochefort received nearly 18,000 votes 
 against 13,445 given to his opponent, 
 and naturally was safe from arrest so 
 soon as he was elected deputy. His 
 
 popularity in those days was so great 
 that he could not appear in an open car- 
 riage, or in the court-yard ofa hotel, with- 
 out attracting an immense crowd. People 
 liked to protest against the methods of 
 the Empire by silently manifesting their 
 appreciation of its opponents. They did 
 not dare to cheer, or to print what they 
 thought about the courageous journalists 
 who were opening the way to the Repub- 
 lic, but they could not be hindered from 
 "manifesting " now and again upon the 
 streets. 
 
 In those days manifestations were 
 much talked of. and the Empire had a 
 certain dread of their.. On the day of 
 mv return from Spain, in October of 
 1869, a great gathering was announced 
 to take place on the Place de la Con- 
 corde. But the cavalry and infantry 
 were set in motion, and few people liked 
 to run the risk of arrest, so that the main 
 testation was all made by one vapor- 
 ing, crazy, old man. who had long been 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 
 a familiar sight in Paris, and who ha- 
 rangued the Obelisk of Luxor concerning 
 things in general, l>ut was not so crazy 
 that he undertook to attack the Empire. 
 The creation of the Marseillaise 1 > v 
 Rochefort, in December of 1869, was 
 scoffed at by the supporters of the 
 Empire, but it proved to be a power- 
 ful agent in hastening the downfall of 
 
 gnat Communal insurrection, to Prince 
 Pierre Bonaparte, to ask satisfaction for 
 ai insult which the Prince, who was any- 
 thing but princely in his manner of speech, 
 had addressed to the editors of a radical 
 paper, called the Revenge. Prince 
 Pierre, as the Empire's ill-hick would 
 have it, was in a frightful temper on the 
 morning of Victor Xoir's visit ; and when 
 
 THE MUUDER OF VICTOR NOIR. 
 
 the Imperial authority. The very name 
 of this saucy and vindictive journal was 
 a menace to Napoleon, who had ren- 
 dered it a penal offence to sing the 
 Marseillaise in any part of the domain 
 of France. Attached to this paper was 
 a young Parisian journalist, a veritable 
 enfantdu peuple, ignorant, but energetic, 
 and wielding a caustic pen. On the 
 10th of January, 1870, this young man, 
 whose uom de plume was Victor Noir, 
 was sent by Paschal Grousset, who was 
 afterwards destined to play a rdle in the 
 
 the young journalist, accompanied by 
 one of his colleagues, entered the apart- 
 ment of the Prince at Auteuil and stated 
 his mission, there was a lively quarrel. 
 The Prince had challenged Rochefort on 
 the previous evening, and fancied that 
 Noir and his companion had conic 
 from the celebrated journalist with his 
 answer. When he discovered his mis- 
 take he took the letter which the young 
 journalist handed him, read it carefully 
 through, tossed if upon a chair, and, 
 advancing, said : — 
 
134 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 •• I challenged M. Rochefort because 
 he is the color-bearer of the mob: as 
 to M. Grousset, I have no answer for 
 him. Arc you in sympathy with these 
 ■wretches? " 
 
 Victor Noir immediately answered 
 that he was entirely in sympathy with 
 the persons whom he represented ; 
 whereupon, the Prince gave him a blow 
 in his face, ami then, stepping hack, 
 drew a revolver and tired at Noir, who 
 was at thai moment very near him. 
 
 The young man pressed his hand to 
 his breast, and managed to walk out of 
 the house, but fell upon the sidewalk, 
 ami died almost instantly. A more 
 cowardly assassination was never com- 
 mitted, nor one less excusable from 
 every point of the French code relative 
 to the maintenance of honor. Prince 
 Pierre's version, carefully prepared 
 afterwards, was that he was attacked 
 by Victor Noir, and that he saw the 
 other journalist about to draw a pistol; 
 whereupon he determined to deft lid 
 himself. 
 
 The excitement caused by the news 
 that a member of the Imperial family — 
 for Prince Pierre, although he was the 
 hrt<> noir of his enthroned cousin, and 
 as little imperial as might well he imag- 
 ined, still bore the name of Bonaparte — 
 had assassinated a child of the people, 
 is quite impossible to describe. The 
 Marseillaise appeared next morning 
 framed in black, and thousands on thou- 
 sands of copies were sold on the streets, 
 before the police interfered to prevent 
 a further circulation of an "Appeal to 
 the People," which Kochefort. casting 
 all prudence to the winds, had signed 
 and printed. The head-lines, •• Assas- 
 sination of a Citizen by Prince Pierre 
 Bonaparte." " Attempted Assassination 
 of another Citizen by Prince Pierre 
 Bonaparte." provoked an uprising in the 
 
 popular quarters, where the workmen 
 had long desired a pretext to descend 
 into the aristocratic section of the city, 
 and manifest their disapproval of the 
 Empire and its followers; and there 
 were some exciting moments at the Tuil- 
 eries during these bleak January days 
 which followed the Victor Noir " inci- 
 dent." as the Imperial journals called it. 
 The murder occurred cm the 10th, and 
 the funeral was fixed for the 12th, of 
 January. On the morning of the funeral 
 M. Kochefort came down to his office, to 
 find that his journal had been seized, 
 and that a demand for his prosecution 
 had been introduced into the Corps 
 L4gislatif; and the funeral, which took 
 place in the early afternoon, certainly 
 brought together as many as two hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand men of the 
 working-classes, who left their workshops 
 and went in orderly and grim procession 
 down the long line of the boulevard and 
 
 up the Champs Klysees. and out to the 
 little cemetery where the unlucky youth- 
 ful journalist was to he laid to rest. The 
 Imperial authorities had consigned to 
 their barracks all the troops in Paris, 
 with instructions to he ready to march 
 at a moment's notice, and the workmen 
 were allowed to go to the funeral without 
 any molestation whatever. Hundreds of 
 police spies, in plain clothes, were dis- 
 persed throughout the throng, and car- 
 ried their reports from time to time to 
 the Prefect of Police, who was to inter- 
 fere if, on the return from the funeral, 
 there was any attempt at a riot. 
 
 It would he difficult to define the 
 demeanor of the vast crowd assembled 
 at this gathering. I have seen but 
 one other demonstration like it in 
 France, and that was, oddly enough, 
 also at a funeral, — that of M. Thiers, 
 which took place during the great 
 counter-revolution of 1877, when people, 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CAL V. 
 
 135 
 
 laboring under strong excitement, felt 
 constrained in their own interests and 
 in those of their country to refrain 
 from any open expression of discontent 
 with the government. At this funeral 
 of Victor Noir the sea of upturned 
 human faces, all filled with a profound 
 discontent, a lurking ferocity which was 
 not vet ready to wake into vigorous 
 
 of Police clapped his hands ami said, 
 " Here arc a hundred thousand bayonets 
 fallen from heaven to help us ! " 
 
 The clever prefect understood the 
 value of rain in damping the enthusiasm 
 of mobs as well as did old Petion, Mayor 
 of Paris, who looked out of his window 
 and said, "There will lie no revolution 
 to-day, for it rains." 
 
 .- . \ 
 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 ROCIIEFORT ASD THE WORKING-MEN RIDDEN DOWN. 
 
 action, but which seemed to prophesy 
 terrible things for the future, was an im- 
 pressive spectacle, which no one who 
 witnessed it can ever forget. The Im- 
 perial police knew full well upon that 
 day that a word, a. song, a shout, 
 might be sufficient to overturn the 
 Empire, and a friend who was pres- 
 ent in M. Pietri's cabinet, when the im- 
 mense procession of workmen began to 
 return from the cemetery, in the midst 
 of a shower of rain, told me that the C hief 
 
 But revolution was near at hand, and 
 never nearer than when, as if moved by 
 some sudden inspiration, some influence 
 entirely independent of their volition, 
 these thousands upon thousands of work- 
 men began to sing the Marseillaise with 
 a vigor and a rude energy which were 
 quite startling. This splendid soul;. 
 which had been SO long tabooed, put 
 a curious lire into the blood of many 
 of the spectators who did not mingle in 
 the manifestation. The end of the re- 
 
L3G EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 pressivc period had come. What no had it not been for the incessant patrol- 
 man dared to do, what he could not have ling of the streets by cavalry, a revoln- 
 done without being lined and imprisoned tion would certainly have occurred that 
 and qualified as a criminal, two hundred night. Prince Pierre was arrested bv 
 and fifty thousand men could do, and none order of the Emperor, and taken to the 
 could say them nay. The journal and the Conct'ergerie, where he was allowed com- 
 journalist had brought about this sudden fortable quarters in the director's room. 
 uprising. It taught the people that they I visited him there, and shall never fur- 
 hail but t<> move, and the obstacles in get the emphasis with which he declared 
 their road would be brushed aside. This that, if he might put himself at the head 
 was a proud day for Rochefort. He of a regiment of gendarmes, he would 
 was the hero of the demonstration at agree to sweep away all the would-be 
 tin' cemetery, and from the windows in rioters within two hours. But his con- 
 the little house in which the bereaved fidence was greater than that of his Im- 
 Xoir family lived he had made a ring- perial cousin, who began to feel that the 
 ing speech, in which, however, he conn- end was indeed near at hand, 
 selleil moderation and prudence; for, This was the winter of 1870, and this 
 he said, " The government would like was the second great blow which the 
 nothing better than to put down forever fortunes of the Empire had received. In 
 Uiv Republic, if we should try to declare 1 1868 Leon Gambetta had entered upon 
 it to-day. As to our vengeance, it will the scene of French politics with that 
 come. From the government we expect theatrical pose and magnificent <il>iiut!oi> 
 nothing, we wish nothing of it, and which characterized all his movements 
 nothing further to do with it. Its fall until the sudden ami tragic close of his 
 is fated, ami near at hand. For this life ; and it was in connection with a 
 reason I bee von to be patient and battle of the newspapers against the 
 calm." Empire that he won immediate and last- 
 But this advice, like that of the stu- ing renown. Gambetta had been but 
 dent who begged hi- comrades not to little heard of outside the cafis and the 
 nail the proctor's ears to the pump, was dining-rooms of the Latin Quarter, where 
 taken in an inverse sense; and I have no he was wont to air his contemptuous, and 
 doubt that the thousands who went down sometimes majestic, eloquence, until the 
 the Champs Elvsees singing the Mar- Imperial ministry prosecuted the journals 
 seillaise thought that the Republic would which had opened a subscription in honor 
 be declared that day. Rochefort was of the memory of Baudin, the represent- 
 oliliged to head this strange procession, ative of the people, who was killed upon 
 but presently found himself confronted a barricade in the Faubourg St. Martin, 
 with squadrons of cavalry, backed up by at the time of the nm/i d'Etat. This sub- 
 platoons of police : and in the neighbor- scription, and the orderly and inoffensive 
 ho,., I of the Palais de l'lndustrie he manifestations which took place at the 
 saw the glittering bayonets of regiments tomb of Baudin in the Montmartre ceme- 
 of infantry. The Riot Act was read, tery, were scarcely worth the rigors in 
 and the workmen, after great confusion which the Imperial courts had indulged, 
 and many threats, were dispersed. But and the papers resolved to give battle, 
 all the quarters inhabited by the humbler The RSveil, which was one of the first 
 classes were in a perturbed state ; and, journals prosecuted, gave its case into the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 137 
 
 GAMBETTA IN THE BAUDIN PROSECUTION. 
 
 hands of Gambetta. He wanted uo finer rangued the head of the Second Empire 
 
 opportunity to make the protest which as the betrayer of the trust reposed in 
 
 he had meditated upon for years, and in him, and as the destroyer of the liberties 
 
 a passionate outburst of indignation, on of France. 
 
 one gloomy afternoon, in a little court- This produced an immense sensation, 
 
 room in the Palais de Justice, he ha- all the greater because the country had 
 
13S 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 been long destitute of a protesting voice, 
 and the accusations of the young advo- 
 cate rang through the whole land from 
 
 Calais to Marseilles. So great was 
 Gambetta's personal excitement on this 
 occasion that, as M. "Weiss has told LIS, 
 the Imperial advocate and the president 
 of the court tried in vain a number of 
 times to interrupt and moderate his pas- 
 sionate harangue; but their voices were 
 drowned in the thunder of the lawyer's 
 speech and iii the powerful protestation 
 of his delivery. 
 
 Thus, in an afternoon. Gambetta 
 stepped into the front rank of European 
 orators, and into the opposition to the 
 Empire. At the general elections in 
 1869 lie was adopted as a candidate for 
 Marseilles and for Paris. Son of the 
 South, with tin: powerful yet poetic 
 temperament of the people of Provence, 
 he appealed irresistibly to the passions 
 and the affections of tin 1 people of Mar- 
 seilles, and won his election there over 
 such powerful opponents as M. de Les- 
 scps and M. Thiers. At Paris his 
 victory was absolute. He chose to rep- 
 resent Marseilles, and thus permitted 
 Rochefort to take his seat in the ('or/is 
 Legislatif, for Rochefort had been a can- 
 didate in tin 1 same ward as Gambetta. 
 He was soon at the head of the little 
 band of •• Irreconcilables," as they were 
 called, and was one of the most valiant 
 defenders of Rochefort when the govern- 
 ment asked the chamber to authorize the 
 prosecution of the editor of the Marseil- 
 laise. 
 
 Looking back upon the history of the 
 Second Empire, it seems almost incredi- 
 ble that Napoleon III. and his minis- 
 ters should not have possessed sufficient 
 common-sense to have accepted the 
 lessons of French history. They should 
 have realized that it lias always been 
 fatal to French governments perma- 
 
 nently to trifle witli the liberties of the 
 press. But, from the moment that the 
 coup d'Etat was a success, the Empire 
 
 hail signalled out the public prints as 
 containing the creates! danger to the 
 newly made Empire. To read the press 
 law of that period is almost stupefying. 
 One wonders how a nation could have 
 permitted such complete degradation of 
 iis liberties. Trial by jury for all press 
 offences was abolished, ami the unhappy 
 writer who had offended the reigning 
 powers was brought up like a com- 
 mon malefactor before the Correctional 
 Court. In 1852 a specially odious legis- 
 lation against the press was enacted. 
 It subjected all political journals to what 
 might be called a preventive regime, 
 placing them at the mercy of the gov- 
 ernment. It so raised the '•stamp- 
 tax." and the sum of the " caution 
 money " to be deposited, that the crea- 
 tion of a journal by persons of mod- 
 erate means was impossible. It then 
 prevented the foundation of journals 
 treating of political or social economy 
 without a special decree, which it was 
 difficult to get. Then, when the jour- 
 nal was founded, its existence was ex- 
 tremely precarious. A warning would 
 be sent in by an Imperial official, and 
 the editor was expected immediately to 
 profit by it ; for a third warning carried 
 with it the suppression of the offending 
 journal. It was forbidden to journal- 
 ists to give any account of the sessions 
 of the Corps L4gi slat if and the Senate 
 other than that furnished by the official 
 reporters. This regulation, which is 
 almost Oriental in its despotic flavor, is 
 justly characterized by a famous French 
 writer as at once puerile and grotesque. 
 
 lint it is useless to pass in extended 
 review the press legislation of the Empire. 
 I will finish by illustrating the working 
 of the stamp-tax, which was one of the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 139 
 
 meanest of the small tyrannies levied 
 against the free circulation of the printed 
 word. Every American journal which 
 came into France during the Empire paid 
 a tax of six cents. Returning from a 
 visit to Germany, shortly after the dec- 
 laration of war, and just before the 
 siege of Paris began, I found waiting me 
 at a banking-house eighty American news- 
 papers, upon each one of which I was 
 compelled to pay the sum of six cents. 
 This stamp-tax was a grievous bur- 
 den upon provincial newspapers, and 
 undoubtedly prevented their extensive 
 circulation. M. de Villemessant, of the 
 Figaro, tried to avoid a portion of the 
 
 stamp-tax upon his paper by having edi- 
 tions printed in Brussels, and brought into 
 France ; but the Empire soon put a stop 
 to this. In the Corps Ligislatif, in 1870, 
 a movement was made to do away with 
 the odious tax ; but it was immediately 
 stated that " the government could not 
 allow the abolition of such a source of 
 income before 1S72." The repressive 
 influence of the tax can lie best judged 
 of by the fact that the Petit Journal of 
 Paris circulated only three hundred thou- 
 sand copies under the Empire ; but under 
 the Republic has a circulation of eight 
 hundred thousand copies. 
 
140 EUROPE IN STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER FOURTEEN. 
 
 The Emperor and his Speeches from the Throne. — Opening Hay of the Corps LJgisIafif.—The Opposi- 
 tion. — Sketches of the Leading Members.— M. Thiers and his Attitude towards the Second 
 Empire. -The Splendor of his Irony. — His Eloquence < haracterized. — Berryer, Lanjuinais, Jules 
 Simon, and. Jules Ferry. — Eochefort and his Yellow Gloves. 
 
 FEW scenes in European ceremonies supposed to have suspended their work 
 
 were more unique in glow of pict- that they might admire the passage of 
 
 uresquc uniforms, brilliant toilettes of their sovereign, but who were really, on 
 
 ladies, and gorgeous equipages, than the most opening days, " hired for the 
 
 opening of the French chambers during occasion." 
 
 the reign of the Emperor Napoleon III. The Place du Carrousel is a noble 
 
 We have seen that the Second Empire square, into which thousands of persons 
 
 was noted for its punctilious regard for can pack themselves without the least 
 
 ceremonials, and the profusion of its in< vemenee. Under the smoothly paved 
 
 splendor, whenever occasion offered. On floor were said to. run huge passages, com- 
 
 the return from Compiegue t<> town, the municating with the adjacent barracks, so 
 
 first duty of the " man of destiny" and that at any time the armed men of Cad- 
 
 his retainers was to open the legislative mus might spring out of the ground at a 
 
 bodies " with a speech from the throne." sudden signal. The brown walls of the 
 
 A procession, in which the order of Louvre, from which look- down the stat- 
 
 preeedence in rank was most carefully ucs of the artists and historians of old 
 
 observed, passed through the Palace of France, are richly andgrotesquely carved, 
 
 the Tuileries on the day of the opening, The beautiful park in the centre of the 
 
 through the r us under the Clock Pa- square is kept green until very late in 
 
 viliou, along the Place du Carrousel, to the autumn, and fountains send up their 
 
 the Salle des Etats, in the ancient Louvre, jewelled spray night and day. In sum- 
 
 The Cent -Gardes, in their charming uni- mer this park is the resort of contem- 
 
 forms of blue and red, rode behind the plative nurse-maids, with babies clinging 
 
 Emperor's carriage, in his miniature to their skirts, lint on the 29th of No- 
 
 journev from palace to palace, gazing vember, " opening day," the square was 
 
 neither to right nor to left, erect, impel- invaded by the showy carriages of the 
 
 turbable as stone images. The crowd members of the diplomatic corps and all 
 
 in the Place du Carrousel was always the great state functionaries, the magis- 
 
 extremely democratic. There were trates, and the representatives of the 
 
 roughs from Belleville, market-women commercial corporations. The diplo- 
 
 froin the Halles Centrales, commercial matic carriages were passed in review as 
 
 men from the boulevards, and line-look- they sped down the narrow line formed 
 
 inn ladies, with their pretty daughters, by the waiting throng, and the occupant 
 
 from the Faubourg St. Germain; and of each vehicle was cheered, or treated 
 
 there, too, was a fringe of working-men, with contemptuous silence, according as 
 
 in blue and white blouses, who were the popular passions were influenced for 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CAL.lf. 
 
 141 
 
 
 THE SPEECH FROM THE THRONE. 
 
 or against the country which it repre- tion of his intention to " preserve order," 
 
 sented. appeared upon the scene. A double line 
 
 But no demonstrations, either of respect of soldiers extended from the iron fence 
 
 or disrespect, were indulged in when the surrounding the Clock Pavilion of the 
 
 Imperial master, who had inaugurated Tuileries down to the Louvre door, over 
 
 his career by such an energetic affirma- which a silken canopy was raised. < )l!i- 
 
1 {■> 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 cers with drawn swords paraded before 
 their men, and presently the Emperor's 
 carriage, with one before and one fol- 
 lowing it. drove slowly down through 
 the double line. In the Salle des Etats 
 Napoleon mounted the throne in the 
 midst of his cardinals, his favorites, and 
 the various dignitaries he had created; 
 and the Prince Imperial was placed on a 
 lower chair or stood up nearby. When 
 the Empress attended the Speech from the 
 Throne she usually arrived a short time 
 be fore the Emperor, whogenerallycame in 
 in a hurry, plumped down into the throne 
 chair, glanced at the decorations and at 
 the audience, mopped his face with his 
 handkerchief, looked a little perplexed, 
 then jumped 11)1 and began his speech, 
 which was usually of stereotyped form, 
 with very slight changes tor an allusion 
 to the important events of the year. In 
 18G9 lie observed in his speech that it 
 was difficult to maintain liberty peace- 
 ably in France. After the speech a 
 salute of twenty-one guns was tired from 
 the Esplanade of the Invabdes ; then the 
 names of the deputies were called, and 
 were frequently saluted by applause or 
 scornful laughter from the favored ones 
 who had been invited to the ceremony. 
 
 The little knot of < Opposition deputies of 
 
 the Corps Legislatif rarely attended the 
 
 Speech from the Throne, and desired 
 their absence to be interpreted as a pro- 
 test against the Emperor's participation 
 in the politics of the Empire which he 
 had created. 
 
 The work of the session was begun on 
 the following day in the Palais Bourbon, 
 which had been invaded by the soldiers 
 of Napoleon III. at the time of the coup 
 il'Etni. and which was destined to be the 
 scene of the Empire's downfall in 1*70. 
 This old-fashioned palace, with its great 
 
 d ' like a triumphal arch in the centre 
 
 of an open Corinthian colonnade, is one 
 
 of the gaudy monuments of the eigh- 
 teenth century, and was built by 
 an Italian architect for the dowa- 
 ger Duchess of Bourbon. When the 
 Revolution came the palace was confis- 
 cated to the nation, and in 1790 was 
 known as the Maison <!<• In Revolution. 
 In 1795 the reception-rooms of the 
 palace were transformed into an as- 
 sembly hall for thi' Council of the Five 
 Hundred; and in 1804 Napoleon I. 
 ordered the construction of the monu- 
 mental facade which overlooks the river 
 Seine. The palace is adorned with bas- 
 reliefs, representing France standing be- 
 tween •• Liberty " and •' Public order ; " 
 a bit of sculpture which the Emperor, it 
 is said, used to contemplate with great 
 satisfaction, ami which he considered 
 typical of his reign. There are also 
 colossal statues to Themis and Minerva, 
 and to Sully, Colbert, and other great 
 Frenchmen. The hall in which the legis- 
 lators of the Empire sat was in the 
 form of a hemicycle, with seats rising, 
 as in a Roman amphitheatre. Around 
 about, at the top. are ranged statues of 
 Reason, Justice, Prudence, and Elo- 
 quence, and between the pedestals of the 
 columns were lias-reliefs, representing 
 Louis Philippe accomplishing certain 
 acts of his reign. In numerous other 
 halls of the palace are paintings by 
 Horace Vernet, ami statues of Mira- 
 beau, of Bailly, of Casimir Perier, and 
 General Foy. The throne hall is dec- 
 orated with paintings by Delacroix. 
 Attached to the palace is a small and 
 elegant mansion, which is always inhab- 
 ited by the president of the Lower 
 Chamber, ami the possession of which is 
 one of the perquisites attached to his 
 office. Here Gambetta came, when at 
 
 the height of his career, t 'ctipy the 
 
 rooms in which the Imperial favorites 
 had lived before him. and which would 
 
El ROPE IN STORM ASH CALM. 
 
 143 
 
 have seemed to him, ill 1SGD, as far out 
 of his reach as the North Pole. 
 
 The old Palais Bourbon was given 
 back to the Prince of Condi, who was 
 the grandson of the Duchess of Bourbon, 
 in FS14; but he continued to allow the 
 State to occupyit, and the Chamber con- 
 tinued its sessions there. In ISl'T the 
 government purchased from him a part 
 of the palace, and in 1830 bought the 
 remainder from the Due d'Aumale, 
 into whose hands it hail come, spending, 
 it is said, about 10,000,000 francs 
 for the purchase. In the Revolution of 
 1848 the people stormed the Palais 
 Bourbon, and when the Constituent As- 
 sembly came to take its seat there a 
 temporary hall was provided for them. 
 This was again invaded on the 15th of 
 May, 1848, and was demolished at the 
 beginning of the Empire. 
 
 There was more curiosity about the 
 session of the Corps Ligislatif in the 
 latter days of the Second Empire than 
 people manifest about the sessions of the 
 Republican Chamber of Deputies, chiefly 
 because the newspapers were not allowed 
 to indulge in the free-and-easy reports 
 of the debates which are now so uni- 
 versal. But there was rarely, from 1867 
 to the Empire's downfall, any remarkable 
 eloquence in the halls of the Palais Bour- 
 bon, unless it came from the little group 
 of the Opposition. M. Boulter was a con- 
 vincing speaker only for those who had 
 made up their minds to adopt the Im- 
 perial policy. He would talk on for 
 hours, uttering platitudes as if they 
 were the most brilliant sallies of wit. 
 In the autumn of 1869, and during the 
 winter session of 1870. the attention of 
 the country was closely drawn to the at- 
 titude of the Opposition, which had been 
 waxing valiant year by year, and which 
 now had become openly aggressive. 
 Gambetta had not. as yet. begun to 
 
 speak with freedom in the Corps Ligis- 
 latif; but his mere presence, after his 
 tremendous tilt at the Imperial power in 
 his speech about the Baudin subscrip- 
 tion, seemed to give fresh confidence and 
 energy to the men who had been battling 
 for free institutions, and lighting for an 
 apparently hopeless cause, since the elec- 
 tion of 1857, 
 
 In that year live Republicans entered 
 the Corps Legislatif, and all of them were 
 destined to play an important part in the 
 declining years of the Empire. These 
 live men were Jules Favre, Ernest Picard, 
 Emile Ollivier, Henon, and Darimon. 
 In those days to speak against the gov- 
 ernment was little less than a. crime, and 
 the majorities of the Empire were almost, 
 unanimous. In this trying school Jules 
 Favre. one of the most polished and 
 accomplished orators whom France has 
 ever possessed, won golden opinions on 
 all sides for the richness and beauty of 
 his diction, and. from all generous-minded 
 men, for the liberalism of his ideas. 
 Emile Ollivier. too. had no thought of 
 rallying to the Empire then ; and these 
 few were SO accustomed to lighting alone 
 that they weri' somewhat surprised when, 
 in the general elections of 18G3, Jules 
 Simon. Glais-Bizoin, and many other 
 men of mark, were added to their num- 
 ber. In 1864 the new elections brought 
 to the ('<iri>s Leg islatif no less personages 
 than MM. Thiers, Bcrryer, and Lanjui- 
 nais. These three strong men gravitated 
 naturally to the Republican group, al- 
 though it is certain that M. Thiers, at 
 that time, would have been loth to declare 
 himself a Republican. But their counsels 
 and their vast political and legal elo- 
 quence added strength to the Opposition , 
 which the Empire was far from disdain- 
 ing. "We remember well," writes M. 
 Jules Simon, " this epoch, when all 
 those who did not give themselves tip to 
 
1U EUROPE TX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 the Empire possessed a common hate whenever it was possible to attack; 
 .-ii.il a common love: a hate for the gov- whether on questions of internal or ex- 
 ernment whose whole history and policy ternal policy; whether upon free trade 
 reposed upon falsehood and tended to or upou lying promises of much-needed 
 tvranny ; a love for all liberty, which was reform, — the alert and intense patriot 
 doublv dear to them by the contrast." was to the fore, never at fault for a. 
 In 18G9 the Opposition was still further fact, and drawing from the storehouse 
 strengthened by the election of MM. Bar- of his prodigious memory a hundred 
 thelemv St. llilaire. Jules Ferry. Gam- wounding and unpleasant souvenirs 
 betta, Jules GreVy, Rampont, Wilson, with which to assail and belittle the Inl- 
 and the malicious ami ambitious Roche- perial legend. It is believed that in 
 fort. There was but one desertion from the last days of the Empire M. Thiers, 
 the ranks of this brave party during the long before he confessed it. was con- 
 existence of the Empire, and that was in verted to Republicanism by the keen 
 1867, when Emile Ollivier was converted disgust which he felt for the processes 
 to the Empire by the specious promises of the Empire. His profound knowl- 
 of constitutional reform which the Em- edge of European affairs, his immense 
 peror had made. and tender patriotism, his deep regret 
 The "Teat men of the Opposition until and shame for the manner in which the 
 the opening of 1870 were unques- resources of France were neglected, 
 tionablv MM. Thiers, Berryer, Jules and his scorn for the army of courtiers 
 Favre, and Jules Simon. The attitude and courtesans which blinded the Em- 
 of M. Thiers towards the Empire was peror to the danger approaching him, 
 invariably curious, and in some respects caused M. Thiers many a pang which 
 comical. No figure in the Chamber was he would not confess lo the stranger; 
 more dreaded by the Imperialist party for of all men of this latter half of 
 than that of this wizened little man. this century, not even excepting I.in- 
 with his white hair, his wrinkled feat- coin, no man has felt so intensely for 
 ures. his squeaky voice, and his alum- his country as did RI. Thiers, lie lived 
 clant gestures. Around his venerable to see his promises justified, and to 
 form there seemed to cling the halo of take into his hands, feeble as they were, 
 half a hundred ministerial revolutions, at a time when most men are called to 
 of conspiracies and intrigues innumer- sit in a corner and look on, the defence 
 able. Wars and rumors of wars, and of the nation which had been so rudely 
 diplomatic combinations too numerous tried, and to blow into flame with his 
 to mention, were connected with his breath the almost extinguished embers 
 parliamentary history. He was a per- of national feeling. 
 
 petual thorn in the flesh of the Emperor, The eloquence of M. Thiers in the 
 
 whom he persistently treated a.s an ill- Chamber of the Empire was rarely, as we 
 
 behaved stripling. Time was. indeed, came to see it in later days, pathetic 
 
 when the old man eloquent, in the and touching, almost surcharged with 
 
 pauses of bis wrath, came down into tears: but it was harsh, biting, vindic- 
 
 the regions of irony, and lashed the tive. sparkling, sometimes wicked. The 
 
 Emperor with phrases which, while they practical side of the old man was always 
 
 could not be resented, cut like the uppermost. He hated, despised, ridi- 
 
 thrust of a keen rapier. Wherever and culed, punished; but he did not weep. 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 14.-) 
 
 He did not rise into passionate appeal dominates the Assembly with his head 
 
 and noble flights of speech until the thrown hack. He carries it as Mira- 
 
 bour of supreme danger had arrived. beau carried his. He settles himself in 
 
 M. Berryer and M. Thiers made a the tribune, and takes possession of it as 
 
 .splendid pair. It was not in vain that if he were the master, I had almost said 
 
 THIERS IN THE TRIBUNE. 
 
 M. Berryer had been called. •• after the despot. But that which is especially 
 
 Miralieau, the greatest of French ora- incomparable in him is the rich sound of 
 
 tins." "lie is," said an admiring his voice, the first of beauties in actors 
 
 writer, who described him when he was and orators." lie was a Liberal whom 
 
 at the height of his brilliant career, Republicans coveted, and with whom 
 
 " eloquent in all his personality. He they could not fail to sympathize, re- 
 
146 EUROPE IN STORM \M> CALM. 
 
 membering that lie had been the de- Austria in 1859, and expended all the 
 fender of Lamennais, thai lie had urged resources of his iron}' on the policy of 
 the enactment of many democratic laws the government in Mexico. It was sad 
 and that lie had manifested towards the that in later years he was singled out by 
 Emperor an uncompromising hostility, the hand of Fate to take upon his shoul- 
 even refusing when he was elected a dels the humiliations which should have 
 member of the Academy to make the been visited on the Empire, to be put in a 
 accustomed visit to the Chief of State, place for which lie was scarcely fit, — that 
 It is fair lo suppose that had M. Her- of Minister of War after the cstablish- 
 rvcr lived lo join with M. Thiers in the ment of the government of National De- 
 great events which followed the Septcni- fense, — and to lie compelled day by day 
 ber Revolution in 1870, he, too, might for weeks to fence with that consummate 
 have announced his faith in the Repuli- master of intrigue, the then Count liis- 
 lic, frankly relinquishing the monarch!- marck, who was prepared to exact from 
 cal principles which were no longer France without mercy 
 possible iii his country. The other Republican figures in the 
 
 dules Ferry and .lules Simon, as Corps Ligislatif were not of enduring 
 
 members of the Opposition, were widely importance. M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire 
 
 different in their methods of attack was a venerable philosopher, who assumed 
 
 and in their views on many subjects, considerable prominence after the fall of 
 
 Their parliamentary reputation is justly the Empire. Men like Cremieux, Es- 
 
 great, and will live long in the history of quiros, Bethmont, and Wilson were hard 
 
 France. Both hail only to open their workers, and occasionally made good 
 
 mouths to charm the listeners. M. speeches. The obstinate and capable 
 
 Simon, who is to-day more conservative Jules Ferry, destined to have a lone- and 
 
 than he was before the establishment of strong political career later on, was just 
 
 tin- Republic, showed, in his subtle and then emerging from obscurity, writing 
 
 adroit tactics, the results of the eduea- vigorously in the columns of Republican 
 
 tion which he had received at (he hands papers against Baron llaussmann and his 
 
 of the Jesuits; yet he was and is a line administration of the city of Paris, and 
 
 humanitarian, and was then deeply im- recognized as a growing man, but not as 
 
 pressed with the necessity for a complete a leader. Gambetta, as I have said, was 
 
 change, personally grieved at the dura- gathering, his forces for the great efforts 
 
 lion of the Empire, and gifted with such which were to come. M. Civvy, whowas 
 
 facility for luminous exposition of his to be the President of the Republic, was 
 
 views that he was highly prized, even but little heard of The Radical clique 
 
 by those Republicans who did not think distinguished itself, as it does to-day, by 
 
 he went quite far enough noisy and even by absurd propositions, 
 
 Jules Favre had been a conspicuous which the Empire treated with the same 
 
 figure from the outset of the Imperial passionless disdain accorded to the party 
 
 ri'gime. lie had refused to take the oath by the moderate Republicans of to-day. 
 
 to the new constitution. He defended Rochefort felt ill at ease and out of place 
 
 Orsini in 1858 in a speech of ureal bold- in the legislative body, "lie wore," 
 
 ness for the time. He fought the sup- said a lady who described to me his first 
 
 pression of the free press with all his appearance in the Co rps Letjinlatif, — "he 
 
 might. He declared against the war with wore yellow gloves." His picturesque 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 147 
 
 personality procured him much attention, 
 however. Ilis tall, gaunt form, his lean 
 and scraggy features, his forehead sur- 
 mounted with a tuft of hair already be- 
 ginningto turn gray, were at once seized 
 as legitimate prey by the caricaturists' 
 pencils. M. Rochefort never forgol that 
 he was born a gentleman, and perhaps his 
 yellow gloves were intended as a subtle 
 stroke of policy with which to capture 
 the Extremist mind. 
 
 The Opposition made a vigorous cam- 
 paign against the Plebiscite with which 
 the Emperor strove to prop his failing 
 fortunes ; and M. Simon has given us a 
 lively description of the meetings in the 
 line de la Sourdiere, from which head- 
 quarters the Republicans used to send 
 out hundreds of thousands of circulars. — 
 the only sort of political document which 
 could he distributed with impunity, and 
 then simply because it emanated from 
 
 the elected representatives of the people. 
 The Empire always hail its police present 
 at these meetings, sometimes in plain 
 clothes, but often in uniform, and under 
 the pretext that the meetings were of a 
 socialistic character. 
 
 This accusation was entirely untrue. 
 The battle, although a violent one. and 
 fought with consummate energy, was 
 lost. Tlie Empire got 7,350,000 citizens 
 to vote "Yes," against 1,500,000 
 •■ Noes." in favor of its project for 
 revision of the constitution, and then 
 turned triumphantly to Europe with this 
 remark : '-You see that the Emperor is 
 indeed Emperor by the grace of God and 
 the will of the people, and that the 
 Empire will endure." 
 
 So those who are about to die of a 
 grave malady speak in hopeful and 
 glowing terms of their recovery as near 
 at hand. 
 
148 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTEEN. 
 
 The Epoch of Unification. — Danger to France from the National Growth in Italy ami Germany. — Na- 
 poleon III. andhis Policy of Greed. — II<>\v he was Duped by the Northern Powers. — The Iving of 
 Prussia al Compii'gne. — The Coronation March. — Bismarck in Paris. — The Luxembourg Affair. — 
 Benedetti and Bismarck. — Tin- Downfall of the Policy of Compensation. 
 
 FROM :i French point of view, and 
 for the purpose of carrying out (lie 
 traditional policy of France, — a policy 
 which we are not called upon heir either 
 to approve or blame, — the nation had 
 never been so much in need of strong 
 diplomats and able politicians as it was 
 during the last ten years of the Second 
 Empire. Gastelar, in one of liaise 
 strange improvisations in which fancy 
 and fact run together in perfect and 
 dazzling harmony, has characterized 
 each of the centuries since the dawn of 
 the Renaissance, and lias called the nine- 
 teenth century that of democracy. He 
 might have added that it was the cen- 
 tury of the unification of peoples. 
 In point of fact France was in danger 
 at the very outset of the Second Empire 
 from the powerful movements in prog- 
 ress in two neighboring countries in 
 favor of unification, Italy, which had 
 been for so long merely an ancient 
 name, covering, with some sheen from 
 its old-time glory, a feeble series of dis- 
 severed and warring States, had at last 
 felt th«' national impulse, and was work- 
 ing with all its might for consolidation 
 and for unity. Throughout the length 
 and breadth of I iermanv the same 
 feeling was more and more apparent 
 yearly. ( >n the sands of the north, 
 where the Brandenburg pirates had 
 once led a rude and reckless existence, 
 a power had sprung up, which had 
 already cast the shadow of centraliza- 
 
 tion across the thrones of German 
 dukes and petty princes, and which 
 was now and then bold enough to talk 
 of a vengeance 11)1011 France for the 
 miseries and injuries which Napoleon I. 
 had inflicted upon Germany. 
 
 With United Italy on the one side, 
 and United Gennany on the other, it 
 was evident that the policy of France 
 must undergo vast modifications, and 
 that her rank as a power in Europe 
 must fatally be reduced. There were 
 not wanting Frenchmen who thoroughly 
 understood the danger : Frenchmen wily 
 and experienced enough to have warded 
 it off, or to have won for France, when 
 these great movements for foreign unity 
 took place, compensating advantages, 
 which would have preserved her dignity 
 and her station. 
 
 But these wily anil experienced 
 Frenchmen had been set aside. They 
 were placed in the ranks of the Opposi- 
 tion, of a hopeless and barren opposi- 
 tion, which could not go to extreme 
 limits without risk of summary reproof. 
 Down even to a few months before the 
 outbreak of the fatal war in which Na- 
 poleon III. lost his crown it may be 
 said that both branches of the Imperial 
 — for it certainly was not a national — 
 Legislature, were in complete servitude. 
 A glance at their composition will 
 serve fully to illustrate this fact. 
 
 The Senate of the Second Empire was 
 not only the creation, but the creature, 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 14'.) 
 
 of the Emperor. It was reestablished 
 after the coupd'Etat in 1851, very much 
 upon the model of the Senate of the 
 First Empire, which drew its breath of 
 life from Napoleon I., and which pos- 
 sessed the most formidable powers, such 
 as tin' accusation of the ministers, and 
 the right to sit in judgment upon them, 
 as well as the suspension of all the ordi- 
 nary rules of criminal procedure ; so that 
 the Emperor could consummate any in- 
 justice which might enter into his head. 
 Napoleon III.'s Senate, which was 
 sanctioned by the constitution of 1852, 
 comprised within its ranks as senators, 
 by right of their office, the cardinals, 
 marshals, admirals, the members of the 
 Imperial family, and in addition to these 
 about one hundred and fifty senators 
 named by the Chief of the State. 
 
 It was not until April of 1870 that the 
 Emperor, beginning to understand the 
 immensity of the mistake which he had 
 made in taking entirely into his too 
 feeble hands the control of the destinies 
 of a menaced, almost fated, country, 
 decided that the number of senators 
 should be increased, and that the body 
 should more directly represent the feel- 
 ings and wishes of the nation. Vet 
 scarcely a year before this attempted 
 liberal measure the Second Empire had 
 conferred upon its Senate the same dan- 
 gerous right which Napoleon I. had 
 given to his, — the right to impeach the 
 ministry; and this was done in order 
 that any minister, who should be in- 
 fluenced by the aggressive nature of the 
 popular demands for constitutional re- 
 form and for a return to liberty, might 
 be pounced upon and ingloriously ex- 
 pelled from office. 
 
 The Emperor paid his senators well. 
 He gave them each 30,000 francs per 
 year, and he felt that their important 
 service was cheaply paid. Their main 
 
 duty was to watch the Lower House, and 
 in see that it never, by any sudden caprice, 
 undertook to change the form of govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The Senate, that is to say, the Em- 
 peror through the Senate, had the only 
 right of initiative in legislation. The 
 principles of democracy were reversed. 
 Laws did not come up from the Lower 
 House as directly representing the public 
 will, to be discussed, amended, and im- 
 proved by the grave and reverend «'(';/- 
 neurs of the Senate ; but they went down 
 to this second chamber from the Senate, 
 with an intimation that they were the 
 outgrowth of the Imperial will, and that 
 it would not be wise to indulge in too 
 many commentaries upon them. For 
 over the head of the < 'orps Ligislatif 
 always hung the penalty of dissolution. 
 In short, the Lower House was merely 
 tolerated, while the Upper was maintained 
 as the rigid sentinel to watch over tin' 
 safety of the Empire, as the archers of 
 old watched in the corridors of the 
 palaces where the kings took their re- 
 pose. 
 
 The Corps Ligislaiif, by the constitu- 
 tion of 1852, became a feeble copy of its 
 prototype at the beginning of the century. 
 The whole electoral body was divided up 
 into districts containing thirty thousand 
 voters each ; and each one of these dis- 
 tricts sent a deputy to the Corps Ligis- 
 latif. The members were elected by 
 universal suffrage for a term of six 
 years. Their privileges were confined 
 to discussing and voting upon the laws 
 and the taxation of the Empire. They 
 could not even introduce an amendment 
 into the laws which had been proposed 
 to them without the consent of the 
 Council of State, which was another 
 creature of the Empire. It was felt 
 necessary in the constitution of 1852 to 
 apologize to the world for this manner of 
 
150 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 shutting tlic mouths of the reprcsenta- which the Senate could, as il wire, take 
 tives of the people, and a paragraph of the place of the Corps Ligislatif in case 
 that instrument states that the Corps the latter were dissolved. 
 Li'gislatif iii.'iv freely discuss the law, The Senate of the Second Empire lived 
 may adopt it or reject it. but may not ingloriou&ly, and dispersed in the .same 
 " introduce suddenly any of those amend- fashion. It was not even considered l>v 
 incuts which so often disarrange all the the people, who were abroad in their 
 economy of a svstein, and entirely change might on the day of the declaration 
 the primitive project." This sounded of the Republic (September 4, 1870), 
 reasonable to the French people, coming worth while to march to the hall 
 as it did after the excesses of 1848; but where the senators were in session, 
 in 18G0 the nation had learned the and to turn them out of office. "No- 
 terrible significance of the slavery to body," says one of the members of the 
 which it had subjected itself. government of National Defence in his 
 In 18G0, as a special favor, an Im- memoirs, " nobody even gave a thought 
 perial decree gave the Corps Legislatif to the Senate. It had held, on the 
 the right of replying by an address to 1th of September, a session at half- 
 the speech from the throne. This right past twelve. One of the members had 
 was exercised for only six mouths, for protested with indignation against the 
 the Emperor, who was beginning to proposition of impeachment made by 
 dislike the freedom of the address of the M. .lutes Favre, and finished his re- 
 deputies, withdrew the right and re- marks by crying out, in a loud voice: 
 placed it by the right of " in + erpella- ' Vice I'Empereur! VicfVImperatrice! 
 tiou," or demand in open parliament for Vive le Prince Imperial!' All the 
 an explanation of certain points in the senators joined in the chorus. They 
 Imperial address. The "tribune," or then discussed the question whether they 
 the kind of pulpit from which French should remain in permanent session, or 
 parliamentary orators had been wont to should meet again at eight o'clock that 
 address their colleagues, was suppressed, evening. They finished by deciding that 
 and deputies were obliged to .speak from they should hold a session the next day, 
 their places in the hall of assembly, as usual. This was the last vote of the 
 The president of the chamber was named session." But, the evening before, M. 
 directly by the Emperor, and was paid Rouher, who considered a revolution as 
 handsomely for his services, lodging in inevitable, bad asked for a battalion of 
 the palace of the Corps Ligislatif, and infantry to protect the Senate, and a 
 receiving 100,000 francs yearly. The general had given him a few customs 
 Empeior ami his followers always made officers as a guard. ( hi the next day, 
 a vigorous effort to avoid coming into when it had been resolved to hold a ses- 
 coutact with the Corps Ligislatif, and sion, nothing occurred ; no senators were 
 interposed between it and them the to be found. They had littered away 
 President of the Council of State, or some into the crowd, and disappeared to 
 other members of that body. But the undergo various terms of voluntary 
 most tyrannical of all the provisions exile. 
 
 which the Second Empire had imagined It is difficult to judge whether Napoleon 
 
 for placing the government in the bands III. saw the gravity of the mistake which 
 
 of the irresponsible few was that by he had made, before the great collision at 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM 
 
 151 
 
 Sadowa, which brought the formidable 
 Prussian nation to the very fronl of 
 European powers. Whether or not he 
 had learned his error, it was his punish- 
 ment that he was obliged to go on alone, 
 undertaking a task for which he was in 
 unwise fitted cither by nature or training, 
 seeing himself day by day the scorn of 
 men whom he knew were competent I" 
 extricate him from his position, but out- 
 side the pale of whose sympathy he had 
 placed himself, and from whose knowl- 
 edge he could ask no aid. It is the 
 fashion among French Republicans to 
 attribute all the disasters which befell 
 Fiance after July of 1870 to the be- 
 sotted policy of the Emperor, which had 
 neither firmness nor shrewdness, but 
 which was characterized mainly by 
 greed. His foible was observed at an 
 early date by the apostles of German 
 centralization, who had been puzzled 
 because the French Emperor was not 
 disposed to interfere boldly with the 
 various projects which were to lead up 
 to the unification of Germany. A 
 clever series of manoeuvres was begun, 
 with a view to discovering how far 
 Napoleon was blinded by his sojourn at 
 the height of power, and how far he 
 could be urged, and possibly persuaded, 
 into acquiescence iu events the accom- 
 plishment of which neither a French 
 Monarchy nor a French Republic would 
 have permitted without a struggle. 
 
 It happened that the King of Prussia 
 found it convenient to make a journey 
 to Compiegne in the autumn of 1861, 
 ami there was much talk in the corridors 
 of the palace, and in the clubs and par- 
 lors of Paris, of a mysterious triple alli- 
 ance of the three Courts of the Tuileries, 
 of St. Petersburg, and of Berlin. Pam- 
 phleteers wrote of the great agglomer- 
 ation of States which represented Hie 
 
 three races, the Latin, the Germanic, 
 
 and the Slavic, to which corresponded 
 the three centres of gravitation, France, 
 Prussia, and Russia : and the journalists 
 of the boulevards treated elaborately of 
 the definite establishment of the peace 
 of Europe by means of the " threefold 
 alliance of the universal monarchies," in 
 which should be epitomized, not only 
 the three principal races of the European 
 system, but also the three great brandies 
 of the Christian church. All this elabo- 
 rate twaddle was imagined and planned 
 by the adroit politicians of tin 1 north, 
 coolly and carefully feeling their way 
 among the obstacles which had so long 
 prevented the consummation of their 
 purpose, and which now seemed likely 
 to be swept away because of tin 1 lack of 
 foresight of a parvenu, who had taken 
 into his hands the reins of government 
 of a great nation without understanding 
 how dangerous it was suddenly to change 
 that nation's policy. 
 
 No just-minded man. and certainly no 
 American, would for an instant dream 
 of blaming the northern politicians for 
 their scheme of unification, or of too 
 closely criticising their endeavors to 
 lessen and weaken the opposition of 
 France to that unification. But, from 
 the French point of view, the Emperor, 
 because of his blindness and of his greed, 
 erred unpardonably, and brought about 
 the crash which terrified, when it came, 
 even such a stout heart as that of M. 
 Thiers. 
 
 The story goes, that when the King of 
 Prussia made his first visit to Compiegne, 
 where Ids renown as a " military prince" 
 — as he was laughingly called by the 
 courtiers and fine ladies, who professed to 
 consider his soldierly frostiness as eccen- 
 tric and amusing — had preceded him. 
 the Emperor ordered out for his guest's 
 delectation the superb regiment of the 
 '• Guides;" and the noted band of that 
 
152 
 
 EUROPE L\ STORM AND CALM. 
 
 regiment, a band which was celebrated 
 throughout Europe, played the " Coro- 
 nation March." The old King of Prus- 
 sia must have thought of this incident 
 when he put "ii his Imperial crown in 
 the chapel <>t' the Palace of Versailles. 
 No man but himself knows whether in 
 those days, nine years before the Franco- 
 German war. he did not dream of the 
 invasion of Fiance ; hut it is certain that 
 his first act on returning to his home was 
 the nomination of Count von Bismarck 
 as the director of political affairs, and it 
 was not lone before this great man, 
 whose reputation was already European, 
 went to Paris to finish at the Tuileries 
 the work so skilfully begun at Com- 
 piegne by his king. 
 
 In those days Bismarck was the friend, 
 and almost the counsellor, of Napoleon 
 III. He was very often at his side, and 
 never failed to talk of his plan of the 
 reorganization of Europe. This reor- 
 ganization, it is scarcely necessary to 
 say, was based upon unity of action of 
 France and Germany. In compensation 
 for the accomplishment of German unity 
 France should have Luxembourg, later 
 on, and should annex Belgium, or should 
 have her eastern frontiers rectified, tak- 
 ing in the great iron districts of the 
 Soar, and even getting back Mayence. 
 Prussia, meantime, would annex Hano- 
 ver, and would absorb all the German 
 Stales, up to the line of the river 
 Mein. 
 
 There is no denying the fact that the 
 Emperor was completely won by this 
 policy of intrigue, — a policy which in 
 reality contained no promise of I'ullil- 
 nieiit which could be exacted, but eon- 
 tented itself with '• glittering generali- 
 ties." The Emperor struck the crowning 
 blow to his own safety and popularity ill 
 France without knowing it. when he an- 
 nounced, in one of his annual speeches, 
 
 that Prussia had declared war against 
 Austria . ; but that, even if Prussia should 
 make conquests of territory. France was 
 certain to have compensating concessions 
 made to her. 
 
 The lirst downward step in his exte- 
 rior policy had been made by the Em- 
 peror when he permitted the throttling 
 of Denmark ; the second was taken when 
 he diil not interfere in the brief straggle 
 which ended at Sadowa. There was but 
 one step left for him to take, and that 
 he took at Sedan. 
 
 After the victory of Prussia over the 
 Austrians at Sadowa, neither the Emperor 
 nor the Empress of the French had any 
 further illusions. It is said that the Em- 
 press, speaking one day of her son, re- 
 marked " that he would never reign in 
 France if Sadowa were not avenged." 
 The passionate declarations of M. Thiers, 
 although the Imperial party professed to 
 disregard them, were warnings which 
 made them tremble. M. Rouher, as 
 Minister of State, undertaking to place 
 in a favorable light the statements of 
 the Emperor in his speech about Sadowa. 
 employed many specious phrases, but 
 could not conceal the truth. " In ques- 
 tions," he said, " which neither affect 
 the honor, the dignity, or the practical 
 interests of our country, was it not the 
 duty of the Emperor's government, after 
 having loudly proclaimed its pacific 
 policy, lo respect and to practise the 
 rules of a loyal and sincere neutrality?" 
 To this M. Thiers made answer: '-All 
 that Germany demands of us is the in- 
 difference of France. She could ask 
 nothing more to her advantage. Now 
 it is this very indifference of which 1 
 have a mortal fear.'' 
 
 Republicans and Monarchists appear 
 agreed, in summing up the causes of the 
 country's disasters, that in 1866 a 
 simple manifestation of French sym- 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 pathy for Austria would have hindered 
 the progress of Count von Bismarck, and 
 would have enabled Austria to inflict 
 upon Prussia a serious humiliation. 
 
 It does not detract from the renown 
 of Bismarck to show that he was aided in 
 great degree in the develop- 
 ment of his colossal policy by 
 the weakness of the dynasty 
 in France. The fate that had 
 given the French nation into 
 Napoleon's hands prevented 
 that nation from interfering 
 in the beginnings of German 
 unity in 1866. A year later 
 it was too late for France to 
 interfere, or to insist upon 
 compensation. This was am- 
 ply shown at the time in 1KH7 
 when the French government 
 had decided to bring officially 
 to the notice of the Berlin 
 Cabinet the convention con- 
 cluded with Holland with re- 
 gard to the cession of the 
 Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. 
 In France a party, stung by 
 the knowledge of the fact that 
 its country had in some meas- 
 ure been forced into second 
 rank by the events at Sadowa, 
 had manifested a great desire 
 for a war. The Emperor him- 
 self saw that the time had come 
 when he must satisfy popular 
 opinion at home by making an 
 aggressive movement towards 
 Berlin. He yielded to the 
 representations of the Marquis de 
 Moustiers, who was at that time Min- 
 ister of Foreign Affairs, and consented 
 that his representative in Germany 
 should present a memorandum. If this 
 were done successfully, and Prussia 
 yielded, Napoleon thought that the 
 sueeess thus won by France would 
 
 be considered as a compensation for 
 Sadowa. 
 
 So, on the afternoon of the 1st of 
 April, 1807, Count von Bismarck, who 
 had been receiving the compliments of 
 numerous visitors on the occasion of his 
 
 THE MAN OF DESTINY ON THE TUILERI] 
 
 TERRACE. 
 
 birthday, was just about to set out for 
 his place in Parliament, when the visit of 
 Count Benedetti, the French ambassa- 
 dor, was announced. After the usual 
 salutations the ambassador declared 
 thai he had a despatch to communicate 
 from the French Minister of Foreign 
 A Hairs. 
 
154 
 
 EUROPE IV STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Count von Bismarck was somewhat 
 startled. He at once divined the tenor 
 of the despatch, as the Luxembourg 
 affair was then in full progress, and 
 for a moment he probably feared that 
 Napoleon had ceased to be a dupe of 
 the policy of promises. In short, he 
 felt that peace or war hung upon a 
 single thread. 
 
 His plan of action was instantly re- 
 solved upon. lie knew that Bene- 
 detti himself was anxious to avoid an 
 outbreak of hostilities between France 
 and Germany, and he still had a hope 
 that Napoleon III. was not personally 
 anxious for war, but, as was really the 
 case, had yielded to the representations 
 of the angry national party. So when 
 Benedetti tried to take from his pocket 
 the despatch. Count von Bismarck arose 
 and said that he could not at that 
 moment receive the ambassador politi- 
 cally, as lie was obliged to go at once 
 to Parliament, lie invited the ambas- 
 sador to accompany him, and continue 
 the conversation as they went along. 
 As they were going through the garden in 
 front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 
 Benedetti again tried to communicate 
 his despatch. Count von Bismarck did 
 not reply directly, but as they wended 
 their way through the alleys of the 
 gardens, he presently said : — 
 
 •• I am going into Parliament, and I 
 expect I shall there encounter an ' in- 
 terpellation' on the question which is 
 lust now so much agitated in the news- 
 papers, — the sale of the Grand Duchy 
 of Luxembourg." 
 
 •• Yes, I know." said Benedetti, "and 
 it is just for that reason that the im- 
 mediate communication of my despatch 
 seems to me urgent." 
 
 "Very well," said Bismarck, "but 
 I must first communicate to you the 
 nature of the answer that 1 am going 
 
 to make to the interpellation." As 
 he said this he pushed away for the 
 second time the despatch which the 
 French Knvoy tendered him. " I .shall 
 say that the government ignores the 
 state of the question, and that for that 
 reason I cannot pronounce publicly 
 upon its intentions. I shall add that 
 1 have the assurance that no power 
 will interfere with the incontestable 
 rights of the German countries, and 
 that the government hopes to mala' its 
 rights respected in a peaceful manner. 
 That is what I shall say, because it is 
 the truth, and because that declaration 
 will enable me to undertake negotia- 
 tions amicably, and perhaps to arrive at, 
 an understanding. But I could not 
 give such a response if I knew that 
 the convention for the sale of the 
 Grand Duchy had been concluded. If 
 1 learned of this sale officially I should 
 have to say to the Reichstag: 'Yes, 
 such a sale has taken place; but never 
 
 will Prussia nor her German allies per- 
 mit the accomplishment of this convention 
 and the cessi >>i of tin's German territory.' 
 You can see," added Count von Bis- 
 marck, very innocently, ami quickening 
 his pace, -'that after such a declara- 
 tion a. grave conflict would be sure to 
 arise between France and ourselves. 
 This conflict, taking into account (he 
 impressionable nature of your people, 
 would finish in a rupture, which I 
 should regret as much as you would." 
 
 •• In fact," saiil Benedetti, pausing 
 and looking troubled, "a war would be 
 inevitable after such a declaration." 
 
 At this point in the conversation the 
 two diplomats left the garden and 
 entered the street. " Well. " said Count 
 von Bismarck to Benedetti, " we must 
 separate here, and I must now ask you, 
 'Have you or have you not a despatch 
 to hand me ? ' " 
 
EUROTE IN STORM iND CALM. 
 
 If)") 
 
 Benedetti bit his lips and reflected a 
 few seconds. " No," he said. He put 
 the despatch back into his pocket, and 
 took leave of Bismarck, who went on to 
 Parliament, and responded to the inter- 
 pellation exactly as he told the French 
 ambassador he should do. 
 
 The result was that the Imperial Party 
 in France presently found that it had 
 been severely snubbed. The question of 
 the Duchy of Luxembourg was submitted 
 to the Conference of Londou, which de- 
 
 clared the neutrality of the ( J rand Duchy, 
 and decreed the demolition of its fortress. 
 The policy of compensation, on which 
 Napoleon had based so many hopes, had 
 ended in a check to the power of France. 
 The enemies of the country which Na- 
 poleon hail undertaken to govern alone 
 had discovered the joints in his armor, 
 the weak spot in his system of govern- 
 ment, and no longer treated him as 
 serious. 
 
15(3 
 
 VVROVE IN STORM AM' CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTEEN. 
 
 Prevost-Paradol and his Fatal Knur. — A Journalist who Yielded to the Seductions of the Empire. — 
 The Work which lie had Done Against Imperialism. — Danger of Riots in 1870 . — The Execution of 
 Troppmann. — An Experience of the Secret Police. — Gustave Flourens. — The Arrest of Roche- 
 fort. — Flourens and J lis Insurrection. 
 
 " TTTHOM the gods would destroy," 
 » V says au ancient proverb, " they 
 first make mad." After the fatal step 
 which awakened the French Emperor 
 to the folly of his attempted policy of 
 "territorial compensation" and greed, 
 he entered upon a course of reckless 
 adventure, now making promises of 
 reform with such earnestness as to 
 create new dupes, who in a few short 
 months were bitterly to regret their 
 mistake ; now contradicting all that he 
 had promised by violent measures of 
 repression, worthy of the first days of 
 his Imperial career. 
 
 The mention of his dupes calls to 
 mind the pathetic close of the life 
 of M. Prevost-Paradol, who accepted 
 office at the hands of Napoleon III., 
 and who had scarcely installed him- 
 self in his position as French minister 
 at Washington before his eyes were 
 opened to the terrible nature of his 
 error, ami, his generous spirit torn 
 with anguish at the thought that he 
 had unwittingly associated himself with 
 those who were the betrayers of his 
 country's honor and the destroyers of 
 her peace, he ended his life with his 
 own hands. Napoleon III.'s motives 
 tor sending M. Prevost-Paradol to the 
 United States were by no means un- 
 selfish. They formed a phase of the 
 apologetic side of the Emperor's course 
 during the hist year of his reign. I was 
 told, in 1.S7U, that M. Prevost-Paradol, 
 
 who had heard that his distinguished 
 talents were to be rewarded by some 
 gift by the Imperial hand at the Tuile- 
 ries, was advised by an old American 
 resident in Paris to ask for the post at 
 Washington, and to accept nothing else. 
 Whether or not this were the origin 
 of the appointment, the Emperor was 
 enchanted in winning over to his side, 
 even in outward seeming, one of the 
 journalists who had been so stern and 
 powerful an opponent of the Second 
 Empire. M. Prevost-Paradol had a 
 fine record, to which a diplomatic ap- 
 pointment under the Second Empire 
 was rather a halting conclusion. He 
 was one of those brilliant pupils of 
 that famous Normal School from which 
 came also Taine, About, aud other 
 Frenchmen of this generation, who have 
 won and who worthily wear laurels. 
 Academician at thirty-live ; director 
 of one of the most powerful and in- 
 fluential of French Liberal journals, 
 he was a notable force for good dur- 
 ing all the arid period after the coup 
 d'Etat. He wrote constantly and abhj 
 in behalf of liberty of the press, of 
 universal suffrage, and of social reform. 
 He was, like so many French scholars, 
 a little afraid of immediate contact 
 with professional politicians and striv- 
 ing radicals in the arena of universal 
 suffrage ; and the adherents of the 
 Empire were fond of saying that he was 
 devoted to the cause of the Orleans 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 157 
 
 princes. That he had much sympathy 
 for these gentlemen there is little doubt, 
 but. had he lived, it is probable that he 
 would have rallied, like M. Thiers, to 
 the Republic, and would have been a 
 noble worker in the cause of liberty. 
 
 After he had accepted office at the 
 hands of Napoleon III. he wrote a note 
 to the Orleans princes, which was in 
 some sense an excuse for associating 
 himself with the reigning powers. " I 
 am tired." lie said. " even disgusted with 
 tlic press and its bitter polemics; yet I 
 feel that I cannot leave the political 
 arena, though I am anxious to get rid 
 of its battles." His final conclusion was 
 that lie could find comfort and strength 
 for future work in the temporary accept- 
 ance of a diplomatic position. 
 
 I met M. Prevost-Paradol for the first 
 time shortly before his departure for the 
 United States. He was the only French- 
 man at a large party in which there were 
 a dozen American politicians, all of 
 whom went away with the idea that the 
 new French minister was a remarkable 
 man. Small in stature, with a face 
 somewhat Jewish in type, he was not 
 impressive when silent, but lie was mag- 
 netic and inspiring in conversation, and 
 became at once the central figure of the 
 salon. He had the fascinating quality 
 of making the person to whom he was 
 speaking believe that lie was especially 
 charmed by him or her, and he was an 
 excellent listener. His English was al- 
 most faultless, although he spoke rapidly 
 and nervously. After he lectured in 
 Edinburgh the English papers were 
 enthusiastic in their praise of his lin- 
 guistic accomplishments. He had al- 
 ways been a close student of English 
 literature, had written essays on the 
 Elizabethan period, and in his " Pages 
 of Contemporary History" lie has left 
 many wise and just observations upon 
 
 the great events and lessons of the 
 American civil war. These "Pages" 
 are sprightly volumes, made up of letters 
 contributed to the old Sunday Courierol 
 Paris, — a lively journal, suppressed, in 
 1865, on the ground that it had insulted 
 the Emperor, but in reality because its 
 politics were in all respects too liberal. 
 
 What M. Prevost-Paradol had done 
 when he was director of the old and 
 famous Journal des I>t'l>nts he did again, 
 with all the strength of his matured in- 
 tellect, in tin- Sunday Courier. He wrote 
 in a plain matter-of-fact style, in which 
 there was yet a curious savor of Mon- 
 taigne, and which was saturated with 
 wit. Now and then a doctrine or an 
 individual was quickly stabbed and bru- 
 tally flung aside, but the usual method of 
 M. Paradol seemed to be worrying the 
 life out of his enemies by the pricking 
 of a million tiny blades. In the article 
 which caused the suppression of the 
 Sunday Courier lie compared France 
 to a fine lady of the Court, who might 
 choose her lover among the noblest and 
 richest in the land, but who chose ignobly 
 to fly with the stable-man. 
 
 The contemptuous nature of this com- 
 parison was quickly reported at the 
 Tuileries, and M. Paradol went into re- 
 tirement until his work, called " New 
 France," was published, in 1808. In 
 that book he urged upon the country 
 the necessity of parliamentary govern- 
 ment, with the greatest possible liberty, 
 and made an earnest appeal for the re- 
 establishment of justice in the courts of 
 the land. Then the wave of circumstance 
 carried him into the < 'orps Ligislatif; 
 and then came the disastrous mistake 
 which cost him his life. 
 
 He had been one of the first to point 
 out the fallacy of the Mexican expedition 
 and to prophesy its failure. He was de- 
 lighted with the opportunity of visiting 
 
158 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 America, and told me thai he intended nothing about their promenades in (he 
 i" visit .-ill the importanl centres, and to dark. On the great square of the Cha- 
 stely Republicanism where it was prac- teau d'Eau, which to-day is known as 
 tised without hindrance. Bui the crash the Place de la R6pubiiqne, a troop of 
 came, and carried down the innocent cavalry made its appearance at sunset, 
 with the guilty, and France lost a thinker and paraded hither and yon, breaking 
 and a writer whom she could ill spare, up any crowds which gathered at the 
 As he left the shores of liis native laud entrance of the square, or which seemed 
 the echoes of the reproaches of his former disposed to move towards the sections 
 comrades rang in his ears, and when he of Belleville and La Villette, where the 
 reached Washington, and found thai plebs was beginning to roar. The eav- 
 society welcomed him but coldly, think- airy frequently made a sudden raid upon 
 ing him a renegade, he was struck to the the spectators, and those who were 
 heart. The declaration of war agaiusl caught within the circle of horsemen 
 Germany completed his humiliation, and were marched off to prison without any 
 so maddened him that he shot himself in opportunity to explain themselves until 
 the breast, in his own apartment, shortly the next day. Amusing adventures of 
 alter returning from a public reception, this kind, tempered by no little discom- 
 He was sincerely mourned by the Lib- fort, occurred now and then to both 
 ends in Paris, and by those who had ladies and gentlemen from beyond the 
 been most bitter in their attacks upon seas, who were anxious to learn how 
 him for yielding even in appearance to Napoleon kept the wicked Parisians in 
 the seductions of tin' Empire. order. Once, in February of 1870. I 
 Anient and enthusiastic scholars and saw a veritable stampede, hundreds of 
 men of letters, like M. PreVost-Paradol men. women, and children rushing l'nui- 
 and like M. Flourens, — an episode in tically under the awnir.g of a cafi, and 
 whose tragic history may be related crashing into the great plate-class win- 
 here, —made the Imperial party so iin- dons, cutting and bruising themselves, 
 comfortable that it fell into a subtle in their wild fear of a cavalry charge. 
 
 distrust, and from the time of Victor which was C lucted with more than 
 
 Noir's funeral down to the declaration usual vigor. People tolerated these 
 
 of war there was scarcely a day when things because the press could not report 
 
 troops were not to be seen in some ipiar- them ; or. if by chance it dared to print 
 
 ter of the capital, grimly awaiting the accounts of them, it could not comment 
 
 outbreak of a revolt. Iii January, Feb- upon them so as to awaken public opin- 
 
 ruarv. and March, of 1*70, after the ion. and to arouse the masses to a full 
 
 pulse of the great city was still, late at understanding of their degrading posi- 
 
 night. long lines of troops moved quietly lion. 
 
 through the main avenues, anil took up In those days, too. it was interesting 
 
 their station in the popular quarters, to journey into Belleville and La Villette, 
 
 when' the working-men were becoming taking good care to he furnished with 
 
 more and more ripe for insurrection, papers of identification, and to attend 
 
 When daylight came these long lines of the meetings held in garrets, in the lofts 
 
 men had disappeared. They came and of manufactories, or sometimes in the 
 
 went almost as silently as pliant s, cellars of cheap restaurants. The I-'.m- 
 
 and the mass of the population knew [lire objected ill t<>l" to the public meet- 
 
El ROVE IS STORM AND CAL I/. 
 
 I.V.I 
 
 iug. It recognized in it the force which 
 could overthrow the whole Imperial 
 structure. !So when the people began to 
 clamor menacingly for the right to as- 
 semble they were told that they could 
 come together only in the most incon- 
 venient and out-of-the-way places. On 
 one occasion 1 attended a reunion, as it 
 was called, in the garret of a huge ware- 
 house at La Villette. At the door of 
 the building about fifty sergents de viUe, 
 accompanied by their usual complement 
 of mouchards, or private detective-., 
 were compactly massed together; and 
 no person entered without being very 
 carefully inspected. Climbing some 
 dirty and rickety stairs I came at last 
 to the place of meeting, which was dimly 
 lighted by wax candles, in lanterns 
 hung from great beams, or placed on 
 rude wooden boxes. Here, scaled on 
 benches, or squatted on the floor, or 
 hanging like monkeys from the beams, 
 were some two thousand workmen and 
 street Arabs. In what might have been 
 called the orchestra stalls, or the seats 
 nearest the platform, there were a 
 few intelligent, middle-aged artisans, 
 accompanied by their wives and daugh- 
 ters. On the platform sat Rochefort, 
 with several resolute workmen, and one 
 or two of his fellow-deputies grouped 
 about him. At a little distance was 
 seated the police commissioner, the 
 representative of the central authority. 
 and here and there, at the platform's 
 side, appeared the three-cornered hats 
 of the police. Outside could be heard 
 the murmur of angry voices and the fa- 
 miliar admonition of the Imperial police : 
 " Circidez, Messieurs, circulez, s'il rims 
 plait!" 
 
 The speeches were bold enough, and 
 speakers like Rochefort and the other 
 deputies were direct and telling in their 
 attacks upon the government. Hut the 
 
 workmen were usually very illogical ami 
 ridiculous in their vaporings. When the 
 leading speakers of the evening became 
 too violent, in the estimation of the 
 worthy commissioner of police, that 
 
 f ■tionary pounded on the table, and 
 
 invited the orator to be more careful. 
 At such meetings, when the orator did 
 not profit by this invitation*, ami the 
 functionary was compelled to repeat it, 
 the proceedings could he summarily ter- 
 minated, and the police could expel the 
 audience from the building. Once, at a 
 meeting in Belleville, Rochefort began a 
 brief, lint very carefully prepared, speech, 
 ending his first sentence with the word 
 "Republican." The commissioner of 
 police immediately admonished him ; but 
 it happened that Rochefort had written 
 out his speech, and, being in those days 
 unused to extempore speaking, he was 
 compelled to read on, and soon came to 
 the word " Republican" again. Where- 
 upon the admonition was repeated, and 
 the commissioner said, " Why should 
 you compel me to break up your meet- 
 ing? " This made Rochefort angry, and 
 also made him eloquent. He turned 
 upon the official and indulged in a 
 brief philippic upon the tyranny of the 
 Empire, bringing in with much skill 
 the forbidden word in such a. variety of 
 forms and fashions that the police-officer 
 at once declared the meeting adjourned 
 sine die and left the hall. 
 
 If under these circumstances speakers 
 or audience had ventured to remain, thus 
 defying the central authority, they would 
 all have been subjected to criminal prose- 
 cution, and a goodly number of them 
 would have been imprisoned. 
 
 The Empire feared for its safety even 
 when crowds were brought together on 
 such occasions as the execution of 
 Troppmann. Those who went up to 
 the gloomy square in front of the prison 
 
inn 
 
 El ROPE IX STOR 1/ AXD CALM. 
 
 of La Roquette, on that clamp winter 
 night in 1870 when the celebrated 
 criminal lust his head, will never forget 
 the elaborate precautions which the 
 authorities had taken for the suppres- 
 sion of any riot that might occur. The 
 sinister Troppmann will be remembered 
 ms the man who slew a woman and her 
 five children in a field in the neighbor- 
 hood of Paris, and who had the pro- 
 digious courage to bury them carefully 
 in that field, and then to plan and 
 cany very far towards complete suc- 
 cess a scheme for escaping from the 
 country to the United States. This 
 five-fold assassination had so horrified 
 the people of Paris that they cried out 
 universally for the public execution of 
 this malefactor, and it would have been 
 more dangerous to have refused them 
 the satisfaction of waiting in rows, from 
 midnight till dawn, around the scaffold 
 of expiation, than to run the risk of dis- 
 persing them in case they started in 
 procession for the Tuileries after the 
 execution. 
 
 So persistent were the rumors that the 
 insurrection would break out that night 
 that, in company with four or five other 
 Americans, I went up to the prison of 
 La Boquette, arriving there just as the 
 clocks were striking midnight. One of 
 the gentlemen in the party had procured 
 from a functionary, with whom he was 
 acquainted, a card, which would, he was 
 assured, admit himself and friends inside 
 the hollow square formed by the cavalry 
 and the infantry, which kept the howling 
 and surging mob, constantly increasing 
 in numbers, at a reasonable distance 
 from the scaffold. 
 
 We had no sooner reached the outer 
 line of this strange collection of hu- 
 manity than we had a singular and 
 striking illustration of the wonderful 
 organization of the French secret police. 
 
 My companion had Keen better served 
 than he supposed. He had. as we after- 
 wards learned, been given a document 
 which entitled him to special favor from 
 the mysterious and disguised .agents of 
 the Empire, who were always moving to 
 and fro in crowds. He handed the little 
 paper to the first uniformed policeman 
 whom we encountered. This personage 
 looked at it and was puzzled ; but it was 
 instantly taken out of his hand in 
 peremptory fashion by a red-nosed party, 
 in a faded blue blouse and a dilapidated 
 silk hat. Much to our astonishment 
 this man, whom we expected to see 
 taken into custody by the policeman, 
 read the card, said, in a low voice, 
 " Mouton" returned us the " safe- 
 conduct," and, with a little friendly ad- 
 vice as to watching our pockets, pushed 
 us on towards the inner circle. We had 
 not gone twenty steps further before 
 another seedy-looking man jostled 
 against us, repeated the word "Mouton," 
 and also the wholesome advice as to 
 pockets. He went with us a few steps, 
 when a consumptive individual, in white 
 cotton blouse and trousers, took up the 
 magic word, which he seemed bound to 
 repeat when he saw the card, still held by 
 my friend where it could be seen ; and we 
 began to understand that we were being 
 passed from agent to agent, each new 
 helper being the obedient slave of our 
 talisman. But candor compels me to 
 state, that just as we were about to get 
 into the square there was a great tumult 
 in the outer lines of the mob. the cavalry 
 turned about and prepared for a charge, 
 and our consumptive friend in white 
 advised us to beat a retreat, and to take 
 refuge in the upper story of some wine- 
 shop. 
 
 We took his advice, and soon found 
 ourselves the occupants of a little room, 
 from which, two or three hours later, as 
 
EUROPE J.V STORM AND CALM. 
 
 llil 
 
 POLICE HRKAKIXCi UP A KEPUCLICAX MEETING. 
 
 tin- dull gray of morning slowly came, dreds of the waiting men looked like 
 
 we could discern the sinister form of the criminals of the worst sort. The women 
 
 guillotine and the upturned, livid, dis- were loud-mouthed, ami many of them 
 
 torted, ugly faces of the thousands of indecent in their language ; and when a 
 
 men and women who longed to see new detachment of troops arrived it was 
 
 Troppmann die. In truth it was a hailed with threats and shouts of deri- 
 
 dreadful and repulsive spectacle. Hun- sion. 
 
If) 
 
 EUHOPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 It was then the tradition that execu- 
 tions .should take place in France just at 
 the dawn, as if society were ashamed of 
 the vengeance which it took, and pre- 
 ferred to have it before the respectable 
 world were fairly awake and at its daily 
 tasks and duties. The dawn was faint, 
 and from our point of vantage we could 
 but dimly discern the wretched murderer 
 as lie was brought out from the great 
 central door of the prison, with the priest 
 holding the crucifix at his side, and with 
 an attendant train of physicians, drama- 
 tists, and journalists, who wished to 
 make a " study from nature." in the 
 reai'. The assassin, as he set his foot 
 on the last step of the scaffold, was met 
 and taken possession of by the execu- 
 tioner and his aids, and of the rest we 
 could see nothing save a, shadowy 
 struggle, which seemed to last for a 
 horrible time, but which really was over 
 in half a minute. We heard the dull 
 thud of the knife. As it descended a 
 yell of mingled triumph and execration 
 went up from the crowd. The little 
 troops of cavalry began to disperse the 
 masses of pale and half-famished spec- 
 tators. A black wagon, escorted by 
 (jeiidarm.es, was driven rapidly up to the 
 
 rear of the scaffold. A rough w len 
 
 box was placed in it. and then the 
 wagou and its escort set out at full trot 
 for th •cmetery of the < clemned." 
 
 We remained in our perch in the wine- 
 shop until most of the people had left 
 the square, and then we went down to 
 view the scaffold, in front of which we 
 found our consumptive friend, in the 
 white garments, engaged in conversation 
 with an odd-looking Herculean man, 
 dressed in Mack clothes, with a shiny 
 black hat surmounting his rugged head. 
 
 •• Did he carry himself well?" said the 
 
 police-officer to this gigantic personage. 
 '•At first," was the answer; ''but 
 
 when he was placed on the plank he 
 tried to bite. Then it was .soon over ; " 
 and the robust man drew a cigarette 
 from his pocket, lighted it daintily with 
 a wax match, and turned his hack upon us. 
 
 " You have been," said our late ac- 
 quaintance, turning upon us with a sin- 
 ister smile, ■•lucky or unlucky, as yon 
 choose to consider it ; " and, pointing to 
 the large man, added, ''you have just 
 been face to face with the executioner." 
 
 No riot came that night ; the stones of 
 La Roquette were stained with none but 
 criminal's blood, and forsometime after- 
 wards the atmosphere of Paris was peace- 
 ful ; but when the obedient Corps Ligis- 
 latif had sanctioned the prosecution of 
 Rochefort, because of his revolutionary 
 language, the agitation was extreme, 
 and Flourens, whom I have mentioned, 
 was the leader in a riot of very respecta- 
 ble proportions. Rochefort was arrested 
 one February evening, just as he was 
 entering a hall where several thousands 
 of people were waiting to hear liiui 
 speak, and he was carried off to St. 
 Pelagic, the prison in which political of- 
 fenders were locked up, so quietly that. 
 there was no attempt at rescue made. 
 But when the audience learned that he 
 had been taken prisoner tin 1 excitement 
 knew no bounds. 
 
 Gustave Flourens. who had been one 
 of the most daring leaders in the mani- 
 festation on the day of Victor Noir's 
 funeral, may fairly lie said to have in- 
 augurated the attack on the Empire ; for, 
 no sooner had a workman cried out, 
 " Rochefort is arrested ; they are going 
 to assassinate him ! " than he leaped up 
 from his chair on to the platform, and 
 drew a revolver, pointed it at the police 
 commissioner's head, and said, •• You 
 arc my prisoner. Come with me ; we will 
 do you no harm. 1 proclaim the insur- 
 rection." Two or three shots were fired 
 
FA'ROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 1(53 
 
 in the air, and Flourens, followed by 
 three or four hundred shouting and 
 frenzied workmen, went down into the 
 street, forcing the unlucky police commis- 
 sioner ahead of him by occasional sugges- 
 tive hints with the barrel of his revolver. 
 The people at. once began to build 
 barricades, and to prepare for a gen- 
 eral resistance on the great boulevards 
 which radiate from the Belleville quar- 
 ter. Flourens gave his prisoner the 
 " key of the fields," as the French say, 
 and told him to go and sin no more. 
 
 Flourens was one of those brave and 
 hardy spirits, who, like Prevost-Para- 
 dol, suit the action to the word. He was 
 the son of the distinguished professor of 
 natural history at the College de France, 
 and until he was thirty devoted himself 
 with the greatest enthusiasm to the 
 studies in which his father had won an 
 European reputation. When the father 
 died lie designated the son as his suc- 
 cessor, and appealed to the Imperial 
 minister to confirm his choice ; but the 
 younger Flourens had, like other young 
 
 DISPERSING A PARISIAN RIOT. 
 
 Then he began to search the quarter for 
 anus; but before he succeeded in organ- 
 izing a well-equipped force the police 
 came in crowds, followed by a few de- 
 tachments of infantry. The overturned 
 omnibuses, half-smashed cabs, and piles 
 of paving-stones, were of little avail, 
 and the effort of Flourens turned out 
 an inglorious failure. Flourens himself 
 took refuge in the house of a friend, 
 where he was concealed forty days, after 
 which he escaped to England, which 
 country refused to give him up when he 
 was asked for as culpable of participa- 
 tion in the conspiracy for assassinating 
 i he Emperor. 
 
 men of Liberal and Republican sympa- 
 thies, been placed on the black-list of 
 the Empire, and he waited in vain for 
 the succession to his father's post. He 
 even wrote directly to the Emperor, say- 
 ing that he felt it a sacred duty to carry 
 out the work which had fallen from his 
 father's hands; but Napoleon said he 
 could not interfere in the appointments 
 of his ministers. Young Flourens then 
 deliberately gave up his scientific career, 
 and went heart and soul into the Liberal 
 cause. lie had to go to Belgium even 
 to publish his scientific works, as they 
 were too deeply tinged with Liberalism to 
 be acceptable to the Empire. Then he 
 
h;i 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 made a long tour in the Orient, took part 
 in the Cretan insurrection in 1866, had 
 many a wild adventure in Greece and 
 Crete, got into :> prison in Italy for a 
 political escapade, and finally came back 
 to Paris, to plunge into radical journal- 
 ism, and at last to lead the insurrection 
 which was so quickly suppressed. 
 
 After Flourens had left his English 
 refuge he was once mure in danger. In 
 Athens lie was tracked by the Imperial 
 police, anil the French Embassy de- 
 manded iiis extradition. The govern- 
 ment was about to accord it when the 
 people of Athens rose and insisted that 
 lie should not lie given up. He came 
 hack to Paris during the September revo- 
 lution, at a time when his countrymen 
 were unduly sensitive on the subject of 
 foreign spies, and suddenly found him- 
 self the inmate of a Republican prison, — 
 he who had dune so much for Republicans 
 
 and the Republic. He was not liberated 
 or freed from the accusation of being a 
 Prussian spy until after the Empire had 
 been destroyed and the government of 
 National Defence established. 
 
 Flourens died, as he had lived, a pas- 
 sionate, but ill-advised and reckless, 
 apostle of liberty, lie was one of the 
 earliest promoters of the Commune, and 
 was in the riot when Paris narrowly 
 escaped the declaration of the Com- 
 munist insurrection, on the 31st of Oc- 
 tober, 1870. He perished, as will be 
 seen farther on, in one of the wild skir- 
 mishes around Paris, in the first days of 
 the great struggle between Paris and 
 Versailles, in 1871. 
 
 His end was as tragic, but not as 
 pitiful, as that of Prevost-Paradol. He 
 died fur his opinions ; not because 
 he had momentarily wavered in his 
 opinions. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 165 
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. 
 
 The Intrigue of Marshal Prim and Bismarck. — The Events which Led to the Declaration ofWar. — The 
 Protest of M. Thiers. — Personal Reminiscences of the Incitement in Paris. — Anecdotes of the I'n- 
 rcadinessof the Second Empire. — General Ducrot and His Troubles in Strasbourg. — The Corruption 
 and Incapacity of the French Quartermaster's Department. — No Rations. — No Ammunition. 
 
 IT was the cold wind blowing from 
 the Pyrenees which finally upset the 
 card-house of the Empire. 
 
 The French say that the candidateship 
 of the Prince Leopold von Hohenzollem, 
 a relative of the Kino- of Prussia, and 
 nothing more than a major in the lirst 
 regiment of King William's Foot-Guards, 
 for the unoccupied throne of .Spain, was 
 the result of an intrigue arranged by 
 Marshal Prim, who had been desperately 
 angered against Napoleon III., because 
 that sovereign had upset his ambitious 
 projects about Mexico ; and by Bis- 
 marck, " who thus found the means of 
 isolating France and surrounding her 
 with enemies, or at least discovered the 
 pretext for a war the almost certain 
 result of which his genius enabled him to 
 foresee." 
 
 This is not a history, and I do not 
 propose to dwell upon the recital, already 
 published hundreds of times, of the long 
 series of negotiations which led the 
 French up to the fatal declaration of 
 war. The military party in Fiance 
 came to the front at once, and in thun- 
 derous tones demanded that the Empire 
 should assert its dignity, and should put 
 aside the political scheme which had 
 been undertaken without the advice ami 
 consent of France. It is possible that 
 Napoleon III. would have been glad to 
 hold in check the passions which his 
 previous vacillating policy had done so 
 much to unchain ; for it would appear 
 
 that he had resumed his negotiations 
 with Prussia in pursuit of his policy of 
 compensation and greed ; and at the very 
 moment when both countries were trem- 
 bling on the verge of hostilities the 
 draft of a secret treaty between France 
 and Prussia was undergoing revision. 
 By this treaty it seems to have been 
 stipulated that Napoleon III. should 
 recognize and allow till the Prussian 
 acquisitions which were the outcome' of 
 the war with Austria ; that the King of 
 Prussia, on his part, should assist France 
 to acquire Luxembourg, — the Luxem- 
 bourg which Bismarck hail so cleverly 
 saved from the hands of the French only 
 two or three years before; that, in case 
 Napoleon III. should get or conquer 
 Belgium, the King of Prussia should 
 give armed assistance to France against 
 any other power that might declare war 
 against her in such a case ; and, finally, 
 that the two powers should conclude an 
 offensive and defensive alliance. 
 
 The effect of the publication of this 
 document by M. Benedetti, the unlucky 
 ambassador who was the representative 
 of France in Prussia in July, 1870, was 
 rather amusing. Although your Euro- 
 pean diplomat neither disdains nor dreads 
 a white lie, there was no one bold enough 
 to deny outright the authenticity of the 
 project of treaty ; and the partisans of 
 the Empire, \\ hen called upon to explain, 
 said that M. Benedetti had drawn up 
 the paper, but had done so at the die- 
 
Kit; EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 tation of Count von Bismarck. That succeeded in putting Marshal Prim, 
 
 personage contented himself with re- who was not a man of mighty mould, 
 
 marking that sonic sort of an agreement back in his place, and in securing from 
 
 had to lie made with Fiance as she tin 1 Spanish and German governments 
 
 incessantly asked for compensation for the withdrawal of a project to which 
 
 not interfering to prevent the plans of France, as a great power, did not feel 
 
 Prussia from being realized. like giving her consent. Hut from the 
 
 Here we have as g 1 proof as we moment of the proposition of the can- 
 need that we are not falsely accusing didateship the Imperial party seems 
 the Emperor of the French of following to have thrown all prudence to the 
 the policy of compensation, and of hav- winds, and to have acted in the most 
 ing been cleverly duped by the people reckless fashion. The simile of the red 
 with whom hi 1 wished to make a profit- cloak and the bull is eminently proper 
 able compromise. Both Bismarck and here. 
 
 Benedetti said, and have always main- All the supporters of the Empire 
 
 tained, that neither Napoleon nor King seemed, in the eyes of calm and 
 
 William were willing to sanction the impartial observers, to he given over 
 
 treaty which their subordinates had to madness. For those who knew the 
 
 drafted; but the fact that the draft gigantic military preparations in which 
 
 was made by two such responsible Prussia had been engaged for so many 
 
 parlies as the German Chancellor and years, the declaration of Emile Ollivier, 
 
 the French Envoy is enough to show in the tribune of the (''>r/>s Legislatif, 
 
 that there was Royal and Imperial in- that lie and his colleagues accepted the 
 
 tcnlion at some time or other to put it great responsibility of a German war 
 
 into force. ••with light hearts," caused a shudder 
 
 It was not until the end of tin' month of disgust. There was hut one thing 
 of June, 1870, that the negotiations to suppose in extenuation of the con- 
 relative to the candidatcship of Prince duct of these men who took into their 
 Leopold to the Spanish throne were hands the lives and fortunes of a great 
 concluded by the Spanish government, nation, and that was that they thor- 
 Count von Bismarck, the King of oughly believed in the duration of the 
 Prussia, ami Prince Leopold himself, old and traditional military strength 
 Marshal Prim, in conversation with of France; that, although they were 
 the Flench ambassador at Madrid, sensible of the corruption and rust 
 took care to place the affair in the which had done such deadly work 
 most disadvantageous light for France, under the Empire, they felt that the 
 and maliciously added that the scheme nation in arms would be victorious over 
 must be carried through, because Spain any opponents, however formidable. 
 could nowhere else find such an accept- Hut. even if they believed this, they 
 able candidate. A German on the were culpable, for they could only have 
 throne of Spain ! The very idea was had such robust confidence in their 
 distasteful to all parties in France, bul country because they had persistentlj 
 its effect upon the Imperialists was neglected the study of the progress of 
 like that of a red cloak before the eyes Europe in their generation, shut into 
 of a hull. Cautious and experienced the petty circle of the Second Empire, 
 diplomats, like M. Thiers, would have which made the collection of news and 
 
EUROPE TN STORM A. YD CALM. 
 
 :c7 
 
 its free publication almost a criminal 
 offence, these responsible ministers, 
 these influential statesmen, had vague 
 notions of the outside world. The 
 Duke de Gramont, in the numerous 
 speeches which he made previous to 
 the declaration of war. adopted the 
 tone of one conscious of an overpower- 
 ing force behind him. The Prussians 
 themselves were staggered by this tre- 
 mendous assumption of importance. 
 A highly cultivated and sincere French 
 official, who was in Germany at the 
 outbreak of the war. has left on record 
 his impression of the period of doubt 
 through which Germany passed when 
 the nation saw that war with France 
 was inevitable. Was it possible that 
 they had made a mistake, and that 
 the old triumphant French spirit would 
 prove as irresistible as of old? 
 
 M. Jules Simon, and many others of 
 equal importance and influence in the 
 ranks of the moderate Republicans, say 
 that General Prim imagined the candi- 
 dateship of Prince Leopold von Hohen- 
 zollern, because Napoleon III. had used 
 such vigorous efforts to prevent the elec- 
 tion of the Due de Montpensier to the 
 throne of Spain. "Of course." says M. 
 Simon. •• the Emperor of the French was 
 bound by his position to exclude a Bour- 
 bon from the Spanish throne ; but by his 
 opposition he occasioned the Hohenzol- 
 lern intrigue, and thus was the cause of 
 all our misfortunes." 
 
 But the grave and great accusation 
 against the Second Empire is that it 
 made war in petulance and recklessness 
 when it might have preserved peace, and 
 that it declared war without being in any 
 manner prepared to carry on a campaign. 
 The man who had said at Bordeaux 
 that the Empire meant peace deliberately 
 cast the nation into a, conflict with a 
 powerful enemy. There was not even 
 
 any enthusiasm thi'oughoul the country 
 
 in favor of a German war; the nation, 
 bowed under the Imperial yoke, blindly 
 accepted the issue of the sword because 
 the Empire dictated that it should do so. 
 The prefects of the various departments 
 had been consulted, and their answers, 
 favorable to a conflict, were published. 
 But they ilid not reflect public opinion, 
 and many of tin' officials timidly ex- 
 pressed their belief that the "agricultu- 
 ral populations were in favor of peace." 
 Garnier-Pages, who represented the sen- 
 timent of the Republican Opposition 
 in the Corps Ldgislatif, once cried out 
 when the subject of war was under dis- 
 cussion : •• It is these dynastic questions 
 which are always troubling the peace of 
 Europe. As for the nations, they only 
 ask to be let alone, that they may 
 respect, aid, and love each other." But 
 the Duke de Gramont, with his diplomatic 
 twaddle and his long sentences about the 
 
 dignity of France and her duty to her 
 sister nation, overwhelmed the Republi- 
 can protests against the struggle which 
 was to be productive of such infinite 
 suffering. 
 
 There was one voice, however, that no 
 platitudes of ministers and no threats of 
 Imperial disfavor could drown, and that 
 was the piping voice of the valiant M. 
 Thiers, so soon to be called to the helm of 
 state, and so earnestly patriotic that he 
 dared to speak out all that was in his 
 heart. On the afternoon of a stormy de- 
 bate, when all the Imperial clique was wild 
 for immediate war, after he had done 
 justice with his keen satire to the auda- 
 cious declarations of Kmile Ollivier and 
 the Duke de Gramont : and after he had 
 spoken for :i lone- time in the midst of 
 insults and outcries from those who 
 dreaded lest he might interrupt the 
 march of events, he concluded his speech 
 by saying that he was ready to vote with 
 
168 EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 the government all accessary means categorically refused to do anything of 
 
 whenever war should definitely be de- the kind, considering that he had fully 
 
 clared, but he must first know the de- accomplished his duty. In the after- 
 
 spatches upon which the declaration of noon M. Beuedetti returned and de- 
 
 war was to be founded. " The Cham- manded a new audience, but this time 
 
 ber," he said, "may do as it likes. I King William announced that he should 
 
 can foresee what it is likely to do; but, refuse to receive him "if it were to 
 
 as for myself , 1 must decline to partici- resume the subject broached in the 
 
 pate in the declaration of a war which morning;" but lie sent his aide-de-camp 
 
 is so little justified." to say that he should be happy to see 
 
 The moli, which had a short time M. Beuedetti if he desired to make him 
 
 before been ready to march against the a personal visit. 
 
 Second Empire, now joined forces with M. Emile Ollivier, in the session of 
 
 it, and on the night of the 15th of June, the Corps Legislatif at which war was 
 
 when the speech which contained the declared, made a great deal out of this 
 
 virtual declaration of war was known, incident, in insisting that the German 
 
 crowds of half-drunken men appeared press had taken it up, and placed France 
 
 before the house of M. Thiers, and in- and her diplomatic dignity in the most 
 
 dulged in a hostile manifestation. But humiliating light; in short, that all 
 
 he was not without his supporters, and Europe was laughing at them, and that 
 
 as he returned that evening from the such an affront could not be tolerate. 1. 
 
 Corps Legislatif he was cheered all the Emile Ollivier was certainly justified 
 
 way from the Place de la Concorde to the in feeling offended at the tone of the 
 
 Rue Royale, because he had dared to tell German and continental press generally 
 
 the truth to the Empire, and to say that in its comments upon the Benedetti 
 
 the dignity of the nation could bo main- incident. 
 tained without plunging into war. But the sneers and the laughter were 
 
 M. Thiers was right in saying that not for France ; they were for the band 
 the declaration of hostilities was scarcely of adventurers who had taken posses- 
 justifiable, for, although the French am- sion a score of years before, and who 
 bassador had secured a complete diplo- were now reaping the fruits of their 
 malic victory over the Spanish and folly and presumption. 
 Prussian intriguers, the Imperial Minis- So from the little cloud, no bigger 
 try was not satisfied, and insisted that than a man's hand, which arose out of 
 M. Benedetti should carry his demands General Prim's back parlor, came the 
 still further, and right up to the danger wind and .storm which made Europe 
 point. On the 13th of July M. Bene- tremble to its base. The appearance of 
 detti therefore presented himself at Paris during the days between the loth 
 King William's residence at Ems, where of July and the 19th, on which date 
 the old monarch was taking his usual the declaration of war. couched in the 
 midsummer repose, and begged the most polished diplomatic language, was 
 king to authorize him to convince the handed to Prussia, was extremely curious. 
 French government that, in case the The usual phenomena attendant upon the 
 Hohenzollern project should lie brought sudden awakening of a nation to the 
 up again, he would interpose his royal knowledge that it must instantly prepare 
 authority to quash it. The old king for defence and offence were visible in 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 1(59 
 
 camp, in court, and on the street. The 
 Emperor shut himself up mornings in 
 the Palace of Saint-Cloud, and was re- 
 ported to be organizing the forthcoming 
 campaign with great skill and energy. 
 That which first impressed me. as a 
 spectator, was the paucity in number 
 of the troops which came and went, and 
 the confusion apparent in all the branches 
 of the administration. A visit to the 
 Ministry of War was like a promenade 
 into Bedlam. Here was no silent disci- 
 pline. The streets of the capitol at 
 night were paraded by long processions 
 of workmen, in white and blue blouses, 
 and by the numerous collection of 
 vagabonds who always come to the sur- 
 face in abnormal times; all this riff- 
 raff singing patriotic songs in the 
 loudest voices, brawling and manifesting 
 under the balconies of unpopular depu- 
 ties, threatening the Republican Opposi- 
 tion with dire consequences, because it 
 had dared to hesitate on the threshold 
 of war. 
 
 The Imperial Guard went out at night 
 under the glare of torch and gas-light, 
 and to the music of splendid bands, and 
 this handsomely equipped corps made a 
 vast impression on the populace. "To 
 Berlin ! To Berlin ! " was shouted on all 
 sides. Enthusiastic citizens seated under 
 the cafe awnings embraced each other, 
 and promised themselves the pleasure 
 of visiting the great Prussian capital 
 when the French armies should be there. 
 Little boys shouted insults for the enemy 
 beyond the frontier. Innocent strangers 
 were hustled and accused of being Ger- 
 mans ; and. when tliey denied the harsh 
 impeachment, were insulted because they 
 were not Germans. Popular passion was 
 at high-water mark: the Emperor was a 
 great man : he had done no wrong. lie 
 would lead his armies to glory. The 
 Republicans were milksops, and the Prus- 
 
 sians were mere food for French bayo- 
 nets. It was an intoxicating moment. 
 The masses of the Parisians fancied that 
 the Empire must have at its disposition 
 vast military resources; and they slept 
 as comfortably after as before the decla- 
 ration of war. 
 
 The Internationale showed its ugly head 
 in the midst of the tumuli. No doubt 
 there was in many breasts the hope that 
 the Commune might then be declared, 
 and the great municipal insurrection 
 might be successfully launched on the 
 stormy waves of popular excitement. 
 In the theatres the actors were called 
 upon to recite patriotic poems ; and at 
 the opera M. Faure was obliged to sine 
 Alfred de Musset's biting and satiric 
 verses against the Prussians. Here 
 and there the Marseillaise, so long for- 
 gotten, burst out ; and the Imperial 
 Police were frightened at the energy with 
 which it was sung. They dreaded the 
 hymn of Rouget de l'Isle. because, 
 though it meant a menace to the Teutonic 
 enemy, there was in it also a threat for 
 tyrants at home. In the Imperial Senate 
 the declaration of war had been saluted 
 with cheers, although the Senators knew 
 that the Empire had no ally, and could 
 count on none at the outbreak of hos- 
 tilities. 
 
 The utter lack of preparation for war 
 on the part of the Second Empire 1 has 
 now become historical ; but few writers 
 who have traced tile course of the war 
 of 1870-1*71 have given half the facts 
 concerning it. On the 20th of July, at 
 ten minutes to teu in the morning, and 
 less than twenty-four hours after the 
 presentation of the official note declaring 
 war by the representative of France al 
 Berlin, the Quartermaster General .it 
 Metz telegraphed to the Minister of War 
 in Paris: "There is in Met/, neithei 
 sugar, nor coffee, nor rice, nor brandy, 
 
170 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 nor sail : little pork, and small biscuit. 
 S.iK 1 iii haste a million rations by way 
 of Thionville." On the 21st of July the 
 General commanding the Second Corps 
 telegraphed to Paris: "The Depdt 
 is sending enormous packages of maps, 
 which are useless for the moment. 
 We have not a single map of the French 
 frontier, and this is the one which we 
 specially need." < >n the 21st of July 
 General Michel telegraphed from Belfort 
 to the Minister of War in Paris: "Just 
 arrived at Belfort : cannot find my 
 brigade; cannot find a Division Gen- 
 eral; what must I do? I do not know 
 u here my regiments are." ( >n the 
 24th of July the General commanding 
 the Fourth Corps telegraphed : " Fourth 
 Corps has neither canteens, nor ambu- 
 lances, nor baggage-wagons : Toul, 
 garrison town, is completely bare of 
 everything." On 'lie same day the 
 Quartermaster of the Third Corps tele- 
 graphed : ••Our corps leaves Metz to- 
 morrow. I have neither hospital tenders, 
 nor workmen, nor ambulances, caissons. 
 nor Held ovens, nor scales for weighing 
 the forage. 1 beg Your Excellency to 
 take me out of the scrape into which 1 
 seem to have got." 
 
 ()u the 25th the sub-quartermaster 
 telegraphed from Mezieres : " There is 
 neither biscuit nor pork in the fortresses 
 of Mezi&res or Sedan." On the 27th 
 
 the Major-General telegraphed to the 
 Minister of War from Metz : "The de- 
 tachments joining the army here con- 
 tinue to arrive without cartridges and 
 without camp materials ! 
 
 General Ducrol was Division Com- 
 mander at Strasbourg, both before and 
 a tier Sadowa, lie made continual reports 
 to the Minister of War concerning the un- 
 satisfactory condition of the arsenal 
 under his command. The ambulance 
 material, as at .Met/., was incomplete 
 
 and insufficient. In the Strasbourg 
 arsenal there were two thousand cannon, 
 but only tour hundred or live hundred 
 
 which were lit to serve. There were ean- 
 non-shot or, lather, great stone bullets, 
 which dalcd from the lime of Louis 
 XIV. There were guns, but half of 
 them were Hint locks. As to the camp 
 equipage, everything was in I lie utmost dis- 
 order. Even the most necessary articles 
 were lacking, such as the halters for 
 picketing horses. An army corps of 
 thirty thousand men needed one hundred 
 and forty-four wagons in ils train. 
 Strasbourg could furnish but eighteen. 
 Even in 1869 the population of Stras- 
 bourg, which had heard of the investiga- 
 tions of General Ducrot, was alarmed al 
 the poorness of its defence ; and the sub- 
 ject was eagerly discussed. The quar- 
 ter-master twice wrote to the Minister 
 of War. at the request of the Stras- 
 bourg population, and indicated that 
 something must be done lo strengthen 
 the town, which was in such an exposed 
 situation. In the ambulance department 
 there was not one-tenth of the material 
 which would he necessary in war time. 
 
 The negligence so manifest at Stras- 
 bourg was visible everywhere after the 
 outbreak of the war. M. de Seganville, 
 quartermaster of Marshal MacMahou's 
 army corps, was literally in despair 
 because of the condition in which the 
 administration left him. " I have noth- 
 ing," he said, "for my forage depart- 
 ment or for my hospitals." 
 
 Marshal Nicl wasdeeply humiliated by 
 the deplorable condition of the French 
 army, and especially of ils quarter- 
 master's department. Marshal Nicl was 
 
 one of the few French soldiers who had 
 
 taken into account the change that two 
 successive wars had brought about in 
 Germany, and the dread silent organ- 
 ization that that country had been 
 
EUROPE IN STiillM AND CALM. 
 
 171 
 
 undergoing for fifty years. The reforms 
 which lie began in France were wise; 
 and, had they been fulfilled, would have 
 placed the country upon an excellent de- 
 fensive footing. In 1868 the new military 
 law which had been prepared by him was 
 voted, and its execution was begun. 
 By the terms of that law the armed force 
 of France was composed of the active, 
 the reserve, the Mobile National Guard, 
 and the navy. The reserve had for its 
 mission the reinforcement of the active 
 army, the occupation of fortresses, and 
 furnishing garrison troops ; while the 
 National Guard Mobile, as it came to be 
 called during the war, was to lill up 
 gaps in garrisons on the national soil, 
 and to form a substantial reserve. The 
 principle of obligatory service just now 
 so firmly established under the Republic. 
 was considerably extended by this law. 
 Substitutes, however, were still allowed : 
 but bounties were suppressed. The 
 duration of service in the active army 
 was brought up to nine years ; five under 
 the flag, and four in the reserve. The 
 men of this latter category were to be 
 called up only in case of war, and by 
 Imperial decree. The old division of 
 the annual contingent into a first and 
 second portion was preserved. Under 
 Marshal Niel's reform law the French 
 army would, with the calling up of the 
 contingent of 1875, have a war effective 
 of eight hundred thousand men ; and in 
 the same period the National Guard 
 Mobile would have reached the figure of 
 five hundred thousand men. But death 
 came to take Marshal Niel in the midst 
 of his preparations for reorganization; 
 and the country was left without his 
 advice and counsel in the terrible 
 moments of 1870. 
 
 It is said that the plans of the pro- 
 jected campaign in Prussia, which were 
 being elaborated by the Emperor and his 
 
 councillors, were changed three times, 
 after the most herculean labors had 
 been performed on each plan, in order 
 thai the Empress's pet project of hav- 
 ing General Frossard in a prominent 
 post could lie carried out. Marshal 
 Le Bceuf continued to tell the country 
 that it was ready for war, that its sol- 
 diers did not lack a gaiter-button or a 
 strap. But the solemn truth became 
 daily more and more evident. The Em- 
 pire could not put in line an effective force 
 equal to more than a third of the German 
 numbers. Out of four hundred and sev- 
 enteen thousand soldiers of the Guard 
 Mobile only one hundred thousand were 
 armed and organized. Half of the guns 
 in the soldiers' hands were muzzle-load- 
 ing. Although the Field Artillery had the 
 material necessary for live hundred bat- 
 teries, there were men and horses for 
 only one hundred and fifty-four batter- 
 ies. At the end of July there were but 
 six hundred and twenty-lour cannon, in- 
 cluding the famous mitrailleuses, ready to 
 enter into the campaign. Of the three 
 million three hundred and fifty thousand 
 guns which were on the artillery regis- 
 ters a great number were, on the open- 
 ing of hostilities, undergoing repairs. 
 The arming and assembling of the Mo- 
 biles in the provinces was done in the 
 most desultory and incomplete fashion. 
 A French writer has drawn a curious 
 picture of the departure of the 19th 
 Regiment of (her. which left Bourges 
 on the 22d of September to go up to 
 Orleans, and enter immediately into a 
 campaign against the magnificently 
 equipped regiments of Germans. " Not 
 only." he says, -'was this regiment 
 badly equipped, but most of the soldiers, 
 taken suddenly from the fields and away 
 from their farms, wore entirely unarmed. 
 Some few of them had guns, which had 
 been brought in great haste from estab- 
 
172 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Iishments at which they were undergoing batteries at a certain point on the fron- 
 
 repairs." '• At the battle of St. Quen- tier at the beginning of the campaign; 
 
 tin." says another writer, " the battal- but there was only " single officer in the 
 
 ions of a legion of Mobiles were deci- whole neighborhood who kneio how to 
 
 mated by shell and shot; but they did use them. 
 
 not see a single enemy, the Pi us- The catalogue of the shortcomings of 
 
 siaus being carefully concealed on the the military department of the Empire is 
 
 surrounding woody heights, and the so long that 1 may only touch upon it 
 
 French soldiers had. for their defence, here. After the first battles on the 
 
 guns carrying only two hundred yards." frontier I had occasion to go from 
 
 General Ducrot arrived with his divis- Frankfort-on-the-Main to Strasbourg on 
 
 ion at the outset of the campaign in a an excursion which I made in search of 
 
 village and found a. captain of the chas- a military pass, — an indispensable docu- 
 
 seurs a pied representing the whole nient in those strange days of August, 
 
 quartermaster's department. This cap- 1870. My companions in the compart- 
 
 tain was alone, without money, without meiit of the railway carriage were two 
 
 employes, without carriages, without respectable gentlemen, who looked like 
 
 workmen, without a single kilogramme Germans; but I presently discovered 
 
 of bread or meat. The troops ate up that they were citizens of Strasbourg, 
 
 their reserve rations; then the general and I could not help overhearing their 
 
 sent For the single representative of the conversation. One of them was reciting 
 
 quartermaster. This personage con- with great animation the cause which 
 
 tented himself with saying, in reply to led. in his opinion, to the French de- 
 
 Geueral Ducrot's remark that his sol- feat at Woerth,or Reichschoffen, as the 
 
 diers had had nothing to eat, "Impos- French call it. lie laid the whole fault 
 
 sible ! I have just been buying some on the quartermasters' departments, 
 
 things." General Ducrot, thoroughly "The officers," lie said, "act as if 
 
 angry, cried out. " My soldiers must they were at a picnic. They pitch 
 
 have something to eat. I don't care what their tents, and the soldiers spread their 
 
 you were buying or going to buy; but tallies with costly linen, with glass ware, 
 
 you must forthwith produce- bread and and with innumerable bottles of wine, 
 
 meat." Two hours after the fright- In the morning the soldier finds that be 
 
 ened intendant sent in thirty-six bakers, has no coffee to drink, and that bis soup 
 
 These bakers managed to find some is not made. Where are our old generals 
 
 Hour in the villages, and to get together who used to say: ' Le snliJut ne pent 
 
 some bread. Then General Ducrot rien faire s'il n'a pas mange la soupe'?" 
 
 hunted out some butchers in the regi- — (The soldier is good for nothing until 
 
 ments, got them to kill cattle taken at he has swallowed his soup. ) 
 random in the neighboring stables, and The quartermaster of the Sixth Corps 
 
 so managed to get food for his hungry is on record as having written: "The 
 
 men. There were plenty of regiments chief quartermaster has asked me for 
 
 which had no blankets; hundreds upon four hundred thousand rations of biscuit 
 
 hundreds of the men in the reserve bad and for field provisions. I have not a 
 
 never taken a chassepot in their hands, single ration of biscuit nor any field prq- 
 
 iir ever seen one until they were called visions." The Emperor, as soon as he 
 
 under lire. There were two mitrailleuse got to the front, was much distressed 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 1 7,'? 
 
 and, no doubt, greatly alarmed at the 
 
 lack of food and anus. He wrote to the 
 Minister of War: "I see that we lack 
 bread and biscuit for the troops." Hut 
 that was not all. They lacked caissons, 
 canteens, means of transport, revolvers 
 in the arsenals, cartridges for the mi- 
 trailleuses, surgeons for men and horses : 
 everything, in short. 
 
 Meantime the magnificence of the Im- 
 perial household was by no means to be 
 neglected, even in the field. The fol- 
 lowing plan, drawn up at the palace of 
 St. Cloud, the 3d of July. 1870, three or 
 four days before the departure of the 
 Emperor, by the Adjutant-General of the 
 Palace, will give an idea of the manner 
 in which Napoleon III. expected to 
 traverse Germany on his triumphal 
 march : — 
 
 " Maison de l'Empereur. 
 " Service of the Grand Marshal. 
 " Notes oi, flu' Service of MM. les Aides- 
 de-camp and Orderlies near the 
 Emperor in the Field. 
 
 " The aides-de-camp and orderlies will 
 serve in alternate order, beginning by 
 priority of age and rank. 
 
 " There must be always two tallies, 
 whether at a bivouac or during long 
 stays, so that the Emperor may have 
 
 the means of inviting few or many people 
 to dine, as he pleases. 
 
 " At the table of the Emperor will sit 
 the aide-de-camp who is on duty and the 
 first groom, if the Emperor orders it 
 thus. The second table shall he pre- 
 sided over by the adjutant-general ; and 
 there shall also sit MM. les aides-de- 
 camp, the orderlies, the grooms, the 
 officers attached to the aides-de-camp, 
 and, if necessary, the secretaries of the 
 Cabinet. 
 
 '■The valets de chambre will bivouac 
 or camp in shelter tents, carried in the 
 wagons of His Majesty. 
 
 " The baggage of the Emperor shall 
 be escorted by a brigadier and six gen- 
 erals of the squadron of the guard. 
 
 "There shall be allowed, on entering 
 the campaign, to MM. les aides-de-camp, 
 designated to accompany the Emperor, 
 20,000 francs, and to the orderlies, 
 1 5,000 fraucs. The first shall have four 
 saddle-horses ; and the latter three. 
 These gentlemen can each take witli 
 them a valet de chambre." 
 
 Then follows an interminable list of 
 the directions as to the Imperial kitchen, 
 the wardrobe, the bedding, etc.. all con- 
 trasting rather singularly with the sim- 
 plicity which Napoleon I. often affected 
 when he was ou active service. 
 
174 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. 
 
 Departure of the Emperor for tlie War. — Vulcanic Throes Renewed.— Movements of the Internationale 
 
 — The German Workingmen's Address. -The Imperial ( ' i al Iilois. Foreshadowing of the Com- 
 mune. — M. Rothan's Revelations. — Bismarck and His Views of the War. — Alarm of the German 
 
 People. Fears of a French Invasion. — Emile < »lli\ ier's Account '>t' the Manner in which Hostilities 
 w, iv I lecided upon. — M. Rothan and the Duke do Gramont. —The French Minister of War is Sur- 
 prised. Marshal I.e Boeuf's Deceptions. 
 
 ALTHOUGH the Emperor went away offence under tin' Empire, were' tried and 
 
 In the war witlt tlie air of one uh" sentenced to various terms of imprison- 
 
 was ;i( i< nit ii> conquer liis toes without ment. The places of those who went 
 
 difficulty, liis heart was tilled with many to lill the prisons were rapidly taken by 
 
 misgivings, for he knew that he left a others who had sworn eternal hostility to 
 
 powerful enemy behind him. The vol- the Empire, and not only to it, but to the 
 
 canic throes were once more clearly per- whole organization of existing society. 
 
 ceptible throughout the whole of France. It now appeared as if the Empire must 
 
 The nati which professed to believe take upon its shoulders the burden of a. 
 
 itself upou the eve of a vast andunparal- great invasion, for no Frenchman fancied 
 leled military triumph, was torn by in- for an instant that :i war would be any- 
 lernal dissension, and was on the very thing but an invasion of places beyond 
 ver°*e of civil war. The repeated mani- the Rhine. Even the new apostles of 
 testations agaiust the Empire, in Febru- the Internationale boldly showed thern- 
 arv. in March, and in .May. 1870, hail selves, and grouped about them all the 
 o-iven the mysterious and audacious In- discontented and dangerous in the ranks 
 ternational Society of Working-men fresh of the Radical Republicans. The Inter- 
 courage. This new society knew that it nationale rather inconsistently declared 
 had only to show its head to lie struck against the war, which it was not sorry 
 down relentlessly by the Empire, which, to sec begun, as it hoped that by embar- 
 while it prof essed most liberal sentiments rassing the Empire it might enable the 
 with regard to the working-men, did noth- workmen to carry out their purpose of 
 ing to ameliorate their spiritual condition, complete emancipation. An address was 
 The strikes at the great metallic establish- issued by a group of French workmen, 
 ment of Creuzot, which were under the disclaiming all national hatred and re- 
 immediate direction of M. Schneider, one pelling the idea of the necessity for a 
 of the most important members of the hostile invasion of a neighboring country. 
 Imperialist party in Paris, had been put To this little group of toilers came. 
 down, and had awakened discontent and as powerful aid, men of high social 
 open ao'oression among the working-men standing ami intelligence, like M. Age- 
 in such great industrial centres as Ron- nor de Gasparin and Edgar Quinet. 
 hai\ and Amiens. In .bine of 1870 These eminent thinkers held a meet- 
 tliiriv-eiuht members of the association, ing. at Belleville, to protest against the 
 accused of being members of a secret declaration of war; and as members 
 society, which was an unpardonable of the International League of Peace 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 r 
 
 might have had some influence under a 
 free government. But freedom of speech 
 within the boundary of Fiance was not 
 yet woii ; and the furious Imperialist war 
 party stigmatized as Prussians all those 
 who ventured to hiut that there was 
 really no adequate provocation to war. 
 
 To the address of the French work- 
 men and to the other humanitarian utter- 
 ances from France there was a strong and 
 manly response from beyond the Rhine. 
 The International Association of Work- 
 ing-men in Berlin signed a letter, which 
 is worthy of being copied here, as tending 
 to show how easily European wars could 
 be prevented if it were not for the excess 
 of power placed in the hands of the chiefs 
 of the royal dynasties : — 
 
 "To THE WORKING-MEN OP FRANCE: 
 
 We also wish peace, labor, and liberty. 
 This is why we associate ourselves 
 heartily to your protest. Inspired with 
 ardent enthusiasm against all obstacles 
 placed in the way of our peaceful devel- 
 opment, and especially against the savage 
 practice of war. animated only by frater- 
 nal sentiments, we join hands with you, 
 and we swear to you. like men of honor, 
 who do uot know how to lie. that we find 
 in our hearts not the least national hatred ; 
 that we are submitting merely to force. 
 ami enter constrained and compelled 
 into the hands of soldiers which are 
 about to spread misery and ruin through 
 the peaceful fields of our countries. 
 
 "We also, like yourselves, are men of 
 combat and action ; but we wish to com- 
 bat by the pacific use of all our forces 
 for the good of our kindred, for the 
 benefit of humanity. We wish to com 
 bat for liberty, equality, and fraternity ; 
 to combat against the despotism of 
 tyrants, who oppress sacred liberty, 
 against falsehood and perfidy, from what- 
 ever quarter they may come. We 
 solemnly promise you that neither the 
 
 roll of drums nor the thunder of cannon, 
 nor victory, nor defeat, shall turn us 
 from our work for the union of the Pro- 
 letariat of all countries. We also, like 
 yourselves, no longer need any frontiers. 
 because we are on both sides of the 
 Rhine. In old Europe, as in young 
 America, we have our brethren, with 
 whom we are ready to go to the death 
 for the aim of our efforts, — the Social 
 Republic. Long live peace, labor, and 
 liberty! " 
 
 It is not difficult to discern in the 
 frank and courageous utterance of this 
 proclamation a distinct advance in the 
 character of the International Society of 
 Working-men from the time when, in 
 1867, it published the twaddle from which 
 I have given extracts in a preceding 
 chapter. But the golden dream of the 
 enthusiastic laborers on both sides of the 
 Rhine was not destined to be fulfilled. 
 The Proletariat was fated to indulge in 
 the wildest and vilest excesses in France, 
 and to be led away into the most danger- 
 ous follies of socialism; while the Ger- 
 mans were constrained, by the exigencies 
 of national unity and the iron military 
 discipline ami despotism which had been 
 inaugurated in their country, to put off 
 their part of the great International Revo- 
 lution and to fight their brethren with 
 all the energy that they possessed. That 
 there were scores of thousands of men 
 in the German army who abominated 
 the war into which they were thrust, and 
 who were as ripe for a socialist revo- 
 lution as were the wildest members of 
 the Paris Commune, therecan beuo pos- 
 sible doubt. I myself heard a Prussian 
 soldier say. at Ecouen, on the day after 
 the capitulation of Paris, and alluding to 
 the lengthy campaign which now seemed 
 drawing to a close: ■• I wish that the 
 accursed swindle were over, and that I 
 had never been drawn into it." 
 
176 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 On the day, too, before the declara- to answer the remarks addressed him 
 tion of war was officially notified to by the presiding judge, and said: "I 
 Prussia by the confident and jubilant simply ask you to give the order to the 
 war party in France, a little procession gendarmes to take me back to my 
 of prisoners was brought up to the bar prison." This unwonted insolence so 
 of the High Court of Justice, convened startled the magistrate that lie told the 
 at Blois. for the express purpose of prisoner to sit down and stop talk- 
 stamping out with one vigorous move- ing ; whereupon Ferre said : •' You have 
 ment the leaders of the working-men's the force now. That is all right. I'se 
 opposition to the Empire. The indict- it. But when we get it look out for 
 ment against the majority of these men yourselves. I am a Republican." The 
 was for participating in a conspiracy, sinister words of Ferre were well re- 
 having for its end an attempt against the membered during the anguish of the 
 safety of the State and against the life Commune, for lie was one of its pro- 
 of the Emperor. Among the members motel's and the prominent member of its 
 of the counsel for the defence were executive force. After hearing this last 
 such distinguished Republicans a- Fan- remark the judge Ordered Ferre to 
 manuel Arago and Floquet. One of stand up and to be interrogated once 
 the persons accused was Megy, who had more ; but the prisoner refused. " Then 
 been the first Frenchman in the later we shall compel you," said the judge. 
 days of the Empire to protest against " If I come here again," answered Ferrfe, 
 the violation of his domicile by police "some one will have to carry me." 
 agents, who could bring against him no Despite this violent attitude Ferre 1 was 
 accusation except that he was suspected acquitted of conspiracy, of which for 
 of conspiracy. Megy had shot anil that matter he was innocent enough. 
 killed a police agent who was forcing his Megy and many others were sentenced 
 way into his room, and desired to excul- to twenty years of hard labor each; and 
 pate himself on the theory that individual men whose only offence had been an 
 liberty must be respected, ami that the incautious participation in a secret S0- 
 members of the dominant party must eiety were sentenced to three, five, ten, 
 be taught that in undertaking tyrannical or fifteen years of imprisonment. But 
 measures they take their lives in their less than two months afterwards the 
 hands. The other prisoners were men majority of them were free; for the 
 who had participated in the various Empire had passed away like a vision 
 attempts at insurrection in the spring of the night, leaving the country to 
 and early summer, and they were no suffer from the effects of the evil pas- 
 little amazed at seeing as the principal sions which the Imperial tyranny had 
 witness for the government one of the roused, and which, when they found 
 men whom they had supposed to he their that they could not wreak their vengeance 
 firmest ally, almost a leader, and who upon the fallen tyrant, turned it upon 
 was nothing but a police spy. All the the innocent. 
 
 prisoners were aggressive and violent in No journal in Paris, or in any part 
 
 their demeanor. The Imperialist magis- of France, ventured more than the 
 
 trates lie<_.:wi to realize for the first time mildest comments upon this whole- 
 
 that the regime of terror was over, sale trial and the savage sentences which 
 
 Ferre, accused of conspiracy, declined ended it. And meantime the attention 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 177 
 
 of the public was thoroughly engrossed 
 with the procession towards the Irontier. 
 Rarely has a great war been entered 
 upon with more apparent gayety on both 
 sides, until the miserable poverty and 
 neglect of the quartermasters' depart- 
 ments were exposed. The French sol- 
 diers manifestedall the traditional gayety 
 of the Gauls, and the Germans, on their 
 part, came up to the Rhine and began 
 to climb the great hills of the Palatinate 
 as if they were on a pleasure excursion. 
 Every day the people of Paris were 
 treated to a bombastic manifesto from 
 the Imperial Ministry. Emile Ollivier, 
 in describing to a friend the manner 
 in which the army of Napoleon would 
 vanquish the Prussians, says : " We 
 shall blow them away." The Empress 
 Eugenie, who had when the war was 
 first declared said, "This war is my 
 war, ami I must have it." inspired the 
 whole Court with her brilliant pictures 
 of the approaching success of the Na- 
 poleonic arms. But there were not 
 wanting men who were serving the Im- 
 perial cause, who had clear vision, and 
 whose hearts were filled with sorrow as 
 they noted the approach of the catas- 
 trophe. M. Rothan, who was Consul of 
 the French Empire at Hamburg at the 
 outbreak of the war, has left on record 
 an interesting statement of the illusions 
 of his own government, illusions which 
 he tried in vain to correct, and for 
 venturing to doubt which he narrowly 
 escaped the charge of lack of patriotism. 
 It is to M. Rothan that we are indebted 
 for one of the clearest and most concise 
 accounts of the situation in North Ger- 
 many in the early days of July. lie 
 thinks that Prince Bismarck was for a 
 time after the question of the oaudi- 
 dateship of Prince von Hohenzollern 
 came up, in a very dangerous position, 
 and that he might easily have been 
 
 precipitated from its high place. His 
 policy was the Sllbjectof the bitterest criti- 
 cism, even among his own diplomatic 
 agents. " Bismarck could count," says 
 M. Rothan, ••neither on the assistance 
 of Wurteniburg, nor that of Bavaria. If 
 Prussia, during the first week of the dif- 
 ficulty, from the lid to the 1 1th of .Inly, 
 had raised at Stuttgart or Munich the 
 question of casus foederis, she would have 
 encountered a peremptory refusal, lie 
 neutrality of the southern kingdoms 
 would have taken from the war its na- 
 tional character, and would have main- 
 tained the road open between fiance and 
 Austria ; that would have meant one hun- 
 dredaud fifty thousand less combatants in 
 the ranks of our enemies, Bismarck had 
 never been caught in a more desperate 
 situation. It needed his cool audacity, ali 
 the resources of his great mind, and the 
 good-luck which has presided over his 
 career, to get him out. of his difficulty. 
 He knew how to conjure the danger, and 
 to beat us on the ground where we ought 
 to have triumphed, by simply keeping 
 his presence of mind. He speculated on 
 our passions, on our malcidresse, on the 
 position of the Empire, on the chances 
 of a revolution in France, lie did not 
 ignore the causes which had led the Im- 
 perial Ministry to adopt such a bitter 
 tone with regard to tin- Spanish incident, 
 lie knew that the Corps Ltgislatif was 
 torn by parliamentary and dynastic in- 
 trigues ; that the Extreme Right wanted 
 at any price to upset the Cabinet, and 
 that to carry out its purpose it had re- 
 solved to give to the caudidateship of 
 Prince Hohenzollern the proportions of 
 a national question. He also knew of 
 the hopes that were cherished at the 
 Court of the French sovereign, where a 
 large party flattered itself that a fortu- 
 nate war would consolidate the dynasty, 
 and would permit the repeal of the liberal 
 
1<S EURO Pi: IN STORM A.XD CALM. 
 
 concessions made by the Emperor." Prussian army would be surprised before 
 
 This, it must be remembered, is writ- it was concentrated, 
 
 ten by a member of the Imperial Party, M. Emile Ollivier, in conversation 
 
 who thus sets the seal upon the incorn- with a political friend, at the close of 
 
 petence and folly of his political asso- the war, gave the following account of 
 
 eiates. the manner in which hostilities were 
 
 From his cornel- of observation, at decided upon. "I was sitting in my 
 
 Varzin, Count von Bismarck followed office," he said, " occupied in drawing up 
 
 all the phases of the crisis, and carefully the conciliatory declaration which we 
 
 watched the pretext which should bring had agreed on in the Council of Minis- 
 
 him upon the scene. "He wanted war," ters after the withdrawal of the Prince 
 
 says M. Rothan, " but he did not like to von Hohenzollern from his project; and 
 
 assume the responsibility of it. He so I intended to read this document to the 
 
 carefully manoeuvred as to bestow the Chamber. I felt glad that we had known 
 
 odium of the provocation upon us. While how to avoid a conflict, which had been 
 
 he sent one envoy loEnis to tell the King so imminent, and was congratulating my- 
 
 of the irritation of public opinion, and self on our success, when the Duke de 
 
 the indignation of the military party in Gramont, very much agitated, came 
 
 Prussia, because of the King's excessive into the room. lie held in his hand 
 
 mildness towards Fiance, he was acting various documents, and among others the 
 
 with great vigor at Vienna, Florence, telegraphic despatch that Count von 
 
 and especially at St. Petersburg. He Bismarck had sent to all his agents, to 
 
 corresi led constant ly with Von Moltke, inform him that the King, after hav- 
 
 who was already preparing in his custom- ing been insulted by the French am- 
 
 ar\ mystery and silence the mobilization bassador, had refused to receive him. 
 
 of the German armies." 'This,' said the Duke, Ms a blow in the 
 
 RI. Rothan points out a fact, which face of France given by Prussia. I 
 
 all journalists, and other observers who shall resign my portfolio sooner than 
 
 chanced to be either in Germany or in suffer such an outrage.'" — "I," said 
 
 Frame at the outbreak "I' the war, did M. Ollivier, " was anxious for peace. I 
 
 not fail to notice, and that is, that the worked ardently for its maintenance 
 
 Germans were very much alarmed at the without cessation. I had, in harmony 
 
 idea of a French invasion, expected it, with the Emperor, who used the whole 
 
 ami made their greatest efforts with a weight of his authority, striven against 
 
 view of having the first battles fought extreme measures, and here I found my- 
 
 as far as possible from the Rhine, lint self constantly confronted with the 
 
 they did not for an instant seem to hope necessity of war because of this grave 
 
 that these first battles would be fought provocation." M. Ollivier is renowned 
 
 only when the German army had got past for his delicate artifice, and the ingenious 
 
 the French frontier. Before the rupture manner in which he endeavored in this 
 
 of diplomatic relations there was a rumor conversation to cast back upon Prussia 
 
 in northern ( lermaiiv that a French army the weight of the responsibility of ileelar- 
 
 corps was marching upon Luxembourg, ing war will not escape attention. 
 
 I that the French avant-garde had Shortly after this conversation with 
 
 already entered the Palatinate. There the Duke de Gramont ami the repro- 
 
 was a universally expressed fear that the duction of Bismarck's despatch in the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 1; 
 
 papers, the French Council of Ministers 
 was convoked in haste; in such haste, 
 in fact, that two of the ministers did 
 not gel their letters of convocation in 
 time to be present. The Emperor 
 opened the session by saying that he 
 was obliged to recognize the fact that 
 he was a constitutional sovereign. " It 
 is my duty." he said, "to submit to 
 your wisdom and patriotism, to decide 
 what course we shall take in view of 
 the incidents we have just heard ahout." 
 On the mution of Marshal Le Boeuf 
 it was decided that the reserve of 
 the army should then be called Up. 
 "•When they heard this in Germany," 
 writes M. Rothan, " there was the live- 
 liest apprehension all aloug the line. 
 No one doubted (hat our preparations 
 were all made for the instant invasion 
 •■:' Southern Germany, for the immedi- 
 ate occupation of the Grand Duchy of 
 Baden, and it was expected that this 
 would have a weighty effect. The 
 Germans also thought that a French 
 squadron would shortly appear off 
 Copenhagen, with at least thirty thou- 
 sand men read}" for landing." lie 
 wrote at once a lone' despatch to the 
 Duke de Gramont, giving the state 
 of public opinion in Germany, and 
 closed his letter with these significant 
 words: "The newspapers say that 
 Germany is now at last agreed; that 
 the Germans arc all united from the 
 sea to' the Alps. The King will leave 
 for the army as the protector of the 
 Federation of the North, but he will 
 come hack as Emperor of Germany." 
 The Duke de Gramont must have 
 mused upon these words at frequent 
 intervals a few months later. On the 
 19th of July, at seven o'clock in the 
 evening, the secretary of the Senate of 
 Hamburg gave M. Rothan his pass- 
 ports, and he at once left the territory 
 
 of the Seven .States, to which he had 
 been accredited. "• I left Germany," In- 
 said, •■ in arms ; grave, solemn, full of 
 hate for us, quite understanding that 
 the supreme struggle was at hand, yet 
 ready for all sacrifices. At Paris I 
 found only tumultuous scenes, drunken 
 hands of workmen giving themselves up 
 to patriotic saturnalia. It was a. poignant 
 contrast." He went at once to the Duke 
 de Gramont ami asked for an inter- 
 view. "I thought," he said, "that 
 the government must be anxious to 
 confer with its accredited agents arriv- 
 ing from Germany, and to get at their 
 latest impressions; but I was mistaken. 
 The Emperor, worn down by sickness, 
 and overwhelmed with cares, gave no 
 audiences. I found in the waiting-rooms 
 of the Tuileries only a few orderlies, 
 lazy and spiritless ; they were playing 
 at cards, while the sovereign, opposed 
 to the war. given up to fatalism, 
 yielded to the sombre presentiments 
 which a few days afterwards were re- 
 flected in his melancholy proclamation." 
 When M. Rothan saw the Duke de 
 Gramont lie found him very haughty 
 and disposed to he cheerful, lie was 
 loud in his praise of the French troops. 
 He foresaw the complete crushing of 
 Prussia, and drew a picture of her im- 
 ploring peace after French victories. He 
 said, " We shall have more allies than 
 we shall know what to do with ; we 
 must have our elbows free at the mo- 
 ment of peace." But to another French 
 diplomat he said : " You are wrong to 
 suppose that we are anxious for the 
 neutrality of the Southern German 
 kingdoms. We do not want it. It 
 would hinder our military operations. 
 We must have the plains of the Palat- 
 inate to develop our armies in." These 
 ambassadors from the front, as they 
 might be justly called, tried to point 
 
ISO EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 out to the members of the ministry to the cabinet of Marshal I." Boauf. 
 the magnificent military preparations "What impression do you bring from 
 of Germany ami the defects of tin- Germany '■" said the Marshal. '"Avery 
 French organization. "Do yon not sad our. I fear that the Imperial gov- 
 see," thev said, •■that the calculations ernment has been badly inspired, and 
 of our stalls are nut based "ii anything that, in provoking Prussia, it has plaj'ed 
 real, and that we shall be obliged t<> the game of Count von Bismarck." — " 1 
 modify our plan of campaign? We shall do not ask you for your remarks on the 
 have to divide our forces instead of government's policy. I am not a poli- 
 contentrating them. We shall per- tician. Kindh tell me what you know 
 haps have to take to the defensive in- about the German army," said the Mar- 
 stead of developing our armies on tin- shal. " 1 merely want to know what 
 plains of the Palatinate, as the Duke de you know about the mobilization and the 
 Gramont wishes to do." formation of those armies." — " It seemed 
 M.llothan records with some bitterness certain," answered M. Rothan, " two 
 that after dancing attendance upon one days ago, when 1 left Hamburg, that on 
 of the important personages for two the 25th of July all the infantry, and on 
 days, when every hour was as precious the "27th all the cavalry reserve would 
 as an ordinary week, the minister gave have joined their corps; and on the 2d 
 him two minutes, and said: ••If you of August, at the latest, the whole army 
 wish to continue the conversation — 1 would be concentrated. [ will add, that 
 have no time to talk now — come to the the Minister of Prussia in Paris. Baron 
 theatre this evening, and seethe Grande Werther, announced to the crowd, as I 
 Duchesse. We can finish what you have went through the railway station in Ilan- 
 to say there." M. Rothan, several days over, that he was in a position to say 
 after war was declared, sick at heart at that German)' had much the advance, 
 the spectacle of such negligence and and that she would surprise the French 
 recklessness, betook himself to the Min- army in process of formation." 
 istrv of War, where he found General On hearing this statement, made with 
 Lebrun, and tried to tell him of the the resolute COlll'age of one who knew 
 rapid advance of the German armies, what he was tnlkiug about and fully 
 lie reminded the General that Prussia appreciated its gravity, Marshal Le 
 had, since the campaign in 186(3 in Bo- Bumf's face turned quite pale, lie rose 
 hernia, changed the principle of its orig- and stepped back a few steps, like one 
 inal plan of mobilization, and would awakening from a dream. " It was," 
 infallibly be ready for vigorous action in said M. Rothan, in describing the inter- 
 nhie days after the declaration of war. view, " as if he felt that this unexpected 
 General Lebrun was unwilling to admit news had decided his destiny." The next 
 that the Germans could possibly move questions that he asked were falter- 
 more rapidly than the French armies. ing, and denoted a profound mental dis- 
 However, after observing the extreme turbance. Still he said he could believe 
 agitation of M. Rothan, and the empha- no such rapid mobilization of the enemy's 
 sis with which he dwelt upon the danger, forces. Me had declared, before an ns- 
 be said : " We will go and see the Minis- semblage of his colleagues, that France 
 ter of War. and you may tell him what had a clear advance of eight days over 
 you think tit." So they were admitted Prussia, and it would seem as if he really 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 181 
 
 believed that the Prussian army would 
 not be able to enter into campaign be- 
 fore twenty-one days, instead of nine, 
 which M. Rothan set as the litest date, 
 anil which was, in fact, all that was 
 required. There were but few in the 
 Imperial party who, like M. Rothan, 
 refused to allow their pride to interfere 
 with their reason. Ollivier, Lebrun, 
 Le Bceuf, the Duke de Gramont, all 
 persisted to the last in disbelieving in the 
 constant- reports of the wonderful Prus- 
 sian organization ; and the overweening 
 confidence and blindness of the party are 
 summed up in the almost pathetic out- 
 burst of the Empress when she was told 
 that Napoleon was a prisoner: " You 
 lie ! he is dead." 
 
 Marshal Le Boeuf was doomed to many 
 deceptions at the outset of the war. 
 It is told of him that on the evening 
 after tin 1 battle of Saarbruek he sent for 
 one of the citizens of Metz, who was 
 somewhat renowned in the country for 
 his topographical knowledge, ami asked 
 him if he knew the lay of the lands where 
 Rhenish Bavaria touched the French fron- 
 tier. The citizen answered modestly that 
 he did. •• Then I am going to confide to 
 you a great secret," said Marshal Le 
 Bceuf. " You will only have to keep it for 
 
 two or three days, for by that time my 
 operation will be completed. You must 
 know. then, that to-morrow morning I 
 am going to send the Frossard corps to 
 take Sarre and Sarrelouis. Then I am 
 going to send MacMahon and de Failly 
 to fall upon Landau, and the junction 
 of the two army corps will be operated 
 in the space between Landau and Sarre- 
 louis. I should like to know from you 
 if there is a military route practicable 
 between the two military towns." The 
 citizen of Metz stared at the Marshal 
 of France. " Monsieur le Marechal," 
 he said, •• this junction is absolutely im- 
 possible under the conditions which you 
 indicate. Between Landau and Sarre- 
 louis there is a regular little Switzerland, 
 a mass of mountains, which a handful 
 of men could defend against the most 
 powerful army in the world." The Mar- 
 shal bit his lips. " But there is a rail- 
 way in that direction and a canal?" he 
 said. •• There is. indeed, a railway ; but 
 it passes through nine tunnels, and three 
 pounds of powder could break up com- 
 munication there in three hours." So 
 Marshal Le Baeuf said nothing more 
 about his plan ; and this was the man 
 who at that time held in his hands the 
 destinies of the French army. 
 
IS 2 EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER NINETEEN. 
 
 The Race for the Rhine. — Von Moltke's Mysterious Journeys before the War. — Captain Samuel's Tele- 
 gram. — The German Advance. — Scenes along the Historic Stream. — At Coblcntz. — AtMayeuce. 
 
 'J'I ;l . Koail l'> Wiesbaden. — The ( Irown Prince at Spcyer. — In the Pfalz. — The Bavarian Troops. 
 
 Their Appearance. — The Fright of the Inhabitants. 
 
 IT is not wonderful thatthe French often enough been rehearsed by all the 
 
 Minister of War turned pale, and directors of it, and every step of which 
 
 stepped back as if he had been looking was prepared with most consummate 
 
 into his own grave, when M. Rothan knowledge. 
 
 told him, with the emphasis of convic- As a proof of the thoroughness with 
 
 tion, that the Germans had thr advance which the German advance was arranged 
 
 in thr mobilization of their tinny. The the following telegram, received at the 
 
 curious and almost ferocious indisposition French Ministry of War, from Forbach, 
 
 of the Fiench military authorities to on the 9th of April, 1868, is worth 
 
 allow the correspondents of newspapers quoting: — 
 
 to accompany their troops was prompted "To the Minister of War: Since 
 by the tear of indiscreet exposure of Monday I have been following General 
 their plan for falling upon the roads down von Moltke, who is visiting the frontier 
 to the Rhine, and making all speed for the of France and studying the positions, 
 historic stream in tune to check the Ger- On Monday I came up to him at May- 
 man advance. Both nations were for a ence ; on Tuesday he stopped at Birken- 
 few terrible, momentous days engaged feld, and took notes on the heights near 
 in a race for the river, and for the roads the ruins of the old castle. He slept 
 and mountain passes opening upon it. the same day tit Saiirbruck ; he there 
 lint while poor equipments, lack- of took the defensive position of the rail- 
 geographical knowledge, and the irre para- way station and the canal. Yesterday 
 hie and criminal poverty of the quarter- he was at Sarrelouis, where he is still 
 master's department, at every step re- staying. This morning, in spite of the 
 larded and crippled the French, the frightful weather, he went. out. in a 
 Germans may be said to have been carriage to visit the neighboring heights, 
 moved, despite themselves, resistlessly I suppose, according to what I hear, 
 forward to the defence of their own, and that he is going this evening or to-mor- 
 llie invasion of the enemy's, country by row to Treves, and thai he will go down 
 the operation of a machine which had the Moselle. Shall I continue lo follow 
 been completely planned, thoroughly him up? Answer .at the telegraphic 
 tried, and which was absolutely perfect, bureau of Forbach. 
 In fact, the Germans, in executing their " Captain Samuel." 
 tremendous forward march up the rugged Answer from the Ministry of War: 
 
 spurs of the n ntains. and through the " Follow him." 
 
 deep vales towards the French frontier, This was but one of the many visits 
 
 were but performing a feat which had that the venerable Von Moltke made to 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 183 
 
 the positions along the road into France ; 
 and in 1869 he and his staff made a 
 grand military promenade, without any 
 concealment whatever, up to the very 
 gates of the Alsatia which they were 
 destined so speedily and so easily to 
 conquer. 
 
 General Ducrot appears to have been 
 the only man on the French side who 
 studied the enemy's country with the 
 same care and minute vigilance mani- 
 fested by the general staff of the Prus- 
 sian army. Many a time had he been 
 through the Grand Duchy of Baden and 
 all the country between the Vosges and 
 the Black Forest, disguised as a peas- 
 ant, now on foot, now driving a country 
 wagon, examining at his leisure the con- 
 struction of the forts which he per- 
 haps hoped one day to take General 
 Ducrot was forewarned, but he could 
 not make himself heard at the Imperial 
 Court. 
 
 The Countess de Pourtales, a brill- 
 iant lady, descended from a French 
 Protestant family which had to quit 
 France on the revocation of tin 1 Edict of 
 Nantes, and who was residing in Prussia 
 shortly before the war. visited General 
 Dncrot in 1868, and said to him, with the 
 greatest energy and indignation : " Gen- 
 eral, the Germans are deceiving us, and 
 hope to surprise us unarmed. In 
 public they talk of peace and of their 
 desire to live on good terms witli us; 
 but when they are among themselves 
 they speak with a scornful air, and say, 
 'Don't you see. that events are moving 
 rapidly forward, and that nothing can 
 hinder the de'noueiyn nt?' They laugh at 
 our government, our army, our <i<irih 
 Mobile, our ministers, the Emperor and 
 the Empress, and pretend that before 
 long Fiance will be a second Spain. 
 Would you believe that the minister of 
 the household of the King dared to tell 
 
 me that before eighteen months had 
 passed over our heads our Alsatia would 
 be incorporated into Germany?" 
 
 Genera] Ducrot was so much impressed 
 with this lady's disclosures that he 
 begged her to go to Compiegne and tell 
 her story; but at the Ministry of War 
 the General's revelations were looked 
 upon coldly. It was too late for the 
 Empire to profit by a warning. 
 
 The mention of this Countess de 
 Pourtales brings to mind a striking 
 anecdote which illustrates the mutability 
 of human fortune. Dining the summer 
 of 1873 this lady went to Chiselhurst, in 
 England, to visit the exiled Emperor and 
 Empress. While she was conversing 
 with them some one brought to the 
 Emperor a photograph of a beautiful 
 castle in Scotland, with hunting and fish- 
 ing grounds, and everything desirable 
 for a rural retreat attached to if. The 
 Empress was delighted with the picture, 
 and spoke of leasing the property for the 
 Prince Imperial. •• What are you think- 
 ing of, Eugenie?" said the Emperor; 
 •• they want thirty thousand francs for the 
 castle ! " — •• You are right," said the ex- 
 Empress, "and I have not even a bed 
 that I can call my own ! " 
 
 When war was declared Marshal 
 MacMahon was at Strasbourg, with what 
 was known as the African army. Gen- 
 era] Frossard was at Saint Avoid, with 
 an army brought together hastily at the 
 camp of Chalons. Marshal Bazaine 
 was at Metz with the army of Lyons. 
 General de Failly, who was a. veritable 
 hero at the battle of Solferino, and held 
 out with one brigade against three Aus- 
 trian brigades, but who Utterly failed to 
 
 accomplish anything in the combat of 
 1870, was at the fortress of Bitche. 
 Marshal Canrobert was organizing the 
 Sixth corns at Chalons; and the brave 
 General Douay the Seventh at Belfort. 
 
184 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 The Imperial Guard was at Boulay, under opposed to this rather meagre array 
 General Bourbaki. of French military talent. M. Jules 
 Passing rapidly in review these meu Claretie, in his History of the Revolution 
 who had attained the dazzling positions of of 1870-71, sa_\s: "The adversaries of 
 Marshals of France, and their colleagues, these generals, some of whom wen- 
 it is difficult to find anv one except already troubled before they were in 
 MaeMahon who was entitled to the name battle, and who marched to the combat 
 of a competent soldier. MaeMahon, witli a cumbersome train of baggage- 
 Duke of Magenta, was a true warrior, wagons, carriages, panniers of wine anil 
 and the very first battle in which he fruit, like the generals <>!' the time of 
 engaged, in 1870, showed that had he Louis XV., — their adversaries were 
 had men enough, and men who wen' well those rude mathematicians, inflexible 
 enough fed ami equipped, it would have calculators, patient, yet violent, war- 
 gone hard with the Germans, magnifi- riors, like Count von Moltke, a cold 
 centlv managed and superior in numbers strategist, with a geometer's glance, a 
 as they were. He had been a soldier thinker rather than a soldier; Prince 
 from his earliest youth. There was in Friedrich Karl, a kind of ferocious 
 his character a bit of the old Irish dash Blucher, a furious sabre-swinger; old 
 and energy of the MacMahons, who Steiumetz, the conqueror of Machod and 
 accompanied .lames II. in exile, into Skalitz, the ancient enemy of Waterloo ; 
 France, and it was manifest in all Manteuffel, who, in 18C5, had, crossing 
 that he did during the campaign of the Eider and the Elbe, begun a cam- 
 conquest in Algeria, and in the ( 'rimean paign against Hanover allied to Austria ; 
 war, where he had a most dangerous Von Werder, harsh and sinister, the 
 position in the grand and last attack future bombarder of Strasbourg. All 
 on the Malakoff Tower -'Here I am, these men were strong in their hate and 
 and here I remain," became famous in their jealousy, strong, above all, be- 
 WOl'ds in France, and MaeMahon's fame cause of the military organization which 
 extcaided far beyond the boundaries of his allowed them to launch their army corps 
 own country. He was, at forty-four years forward, swift as thought ; to bring the 
 of age, a division general who had seen fighters in railway carriages ou to the 
 twenty-seven years of active service, battle-field, and by the same train to 
 Had the Empire had a dozen men like transport the wounded from the battle- 
 hini it might have turned the current Held to the hospital. They were strong, 
 of fate for the moment. Bazaine lint did I say? — but because of our feeble- 
 showed the already confessed weakness ness. They brought patience, coolness, 
 of his character in his conduct at Metz. principle, against fever, anxiety, and 
 General Frossard was chiefly noted lor disorder. Those who know that victory 
 having been the Prince Imperial's pre- depends upon the quartermaster's de- 
 ceptor. It was expected that he would parlment more than upon anything else, 
 get the liii/mi of a marshal at the lir-t and upon those engineers of the Held of 
 battle in which he participated ; but, as carnage who are called officers of the 
 it chanced, that first battle was the dis- geueral staff, wen- overwhelmed with 
 astrous defeat at Forbach. patriotic anguish when they measured, 
 Let us see what an enlightened and not the coinage, — France is always sure 
 patriotic Frenchman says of the Germans to have her heroes, — but the organ- 
 
EUROPE IS STORM AND CALM. 
 
 185 
 
 ization and the mechanism of the two 
 armies." 
 
 Never, should I live a hundred years, 
 could I forget my impressions on ar- 
 riving on the Rhine while the mobiliza- 
 tion movement of the German armies 
 was at its height. There can be noth- 
 ing more impressive than a nation in 
 arms. The aggregation of strong, reso- 
 lute, handsomely equipped men is stu- 
 pefying. One begins to think there 
 are millions where he only sees thou- 
 sands. The eye is but slowly trained 
 to the appreciation of numbers. The 
 uprising of the whole of Germany was 
 an electric surprise to all Europe, and 
 it is not astonishing that I was over- 
 whelmed by what I saw. From the 
 Belgian frontier to Cologne I was com- 
 pelled to take a military train, all civil- 
 ians being declared contraband, and 
 being already looked upon with suspicion 
 and contempt. A man out of uniform 
 in Germany was a thing to smile at. or 
 to lie pitiful over. If a stranger he was 
 looked at askance. But no one troubled 
 the observer during those few days of 
 striving for the advantage. The soldiers 
 were too busy with themselves, and the 
 civilians were too much engaged in 
 gazing at them, to worry foreigners. 
 From Cologne I followed the wave of 
 soldiery to Coblentz, where there was 
 naturally a great concentration of troops, 
 with a view to the guarding of the Mo- 
 selle valley. Beer and wine played 
 their accustomed role. Rigorous as is 
 the German discipline on the march, 
 and in the enemy's country, there was 
 not much show of it among those thou- 
 sands upon thousands of lusty young 
 men, who were packed as neatly as figs 
 in a box into the snug railway carriages. 
 At Bonn, the old university town, there 
 were at least five hundred men on the 
 railway platform, each one with a bottle 
 
 of beer under each arm, and such 
 scrambling as ensued among the sol- 
 diers I have rarely seen. 
 
 At Remagcu a few hilarious old gen- 
 tlemen came with packets of sweet 
 cakes, and lieer-boiiles innumerable, and 
 as the train moved away sang patri- 
 otic songs in cracked voices. Here 
 and there a man bade his wife and 
 
 children g l-by, ami got quietly into 
 
 the train, fitting into the place prepared 
 for him in advance. The Reserves, 
 coming in from the country-side, made 
 the air ring with their songs, and cheer 
 after cheer was heard from the wayside 
 as the train went by. 
 
 If the hungry French soldiers on the 
 other side of the frontier could have 
 seen the spectacle which 1 saw at. 
 Coblentz they would have wept with 
 vexation. The provision magazines were 
 crammed, and long trains of forage 
 wagons were coming in in the early morn- 
 ing from the other side of the Rhine. The 
 Prussian system for the transportation 
 of supplies was put to a severe test here, 
 and proved amply sufficient. As soon 
 as the movement of . or concentration of , 
 troops, on the frontier began, the farm- 
 ers in all the country along the line of 
 march were notified that they must 
 transport a certain amount of supplies 
 to a given point. Each fanner owns, 
 according to his circumstances, one or 
 two forage wagons, all liuilt very much 
 alike, and subject at any moment to the 
 government call. The burgomaster of a 
 certain district receives notice from the 
 army head-quarters that so many sup- 
 plies must be at a certain point at a 
 given time; and he gets them there, 
 knowing full well that if he does not the 
 consequences will lie extremely unpleas- 
 ant. 
 
 Of course the situation would have 
 been greatly changed could a French 
 
LSI! 
 
 EUROPE IS' STOini A.XD CALM. 
 
 army of the old revolutionary or Repub- as if going to .1 wedding. The new- 
 lican type have gone rolling and plunging comers from a village in the back 
 down the Moselle valley, living on pluu- country usually made a round of the 
 dor, and frightening the farmers and shops, to buy a few things lacking for 
 burghers into instant submission. Hut their outfit. Every second man was 
 the Germans wore pretty well assured smoking a lone- porcelain pipe, and 
 that there was no danger of an extended every third officer certainly wore spec- 
 raid in the direction of the Rhine, tacles. The fever of national patriot- 
 Cologne, at the time of my visit, was ism found its vent in the singing of 
 the head-quarters of the general com- such songs as Die Wacht am lihein. 
 manding the Seventh, Eighth, and There was little cheering, a good ileal 
 Eleventh corps of the Prussian army, of laughter, ami liberal beer. 
 This command was one of the most From Mayence I crossed theriverand 
 extensive in tin' country; the Seventh attempted to visit Wiesbaden, where a 
 corps occupying the whole of West- few of the annual French visitors were 
 phalia, including Dusseldorf ; the Eighth still lingering, half displeased, half 
 keeping guard on both sides of the stunned by the tremendous military 
 Rhine up to Coblentz, and thence to energy displayed around Ihem ; hut to 
 Mavenee on the side nearest, France; get to Wiesbaden was out of my power. 
 and the Eleventh having Hesse-Darm- I had fallen upon abnormal times, and 
 stadt and Uesse-Cassel in its care. The my carriage was ordered into a ditch, 
 Eighth corps, too, guarded the whole where 1 sal quite contentedly for three 
 section of country between Coblentz and mortal hums, while a steady stream 
 the French frontier and Luxembourg, of the finest cavalry 1 had ever seen 
 extending its hues up to Treves, Satir- passed slowly by. Nearly every man 
 bruck, Sarreburg, and Forbach. Count- of this grand body of troops was of 
 ing the regiments on their war footing more than average height. The officers 
 this command comprised about one hun- looked like a superior kind of school- 
 dred and lil'tv thousand men. masters. They were harsh in command 
 As I continued my difficult journey up and faultless in equipment. They 
 the Rhine the spectacle of the military seemed as if they had come out of 
 preparations liecame more and more a line engraving, so irreproachable 
 impressive. The highways were filled were lhe\ ; white-gloved, decorated, no 
 with long lines of troopers, with re- creases or wrinkles in their uniform, the 
 splendent cuirasses, and iii gray and saddle appointments of their horses all 
 gold, or in shining helmets and pretty perfect. It seemed almost too nice for 
 blue or red uniforms. \t every railway soldiering. The whole land was swarming 
 station dozens of young men. almost with troops. I went, hack to Mayence, 
 hovs. were waiting until lliev could be and waited, before I could reach my 
 
 transferred to the various points where hotel, while a boyish regi nt went by, 
 
 they were incorporated in their regi- clink! clink! every foot striking the 
 
 ments. Nearly all were clad simply and pavement in exactly the same way, 
 
 carried little parcels, hurriedly made up, every knee thrown out at the same 
 
 of provisions and clothing. Now and identical angle. Under the hot sun 
 
 then a group walked in, singing a jolly down wenl a hoy. His comrades swung 
 
 marching song, and laughing and joking their feet over him. and when the am- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 187 
 
 bulance-wagon came he was picked up 
 as automatically and mathematically as 
 if it were done by a machine. Click ! 
 clack ! On went the ambulance-wagon 
 with the sick man, but the military 
 movements had suffered no check. 
 
 The components of the Prussian sol- 
 dier's uniform are very simple, tasteful, 
 and convenient. He might make a drink- 
 ing-cup out of his helmet, and carve 
 meat with his spike. He wears a bluish 
 tunic with red colored cuffs and lappels, 
 and a stout pair of dark-colored trousers ; 
 carries a thick blanket, a canteen, a 
 cooking-can. and a well-planned knap- 
 sack in undressed calfskin. His fatigue- 
 cap is flat, bordered with red. He has 
 an undress uniform of coarse flax cloth, 
 and a pair of white trousers. His over- 
 coat is long, voluminous, and docs 
 splendid service at night, when he biv- 
 ouacs in the open air. for the German 
 army has no tents. The pockets and 
 folds of his clothing are so arranged 
 that lie can carry in them numberless 
 little things, and he fully improves the 
 opportunities. 
 
 When he bivouacs he plants his gun 
 against his bayonet, places his side arms 
 hanging over them, and caps them with his 
 helmet. I have seen ten thousand of these 
 helmets poised thus on a lone- plain, 
 making one sheeny mass, which from a 
 distance was dazzling as a golden sea. 
 
 On a country road, not far from Ma\- 
 eiicc, I saw a troop of Hussars. It was 
 the most superb spectacle that I wit- 
 nessed during the war. Each man sal 
 erect and motionless as a statue, with 
 one hand on the carbine laid upon his 
 side pommel, and each beautiful horse 
 was richly trapped. The cavalry has 
 the greatest wealth of dress, and the 
 rather gaudy splendor of some of the 
 cavalry corps has a remembrance of the 
 middle ages in it. 
 
 The constant saluting of superiors by 
 inferiors, the bawling of the orders to 
 men, and the compactness of the pro- 
 vision and baggage trains, all strike 
 strangely upon the foreigner's sense. 
 Here was an organization which had 
 evidently been going on and on for years 
 and years, until the men who composed 
 it did things as if by inherited motion ; 
 and yet this wonderful mechanism had 
 been but little heard of until four years 
 before, in 18G6. As to the saluting, it 
 is incredibly formal. I sat, one evening, 
 during this German advance, in front of 
 the head-quarters of Prince Augustus, of 
 Wurt.'inberg, at Kaiserslautern, in Rhen- 
 ish Bavaria, watching the common sol- 
 diers, who were carrying heavy sacks of 
 bread or grain, and who were obliged to 
 pass the sacred place where tic little 
 potentate was sitting. Although the 
 poor fellows in their dusty fatigue-jackets 
 
 were bent almost double with their loads, 
 each one managed so to arrange his bur- 
 den that he could carry one band stiffly 
 to his cap, until he had quite passed 
 beyond the old prince. It was painful 
 to see mature men stand sometimes for 
 iivc minutes holding their hands to their 
 hats, while a beardless boy, some aris- 
 tocralic officer, was conversing with 
 them. 
 
 Although the Germans had sacrificed 
 much to order they bad yet known 
 how to combine elegance with it. The 
 tield equipage of Prince Friedrich Karl, 
 which I saw at Kaiserslautern, was 
 one of the most perfect that can be 
 imagined. There w:is :\. train of six; 
 compact light carriages, stored with all 
 the requisites for the Prince and his 
 stall'; and. close behind it, afield tele- 
 graph and field post service. The t 1 ■- 
 graphic wagons are so arranged that a 
 station can be established, and rapidly 
 connected with an existing line within 
 
L88 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 reasonable distance. Couriers voile be- afternoon the answer came to disappoint 
 hind the wagons in the order of march, and annoy us, couched in the follow- 
 ready at a moment's notice to go from ing terms: " His Highness regrets that 
 the wagons to the staff , and back again, an order this morning arrived from 
 incessantly. As for the field post :ill Berlin that no correspondents should 
 journalists who followed the movements be allowed to follow the field army, 
 of the German armies learned to admire He is the more sorry for this as he 
 and respect the managers of that match- had already given orders, since the 
 less institution. reception of your letter, for the cx- 
 At Carlsruhc, at Darmstadt, at Hei- animation of your credentials and such 
 dclberg, everywhere in the picturesque facilities as could properly be given." 
 and poetic region in which the English It was evident that neither German 
 and American traveller loves to linger nor French wanted observers on the 
 in the soft midsummer time, there frontier before the first battles; hut 
 was the same haste of warlike prepara- we pushed on into the Pfalz, the rug- 
 tion. I pushed on to Speyer, a rather ged mountain country of Rhenish Ba- 
 ugly old town, notable chiefly for its varia, over which both French and 
 historic cathedral, and there found the Prussian armies have moved in hostile 
 Crown Prince of Prussia, who was the array in past times. All through thia 
 object of inv search. Here were doz- country the peasants were half fright- 
 ens of Bavarian regiments ; indeed, all ened to death. Although thousands 
 Bavaria seemed to have taken rendez- upon thousands of soldiers were passim;' 
 vous at Speyer. There was a general along the country roads, in nearly every 
 alarm among ih • inhabitants. The antiquated dor/, filled with squeaking 
 French were reported to have crossed geese and crazy peasants, we found 
 the frontier, and the Bavarians had the bedding and crockery packed for 
 been so hurried to nd up to this point instant transportation. From every 
 that half-a-dozen poor fellows, in the house a Bavarian flag was hung out, 
 square near the cathedral, were dying and in some of the country mansions 
 of sunstroke, and hundreds were laid of the better sort little hospitals had 
 up with sore feet a ml with aching heads, been prepared. At Neustadt we found 
 The Bavarian Jaiiajers, clad in blue that the general occupying the town 
 hunting suits, and with green plumes had given orders thai no civilians should 
 in their helmets, were quite imposing, he admitted to the hotel ; hut we were 
 Many of the poor boys had pallid laces, made exceptions by the landlord, who 
 and the people of Speyer said that they said that he would take the risk. At 
 would not light; but they did fight the railway station my English com- 
 like demons at the battle of Woerth. panion was collared for looking at a 
 The English gentleman who was my passing military train, — what right had 
 companion in travel said they looked as he to look at it. indeed! — and he luckily 
 if they would like to holt : hut none of escaped with a muttered apology. 
 them holted. We sat late that uiglll ill front of the 
 
 After a night at Speyer my companion little hotel, struck with astonishment at, 
 
 and I sent polite letters to the down the continual succession of troops, com- 
 
 Prince, asking for military passes into ing, coming, coming, in eudless procession 
 
 the field of operations; and during the and seeminglv without fatigue, marching 
 
i:ri;i>ri: i.x storm axd calm. 
 
 180 
 
 ou to the fields beyond and establishing 
 their bivouacs with but little noise and 
 with no confusion. The surpri.se I felt 
 then at the national strength displayed 
 was, however, no greater than that which 
 I felt <>n the day after the capitulation 
 of the forts of Paris, when I saw come 
 marching into Versailles, click ! clack ! 
 with the knees thrown nut at the proper 
 angle, a regiment of scaly-looking boyish 
 troops, of fresh troops sent up from the 
 depths of Germany, to fall in, if neces- 
 sary, as readily and willingly as the first 
 actives had fallen in. It may with truth 
 be said that, from the beginning of the 
 campaign to the end, Germany had fresh 
 troops constantly arriving in France, 
 and when the war was completely ended 
 still had a few left to draw upon. The 
 confederation of the North alone was 
 ready at the beginning of the war to put 
 on foot three hundred and eighty bat- 
 talions of infantry, three hundred squad- 
 rons of cavalry, two hundred batteries of 
 artillery, being one thousand two hundred 
 pieces, thirteen battalions of engineers, 
 thirteen train battalions, — in all. live 
 hundred and fifty thousand active men ; in 
 addition to which it had a reserve of one 
 hundred and eighty thousand men. and a 
 solid landtvehr numbering more than two 
 
 hundred thousand. The Bavarian army 
 furnished one hundred and ten thousand 
 soldiers ; the Wurtemberg army, thirty- 
 six thousand ; and the army of Baden, 
 about the same number. All these, in 
 the last days of July, when hostilities 
 were just to commence, were grouped 
 into three armies: the first, under the 
 command of old General Steinmetz ; the 
 second commanded by Prince Friedrich 
 Karl : and the third by the Crown Prince 
 of Prussia. Under General Steinmetz, 
 and, later, under Von Manteuffel, were 
 tin' First, Eighth, and Seventh corps, 
 the Seventh commanded by the famous 
 Lieutenant-Geueral von Goeben ; under 
 Prince Friedrich Karl were the Second, 
 Third, Ninth, Tenth, Fourth, and Twelfth 
 corps, the latter the Saxons, commanded 
 by the Prince of Saxony, and the famous 
 Guard corps commanded by the Prince 
 of Wurtemberg; and in the third army, 
 which fought at Weissenburg, at YVoerth, 
 at Sedan, and was so conspicuous in 
 front of Paris during the siege, were the 
 Fourth. Fifth, Sixth. Thirteenth, and 
 Fourteenth corps. Three more formi- 
 dable, better equipped, or more powerful 
 armies never fell upon the frontiers of 
 any unhappy country. 
 
190 EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY. 
 
 The Spectacle in the Palatinate. — A Visit, to Landau. — The Saxon Troops on the March. — A N'i^'ht 
 Drive. — Echoes from Weissenburg. — Through the Glades to Kaiscrslautcrn. — Tin' Narrative of 
 Strange Adventures which there befell us. -A Military Prison. — Challenging a Denunciator. — 
 Arrested a Second Time. 
 
 f~l"MIIS concentration of troops in the eighty-two days of siege; but the fol- 
 
 JL Palatinate was so remarkable a spec- lowing year it returned once more into 
 
 tacle that we were willing to run greater the hands of the French, yet ie again 
 
 risks than we were likely to be subjected to be taken by the Imperials in 1701. 
 
 to, for the purpose of witnessing it in Down swept the French upon it in 1713, 
 
 :ill its aspects. II was noised abroad in occupying it u whole century, to give it 
 
 the arinv, all too soon for our purposes, tip to Bavaria after the treaties of 1815. 
 
 that newspaper correspondents, or " writ- It was from Landau that one of his 
 
 ers," as the Prussians scornfully called Generals wrote to Louis XIV. : "Sire, 
 
 them, were not. admitted among the we have taken more flags ami standards 
 
 2 -ts of the moving camps; and where- than Your Majesty lias lost of soldiers." 
 
 ever wo went, therefore, we were eyed < >n the way to Landau, in the broiling 
 
 and scowled at as presumable members sun. we had an opportunity to observe 
 
 of some other profession. the conduct on the march of the young 
 
 We wen' not slow to discover that the Saxon troops, who did not appear to 
 
 inhabitants of the Palatinate were by no great advantage at the outset of the 
 
 means in sympathy with the Prussians, campaign, but who behaved wonderfully 
 
 On the contrary they seemed to cherish well when in front of Paris, and did 
 
 for them an especial dislike, criticised plenty of rough work. Evidently tin' 
 
 them severely, and laughed at their pom- Saxon military shoemakers were at fault, 
 
 pons air, their stiff uniforms, and their for the soldiers were seated by hundreds 
 
 somewhat objectionable habit of combing in the ditches, nursing their feel, and 
 
 their hair and whiskers while they sat at doubtless cursing Ihe proyocalive French 
 
 meals. most heartily. At the gates of Landau 
 
 From Niiisti.lt we went to Landau, \\c met a long train of ambulance-wag- 
 
 the famous fortress-town, which the Em- ons, carrying to a hastily improvised 
 
 peror Rudolph of Hapsburg made a free camp two or three score of suustruck 
 
 Imperial city in the thirteenth century, youths. The poor fellows, thrown into 
 
 and which was taken by assault and the wagons with their heavy knapsacks 
 
 pillaged seven times during the Thirty ami blankets still .strapped upon them, 
 
 Years' war. Landau was taken posses- presented a pitiable appearance. With- 
 
 sion of by Louis XIV. at the same time in the town everything indicated that 
 
 that lie placed his hand upon Alsatia ; tin' mixed forces who were there assem- 
 
 and he had it magnificently fortified by bled were on the alert, as was eminently 
 
 Vauban. Back came the Imperial armies proper in the immediate vicinity of the 
 
 ami wrested it from Louis XIV.. after enemy. Regiments came and regiments 
 
EUROPE l.X STORM AX1> CALM. 
 
 1!)1 
 
 went; cavalry clattered back and forth; 
 reviews were held : the sick were be- 
 stowed in proper houses. The general 
 officers were quite magnificent at the 
 table d'hdte of the principal hotel, dining 
 and wining freely, yet with a certain 
 preoccupied air peculiar to soldiers when 
 action is impending. 
 
 We left Landau late at night, and 
 just in time to escape the overhauling 
 of an inquisitive officer of the day. Our 
 tea inster lost his way while we were 
 making for Germersheim, and, taking 
 a long ili'ionr, left us in doubt as to 
 whether we were in France or Germany, 
 but. with the pleasant consciousness that, 
 we were not far from the scene of 
 battle. Night came on, so quiet that as 
 we drove over the plains we could hear 
 the cows pulling the short grass in the 
 fields. Now and then we heard the 
 tramp of hundreds of feet, and saw long 
 Mack shadows, denoting the passage of 
 a regiment. At last we cam" to the 
 bigb road, and by and by to Germers- 
 heim, where we were saluted by a vig- 
 orous invitation to halt, and a rather 
 scornful intimation to " clear out" when 
 we requested admission; the sentinel 
 merely deigning to remark that it 
 was Festwng (a fortification), and that 
 we could not, enter after hours. So we 
 betook ourselves to the highway once 
 more, passing through many antiquated 
 dorfs, where the peasants were in a high 
 state of excitement, and at the entrance 
 of each of which little groups of cavalry- 
 men sat. motionless on their horses, 
 wrapped in their long cloaks, not. even 
 looking at us as we passed. After va- 
 rious other adventures, such as straying 
 into the old Rhine bed, and narrowly 
 escaping wreck in the darkness and in 
 the sandy, water-deserted reaches, we 
 decided that it would be useless to 
 return to Landau or to Speyer that 
 
 night, and coming, towards dawn, to a 
 little group of houses, we rested there, 
 hoping for better hick when the sun 
 should rise. 
 
 When morning came we were startled 
 by certain dull sounds, which came from 
 the direction of France, and were some- 
 what amused at the perturbation with 
 which the German villagers declared that 
 these sounds were the echoes of the mi- 
 trailleuses, and that the French would 
 soon be upon us. There was, however, 
 no falling back on the part of the Ger- 
 man troops; and, as we heard nothing 
 further, we concluded that our ears had 
 been deceived, and. after an hour of ex- 
 ploration in thi' direction of France, we 
 returned to Germersheim. Hence my 
 English friend counselled an immediate 
 journey to Kaiserslautern, from which 
 point, one might sec something of the 
 principal advance in that direction. 
 
 We had indeed heard the echoes of a 
 battle, anil of one which, though of no 
 great importance or duration, opened 
 the door of Alsatia for Germany. The 
 army of the Crown Prince, with the Fifth 
 corps, thirty-two thousand strong; the 
 Eleventh with the same number; the 
 First Bavarian corps, of thirty-eight thou- 
 sand men. and the Second with thirty- 
 two thousand, and the Bavarians and 
 Wtirtembergers more than forty thousand 
 in number, with two divisions of cavalry 
 seven thousand strong, — all these were 
 thrown forward upon or near a point. 
 which was defended by a French di- 
 vision, only nine thousand in number. 
 The French are right when they say that 
 General Douayand his division at Weis- 
 
 senburg fought one against live, for at 
 
 least eighty thousand Germans took part 
 in the brief struggle on the morning of 
 the 1th of August, which resulted in the 
 retreat of the French and the occupation 
 of Weissenburg. Had the French been 
 
1!I2 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 strong and quick enough to have :it their work, so that Weissenburg is 
 
 pushed into Germany at this point, half- qualified as a costly victory even by the 
 
 a-dozen days before the mobilization of Germans. The French resistance, al- 
 
 the German army was complete, how though the troops were totally unpre- 
 
 different the results might have been ! pared for such an overwhelming attack. 
 
 But all the world knows the history of was very creditable, and has always been 
 the surprise, for it axis a genuine sur- praised by the enemy, [t was better for 
 prise, at Weissenburg. The French sol- General Douay that lie should have been 
 diers, in describing the battle, asserted killed, for, generous and true-hearted as 
 that General Douay had to improvise he was. he would never have forgiven 
 his plan of action under the enemy's himself for being the unwitting instru- 
 fire. A gallant French officer, M. Uu- ment for the admission of the Germans 
 niv. who was engaged in the action, into the province which they had deter- 
 said : ' We were halted for an instant mined to take from their traditional foe. 
 to reform lines, while advancing to the We made the best of our way over 
 heights from which the German fire had the encumbered roads, now liter- 
 come. This halt of ours was like a ally swarming with troops, up through 
 signal for the enemy, who had been for the picturesque mountain passes to 
 some time silent and invisible. A hor- Kaiserslautern, near which pretty little 
 rible fusillade broke out all along our town Barbarossa is supposed to be still 
 line of battle. The vineyards were liter- lying in his enchanted sleep. Here a 
 allv tilled with sharp-shooters, ambus- fellow American journalist and myself 
 caded there since the morning, or excited the suspicions of a patriotic in- 
 perhaps the evening before. They tired habitant of the town, who at once spread 
 while kneeling down hidden among the the report that there were " French spies" 
 leaves, and. if 1 am not mistaken, shel- taking notes among the troops, and 
 tered behind little hillocks of earth, towards evening, after our English friend 
 which they had had time to throw up. had departed on a little reconuoitering 
 Bv their position they had a great ad- expedition towards Homburg on the 
 vantage over us, as we were on the open frontier, we were surrounded by six 
 road." stalwart soldiers, accompanied by an 
 
 The naivete of this recital is almost officer, who. without any unnecessary 
 
 pathetic. It indicates a surprise, so politeness, informed us that we were 
 
 great as almost t<> deprive this officer, arrested. We could not deny the soft 
 
 who was doubtless brave enough, of impeachment, and were marched off 
 
 military sense. He seems to imply that through the town, escorted by a jingling 
 
 it was disloyal and improper on the part procession of small boys and greasy 
 
 of the (banians to take advantage of Jews, to a huge barrack building, where 
 
 their position, or to fortify themselves we were initiated info the delights of a 
 
 in it. The Crown Prince had rattled military prison. While we \\rvc not 
 
 down from Speyer to Landau in a post- frightened we were deeply annoyed, 
 
 chaise, and thence on horseback to the because we had wished to push on that 
 
 outposts, to be present at this action, night to the frontier. Our companion 
 
 He directed the storming of the castle in misfortune was a gigantic personage 
 
 of Schafenburg bv the King's Grena- connected with the army, who was labor- 
 
 diers, who were very badly cut up while ing under a temporary hallucination, 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 193 
 
 superinduced 1)3' copious libations, and 
 who insisted, at intervals throughout 
 the night, in threatening to exterminate 
 us with his jack-boots, which he could 
 certainly have done if he had persisted 
 in attempting it. About midnight, our 
 situation becoming intolerable, we clat- 
 tered furiously upon the door, and 
 made most vigorous protests, which 
 brought to us a superior officer, superbly 
 dressed, who took our passports and 
 protests, and left us with the cool 
 remark, that, whether we were right or 
 wrong, there we must bide the night. 
 We did bide there with as much patience 
 as we could command, and were not a 
 little startled when the door was opened 
 in the morning to find six men and a 
 sergeant waiting to escort us, whither 
 we knew not. We were ordered to '• fall 
 in," and were marched, in the rain, 
 which was coming down in torrents, 
 through some back streets of the town, 
 our escort proceeding with such solem- 
 nity that we began to fancy that we 
 might be going to our own execution. 
 My companion vouchsafed the remark 
 that they "certainly could no! shoot 
 us." " But then," he added, "if they 
 wish to, they have guns enough ; " 
 and with this poor attempt at wit we 
 were both satisfied for the moment. 
 
 When we were quite drenched the 
 minions of an effete despotism deposited 
 us in the hall of a large and dingy 
 structure, and retired without bidding us 
 good-morning, but not without seeing 
 that we were properly locked in. As 
 this hall was not especially inviting of 
 aspect, we made bold to open a side 
 door, and found ourselves in a comfort- 
 ably warmed room, around three sides 
 of which ran shelves filled with docu- 
 ments, and we concluded that we were 
 in the office of some functionary. Seated 
 in a corner was a portly man, with a sin- 
 
 gularly white face, and something so sad, 
 yet proud, in his demeanor that we could 
 not help observing him carefully. We 
 learned during the day that he had 
 passed fifteen years in a fortress, wear- 
 ing a ball and chain attached to one of 
 his legs, because he had been too free 
 with his pen iii his criticism of the gov- 
 ernment under which he lived ! At 
 present he was one of the large Liberal 
 party in Kaiserslautern, men who hated, 
 and who did all they could to oppose, the 
 military policy and the crushing despot- 
 ism which Prussia had imposed upon the 
 whole nation. 
 
 After what seemed to us an inter- 
 minable delay this personage came out 
 of his corner, and informed us in the 
 German tongue that some one would 
 come presently to examine us; then fol- 
 lowed another delay, which appeared like 
 weeks, but it was only half an hour. 
 An amiable gentleman, with a fiery com- 
 plexion, arrived with a somewhat be- 
 wildered air, as if he had been suddenly 
 awakened from his slumbers, and taking a 
 chair, and drawing it up to the table in 
 front of which we had ventured to seat 
 ourselves, he laid before him a package, 
 upon which he laid both his fat hands. 
 Then he took a long look at us, after 
 which he burst into a loud laugh, and 
 said in English : " Veil, boys, I think 
 you were in a scrape." 
 
 As there was no disposition on our 
 part to deny this, and finding that he 
 spoke his broken English in a manner 
 which indicated a period of sojourn in 
 America, we ventured to interrogate him, 
 and found that he had, like many other 
 Germans, returned to the Palatinate, 
 after a long and prosperous stay in the 
 United States, and that he was one of 
 the members of the city council in 
 Kaiserslautern The military authori- 
 ties, despairing of making spies out 
 
L94 
 
 EUROPE J.V STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 of us, had handed us over to the 
 town, and had given into our new 
 friend's hands all the papers which had 
 been found upon us. These papers 
 were now returned to us with a cour- 
 teous apology from the representative 
 cit' the city's dignity and with the remark 
 that the burgomaster would shortly call 
 upon us to express his regrets at the 
 unfortunate occurrence. 
 
 It was at the '• White Swan " Inn that 
 we had been arrested, just as we 
 were sitting down to dinner, and 1 was 
 somewhat amused at the vehemence 
 with which our city councillor insisted 
 upon our going to the •• White Swan" 
 with him, and bestowing upon the land- 
 lord a few specimens of Anglo-Saxon 
 invective. We declined to do this, and 
 expressed a preference for bed. So we 
 adjourned to the Prince Karl Hotel, where 
 we were warmly received, ami sent to 
 the " White Swan " for our personal be- 
 longings. We had laid quietly down to 
 rest when there came a loud knock at 
 the bedroom door, and in walked a 
 policeman. This we considered too much 
 of a trial after the adventures of the 
 night, but this functionary insisted upon 
 our dressing and accompanying him. 
 What was our amusement and amaze- 
 ment when we discovered that the land- 
 lord of the "White Swan " had summoned 
 us before a magistrate, there to listen to 
 his affidavit that he had had nothing to 
 do with our arrest. Back we went to 
 the hotel, and once more to bed ; and at 
 one o'clock, the hour when dinner is 
 served in most German hotels, we went 
 down to the long dining-room, in which 
 perhaps one hundred officers were smok- 
 ing and drinking ; and there we encoun- 
 tered our friend, the city councillor, and 
 were invited to break bread with him. 
 
 We had not been long in the room 
 when we discovered that at its oppo- 
 
 site end was a. party of gentlemen who 
 were in no wise in sympathy with our 
 city councillor, and who were certainly 
 making merry at our expense. We in- 
 quired the reason of this, and our ( lerman 
 supporter then told us that, there were 
 two parties in Kaiserslautern, bitterly 
 hostile each to the other. Prominent in 
 one of these parties was a certain Chris- 
 tian Sind, who had a special dislike for 
 all Americans, ami for all the Germans 
 who had returned from America bring- 
 ing with them their criticisms upon the 
 old and slow methods of doing business, 
 and also bringing with them larger 
 fortunes than Herr Sind and his col- 
 leagues had been able to get together at- 
 home. Herr Sind, in his wanderings 
 through the town, had observed our 
 movements, and had reported them as 
 suspicious to the military authorities; 
 hence our arrest. These facts had come 
 out during the morning while we were 
 sleeping off the memory of the cavalry- 
 man and his annihilating jack-boots, and 
 our arrest was now to be made matter 
 for a furious discussion between the 
 contending parties in the city council. 
 My companion, who had served through 
 our civil war, was a bit of a wag, and 
 fancied that from Herr Siud's appearance 
 he might not relish the notion of a duel ; 
 so he sent a card to that suspicious gen- 
 tleman, with an intimation that, if the 
 report concerning Herr Sind's conduct 
 were true, he had not behaved in a gen- 
 tlemanly fashion, and hoped lie would 
 give him immediate satisfaction. 
 
 Heir Sind arose ami came to our table 
 in a state of anger which it would be 
 difficult to describe. To my friend ho 
 said, in broken English, that he would 
 not tight with a boy ; whereupon, in y 
 friend, with an impetuous obstinacy 
 born of the occasion, endeavored to 
 stimulate the courage of Herr Sind with 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 195 
 
 one or two of those epithets which are 
 rarely received calmly. But the cham- 
 pion of the Conservative party in Kais- 
 erslautern was not warlike. He bel- 
 lowed defiance, but went no further. 
 After a few war-dances about our table 
 he retreated to his own, and there con- 
 sumed the remains of his dinner in 
 moody silence. The German officers, 
 who had got wind of the affair, were de- 
 lighted at my friend's conduct, and 
 stood up in line, shouting innumerable 
 " Hochs," holding out their glasses to 
 him as a sign of approval of his conduct. 
 Our friend of the fiery complexion was 
 now reinforced by a number of his col- 
 leagues, and we completed our dinner 
 with the feeling of having thoroughly 
 triumphed over our enemies. 
 
 But this was not all. During the 
 course of the afternoon we received an 
 immense document from the city hall, 
 signed by the burgomaster himself, and 
 announcing that we were personally 
 known to the city government of the 
 good burgh of Kaiser slautern ; that our 
 papers had been inspected ; and that we 
 were entitled to protection, military and 
 
 civil, wherever we might travel in Ger- 
 man lines, in war or peace. Meantime 
 we received a letter from our English 
 friend, informing us that he had been 
 safely bestowed in a small guard-house 
 at the next town beyond Kaiserslautern, 
 Ilerr Sind's denunciation having included 
 him, ami having led the military authori- 
 ties to believe that they had bagged a, 
 trio of dangerous spies. 
 
 The recommendation from the city 
 government of Kaiserslautern did not 
 hinder us from being arrested again, at 
 a small town near by a day or two after- 
 wards. 
 
 Some years later I was conversing 
 with the editor of a German paper in 
 St. Louis about the Franco-German war, 
 and happened to mention the fact of 
 this second arrest. 
 
 " Ah ! " he said, " that could not have 
 happened in the section of Germany in 
 which I was born." 
 
 "Where were you born?" I ventured 
 to inquire. 
 
 "In Alzey." 
 
 Now it was in Alzey that our second 
 arrest occurred. 
 
lit!. 
 
 EUROPE J.X STOBM l\/> CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE. 
 
 Germersheim. — The Rhine Hud. — Across the Frontier. — Weissenburg. — On t<» Woerth.- -The Disaster to 
 the French. — The German Descent of the Hill under Fire. — ' Charge of Gen. Bonnemain's Cuirassiers. 
 
 — The Valley of Hell. - - MaeMahon's 1 lefeat. — The Horrorsof the Retreat. — Frossard's Negligence. 
 
 — Bazaine's Jealousy. 
 
 FROM Alzey we thought it worth our 
 while to return to Landau and 
 Germersheim, and so to get up to the 
 line of the Crown Prince's operations. 
 Germersheim stands on the Rhine, at a 
 point nearly opposite an important for- 
 tress in Baden. The Rhine, which for- 
 merly persisted in performing the letter S 
 twice between Speyer ami Germersheim, 
 has now been considerably straightened, 
 and the old bed of the river adds to the 
 strength of the fortress by making it 
 difficult to get within attacking distance. 
 Immense sums of money had been spent 
 on the fortifications of Germersheim 
 within the thirty years preceding the 
 war. The country round about is very 
 beautiful. The little Queieh river ram- 
 bles and rushes through green fields and 
 along the edges of pretty forests. Di- 
 rectly to the south of Germersheim lies 
 Sonderheim, and, further below, llonlt. 
 two fortified towns of some importance. 
 The Germans had anticipated that the 
 French might attack from Weissenburg, 
 
 using the railway bet ween (ierineisheiin 
 and Landau to hasten the transportation 
 of troops, and we found this load 
 unaided at every mile with such precau- 
 tions as only the German armies can 
 take. Landau and Germersheim are the 
 offsets to Lautcrburg and Weissenburg 
 on the southern French frontier to Rhen- 
 ish Bavaria. 
 
 From Germersheim to tin' frontier we 
 hail an uneventful journey. We went 
 
 over the same' road which we had taken 
 on the night of our departure from 
 Landau. The troops were pouring along 
 the highways silently, anil with that air 
 of gravity which always settles down 
 upon a marching army when it knows 
 that an encounter is just ahead of it. 
 The country was rough, broken by small, 
 but difficult, hills, and on either side of 
 the post road, by which we crossed into 
 France, there were long rows of noble 
 trees. The German outposts were scat- 
 tered along the frontier at every few 
 rods, and we heard wonderful stories 
 about sharp-shooting which we took 
 with the necessary grain of salt. At 
 Weissenburg we found proclamations, 
 posted on all the principal buildings, 
 announcing that no inhabitant would be 
 disturbed unless interfering with the 
 progressof military operations ; in which 
 case he would be shot. The French 
 peasantry seemed rather servile towards 
 the invaders, and many men professed 
 loudly that they were not at all in 
 favor of the war. They rebelled in 
 some instances against the unwelcome 
 duty of burying the dead, which the in- 
 vading Germans forced upon them ; but 
 they were compelled to do the work. 
 There were but few instances of mur- 
 ders in cold blood in Weissenburg after 
 the tight. One old man brained a Hus- 
 sar, who was entering his house, and we 
 were told that he would probably be 
 shot for it, unless it could be proven 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 11)7 
 
 that the soldier had done him some 
 harm. 
 
 No sooner had the Crown Prince won 
 his extraordinary success at Weissenburg 
 than lie telegraphed to Berlin: "Stop 
 everything else, and send me provisions. 
 Do not delay a moment." Pausing on 
 the confines of the enemy's country, and 
 glancing over its impoverished villages 
 and bare fields, he saw that he must 
 prepare to take with him all his means 
 of sustenance. There was not even a 
 potato to be found in the fields, and the 
 peasants of Weissenburg and twenty 
 miles around were at their wits' end to 
 procure provisions for themselves. Had 
 there been a certainty of plenty to eat 
 for some days the impatient Prince 
 would have engaged the French a second 
 time before the 6th; but he was com- 
 pelled to wait, and is said to have had 
 grave doubts as to the results of this 
 delay. lie threw himself upon the task 
 with unparalleled ardor, and was on foot 
 in the town one whole night, comforting 
 the wounded, and guarding by his pres- 
 ence the inhabitants against wrong. 
 
 Having received the news of the Saar- 
 bruck operations, of which we knew 
 nothing at the time of our visit, and, 
 doubtless, being aware of the determina- 
 tion of Prince Friederich Karl to give 
 battle in that vicinity, he pushed forward 
 his men on the steps of the living enemy. 
 Ou the evening of the 5th of August 
 he found that MacMahon's forces were 
 not far off, but were said to lie in a dis- 
 organized condition, the flight of the di- 
 vision which had been vanquished at 
 Weissenburg having been communicated 
 to the whole line. He therefore en- 
 deavored to crown the success of the 
 invasion by a crushing blow, which 
 would enable him to proceed to Metz 
 and Nancy, driving MacMahon before 
 him, and destroying all his hopes of 
 
 communication with the other army 
 corps, which were just then, although 
 the Crown Prince of course did not know 
 it. about to suffer a defeat. But he was 
 now in the midst of a broken and rough 
 country, where forests covered the an- 
 cient hills from the sunlight, and his 
 advance was difficult, slow, and full of 
 suspicion. He went forward, feeling 
 that he was not thoroughly supplied, and 
 dreading to go far till supplies could 
 
 come Up, 
 
 On the morning of the Oth his 
 advance was approaching Tiefenbach. 
 Very early on thai morning the sound 
 of rifle-shots was heard, and before the 
 sun was warm in the sky the Crown 
 Prince, with a few staff officers, rode 
 hurriedly to the extreme front, and 
 an engagement was at once begun. 
 Marshal MacMahon had marched on the 
 4th of August upon Haguenau. The 
 Emperor had placed at his disposition 
 the Fifth corps of General De Failly, 
 and if that. General had been diligent on 
 the disastrous day of the 6th the Mar- 
 shal might, perhaps, have held out 
 better than he did against the Germans. 
 MacMahon had intended to join his 
 forces with those of General de Failly, 
 and to attack the right Hank of the 
 Germans on the 7th; but he was one 
 day too late in his plans. 
 
 The Germans found that Marshal 
 MacMahon had taken up his position 
 between Langensulzbach on the north 
 and Morsbronn on the south, a field full 
 of ravines and patches of wood, and cut 
 up here and there into hop-fields. The 
 First division, commanded by General 
 Ducrot, was at Froshweiler ; the Third, 
 between Froshweiler and Elsasshausen ; 
 the Fourth, facing the table-land of Guns- 
 tett, with its right on Morsbronn. A 
 division of the Seventh, placed, like the 
 Fifth, at MacMahon's disposition (it had 
 
198 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 arrived in the morning), was put in the 
 second line with the Douay division, 
 which had just been in the Wcissenburg 
 light. MacMahon had now under his 
 command but forty-six thousand availa- 
 ble men with which to hold his position 
 against one hundred and sixty thousand 
 ( rcrmans. The Second Bavarian corps 
 began an attack on the Ducrof division; 
 at the same time the Fifth Prussian 
 corps attacked the Raoult division in the 
 
 centre. 
 
 At seven o'clock in the morning, along 
 a range of hills beyond Woerth, the 
 batteries were playing their liveliest. 
 The little village of Froshweiler, two 
 miles from Weissenburg, was crammed 
 with French tioops. waiting to go into 
 action. There was no excitement on 
 the part of tin' German troops, who 
 were jogging along the high-road, when 
 they heard the advance body open lire. 
 Everything was conducted in the most 
 orderly and tranquil manner. 
 
 The picturesque town of Woerth 
 stands in the basin formed by a circu- 
 lar range of hills, steep, wooded in 
 patches, and with vineyards scattered 
 here and there. Beyond the town, on 
 the north-west, side, and in the direction 
 of Froshweiler. is an old castle. A 
 little brook, escaped from the hidden 
 bases of the hills, wanders through 
 Woerth to lose itself speedily in the 
 thickets. The French lines, as massed 
 upon the hills opposite the Germans, 
 were so extended as to form a species 
 of semicircle, and from these lines there 
 came a steady lire of shells, under which 
 the Eleventh Prussian corps of Hessian 
 and Nassau troops began, at perhaps 
 nine o'clock, to descend the hill, anil 
 
 to march steadily and unwaveringly, 
 although they seemed marching to cer- 
 tain death. The tremendous clamor of 
 the shells, and the occasional div whir 
 
 of the solitary mitrailleuse, which was in 
 position, made these veterans groan, but 
 could not turn them back. The slopes 
 were strewn with wounded, and now 
 and then a stout man would jump into 
 the air and fall, dismembered and bleed- 
 ing. The cries of the wounded, at one 
 or two points in this march down the 
 hill, were so terrible that the French 
 thought a genera] retreat had begun, and 
 the artilleurs stopped firing to gaze, as- 
 tonished. But still the relentless march 
 went on. 
 
 Part of the fifth corps, composed 
 entirely of Prussians from Posen, the 
 Seventh. Fifty-eighth and Fifty-ninth 
 regiments, many of the men with the 
 Kceniggratz medal on their breasts, were 
 now also engaged in this solemn prome- 
 nade towards death and victory : and the 
 columns began to blacken the hill-side as 
 far as the eye could see, back to the 
 sombre line of wood. Now and then 
 through the foliage were seen the bright 
 helmets of the Prussians. In some 
 places the piles of dead, left by advanc- 
 ing regiments, obstructed the progress of 
 those coming on behind; and a long, 
 patient halt under lire was made by men 
 who expected every moment to he num- 
 bered among the slain. 
 
 Meantime the outer battle line of the 
 French, the Turcos, the Zouaves, and 
 the Liners, equally distributed, had ad- 
 vanced partially down the opposite hill, 
 ami were firing rapidly, but with lack of 
 precision, at the resistless yet unresisting 
 and on-coming men. The French soldier 
 usually goes heavily loaded with ammu- 
 nition, carrying twice the number of 
 rounds allowed in other armies ; and with 
 the chasxepot in his hands, and with his 
 marvellous celerity of tiring, he seemed 
 on this day almost like a demon vomiting 
 lire and smoke. One echo, one roll and 
 crash, followed another so quickly that 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 1W) 
 
 the interval between was hardly percep- 
 tible. 
 
 The French sometimes, since the battle 
 was ended at or very near Froshweiler, 
 to which they were obliged to retire, give 
 the name of that town to it. The Prus- 
 sians called it the victory of Woerth, 
 and as such it will probably be known 
 in history. The struggle extended over 
 a long tract of ground, and its shucks 
 were felt in seven or eight villages. 
 MaeMahon had certainly distributed his 
 scanty forces with admirable skill, with 
 a view to covering the possible advance 
 of the enemy from Strasbourg to Bitche. 
 lie had suffered great anxiety because 
 of his poverty of forces before he had 
 discovered the overwhelming numbers of 
 the enemy. He was obliged to leave 
 the town of Morsbronn, which after- 
 wards became one of the most important 
 points in the battle, unoccupied, because 
 he had not troops enough. At this place 
 occurred the celebrated charge of the 
 cuirassiers of General Bonnemain, who 
 were thrust forward by Marshal Mae- 
 Mahon in a desperate endeavor to hurl 
 back the dark masses of Germans who 
 seemed to spring out of the very hill-side. 
 This magnificent division of cavalry, 
 which has been amply celebrated in song 
 and story for the last decade in France, 
 went crashing and clattering into the 
 vineyards, where the men and horses were 
 slaughtered by dozens. These men 
 of the Eighth and Ninth Cuirassiers were 
 among the very best troops in the French 
 army ; they were fit antagonists for the 
 colossal German troops; and, had they 
 been properly matched against an even 
 number of the enemy, would have held 
 their own superbly. They had to go 
 through the village of Morsbronn to de- 
 scend into the valley, there form anew, 
 and charge. As they went through the 
 village dozens of them were dropped 
 
 from the saddles by Germans ambus- 
 caded ill the houses and in the alleys ; 
 from the windows revolvers were fired 
 upon them, and once outside of Mors- 
 bronn the batteries filled the valley with 
 the very fires of hell. 
 
 In the midst of this terrific hail of 
 shell they managed to get into line ; 
 but when they charged they were deci- 
 mated, stricken as if by lightning, and 
 the movement which they had hoped to 
 accomplish was rendered completely im- 
 possible. All along the French line 
 from Elsasshausen, at which the right of 
 the Second brigade of the Third division 
 was supported, to where the broken line 
 of the Fourth division faltered from the 
 right of the Third, — to Morsbronn, 
 there was the most frightful slaughter. 
 Marshal MaeMahon, as I have since 
 been told by French soldiers, had been 
 in the saddle the greater part of the 
 previous night, and had hardly taken 
 food since he had heard the news of the 
 Weissenburg defeat. 
 
 It was to turn the general position of 
 the French, and make them change their 
 front, that the terrible advance of the 
 Germans into this valley of death be- 
 tween the hills bristling with artillery 
 was made. When the Germans had 
 reached the bottom of the hill they were 
 naturally in full possession of Woerth. 
 In the town itself there were no French 
 soldiers. The unfortunate inhabitants 
 were half dead with fright; and, after 
 the Prussians had taken possession, many 
 houses were fired upon by the French, 
 and some of the inhabitants were badly 
 wounded. A " lazareth," or sanitary 
 station, was established, and the ambu- 
 lance corps of the Germans were soon 
 bringing wounded into the captured town 
 at the risk of their own lives. 
 
 J ust outside the little dorf the slaughter 
 had been so great that dead and wounded 
 
200 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 were piled together, and the living had bayonet wounds were found on his dead 
 
 to be picked out of the ghastly heaps of body. 
 
 the slain, while shells were making fresh While this sanguinary struggle was in 
 
 victims close at hand. Several of the progress on the hill, and the straggling 
 
 surgeons were killed on the held. One French reserve was hurrying up, a sharp 
 
 prisoner told of being found at the very lire was begun from the left hank of the 
 
 bottom of a heap of dead men; and a Sauerliach by the (iennans. This di- 
 
 Prussian officer, whom I met afterwards verted the attention of the French, hut 
 
 at Versailles, told me with much gusto was soon discovered to be a false attack, 
 
 the manner in which the wounded rolled and did no great harm. Some of the 
 
 into the ditches of the valley to escape French guns were presently dismounted 
 
 bullets, lie himself, heavily wounded, by the artillery on the opposite hill, 
 
 rolled into a ditch. Presently there and the French line began to waver 
 
 joined him another, who died in a few under the tearing and rending shucks 
 
 minutes. " By the time the battle was of the German lire. Some of the offi- 
 
 over," he adds, " I was in the midsl of cers of the line, seeing that there was 
 
 seven horrible-looking objects, who had every probability of being forced to 
 
 rolled into the mud, just as 1 had, from surrender, marched into the thick of the 
 
 instinct; and live of us saved our bullets, and fell. 
 
 lives." Hereon these slopes varying fortune 
 
 Rushing in wild confusion through and dealt continuous death, and the advance 
 
 around the town the German troops gradually became more difficult, be- 
 
 began charging up the steep hill, where cause not only of the piled-up slain, 
 
 the French awaited them. By this lime hut of the hundreds, even thousands, 
 
 the first French corps had changed its of knapsacks thrown away by both 
 
 front, and a number of infantry regiments the combating parties. The vigorous 
 
 advanced slowly down the hill to meet attack on the extreme right of Mac- 
 
 the enemy, llall'-way up the declivity Mahon's position was at last crowned with 
 
 the number of German dead decreased success. The Prussians, who had been 
 
 rapidly, and the French began to tall bringing up artillery all the forenoon, 
 
 like grain before the reaper. The (lei- had now about sixty pieces of cannon 
 
 mans were determined to avenue the on the table-laud at Gunstett, opposite 
 
 punishment received during their terrible Morsbronn, and protected their infantry, 
 
 preliminary march, and they ran forward which charged in great numbers on the 
 
 to short range, then began firing with Second division and the Second brigade 
 
 most methodical dignify, always hitting of the Third division, at Elsasshauseu. 
 
 and generally killing. The Turcos and The Bavarians ami the Wurtemburgers 
 
 Zouaves were mown down rapidly, and were in this charge, and fought like ile- 
 
 such was the indignation of the Germans mons, losing less killed than any other 
 
 against die Wilden, as the Arabs were corps, " because," said a prisoner to me, 
 
 called, that when one fell a shout of "they never stood still long enough to 
 
 triumph arose. One lieutenant of a he shot." 
 
 Turco regiment, mad with the instinct The powerful fire of the Gunstett bat- 
 
 of coming defeat, ran forward, accom- tcries caused a wail to go up all over 
 
 panied bv twenty of his men, plump into France two days after the battle. In 
 
 the arms of the Germans. A dozen and around the hop-fields and vineyards 
 
EURCtrE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 -.'Ill 
 
 at Morsbronn Franco lost many a gallant 
 gentleman and gay soldier on that bitter 
 August day ; and it was a black hour 
 and is a black memory. 
 
 The Prussians gradually poured upon 
 the field three to one against the small 
 baud of Frenchmen, who now were 
 fighting with the ferocity of despair. 
 There was in the charge of Elsasshausen 
 some hand-to-hand fighting, in which 
 both sides manifested an animosity 
 aroused by the mutual taunts before the 
 war. It was when the tremulous bugles 
 were sounding retreat and misfortune for 
 the armies of France that there was a 
 groat rush on either side for a final 
 struggle. When this was over, the 
 French, vanquished on the hills back of 
 Woerth, and with their central right 
 cleft in twain, found Marshal MacMahon 
 in a fainting condition, with his horse 
 killed under him. A French friend, 
 who was in this battle, told mo that 
 MacMahon narrowly escaped death a 
 Jozen times. Once his cravat was shot 
 away. The Marshal, reviving, took a 
 hasty view of the situation, and the mel- 
 ancholy retreat began. 
 
 A noble soldier of the Forty-fifth 
 French line, who was in this battle, and 
 who was killed at Sedan, has left on 
 record his impressions of the frightful 
 condition of the French army after the 
 fight. "All the corps," he wrote, 
 " were mixed up in a nameless rabble. 
 The enemy, from its advantageous posi- 
 tion, threw its hissing shells into the 
 midst of this crowd, cutting bloody fur- 
 rows chrough it. The ground over which 
 we walked was covered with dying and 
 dead men. The entreaties of the 
 wounded to us not to abandon them, 
 and to carry them along, were heart- 
 rending. The pursuit was ardent. Our 
 rear-guard stopped from time to lime to 
 engage the enemy, ami give our artillery 
 
 a chance to get a little ahead, and to the 
 engineer corps to Mock up the routes. 
 At a short distance from Reichshoffen " 
 (this is another French name for Woerth) 
 '• our artillery fired its last shot, which 
 the Marshal had carefully preserved, be- 
 cause, if we may believe an eye-witness, 
 at four o'clock in the afternoon we were 
 already without much ammunition." 
 
 It is said that Marshal MacMahon was, 
 in a moment of despair and rage, in- 
 clined to engage in a last charge into the 
 enemy's lines in the hope of winning 
 a soldier's death ; but his escort said to 
 him: "Why get yourself killed? You 
 must not go; you must come with us." 
 
 So. covered with dust, with his clothes 
 filled with bullet-holes, poor MacMahon 
 designated Saverne as the rallying point 
 for his troops, and left the hold which 
 he had done his best to contest against 
 overwhelming numbers. Saverne was 
 eight leagues away, and eight leagues 
 after such a day for this army, without 
 proper ammunition, without food, and 
 completely disorganized, was a terrible 
 march. The French withdrew, leaving 
 behind their wounded, all their baggage, 
 six thousand prisoners, thirty-live can- 
 non, six mitrailleuses, two flags, ami 
 four thousand wounded men. They had 
 lost General Colson, the Marshal's 
 General of Staff. General Raoult was 
 dying. It was. as the French writers 
 described it at the time, not a defeat; 
 it was a veritable disaster, — the blot- 
 ting out of the most vigorous corps in 
 the French army. 
 
 The Germans admit that they lost 
 aboiu eleven thousand men. and the 
 French claim that the German victory 
 cost Germany sixteen thousand men. 
 The Crown Prince himself was profuse 
 in his expressions of respect for the 
 enemy which ho had encountered. 
 
 Thus, on the 6th of August, the 
 
202 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Crown Prince had advanced his offen- 
 sive line almost in exact unison with 
 Steinmetz, at and beyond Saarbruck, 
 towards the mosl important fortress of 
 France. This very fortress France had 
 nol prepared properly to defend, since 
 she had counted on cutting into the 
 enemy's country. 
 
 While Genera] de Failly had beenhesi- 
 tating between Bitche and Niederbronn, 
 hearing the cannon thundering, without 
 hastening to the scene of combat, as he 
 should have done, the Second corps, that 
 
 of General Frossard, had been attacked 
 between Saarbruck and Forbach. 
 
 Marshal Bazaine should have sent to 
 this point sufficient forces to help Fros- 
 sard ; but it is on record that Bazaine, 
 when he heard of the scrape into which 
 the Imperial favorite had got, said : 
 " Let him earn his Marshal's bdton 
 all alone." 
 
 Poor Frossard not only got no Mar- 
 shal's bdton, but by losing the day at 
 Forbach he lost the Moselle to France. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 203 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO. 
 
 The Great Battles in i'rout of and around .Met/.. — Friedrich Karl. — The Saarbruck Affair. — Folly 
 and Incompetence. — The Brandenburg Cavalry. — The Field of Rezonville. — Gravelotte. — Saint 
 Privat. — Mars La Tour. 
 
 TTTIIEN the decimated Prussian regi- 
 VV ments gathered together, to sing 
 their evening hymn, after the victory at 
 Woerth, two gigantic German armies 
 were already on the soil of France, and 
 rapidly effecting a junction. 
 
 The Germans say that the splendid 
 unity of the Crown Prince and of Stein- 
 metz in action on the 26th was the Hrst 
 great success of the war. For three 
 days after Woerth the Crown Prince 
 gave his whole time to provisioning his 
 army, putting the living into the most 
 comfortable condition possible, and the 
 dead into the ground. The forty thou- 
 sand men in the quartermaster's de- 
 partment did their work well, and the 
 supplies came rolling in from all direc- 
 tions. Except the Prince, not a man, 
 save the dare-devil Uhlanen, or Lancers, 
 who went skirmishing about the barren 
 country away from the army, suffered 
 from hunger. The prisoners coming to 
 the rear plucked up courage on the new 
 diet, and took a jolly view of things. 
 
 What was Friederich Karl, whose 
 armies I had seen moving up through 
 the denies of the Pfalz past Kaisers- 
 lautern, doing all this time? 
 
 In a letter to his wife, which was 
 published in the Prussian papers of 
 the day, he wrote: '• I am a half rag- 
 ing man, for I cannot, with my accursed 
 luck, tind these Frenchmen. They are 
 all gone away." But Steinmetz, the 
 "aged terrible," with seventy thousand 
 men, was pushing forward rapidly by 
 the short ways north of Metz, towards 
 
 that virgin fortress ; and Friederich Karl, 
 burning with emulation and a bit of 
 professional jealousy, cut in by Pont-a- 
 Mousson, and came up by the other way. 
 The Crown Prince, only forty miles 
 from Metz, was beginning to make the 
 good old town of Nancy quake with the 
 visits of his adventurous Uhlans. 
 
 King William had taken absolute 
 possession of the provinces wherein 
 his armies were stationed ; had given 
 them military government ; enumerated 
 seventeen classes of people who would 
 be shot without mercy if they interfered 
 with military operations ; made the in- 
 habitants furnish six cigars per day for 
 each soldier, so said the angry Alsa- 
 tians ; given them to understand that 
 any soldier who abused them should be 
 severely punished ; and even had time 
 to answer the Pope's letter praying for 
 peace, politely telling him to attend to 
 his own affairs. 
 
 The old King was often afield too ; 
 rode reconnoitering, attended only by 
 half-a-dozen officers ; sang hymns with 
 tin' boys at the bivouacs ; wrote pious 
 little letters to his Queen, intended, of 
 course, to thrill the country ; devised 
 even a gigantic scheme to catch Napo- 
 leon, and make him a prisoner in front 
 of Metz, but failed. 
 
 The part played by the French Em- 
 peror in the campaign up to the time 
 of MacMahon's retreat upon Chalons 
 was not calculated to inspire his sub- 
 jects with admiration for his military 
 or political talent. The recital of the 
 
1'04 
 
 EUROPE I.V STURM AND CALM. 
 
 Saiirbruck affair caused a ripple of laugh- 
 ter at most of the European Courts, 
 Mini the despatch sent oft' to the 
 Empress the morning after the little 
 engagement, ami published immediately 
 by one of the leading Paris journals, 
 made the dignified military men of the 
 capital bite their lips and scowl. In 
 this despatch Napoleon spoke of his 
 son's having received the " baptism of 
 fire;" of the shells and bullets falling 
 at their Imperial feet ; of the Prince 
 Imperial's coolness, and how he picked 
 up a bullet which fell near him ; how the 
 soldiers wept at seeing- him so calm, 
 and how all this glory was procured at 
 the moderate cost of one officer killed 
 and a few soldiers wounded. 
 
 "This mise-en-sc&ne," says a distin- 
 guished French historian of the cam- 
 paign, ''displeased everybody." The 
 fact was, that the campaign which had 
 been opened on the 2Cth of„ July by 
 a skirmish at Niederbronn, had its 
 second episode at Saiirbruck, which 
 was occupied by a battalion of the 
 Fortieth regiment of Prussian infantry, 
 and three squadrons of cavalry, with 
 a few pieces of artillery. The Germans 
 were so confident that the French 
 would make the first attack, and would 
 cross the frontier, that they had ranged 
 themselves in line of battle on the 
 right bank of the Saar, had scut up 
 two battalions to reinforce the troops 
 in Saiirbruck as soon as the advance 
 of the French was reported, and a few 
 miles back had strong reserves to pro- 
 tect the retreat of the little corps. The 
 French took position on the heights of 
 the left bank of the river, and their 
 batteries swept the valley; and here 
 the mitrailleuses for the first time made 
 their hoarse voices heard. The action 
 
 which began in the morning of the 2d 
 of August culminated between eleven 
 
 and one o'clock, when the French troops 
 went, down from the heights, and 
 opened a violent fire upon the town, 
 for flic first lime getting a notion of the 
 tactics of the Prussians, who, as usual 
 in all their battles, were ambuscaded 
 in the houses or behind their barri- 
 cades. The Germans were obliged to 
 retreat, which they dill with so much 
 deliberation and in such good order 
 that the French troops openly ex- 
 pressed their admiration. A Prussian 
 colonel, mounted on a white horse, 
 braved the fire of the mitrailleuses so 
 often that he was cheered by both 
 sides. 
 
 Despatches announcing a "great vic- 
 tory " were sent off to Paris ; but the 
 German account, published the same 
 
 day, and telegraphed throughout Europe 
 reduced the incident to its proper pro- 
 portions. It read as follows: ••Yes- 
 terday, at ten o'clock in the morning, a 
 little detachment of our troops at Saiir- 
 bruck was attacked by three divisions 
 of the enemy. The town was bombarded 
 at noon by twenty-three pieces of artil- 
 lery. At two o'clock the town had been 
 evacuated and the detachment retired. 
 Our losses arc small. According to the 
 report of a prisoner, the Emperor was in 
 front of Saiirbruck at eleven o'clock." 
 
 Had the men of the Second Empire 
 not fully appreciated their weakness 
 they might have had the courage to seize 
 upon the little advantage which they at 
 first gained at Saiirbruck. and to push 
 boldly forward into Germany, hoping 
 that the nation would rise behind them, 
 and that the armies, now coming rapidly 
 forward, despite their miserable com- 
 missariat anil other defects of equipment, 
 might rush in ami sweep the Germans 
 back fo the Rhine. Hut all the leaders 
 of the Empire knew that the corruption 
 and the lack of preparation were not to 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 205 
 
 be remedied. They must have foreseen 
 disaster, and they determined to satisfy 
 themselves with a vain show of resistance. 
 Marshal MacMahon is the only one who 
 can be exempted from this reproach. 
 
 No sooner had the Emperor sent off 
 his despatch to the Empress than he 
 went back to Metz, but not to remain 
 there long. It is curious that his de- 
 parture from the great fortress should 
 coincide with the beginning of the battles 
 around Metz. He left on the morning 
 of the 14th, accompanied by the Prince 
 Imperial, and was off again for Verdun 
 as soon as the action at Longeville ap- 
 peared to have turned in favor of the 
 French. The Germans made much 
 sport of the unfortunate Emperor, and 
 their papers were filled with anecdotes 
 about his journey. "At one place," 
 says one account, "the Emperor asks 
 for a glass of wine at a railway station, 
 and drinks from the same glass as the 
 station-master. The young Prince after- 
 wards washes his hands in the goblet. 
 Soon after the Emperor leaves in a 
 rough carriage, and refuses with great 
 heroism the cushion offered him. It 
 is not every day," adds the sarcastic 
 German, " that one goes to or from a 
 baptism of fire." Another account says 
 that all Paris is grumbling because it 
 hears that three regiments have been 
 taken from Bazaine's army to guard the 
 Imperial party to Ch&lons. A common 
 remark among the French soldiers when 
 Napoleon's name was mentioned was : 
 " Do not speak of that donkey to us ! " 
 
 Poor MacMahon's retreat upon Cha- 
 lons occupied about fourteen days. 
 As the Crown Prince's army was push- 
 ing on vigorously in pursuit, the French 
 abandoned all along the route of march 
 cases of biscuit, and forage wagons ; and 
 the Fifth corps left behind nearly all its 
 provisions, which were not enormous. 
 
 The soldiers were in complete disorder. 
 '•Never," says one writer, "had a 
 French army presented such a lack of 
 discipline. The soul of the country 
 seemed to have taken wings after de- 
 parted victory." In the villages the 
 .soldiers sacked the barn-yards and 
 hunted the poultry for their empty 
 camp-kettles. An officer of high rank 
 has recorded in his diary that he was 
 attacked by two men of his own divis- 
 ion, who endeavored to rob him, like 
 veritable highwaymen. He was obliged 
 to use his weapons against them. The 
 niins were almost incessant during the 
 retreat ; the army had no tents, no 
 knapsacks, for nearly all had been 
 thrown away after leaving the field 
 of Wberth. The men were covered 
 with mud ; their cartridge-boxes were 
 thoroughly drenched; and, if they had 
 been forced into a fight, they would have 
 been overwhelmed by a new disaster. 
 
 The ablest German military critics 
 were prodigal of condemnation for the 
 Emperor's interference to prevent the 
 retreat of Bazaine upon Verdun. " The 
 motive," says one of these critics, 
 "which prevented the Emperor Napo- 
 leon from ordering the army of Metz to 
 retreat at once to join with that of Mac- 
 Mahon, after the 10th of August, still 
 remains an enigma. On the 10th of 
 August there were at Metz at least 
 one hundred and eighty thousand good 
 troops, able to tight vigorously, espe- 
 cially all those of the Imperial Guard, 
 which was. without dispute, the Bite of 
 
 the French army. Metz was too | rly 
 
 provisioned for such a colossal garrison, 
 and hunger would naturally bring about 
 its capitulation. But the place was 
 sufficiently provided with food, for 
 many months, for a garrison of fifty 
 thousand men, and would thus have 
 been practically impregnable." 
 
20C 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 The folly and incompetence of the 
 Imperial conduct of the war was again 
 shown in forcing MacMahon, when be 
 was installed at Chalons, and when his 
 matchless talent for organization had 
 pulled together one hundred and twenty 
 thousand men and four hundred cannons 
 and seventy mitrailleuses, to leave a 
 place where he could have turned and 
 fought the enemy, which was pursuing 
 him, to great advantage, and to make 
 a roundabout tour across the country, 
 perilously near the Belgian frontier, and 
 so down, to relieve Bazaine under the 
 walls of Met/.. •• If MacMahon," says 
 the same German critic whom 1 have 
 just quoted, "did not wish, or was not 
 allowed, to join the army of Bazaine at 
 once after the surprise of Weissenburg, 
 Woerth, ami Spichercn, the best plan for 
 him would have been to stay at Chalons, 
 to defend the passage of the Maria', and 
 offer upon that ground a battle to the 
 armies of the two royal princes of Prussia 
 and Saxony. He could there have con- 
 centrated about two hundred thousand 
 men in the days between the 24th and the 
 30th of August. This army, in favorable 
 positions along the Marne, would have 
 been a very dangerous adversary for the 
 German troops, and would have checked 
 themarchon Paris. If the French had been 
 beaten they would still have had a line of 
 certain retreat, falling back within the line 
 of the forts of Paris. But if the Germans 
 had been beaten their situation would 
 have been desperate. In point of fact 
 the Germans had at their back Metz and 
 its one hundred and eighty thousand 
 men, and I.ongwy, Montmedy, Thion- 
 ville, Toul, Phalsbourg, Strasbourg. 
 Langres, Brisach, and Schlestadt, with 
 their garrisons. A defeat of the < !cr- 
 mans in the month of August in the 
 neighborhood of Chalons would have 
 been the signal for an armed uprising in 
 
 Alsatia and Lorraine, in the Vosges, and 
 on the Cote d'Or." 
 
 It is well known in France that Mac- 
 Mahon yielded to the Emperor's tardy 
 determination when he pushed on to 
 Met/., where the lighting was pretty well 
 over, with great difficulty ; but: he was a 
 soldier, accustomed to obey, and hisstrong 
 objections were stated only once or twice. 
 That the Emperor was mainly responsible 
 for the movement which culminated in the 
 disgrace of Sedan, and in the blocking 
 of Bazaine's army for months in Met/., 
 is shown by a despatch sent from the 
 Imperial head-quarters, on the loth of 
 August, 1870, to the then Minister of 
 War in Paris: '• I send you the result 
 of a Council of War, which will give you 
 the measures that I have decided upon." 
 As the result of this despatch the Min- 
 ister of War telegraphed to Marshal 
 MacMahon : " In the name of the Coun- 
 cil of Ministers and of the private Coun- 
 cil, I beg you immediately to succor 
 Bazaine, profiting by the thirty hours' 
 advance that you have on the Crown 
 Prince of Prussia." MacMahon did not 
 leave Chalons until the 23d of August, 
 in the morning. 
 
 The Emperor, who seemed but little 
 ruffled by the great events which had 
 meantime taken place in the vicinity of 
 Metz, went with him. The " man of 
 destiny" once more shone forth in him, 
 and. rattling along in his heavy campaign 
 carriage, wrapped in his huge black 
 clonk lined with red, he assumed his 
 old Caesarian air, and. doubtless, hoped 
 for a few short days that fate would be 
 propitious. 
 
 Meantime the great events above 
 mentioned were destined vastly to mod- 
 ify the campaign. < >n the 13th of 
 August the King of Prussia moved his 
 head-quarters from St. Avoid to Fal- 
 quemont, or Falkenburg, as the Germans 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND I' MM. 
 
 207 
 
 call it, and announced to Napoleon, by and by a squadron of the Guides, 
 
 the reconnoissanees that his troops then through a crowd of sad and silent citi- 
 
 made, that he was but twenty miles from zens." 
 
 Metz. lie spent the night still nearer, Steinmetz was already across the 
 at Hermy, and was there on the evening Moselle, and coming from the north 
 of the 1/itli also. Bazaine, who had in all haste towards Metz. Fried- 
 been engaged in hasty movements from erich Karl was hurrying up, but 
 the 10th to the 13th, was suspected by had not arrived on the morning 
 Von Moltke of being anxious to retire to of the 14th. when Steinmetz, 
 Verdun, and thence to Chalons, where whose duty it was to keep 
 he could join the vast forces which Mae- Bazaine's whole army em- 
 
 ployed until 
 should appear 
 tween Met/ 
 Verdun, 
 attacked. 
 P r i n c e 
 F r ied- 
 e r i c h 
 Kail's 
 
 Mahon, who had not yet got his fatal 
 orders to move forward, was bringing 
 together, and where battle could be given 
 in earnest. Von Moltke at once decided 
 to prevent Bazaine, at any cost, from 
 reaching either Verdun or Chalons, as lie 
 was naturally desirous of leaving the 
 Crown Prince unobstructed passage 
 towards Paris. He wished, also, to have 
 Bazaine's army as thoroughly broken as 
 possible before Metz, and 
 then pushed hack, so that 
 Steinmetz and Friederich Karl 
 could proceed forward to join 
 the Crown Prince. It seems 
 pretty evident that if Bazaine 
 hail not been occupied with 
 squabbles with his officers in 
 Metz he would have done all 
 he could to hinder the move- 
 ment of retreat, so necessary 
 and so wise. It was, how- 
 ever, Ivy the 14th so thorough- 
 ly organized that he could not 
 well interfere. 
 
 "On the 14th," says a French 
 officer, "our interminable processions road lay along the ven 
 began across the Moselle. Every soldier 
 
 HEAD-QUARTEUS OF NAPOLEON AT CHALONS. 
 
 was bent double under the weight of his 
 baggage. The army, which ought to 
 have been as swift as the wind, might 
 have been compared with its burdens 
 and its absurd impedimenta to the army 
 
 very 
 
 Bazaine's army must take on its way 
 to unite with MacMahon, unless he 
 was willing to give the united two 
 armies battle. Bazaine endeavored to 
 draw his forces from the right to the 
 left bank of the Moselle as quietly as 
 
 of Darius. The Emperor had g<me off possible, so as not to attract the enemy's 
 at noon, escorted by the cents gardes, attention; but as soon as the movement 
 
208 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 was perceived General Steinmetz pushed 
 forward a part, of the Seventh corps, 
 under the command of General Gotz, to 
 attack the rear-guard of Decaen's corps. 
 It was quite late in the afternoon, and 
 the Prussians were so hasty in their at- 
 tack that they once or twice came under 
 the guns of the fortress, and were 
 obliged to retire in disorder. General 
 Frossard's corps at once went to assist 
 Decaen, who was shortly engaged with 
 all his men. and a desperate fight ensued, 
 during which Bazaine continued to 
 operate liis retreat across the stream. 
 The slaughter was fearful on both sides, 
 and the Prussian losses, through their 
 own incaution in getting within range of 
 the guns of Met/., were very consider- 
 able. 
 
 Bazaine soon saw that he could not 
 continue his retreat, and sent General 
 Ladmirault to combat the First Prussian 
 corps. The Second Prussian brigade, 
 under ( ieneraK dinner, joined to the divis- 
 ion of Generals Kameke and Wrangel, 
 finally drove the French forces in large 
 numbers across the river and to the for- 
 tifications of Metz, up under their 
 cover. General Von Manteuffel, who 
 had been placed in the reserve, was then 
 called into action, and for hours was 
 occupied in storming the positions which 
 the French had taken here and there. 
 He finally forced them to quit each one, 
 but not until he had suffered heavily. 
 For more than an hour and a hall' he 
 was within range of .Met/., and his men 
 were under a crushing shower of deadly 
 hail: hut they on no occasion flinched, 
 and later in thedav pushed on to Horny, 
 still nearer .Met/. The greater pari of 
 thi' battle was fought on a plain called 
 Metrv. between Vougy and St. Bailee, 
 two small villages. The French were 
 very confident of victory, so great were 
 the Prussian losses, and so telling was 
 
 the continuous tire from the forts; and 
 Genera] Cofflniere telegraphed to Napo- 
 leon at Longeville, where the Emperor 
 was waiting in his carriage: " All along 
 the line we remain victors. At half-past 
 eight we are about to charge again." 
 There was in fact a night charge, ami 
 the Prussian columns, which came back 
 stubbornly to the tight, were repulsed. 
 Napoleon was delighted, and, holding out 
 his hand to Bazaine, who came up to his 
 carriage after this last charge, said to 
 him : •• Well, Marshal, you seem to have 
 broken the charm." Meantime King 
 William was telegraphing to Berlin that 
 he had had a victorious encounter at 
 Borny, near Metz ; that the French had 
 been driven back, and that he was just 
 going on to the field of battle. 
 
 The French corps commanded by Lad- 
 mirault and De Failly had suffered worse 
 than the others, as they were on the 
 right bank of the river, about four miles 
 from Metz, ami terribly scourged by 
 shell. Bazaine sent over some of the 
 troops, which were already in full retreat, 
 to help them. Steinmetz hail thus suc- 
 ceeded in hindering Bazaine in his 
 retreat, but he did not attempt the dan- 
 gerous task of following him up. The 
 German troops were drawn off the held 
 at ten o'clock, and marched to bivouac. 
 There they were visited by the King 
 and his staff; and from Von Steinmetz, 
 Von Manteuffel, and others, the old 
 monarch learned that Von Moltke's first 
 requisite had been gained. Prayers 
 were said, and a general season of re- 
 joicing was entered upon. _vll night 
 the watchers on the walls of Metz could 
 hear the anthems and the chorals of the 
 soldiers rising superbly clear out of the 
 darkness and distance, and wondered 
 how tin 1 armies which had suffered such 
 terrible losses during that afternoon 
 could muster courage to sing. The 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 209 
 
 losses on the Prussian side were roughly 
 estimated at from eight thousand to 
 sixteen thousand men at the time ; the 
 French on that day lost about thirty-fi iui 
 hundred men, killed and wounded. The 
 vineyards, the ravines, the woods, were 
 filled with Prussian bodies, and the 
 slaughter would have been greater if the 
 French artillery had not come to the end 
 of its ammunition and been compelled to 
 retire before nightfall. As in nearly all 
 the battles of the war the French artillery 
 opened with a terrifying fire; then, just 
 at the moment it was most needed, had 
 nothing to fire with. 
 
 All night the pale moon showed to 
 the pickets of the reposing armies 
 shadowy forms Hitting about on the 
 battle-field. These were the Prussians 
 and the French delegated to secure the 
 wounded and bury the dead. This was 
 clone in silence and in sorrow, no encoun- 
 ters occurring while the solemn duty was 
 performed. 
 
 Monday, the anniversary of the birth 
 of the great Napoleon, the 15th of 
 August, usually celebrated in Paris with 
 impressive ceremonials, brought bright 
 sunshine to the fields covered with 
 blackened and mangled corpses, and 
 looked down upon the Emperor in swift 
 retreat. Next day Steiurnetz contented 
 himself with skirmishes, none of which 
 rose to the dignity of a battle. The care 
 of the wounded, the burial of the dead, 
 and the repose of the fatigued army oc- 
 cupied most of tin 1 time. The King 
 visited the field early in the morning and 
 personally superintended the removal of 
 many of the wounded. Then lie wrote 
 more despatches to his Queen. 
 
 On the 15th the army of Friederich 
 Karl was in full march on the road which 
 furnished Bazaine his main avenue of 
 escape to Verdun. There are two roads 
 from Metz to Verdun, here and there 
 
 running parallel. That upon which Ba- 
 zaine had decided to retreat is the old 
 Roman road, which at Gravelotte, one 
 and one-fourth miles west of Metz, splits 
 into two avenues, one leading by Don- 
 court to Verdun; the other through the 
 villages of Rezonville, Vionville, and 
 Mars-la-Tour, to the same place. Vion- 
 ville, three miles from Doncourt, is two 
 and three-fourths miles west of .Met/.. 
 Gravelotte is nearly eleven miles from 
 the fortress, and is a small hamlet of 
 seven hundred inhabitants, built on a 
 high bluff. This height governs on the 
 east the valley of the Meuse. Vion- 
 ville, a simple Alsatian tlurf, is six miles 
 beyond. From Verdun to Metz the dis- 
 tance is thirty-five miles ; from Mars-la- 
 Tour, which became an important point 
 in the battle of the 10th, it is twenty-one 
 miles; from Gravelotte to Mars-la-Tour 
 is mx miles, on an excellent highway. 
 Rezonville, from which point the King 
 of Prussia sent his famous letter to the 
 Queen on the 19th, is about one mile 
 directly south of Gravelotte. The coun- 
 try is broken and hilly, very charming, 
 and full of scenic surprises. There 
 an' so many little villages through which 
 the next battle was waged that the ac- 
 tion of the 16th of August was (■.•died 
 shortly after its occurrence by half-a- 
 dozen different names. The French 
 soldiers designated it either as Vionville 
 or Doncourt. Bazaine's telegram, in 
 which he said that he had fought the two 
 great German armies from Vionville to 
 Doncourt all day long, convinced the 
 French that these wei'e the proper names 
 for the light. 
 
 Bazaine's whole army was retreating 
 in remarkably good order, on Monday 
 morning, when the Marshal heard that 
 Friederich Karl, advancing from Pont-a- 
 Mousson, had struck in on to the high- 
 way, and placed himself in a strong posi- 
 
210 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 tion nil Mars-la-Tour. Bazaine could 
 hardly believe that his enemy had made 
 s<> rapid an advance, and continued cau- 
 tiously, an enemy behind, an enemy in 
 front, and an enemy ravaging the fair 
 land to which he was endeavoring to re- 
 treat. He was right. Friedericb Karl 
 had not had time to gain this ground; he 
 had, however, sent forward the magnifi- 
 cent division of Brandenburg cavalry to 
 Mars-la-Tour, to hold the great column 
 of nearly two hundred thousand men in 
 check until he could conic up with his 
 main column. Bazaine saw the situa- 
 tion at once, and ordered an attack by 
 divisions, — of Decaen's the Third corps, 
 Ladmirault's the Seventh, Frossard's the 
 Second, Canrobert's the Sixth, and the 
 line Imperial Guard, the prideof France 
 ami tlie flower of her soldiery. The 
 Brandenburgers held the' furious French 
 in partial cheek for more than six 
 hours, until Friedericb Karl's Third and 
 Tenth corps, successfully supported by 
 divisions of the Eighth ami Ninth, came 
 up. During this time the German cav- 
 alry, according to the French authorities, 
 had been fairly decimated; ••almost 
 blotted out," says one writer, lint now 
 came the fresh German troops into ac- 
 tion, rushiug out of the woods upon Yi- 
 onville, and taking that village by storm. 
 In front of Rezonville General Bataille 
 had lice n wounded, and the Second corps, 
 
 after having bravely withstood the at- 
 tack, had l>enl back, and was protected 
 in its retreat by the Third Lancers, and 
 by the Cuirassiers of the Guard. 
 
 During this movement there was a 
 charge of Prussian Hussars upon some 
 artillery with which Bazaine was trying 
 to cover the attack of the French cui- 
 rassiers, and the .Marshal and his general 
 staff wen- surrounded by the German 
 troopers. There was a little hand-to- 
 hand fighting, and the .Marshal was for 
 
 a moment or two in imminent danger of 
 being taken prisoner. But just then a 
 wave of French cavalry swept up, over- 
 whelming the Germans, and protecting 
 the cannon which they were trying to 
 take. If Bazaine had perished on that 
 day he would have been accounted a 
 hero. 
 
 The Germans were now massed with 
 their right on Mars-La-Tour. They 
 had taken Vionville, and they next 
 directed their attention to the village of 
 Flavigny. There took place one of the 
 sharpest combats of the war, the French 
 batteries shelling the Prussians who were 
 established in the woods near by, and 
 killing them by hundreds. Much of the 
 lighting was done in the large wheat- 
 fields, ami there the French drove back 
 the assaults time and time again. The 
 ripening grain was reddened with the 
 blood shed in the awful shock of cavalry, 
 and in the slaughter effected by the 
 mitrailleuse batteries. At the west of 
 the battle-field Hows the river Orne, and 
 the many little brooks tributary to this 
 river were red with blood before the 
 struggle was finished. 
 
 Although the French showed pro- 
 digious valor on this day, and on the 
 whole fought with consummate skill, it 
 is clear that they were taken completely 
 by surprise iu the morning. One of the 
 Generals, who was in the retreat, affirmed 
 that very day that there was not a Prus- 
 sian on the whole line of inarch. When 
 his division was attacked the horses 
 were picketed ami unsaddled. Prince 
 Murat, iu command of the first brigade, 
 came out of his tent, and went into action, 
 with his napkin in his hand, lie had 
 been breakfasting as tranquilly as if he 
 were at the Cafe Anglais. The decisive 
 and most formidable attack of the Ger- 
 mans was towards the end of the day, 
 when fresh soldiers came up to grapple 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 211 
 
 with the exhausted French. General von 
 Alvensleben took two regiments of a 
 cavalry division, and gave them orders 
 to take the French batteries, which were 
 causing such terrific losses in the German 
 lines. These gallant troops swept down 
 bravely to the attack on the position, 
 passed through the French lines, and 
 went up on to a little height, which had 
 concealed from them one of the French 
 divisions. Then they rushed at full 
 speed along the wood of Vionville. This 
 gave the French cavalry an excellent 
 opportunity for attack ; and a brigade of 
 dragoons and the Seventh Cuirassiers 
 hurled themselves dowu upon the Ger- 
 mans, who were stupefied by this sudden 
 move. Two squadrons of the Tenth 
 Cuirassiers came to harass the unlucky 
 Germans from the rear, and the rout was 
 complete. Oddly enough the Seventh 
 Prussian Cuirassiers had a terrible con- 
 flict with the Seventh French Cuirassiers 
 on this day. The Sixteenth regiment of 
 Prussian infantry lost its flag, and at the 
 close of the action had but one hundred 
 and sixty men left out of three thousand. 
 On the right, towards the close of the 
 day, the French had the whole advan- 
 tage. The Germans still maintained 
 their position in the centre. The Ninety- 
 third French line was driven in by the 
 Prussian Cuirassiers. Its flag was taken, 
 and one piece of cannon was being 
 carried of!' when a detachment of French 
 cavalry swept down from the heights of 
 Vionville, chased the Cuirassiers, look- 
 back the flag of the Ninety-third, and 
 the cannon also. 
 
 The day was finished with the last 
 and magnificent charge of the Prussian 
 cavalty on the French right, which re- 
 sisted manfully; and the French, who 
 had been so unhappy in all their efforts 
 up to these days of mid-August, could 
 justly claim that they were victors 
 
 when night fell upon the bloody field 
 of Rezonville. 
 
 Next morning the troops were horri- 
 fied at the ghastly spectacle of the 
 hundreds of corpses piled in fantastic 
 shapes, or here and there standing 
 propped against each other, where a 
 tremendous gap had been made in 
 an advancing line of battle. The Ger- 
 mans had lost about seventeen thou- 
 sand men, and the French were not 
 much better off. The French claim 
 that they had only one hundred and 
 twenty thousand men in the action, and 
 that the Germans brought one hundred 
 and eighty thousand soldiers upon the 
 field. 
 
 Bazaine at this time appears to have 
 been more occupied with protecting his 
 line of retreat upon Metz than in carv- 
 ing his way forward to his junction 
 with MacMahon. He never, say the 
 soldiers who were in the light, manoeu- 
 vred as if he wished to get to Chalons. 
 The army was intoxicated with success. 
 and cried out to be led forward; but 
 Bazaine paid no attention to their de- 
 mands. 
 
 In these battles, as in all the others, the 
 quartermaster's department was noticea- 
 ble chiefly for its miserable incompe- 
 tence. " Ou the 16th, in the morning," 
 says a well known military writer, 
 "the Second and the Sixth corps were 
 almost entirely without food. The First 
 was waiting for rations, which the 
 quartermaster's department was to send 
 from Metz, and had not a day's pro- 
 vision of biscuit. On the 17th an- 
 other corps had nothing but rice. 
 There had been no forage since the 
 14th for one of the cavalry regiments, 
 which had to make two charges with- 
 out food for men or horses; and yet 
 we were in France, and only seven 
 kilometres from a town like Metz. 
 
212 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 supposed to be provisioned for a long mount the heights near Chatel ; and 
 
 siege." between that town and Amanvilliers the 
 
 The 17th was devoted, as the loth slopes are covered with tiers, which 
 had been, to trifling skirmishes. King run in an unbroken line from Vion- 
 William was on the field, as at Horny, ville to Amanvilliers. Eastward, be- 
 soon after the tight, and addressed the hind these woods, lies Verueville, and 
 troops, expressing his admiration of between Verueville and Gravelotte ex- 
 their conduct. II Bazaine considered tends another wood. Mont St. Quentin, 
 himself victorious, the Prussian King between Chatel and Metz, has a fort on 
 also claimed the victory. King Wil- its summit, and is covered by the forest, 
 liam is supposed to have urged on the of Sauliguy, which runs behind St. Privat 
 battle of the 18th, which was to he a to the valley of the Orne. Early in the 
 final effort to sweep Bazaine from all morning the Twelfth and Ninth corps of 
 the positions lie had gained on the the Royal German Guard went towards 
 high-road, semi him back to .Met/, Doucourt, followed by the Third and 
 and make the way clear for the inarch Tenth corps, while the Seventh, Eighth, 
 of the Germans to join the Crown and Second remained at Rezonville. As 
 Prince. the first-mentioned corps went through 
 
 At the beginning of the battle on the the woods near Verueville and St. Privat 
 
 18th the French troops on the heights the last-mentioned attacked Bazaine's 
 
 of St. Privat and Ste. M»rie-aux-Chenes intrenchment near Gravelotte, keeping 
 
 received the same surprise as at Forbach up a mild attack until the others could 
 
 on the 16th. Whole brigades of Prus- come round by Chatel and Amanville. 
 
 sians suddenly emerged from the forests. The Ninth corps was in the battle before 
 
 which a few hours before the French had noon; the others did not enter before 
 
 known to be vacant. Hut Bazaine was four o'clock. The Flench held the woods 
 
 beginning to understand this manoeuvre, so lone; as they were not outnumbered, 
 
 and was ready to receive the enemy, and the Germans lost great numbers of 
 
 At eleven o'clock the tire opened from men among the trees. The slopes, even 
 
 both sides all along a very extensive on the 20th, were still covered with the 
 
 line. Gravelotte and Rezonville, where w< ded, and the uuburied dead began 
 
 Bazaine had strongly entrenched him- to smell. St. Privat and Verneville 
 
 self, were the .scene of t he most sangui- were finally taken. 
 
 nary lighting. About noon the French The general composition of the Ger- 
 
 soldiers saw a black mas- of Prussian man army was as follows: the left, 
 
 infantry coming down from Gravelotte. wing was composed of (he Twelfth Saxon 
 
 The artillery sent a storm of shells into corps, the Centre guard, and tin 1 Ninth 
 
 these moving lines, and the slaughter army corps ; behind these, in reserve, 
 
 was great. The loss of life in this en- was the Brandenburg corps, whose artil- 
 
 counter was probably greater than in any lery came into the attack between Aman- 
 
 other battle of the century. The French ville and St. Privat, and was attached to 
 
 soldiers had rapidly entrenched them tin- Hesse-Darmstadt division, and the 
 
 selves, and kept up a tremendous lire Schleswig-IIolstein corps. The right 
 
 upon the advancing Germans. wing was on the right and left of the 
 
 The three great roads, which radiate main road leading from Mars-la-Tour 
 
 westward and northward from Metz, towards Metz. and consisted of the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 213 
 
 Seventh Westphalia corps, under Stein- 
 metz, raid the Eighth, behind which the 
 Second corps stood in reserve. 
 
 The Prussian light first took up the 
 fight at Gravelotte. Meantime the cen- 
 tre and left German armies swung to 
 the right, and altered its front, previ- 
 ously north-east, to east. The Saxons 
 attacked St. Privat ; the Guards Anuui- 
 ville ; the Ninth corps the woods of Verne- 
 ville, afterwards taking the village of the 
 same name. At last, after the most 
 valorous lighting, during which the Prus- 
 sians were repeatedly driven hack, the 
 French right was driven into the centre, 
 between Gravelotte and Yerneville, ami 
 their back was threatened at Chatel. 
 
 Towards five o'clock in the afternoon 
 the fatigued and almost broken French 
 soldiery were swept down upon by sixty 
 thousand fresh troops. Batteries were 
 suddenly unmasked to sweep the ranks 
 of Canroberfs soldiers; and the Royal 
 German "orps and the Tenth Prussian 
 corps swarmed upon the breach made in 
 the French ranks, which the Saxons were 
 menacing from the rear. This was the 
 dread moment of the day. The French 
 fought like demons. Here a battalion 
 of the Twenty-eighth line stood valiantly 
 in the trenches and perished to the last 
 man. General Canrobert, sword in 
 hand, was in the first rank, encouraging 
 and pushing on the soldiers. He kept 
 up this resistance for more than two 
 hours. In the gathering dusk a severe 
 attack was made on Gravelotte ; but the 
 French opened such a good lire that, tin' 
 ditches were filled with the dead of the 
 Second Prussian corps, which was at the 
 
 head of the attack. This corps finally 
 charged the position at the point of the 
 bayonet, and after a hard light, protracted 
 until the combatants could scarcely see 
 each other, Gravelotte was surrendered, 
 anil the French fell a little back. As the 
 darkness stole over the land the cries of 
 the wounded, the crashing of the cannon, 
 the flames of the burning villages and 
 farm-yards, and the long lines of troops 
 moving silently, and almost stealthily, to 
 strengthen the positions which they had 
 taken, formed a spectacle as dreadful as 
 it was impressive. Marshal Bazaine was 
 not in this fight at all. No one knows 
 why he was not in it. for no one ever ac- 
 cused him of being a coward; but he 
 was at some distance from the scene of 
 action, and seemed to take but little 
 interest in it. The aged King of Prussia 
 narrowly escaped annihilation by inimical 
 grenades twice during the fight, and his 
 whole staff was at one time in imminent 
 danger. After the battle, in which he 
 had seen one of his favorite regiments 
 entirely cut to pieces, lie slept all night 
 on a hand ambulance wagon near a house 
 in Rezonville. 
 
 Whatever the French thought of their 
 stubborn resistance the Prussians had 
 succeeded in effecting their purpose. 
 Steinmetz had made his junction with 
 the forces of Friederich Karl. The road 
 
 seemed clear to Chalons, thence to Paris. 
 Bazaine could not now retreat to Verdun. 
 He had inflicted terrible losses on the 
 German armies, and his troops did not 
 seem a whit demoralized; but nearly all 
 the positions they had held and desired 
 to maintain were now in German hands. 
 
214 EUSOTE IN STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE. 
 
 French and German Rumors. — The Jaumont Quarries. — Truth about this Incident. — The Wounded at 
 Frankfort. — Serving in an Extempore Sanitary Corps. — Paris in Confusion. — The Spy Scare. — 
 Dangerous to Speak (he Truth. — A new Mini-try. — Comte De Palikao. — Jules Favre's Campaign 
 against the Falling Empire. — The Excited Crowds. — The Empire ends, as it began, in Mood. 
 
 A SERIES of splendid and historic thousand men had gone down into these 
 spectacles passed before my quarries, and asserted that after the 
 gaze during the next two months, battle wagons of quicklime were thrown 
 The whole German land was filled with upon them; and that Friederich Karl 
 rumors of revolution in Paris, — rumors was so affected by the terrible result of 
 as untrue at that particular time as the false manoeuvre (if his cavalry that 
 they weir prophetic of the horror and he was almost insane for a day or two. 
 ruin which were to come. The German This story even got into the English 
 press, too, w;is tilled with sensational papers; hut il had no foundation what- 
 tales of the brief campaign around Metz. ever. In truth the quarries of Jau- 
 The carnage was ten times magnified; mont actually existed, hut they were 
 but one needed only to walk through far behind the French lines on the day 
 the streets of the great towns like of the attack on St. Hubert ; and the 
 Frankfort, Darmstadt, Carlsruhe, May- whole story came from the great 
 ence, Cologne, and to see the women slaughter of Germans near another 
 clad in black and the houses filled with quarry, on the left wine- of the French 
 mourners, to realize that the shock of army. General Zastrow, during the 
 battle had been attended with tremen- attack, had sent up by the highway 
 dous loss. three batteries of a reserve of the 
 In France the favorite pastime of Seventh army corps, escorted by the 
 the stay-at-home class was the inven- Fourth Uhlan regiment, so as to pro- 
 tion of dreadful catastrophes which had tcct his soldiers who were in full re- 
 befallen the Germans. The story of treat. A few minutes afterwards, men 
 the quarries of Jaumont was one of and horses, rushing away from the 
 these inventions. It was said, by the frightful carnage beyond, were crowded 
 French, that in the terrible fight which pell-mell into the narrow gorge through 
 took place around the St. Hubert farm which the road runs, and were riddled 
 Prince Friederich Fail had sent a with shot from the French sharpshoot- 
 number of squadrons of his best cavalry ers ambuscaded in the Genevieux forest, 
 headlong into some deserted quarries, All those who had the had hick to get 
 where horses and men fell together to into this defile, which was scarcely 
 die in lingering torture. As there was twenty yards wide, were either swept 
 no occasion to lie exact in the statement down by the fusillade, or crowded over 
 of a. loss which an implacable enemy into the quarries. The clearest ac- 
 had inflicted upon itself, the French counts of this affair indicate that only 
 accounts boldly declared that thirty thirty or forty horses, aud perhaps 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 215 
 
 half a hundred men, were carried over 
 the edge of the defile and perished 
 below. 
 
 The Germans were not <me whit be- 
 hind the French in their inventive 
 powers ; and all the way down to Frank- 
 fort from the frontier I heard stories, 
 which, while not calculated to cast 
 doubt upon the valor of the French, 
 were intended to show the unquestionable 
 superiority of the German soldier. I 
 was struck, however, with the singular 
 absence of animosity against the French 
 in any of the remarks of the German 
 soldiers. Now that the tide had turned, 
 and that the return match was to lie 
 played, not only the military, but the 
 civil party, had taken on an air of dignity 
 and seemed governed by a determination 
 to say nothing ill of its ancient enemies. 
 Besides, Germany was inspired by the 
 knowledge that important political events 
 were about to take place within her 
 boundaries. The foundation of the 
 Empire ; the welding of the national life 
 into one homogeneous mass out, of the 
 union of inharmonious and petty States ; 
 the triumphant vindication of the wisdom 
 of Bismarck's policy of '-blood and 
 iron ; " the uprising of an Imperial 
 authority, which was to give the whole 
 German land new burdens, but at the 
 same time new strength and perhaps 
 new liberties, — all these things were 
 being pondered by the most intelligent 
 nation in Europe with that gravity which 
 is so characteristic of it ; and there was 
 little rejoicing, — little, at least, that: a 
 stranger could observe. 
 
 At Darmstadt we found that the 
 regular trains had begun their trips once 
 more ; but as each engine had to draw 
 back sixty or seventy empty carriages, 
 which had gone off filled with troops, 
 we were twice the usual time in getting 
 to Frankfort. I had no sooner arrived 
 
 there than 1 received a notice from the 
 police-office to appear at the railway- 
 station at a given hour, and to be pre- 
 pared to serve with the citizens of the 
 sanitary committee in care of the 
 wounded. This obligation was imposed 
 upon all strangers staying more than 
 twenty-four hours in the town ; and at 
 the appointed time, therefore, I went to 
 the great Maiu-Neckar Station, where 
 I received a red-cross badge, and was 
 stationed, as if I had been a German all 
 my life, at a certain point to await an 
 incoming train. While I was observing 
 a number of French officers and a few 
 /ouaves. prisoners, who were gloomily 
 smoking cigarettes in a corner, a train 
 of fifty odd cars, mainly freight-wagons, 
 on the floors of which bountiful quanti- 
 ties of straw had been scattered, rolled 
 into the station. In these cars lay in 
 bloody, and sometimes hardly distin- 
 guishable, heaps, the wounded French 
 and Prussians. The first few carriages 
 were filled with dangerously wounded 
 Frenchmen, and, whether by accident or 
 by design, I was deputed to serve with 
 a surgeon in succoring these prisoners. 
 In a group was one Turco, a Zouave, a 
 captain who hail lost his epaulettes and 
 was stretched on the floor, and a lieuten- 
 ant who had been wounded three times, 
 and whose right arm was already swollen 
 to twice its natural size. The native 
 courtesy of these unfortunate fellows 
 was admirably exemplified by their feeble 
 efforts to rise when we entered the car. 
 I sat down by the captain, ami when the 
 surgeon had attended to his wound I 
 wrote his letters, and then we talked of 
 the battle, — one of the many in front of 
 Metz. One officer said that in all his 
 campaigns he had never seen such noble 
 treatment of prisoners. 
 
 He was presently taken out of his 
 blood-stained bed of straw, and given 
 
216 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 new garments, plenty of breakfast, and At Frankfort keen resentment was still 
 
 even clean linen. Surgi s and pkysi- felt againsl Prussia, hut there was no 
 
 eians were \\-\\. as the great mass of open expression of it. The excited 
 them were al the front; so the non-pro- crowds were kept carefully back, and 
 fessional civilians were compelled to when a wounded man was strapped and 
 trusl to their own slight knowledge for held down to have a festering or sup- 
 the binding of wounds. Most of the purating wound probed, he was cared for 
 prisoned were wounded twice, generally as tenderly as if lie were a son of Ger- 
 in the arm or leg; the majority of the many. Field-post cards were distributed, 
 Germans once only, either in the breast, ami gratified the prisoners mote than 
 the head, or the lower limbs. Among anything else. They were simply 
 the German troops were a number of pasteboard cards, with space for an 
 Bavarians, probably the boys whom we ordinary letter, and printed directions 
 had seen leaving Speyer, and many of how to send them. They were also 
 these wen' savagely wounded, as if they during the campaign freely distributed 
 had indulged in much hand-to-hand to the wounded on the field or in far- 
 fighting. The Bavarians are t<> tin' away hospitals in a hostile country. The 
 German race what the Yankees are to Prussian held post took them to the 
 the American, and have the same whim- army lines, and then they were passed on. 
 sical, picturesque way of talking. One In the carriages where Prussians and 
 little fellow, scarcely tall enough to be a French were crowded together the best 
 soldier, and with a childish face, had of feeling seemed to prevail, with one or 
 part of his right hand .--hot away. He two noteworthy exceptions. A Prussian 
 hailed me for succor, and. when I asked stalked up in front of a car filled with 
 him where he was hurt, said, "Nothing Zouaves, ami showed them the bullet- 
 Imt a little scratch in the hand, and holes in his overcoat, they looking on 
 another in the lee-. But I made him sternly. Again, a blundering German 
 cold, the red-breeches, — he won't do it surgeon cried out against treating the 
 again ! " .Most of these Bavarians were enemy so well. Put no one could have 
 light-haired, blue-eyed boys, fresh and believed the Germans so emotional and 
 pure from the world, but ferocious as excitable as this throng of civilians 
 tigers in battle. These boys had heard proved itself to lie in Frankfort. The 
 before leaving Bavaria that the Turcos spectacle of one stout Frenchman sup- 
 carried knives, and despatched the par- porting a poor Bavarian lad, who was 
 tially wounded with them. One whole shot through the face, and was evidently 
 regiment, therefore, provided itself with fast sinking, brought forth a storm of 
 tin' short. Hat knives made in the moun- sobs from the ladies, and strong men 
 
 tain, of Fpper Bavaria. Their colonel shed tears. We had i r charge one 
 
 heard of this, and commanded them to Frenchman who had been wounded three 
 
 leave the CUtlery behind, whereupon they times, being shot once through the body. 
 
 refused to march until they were threat- That he was alive at all was a miracle; 
 
 ened with sharp punishment unless they but he persisted in being taken out of 
 
 immediately obeyed. the ear and allowed to walk across to sit 
 
 In this railway station at Frankfort down in the fresh air. He was sur- 
 
 Frenchraen generally received all alone rounded by a dozen Germans, who ran 
 
 the line better care than the Prussians, hither and yon to procure whatever he 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 needed, and tears ran down their faces 
 when lie was put upon a stretcher and 
 carried away to the hospital, the surgeon 
 declaring that he could not last the day 
 out. The Frenchman and German who 
 had lain on the wet earth together all 
 night, with the voire of the wind and the 
 rain, and the shrieks of dying men, pro- 
 claiming to them the necessity of peace 
 and good-will, shook hands as they 
 parted to go to different hospitals in 
 Frankfort. The spectacle was impres- 
 sive and suggestive. 
 
 " Voyez-VOUS '. " said one French officer 
 to me, '• these Prussians fire at very 
 short range. They keep advancing, 
 though it seems certain death, and yet 
 they always aim deliberately. They 
 have lost double the killed that we have, 
 but there are not so many badly wounded 
 Germans as French. The Bavarians 
 clubbed their muskets, — the rascals! — 
 and they were as bad as our Turcos to beat 
 oil'." There was a tragedy in epitome 
 in one of the railway carriages, where a 
 tall and handsome Hanoverian officer, 
 who was accused — I know not whether 
 rightly or wrongly — of having given in- 
 telligence to the enemy, was being taken 
 under guard to Berlin, where, if the ac- 
 cusation were proved against him, I 
 dare say his stay upon earth was very 
 short. 
 
 When the wounded were all cared for. 
 and the train had backed out of the 
 station, 1, with the other civilians, was 
 relieved from service, being dismissed in 
 half-military fashion. Next day I con- 
 tinued my return journey to France. 
 The drain of the gigantic mobilization 
 was beginning to tell upon the country. 
 There were but few horses in the streets. 
 I shall not soon forget the droll mixture 
 of pathos and humor with which one old 
 gentleman told me, " My two sons and 
 my two best horses are now in France. 
 
 God help me ! " In one street in Frank- 
 fort 1 saw, at a very early hour in the 
 morning, a regiment of rather rustic- 
 looking young men march in and ground 
 arms. The commanding officer, passing 
 down the line on a tour of inspection, 
 was dissatisfied with the appearance of 
 some of the troops, and. stepping up 
 briskly to the offenders, he gave them 
 sharp blows over the head and face, 
 to which they submitted with the lamb- 
 like placidity of men who could not help 
 themselves. To this beating and thrash- 
 ing in the German army I soon became 
 accustomed, seeing plenty of it during 
 the long period of the siege. 1 remember, 
 on the day of the capitulation of the 
 forts around Paris, being struck with the 
 peculiar brutality of one fat officer, who, 
 reviewing a line of troops on a hilly 
 street in Ecouen, caned and struck the 
 erring ones so vigorously that I wondered 
 they did not step out of the ranks and 
 riddle him with bullets, lint it was pre- 
 cisely this quality of passive obedience 
 and endurance, of submission to punish- 
 ment for the smallest infringement of 
 detail, which made the German army so 
 dangerous and powerful an instrument 
 of invasion. 
 
 In the fields the women were busily 
 al work. The few men who had not 
 been summoned across the frontier were 
 miles away with cattle and forage teams 
 providing for the army. .Most of the 
 peasants in the sections through which 
 the armies had passed had received ten 
 or fifteen soldiers nightly for a period of 
 two weeks. The compensation for bil- 
 leting is very small, and the effect on 
 the poor people in the little dorl's must 
 be quite ruinous, although they never 
 complained. Each soldier on the march 
 received every day half a pound of meat, 
 such vegetables as could conveniently 
 be got, bread, black coffee, a little 
 
2 1 8 
 
 EUliOrE IS STORM AND CALM. 
 
 brandy, and some cigars, — always ci- 
 gars. The " tobacco cars," after the 
 
 capitulation of Strasl rg, ran regularly 
 
 from the towns beyond the Rhine up in 
 Lagny, the point from which supplies 
 were forwarded to the vast mass of 
 troops composing the three lines stretch- 
 ing around l'aris. In the Held the fur- 
 nishing of provisions is organized by 
 battalions. Each company has its 
 cooks, who follow it everywhere, pro- 
 viding their larder in the adjacent cities 
 or villages or by force or requisition in 
 the enemy's country. Anything classa- 
 ble as luxury the soldier must procure 
 of his company's cooks, paying cash in 
 :dl cases. Tobacco was never classed as 
 :i luxury. The French were amazed 
 that the Germans ordered it for oflieers 
 and men by requisition ; ami this small 
 exaction incensed them more, 1 have 
 sometimes thought, than the payment of 
 tin- five milliards. !n bivouac each sol- 
 dier usually cooks his own supper, — if 
 there is time for any cooking at all, — and 
 1 have often seen rows of little fireplaces 
 dug in the banks extending for twoor three 
 miles along the road. The cavalry-meu 
 carry strapped behind their saddles rolls 
 of coarse bread, which both they and 
 their horses eat. A\" hen a long halt is 
 made, thousands of cavalry-men will be 
 seen cutting bits of bread and feeding 
 
 the horses. 
 
 Tin' most miraculous feature of the 
 German military discipline which I ob- 
 served during the mobilization was the 
 celerity with which troops, and espe 
 chilly cavalry, were disembarked from 
 railway trains. At Landau we saw a 
 regiment of cavalry, which had jour- 
 neyed fifty-five hours steadily from 
 I'osen, cleared from the train in eleven 
 minutes. It was as if by magic. The 
 moment the carriages stopped, men ami 
 horses came out with automatic precision 
 
 and soon were bivouacked on a plain 
 beside the station as tranquilly as if they 
 had been there a week. While the battle 
 of Woerth was at its height fresh regi- 
 ments were being brought up and landed 
 with wonderful quickness close to the 
 scene of action. The Germans are 
 justly proud of their railway system, so 
 admirably ami adroitly planned for 
 concentrating the nation on any frontier 
 which is menaced. The French under 
 the Empire had begun a system radiat- 
 ing from Chalons towards the frontier, 
 and which, so far as it went, was as good 
 as that of Germany. But when it was 
 well under way, the corruption and 
 negligence of the governing [lowers in- 
 fected the military administration, and 
 the system was never completed. 
 
 From Frankfort I returned, via Co- 
 logne and Brussels, to Paris, where 
 everything was in wild confusion. Every 
 second man met upon the street or in 
 the shops or restaurants was in uniform. 
 Every stranger was supposed to be a 
 spv. The French, ordinarily, in outward 
 manifestation at least, the most courteous 
 and obliging of European peoples to 
 foreigners, had suddenly become infected 
 with suspicion. At the lirst this was 
 amusing, but presently it became in- 
 tolerable. It was dangerous to tell 
 French friends or acquaintances the 
 truth. Thev received the news of the 
 battle of Woerth and the retreat there- 
 from with a scepticism which was 
 painful to witness. Although the news 
 from their own agents continued the 
 truth, they still maintained that it was 
 from German sources. An occasional 
 straggling telegram from the Emperor 
 was published broadcast; in large anil 
 little journals; but it was noticed that 
 none of these despatches talked of 
 
 victory. " Disorder in Paris," said a 
 circular published early in August, 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 211) 
 
 " would be victory for the Prussians." 
 The fear of a Communistic outbreak 
 was already plainly defined, and with 
 reason. Night after night tumultuous 
 crowds went to the ministries to sing the 
 "Marseillaise" and the " Girondins," 
 and to ask for news. Now they heard 
 of the taking of Landau, now of the 
 total defeat of the Prussians, and now 
 of a vigorous French advance to the 
 Rhine. But, as a Frenchman of dis- 
 tinction has confessed, at first no one 
 was willing to believe these rumors. A 
 kind of secret presentiment restrained 
 even the most confident ; but after a 
 time they were carried away on the top 
 of popular enthusiasm. Then came the 
 first news of the defeat, brought by 
 foreigners returning, like myself, from 
 Germany, or by letters which escaped 
 with difficulty from the clutches of the 
 officers of the Black Cabinet, as the 
 Imperial Inspection Bureau of the post- 
 office was called. The Emperor witli 
 his broken phrases — "Everything may 
 be right yet ; " "The enemy has ceased 
 pursuit;" " The night was calm;" 
 " The river was in good order," — began 
 to annoy and worry the capricious 
 Parisians. At the first news of the 
 defeat, the Empress had returned from 
 St. Cloud, where she had been sum- 
 mering, directly to Paris, and assembled 
 the Council of Ministers, and sent forth 
 a proclamation which she signed as the 
 Empress Regent. Although this docu- 
 ment was extremely clever, it displeased 
 everybody. This foreign woman, who 
 spoke with such lightness of the tlag of 
 France, suddenly became obnoxious. 
 The ladies who would have fallen at her 
 feet a few weeks before now criticised 
 her openly and boldly. Then came new 
 decrees placing Paris in a state of siege, 
 incorporating into the National Guard 
 all valid citizens between the age of 
 
 thirty and forty, and convoking the 
 Senate and the Corps Liqislatif. After 
 this, Minister Ollivier thought lit to 
 issue a proclamation announcing that 
 the arming of the nation and the defense 
 of Paris were being prepared in great 
 haste. The minister added that all 
 those who were anxious to have 
 weapons had only to present themselves 
 at the Bureau of Enlistment, and they 
 would at once be sent to the frontier. 
 
 The Corps Ligislatif met on the 9th 
 of August, and M. Schneider, the presi- 
 dent, had begun to read the decree of 
 convocation, as this was an extraordi- 
 nary session, and had just finished these 
 words: "Napoleon, by the Grace of 
 God and by the National Will, Emperor 
 of the French," — ■ when a prolonged and 
 singular cry burst forth from the whole 
 assemblage of legislators. It, was as if 
 the nation, by the voice of its represen- 
 tatives, suddenly protested against the 
 absurdity of this statement, as to the 
 means of Napoleon's selection to his 
 position of Emperor. M. Schneider, 
 who was a man of great dignity, was so 
 much astonished and so indignant, that 
 he crossed his arms over his breast and 
 stood looking for some time defiantly at 
 the assembly. Presently lie finished the 
 reading of the decree ; but it, was noticed 
 that he omitted, as if he were very much 
 disinclined to give it forth, the reading 
 of the name of the Empress, signed at, 
 the bottom of the document. Minister 
 Ollivier next tried to make a speech ; but 
 the Republican Opposition was in force 
 that day, and interrupted him with such 
 violence, and clamored so for his imme- 
 diate disappearance from the ministry, 
 that he stammered and blundered, and, 
 in his trouble, spoke of an army of four 
 hundred and fifty millions of soldiers, 
 when he meant four hundred and fifty 
 thousand. He continued speaking, al- 
 
2-211 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 thougb shouts of: "Less talk and the Chamber voted a law calling under 
 
 more action ;" " We have no more the flag in the active army all valid citi- 
 
 coufidence in you ; " " It is you alone zens between twenty and thirty-live 
 
 who have losi the country," — almost years of age, and increasing from four 
 
 drowned his voice, which was trembling to twenty-five millions of francs the 
 
 with mingled fear and indignation, credit which had been accorded by the 
 
 .lulcs Favre succeeded the unfortunate law of July 24th to families of soldiers 
 
 minister in the tribune, and made one of the regular army, and of the Mobile 
 
 of his most eloquent speeches, finishing Guard. General Count De Palikao, 
 
 with offering a resolution for the im- whose most brilliant exploit had been 
 
 mediate organization of the National the sacking of the summer palace at 
 
 Guard, and the distribution of arms to Pekin, became the new chief of the 
 
 every inhabitant of Paris who demanded ministry, which was still Imperialistic 
 
 it for the defense of his hearth-stone, in flavor. M. De Palikao has been very 
 
 This was a terrible measure for the well described by a brilliant French 
 
 Empire, since the possession of weapons dramatic critic, who wrote an excellent 
 
 in the people's hands meant the over- book on the siege, M. Francisque Sarcey, 
 
 turning of the Imperial dynasty. Pres- in the following words : '-The Count De 
 
 ident Schneider protested feebly, that Palikao was a wily old gentleman, who 
 
 the resolution was unconstitutional in its had no trouble in making us all dupes, 
 
 character, when a voice in a corner was He had noticed the bad effects that the 
 
 heard. " We are not considering the boasting and lying remarks of the fallen 
 
 constitution : we are talking about sav- ministry had produced, so he adopted 
 
 ing the country." just the opposite method. He gave no 
 
 The Ollivier ministry, which had been news at all of the military operations, 
 
 built upon lying promises, and was the Every day. after the session, he took 
 
 work of incompetent hands, crumbled to aside two or three of his familiars, and 
 
 pieces at this session. A cruel Older of mysteriously whispered in their ears 
 
 the Day thus worded — -'The Chamber, these enigmatic words : 'If Paris knew 
 
 decided to sustain a cabinet capable of what I know, it would illuminate this 
 
 organizing the defense of the country, evening.' Or, when a member of the 
 
 passes lo the Order of the Day" — was Left, impatient at his silence, asked of 
 
 adopted by a great majority; and M. the Chamber some more positive infor- 
 
 Ollivier went home feeling that he had mation, he would answer. 'I can say 
 
 lived in vain. Ample proof of his un- nothing, except that everything is going 
 
 popularity was given a few minutes on well. I can speak no longer to-day. 
 
 afterwards, when M. Jules Simon was I have had a bullet in my chest for 
 
 passing through the Place de la Con- twenty years, and it prevents nic from 
 
 corde. Returning home from the session making long speeches.' " In this ephem- 
 
 his carriage was stopped, and the crowds eral ministry, which was destined to 
 
 clamored for news. " Citizens," said disappear in the great, glad, and pacific 
 
 M. Simon. " I should like to have much tumult of a few days later, M. Clement 
 
 good news to give you, but I have only Duvernois, a journalist of some distinc- 
 
 one bit. — the Ollivier ministry exists no tion, who had been won over to the 
 
 longer." A great shout of joy went up Empire, and who had been paid enor- 
 
 froni tin' waiting crowds. Next day, mous sums, as the Imperial documents 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 221 
 
 at the Tuileries afterwards showed, 
 for writing up the Empire in his journal, 
 was minister of agriculture. Barou 
 Jerome David, devoted to the Empire, 
 and a determined enemy of liberty in all 
 its forms, was in a prominent post ; and 
 the ministry of Foreign Affairs was held 
 by the Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne. 
 But the populace cared for nothing but 
 the ministry of war, and poor Count De 
 l'alikao led a sad life until he was dis- 
 missed out of public notice by the decla- 
 ration of the Republic. 
 
 The first definite outcropping of the 
 Commune was in mid- August, when an 
 energetic attack was made on some 
 firemen's barracks on the Boulevard de 
 la Villette ; and the insurgents were 
 almost successful in getting possession 
 of some rifles, but, failing in this, re- 
 treated upon Belleville, calling the citi- 
 zens all along the roads to arms. Oddly 
 enough they were mistaken for Prus- 
 sians, for the women and children of the 
 Belleville quarter were firmly persuaded 
 that the Germans were close at hand, 
 the moment they saw guns and pistols 
 and signs of fighting. In this foolish, 
 almost criminal effort to provoke civil 
 war the veteran revolutionist Blanqui, 
 who had siient the greater part of his 
 life in prison, was implicated. The chief 
 actors in this little insurrection were 
 court-martialled, and six of them were 
 sentenced to be shot ; most of the others 
 to different terms of imprisonment. 
 Miehelet and George Sand both protested 
 against the execution. During the sec- 
 ond week in August, the Parisians 
 managed to catch a veritable Prussian 
 spy, after having arrested innumerable 
 foreigners in their search for spies ; and 
 this officer was shot in one of the court- 
 yards of the Military School on the 
 Champ de Mars on the 27th of August, 
 at six o'clock in the morning. lie boldly 
 
 declared that he had been sent by his 
 government to secure the plans of for- 
 tresses and the preparations of defense 
 in the south of France, and, a mo- 
 ment before he was shot, he slowly 
 pronounced the words, '••Fur Voter- 
 land," 
 
 Meantime scattered and imperfect 
 news of the gigantic battles around 
 Met/, (•.•line into the capital ; but it was 
 so indisputably true that the French had 
 in the majority of these encounters held 
 their own bravely and inflicted tremen- 
 dous losses on the enemy that these 
 later reports were not considered dis- 
 couraging. The Parisians of all classes 
 lived in constant expectation of a de- 
 spatch which should announce the crush- 
 ing of the Prussian invaders between 
 two great French armies and the close 
 of the campaign in the hasty retreat of 
 the Germans across the frontier which 
 they had violated. M. de Girardin 
 wrote in his journal about conducting 
 the Germans back to the Rhine with the 
 blows of musket-butts on their backs. 
 The only man who seemed to have a 
 clear and definite notion of the situation, 
 and to have the courage to speak the 
 truth about it at all times, was the aged 
 ]M. Thiers. He became a member of the 
 Committee of Defense, on the 27th of 
 August. I sometimes think that he 
 had private sources of information, 
 which he did not avow, for he was cer- 
 tainly better informed than nine-tenths 
 of the politicians who surrounded him. 
 When the question of sending MaeMahon 
 with his army of Chalons into the north- 
 cast was discussed, he spoke out ear- 
 nestly against it. " This," he said, " is 
 taking our last army and sending it to 
 perish in the Ardennes. Von lane got 
 one marshal blockaded." he told them ; — 
 " you will soon have two." 
 
 The discussion as to the movements 
 
222 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 of the armies in the field was renewed 
 with much violence i'<>r several days after 
 this debate of the 27th; and M.Thiers 
 has [eft it ou record that, while he was 
 making an energetic speech about, one 
 o'clock on the morning of Saturday, the 
 .",d of September, M. Jerome David took 
 him by the hand and whispered in his 
 ear, ■■ M. Thiers, do not go any farther 
 at present. 1 would like to speak with 
 you a moment." The session of the 
 Council was at once brought to a close, 
 and M. David and M. Thiers stepped 
 down into the street together, when the 
 former said, " The Emperor is a pris- 
 oner; MacMahon is mortally wounded." 
 M. Thiers stood quite still for a few min- 
 utes, struck with t sternation, and 
 
 quite stupefied ; but ho could, without 
 fear of reproach, truly have said, ,L I 
 could have told you that this would bap- 
 pen." 
 
 In the morning a Council of Minis- 
 ters was held at the Tuilcries, and a 
 despatch, coming through the Havas 
 Agency, brought the news from Brussels ; 
 but it was carefully kept from the people. 
 There was a not her session at live o'clock, 
 and then the Empress, who had refused 
 up to that time to believe the unlucky 
 truth, herself laid before the minister (Ik 
 despatch of the Emperor, saying, "The 
 army has capitulated, and 1 am a pris- 
 oner." All this time, the populace was 
 rejoicing at the Stock Exchange over 
 telegrams announcing that the French 
 army had gained another advantage upon 
 the enemy ; but the popular sentiment 
 was reflected in a remark made tome on 
 that morning by a, Parisian, who said, 
 
 with a bitter smile. " If we gain such 
 
 great victories, why don't the generals 
 send a few prisoners to the capital'" 
 This was Satuiday. On Friday evening, 
 as I walked through the city. I felt that 
 some great calamity was overwhelming 
 
 Paris. A thrill of excited suspense was 
 visible on all sides. Everybody bought 
 papers, papers, papers, and read the 
 flaming editorials, printed in huge letters, 
 with a line and a half to each paragraph, 
 until they were tired. The theatres were 
 deserted, despite Madame A gar's attrac- 
 tive rendering of the " Marseillaise." 
 Even the Theatre Francais hail but a 
 slight audience. The environs of the 
 
 < 'orps Lfyislatifvrere crowded with news- 
 hungry people. On Saturday, about 
 noon, numerous processions of workmen, 
 moving quietly, were observed with 
 some apprehension. But these people 
 explained that they were organizing 
 themselves into military companies for 
 the defence of the city. Now and then 
 a man was heard violently declaiming 
 against the government because it had 
 
 not given the people guns. " Here are 
 < • i •_■ 1 1 1, hundred thousand men in Paris," 
 said one speaker, "native to the soil, 
 strong-armed, intensely patriotic, asking 
 for guns to drive the invaders from the 
 doors, and the government says, • You 
 must fold your arms and be shot down.' " 
 
 Pate in the afternoon, the terrible news 
 began to be known. First came a report, 
 which ran through the cafes ami along 
 the boulevards like a. Hash of lightning, 
 that. Belgian neutrality had been vio- 
 lated, thai Flench and Prussians had 
 fought on Belgian soil, ami that, new 
 complications were likely to arise. 
 
 Presently, pale-faced messengers be- 
 gan to arrive from the Place de la Con- 
 corde at. the great universal rendezcous 
 of the Parisian loafers of distinction, the 
 section between the Cafe de la Pais and 
 the Cafe Riche, announcing that the 
 Corps Letjislatif were going into secret 
 session ; that the whole of MacMahon's 
 army had been taken ; that he himself 
 had been shot through the body; that 
 General De Wimpffen had disgracefully 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 a?, 
 
 capitulated ; and, finally, that the Em- 
 peror was a, prisoner. 
 
 Meantime the Empress had sent M. 
 Merimee, a literary man of infinite 
 talent, and who was her intimate friend, 
 to supplicate M. Thiers 
 to take the government 
 into his hands. As M. 
 Merimee did notsueceed, 
 she sent in M. de Metter- 
 nich ; but he had no bet- 
 ter luck with the fiery 
 old man, whose diminu- 
 tive figure was now lie- 
 ginning to assume the 
 importance it deserved in 
 the eyes of his disorgan- 
 ized-countrymen. MM. 
 Jules Simon, Jules Favre, 
 Picard, and others urged 
 M. Thiers to accept the 
 Empress's proposition 
 when he came down to 
 I he session of the Corps 
 Ldgislatif on the 3d. But 
 M. Thiers was deaf to all 
 entreaties, and seemed 
 to be looking beyond 
 with prophetic gaze to 
 greater events, for which 
 he wished to save all his 
 stock of strength. At 
 the session, the Count De 
 Palikao astonished all his 
 colleagues by the refresh- 
 ingly cool manner in 
 which he climbed into the 
 tribune, and announced 
 that MarshalBazaine,after a vigorous fight 
 of eight or nine hours, had been obliged 
 to retreat under tin- walls of Metz. He 
 added, as if it had been a matter of 
 trifling consequence, that there had been 
 a battle at Sedan, " and we have thrown 
 a part of the Prussian army into the 
 river Meuse ; but finally we were, it 
 
 appears, overwhelmed by numbers, 
 and some few of our soldiers have been 
 crowded over into the Belgian ter- 
 ritory." This effrontery was speedily 
 unmasked by Jules Favre, who said that 
 
 THE END OF THE EMriRE. — 
 ASSAULT BY POLICE ON 
 CITIZENS IN THE BOULE- 
 VARD BOOTNTROUVELLE. 
 
 the time had come to know where the 
 government was. •• Where." he said, 
 " is the Emperor? Is he in commu- 
 nication with his ministers? Can he 
 give orders to them?" Tin 1 minister of 
 war answered "No." ••Then." said 
 Jules Favre with his lines! irony, "the 
 answer that the Minister of War has 
 
224 EUROPE l.\ STORM AND CALM. 
 
 given mo suffices, and we may leave mediate consideration for the following 
 
 this great question out of the debate, motion: — 
 
 the government having ceased to exist." 
 
 Here the president of the assembly •• ■ Article l. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte 
 
 thought it bis duty to protest against ■•»'' his dynasty are declared divested of the 
 
 such words, whereupon Jules Favre powers that the Constituti lad conferred upon 
 
 turned upon him like a lion, and said : , , 
 
 * "'Article 2. then' shall be named l>v 
 
 "Protest as much as you wish, Mr. the Corps Ugislaiif a government committee 
 
 President. Protest against fate, which composed of a certain number of members 
 
 has betrayed us ; deny events; say that taken from the majority, who shall be invested 
 
 we an- victors; do as von like; but with the powers to govern, and who shall have 
 
 what we want now, and what is indis- for their ex P ress " ,issi " n resistance «" «'»-' 
 
 . , , . . ., „ ,.ii uttermost to the invaders, and the delivery of 
 
 pensable a in 1 wise, is the ettacing ot all , „ . , . . 
 
 1 a the territory out ot the enemy s hands, 
 
 parties before one name representing '"Articles. General Trochu is main- 
 Paris, a military name, the name of a tained in liis post as Governor-General of the 
 man who can take in hand the defense city of Paris.' " 
 of the country." These remarks pro- 
 duced great agitation, and shortly This motion, signed by all the members 
 afterwards the session broke up, after of the Republican Opposition, was at 
 having voted a uight sitting. first received in profound silence; but 
 It was one o'clock in the morning when M. Favre, before he left the tribune, 
 the deputies met again. Outside the recommended the deputies to sleep over 
 palace of the Corps LGgislatif, thousands it, and " to-morrow," he said, "at noon, 
 upon thousands of men and women were we shall have the honor to give you the 
 waiting, — waiting for they knew not imperious reasons which appear to us to 
 what, too anxious, lest the next few recommend the adoption of the meas- 
 bours might bring the horrors of civil ure to overv good patriot." The night 
 war, for it w.as no .secret that Blauqui, session had lasted just twenty minutes. 
 Delescluze, Felix l'yat, Vermorel, Mil- "It seemed," said one of the men who 
 here, and others, who were destined to was present, "as long as a century." 
 be so famous or infamous in the Insur- A singular thing happened on this 
 rectiou of 1871, were hard at work tryiug morning of the 4th of September: as 
 to organize a popular revolt. Without Jules Favre was going home, the crowd 
 any preliminary rhetoric, the Minister followed him, shouting out iusults for the 
 of War made an official announcement fallen Empire, and clamoring for tin- 
 to the deputies of the capitulation of declaration of the downfall of the dy- 
 the army, and the fact that the Emperor nasty. When Jules Favre had passed 
 bad delivered himself up as prisoner, along, the crowd remained shouting, dis- 
 Without making any suggestion or cussing, singing, and quarrelling, until 
 apology he stepped down from the the police thought it necessary to clear 
 tribune and took his scat. Jules Favre the people away from the Pont de la 
 immediately arose, and, taking the place Concorde. This provoked the people, 
 left vacant by the Minister of War, asked who were already in a. state of tremen- 
 peiinission to make a proposition. As dous excitement; there was some rough 
 soon as he had received permission, he handling of the police agents ; an alarm 
 said, "We ask of the Chamber im- was sounded ; the gates of the Tuileries, 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 225 
 
 the Place du Carrousel, and the Louvre people, sword and club in hand. There 
 were closed ; the troops were confined to were numerous victims, 
 barracks; the agitation reached the "The Empire," said one of the eye- 
 grand boulevards, and opposite the witnesses of this affair near the Gym- 
 Gymnase Theatre, a squad of police, nase, "was destined to finish as it had 
 who evidently thought they were to be begun, — with an attack upou au un- 
 attacked, discharged their revolvers into armed mass." 
 a dense crowd, and then fell upon the 
 
2-JC: 
 
 EL'EOPE IX STORM ASD CALM 
 
 { I ! AFTER TWENTY-FOUR. 
 
 The Declaration of the Republic. — Exciting Scenes on the Place de la Concorde and the Boulevards. — In- 
 vasion of the Corps Legielatif. — Gambetta Pronounces the Downfall of the Imperial Family. — The 
 Procession to the Hotel de Ville.— The Flight of the Empress. 
 
 QATURDAY night was an anxious 
 rJ time for the members of the Repub- 
 lican Opposition in the Corps Ltgislatif. 
 They plainly saw that they were to be 
 left alone to build up a government on 
 the ruins into which the Empire had sud- 
 denly crumbled, and they dreaded lest 
 some sudden excitement, some misunder- 
 standing, should bring about civil war 
 and anarchy, which the disciples of the 
 repressive theory had predicted as certain 
 the moment that the weights were re- 
 moved. As you cannot touch pitch 
 without being defiled, so the Republi- 
 cans of ardent convictions and firm 
 principles, by the very necessity of neigh- 
 borhood during the long period of the 
 Empire, had become in sonic measure 
 infected with the Imperial notions of 
 " order," and they were almost inclined 
 to distrust themselves at the moment 
 that power was to lie placed in their 
 hands. 
 
 Nothing dreadful, however, happened 
 during Saturday night. Policemen were 
 hustled and bonneted, and some of them 
 might have been thrown into the Seine 
 had they not. in obedience to the dicta- 
 tion of the crowds, thrown away their 
 rapiers and fled to their homes to get rid 
 of their hated uniforms as soon as 
 possible. Pietri, the Imperial Prefect 
 of Police, who was almost universally 
 execrated, was loudly called for by the 
 masses, and, had he been imprudent 
 enough to show himself, might have 
 been torn to pieces. I heard his name 
 
 mentioned hundreds of times during f 
 
 walk through these excited crowds on 
 the Saturday evening in question. Singu- 
 larly enough no one seemed to know 
 where Pietri was. Some said he was 
 with the Empress at the Tuileries ; others 
 that he was arrested with Napoleon at 
 Sedan, and that the German government 
 was to give him the worst fate that could 
 befali him, — delivery into the hands of 
 those whom he had so long persecuted. 
 Foreigners were not much to the taste of 
 these crowds, and Americans and Eng- 
 lishmen sometimes found themselves 
 surrounded by mobs, who insisted on 
 hearing them sing a bar of the " Mar- 
 sellaise." and shout for the Republic. 
 In ease they refused to give these proofs 
 of their good-will, they were hustled and 
 sometimes carried off to the police sta- 
 tions as presumed spies. Many people 
 in these throngs had guns, and some 
 were armed with revolvers. This wear- 
 ing of weapons by people who would 
 have considered such a proceeding as 
 improper had they been living under a 
 different system was adopted as the 
 first symptom of liberation from the 
 regime which had now been definitely 
 condemned, and was soon to lie suc- 
 ceeded by a more liberal one. 
 
 The Empire, which had made so many 
 objections to letting private citizens bear 
 arms or keep them in their houses, had 
 in 18G8 done the very thing which ren- 
 dered the insurrection of bs71 so easy. 
 It had created the National Guard Mo- 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXP CALM. 
 
 221 
 
 bile, which was about five hundred and the capital. There were comprised with- 
 
 fifty thousand strong, divided into bat- in the limits of this organization all 
 
 talions, companies, and batteries. This classes of society, — the rich shop-keeper 
 
 force was created by Napoleon III. on and professional men of the Rue de 
 
 the proposition of Marshal Niel, who la Paix and the Opera Quarter, the house 
 
 was then Minister of War. and in virtue owners and the retired merchants of tin 
 
 THE IMPERIAL POLICE PROTECTED BY THE REPUBLICAN GUARD. 
 
 of a law voted by the Corps Ligislatif 
 on the 1st of February, 1868. The 
 maximum effective of each battalion of 
 this National Guard was two thousand 
 men, forming eight companies of two 
 hundred and fifty men each, at the time 
 of the downfall of the Empire ; and for 
 nearly the whole of the period of the 
 siege of Paris and the Commune, almost 
 three hundred thousand men of this Na- 
 tional Guard were within the walls of 
 
 Place Vendome and the Champs Ely sees. 
 as well as the half-educated and am- 
 bitious artisans of Belleville and La 
 Yillette. These elements, hostile to each 
 other, — the same elements, which by their 
 inharmonious clashing in previous periods 
 of trouble had caused bloodshed and 
 temporary anarchy, — ■ were to be cooped 
 up in a besieged city for long months, 
 their really splendid forces never to be 
 utilized against the enemy because their 
 
228 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 commander feared that it' they won a 
 battle against the Germans they would 
 turn ahuut and proclaim a government of 
 their own in Paris. It is not astonishing 
 that these classes, hating, almost abomi- 
 nating each other, finding themselves 
 equally well armed, and having had their 
 senses excited by the continuous specta- 
 cle of the ravages of war, should have 
 come together in hostile collision after 
 the great struggle against the enemy was 
 over, and while the wreckage of the war 
 was being cleared away. 
 
 Representatives of the upper and of 
 the lower classes of Parisian society, 
 equipped in their uniforms of the Na- 
 tional Guard, and with their muskets on 
 their backs, were very numerous among 
 the crowds on Saturday night. The 
 property-holding class was on the alert, 
 and had taken possession of all the ap- 
 proaches to the Corps Ligislatif, and 
 managed to keep its ground on Sunday 
 morning, although M. Jules Simon tells 
 us that when lie came to pick his way- 
 through the throng waiting in front of 
 the Palais Bourbon, at eleven o'clock on 
 the morning of the 4th of September, the 
 adherents of Blauqui and Delescluze, the 
 Communists, in short, were very thick 
 about the gates and door-ways. In the 
 eyes of these passionate and vindictive 
 apostles of a socialistic government, the 
 members of the Left, who were very pop- 
 ular among all other classes, were con- 
 demned as " Moderates," and as men to 
 be despised. Many an artisan, who 
 afterwards appeared behind the barri- 
 cades of the Commune, hurled scornful 
 reproaches at Simon and his colleagues 
 as they made their way into the mid-day 
 session. 
 
 The impression on the grand boule- 
 vards, which were blocked with immense 
 throngs of the wealthy and prosperous 
 class on Sunday morning, was that there 
 
 would be civil war before nightfall. To 
 walk through these collections of chatter- 
 ing, gesticulating, pale-faced people, and 
 to hear them furiously disputing each 
 other's notions, enabled one to place 
 but moderate reliance upon their com- 
 bined action, if such action weri' nec- 
 essary. The enemy was at the door ; 
 Mont Valerien was insufficiently armed ; 
 General Vinoy was coming to Paris 
 with an army which must be taken care 
 of; the cartridges in the Imperial arse- 
 nals were tilled with sand : what was 
 to be done? Would the movement for 
 a Republic degenerate into mere noise, 
 and bloodshed, and stupid efferves- 
 cence of ignorant enthusiasm? A little 
 before noon, on this 4th of September, 
 the papers made the announcement of 
 the Emperor's surrender, very generally, 
 and nearly every man and woman whom 
 one met on the boulevards or on the Place 
 de la Concorde had purchased a paper, 
 and was reading it intently. There was 
 no laughter, but little noise, and no 
 jostling. The crowds grew in numbers 
 momentarily. Every one was in an at- 
 titude of suspense, to which was added a 
 certain fear, the fear of that spectre 
 which had arisen so many times with 
 bloody hands to push back that liberty, 
 so longed for, but seemingly so unat- 
 tainable in France. 
 
 Jules Simon says that at noon on the 
 4th of September a single misunder- 
 standing, an angry movement on the 
 part of a commander of any troops, 
 would have been sufficient to occasion 
 a general massacre. " What we had to 
 avoid at any price," he says, " was 
 civil war, the people of France against 
 the French, while the soil was in- 
 vaded by the stranger. This was the 
 opinion of the Left, who, felt that 
 the throne had tumbled to pieces; and 
 it was also the opinion of the majority, 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 229 
 
 who understood that the throne could 
 no longer he defended, and who had 
 ceased to wish that it might. ]t was 
 doubtless this thought, that there was 
 no longer any Empire, and that the 
 supreme duty was to avoid a collision, 
 which tempted the deputies of the ma- 
 jority to demand that the regular troops 
 should be removed from the Palais 
 Bourbon." 
 
 This measure having been executed, 
 the National Guard was placed in pos- 
 session. The officers and soldiers of 
 the regular troops were in a delicate 
 position. They had heard that the Re- 
 public had already been proclaimed at 
 Lyons and Marseilles, and that there the 
 army had fraternized with the people, 
 but they were still under the shadow of 
 their oath of allegiance to the Empire, 
 and, ignorantof the real course of events 
 beyond the walls of Paris, they were in- 
 capable of forming a speedy decision. 
 Still, at the Napoleon Barracks, the 
 crowd which had cried out " Vive I" R4- 
 publique!" to the soldiers at the win- 
 dows was answered by the same words. 
 A little later on, a regiment which had 
 been sent to the square of the Hotel de 
 Ville disbanded, turned the butts of its 
 muskets into the air, and mingled with 
 the crowd. This was soon heard on the 
 Place de la Concorde, and hundreds of 
 soldiers broke ranks and disappeared 
 right and left. 
 
 Now came in long procession thou- 
 sands of workmen and workwomen 
 from La Villette, the women marching 
 arm-in-arm with the men, singing loudly, 
 and generally carrying a flag in one 
 hand. Trieolored badges began to ap- 
 pear, and were sold by thousands, the 
 boldest putting them on at once, others 
 carrying them in their hands, as if wait- 
 ing for a decisive moment. I saw a 
 young man climb on to the statue of 
 
 Strasbourg, in the Place de la Concorde, 
 and crown the rather gloomy figure 
 which personates the ravished city with 
 laurel. This was the origin of the cus- 
 tom which has since been so religiously 
 maintained — that of decorating with 
 wreaths and immortelles, with flags, and 
 with crowns of laurel, this statue year by 
 year. 
 
 Along the great Place the rumor 
 ran that the Corps Ligidatif was to 
 receive the abdication of the Empress at 
 one o'clock. " Why," said a huge mar- 
 ket-woman, dressed in her best, and 
 with an umbrella which was huge enough 
 to cover a dozen people, '• why should 
 the woman abdicate when we have abdi- 
 cated her? " 
 
 Every half hour or so the crowd surged 
 back from side to side, leaving a path 
 clear for regiments just coming in from 
 Lyons, or Turcos, newly arrived from 
 Algeria, — men who had been hurried up 
 to be thrown against the Prussians, and 
 who were destined ingloriously to remain 
 inside of Paris or just outside its walls 
 for months thereafter. Towards one 
 o'clock, ten thousand men from the 
 Faubourg St. Martin came down the 
 grand boulevards, each man witli a gun 
 on his shoulder, and the shop-keepers 
 immediately began to put up their shut- 
 ters. Inside, in the great court-yard of 
 the Palais Bourbon, the members of 
 the Opposition and of the majority stood 
 trembling with excitement, while Jules 
 Favre, with his long black hair thrown 
 back, and his brows covered with per- 
 spiration, made a tremendous radical 
 speech, intended to ingratiate the blue 
 and white bloused men swarming up to his 
 extemporized platform, which they at 
 last broke down. The Deputies were 
 informed that at least one hundred and 
 fifty thousand men were assembled on 
 the Place de la Concorde ; that fully 
 
230 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM A. YD CALM. 
 
 one-fourth of them were armed ; that 
 the faubourgs wore out; that blood 
 was up; that the people hail come 
 to claim its own peaceably, or with 
 clamor and bloodshed, as they might 
 decide. 
 
 In the great Salle des Pas Perdus, 
 Jules Favre towered up above the other 
 deputies, who were inspired to calmness 
 by the serenity of his faee. It was ob- 
 served that many members of the late 
 triumphant and Imperial Right were 
 missing. Many had tied under various 
 pretexts; some, that they hail gone to 
 learn the real facts of the affair at 
 Sedan, others, to look after their prop- 
 erty, which was in danger, as it lay on 
 the line of the German army's march. 
 But few of them had, like the members 
 of the Senate, the courage to disappear 
 without any bravado. By-and-by the 
 doors of the legislative hall were thrown 
 open, and the Left entered tranquilly in a 
 body, with Father Raspail blowing his 
 nose very like a sonorous trumpet of de- 
 fiance. The session was opened shortly 
 after one o'clock, aud M. De Palikao, 
 with his usual coolness, stepped briskly 
 into the tribune, and proposed that a 
 council of government of National De- 
 fense should be constituted, consisting 
 of five members, eaeli member being 
 named by an absolute majority of the 
 Corps Li'ijishitif; that the ministers 
 should lie named under the auspices of 
 the members of this Council : and that 
 General Count De Palikao should be 
 the Lieutenant-general of the Councils. 
 The tempest which this piece of ef- 
 frontery raised is better imagined than 
 described. The uproarious and con- 
 temptuous laughter with which De Pali- 
 kao's project was finally greeted must 
 have convinced him that it would be in- 
 judicious to press it. The Left to,,!; 
 immediate advantage of the situation, 
 
 and, after a speech of Jules Favre, M. 
 Thiers offered his project of law, which 
 was, " that, in view of the present circum- 
 stances, the Chamber shall name a com- 
 mission for government and national 
 defense, and the constitutional assem- 
 bly shall be convoked as soon as events 
 will permit." 
 
 It was at this moment that Gambetta, 
 who had not played a. very conspicuous 
 part in the proceedings of the last few 
 days, appeared upon the scene, and in a 
 vigorous speech insisted that the Cham- 
 ber should decide upon M. Thiers's prop- 
 osition forthwith. He took into his 
 hands the business of the day. As the 
 result of his speech the Chamber voted 
 urgency on the propositions, and sent 
 them before a committee. Meantime 
 the session was suspended. It is prob- 
 able that on this Committee of National 
 Defense certain members of the old 
 Imperial party would have been placed, 
 if. while the proposition was under con- 
 sideration, the crowd had not stepped in 
 and given the final tumble to the card- 
 house of the Empire. 
 
 The manifestation which ended in the 
 invasion of the Corps Legislalif was be- 
 gun by a company of National Guards, 
 who were standing near the iron railing 
 in front of the palace, and who cried out 
 •■ La Dicliiance! Ln DMifoince!" or the 
 impeachment of the Imperial family. 
 While they were shouting, they beckoned 
 to other National Guards nearer the 
 bridge over the Seine at this point to 
 come and join them. The Municipal 
 cavalry, which were posted at the en- 
 trance of the bridge on the quay, drew 
 its sabres, and for a moment there was 
 danger of a sanguinary collision. But 
 the battalions of the National Guard 
 kept crowding on and on. without re- 
 gard for the naked sabres, and the crowd 
 pressed behind them, now* murmuring. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 231 
 
 The soldiers saw that it was dangerous 
 to resist them. 
 
 At the head of the National Guard 
 were many men of distinction and posi- 
 tion, among them M. Edmond Adam, 
 later a senator and influential member of 
 the Republican party. The hum rose 
 slowly and almost majestically until it 
 burst out into a great cry of " Vive la 
 Ripitblique 1 " This was carried back- 
 ward across the Place de la Concorde, 
 and up the boulevards, the people at 
 some distance from the scene naturally 
 supposing that the Republic 
 had been declared. Pres- 
 ently, the doors of the Legis- 
 lative Palace were burst open, 
 and the impetuous 
 throngs rushed in, 
 pushing aside, as if 
 the\ - had been made 
 of straw, the few 
 guardians at the doors. 
 The president, M. 
 Schneider, pale as a 
 ghost, stood looking 
 down on the motley 
 collection of individ- 
 uals, who suddenly had filled the 
 space in front of him. But he said 
 no word. 
 
 M. Cremieux, a Republican, univer- 
 sally respected by all classes and very 
 popular among the masses, popped up in 
 his place, and said, " My dear friends, 
 you all know me. I am Citizen Cre- 
 mieux. "We are very busy, just now." 
 But it was not M. Cremieux's day, for 
 there was a roar of "Vive la Ripub- 
 lique!" and he sat down, looking some- 
 what disconcerted. In the galleries, 
 which were now thronged with men in 
 blouses, and with men in broadcloth, the 
 same cry of " Vice la Ripublique" was 
 heard, and the graceful foklsof atricolored 
 flag were waved above the assembly. 
 
 Gambetta next came forward, and 
 with a few skilful sentences brought 
 order out of this chaos, which promised 
 
 THE PRESIDENT OF TTIE CORPS LKiilSLATIP 
 WATCHING THE INVASION. 
 
 to be so dangerous. " Citizens," he 
 said, " yon can now offer a grand spec- 
 tacle — that of people uniting order with 
 liberty." He then gave a quick and 
 
2:52 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AXE CALM. 
 
 picturesque sketch of what the assembly 
 expected to do, and suggested that a 
 group of citizens should take the re- 
 sponsibility of maintaining order into 
 ils own hands, so that the deputies might 
 not lie disturbed in the discharge of their 
 duties. President Schneider thought it 
 proper to second the proposition of 
 Gambetta ; but when he added that he 
 thought he had also rendered to the 
 country and to liberty service enough to 
 have the right to address them, there 
 were derisive cheers, which were echoed 
 through the halls outside, and which left 
 him no whit in doubt as to his loss of 
 prestige. Presently, the great door op- 
 posite the tribune, which had detied the 
 efforts of the invaders, opened, and the 
 deputies who tried to keep backthecrowd, 
 were upset ; many of them were hurled 
 over the desks, and nothing could be 
 heard but •• Vive hi Rdpublique !" 31. 
 Schneider thought it imprudent to re- 
 main longer, and he was scarcely out of 
 his presidential desk before half a dozen 
 citizens were in it ; and they would have 
 done him mischief could they have got 
 at him. It was said, on the afternoon 
 of this day, that he had received a blow 
 on the head from a citizen who was 
 somewhat the worse for absinthe, and 
 that he fell covered with blood and was 
 taken away by his colleagues ; but this 
 was subsequently proved to lie untrue. 
 There was much ringing of the presiden- 
 tial bell by young workmen, who wanted 
 to make speeches to the crowd ; but 
 Jules Favre drove out all these intruders, 
 and. finally, Gambetta, in his most im- 
 pressive tones, cried, "Have you any 
 confidence in your representatives ?" to 
 which the rather illogical answer came, 
 '■Yes, yes; we have confidence enough 
 in you." — "Well, then, retire when I 
 ask you to do so. ami he sure that we shall 
 pronounce the downfall ! " — " Yes. but 
 
 how about the Republic?" cried a 
 
 voice. 
 
 Eye-witnesses of this singular scene 
 say that at this question Gambetta, who 
 had been halting betweeii two opinions 
 all the morning, and who was intensely 
 anxious that this revolution should be 
 accomplished within the strict limit of 
 the law. suddenly assumed a new de- 
 meanor, as if he felt that the mantle of 
 his mission had fallen upon him, and, 
 Stepping forward and commanding si- 
 lence by that imperious gesture which 
 afterwards became so familiar to the 
 people of France, he said, "Citi- 
 zens," — and at his first w'ord the si- 
 lence was completely reestablished, — ■ 
 " considering that the country is in dan- 
 ger, considering that the proper time has 
 been given to the national representatives 
 to pronounce the downfall of the Impe- 
 rial family, considering that we are 
 and that we constitute a regular power 
 issued from universal suffrage, we now 
 declare that Louis Napoleon Bonaparte 
 and his dynasty have forever ceased to 
 reign in France." 
 
 These ringing words, uttered by the 
 man who had been the first to brave the 
 auger and the vengeance of the Empire, 
 and who had begun the revolution which 
 now culminated, were saluted with bravos 
 innumerable and with renewed shouts 
 of " Vive la Re"publique ! " "No more 
 Empire;" "The Empire has fallen 
 forever; " "The Dichtance first, the Re- 
 public afterwards," etc. Now the drum- 
 mers of tin- National Guard, who had 
 been standing at the entrance of the 
 Chamber, began to beat their drums, 
 ami to clamor for immediate departure 
 for the Hotel de Yille. This sounded 
 ominous, and Jules Favre made au 
 earnest speech, which he finished by 
 saying, " Do you, or do you not, want 
 civil war? " 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 233 
 
234 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Hundreds of voices answered, " No, 
 no; not civil war; war with the Prus- 
 sians only." — "Then," said Jules Favre, 
 •• we must have a provisional gov- 
 ernment forthwith." — "To the Hotel 
 de Ville! To the Hotel de Ville!" 
 cried a voice. M. Favre continued 
 speaking until a youth suddenly appeared 
 in the tribune behind him, and shouted 
 at the topi of his voice, " The Republic ! 
 tiie Republic ! Let us declare it here ! " A 
 few of the National Guards tried to make 
 this enthusiastic youth come down ; but 
 he pounded the desk and continued to 
 shriek, -'The Republic! The Republic 
 forthwith ! " Presently, a voice below 
 took up the refrain; and then it was 
 that Gambetta stepped forward, and 
 said, "Yes; long live the Republic! 
 Let us go, citizens, and proclaim it at 
 the Hotel de Ville ! " Down upon their 
 knees went quick-witted citizens, marking 
 upon great sheets of paper that they 
 had taken from the deputies' desks, 
 "To the Hotel de Ville!" "The Re- 
 public is declared." One gentleman 
 even wrote — and Heaven and himself 
 only know why, — on a placard, this 
 statement, " The Republic is proclaimed 
 by 185 votes against 113." But there 
 was really no voting at all. No one 
 ventured to vote agaiust the people's 
 wish. 
 
 As the men in blouses bearing the 
 placards came toiling up the boulevards, 
 the excitement was very great. Return- 
 ing hastily from the Place de la Con- 
 corde, I was at the Grand Hotel just in 
 time to see a regiment of soldiers, which 
 was marching steadily down the boule- 
 vards, met face to face by a solid mass 
 of blue-bloused and solid-looking men, 
 singing loudly and brandishing their 
 guns. No one knew what was the inten- 
 tion of either party, and people on the 
 sidewalks were beginning to run away. 
 
 when suddenly the leader at the head of 
 the crowd of workmen reversed his 
 musket. His example was followed by 
 the thousands behind him, and in a 
 minute the regiment of soldiers coming 
 the other way had done the same thing. 
 In less than two minutes, soldiers and 
 people were fraternizing together with 
 twigs of laurel in the muzzles of their 
 guns. Hands were clasped in token of 
 friendship ; and an old Frenchman near 
 me said, " This is the grandest specta- 
 cle ever seeu in France." 
 
 The relief from suspense was very 
 great, and when it became generally 
 known that the army had made no en- 
 deavor to preveut the accomplishment 
 of the Revolution, men, women, and 
 children, delicate aged ladies, shop- 
 keepers, professional men, foreigners — 
 all went pell-mell to the Tuileries, where 
 the people had gathered in its might, as 
 it had gathered twice before at the 
 downfall of arbitrary power within less 
 than ninety years. 
 
 At the Tuileries there were very few 
 signs of life at the windows of the Impe- 
 rial Palace, but there were anxious 
 hearts within. The Empress had main- 
 tained her courage remarkably well up 
 to the last moment. She had been 
 determined from the first that the Em- 
 peror should not return to Paris. "He 
 would be murdered." she said. Yet 
 she appears to have had little fear for 
 herself until this Sunday afternoon. 
 The people sent their spokesman with a 
 flag of truce to parley with the colonel 
 commanding the forces before the Tuil- 
 eries. lie finally consented to withdraw, 
 only reserving to himself the right to 
 fire upon the crowd if any violence were 
 done, lint nobody paid any attention 
 to the conditions which he wished to 
 impose. He was pushed aside, and the 
 throngs ran through the gravelled alleys 
 
EVROTE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 235 
 
 of the garden, past the statues, up 
 the steps, and to the innermost rooms 
 of the palace. Guards wearing the tri- 
 color were posted at each side of the 
 main entrance, and as the tumultuous 
 masses pushed their way in, they begged 
 them to be calm and do uo mischief ; and 
 members of the sanitary corps stood on 
 the steps collecting money for the 
 wounded. The flag that ordinarily 
 denoted the presence of the Imperial 
 family at the palace was taken down, 
 and on the pedestals of all statues, and 
 over the gates of the Rue de Rivoli, was 
 written up in chalk, " Vice la Ripub- 
 lique!" "Apartments to let ; " "Mr. 
 Napoleon has gone to a German water- 
 ing-place;" and, finally, "Death to 
 robbers and thieves ! " a sentence which 
 was intended as a gentle hint to the 
 rabble to behave. Hundreds of women 
 of all classes crowded into the private 
 apartments of the Empress, and curiously 
 examined everything that was left. The 
 rooms were in great confusion. Boxes 
 were scattered about, and servants were 
 engaged in packing, paying little atten- 
 tion to the angry comments of the people. 
 The Emperor's private cabinet was the 
 next room visited ; and there the public 
 found everything methodically arranged. 
 It had been Napoleon's habit for many 
 years to work in a room quite shut off 
 from any part of the palace, almost im- 
 permeable to noise. There, with the 
 little Prince, he had spent hours, daily, 
 for the last few years when in Paris. 
 The book in which the Prince had taken 
 a history lesson before his departure 
 was open on one of the tables, and his 
 exercise had been the commission to 
 memory of the fact that, at a certain 
 epoch of the First Empire, frivolity, cor- 
 ruption, and lust prevailed in high places. 
 On the Emperor's desk were maps of 
 Prussia and some toy-figures of German 
 
 soldiers, — dangerous toys they had 
 proven to the Empire ! 
 
 The Count d'H^risson, an able and 
 gallant officer, who was in the first French 
 expedition to China, and who was a mem- 
 ber of the general staff during the de- 
 fense of Paris, has left on record the 
 best account, published quite recently, 
 of the flight of the Empress from the 
 Tuileries. It appears that the Empress 
 was decided, by the entreaties of Prince 
 de Mettemich and the Chevalier Nigra, 
 who often visited her at the Tuileries 
 during the last terrible days, to leave 
 Paris and the remains of the Imperial 
 wreck. About two o'clock of the after- 
 noon on the 4th of September, Prince de 
 Metternich and his colleague, and M. 
 de Lesseps, who was a pretty constant 
 visitor to the palace, succeeded in pre- 
 vailing on the Empress to depart. " The 
 last two weeks that the poor lady passed 
 in the Tuileries," says the Count d'lleris- 
 sou, "had been a long torture, a veri- 
 table mortal agony. Scarcely an hour 
 passed without bringing a despatch con- 
 firming the news of a disaster. Thus 
 her mind and her body, through these 
 days consecrated to weeping, despair, 
 and labor, and followed by nights with- 
 out sleep, and even without repose, had 
 both been badly shaken. She kept her- 
 self up only by the aid of strong coffee, 
 and could get a fitful repose only when 
 saturated with chloral. She had. for 
 that matter, consumed such an immense 
 quantity of that medicine that she had 
 fits of somnambulism, during which, with 
 her great eyes open and staring, she 
 seemed foreign to all that was passing 
 round about her, and not even to under- 
 stand those who addressed her." 
 
 The Empress made a hasty toilet. 
 and took as her only package a little 
 travelling sack, which some of the suite 
 urged her to leave lest it might betray 
 
23(5 
 
 EUROPE 1,\ STURM AM) CALM. 
 
 her; and it was afterwards found on a 
 toilet table when the officers of the 
 Republic invaded the Tuileries. The 
 little party set out, with many misgivings, 
 from the Tuileries, through the great, 
 empty halls, ami across the Louvre, 
 and went down into the street opposite 
 the <>ld church of St. Germain l'Auxer- 
 rois, from the belfry of which the signal 
 for the massacre of St. Bartholomew was 
 sounded. The Prince de Metternich gave 
 his arm to the Empress, and Chevalier 
 Nigra accompanied Madame Lebreton, 
 the Empress's reader, who was greatly 
 devoted to her. The lady stepped hastily 
 into a call which had been hailed, and 
 Prince de Metternich said to the coach- 
 man, '• Boulevard llaussmann." A 
 gamin who was going by stopped, and 
 drawled out, with the peculiar accent of 
 the low-class Parisian, " That is a good 
 one ; sure enough that is the Empress ! " 
 Luckily no one paid any attention to the 
 boy's remark. The Prince and the 
 Chevalier then got into the cab, which 
 drove briskly away ; and on tin 1 Boule- 
 vard llaussmann they thought it prudent 
 to dismiss the coachman, ami presently 
 to take another carriage, in which they 
 went tn the hospitable mansion of Dr. 
 Evans, in the Avenue Malakoff. 
 
 The Count d'llerisson say>, " Dr. 
 Evans was not only a specialist, who had 
 been able to acquire a European reputa- 
 tion as well as an enormous fortune, hut 
 lie was a good- hearted man. A few 
 weeks later, when the sufferings and 
 the privations of the siege began, he 
 established and maintained, out of his 
 own purse, an American ambulance. 
 When the accounts were 
 
 made up, after he had distributed succor 
 
 to the prisoners of war in Germany, it 
 was found that the generous American 
 citizen had given 1,200,000 francs to his 
 French home " •• Dr. Evans," savs the 
 
 Count, •• had known the Empress as a 
 young girl, anil had always found the 
 doors of the Tuileries wide open to him. 
 lie now placed himself at her disposal 
 with entire devotion." The Empress, 
 being determined not to enter a railway 
 carriage, fearing that she might be recog- 
 nized and arrested, spent the night at the 
 doctor's house, and the next day. in 
 company with Madame Lebreton, Dr. 
 Evans, and Dr. Crane, she set forth in 
 a landau for the coast at Deauville. from 
 which point she hoped to get to Eng- 
 land." 
 
 At the Porte Maillot Dr. Evans leaned 
 half-way out of the window, under pre- 
 text of asking some information of the 
 National Guards, who were stationed 
 there, and thus screened from view tin 1 
 Empress, who, when she found that she 
 was outside the walls of Paris without 
 having been recognized, wept; but 
 whether from joy or grief the Count docs 
 not say. The party went comfortably 
 forward to Mantes, where the horses, 
 completely fagged, refused to budge 
 another step, ami the fugitives were 
 obliged to get into a clumsy country 
 wagon, drawn by two ill-tempered beasts. 
 Some future Carlyle may make out of 
 this journey of the Empress a chapter 
 as picturesque as that which describes 
 the attempted flight of the king in the 
 last century, and he can use the follow- 
 ing incident, told with much effect by 
 the Count d'llerisson: — 
 
 In a little village called La Comman- 
 derie the new relay came to grief, and 
 the horses stood stubbornly under a 
 shower of blows from the driver's whip. 
 So Dr. Evans set out in quest of other 
 cattle, and presently discovered in a 
 shed a cal&che, which might have been 
 new at the time of the invasion of the 
 Allies. -V peasant offered to go into the 
 fields and catch some wild-looking horses. 
 
EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 237 
 
 His offer was accepted, and presently 
 two old, broken-down steeds were at- 
 tached to the aged wagon. The woman 
 who furnished this equipage found it so 
 good that she said to the doctor, •• You 
 see that a queen might be satisfied with 
 such a fine outfit." The Empress trem- 
 bled, and believed that she had been 
 
 interrupted save by break-downs, the 
 part}' arrived at Deauville. The Count 
 d'H6risson, with a charming attention 
 to small details, informs us that during 
 the journey the Empress had wept so 
 much that she had no pocket-handker- 
 chiefs left ; whereupon the doctor pro- 
 ceeded to wash out the handkerchiefs, 
 
 TIIE FLIGHT OF THE EMPRESS. 
 
 recognized ; but this curious remark, 
 which fell from the lips of the good old 
 woman, was due entirely to hazard. 
 
 At Evreux the crazy vehicle lum- 
 bered through the great square at the 
 moment when the new Prefect was pro- 
 claiming the Republic in the presence of 
 the whole population. No one even turned 
 to look at the Empress and her faithful 
 escort. At six o'clock in the evening, 
 after thirty-six hours on a journey uu- 
 
 and to get them rough-dried by the air. 
 " The Empress," said the Count, " re- 
 fused at first, then accepted ; and the 
 doctor, getting down by a little brook 
 which ran beside the highway, washed 
 out the linen, then set the handkerchiefs 
 to dry in the air at the window of the 
 carriage." 
 
 There were two yachts lying in the 
 port of Deauville ; one of them was 
 called the Gazelle, and belonged to Sir 
 
238 
 
 EUROrE IX STORM AXD CALM 
 
 Johu Burgoyne, who was a personal 
 frieinl of Napoleon III. Dr. Evans 
 went to him, and asked him if he would 
 save the Empress. 
 
 The doctor pleaded his cause so well 
 that finally, towards eleven o'clock in 
 the evening, Sir John Burgoyne, or, as 
 the Count will have him, Sir Burgoyne, 
 accepted the perilous mission, and on 
 Wednesday, the 7th of September, at 
 six in the morning, the Empress saw the 
 soil of France receding from her view. 
 She had, with her little party, embarked 
 the night before, realizing that every 
 moment she remained ill France added 
 to her danger. The Gazelle was only 
 about forty-five feet long, and had a 
 small cabin, in which the Empress, 
 Madame Lebretou, Dr. Evans, and 
 "Sir Burgoyne" passed twenty-three 
 hours in one of the most frightful tem- 
 pests that ever raged on the Channel. 
 Great waves swept over the yacht every 
 minute. All the members of the party 
 did their best to comfort and console 
 the Empress, and presently the yacht 
 came into the port of Hyde, where 
 the passengers, deluged by salt-water 
 and pale with their long exposure, looked 
 so forbidding that they were refused 
 rooms at the Pier Hotel, and they finally 
 took refuge in the York Hotel, whence 
 Dr. Evans accompanied the Empress to 
 I. oiii Ion. It was he who rented for 
 her at Chiselhurst the mansion of Cam- 
 den Place, where Napoleon III. was 
 destined to breathe his last, and from 
 which the young Prince Imperial was 
 sorrowfully escorted to his grave by his 
 school-mates from the military institution 
 at Woolwich. 
 
 Count d'Herisson has the slightest 
 details with regard to the historic oc- 
 casion carefully set down. We need 
 not, perhaps, question the taste of Count 
 d'Herisson in stating thai the Empress 
 
 entirely forgot to thank Sir John Bur- 
 goyne for the use of his yacht, and that 
 it was more than a year afterwards, 
 when Lady Burgoyne expressed her 
 astonishment about the matter ill a con- 
 versation with the Empress, that the 
 omission was repaired. In leaving the 
 Tuileries the Empress had taken abso- 
 lutely nothing but the clothes which 
 she had on. Count d'Herisson himself 
 was charged with the duty of bringing 
 to the Empress such of her personal 
 belongings as he could obtain. He was 
 authorized by the new authorities to go 
 into the Empress's private apartments 
 in the Tuileries. and thus describes 
 them : — 
 
 "The great salon, which served as a 
 kind of study for the Empress regent, 
 her boudoir, her oratory, her bed- 
 chamber, her toilet-room were all in a 
 long suite, overlooking, and getting 
 their light from, the garden of the Tuil- 
 eries. All these rooms were furnished 
 with the refinement of modern luxury ; 
 and this luxury hardly seemed in its 
 place. It was out of character with the 
 rather severe grandeur of the Tuileries. 
 It was a parlor of Madame de Metter- 
 nich transported to the old palace. I 
 feel certain that if the famous ambassa- 
 dress had lived in these Tuileries her 
 parlor would have been of an entirely 
 different style. I have never seen the 
 private apartments of the Queen of Eng- 
 land, nor those of the Empress of Russia, 
 but I would wager that they are strangely 
 different from those that the Empress 
 Eugenie had arranged for herself at the 
 Tuileries." 
 
 Among the despatches lying in dis- 
 order on the Empress's table was one 
 which M. d'Herisson read, and which 
 has an historical interest. It was ad- 
 dressed to Napoleon HI., ami was thus 
 conceived : — 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM, 
 
 239 
 
 "To the Emperor: Do not dream 
 of coming back here if you do not 
 wish to let loose a frightful revolution. 
 This is the advice of Rouher and Chev- 
 reau, whom I saw this morning. People 
 would be sure to say here that you are 
 flying from danger. Do not forget how 
 Prince Napoleon's departure from the 
 Crimea has shadowed his whole life. 
 
 " EuGEXIE." 
 
 The Count also indulges his public in 
 a sketch of the dressing-rooms of the 
 Empress ; the mauuikius upon which her 
 costumes were exhibited before she con- 
 descended to place them upon her Im- 
 perial person, and many other items which 
 we need not here recite. Some idea of 
 the luxury of the Empress's wardrobe 
 may be gathered from the fact that M. 
 d'llerisson took away from the crown 
 fur-keeper GOO. 000 fraucs' worth of 
 costly furs, and that the Empress had 
 as mauy more deposited with her per- 
 sonal friends. He estimates the total 
 value of the Empress's furs at 3,000,000 
 or 4,000,000 of francs. 
 
 When the Republican deputies set 
 forth from the Palais Bourbon for the 
 Hotel de Ville a vast shout went up 
 from the enormous masses of people on 
 the Place de la Concorde. Jules Favre 
 was stopped at every moment by people 
 who insisted upon shaking hands with 
 him, or affectionately embracing him. 
 M. Simon was quite worn out with en- 
 deavors to rescue his colleague from the 
 too demonstrative populace. At last it 
 was necessary to surround Favre, who 
 was, for the moment, more conspicuous 
 than Gambetta, with a few National 
 Guards, and so. by-and-by. became with 
 his friends to the historic HAtcl de Ville. 
 
 Paris had, in no less than half an 
 hour, completely regained i:s equanimity. 
 The news o. ; the Republic's declaration 
 
 had spread like lightning from quarter 
 
 to quarter, and everybody seemed, in the 
 general joy, to have forgotten the Prus- 
 sians, and the siege which was tightening 
 its iron bands round the town. Jules 
 Simon says that lie heard one workman 
 say to another: "They won't dare to 
 come, now that we have got it." " They " 
 were the Prussians ; "it" was the Re- 
 public. The deputies did not stop at 
 theTuileries, — although they were <1\ ing 
 to know what was going on within the 
 walls, — but pushed on. here and their, 
 seeing workmen mounted on ladders 
 knocking off the N's and Imperial eagles 
 from signs, and demolishing everything 
 which tended to recall the memory of 
 the recently ruined government. 
 
 At the Hotel de Ville there was new 
 danger; and all the politicians knew it. 
 There the Communists rallied, as they 
 rallied later to such deadly advantage. 
 There was Milliere with his men ; De- 
 lescluze arrived shortly afterwards. 
 Milliere had been busily at work draw- 
 ing up lists of members for the projected 
 new government, and these lists were 
 already being circulated in the Place de 
 Grove when the deputies arrived. The 
 names of Blanqui, Delescluze, Floureus, 
 Felix Pvat, and Rochefort had been 
 placed upon these lists. There was a 
 plan to proclaim Rochefort Mayor of 
 Paris, and a strongly armed delegation 
 had been sent oft' to Sainte Pelagic to take 
 him out of the captivity from which he 
 was freed by the disappearance of the 
 Empire. Had any guardian ventured to 
 resist this delegation lie would undoubt- 
 edly have been shot. One of the leading 
 members of the Republican group affirms 
 that, unless some one had had the good 
 sense to cry out when the procession was 
 Hearing the H6tel de Ville, " Make the 
 Deputies of Paris mem tiers of the govern- 
 ment ! " the Commune would have broken 
 
240 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 out iu all its hideousness on that very day, 
 
 and the Prussians would have been in 
 Paris eight days afterwards. 
 
 Rochefort arrived from his prison in a 
 carriage ornamented with red flags, and 
 followed by a crowd which yelled, 
 " Rochefort for Mayor of Paris ! " This 
 question of the mayoralty was a burning 
 one, and, as we see by this incident, was 
 brought forward the moment it was 
 possible. Paris had ardently desired 
 the autonomy of the capital for many 
 vears, and, had the inhabitants been ac- 
 corded that autonomy, would never have 
 made the Revolution of 1871. But the 
 time had not come for Rochefort to be 
 Mayor of Paris, so he had to content 
 himself with a post which was offered 
 him in the new government, henceforth 
 to be known through the days of diffi- 
 culty and despair in the siege as the 
 government of National Defense. Un- 
 doubtedly Paris owes much to these men 
 who acted with so much gravity, vigor, 
 ami tact at a time when delay or hesi- 
 tation might have caused infinite blood- 
 shed. 
 
 On the way to the Hotel do Ville 
 the deputies had met General Trochu 
 galloping along, followed by his general 
 staff, and Jules Favre had made a sign 
 
 to him to halt, taken him by the hand, 
 and informed him of all the events of 
 the day. " I am going with my friends," 
 he said, " to constitute a government at 
 the Hotel de Ville, so we will beg you 
 to return to your quarters, ami there 
 wait our communications." General 
 Trochu said he had no objections to 
 doing this ; and in fact he did it. Before 
 nightfall Paris had its new government, 
 with Gambetta as the delegate for the 
 Interior, Jules Simon for Public Instruc- 
 tion, Jules Favre for Foreign Affairs, 
 General Leflo as Minister of War, and 
 General Trochu, Eugene Pelletan, Em- 
 manuel Arago, and Rochefort as dele- 
 gates without special missions. The 
 new government's proclamation, issued 
 in haste, told the people that the Republic 
 had saved them from the invasion of 
 1792, that the Republic was proclaimed 
 anew, and that the Revolution had been 
 made in the interests of public safety. 
 
 A day or two afterwards the exiles, 
 who had for twenty-one years watched 
 the course of the Empire from their 
 retreats in the mountains and islands, 
 were on their way home. Victor Hugo 
 did not lose an instant in making prepa- 
 rations for his departure after he had 
 heard the news of his enemy's downfall. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 241 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 Sedan. — The March in the Ardennes. — The Headstrong Palikao. — The Crown Prince of Saxony's 
 Army. — General De Failly at Beaumont. — The Retreat to Sedan. -( (eneral De Wimpffen comes 
 upon the Scene. — The Prussians Open Fire in Front of Sedan. — Disaster to MacMahon. - -Slaugh- 
 tered by Invisible Enemies. — The Battle at Bazcilles. — De Wimpffeii's Forlorn Hope. 
 
 WHAT had taken place at Sedan? 
 We pass over the painful and 
 unwise march of Marshal MacMahon, 
 with his poorly equipped and badly fed 
 troops, from Rheims to the point at 
 which he was met by the advance corps 
 of the Crown Prince's army. Some idea 
 of the confusion and disorder of his 
 march may be gathered from the state- 
 ment, made upon good authority, that 
 the army, which left Chalons one hun- 
 dred and forty thousand strong, could 
 not put seventy thousand men in Hue 
 on the great day of the decisive battle 
 at Sedan. It is now clearly established 
 by General De Wimpffen, and by other 
 gallant officers, that if they had been 
 allowed to have their way, they would 
 never have let the sun set on the battle- 
 field of Sedan without a final and a 
 brilliant struggle for victory. The gov- 
 ernment in Paris, acting upon the insulli- 
 cient information which it had, insisted 
 with the j;reatcstenergy, while MacMahon 
 was hesitating at Rheims, that he should 
 march to a junction with Bazaine. Gen- 
 eral De Palikao, whose conduct can 
 be qualified only as headstrong, went 
 to see the Empress, and threatened 
 that, unless MacMahon started at once 
 for Metz, he would have it posted 
 up all over France that the Emperor 
 was the cause of the disasters which 
 must result from the delay in bringing 
 the two great French armies together. 
 MacMahon, like a gallant gentleman, 
 
 took the lila me for this fatal march, at 
 the time that he was criticised with the 
 greatest vivacity and harshness, upon 
 himself; but history will place the re- 
 sponsibility of the disaster of Sedan on 
 the shoulders of the Emperor and the 
 Regency in Paris. General Lebrun and 
 others have given what they thought 
 are sufficient proofs to indicate that, in 
 spite of all the follies committed by the 
 Imperial army, the Germans were taken 
 very much by surprise, and that the 
 concentration of their troops around 
 Metz was not due at all to the marvel- 
 lous perspicacity of Von Moltke, or to 
 the German military genius, but rather 
 to a happy accident, which, in addition 
 to the disorganization of the French, 
 gave them a comparatively easy victory. 
 On the 27th of August, at half-past 
 eight in the evening, Marshal Mac- 
 Mahon addressed to the Ministers of 
 War the following telegram: " The firsi 
 and second armies — more than two hun- 
 dred thousand strong — are blockading 
 Metz chiefly on the left shore. A force 
 estimated at fifty thousand men is said 
 to be established on the right bank of 
 the Meuse to hinder my march on 
 Metz. We hear that the army of the 
 Ciown Prince is to-day on the move 
 towards the Ardennes, with fifty thou- 
 sand men. It is said to lie already at 
 Ardeuil. I am at Chenes, with a little 
 more than one hundred thousand men. 
 Since the Dth I have had no news from 
 
242 EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 Bazaiue. If I go forward to join forces in their ranks, and were obliged to retreat 
 
 with liiin I shall be attacked in front by before a deadly fire, which came from 
 
 a part of the first and second armies, forests along the route. The Fifth 
 
 which can lodge iu the woods a force French corps, under General De Failly, 
 
 superior in my own. at the same time was thus pushed back to Chatillou, where 
 
 that I am attacked by the Crown it camped in the greatest confusion foi 
 
 Prince's army, who can cut off my line the night. 
 
 of retreat. To-morrow 1 move up to Poor General De Failly committed 
 
 Metz, whence I shall continue my re- faults enough in the war to be pardoned 
 
 treat, according to events, towards the the unfortunate remark attributed to him 
 
 west." by many historians of the campaign, and 
 
 Bade came a telegram from the Minis- never, so far as I know, contradicted by 
 
 ter of War, saving: "If you abandon him. — a remark made when he was iu 
 
 Bazaine we shall have a. revolution in full retreat. lie was breakfasting at 
 
 Paris, ami you will yourself be attacked Beaumont, where a. fresh disaster was 
 
 by all the forces of the enemy. Paris destined to fall upon the French, when 
 
 will take care of itself against the Gel'- he was informed that, the Prussians were 
 
 mans; and it appears to me urgent approaching. "Oh, well," .said the 
 
 that you should join Bazaine as rapidly General, " we punished them severely 
 
 as possible. Shall follow you with the enough yesterday: it is only fair that 
 
 greatest anxiety." When Marshal Mac- they should put a few of our men hors 
 
 Mahon received this despatch, he re- de combat to-day ; so let us open another 
 
 nounced his movement on Metz and bottle." 
 
 inarched towards Montmedy, having In the leafy avenues of the Ardennes 
 lost a precious twenty-four hours, dur- the Germans found facile shelter, and 
 ing which time the German army was made sad havoc among the French on 
 undertaking one of its terrible forced this day of the 27th. The next day the 
 marches, like that which decided the French resumed their march in a pour- 
 battle of Sadowa : and MacMahon, who ing rain, and there were no hostile opera- 
 fancied that in the neighborhood of tions. But on the 29th two squadrons 
 Montmedy he was going to operate his of Prussian hussars, coming up to a little 
 famous junction with Bazaine's forces, village, took it by storm. Further on, 
 found himself face to face with a division at Nouart, the French were unlucky in a 
 of the Germans, which formed, as it collision with the Germans. Near this 
 were, a fourth German anny, and had point the French opened a formidable 
 been organized in great haste, in view artillery tire upon the German troops, 
 of the change in the French plan of who were peaceably defiling through a 
 operations, and placed under the orders valley about a league away; but no 
 of the Prince of Saxony. This arm}' French General had had the forethought 
 was composed of the Prussian Guards, to block the route over which the Ger- 
 magnilicent troops, the Saxons, and mans were passing, by placing an army 
 one of the Alvensleben corps, and two corps across it. On the evening of the 
 divisions of cavalry. 29th of August General De Failly's 
 
 At Buzancy the French cavalry and corps, which had been the avant-garde 
 
 the chasseurs of General Brahaut sud- of tin.' French army, was now the rear- 
 
 denly found the German shells falling guard. General Felix Douay, with the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 243 
 
 Seventh corps, was in the rear, on the 
 right, near Buzancy. The First corps, 
 commanded by General Ducrot, formed 
 the centre, and was at Raucourt, and the 
 Twelfth corps, under General Lebruu, 
 was in camp on the left. "To accom- 
 plish this movement of concentration," 
 says a clever critic of the Empire, " which 
 culminated at Sedan, the French army 
 had made eight leagues in three days ! " 
 
 Unless the French army could, rapidly 
 gain Montmedy, or retrace its steps to 
 Mezieres, it was placed in a position of 
 great danger. Through this wild, woody 
 country, full of ravines, the river 
 Meuse takes its sinuous way. Mont- 
 medy is the principal stronghold of the 
 department of the Meuse. Not far 
 away are Mouzon, on the same river, 
 and Carillon on the Chieres. Beyond 
 them, and just hack of the confluence of 
 the Meuse and the Chieres, is situated 
 the old town of Sedan, at the bottom of 
 a kind of sleepy hollow, surrounded on 
 all sides by green and wooded hills. A 
 little farther away is Mezieres, the only 
 really important stronghold of the sec- 
 tion. " Here," says M. Jules Claretie, 
 " in this kind of triangle, formed 
 by the two rivers, the Meuse and the 
 ChiOres, the destinies of the country 
 were to be jeopardized." 
 
 On the evening of the 29th General 
 De Failly passed through the forest of 
 Dieulet and camped at Beaumont. It is 
 perhaps too much to say that he camped, 
 for all night long his troops were strag- 
 gling in in little parties, without the 
 smallest attention to discipline. The 
 rear-guard of the Fifth corps did not 
 get into camp until live o'clock in the 
 morning. At seven o'clock Marshal 
 MacMahon came up to the camp, stopped 
 at the head-quarters, and ordered General 
 De Failly to march upon Mouzon. Here 
 there was a delay, which seems to have 
 
 characterized all De Failly's movements, 
 and nothing was done until nine o'clock, 
 and then, after a short march, there was 
 a halt until noon, by which time all was 
 lost. Poor Marshal MacMahon had 
 gone oil confident that his orders would 
 be obeyed and that De Failly would keep 
 ahead of the enemy, for this .seems the 
 utmost that the unfortunate French 
 hoped. At a. little after the hour of 
 noon. General De Failly found his corps 
 surrounded by the army of the Crown 
 Prince of Prussia. 
 
 The first Prussian shell, it is said. 
 caused a veritable stupor in the French 
 camp. Neither generals nor soldiers 
 had the least notion that the enemy was 
 so closely upon them. There was a call 
 to arms ; many of the soldiers were in 
 their shirt-sleeves, some of them were 
 lying down asleep. There was a whirl 
 of 1 latteries along the hill above the 
 French, then a rain of shell, which did 
 terrible execution. Presently, three 
 French regiments of the line and the 
 Fourth battalion of the Chasseurs '). 
 Pied got a position on the hills, and were 
 pushing back into the woods the Prus- 
 sians wdio were just appearing, when a 
 new storm of shells came out of the 
 thickets, and the valiant liners looked in 
 vain for their own artillery to second 
 their efforts. The Germans, seeing that 
 the corps was completely at their mercy, 
 broke cover, and with loud shouts 
 advanced on the enemy. The French, 
 in desperation, then attempted a bayonet 
 charge ; but they were met with such 
 a frightful fusillade that they were 
 obliged to retreat. On the left the 
 French were thrown back on Mouzon ; 
 their centre was broken, ami carried by 
 the Bavarians; and their retreat upon 
 Sedan was a veritable sauve qui pent. 
 
 All night long the discouraged and 
 demoralized troops were pouring into the 
 
244 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AXL) CALM. 
 
 gates of Sedan, and next day the roads 
 about the town were covered with re- 
 treating men, worn out with hunger and 
 fatigue. Towards nightfall of the 29th 
 one of the French cavalry regiments, the 
 Fifth cuirassiers, had attempted a brill- 
 iant charge on the enemy, but was 
 badly cut to pieces by the artillery. 
 
 The Thirtieth regiment of the line, 
 when it retreated across tin- Meuse, after 
 sunset on this disastrous day, had not a 
 single round of cartridges left. 
 
 Meantime General Douay's Seventh 
 corps hail arrived mi the battle-field, and 
 General LeBrun, with his infantry, had 
 made a splendid defence of the passage 
 cf the Meuse ; but the day was veritably 
 lust, and the whole army had finally 
 received orders to retreat upon Sedan 
 along the left shore of the river Chieres. 
 
 Here tin- army was close to the 
 Belgian frontier, and entire regiments, 
 wandering recklessly hither and yon, 
 crossing tin- frontier without knowing it, 
 found themselves in presence of the 
 neutral Belgian line of troops, and, with 
 despair and rage in their hearts, were 
 compelled to throw down their guns, 
 and also to recognize that they had 
 thrown away their last chance for the 
 defense of the country in that campaign. 
 
 While the confusion and agony of this 
 retreat was at its height, the Imperial 
 train of carriages made its appearance 
 on the high-road to Sedan, and the lack- 
 eys compelled all the wagons which were 
 filled with wounded and dying men to lie 
 ranged in regular order at the side of the 
 load while the Emperor passed by. 
 Napoleon had spent the day at Beau- 
 mont, lying on the grass, surrounded by 
 the officers of the general staff, and lis- 
 tening with seeming indifference to the 
 noise of the cannon heard beyond the 
 woods. He preserved his usual calm 
 while on the road to Sedan, and tele- 
 
 graphed from Carignan to the Empress 
 that there had Keen an engagement of no 
 great importance, and that, he had been 
 em horseback for some time. 
 
 On the morning of the 30th of August, 
 ( ieneral l)e Wimpffen came upon the 
 seine. lie was coming in all haste 
 to take the place of General De Failly, 
 wlio had proved himself so notoriously 
 incompetent, and his energies were 
 doubly awakened because he was a 
 native of the province in which this 
 great and decisive struggle was going on. 
 When he arrived at Metz, on the morn- 
 ing of the .'Kith, he was horrified at the 
 appearance of the army corps confided 
 to his charge. Perhaps, if he had been 
 in command at Buzancy, Sedan might 
 not have occurred. "I rushed down," 
 says General De Wimpffen, in his own 
 published account of the operations 
 around Sedan, " on to the plain to reason 
 with the Hying men. I could hardly 
 make them understand me. It was in 
 vain I cried to them, ' Look behind you, 
 if you do not believe me! The enemy's 
 cannon is still a long way off: you have 
 nothing to tear.' They would not listen 
 to me in their panting retreat. I finally 
 succeeded iii stopping a few and par- 
 tially reassuring them. Little by little 
 this example was followed." It must be 
 admitted that no (ieneral ever took com- 
 mand of an army corps under more try- 
 ing conditions. "Just at tiie moment 
 when I was busiest in getting things into 
 shape the equipage of the household of 
 the Emperor came up along the road near 
 me. The servants pretended that every- 
 body must stand aside to give them pas- 
 sage. I gave some of them a formal 
 order to profit by the freshness of their 
 horses, and to take a side-mad, and clear 
 out as speedily as possible. All the 
 troops were half dead with hunger," 
 savs the General "No distribution of 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 245 
 
 bread had been made for some time. 
 They were howling for food." 
 
 The misfortunes of General De Wim- 
 pffen at Sedan have a touch of pathos in 
 them. This brave man. who had heard 
 his praise ringing throughout Europe at 
 the close of the Italian campaign, — the 
 man whose grenadiers of the guard had 
 swept down upon t lit- Austrian army on 
 the day of Magenta, and who, sword in 
 hand, had hern in the thickest of the fight, 
 was now condemned l>y the strange 
 caprice of fate to command a broken and 
 a ust less army, and to sign his name to 
 the most inglorious capitulation of 
 modern times. That he was able to 
 bear himself with the greatest dignity 
 under these trying circumstances reflects 
 the highest honor upon his character; 
 and his countrymen are now unanimous 
 in the belief that, had he arrived in time, 
 he could have changed the current of 
 events; nay, they even believe that, had 
 it not been for the inexplicable feeble- 
 ness of Napoleon, towards the close of 
 the decisive day, De Wimpffen would 
 have given Marshal Von Moltke a genu- 
 ine surprise. 
 
 But it was not to he. General De 
 Wimpffen arrived at Sedan, with what 
 was left of poorDe Failly's corps, on the 
 night of the 30th. The next morning- he 
 looked over the camp, and. after a rather 
 cool reception from Marshal MacMahou, 
 he went to pay his respects to the Em- 
 peror. On seeing ( General De Wimpffen, 
 Napoleon's icy surface of calm melted ; 
 the tears came into his eyes : he clasped 
 the General by the hands, and said, " Do 
 explain to me, if you can, why we are 
 always beaten, and what can have 
 brought about the disastrous affair at 
 Beaumont." Then he added, " Alas ! 
 we are very unlucky ." 
 
 ( leneral De Wimpffen did not undertake 
 to explain, hut contented himself with 
 
 a few commonplaces, and hastened to 
 patch up matters as best he could. He 
 found in Sedan neither provisions nor 
 ammunition in any quantity of conse- 
 quence. The French army had lost 
 twenty cannon, eleven mitrailleuses, and 
 seven hundred prisoners at Beaumont; 
 and the Prussians and the Saxons were 
 still pushing back the French soldiers 
 nearer ami nearer to Sedan, down into 
 the deadly hollow' between the hills, 
 which wen' so soon to be crowned by the 
 fatal circle of artillery. Towards Mez- 
 ieres, the Crown Prince's army hail cut 
 off retreat in the direction of that fortress, 
 and the Bavarians were massed before 
 Bazeilles. The crowning satire upon the 
 maladministration of the Fmpire was the 
 crossing of the Germans over the Meuse 
 on bridges already mined, which the 
 French engineer corps had not taken the 
 precautious to blow up. 
 
 General De Wimpffen issued a vigorous 
 proclamation to the inhabitants of the 
 department of the Aisue, in which lie 
 said, "One of your children who has 
 just arrived from Algeria, gives himself 
 the satisfaction of visiting his family 
 before he faces the enemy. He lues 
 you to show yourselves the worthy 
 children of those who in 181-1 and 1815 
 joined themselves with our soldiers to 
 fight against invasion." 
 
 Marshal MacMahon, it is said, had 
 never had the least idea of giving battle 
 in such a ruinous position as that in w Inch 
 he was now placed. He spent a great 
 part of the day of the-'ilst of August in 
 examining the roads leading into Sedan, 
 to determine by which one he would effect 
 his retreat. There were three roads: 
 one to the west, towards Metz, which 
 was. as we have already seen, rendered 
 useless ; another to the east to ( a rig-nan ; 
 a. third to the north into Belgium. Mac- 
 Mahon sent a strong party to cut the 
 
24(! EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 bridge over the Mouse at Donch£ry, Wimpffen had in his pocket the eommis- 
 
 and that uight left things to be decided sion of the Minister of War. giving him 
 
 by the position in which he should find the general command of the army in case 
 
 the enemy at dawn. General Lebrun that MacMahon were. killed or wounded, 
 
 asserts, however, in a recently published When General De Wimpffen learned of 
 
 work, that MacMahon had, on the even- General Ducrot's appointment he was 
 
 ing of the "'1st of August, given up all at first inclined to keep his own commis- 
 
 hope of taking the defensive, and that sion in his pocket; but as soon as he 
 
 (lie disposition of the four army corps saw that General Ducrot was operating 
 
 around Sedan indicates that he was pre- a retreat ou the centre and on the left, 
 
 paring for advance. so as to throw the whole army back to 
 
 Marshal MacMahon did not have to Mezieres, he thought it was his duty to 
 
 wait for the morning's sun to decide take charge, and, bringing his troops 
 
 what he would do, for the Prussians back under the cannon of Sedan, he 
 
 opened a tremendous lire at half-past announced himself as General-in-chief, 
 
 four on the morning of the 1st. The showed his commission, and at once sent 
 
 Marshal jumped upon his horse, and orders to General Ducrot to take up his 
 
 went out to get an exact idea of the old position, sending to General Lebrun, 
 
 enemy's position. While watching a who was fighting at Bazeilles, all the 
 
 lively fusillade, in front of Bazeilles, a troops which he could dispose of, to 
 
 splinter from a shell struck and killed confirm the success that the valiant Le- 
 
 his horse, ami the Marshal fell heavily brun was getting on the right, 
 
 under him. At first he thought he was " It would have been," says M. Jules 
 
 only bruised, but when he was taken out Simon, "possible at the beginning of 
 
 from under the animal's body he the day to operate a retreat at Bouillon, 
 
 swooned, and found that he was so to reach Belgium, and thus to save part 
 
 badly hurt that he must transmit his of the army ; but then the troops would 
 
 powers. lie sent at once for General have constituted themselves prisoners 
 
 Ducrot, thinking that this General was without having fought. Neither Marshal 
 
 better qualified to judge of the German MacMahon nor General Ducrot nor 
 
 movement because he had had so wide General De Wimpffen thought of this for 
 
 an experience of their tactics. Ducrot a single instant. With few illusions as 
 
 hastened to the Twelfth corps, which was to the result of a battle, if they were 
 
 already very badly cut up, and pointed forced to accept it. they would hear of 
 
 out directly to General Lebrun that the retreat only in passing over the enemy, 
 
 enemy was moving slowly up the heights, which was hemming them in. The Ger- 
 
 which would give them the advantage man report states this to their honor, 
 
 over the left of the First French corps, and Fiance will remember them grate- 
 
 " The enemy is proceeding," he said, fully for it." 
 
 "according to its usual tactics. It is It was now nine o'clock in the morning, 
 
 going to surround us on all sides. We General De Wimpffen, ranging over the 
 
 must not hesitate. The army must beat field of battle, met the Emperor, who 
 
 a retreat post-haste for Mezieres." had come back from the hills near 
 
 Meantime there were two French com- Bazeilles. Napoleon had been for a 
 
 manders on the Held. MacMahon had short time under the enemy's fire, and one 
 
 appointed Ducrot. but General Dc of his orderlies had been killed near him. 
 
I'.CRorE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 247 
 
 When he met General De Wimpffen he 
 was going quietly to take his breakfast. 
 General De Wimpffen tells ns in his 
 pamphlet on the battle that he himself 
 had had nothing to eat that morning but 
 a carrot, that he had [Hilled in the field, 
 and that thousands of soldiers had had 
 nothing to cat for twelve hours. The 
 Emperor asked for news of the battle. 
 General De Wimpffen answered that 
 things were going well, and that they 
 were gaining ground. Napoleon thought 
 it proper to point out that the enemy 
 was massing very considerable forces on 
 the left; but De Wimpffen said, "We 
 are going to busy ourselves with throwing 
 the Bavarians into the Meuse ; then, 
 with all our troops, we will face our new 
 enemy." These words, spoken in haste, 
 were afterwards brought up against De 
 Wimpffen by the Imperial Party as pre- 
 sumable evidence of his incapacity. But 
 the German military report does full justice 
 to De Wimpffen's tactics, and condemns 
 those of General Ducrot. General De 
 Wimpffen's plan was to try first to win 
 a defensive battle, then to undertake a 
 surprise by a sudden and general on- 
 slaught on the Bavarian corps, forcing 
 them to open the road toCarignan, which 
 the movements then in operation were 
 leaving quite undefended by the German 
 troops. He meant to hold out until night- 
 fall not only for the honor of the French 
 arms, but because he thought it would be 
 easier than to fray a passage for himself 
 and his army as farasCarignan and Mont- 
 medy. As for General Ducrot's tactics 
 the Prussian generals have repeatedly said 
 that his movement, which had been begun 
 at half-past seven o'clock, hail led them 
 to hope that they would have the whole 
 French army safely caged by nine. They 
 admit that they were very much surprised 
 at the sudden offensive movements, and 
 especially at the prolonged resistance. 
 
 The Emperor had definitely given up 
 all participation in the command of the 
 French army some fifteen days before 
 the battle of Sedan, and neither he nor 
 General Ducrot took any part in the 
 command after De Wimpffen had shown 
 his commission. After Napoleon met 
 De Wimpffen on the field he went to his 
 quarters in Sedan, and was seen no 
 more until the battle was over, at six 
 o'clock in the evening. 
 
 General De Wimpffen was determined, 
 at all hazards, to avoid a capitulation. 
 His personal pride, his sense of the 
 country's dignity, and his fresh ardor, 
 which had not yet been blunted by the 
 spectacle of the long series of disasters 
 and the horrible exposures of negligence 
 since the defeats in Alsatia, — all for- 
 bade him to think of surrender. He 
 plainly saw that he was fatally, hope- 
 lessly outnumbered; but he set his 
 heroic soul upon the task of breaking 
 the line of iron and steel after he had 
 inflicted all the punishment he could 
 upon his enemies, anil getting away out 
 of this horrible valley, where he could 
 undertake new movements in more ad- 
 vantageous positions. It was almost 
 impossible to move about upon this field 
 of battle, which was swept from earliest 
 dawn by four hundred German cannon. 
 The German batteries, while the Prus- 
 sian corps were manoeuvring with a view 
 to closing up the road to Belgium, sent 
 down upon the French troops continuous 
 and converging fires. " Wounded." 
 says one French writer, "by invisible 
 enemies firing from unknown distances, 
 the demoralized troops fell into a kind 
 of dumb rage. Our artillery, inferior in 
 range to the German guns, replied as 
 best it could ; but, while our shells could 
 not always reach the enemy, — and a good 
 many of them went off prematurely, — ■ 
 the number of the enemy's guns was 
 
248 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 triple ours ; — we were simply crushed ! of it by two officers whom he managed to 
 General Felix Douay's troops were ter- hail on the field, saying to his Imperial 
 rible sufferers from this fire. The cav- master that he had decided to force the 
 airy could not even get into line ; and to line in front of General Lebrun and Gen- 
 maintain the infantry in line of battle eral Ducrot sooner than be taken prisoner 
 was next to impossible." The German a) Sedan. " Let Your Majesty come and 
 artillery dismounted three French bat- put himself at the head of his troops; 
 teries in less than ten minutes. Here they will engage upon their honor to 
 the mitrailleuse, on which the French had open a passage for him." Tins letter 
 counted so much, was quite useless, be- was written at a quarter-past one; but 
 cause of its short range. just then General Douay was falling 
 
 All the military writers on the French back before the Prussian artillery, and 
 
 side, describing the battles, say that the the French troops, who had supported 
 
 German circle formed around the French with real heroism the terrible fire from 
 
 seemed to grow smaller and smaller the steel cannons of the Germans for 
 
 every lew minutes; and this weird and more than two hours, were wavering, 
 
 terrible movement of closing in had the The Prussian Infantry was rushing down 
 
 most demoralizing effect upon the French to sweep away the French left, when 
 
 troops. General De Wimpffeu had not General Ducrot sent General De Margue- 
 
 a single aide-de-camp at his disposition, ritte with his cavalry division to charge 
 
 From a hill on which he had established the Germans. This General executed a 
 
 himself, he looked down upon General brilliant movement, and dispersed the 
 
 Ducrot driven out of Givonue, and Gen- first inimical lines, hut found himself 
 
 eral Douay half crushed by the German rushing on troops formed in squares, and 
 
 artillery-men, and the Fifth corps artil- firing at one hundred and fifty paces 
 
 leiy fighting here and there. At Ba- deadly volleys into the galloping squad- 
 
 zeilles. the marines posted in the houses rons. The French cuirassiers turned 
 
 wen' uivinu the Bavarians a terrible and returned to the charge, with the 
 
 punishment, ami General Yon der Tanu splendid energy shown by their unfortu- 
 
 had to he reinforced with troops nate comrades at Froshweiler. 
 from the Prince of Saxony's army, The Crown Prince of Prussia a.fter- 
 
 froin the Prussian Brandenburg regi- wards told General Ducrot that the old 
 
 ment, and from the Fourth battalion of German king, when he saw this white 
 
 Prussian chasseurs, as well as by a new line of French cuirassiers come, breaking 
 
 batter}', before he could sustain combat, like foam upon a rocky shore, against 
 
 It was just at this point that De the black squares of German Infantry, 
 
 Wimpffeu hoped to break through the from time to time, could not restrain 
 
 enemy's lines : so he gave orders to Gen- his admiration, ami cried out: '-Oh! 
 
 eral Lebrun to undertake the operation, the brave fellows." General De Mar- 
 
 At the same time In- ordered General gueritte was mortally wounded in this 
 
 Ducrot to cover the movement. General magnificent charge; hut his place was 
 
 Douay to march to La Moncelle, mar taken by M. De Galliffet, so soon to lie 
 
 lia/.cillcs. and one of the divisions of rendered celebrated by his energetic ac- 
 
 the Fifth corps to throw itself upon the tiou during the great Paris insurrection ; 
 
 same point. Then he hastily wrote a ami new charges, all superb but all mi- 
 
 letter to Napoleon, sending two copies availing, were made. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 24'J 
 
 This final effort of Do Galliffet's closed 
 the French resistance on this side of the 
 battle-field. The army began to retreat, 
 still decimated by the fiendish shell-fire. 
 General Ducrot got his soldiers to rally 
 three times; and each time the shells 
 sent them back. Companies disbanded, 
 and began to fall away Inwards the old 
 camp near Sedan. They neither knew 
 whether MaeMahon was alive or dead, 
 whether the Emperor had fled or was 
 still at his post, who was in command, 
 or anything else ! They finally were 
 panic-stricken, and swept into the streets 
 of Sedan and hung round the base of the 
 pedestal, upon which stood the proud 
 figure of Turenne, who had taken and 
 sacked many a German town. 
 
 The battle was lost. Von Moltke, on 
 the heights, was jubilant at the success 
 of his cool and adroit, calculations; but 
 there was still a duty left for the poor 
 General De Wimpffen to perform. His 
 conscience rebelled more than ever at 
 the thought of surrender, and lie clung to 
 his idea of opening a gateway towards 
 Carignan. While De Wimpffen was 
 impatiently awaiting the answer to his 
 letter, he was horrified and ashamed 
 to hear that the white flag of capitula- 
 tion was hoisted upon the rampart of 
 Sedan. Yet he could not believe that 
 the Emperor would not answer him, 
 and he waited for an hour at the head 
 of five or six thousand troops of all si irts, 
 a kind of epitome of the whole army, 
 the bravest and the best, the men who 
 were too honest and brave to retreat, and 
 who were willing to sacrifice their lives for 
 the maintenance of their honor. Witli 
 this little bod}' he had made one or two 
 attempts to continue the resistance. 
 When he learned from an officer of the 
 Imperial household about the appearance 
 of the white flag, it is said that he fell 
 into a terrible passion. 
 
 When he read the letter from the Em- 
 peror, ordering liini to capitulate, he shut 
 his teeth, and said, "I do not recognize 
 the Emperor's right to hoist the Hag of 
 parley. I refuse to negotiate." lie 
 crushed the letter in his hand, hastened to 
 Sedan, and furiously addressed the sol- 
 diers who were hanging about the Place de 
 Turenne. •' What ! "he said, "will you give 
 up your arms, and be made prisoners? Not 
 a bit of it! Follow me and open a pas- 
 sage by shoving the enemy aside ! " This 
 vigorous manoeuvre seemed at first likely 
 to succeed. General De Wimpffen got 
 about him several thousand men from all 
 the corps. There were found courageous 
 inhabitants of the town among thosj 
 who offered to die of win with him; and 
 they set forth upon one of those forlorn 
 hopes, about which, in process of time, 
 nations weave the garlands of tradition, 
 and make of that which was foolish a 
 sublime and heroic thing. Hundreds of 
 De Wimpffen's little body of men were 
 swept away ; but others rushed upon the 
 Bavarians, succeeded in taking thesquare 
 of Bazeilles, and swept the enemy out 
 beyond tin- church, where it had been in 
 strong position, and, vainly hoping for 
 reinforcements, stubbornly maintained 
 their place — it was all that they could do 
 — until nightfall. General Lebrun was 
 in this glorious little body of men, and 
 fought, side by side with De Wimpffen. 
 But in the evening, the commanding 
 general, finding that he could not hold 
 out, felt it his duty to return to Sedau. 
 He had twice refused to treat with the 
 enemy, which Napoleon had wished him 
 to do. He went slowly and despair- 
 ingly to the little hotel, where he had 
 taken a room on the night of his arrival, 
 and sitting down at his desk, wrote a, 
 letter offering his resignation as com- 
 mander-in-chief. It was then about half- 
 past seven o'clock. 
 
250 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 Ai eight, lie received a letter from 
 the Emperor, saying: "General, you 
 eannol give your resignation, because we 
 must try and save the army by an hon- 
 orable capitulation. I cannot, therefore, 
 accept your resignation. You have done 
 your duty to-day; continue to do it; 
 you will render a real service t<> the 
 country. The King of Prussia has ac- 
 cepted an armistice, and 1 am waiting 
 his propositions." 
 
 If Genera] De Wimpffen had known 
 that the Kiug of Prussia had not ac- 
 cepted a proposition for an armistice, 
 but instead had received from Napoleon 
 III. an offer of surrender, his energetic 
 character might have led him to some 
 very radical decision. Rut Napoleon 
 was careful to conceal from him the real 
 state of the ease. lie had sent an aide- 
 de-camp, the Count Reille, to carry to 
 the King of Prussia a letter, in which he 
 said that '• not having been able to die 
 at the head of his troops, he placed his 
 sword at the feetof His Majesty." That 
 he was not able to die at the head of his 
 troops was due to the care with which he 
 secluded himself in his hotel during the 
 whole afternoon. 
 
 Of how much avail he could have 
 been at the head of his troops may be 
 judged from the fact that he did not 
 even know what German armies he was 
 confronted with. When he met the 
 King of Prussia he began talking about 
 the army of Friederich Karl. The old 
 
 King remarked that he did not under- 
 stand the observation of his Imperial 
 Majesty. " It is," he said, •• the army 
 of my son that you have been lighting 
 to-day." 
 
 " But where, then, is Friederich 
 Karl?" said the Emperor. 
 
 '• Blockading Metz with seven army 
 corps," was the answer of the King. 
 
 The story goes that King William 
 sent down to Sedan, after the reception 
 of Napoleon Ill.'s letter, a certain 
 Bavarian lieutenant-colonel, a veritable 
 dandy, tall, thin, wearing gold-bowed 
 spectacles. This gentleman, as, in 
 company with the French officers who 
 had brought Napoleon's letter, he had 
 reached a point just outside the Prus- 
 sian lines, was not a little startled by 
 the explosion of a shell from the German 
 batteries, which fell scarcely ten yards 
 from him. He brushed the dust from 
 his clothes, and turning to the French 
 officers, said. "Gentlemen, I beg a 
 thousand pardons for this lack of courtesy 
 on the part of our artillery-men. Our 
 batteries certainly could not have seen 
 the white flag." This " lack of courtesy " 
 cost two poor soldiers their lives ; and 
 the officers saw them carried off on 
 "ladders" made of crossed muskets. 
 This Bavarian officer, Von Bronsart by 
 name, took back to the King of Prussia 
 from Sedan Napoleon's formal offer of 
 capitulation. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 251 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX. 
 
 The Quarrel between Ducrot and Do Wimpffen. — The Interview with the Conquerors. — The Question of 
 Alsatia Raised. — Divergence of ( (pinion between Bismarck and Von Moltke. — The French Council of 
 War.— Napoleon's Departure from Sedan. — Napoleon as a Prisoner.— Bismarck's Interview with him. 
 — Over the Battle-field. — Singular Appearance of the Dead. — King William on the Field. — His Meet- 
 ing with Napoleon. — The M's in the Bonaparte History. 
 
 WHEN the brave General De 
 Wimpffen discovered that he had 
 been deceived by the Emperor lie went 
 at once to the Imperial head-quarters 
 and demanded an audience. He was 
 told that this was impossible, as His 
 Majesty was in conference with the 
 Prince Imperial. 
 
 This the General knew to be a lie, as 
 the young Prince had been for two days 
 at Mezieres. Besides this was not a 
 time for equivocation ; so he cried out 
 angrily that he must see the Emperor at 
 ouce ; and at last he succeeded in pass- 
 ing all the guards. 
 
 As soon as he entered the Imperial 
 presence he said, "Sire, if I have lost 
 the battle, and been conquered, it is 
 because my orders have not been ex- 
 ecuted, because your generals refused to 
 obey me." 
 
 No sooner had he said these words 
 than General Ducrot, who was seated in 
 a dark corner of the room, and whom 
 General De Wimpffen had not seen when 
 he came in, jumped up and stepped 
 directly in front of his commanding 
 officer. " What do you say? We re- 
 fused to obey you ? To whom do you 
 allude? Is it to me? Unfortunately your 
 orders have been only too well executed. 
 If we are on the brink of a frightful 
 disaster, more frightful than anything 
 we have ever dreamed of, it is your fool- 
 ish presumption which has brought us 
 there." 
 
 General Ducrot was in a terrible pas- 
 sion, and went on to say that if General 
 De Wimpffen had not stopped his move- 
 ment of retreat the French troops would 
 now be safely at Mezieres, or, at least, 
 out of the clutches of the enemy. Upon 
 this, General De Wimpffen said that if 
 that was the opinion of his friends, it 
 was evident that he should no longer 
 retain the position of commander-in- 
 chief. 
 
 But here a fresh surprise awaited him. 
 General Ducrot was not at all of his 
 opinion. " You took command this 
 morning, when there was honor and 
 profit to be got by it. I did not stand 
 in your way, though I might, perhaps, 
 have done so; but, at present, you can- 
 not refuse to keep it. You alone must 
 shoulder the shame of capitulation." 
 " Monsieur le den*' rtil Ducrot itait trhs 
 exaltd," says General De Wimpffen, in 
 his account of the events at Sedan ; and 
 he was, perhaps, excusable for his ex- 
 citement, for, to be appointed to the 
 command of a great army on the morn- 
 ing of a battle, and. before one has time 
 to get it into action, to be relieved of 
 that command, is certainly enough to 
 try the best of tempers. General De 
 Wimpffen saw that he had a cross to 
 bear, and that he might as well pick it 
 up and go forward bravely with it. He 
 was full of contempt for the feebleness 
 of the Emperor's character in this criti- 
 cal moment, and did not hesitate to show 
 
252 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 his feeling during the whole afternoon ing the rest of the war so terribly bitter 
 
 and evening. on the part of the French. 
 
 Nevertheless, he went off, as he was Had peace been made al Sedan, and 
 ordered to do, to the German head- had the German armies retired without 
 quarters, where he found Count Von pursuing their march towards Paris, and 
 Bismarck aud the venerable Von Moltke. without exacting territorial conipensa- 
 11c had taken with him General De Cas- tiou, they would perhaps have been 
 telnau, one of Napoleon III. 's aides-de- hailed by large classes of the French 
 camp, the mission of this gentleman people as the deliverers of the country 
 being to ask for Napoleon personally the from the nightmare of the Empire. But 
 least unfavorable conditions. This inter- the pride of the French was touched to 
 view has been reported in divers versions the quick when Germany talked of tak- 
 by General De Wimpffeu, General Du- ing Alsatia; and. reckless as it was to 
 crot, and by Bismarck himself. But all declare, as the government did later on, 
 auric in saying that it was during a con- that France would not yield up a stone 
 versation at that time that the Germans of her fortresses or a handful of her ter- 
 first raised the question of the cession of ritory, the declaration represented the 
 Alsatia and of the German part of Lor- unanimous opinion of the nation at that 
 mine. ••After some preliminary re- moment. General De Wimpffeu eon- 
 marks, Count Von Bismarck coming ducted himself with becoming dignity 
 to speak about the probabilities of during this difficult and vexatious inter- 
 peace," says General De Wimpffeu in view, and asked for his troops which had 
 his account, "declared to me that fought so well the conditions which had 
 l'russia had a very firm intention of ex- been given in days cone by to the gar- 
 acting not only a war indemnity of four risousof Mayence and Genoa and of Ulm ; 
 milliards of francs, but more than that but Count Von Bismarck set this severe 
 — the cession of Alsatia aud German condition: "The French army must lay 
 Lorraine. "This is the only giuirantee down its arms and be sent into Ger- 
 offeied us, because France is always many." Count Von Bismarck added that, 
 threatening us, and we must have as a if this condition were not complied with, 
 solid protection a. good advanced stra- tire would be opened at six o'clock in the 
 tegieal line.'" morning. "Resistance," he told the 
 
 It is probable that a good advanced unfortunate French delegates, " is quite 
 
 strategical line was of more importance impossible; you have neither food nor 
 
 in the eyes of the military ami political munitions; your army is decimated; 
 
 authorities in Germany than the senti- our artillery is established in batteries 
 
 mental aspects of the Alsatian question, around the whole town, and could blow 
 
 This cool statement of Bismarck — that up your troops before they could make 
 
 be intended to wrest from France one of the least movement of consequence." 
 
 her fairest provinces and a goodly portion General De Wimpffeu told the conquer- 
 
 of another — was not at first taken ors that France had not wished the war ; 
 
 seriously by tin' French populations, that she was drawn into it by au agita- 
 
 But, when they fully understood that it tion which was entirely on the surface; 
 
 was the conqueror's wish to take Alsatia, that the French nation was more pacific 
 
 a cry of horror and rebellion went up. than the Germans were pleased to 
 
 It was this which made the feeling dlir- believe; that all its aspirations were 
 
EURorn iy storm axd calm. 
 
 253 
 
 towards industry, commerce, art, and, 
 possibly, a little too much towards well- 
 being and luxury. "Do not," he said, 
 with significant emphasis, " force France 
 to learn anew the trade of arms. If you 
 exact only a just indemnity, and do not 
 wound the patriotic fibre of France by 
 asking for territorial cession, you will 
 act well for the durable peace between 
 our countries." But De Wimpffen, de- 
 spite his eloquence, could obtain from 
 the Germans no promise, save that the 
 fire should be opened from the batteries 
 at nine o'clock in the morning instead of 
 six, if the conditions demanded were not 
 complied with. 
 
 At this juncture the Emperor's aide-de- 
 camp begged to be heard, and Count 
 Von Bismarck said he was now ready to 
 listen to him. "The Emperor," said 
 General Castelnau, " charged me to 
 make the observation to His Majesty 
 that lie had .sent him his sword without 
 
 conditions, and had personally given 
 himself up absolutely at his mercy ; but 
 that he had acted so only in the hope 
 that the King of Prussia would he 
 touched by so complete a surrender, 
 that be would know bow to appreciate 
 it, and that in consideration of it be 
 would be good enough to accord to the 
 French army a more honorable capitu- 
 lation, to which it had won the right by 
 its courage." 
 
 Count Yon Bismarck thought a mo- 
 ment in silence ; then he said, " Is that 
 all ? " 
 
 The General answered that it was. 
 
 " But whose is the sword that the 
 Emperor Napoleon III. has given up?" 
 said Bismarck. " Is it the sword of 
 France, or is it his own particular 
 sword? If it is that of France, the con- 
 ditions can be singularly modified, and 
 your message would have a very grave 
 character." 
 
 " It is only the sword of the Emperor." 
 said General De Castelnau. 
 
 At this point, according to the recital 
 of General De Wimpffen and numerous 
 other French versions. Count Von 
 Moltke broke out quite joyfully: " In 
 that case, nothing is to be changed in 
 the conditions;" and lie added, "the 
 Emperor will naturally obtain for his 
 person whatever he is pleased to ask 
 for." The French officers thought there 
 might lie a secret divergence of opinion 
 between Count Von Bismarck and Count 
 Von Moltke; that the diplomat was not 
 sorry to see the war Hearing its close; 
 while the General, on the contrary, was 
 anxious to continue. The French delight 
 in picturing Von Moltke as a sinister 
 and cruel old man, whose ambition is 
 tempered in no sense by mercy, and who, 
 to justify one of his mathematical cal- 
 culations, would wade breast high in 
 blood. 
 
 When General De Wimpffen went 
 back to the half-crazed inhabitants of 
 Sedan they got down upon their knees 
 to him and clutched his garments, and 
 begged him not to sign the surrender. 
 It was one o'clock in the morning on the 
 2d of September when he knocked at 
 the Emperor's door. The Emperor had 
 gone to bed. Outside, the chain of hills 
 was covered with corpses; the burning- 
 village of Bazeilles sent up its smoke to 
 heaven ; the French flag was dishonored ; 
 the enemy's invasion was triumphant; 
 the road to Paris was open ; the Empire 
 was lost; but the Emperor had gone to 
 
 bed : 
 
 At six o'clock in the morning General 
 De Wimpffen called a council of war of 
 the generals commanding army corps, 
 those commanding divisions, and those 
 at the head of the artillery and engineer 
 corps forming a part of it. The com- 
 manding general briefly told his comrades 
 
25 1 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 the result of his mission. " From the 
 very first words of our conversation," 
 he said, •' 1 recognized that Count Yon 
 Moltke, unfortunately, had a complete 
 knowledge of our situation, and that he 
 knew very well thai the army was out of 
 food and munitions. Count Von Moltke 
 told lnr that during the whole battle of 
 yesterday we had fought an army of 
 two hundred and twenty thousand men, 
 which had surrounded us on all sides. 
 'General,' he said, 'we are disposed 
 to give your army, which has fought so 
 well to-day, the most honorable condi- 
 tions ; but they must be amenable to our 
 government's policy. We demand the 
 capitulation of the French army. It 
 must be prisoner of war. The officers 
 shall keep their swords and their personal 
 property. The weapons of the soldiers 
 must be deposited in some specified place 
 in the town, to be given up to us.'" 
 General De Wimpffen then asked his 
 comrades if they thought it was possible 
 still to go on with the fight. The ma- 
 jority answered no; two Generals only 
 expressed the opinion that the army 
 should either defend itself within the 
 fortress, or cut its way out at all hazards. 
 They were told that the defense of Sedan 
 was impossible, because of tin' lack of 
 food; that the roads ami streets were 
 so crowded with soldiers and baggage 
 and ammunition wagons that if the 
 enemy's lire were brought to hear upon 
 the town there woiiid lie frightful car- 
 nage, without any useful result ; ami so 
 the two officers went oyer to the ma- 
 jority. 
 
 Shortly after this council of war bloke 
 
 up there was a murmur in the crowd, and 
 a carriage made its way slowly through 
 the thrones. This carriage contained 
 the Emperor with three Generals, who 
 were conversing with him in subdued 
 tones. The Emperor was in uniform, 
 
 wearing the grand cordon of the Legion 
 of Honor. lie was quite pale, but be- 
 trayed no emotion ; and his attention 
 was absorbed by a cigarette, which he 
 was tranquilly rolling. For a moment 
 after the carriage had appeared it seemed 
 as if the crowds of soldiers anil citizens 
 who were thoroughly enraged against 
 the Imperial occupant of the vehicle 
 were about to spline upon the author of 
 their woes ami tear him to pieces; but 
 no one made a movement. A footman 
 in green livery pushed his way insolently 
 through the masses. Behind the car- 
 riage came grooms covered with gold 
 lace and braid; in fact, the Emperor 
 went to his imprisonment in the same 
 style with which he used to arrive on 
 the lawn of Longchamp on the day of 
 the Grand Prix. 
 
 One single voice cried " ViveVEmpe- 
 reur!" A citizen threw himself in front 
 of the horses, seized by the legs a 
 corpse which was stretched in the middle 
 of the street, and dragged it hastily aside. 
 Napoleon passed on to his surrender. 
 
 At ten o'clock General De Wimpffen 
 returned to the Prussian head-quarters, 
 and there found Napoleon, who had not 
 yet been able to see the King of Prussia, 
 and who was waiting for the signature 
 of the capitulation before he could have 
 his interview. 
 
 Although the terms of this most im- 
 portant surrender of modern times have 
 been often published, it may be well to 
 quote them here. 
 
 PROTOCOL. 
 
 Between the Undersigned — 
 
 The chief of the general staff of His Majesty 
 King William, Commander-in-Chief of the 
 German Army, ami the Genera] Commander-in- 
 Chief of the French armies, both furnished with 
 tall powers from their Majesties Kins; William 
 ami the Emperor Napoleon, the following con- 
 vention has been concluded : — 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 00 
 
 Article 1. The army placed under the 
 orders of General De Wimpffen being at present 
 surrounded by superior forces about Sedan is 
 a prisoner of war. 
 
 Article 2. Considering the valorous de- 
 fence of this army, exception is made lor all 
 the generals arid officers, as well as for the 
 special employes having the rank of officers, 
 who will engage their written word of honor 
 not to hear arms against Germany ami to act 
 in no manner against its interests up to the 
 close of the present war. Officers anil em- 
 ployes who accept these conditions shall keep 
 their arms ami their personal property. 
 
 Article 3. All other arms, as well as the 
 material of the army, consisting of flags, eagles, 
 cannons, horses, army equipage, munitions, 
 etc. shall he delivered up at Sedan to a military 
 commission appointed by the commander-in- 
 chief, to be given over immediately to the Ger- 
 man commissioner. 
 
 Article 4. The fortress of Sedan shall 
 next be given up in its present condition, and 
 not later than the evening of the 2d of Septem- 
 ber, ami placed at the disposition of His Maj- 
 esty the King of Prussia. 
 
 Article 5. Officers who do not make the 
 engagement mentioned in Article 2, as well a< 
 the disarmed troops, shall he conducted away 
 as prisoners classed with their regiments and 
 corps and in military order. This measure 
 will begin on the 2d of September and finish 
 on the 3d. This detachment will he conducted 
 on to the hanks of the Mouse, near Iges, there 
 to he handed over to the German commission- 
 ers by their officers, who will then give the 
 command to their sub-officers. Military 
 physicians, without exception, shall remain be- 
 hind to take care ot the wounded. 
 
 Given at Fresnois, the 2d of September, 
 1870. 
 
 Signed. De Wimpffen. 
 
 Von Moltke. 
 
 This was the end of the military his- 
 tory of the Second Empire. 
 
 " This surrender," says the eminent 
 German writer Von Wickede, " is the 
 most important known in military his- 
 tory. It is a greater one than, that of 
 the Saxons at Konigstein ; of the Prus- 
 sian General Fink, at Mayence, in the 
 Seven Years' War ; of the Austrian Gen- 
 
 eral Mack, near Ulm, in 1805; of the 
 Prussian General Prince Hohenlohe, at 
 Prenslau, in 1806 ; of the French < General 
 Dupout, in 1809, at Baylen ; or of the 
 Hungarian General Goergey, in 1849, at 
 Yillagos." The French, in short, gave 
 up to the enemy at Sedan the Emperor, 
 one French marshal, thirty-nine generals, 
 two hundred and thirty officers of the 
 general stall', two thousand and ninety- 
 five officers, eighty-four thousand four 
 hundred and thirty-three sub-officers and 
 soldiers ; four hundred field-pieces, one 
 hundred and eighty other cannon, and 
 thirty thousand quintals of powder. The 
 Germans did not succeed in attaining 
 this result without the vigorous employ- 
 ment of two hundred and forty thou- 
 sand troops, assisted from first to last 
 in the most intelligent manner by the 
 operations of a tremendous artillery 
 corps witli live hundred cannon. 
 
 Both Count Von Bismarck and King 
 William have given to (he world their 
 impressions of the curious events of the 
 2d of September. Bismarck, in his 
 report to the King of Prussia, written 
 from Donehery, says that General 
 Reille came to him at six o'clock in the 
 morning to say that the Emperor wished 
 to see him, and had already left Sedan 
 to come to him. Bismarck went forward 
 about half way between Donehery and 
 Sedan, near Fresnois, to meet the Em- 
 peror. " His Majesty was in an open 
 carriage. Beside him were three supe- 
 rior officers, while several others were 
 on horseback near the carriage. Among 
 these Generals, I knew personally Gen- 
 erals Castelnau, Reille, — Moskau, who 
 seemed (o be wounded, — and Vaubert. 
 When I reached the carriage I got 
 down from my horse, stepped up to the 
 door, and asked what were His Majesty's 
 orders. The Emperor expressed his 
 desire to see Your Majesty. He ap- 
 
25G EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 peared b> have thought Your Majesty After a further conversation, in which 
 was also at DoncheTy. I told him that Napoleon plainly saw that he had little 
 Your Majesty's head-quarters were at to hope from the flexibility of his adver- 
 Vendresse, three mill's away. Then the suit, he went out and sat down in front 
 Emperor asked it' Your Majesty had of the house, inviting Bismarck to sit 
 fixed a place I" which he could go, and beside him. He then asked Bismarck 
 what was my opinion about the matter, if it were possible to let the French army 
 I answered that 1 had arrived here in cross the Belgian frontier, so as to be 
 complete darkness, that the country disarmed by the Belgians. "I had 
 was. consequently, entirely unknown to discussed this matter the previous even- 
 me, bill that I placed at His Majesty's ing," wrote Bismarck, "with General 
 disposition the house I occupied at Don- Von Moltke ; I therefore refused to enter 
 chery, and that 1 would leave it at once, into this matter with the Emperor. 1 
 The Emperor accepted my otter, and did not take the initiative in the discus- 
 went on to Doncliery. But lie stopped siou of the political situation. The Em- 
 it few hundred paces from the bridge peror only alluded to it to deplore the 
 over the Meuse, leading into the town, evil of the war, and to declare that he 
 before a workman's house, which was himself had not wished for war, but that 
 completely isolated, and he asked me he had been forced into it by the pressure 
 it' he could not stop there." Count Von of public opiuiou in France." 
 Bismarck had this house examined, and Between nine and ten o'clock in the 
 found thai it was a miserable hovel half morning, the cMteau of Bellevue, near 
 
 filled with wounded and dying soldiers. Fresnois was chosen as the place to 
 
 Bui the Emperor halted there, and in- receive the Imperial prisoner. Count 
 
 vited Bismarck to follow him into the Von Bismarck accompanied the Emperor 
 
 house. There, ill a little room, fur- thither, preceded by an escort taken 
 
 nished with only a table and two chairs, from the King of Prussia's cuirassiers 
 
 the fallen Emperor and the successful regiment. Here General De Wimpffen 
 
 diplomat had a conversation of an hour's and most of the members of Count Von 
 
 duration. The Emperor insisted on his Mol tke's staff were assembled, and here 
 
 desire to get the best terms for the ea- Napoleon remained, until the capitulation 
 
 pitulation. Bismarck told him that lie was signed. 
 
 could not negotiate about such matters, Theold King of Prussia, who had been 
 
 as the military question had to be en- saluted everywhere throughout his army 
 
 lirelv decided between Generals Von on the previous evening with the echoes 
 
 Moltke and De Wimpffen; but he asked of the national hymn, and with impromptu 
 
 the Emperor if he was disposed to negoti- illuminations, went out at eight o'clock 
 
 nte lor peace. The Emperor said, as a in the morning to look over the field of 
 
 prisoner, he was not in a situation to battle. As he arrived on the field he 
 
 enter into negotiations. Bismarck then saw Aon ".Moltke coming to meet him, 
 
 asked him what, in his opinion, was the and there learned of Napoleon's depart- 
 
 representative power in France at that ure from Sedan. "About ten o'clock," 
 
 time: and the Emperor suggested the be savs in his account. •• 1 came ouf 
 
 government existing in Paris, meaning upon the heights near Sedan. At noon, 
 
 the regencj of the Empress with her Count Von Moltke and Bismarck came 
 
 advisers. to me with the treaty of capitulation. At 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 2bl 
 
 one o'clock, I started with Fritz (the 
 name by which he always mentioned the 
 Crown Prince) escorted by the cavalry 
 of the general staff. I got down from 
 my horse in front of the cJidteau, and 
 the Emperor came out to meet me. The 
 interview lasted about a quarter of an 
 hour. We were both very much moved 
 by meeting under such circumstances. 
 I cannot express all I felt when I remem- 
 bered that three years before I had seen 
 the Emperor at the very height of his 
 power." 
 
 After this brief interview, the old 
 King, followed by his brilliant staff, 
 continued his journey across the battle- 
 field. From Bazeilles to Illy, the hills 
 and the fields were literally covered with 
 dead men. Everywhere were dismounted 
 cannon, broken guns, pillaged haver- 
 sacks, ruined drums; here in the fields 
 of beet-root or in the lines between the 
 gardens, were heaps of men with their 
 heads blown into fragments or their 
 entrails escaping from gapiug wounds 
 in their abdomens. Here were men who 
 had been struck dead in the act of kneel- 
 ing to fire their guns ; and a writer, who 
 went over the field of battle on this day, 
 says that many of the corpses occupying 
 still in death the attitude of life made 
 the field of battle resemble a. field peopled 
 with wax figures. A visitor went up to a 
 captain of the Twentieth of the French 
 line, who was seated at the foot of a tree, 
 holding his head in his hands, and ap- 
 parently bending over a letter which he 
 was holding open. The visitor touched 
 the man on the shoulder, and the body 
 fell forward. The officer had been dead 
 for hours. 
 
 Those who have been witnesses of a 
 great battle, or who have been over a 
 battle-field shortly after the collision, 
 remember how they shrank instinctively 
 from the first spectacles of horror, but 
 
 how readily they became accustomed to 
 the evidences of carnage, and how, little 
 by little, a thirst for the accumulation of 
 horrors stole upon them. One becomes 
 rapidly accustomed to the sight of [tiled- 
 tip heaps of corpses, to the carcasses of 
 horses torn and harrowed by shell and 
 by bullets, to the village street with its 
 evidences at every step of a sanguinary, 
 hand-to-hand encounter, and to the little 
 rivulets into which the blood has poured so 
 as to turn their gurgling currents a pale- 
 red. On tlic field of Sedan, death was 
 in hundreds of cases hideous, ami beyond 
 description, for the shell-tire had been 
 something more terrible than was known 
 in any previous modern battle. Hun- 
 dreds of heads were torn off, limbs were 
 rent from their bodies, brains were scat- 
 tered on the ground. Down by Bazeilles, 
 companies had been literally torn to 
 pieces. 
 
 The French, for a long time after the 
 battle of Sedan, published horrible tales 
 of the massacre of women and children 
 in Bazeilles by the Bavarians, and con- 
 tinued to assert that hundreds of innocent 
 persons were burned alive when the 
 village was set on tire. That there was a 
 frightful carnage in and about Bazeilles, 
 no one would presume to deny ; but that 
 the Germans deliberately burned any of 
 the inhabitants is not susceptible of 
 proof. General VonderTann felt called 
 upon to defend himself and his troops 
 from the charge of supreme cruelty which 
 had been brought against him, and his 
 official report shows that, out of the total 
 civil population of Bazeilles during the 
 light, the number of dead, wounded, and 
 disappeared was thirty-nine, and the only 
 persons burned or suffocated during the 
 conflagration were two bedridden women, 
 three men, and three children. 
 
 (ieneral Von der Tann is the person- 
 age who, when he was asked by his 
 
258 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM 
 
 Bavarians if they might sack a certain 
 town in the south of France, in the Loire 
 district, where they had been rather 
 roughly handled, answered, "Sack it 
 moderately ! Sack il moderately." 1 was 
 told tiiis at Versailles by a person who 
 heard il s:iid. 
 
 On the :'>d of September, at seven 
 o'clock in the morning, the fallen 
 Napoleon set out from the Chateau of 
 Bellevue for Germany by way of Bel- 
 gium. His load led him past the most 
 frightful part of the battle-field, and he 
 must have been struck with the irony of 
 destiny when he remembered thai not a 
 great many years before he had affirmed 
 in a speech in a French city that the 
 Empire meant peace. The greeting of 
 the Emperor on nis way through Bel- 
 gium was, on the whole, cordial, and he 
 was repeatedly cheered, though in one 
 or two cities he was hooted, lie ar- 
 rived in Bouillon at live o'clock in the 
 afternoon on the 3d of September, and 
 from thence went by rail t<> Liege, 
 Cologne, and Cassel. where the beauti- 
 ful castle of Wilhelmshohe had been 
 made ready for him. Among the < lener- 
 als who accompanied him into his 
 captivity were Generals Douet, Lebrun, 
 Castelnau, De Reille, DeVaubert, Prince 
 Nev, Prince Marat, Prince Moskowa, 
 and twenty other officers of various 
 grades. A number of high Prussian 
 officers were also in his train. His 
 servants, carriages, and about eighty- 
 five horses followed in a separate train. 
 The carriage in which the Emperor trav- 
 elled to his captivity was simply a 
 saloon belonging to the Luxembourg 
 railway, ami often used by the Prince 
 of Flanders. It was divided into three 
 
 Compartments, one chief central saloon, 
 and two small eoupis. The Emperor 
 occupied one of the latter, and rarely 
 left it during the journey. He wore the 
 
 uniform of a French general ; his breast 
 was covered with a number of orders. 
 It was said that he had to borrow from 
 the Prussian general who accompanied 
 him to Cassel 10,000 francs, in order 
 to give gratuities in the manner custom- 
 ary to emperors under any circum- 
 stances. This was certainly a sad fall 
 for a monarch who. three weeks pre- 
 viously, had enjoyed the largest civil list 
 in Europe. 
 
 The reception of the Emperor in Ger- 
 many was respectful, though at Cologne 
 the officers who accompanied him had to 
 restrain the crowd, who were inclined to 
 a hostile demonstration. Some of the 
 German papers remarked that Napoleon 
 was treated with singular kindness by a 
 people who hail, through him alone, lost 
 150,000 sons, brothers, and husbands. 
 The papers were tilled with joyful quips 
 and jests, all bearing more or less upon 
 tin' captivity of the Emperor. At the 
 beginning of the war a German sent 
 two louis for King William's Verein for 
 the wounded in Berlin, adding to his 
 contribution these words, which became 
 prophetic: "I give two louis with a 
 will to King William's good Verein. lie 
 who will send the third Louis in is King 
 William, 1 opine." This doggerel lie- 
 came very popular in Germany, and the 
 Verein in time acknowledged the receipt 
 of the third Louis. 
 
 The selection of Wilhelmshohe, or 
 William's Height, as a residence for the 
 ex-Emperor during his captivity was the 
 subject of much comment in the German 
 press. This is one of the most beauti- 
 ful residences in Germany. It is some- 
 times called the Versailles of Cassel. 
 The palace is a low Imt extensive build- 
 ing, full of beautiful works of art. 
 paintings, tapestries, marbles, just as 
 they were left by the Elector of Han- 
 over in 1866, when he fell a prisoner to 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 259 
 
 . 
 
 
 King William of Prussia. It was here, lost its kink, and lump; loosely down 
 too, that Napoleon III.'s uncle, King to the corners of the month. The 
 Jexdme, stayed during his sojourn man of the I'd of December hail be- 
 in Westphalia from 1807 to 181:;. come the man of the 2d of Septem- 
 JeiVime had done much to make Wil- ber, after a reign of eighteen years, 
 helmshohe resemble Versailles. On Na- less one quarter, neither a day more 
 poleon's arrival at the railway 
 station at Cassel he was re- 
 ceived with royal honors. A 
 company of the Eightieth regi- 
 ment of infantry saluted him 
 just as they would have saluted 
 the King of Prussia. The 
 heads of the civil and military 
 departments met him and gave 
 him an official welcome. Na- 
 poleon looked weary and as if 
 he suffered from liver com- 
 plaint. His eyes were dull 
 and his walk was heavy. A 
 single hussar rode before his 
 carriage as he was taken to 
 the castle. Soldiers turned 
 out and received him with 
 drums sounding and presented 
 arms. Dinner was laid for 
 twenty persons, and Napoleon 
 and his suite did ample justice to the 
 viands spread before them. The King of 
 Prussia sent down his own cook and first 
 chamberlain and several of his servants 
 from Berlin to Wilhelmshohe, and all 
 were ordered to pay the greatest atten- 
 tion to their guest. Here Napoleon 
 seemed suddenly struck with old age. 
 He passed entire mornings, now bent 
 over in an easy-chair napping and mus- 
 ing, now iu a long gallery of the con- 
 servatory, leaning upon a cane or on the 
 arm of his faithful doctor, Conneau. 
 As in the words of one who saw him 
 at Wilhelmshohe only a few days after 
 his arrival there, he had grown old, weak, 
 spare, and his hair was gray. The 
 Napoleonic curl had disappeared, the 
 characteristic Napoleon moustache had 
 
 NAPOLEON III. 
 
 PRISONER 
 HOHE. 
 
 AT WII.IIKLMS 
 
 nor a day less, as old Nostradamus 
 prophesied. 
 
 The German writers, indulging in 
 various caprices about the war. discov- 
 ered that it was not strange that Moltke 
 should have vanquished Napoleon, lie- 
 cause the letter M plays a great rdle iu 
 
2(50 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 the history of tbe Napoleons. Marbceuf, simo, Mondovi, Marengo, on the Mos- 
 
 say these plodding Germans, was the kowa, Mireil, Montepean, and Montenau. 
 
 first to recognize the genius of Napoleon Milan was the first ami Moskowa the last 
 
 I. in tin' young military scholar. Ma- place which he entered as victor. At 
 
 rengo was the first great battle of General Si. Helena Montholon was his flrsl 
 
 Bonaparte; Mains cleared out of Italy chamberlain, and Marchant his compan- 
 
 before him; Mortier was his favorite ion. He lost Egypt through Menon, and 
 
 general; Moreau betrayed him; Mural took the Pope prisoner through Meiolles. 
 
 was his flrsl martyr; Marie Louis; 1 , the He was conspired against by Mallet; and 
 
 companion of his greatest fortune ; Mos- three of his ministers were called Maret, 
 
 ccnv his deepest abyss ; and Melleun a Montalivet, and Mallieu. His last resi- 
 
 diplomat whom he could not master, dence in France was Malma ison. Look- 
 
 Massena, Mortier, Marmont, MacDon- ing up the M's in the history of Napoleon 
 
 aid, Marat, and Marcey were among his III., the Germans begin with what they 
 
 marshals ; and twenty-six of his division call the French defeats at Metz, then 
 
 generals had M as the initial letter of the disaster at Sedan under MacMahon ; 
 
 their names. His first battle was at then the generalship of Moltke; and so 
 
 Montermolt; his last, Mont St. Jean, at they go on in their innocent array of 
 
 Waterloo, lie won the battles of Micles- alliteration. 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CM \l. 
 
 261 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN. 
 
 A Solemn Situation. — Return of the Exiles.— The Spoils at the Tuileries. — Advance of the i icrmans. — 
 The Military Strength of the French Capital. — The Sixteenth Siege of Paris. — Closing in. — 
 ( 'in ions Fights in the Capital. General Trochu's Review. — A Visit to Asnieres. — Prussian Prison- 
 ers. — The Fight at Chalillou. — The French Retreat. — The Occupation of Versailles. — The 
 Crown Prince of Prussia visits the Old Home of Louis XIV. 
 
 A GREAT silence fell upon Paris 
 for a few days after the declara- 
 tion of the Republic. People came and 
 went as if they were carrying heavy 
 loads. The responsibilities of the mo- 
 ment weighed upon every one's shoulders 
 alike. Men had awakened from a 
 ill ram, and were facing a harsh reality ; 
 the enemy was in front, and civil war. 
 despite the greatest vigilance and 
 adroitness on the part of the political 
 managers, was beginning to appear in 
 the background. "France," said a 
 w Titer in the •• Revue des Deux Mondes" 
 in describing these days, " lias taken 
 possession of herself once more, with- 
 out battle, without bloodshed, and by 
 a kind of sudden effort of patriotism 
 and despair in presence of the enemy." 
 Gambetta's proclamation announcing 
 the formation of the government of 
 National Defence was received with 
 general favor, but without much ap- 
 plause in Paris. The great capital had 
 spent till its enthusiasm on the day of 
 the 4th ; Marseilles went wild with joy ; 
 Montpellier, Havre, Valence, Nantes, 
 and Lyons gave themselves up to re- 
 joicings, which were perhaps reasonable 
 enough, as all these cities fancied that 
 Paris would now take " the deliverance 
 in hand," and would carry it trium- 
 phantly to a close. The city of Lille 
 sent a despatch to the capital saying 
 that the population of Paris had de- 
 served well of the country. Gambetta 
 
 sent the new representative of the 
 people to penetrate into besieged Stras- 
 bourg and take his place there as pre- 
 fect of the Republic. Victor Hugo came 
 home from exile, and had a temperate 
 ovation at the Northern railway station, 
 where he had made a speech saying that 
 " Paris could never be captured by as- 
 sault; " and it is noteworthy that the 
 Prussians did not try to demonstrate 
 the untruth of this remark. The old 
 poet had said, before his return, " I 
 shall inscribe myself as a national 
 guard in the ward where I shall take 
 up 111 v abode, and I will go on to the 
 ramparts with my gun on my shoulder.' 
 He brought back with him the almost 
 old-fashioned phraseology, which was 
 considered so vigorous and manly when 
 he left Prance- after the coup d'lStat. 
 In his train came the other men who 
 had been proscribed during the reign 
 of Louis Napoleon, Edgar Quinet and 
 Louis Blanc, whose first visit was to 
 Jules Favre, who had been instrumental 
 in getting him sent into exile. The 
 more enlightened Radicals forgot their 
 own quarrels with the moderate Repub- 
 licans, and rallied with them to the 
 defence of the country. The recogni- 
 tion of the new Republic by the minister 
 of the United States was eminently 
 gratifying to the little group of depu- 
 ties who had undertaken so formidable 
 a task. 
 
 A committee was intrusted with the 
 
2G-2 
 
 EVROrE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 examination of the great Dumber of pri- uon, if necessary, be mounted on its 
 vate papers found in the palace of the walls? "A simple line of soldiers placed 
 Tuileries, and was instructed to publish outside the reach of the guns, and par- 
 them for the information of the public, allel to the outer works," said the military 
 But the papers found had no relation to authorities, " would require ninety-sis 
 the mysterious scandals or the social thousand men!" How then could the 
 dramas so frequent under the Empire. Prussians bring up a force tremendous 
 The committee discovered that in Na- enough to establish a siege of Paris? The 
 poleon's library an elaborate memoir cit\ was divided into five great military 
 deslined lo enlighten the Emperor of centres internally: and each of these 
 the French on the state of the mili- centres was in itself a detached fort. 
 tar y forces of the Confederation of the Within and without, the noble citadel 
 north of Germany had scarcely been was strong. Besides, could not the bun- 
 touched, hui that Roman medals, bits dreds of thousands of men within the 
 of history and inscriptions, calculated to walls swoop out by night and crush the 
 figure in the work on Caesar, with which daring invader? It was evident that be- 
 the Emperor had amused himself, and fore the walls of Paris the country was 
 romantic projects, like that for annexa- to lie avenged. Whether on the side 
 tion of Belgium, had absorbed the im- towards the Marne — where were the 
 perial attention. In the library of the formidable redoubts of Noisy, Martreuil, 
 Empress the evidence of the ultra-cleri- Boissiere, and Fontenay, and where the 
 cal turn of her mind was to be found on famous camp of St. Mauv was en- 
 everv hand. The bones of saints ami trenched : whether away beyond on the 
 pious relics were hung upon the walls, corner made by the junction of the Seine 
 
 and contrasted strangely with the painted and the .Manic, where stood the pr 1 
 
 ceilings tilled with Cupids and figures of fort of Charent including within its 
 
 gods and goddesses. The works of Pr 1- walls a space for the encampment of two 
 
 hoi) were side by side with the fantastic hundred thousand men ; or whether. 
 
 romances of the eighteenth century again, upon the southward line, on the 
 
 or severe treatises on religious duty. left bank' of the Seine, where stood ill 
 
 ■• There was." says a French writer. ■• a stout brotherhood the torts of Ivry, 
 
 curious mixture of rice-powder and in- Biefitre, Montrouge, and Vanves ; or, 
 
 cense in the Kmpress's boudoir, quite yri again, upon the western line, strong 
 
 characteristic of this Spanish piety." by nature, and stronger still with its 
 
 All this time the Prussians were com- proud Mont Valerien, the prince of Pari- 
 
 ing rapidly on, and provincial troops siau strongholds, controlling all the coun- 
 
 were pouring into Paris, the only great try round about — there might lie an 
 
 rallying point now left. These country attack, there seemed no cause for appre- 
 
 folk, — the Bretons, the Bourguignous, in hension. Mere was a grand " circum- 
 
 Ihcir blue blouses, the stalwart men of ference line." thirty mile- long, around 
 
 Auvergue, and the lithe and sinewy chil- which there was complete telegraphic 
 
 dreuof the south, felt a new confidence as communication, and from which there 
 
 they set their feet within the walls of the were subterranean passages for sorties, 
 
 capital. For how could it he taken? Citizens and the soldiers felt a kind 
 
 Had it not sixteen hundred regular siege- of joy in the prospect of the coming 
 
 guns? and could not live thousand can- conflict, and never dreamed of failure. 
 
KJ-RDPE r.V STORM AND CALM. 
 
 ■li\?, 
 
 General Trochu began to talk about the 
 " useless mouths." and to send out of 
 the city day by day large processions of 
 vagabonds, of suspected persons, of 
 women and children who were likely to 
 fail of means of support. Every one 
 who remained was expected to contrib- 
 ute heartily to the sturdy defence, and, 
 possibly, to offensive movements. 
 
 This was the sixteenth siege of Paris. 
 In the year 53, B.C., Labienus, the 
 energetic lieutenant of Julius Caesar, 
 laid siege to the island on which the 
 Lutetians had built the Paris of (hat day, 
 and so worried them that, alter a time, 
 they burned their town, and retired :is 
 best they could. Five hundred and 
 thirty years after this siege the Romans 
 held the town, and Childeric, the first 
 chief of the Franks, east covetous eyes 
 upon the long rows of noble buildings 
 spread out on either bank of the Seine; 
 and, by-and-by. he laid siege with suc- 
 cess. Then came the Normans in 865 ; 
 and they pillaged church and monastery, 
 and threw many of the inhabitants into 
 the flames. Driven out. they came 
 again shortly after; and this time, the 
 Parisians repeated, tin' trick of their 
 forefathers, the Lutetians, — they burned 
 their own town, and retreated. Once 
 more, in st;i. an enormous band of 
 Norman brigands arrived to pillage 
 Paris, besieged it, and took it, but 
 found little therein About (his time. 
 the idea of extensive fortifications arose, 
 and walls were built in haste ; but before 
 they were completed, back came the 
 persistent Normans, with an army of 
 thirty thousand men, and laid a siege 
 which lasted two years. As the Nor- 
 mans were about to retire. Charles le 
 Gros capitulated, to his own dreadful 
 
 disgrace, and made a shameful pet : 
 
 whereupon he was impeached and lost 
 his throne. 
 
 In 1358 the Dauphin tried in vain to 
 take Talis, and in the following year 
 the King of England tried, and had also 
 to 'jive it up. lint in 1425 the English 
 had better success, and Lutetia bowed 
 her neck to them for fourteen years. 
 In 1427 Charles VII. tried to reconquer 
 the city ; but the English laughed him to 
 scorn. In 1462 the Duke of Burgundy 
 ravished all the country around, and sat 
 down to a siege, but had poor luck. In 
 1464 tlie Comte De Charlois surrounded 
 the city with his meu-at-arms, but soon 
 went away crestfallen. In 1536 Charles 
 Quint, the then king, battered down the 
 walls. Under Henry 111. and Henry 
 IV. Paris sustained the world-renowned 
 siege of 1593; and in IMI the allies, 
 after a short delay outside the gates, 
 rambled at their own sweet will through 
 the avenues of the town. 
 
 One of the sights in the gardens and 
 public parks during these few days, 
 between the declaration of the Republic 
 and the final investing of the city, was 
 the daily chill of the citizens. Thou- 
 sands of men, dressed in their even-day 
 clothes, with blue sashes tied about their 
 waists, ami numbers on their breasts, 
 went awkwardly, but with great deter- 
 mination, through the military evolutions 
 under the directions of angular sergeants, 
 who never smiled, no matter how ridicu- 
 lous the butcher and the baker looked in 
 their soldier clothes. The National 
 Guard, in its stiff, tall hats, and its blue 
 uniforms, daily did twelve hours' duty on 
 the fortifications. The hotel-keepers, 
 the merchants, the tradesmen of all 
 classes, shut up their shops, and re- 
 nounced all idea, of profit. The Turcos 
 ami the Spahis. some eighteen thousand 
 strong, were praised and f&tecl wherever 
 they went within the city. Hundreds 
 of refugees from the environs of Sois- 
 sons, fugitives from Sedan, people who 
 
2fi4 
 
 EUROPE TX STORM AND CALM, 
 
 were half -starred, covered with dust, and 
 in many cases with mud, their garments 
 in tatters, came straggling in. I saw 
 men who had been without food for days, 
 and who sobbed over the bits of bread. 
 The most affecting spectacle was the 
 daily arrival of the peasant families from 
 the little towns around Paris. They 
 came in by hundreds upon hundreds, 
 General Trochu growling, and announc- 
 ing his intention to pass them on through 
 the city to a safer part of France. But, 
 poor things! they never left the com- 
 fortable shelter of the walls when once 
 within. They camped in sheds, in grana- 
 ries, in railway carriages no longer in use, 
 in cafe's, v hieli the proprietors generously 
 offered them. There were ten thousand 
 refugees from Strasbourg alone. 
 
 All the beggars drove a thriving trade 
 in tricolor Republican " liberty- trees" 
 and caricatures of the deposed Emperor. 
 If a wounded soldier stopped on the 
 street to talk, he was surrounded at 
 once by hundreds of eager listeners, 
 and he usually got a hatful of money. 
 The populations refused to believe that 
 MacMahon was not dead. The story 
 that lie was a prisoner was distasteful. 
 On the Champ de Mars thousands of 
 troops paraded ; along the river opposite 
 Tioeadeio a huge stockade was placed ; 
 and on the heights of Passy fortifica- 
 tions bristled. 
 
 On the 14th of September General 
 Trochu held a, review, and the array of 
 forces was certainly imposing. Even 
 the Parisians, with their tendency to ex- 
 aggerate the numbers of their defenders, 
 had noi believed that the town contained 
 such a gigantic army. The line of 
 troops extended from the Are de Tri- 
 omphe to the Bastile, and numbered 
 
 three hundred thousand men. And 
 what a chattering, motley, noisy line of 
 troops it was '. Every complexion and 
 
 every accent and dialect in France were 
 represented. Jules Favre and the other 
 members of the Provisional ( iovernmenl , 
 as il was then called, had wished to ac- 
 company General Trochu as he rode 
 along the line ; but he had objected, and 
 said, " You cannot ride, and you do not 
 want to make yourselves ridiculous be- 
 fore the Parisians." Si non £ vero <' ben 
 troruto, for Favre and Gambetta would 
 have looked rather absurd caricoling be- 
 fore the National Guard and the Com- 
 munists in esse. Immense crowds of 
 women, nil wearing the tricolor, and all 
 babbling like magpies, followed the Gen- 
 eral and his staff, commenting and chaf- 
 fing the workmen and the bourgeois, and 
 indulging in lively curses upon the in- 
 vading Prussians. 
 
 On the day after the review I went 
 out at dusk to Asnieres, to discover 
 whether the bridges over the Seine were 
 to he Mown up, and! found thousands 
 of men. half-naked, toiling on the outer 
 works of the fortifications. As yet there 
 was no water in the ditches; but it 
 was only the work" of a i\'\\ hours to till 
 the moats. The walls looked more 
 formidable than ever before. Here the 
 approaches were distinctly difficult. As 
 1 arrived outside the walls the sunset 
 had cast a certain glory on the western 
 sky that threw everything into relief, 
 except the dark outlines of the gigantic 
 fort of Mont Yalerien : and this rose 
 through a kind of tremulous mist, frown- 
 ing and sombre. The hills and woods 
 beyond made a, black background, into 
 which the greal mass of masonry slowly 
 melted, and was lost to view. For the 
 first time I realized that Paris is a forti- 
 fied city. On whichever side I gazed I 
 saw a grim, high wall, with a black- 
 nosed cannon leering from its top, 
 stretching away, and the sentinels prom- 
 enading, — vainglorious cockneys, no 
 
EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 261 
 
 ,.. 
 
 doubt, but willing to do their best for the 
 defense of their country. Asnieres was 
 deserted ; the pretty water-side villas 
 were empty; there was nothing to eat 
 in the town. I had to satisfy two or 
 three venerable fanatics that I was not 
 a spy, after which they told me that the 
 Prussian Lancers hail been seen the day 
 before in the neighborhood of Bas 
 Meudon anil Sevres, and that the treas- 
 ures of porcelain had been brought in 
 great haste from the factory at Sevres 
 into Paris. 
 
 Next morning, when I went out upon 
 the street, I found all Paris in emotion. 
 All my French friends wen' livid with 
 excitement. The advance of the Ger- 
 man army had appeared close to Paris ; 
 some Prussian prisoners had been taken, 
 and weic now on the streets. 1 icing 
 paraded up and down. 1 went to see 
 them. Near the Cafe American! stood 
 one of eight Uhlans, who had been dis- 
 mounted, wounded, and captured. lie 
 had been allowed to retain his lance, as 
 his captors fancied that this would give 
 him an artistic flavor. The crowd, above 
 which he towered like a Brobdignag, was 
 enormous; and some of the market- 
 women, who had been having a perpetual 
 holiday since the declaration of the Re- 
 public, cried out, "Down with them! 
 Death to them !" But no one offered vio- 
 lence. Some of the prisoners afterwards 
 complained that they had hail their 
 decorations torn off ; but none of them 
 were hurt. The moment any one at- 
 tempted to incite to bloodshed, a man 
 would climb up to the nearest elevated 
 point and "entreat his brethren not to 
 bring disgrace on to the Republic;" 
 whereupon everybody would shout for 
 order, and the amiable goddess. Reason, 
 would resume her throne. 
 
 As soon as the Germans were signalled 
 in the immediate vicinity, fires were set 
 
 in the forests as a w: ruing to the popu- 
 lations that had not already retreated. 
 This measure was misunderstood in 
 Paris, and was attributed to the van- 
 dalism of the Prussians; and thousands 
 of people flocked up to the heights of 
 Montmartre to see the fires and to pro- 
 claim that the Prussians as they came in 
 were burning all the villages right and 
 left. In the wood of Montmorency, at 
 Stains, and at Le Bourget, the tires 
 raged for hours. All along the route 
 from Drancy to Bondy, innumerable 
 small fires, like ground stars, were 
 twinkling. The rumors were magnified 
 as they drifted down from the heights of 
 Montmartre to the grand boulevards, 
 and the Parisians went to rest that night 
 convinced that the Prussians had burned 
 at least, a hundred towns, whereas they 
 had really burned nothing at all. 
 
 On the loth, as a passenger train 
 rolled into the station of Scnlis, it was 
 taken by the Prussians. On the same 
 day, near C'hantilly, another train was 
 shot at by Prussians posted along the 
 line ; and in the afternoon the governor 
 of Paris received a despatch from 
 Vincennes, saying that the advance- 
 guard of a huge German column had 
 been seen between Creteil and Neuilly 
 on the Marne. This looked very much 
 as if Paris would shortly be invested. 
 
 On the 16th the Orleans line was cur. 
 On the 17th a Prussian detachment 
 crossed the Seine at Choisy-le-Roi ; on 
 tin' 18th a strong column crossed the 
 river at Villeneuve St. Georges. Here 
 there was an encounter, which the jour- 
 nals of Paris at the time called the first 
 battle near the capital. I found, on the 
 evening of the 18th, thai I had to choose 
 between i imprisonment in Paris during 
 the siege, and the chance-, of witnessing 
 the operations from without. I deter- 
 mined to visit the lines in front of 
 
266 EUROPE LV STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Strasbourg, and then, if possible, to who had attacked the Gei'man column as 
 make my way through the occupied it was moving along the highway. The 
 country, to the German head-quarters, a forests in the neighborhood of Sceaux, 
 trip which, 1 thought, would occupy at Bagneux, and Clamart had uol been 
 best three or four days, but which thinned away to allow of military move- 
 proved much longer and more difficult raents ; and the Germans readily found 
 than I had imagined. shelter there. " Ambuscaded behind the 
 
 I left Taris on the evening of the trees." says Claretie, " the Prussians 
 
 18th by one of the last trains which tired exactly as they did at Forbach, 
 
 went out of the capital, and the last directly into the masses of advancing 
 
 woids I heard within the walls were: French troops. The disaster was great. 
 
 " It will all be over in a fortnight. The Some of our Mobile battalions fired into 
 
 Germans will be pushed back. They the 16th French line, while the Zouaves, 
 
 cannot resist the tremendous forces formed out of the remnants of the regi- 
 
 withiu the capital." I went to Rouen, ments of the Ardennes, lied in disorder, 
 
 from thence to Dieppe, thence to Dover, panic-stricken, throwing away their guns, 
 
 thence to Ostend, and so presently and dragging with them in this preeipi- 
 
 fotind myself again in Germany and on tate retreat the greater part of the army, 
 
 the way to Strasbourg. A regiment of cavalry composed of 
 
 If it bad not been for the unfortunate cuirassiers, of carabinicrs, of chasseurs, 
 
 affair at Chatillon, the prophecy which I of gendarmes, a mixed regiment, which, 
 
 heard as I left the walls of Paris might in its picturesque amalgamation gave a 
 
 have proved true; but the rapidly ad- melancholy idea of the few forces left to 
 
 vancing enemy, which oughl to have France — this regiment tried to stop the 
 
 received a severe check, was allowed to runaways. The artillery kept its posi- 
 
 effect an easy victory in its endeavor to tiou, and bravely answered the German 
 
 take the plateau of Chatillon ; and it was batteries; but it was all in vain: the 
 
 not only successful in doing this, but it troops wavered and fled. From the 
 
 created a veritable panic among the heights of the redoubt of Chatillon, so 
 
 1 lv disciplined troops with whom hastily abandoned by us, the German 
 
 it came into contact. On the 18th of batteries .sent their shells into our dis- 
 September, General Duerot, who had ordered regiments." 
 already escaped from the Prussian lines 31. Francisque Sarcey, the celebrated 
 and cot safely back to Paris, occupied, critic, who saw this retreat from the 
 with four divisions of the infantry of the plateau of Chatillon, thus describes it: 
 line, the heights of Villejuif and those of "1 shall never forget the dolorous sen- 
 Meudon. In the evening, he made a satiou which pierced my heart like a 
 cavalry reconnoissance to see what, were sharp arrow. Here was a retreat in all 
 the movements of the enemy. He was its hideousness. Soldiers of all branches 
 naturally anxious to hinder the < lermans of the sen ic came disbanded, straggling, 
 from continuing their march upon Ver- or in broken platoons, some without 
 sailles, which seemed to be their objective their haversacks or weapons, some still 
 point. At daybreak on the 19th there armed, but all stamped with the stigma 
 was a genera] engagement, in which the of desertion. Ambulance wagons, mas- 
 division of Geueral d'Exea took a part, terless horses, broken ammunition 
 sustaining some of the Francs-Tirenrs, carriages, strayed to ami fro in a dis- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 •2(17 
 
 ordered crowd. On either side of the 
 road, on the sidewalks, there was an 
 enormous mass of women and children, 
 anxiously asking about the survivors, or 
 heaping reproaches and menaces upon 
 the drunken and discouraged soldiery, 
 because there were wretches in uniform 
 who were intoxicated and who staggered 
 along against the walls. Cries, songs, 
 imprecations, laughter, weeping, the 
 groans of the wounded and the oaths of 
 the wagoners, and, over and above all, 
 the indistinct growling of the crowd, the 
 far-off thunder, like that of the ocean in 
 days of tempest, was most impressive. 
 We came back to Paris in despair. On 
 the boulevards we heard that twenty thou- 
 sand of our soldiers had been completely 
 crushed by one hundred thousand Prus- 
 sians, near Clamart, that the whole 
 army had thrown away its weapons, de- 
 claring that it could fight no longer, and 
 that the victorious troops were pursuing 
 the retreating French. 
 
 "The National Guards, furious, took 
 the deserters by the collar, called them 
 cowards, and carried them off. with many 
 blows from their musket-butts, to the 
 police stations, or to the Place Vend6me. 
 The exasperated crowd spat in the faces 
 of the miserable men who had dishonored 
 their uniform and the name of French- 
 men. There was a universal cry against 
 the Zouaves and the Lancers, and their 
 execution was clamored for." 
 
 Meantime the Prussians had installed 
 themselves in Versailles. They had sur- 
 rounded the old town on all sides from 
 a distance, as early as the 18th ; and the 
 Uhlans had had confided to them the 
 task of discovering the condition of the 
 town, and entering it for a requisition. 
 The enemy appears to have had a very- 
 correct estimate of the number and 
 quality of the forces there, and to have 
 determined to have the head-quarters 
 
 of one of its armies at Versailles, both 
 for the romance and the practical ad- 
 vantage of the thing. The Mayor of 
 Versailles, rejoicing in his new-found 
 Republican dignity, was assembling the 
 wise men of the place for a parley con- 
 cerning precautionary measures, on the 
 morning of the 18th, when it was an- 
 nounced that three Hussars, each of 
 whom wore a skull and crossbones on 
 his cap, were outside the town, anil de- 
 sired to speak with His Honor the .Mayor. 
 These bold horsemen came up through 
 a long line of the National Guard, few of 
 whom had any guns. But the Mayor re- 
 fused to see them unless they could 
 present the authority of some General : 
 therefore they were withdrawn. Early the 
 next morning an aide-de-camp, followed 
 by a single horseman, came again to see 
 the municipal authorities. He spent the 
 greater part of the morning in conversa- 
 tion with the Mayor, representing to him 
 the uselessness of resistance. But his 
 talk, emphatic though it was, perhaps 
 did not produce so much effect as the 
 thunder of the cannon, which was now 
 heard between Versailles and Sceaux. 
 This cannonading appears to have con- 
 vinced the good Mayor that there was a 
 large Prussian army at hand, and he was 
 wavering between capitulation and a 
 hopeless resistance, when there suddenly 
 arrived from the same direction as the 
 aide-de-camp a captain of engineers, also 
 an aid of the General commanding the 
 Fifth Prussian corps. The keys of the 
 magazines, in which provisions and for- 
 age were stored, were now given up, 
 and by this time cannonading was heard 
 on the farm of Villa Coublau, only a 
 very short distance from Versailles. 
 This noise came from General Vinoy's 
 valiant attempt to defend the heights of 
 Meudon. — an attempt which was unsuc- 
 cessful. The railway trains, to aud 
 
268 
 
 KCIIOPE l.\ sroilU AM> CALM. 
 
 fitini Paris Lad been suspended the the enemy entered by the Place d'Armes, 
 
 day befoi'e. About noon the Mayor the Rue St. Pierre, (he Avenue de Si. 
 
 appeared before the gate at the end of Cloud, and the road from St. Germain, 
 
 the Avenue de Paris, and read the text the inhabitants, overcome by curiosity, 
 
 of the capitulation of the city and the gathered in great crowds to sec ihem. 
 
 tones in it. A striking passage in this All heads we; - e uncovered as a little 
 
 document was that strictly specifying that band of Zouaves, bareheaded ami 
 
 all monuments in the historic town should wounded, made prisoners, just al the 
 
 l.c respected. The French probably re- close of the fight, were hauled along by 
 
 memberedthe furious tilt, of the Prussians the dusty Germans, who were munching 
 
 up the Champs Klysccs. in 1814, and bread or unconcernedly smoking their 
 
 how they broke the statues at Malinaison. pipes. There were a few cries of •• Vice 
 
 a«wjy 
 
 ■ XJZ- - _- '' ' 
 
 FRENCH GUARD MOBILE IN THE CAMP OF ST. M-AITR. 
 
 ( )ne of the Lieutenants of the National 
 Guard, stationed at Versailles, was then 
 invited to a parley with the Prussian Gen- 
 eral. He was obliged to pass over the 
 field of battle, and, while there, lie saw 
 the Prussians lifting the wounded into 
 ambulances marked, " Hospital of Ver- 
 sailles, Palace," " This for the Trianon," 
 etc. The effect of this upon him can bet- 
 ter be imagined than described. lie next 
 saw the immense Prussian column filing 
 away from the positions it had suc- 
 ceeded in holding in the wood, and 
 rapidly enter Versailles. There were 
 about twenty-five thousand men in this 
 column, although the French put the 
 number as high as forty thousand. As 
 
 In Ripublique!" to which no objections 
 were made ; ami in an hour or two, the 
 spiked helmets of the Bavarians and 
 their crests were seen throughout the 
 woods and the gardens of Versailles. 
 The city placed at the disposition of its 
 captors twenty-six oxen, ten hogsheads 
 of wine, and three hundred thousand 
 francs' worth of grain and forage. Large 
 numbers of the German troops passed 
 directly out of the city to go forward to 
 positions near St. Germain and St. 
 Cloud ; and others inaugurated an ex- 
 tempore least, and, having gorged them- 
 selves, took the usual precautions for 
 their own safety and that of their capt- 
 ured goods. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 2(>9 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT. 
 
 Enemies V-.u-c to Face. — Jules Favre :m<l Bismarck at Ferrieres. — Persona] Characteristics of the German 
 Chancellor. — His Notions about France. — A Portrait of him by Favre. — His Opinion of Napoleon 
 III. — "He Deceivetl Everybody." — The Crushing Tonus Demanded of France. — The Force 
 of Caricatures. — M. Favre considers his Mission at an End. 
 
 DURING those terrible days of tbe 
 18th and 19th of September, days 
 
 which brought such anxiety, and were 
 full of so much hitter suspense for Paris, 
 an interview destined to prolong the 
 resistance of the great capital, and to 
 give it the character of implacable fierce- 
 ness which it gradually assumed, had 
 taken place. Jules Favre had been 
 selected for the difficult and delicate task 
 of advancing to meet the victorious 
 enemy, and soliciting from it such con- 
 cessions as might render the lot of the 
 conquered more tolerable. 
 
 We heard M. Favre much criticised in 
 those days, and especially by those who 
 were anxious to found upon the ruins of 
 the government of which he was a mem- 
 ber a tremendous insurrection, and a 
 social revolution. At the close of the 
 war, too. when hearts were still very 
 sore, .Tides Favre was condemned by 
 many because he had not been able to 
 meet the triumphant Bismarck with that 
 unruffled demeanor assumed bv M. 
 Pouyer-Quertier when that eminent finan- 
 cier and economist came into contact 
 with the Prussian Chancellor. Pouyer- 
 Quertier, it was said, rather staggered 
 the coolness of Bismarck : met him on his 
 own ground, assumed the swagger that 
 the great man affected when he was in 
 France, and drank with him his atrocious 
 mixtures of lemonade and white wine, 
 keeping his head when other Frenchmen 
 would have succumbed. 
 
 Jules Favre approached the Prussians 
 with the feeling that neither he nor his 
 colleagues were in any respect blame- 
 worthy for the declaration of the war, 
 and that the terrible condition in which 
 the French nation now found itself 
 was due solely to tile incapacity of a 
 tnjinte which he and his followers had 
 always condemned. He therefore neither 
 felt the shame nor the revolt of pride 
 by which an Imperial envoy would have 
 been agitated under the circumstances ; 
 but he was a true patriot, and, as such, 
 his heart was torn with grief which he 
 could not conceal. The war, if the vic- 
 torious Prussians now chose so to con- 
 sider it, was at an end. The govern- 
 ment which had declared hostilities was 
 overthrown ; the enemy had success- 
 fully vanquished the most aggressive 
 of the French forces, and virtually held 
 a great part of the country at its mercy. 
 To precipitate the horrors of the siege 
 upon a, population of two millions of 
 persons, upon hundreds of thousands of 
 helpless women and children, upon the 
 vast numbers of people who lived from 
 hand to mouth, and who could not be 
 expected to have provision for the long 
 months of inaction during investment, 
 was a responsibility which neither M. 
 Favre nor his friends felt that they could 
 incur without an effort to disengage 
 themselves. 
 
 So on Sunday, the 18th, Jules Favre 
 set out in pursuit of Bismarck. lie had 
 
270 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 much difficulty in discovering that illus- Count Von Bismarck stated his williug- 
 
 trious diplomat. When once outside ness to receive M. Favre, and promised 
 
 Paris, he was himself quite lost. Lord him safe conduct through the lines. But 
 
 Lyons' courier had stated in Paris that it was not until late iu the afternoon that 
 
 the German head-quarters wasat Lagny, the two diplomats met. The bead-quar- 
 
 aud would be moved next day. Lord ters had been hastily moved from Mcaux 
 
 Lyons himself told M. Favre thai Bis- to the magnificent chateau of the Roths- 
 
 marck was at Grosbois. M. Favre, there- childs, at Ferrieres ; and Count Ilatz- 
 
 fore, made a pretext of a visit to the fort feldt, Bismarck's private secretary, was 
 
 near the Cliareiiton gate, and so had got sent to hunt up M. Favre, ami tell hill) 
 
 out of town without exciting the mis- of the change. 
 
 picions of the jealous National Guards, " So we turned back upon our steps," 
 who were already beginning to assume a says M. Jules Favre in his •■ simple re- 
 menacing attitude with regard to the cital " of the events of the war. "'When 
 newlv constituted government. l'res- we reached the little village of Montry, 
 eutly M. Favre, accompanied by two or we were forced to stop there: our team 
 three other officials and a French staff could go no farther. We found two 
 officer, came to the last village occupied peasants wandering about the ruins of 
 by the French troops. All the houses a, farm, which, they told us, hail Inch 
 round about had been abandoned by pillaged three Huns, so that they had 
 their inhabitants. nothing left. Everything, even to the 
 A priest came from a church near by sills of the windows, hail been destroyed, 
 to warn M. Favre that he would be made We sat down on a heap of rubbish. 
 prisoner if he went on; but the little After waiting half an hour we saw three 
 troop set forth across the deserted couu- cavaliers, followed by an enormous ve- 
 try, aud, after an hour's march, they came hide, approaching. One of them, very 
 to some ( iermau soldiers posted on either tall, had a white cap with a large rosette 
 side of a long, tree-bordered alley. Here in yellow silk. This was Count Von 
 the Fiench officer had his eyes bandaged Bismarck. He dismounted at the gate 
 by the enemy, and as soon as the soldiers of the farm, at which 1 stood to meet 
 learned who M. Favre was and what he him. 
 
 wanted, an escort took him and his " ' I regret,' I said to him, ' that I can- 
 companions to Yilleneiive Si. Georges, not receive Your Excellency in a place 
 where, M. Favre tells us, he was ushered more worthy of him. Perhaps, liow- 
 illto a deserted house, and a guard was ever, ruins are not entirely without some 
 placed at his door, with orders under no relation to the conversation that 1 have 
 circumstances to let him go out. That had the honor to ask for. They show 
 evening M. Favre was tin 1 unwilling with eloquence the extent of the mis- 
 guesl of a German General, who did his fortunes to which I would like to put an 
 best to be civil to the Republican envoy, end. We will, if Your Excellency will 
 and, meantime, M. Favre indited a polite allow, try to install ourselves here to 
 note to Count Von Bismarck, who was begin our conversation.' 
 then at Mcaux. An officer set off post- - 1 ' No,' said Count Bismarck; ' there 
 haste for Mcaux with the message, and is probably a house in a better condition 
 the officer came back at six o'clock on somewhere in the neighborhood, and one 
 the morning of the 19th. In his answer, that would lie litter for our conference.' 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 271 
 
 •• ' Yes,' said one of the peasants, 
 • about ten minutes from here is the 
 Chateau cte la Haute Maison. I will 
 show you the way there.' As they 
 walked towards the chateau, Count Yon 
 Bismarck said, 'This spot seems as if it 
 were made for the exploits of your 
 Francs-Tireurs. The neighborhood is 
 infested with them, and we hunt them 
 down pitilessly. They are not soldiers, 
 and we treat them like assassins 
 
 "'But,' said M. Favre, with anima- 
 tion, ' they are Frenchmen, who are 
 defending- their country, their homes, 
 and their hearth-stones. They rebel 
 against your invasion ; they certainly 
 have a right to do so. and you override 
 the laws of warin refusing their applica- 
 tion to these Francs-Tireurs.' 
 
 " ' We can only recognize.' said Bis- 
 marck, ' soldiers who are under regular 
 discipline: all the others are outlaws.' " 
 
 M. Favre reminded him of the edicts 
 published in Prussia in 1813, and the 
 •• Holy Crusade" preached againsl the 
 French. " That is true," said Bismarck : 
 •■and our trees have kept the marks of 
 the ropes with which your generals hung 
 our citizens upon them." 
 
 When the) reached the chateau they 
 sat down in one of the rooms ; hut Bis- 
 marck was ill at ease. He said. " We 
 are very poorly placed here. Your 
 Francs-Tireurs might get good aim at me 
 through these windows, and." writes M. 
 Favre, as I expressed my astonishment 
 and my incredulity, "I must !>'"_: you." 
 continued he, " to tell the people of this 
 house that you are a member of the 
 government, and that you older them to 
 keep a strict watch, and that they must 
 answer with their heads for any criminal 
 attempt." 
 
 After these little precautions, natural 
 enough on the part of the Prussian 
 Chancellor in an enemy's country, the 
 
 two gentlemen proceeded to business. 
 31. Favre briefly stated that bis situation 
 and that of his colleagues were perfectly 
 clear. They bad not overthrown the 
 Emperor's government. He had fallen 
 by his own folly; and though they came 
 to power as bis successors, they only did 
 it in obedience to supreme necessity. 
 " It is to the nation," said M. Favre, 
 ■'that it belongs to decide upon the 
 form of government that it wishes to 
 live under, and on the conditions of 
 peace. It is for that reason that we 
 have called upon it for an expression of 
 opinion ; and I have come to ask you if 
 you are willing that the nation should be 
 interrogated, or if you are making war 
 upon it with the intention of destroying 
 it, or to impose a government upon it. 
 In this case I must observe to Your 
 Excellency that we have decided to de- 
 fend ourselves to the death. Paris and 
 her forts can resist for three months. 
 Your country naturally suffers by the 
 presence of her armies on our territory; 
 a war of extermination would be fatal 
 to both countries; and I think that by a 
 little good-will we can prevent further 
 disaster by an honorable peace." 
 
 Count Von Bismarck said that he 
 asked for nothing but peace. Germany, 
 for that matter, had not troubled peace. 
 " You," be said, " declared war upon us 
 without any motive, entirely for the pur- 
 pose of taking a portion of our territory . 
 In doing that, you hail been faithful to 
 your past. Since Louis XIV. 's time, 
 yon had never ceased to aggrandize 
 yourselves at our expense. We know 
 that you will never give up this policy. 
 Whenever you get your strength back 
 you will make war upon us again. Ger- 
 many has not sought this occasion, but 
 has seized upon it for her security, and 
 that security can be guaranteed only by 
 a cession of territory. Strasbourg is a 
 
272 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 perpetual threat against us. It is the the Press, and the warlitfe enthusiasm 
 
 key of our house, and we want i;." in the Corps Legislatif when the decla- 
 
 M. Favre said : ration of war was made 
 
 •■ Then, it is Alsace and Lorraine, M. Favre, having ventured rather 
 
 Count Von Bismarck?" timidly to inquire whether the Prussians 
 
 "1 have said nothing about Lorraine; were aiming at a Bonapartist restoration, 
 but, as to Alsatia, 1 will speak plainly: Bismarck spoke out impetuously :" What 
 we regard it as absolutely indispensable concern of ours is your form of govern- 
 to our defence." ment? If we thought Napoleon most 
 
 M. Favre remarked that this sacrifice favorable to our interests we would bring 
 
 would inspire in France sentiments of him hack; but we leave you the choice 
 
 vengeance and hatred, which would of your internal administration. What 
 
 fatally bring about another war: -VI- we want is our own safety, and we can 
 
 satia wished to remain French; that she never have it without we have the key 
 
 might lie conquered but could not be as- of the house. That condition is abso- 
 
 shnilated ; and that the province would lute; audi regret that nothing in it can 
 
 be a source of embarrassment and, per- be changed." 
 haps, of weakness to Germany. From this point the conversation took 
 
 Bismarck said he did not deny a sharper turn. M. Favre continued to 
 
 this; but he repeated that, whatever dwell upon the necessity of bringing the 
 
 might happen, and even if France were war to a close, and preventing the enor- 
 
 geuerously treated by the conqueror, she mous losses which both nations must suf- 
 
 would still dream of war against Ger- fer if hostilities were prolonged. l>is- 
 
 manv. She would not accept the capit- niarek insisted that all this hail been 
 
 illation of Sedan any more than that of foreseen by the Germans, and that they 
 
 Waterloo and of Sadowa. " All our preferred to suffer it rather than to have 
 
 country is in mourning ; our industry is their children take up the task. "For 
 
 suffering greatly; we have made enor- that matter," he said, •■our position is 
 
 mous sacrifices, and we do not mean to not so difficult as you seem to think it. 
 
 begin again to-morrow," he concluded. is; we can content ourselves with tak- 
 
 i\I. Favre endeavored to modify the ing a fort, — and no one of them can hold 
 
 harshness of Bismarck's opinions, asking out for more than lour days, — and from 
 
 him to bear in mind the great change in that fort we can dictate our terms to 
 
 national manners since the beginning of Paris." 
 
 the century, and that wars were, by M. Favre cried out against the horrors 
 
 modern science and by the obligation of of the bombardment of a huge capital 
 
 international interests, rendered move filled with innocent and defenceless 
 
 and mole impossible; that Fiance had people as Well as with soldiers. " I do 
 
 received a cruel lesson, by which she not say," said Bismarck, "that we shall 
 
 would profit all the nunc because she had make an assault on Paris. It will prob- 
 
 been forced into this adventure against ably suit us better to starve it out, while 
 
 her will. we move about in your provinces, when' 
 
 Count Von Bismarck objected t<> this, no army certainly can stop us. Stras- 
 
 affirming that Fiance wanted the war bourg will fall on Friday, Toul, perhaps 
 
 against Germany. He passed in review a little sooner; Marshal Bazaine has 
 
 the old vindictive feeling, the attitude of eaten his mules; he has now begun on 
 
EUROPE IA STORM AND CALM. 
 
 273 
 
 his horses, and pretty soon he will have 
 to capitulate. After investing Paris, 
 we can cut off all its supplies with a 
 cavalry eighty thousand strong; and we 
 have made up our minds to stay here as 
 long as is necessary." 
 
 M. Favre continued to plead for the 
 convocation of a French assembly with 
 which the Germans could treat, and 
 begged him, in the event of such a con- 
 vocation to offer acceptable conditions 
 and to make a solid peace. 
 
 Bismarck answered that an armistice 
 would be necessary to do all that, and 
 he did not want one at any price. 
 
 By this time it was quite dark, and 
 the two gentlemen separated. Bis- 
 marck, as he was taking leave of Jules 
 Favre, said, " I am willing to recognize 
 that you have always sustained the 
 policy that you defend to-day. If I 
 were sure th:it this policy were that of 
 France, I would engage the King to 
 retire without touching your territory 
 or asking you for a penny ; and I 
 am so familiar with his generous senti- 
 ments that I could guarantee his ac- 
 ceptance of such terms in advance. 
 But you represent an imperceptible 
 minority. You spring out of a popular 
 movement, which may upset you to- 
 morrow. We have no guarantee, there- 
 fore. We should not have any from 
 the government which might take your 
 place. The evil lies in the mercurial 
 and unreflecting character of your coun- 
 try. The remedy is in the material 
 guarantee that we have a right to take. 
 You had no scruples about taking the 
 banks of the Rhine from us, although 
 the Rhine is not your natural frontier. 
 We take back from you what was ours, 
 and we think that we shall thus assure 
 
 peace." 
 
 M. Favre, in giving an account of his 
 mission to his colleagues, could not re- 
 
 frain from indulging in a few personal 
 impressions of Count Von Bismarck. 
 '•Although he was then," says the Re- 
 publican Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
 '• in his fifty-eighth year, Bismarck ap- 
 peared to be in the full force of his 
 talent. His lofty stature, his powerful 
 head, his strongly marked features, gave 
 1 1 i 111 at once an imposing and a harsh 
 aspect, which was nevertheless tem- 
 pered by natural simplicity, amounting 
 almost to good-nature. His greeting 
 was courteous and grave, absolutely 
 free from any affectation or stiffness. 
 So soon as conversation was begun he 
 assumed a benevolent and interrogative 
 air, that he kept up the whole time. 
 He certainly looked upon me as a 
 negotiator unworthy of him ; but he had 
 the politeness not to manifest this senti- 
 ment, and appeared interested by my 
 sincerity. As for myself I was imme- 
 diately struck by the clearness of his 
 ideas, the rigidity of his good sense, 
 and the originality of his mind. The 
 absence of all pretence in him was not 
 the least remarkable. I judged him to 
 be a politician, far superior to all that 
 had been thought of him, taking into 
 account only what iras, preoccupied 
 with positive and practical solutions, 
 indifferent to all which did not lead up 
 to a useful end. Since that time 
 I have seen much of him, we have 
 treated many questions of detail to- 
 gether, and I have always found him 
 the same. . . . He is fully con- 
 vinced of his own personal value. He 
 wishes to give himself entirely to the 
 work in which he has had such prodig- 
 ious success, and if. in order to carry it 
 on, he must go further than he would 
 like, or not so far as he could wish, he 
 would resign himself to the situation. 
 Nervous and impressionable, he is al- 
 ways master of his subject. I have 
 
274 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 often heard reports of his excessive we might have been two sincere allies; 
 
 sharpness ; luit lie never deceived me. and we could have handled Europe at 
 
 He has often wounded me. I have our will. He tried to deceive everybody : 
 
 revolted against his exactions and his sol trusted in him no longer ; but 1 did 
 
 harshness; but, in great as in little no) wish to fight him. I proved it in 
 
 things, 1 have always recognized him 18G7, at the time of the Luxembourg 
 
 as straightforward and punctual." affair. All the King's party clamored for 
 
 The interview was resumed at Fer- war. 1 alone repelled the notion. I 
 
 rieres, in the evening. "• I was re- even offered my resignation; gravely 
 
 ceived," said M. Favre, ••in a great injured my credit. I only mention these 
 
 parlor on the ground floor, called the things to prove to you that the war was 
 
 Salle <le Chasse. The Prussian field- nol my making. I would certainly never 
 
 post was already established there, have undertaken it. if il had not been 
 
 The registries, stamps, the letter-boxes declared against us." 
 
 were all arranged with the same pn- Then he gave M. Favre a picturesque 
 
 cision as in Berlin. Everything went account of the negotiations, in which M. 
 
 on without noise, without confusion; Henedetti played so disastrous a part, 
 
 each "lie had his place, Bismarck was called the Duke of Gramont "a mediocre 
 
 still at table. lie came down to ask diplomat," said that Emile Ollivier was 
 
 me to partake of his repast, which I an "orator and not a statesman ;" finally, 
 
 declined. Shortly afterwards we be- he added that if the Germans had any 
 
 gan to converse together." interest in maintaining the Napoleonic 
 
 Among Bismarck's remarks that even- dynasty they would put it back at once ; 
 
 ing many were very noteworthy, lie flic same for the Orleans family; the 
 
 seemed to attach great importance to the same for M. De Chambord, who would 
 
 violence of the French press, the offen- be much e to their taste. "As for 
 
 sive caricatures and railleries of Ger- myself," said the Chancellor, " I am en- 
 
 nianv, and to draw from them the tirclv out of the question. I am even a 
 
 conclusion that the nation was persist- Republican, and I hold thai there is no 
 
 entlv hostile, and could nol be corrected good government if it does not come 
 
 in its .sentiments. After a time. M. directly from the people, only each peo- 
 
 Favre, speaking with extreme frankness, pic must shape itself to its necessity, 
 
 accused (he Chancellor of being the and to the national manners." 
 
 instrument of the Imperial party, which The question of an armistice was again 
 
 he had the design of imposing anew raised that evening ; but no further prog- 
 
 upou the French nation. ress was made than this, that Bis- 
 
 " You are entirely mistaken," said marck would consult the King, and that 
 
 Bismarck. " I have no serious reason for he personally wanted a guarantee for he 
 
 liking Napoleon III. 1 do not say that neutrality of Paris during an armistice 
 
 it would not have been handy for me to in which an assembly should be invoked, 
 
 have kept him in his place, and you have The next day, at eleven o'clock, M. 
 
 done a bad turn to your country by upset- Favre anxiously waited the result of 
 
 ting him. It would certainly have been Bismarck's interview with the King. 
 
 possible for us to treat with him; but. "At half-past eleven," says M. 
 
 personally, I have never been able to say Favre, " he sent me word that he was at 
 
 much good of him. Jf he had wished it liberty. 1 found him seated at a desk, 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 27 5 
 
 in a large and magnificent parlor on the 
 first floor of the chdteau. He came for- 
 ward to meet me, and, leading me up to 
 his desk, showed me the Journal pour 
 Hire and another paper, which had not 
 been placed there without a motive. 
 
 " ' Here,' lie said, ' look at the proof 
 of your pacific and moderate inten- 
 tions!'" and he showed M. Favre 
 numerous caricatures representing 
 Prussia in the most hateful shapes. 
 After he had dwelt on this lung 
 enough to rouse M. Favre's temper, 
 the latter said that he wished to 
 come to tlie point at once. "You 
 have spoken with the King ; I 
 would like to know the result of 
 your conversation." 
 
 " The King." said Bismarck, 
 "accepts an armistice under the 
 conditions and with the object that 
 we have agreed upon. As 1 have 
 already told you we ask for the 
 occupation of all the fortresses 
 besieged in the Vosges, that of 
 Strasbourg, and the garrison of 
 that place as prisoners of war." 
 Tliis led to an animated discussion, 
 which, at two or three points, was 
 in danger of being interrupted by 
 violence of feeling. On each of 
 these occasions Bismarck would 
 say. "" Lei us try a new combina- 
 tion ; let us look for a combination." 
 
 M. Favre told him that the people of 
 France would never consent to the sur- 
 render of the troops in the garrison of 
 Strasbourg, in view of the heroic defense 
 which they were then making. '-It 
 would be cowardly." he said 
 
 Bismarck declared his willingness to 
 talk over the matter again with the King, 
 and went to do so. While the ( 'hancellor 
 was gone, M. Favre sat at a table and 
 wrote out the substance of the conditions 
 of an armistice as he had understood 
 
 Bismarck to lay them down. In a short 
 time the Count returned, also with a 
 written statement, and they compared 
 
 notes. 
 
 M. Favre had set down as a guarantee 
 given by Paris of her continued neutral- 
 ity during the armistice these words: 
 •■ A fort in the neighborhood of Paris." 
 
 BISMARCK (Military), isto. 
 
 " That is not it at all," said Bismarck, 
 quickly. •• 1 did not say a fort; I might 
 ask you for a number of forts. I want 
 particularly one that controls the town, 
 — Mont Valerien, for instance." 
 
 M. Favre made no answer. Bismarck 
 continued: "The King accepts the com- 
 bination of a. meeting of the Assembly 
 at Tours, for instance ; but he insists 
 that the garrison of Strasbourg shall be 
 given upas prisoners of war." 
 
 At this point, by his own confession. 
 
27b 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 M. Favre's courage broke down. He 
 rose, and turned away his head, that the 
 enemy might not see his tears. " But," he 
 says, " it was the affair of a second: 
 and. recovering my calm, I said, ' For- 
 give me, Count, this moment of weak- 
 ness. I am ashamed to have let you 
 witness it ; lml mv sufferings are such 
 that 1 am excusable for having yielded. 
 I must now beg permission to retire. 1 
 have made a mistake in coming here, lml 
 
 I'.ISM vRCK (Civilian 1884. 
 
 I am not sorry. I obeyed a sentiment 
 of duty, and nothing- less than imperious 
 necessity could have made me suiter the 
 tortures imposed upon me. I shall 
 faithfully report to the government all 
 the details of our conversation. Person- 
 ally I thank you for the kindness with 
 which you have received it, and 1 shall 
 remember it. If my government esteems 
 that there is anything to do in the inter- 
 est of peace, with the conditions you 
 have laid down, I shall overcome my re- 
 
 pulsion, and be here to-morrow; in the 
 contrary case. 1 shall have the honor to 
 write you. I am very unhappy, but full 
 
 of hope.' " 
 
 Bismarck himself appeared some- 
 what agitated. lie extended his hand 
 to Favre, addressed him a few polite 
 words, and M. Favre turned his back 
 upon the enemy. 
 
 He reached Paris just in time to hear 
 the excited comments of his colleagues 
 141011 the shameful retreat of the 
 French troops from Chatillon. 
 
 But the decision that Bismarck's 
 terms were too harsh, and could 
 not he accepted, was unanimous; 
 and next day the Prussian Chan- 
 cellor received a note, stating this 
 fact. 
 
 On the evening of the 20th of 
 September, the famous proclama- 
 tion, in which the government of 
 National Defense declared that it, 
 would yield to the enemy " neither 
 an inch of French territory nor 
 a stone of French fortresses," was 
 posted on the walls of Paris; and 
 on the 21st of September Gam- 
 betta, as Minister of the Interior, 
 issued an address in which he 
 reminded the people " That sev- 
 enty-eight years before, <>n that 
 day, their fathers had founded the 
 Republic, and had taken a solemn oath, 
 in the presence of the invader, to live 
 
 fr r h' die iii combat. They kept 
 
 their oath; they conquered, and the 
 Republic of 1793 has remained in the 
 memory of men a symbol of heroism and 
 national grandeur. The government 
 installed at the Hotel de Yille, amid the 
 enthusiastic cries of Vive la R4publique, 
 could not let this glorious anniversary 
 pass without .saluting it as a great ex- 
 ample." 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 277 
 
 So wrote Gambetta, who was so soon 
 afterwards to undertake his mission of 
 organizing the national defence in that 
 part of the country as yet free from 
 the invader. 
 
 For four months thereafter the city of 
 
 Paris suffered siege. Within the walk 
 and without a constant succession ot 
 tragic and romantic events occurred. 
 Let us now pass the most important of 
 them in review. 
 
278 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE. 
 
 The Army of Strasbourg. — General (Jhi'ich and the Fortress which lie had to defend. — The Forts. — The 
 ( 'athcdral.— Fire and Bombardment. — The Tyranny of the Mob.— Immense Destruction. — Loss of 
 one of the most Valuable Libraries in the World. —German Siege Tactics. The spectacle a fin- the 
 Surrender. 
 
 WE have already seen that Jules 
 Favre, in his report made to his 
 colleagues of the government of National 
 Defence, after his visit to Count Bismarck 
 at Ferrieres, spoke <>f the Chancellor as 
 very stern in all his remarks about Stras- 
 bourg. '• it is the key of the house," said 
 Bismarck, " and I must, have it." Jules 
 Favre was not slow to perceive that Bis- 
 marck meant by this that Strasbourg was 
 to be comprised in the new Germany 
 which he was carving out, with so much 
 labor and at such an expense of blood 
 and treasure. Time and time again, as the 
 pitiless Germau laid down his conditions 
 for the armistice which the French felt 
 was necessary to their cause, the occu- 
 pation of Strasbourg, of Ton], and of 
 Phalsbourg was insisted upon in the 
 sharpest terms. Once M. Favre lost, 
 patience, and said, "It is much more 
 simple to ask us for Paris;" but Bis- 
 marck, speaking of Strasbourg, said, "the 
 town is sure to fall into our hands. 
 It is no longer anything but a matter of 
 calculations." 
 
 1 went down from Frankfort to Stras- 
 bourg in September, when the German 
 bombardment had been in progress for 
 some twenty days, and was no little 
 surprised to find that I was only one of 
 thousands of pilgrims. The inhabitants 
 of Baden, Wurteinburg, and the sections 
 
 in the ueighborl 1 of the Rhine, looked 
 
 on with grim delight at the steadily prose- 
 cuted operations for the recovery of the 
 
 city, which they regarded as belonging 
 to Germany. Day alter day the little 
 German papers published extravagant 
 announcements of the coming assault 
 upon Strasbourg, — an assault which 
 never came. At Appenwcier, where 
 the railway branches off to Kehl and 
 Strasbourg, I found the transportation 
 of troops to and from the front in rapid 
 progress, and the delays for civilians 
 were interminable. 
 
 To travel through the lovely land in 
 the peaceful September did not remind 
 one much of war-time. The dark high- 
 lauds of the Schwart/.wald loomed up 
 peacefully to the left ; and on the right, 
 in the broad, fruitful valley of the 
 Rhine, few soldiers were to be seen. 
 At Rastadt there was a solitary senti- 
 nel ; but on the broad plain before 
 the town an immense number of earth- 
 works showed what tremendous prepa- 
 ration had been made for the French, 
 whose first entry into Germany was 
 expected to be upon this vale, so often 
 devastated in past times by French 
 armies. 
 
 The people of Baden were so delighted 
 at being relieved from the threatened 
 invasion (for during tin 1 days following 
 the battles of Weissenburg, Saarbriicken, 
 and Woerth they were in mortal terror) 
 that they emptied cellar and kitchen in 
 order to bring the passing troops refresh- 
 ments and to cheer them on to the tight. 
 What the French might have done in 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 279 
 
 Baden if they had been better prepared, 
 it was easy to see; but they contented 
 themselves with cutting the bridge over 
 the Rhine and waiting the onslaught of 
 their enemies. 
 
 A little rough riding in a peasant's 
 wagon was necessary in order to get to 
 Auerheiru, whence the best view of 
 " Strasbourg in flames," as the Badeners 
 called it, was to be had. The journey 
 occupied about two hours, across a well- 
 cultivated country ; and, although it was 
 quite late, the villagers came out from 
 all the sleepy little dorfs to stare at the 
 strangers who had come to sec the bom- 
 bardment. The scene was, indeed, worth 
 a rough day's ride on the railway and 
 the fatigue. At nightfall the whole sky 
 above Strasbourg was illuminated by 
 iires raging in one of the poorer 
 quarters. It was a fearful sight to see, 
 though the peasant driver said that a 
 few evenings previous no less than half- 
 a-dozen quarters had been blazing. The 
 flames had been seen for over twenty 
 miles. He also said that in Auerheim 
 the screams and the lamentations of the 
 inhabitants of Strasbourg were often 
 heard. This sounded somewhat apocry- 
 phal, lint lie insisted upon the truth of 
 it, gesticulating with iiis long porce- 
 lain pipe as he pointed to the great 
 tower of the cathedral, which loomed up 
 vast and dim against the lurid back- 
 ground. Now and then a blaze of more 
 than ordinary intensity was seen, denot- 
 ing the fall of some building, and this 
 would be followed by a momentary 
 gloom. The regular booming of the 
 cannon was faintly heard. 
 
 About ten at night we drove forward 
 to the entrance of the little village of 
 Auerheim, where there was a picket sta- 
 tioned. This picket halted the driver, 
 but was easily pacified by cigars and 
 small coins. The only hotel in the 
 
 village was occupied by officers, and 
 the police had kindly issued orders 
 that no strangers should be allowed to 
 remain there over night; so, had it not 
 been for the kindness of a neighbor, we 
 should not have been able to secure our 
 sixth of the one sleeping-room, with 
 quarters on some doubtful straw. All 
 night the village streets resounded with 
 the hum of the voices of the peasants 
 and strangers, who were coming and 
 going on their excursions to the best 
 points for seeing the conflagration. The 
 following morning broke bright and 
 fresh as spring, and I engaged my host 
 to lead me as near as possible to the 
 German batteries at Kehl. The little 
 river Kinsig flows hard by, and from its 
 high banks a good view of a portion of 
 Strasbourg and of Kehl is obtained. 
 The highest spire of the cathedral, four 
 miles distant, was superbly illuminated 
 by the glow of the morning sun. I had 
 been told in Frankfort that it bad been 
 destroyed; and, indeed, the German 
 officers confessed to me that it had been 
 fired upon from Kehl, but only because 
 the commandant of the city had persisted 
 in making the platform at the foot of 
 the single tower the place lor an observa- 
 tory. So accurately had the shot been 
 sent that it had passed over the platform 
 without damaging the tower. " This 
 was." said my informant, c; the only 
 time the sacred edifice had been fired 
 upon; and this was a case of necessity, 
 since by this means the French com- 
 mandant might have held communication 
 with the mountains in the rear of the 
 city, and overseen the entire movements 
 made by the forces in Baden and Al- 
 satia. The platform is two hundred 
 and twenty-eight feet above the ground, 
 commanding every part of the city and 
 fortifications, and the mountain passes 
 of the Black Forest and the Vosaes." 
 
280 
 
 EUROPE I\ STORM AND CALM. 
 
 The famous tower of the Strasbourg 
 Cathedral reaches a height of four hun- 
 dred and eighty-sis feet above the pave- 
 ment, and is. next to the Pyramid of 
 Cheops, the highest edifice in the world. 
 
 The German guns were busy, although 
 it was scarcely dawn, and were poundiug 
 away at the citadel, which lay nearer to 
 them than the church ; but the peasants 
 were at work in their fields, or engaged 
 with the hemp in the standing waters, 
 and sentinels, with a business-like air, 
 warned the visitors not to enter within 
 the line of fire. Kehl was but a few 
 hundred yards to our left, and the firing 
 from the batteries there could be easily 
 
 followed, the sound of the explosi if 
 
 shells falling in the streets being dis- 
 tinctly heard, although we could not 
 observe their effect, because of the long 
 rows of poplar trees. Across the Rhine 
 the Prussian batteries in Schiltigheim, 
 Ruprechtsau, and Bischheim kept up a 
 monotonous refrain. The officer with 
 whom I was in conversation said that 
 nearly live hundred cannon and mortars 
 were in position, although at that mo- 
 ment the tiring was very slack. Fifty 
 thousand Baden and Prussian troops 
 were constantly under arms, waiting for 
 a breach to be made in the wall--. They 
 seemed to have little confidence in Gen- 
 eral Uhrich's defiant statement that he 
 would hold the town so long as a soldier 
 and a biscuit were left. 
 
 Strasbourg had at the time of the 
 bombardment a population of over eighty 
 thousand souls, half of whom were Prot- 
 estants, and was justly considered the 
 most important fortress in Alsatia. secur- 
 ing the hitter's possession ; and, in the 
 hands of the French, being the base of 
 operations for the campaign in Badeu 
 and the Palatinate. It was the farther- 
 most outpost in France towards the East, 
 the protectoress of Alsatia, and the 
 
 watcher on the banks of the Rhine. 
 Vauban secured the possession of Alsat ia 
 to France by laying out a number of 
 fortified place's, forts, and citadels: in 
 tin- south, against Switzerland, Hun- 
 niugen, which was rased in 1815; in the 
 north, Weisseiiburg, and the so-called 
 Weissen lhi" ; and tin' centre of the 
 whole system of fortifications was Stras- 
 bourg. The chief disadvantage of the 
 city as a military fort, was the fact that 
 it was on a plain. The German military 
 authorities say that, had it been placed 
 about fifty kilometres further back, 
 somewhere in the neighborhood of Sa- 
 verne, the declivities of the Vosges would 
 have been a protection, and would have 
 naturally given it a dominant position. 
 The only means of getting a wide view 
 from the town is by climbing the minster 
 tower. The town's only advantage is 
 that it has an entire command of the 
 Rhine, though distant about seven and 
 one-half miles, and situated on the 111, 
 one of the tributaries of that river. The 
 Rhine is here divided into three arms, 
 and Strasbourg itself is built upon an 
 island formed by them. A canal con- 
 nects the city with the Rhine, and, by 
 obstructing the former, water is sent 
 into the ditches of the fortress, thus 
 making the city more capable of defense. 
 The fortification system was generally 
 thought to be excellent, especially the 
 fortified enceinte and citadel. Towards 
 the Vosges there was a strong line of 
 defence, with two projecting bastions 
 and two forts at the ends ; in the north, 
 Fort Pierre, and in the south, Fort 
 Blanc. This part of the fortress was 
 only entered by the railway and by the 
 Saverne gate, the latter being well pro- 
 tected. The two side lines of the city, 
 which is almost triangular in shape, were 
 ;di. mt equally protected. The southern 
 one, from Fort Blanc as far as the cita- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 281 
 
 del, was provided with natural protec- 
 tions. The ramparts were built on a 
 level, cut by the 111 and the ditches, the 
 entrance into the fortress being through 
 the Hospital and the Austerlitz Gates. 
 Behind the ramparts lay the forage 
 magazines, the military prison, and the 
 Austerlitz Barracks. The northern side, 
 from Fort Pierre to the citadel, com- 
 manded the two suburbs of Robertsau 
 and Les Contades, and a small island. 
 
 The citadel, built by Vauban in 1682- 
 85, was separated by an esplanade from 
 the city, and could contain defensive 
 material for a number of months. But, 
 as we have already seen, it, was too 
 poorly equipped witli arms, artillery, etc. 
 It was pentagonal in shape, provided 
 with five bastions ; had barracks for 
 ten thousand men and fifteen hundred 
 horses ; and at the beginning of the siege 
 is said to have had within its walls about 
 four thousand National Guards, two thou- 
 sand Gardes Mobiles, two thousand artil- 
 lery, fifteen hundred men from regiments 
 of the line, a great number of mules and 
 Arab horses, which had been collected 
 with the view of an expedition into Ger- 
 many ; and, upon its walls, had some 
 three or four hundred rather antiquated 
 cannon. 
 
 When the army of MacMahon had been 
 defeated in the two battles of Weissen- 
 burg and Woerth, the commandant of 
 Strasbourg was requested by Lieutenant- 
 General Von Werder to capitulate. In 
 truth a less brave man than General 
 Uhricli might have hesitated to under- 
 take the defence of a city which had for 
 its garrison only the rabble of retreat- 
 ing liners, chasseurs-db-pied, artillery-men, 
 and Turcos, who had been routed in the 
 terrible night after Woerth, and had Bed 
 to the nearest fortress. The summons 
 to surrender was issued on the 8th day 
 of August. The reports of MacMahon's 
 
 defeat were sent to the commandant of 
 Strasbourg, in the hope that he might, be 
 influenced to yield the town. But he 
 had received the most encouraging prom- 
 ises of immediate aid from Paris, and to 
 all the threats of bombardment, and 
 assault responded by a cool and contin- 
 uous negative. General Von Werder 
 at once began the bombardment. The 
 town was invested upon the 12th of 
 August ; and for nearly forty days there- 
 after a rain of shell and shot from the 
 iron throats of. more than five hundred 
 cannon fell upon the terror-stricken in- 
 habitants. Commandant Ullrich sent 
 word to the German commander that he 
 felt called upon, as an act of reprisal for 
 the bombardment of the city, of which 
 he had not been notified, to direct his 
 guns upon the little town of Kelil, which 
 contains about two thousand inhabitants, 
 most of the houses being small peasants' 
 cottages. The Germans had one battery 
 at a short distance to the left of this 
 village, which was otherwise totally un- 
 fortified. In the little church were a 
 number of wounded. From the roof the 
 flag of the sanitary corps was floating. 
 
 The Germans were unanimous in say- 
 ing that on this building the first shots 
 of the French guns were directed, and 
 that in a short time the church was set 
 on fire. Had it not been for the heroism 
 of the local farmers the wounded sol- 
 diers would have been burned alive. All 
 the inhabitants of the village fled, leav- 
 ing their houses and property unpro- 
 tected. Many houses were blown to 
 pieces by shells, and the public buildings 
 were completely wrecked. 
 
 General Von Werder then sent a pro- 
 test to the commander of Strasbourg, 
 saying that his guns, in violation of the 
 law of nations, had been directed against 
 the unfortified and open town of Kehl 
 without previous intimation. Such a 
 
282 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 method of making war, he continued, was Northern Germany, and the city was 
 unheard of amongsl civilized nations, placed under Are on all sides, 
 ami must induce him to make General Thenceforward, from the date of my 
 Uhrich personally responsible for the con- visit until the surrender, the condition 
 sequences of die act. Apart from this of the town, the garrison, and the inhabi- 
 he should cause the damage done to be tants was frightful. The soldiers were 
 assessed, and should seek compensation no longer subordinate, and the belter 
 for it by means of contributions levied class of citizens, seeing a threatened 
 in Alsatia. This note was issued on the danger, pleaded that their city might he 
 I hth of August, and greatly embittered spared; hut the mob ruled everywhere 
 the feeling on both sides. The damage outside the fortress. The commandant 
 done in Kehl was, in fact, assessed, and began to take measures for the expulsion 
 a report was sent in to the German gov- of the Germans, who formed a part of 
 eminent. The Germans had not, up to the population; and, on the morning of 
 this date, made preparations for a long or the 21st, one hundred Germans, who 
 serious siege, since large forces were at hail been serving in the Algerian Foreign 
 their command ; and the army of defense Legion, were ordered to leave the city. 
 opposing them consisted, as they knew, The gates were opened, and ten were 
 of but ten thousand men. The Stras- sent out at each gate, so say the German 
 bourgers had been wise enough to call in accounts, with the threat that if they 
 immense quantities of provisions from looked hack they would nt once he shot 
 the neighborhood before the investment down. These unfortunate men were 
 was complete; lint they found them- placed in an insecure position. They 
 selves embarrassed by the presence of found themselves between two fires: 
 thousands of villagers and mountaineers being dressed in their French uniforms 
 who flocked in. It was estimated that they were marks lor the Germans, ami 
 in three days before the I'.ilh of August if they attempted to regain the French 
 twenty thousand villagers came in for lines they were sure of being shot, 
 protection. General Uhrich found him- Most of them saved their lives by run- 
 self with a hundred thousand people ning straight into the German lines, 
 under his protection, and with an over- Two of them were natives of Pomcrania, 
 whelming force of besiegers, assembled and, oddly enough, fell into the hands 
 
 before his town. of a Pomeranian regiment. The children 
 
 On the night of the 18th and 19th of iu the streets pointed out the Germans 
 
 August heavy cannonading wa ■- kept up who did not speak the dialect ; and all 
 
 on both sides, and immense damage was these were arrested as suspected of pos- 
 
 done to the city of Strasbourg. The sible collusion with the enemy. Among 
 
 guns threw into the fortress a perfect the persons thus arrested were many 
 
 hail-storm of bombs and cannon-balls. Pomeranian brewers, — men who were 
 
 On the evening of the 19th the fortifi- taken off their wagons and sent immedi- 
 
 cation caught lire in many places ; but ately to prison. Men sent out by the 
 
 the Strasbourg garrison worked well, Charitable Society of Lausanne, iuSwitz- 
 
 the guns being valiantly manned and eiiand. were arrested as spies, and 
 
 directed by artillery-men who had served imprisoned. A young German officer, 
 
 their time in the French army. On the who was captured by some French 
 
 20th a powerful siege train arrived from pickets, and escorted into the city, was 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 283 
 
 literally torn to pieces by the excited 
 mob. His head was cut off and stuck 
 upon a pole, and carried in triumph, the 
 mob following, shouting, singing, and 
 cursing the besiegers. 
 
 It was a fearful time for the peace- 
 ably inclined citizens, who desired any- 
 thing rather than the unchecked license 
 of their own mob. The stories of the 
 cruel treatment of German prisoners 
 reached the besiegers' lines, and hun- 
 dreds of shells were thrown into the popu- 
 lous quarters, where they were expected 
 to reach and punish the rioters. 
 
 Onthe22d of August the Germans re- 
 ceived reinforcements from Rastadt, and 
 more heavy guns came also from Cologne 
 and from Ultn Commander Dhrich was 
 informed that a breach would be shortly 
 made in the walls, and the city stormed ; 
 that an assault would be postponed as long 
 as possible, since the German victories 
 elsewhere must show the uselessness of 
 longer obstinacy, and King William had 
 ordered that the commander of the lie- 
 sieging forces should spare his men as 
 much as possible, ami should do the city 
 and its inhabitants the least amount of 
 injury consistent with coercion. It was 
 at this time that the Germans noticed 
 the splendid point of observation which 
 Commander Ullrich hail on the cathe- 
 dral; so he was informed that, if he did 
 not at once clear his instruments away 
 from the church, the grand old edifice 
 would be bombarded, despite its sacred 
 character. On this day General Uhrich 
 asked that the women and children 
 might be allowed to pass out; lint, as 
 the German commander desired to exer- 
 cise moral pressure upon the garrison, 
 he refused to allow this. lie permitted 
 General Dhrich to send a letter to his 
 wife. A great number of ( Jermans were 
 at this period expelled from the city. 
 The 24th of August was an anxious day 
 
 for the little group of besieged, for, on 
 the morning of the 24th, no less than 
 live hundred cannon outside were manned, 
 and fifty thousand troops awaited the 
 signal for assault. The Germans, with 
 singular, although perhaps with uncon- 
 scious, insolence, asked General LJhrich 
 to come out, or send one of his officers, 
 to see the preparations which had been 
 made for the bombardment. This lie 
 refused to do, saying that it was never 
 possible for him to inspect the German 
 forces until those forces had capitulated. 
 lie added that he was determined to de- 
 fend himself to the last man and the last 
 cannon-ball. 
 
 During the whole of the 24th a terrific 
 cannon duel was kept up, and at live 
 o'clock on the following morning the 
 tiling ceased, from pure exhaustion on 
 both .sides. The right side of the cita- 
 del of Strasbourg was almost entirely 
 destroyed, and half-a-dozen fires were 
 burning in various quarters. The next 
 night the Germans sent ten or fifteen 
 shells per minute into the city. All 
 night the sky was lighted by the 
 flames of burning Kehl, Robertsau, 
 Seliiltgheim, and Konigenhof, which had 
 been fired by the French, and at mid- 
 night the moon was obscured by the 
 smoke above the burning city of Stras- 
 bourg. The peasants of the surrounding 
 villages assembled in thousands to watch 
 the flames and to listen to the cannon- 
 ading. The fires were seen, nearly forty 
 miles away, by the inhabitants of the 
 Black Forest. The whole of the Stein- 
 strasse, the Blau-Wolkenstrasse, and 
 the new church of St. Peter were in 
 flames. From time to time it looked at 
 if the old church were burning, the 
 tower seeming to be glowing red, and 
 the flames appearing to run along it as 
 if sporting with the sacred building. 
 The soldiers of Kehl could read ordinary 
 
284 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 print at a distance of four miles from jured by shells. The H6tel de Yillc is 
 
 burning Strasbourg. The wind blew shattered ; the Council Hall is devastated ; 
 
 westward, carrying the Haines into the many private residences have become the 
 
 most populous quarters. Firemen and prey of the flames. Shells last night fell 
 
 citizens worked desperately t<> slay by dozens and by hundreds in a single 
 
 the progress of the flames; while the street; and as soon as a fire was lighted 
 
 mob, completely beyond control, ran up projectiles were poured like hail upon 
 
 through the streets, robbing and plunder- the spot, no doubt for the purpose of 
 
 ing the unprotected, and breaking into preventing the workers from getting the 
 
 deserted houses. flames under. The whole city is heaped 
 
 This night of the 2 1th of August made with wreck, and the roofs, chimneys, and 
 
 a profound impression upon the besieged facades of the houses are damaged on 
 
 inhabitants. The leading Ideal news- all sides." 
 
 paper, in its issue of the 25th, contains Even this pathetic description fails to 
 the following : "What ruin and mourning ! give an idea of the reality during the 
 At eight o'clock last night the enemy dreadful night. The citizens tied into 
 began a terrific fire, destroying fortunes, their cellars, many into the very sewers, 
 treasures, and grand works of art. What in order to save themselves from the 
 losses shall we mention first? The Pub- shells. Thousands, however, had no 
 lie Library, the Temple Neuf, the Mu- such place of refuge. They ran about, 
 scum of Painting? Most splendid houses, the streets half crazy. 
 in the finest quarter, are now only heaps During the night the heroic little gar- 
 of blackened ruins. The Public Library, rison made a sally, which was repelled 
 so famous throughout Europe, contained by the Germans with great loss to the 
 books and manuscript, the most unique in French. In the morning the command- 
 the world, the result of centuries of labor, ant sent a parlementaire to ask for lint 
 patience, and perseverance. Nothing and bandages for the wounded, since he 
 now remains but a. few parchments, had none; and he added that from live 
 The site is covered with ruins, and all to six hundred citizens had been wounded 
 that we can find is the carbonized cover by exploding shells, and by the beams 
 of one or two books in a corner. Of the from falling houses. .Many lay buried 
 Church of the New Temple, which was beneath the ruins, where they must 
 the largest Protestant place of worship remain, as there was no time to rescue 
 in Strasbourg, with its splendid organ them. A shell tell into a girls' school, 
 and renowned mural paintings, the four killing seven girls, ami severely wound- 
 walls alone remain. The Art Museum ing many others. Still the commandant 
 at Aiilirtte is entirely destroyed. The would not listen to the word capitulation, 
 Cathedral has hitherto only escaped by but demanded to be allowed to leave the 
 miracle. This morning, again, some fortress with all military honors. The 
 fragments of sculpture and stone from citizens sent the burgomaster to the cita- 
 the walls were found scattered about the del to plead with General Uhrich, but 
 ground, showing thai a cannon-ball had the General sent him back again with the 
 struck our magnificent Monument, — one intimation that he would shoot any citi- 
 of the glories of the world. The Notre zen who attempted to resist his an- 
 Dame Asylum, one of tin' noblest monu- thority. 
 incuts of the middle ages, has been in- ( >u the 26th of August the inhab- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 285 
 
 itants of the city sent the Bishop of 
 Strasbourg to plead with the German 
 commander. The bishop entered a 
 little village where he was met by 
 the chief of the Prussian staff. The 
 good bishop first expressed his con- 
 viction that the bombardment of the 
 city was not justified by the military 
 code, and begged that it should be 
 brought to a speedy termination. The 
 chief of the Prussian staff replied that 
 if France had ever entertained the in- 
 tention of uniting to the defense of tin' 
 city the greatest possible care for its 
 safety and that of its inhabitants, she 
 would have built the fortifications so 
 that the great points of defense would 
 have been concentrated in the outer 
 works. The old method of laying out 
 the defence placed great difficulties in 
 the way of storming, which could only 
 be removed by simultaneously firing 
 upon the city. He added that, in order 
 to give tin' Imperial French prints some- 
 thing to say. the little undefended town 
 of Saarbriicken had been bombarded. 
 The bishop, discovering that there was 
 not much hope of an agreement with 
 the obstinate German, timidly requested 
 that all the civilian inhabitants of the 
 city might be permitted to leave it. 
 But this was sternly refused. Finally 
 the bishop requested the cessation of 
 hostilities for twenty-four hours. The 
 chief of the Prussian staff answered 
 that this could be granted only on tin' 
 assurance that General I'hrieh would 
 enter into negotiations ; whereupon the 
 bishop and the chief parted in a friendly 
 manner. But. according to the German 
 accounts, a moment later a platoon fire 
 was opened upon the chief of the Prus- 
 sian staff, although he held in his hand 
 the parliamentary flag, which he brought 
 back into the lines literally pierced 
 throucru and through with bullets. On 
 
 his return to the lines the German 
 batteries at once opened fire upon the 
 fortification^ and the city as a retalia- 
 tion of what they considered a very 
 grave breach of military law. 
 
 And in the midst of such horrors 
 the month was slowly wearing away. 
 General Flinch was, indeed, made of 
 heroic stuff, for the bravest heart must 
 have faltered now and then as it saw 
 that all the promises of help from Paris 
 were in vain, and that in front was a 
 constantly increasing inimical force, — a 
 whole nation, to take back what it con- 
 sidered its own, and pitiless because 
 of the memories of past defeats and 
 humiliations, which had been inflicted 
 upon it by the enemy now in its power. 
 
 The very elements seemed to be 
 against the unhappy citizens of Stras- 
 bourg. Thunder-storms roared and 
 poured daily over the doomed city ; and 
 the wretched people who had been living 
 in cellars were driven out of them by the 
 rising of the Rhine. Hundreds tied to 
 the cathedral, and took refuge within its 
 massive walls. A Strasbourg lady, who 
 fled to Basle with her two children after 
 the night of the 24th, described the citi- 
 zens as without courage and livid with 
 fear. Every night, was a prolonged 
 terror, and few of the inhabitants slept 
 during the night hours. The German 
 fire was generally strongest from one in 
 the morning until live or six. 
 
 On the 29th a tremendous sally was 
 made by the Strasbourg garrison, but 
 it did nothing save inflict a little dam- 
 age on the. German troops, who were 
 employed in making trenches. Still 
 the bells in the city wen' rung, as if in 
 celebration of a victory. But they were 
 funeral bells, and General [Jlirich must 
 have begun to foresee the end. On the 
 night after this courageous sortie the 
 first parallel was opened by the Germans, 
 
286 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AXh CALM 
 
 and nineteen batteries were placed in 
 position. Another sally made by the 
 French, 1" take an advance battery, 
 proved unsuccessful. 
 
 On the 30th of August the bishop 
 again appeared in the German lines, and 
 said that lie was willing to undertake 
 negotiations with General Uhrich. Tin' 
 Germans gave the bishop the English 
 and Belgian newspapers to read, which 
 coutained accounts of the < Serman victo- 
 ries around Metz ; ami then had him es- 
 corted back to the town. That night all 
 the German batteries increased their fire. 
 But Strasbourg was silent, and remained 
 so for time days thereafter, as iis am- 
 munition was almost gone. 
 
 At this time within the walls of Stras- 
 bourg potatoes were sold at .1 francs 
 per hundred pounds; peas, at 11 sous 
 per pound, and the only meat to he had 
 was horseflesh, sold at ■< francs per 
 pound. 
 
 The last, and crowning misfortune of 
 General Uhrich was the cutting off of 
 his direct telegraphic communication 
 with Paris. This was accidentally ac- 
 complished by a miner in one of the ( Ier- 
 man trenches, "ho cul the subterranean 
 
 \\ ire with his pickaxe. 
 
 On the ".1st of August the energetic 
 deputy. Keller, was haranguing the Cn,-jis 
 Ldgislatif'm Paris, and declaring that a 
 commission should he sent into the de- 
 partment of the Upper Rhine to arouse 
 the populations to a man. But no help 
 came to the valiant Uhrichand his starv- 
 ing men. '• I will," he said, shutting his 
 teeth hard, and glaring at the messenger 
 whom the bishop had senl to him — "J 
 will hold the place to the last stone. If 
 1 must, withdraw into the forts I will 
 blow up the city if it hinders my de- 
 fense." 
 
 The leading Strasbourg paper, on the 
 2d of September, published a tremendous 
 
 despatch, announcing a great French 
 victory, in which both Steinmetz and 
 Prime Friederich had been taken prison- 
 ers, and the Crown Prince was severely 
 
 wounded. A second report announced 
 a victory at Toul, in which forty-niue 
 thousand Germans had been killed, 
 thirty-five thousand wounded, and seven 
 hundred cannon taken. Marshal Mac- 
 Mahon was said to be at Chalons, with 
 four hundred thousand men, and Alsatia 
 was to be saved in two days. The 
 French soldiers, said the despatch, are 
 making ramparts of the Prussian dead. 
 
 It was on the dayfollowing this imag- 
 inary comfort, in which the poor people 
 of Strasbourg indulged themselves, that 
 the fall of Sedan was announced in 
 Germany ; but the people of Strasbourg 
 knew nothing of this eveut until several 
 days afterwards. The German besiegers 
 had celebrated the victory by firing off 
 twenty-one guns. The editor of the 
 Strasbourg paper wrote : " Yesterday 
 the enemy's batteries tired many shells 
 into the city at regular intervals. Our 
 batteries made a vigorous reply. After 
 the twenty-first shell was fired the Prus- 
 sian guns were silenced." 
 
 On the 11 th of September a delega- 
 tion of Swiss gentlemen arrived in Stras- 
 bourg with permission from the Germans 
 lo take iii their train some fourteen 
 hundred persons, chiefly aged women 
 and young children. These visitors 
 brought to the besieged the startling 
 
 news of Gravelotte ; of Sedan; of Ba- 
 zaine blocked up in Metz ; of MacMahon 
 defeated, ami Bonaparte a prisoner in 
 Germany; and of the Republic pro- 
 claimed in Paris. The Imperial Prefect 
 was at once impeached ami deprived of 
 his office, and a municipal commission 
 
 called to the mairie of the citj the wise 
 
 ami good M. Kuss. — a Republican, who 
 was much beloved, and who was to he 
 
EUROPE J.Y STORM AND CALM. 
 
 287 
 
 the last mayor of French Strasbourg, 
 and to have a pathetic fate, as we shall 
 see later on. 
 
 On the 20th of September arrived In 
 Strasbourg the new Prefect of the Lower 
 Rhine, appointed by the government of 
 National Defense in Paris. It is doubt- 
 ful if any prefect ever had such diffi- 
 culties' in arriving at his post, as fell 
 to the lot of this brave envoy from 
 the capital, or such ingenuity in over- 
 coming them. Disguised as a peasant 
 he succeeded in reaching Schiltgheim. 
 There he ran the Prussian lines, after 
 having worked for several days on the 
 entrenchments of the Germans in order 
 to lull any suspicions that they might 
 have, and, making his way towards the 
 city walls, swam across the moat, and 
 walking up to the sentinel, who shot 
 twice at him, called upon him to desist. 
 The stupefied sentinel halted him until 
 the officer of the guard came to take 
 him into the town to General Uhrich. 
 When he was alone with the General, 
 the new prefect ripped up one of his 
 coat-sleeves, and from the rent in his 
 garment extracted the official decree 
 which named him Prefect of Strasbourg. 
 
 The Germans had arranged to storm 
 the city on the 30th of September, the 
 anniversary of Strasbourg's loss to 
 Germany in 1681 . A pontoon bridge for 
 crossing the ditch had been prepared, 
 and, as the storming party would have 
 been splendidly protected by the German 
 guns, an actual attack would probably 
 not have been long resisted. General 
 Uhrich, as commander of the fortress, 
 well knew that the French military code 
 forbade him, under penalty, to give up 
 the trust confided to him without a 
 proper and a long resistance. To sur- 
 render without a breach in the walls of 
 Strasbourg would have been treason to 
 France. But on the evening of the 
 
 27th of September the white flag was 
 hoisted. General Uhrich's proclamation, 
 announcing the surrender of the town, 
 stated his belief that resistance was no 
 longer possible. The poor, half-starved 
 inhabitants crept out from their damp 
 cellars, from the churches, and from the 
 board houses along the canals where 
 they had taken refuge, and Hocked 
 around the Cathedral, from the topmost 
 spire of which the flag was flying. 
 
 On the 28th the Mayor issued his 
 proclamation, announcing that the gar- 
 rison would lie allowed to go out. with 
 the honors of war, and that the German 
 occupation would at once begin. On 
 the day of the capitulation the public 
 squares of Strasbourg were literally 
 strewn with arms, which had been broken 
 and thrown away by the angry and 
 humiliated French soldiers. Most of 
 those men who behaved with so little 
 good-sense were members of African 
 regiments, though the Mobile Guard 
 and the National Guard, composed of 
 the citizens of Strasbourg, maintained 
 their dignity. General Von Werder and 
 his staff did not enter the city until the 
 30th of September, when Strasbourg was 
 opened, as the Germans maintain, by 
 treason, to the forty thousand invading 
 French in 1681. 
 
 The spectacle that met the eyes of the 
 Germans at the close of the bombardment 
 exceeded in extent all previous con- 
 ception. The two northern suburbs of 
 Strasbourg, for a space measuring seven 
 thousand feet long by eighteen hundred 
 feet wide, according to the estimate of 
 the celebrated architect. Dembler, of 
 Mecklenburg, were one mass of ruins. 
 Only here and there a solitary wall 
 stood up like a monument amid the deso- 
 lation. Herr Dembler, in bis inspection 
 of the town, discovered that there were 
 scarcely one hundred houses uninjured ; 
 
2SS 
 
 EUROPE l.\ STORM AND CALM. 
 
 four hundred and forty-eight were 
 totally destroyed ; and more than three 
 thousand were riddled with shot and shell. 
 About fifteen thousand in the suburbs, 
 before the ramparts, were almost entirely 
 destroyed. Of the civil population three 
 hundred prisons hud been killed, and 
 seventeen hundred wounded, by the 
 bombardment. Nearly twenty thousand 
 persons were left without homes or 
 money ; and the most moderate estimates 
 made by the Germans themselves of the 
 looses, on buildings, furniture, goods, 
 schools, churches, the museum, the 
 theatre, the prefecture, the Hotel de 
 Ville, the court-house, the bridges, etc., 
 were 200,000,000 francs. The value of 
 the art collections, and especially of the 
 library, is incalculable. Truly the game 
 
 of war does not pay. 
 
 That which contributed most to keep 
 
 alive the French hatred of the German 
 troops invading Alsatia was the story 
 published throughout France shortly 
 after the triumphal entry of the Germans 
 into Strasbourg. It was to this effeel : 
 that the commander-in-chief of the Prus- 
 sian army, in billeting his officers and em- 
 ploye's upon the starved and ruined in- 
 habitants of the city, issued the decree 
 that each one of the persons billeted 
 should have in the morning a breakfast, 
 composed of coffee or tea. and bread and 
 butter; at noon a second breakfast, com- 
 posed of soup and a solid dish of meat 
 and vegetables ; and in the evening a 
 dinner, composed of soup, two dishes of 
 meat, vegetables, dessert, ami coffee; 
 and, dining the day, two bottles of good 
 table wine and live cigars. 
 
 This was the crowning stroke. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 289 
 
 CIIA1TKR THIRTY. 
 
 Through the Conquered Country. — Strasbourg after its Trial. — Railway Journeys under Prussian Military 
 Rule. — Nancy. — Tlie Bavarians. — Epernay. — The Story of Pere Jean. — Getting up tu Versailles. 
 — The Voiees of the Forts. 
 
 ABOUT four o'clock in the morning, 
 some days after my first view of 
 Strasbourg under fire, I arrived at Kehl, 
 where plenty of ruin had been wrought 
 by the French shells. The old railway 
 station was gone, and I stood shivering 
 in the cold night air until we were per- 
 mitted to cross the Rhine on the pontoon- 
 bridge, which was guarded by dozens of 
 soldiers, as if the Germans anticipated 
 the return of the French forthwith. A 
 carriage soon brought me to the interior 
 of Strasbourg. The drive from the 
 Rhine bank to the town was through a 
 scene of the rudest desolation. Great 
 trees a century old lay to right and left, 
 stripped of their branches, where once 
 they had stood the lofty guardians of a 
 graceful avenue. Houses to right and 
 in front were all burned and seared by 
 hot shot and shell, and the customs build- 
 ings were entirely ruined. A gentleman 
 who occupied the seat next me had been 
 beleaguered in the city three weeks, and 
 said that at least twenty-five hundred 
 people were either killed or wounded 
 during his stay there. I took coffee 
 hastily in the little hotel next the ruined 
 museum, and proceeded at once to the 
 railway station to encounter the " Etapen 
 Commando." The streets were crowded 
 with the stout soldiers of Baden, whose 
 uniform was none of the nicest, and who 
 compared very unfavorably with either 
 the Prussians or the French. 
 
 My pass from the general staff in Ber- 
 lin was fortunately worded so as to ig- 
 
 nore the fact that I was a " newspaper 
 writer," else I should have been looked 
 upon with profound disdain by the offi- 
 cial whom I now encountered. He soon 
 gave me a legitimations- Karte, good for 
 the journey to Nancy ; and by aid of this 
 I secured a place in the military train. 
 The carriages in use were nearly all 
 Prussian or Southern German, the East- 
 ern French railway having succeeded in 
 removing its rolling stock before the 
 invasion had reached its line. All 
 distinction of classes was abolished for 
 the time being, by taeit consent, and 
 Alsatian peasants occupied first-class 
 compartments in the railway carriages 
 for the first time, probably, in their 
 lives. 
 
 We moved very slowly, with frequent 
 stops between stations, and it was with 
 much difficulty that the Prussian officials 
 succeeded in making the French under- 
 stand the various new regulations. A 
 railway staff had been brought from 
 Germany, and either could not or would 
 not communicate with the French in the 
 French language; and there were mis- 
 understandings and vexations innumer- 
 able. The train had a guard of forty or 
 fifty soldiers in a front carriage, and the 
 oilier travellers were officers, telegraph 
 and postal couriers, and special messen- 
 gers going to the front. All through the 
 great passage of the Vosges, and in the 
 fertile valleys at the foot of the moun- 
 tains, there was au atmosphere of neg- 
 lect. There were no workmen in the 
 
2'.I0 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 fields, save now and then an adventu- l>een whipped inrecenl times. An Aus- 
 
 rous ploughman with a solitary horse, trian General gave him a thrashing in 
 
 The great forests and leafy glades were 1866, and he had never risen to the level 
 
 mystic with checkerwork of light and of combative success since that occasion, 
 
 shade ; and we might have imagined that But he seemed hi have succeeded well in 
 
 we were on a holiday excursion, if atevery his difficult mission at Nancy. I heard 
 
 station we had not seen the watchful no word of complaint uttered against 
 
 guards, and stacked behind them the him. and the towns-people seemed to 
 
 needle-guns, which guaranteed the forei- have a certain admiration for his qualities, 
 
 ble possession of Alsatia ami Lorraine. I called on him, and received my iu- 
 
 The officials, red-capped and jauntily structions for the next day's journey, then 
 
 dressed, joked and laughed with the entered the restaurant of a hotel and 
 
 peasant girls who sold refreshments for suggested the serving of dinner, as I had 
 
 the officers ; and whenever a soldier took had nothing to eat for fifteen hours. 
 
 anything without paying the proper price, "You must wait," said the gargon, 
 
 an officer was promptly called to redress "until seven o'clock, until the regular 
 
 the wrong and correct the offender., dinner. We have very little and must 
 
 On all the roads along the hills we economize what we have. You cannot 
 
 could see long processions of army teams, get much here." Whereupon 1 succeeded 
 
 wacons drawn by powerful horses, slowly in persuading him that I was a neutral, 
 
 winding their various ways like huge ser- ami must lie fed then and there. "Do 
 
 pents. Before them rode the Uhlans, you pay, or have you a, billet detorjement?" 
 
 gay and singing, their white and black said he. "• My friend, I pay, of course." 
 
 lance pennons waving gracefully. Here " Ah, well," said he, employing a slang 
 
 ami there across the mellow fields Parisian phrase, ' ; that is another pair of 
 
 spurred a Bavarian or a SaxOU officer, sleeves, and 1 will see." I had rarely 
 
 carrying orders from one dorf to another, been better served; and at dessert the 
 
 Sometimes, in descending from the ear- gar<;on brought me a uoble cluster of 
 
 riage, 1 met a peasant, who cursed me grapes, of which I am sure the unhappy 
 
 fluently while I purchased his bread and officers who boarded at the table d'hdte 
 
 wine; and once an old woman was 'so saw none. 
 
 violent in her language that I beat a If was amusing to find the Prussian 
 
 hasty retreat. But in general the popu- soldiers, who received only seven and a 
 
 latiou was resuming its normal mood, half thalers per month, besieged by peas- 
 
 Occasionally one cursed you roundly ants and old women, miserably clad, and 
 
 ami sold von his goods at the same time, trembling with the cold, who insisted 
 
 or chatted pleasantly and asked eagerly upon having alms. 1 looked in at the 
 
 for news. After seven hours of tedious cooperative store at Naucy, ami found 
 
 riding we arrived at Nancy. I wished that there was serious distress among 
 
 to push on to Versailles, 1ml was told the poor. The German soldiers gave, 
 
 that the trains did not run nights in war- but, not without grumbling. An old 
 
 time; so I went through the surging woman cursed me from a third-story 
 
 masses of soldierj into the town. window during of my walks in the 
 
 General Von Bonim, the commander town, because I was hard-hearted towai-ds 
 
 of Nancy ami the neighboring districts, a little girl who insisted upon charity. 
 
 was one of the few Prussians who have In the Place Stanislaus, one of the 
 
/■.TROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 291 
 
 finest squares in France, I saw sev- 
 eral companies of Bavarians drawn up, 
 waiting for billets of lodging. A few 
 also were in a neighboring shop endeav- 
 oring to follow the rules relative to the 
 exchange between Prussian and French 
 money. Notices, amply explanatory, 
 were posted in ever}' place of business, 
 and thr thaler and pfennig, — words al- 
 most unpronounceable to French lips, — 
 had entirely replaced the franc and cen- 
 time. The walls were covered with im- 
 mense staring notices, enumerating the 
 things that must or must not be dime. 
 The Moniteur Officiel, for this depart- 
 ment, issued by the Prussians, and printed 
 in French, was posted on the bulletin 
 boards. There u:is no news in it; but 
 the reader was invited to the contem- 
 plation of a series of ordinances relative 
 to the cattle plague. From the 1'lacc 
 Stanislaus, 1 went down to the fine old 
 Palace of Justice, where Marshal Can- 
 rolieit once made his home; and the 
 peasant who accompanied me said that 
 the story of the capture of Nancy by 
 five Uhlans was true. 
 
 " I was in the. square myself," he said, 
 "when they rode in, and there was no 
 serious talk of resistance. One or two 
 
 peasants whispered, 'Let us ki k 
 
 them on the head,' but the more prudent 
 at once restrained them. We were not 
 afraid of them, but of what they repre- 
 sented." 
 
 The principal cafe's in Nancy were 
 filled with German officers, quietly sip- 
 ping their beer, and reading their letters 
 from home. The politeness of these 
 men towards the inhabitants who entered 
 was curious to observe. None of the 
 soldiers were overbearing, and made 
 way in some of the public places some- 
 what as if they considered themselves 
 intruders. Regiments of Bavarians 
 were constantly pouring into the town. 
 
 and hastening to seek their quarters for 
 the night. Here, as in most of the oc- 
 cupied towns, a little notice, was con- 
 spicuously posted, and the citizens had 
 
 g 1 reason to be thankful for it. It 
 
 read thus : 
 
 Any arbitrary requisition, whether by word 
 or by sign, calculated to intimidate any inhabi- 
 tant, will be punished in a severe manner. 
 Signed, 
 
 The Etai'kn Commando. 
 
 This effectually prevented much in- 
 justice on the part of the soldiers; buT 
 many comical misunderstandings arose 
 between conquerors ami conquered. In 
 the evening, I saw a French peasant 
 woman in a. frightful passion against 
 a young Bavarian officer, who, she said, 
 had been twice quartered in their house, 
 and who now returned to insult them by 
 insisting on staying a third time. But 
 a little inquiry disclosed the fact that 
 the officer had simply returned to ex- 
 press his gratitude for the handsome 
 manner in which he had been treated, 
 and to leave a small gratuity. At the 
 Hotel de Paris, where the commander 
 had established head-quarters, most of 
 the officers appeared to have won the 
 favorable opinion of the landlady, who. 
 to sum all up, said, "I thoroughly 
 believe they have only one fault." — 
 "What is that?" — "They are Prus- 
 sians." 
 
 Naturally enough all the theatres and 
 amusements were at an end. There 
 were no restrictions to traffic between 
 one town to another; and the Etapen 
 Commando gave " safe conducts " to all 
 peasants who asked for them. The 
 fanners and crap-growers of the vicinity 
 had but one aim, — to keep within the 
 pale of Prussian law. 
 
 At Nancy we found the journals 
 which had come down from Rheims, and ' 
 
292 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Soissons, and the other towns in thai 
 section. These were little scrubby half- 
 sheets, printed on poor paper, and en- 
 tirely devoid <>f news. In the Indepen- 
 dance Reviois, at the head of the first 
 column on the first page, in large type, 
 was the following: "The German au- 
 thorities communicate to us, with an 
 order to insert it, the following de- 
 spatch." Then came (me of King Wil- 
 liam's brief but sententious accounts of 
 a Prussian victory. Telegraphic de- 
 spatches were all distinguished as fol- 
 lows: '■From German sources." "De- 
 spatches of Foreign Origin." It must 
 have been trying to the inhabitants of 
 Nancy to submit to the arrival among 
 them of the crowd of Hamburg, Frank- 
 fort, and Strasbourg Jews, by no means 
 of the choicest kind, who had followed 
 the army, and hung out their signs in 
 every street. The tobacco trade had 
 been mainly accorded to the Hamburg- 
 ers, who were driving a brisk trade with 
 the soldiery. Many of the business 
 places had been rented by the Hebrews, 
 with the stipulation that the leases should 
 last until the withdrawal of the German 
 troops. 
 
 In the morning, when I went to the 
 train for Epernay, I found the station 
 crowded with troops all bound up the 
 line. There were the stout, rotund 
 Prussian, shining in blue and gold, 
 jaunty, saucy, and defiant; the light- 
 must ached, thin-lipped, high -shouldered 
 boy from the hussars, full of wine, 
 and patting every peasant girl on the 
 shoulder; the ponderous I.andwehr- 
 man, sedate and sullen, looking sadly at 
 the children playing about tin- station ; 
 the lumpy anil clownish. Bavarian ; the 
 ethereal Saxon, resplendent in sky-blue; 
 and the northern Polish, Breslau, and 
 Posen Lancers, gliding about among 
 their comrades, who looked like dwarf's 
 
 beside them. Veteran colonels, in fur 
 robes, which rose to their shoulders, and 
 fell to their heels, rushed to and fro, 
 snarling their orders A wounded 
 French officer crawled along on his 
 crutches, and asked to be directed by 
 the quickest route to Bordeaux. The 
 brawny men of the army gang from 
 Switzerland, Saxony, and the Rhine 
 shouldered through the mass, singing 
 their dialect songs ; and a village cure, 
 with a red cross on his arm, told me 
 terrible stories of the recent battles 
 around Metz. The peasants produced 
 their safe conducts, and received yellow 
 tickets printed in (banian in exchange. 
 Post officials, with huge red bands round 
 their caps, bugged their courier bags, 
 and fought for the best places in the 
 train ; and at last we got off exactly 
 three hours behind time. 
 
 In my compartment, I found a Prus- 
 sian doctor, attached to the fifteenth 
 division of the Eighth army corps, which 
 was then stationed at liheims. He had 
 seen much of the lighting around Metz, 
 and had been ill with that terrific scourge 
 of the Prussian army before the fortress 
 of the Moselle, the typhoid fever. He 
 had been sent home to die but a sniff of 
 the fresh air of Berlin had brought him 
 back to life, he said, and so he was on 
 the road again. He gave a picturesque 
 description of the burning, by French 
 shells, of a house in which there were 
 many French wounded, and the impress 
 of truth was in all that he said. He 
 testified readily to the truth of the gen- 
 eral supposition that the Prussian losses 
 in killed, during the war, had thus far 
 exceeded those of the French. But he 
 spoke with particular earnestness of the 
 superiority of the German soldiers over 
 others in withstanding fatigue. '•Ty- 
 phus, bad water, and. sometimes, had 
 liquor," were the main enemies the 
 
EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 
 
 293 
 
 German trooper had to encounter. The 
 wounds made by the chassepdts, he 
 thought, were very deadly, and, if not 
 attended to shortly after they were in- 
 flicted, the consequences were nearly 
 always grave. " Mere pain," he said, 
 " does not wear out the German, as it 
 does other soldiers." He was especially 
 eulogistic of the French troops which 
 his corps met before Metz, and recounted 
 an instance which spoke volumes. A 
 captain with a handful of men was 
 cornered and called on to surrender. 
 " We all stood and looked on," said the 
 doctor. " But the captain cried, ' For- 
 ward to die ! ' and they went in 
 again, but they never came out." 
 
 In this same train was the aide-major 
 of the French department of the military 
 hospital at Versailles. He had cared for 
 the wounded there until he was selected 
 to undertake the difficult mission of 
 escorting the pardled convalescent 
 French through the lines to a (joint 
 whence they could reach their homes, 
 and to take the prisoners as far as 
 Nancy en route for Germany. Exposure 
 and fatigue had quite broken him down ; 
 and he was so worn out that he fell twice 
 during an hour's walk which we took in 
 one of the long stoppages of the train at 
 a small station. The Etapen Commando, 
 when we stopped later in the journey 
 over night, said, "Poor fellow! give 
 him a good lodging. He is worse off 
 than those he cans for." Bui the 
 aide-major clung on to overloaded 
 carriages, to baggage trains, to filthy 
 carts crowded with troops, until he was 
 back at his post. He was seven days 
 in making his way from Versailles to 
 Nanteuil with one hundred and thirty 
 convalescents, not long before I had met 
 him. They were compelled to walk the 
 whole distance, the Mayors of the little 
 towns through which they passed not 
 
 daring to give them conveyances. Once, 
 in order to procure a vehicle for one or 
 two discouraged members of his troop, 
 he was compelled to threaten the Mayor 
 with the Prussians. "I got my car- 
 riage," he said with a smile, " in ten 
 minutes." 
 
 The traveller from .Strasbourg to 
 Paris, on his arrival at Epernay, in I lie 
 pleasant country of Champagne, used to 
 be set upon by a dozen peasants, who 
 insisted upon selling him forthwith the 
 real nectar of the gods at the cost of 
 25 cents per pint. The credulous 
 traveller who imbibed this compound 
 was for days afterwards troubled with 
 singular sensations in head and stomach, 
 and finally discovered that he, as well as 
 the basely adulterated drink, had been 
 "sold." On my arrival this time at 
 Epernay, I found the same peasantry 
 driving a brisk trade among the sturdy 
 German soldiers, who, under the influ- 
 ence of the cheering fluid, insisted upon 
 kissing every girl who came within their 
 reach. At Epernay is the branch line 
 leading to Rheims and Soissons ; and 
 here were hundreds of cars rolling away 
 with supplies for the Eighth army corps. 
 All along the route from Strasbourg up, 
 we had met a great variety of trains, 
 showing the richness of the Prussian 
 military resources. Sometimes trundled 
 by us a hundred empty carriages, all 
 marked with a red cross. At one station, 
 I counted sixty baggage-cars filled with 
 disinfectants alone for the camps around 
 Paris. At Nancy and Epernay were 
 great heaps of hospital bedding and 
 sacks of lint, for which there was as yet 
 no room in the overcrowded hospitals 
 beyond. Thousands of barrels of pe- 
 troleum were safely stored in many 
 places ; and as for grain there were 
 countless sacks of it, and mountains of 
 forage ; and the blue-bloused peasants 
 
294 
 
 El ROPE IN srni; 1/ [\l> CALM 
 
 were working night and day to carry it 
 to the army. 
 
 The Prussians had lost great numbers 
 of horses in the campaign, the climate 
 strangely affecting them; and new in- 
 stalments were constantly brought up 
 from northern Germany; while buyers 
 for the army were everywhere in Ham- 
 burg, Scotland, Ireland, and England. 
 J slept at Epernay, and rose before the 
 dawn, expecting to leave by an early 
 train for Nanteuil, at which point, 
 because the French had blown up the 
 great tunnel under the mountain, railway 
 communication was at an end. From 
 Nanteuil to Versailles there were si\ 
 posts, and 1 was told that if I made two 
 daily 1 should be lucky. In order to 
 reach Versailles it was necessary to take 
 a long and wide sweep around Paris, 
 
 through a host of the pretty suburban 
 villages. Visions of mud and endless 
 army convoys rose before my eyes. I 
 waited four hours at Epernay, and was 
 finally compelled to clamber on to an 
 open truck of a construction train, and 
 on this shaky vehicle 1 reached, late in 
 the afternoon, a high plateau, from 
 whence there was a charming view of the 
 placid Marne,' winding its way through 
 the greenest of fields and amid vine- 
 clad hills. In the distance nestled two 
 brown picturesque villages, Nanteuil and 
 ( 'roiittcs. 
 
 Bivouacs were numerous all along the 
 hillsides, and fires gleamed among the 
 forests. The little railway station was 
 almost literally covered with mountains 
 of mail matter, delayed in transit to Ver- 
 sailles. I walked around one of the 
 heaps, twenty feet long and six feet high ; 
 another rose to a height of twelve feet. 
 The " field-post" wagons were loading, 
 huli-deep in the mud; and the sturdy 
 Pomeranians were singing as they swung 
 ilie sacks on to the trucks. Here neither 
 
 carriage nor horse was to be had for 
 money or persuasion. The Etapen Com- 
 mando advised me to sleep over my dis- 
 appointment for that night, and in the 
 morning he would appeal on my behalf. 
 In company with two fellow-travellers 
 I walked a mile to the town under the 
 hill. Nanteuil was crowded, and a peas- 
 ant woman informed me that I was none 
 loo good to sleep out of doors. I went 
 to see the Mayor, a little Quilpy man 
 with a greasy coat, protruding upper lip. 
 
 ami a wondrous pair of spectacles. 
 
 He was willing, but incapable. Slept 
 on the floor himself; used to it. No 
 floor for us to sleep on? No; he rather 
 thoughtnot. Inquire at the next village, 
 
 another mile away, on the bank of the 
 Marne. 
 
 Crouttes looked inviting; but no one 
 offered a lodging. In the middle of a 
 lone street stood a little group, — a bent 
 anil feeble old man, a hale, brown, and 
 scholarly looking fellow at his side, and 
 some country bumpkins in wooden shoes. 
 We asked them if French money would 
 buy us Induing. "No," said the old 
 man, " not here. I have thirty horses in 
 my stable and eight postilions in my 
 house, and 1 can do no more. Have you 
 billets of lodging?"— li No." — " Well," 
 said the scholar, " in that case. 1 Vac .lean 
 will see what he can do for you." He 
 insisted on the old fanner's finding us 
 a place; and it was not until after he had 
 departed that we discovered we had made 
 the acquaintance of one of tin 1 most fa- 
 mous of Parisian painters. 
 
 The old man was sixty-two years of 
 age, and had worked in the fields among 
 the vines ever since he was ten. It is 
 a rude life, because you must be up in 
 
 the l nine- before four o'clock, and 
 
 twist and pet your vines before the sun 
 comes to look at them. Then, because 
 your wife has worked bv vour side all 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND calm. 
 
 295 
 
 clay, — that is the fashion in vineyard 
 land, — you must help her in the kitchen, 
 and it is teu o'clock at night before bed- 
 time comes. ' ' It rattles your old bones," 
 said Pere Jean. But for the hist month 
 Pere Jean had done but little work in the 
 fields He had been busy with the re- 
 ception and care of soldiers of the Prus- 
 sian government, and both he and his old 
 wife were nearly worn out. Every even- 
 ing a corporal arrived with six men for 
 Einquarterung, and the household had 
 been nightly upset. 
 
 Pere Jean passed for a rich man 
 among his simple neighbors. By fifty 
 years of industry he had amassed 25,000 
 francs, and owned a huge old stone farm- 
 house and a huge court with capacious 
 stables. " When the first, Prussians 
 came the} 7 made a requisition on me 
 which quite discouraged me ; but since 
 then, voyez-vous" he said, " I have 
 become used to it. They took from me 
 thirty casks of wine, my best cattle, and 
 pretty nearly all my linen, which was 
 my wife's especial pride." lie said that 
 it was hard for him to believe that war 
 consisted in taking his cattle and his 
 wine, as well as his first-born ami his 
 dearest son. 
 
 While our dinner was cooking over a 
 huge open fireplace we went into the 
 stables, and saw the beautiful, strong 
 animals, which served the royal despatch- 
 bearers ; and here the Prussian postilions 
 were moaning over a number of superb 
 beasts which were dying from the effects 
 of hard work and the climate. After 
 many difficulties we arranged to leave 
 the next morning with the post-wagoh 
 bound forCorbeil; whence to Versailles 
 we could push on alone. 
 
 All through this champagne country 
 the peasantry are of the simplest habits. 
 Their ideas of comfort and elegance are 
 primitive in the extreme. In one corner 
 
 of the huge old kitchen, into which the 
 farmer ushered us stood an enormous 
 curtained bed. One or two chairs, 
 some benches, and a table were all 
 the remaining furniture. Above, the 
 bed-chambers were of Pompeian simplic- 
 ity. The floors were of stone, and the 
 beds were hard and small. The house 
 stood at the bottom of a huge court-yard 
 which opened on the street by means of 
 a huge door, to which was appended a 
 heavy knocker. We were given a great 
 chamber, only used in times of peace 
 for bridals, funerals, anil rustic balls, 
 and there we deposited our mat tresses on 
 the floor, the only couch in it being cov- 
 ered with the remnants of the good wife's 
 linen-chest, and our host evidently dis- 
 liking to displace them. The old woman, 
 whose limbs were stiff with long labor in 
 the fields, informed us that she had not 
 strength to serve ; and we were obliged 
 to wait upon our own table. Towards 
 eight o'clock arrived the usual comple- 
 ment of German soldiery, who brought 
 their own provisions with them and 
 cooked them, then sat quietly before 
 the fireside late into the night, singing 
 quaint hymns and soldier songs, in which 
 we could find no taint of vulgarity. By 
 midnight all was still ; ami the trumpets 
 of the postilions, blended with the chant 
 of a cavalry troop going past, aroused us 
 in the morning. 
 
 Old Pere Jean was very explicit in 
 his reproaches against the Emperor. 
 " Now, then," said he, taking a spoonful 
 of coffee in his trembling hand as we were 
 leaving in the morning, " if I could buy 
 the. Emperor back with that. I would not 
 do it. I have long enough voted and 
 labored for him, but now. after what he 
 has done. I cannot, think of any fate bad 
 enough for him." He thought that the 
 people of his section might revolt one 
 day unless the rigor of the requisitions 
 
296 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 was softened. "We have patience," "The French Republic, 1870. Liberty, 
 
 he added, " because France lias in a Equality, Fraternity." Here, for the 
 
 measure brought this war on herself; first time also, we saw sentinels at the 
 
 lint we must net lie pushed." entrance of a town. They were sheltered 
 
 A little after dawn we went away at in little straw-covered boxes; and were 
 
 tin. 1 head of a long train of wagons continually mi the alert to .salute the 
 
 loaded with the royal mail. Each of officers ami question the peasants who 
 
 these wagons had a comfortable coupi passed in and out. Towards dusk we 
 
 in front with room I'm' authorized pas- came to the gate of a chateau, thirty-two 
 
 sengers. But the transportation of kilometers from Paris ; and in front of 
 
 civilians was forbidden. Our military the gates the postilions began playing 
 
 passes seemed to entitle us to the privi- cheery tunes upon their horns. 
 lege of journeying with this postal train ; The chateau stood in the midst, of a 
 
 and presently we gut away through a fertile plain, with gently sloping hills in 
 
 country much frequented by Francs- the distance. It was one of those an- 
 
 Tireurs, without any guard of soldiers ; cient manors upon which, in all old 
 
 and we observed that the postilions car- countries, generally hangs a dirty and 
 
 ried no visible weapons. There were sordid dependency of a hamlet, notable 
 
 sixteen wagons, each drawn by three chiefly for its hovels and unclean streets. 
 
 horses. The drivers were all from North As we entered on the turf-carpeted green 
 
 Germany. They wore a handsome uui- of the castle a body of Wurtemburg 
 
 form of dark blue, bordered with red. soldiers marched out to meet us, and the 
 
 Each carried a horn suspended at his side, chorus of horns from the old servants' 
 
 Of these men there are several thousand hall of the domain made the night- 
 
 iu the Prussian service. The Bavarian air melodious. There was a whiff of 
 
 ami Saxon armies also have their field- rain in the atmosphere; a light wind 
 
 post. The orders were never to halt tugged at the masses of dead leaves in 
 
 save when the horses must rest and be the forest, seeming to urge them to 
 
 fed. Two conductors, who rode some fantastic dances. A Pomeranian, deco- 
 
 distance ahead, marked out the routes ated with all the colors in the Prussian 
 
 for the journeys, taking always the military chrome, came out to meet us. 
 
 shortest and least crowded way. I )c- " You are just in lime." he said ; "there 
 
 spite their adroitness we were often bin- was an alerte, as the French call i(, on 
 
 dered by long teams of munition-wagons, your route about an hour ago; but no 
 
 which were slowly making their way along one was hurt." lie invited us to stay 
 
 the muddy hills. For half a mile along and sup with the postilions; but we 
 
 (lie road from Nanteuil we saw nothing sought lodgings outside the chateau 
 
 but immense heaps of cannon-balls. In gates at the hostelry. It could only 
 
 many places rude booths for the sale afford us one room and no bedding, so 
 
 of provisions to passing soldiers had we slept on chairs as best we could, 
 
 been established. We went on through much disturbed by the boisterous songs 
 
 Laferte-sous-.louarrc to Coulomniicres, sung by Pomeranian troopers, who 
 
 where there were many hundreds of sol- were drinking in the room below. The 
 
 diers quartered, and where, for the first burden of the principal song was " Jesu, 
 
 timesince the declaration of the Republic, Maria;" whence I concluded that our 
 
 I saw these words inscribed on an edifice : military friends were religiously disposed. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 297 
 
 Our host came to talk with us late at 
 night, saying, when asked if he could 
 furnish provisions, wine, etc., that he 
 had nothing left. But when he found that 
 we were neither Prussians nor French, 
 and were certain to pay him, he filled 
 our baskets from a well-stocked larder. 
 We were off again at sunrise, clatter- 
 ing through a blinding rain, and en route 
 for Tournois, a quaint and pleasant 
 town. At each itape, or post, our passes 
 were visid, and we were often questioned 
 concerning our business at head-quarters. 
 About noon we passed through a great 
 forest, and saw numbers of horses with 
 their throats cut lying by the road-side, 
 where they had fallen from fatigue. 
 One or two were not dead, as we passed 
 them, and it was piteous to hear them 
 neigh faintly as they heard the sound of 
 hoofs. Their butchers, some Bavarians, 
 were just ahead, and from them we 
 learned that a heavy fight had taken 
 place three days before, at Dreux. 
 Here, also, we saw some Uhlans for- 
 aging. Two of them rode up to a village 
 at a little distance from the road, and 
 presently overtook us with some fat hens 
 tied to their saddle-bows. An old woman 
 ran out after them, looking wistfully at 
 her poultry, — perhaps not the first she 
 had been called upon to furnish. The 
 rain came rolling down in great spouts 
 across the plain on which we now 
 entered; and some of the weaker Prus- 
 sians and Bavarians — part of a march- 
 ing column which we were passing — 
 sank down by the road-side. Our drivers 
 heeded none of their appeals to betaken 
 up, and told us that it was against orders 
 to carry a soldier. Many of the younger 
 men were so stiff that they could not 
 move their limbs, and some French 
 peasants, overcome by pity, put them 
 into their carts, and thus they jolted 
 wearily along. We passed, this day, 
 
 about one thousand wagons at different 
 periods, all laden with sick and wounded, 
 coming down from " Vor Paris." These 
 were most pitiful to look upon. Many 
 of the men were half dead with fever, 
 others so grievously wounded that at 
 every jolt of the rough carts cries of 
 pain were wrung from them. Three or 
 four of these wretches were always 
 huddled together under a little canvas 
 covering, and lay groaning, a mass of 
 sickness and desolation. Beside these 
 processions always rode a guard of the 
 watchful Uhlans. Towards evening we 
 reached Corbeil, where the French, 
 in a frenzied horror on learning of the 
 approach of the Prussians, had blown 
 up one of the finest bridges on the Seine. 
 The Prussians insisted that the French 
 should have this repaired by a certain 
 date, or pay a heavy flue. The date 
 was passed when we arrived, but the 
 work was not completed. Two tempo- 
 rary bridges allowed the army free pas- 
 sage; and here at Corbeil the Prussians 
 had established a strong depot for mili- 
 tary stores. As we descended the steep 
 hill leading into the town the thunder 
 of the Prussian cannon was plainly 
 heard. All Corbeil was in excitement. 
 The cannon had not been heard before 
 for many days, and the inhabitants con- 
 cluded that a general action was taking 
 place. Montrouge was barking furi- 
 ously in return ; and now and then the 
 sonorous voice of Mont Valerien was 
 heard clamoring for war. To this 
 music we sat down to supper. Find- 
 ing that if one went into the streets 
 after seven o'clock he was liable to 
 arrest, we rolled into the first comforta- 
 ble beds we had seen for three days. 
 Here were also mountains of mail matter, 
 and here the roads were worn out with 
 the constant passage of heavy army 
 trains. The mud was so deep that, a 
 
298 
 
 EUROPE I.X STORM AND CALM 
 
 wagon once fixed in it, the united efforts 
 of a whole company could scarcely stir 
 it. It was evident that for the good lady 
 of the inn where we staved the war had 
 its revenges, for her customers were all 
 officers of superior grade, and paid 
 roundly for what they had. The rail- 
 way station had been closed for two 
 months. The clock was stopped at ten 
 minutes past eight, the hour when the 
 last train left tin 1 town. Towards noon 
 of the next day my companions de- 
 parted for Lagny, and I climbed alone 
 into the post wagon of the Third army 
 Corps, said post wagon being a dilapi- 
 dated omnibus which formerly ran to 
 Lonjumeau. We took two soldiers as a 
 guard, and clattered away over the 
 hills, shortly to meet a convoy of un- 
 happy French prisoners marching from 
 Dreux down to the railway of Lagny, 
 thence to be sent into Germany. This 
 was one of the saddest spectacles I had 
 seen. The whole ghastly mass of men, 
 faltering past, hurried forward rather 
 brutally by cavalry, the wounded 
 crowded in carls, and hanging down 
 their feverish heads, the women stand- 
 inn' in the doorways, and calling on God 
 to crush the Prussians, the hungry looks 
 of the officers as they saw through the 
 open windows their enemies feasting in 
 cabarets, — all this left a pang in my 
 mind, and cut to the heart. 
 
 The nearer one approached Versailles, 
 the more evident it was that the ( iermans 
 had come for a long stay. " Not even 
 if Talis makes peace to-morrow," said a 
 Wurtemburg officer to me, '-will the 
 troops he withdrawn until the caution 
 money" —as he called it — "is paid." 
 Some of the villages along the road pre- 
 sented quite a holiday appearance: a 
 regimental hand was giving a morning 
 concert in one ; in another, there was a 
 review of cavalry, at which the inhabi- 
 
 tants were witnesses without expression 
 of approval or discontent. In every 
 town there was a battery and a sanitary 
 station. All the important places of 
 business were closed, and at Villeneuve 
 SI. Georges, a beautiful suburban resort 
 for Parisians, there were only a few- 
 people left. The houses which had been 
 closed by their owners remained un- 
 touched, — no troops were quartered in 
 or near them. 
 
 We drew up before the chief bureau 
 of the Prussian military post-office, hav- 
 ing made our nine leagues from Corbeil 
 to Versailles in three hours and a half . 
 There was a sullen, ominous roaring in 
 the direction of Paris, which, at first, 
 seemed to lie steadily approaching; but 
 I soon became accustomed to the voices 
 of the forts. 
 
 In the hotel, where I succeeded after 
 many entreaties in getting a lodging, all 
 the soldiers who had been quartered 
 there for the last two months had pet 
 names, and took part in the household 
 drudgery, as if they were sons of the 
 family. On the evening of my arrival 
 a wretched sneak of a Bavarian, newly 
 arrived, had stolen a little spaniel, which 
 was one of the household treasures, and 
 a whole corporal's guard was turned out 
 to bring hill) to justice. The dog was 
 found, and the ollieer.in investigating the 
 case, made as much ado as if it had 
 been theft: of an object of art from the 
 palace. The landlady, who was highly 
 confidential, informed me that two of 
 the best of her invading friends. August 
 and Heinrich, were to go to Orleans to- 
 morrow. " It is a burning shame." 
 saiil the old lady. " to send such hand- 
 some boys as that to lie slaughtered ; " 
 and she looked quite disconsolate. 
 •• When the Prussians are gone," she 
 remarked shortly afterwards, " it will 
 he very lonesome at Versailles: there 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 299 
 
 will be nothing but yon casual stran- 
 gers* 
 
 The invaders bowed not only to the 
 charms but to the authority of the 
 French serving-maids. In the front 
 parlor of the inn, on this evening in 
 question, I remarked four stalwart 
 fellows who had just arrived with their 
 liillets all in proper order. In hearty 
 German style they began to clamor, 
 "Madame! Here! Attention! Bed! 
 A light! Supper!" Upon this, the 
 beautiful housemaid came upon the 
 
 scene, withering them all with a glance. 
 " Silence, you noisy dragons! You big 
 one with a white cap, take off your 
 sword, and sit down ! Silence, all of 
 
 you 
 
 Cowed and overwhelmed, al- 
 
 though not understanding a word, the 
 
 hungry fellows sat down, nor dared to 
 stir until Agues found time to serve 
 them, an hour or two later. If one pre- 
 sumed to proffer gallantry he had good 
 reason to remember the avenging arm of 
 Agnes. 
 
300 EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE. 
 
 The Period of Hope. — Splendid Improvisation of Defense. — What Paris did under Pressure. — The 
 Forts and their Armament. — The Departure of Gambcttn in :t Balloon. — Outcroppings of the Com- 
 mune — Fights outside the Walls of the Capital. — The Defense of Chatcaudun. — A Bright Page in 
 French Military Annals. — A Panic al Versailles. — Von Moltkc saves his Papers. — German Prepa- 
 rations for I defense. 
 
 NO doubt the Government of Na- honorable because it offered such a 
 
 tional Defense received a severe striking contrast to their negligence, 
 
 moral shock from the tone of the inter- carelessness, and want of thought under 
 
 \ iew which its representative had had at the Empire. 
 
 Ferrieres with the exacting and uncom- The government found that it was no 
 promising enemy; still, the period of small task to man the walls of Paris, 
 the siege of Paris comprised between The chain of forts from Charenton, 
 the occupation of Versailles and the first stretching entirely round the city, cov- 
 days of November may lie characterized ered a distance of no less than thirty- 
 as the period of hope. The position of nine kilometres, without counting the 
 the Germans for forty days alter their detached works, some of which, like Mont 
 arrival was by no means secure. They Valerien, were enormous and formidable 
 had but a comparatively small army at fortresses. These forts, — Charenton, 
 their disposition, with which to under- Vincennes, Nogent, Rosuy, Noisy, In- 
 take the most formidable investment of mainville, Aubervilliers, Est, Double 
 the century. So long as Strasbourg and Couronne du Nord, La Ibcchc, Mont 
 Metz delayed before their fortifications Valerien, Issy, Vanves, Montrouge, 
 (he other German troops which were so Bieetre, and Ivry, — sixteen in number, 
 necessary to the investment of Paris, were from three to four thousand metres 
 Von Moltke could scarcely have felt apart, with the exception of La Breehe 
 certaiu of accomplishing his task. The and Mont Valerien, which were sep- 
 fortunes of war might have placed him arated by a gap of more than twelve 
 in a humiliating and inextricable posi- thousand metres, and Mont Valerien 
 tion, and the King of Prussia might have and Issv seventy-five hundred metres 
 found himself prisoner in Fiance, while apart. None of these forts were more 
 the Emperor of France was a prisoner in than five thousand, ami some of them 
 Germany. ()f course the Germans had were only fifteen hundred, metres from 
 a perfect plan for laying the siege, as Paris proper. To guard the ninety-four 
 they had plans for everything else, pre- bastions of this tremendous circle of 
 pared and practised for half a genera- stone anil iron more than one hundred 
 tion. thousand, men were necessary, of reg- 
 While they were doing as best they ular troops, tin' Committee of National 
 could with the forces at their command Defense found that it could count upon 
 outside, the besieged Parisians were scarcely sixty thousand of all branches, 
 working with an energy all the more most of them brought hack bv General 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 301 
 
 Vinoy from the neighborhood of Sedan. 
 But there were the three hundred and 
 fifty or three hundred and sixty thousand 
 National Guards, and to them it was 
 thought, despite the fears that they 
 might undertake an insurrection of 
 communistic character, necessary to 
 confide the defense of the fortifica- 
 tions. 
 
 But this was not all. The men were 
 found ; the guards of the ramparts were 
 found ; but each bastion ought for safety 
 
 find a garrison, well controlled, well 
 equipped, and full of tight. 
 
 The astonishing energy of our northern 
 towns in our civil war was more than 
 paralleled; it was fairly outdone by the 
 gigantic and swift efforts of the Repub- 
 lican government in Paris to build up the 
 material for defense. 
 
 The committee organized a corps of 
 from sixty to seventy thousand men, 
 soldiers or artisans of the better class, 
 whose special duty was to make the 
 
 CAMP OF THE FRENCH MARINES AT ST. VITRY. 
 
 to be armed with seven pieces of cannon. 
 Paris ought, in short, to have two great 
 parks of artillery, each with two hundred 
 and fifty cannon, in its reserve ; but the 
 Empire had left it next to nothing. 
 There were in the magazines neither 
 shells nor the elements necessary to 
 manufacture them. There were only 
 about two million pounds of powder, or 
 scarcely ten rounds apiece, to the cannon 
 which Paris would have to possess if it 
 made a respectable defense. In some 
 of the forts there was only a guardian to 
 watch over the material, where the 
 Republican authorities had expected to 
 
 cannon, the powder, and the other 
 instruments of defense, and to put them 
 into position. Without and within tiie 
 city the activity for more than a month 
 was incessant night and day. More 
 than two million sacks filled with earth 
 were placed upon the most exposed por- 
 tions of the ramparts; in the bastions, 
 great hogsheads, packed with sand, so 
 arranged that they might serve as a 
 second line of defense, were placed. 
 Seventy powder magazines were impro- 
 vised. Six of the principal forts were 
 occupied by marines, taken from the 
 ships which had proved so useless in the 
 
302 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 first part of the campaign. Electric 
 lights, destined to prevent operations in 
 the fields round Paris by the enemy 
 dining the night, were established on all 
 the forts. The Seine was barred. The 
 dozens of villages round aboul the 
 capital were entrenched ; the houses were 
 loopholed ; the streets were Tilled with 
 barricades; and eighty thousand men 
 were put upon this work of fortifying 
 the villages in a single day. A fort- 
 night after the committee had begun its 
 work two thousand one hundred and 
 forty cannon were placed i.: position, 
 
 and the store of powder had been 
 increased to mole than six million 
 pounds. The public service of water 
 had been cared for, so that the enemy 
 could not reduce the fortress by thirst ; 
 and the commission of civil engineers 
 had ordered from the manufactories, 
 hastily installed, more than one hundred 
 mitrailleuses of different models, one 
 hundred and fifteen Gatling and Chris- 
 tophe guns, three hundred and twelve 
 thousand cartridges for these cannon, 
 fifty mortars with their accessories, 
 
 five hundred thousand shells of various 
 calibre, live thousand bombs, three 
 hundred cannon of :i special new model, 
 intended to carry as far as the German 
 guns, which were said to be coming up 
 for the threatened bombardment ; and, 
 finally, there was a commission of bar- 
 ricades, over which M. Rochefort hail 
 been called to preside, and which was 
 supposed to lie planning a net-work of 
 harriers to constitute a third and final 
 line oi defense in case the enemy suc- 
 cessfully undertook an assault and was 
 willing to indulge in the dangerous game 
 of street-fighting. 
 
 So. in this period of hope, the whole 
 city was transformed into ;i vast camp 
 and factory. The whole enceinte of the 
 fortifications was divided into nine sec- 
 
 tions, seven of which were commanded by 
 admirals, under whose orders were the 
 National Guard of Paris, divided into a 
 first line on the ramparts, and a reserve. 
 Behind these were the National Guard 
 Mobile, :is a second reserve, and the 
 troops of th" line as a third. The artil- 
 lery on the left bank of the Seine was 
 commanded by a division-general named 
 Bentzman, and General Pelissier com- 
 manded that of the right bank. After a 
 time, a service of gun-boats on the Seine 
 was organized, and did considerable dam- 
 age to the enemy. The fatal weakness 
 of the defense was not to be remedied, 
 lor i lie Germans had done their best as 
 soon as they could get to the point where 
 it was manifest to prevent the Republic 
 from repairing the neglect of the Empire. 
 The fact that the heights of Montretout 
 and Chatillon were not properly forti- 
 fied enabled the Germans to bombard 
 without difficulty all the forts on the 
 southern side of the fortifications of 
 Talis, and finally flu 1 whole southern 
 section of the capital. If t hatillon had 
 been provided with a decent defense it 
 
 is probable that the bombardment of 
 1'aris would never have occurred. 
 
 It took the Parisians some time to real- 
 ize that they were actually hemmed in ; 
 but they were brought to complete reali- 
 zation of their position about the ( .>th or 
 10th of October, when the supplies of 
 fresh meat began to fail, and all classes 
 were reduced to horse-tlesh and to a. va- 
 riety of ingenious pretexts for meat, 
 which reflected much credit on the skill 
 of the cooks of Paris, but which did little 
 for the nourishment of the human frame. 
 
 ■•October the Hth." writes a Parisian, 
 in his journal, of the siege, "a chicken 
 was sold at 25 francs; vegetables taken 
 from the fields just within our picketliues 
 and brought in and sold in the streets by 
 marauders who had stolen them were 
 
F.ruoPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 ;iu:; 
 
 sold as quickly and for as high prices as 
 if they were rare fruits." 
 
 The first cloud that came over the 
 period of hope in the Biege was on the 
 day when the regular ration — cue hun- 
 dred grammes per person — of fresh meat 
 gave out, and it was publicly announced 
 that no more could be had. The Com- 
 munists tried to take advantage of the 
 situation. Cynical writers in radical 
 papers spoke of a possible revolt of the 
 people, and used the sinister phrase : 
 "Hunger justifies the means." 
 
 Felix Pvat, the old and dangerous 
 
 People heard of " delegates of commit- 
 tees of safety." This Communistic move- 
 ment had its head-quarters at Belleville 
 and Menilmontant, two sections of the 
 city where the working class is in great 
 majority. The National ( iuard, recruited 
 from these quarters, was watched with 
 grave anxiety by the Government of 
 National Defense, for it was felt that 
 from them would come the first attempt 
 at civil war. 
 
 Every day this faction grew holder; 
 finally it sent a delegation, headed by 
 Flourens, whose history has been re- 
 
 
 KUNNINO AWAY FROM THE SIEGE. 
 
 offender against the laws of property and 
 society, began to prate about the unity 
 of goods as well as the unity of danger. 
 The central Republican committee of the 
 twenty wards of Paris, recently consti- 
 tuted, began to publish its manifestoes. 
 It was highly patriotic ; hut from the out- 
 set it was observed that all its efforts 
 tended directly towards the establish- 
 ment of the Commune. In one of its cir- 
 culars it even demanded tin 1 immediate 
 transfcrof thecontrol of municipal affairs 
 from the general government to that of 
 the ■■ Commune of Paris." The jargon 
 of the old Revolution began to appear. 
 The ministers were called •■citizens." 
 
 counted in a previous chapter, at the 
 head of some battalions, to demand of 
 the government a certain number of 
 arms, which were lying in the magazines 
 of the State to insist that they should 
 call for a levie in masse, and that an 
 immediate sortie against the Prussians 
 should lie decided on. This was the out- 
 cropping of revolution with a vengeance, 
 and General Trochu and his colleagues 
 were unquestionably alarmed. But < len- 
 cral Trochu behaved with much clever- 
 ness, reproached Flourens for having 
 provoked the movement at such a time, 
 and begged him to go hack to his duty. 
 Flourens immediately resigned his com- 
 
.•504 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 mission as an officer of the National 
 Guard, and a number of his fellow < >tli- 
 cers followed Ins example. 
 
 Nothing came of this manifestation, 
 except that Flourens declared in the 
 circles where he was popular that, in 
 order to save Paris, " they would have to 
 liliish with these people at the Hotel de 
 
 Ville," — meaning the members of the 
 Government of National Defense. 
 
 .Meantime Gambetta, after issuing a 
 fiery proclamation announcing that the 
 U n't en masse, which the Communists 
 had asked for, was already an accom- 
 plished fact in the provinces, stepped 
 into the car of a balloon, and at the 
 risk of his life, or at least of his liberty, 
 set oil on a voyage through the air, in 
 the hope of reaching Tours, where a 
 delegation was doing its best to create a 
 solid army. This aerial trip of Gam- 
 betta's struck the popular fancy with 
 great force, and his successful arrival 
 within the French lines outside and the 
 occasional reports of his energetic labors 
 did much to keep up the spirits of the 
 Parisians. 
 
 (iainbetta was a determined enemy of 
 the Communistic faction, and the Com- 
 munists rejoiced when he had left Paris. 
 They made two or three attempts to 
 capture the Hotel de Ville at different 
 times. These abortive insurrections 
 were speedily reported to the Prussians 
 at Versailles, and exaggerated accounts 
 of them spread about in the German 
 lines, and served to explain that which 
 the Germans had at first observed with 
 astonishment, — that none of the great 
 lu.isscs of forces within the walls of the 
 capital moved out to assail the auda- 
 cious enemy. 
 
 At last military operations were begun 
 h\ the Parisians, who now had heard of 
 the fall of Strasbourg, and who felt that 
 determined efforts to break the German 
 
 circle must bo made before it was 
 strengthened. Rut the various sorties 
 at Bondy, at Malmaison, where General 
 Ducrot expected that he would lind the 
 Germans, but did not discover them ; in 
 front of the Fort of Montrouge, and at 
 that same Chatillon which was already 
 associated with so many disasters, — 
 were productive of small good to the 
 French cause. 
 
 On the 11th of October General 
 Trochu thought that, from the great 
 movements which were going on among 
 the German troops in the rear of the 
 south-eastern forts of Chatillon and 
 Bagneux along the route from Versailles 
 to Choisy, the Germans must have evac- 
 uated tin- plateau of Chatillon; so he 
 made an effort to retake it. He pushed 
 on General Blanchard with about twelve 
 thousand men, divided into three columns, 
 to a point above Clamart, Chatillon, and 
 Bagneux. These troops, supported by 
 the forts of Montrouge, Vanves, and 
 Issy, went up through the village of 
 Clamart on to the road uniting Clamart 
 and Chatillon, took the village of Bagn- 
 eux, where the brave commandant 
 Dampierre was mortally wounded. But 
 when these troops came to undertake 
 the assault on Chatillon they found that 
 they had been entirely mistaken. They 
 all beat a hasty retreat before the masses 
 of the enemy, which had not the slightest 
 intention of giving up its vantage-ground 
 in the neighborhood of the capital. 
 
 The death of the commandant Dam- 
 pierre made a great sensation in 
 Paris. His body was placed in the Pan- 
 theon, with the sword of combat laid 
 upon his breast, and there was a military 
 demonstration at his funeral. 
 
 Two days after this light the Pari- 
 sians saw great jets of flame leaping up 
 skyward in the direction of St. Cloud. 
 This denoted the burning of the Palace, 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 305 
 
 set on Breby shells from Mont Valerien, 
 because the French believed that the 
 Prussians had there established an ob- 
 servatory for their general staff. " In 
 less than six hours," says M. Jules Cla- 
 retie, in his " History of the Revolution 
 of 1870-71," "this palace, which had 
 received so many distinguished guests 
 and seen so many strange fortunes, was 
 entirely consumed." M. Claretie is in 
 error in this statement. The chateau <>t' 
 St. (lend was but partially burned at 
 that tune, and hundreds upon hundreds 
 of shells were tired into it weekly until 
 the capitulation in January. 
 
 Around this Palace, anil all through 
 the Park of St. Cloud, as far as Ville 
 d'Avray, the lire from the French forts 
 was particularly effective, and many a 
 stout German was struck down daily by 
 the death missiles coming from the un- 
 seen enemy. On the day before the 
 surrender of the forts I rode to Ville 
 d'Avray, and thence walked through the 
 Park of St. Cloud, here and there grop- 
 ing my way in the trenches roofed with 
 tree-boughs, in which the soldiers had 
 then been living for more than two 
 months, and came out near the ruins of 
 the Palace just as the Crown Prince of 
 Prussia, attended by a. staff of forty or 
 fifty officers, rode up the hill from the 
 banks of the Seine, and turned to look 
 at the French sharp-shooters, who were 
 very numerous along the other bank, and 
 who were making great efforts to inflict 
 damage. The position was not one to 
 be chosen for comfort. The shells came 
 crashing into the ruins and along the 
 trenches every minute. 1 counted four- 
 teen which fell in dose proximity to the 
 staff while the group of horsemen halted 
 upon the brow of the hill. The ping ot 
 the bullets from the French lines was 
 incessant; but the Crown Prince, with 
 his usual disregard of his own personal 
 
 safety when there was any duty to per- 
 forin, had ridden along the whole avenue 
 where the fair of St. (loud is usually 
 held, and had thus, while quite within 
 range, exposed himself to the inimical; 
 bullets of two or three hundred soldiers. 
 
 The palace of St. Cloud has never 
 been rebuilt. It stands a picturesque 
 ruin in the midst of the exquisite forest, 
 and the Republican government, which 
 has a sense of the fitness of things, has 
 repeatedly declined offers from capital- 
 ists for its conversion into casinos, crys- 
 tal palaces, or gambling-hells. It was 
 to this palace that the first Bonaparte 
 came after Brumaire : that the victorious 
 Blucher entered after Alma ; from this 
 palace that the Empress of the French 
 returned in haste to perturbed Paris after 
 she had heard the news from Sedan ; and 
 the Germans say that the Prince Von IIo- 
 henzollern, who had been the innocent, 
 cause of the whole war. rode up to the 
 doors of St. Cloud and straight through 
 the deserted palaceon the day after the 
 caging of Napoleon III. at Sedan. 
 
 It was from St. Cloud that Napoleon 
 III. announced his intention of declaring 
 war against ( iermany. 
 
 On the 14th of October the Prussians 
 asked for an armistice to bury their dead ; 
 and there was much rejoicing in Paris 
 over tin- fact that the enemy's losses 
 were severe. Every night, and generally 
 by day, for the next lew days, the 
 cannon on the walls of Paris roared 
 unceasingly, wasting hundreds of thou- 
 sands of francs' worth of ammunition, as 
 those of us who were outside with the 
 besiegers could observe. The principles 
 
 which guided the action of tin- French 
 artillery-men were a. mystery to the be- 
 siegers. 
 
 During the occupation of Versailles I 
 used frequently to ride through that 
 town to St. Germain, and :if a certain 
 
306 EUROPE /A STORM AND CALM. 
 
 point on the road came out on a hare hundred paces the Germans arose, and 
 hill-side directly facing St. Cloud. This poured a tremendous lire into their 
 hill-side was not within range, and the ranks; and from that time forward the 
 oiiiinersof Mont Valerien liiusthave found sortie was checked. At nightfall ('■en- 
 it out at least a month before my fre- eral Ducrot ordered a retreat, and the 
 quent journeys back and forth. But Prussians pursued the retreating French 
 they never failed I" salute my appear- with a very disastrous fire, 
 ance, or that of any horseman <>n that The French accounts of the panic at 
 point upon the route, with half-a-dozen Versailles have been but little exagger- 
 cannon shuts, which cost much money, ated. The Germans began to get ready 
 and were not of the slightest avail. the reserve batteries, which had been 
 )n the 21st of October a second sortie ranged for nunc than a month in long 
 of importance look place, about twelve lines on the Place d'Armes, at Versailles, 
 thousand men, under the orders <>f Gen- and to station them so that they would 
 eral Ducrot, being engaged in it. It sweep the avenues of St. Cloud, of Paris, 
 was n reconnaixsance, but prepared for and of Sceaux, in case the French troops 
 offensive operations. The troops went arrived. The gates of the city were 
 out by liiuil. Bnzenval, Bougival, and closed. Von Moltke, it is reported, de- 
 Malmaison. This was a vigorous sortie, strayed a large number of his papers 
 and was so well kept up at first that and important despatches, had others 
 (luie was a slight panic at Versailles, hastily done up in sheets and towels, 
 The Germans, tor half an hour, were ami ready to be carried off, jumped 
 occupied with vigorous preparations for on to a horse, and went out to look at. 
 departure. Tin- French artillen had the light. It was, probably, his pres- 
 opened a heavy fire on Buzcnval and enoe and the few cool bits of advice 
 Malmaisoii, and the troops had carried which he gave on arriving on the scene 
 the first German positions. But when of action which saved the day. In their 
 they had turned Malmaisoii, and gone up retreat the French lost two cannon, 
 tlic slopes of Jonchere, they found the which the Fiftieth Prussian infantry took 
 enemy ambuscaded in the woods or in from them. 
 
 the houses of the village too strong for In the provinces, the army of the 
 
 them. They asserted, with truth, that Loire, which was destined to such a sad 
 
 a short time after the announcement of fate, was by the end of October in fairly 
 
 the battle, all along the line, even up to good condition. There had been a battle 
 
 Montretout, they had a distinct advan- and a French defeat at Orleans, where 
 
 tage The Germans lost heavily, the an army corps composed of Bavarians 
 
 Fortv-sixthPrussian regiment being quite and Prussians under the command of 
 
 cut to pieces. The Parisians were very General Von der Tann, and a detach- 
 
 indigiiant at the manoeuvres of the Ger- ment of cavalry commanded by Prince 
 
 mans, who, while standing under a heavy Albrecht of Prussia, were operating. 
 
 tire, threw themselves down in great dis- The little town of Chateaudun had made 
 
 order, as if they were nearly all killed, a defense so heroic against over- 
 
 or about to craw! away. This ruse de- whelming numbers that the renown of 
 
 ceived the French, who dashed forward, its exploits penetrated into every circle 
 
 thinking that thev could rush over the in Europe and even won the admiration 
 
 enemy; hut ■.■.hen they were at three of the enemy. The anniversary of this 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 307 
 
 defense has become a commemorative fete 
 in France, and the " Francs-Tireurs," or 
 irregular volunteers, who held this town 
 until it was almost burned to ashes, 
 against a Prussian division of twelve 
 thousand men. with twenty-four pieces 
 nf artillery, deserve tn rank beside the 
 heroes of the Alamo. 
 
 Chateaudun was pillaged first and 
 burned afterwards by the angry enemy, 
 which had nut seen any such resistance 
 since it, had entered the country. The 
 German accounts of the bombardment 
 and sacking of the town furnish sufficient 
 accusation against the victors, who, in 
 this case, abused their power. 
 statement in the official journal of 
 Berlin shortly alter the affair thus 
 describes the condition of the town of 
 Chateaudun: "Demolished walls, over- 
 turned gateways, and pierced roofs make 
 tiie streets nearly impassable. The 
 church itself has been almost destroyed 
 by shells; immense blocks of stone are 
 turn from its wall; the tiles are scattered 
 like leaves in a finest; and a. grenade 
 has blown the belfry half away. Entire 
 sheets were in tlames when the troops 
 entered. The extent of the conflagration 
 and the violence of the storm of wind 
 which carried the flames hither and yon 
 rendered any idea of extinguishing the 
 fire impracticable. .There was scarcely 
 a, decent room to lie had in the town for 
 Prince A.lbrecb.1 and the commanders of 
 
 his division. The officers bivouacked 
 with the (loops in tin' open air. I )ui ini^ 
 the engagement of the previous night 
 the French had neglected their wounded, 
 a great number of whom remained in the 
 streets, and were burned alive. On the 
 morning of the 20th, at five o'clock, the 
 Prussian division took up its march 
 again. The tlames which still came 
 from the ruins were so strong that they 
 lit up the horizon as clearly as if it 
 were day." 
 
 Chateaudun thus became celebrated in 
 French annals. The government issued 
 in ils favor the customary decree: 
 " Chateaudun has merited well of the 
 country." Paris named one of its 
 streets after the unhappy town. Victor 
 Hugo, when some huge cannon were 
 going on to the fortifications, demanded 
 that one of them should he called 
 Chateaudun. 
 
 St. Quentin, in the north, had also 
 made an heroic resistance. The period 
 of hopefulness was not yet over, but it 
 was greatly clouded by the unfortunate 
 termination of the brilliant affair at Le 
 Bourget, by the announcement of the 
 fall of Metz, by the government's de- 
 termination to propose an armistice, and 
 by the Communistic insurrection of the 
 .", 1st of October, when Paris seemed 
 to escape civil war by nothing less 
 than the interposition of Providence. 
 
308 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO. 
 
 The Siege of Metz. -Its Tragedies and its Humors. — Steinmctz the Terrible. - Bazaine's ( lurious Indcci- 
 sion.- The Guerilla Warfare around the Fortress. Hie Poisoned Wells Legend. Starving the 
 Citizens. -The Odor of Death. — General Changarnier's Miss 
 
 XX the north-western part of that ganizing foreign expeditions one-half of 
 pictui'esque and rich departineul of the time he had given to the protection 
 France known as the Moselle stands an of himself from his own enraged country- 
 almost impregnable fortress, which for men. The Romans, with their rare eyes, 
 seventy davs occupied the attention of found Metz a stronghold of strongholds, 
 the whole civilized world. The battles and named it Divodoruin. Here the Me- 
 vvhich were fought near its walls were diomatrici, a powerful and warlike tribe, 
 such as were never seen upon the windy then lived, and from the corruption of 
 plains of Troy, — ■ battles which cling in various dialects in pronouncing their 
 the memory like a hideous nightmare, name finally arose the sobriquet of 
 redeemed here and there by some act of Metz. In l.">i > the Huns destroyed the 
 purifyin°" heroism, some sublim&example town; but as this was before it, had risen 
 of dun and faith and patience. One to a walled fortress, the Metzers boast 
 hundred and seventy-three thousand that it never has been " taken.*' It is 
 men at last surrendered there to barely near the north-eastern Franco-Prussian 
 two hundred thousand, and the shame- frontier, and the country around is strik- 
 ful campaign seemed at its climax, ingly beautiful. The Prussian soldiers, 
 Bazaine had stained his name with igno- who could not be hindered from pausing 
 miny ; and Canrobert, whether or not he to admire nature's beauties, even when 
 were culpable, was at last doomed to do they were making their first memorable 
 penance for being so lone- \ n bad com- march into Austria, in L866, must have 
 pany. These two were most efficient lingered often by the way when ap- 
 witnesses to the truth of the assertion proaching the environs of Metz. The 
 that the Empire was not able to raise up city, set down in front, of a noble back- 
 men lo protect France. The stronghold ground formed by lulls tinged with hrill- 
 of the country, the much-coveted gate, iant colors and crowned with thick 
 was unlocked; and who now could check forests, the greal spires of the Cathedral 
 the descendants of the lirandenburg looming high in air. and to the front 
 pirates? Not even the army of the Loire, the fertile plains, with the silver threads 
 not even Garibaldi, nor yet the fiery, un- of the Moselle and Seille winding 
 famed Gambetta, seemed able to slay through them, make a perfect picture. 
 the avenging hand which had been The heavy masonry, the castellated 
 stretched over France. towers of the Porte des Allemands, and 
 The Germans were wont to say that the huge elbow of the ramparts, which 
 Metz was the sortie gate for France, as projected into the Mosenthal, — the Mo- 
 indeed it might have been to Prussia's selle valley, — reminded every approach- 
 humiliation, hail Napoleon spenl in or- ing visitor that Met/, was eminently a 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 309 
 
 fortress town. "Wist :nnl north-wesl 
 led away the two roads on which the 
 terrible battles of the 14th, 16th, and 18th 
 of August, 1870, were fought; and near 
 by are the heights which were stormed 
 at such dreadful cost. The villages in 
 the vicinity are, with rare exceptions, 
 miserably pom-. The farmers give more 
 attention to their fields than to their 
 homes, and there is small evidence of 
 culture of the grace of hospitality. 
 
 Met/, was tin' capital of Lorraine even 
 as early as the time of Clovis, the first 
 of the French kings. It was later a free 
 city, called Imperial. In the I lth cen- 
 tury it was German, and remained so 
 until 1G48, when it became French by 
 the Treaty of Westphalia. The fortress 
 was begun in the 16th century, by the 
 ( ihevalier de Ville, and constant improve- 
 ments have been made since that time. 
 The Germans are pounding away at it 
 even now, and they have metamorphosed 
 the names of streets and ramparts, forts 
 and gateways, in the .same manner as at 
 Strasbourg. Vauban strengthened and 
 enlarged the work. The model of the 
 fortress was one of the treasures of a 
 military museum at Paris, was taken 
 by the allies in 1815, and is now pre- 
 served in Berlin. The city stands on 
 the right bank of the Moselle, at a point 
 where the river is about two hundred 
 paces wide. The Moselle and the Seille 
 
 are crossed by seventeen bridges, few of 
 which are architecturally line. There 
 are seven gates ill the walls, all im- 
 mensely thick and strong. 
 
 In I860 France began hastily to in- 
 crease the strength of Metz ; but the 
 Germans must have smiled in their 
 sleeves as they reflected that this pre- 
 caution came too late. Germany made 
 no distinct claim on Metz as upon Stras- 
 bourg; hut the Germans recall with 
 pride the fact that German arms are 
 
 s^ill fo be found on the chapel and in the 
 Place Napoleon, as it was called at 
 
 the time of the war. There are three 
 ishnids iii the river, — St. Symphorien, 
 Sauley, and Chambiere. On the cast, 
 at some distance from the city, stands 
 the great fori of Belle Croix, renamed 
 by the Germans; and to the west the 
 bridges were guarded by Fort Moselle. 
 Here also was an entrenched camp, ca- 
 pable of containing many thousands of 
 men. The outermost fort was perhaps 
 
 a mile from the city proper, and the cir- 
 cumference of the whole work was about 
 six miles. Metz was most important as 
 an arsenal (own, having for many years 
 contained the principal stores of weapons 
 in France. Its hospitals were also the 
 finest outside Paris, and its manufacto- 
 ries of cloths, woollen wares, needles, etc., 
 are still celebrated in both hemispheres. 
 The trade between Metz and all parts 
 of Germany was always extremely brisk, 
 and its interruption was not one of the 
 lightest burdens of the war. Many of the 
 
 old churches date from the twelfth cen- 
 tury. St. Stephen's cathedral is remark- 
 able for the beauty of it- stained-glass 
 windows. At the outbreak of the war 
 the town was undoubtedly French in 
 spirit. The fairest German writers admit 
 this. 
 
 One morning Marshal Bazaine, ser- 
 vitor of the Empire and Mexican specu- 
 lator, found that formidable forces had 
 hemmed him in on even - side as the 
 result of the five days' lights, the ter- 
 rible encounters at Mars la-Tour, at 
 Gravelotte, and Borny, of those sangui- 
 nary events which led to the catastrophe 
 of Sedan. Bazaine and his men dis- 
 covered that Metz was really invested; 
 that the enemy lav perdu all around 
 
 them; but n<> one could discover why 
 Bazaine chose to remain besieged when 
 he might, with a great army, have cast 
 
310 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 ] lis fortune upon the adventure of a few province. The soldiers in front of Metz 
 
 hours and tried to cut his way out. The regretted this movement, and it is an 
 
 Prussians harried him night and day, open secret thai there was much sulki- 
 
 aud wearied his broken soldiery very ness and even incipient mutiny for a 
 
 badlv. Meantime General Steinmetz short time; but it was soon forgotten 
 
 had been removed from the important aniidsl stronger excitements, 
 post which In' had for some time held Prince Friederich Karl, now made com- 
 
 in the Prussian army, because the ven- manding-general in front of Metz, estab- 
 
 erable King of Prussia had declared that lished his head-quai - ters at Doncourt, to 
 
 he would not always have bl Ished the which point the "Battle of the five 
 
 only means of arriving at position. The days" laid extended; and there, while 
 
 flashing veteran general, a compound of suffering from a tedious illness produced 
 
 Blucher and Sheridan, had won ureal by excessive labor, he carried on his be- 
 
 praise by the rapidity, not to say reck- sieging operations. Nearly a quarter of 
 
 lessn ss. of his movements in August, a million men were stationed round about 
 
 lie l.ad begun that chain of battles the fortress, and holding at bay, as it were. 
 
 which resulted so favorably to the Prus- a well-provisioned, healthy, and reason- 
 
 sian armies by crossing tin 1 Moselle and ably resolute army of nearly two hun- 
 
 advanciug under the gates of Metz. But dred thousand men. Three marshals of 
 
 it so happened that lie had disobeyed the the French Empire wen' also imprisoned 
 
 positive orders of his commander, — to in (his living ring. From time to time 
 
 pass over the Moselle on the south side in- rumors of brilliant attempts on the 
 
 stead of the north. It was claimed thai part of these great marshals to cut their 
 
 a great sacrifice of life in tin Seventh and way through the Prussians reached the 
 
 Eighth German army corps was due to this besieged residents of Paris. But the 
 
 disobedience of orders, as, by the move- ring was never cut. 
 
 nieiif commanded, Steinmetz would have Bazaiue gave plenty of advice to his 
 
 avoided the French positions near Mos- men. lie was always a good talker, 
 
 cow and St. Hubert, and the Germans An ex-confederate, who had met him in 
 
 would have hail the advantage of higher Mexico, once said to me of Bazaine : 
 
 ground than their enemies. Il is also •• Cest, mi cmtneur adorable quand il a 
 
 argued that Bazaine's return to Metz on deux verres de Cognac dans le ventre." 
 
 the morning of the 19th of August would But of real knowledge he had little; and 
 
 have been impossible. So, although the his geographical acquirements were ridic- 
 
 aged General Steinmetz won an almost ulously small. He told his men in Metz 
 
 incredible victory at Horny, lie was rep- how to get out of (he position into which 
 
 rimanded very severely by the King, hi' seemed to have forced them. lie 
 
 who scowled upon him as Washington said. " You must be constantly on the 
 
 did upon Lee at Monmouth. Steinmetz alert to harass the enemy. He must 
 
 received the rebuke in grim silence, and have no rest. With a few biscuits and 
 
 evidently did not appreciate it. The a great many cartridges, you must creep 
 
 King then ordered him to report to Prince upon him al all hours, and shoot at him 
 
 Friederich Karl, which made him very from all positions. Offensive reconnoi- 
 
 angry, and his relations soon became so tring must be your strong point. This 
 
 ba.| with that general that hi' was re- must be done by columns, which can 
 
 called, and made Governor of a Prussian never get seriously injured. Very soon 
 
EUROPE IN SToRH AND CALM. 
 
 311 
 
 you will know the enemy's positions. 
 You will keep up your own good-humor 
 by constant adventures against him, and 
 you will eventually be able to get pro- 
 visions, and even cannon. You must 
 never be long away from camp. Your 
 pickets must be on the qui-vive. You 
 must live, eat. hope, and dream on a 
 battle-field for, God knows, how many 
 weeks and months yet." In conclusion 
 he said, on one occasion. ■• A most im- 
 portant thing is to win as much time as 
 possible, for here, as in England, time is 
 money." 
 
 In view of Bazaine's utter failure in 
 Metz how suspicious docs this twaddling 
 advice sound! It is not difficult to be- 
 lieve the accusation so often brought 
 against him after the fall of the Empire, 
 that he was a traitor, and that he had 
 deliberately made up his mind to sacri- 
 fice his army rather than to strike a 
 blow which should profit the newly born 
 Republic. 
 
 Skirmishes and reconnaissances were 
 frequent enough in front of the old town 
 from Aug. 20 until late in September. 
 A column of Argus-eyed Frenchmen, 
 hard-headed old boys, wary as Indians. 
 could any morning be seen filing out of 
 the gate of the city, the watchful ser- 
 geant at the head frowning if a man 
 stepped on a twig. These little parties 
 would fall suddenly upon a German out- 
 post, spread an alarm along the line. 
 hack, burn, plunder, and destroy, and 
 sweep back again under cover of the 
 forts. Then would come a retaliatory 
 charge of Uhlans; but these generally 
 left their bodies to repose in French soil. 
 for there were sharp-shooters every- 
 where, and it was unsafe some mornings 
 for the Germans even to go a few steps 
 outside the place of their encampment. 
 Death came on wings, and lighted even 
 into places apparently most secure. 
 
 Men were found dead in spots where it 
 seemed as if no enemy and no enemy's 
 bullet could have penetrated. The ven- 
 detta of Metz began to have grave 
 terrors for the bravest. 
 
 The Germans had excellent facilities 
 for observing the condition of the town, 
 but they could not forewarn troops 
 against these perpetual sorties. Up to 
 the 30th of August it seemed to the 
 French as if Bazaine were still making 
 efforts to free himself from the inimical 
 ring into which he had voluntarily re- 
 tired; and, just before the surrender of 
 Sedan, the army of Metz gave the be- 
 sieging armies a severe shock - , and. for 
 a few hours, seemed certain of victory. 
 This was tin' light in which a German 
 division was so severely cut up that a 
 wail went out throughout all Germany. 
 The lo-ses on the German side were the 
 most tremendous of the war. Extra 
 efforts were at once made for the reduc- 
 tion of the town after this little experi- 
 ence. The Germans were very strongly 
 entrenched, but now hastened to make 
 their position stronger, and began to 
 imitate the French plan of constant 
 sorties. The Moselle valley rang with 
 the dash of arms. The Germans were 
 sometimes surprised at breakfast, and 
 mown down before they could wink. 
 But this only happened when the out- 
 posts were kidnapped and carried away 
 without noise. Little by little, however, 
 
 the endeavors of Bilzame himself to 
 promote sorties became less conspicuous ; 
 Inn the imprisoned defenders rebelled 
 against the policy of inaction, and so all 
 round the vast hues the annoying rushes 
 and the mysterious murders went on. 
 
 On the cast lav the German troops which 
 had been under Steinmetz's command, 
 — the First, and Seventh army corps ; on 
 the south and west, the Guards, and the 
 Second, Third. Fourth. Eighth. Ninth, 
 
312 EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM 
 
 Tenth, and Eleventh army corps; the Moselle, and all the other dogs of war 
 Saxon corps, the Twelfth, guarded the barked constantly. Sometimes a Ger- 
 north. man soldier on picket duty at the 
 There was. say the German accounts entrance of n little village was Mown to 
 of the siege, a) this time, a heavy, moist pieces, and little was found to signify 
 odor of death in the air night and day. that he had not deserted his post save a 
 It came from the hastily buried dead, gun, a helmet, or a glove. Patrols and 
 The men threatened to mutiny on both pickets became so used to dodging 
 sides alter the battle of Horny, because death that they invented nicknames for 
 they weii' not allowed to bury the fast- the expedients they were obliged to 
 decaying horses, which had been left pursue. So the slow weeks passed, 
 uncovered, and which were breeding a Then came the sharp fighting at Mercy- 
 plague. Hut there was only time to le-Haut, south-east of Metz ; and grad- 
 throw a thin covering of earth over them, ually September waned without results 
 As for soldiers who were killed at Metz on either side. The Prussians found it 
 during the siege, in most cases their difficult to get enough to eat, and both 
 craves were due' put a foot deep, and, besiegers and besieged fell upon captured 
 in many instances, the feet and the hands knapsacks and shook out of them the 
 were left, sticking out of tile ground, pieces (if bread which they contained 
 The market tenders, as the sutlers are with the eagerness of starvation. But 
 called in the German army, observing Germany began to send up provision- 
 that the troops drank more while this trains full of love gifts. October 
 horrible smell endured, used numerous arrived. The besieging troops heard 
 efforts to prevent them from burying the that the King and the Crown Prince 
 bodies, and even invented false alarms were in front of Paris. One or two 
 to divert burial parties from their work, more disastrous collisions, — disastrous 
 This statement was seriously made in to both sides, — and the siege entered 
 letters written to Germany from the upon its final phase, that of sullen en- 
 camps of th" besiegers. A few sutlers durance of privation b\ the invader 
 being shot, however, by order of the and the invaded. 
 
 commanders, this kind of enterprise was The German soldiers, during theirlong 
 
 checked. Dysentery came to race in stay in front of Metz, contented them- 
 
 t In- camp. Prince Friederieh Kail was selves with simple diversions. They 
 
 struck down with the disease, and his carved on many a wooden cross, piously 
 
 death was announced many times, erected above the grave of fallen eom- 
 
 Meautimc Sedan had become known to fades, the old German military legend : — 
 all the world save to the besieged, and 
 
 it was not lone before the sinister news "'" Salven '"''['"" '"' 
 
 ,1 , ., ,-. i- , , /hs Kuhle grab hmei/i, 
 
 got through the German hues, and de- „ ,.-,,,, 
 
 Das ist Soldaten tnamer — 
 
 tcriniued Bazaine upon his sinful policy. Wcilsieall zeit lustig sein. 
 
 The French forts kept up an aston- 
 ishingly brisk lire, slaughtering a few Some inscriptions had a rough humor 
 men every day at an immense cost of in them, recounting the exploits of 
 shot and shell, which justified the old heroes ill the same manner that an 
 proverb that it takes a ton of iron to Indian chief might recite the number of 
 kill a man. Ports Quelan, Queutin, his slain. But these of course were only 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 313 
 
 temporary ; no trace of them can be 
 found to-day. 
 
 Here is the menu of a cook attached 
 to the first company of the First Rhenish 
 Jiiger Battalion : — ■ 
 
 Menu 17th Septembeb to Octobek 1st. 
 At sunrise: 
 
 Coffee without milk. Ohassepot bullets in 
 the earth-works. 
 
 At noon : 
 Dessert after dinner, — distant roaring of 
 cannon from Fort Quentin. Grand concert, 
 
 immediate neighborl 1 hot. Beginning of 
 
 symphony serves ti> hasten meals and assist 
 digestion. 
 
 Evening : 
 Black-bread for supper Spectacle, — burning 
 villages smoking t<> all corners of the heavens, 
 and St. Quentin's mins shying shot at the em- 
 bankments until midnight. 
 
 Dancing : 
 Towards the enemy's works through wood 
 
 and meadow until daylight, when the murder of 
 patrol parties begins as usual. 
 
 The camp literature was sometimes 
 exceedingly good. There were seven 
 German poets killed before Metz, and, 
 in the battles which preceded the actual 
 siege, a gentleman who had made a fine 
 translation of Longfellow's" Hiawatha" 
 fell to rise no more. A Sanscrit scholar 
 sent home a report of tin action in which 
 he was engaged written in .Sanscrit. 
 In his regiment there were three others 
 proficient in that tongue. Out of the 
 German Unties of soldiery might any 
 day have stepped one hundred accom- 
 plished linguists, as out of the Massa- 
 chusetts regiment during the Rebellion 
 stepped at call a hundred men. each of 
 whom could construct a locomotive. 
 
 Some rather complaining Prussian 
 pickets, one day having expressed dis- 
 
 appointment because much-needed food 
 had not come t<> hand, were taken by a 
 number of their comrades to a neigh- 
 boring village, where they were informed 
 that provisions carried off from the 
 French were stored. The greedy and 
 half-starved fellows rushed into a room 
 where they discovered nothing but huge 
 piles of splinters of French shells. Of 
 these they were coolly invited to partake; 
 and thenceforward they complained no 
 more. 
 
 Within Metz they were not given to 
 joking, but to serious endeavors to live. 
 The locust armies were rapidly eating the 
 citizens out of house and homo. On the 
 13th of October, nearly ten days after 
 Paris had done ;i similar thing, the com- 
 mandant issued the following order con- 
 cerning bread : — 
 
 Fn>m Thursday, October Hi, only one kind 
 of bread will he baked — made from corn. 
 This bread costs nine sous tor two pounds. 
 Every baker will receive from this day forward 
 Hour enough to supply the district which he 
 serves. The daily portion for every inhabitant 
 of the city is established at four hundred 
 grammes fur an adult, two hundred grammes 
 for a. chihl, ami one hundred grammes fur in- 
 fants under four. A baker can furnish bread 
 only to those who have a paper fri an the mayor ; 
 and no one can receive more than the regular 
 portions. 
 
 This arrangement met with universal 
 favor so long as the corn lasted ; but corn 
 began gradually to give out ; and when 
 Bazaine capitulated, there was neither 
 bread nor stilt to be found in his whole 
 army nor in the town. Expedients for 
 food were of the most astonishing nature. 
 Men and women constantly came to the 
 commandant with propositions lor the 
 manufacture id' articles miraculous in 
 their sustaining power, and by which the 
 whole army and the honor of France 
 could be saved. But the very materials 
 
3 1 I 
 
 EUROPE IX STOini AND CALM. 
 
 with which to make these substances German soldiers had many privations 
 were lacking. The horses thai were to undergo which were unknown to the 
 killed had been themselves so long with- French. The Lorraine peasantry were 
 out proper food and attention that the filled with the bitterest hatred for their 
 little flesh remaining upon their bones conquerors, and many a picket lost his 
 afforded small nourishment. Early in life through the poisoning of the wells in 
 October this horse-meat became the only his neighborhood. So musketeers were 
 flesh available. The faces of the men posted at every well and brook from 
 began to show their sufferings, and the Saiirbriicken to Metz, and all around the 
 scurvy manifested itself here and there, besieged city : and whenever a peasant 
 The Germans were even moved to tears was found near a well he was made t" 
 by the exhibition of mingled pride and drink from it. to prove that he had not 
 greed given by French prisoners occa- been poisoning it. Notices were also 
 sionally brought into camp. Now it was posted announcing that if a peasant be- 
 a slight but wiry chasseur, who could not longing to any village in the surrounding 
 refrain from filling the pockets of his couutry was found to have attempted 
 baggy trousers with bread and salt, that treachery against the troops, a number 
 he might luxuriate in these, to him. mi- of the inhabitants of that village would 
 wonted blessings; ami now a gigantic be shot. On one occasion the Mayor of 
 cuirassier, who ate enough to have main- a little town was brought before a Ger- 
 tained a squadron, but who proudly stated man officer, charged with having been 
 the fart that then' was no hunger in seen to put something into a well. lb' 
 Met/.. The French officers, who came was dragged to it and made to drink re- 
 as paiiementaires to arrange some truce peatedly from it. .Ashe approached it, 
 for purposes necessary to both sides, he staggered, and turned pale from excite- 
 always proudly refused any invitations ment, not from guilt. In an instant 
 to dinner. The great hospitals at Mil/, a hundred guns were levelled at his 
 were overcrowded with sick and wounded, breast, and he would have been shot to 
 and there was fear of pestilence in them, pieces had he not recovered himself and 
 The Bridge of theDead, over the Moselle, been able to demonstrate that the well- 
 had a new meaning in its name: so water was still pure. The peasants were 
 many sorrowful processions had gone out in the habit of denying that they had 
 over it day by day to bury their comrades grain or food of any kind when foraging 
 in the liclds beyond. When the Em- parties visited them. After a. lime this 
 peror Napoleon was leaving .Met/, he enraged the Prussians, who burned the 
 shook his bead as the driver asked him houses of refractory farmers, and there- 
 if he should go over the Bridge of the after everything was at their disposal. 
 
 Dead, and told him to take the one next Great stores of "rain were sometimes 
 
 below it. By the river-side stood a little found hidden in the most ingenious 
 
 child as the Imperial cortege passed on its manner, and considerable sums of money 
 
 runaway course, and the voice of that buried in the earth by owners who had 
 
 child was th< ly one in the town which lied away were brought to light. Hut 
 
 cried " Vive VEmpereur!" Hut the Em- these were never appropriated, the gen- 
 
 peror touched his hat with the same die- eral orders of each day making it the 
 
 nity that he would have shown in saluting duty of every soldier to report things 
 
 an immense crowd. found at head-quarters. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 ;<:)■> 
 
 The burning of villages seems to have 
 been very common; and yet no good 
 reason could be assigned for it. Visiting 
 Met/, just after the siege one often came 
 upon blackened heaps of cinders running 
 in two lone- parallel lines in beautiful 
 fields bordered by poplars. These sin- 
 ister relics denoted the site of some 
 hamlet which had met with the rude 
 fortune of war. 
 
 The majority of the frontier villages 
 were composed of low, one-story cottages, 
 built on each side of a lime; street, 
 There was but little variety in the archi- 
 tecture, and the public buildings were 
 few and dingy. In ordinary times the 
 notable figures of these little commu- 
 nities were the priest, the mayor, 
 one of the gorgeous country police, a 
 rich farmer or two, fat, churlish, and 
 wearing huge blue blouses over their 
 broad cloth coats and their capacious 
 waistcoats. 
 
 But on thi' avenues of these frontier 
 towns, after the siege, there were no 
 signs of country prosperity, nothing hut 
 a few sentinels lazily strolling up and 
 down, a spy being conveyed in a cart to 
 the place cit' his trial, a lew women 
 brooding over the loss of husband or 
 
 home, or a squadron of cavalry riding 
 
 through to inquire if anything could be 
 had tn eat. 
 
 One day, old General Changarnier, 
 weak and trembling with his age and 
 fatigues, went to see Prince Friederich 
 Karl at I)oncourt. To this step — a 
 most humiliating one — the condition of 
 Bazaine and the Met/, army had driven 
 him. Bazaine, generally reserved and 
 frosty in his manner, hailed Changar- 
 nier's proposition with much delight. 
 Such humiliations were mere prelimina- 
 ries. The commander of Metz was 
 indeed full of gloomy forebodings, and 
 since the declaration of the Republic had 
 been confirmed he had not scrupled to 
 say that the fortress was lost, lie had 
 seen the declaration of the Emperor's 
 fall received with acclamations by many 
 of his own men. Desertions began; 
 men stricken with fever, men whose 
 scrawny limbs trembled under them, and 
 who loathed the sight of (he unwholesome 
 fond given them, went boldly into the 
 enemy's camp and asked for protection 
 and provisions in exchange for their 
 liberty and their arms. The German 
 prisoners brought' into Metz were accus- 
 tomed to taunt the men with stories 
 about the well-fed prisoners and de- 
 serters in the German lines. 
 
3i(> 
 
 BUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE. 
 
 The Surrender of Metz. — The Suspicious Nature oi 
 Imperialists. -The Affair of the Flags. — Tin 
 many . 
 
 GENERAL CHANGARNIEE found 
 Friederieb Karl sullen, angry, and 
 n<>t over-polite. To tell the truth, this 
 warrior's temper had been spoiled by tin' 
 fact thai lie had been compelled to stay, 
 as it were on the outskirts of France, 
 when he wished to have been flying 
 through the country, terrifying a. new 
 city every day, sleeping in the saddle, 
 living on a crnst for a week, making 
 forced marches, etc He adored hard- 
 ships, but lie wished 1o confront them 
 in the midst of stronger excitements than 
 those of :i siege. 
 
 So he had hut lew words of comfort 
 for, aud asked many exactions from, 
 Changarnier. The old general went, 
 hack sick at heart, murmuring that the 
 Prince had maltreated him, and said 110 
 
 more, lie had given up the campaign. 
 
 .lust outside the range of the shells 
 
 from Port, Quentin stood the beautiful 
 
 rlr'tlrini of Frascat i, deserted l>\ its owner 
 
 at an early stage of the siege. The 
 Pomeranians were posted there, and the 
 wearv watchers in Met/ nightly heard 
 them roar their northern soul:-. These 
 same Pomeranians were the roilgh-aild- 
 readv fellows who went post-haste across 
 the country when their work was done 
 at Met/, to plunge into the southern cam- 
 paign. The chdteau, surrounded by one 
 of the finest parks in France, had lone 
 been the glory of the suburbs of Met/, 
 and to-day is one of the m >st interesting 
 of European castles, for there the great- 
 est capitulation of modern times was 
 
 Bazaine'* Negotiations. — Tin Envoy from the Fallen 
 i Prisoners in Front of Metz, and in Camps in Ger- 
 
 signed. There the man who had shown 
 such astonishing indecision that he was 
 suspected even by his fellow- 1 mperia lists, 
 
 lone before his policy had become plain, 
 of wishing to deliver his army into the 
 hands of the I lermans, gave up his prison- 
 ers, — sixty-seven regiments of infan 
 try. and thirteen battalions of chasseurs, 
 of which there were ten regiments of 
 cuirassiers, one Guidon regiment, eleven 
 of dragoons, two of lancers and three 
 of hussars, six of chasseurs, three of 
 Chasseurs d'Afrique, and six garrison 
 squadrons, as well as one hundred and 
 fifteen field batteries r.nd seventeen bat- 
 teries of the famous mitrailleuse, which 
 was, by the way. a complete failure in the 
 held. The army of Bazaine had originally 
 two hundred and twenty-one battalions, 
 Lhe garrison of Met/, consisting of eigh- 
 teen battalions, and one hundred and 
 sixty-two squadrons, the guard of the 
 Grenadier regiments, three cavalry regi- 
 ments, a guard of the lancers, a guard of 
 chasseurs and the Chasseurs d'Afrique, 
 but some of these latter constituted the 
 personal guard of the Emperor, and had 
 left Mdz with him. They, with the Cent 
 Gardes, were included in the Sedan capitu- 
 lation. Bazaine had at firs! two hundred 
 and ten thousand able men ; hut when the 
 time of capitulation came he had thirty- 
 six thousand sick and wounded on his 
 hands. 
 
 Right glad were the German troops 
 when they heard that surrender was cer- 
 tain, for they had had enough of ex tem- 
 
EUROPE IN SToUM AND CALM. 
 
 317 
 
 pore living. A soldier, writing a clay 
 or two before Changarnier's attempt to 
 treat with Prince Friederieh Karl, said. 
 " We are seeing hard times, but exercis- 
 ing and dress are attended to just as if 
 we were in a garrison. My quarters are 
 in a hay-loft, where I have provided for 
 my comfort as best I can. For food 
 we have biscuit and bacon only. My 
 clothes-brush serves my company as lux >t. 
 tooth, rifle, nail, and garment cleaner. 
 Our handkerchief's are used as coffee- 
 strainers, bandages, and neck-cloths al- 
 ternately. Mantles serve as table-cloths, 
 swords as beefsteak choppers, their hilts 
 as coffee-mills and hard-tack breakers." 
 The journals of the besieged town, 
 printed on paper of all colors, — choco- 
 late, gray, and brown, — had evidently 
 given the inhabitants and the army but 
 small hope. One and all spoke very dis- 
 couraginglyof the condition of the French 
 provinces. They also announced, on the 
 25th of October, that the raw weather 
 had caused the death of immense num- 
 bers of horses, and that a great party 
 among the inhabitants was German in 
 demanding peace. "The only nourish- 
 ment now in the town," sadly recorded 
 one paper, " is salt meat and fresh 
 water." 
 
 Old General Changarnier only went 
 out on his mission to the Germans after 
 urgent solicitation on the part of his 
 comrades, and not until Bazaine had 
 been urged to attempt an escape with a 
 part of his army in the direction of 
 Gravelotte. " Eveu if you do not es- 
 cape," urged the generals, " ami if we 
 are made prisoners, we shall save the 
 garrison and the fortress by giving them 
 a. little more time." But Bazaine 
 would not hear of this, and so old Gen- 
 eral Changarnier went blindfolded to 
 the Chateau Frascati. When lie came 
 hack to Metz, after an interview of an 
 
 hour and a half witli the Prussian com- 
 mander, his aged frame trembled and 
 tears streamed down his face lie said, 
 "< Jentlemen, we must fall, but with honor. 
 I hope that you ami your brave soldiers 
 may never experience such anguish as I 
 have felt." On his way back, after he 
 was in the French lines, he saw some 
 soldiers groping for potatoes in the 
 fields, and stopped t,i tell them that the 
 
 Germans were splendid antagonists, and 
 
 that they must show their best qualities 
 against such an enemy. 
 
 So, on the L'Ttli October, Prince Fried- 
 erich Karl came down to the Chateau 
 Frascati to lie near at hand for a con- 
 sultation. A French division-general 
 represented Bazaine, and General Von 
 Stiehle, the Prussian army. The articles 
 were signed, after a severe struggle, about 
 eleven o'clock at night. The King sent 
 to request the French officers to retain 
 their swoids. Food was at once sent, for- 
 ward to the town, and the ( ierman soldiers 
 heard much shouting, as of men begging 
 and hustling about the provision carts. 
 until early dawn. And so it came to 
 pass, that in October Germany had as 
 prisoners within her boundary one hun- 
 dred and forty-eight French generals, 
 six thousand officers, and three hundred 
 and twenty-three thousand men of rank 
 and tile ; while as yet France had taken 
 but two thousand one hundred Germans 
 as prisoners of war. 
 
 So it happened that, in the dullest of 
 weather, with death in their hearts, and 
 with very little food in their stomachs, 
 tlie Imperial Guards, which had marched 
 out of Paris scarcely three months lie- 
 fore to the sound of inspiring music, on 
 the beginning of their triumphal march 
 to Berlin, defiled through the great for- 
 tress gate and past Prince Friedei ich Karl 
 and his generals assembled. 
 
 So it happened, that the dreary pro- 
 
318 EUROPE IS STORM AND CALM. 
 
 cession began, one army, conquered, de- pcror, Napoleon the Great, stood before 
 
 filing past another bul little larger than the grave of Frederick, at Potsdam; 
 
 itself. in October, 1812, was the Battle of 
 
 So it happened, that the marvellous Leipsic ; October, 1815, saw Napoleon 
 
 German railway organization came once I. at St. Helena; October, 1830, saw 
 
 more into play. All civil trains on the Louis Napoleon's attempt to proclaim 
 
 Baden and Palatinate routes were sus- himself Emperor at Strasbourg; Octo- 
 
 pended, and ten thousand Frenchmen, ber, 1840, saw him sentenced to impris- 
 
 daily. were expressed into Germany, onment ; and October, 1871, brought 
 
 with the same precision and skill with the capitulation of MHz. and the coro- 
 
 which the Teutonic troops were sent upon nation of King William of Prussia as 
 
 to the French frontier a little while pre- Emperor of United Germany and Con- 
 
 vioiis. Tin' French marshals, Bazaine, qucror of Fiance at Versailles, ii was 
 
 Canrobert, and Le Boeuf , were sent on to also in October, in that wild year 1552, 
 
 Cassel, to tell the story to their captive that Henry II. senl his army to seize 
 
 Emperor; and the German press of the upon Metz, Troyes, and Verdun, while 
 
 dav recorded, with a grim satire, thai in Charles V. was troubled with religious 
 
 the French marshals' train were twenty wars in Germany. Up came the fiery 
 
 thousand pounds of luggage. Emperor with a tremendous army at his 
 
 So it happened, that the Crown Prince back, when he heard that the French 
 and Prince Friederich Karl got to be were in the Trois-Eveches ; and down 
 marshals, and Von Moltke became a he set before Met/, and began his opera- 
 count; that long trains of food, from tions with a formidable park <>f cavalry 
 England, from Belgium, from the Rhine, for those days. But he went away in 
 were hurried through the battle-stricken the winter of 1553, leaving his tents 
 eountrv to relieve the starving people behind him, convinced that he could not 
 in Metz; that the 1'omeranians took up overcome the valor of Francois de Guise ; 
 their tremendous line of march to the and so great was his anger and humilia- 
 sonth ; that a flaming farewell order was tion that lie cried out: •• I see, now, 
 
 issued by the German coi auder to that Fortune is indeed a woman. She 
 
 those veterans who did not go on farther favors tin 1 young and disdains the old." 
 
 ini,, the campaign; that the peasants Bazaine, and all the members of the 
 
 stole out from wood and down from Imperial Party, have insisted, ever since 
 
 mountain to resume their work ; that the the trial of the unlucky Marshal in 
 
 ploughshares now and then probed a 1873, that- he was the victim of circum- 
 
 orave so new that it was horrible; that stances; that the French, horror-stricken 
 
 the dull battle steneh for miles around and humiliated by the crushing stales of 
 
 gradually went away; ami that by night defeats which hail come upon them, felt 
 
 the fields echoed no longer to the scream- il npcessary to assert that they ware be- 
 
 inor of shells ami the rattle of musketry trayed, and hurled all the fury of their 
 
 fire, but to cheery German soldier accusation upon the soldier who was in 
 
 sw.ies. command of the head-quarters-gcneral 
 
 Many wonderful military events in the of the army. French pride was indeed 
 
 history of France and Prussia, have oc- more bitterly hurt by the surrender of 
 
 eurred in this same sinister October. Mel/, than by any other event of the 
 
 in lsa'i. in October, the victorious Em- war. That the town around which so 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM 319 
 
 many glorious remembrauces clustered, because it thus gave to France the time 
 
 and which had been associated with so to organize resistance, and to the armies 
 
 many striking events in French history, in course of formation time to be brought 
 
 could have been handed over without a together. 
 
 final valorous effort for its relief seems That he was unpatriotic and partisan 
 incomprehensible, unless its commander seems clearly proven. Ou the 23d of 
 were influenced by unworthy motives. September, a. Prussian parlementaire 
 It seems clear — reviewing with the presented himself at the French picket 
 utmost impartiality the course of Marshal line, bearing a letter from Friederich 
 Bazaine from the 12th of August, 1870, Karl for Marshal Bazaine. A little 
 the day on which he took into his hands behind him was a man on foot, with a 
 the chief command of the army of the white pocket-handerchief tied to the end 
 Rhine, up to the evening of the i'7th of a stick. The Prussian parlementaire 
 of October, when the capitulation was delivered his letter, and was about to 
 signed — that Bazaine did not do his ride away, when the French officer who 
 duty. Whether it was because he had come out to meet him said, ••Who is 
 desired for a consideration to betray the this man with you?" — -'He is not with 
 immense army under his leadership to me, and I do not know him," replied the 
 the Germans, or hoped that the forces Prussian officer, galloping off. Theindi- 
 of the broken French Empire might rally, vidua] then declared that he had a, mis- 
 and that he might, by some clever com- sion for Marshal Bazaine, and wished 
 bination, contribute to the weakness of to speak with him at once. So he was 
 the Republic, and help to restore the brought into the lines. When he reached 
 Imperial throne, the world will probably the town the French officer who was con- 
 never know. His conduct, whatever ducting him asked him whom he should 
 might have been its motive, was pitia- announce to the .Marshal. " Yon may 
 ble. lie might, by joining forces with say that it is an envoy from Hastings," 
 MacMahon in the closing' days of was the answer. It was at Hastings 
 August, have prevented the disaster of that the Empress Eugenie had taken 
 Sedan ; and, in response to the pressing refuge after her (light, from Paris. 
 despatches which were sent him, urging Marsha] Bazaine at once received this 
 him to be ready to affect the junction, person, whose name was Regnier, into 
 he responded only by puerile excuses, his private office; and there, according 
 At one time he said that he could not to testimony furnished at the trial of 
 move because of lacking ammunition ; Bazaine. Regnier declared that he had 
 and, on that very day, in curious illus- come to propose either to Marshal Can- 
 tration of the absolute disorganization robert or to General Bourbaki to go to 
 of the army, four millions of cartridges, England to place themselves at the dis- 
 the very existence of which in the ar- position of the Regent, as the Empress 
 senal had been ignored up to that time was then called. But the testimony 
 by the genera] commanding the place, clearly establishes that Regnier appeared 
 were discovered. To all the appeals for to have brought to Marshal Bazaine a 
 the powerful aid which his well-disci- proposition that he should si'4U a treaty 
 plined and vigorous army could have permitting the army of Mctz to retire 
 given, his only answer was, that the army into a neutral zone, and thai he should 
 ought to remain under the walls of Mctz, be allowed to have tin- fortress with 
 
320 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM 
 
 military honors on condition of no to communicate with the fallen Era- 
 
 furthei" resistance t< > the ( Germans during press. 
 
 the course of the war. Bazaine, ii is All thiis was certainly enough to make 
 
 true, resolutely declared at liis trial, thai Republican France believe that the com- 
 
 neither he nor any of his comrades would mander-in-chief of the Army of the 
 
 have consented to any conditions such Rhine, who ought to have fought his 
 
 as those which would have divided the way out of Metz two mouths before, 
 
 National Defense. Regnier, who was was nothing less than a traitor. When 
 
 called as a witness in the trial, took care General Changarnier was sent to treat 
 
 In keep out of the way. It is variously with Prince Friedcrich Karl, he was 
 
 supposed that he was an agent of Yon charged by Bazaine to demand the neu- 
 
 Bismarck, en- that he was a real envoy tralization of the Army of the Rhine, 
 
 from the Emperialist Party, whose aims and the territory that it occupied, and 
 
 were furthered by Bismarck, because that an armistice, during which an appeal 
 
 wily diplomat saw thai it' Bazaine were was to be made to the deputies and to 
 
 allowed to believe himself the arbiter the constituted powers, under virtue of 
 
 of the defense of France he could be the constitution of May, 1870, for a 
 
 dupe, | in any manner desirable. Regn- treaty of peace between the two antago- 
 
 ier certainly made a definite offer to nists. There is also a fine flavor of 
 
 Canroberl and to Bourbaki to go to the Imperialism in the phrase in which 
 
 Empress, and Bourbaki accepted and Bazaine asks that lie lie allowed to fulfil 
 
 went. On the 10th of October Bazaine. a mission of order, meaning, of course, 
 instead of cutting his way out of Metz that the obliging enemy should let him 
 and going to help the regularly consti- pass through ils lines and go to put 
 tuted governmenl of his country in its down the new Republic in Paris. 
 resistance to invasion, sent General The affair of the flags at, the time 
 Boyer to Versailles, where that general of the surrender of Metz put the finish- 
 entered into a long series of interviews ing touch to Bazaine's disastrous career. 
 with Count Von Bismarck relative to the The Republicans stoutly claim that, had 
 surrender of Metz. All that General it not been for his stupid hesitation, and 
 Boyer got out of Bismarck was that the for the multiplicity of his orders and 
 conditions imposed for the raising of the counter-orders, all the flags of the gar- 
 si"ue were that the fidelity of the army rison would have been burned, and the 
 of the Rhine to the Empress Eugenie French nation would have been spared 
 should he fully affirmed, that a mani- the shame of knowing that hundreds 
 fetation of this fidelity should be pub- of its banners are exhibited in Berlin. 
 licly made in Metz on the part of the As it was, many a valiant general and 
 army, and that eveu the signature of colonel, with that reckless defiance of 
 the Empress to the preliminaries of a military discipline which came with a 
 treaty of peace should be obtained, disgust for Bazaine's course, burned the 
 General Boyer returned to Metz with flags of their commands, or broke them 
 these conditions, laid them before a a. id trampled them into the earth, and 
 council, in which Bazaine. General sent word to the commander of the place 
 Ladmirault, Marshal Le Boeuf, and to say that they had done so. Shortly 
 many other important officers, took after the capitulation of Metz a gentle- 
 part, and then went over to England man resident in Germany wrote me as 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 321 
 
 follows: •• Were it not for tin' presence 
 of so many prisoners and the wounded. 
 Germany would have some difficulty in 
 realizing that she is now carrying on a 
 tremendous war hundreds of miles away 
 in the centre of a formidable enemy's 
 country; for our streets are as thronged 
 as ever, business is about in its normal 
 condition, and the high schools and uni- 
 versities are filled up with youth, despite 
 the many scholars, doctors, and profess- 
 ors now on the battle-fields. A visit to 
 the unbidden French guests and their 
 encampments in the various cities tells 
 us what the Germans are doing in France 
 and have done. They sent in l,000pris- 
 ouers from Weisseuburg ; 0,000 from 
 Woerth ; 2,. 500 from Spicheren ; 1 ,:J77 
 from Saargemund and Haguenau ; ".'(id 
 f rom Vionville ; 3,000 from Gravelotte; 
 8,050 from Vitry ; 2,800 from Beau- 
 mont; 84,450 from Sedan; 2,280 from 
 Toul; 1."., DUO from Strasbourg ; 5,000 
 from before Paris, and 173,000 from 
 Metz. Altogether this makes a grand 
 total of about 330,000 men, including 
 10,000 officers and 4 marshals. 
 
 " Three hundred and thirty thousand I 
 This is nearly the whole of the grand 
 army of the Rhine, with which Napoleon 
 set out to conquer Germany and take 
 possession of the Rhine provinces, and 
 lo sign the treaty of peace in Kcanigs- 
 burg or Berlin. It is not difficult to ex- 
 plain why Germany made this immense 
 number of prisoners. First, the Ger- 
 mans themselves had special inducements 
 to capture them alive, especially poor 
 Turco, who had many a prize set upon 
 his black head. Something in the fol- 
 lowing style of telegram was received 
 by Count Bismarck : ' One thousand 
 good cigars for the first German soldiers 
 who capture the first live Turco.' But 
 the hearts of the French do not seem to 
 have been in their work. A French 
 
 writer indeed cries out that these are not 
 the soldiers of France, not the succes- 
 sors of the men who followed Napoleon 
 the Great, who never allowed themselves 
 to be taken prisoners by wholesale, as do 
 the present generation. This is true 
 
 enough; but the soldiers of the old Na- 
 poleon, beaten as they were at last, had 
 always something to fight for, and 
 leaders whom they could always trust; 
 while in 1870, from Weisseuburg to 
 Sedan, the campaign on the French side 
 was a mass of confusion, imbecility, and 
 unskilfnlness of the leaders, and light- 
 ing of the men without purpose to tic 
 achieved. Napoleon himself complains 
 that his generals would not obey his 
 commands; while the prisoners here con- 
 stantly repeat the reproach: -We have 
 been sold; we have been sold.' 
 
 " I have visited a number of the 
 French camps in Germany, and arrive 
 at the conclusion that these very prison- 
 ers will be a great help to Germany 
 when they return to their native land. 
 The French soldiers started for the 
 Rhine, expecting to find, as the most 
 ignorant had been told, a people some- 
 thing akin to the Cossacks of the Don, 
 or, as a French school-book informs the 
 youthful mind, savages upon the sand 
 plains of Hanover. Pomerania was to 
 them a wilderness. They knew nothing 
 whatever of Germanv except Prussia ; 
 but they will return home with vastly dif- 
 erent opinions of Germany and the Ger- 
 mans, for they have been treated with a 
 kindness as surprising as it was gener- 
 ous. The first batch of one thousand 
 coming in from Weissenburg was re- 
 ceived with silence by vast crowds, and 
 was the recipient of favors which even 
 the German soldiers did not obtain. 
 The greatest good feeling has been pro- 
 duced between citizens and prisoners ; 
 for, although excursion trains are run 
 
322 
 
 EVROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 every Sunday to the French camp, the 
 people who go only go to do good offices, 
 and not merely to stare. The German 
 Indies have been somewhat censured for 
 the great desire they manifest to 
 give their French an airing. The op- 
 portunity to speak French with a native 
 does not come every day, and the fair 
 beings may therefore be excused. Es- 
 pecially among the wounded, where the 
 French and Germans occupied the same 
 rooms, the latter have at times a cause 
 of complaint that German ladies should 
 have preferred to notice the French. In 
 a Saxon hospital two good fellows de- 
 termined, not long ago, to take advantage 
 of this curiosity on the part of their iady 
 visitors, and as one of their number 
 could speak French like a Frenchman, 
 they dressed him up as a prisoner, and 
 every one desiring to see the French 
 wounded was at once referred to him. 
 One lady was so charmed by his story 
 and his language that she not only took 
 his address, but made him a present of 
 some money. No sooner had she disap- 
 peared than loud laughter burst forth. 
 The supposed Frenchman rose a stout 
 Saxon, and the money thus won was dis- 
 tributed anions the comrades." 
 
 This good-natured letter, in which the 
 German feeling is fairly represented, 
 unfortunately does not convey the entire 
 truth. There was great suffering, moral 
 and physical, among the thousands of 
 prisoners, especially after the cold 
 weather set in. and many accounts pub- 
 lished shortly after the return of the 
 prisoners indicate that, while the treat- 
 ment by the civilians was uniformly kind 
 and reasonably courteous, the military 
 authorities were harsh and sometimes 
 vindictive. The tent encampments, out- 
 side fortresses like Magdeburg, Cob- 
 lentz, Mainz. Stettin, Glogau, Erfurt, 
 Eosen, and Wesel, each containing from 
 live to ten thousand prisoners, were the 
 scene of much misery, and sometimes of 
 the most tragic- deaths. High-spirited 
 men. like General Ducrot and others, 
 would not stand the long-inflicted hu- 
 miliation, and boldly made their es- 
 cape. Ducrot was bitterly accused by 
 the Germans of having violated his 
 word of honor in thus escaping; 
 but he has sufficiently defended him- 
 self against this charge in his able 
 work on the early part of the cam- 
 paign. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 323 
 
 CHATTER THIRTY-FOUR. 
 
 The Desperate Battles at Le Bourget. — Remarkable Valor of the French. — EpKodesof the Defense. 
 
 The Charge of the Marines. — Thiers anil Bismarck. — The Insurrection of the 31st of October. — 
 Brilliant Conduct of Juleg Ferry. 
 
 THE Parisians, despite their numen >us 
 disasters, had lost none of their 
 traditional gayety of speech, and were 
 able to say, when they heard that Gen- 
 eral Aurelles de Paladines had had his 
 army cut in two, — -"That will make two 
 armies instead of one, and makes us 
 just so much the stronger." But light 
 and pleasant sayings do not always go 
 with light hearts, and after the terrible 
 affair of Le Bourget the resistance of 
 Paris lost its hopeful character. M. 
 Jules Favre says that it precipitated the 
 insurrection of the 01st of October. 
 
 The village of Le Bourget was :t very 
 important situation for an army invest- 
 ing Paris ; and the Prussians had seized 
 it and held it until the 28th of October, 
 at which tune the Francs-Tireurs of the 
 press made a descent upon it, and, sur- 
 prising the Prussians in their sleep, took 
 possession, making many prisoners and 
 killing large numbers of the enemy. 
 It was not at all to the taste of the 
 Germans to see the batteries which they 
 had established at Pont Iblon and ad- 
 jacent places seriously menaced ; so, at 
 ten o'clock on the morning of the French 
 occupation, the Germans who had es- 
 caped came back strongly reinforced, 
 and made a tremendous attack. The 
 . Francs-Tireurs had their feeble forces 
 strengthened by a few companies of 
 Mobiles, and they made a defense of the 
 position which they had so recently 
 taken which may deservedly rank with 
 that of Chateaudun. The little baud of 
 
 Frenchmen was subjected to a terrible 
 
 artillery Are for more than live hours. 
 Neatly every house in Le Bourget was 
 riddled with shell; but the troops held 
 Arm, and at nightfall the enemy had to 
 retire. There were (wo severe attacks 
 made there the same evening, — one of 
 them by the grenadiers of the Prussian 
 Guard; but this was repulsed, and, 
 meantime a battalion of Mobiles, under 
 the command of a valiant young officer 
 named Baroche, arrived from St. Denis. 
 All night the contending forces worked 
 at strengthening their positions, and at, 
 dawn the battle began anew with great 
 fury. 
 
 Le Bourget suffered a second bom- 
 bardment, more than forty cannon 
 throwing shells for nine hours into the 
 now half-wrecked houses, in which three 
 thousand men were intrepidly defending 
 themselves. It is said that on this day 
 the Prussians threw two thousand shells 
 into this one long street of Le Bourget. 
 The Prussians were hindered from mak- 
 ing an overpowering night attack by the 
 electric light, thrown from the forts, 
 which lit up the fields for miles around, 
 and prevented the massing of troops at 
 the proper points. 
 
 On Sunday, the 30th of October, the 
 Germans, about fifteen thousand strong, 
 wit!' forty-eight cannon, made a final at- 
 tack. Fifteen batteries threw converg- 
 ing fire upon the town; and, in less than 
 half an hour after the attack on Sunday 
 morning, the sixteen hundred French- 
 
324 EUROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 men who remained of the brave defend- rounded by a hundred of the bravest of 
 
 ers of Le Bourget had had thrown at the soldiers. On the right, the com- 
 
 tliciu fifteen hundred shells. The two mandanl Baroche, who had with him 
 
 French otficers Brasseur and Baroche about sixty men. determined to die 
 
 appear to have conducted themselves like rather than surrender, and whin he was 
 
 veritable heroes. The fight on Sunday struck down by a shell lie begged his 
 
 seemed to have awakened the pride of soldiei's, with his dying breath, to hold out 
 
 the Germans, who fancied that they had half an hour. •• because," he said, "help 
 
 in front of them a large French force; was certain to arrive in that time." 
 and the Queen Elizabeth regiment of the The officer Brasseur, when the barri- 
 
 Prussian Guard came up at hall-past cade which he had been defending was 
 
 eight in the morning, with its band carried hy a charge of several hundred 
 
 playing, and its flags flying, to carry the of the enemy, shut himself, with seven 
 
 first barricade at the entrance of the vil- other officers and about twenty soldiers, 
 
 lage. The troops ran forward with their into the church, and kept up a vigorous 
 
 usual •■ Hurrah!" but they were met by a lire from the windows until his little band 
 
 strong fusillade, so deadly, that, accord- was literally crushed. When he was 
 
 in<> to the testimony of the Germans driven into a corner, and forced to give 
 
 themselves, nothing had been seen like up his sword, he wept like a child. The 
 
 it in the war. Prussian officer who took the weapon was 
 
 " As the Second battalion of the regi- deeply affected, and could not refrain 
 incut came up." says a German writer, from strongly complimenting him on his 
 •• one of the color-sergeants was shot personal courage. The Prince of Wur- 
 down. A young officer ran forward, temburg the next day sent back the 
 sei/eil the flag, which was falling to the sword with his personal compliments, 
 ground, and, as he raised it up. also fell That the Prince was deeply impressed by 
 mortally wounded. A general then dis- this heroic defense is shown by his proc- 
 mounted from his horse, seized the tlag, lamation, issued from the head-quarters 
 and. holding it high above his head. at Gouesse, on the 30th, in which he 
 rushed forward in frontof his grenadiers. speaks of Le Bourget having been de- 
 Two colonels of the regiments engaged fended by the best troops in the Paris 
 in the charge were killed in the front garrison against the Second division of 
 rank of their troops. The' general, the Infantry corps, with certain special 
 however, who had seized the flag, seemed troops which had been joined to it. 
 to bear a charmed life." The hardy This fight cost the Germans a large 
 German pioneers, with their axes ami number of their best officers and more 
 crowbars, worked away at a breach ; than three thousand soldiers. What 
 and in a short time the little French might not such troops as the defenders 
 hand found itself taken between two of Le Bourget have done had they been 
 liies. Tin' town was not given up properly commanded, anil had the geu- 
 until, out of the sixteen hundred men. ends inside Paris known how to utilize. 
 twelve hundred combatants were taken the three hundred or three hundred and 
 prisoners, slain, or wounded. fifty thousand men who remained useless 
 
 Near the church in the interior of the inside the ramparts the greater portion 
 
 village the officer Brasseur. already of the period of tin; siege? 
 mentioned, held out to the Last, siir- There was another and almost as sau- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 325 
 
 guinary encounter between the besiegers 
 and the beseiged at this same Le 
 Bourgct towards the close of December, 
 in which occurred the celebrated charge 
 by a battalion of marines supported by 
 a detachment of troops of the French 
 line under the orders of a noted naval 
 captain. This charge of the marines, 
 with their revolvers and hatchets in 
 hand, upon the German troops who had 
 taken up position in the cemetery of 
 Le Bourget, has become legendary in 
 France, and has been chosen by many of 
 the military painters as a fitting subject 
 for the illustration of the French valor 
 which proved of so little avail. 
 
 This second attack was crowned with 
 only partial success; and the marines, 
 who had at first been so successful, were 
 badly cut to pieces before they came out 
 of the affair. This battle at Le Bourget 
 was part of a general scheme for an 
 attack upon , Montretout, Buzenval, and 
 other important positions, where, how- 
 ever, the German line proved always too 
 strong to be broken through. 
 
 While these heroic efforts for the de- 
 liverance of Paris were in progress, during 
 the last days of October, the venerable 
 M. Thiers had been doing some vigor- 
 ous work in behalf of unhappy France, 
 and comforting the Government of Na- 
 tional Defense with the assurance (hat 
 the four great neutral powers, England, 
 Russia, Austria, and Italy, were willing 
 to propose to the belligerents an armis- 
 tice, with a view to the convocation of a 
 French national assembly ; also, that this 
 armistice would have for its conditions 
 the revictnalling of Paris and the un- 
 trammelled election of the country's rep- 
 resentatives. M. Thiers was full of 
 energy and hope. He sacrificed himself 
 to the interests of the moment, pocket- 
 ing his pride, and was willing to go 
 hither and yon to meet Bismarck or any 
 
 one else if he could do his country ser- 
 vice. The news of the capitulation of 
 Metz almost crushed the little man for 
 the time being; luit he concealed his 
 anxiety. 
 
 On his return from Tours, where he 
 had been aiding Gambettain (he organi- 
 zation of the defense ill the south, he 
 was obliged to pass through Versailles, 
 and to make a call upon Count Bismarck, 
 to whose desire to appear in the eyes of 
 Europe perfectly fair he owed his safe 
 conduct through the Prussian lines. Few 
 interviews between celebrated men have 
 ever been stranger than this one be- 
 tween the ambitious Prussian Chancellor 
 and the accomplished French statesman, 
 under these trying circumstances, which 
 required all their self-control and 
 politeness. When Bismarck received 
 
 Thiers lie at -e said, •- I know thill 
 
 we have no right to talk business, and I 
 shall scrupulously refrain from any 
 mention of it." The two gentlemen, 
 therefore, entered upon a general con- 
 versation, which was brief, and which 
 must have exhausted all their artifices. 
 M. Thiers was escorted to the Bridge of 
 Sevres, and was allowed free passage to 
 the lines of his friends. 
 
 That the formidable insurrection of 
 the .'list of October was nipped ill tin' 
 
 bud was due largely to the energetic 
 conduct of one man, who has since 
 become very prominent in French affairs, 
 — M. Jules Ferry. When the Hotel de 
 Ville was invaded by the immense crowds 
 who were disloyal to the Government of 
 National Defense, M. Ferry was the 
 first to assume an attitude of bold resist- 
 ance, and he maintained it until all the 
 troubles were over. The insurrection 
 began as insurrections in Paris have 
 begun since time immemorial, — by the 
 invasion of the hall in which the regu- 
 larly constituted authorities were dclib- 
 
326 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 erating. M. Jules Favre has given us Jules Simon was violently maltreated by 
 a striking picture of this invasion of the the Communists. Delescluze, destined 
 Council Room, where he was seated with afterwards todie upon a barricade in the 
 General Trochu, M. Garnier Pages, M. Commune, openly expressed his contempt 
 Jules Simon, and Ernest Picard. The and disdain fur Jules Favre. The volun- 
 iieiv Flourens and Milliere, afterwards teers of the National Guards from Belie- 
 so conspicuous in the Commune, were at ville, infuriated with drink and with their 
 the head of the National Guards, the ephemeral victory, repeatedly hinted at 
 grim workmen, the volunteers in all the massacre of their prisoners. Flou- 
 kinds of fantastic uniforms, who rushed reus was, from time to time, obliged to 
 into the room uttering savage cries, ami appeal to his followers not to give the 
 who would have been willing to stain world the spectacle of a fratricidal en- 
 their hands in the blood of the men who counter. " Let us avoid the shedding 
 had been doing their best to serve them, of blood," he said ; "hut let us carry our 
 Flourens considered the insurrection as point." 
 
 successful, and harangued the citizens. Jules Favre was twice in imminent 
 saying that they had overturned the danger of death. A dozen muskets were 
 government which had betrayed them, levelled at his head. " It was," he says, 
 Heat once nominated himself, Milliere, " a solemn but imposing moment, and I 
 Delescluze, Rochefort, Blanqui, and still ask myself how it was that no one 
 others, instead of those whom he pre- of these men, most of whom were coin- 
 tended to overthrow : and his followers pletely intoxicated, did not press the trig- 
 sanctioned by sllOUtS whatever he said. ger of his gun." 
 
 "During this burlesque scene." says The government was liberated from 
 
 Jules Favre, " we did not budge from its disagreeable and rather humiliating 
 
 our seats. Genera] Trochu took off his position the same night by the energetic 
 
 epaulettes, and passed them to one of action of a little body of National Guards, 
 
 his officers who was near him; "and he friendly to the national cause. The 
 
 told M. Favre afterwards, that lie had leaders of the insurrection retired once 
 
 done this so as to put the insignia of his more into the shade, muttering veu- 
 
 rnilitary authority beyond the reach of geance dire upon those who had dared 
 
 an affront. lie quietly lit a cigarette, to interfere with them. Jules Ferry had 
 
 and waited the movements of the rioters, been at the head of the column which 
 
 The story is too long to give in detail forced the gates of the Hotel de Ville, and 
 
 here. Enough to say that the ( lovernment finally compelled the rioters to retire. For 
 
 of National Defense narrowly escaped a few minutes it looked as if he would 
 
 complete annihilation on this unfortunate pay with his life for his audacity; but 
 
 dav. The Commune was already starting his personal magnetism was so strong 
 
 from its concealment, and was admir- and his language was so energetic that 
 
 ably organized with a view to replacing they dared not harm him, and he carried 
 
 instantly, and with as little collision as his point against them. In January of 
 
 possible, the government which alone had 1871 he was a prominent figure in the 
 
 the right to call itself national. The second resistance against a body of 
 
 members of the Committee of National insurgents, who came after the disastrous 
 
 Defense were prisoners in the hands of fight at Montretout to attack the Hotel 
 
 these insurrectionists for Several hours. de Ville. 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 327 
 
 November came in gloomy and full of 
 menaces of war. The little band of 
 members of the Government of National 
 Defense found that the attempt upon its 
 authority had strengthened its hold upon 
 the, affections of all truly patriotic citi- 
 zens, and, appealing to the population 
 for support, it received a vote of confi- 
 dence which was highly gratifying. For 
 the time being the government contented 
 itself with removing from their military 
 positions Flourens and all the others 
 who had held important places in the 
 insurrection; and about this time Roche- 
 fort, who was gradually becoming iden- 
 tified with the Radical Party and with 
 the cause of the Communists, which he 
 afterwards vainly disavowed, resigned 
 his position as a member of the govern- 
 ment. M. Thiers had not been able to 
 give his advice to the governing powers 
 during the difficult days through which 
 they had just passed, for he had re- 
 turned at once to Versailles, anxious to 
 conclude an armistice. This time he 
 was enabled to talk business with Count 
 Von Bismarck ; and he has left on record 
 a singularly bright and sparkling account 
 of the manner in which he urged his 
 claims, and the claims of his beloved 
 capital, upon the accomplished represent- 
 ative of the conquering party. He re- 
 mained three or four days at Versailles, 
 meeting the Chancellor very frequently, 
 and fancied that he was about to carry 
 his point, when, on the evening of the 3d 
 of November, he asked Count Von Bis- 
 marck what guarantees he was likely to 
 ask during the suspension of hostilities. 
 Bismarck made the same answer that he 
 had made to Jules Favre at Ferrieres, 
 that he should require a military position 
 in front of Paris. "One fort," he added ; 
 " perhaps more than one." 
 
 " I immediately interrupted the Chan- 
 cellor," says M. Thiers. " You are 
 
 asking for Paris," I said to him; "you 
 refuse to revictual the capital during the 
 armistice, thus taking a month of our 
 resistance away from us. To exact 
 from us one or more of our forts is 
 nothing less than demanding our ram- 
 parts. You want us, in short, to give 
 you the means of starving us out or 
 bombarding us. In treating with us for 
 an armistice you could hardly suppose 
 that the capital condition would lie to 
 abandon Paris to you, — Paris, which 
 is our supreme force, our great hope, 
 and for you so great a difficulty that 
 after fifty days of siege you have not yet 
 taken it." 
 
 " When we got to this point," says 
 M. Thiers, "we could go no further. 
 Whereupon Count Von Bismarck de- 
 clared that if the French government 
 wished to hold elections without an ar- 
 mistice, he would offer no hindrance to 
 a free election of representatives in all 
 
 the sections occupied by the Prussian 
 armies, and would facilitate communica- 
 tion between Paris and Tours for every- 
 thing except military despatches." 
 
 There is little doubt that after this 
 stern refusal on the part of the Germans 
 to interrupt the course of the war M. 
 Thiers gave up all hope of a successful 
 resistance. He had done his duty, 
 and accomplished what no other man 
 in France could have done. He had 
 pleaded the cause of Paris at the courts 
 of England, Russia. Austria, and Italy, 
 making light, even at his advanced age, 
 of the great physical and intellectual 
 Strain to which he was subjected during 
 journeys doubly wearisome because of 
 the suspense concerning affairs at home 
 which hung perpetually about his heart. 
 He, more clearly than any one else, saw- 
 that tile war was to be to its very close a 
 fatal one for France ; but, gallantly keep- 
 ing his doubts and despairs to himself, he 
 
328 
 
 EUROPE TN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 returned from Versailles t<> Tours, and 
 placed himself at the disposal of the 
 delegates there. 
 
 It was no light work which Gambetta 
 had undertaken in the South. When he 
 arrived :it Tours half the important 
 fortresses in the country had capitulated, 
 and the others — Paris, Phalsbourg, Me- 
 zieres, Thionville, Bitche, Montmedy, 
 and Verdun — were surrounded by lines 
 of iron and steel, and their condition 
 was almost hopeless. Gambetta seemed 
 to bring men and muskets and cannon 
 out of the very earth. With his powerful 
 and seductive eloquence he won the 
 hearts of the enthusiastic southern popu- 
 lations, lie created a commission of 
 armament, which, in three months, de- 
 livered into the hands of men who un- 
 fortunately did not know how to use 
 them, one million two hundred thousand 
 s;uns. From Nantes, from St. Etienne, 
 
 from Creuzot, he brought cannon; at 
 Angouleme millions of cartridges were 
 made. He even thought at one time of 
 sending cartridges into Paris by balloon. 
 With all these interests of the nation in 
 his hands, and being himself virtually 
 dictator of all France outside of Paris 
 for months, his fidelity to his trust was 
 so complete and perfect that, when later 
 in his political career the slanderous 
 accusation was brought against him 
 of having profited by the manufacture 
 of arms for the country's defenders, 
 the whole French nation, with the ex- 
 ception of his l'ew slanderers, rose in 
 revolt against such an injury ; and he 
 proved beyond the shadow of doubt 
 that not only had he not received the 
 millions falsely attributed to him, but 
 that he had not profited by as much as a 
 single SOU in any of his public labors in 
 his country's behalf. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CADI. 
 
 329 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE. 
 
 Life at Head-quarters. — The Parades on the Place d'Armcs. — Von Moltke in Versailles. — King Will- 
 iam's Daily Labors. — Bismarck's Habits. — The General Staff, — The lintel des Reservoirs. — A 
 Journey around Besieged Paris. — The Story of Moot Valerien. — Maisons Laffittc in War Time. 
 — Getting Under Fire. — The French and German Pickets. — In the Foremost [nvestment Lines. — 
 Montmorency. — The Fight near Enghien. — Saint Graticn. -The Day Before t lhampigny. 
 
 THE Germans act as though they had 
 come to stay here forever," said a 
 nervous French friend of mine, in a comic 
 mood, as we walked through the splendid 
 courtyard of the ureal palace of Ver- 
 sailles one morning late in November, 
 when the contesting parties just outside 
 the historic town were in their sternest 
 mood, and when the Germans were 
 bringing up their '•final arguments,'" — 
 hundreds of cannon, which had been 
 packed in neighboring villages, waiting 
 what the Chancellor, with his brutal satire, 
 called •• the psychological moment." 
 
 Indeed, the royal head-quarters was 
 lint little disturbed by the battles near by 
 save on one or two occasions, when vic- 
 tories seemed at last to alight upon the 
 French standards, at the time of the 
 great sortie which culminated in the 
 sanguinary encounter at Champigny. 
 French Versailles had taken on tin' sul- 
 len aspect of a conquered place, where 
 politeness was only accorded because it 
 was bred in the flesh, and commerce 
 fostered because the invader insisted 
 upon it. But there was a German Ver- 
 sailles, life in which went on regularly, 
 cheerfully, and in rather picturesque 
 fashion. 
 
 The first event of the day was invari- 
 ably a military parade upon the Place 
 d'Armes, and this was conducted with 
 as much care and precision as if it had 
 beeu iu some garrison town in the inte- 
 
 rior of Germany. The regiments pa- 
 raded were those freshly arrived in the 
 campaign. The inspection was merci- 
 less, fault-finding was frequent, punish- 
 ment severe. After the parade came 
 concerts by the splendid bands of the 
 crack regiments, and around these bands, 
 in the great avenues, gathered hundreds 
 of elegantly uniformed officers, soldiers 
 of all arms of the service; but rarely 
 ilid a French gentleman or lady pause to 
 listen to the music or to gaze upon the 
 enemy. 
 
 By the time the concerts were over, 
 dusk had drawn its curtains round the 
 town, and all the shops closed ; the cafes 
 remained open, but hotels barred their 
 doors at nine o'clock, when the patrols 
 began to move through the streets. The 
 great chdteau, with its noble entrance- 
 way guarded by the sculptured figures of 
 the military heroes of France, was vis- 
 ited daily by hundreds of soldiers on 
 leave, and by the motley army fol- 
 lowers, huge wagoners and serving-men, 
 all of them anxious to increase their 
 stock of knowledge of French history. 
 Now and then the King drove to the 
 palace to see the wounded soldiers placed 
 iu the airiest and tightest of the halls. 
 The superb park, with all its appurte- 
 nances of Trianon, chalet, and foun- 
 tains, was deserted save at early morn- 
 ing, when troops of horsemen clattered 
 through the long alleys, or save when at 
 
330 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 dawn a silent procession of soldiers, es- 
 corting one of their comrades sentenced 
 to execution, went Otll to a sinister hol- 
 low behind a hedge, where they pro- 
 ceeded to take the life which the com- 
 rade had forfeited. 
 
 Yon Moltkc sometimes promenaded in 
 the park at seven in the morning, stern 
 and passionless, with his arms hanging 
 motionless at his sides, and, although in 
 primly arranged uniform, and with his 
 sword clattering at his side, he looked 
 more like a schoolmaster or a country 
 clergyman than like a great general. 
 The Versaillais soon learned his habits, 
 and now and then, actuated by some 
 unaccountable impulse, — perhaps admi- 
 ration for his very sternness and modesty, 
 — they saluted him as he passed ! He 
 was never attended by an escort of any 
 kind. When the bands were playing 
 in the avenue of St. Cloud, he often 
 walked slowly through the throngs of 
 officers, raising his hand to his cap 
 abstractedly when he was saluted. 
 There was nothing to be read in his 
 
 face. It testified neither to joy or fear, 
 
 to anxiety or to deep thought. He 
 never seemed to see any one : his gaze 
 was introspective, and his walk' plan- 
 tigrade, like that of one ascending a 
 steep hill. 
 
 The plainness with which most of the 
 Prussian royal personages dressed during 
 the campaign divested them of the bril- 
 liant halo usual'.' surrounding persons 
 of rank. The King appeared quite as 
 simple as one of the soldiers of his 
 household, if he happened to be placed 
 beside him. Red and black were the 
 predominating colors. There were few 
 regiments in which a dozen different 
 lines wei'e so mingled as to produce 
 the dazzling sheen which makes some 
 armies so attractive. 
 
 The Crown Prince, mounted on a tine 
 
 horse, with one groom behind him, rode 
 through the town almost every morning, 
 as simply dressed as any of his officers. 
 The distinctions between prince and 
 commander were so slight that a careless 
 observer would not have noticed them. 
 King William was rarely accompanied in 
 his public promenades, in carriages, or 
 on horseback, by any one save servants 
 at a respectful distance. He had an 
 
 immense round of daily labor, difficult 
 to support, considering his advanced 
 age. Tin' royal courier left the Pre- 
 fecture of Versailles, where the King re- 
 sided, every day tor Berlin, with special 
 despatches, letters, etc., and the royal 
 mail left Lagny every morning at five 
 o'clock. The King may be saiil to have 
 passed his time in writing and dictating 
 letters for those mails, interspersing Ids 
 toil with brief outings in the town and 
 an occasional dash over into the invest- 
 ment lines to see how a battle was going. 
 The Crown Prince rested in a measure 
 from bis labors at Versailles, although 
 scarcely a day passed that he was not 
 called upon to give judgment upon some 
 important crisis in the campaign : but 
 
 even he was Subject to tile orders of 
 
 Von Moltke. 
 
 Count Von Bismarck kept himself 
 very close for a long time after his ar- 
 rival at Versailles, and numerous tales 
 
 were told of his eccentric habits, liOW 
 he did but little work by day, but, lying- 
 in his bed at night, surrounded with 
 candles stuck in the necks of empty 
 champagne bottles, wrote, dictated, and 
 planned, smoking furiously, and drinking 
 extraordinary mixtures of champagne 
 and beer. " When he has finished a, 
 bottle of champagne," said one inform- 
 ant, who communicated the statement 
 to me as if it were of the greatest im- 
 portance, " he lights a fresh candle, and 
 sticks it in the bottle ; and so when 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 oil 
 .1.) L 
 
 morning comes he is Biirrounded with 
 lights, as if he were illuminating in his 
 own honor." 
 
 When Bismarck appeared in public 
 more frequently in December, it was 
 observed that he had grown old with 
 startling rapidity. lie looked ten years 
 older than when lie had left Berlin a few 
 months before. The head-quarters of the 
 general staff was in the Rue Neuve. It 
 was a tranquil, mysterious-looking house, 
 where even the sentinels seemed to walk 
 with muffled tread, and where no noise 
 was ever heard. There were elaborated 
 all the great projects of the siege ; there 
 the whole network .surrounding Paris 
 was daily studied with grave caution ; 
 there Oberst-Lieut. Von Yerdy re- 
 ceived the journalists, and dulled their 
 eagerness for news with non-committal 
 replies; there Von Podbielski elaborated 
 the despatches in which he had little to 
 announce but continuous victory. 
 
 The old and far-famed Hotel des Res- 
 ervoirs, the Caf6 de Neptune, and the 
 cafis in the neighborhood of the Place 
 Hoche were favorite resorts for princes 
 and grandees, who came and vent, and 
 was the centre for newsgatherers, diplo- 
 matic agents, etc. At the Reservoirs, 
 towards noon, there was generally a 
 brilliant assemblage. Dukes, princes, 
 and princelings without number came to 
 breakfast in the noted restaurant. Smart 
 carriages rattled along the stone-paved 
 way leading into the courtyard. A row 
 of bareheaded, primly dressed serving- 
 men stood ready to receive their particu- 
 lar " Excellencies," and couriers ready 
 to vault into the saddle waited important 
 orders which were given over breakfast 
 plates. In the cafis there were always 
 dozens of officers on leave who had come 
 to see the palace, the park, and to drink 
 unlimited coffee and cognac to the as- 
 tonishment of the sober Frenchmen. 
 
 Comparatively few of the wounded 
 were sent into Versailles after it became 
 the royal head-quarters. Ambulances 
 and ambulance men were almost num- 
 berless. Ladies and gentlemen of all 
 nations and professions had devoted 
 themselves to the charitable work of 
 earing for the wounded ; and those sol- 
 diers who were fortunate enough to be 
 
 VON MOLTKK. 
 
 sent to the Palace for treatment had but 
 one thing to complain of — the multi- 
 plicity of the attentions shown them. 
 The Hotel des Reservoirs was a sanitary 
 station. American, English, anil Bel- 
 gian physicians did good service in and 
 around Versailles from the beginning to 
 the end of the siege. 
 
 To the right and left of the Place 
 d'Armes, adjoining the chdteau, are the 
 great cavalry quarters, immense barracks, 
 built in a semi-circle ; and these afforded 
 
<"> *"> o 
 
 ETROTE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 good accommodation to the invaders. In 
 front of these, of a l'm<' afternoon, five 
 or si\ hundred spirited horses might 
 be seen out for exercise , the officers' ser- 
 vants, generally quite as good cavaliers 
 as their masters, putting the splendid 
 beasts through all manner of equine 
 gymnastics. Every morning the avenues 
 were blocked for an hour by the long 
 provision trains arriving from the rear. 
 The teamsters of these trains provoked 
 much laughter even among the saddened 
 citizens of Versailles. They were ragged 
 and saucy, and seemed to have Keen 
 chosen from the oddest of odd German 
 types. 
 
 We made frequent journeys around 
 
 Talis during the siege : but some ae- 
 
 countof that one which I first made, after 
 the investment was declared complete, 
 will serve to give a few pictures of the 
 besiegers. I left Versailles with two 
 companions one morning for Montmo- 
 rency, which lay directly in the foremost 
 line <>f investment, and in an advanta- 
 geous position for an outlook on Paris. 
 The weather was beautifully clear, al- 
 though we were at the end of November, 
 anil with glasses we could discern the 
 Fiench at work on Mont Valerien, and 
 saw them occasionally tiring a heavy gun 
 in the direction of Si. (loud. Between 
 Versailles and Saint Germain we found 
 the Westphalian corps stationed, and 
 were struck with the wonderful solidity 
 and strength of the men. At that point 
 even, and at that period of the siege, the 
 French would have found it impossible 
 to break through. 
 
 Altera hasty breakfast, we took the 
 road tlu'ough the forest towards Maisons 
 I.atlitte. There we were told that the 
 French had succeeded in establishing 
 dailv communication between Paris and 
 Saint Germain, and had had a mail ser- 
 vice in operation for some weeks ; but it 
 
 had now been found out, and the go-be- 
 tweens were shortly to be executed. 
 From Saint < iemiain, the tine Landwehrs- 
 men of the Royal Guard had just de- 
 parted, leaving behind them praises, even 
 in the mouths of their enemies, for their 
 excellent conduct. At the limits of Saint 
 Germain we found the Fourth army 
 corps, commanded by General Von Al- 
 venslehen, who had his head-quarters es- 
 tablished at Soissv. 
 
 On the way over the hill, leading into 
 Saint Germain, one of my companions 
 told me, in sprightly fashion, the story of 
 Mont Valerien. " In the fifteenth cen- 
 tury," said lie, u when the Prussians 
 were still savages on the Brandenburg 
 sands, the height on which Valerien 
 stands was the Mecca for thousands of 
 pious pilgrims. The hill was called Cal- 
 vary, ami on it were erected three crosses, 
 whose gloomy outlines recalled the pain- 
 ful death of our Saviour and his compan- 
 ions. The superstitious peasantry of the 
 neighborhood firmly believed that if they 
 did not make their early pilgrimage to this 
 Valerien Calvary they would be cursed 
 with ill-luck. In the seventeenth cen- 
 tury the church of Sainte-Croix was 
 built on tin' hill-top. to commemorate the 
 pilgrimages of previous times, and a con- 
 vent was soon added. Of this convent 
 Richelieu became the director; but in 
 the seventeenth century, the priests sold 
 the property to the Jacobins, and the 
 controlling bishops of Notre Dame' re- 
 fused to ratify the bargain. Out of 
 this dispute grew a veritable battle, in 
 which all the peasants of the vicinity 
 joined. The convent was stormed, and 
 the Jacobins remained masters. The 
 property was finally restored to its orig- 
 inal owners by parliamentary decree. 
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau loved to wander 
 on the hill for hours together, and once 
 said to a friend who was with him when 
 
EUROPE J.V STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 333 
 
 he came suddenly upon a cbapel in which 
 some peasants were praying: 'Now I 
 understand for the first time what the 
 
 Gospel says, — " Where two or three 
 are gathered together in my name, there 
 am I in the midst of them." ' The eon- 
 vent buildings existed long- after the 
 onler for their suppression had been 
 passed by the National Assembly. Na- 
 poleon I. imagined that a nest of con- 
 spirators was concealed there, and 
 demolished the convent to substitute 
 barracks, nearly completed when 1814 
 arrived, and tile building site fell again 
 into the hands of the Catholics. Under 
 the Restoration the three crosses were 
 raised anew by the church, and the con- 
 vents were rebuilt. But in 1830 the 
 .lesuits were expelled, and the holy edi- 
 tices fell into decay. Soon after the for- 
 midable great walls of the present fortress 
 arose, commanding the valleys and the 
 routes in the vicinity. Immense bar- 
 racks and bomb proofs were con 
 strueted. and in ordinary times a garri- 
 son of two thousand men would make 
 but little show in the immense place. 
 The French." concluded my fellow- 
 traveller, '• maintain that the reduction 
 of Valerien by bombardment is impossi- 
 ble." As he finished this sentence, the 
 old fort growled, and the white puff of 
 smoke showed us that the gunnel's, see- 
 ing us pass, had felt it their duty to 
 salute us with the customary useless 
 shell. 
 
 From Maisons Latlittc we went on to 
 Argentcuil. The forest beyond Saint 
 Germain was beautiful in its garb of 
 freshly fallen and crystallized snow, and 
 the long alleys looked like marble sculpt- 
 ured aisles in some vast cathedral. An 
 hour's ride brought us to several little 
 towns attached to each other by a slender 
 thread of houses, and we were soon in 
 Maisons Laffitte, and on the Seine bank. 
 
 At Maisons Latlittc we found few sol- 
 diers, and the 1 peasants were very aggres- 
 sive, and treated us with open hostility 
 and suspicion. We' were obliged to 
 press one of them into our service and 
 force him to show us the cJl&teau which 
 Mansard built for Louis XII. down by 
 the river fianks. The grounds were tine, 
 their natural beauties not having been 
 defaced by the insipid style of gardening 
 for which Le Notre was notorious, and 
 the broad walks, bordered by pedestals on 
 which stood busts of the Roman Em- 
 perors, were quite imposing. We entered 
 the great hall, where male ( rrecian figures 
 gleamed above us. The clidteau had for 
 a long time been occupied by the be- 
 siegers, and, although few attempts at 
 wanton destruction had been made, there 
 were visible marks of occupation. The 
 owner of the cll&teav, at that time was 
 the president of a great insurance com- 
 pany of Paris, and his private papers 
 had been scattered hither and yon. The 
 pianos were opened, the beds were left 
 richly dressed. In the gorgeously deco- 
 rated bed-chamber, and the dainty bou- 
 doir, hidden in drifting clouds of rich 
 lace, a dozen officers had their quarters, 
 and champagne bottles and cigar stumps 
 strewed the waxed floors. In the picture 
 gallery, where the paintings were undis- 
 turbed, mattresses left lying about showed 
 that forty soldiers had slept. The fire- 
 places were filled with broken meals ami 
 bottles. A huge avenue led down to the 
 river bank, where formerly there was a 
 fine bridge over the Seine. This had 
 been blown up early in December. Here 
 we were obliged to cross in range of 
 Mont Valerien; but the gunners did not 
 deign to notice us this time. On the 
 other bank, at the village called Sartrou- 
 ville, we found soldiers from the Fourth 
 corps pushing forward to Argenteuil, 
 the nearest point to Paris within the lines. 
 
334 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 At Sartrouville we heard the sharp 
 craclc of the cliassepots, the French out- 
 posts keeping up an incessant fire upon 
 the Prussians passing unconcernedly to 
 and fro within their own lines. An hour 
 before our arrival, Mont Valerien had 
 been attempting to dislodge some troops 
 not far from us. These troops were 
 nearly all young men. few older than 
 twenty-five, sturdy, hale, honest-looking 
 gaillards. We watched them assisting 
 each other iii preparations for their 
 march, rolling their overcoats, capping 
 their pistols, etc. At last, when every- 
 thing was ready, they fell into line with- 
 out a word. All. as one man, put their 
 feet forward en route for Argenteuil. 
 This was done so promptly, and with a 
 movement so regular, that one might 
 have imagined every man a part of a 
 machine. In Sartrouville many of the 
 houses were completely burned, and the 
 country was more desolate than any we 
 had seen before. Most of the inhabi- 
 tants had gone away, having probably 
 retired into Paris at the opening of the 
 siege ; lint a few old men were prowling 
 about, beseeching the Prussians and 
 French alike for alms. 
 
 We left Sartrouville late in the after- 
 noon, and neared Argenteuil just as the 
 evening sunset was reddening the sky. 
 As we came up the hill by which we 
 were to descend into Argenteuil we saw 
 the quick, white puffs of smoke, which 
 denoted a battle, and could hear tin- 
 steady roll of firing ahead of us. Where 
 the Seine wound away we saw the 
 pickets at work, and were cautioned by 
 a passing soldier not to venture near the 
 river, "as French bullets," he said, 
 " easily reached much farther than that." 
 
 Argenteuil was deserted save by a 
 few blue-bloused peasants, who begged 
 for news with such energy that we for- 
 got the rules imposed upou us by the 
 
 Prussians. — not to talk to Frenchmen 
 within the German lines and tell them 
 what we knew. The lower road from 
 Sartrouville to Argenteuil was con- 
 stantly swept by a small Are from the 
 French lines. We went down to it, hut 
 came back convinced that it was not the 
 proper place for an excursion. 
 
 At Argenteuil was a hill commanding 
 a line view of Paris, and, in the fading 
 "low of the sunset, we looked down upon 
 tin' misty outlines of the great capital, 
 which, at this distance, seemed as calm 
 as a cemetery. Here the Germans had 
 an observatory, from which, if inclined, 
 they could look over Montniartre, and 
 could plainly distinguish all the opera- 
 tions on the walls of Mont Valerien. 
 
 At the end of the long principal street 
 of the town we saw a Frenchman curs- 
 ing two Prussians who had offered to 
 buy provisions from him. lie refused to 
 give them anything, and emptied his 
 vocabulary of invectives, finishing his 
 remarks with a. hearty hurst of laughter, 
 as if he were delighted witli the dilemma 
 in which the enemy found itself. Large 
 masses of troops were drilling on a plain 
 beyond Argenteuil, and here, although 
 we were close to Paris and the forts, the 
 < lei mans seemed as tranquil and as pos- 
 sessed as if they had been at home. 
 
 The next village was Sannois ; and 
 here we crossed the railway and bent 
 away in the direction of St. Denis and 
 the other forts on the east, towards St. 
 Gratien ami Epinai, where a sortie had 
 lately occurred. Here we found the 
 Prussians very numerous, and on the 
 alert. Sentinels halted us at every turn 
 in the road, and examined our papers 
 cautiously. Now ami then we had to 
 submit to cross-questioning by some 
 lawyer or '• Herr Doctor" with a gun 
 on his shoulder, if he presumed to doubt 
 that we had really come from Versailles. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 335 
 
 We passed the night in the foremost 
 investment lines, and not far from the 
 forts of St. Denis, La Double Couronue 
 du Nord, La Breche, and the Fort de 
 l'Est. After we had escaped through a 
 wassailing party of soldiers, who had in- 
 sisted upon quarrelling with us because 
 we had avowed that we were not Prus- 
 sians, we went to the commandant of the 
 place, who received us with courtesy, and 
 who sent a soldier to find us quarters for 
 the night. This commandant belonged 
 to an Anhaltischer regiment, the Ninety- 
 third Anhalt-Dessau, and was a fine 
 specimen of the German military man. 
 He told us that duty there was especially 
 arduous, and the men had suffered much. 
 The forts never allowed a night to pass 
 without throwing at least an hundred 
 shells into the lines, on the theory, he 
 supposed, that it prevented sleep. It 
 was rather startling at first to hear the 
 shells come crashing into the streets. 
 
 At Montmorency were stationed the 
 Sixth and Seventh divisions of the 
 Fourth army corps, the former under 
 General Sehwartzhof and the latter under 
 General Zelinckski. " The Fourth Pio- 
 neers were not far away, in front, near 
 Epinai." said the commandant, " andthey 
 have had a tremendous raking from the 
 very first moment of their occupation." 
 They were destined to a trial even more 
 severe than auy that had yet been suf- 
 fered, on the next night after our arrival, 
 and we had an opportunity of witnessing 
 many of its phases, during the opera- 
 tions which the French had begun 
 towards Gennevilliers and Argeuteuil as 
 a diversion at the time of General 
 Ducrot's great sortie, which culminated 
 in the disaster at Champigny. 
 
 Montmorency is one of the loveliest 
 suburban towns near Paris. From its 
 high hills, crowned with historic villas, it 
 dominates a noble sweep of valley, 
 
 forest, and lake. At the foot of one of 
 these hills lies Enghien, long famous for 
 its sulphur baths; and a little farther on 
 is the forest in which so much fighting oc- 
 curred during the siege. Aside from its 
 feudal history Montmorency acquired 
 peculiar interest in later days by the 
 choice of it as a residence by many dis- 
 tinguished people, and as a pleasure 
 haunt by the Parisians. Jean-Jacques 
 Rousseau had his hermitage there. The 
 old building is still shown, and the chest- 
 nut trees under which the old philosopher 
 used to muse are still pointed out with 
 reverence. Rachel once had a villa at 
 Montmorency, and in the so-called new 
 hermitage both Gretry, the composer, 
 and the Duchesse de Berri have had their 
 homes. American and French painters 
 have made Montmorency and Enghien 
 and Eeoueu their favorite sketching 
 grounds for months together. Where 
 we found the stalwart men of the Fourth 
 Prussian corps grimly grasping their 
 rifles at their outposts, many a painter 
 had spent studious days in the wood. 
 
 After inspecting our rather gloomy 
 quarters, a deserted villa, in which I in- 
 curred the displeasure of two soldiers 
 because I interfered to prevent them 
 from cutting joints of raw meat upon a 
 costly piano, we were invited to supper 
 with a young lieutenant of the command- 
 ant's regiment, a baron, who insisted 
 upon regaling us with music as well as 
 with wine and with " Erbsiourst." This 
 colossus— he must have been six feet 
 three, and of phenomenal measure across 
 the chest — sat drinking red wine all the 
 evening and listening to the music of 
 Beethoven and Wagner, which one of 
 his corporals played on the piano. Now 
 and then the forts added their deep bass 
 to the music, but we paid little attention 
 to them. The baron had already had 
 numerous shells in his quarters, and 
 
336 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM 
 
 showed us pieces i>f one which had ex- 
 ploded in his kitchen on the previous 
 day. •■The men," he said, "consider 
 outpost duty here as equal to going into 
 :i skirmish, and they !< >< >k forward to it 
 with many forebodings. This picket 
 duty is imposed upon them for four days. 
 Those who are in the picket-line at night 
 do no duty on the following day." The 
 lines were something less than three 
 thousand feet apart, yet very few out- 
 posts were killed ; but alarms were con- 
 tinual. 
 
 We slept that night on some rather 
 unsavory straw in what had been the 
 salon of our villa, and the screaming of 
 the shells going over the house, and the 
 smoke and stench from the file, built of 
 fragments of green palings, in the long- 
 unused fireplace, kept us wakeful. 
 Next day, as the cannonading was 
 furious in the direction of Engliien and 
 Epinai, we left our horses, and went, 
 down to the road leading to Engliien and 
 the forest beyond. Alter a walk of an 
 hour and a half through a charming 
 series of villa-bordered streets, we came 
 to the entrance of the town, where we 
 were arrested by an officer, who, how- 
 ever, soon became our guide, and told 
 us that an important sortie was in prog- 
 ress. 
 
 Here the main railway line' was barri- 
 caded heavily, and a stockade hail been 
 built for some distance along the road. 
 Barricades were numerous, .and it was 
 evident that the French would have 
 to make a desperate fight to break 
 
 through here. The otlicel's showed us 
 
 the famous Chinese villa of De Ville- 
 messant, the editor of the sprightly Paris 
 Figaro, and on the opposite side of the 
 lake, which is one of Enghien's attrac- 
 tions, the country-house of the famous 
 editor of the Liberty Emile de (iirardin. 
 But he was soon obliged to leave us, 
 
 ami the incessant cracking of musketry 
 in the French lines, about live thousand 
 yards away, and the furious cannon- 
 ading, convinced us that the light 
 was drawing near. From that mo- 
 ment until late at night Enghien and 
 its neighborhood were as thoroughly 
 scourged by shells as was the battle- 
 field of Sedan on the day of the 
 memorable disaster to the French. 
 The forward movement in the French 
 sortie diil not begin until the next day; 
 but great mortar batteries, established 
 at Aigenteuil and Bezons, were making 
 desperate efforts to dislodge the Ger- 
 mans from the positions which we were 
 now visiting. A furious grenade tire 
 was directed upon Engliien and Saint 
 Gratien. Next day the French forces 
 were pushed vigorously up and into 
 the edge of Epinai, their outposts re- 
 maining just within the limits of the 
 town after the main body had been 
 driven hack. All the troops from 
 Montmorency were in this light, and 
 spoke with the greatest respect of the 
 lire from the forts. The commandant 
 said that at one time it was beyond 
 description awful. Eight or ten shells 
 per minute were thrown with remark- 
 able precision into the lines of the Prus- 
 sians. A brother officer of his was 
 killed in a minute by a. grenade, which 
 cut him almost in two. The losses of 
 this division were about eighteen offi- 
 cers and three hundred men. The 
 commandant said he saw steel mitrail- 
 leuse batteries, mounted on railway 
 carriages, iron-clad. These we thought 
 a myth, and laughed at the story; but 
 his statement was subsequently proved 
 to be true, and the English have since 
 used these railway batteries to great 
 advantage in Egypt. This command- 
 ant, and all the Prussian officers whom 
 we met during the next two days, 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 337 
 
 spoke with the highest praise of the 
 fighting qualities of the French. After 
 the .struggle at Epinai, among the 
 dead were found many who had thrown 
 away their rations, their caps, every- 
 thing save their guns, in Iheir desire to 
 tight without hindrance. The French 
 troops, said the Germans, all had three 
 days' rations of white bread and cutlets 
 of horse-flesh. This is all they had to 
 eat. They were well equipped. Most 
 of those who were found dead were 
 Mobiles. Many prisoners were taken, 
 and among them some few Zouaves. 
 All along the forest country near Eng- 
 hien, for the next day and a half, it. 
 seemed as if the mouth of hell had 
 been opened; grenades rained every- 
 where ; hundreds were .sunk in the lake, 
 and did no good nor harm. 
 
 Next morning, despite the cautions 
 of the Germans against the Fraucs-Tir- 
 eurs, who. they said, were occasionally 
 to be met with in the forest, we went 
 down from Montmorency through the 
 wood and on to Saint Gratien, to visit 
 the villa of the Princess Mathilde, a 
 member of the late Imperial family. 
 We were somewhat amused at the 
 vit'irctv of the German sentinels, who 
 insisted upon supposing us to be 
 Frenchmen and questioned the authen- 
 ticity of our military passes. We found 
 the villa, a kind of bastard ch&teau, 
 had been used during the preceding 
 day as a hospital; and on entering, we 
 found the bed-chamber of the Trim-ess 
 
 stained with Prussian blood. Wounded 
 men were lying groaning upon the most 
 elegant and costly couches. The pict- 
 ures, the library, and furniture re- 
 flected the somewhat voluptuous tastes 
 of the Princess, who had occupied the 
 nook as a retreat wheu the gayeties of 
 
 Paris became fatiguing. The decora- 
 tions by Giraud wen- composed of 
 subjects rather broader in tone and 
 treatment than would have been ad- 
 mitted in a respectable English 01 
 American family. 
 
 From the chdteau we went on to Saint 
 Gratien, a little town of a few hundred 
 inhabitants, celebrated as the burial 
 place of a marquis who was a valiant 
 soldier under the First, Empire, and had 
 attained the grade of Marshal, when, for 
 some fault, he was reduced to the ranks. 
 and retired to the forest at this unfor- 
 tunate close of his military career to 
 muse and mourn until death relieved 
 him of his troubles. 
 
 We returned to Eughien by another 
 road through tho forest, and found the 
 pioneers busy in felling the beautiful 
 trees and laying them across each other 
 ia the most scientific manner. To for- 
 tify the positions ic that neighborhood, 
 thousands upon thousands of uobl 
 trees were sacrificed. Wagon trains 
 loaded with materials for fortifying the 
 outside positions were creaking along 
 the frosty highways, and the wagoners 
 were gayly mocking at the thunderous 
 refrain kept up by the four northern 
 brother forts. The great watch-dogs in 
 front of the walls of Paris were barking 
 with all their might and main to encour- 
 age the poorly equipped and almost un- 
 tried troops, which were at that moment 
 beginning to grapple at C'hampigny with 
 their heretofore triumphant and well- 
 trained enemies. From Montmorency 
 we pushed on through St. Brice, Villiers- 
 le-Bel, and Sarcellcs to Gonesse, the 
 head-quarters of Prince August of Wur- 
 temburg, against whose rather thin 
 lines General Ducrot had thrown enor- 
 mous masses of men. 
 
o,]S EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX. 
 
 The Period of Despair. ■ -The Final Effort. —The Great S vtie. — Champijjuj-. The Fight at Villicrs.— 
 Duerol and Ilia I lisaster. - - Valorous! tonclucl of the French. —The News of the Defeat of the Loire 
 Army. 
 
 THE grent sortie which the Parisians to be thrown across the River Marne 
 bad now undertaken, and of which during the night of the 28 tb— 29th of 
 we had seen the unsuccessful beginning, November had done his work with the 
 was 1 n>>j;ii n with the hope thai Gambetta care and skill which the engineers of the 
 had at last organized victory in the enemy's forces always showed on sin h 
 south, and that his conquering forces, important occasions, he would have con- 
 arriving from the district of the Loire, trlbuted no little to the raising of the 
 would be able to effect a junction with siege of Paris, and perhaps might have 
 the forces under the walls of Paris, and Haltered himself that he was a powerful, 
 sweep away the invader into hopeless although humble, instrument in the lib- 
 retreat and disastrous confusion. It is eration of the great capital. 
 said upon good authority that General But the bridges were not ready. 
 Trochu, despite his position as coin- The Prussians, as we had observed 
 mander in Paris, made no secret of his from the beginning of the campaign, 
 belief that the resistance was hopeless ; and, in fact, all the German armies, 
 and it is also said of him thai at, a carried with them, and took the utmost 
 certain council, when he was asked if he pains to keep in excellent order, pon- 
 did not believe in resistance, ••With all toon trains for all emergencies. The 
 the troops in Paris we can effect noth- presence of these pontoon trains at 
 ing," he said, "except to make dust for the rear of the advancing columns 
 future generations to walk on." Gen- was the means of saving many a 
 eral Trochu was much reproached for noble bridge and viaduct in France, 
 many years after the war for this policy for the French, who are a very logical 
 of despair; but I believe lie has never people, were at once convinced that 
 undertaken to deny or defend it. it was useless to destroy fine masonry 
 He was not anxious, however, nor had over streams which the enemy could 
 he the power, to prevent the organization bridge for itself ten minutes after 
 of the great effort of the last few days the arches and piers were sprung. 
 of November. It is at once curious and Genius has been not inaptly described 
 sad to note that this French sortie, as as an infinite capacity for taking pains, 
 all the battles ill the campaign, had ami the supply of this capacity in the 
 failed for lack of proper preparation of German army was quite wonderful, 
 material resources absolutely necessary The French could improvise a defense 
 to the carrying out of a military plan, out of the incessant labor of a few days; 
 If the engineer who was charged with in desperate valor and in self-sacrifice 
 the preparation of the pontoon I nidges they were the peers of their enemy; but, 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 339 
 
340 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 when it, came to eool foresight and engineers who had not got the bridges 
 
 abundant calculation, they were infinitely ready.) "General Vinoy, who was to 
 
 inferior. advance upon Choisy, was not warned 
 
 The Maine was not bridged at the in time. He executed his movement, 
 
 proper time by the French pontoons, and when he found that the governor 
 
 ami tin 1 stupendous operations which had adjourned his. in' was forced to 
 
 General Vinoy and General Ducrot were retreat alter suffering heavy losses. 
 
 to have carried into effect were checked, This event caused an emotion which 
 
 and finally ruined. The ly advantage you will easily understand ; but it must 
 
 which the French derived from the sortie not he exaggerated. The governor has 
 
 was the infliction of tremendous losses taken possession of the plateau of Avron, 
 
 upon the enemy, and of the addition of where he has strongly fortified himself, 
 
 a brilliant page to French military his- and where he intends to continue his 
 
 toiv. operations. The danger is that we may 
 
 M. Favre, lonely in his cabinet, after meet there a warned and concentrated 
 
 the exhausting labors of the day. wrote enemy. You may imagine our anxiety, 
 
 nightly to Gambetta letters full of If we fail, we are doubly lost; hut this 
 
 energy, courage, and hope. On the is not the time to be discouraged." 
 
 29th of November he wrote the brilliant General Ducrot had marshalled forth 
 
 voung delegate, who was building up his soldiers of the "second army of 
 
 the defense in the South, a brief note, Paris," as he called them, with a fiery 
 
 which <_iivcs a clear notion of the objects proclamation. In this document he told 
 
 of the great sortie. " As the govern- the troops that the action had heen pre- 
 
 ment had informed you," wrote .M. pared for months ; that the cominander- 
 
 Favre, "it had fixed upon Tuesday, the in-chief had got together more than four 
 
 29th, for the sortie, on the general plan hundred cannon, two-thirds of which were 
 
 which it had already given you some of heavy calibre ; that one hundred and 
 
 idea of. This plan was audacious, care- eighty thousand men. well-armed and 
 
 fully prepared, and its main aim was to equipped, ought to go any where ; that the 
 
 pierce the German lines with an army enemy was descending to the hanks of 
 
 of one hundred thousand men. and to the Loire with his best soldiers, where 
 
 join forces with you on or near the Loire. they were all to he beaten by the newly 
 
 The governor (General Trochu) began organized French armies; that courage 
 his movements on Sunday. The princi- and confidence would win the day ; and 
 pal task was confided to General Ducrot. that, as tor himself, he was firmly re- 
 Ilis operations were to he masked by solved, and took an oath before the 
 attacks from different sides, deceiving army and the nation to return into 
 the enemy, and giving it no rest. The Paris " dead or victorious." 
 governor went out yesterday to one of These were brave words, which put a 
 flic principal points to observe the pas- certain fever into the blood of the soldiers, 
 sage of his army over the Maine, on who felt that the fate of the country de- 
 seven bridges : unfortunately, at mid- pended upon the success of their efforts. 
 night, a sudden rise in the Manic ren- Poor General Ducrot, after the failure of 
 dered this passage impossible." (This his operations, was roundly abused and 
 was the story which was invented to much ridiculed because he had not kept 
 excuse the delay and the blunder of the his word ; hut. if he did not succeed in 
 
EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 341 
 
 gaining a permanent victory, lie did 
 everything that he could to win a 
 soldier's death, before returning to 
 Paris. Dozens of soldiers testify to 
 his bravery in battle, and on the field 
 of Champigny he pushed into the very 
 ranks of the enemy, and broke his sword 
 in a Saxon's breast. But his life was 
 charmed. He could not die, and he was 
 obliged to swallow his line words, and to 
 live for many years afterwards a soured 
 and disappointed, but unquestionably an 
 honorable and capable soldier. 
 
 The failure of the French to cross the 
 Marue in the night of the 28th gave 
 the Germans twenty-four hours in which 
 to concentrate fresh troops upon the 
 weak portions of their lines, and, by 
 sunset on the 29th, all hope of breaking 
 through the point towards which the 
 French were directing their endeavors 
 was gone. On the 30th of November, 
 early in the morning, the two first French 
 divisions crossed the river, and pushed 
 the enemy back to the first slopes of 
 Champigny. A series of battles and ar- 
 tillery duels took place along the plateau 
 of Avron, on the heights of Montmedy, 
 Creteil, Joinville-le-Pont, Champigny, 
 Noisy-le-Grand, and Villiers-sur-Marue. 
 The Wurtemburg troops, when they 
 wire first struck by the vigorous French 
 attack, were sadly demoralized. I had 
 ocular evidence of that, and had they 
 been unaided they would have opened 
 their ranks and let the besieged through, 
 on their way to the junction with Gam- 
 betta's forces. But, as soon as they 
 began to fall back, they found that they 
 were supported by the Saxons, and by 
 regiment after regiment of Prussians, 
 coming up in solid order. 
 
 So they rallied, and pushed away the 
 French, who had already taken posses- 
 sion of the summit of Montmedy. As 
 soon as they saw the action turning in 
 
 their favor, they came forward with loud 
 shouts and flourished their guns over 
 their heads like madmen. Doubtless 
 they were a little ashamed of having 
 broken ranks shortly before, and had 
 determined to make up for it, now that 
 they felt safe. In front of them there 
 had come up undisciplined French 
 troops, who fell back in considerable 
 disorder upon Creteil. But one of their 
 generals was brave even to utter rash- 
 ness, and was shot down within thirty 
 yards from the Prussian lines, still crying 
 out," Forward! " This energetic officer, 
 who had won a high reputation in the 
 African and Italian campaigns, was the 
 talk of all the German soldiers for the 
 next few days. When the first charge 
 on Montmedy occurred, he went into it 
 flourishing his cap on the end of his 
 sabre; and his men would have followed 
 him to destruction. He went through 
 the first charge, although a pistol ball 
 had broken one of his wrists. He was 
 the man who, when he was slowly dying, 
 a day or two after the battle, from the 
 numerous wounds which he had received, 
 said to the soldiers who surrounded his 
 bed, " If we still have an army that 
 knows how to die, France may be saved." 
 
 On this same day of the 30th there 
 was a tremendous battle in and around 
 the villages of Bry-sur-Marne and Cham- 
 pigny. In Bry-sur-Marne the battle was 
 from house to house, from alley-way to 
 alley-way; and here the French Zouaves, 
 who had won such a bad reputation at 
 the outset of the siege, in flying from the 
 table-land of Chatillon, fought with ad- 
 mirable courage, and redeemed their 
 honor. 
 
 All the time that this hand-to-hand 
 fighting in the villages was going on 
 there was a perfectly terrific artillen 
 duel between batteries of the contending 
 forces. Having repossessed themselves 
 
342 EUROPE W STORM AND CALM. 
 
 of Montmedy, the Germans bad sue- It is not too much to say, (hut, on 
 
 eeeded in shutting the door which had that night, the forces on both .sides 
 
 been momentarily opened on the road to ceased their efforts from utter exhaus- 
 
 Versailles ; and they bolted and barred tion. Every nerve in both armies had 
 
 it so effectually as to have no fears that been strained to the utmost for more 
 
 it would be opened again. than thirty-six hours. There were Ger- 
 
 Meantime the French were creeping man troops in the fight who had not had 
 
 up the heights of Villiers and Clienne- a moment's rest for all that time. A 
 
 vieres, disputing foot by foot the blood- philosophical Wurtemburger, who was in 
 
 stained way, hiding among the vines and the whole Villiers tight, — a kind of ram- 
 
 stopping, now and then, — -poor, half- bling encounter, which lasted for four or 
 
 starved fellows! — to pluck the frozen live days, — in writing from Villiers to 
 
 grapes which hung convenient to their some friends on tlie oth of December, 
 
 grasp. It was slow work coming up and describing the task of retaking Mont- 
 
 these hills; and it was half-past four in mesly, while the German troops were 
 
 tlie afternoon before the French bat- subjected to a crushing tire from the 
 
 talions got to the walls of the park at forts, said, " You can have no idea of 
 
 Villiers, where the Prussians had made the frightful rain of shells which we en- 
 
 t heir retreat, countered here. It is a veritable miracle 
 
 When once the French troops were that our whole battery was not destroyed 
 
 well upon the hill, a long and terrible simply by the immense numerical supe- 
 
 line of musketry sent forth such a sweep- riority of (he French flatteries. We tired 
 
 ing fire of death that, hundreds upon upon them with precision and coolness, 
 
 hundreds of men fell before they could but in less than half an hour we had lost 
 
 reach a cover; and the scene, for a few eight men and fifteen horses. My horse 
 
 minutes after this army of on-rushing was struck down by a shell five seconds 
 
 French, mail for victory and wild for after I dismounted from it. Mitrail- 
 
 revenge, was transformed in the twink- /atsfs were placed at a. short distance 
 
 ling of an eye into groaning and writhing from us, and their bullets went hissing 
 
 masses of wounded men, heaped upon above our heads like a swarm of bees, 
 
 their dead comrades, was one of the We had to band together, and get into 
 
 st frightful and startling of the whole position a hundred paces farther away 
 
 century. When the sun went down behind the wall of a park, which we soon 
 
 that night, the sky was red as blood, had in a state of defense." 
 
 as if the dread colors of the battle-field This little paragraph gives an ade- 
 
 were reflected in it. Then silence fell quate idea of the manner in which the 
 
 upon the whole country side. The Germans always availed themselves of 
 
 groaning of the cannon, the harsh shelter. In many an action German 
 
 shrieks of the mitrailleuses, the hurrahs troops were scarcely seen at all by the 
 
 of the Wurtemburgers and their sturdy enemy. If there was a wall convenient, 
 
 allies, who had come up just in time to the\ had loop-holed it ; a forest. the\ 
 
 save them, the cries of the wounded. — were hidden within it: a barricade was 
 
 ali died away, as it the shades of the a God-send to them ; a cemetery, a ditch, 
 
 winter twilight, rapidly falling over the — anything which they could transform 
 
 scene of carnage, had blotted it out. into a temporary fortification, — was in- 
 
 aud swept it into eternal oblivion. stantlv and invariably adopted. " I 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 34.3 
 
344 
 
 EUHOrii IX STomi AM> CALM. 
 
 thank God," said this German soldier, ribly, and hundreds of them were unfit 
 
 " that I :ini slill alive. I shall never for battle next day. Trees wen' cut 
 
 forget that day. Some of the Prussian down and great fires were built, both 
 
 otticerssaid thatit was a much worse affair because General Trochu wished to make 
 
 than that of Gravelotte. The soil was the enemy think that an immense army 
 
 fairly turned up by the French shells, was encamped near him, and because the 
 
 For the first, time I understand what it men were literally freezing. The lior- 
 
 means to be outside of cover under an rors of that night for the wounded men 
 
 artillery fire. On the 30th we could not surpass all the powers of description. 
 o icupy the villages of Champigny and Next day there was no fighting, but 
 
 I'rv-sur-M.iine, for when the forts began early on the morning of the 2d of De- 
 
 THE PRIESTS' AMBULANCE CORPS AT THE BATTLE OF CFIAMPIdXY. 
 
 to concentrate their lire upon them they 
 were too hot to stay in ; all the more be- 
 cause we wen' attacked by forces quad- 
 ruple our own iii numbers." 
 
 When the French got into Champigny 
 they found it in a frightful condition. 
 The Saxons, who had been occupying it 
 for some time, were greatly annoyed at 
 being disturbed, and they smashed every- 
 thing: mirrors, costly furniture, — re- 
 specting nothing whatever. Nextmorn- 
 ing, the weather, which had been mild, 
 suddenly became very cold. The half-fed 
 ami excited French troops suffered ter- 
 
 cember the Saxons and Wurtemburg- 
 
 ers together fell upon the towns of Bry- 
 sur-Marne and Champigny; and this 
 was a part of the deliberate attempt of 
 the Germans to throw General Ducrot's 
 army back upon the righf bunk of the 
 Marne and to push it into the river, or 
 compel it to complete disorganization 
 and confused retreat, which would render 
 any future operations on its part impos- 
 sible. 
 
 The French troops at first fought mag- 
 nificently against the vast numbers of 
 
 the enemy, which now flocked down upon 
 
EUllorE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 \\\: 
 
 them. Fresh reinforcements were sent 
 up, and the contest promised to be long, 
 and possibly to be decided in favor of 
 the Parisians. When the new German 
 column came out of the woods of Villiers 
 and began to push the French troops 
 
 and his aids. The Government of 
 National Defense papered the walls 
 with encouraging proclamations. On 
 the next day came a sad surprise, and 
 one which at first stupefied and finalh 
 exasperated the Parisians. On the 4th 
 
 hack upon Bry-sur-Marne, and towards of December General Ducrot announced 
 the River Marne, the French lines wav- to the besieged within the walls of the 
 cred. General Ducrot and General Tro- capital, by means of a proclamation 
 chu made desperate efforts to rally them, issued to his own troops, that he had 
 The great military park on the 
 plateau of Avron sent forth a 
 formidable lire to cut gaps in 
 the German lines ; and at last 
 one hundred thousand men, 
 who had swarmed for an hour 
 or two on the hillsides, — Prus- 
 sians, Bavarians, Saxons, and 
 W'urtemburgers, — hesitated, 
 and finally were forced to halt 
 and 10 withdraw a little. 
 
 At four o'clock in the .after- 
 noon they were found throwing 
 up intrenchments, as if fearing 
 that they who had been at- 
 tacked might suddenly be the 
 attacking party. The French 
 had managed to get about half 
 of C'hampigny ; they had retaken 
 house a Iter house, and barricade 
 after barricade ; but the German prisoi 
 ers told them that there were at least 
 one hundred and fifty thousand Prus- 
 sians massed not far away; ami, after 
 the numerous arrivals of fresh troops 
 that they had seen, they began to believe 
 
 this statement. General Trochu, how- where the enemy had had plenty of 
 ever, claimed the day as a victory for 
 the French armies; and General Ducrot, 
 
 brought his army 
 back across the 
 Marne, becaust 
 he was convince 
 that new efforts 
 in a direction 
 where the enemy 
 
 who had been wounded on this day b 
 
 had had plenty 
 time to concentrate all its forces, and 
 to prepare all its means of action, 
 would be useless. "Had I persisted 
 
 splinter of a shell, after having ridden in this line of attack," lie said, " I 
 
 right through the German lines two or 
 three times, still expressed hopes that 
 the operations would be successful. 
 
 Paris was electrified by the despatches 
 which came to it from General Trochu 
 
 should uselessly have sacrificed many 
 thousands of brave men, and. instead 
 of serving the cause of deliverance, I 
 should seriously have compromised it." 
 Perhaps it required more moral bravery 
 
34(i 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 on the part of General Ducrotto do just 
 what In 1 did than to have plunged anew 
 into a battle which could have had but 
 one end, — tin' partial or complete anni- 
 hilation of his army on the banks "f the 
 Marne. 
 
 The whole country for miles around 
 was tilled with the marks of the san- 
 guinary struggle; the villages were in 
 ruins; the hills were piled with heaps of 
 mangled corpses. On the French side 
 the priests and the volunteer ambulance 
 men were busy in bearing away to Paris 
 those of the soldiers who were not 
 mortally wounded, and preparing decent 
 places in the farm-houses and cottages 
 lor those whose sands of life were fast 
 running out. On the frozen earth along 
 the heights beyond Champigny and 
 Villiers, the German dead were still 
 lying in piles and rows on the 3d and 
 1th of December, although burial parties 
 worked vigorously during the nights, and 
 after the light of the 30th they labored 
 during the whole of the 1st, determined 
 to conceal as much as possible their 
 losses from the enemy. As a French 
 writer has tersely said, in his impartial 
 and careful account of this scries of 
 lights, ten thousand dead men of the two 
 races were strewn along the frozen hills, 
 and nothing had been done to change the 
 destiny of Paris. The blockade con- 
 tinued. General Ducrot had reentered 
 alive and victorious in vain. 
 
 At first Paris could not believe that 
 this was the cud of its great hope. It 
 did not doubt that military operations 
 would be continued at another point. 
 Very likely the attack at Champigny had 
 been only a feint. We should soon hear 
 of fights elsewhere, and the besieged, not 
 doubting that the Loire army was near 
 at hand, looked with confidence for the 
 soldiers of General AnrellesdePaladines. 
 
 But on the evening of the Gth of Decem- 
 ber the Parisians learned by a procla- 
 mation that letters had been exchanged 
 between General Von Moltke and 
 General Troebu. The German general 
 informed General Trochu, in a note of 
 icy politeness and Spartan brevity, that 
 the army of the Loire had been defeated 
 on the previous day near Orleans and 
 that the city had been occupied by the 
 victorious troops. 
 
 The loss of the French during this 
 series of battles was six thousand and 
 thirty men, of which four hundred and 
 fourteen were officers. The Germans 
 lost much more heavily, and for some 
 time after the siege the French insisted 
 that the affair of Champigny and Villiers 
 had cost Germany fifteen thousand sol- 
 diers ; but this estimate was greatly 
 exaggerated. 
 
 Some days after the arrival of General 
 Von Moltke's letter in Paris, the Govern- 
 ment of National Defense learned that 
 the enemy had spoken truly ; yet the 
 army of the Loire was only cut in two. 
 It was neither captured nor annihilated.. 
 Paris took heart a little. General 
 Chanzv was still capable of a good re- 
 sistance ; General Faidherbe was mak- 
 ing a capital light in the north ; and 
 General Bourbaki, at Bourges, was pre- 
 paring to assume the offensive with 
 vigor. General Trochu now shut him- 
 self up atVincenu.es, where he said that 
 he was so busy with the reorganization 
 of his army that he could give no atten- 
 tion to the interior administration of 
 Paris. Starvation and bitter winter 
 weather had come at the close of an un- 
 successful smiic to urge the Parisians 
 to yield. 
 
 Yet they held out with a bravery 
 which has never been surpassed in the 
 history of the world. 
 
EUROPE IN ST011M AXD CALM. 
 
 u: 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN. 
 
 Panoramic-View of the German Investment Lines. — Margency. — Goncsse. — Chelles. — The Various Corps 
 and Their Appearance. — Pictures from Versailles during the Occupation. — The Snow. — The 
 Landwehrsmen. — Tin- 1 )hristmas Festivities. 
 
 CONTINUING our journey, we found 
 at Margency, which was simply a 
 hamlet attached to a chdteau, the head- 
 quarters of the Crown Prince of Saxony, 
 who had under his command the Fourth, 
 Sixth, and Guard corps. Our intention 
 was to remain here for some days; but 
 the odious weather and the wretched ac- 
 commodation forbade it. So we pushed 
 on to Gouesse, the head-quarters of 
 Prince August von Wurtemburg. Our 
 route lay through Villiers-le-Bel, — a name 
 dear to American and English artists, — 
 and through Sarcelles. The Fourth 
 corps joined the Guard at Groslay, a 
 village just outside the limits of Mont- 
 morency, and extended to Clichy-sur- 
 Bois, not far from Chelles, and the scene 
 of the important struggle just recounted 
 on the banks of the Maine and the 
 Seine. St. Brice, nearby, one of the oc- 
 cupied points, was celebrated as one of 
 Bossuet's many residences. To the right 
 was Pierrefltte, still occupied by the 
 French, and a little less than two miles 
 and a half from the outer French line of 
 defense. 
 
 The Guard, without doubt the noblest 
 body of men in the German army, had 
 already suffered terribly in the war; and 
 it was said at Gonesse, though I know 
 not how truly, that this corps alone had 
 lost more men in the struggles around 
 Metz than the whole war of 1866 had 
 cost Prussia. It was a proud and fiery 
 corps, composed in large degree of per- 
 sons of rank. But a few days before I 
 
 had met in Versailles a young officer, 
 just about to leave one of the Uhlan 
 regiments of the Guard because he was 
 not a baron and every other officer in 
 the regiment was. There were some 
 regiments in which nearly every man had 
 a title. To be introduced to an officer 
 at Gouesse without hearing him signalled 
 as •• Herr Graf" would have at once at- 
 tracted attention to him. Many of the 
 officers stationed here were extremely 
 young, but nearly all were men of high- 
 breeding and culture. Many a man in 
 coarse uniform possessed a larger in- 
 come than the proprietor of the costly 
 villa in which he was temporarily lodged. 
 The officers had very generally estab- 
 lished in each of the little towns com- 
 modious restaurants called "Officers' 
 Casinos." and had pressed into their 
 service some few unwilling French cooks 
 who had remained in the neighborhood. 
 One saw many an officer spending more 
 for the bottle of wine which he drank for 
 his breakfast than he received as pay for 
 soldiering for a week. Private pockets, as 
 well as government's treasury, were well 
 depleted. The French charged enormous 
 prices. Everything was at least triple 
 or quadruple its former value. Potatoes 
 and vegetables of all kinds were most 
 difficult to obtain. The officers con- 
 tented themselves with black bread, and 
 made up for the absence of beer by 
 swallowing numerous bottles of the or- 
 dinary wine of the country, when no 
 other was to be had. 
 
;J4,S EUROPE l.\ STORM AND CALM. 
 
 At Gonesse we 1 1 : i < 1 a pretty severe important point what they called a 
 trial of our nerves, because we had Kriegsbruckc, that is, a. pontoon bridge, 
 settled down to breakfast in a corner for war purposes, tliey had noted with 
 of the town which had, unfortunately, the greatest care the various routes lead- 
 been selected that morning for prac- ing to it, especially for wagon trains and 
 tii-e by the gunners in the neighbor- convoys. 
 
 ing French fort, and the shells fell with From Gonesse we pushed forward, 
 
 a recklessness which was quite appall- getting just within the first line of in- 
 
 ing. Fortunately a dense fog hindered vestment to Sevran, a little town badly 
 
 the gunners from doing much damage, punished bv shells. On our way thither 
 
 In the neighborhood of Gonesse ween- we had an opportunity to observe the 
 
 countered, for the first time, a very grave manner in which the German outposts 
 
 difficulty, but one which we afterwards fortified their positions. Breastworks 
 
 met at every turn in making trips around were thrown up almost- everywhere, con- 
 
 I'aris. Whenever we asked a French- strueted out of every available material, 
 
 man to show us the wav. as we were Where roads failed in the fields, artifi- 
 
 naturallv puzzled bv the labyrinth of eial ones had been made out. of the un- 
 
 large and small roads, he always mis- threshed wheat, of which great heaps 
 
 directed us. This, at first, we could garnished the roadsides. Even the roads 
 
 hardly believe, until we lost a couple of were doubly and triply barricaded at 
 
 hours by trusting to our French guides, certain points, so that the French, in 
 
 Presently we noted that the Prussians making a sortie, would be sure to get, 
 
 had the whole country classified into themselves under a deadly lire. •■Alarm 
 
 various districts, traversed by certain houses " were frequent along this route, 
 
 routes; and these were plainly indicated The Prussians had created facilities for 
 
 by huge signs marked in ink, on the seeing almost every movement that any 
 
 stone fence corners. " Colonenweg " considerable body of Frenchmen could 
 
 signified that the road where the sign make near Paris, and could always [ire- 
 appeared was the proper one for heavy pare themselves splendidly lor defense, 
 munition and provision trains; and at. Aunet, an insignificant village near 
 every town's entrance and exit, one Sevran, was only noticeable from the 
 found the way to and from each town fact that numbers of the Guard corps 
 within a radius of twenty miles properly had illustrated their talent with numer- 
 shown on a little map. Other German ous drawings on the walls of the houses. 
 corps had not the same thoroughness The signs that had been placed to indi- 
 of system noticeable among the Pius- catc the way were sometimes rendered 
 sians. For instance, the Saxons, who very amusing by the little .sketches 
 lav just beyond Gonesse, rarely marked which the several visitors to the iiidica- 
 thi' way so that a stranger could find teur had drawn. At Sevran we passed 
 it. The French, at the beginning of the Canal de L'Ourcq, cleverly turned 
 the siege of Paris, had turned all the from its course by a German engineer at 
 sign-boards wrong end first, or. when the beginning of the investment, and 
 that had been impossible, had taken the bridge over which we went had been 
 them down and pitched them into the barricaded, the side towards Paris being 
 nearest stream. Wherever the Pin-- protected with doors taken from the 
 sians had thrown across the river at an granaries. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 349 
 
 The scenery through which we now 
 passed was of dazzling loveliness. The 
 
 snow still decked the trees with crystals, 
 and a temperate sun threw a genial. Imt 
 not melting, light upon this fairy splen- 
 dor. Hills were indistinguishable, ami 
 seemed to fade into the sky. A brush- 
 heap became an opalescent mass, and the 
 far-off forests, where symmetrical trees 
 rose in long avenues, were fantastic as 
 dream-foliage. Here we were skirting 
 the noble and ancient wood of Bondy, 
 when' old King Childeric met his unhappy 
 fate, and were drawing gradually towards 
 the banks of the charming Marne. 
 
 At Livry we took the wrong road, 
 and had gone two miles straight towards 
 one of the forts before we discovered 
 our mistake. Had it not been for a com- 
 pass I do not know what would have 
 happened, for we should probably have 
 got into the French lines. At Livry, one 
 of Madame de Sevigne's favorite haunts, 
 there was nothing noticeable beyond the 
 industry of the soldiers, who were none 
 of them lolling about or playing at cards, 
 but were all engaged in some kind of 
 hard work. Carpenters were plying their 
 trade; blacksmiths were soiling their 
 uniforms over used-up horses ; the cooks 
 ha«l improvised the accustomed cap, the 
 sign of their profession, out of the news- 
 papers sent them from Germany; ami 
 the officers were giving orders as busily 
 as the captain of a Cunardcr in a gale. 
 
 We were soon at Clichy-sous-Bois, 
 where the Guard corps ceased and the 
 Saxons were stationed. The First in- 
 fantry division had its head-quarters 
 here in a huge chdteau, and some officers 
 told us that their corps extended as far 
 as the left bank of the Marne on to the 
 scene of the recent fight. The Saxons 
 were a, ruddy, healthy, but dowdy look- 
 ing, set of soldiers. The officers were 
 models of elegance and refined courtesy. 
 
 There was. however, a lack of that 
 thoroughness of occupation which we 
 had remarked among the exclusively 
 Prussian troops ; and, on the whole, from 
 this point to where the gallant Second 
 corps began, we could remark at every 
 turn the superiority of Prussia to the 
 sister states in military training. 
 
 From Clichy we rode on to Mont Ver- 
 meil, and thence through the charming 
 forest of Chelles. The grand old abbey 
 of Chelles has twice been ravaged by the 
 English, — in 1358 and 1429, — and once 
 entirely overturned by a hurricane. Put 
 it has always been restored by piou 
 hands, and is one of the architectural 
 wonders of France. Chelles is pictu- 
 resquely situated, and stalely poplars 
 border the plains which stretch out from 
 the town. Here we got into trouble with 
 an officer, who hail cautioned us against 
 going over the upper of the two pontoon 
 bridges which he had caused to be built 
 over the Marne, and we had mistaken 
 his direction and crossed the wrong 
 bridge. The result was just what he 
 had expected. We drew the lire from 
 Forts Noisy and Rosny, and that un- 
 fortunate bridge was raked with shell 
 for twenty minutes afterwards, in such 
 a manner that we were not surprised at 
 the officer's rage. Our last glimpse of 
 him was as he stood jumping up and 
 down on the banks of the Marne, and 
 shaking his fists at us. while the whole 
 atmosphere was charged with three-cor- 
 nered German imprecations. He was so 
 excited that he took no care for his own 
 safety, and it was by no means pleasant 
 to stand under this storm of the tre- 
 mendous projectiles launched by the 
 forts. 
 
 We talked with the Wurtemburgers 
 who had been in the recent battle. These 
 were stolid, tranquil, and clumsy men, 
 whom the French never shook from their 
 
."). r >0 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 posts, aor blew away with artillery, nor Bondy St. Leger, where the stalwart 
 
 frightened with bayonet charges. "It Pomeranian Second regiment was quar- 
 
 was not much of a fight," said one; tered along the road, and as we were 
 
 ■• they could not dig lis out." The simile Hearing the latter town we caught a. 
 
 was a good one. charming glimpse of Paris. From the 
 
 Before us lay the lovely Maine, the high hill which we climbed just before 
 snow-clad branches ou its banks reflected reaching a forest surrounding Baron 
 in the dark blue of its water, and here Hottinguer's chdtecui, the sun strug- 
 and there a little island half hidden under gled out of a cloud under which he had 
 the sweeping boughs of the ancient trees, been sulking for some lime, and touched 
 Beyond the bridge we found a pioneer the distant dome of the Invalides, so 
 guard seated around a pleasant camp- near and yet so far. We could clistin- 
 fire. We rode to Champs; thence to guish the twin towers of Notre Dame 
 Malnoue, and so over the barren battle- and the dimly outlined dome of the Pan- 
 field on which the Wurtem burgers had theon. Smoke and flames arose from 
 done such valiant work. Here the numbers of villages which had just been 
 country was desolate. In no village tired by shells from Forts Ivry and 
 could we tinil a wisp of hay for our Charenton. On the high plateau at the 
 horses: no soldier had enough for his entrance to the wood of Bondy the Ger- 
 own beast. At Champs we found the mans had established a post of observa- 
 peasants so sharp in their expression tion. From Bondy to the old bridge of 
 of hatred to us as their supposed foes Charenton, almost, under the very walls 
 that we were not sorry to find plenty of of Paris, there is a direct road, along 
 soldiers in the vicinity. which there had been much fighting. 
 
 We pushed on from Malnoue to La. The Pomeranians were sore and angry, 
 
 Queue-en-Brie, a little town which bore for their losses in the action in which 
 
 indisputable marks of hard usage during they had just played such an important 
 
 the recent light. This had been an part had been very heavy. Here, at 
 
 asylum for the wounded, and the ground Bondy, the massing of troops was tre- 
 
 in nearly all the yards was strewn with mendous. It was evident that another 
 
 blood-stained straw. Every available sortie was expected, and that the two 
 
 article of furniture had been smashed hundred thousand men win.) had recently 
 
 tor firewood. It was not until the cold been called under arms in Germany 
 
 weather came that the Prussians began were fast arriving in the field. Soldiers 
 
 to do veritable damage to the costly swarmed in the forests and ill the villages 
 
 houses in which they were quartered, from this point upward to Versailles. 
 
 The Germans were in a country where The lines which had recently been thin 
 
 wood is scarcer than in any other sec- were now more than necessarily strong. 
 
 tion of Europe, with the exception of a It seemed madness for the besieged to 
 
 few noble, ancient forests preserved by try and dislodge this enemy, confident 
 
 the state. Stone being the exclusive from his long succession of victories and 
 
 building material, it was only the palings, so strong in numbers, 
 
 the oak carvings, and the furniture upon On the way from La Queue to Bondy 
 
 which the cold and impatient soldiers we met long trains of sick and wounded 
 
 could rely. coming back from Orleans. There were 
 
 From La Queue-en-Brie we went to several hundred wagons tilled with poor 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 351 
 
 fellows who seemed in every stage <>f 
 mortal illness. The melancholy train 
 wound its way painfully along, a few 
 Uhlans riding here and there between the 
 transports calmly smoking their pipes. 
 Along the load we observed the field- 
 telegraph service of both the Bavarian 
 and Prussian armies, the Prussian line 
 easily distinguishable from the others 
 by its black and white slender poles, 
 capable of being put down with great 
 rapidity ; and the Prussians did not take 
 the trouble to give it a guard, announc- 
 ing in each village that any one who 
 trilled with it should be shot. The Bava- 
 rians built their lines more substantially, 
 but also exercised very trilling precau- 
 tions against its cutting. The lines had 
 rarely been interrupted since they were 
 placed. The majority of the soldiers 
 whom we saw in Bondy had been before 
 Metz, and were among the first to arrive 
 in front of Paris from that point. They 
 were usually stalwart, handsome men, 
 dark-haired and fiery-eyed ; and we were 
 told that they were one of the special 
 prides of the Prussian army. 
 
 We returned to Versailles by the first 
 line of investment part of the way, finish- 
 ing our journey in the third, quite in the 
 rear, where the Bavarians were stationed. 
 Shortly after leaving Bondy we left the 
 Second corps behind us, and on our ar- 
 rival at Villeneuve St. George found 
 ourselves among the members of the 
 Sixth Prussian corps. At Villeneuve St. 
 George the Prussians had two extem- 
 porized bridges across the Seine, one of 
 pontoon and the other of trestle-work, 
 both capable of sustaining any weight, 
 and both built in a miraculously short 
 time. Here, and at Villeneuve le Roi, 
 was a complete overturn of houses ; 
 and I do not blame the dwellers in 
 Parisian suburbs for abominating the 
 Germans, whom they naturally accused 
 
 of many excesses, which were perhaps 
 inevitable. 
 
 On the way in we passed, at Wissons. 
 a gigantic park of artillery, about- two 
 hundred guns, which the artillerymen 
 were beginning to move. We found 
 that it was not wise to ask questions as 
 to where those guns were going, and 
 drew our own conclusions as to the 
 probable commencement of the bom- 
 bardment. 
 
 In Versailles we found the customary 
 programme, — funerals, serenades, horse 
 exercising, patrols, concerts, and dinners 
 at the Cafe de Neptune, in progress — 
 exactly as we had left them. 
 
 Not long after our tour around 1'aris 
 we heard that the Prussians had entered 
 Vendome, and there was a rumor that 
 the French were massing for another 
 outbreak in the vicinity of Champigny. 
 But the attention of the Germans was 
 concentrated on the bombardment, and 
 endeavors at first made to conceal prepa- 
 rations for it were the source of much 
 misery for all journalists attached to the 
 head-quarters. There was a momentary 
 enlivening of the monotony of the life at 
 Versailles by the creation of a ••corre- 
 spondent's question." It was brought 
 about by the indiscretion of some cavalry 
 men, who arrested, at Etampes, one or 
 two English journalists, and a gentleman 
 who happened to be a Queen's commis- 
 sioner. These worthy gentlemen were 
 brought into Versailles tied with ropes, 
 which ropes were attached to the saddles 
 of their captors; and they were treated 
 as common spies, and much crowded and 
 hustled by onion-breathed Teutons, until 
 they were able to prove their identity. 
 It was rather startling, and, at the same 
 time, amusing, to recognize in the French 
 spies whom we had been summoned to 
 see these gentlemen, who were supposed 
 to be perfectly well known as neutrals 
 
:>.")L' EUROPE IS STORM AND CALM. 
 
 and personages of distinction. Many minded the furloughed men that death 
 
 sharp criticisms having been passed on was still their near neighbor, 
 
 the arrogance of officers who had been The court preacher at the chapel that 
 
 engaged in this arrest, a personage high morning chose for his text these words: 
 
 iu authority was said to have remarked ■• The peace of God passeth all under- 
 
 iliat. if the eorre.[ Icnts wished to standing." But the deputies and 
 
 magnify the matter into one of inter- diplomats, who had come up from Ger- 
 
 natioual importance, the simplest thing many, although they attended the sermon, 
 
 would be to send them all away from paid but little attention to it. They 
 
 head-quarters: moreover, that they had were busy with their anticipations of the 
 
 been indiscreet in disclosing to the world royal interview. They were mainly jolly, 
 
 the whereabouts of the cannon which beer-loving, rubicund men, from quiet 
 
 were to convince flic Parisians of the country towns, where Paris and Vcr- 
 
 error of resistance. sailles were popularly thought twin gates 
 
 This teapot storm was soon over, and of Hades. There were a few noble- 
 
 our attention was directed to the dele- looking old men, with white mustaches 
 
 gation of members of the German par- and flowing hair, but rather awkward in 
 
 liament, who had come up to present comparison with the more accomplished 
 
 addresses to King William concerning military men. 
 
 the title of Emperor of Germany, recently There was a great struggle for equi- 
 
 offered him, on the 10th of December, pages on that day, but the most dignified 
 
 This delegation arrived, a motley array members had to appear in a Held post- 
 
 of black, wdiite, and gray, twenty wagon wagon; and two aged and respectable 
 
 loads of German burghers, who carried members of Parliament were conveyed 
 
 their festal mien into the wards of the into the royal presence in a vehicle so 
 
 very hospitals, and whose grotesque self- much resembling a furniture-van that 
 
 consciousness provoked bitter smiles even the officers laughed. There was a 
 
 from the French, too well-bred to grand reception at the Prefecture, at 
 
 indulge in open comment. On that which all the deputies were personally 
 
 day I saw Count Bismarck in his presented to the King after the preseuta- 
 
 carriage ; he looked ill, and seemed to tion of their addresses, and crowds 
 
 have grown ten years older in a few gathered to see the princes roll away iu 
 
 davs. their carriages, and Von Podbielski and 
 
 The ISth was a gala day for the < rer- Moltke in their helmets, stem and grave ; 
 
 mans. Thousands of soldiers thronged finally the Prefecture doors closed with 
 
 the streets all day, and went in reluctantly a bang, and the tall sentinels began to 
 
 when the orange sunset glow' began to pace back and forth, as if moved by 
 
 tinge the west. There were music, wires. The King drove out shortly 
 
 glitter of uniforms, prancing of horses, afterwards, looking extremely well ; and 
 
 and pomp of funerals, as if Death I observed with some astonishment that 
 
 liked to be at the feast, grinning with numbers of Frenchmen saluted him : 
 
 the rest. Death was present in the whether it was because the title of 
 
 morning, with his procession of forty Emperor, which they knew had just 
 
 coffins draped with white, the Tartessian been presented for his consideration, 
 
 colors of mourning; and the rumbling overwhelmed them, I know not. 
 
 thunder of the guns in the distance re- In the evening eighty persons sat 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 353 
 
 down to a dinner of great magnificence. 
 On the night of the 18th there \v:is a 
 terrific cannonading, which the wind 
 seemed to bring nearer than usual, and 
 the deputies had a genuine fright. Win- 
 dows rattled in Versailles. The people 
 turned out in great excitement to dis- 
 cover what was going on. The King, ii 
 was said, desired to accept the Emperor's 
 diadem, but wished to run the gauntlet 
 of a vote in the Chambers first- 
 Winter now came in earnest. The 
 great pond and fountain basins in the 
 palace gardens were ice-bound. The 
 officers had taken to their fur cloaks. 
 and the princes, who had dawdled to and 
 fro in the long avenues on their well- 
 groomed horses, now scurried away to 
 breakfast in the shabby hacks still left 
 in Versailles. No less than six vigorous 
 attempts had been made by the French 
 to break out, the most signal effort being 
 made near the edge of the forest of 
 Bondy, when; the positions had received 
 a wonderful strengthening since the 
 Champigny fight. The artillery practice 
 of the Prussian guns in the vicinity of 
 St. Cloud was exceedingly good, and 
 one battery especially distinguished it- 
 self. 
 
 A few days before Christmas the non- 
 combatants at Versailles were treated to 
 a novel sensation, to be expected in 
 war time, but somewhat startling after 
 the dub icss of head- quarters' life. While 
 chatting quietly witli a friend in his own 
 apartments, in the Place Hoche, 1 ob- 
 served the sudden appearance of a body 
 of cavalry in the square, and at the same 
 time the people of the house came run- 
 ning to tell us that a band of soldiers 
 was mounting the stall's. The officer 
 in charge arrived, curt and suspicious, 
 posted sentries at all the exits, and we 
 were shortly desired to state whether or 
 not we had any concealed weapons. 
 
 Convincing the officer that we had none, 
 we were released, and learned from one 
 of the soldiers that they were looking 
 after Francs-Tireurs ; from another, that 
 weapons only w r ere the object of the 
 search : and from a third, what proved 
 to be true, that a conspiracy for a revolt 
 within Versailles had been discovered, 
 and that there was a general search for 
 the weapons which were to have done 
 the enemy damage. At almost the same 
 minute in the same hour every house 
 in the town was entered, and searched 
 from cellar to garret. At the Hotel 
 des Reservoirs, the head-quarters of 
 hundreds of officers, correspondents, 
 and diplomats, a young lieutenant of 
 nineteen had taken charge, anil told 
 tlic rotund and rubicund landlord that 
 if lie found anything suspicious in his 
 cellar he would have him shot in his 
 own court-yard. But this excessive 
 wrath on the part of the baby officer 
 only provoked a. smile from flic host. A 
 large collection of arms was actually 
 found in Versailles; and in one of the 
 houses, where an old lady solemnly de- 
 clared that she had never had a weapon 
 of any kind under her roof, an acute 
 soldier stuck his bayonet into the ceiling 
 and three guns dropped down. Some 
 enterprising German had set on foot a 
 Story that a band of desperadoes had 
 concocted a plan to cany oil the King, 
 Counts Moltke and Bismarck, and all 
 the other important personages, and offer 
 them in exchange for immediate and 
 unconditional peace. Ridiculous as this 
 story seemed, it found general cre- 
 dence among tlic rank and tile of the < ler- 
 niaus. who professed great indignation, 
 'flu- new I.andwehrsineii coining up 
 from Germany about this time were the 
 best specimens of soldiers that we had 
 seen. They looked as if they had been 
 created by some fairy expressly for the 
 
■A:>i 
 
 VUROl'E IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 occasion. I here was one regiment of 
 tin 1 Laudwehrsmen of the Guard sta- 
 tioned not far from Versailles, in which 
 the fathers owned to sewn thousand 
 and tlncc children, a. little incur than 
 three apiece. From this one? may im- 
 agine the number of Christmas-boxes 
 which had been coming by the field post 
 for thr ten d.iys before the great festi- 
 val. 
 
 •■ Our October Ares now flicker before 
 Paris," boastfully said the German 
 press, while the last glimmer of autumn 
 sunset was falling athwart the spin's 
 of Notre Dame. Neither German press 
 
 nor people expeeted that the Decem- 
 ber Ares would send up their sparks 
 around extemporized Christmas-trees 
 in the camps before Paris ; but, when 
 
 it was found that the siege was to 
 he long, tile goo,] wives at home 
 made ample provision for their absent 
 husbands, fathers, and brothers, and 
 enormous trains bringing the gifts of 
 love came lolling through Strasbourg 
 and Nancy and Epernay, and up to 
 Lagny, where they discharged their 
 comforting freight every day into the 
 provision wagons, which moved with 
 the same discipline that marked the 
 conduct of the whole army. The result 
 was. that, by the arrival of Christmas- 
 tide, the thousands upon thousands of 
 Germans were provided with the ma- 
 terial for t\iv same festivities that they 
 would have held at home. 
 
 The chorus of the guns of Paris on 
 Christmas Eve was superb. Through 
 the clear, frosty air the grand bayiug 
 and harking of the dogs of war echoed 
 so loudly that it almost drowned the 
 chorals of the jolly Weiuuacht songs 
 that the few Germans who had been 
 allowed to leave their regiments and 
 
 dine at head-ijuarteis were permitted 
 
 to siuu. Parties of officers who had 
 
 been permitted to leave their bad food 
 and wretched lodgings in the deserted 
 towns around the besieged capital 
 came in to thaw out over bottles of wine 
 or bowls of punch. Few, if any, boast- 
 ful allusions were made in these parties 
 to the victories gained over the French. 
 The stout Landwehr regiments in the 
 neighborhood, which had as many Christ- 
 mas-trees as companies, hail their pres- 
 ents distributed by the hands of their 
 officers. The festivities were simple 
 and hearty. A large room in some de- 
 serted house was chosen for each com- 
 pany, and there the tree was placed and 
 the candles were lighted ; songs and 
 recitations made up the balance of the 
 entertainment. Most of the soldiers 
 at the outposts had wine to drink. In 
 town the day was Celebrated at the 
 Prefecture and at the residence of the 
 Crown Prince. At the King's there 
 were two Christmas-trees, and some of 
 the presents given and received by the 
 royal family were of great value. The 
 Crown Prince distributed the gifts from 
 his tree with his own hands. Much 
 gossip was excited by the absence of 
 the Duke of Saxe Coburg from the 
 assembly of the other royal personages. 
 lie was the only exception, and the 
 gossips attributed it to various causes. 
 among others to the fact that he had 
 made unpleasant remarks concerning 
 the conduct of the Saxons in the Cham- 
 pigny light: while others claimed that 
 he was moping, because there had once 
 been talk of making him Emperor of 
 Germany, and that now the crown had 
 passed forever from his grasp. He. 
 was in command, like Bismarck, of a 
 regiment of cuirassiers, but was little 
 with it. 
 
 The only thing which broke the se- 
 renity of the next day in the town was 
 the wailing of military bauds as the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AM> CALM. 
 
 :i. r ». r i 
 
 dead from the hospitals were borne to 
 their graves. On the evening of the 
 25th there were, of course, dinners and 
 feasting, despite the fact that the French 
 had been swarming by Bougival, and 
 that the cannon had spoken thunder- 
 ously all da}'. 
 
 Within the great park one of the most 
 singular sights was the sport of the gayly 
 uniformed soldiers on the newly made, 
 but firm, ice on the canal. Hundreds of 
 officers, who had sent to Germany for 
 their skates, or who had found some in the 
 town, were frolicking like very boys on 
 
 the ice. This canal is one of the chief 
 beauties of Versailles, and when it is 
 frozen it makes a magnificent skating 
 park. It is nearly five thousand feet 
 long, and about two hundred feet wide. 
 Louis XIV. often transformed it into a 
 Venetian scene in summer, and had some- 
 times as many as two hundred gondolas, 
 illuminated with glass lamps of all colors 
 upon it. Here, too, he had his artificial 
 sunsets, his gigantic fireworks, and his 
 mimic sea-fights ; and in winter, when the 
 weather was sharp enough, he aped 
 Russian splendor. 
 
356 EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT. 
 
 "Tin' Point of View." — The Campaign in the South. — The Phantom Mobile. — New Year's Day. — 
 Scene at tlir Palace. The Bombardment of Paris. — Between the Fires in Front of Fort Issy. — 
 In the Batteries. — Coronation of King William of Prussia as Emperor of Germany at Versailles, 
 
 THE <>M year went out in the midst his first walk over the field of Beaugeney. 
 
 of alarms and disappointed hopes He said that piles of frozen corpses, 
 
 for the unhappy French of Versailles, scattered hither and yon, impressed him 
 
 and gloom and intense suffering for tin- even more than did the groans and 
 
 hundreds of thousands of the besieged shrieks of those who were still living, and 
 
 within the walls of Paris. It was liit- to whom no help could lie given for 
 
 terly cold in December. Tin- environs hours. While passing a heap of Mobile 
 
 of I'aiis air rarely visited by a heavy Guards, who hail evidently hern killed 
 
 snow fall, hut the snow came with the all at once, and nearly every one of 
 
 war ami the siege, as if no source of whom was vigorously grasping his gun, 
 
 misery were to be left untried. he saw one handsome fellow lying so 
 
 When tin' first snow fell, a French quietly pallid in the cold moonlight that 
 friend of mire, in Versailles, said, he was tempted to approach and note 
 " Thank God for this ! It will kill thou- his rank. II was a young soldier, hold- 
 sands of the Germans ! " That afternoon, ing in his stiffened hand a gun labelled 
 during a ride to the outposts, I saw a •• N.Y.U.S A." lie said that he removed 
 stout Laudwehrsman hugging himself the cap from the corpse's head, and, un- 
 with joy. ami saying, "Thank God for clinching the cold fingers, took the gun, 
 this clear, cold weather! Now we can and carried away these souvenirs to 
 work." Versailles. He affirmed seriously that, 
 
 In this, as in so many other c.-ises. for live nights afterwards, he was awa- 
 
 the '• point of view" was everything. kened regularly, at the same hour, by 
 
 There was rough business in the South, the grasp of a relentless hand upon his 
 
 Huge ambulance trains went out every arm. and felt that he was struggling with 
 
 morning towards Orleans, and along the an invisible force. •• It was," he said, 
 
 line of march towards Beaugency. In " the dead Garde Mobile trying to get 
 
 all the little towns on the route we saw his gun back again ! 
 sights which made the blood curdle. The Bavarians were said to have lost 
 
 Both French and Germans had perished thirty thousand men out of an army corps 
 
 by hundreds, for lack of proper care, which went into the southern campaign 
 
 The German sisters from the Bavarian thirty-five thousand strong. This was 
 
 Catholic convents did much to alleviate doubtless exaggerated, but the mortality 
 
 the sufferings of thousands of pour was tremendous. The South German 
 
 wretches. We saw men who were half States suffered heavily in losses of both 
 
 frozen from exposure over-night on the officers and soldiers. The Bavarians, in 
 
 battle-field, and I shall not soon forget fact, as a fighting corps, seemed to have 
 
 an anecdote which a friend told me of been pretty well blotted out at one time ; 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 357 
 
 and when allusion was made to the fact 
 that General You der Tann had gone to 
 the support of some other army, the 
 Prussians were puzzled to know whether 
 it meant that he had gone alone or taken 
 the tiny remains of his legions with him. 
 
 But the Bavarians took death as they 
 took life, very easily, and it is to lie said 
 for them that they bore with strength 
 and patience a combination of ills which 
 would have killed less sturdy and more 
 fastidious men. The French constantly 
 accused them of ferocity and cruelty, and 
 these stories doubtless arose from the 
 merciless repression of Francs-Tireurs, 
 or the peasants who, without thinking it 
 necessary to join the regular soldiei'y, 
 took their guns in their hands and de- 
 fended their homes. It seems clear that 
 dozens of these men were shot in cold 
 blood, simply as examples, during the 
 campaign round about Orleans. It was 
 woe to the unlucky blue blouse seen 
 ljehind a loop-holed wall or at a third- 
 story window. The French took occasion 
 to massacre a large number of Bavarians, 
 whom they found in a tight place, not 
 long after this practice of shooting the 
 Francs-Tireurs began ; and it was an- 
 nounced at Versailles that General 
 C'hanzy had said at Le Mans that he 
 would give no quarter to the enemy. 
 
 New Year's Day at head-quarters passed 
 quietly enough. Several hundred officers 
 came into the old town from the various 
 commands around Paris, and made up 
 little parties, celebrating in the clumsy, 
 but humorous. German way the advenl 
 of the new twelvemonth. In the Cafe 
 de Neptune, just, at midnight, there was 
 a great gathering of these officers, and 
 as the clock on the marble mantel struck 
 twelve, the oldest of the company arose, 
 and, tilling all glasses from a bowl 
 of steaming punch, said. "Gentlemen, 
 brother officers, it is just twelve o'clock." 
 
 Then all cried out : " Long live the New 
 Year!" and a general hand-shaking 
 followed. Some insisted on bonnet- 
 ing their friends, remembering that in 
 Germany, if you are caught in the street 
 after twelve on New Year's Eve, you are 
 likely to have your hat smashed over 
 your eyes. 
 
 Just as the festivities at the Crown 
 Prince's quarters were at their height, 
 and the Crown Prince had risen to wel- 
 come in the youthful year, the hoarse 
 roar of a far-off salute broke the silence. 
 There had been but little cannonading 
 during the day, and when this sud- 
 den boom of the cannon was heard by 
 the German officers they involuntarily 
 looked for their swords, and then looked 
 at each other. But no sortie was taking 
 place. The salute which was just upon 
 the stroke of midnight was the funeral 
 salvo which Paris was tiring over the 
 grave of the disastrous year. For miles 
 around, the twelve double-shotted volleys 
 were heard ; and then there was silence 
 again. 
 
 The officers made grand toilettes for 
 New Year's Day, and called to pay com- 
 pliments to the King and their respective 
 generals in the early morning. New 
 regiments of clean, and, as yet, untried, 
 soldiers came marching in before dawn, 
 and the Versaillais had for their etrennes 
 of the new year a liberal supply of live 
 aud hungry Prussians. I was invited to 
 breakfast on this morning of January 1st 
 with a French lawyer of distinction, who 
 lived in a comfortable house in the Place 
 Hoche,andat eleven o'clock I knocked at 
 his hospitable door, and was received with 
 a smiling face. 
 
 "Let us," said my host, " make an 
 effort to forget the circumstances in 
 which we are placed, and celebrate the 
 advent of the year with something like 
 joy." 
 
:?. r >8 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 lie led the way I" the dining-room, rare tact, did not \v:i it, for coffee and 
 
 where the snowy cloth of the great round cigars, but excused himself and politely 
 
 table was loaded with sparkling glasses, departed. 
 
 with fat bottles in wicker baskets, with Knowing- the French temperament, 1 
 
 fruit, with cordials, and with a goodly waited with interest the explosion which 
 
 array of family silver. This was a I felt must come; and, after the Prus- 
 
 tempting sight to one who had been for sian had closed the door behind him, and 
 
 weeks accustomed to the meagre fare gone jingling down the stairs, my friend 
 
 of the restaurants of Versailles and the caught up the glass, the plate, the bottle 
 
 camps near by ; for it must not be sup- from which he hail drank, and threw 
 
 posed that good food was easily obtain- them, crashing, into a corner; then sat 
 
 able at the German head-quarters towards down with a pitiful face, ami burst into 
 
 the close of the siege. It was almost tears. It was hard and cruel to bear, 
 
 impossible to get it. no doubt; but his trials were as naught 
 
 But the gods were unkind on this the beside those of the besieged " out there 
 
 first day of the new year, and we were beyond," as he said, and. regaining his 
 
 scarcely seated opposite each other at calm, he hoped for better days, 
 
 table when the door-bell rang and the The Prussians made liberal use of the 
 
 servant, returning with a white face, said, old palace of Louis XIV. for their 
 
 •"A Prussian."' My host's, face was white, stately ceremonies; and on this New 
 
 too, but he was too well-bred to make Year's Day, in the Salle des (ibices, all 
 
 any remark. He arose and left the room, the nobles of Germany gathered to- 
 
 presently returning with a tall, elegantly gether. The venerable King seemed to 
 
 uniformed, distinguished-looking German enjoy his visits to the palace on such 
 
 officer, who made the stiff military salute occasions, and after the receptions at 
 
 to which we were so well accustomed, the Prefecture he and his brilliant 
 
 and apologized for what was, he said, the cortige attended service at the chapel. 
 
 " unwilling intrusion." But he had been The King was made uncomfortable by a 
 
 very anxious to see the old palace before very vigorous preacher, who insisted that 
 
 the campaign was over, and had obtained monarchs often erred on the side of 
 
 this day a leave of absence, and his billet leniency. We interpreted this to mean 
 
 had sent him here for breakfast and din- that the Germans at home were getting 
 
 uer. Would the gentlemen excuse him ? impatient to hear details of the horrors 
 
 And here, my friend, making a virtue of of the bombardment. But when we 
 
 necessity, placed him a chair at the table ; said this to the Germans whom we 
 
 and. daintily removing his white gloves, knew, they were highly indignant. 
 
 the officer sat down. Amid the relics of France's ancient 
 
 It was an icy moment, and one which splendor an assembly crowded to hear 
 
 awoke all my sympatbry for mine host; the King's address. There, where all 
 
 but we made the best of the situation, the wealth of Le Prim's coloring had 
 
 the German even disclosing a partial been bestowed on the portrayal of the 
 
 talent for English and naturally avoiding great monarch's glories ; where the pla- 
 
 all mention of current events. The break- fond was covered with such painted 
 
 fast was eaten, the wine was drunk in flattery that even Frenchmen blushed at 
 
 cool and stately civility, and the officer, the vanity of one of their race; there, 
 
 who was a gentleman, and possessed of where Louis once had his throne brought, 
 
EUROPE IN STOR.V AXP CALM. 
 
 359 
 
 
 that he might sit upon it as the ambas- last arrived. The natives of Versailles 
 
 sailor of the King of Persia sank on his kept asking each other: How al t the 
 
 knees before him, now stood the King of bombardment? Why does it not com- 
 Prussia in full general's uniform, withthe mence? But it had already commenced, 
 Crown Prince, the Prince Friedrich Karl, and the Prussians had begun their 
 with the chief admiral of the navy, steady task of reducing the outworks of 
 Prince Adelbert. The scene was one of the capital. The Germans, from the first, 
 dazzling splendor, and the Prussian expected an increase of losses on their 
 uniforms harmonized well 
 with the gilding and the 
 rainbow colors of the 
 royal palace. The floor, 
 inlaid with rare and finely 
 labored woods, so that 
 the effect of light and 
 shade upon it is to make 
 it look like the surface of 
 a transparent pond, or 
 some delicately tessellated 
 marble pavement in a Ro- 
 man church, — this floor 
 fairly startled some of the 
 Prussians who had never 
 before entered the hall, 
 and they seemed to be 
 uncomfortable lest their 
 dainty boots should be 
 wetted. One or two of 
 them went sprawling, for 
 waxed parquets are diffi- 
 cult to walk upon, (hit- 
 side, trumpets brayed, gay 
 horses pranced, and court- 
 ly men bowed low as 
 the future Emperor left 
 the Palace after having 
 listened to compliments from the hun- 
 dreds of courtiers and foreign diplo- 
 mats present. In the evening, at the 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 dinner at the Prefecture, the ( Irani! Dulu 
 
 own side when 
 they attacked 
 t li e angry 
 forts, and a 
 day or two 
 after the first 
 cannon were 
 fired from the 
 a d v a n c e d 
 Prussian bat- 
 teries, a thousand additional hospital 
 beds were ordered in Versailles. The 
 .silence of Forts Rosny, Noisy. Ro- 
 mainville, and Aubervilliers, after the 
 
 THE FRENCH TROOPS ABANDONING THE 
 PLATEAU AT AVRON, 
 
 of Badeu made a speech, in which he reduction of Mont Avron, was much 
 alluded to the Imperial Crown, which, commented on, and the Prussians were 
 as Frederick William IV. had said, mystified by it. The Germans did not 
 should only be worn on the field of reject as entirely ridiculous the state- 
 battle, mentthat the forts might be mined, and 
 The " psychological moment " had at it might lie a very costly experiment to 
 
360 EVROPB IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 assault and occupy them. By and by which the Prussians called au iron-clad 
 
 the batteries which the Saxons had been fort. But presently we saw that the 
 
 building on the crests of Raincy began smoke was not within Paris walls. It 
 
 to play upon the forts. The Saxons seemed in direct line with the Arch, hut 
 
 intended to accomplish a double purpose was caused by the burning of the village 
 
 atonce, — to disorganize the advance forts of Boulogne, opposite St. (loud, on the 
 
 near them 1 > v a regular bombardment by Seine bank. With the field-glass we 
 
 their batteries on the right, and to rain could see trains crowded with soldiers or 
 
 down shells from the plain of Avron on the double-decked cars rattling alongthe 
 
 the hl't. so that the French could not Ceiuture railway, and being transferred 
 
 maintain their outworks. The batteries to the eastern side. Crash came defiant 
 
 at Chelles, Noisy, La Pelouse, and other notes from Issy. and presently noises 
 
 points near bv, crossed their tires at were heard above our heads. The Prus- 
 
 Avron ; and it seemed a perfect Inferno sian rilled cannon were throwing shells, 
 
 on the plains for some hours. and we could track their course. Sud- 
 
 The French had been constructing a denly they would become small as birds, 
 
 huge entrenched camp here, hut their and then lost to view. Once we saw 
 
 plans were broken up bv this furious three alight in Fort Issy at once. There 
 
 shell tire of the Saxons. Avion was very was a silence ai g the French gunners 
 
 strongly fortified, particularly towards for some minutes; then the angry defl- 
 the east. There the French had three ance began again, and we were corn- 
 rows of batteries, one above the other, pelled hastily to shift our position, 
 and many of the cannon were of enor- The German gunners were determined 
 nious calibre. The stillness of Forts to hit the great viaduct, which stood 
 Noisy and Rosny, after the retreat so prominent and tempting a mark just 
 from Avron, was regarded by the Prus- outside the walls of Auteuil ; hut they 
 sians as a conclusive proof that the siege never succeeded. 1 was told at the 
 
 was near its cud. " If ," they Said, " we close of the siege that the Parisians 
 
 could occupy those forts, we could very went every Sunday to make excursions 
 
 soon send shells into Belleville and La along the circular railway to this viaduct, 
 
 Villette." which was covered with trains, from 
 
 From New Year's Day until the great which thousands of people were eudeav- 
 
 Hortie of Montretout, the cannonading oring to gel a glance at the Prussians, 
 
 was almost incessant . Everyday brought none of them having the slightest fear 
 
 its alarm; every day its picturesque of the Teutonic projectiles, 
 
 event ; every day, for us, its long ride or Between one of the principal Prussian 
 
 walk to the batteries or to little coigns batteries and Fort Issy, quite in the open, 
 
 of vantage, from which, we i Id see stood a house, always held by a certain 
 
 something of the tremendous timil oper- number of stout-hearted soldiers, and 
 
 ation of the siege. Riding towards [ssy sen ing as an obervation post for officers, 
 
 one morning, and looking out over Paris, This was not a tranquil place, for the 
 
 we saw (all black columns of smoke Prussian shells went whizzing and moan- 
 
 risino- apparently to the Triumphal Arch, ing above one's head, and once every 
 
 The arch towered up, mistily defined in minute came the whirring response from 
 
 the distance, ami with a field-glass we the French embrasures. If the gunners 
 
 could observe the construction on its top in Issy had desired to shorten their range 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 361 
 
 and let fall a shower of missiles on this 
 house they could do so at uny moment. 
 But they preferred to expend their fire. 
 upon the battery beyond, and so one 
 was perhaps safer between the lires than 
 he could possibly have been either in 
 fort or battery. 
 
 Here we came one morning, ami nar- 
 rowly escaped being shot by the excited 
 soldier at the door before we could show 
 our permission, and before we could 
 make ourselves heard by an officer, but 
 finally we were admitted. I was struck 
 with the coolness of the commanding 
 officer at this difficult post. He had the 
 veritable spirit of a Brandenburg pirate ; 
 and while the shells were crashing above 
 and around he opened a bottle of wine, 
 and invited us to partake, telling, mean- 
 time, with pride how his soldiers had re- 
 cently made the. discovery of several 
 hundred bottles of Chateau Margaux 
 in one cellar. "Your Bavarian," he 
 said, with a smile, " has an antiquarian 
 taste in wine, and we can always trust 
 him to probe the cellars of the ch&teaux 
 around." 
 
 This officer looked upon war. by his 
 own confession, as a brilliant episode in 
 
 life, one which called out the best of a 
 man's energies, and lie saw no reason to 
 quarrel with it as abnormal or cruel. He 
 had the veritable Prussian training, the' 
 hard-hearted, sceptical way of looking 
 at things in accordance with his own 
 system and that of his race, of consider- 
 ing everything reasonable and proper 
 which suited his own cuds. As tor out- 
 siders. r/ff/V In In, ,,ll>< .' 
 
 On the 13th of January we were told 
 that twenty-six German batteries had 
 been playing until late in the evening 
 upon various quarters of Paris. The 
 Bavarians were attacked by the French 
 early in the day; but the enemy was 
 repelled, Humor said that the French 
 
 had swarmed out over the bridge of Pas 
 Meudon at early morning, but while 
 they were crossing, the Prussian bat- 
 teries opened a deadly lire upon them, 
 and the bridge giving way precipitated 
 a large number of soldiers into the 
 Seine. 
 
 Inside Paris the vigorous bombard- 
 ment which was now covering a wide 
 district on the left bank of the Seine 
 was producing its sad effect. The 
 Hopital de la Pitie was riddled with 
 bombshells on the night of the 8th of 
 January from the heights of Chatillon 
 and from Meudon. The Prussians 
 seemed deliberately bombarding the 
 venerable public institutions of the great 
 capital, — the hospitals, the churches, the 
 colleges, universities, the schools of 
 medicine and art. 
 
 It was not'strange that a cry went up 
 through all Europe, a cry of horror and 
 reproach, and that it almost startled the 
 Germans into a change of policy. 
 
 Put they soon became impervious 
 to criticism. They pleaded the impe- 
 rious necessity of war as an excuse for 
 bombarding tin- vast city crowded with 
 helpless women and children ; so they 
 sent shells in showers for two months 
 into one of the most thickly populated 
 sections of Paris. The church of St. 
 Sulpice, the Sorbonne, the Val de Grace, 
 were all struck by shells. Ill a school in 
 the Km' de Vaugirard four children 
 were killed and live wounded by a 
 single shell. The Luxembourg Museum 
 was evacuated. The physicians of the 
 hospital of the Fnfants Malades issued 
 a protest, declaring that the innocent 
 children would be slain in their beds. 
 The authorities at the Jardin des Plantes 
 voted an inscription lobe engraved on 
 one of the buildings of their celebrated 
 museum, stating that the garden founded 
 by Louis XIII. had been bombarded 
 
302 EUROPE l.\ STORM AND CALM. 
 
 under tli<' reign of William I., King of out in expectation of a grand sortie,, 
 
 Prussia. which would be the closing effort of the 
 
 In the cellars of Montronge were siege, and perhaps of the war. This feel- 
 hundreds of frightened refugees. To ing was in the air on the morning of the 
 the o-reat vaults of the historic Pantheon 19th, which had been selected as a date for 
 came the living to crowd beside t lie the ceremony of King William's accept- 
 noted dead, who were there entombed; auce of the Imperial dignity conferred 
 and, during the whole twenty-five days upon him by the German nations, now 
 of the bombardment, a terrible period to be welded and unified into one, and 
 which there is no space properly to under the influence of their ancient tradi- 
 describe here, every day brought its tion to accept an empire as the type of 
 horror and its sacrifice of human life. their new community. Some of the Prus- 
 
 Meaiitime old Fort Issy, which had sian officers were heard to say. oil the 
 
 been so conspicuous from the first, kept morning of the 19th, that it was a good 
 
 up its reputation. It was inspiring to thing to get the ceremony over, as there 
 
 witness the defense of this place. The would be sharp wink shortly. There 
 
 marine artillery was there submitted to was, indeed, sharp work two days later, 
 
 an almost crushing lire from the German when the great outpouring of Montretout 
 
 batteries, and held out from first to last took place; but alas! it was not des- 
 
 magniliceiitlv under the plunging shells fined to profit the French who wasted 
 
 from Clamart, from Chatillo'n, from Men- their heroism in vain efforts against, the 
 
 don. These marines, after their casemates ever-re-strengthened line of the enemy, 
 
 had been smashed into muddy fragments The day selected was noteworthy in 
 
 and the stones had been all knocked Prussian minds for three things : first, for 
 
 about by bombs, would drag out their being the anniversary of the crowning of 
 
 fifteen cannons, hitching themselves to Frederick the Great ; second, the birth- 
 
 tlie pieces, and tugging them forward, day of the eldest child of the Crown 
 
 firing, screaming like savages as they Prince; and third, as -'Order Day," 
 
 fired, then dragging back their guns when all princes and officers decorated 
 
 under the shelter of the half-dismantled on previous occasions for conspicuous 
 
 parapets. Inthisfortof Issy one bun- gallantry are wont to pass before their 
 
 dred men were killed, and a great royal master in review and receive his 
 
 number were wounded by shells, and of felicitations. Here, indeed, was an oppor- 
 
 foiir hundred who fell ill of cold, hunger, tunity for a tine pageant, and one which 
 
 anil want of sleep, three-quarters died might have roused the pride and vain- 
 
 shortly after the capitulation. glory of a nation more susceptible of 
 
 By the time of the completion of the vanity than the (ieniian. Despite the 
 
 second parallel in front of Fort Ism all apprehensions of coining slaughter, the 
 
 the non-combatants at Versailles who recent victories in the south and the 
 
 wereallowed the privilege of going outside apparent success in other sections of 
 
 the towns were intensely interested in the France had put the helmeted warriors in 
 
 great duel between the German besiegers a good humor with themselves, and so 
 
 and these vigorous defenders of their they seemed to give themselves up to 
 
 position. The desperate energy of the enjoyment. 
 
 marines in Issy led gradually up to the The day was a strange mixture of 
 
 conclusion that all the forts were holding damp and cold, with occasional gleams 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CM. SI. 
 
 of warm sunshine, the rain coming down, 
 
 as it were, to weep over the dead, and 
 then the sun chasing away the tears as 
 unworthy of so great an occasion. 
 Towards ten o'clock a brilliant throng 
 began to assemble in the court-yard of 
 the palace, and increased steadily in 
 brilliancy and volume until the stroke 
 of twelve, when the King, preceded 
 by guards and outriders, drove to the 
 doors of the great middle hall, enter- 
 ing the court-yard from the Rue des 
 Reservoirs. About eleven I found drawn 
 up in line the King's body guard, taken 
 from all the best regiments of the army, 
 and glittering in a hundred colors, 
 strongly contrasted. Thronging past 
 these lines of warriors were the invited 
 guests of higher rank, hastily returning 
 the salutations of hundreds of hands 
 embodying with accustomed servility 
 the expression of their humbleness. 
 Many of the Bavarian and Wurtemburg 
 officers had for the first time got out 
 their gala uniforms, which had so long 
 been packed in camp-chests that they 
 were all creased, and even soiled and tar- 
 nished, and some of the stately gentle- 
 men of the German court presented a 
 rather sorry figure. The Bavarian sol- 
 diers were, for a wonder, especially 
 line in their bright-blue uniforms and 
 shining helmets, and some of the officers 
 were men of majestic presence. The 
 Saxons were, as usual, spotless in raiment. 
 The gigantic men of the Guard corps 
 stalked about in their white uniforms 
 and jack-boots. The dark-haired, stal- 
 wart Brandenburger ; the Berliuers, 
 with spectacles on nose ; the strap- 
 ping cavalry men, with iron crosses on 
 their breasts; and the slender youths, 
 with long hair combed back under 
 their casques, and swords buckled on 
 their slender thighs, — all hastened 
 to the hall where the greatest Prus- 
 
 sian ceremony of modern times was to 
 occur. 
 
 Around the statue of Louis XIV. a 
 Curious crowd of civilians and soldiers 
 had gathered, and the gendarmes had 
 allowed them to remain there. Few 
 French people were present. A crazy 
 old woman ran hither and yon for sonic 
 time, cursing everybody and begging 
 from everybody; but her curses and 
 entreaties passed comparatively unno- 
 ticed in the greater excitement of the 
 moment. An odd spectacle was the 
 pedestal of the statue of Bayard, with a 
 lot of Prussian soldiers sitting dangling 
 their legs from it. One could almost 
 imagine the old hero looking with scorn 
 upon the enemies below him. Two lines 
 of soldiers — boys, but superb figiues, 
 perfectly trained boys — were formed in 
 the squares in the vicinity of the en- 
 trance of the Salle des ( J laces, and there 
 military bands were stationed to salute 
 the coming King. The German banner, 
 we observed, was now Moating where 
 latterly the red-cross Hag alone had 
 been seen above the portico of the palace. 
 The wounded soldiers crowded to the 
 
 windows to see the spectacle, and their 
 pale faces were the only vision of war 
 which thrust its ghastly presence upon us. 
 Presently the guests began to arrive 
 pellmell. There was not much attempt 
 at glory of equipage, as in campaigning 
 it is difficult to obtain good carriages. 
 Von Moltke came in a post-carriage 
 which was splashed with mud ; Von Bis- 
 marck in a little caleche, to which two 
 diminutive ponies were attached : the 
 Crown Prince in his modest coupe" ; and 
 dozens of officers in full toilette were 
 caught in a pouring shower, which sud- 
 denlv visited us. Half-a-dozen princes 
 would dash up in an omnibus, which they 
 had happily discovered at the last mo- 
 ment ; and the historic furniture-van, 
 
:w;i EURorE in storm and calm. 
 
 which plaved such an important rdle in courtiers, he must have reflected a mo- 
 the transportation of potentates, military ment on the mutability of human great- 
 and political, in Versailles, again came ness and on the future of tho country 
 r into play. Great precautions were taken with which he as an old man could have 
 I'm' the safety of the King. Stout sol- but little to do. Solemnly to accept the 
 dicrs wandered carelessly about in the German crown when he could not swear 
 crowd, lint with their guns held as a long to uphold the Empire even by his 
 huntsman holds his when he hears the sword and word must have seemed to 
 deer breaking cover. How did the him like mockery. To place it on his 
 Prussians know how far French fanati- brows at the end instead of the beginning 
 cism might venture? It only went far of his long and stately career, as he 
 enough, to my knowledge, mysteriously paused before the gate of Paris, about 
 to suggest that the' last time that a to enter that great capital for the second 
 great public gathering was held in the time as a victor, could not. however. 
 Salle des (daces it had been found nee- have been without a certain consolation, 
 essary to prop the floor, so weak' with In the middle of the grand hall, and with 
 age it had become. But we may fairly its back to the windows opening on the 
 presume that the Germans, with their park, tin altar was elected. Upon this 
 talent for investigation, had carefully altar, gracefully decorated, lighted can- 
 examined the parquet of the time of dies were placed, and at each side sat 
 Louis XIV. Prince George of Saxony three pastors, clothed in the sombre 
 was one of the most noticeable in the habiliments of their order, and symbol- 
 crowd of notables ; and around him was i/.iug the support of the Church to the 
 :i brilliant assemblage of officers. new Empire. Farther down the hall 
 All along the Avenue de Paris and the was another and smaller altar, and in 
 Place d'A rmes, as the King came rattling front of this were arranged the standards 
 
 fr the Prefecture to the palace, arose of all the regiments of the third army. 
 
 deafening shouts of "Hurrah for the Between the two altars were placed 
 
 Emperor ! ' The guard along the grand Bavarians and other soldiers. In front 
 
 staircase which led to the Salle des of the principal altar were several sol- 
 
 ( daces was composed of picked men diers, who had, in times past or in recent 
 
 from the various regiments around Paris, campaigns, received two iron crosses, and 
 
 Visibly affected by the magnificent spec- two of them had their heads bound up. 
 
 tacle before him. the old King wandered and showed other marks of ugly wi unds. 
 
 into the great room like one scarcely On the platform at the farther end of 
 
 daring to believe that the splendors the gallery many soldiers were stationed 
 
 before him were real : and dining the upholding standards. 
 
 whole cereinonv he was profoundly The King was preceded by the mar- 
 moved, and listened with the air of one shal of his household and the court mar- 
 surprised, and continually questioning shal, the Counts of Pucklen and Per- 
 himself as to what it all meant. poucher, and followed by Prince George 
 One hundred and seveuty years before of Saxony, the reigning Duke of Saxe 
 Frederick I. had put on the crown des- C'oburg, and the majority of the heredi- 
 tined to such prominence in history, taiv princes. Beside these, as they 
 As King William entered the hall where look their places in front of the grand 
 Louis XIV. had been wont to receive his altar, were also the Crown Prince, 
 
EUROPE LV STORM AND CALM. 
 
 365 
 
 Prince Charles of Prussia, the King's 
 brother and Grand Master of the Order 
 of St. John of Jerusalem, the Grand 
 Dukes of Saxe Weimar, Oldenburg, and 
 Baden, the Duke of Saxe Meiningen, 
 the Duke of Saxe AltenlJurg, Princes 
 Luitpold ami Otho of Bavaria, Prince 
 "William and Duke Eugene of Wurtem- 
 burg, Leopold of Hohenzollern, who had 
 unwittingly provoked the war, and the 
 Duke of Holstein. The old King, bolt 
 upright, and from time to time gazing 
 with childlike curiosity upon the scene, 
 listened intently to the sermon which one 
 of the preachers now delivered with 
 much grace and eloquence. The sermon 
 touched upon the historic and religious 
 character of the ceremony now in prog- 
 ress, and endeavored to describe its 
 mysterious influence on the hearts of 
 the German nation. It was a fine 
 tribute as well to the new subject of ado- 
 ration, the venerable hero soldier; and 
 the King was deeply affected by it. 
 
 Von Bismarck and Von Moltke mean- 
 time, one on each side of the platform, 
 winked sleepily and wickedly, and 
 seemed inwardly much amused at all 
 this parade. General Blumenthal, also 
 near at hand, with the commanding gen- 
 erals and officers of all grades grouped 
 about him, was grimly silent, and ap- 
 peared to consider the whole thing a 
 waste of time. In long rows down each 
 side of the gallery were the distin- 
 guished military and civil personages 
 from all nations of Europe. 
 
 Tin' sermon finished, a general buzz 
 of congratulation was just springing up 
 in the hall when the King suddenly 
 advanced to the platform, and there, 
 surrounded by the standard-bearers of 
 the first Guard regiment, he pronounced 
 
 Ins address to the princes, in which lie 
 declared his intention of accepting the 
 Imperial German Crown. After he had, 
 with faltering voice, finished his vow. 
 Bismarck advanced tranquilly to read 
 the proclamation to the German people. 
 This was, so far as Bismarck was con- 
 cerned, the culmination of the war; the 
 unification of the German people under 
 the rule of one man was accomplished. 
 No wonder such a gigantic task had made 
 a diplomat already ripe in years look 
 almost as old as his master. 
 
 After the reading of the proclamation 
 the Grand Duke of Baden, who seemed 
 to have been adopted as spokesman on 
 most occasions, hailed the King as Em- 
 peror of Germany. A three-times-three 
 awoke the echoes which had been lying 
 perdu for two centuries, and the Crown 
 Prince hastened to embrace his father 
 and affectionately to grasp his hand. 
 His example was followed by all the 
 members of the Royal Family and all 
 the princes and dukes present. When 
 the ceremony was finished, there were 
 tears on the old King's face, and many 
 of the lookers-on were visibly moved. 
 Amid the waving of standards, flags 
 which had been in all the early battles 
 of the present war. and the echoes of 
 the national hymn and triumphal 
 marches, the brilliant assembly broke 
 up and drove away in its hundreds of 
 carriages, splendid and shabby, to the 
 task of eating the dinner in celebration 
 of "Orders Day." At the Hotel des 
 Reservoirs and other fashionable res- 
 taurants there was riotous merriment, 
 and tin' word " Kaiser" echoed through 
 the street, and in all places where uni- 
 forms were visible, until long past mid- 
 night. 
 
366 EUROl'E IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE. 
 
 Bourbaki and Belfort. — The Final Sortie of the French. — Montretout. — The Panic i" Versailles.— 
 
 Tin- Treaty for Pearc. The End of the yiegc of Paris. 
 
 WHERE is Bourbaki?" was a fre- battle to the French at Pont>Noyelles 
 quent question at the German and at Bapaume. where there was a 
 head-quarters in the days just before the great slaughter of German squadrons 
 great fight at Montretout. A certain and cavalry, and where Faidherbe, with 
 portion of the army under his command reason, claimed success; but the closing 
 seemed to be lost sight <>f, and caused the of most of the northern fortresses by the 
 Germans no little uneasiness. The first German army was finally successful, 
 siege of Belfort had been checked by The Seventh corps besieged Thionville ; 
 the proximity of a part of Bourbaki's the first bombarded Mezieres with the 
 army, and the invaders naturally thought siege cannon which it had taken from 
 that the object of the wily Frenchman the French at Montmedy. Mezieres 
 was to raise the siege of this fortress, surrendered ; Peronne was bombarded 
 which was defended with such heroic and capitulated ; Rocroi gave up ; 
 valor, and to bring into active use the Charleville was disarmed ; and Belfort 
 great supply of munitions shut up within was undergoing a bombardment, in corn- 
 it. Every conceivable supposition was parison with which that of Paris was 
 indulged in at head-quarters. Now it feeble. Yet the Germans, to the very 
 was said that Bourbaki intended to leave moment of the surrender of the forts in 
 Belfort to attack the communications front of Paris, were oppressed with fears 
 line, and now to slip away into Ger- lest out of the north might come a 
 many, and begin a war of reprisal-;, crushing blow to check them just as they 
 But many had already begun to consider were at the moment of their supreme 
 him as sharing the incompetency of some triumph. 
 
 of his brothers in office, because he had So predisposed, indeed, were the in- 
 
 not improved his brilliant opportunities, vaders toa panic-, thai, when the last and 
 
 The French anus had not been crowned despairing effort of the besiegers was 
 
 with victory in the north, although atone made, and resulted in the occupation of 
 
 time it seemed as if the campaign, so the redoubt <>f Montretout, near Ville 
 
 vigorously organized by Bourbaki, would d'Avray, there was universal consterna- 
 
 vield brilliant results. But Bourbaki tion at Versailles. The gallant Jagers, 
 
 wasreplaced by General Faidherbe, who whohadlongheldtheredoubt,werethrown 
 
 :il first had numerous successes, and back upon the Versailles road in great 
 
 was finally worsted in the battle of St. confusion ; and the population of the 
 
 Quentin, fought on the 19th of January, old capital of Louis XiY. (locked out, — 
 
 The struggle in the north was hard and regardlessof the menaces of the Germans, 
 
 full of romantic and picturesque episodes, —shouting and laughing, fully convinced 
 
 The Prussian took Amiens; they gave that they were to welcome their victori- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 ;{(i7 
 
 ARREST OF A SUPPOSED SPY. 
 
 ous brethren, and to see the headlong 
 retreat of the Teutonic foe towards the 
 German frontier. It did not take long 
 in those days for any proclamation which 
 was posted in Paris to reach Versailles ; 
 the German spies were worthy of all the 
 contemptuous praise which the French 
 bestowed upon them; and they went in 
 and out of the lines with a recklessness 
 and frequency which were quite dazzling. 
 On the morning of the 19th they brought 
 in a report that the following documenl 
 had been posted upon the walls of Paris, 
 and was signed by the members of the 
 Government of National Defense: — 
 
 Citizens, — The enemy is slaying your 
 wives and children. It bombards us night 
 and day. It covers even our hospitals with 
 
 
 
 shells. The cry to arms is heard on every 
 side. 
 
 Those among you who can give their lives 
 on the field of battle will march against the 
 enemy. Those who remain, to show them- 
 selves worthy of their brethren, will accept, 
 if necessary, the hardest sacrifices, as their 
 means of devotion to the country's service. 
 Let us suffer, and die if necessary, but let us 
 cry : Vive la Republique 1 
 
368 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 As the result of this touching procla- 
 mation, which, after the lapse of years, 
 seems perhaps to our colder apprehension 
 somewhat theatrical in tone, Imt which 
 then sent a thrill of pity through our 
 hearts, and impressed us with the same 
 fervor of feeling that it gave to the 
 Parisians, the one hundred thousand 
 men massed outside the walls on the 
 night from the 18th to the 19th were de- 
 termined to break through the German 
 lines at 10 matter what cost of life, and 
 to reach the old town where the invader 
 had so coolly and so insolently estab- 
 lished himself. Those forces were 
 massed in front of Fort? Valerien and 
 Issy at daybreak on the 19th; and at 
 eight o'clock they had driven in the 
 Prussian pickets, and a general alarm 
 was sounded all along- the German lines. 
 Attacks were expected in the direction 
 of St. Denis and on the extreme east; 
 hut they did not then occur. 
 
 Before eight o'clock we heard in Ver- 
 sailles that twenty-four battalions of 
 French liners, National Guards and 
 Zouaves, had begun the work of reduc- 
 ing the batteries of St. Cloud and 
 storming Montretout. As soon as the 
 object of the attack was discovered, all 
 the troops of Versailles were at once 
 despatched to the scene of action, and 
 
 the reserve, ten thousand stalwart Bava- 
 rians, were ordered from Bievre and all 
 the towns in the rear of the investment 
 lines on the south-west, to take up their 
 position in the Prussian head-quarters. 
 The dozens of batteries which had been 
 so lone, stationed on the Place d'Armes 
 were limbered up. and rattled away in 
 the direction of Montretout. Cavalry, 
 
 infantry, and artillery filled the Avenue 
 de Paris and the Avenue de St. Cloud, 
 and the 1 men settled down wearily in the 
 mud to wait the turn of events, the Ba- 
 varians hemuilhm the hours by singing 
 
 hymns, harmoniously and enthusiasti- 
 cally, only pausing in their musical efforts 
 to cheer when the old Emperor came 
 back from his brief visit to the front. 
 The National Guards were highly praised 
 by the Germans, although Bismarck, in 
 speaking of them to Jules Favre a little 
 later on during the Conference, relative 
 to the conclusion of the armistice, said, 
 •■ ( >li. yes ; they are very brave lighters ; 
 but when they are going into action they 
 are so chid of it that they warn us an 
 hour in advance." This was a spiteful 
 criticism, provoked by the knowledge 
 that, had the French begun their action 
 one or two hours earlier on the 19th of 
 January they might have gone straight 
 into Versailles, and, possibly, have 
 captured the newly made Emperor of 
 Germany, and all his court. The moral 
 effect til' such a coup de. main would have 
 been so great that it might have com- 
 pletely changed the current of events 
 and forced the conclusion of a peace 
 most honorable to France. 
 
 The assault at Montretout cost the 
 French large numbers of men, and the 
 slopes were covered with dead and 
 wounded until a late hour in the even- 
 ing. General de Bellemare got on to 
 the crest known as the Bergerie ; there 
 took the curffs house, and pushed on 
 valiantly into the park of Buzenval. 
 General Ducrot, meantime, on the right, 
 was creeping up to the heights of La 
 Jonehere. The day was wretchedly 
 cold and damp; and from time to time 
 a heavy fog hindered the French officers 
 carrying orders from one part of the 
 field to another in their movements. 
 This, doubtless, greatly demoralized the 
 ensemble of the action. 
 
 From Saint Germain, and from the 
 Villa Stern, we had very advantageous 
 
 views of the fight. From behind the 
 trenches which protected the French the 
 
EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 369 
 
 firo vrns steady, and seemed gradually 
 forcing the Prussians to give way. The 
 King left Versailles early in the after- 
 noon, attended by a numerous guard, 
 and took up his post on the viaduct of 
 Marly, whence he had witnessed the affair 
 at Le Bourget in October. The Germans 
 universally hailed the occasion as the 
 
 been chosen by the French as the point 
 where they might form without being ob- 
 served, while they waited their turn in the 
 movements. By and by Saint Germain 
 became an object of close attention 
 from the French tire, and many shells 
 were aimed with splendid accuracy at 
 the pontoon bridge over the Seine. 
 
 THE WALT. OF BUZENVAL. — EPTSOPE OF THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 
 
 baptism of fire for the new Emperor, 
 and he was acclaimed whenever he 
 showed himself to the enthusiastic sol- 
 diery. From Saint Germain, about mid- 
 afternoon, we observed a great massing 
 of French troops in the edge of the Bois 
 du Vesinet This beautiful wood, which 
 lay spread out like a lordly park before 
 the spectators on the great terrace, had 
 
 One, two, and three, burst near by with- 
 out inflicting much damage; at last the 
 gunners got their range, and threw the 
 projectiles directly on to the structure. 
 Then, as ill-luck would have it, the shells 
 did not burst. Finally this was given 
 up, and the gunners from the batteries 
 in front of Valerien tried long-range 
 shot, at the Pavilion Henri IV., at the 
 
370 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 end of the terrace; and there was a 
 general suuve qui />< ut, until it was 
 demonstrated that Valerien could not 
 reach that point. During the few 
 hours since ten "'cluck the concentra- 
 tion of German troops near Montretout 
 had been very rapid, and, as the French 
 massed up against the redoubt which 
 their advance had taken and so cour- 
 ageously held, they were met by a terri- 
 ble lire. 
 
 The French troops of the National 
 Guard, who had been much ridiculed by 
 the regular liners dui'ing the siege, st .mm] 
 under lire for more than live hours dur- 
 ing this fight without breaking ranks. 
 When the French attacked on the side 
 near Garcb.es it became evident that 
 the German resistance was fully organ- 
 ized, and would be successful. .lust 
 at the time that the French soldiers 
 were thoroughly fatigued by their long 
 watch on the previous night and their 
 severe fighting, the German reserves 
 poured down upon them, and threw them 
 out of their position at Montretout. 
 But, to the surprise of all the lookers-on, 
 the French rallied, and came back at a 
 furious pace up the hill, breaking the 
 German line, which, although it wavered, 
 kept up wild hurrahs of victory, and 
 never ceased its steady volleys of mus- 
 ketry. The French were half-a-dozen 
 times well installed at points from which 
 they could have thrown shells into Ver- 
 sailles; but, as the dreary winter dark- 
 ness closed in, the firing on both sides 
 ceased almost entirely, and towards 
 eight o'clock the National Guards left 
 the redoubt, the Germans throwing an 
 occasional shell into the columns, which 
 went down the hill in very good order, 
 and flocked away to Rueil over roads 
 covered with wounded and dying men. 
 wagons and carts up to the hubs of 
 their wheels in mud. The Germans 
 
 admitted that they would have had to 
 lose at least six hundred men if they had 
 pursued the National ( ruard. 
 
 The inhabitants of Versailles had cer- 
 tainly thought that deliverance was near. 
 Many arrests were made. The soldiery, 
 which had all the winter been good- 
 natured in its intercourse with the French 
 population, suddenly became disagreeable 
 and fierce, and we saw many little epi- 
 sodes which indicated that a collision 
 might readily have been provoked. A 
 Zouave, half intoxicated, was brought 
 in from the battle-field between two 
 dragoous, and the comments of the Ger- 
 mans upon his antics roused the greatest 
 indignation among the French. A rough 
 dragoon at the bead of a patrol column 
 was so annoyed at seeing a priest stand- 
 ing in the midst of an anxious and angry 
 crowd, and haranguing the people, that 
 he singled out the man of long robes, 
 and chased him ingloriouslv into a neigh- 
 boring house, striking him a number of 
 times with the flat of his sword. Many 
 peasants were brought in by soldiers and 
 charged with cutting the telegraph wire. 
 There was only one sentence passed by 
 military tribunals in such cases. — sen- 
 tence of death; and the penalty was 
 placarded in a hundred places in Ver- 
 sailles. There were many tearful eyes 
 at the officers' tables at the cafes where 
 the invader dined, that evening, when 
 the lisl of German losses came in with 
 the evening report. The official journal 
 the same evening mentioned the sortie in 
 a paragraph of six lines, in which it 
 utterly ignored tin' partial success of the 
 French, and said that the German losses 
 were insignificant, which was untrue. It 
 also announced that Bourbaki was in 
 full retreat, and that tin' siege of Belfort 
 had been resumed. 
 
 bate at night the troops from the 
 battle-field were still coining into town, 
 
EURO I'll IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 371 
 
 bespattered with mud, and many of them 
 grievously wounded, and marched past 
 the Place d'Armes while military bands 
 played hymns of victory. The long 
 artillery trains came trundling back to 
 the great square, the guns were placed 
 in the old positions, and the stalwart 
 artillery-men were at work cleaning them, 
 half an hour after their arrival, with 
 the same careful concern with which an 
 English groom would care for a horse 
 after a muddy gallop. It was well-nigh 
 midnight before the return from the 
 battle-field was over, and all night long 
 the patrols kept up a vigilant promenad- 
 ing through the town. 
 
 When Paris came to count its losses 
 after this memorable day, it was thrilled 
 with horror. Among the dead at Buzen- 
 val was the noble young painter, Henri 
 Regnault, a coloristof great distinction, 
 already noted for the '• Salome, " which 
 is sufficient to render his name immor- 
 tal. At Buzenval, too, fell a young 
 comedian of the Theatre Francais, who 
 when he was taken to the hospital estab- 
 lished in the theatre to which he belonged, 
 said, " 1 have come back to play once 
 more the last scene of the ' Fourberies 
 de Seapin.' " A few hours later he died. 
 Both sides were eager for an armistice ; 
 and the Prussians, on the morning of the 
 20th of January, sounded their bugles 
 three times, to offer a truce of a few hours, 
 before the French answered. Meantime 
 the Germans carried the French wounded 
 to Marnes, where a Prussian general 
 meeting a French general, said to him, 
 " We were filled witli admiration for the 
 spirit of your new troops of the line." 
 The old veteran had mistaken the simple 
 National Guards, citizens, doing their 
 duty, actuated by patriotism and despair, 
 for regulars. 
 
 The war and the siege of Paris were 
 coming to au end together. The defeat 
 
 of General Chanzy's army at Le Mans, 
 and the defeat of Faidherbe at St.. 
 Quentiu, were terrible blows to the 
 French. The Prussians had now invaded 
 Normandy. They were at Rouen ; Long- 
 wy hail capitulated, and we were not 
 surprised when we heard that Jules Favre 
 had visited Versailles, and that a sus- 
 pension of hostilities was certain. 
 
 The French appeared to have thrown 
 away their weapons rather wildly after 
 their withdrawal from Montretout, for 
 wagon-loads of chassepdts were brought 
 into Versailles. I saw several hundred 
 of the guns undergoing examination two 
 days after the light at Montretout, and 
 think that the conquered chassepdts were 
 distributed to the German outposts. 
 After the surrender of the large number 
 of fortresses, big and little, nothing was 
 more common in Versailles and around 
 Paris than to see a Prussian officer wear- 
 ing a French sword, the silver cord and 
 tassel contrasting strongly with the 
 severely elegant plainness of his own uni- 
 form. The Germans could see nothing in- 
 congruous in wearing a conquered enemy's 
 weapons in his own country, and reasoned 
 as an officer did concerning the proposed 
 removal of the military library of St. Cyr 
 to Berlin : " It is ours by the rights of 
 war, and if the French are anxious to 
 have it back, let them come and get it." 
 The library, however, was net removed. 
 
 Each morning we were awakened by 
 the clatter of muskets and the regu- 
 lar tramp of newly arriving troops. 
 The Landwehrsmen, the business men, 
 thinkers, butchers, speculators, now 
 swarmed everywhere. I counted thirty 
 men grouped in the Avenue de St. ('loud, 
 every one of whom was more than six 
 feet two inches in height, and sturdy in 
 proportion. One morning an officer six 
 feet seven strolled down the Rue de la 
 Paroisse, and some naughty French boys 
 
372 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 cried out, " Lower the curtains in the 
 second-story windows." 
 
 The 24th of January was one of those 
 strange days which sometimes come to 
 Northern France in the early days of the 
 year. The air was as soft and perfumed 
 as that of spring; in every forest, alley, 
 and garden there was hint of coming 
 verdure* In the bombardment there was 
 a hill : not a single gun was heard solemnly 
 booming. Fancy overcame me ; potent 
 is her sway ; and as I walked by the 
 great pond I seemed to lose Versailles, 
 invaders, and the conquered population, 
 and my thoughts were with the defenders 
 
 of the massive fortress city, so near and 
 
 Yet so far away. Presto! As with the 
 magic carpet of the Arabian tale, 1 
 
 was transported faster than balli s, 
 
 pigeons, or lovers' wishes could go. 
 Now I was at Surcsncs, where thou- 
 sands of blue-bloused workmen were still 
 toiling on the fortifications, as if they 
 fancied that the Germans were deter- 
 mined upon an assault ; now in the 
 magnificent drives of the Boulogne forest, 
 where pale and grim old women were cut- 
 ting boughs from the trees which had been 
 felled by order of the military engineers. 
 Half way up the slope of the Valerien 
 acclivity I could see the glitter of the gay 
 uniforms of soldiers, two and two, and 
 four and four, carrying bodies and 
 digging the graves, planting the seed 
 which the fallen oak of the Empire had 
 scattered. I noticed that thedense foliage 
 
 on the Seine banks was gone, that the 
 
 bridges were wrecks, the villages ruins, 
 the hillsides of St. Cloud, of Bellevue, of 
 Mendon, scarred and seamed by war. 
 Uncouth-looking peasants, ill at case in 
 their uniform, and speaking dialects which 
 I could not understand, jostled civilians, 
 and mistrusted everybody. On their 
 rude tunics were the names of towns and 
 cities of which I had never heard. Cava- 
 
 liers, who scarcely merited the name, so 
 awkward were they On their horses, gal- 
 loped recklessly, bearing orders. Up and 
 clown the Lois de Boulogne constantly 
 went the patrols, as often arresting an 
 innocent baker or candlestick-maker as 
 a German spy when spies were not rare. 
 On a tree a singular notice was posted: 
 •• Instructions for avoiding shell-lire;" 
 pencil-mark by a mischievous Parisian 
 under it : •• Last and best instruction, get 
 out of range." 
 
 Why could not one go down the deserted 
 avenue at the southern end of the wood? 
 Because the town of Boulogne was burn- 
 ing and the Prussians were constantly 
 sending shell into the edge of the forest, 
 ami children offered splinters of the 
 death engines for sale, saying, " These 
 are smaller than those of yesterday. The 
 Prussians are exhausting themselves." 
 Now came the soldier detailed to bring 
 newspapers from the city to the sub- 
 urbs, the diminutive sheets printed on 
 straw paper, clamoring for the removal of 
 Trochu, claiming victory in an obscure 
 part of France, and bestowing a slight 
 scratch upon Gambetta ; local news; mor- 
 tality of infants ; distressing and terrible 
 suffering among i r women; riot in cer- 
 tain disreputable quarters ; attempt to 
 traduce a fille publique before a court- 
 martial by her sisters, because she had 
 been into the Prussian lines and safely 
 out again ; decree of the military gov- 
 ernor condemning disorders ; horrible 
 penalties; regiments of Mobiles, fat, 
 lean, ragged, and spruce, marching with 
 discontented air to Valerien; twenty or 
 thirty richly dressed gentlemen with arms 
 inlaid with silver and trappings of horses 
 superb in decoration. These were the 
 counts and barons organized as eclaireurs, 
 ami doing good service for France. 
 
 Did I dream these things, or did they 
 come from the hundred rumors and 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 373 
 
 reports of German soldiers, who had 
 been at the front, and who were fond of 
 nothing so much as of gossiping about 
 what was going on within the French 
 lines ? 
 
 The bombardment of St. Denis was 
 well under way. Since the sortie of 
 the 21st the Germans had been pouring 
 shot into the town, and many fires had 
 been noticed there. Frenchmen came 
 into Versailles with rumors that the 
 Cathedral was destroyed. But no ! only 
 a few shells had touched it. The grand 
 old Latin cross into wdiose form the 
 church was built was still unharmed, 
 and the tomb of the kings seemed 
 charmed against the enemy's shells. 
 The houses and public edifices all 
 around it were in ruins ; huge timber- 
 yards, ignited by an exploding bomb, 
 sent up such a glare and smoke that 
 many were persuaded that Paris was in 
 flames. The fort got shells poured into 
 it every second ; they rolled together 
 over its walls; they exploded upon < i.e 
 another; they seemed to struggle lor 
 place above the bastion ; still St. Denis 
 held out bravely, answeriug in deep base 
 its defiance of the loudest German guns. 
 
 On the 22d the fire from the brother 
 forts near St. Denis suddenly ceased ; 
 then St. Denis himself missed his accus- 
 tomed round. This strange quiet un- 
 nerved the Germans, who could scarcely 
 sleep without the thunders to which they 
 had so long been accustomed. On the 
 southern side Issy's gigantic battered 
 hulk was still supporting the German 
 fire ; but the embrasures were closed, and 
 the guns were said to have been removed 
 to the Paris ramparts. The French 
 marines, said the Germans, were now to 
 man the wall guns. Fort Yanves was 
 in a dreadful condition, more damaged, 
 if possible, than Issy. Now we heard a 
 brisk shooting from German title pits. 
 
 French prisoners brought in thought that 
 their sharp-shooters were destroying the 
 whole Prussian army ; German sharp- 
 shooters, on their side, boasted of the 
 many victims they had made. In the 
 German batteries gun carriages began 
 to give way, from the severe strain upon 
 them. 
 
 And now it was announced as certain 
 that M. Jules Favre had reached Ver- 
 sailles; that a carriage had been sent to 
 the river at Sevres to meet him ; that he 
 had eagerly read the official journal of 
 that evening, in which was Bismarck's 
 circular enumerating the number of times 
 which the French had broken the rules 
 of the Geneva Convention, besides the 
 intelligence that St. Denis was still 
 burning. For the first time lie had the 
 particulars of Faidherbe's defeat, of 
 the peasants retreating from Cam- 
 brai and the surrounding country. I 
 was fortunate enough to see M. Favre. 
 lie looked old, and worn, and weary. 
 and as if he had had but little to 
 eat. That which most truly distressed 
 M. Favre was his complete ignorance of 
 the situation of the army of the east, 
 when he went first to see Count Von 
 Bismarck. He knew of the disasters to 
 General Chanzy, and. as we have seen, 
 read of the troubles which had befallen 
 Faidherbe ; but he had not heard a word 
 of Bourbaki. lie knew only of that, 
 general's march towards Montbeliard, 
 which had been so brilliantly begun, 
 and that General Von Werder had evac- 
 uated Dijon, Gray, and Vesoul before 
 Bourbaki's advance. But he did not 
 know that, on the very day that he was 
 pleading for an armistice, Bourbaki in 
 despair had attempted to take his own 
 life, and that the Prussian division 
 marching upon Dijon had blocked Gari- 
 baldi's way. 
 
 Wheal M. Favre asked Bismarck for 
 
.574 
 
 EUROPE J.X STORM AND CALM. 
 
 news he said that he had had none for 
 several days: the wires wort' ;ill down in 
 the greater part of the country, and com- 
 munications, he said, were slow and 
 uncertain. But, despite the apparent 
 insufficiency of his information, Bis- 
 marck was Yen anxious that Belfort 
 should be surrendered. It would be as 
 well, he said, to give it up, for it could 
 not hold out for more than a week 
 longer. M. Favre could not consent to 
 such a concession. Bismarck refused to 
 comprise Belfort in the armistice, and 
 poor M. Favre's anxiety was very great, 
 for he fancied that the army of the east 
 might be victorious, and raise the siege 
 of Belfort, and to be asked to give it np 
 in such a juncture or to relinquish the 
 conclusion of an armistice, which was 
 vital to Paris, was a dreadful alternative. 
 '•Very well." said Bismarck, "then put 
 oft the signing of the armistice until 
 after this fate of Belfort is decided." 
 
 M. Favre hardly knew what to say to 
 this, for he said. " 1 was constantly 
 pursued by the terrible fear that I should 
 not have the necessary time for revict- 
 ualling l'aiis." 
 
 < )n the eveniug of the 26th of January 
 ]\I . Favre had a long conference with 
 General Von Moltke. After arranging 
 the principal details of an armistice with 
 Bismarck, and after he had reached the 
 point at which the signing of the con- 
 vention seemed only a matter of form, 
 he came hack to Bismarck, and had a 
 final conversation with him. The great 
 Chancellor accompanied him to his car- 
 riage, and said, with something like lively 
 sympathy in his tones, as he was taking 
 leave of M. Favre, " I scarcely think 
 thai, at the point which we have now 
 reached, a rupture is possible. If you 
 consent, we will stop the thing this even- 
 ing." — •• I should have asked you to do 
 it vesterdav," answeredM. Favre, deeply 
 
 moved. " As I have the misfortune to 
 represent conquered Paris, I could not 
 solicit a favor: but I accept with much 
 heartiness now that you offer. It is the 
 first consolation I have had in our 
 troubles. It was insupportable to me to 
 think that Mood should he shed in vain, 
 while we are arranging the conditions for 
 a suspension of hostilities." 
 
 " Very well," said Bismarck, " it is 
 understood that we shall give reciprocal 
 orders to have the firing cease at mid- 
 night, lie good enough to see that your 
 orders are strictly executed." 
 
 M. Favre promised, stipulating only 
 that the Freueh should be allowed to lire 
 the last shot. 
 
 ■•It was nine o'clock." he wrote in his 
 official account, ■•when 1 crossed the 
 Seine at the bridge of Sevres. The con- 
 flagration in St. Cloud was still in prog- 
 ress. Probably not having been warned 
 of our arrival, our artillery-men at 
 Point du Jour were raining shells in our 
 neighborhood. Two or three missiles 
 fell on the bank just as we left it. It 
 would have been odd enough if one 
 of them had taken a notion to inter- 
 rupt my mission. As soon as I reached 
 Paris I hastened to General Vinoy. I 
 drew up the order agreed upon, accom- 
 panying it with the most precise instruc- 
 tions. At the moment that I was writ- 
 ing it an officer on duty received a tele- 
 gram from the commander of the Fort 
 do la Corn 1 Neuve. This was to ask 
 for reinforcements, and expressed lively 
 fears for the results of the enemy's 
 bombardment on the morrow. ' I give 
 you here,' I said to the officer, who 
 brought me this news, ' something 
 which will shelter this brave garrison. 
 Our soldiers have done their duty to the 
 very end. We owe them as much grati- 
 tude as if they were victorious.' 
 
 •• At a quarter of an hour before mid- 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 375 
 
 night I stood on the stone balcony at 
 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs overlook- 
 ingthe Seine. The artillery of our forts 
 and that of the German army were still 
 crashing on. Twelve o'clock sounded. 
 There was a last explosion repeated far 
 off by an echo, which died slowly away. 
 Then silence settled over all. It was 
 the first repose for many lone- weeks. It 
 was the first symptom of peace since the 
 beginning of the senseless war into which 
 we had been forced by the infatuation of 
 a despot and the criminal servility of his 
 courtiers. I stood for a long time lost 
 in my reflections. I believed that the 
 massacres had ceased ; and, in spite of 
 the sorrow which weighed me down, this 
 thought was a kind of relief. I did not 
 foresee that behind this bloody curtain 
 now lowered upon our disasters were 
 concealed still more lamentable calami- 
 ties and humiliations." 
 
 The armistice was signed : a neutral 
 zone was established between the two 
 armies, and the siege of Paris was prac- 
 tically at an end. The proclamation of 
 the Government of National Defense, 
 which was posted on the walls of Paris 
 on the 28th of January, announced that 
 the National Guard would preserve its 
 organization and its weapons; that the 
 resistance of Paris would be closed in a 
 
 few hours : that the troops would remain 
 in Paris among the citizens : the officers 
 would keep their swords : and that the 
 Government felt that it could show that 
 it had held out just as long as there was 
 food enough left to allow of (he re\ actual- 
 ling of the fortress without subjecting 
 two million men, women, and children to 
 the tortures of famine. ■' The siege of 
 Paris," said this proclamation, "has 
 lasted four months and twelve days : the 
 bombardment, a whole month. Since the 
 15th of January the ration of bread has 
 been reduced to three hundred grammes. 
 The ration of horse-flesh since the 15th of 
 December has been but thirty grammes. 
 The mortality has more than trebled; 
 but in the midst of so many disasters 
 there has not been a single day of dis- 
 couragement. The enemy is the first 
 to render tribute to the moral energy 
 and the courage that the whole Pari- 
 sian population has shown. Paris has 
 suffered greatly, but the Republic will 
 profit by its long sufferings, so nobly 
 borne. We go forth from the struggle 
 which has just ended ready for the 
 struggle which is to come. We go forth 
 with all our honor, with all our hopes. 
 despite the anguish of the present hour, 
 more than ever confident in the high 
 destinies of the country." 
 
376 EUROPE Ih STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER FORTY. 
 
 Personal Reminiscences of the Close of the Siege. — The "Neutral Zone." — Wonders ami Comicali- 
 ties. -Through the Park at St. Clou d. — The Crown Prince's Redoubt. -Starving Parisians.— 
 The Hungry Faces. -A Hundred People following a Hare. 
 
 THE Parisians had succeeded by ac- you must persist, we must be brought to 
 
 eordiug the capitulation of Paris, the a stop at once.' 
 
 occupation of the foils, the taeil agree- " The Chancellor asked me for my cs- 
 
 rnent to the payment of a vast military tiraate, but I reserved my decision until 
 
 contribution by the capital, and the ful- after a conference with my colleagues, 
 
 filment of other conditions as bitter, as They fixed the maximum atfive hundred 
 
 humiliating, in securing an armistice of millions. I then proposed one hundred, 
 
 twenty-one days. Apropos of the eon- and closed the matter at two hundred 
 
 tribution which the Prussians proposed millions. The Chancellor wished us to 
 
 to levy. Bismarck and Jules Favre had add to it three hundred millions, to be 
 
 quite a spirited discussion. The Chan- charged to the war indemnity. ' That 
 
 cellor had, from the first, said that he will make it,' he said,, -round iiuin- 
 
 should exact the payment of a war con- hers.' 
 
 tribution, but he hail not stated what its •• I had no difficulty in making him 
 
 amount was likely to be. So a day or understand that we could treat only in 
 
 two before the negotiations were closed, the name of Paris, and that it was for- 
 
 M. Favre raised the subject, when the bidden to us to prejudge the question 
 
 Ch: illor's face, says the French states- of peace or war, expressly reserved for 
 
 man, took on an indefinable expression, national decision." 
 
 "The city of Paris," said Bismarck, Paris, that could pay an indemnity of 
 
 '■ is loo powerful and too rich for an two hundred millions of francs without 
 
 instant to permit that its ransom should other effort than the Stroke of the pen, 
 
 not he worthy of it. It seems to me could not find, for the fust few days 
 
 that il would he scarcely proper to ask after the capitulation, bread enough for 
 
 for less than a milliard." its children. There were two or three 
 
 '• • This is certainly only an ironical days of cruel waiting, when il seemed 
 
 eulogy,' 1 answered, ' and I shall re- almost certain thai the Germans would 
 
 train from considering it as serious.' be < hargeable with the grave fault of 
 
 "But it is quite serious." replied the having caused a famine among the be- 
 
 Chancellor, "and entirely in proportion sieged French. The splendid charity of 
 
 with lh. ise that the other cities have paid London and the tremendous efforts made 
 
 us." in the north of France saved the situa- 
 
 •• • I should not like." I said, • to tion. No sooner was the armistice 
 
 break off the negotiations for a simple signed than Jules Favre telegraphed I" 
 
 question of money; but there are exac- London, Antwerp, and Dieppe to have 
 
 tions which render nothing possible, provisions sent in with the greatest celer- 
 
 This is of the number; and, if you think itv. According to the terms of the new 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 377 
 
 treaty, these provisions could not enter 
 Paris until after the forts had been 
 delivered to the Germans, and the walls 
 of the garrison of the capital had been 
 disarmed. Jules Favre and his col- 
 leagues foresaw that, unless tliis were 
 modified, the provisions, which were 
 now pouring forward on all the railways, 
 would accumulate at a distance of a few 
 miles from the starving millions, and 
 would there be forced to remain while 
 the Germans were slowly taking their 
 precautions. His mind was filled with 
 dreadful visions of mobs of men and 
 women howling for bread, of new mani- 
 festations of the communal insurrection, 
 prompted by the pangs of hunger; and 
 he went straight to Bismarck and told 
 him the truth. 
 
 The Chancellor was not only startled, 
 he was deeply moved. lie promised 
 that he would have the whole matter 
 changed forthwith, and that there need 
 be no fear that the military operations 
 would prevent the transportation of food. 
 He even offered to the French all the 
 rations that the German army could 
 spare. This surplus supply of the Ger- 
 mans was sufficient to nourish the popu- 
 lation of Paris for a day and a half. M. 
 Favre accepted it. The two men parted 
 greatly touched by the mutual conces- 
 sions of pride and of dignity to which 
 their charitable aim had compelled them. 
 
 Hut it was not until the afternoon of 
 the 4th of February that the first train 
 which had entered the Paris fortifications 
 since the 17th of .September rolled into 
 the Northern railway station. This was 
 the train filled with provisions which the 
 population of London had contributed 
 for tin- relief of Paris. The same train 
 brought a. letter from the Lord Mayor of 
 the English metropolis, saying that, at 
 the first news of the armistice, a meeting 
 of bankers, commercial men. and work- 
 
 men had been held at the Mansioi 
 House, anil that an appeal had been 
 made to the sympathy manifest in all 
 parts of the country for unfortunate 
 France. A first subscription of 250,000 
 francs had been placed at the disposition 
 of the English committee, and it was 
 hoped that the sum raised by voluntary 
 contributions would reach 2,000,000 of 
 francs. This was but a trifle for a 
 capital which had just agreed to pay out 
 
 •-'(Ml, 001). las ransom; but it gave the 
 
 stricken people courage, and they seemed 
 once more to breathe freely. 
 
 The neutral zone between the French 
 and German lines, and extending all the 
 way around Paris, was fine of the curiosi- 
 ties of the siege. This was a strip of 
 territory, ingress to which was forbidden 
 either to French or German troops until 
 the close of the deliberations of the na- 
 tional assembly, which was to decide on 
 peace or war. On either side of this zone 
 swarmed the lately contesting soldiery, 
 and the Germans had seized upon the 
 opportunity to indulge in their passion for 
 military pomp, and perhaps, I may say to 
 air their military vanity. Their officers 
 went on duty arrayed as if for a prome- 
 nade at a court, or in a ball-room. They 
 wore their gala uniforms, their best boots, 
 their most shining spurs and immaculate 
 white gloves. The Prussian officer thus 
 impressed one as a superior kind of 
 policeman, a police sergeant, if you will, 
 who was doing duty away from home and 
 who wished to impress the foreign eye 
 with the sense of his national dignity. 
 
 On the morning after the occupation 
 of the forts I found some German sol- 
 diers at a point between St. (loud and 
 Sevres doing what they called playing at 
 French Republicans, having made them- 
 selves grotesque uniforms out of some red 
 curtains which they had found. A large 
 collection of ladies and gentlemen on the 
 
378 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM 
 
 other side of the river was l< »< >I< i 1 112: at Prussians took their ground here step by 
 them through field-glasses and audibly step at imminent risk, and purchased it 
 expressing its disgust. The Prussian at the expense of hundreds of lives. An 
 sentinel on one pier of the ruined bridge officer told me, with tears in his eyes, that 
 of Sevres, and the French sentinel on what he had Inst many brother officers then-, 
 was left of the other side of the bridge, The besiegers seemed to have found the 
 presented, as they glared at each other Seine gun-boats more troublesome than 
 across the deep stream, rather a comical eventhe Parisians trusted that they might 
 aspect. A few Germans were digging prove. Lying close to the water's edge, 
 rifle-pits, with a view to possible future and possessing t lie wondrous faculty of 
 emergencies. •■ making themselves scarce," they were 
 On a high hill between St. Cloud and very effective instruments of offense. 
 Sevres stood one of the most famous of They came down towards Billancourt 
 Prussian batteries, a place where, for two with the speed of a railway train, and, 
 weeks before the capitulation, men were before the out-look on the redoubt could 
 obliged to lay perdu half the time, ex- cry " bombe" they threw their deadly 
 peeting destruction every moment when missiles, the man at the helm wheeled 
 they showed their heads and while they around, and away they went, leaving sor- 
 were firing their cannon at the enemy, row among their enemies. 
 The Prussians all spoke with awe after the Climbing up the mighty zigzag path 
 siege of the fearful tire of the forts upon leading into the redoubt 1 found on 
 :'iis redoubt. It required some little the way great heaps of shells and great 
 philosophy to go in and out of this ex- pieces of iron, some of them rusty 
 temporized fortification under lire, and with Mood. At the top of the hill stood 
 the few times that 1 attempted it gave a collection of charming houses, once fur- 
 me a lively impression of the horrors of a nished with the greatest taste, but then 
 bombardment. Four German officers, forever ruined. Near by was a bomb- 
 who were the first into this Crown proof sunk several feet into the ground, 
 Prince's Redoubt, as ii was called, gave and thence the officers issued their orders. 
 me an animated description of the terrors In the principal house one long, elegant 
 of the initial dav of the occupation, parlor, which had evidently belonged to 
 " Shells every moment," said one officer ; a literary man, was tilled with beds, 
 ■•and when we fancied that the forts where the tired men had thrown them- 
 would give us an instant's respite, then selves, regardless of danger, to sleep, 
 came the fearful screeching of the gre- The walls were decorated with figures of 
 nades from the gun-boats on the Seine. Tui'COS anil Zouaves running before the 
 When a parlevientaire came out from Prussians, and a huge cartoon repre- 
 either side we felt like men who hail senleil Napoleon handing his sword to 
 been pardoned after sentence of execu- King William. The floor of this room 
 tion." The French had thrown up the was littered with tine engravings, hooks 
 redoubt at the beginning of the alarm of value, and tapestries torn from the 
 about the capital's safety, and had in- walls. On one side was a breakfast- 
 tended to arm it, but had not succeeded table smashed, with coffee-cups and 
 when they were dislodged. F.\ en had they glasses in confusion beneath it. A 
 put guns into position in it the enemy hole in the wall and some grenade 
 would have had it sooner or later. The fragments close by explained the inter- 
 
EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 
 
 379 
 
 rupted breakfast. On the d ■ of an out- 
 bouse, which served as a guard-room, was 
 written a German distich : — 
 
 11 How happy is he whom no cry can call out 
 To take his night turn on the deadly redoubt ! " 
 
 The dead seemed indeed much more 
 fortunate than the living, in this dreadful 
 spot. Days and nights were constantly 
 full of horror ami sorrow. The Germans 
 had one consolation, — they had enough 
 to eat. The drivers of the supply-carts 
 ran imminent risk in bringing the food in 
 every evening, and sometimes a shell 
 sent the sheep newly killed and the great 
 rounds of black-bread living into air. 
 The walls of the redoubt and the deep 
 trenches covered by boughs and logs. 
 leading away in every direction, were 
 battered and pounded as by a giant's 
 hammer. Great rows of sand-bags were 
 piled high in the earth-works' top, and 
 acres on acres of tree trunks, sawn has- 
 tily in the neighboring parks, were placed 
 along the hill at right angles. 
 
 In the highesl corner, where one could 
 look one hundred feet down over the wall, 
 hung a flag-pole, on which a sheet, was 
 run out whenever hostilities were sus- 
 pended, so that a parlementaire might 
 come across the river. At the mark of 
 the outer line of works stood a rustic 
 arbor, with a round window, in which a 
 telescope was placed, and where watch- 
 men sat, night and day, to gaze by light 
 and listen by dark. Although this was 
 the most exposed position in the redoubt 
 not a shell appeared to have touched it. 
 It was interesting at the close of the 
 siege to visit Ville d'Avray and St. 
 Cloud, where the ravages of war had 
 been so great. On this same day of the 
 occupation of the forts I made this excur- 
 sion, and noted the swarms of French peas- 
 ants hurrying back from the villages nearer 
 
 Paris, where they had hastily taken 
 refuge, to their homes. There were 
 strong men, and weak old patriots bent 
 and shrivelled, housewives and buxom 
 young peasant girls with babes at their 
 breasts. All had packs of household 
 gear upon their backs, and their faces 
 bore marks of prolonged suffering and 
 privation. Many of these simple people 
 went mad during the siege : the horrors 
 of the protracted bombardment, the in- 
 credible hardships which they were called 
 upon to suffer after lives of peace and 
 plenty, turned their heads. 
 
 The inhabitants of Ville d'Avray re- 
 turned to And their houses a camp or a 
 stable. The hundreds of charming little 
 white stone villas — with their outlooks 
 on the lovely valley where Gambetta, at 
 what all men thought was merely a pause 
 in his great career, came to purchase a 
 tranquil nook in which to repose — had 
 windows broken, and walls smashed by 
 shells. The cellars were converted dur- 
 ing the siege into lodgings for the olli- 
 cers, physicians, and wounded. In many 
 of these extemporized barracks one 
 found interesting testimony to the intelli- 
 gence and decent feeling of the invaders. 
 Trifles supposed to have value from as- 
 sociation had been bestowed in safe 
 places; carpets had been hidden away to 
 save them from being made into breeches 
 for the outposts ; and in many places pi- 
 anos had been safely stored. The ceilings 
 had been torn out, and rebuilt with ma- 
 terials calculated to resist shell-lire ; and 
 thus the rooms had mainly been ruined. 
 The French assert that the Germans had 
 a passion for clocks, and generally 
 carried them off; but that they took 
 frequent measures to save property 
 which they might have taken or spoiled, 
 is quite true. 
 
 All the way from Versailles gate to the 
 entrance of St. Cloud park the noblest 
 
380 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 trees had been felled to bar the way in in with sportive verses on Moltke's 
 
 case of a prolonged success, such as that genius, or plaintive couplets detailing 
 
 of Montretout might have been. Vines hardship; the branches were also traced 
 
 and fences were utilized in interlacing with comical reminiscences of the fall- 
 
 the labyrinth, until ii seemed as if hardly en Empire; the hedges and the palings 
 
 a weasel might cross the track comfort- showed dreadful gaps; trees were shorn 
 
 ably. This, with a barricade at every of their branches, showing hew persist- 
 
 augle in the highways, and batteries on the eutly Valerien had tried to make the 
 
 heights around the position, would have still more persistent enemy unmask him- 
 
 been tenable perhaps for days against a self. If the straw strewn by the hedge 
 
 vigorous assault. It look weeks after the could have spoken it would have had its 
 
 siege to disencumber the fields. Enter- scalp to mourn ; the satyr had lost his 
 
 ing the park by the great avenue leading horns, the lion his tail. The live 
 
 to the palace, 1 found to my left, as I great avenues radiating through the 
 
 came in, a German cemetery, where the park from the monumental observatory, 
 
 dozens of soldiers struck down on duty called the " Diogenes Lantern," were 
 
 dining the bombardment were buried, scarcely recognizable. The frozen ruts 
 
 Before reaching the several roads which were deep enough to he down in. 
 
 led through the park to Sevres and Meu- Away below the hill 1 saw a dense 
 
 don, I arrived at a redoubt, where a sen- smoke slowly rising. It came from St. 
 
 tinel halted me, and turned me to the Cloud, burniugfor the last eight days. At 
 
 right. — probably from habit rather than the palaces the evidences of ruin were 
 
 necessity. I had time however to observe even greater. Superb chairs, on which 
 
 the famous redoubt which the Jagers the grandees of Europe had reposed, 
 
 held so valiantly, and whose solid semi- la y scattered upon the abatis, every trace 
 
 circle of earth and stone, with the queerly of their brilliant coloring washed from the 
 
 contrived loop-holes tor observations, in- upholstery by the rains and snows. In a 
 
 terested me even more than did the huge glade near the chateau were long rows 
 
 guns, marked " Spaudau, 1868," ranged of w len palings, garnished fantasti- 
 
 in rows in the trenches below. cally with broken ornaments of floor and 
 
 I entered a long trench, sheltered art- ceiling from the palace. The circular 
 
 fully from the missiles of death by a park', with its gorgeous orange trees ami 
 
 door made of woven green boughs, tasteful statues, was as filthy as a barn- 
 
 evidently the work of hands impelled by yard. Nearly every statue was scarred, 
 
 memories of Christmas-tide, and perhaps seared, blackened. The palace was a 
 
 by the old burden, — shapeless mass of stone, seamed with the 
 
 comet-like tracks of shells. One could 
 
 "O Christmas-tree, Christmas-tree, lieu- scarcely walk across the floors inside. 
 
 faithful are thy branches ! " They were heaped ten feel high, with 
 
 great pieces of the roof, with torn and 
 
 Farther on I found sentry-boxes disjointed gildings. The lower halls 
 
 made out of wardrobes, taken bodily were occupied by dozens of soldiers, and 
 
 from the villas of the neighboring hundreds were swarming about the 
 
 towns. Here and there was a superb environs, picking up bits of shell and 
 
 mahogany armoire, ruined by weather stone as mementos. 
 
 and soldiers' wear, marked outside and A few steps to the right brought one 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 381 
 
 to the valley, where the beautiful lake 
 was once surrounded with sylvan statues. 
 Scarcely one remained standing. From 
 the terrace, at the Seiue front of the 
 chdteau, one could judge even more 
 accurately of the ruin. The devastation 
 of the invasion of 181."> is still remem- 
 bered with horror in France ; but this 
 had been more terrible. Then, as now, 
 foreign soldiery had wandered in the 
 "aniens. The books of the library, in 
 1815, were trampled into the earth, and 
 the walls were disfigured. But now one 
 could not find a book or trace the outlines 
 of a picture, nor yet distinguish the 
 rtiilmi of Mars from that of Apollo. 
 Elegant architectural nooks were all 
 crushed out of shape, battered into 
 oblivion. 
 
 Groups of otlicers on the terrace were 
 scanning the French bank of the Seine 
 through their field-glasses and drinking 
 wine out of bottles of which they had 
 unearthed a good store that morning. 
 High above the hill, where the church 
 spire of St. Cloud stood uninjured 
 amid the almost universal ruin, villas 
 were smouldering. Descending into the 
 town I found that a superb conservatory 
 had been utilized as a stable, and that 
 many residences had shared the same 
 fate. The great alley which runs 
 through the town from the lower park, 
 bordered on either side by booths whose 
 owners had not had time to open them 
 for the annual fair in 1870, was crowded 
 with soldiers curiously examining the 
 toys and bonbon boxes in the booths. 
 One soldier took a child's drum from a 
 booth and hung it about his neck. A 
 sergeant stepped forward: "Fool, put 
 down that silly thing ! Do you want 
 five days in the guard-house ? " The ex- 
 plorations were consequently stopped, 
 and the explorers went to warm them- 
 selves around fires made of beams taken 
 
 from tlii' ruined houses. The town in 
 its garment of slow lire offered a pictu- 
 resque spectacle. 
 
 The French authorities had expressed 
 their desire that during the armistice no 
 strangers should enter Paris unless they 
 had pressing reason therefor. But to 
 those of us whose sympathies were with 
 Paris, and whose anxieties for the fate 
 of hundreds of friends within the walls 
 were daily growing greater, this ex- 
 pression of the authorities had but little 
 weight. Application at the Prussian 
 head-quarters for passes over neutral 
 ground were refused, on the plea that 
 they would displease the French. Daily 
 visits were regularly, however, made by 
 the French residents at Versailles. 
 Women ami children escaped between the 
 bayonets of the sentinels and ran away 
 to the surrounding villages, in the hope 
 of procuring food or of hearing news of 
 friends. In all that strip of country 
 from St. Denis. Sarcelles, Ecouen, Vil- 
 leneuve-le-Bel, Gonesse, etc., the most 
 frightful destitution now prevailed. 
 Bread was not to be obtained for any 
 money. Many of the inhabitants who 
 returned in haste from Paris to their 
 homes lived on rotten cabbages, which 
 lay about the fields ; and when one found 
 a frozen carrot or potato lie esteemed 
 himself fortunate. From Versailles I went 
 through St. Germain, thence to Epinai 
 and St. Denis, and so on to Ecouen, for 
 the express purpose of studying the 
 condition of the people after the occupa- 
 tion of the forts. I bent my course over 
 the desolate country to Argenteuil, by 
 the lower road, which had been so dan- 
 gerous on the occasion of our last jour- 
 ney around Paris. No sentinel barred 
 the way. The birds were singing in all 
 the trees as I passed, and the soldiers, 
 beating back the clamorous bread-de- 
 manding crowds at Argenteuil, simply 
 
382 
 
 EUROTE IN STORM AXP CALM. 
 
 asked me my nationality and let me 
 
 [KISS. 
 
 I found the railway bridge broken into 
 fragments, the rails bent and thrown 
 across the track, wine and ice cellars 
 along the road converted into bomb- 
 proofs. At Argenteuil many a well- 
 dressed person addressed me in terms 
 which almost commanded tears, begging 
 for a morsel of food if 1 had it. Alas! I 
 was as badly provided as most of the sup- 
 plicants. Old women solicited alms as 
 they sank by the wayside, overcome; 
 little children, thin and pale, cried 
 bitterly as their parents dragged them 
 wearily onward. Sometimes I met 
 carts driven by soldiers who had been 
 
 sent out to forage, and was "hid |,, see 
 that in many cases the sturdy driver and 
 his guard had dismounted to give 
 fainting women and children a ride on 
 the straw. In this case the conquerors 
 had obtained their apotheosis. The 
 good old words, which could have been 
 so fittingly applied to these soldiers, 
 came into my mind : " lie drinkcth no 
 blood, but tbirsteth after honor. He is 
 •lived v of victory, but, never satisfied 
 
 with mercy. In fight terrible as be- 
 coinetb a captain : in conquest mild as 
 beseemeth a king." 
 
 From Argenteuil forward to Epinai, 
 near St. Denis, I constantly met long 
 lines of carts laden with household 
 goods of returning refugees. The most 
 affecting sight was the hundreds of bare- 
 headed women scrambling in the field 
 for froy.en vegetables and the lines of 
 half-sympathetic soldiers off duty look- 
 ing curiously on. Near here I met the 
 Crown Prince of Saxony, attended by a 
 superb cavalry guard, galloping away 
 from head-quarters at Margency. But, 
 
 as he gazed on the singular scene, his 
 
 handsome young lace glowed with sym- 
 pathy, and 1 felt that he had learned a 
 
 new lesson concerning the horrors of 
 war. 
 
 Epinai seemed visited by the ven- 
 geance of ( iod. It was a small town 
 for a suburban one ; and from its 
 boundaries one could see the grinning 
 guns of Forts La Breche and the Double 
 Crown. The Prussian commanders had 
 ordered an inundation of the roads in the 
 neighborhood sonic time before: and it 
 was partially successful. The routes 
 towards Paris therefore resembled small 
 rivers. There remained hardly a house 
 in Epinai untouched by shot or shell. 
 Barricades were still standing in a hun- 
 dred places. I saw a bulwark twenty- 
 four feet long, entirely made out of fur- 
 niture, — rich chairs, tables, and sofas 
 piled up in confusion, and carpets 
 stopping up the chinks. 
 
 From one of the half-ruined forts a 
 long procession of German cavalry in 
 fatigue uniforms was slowly winding, 
 and a few trumpets were sounding in the 
 distance. As I turned from the neigh- 
 borhood of St. Denis to move toF.couen, 
 I came upon endless lines of starving 
 Parisians, hastening out to buy, beg, or 
 borrow food ; and I saw a spectacle 
 which I shall never see again, and which 
 struck me with astonishment : — 
 
 A man of humble appearance bad 
 caught a bare escaping through a hedge, 
 had knocked it on the bead, and with an 
 air of supreme content was moving 
 briskly along the road in tin- same di- 
 rection which I was taking. Behind 
 him followed at least one hundred Pari- 
 sians, all with their eyes fixed with an 
 expression of intense longing upon this 
 unhappy hare, hanging limp and lifeless 
 from its captor's back. There were 
 people in that hundred who would have 
 knocked the lucky possessor of the little 
 animal on the head had each not been 
 restrained by the presence of the other. 
 
EUROPE JN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 383 
 
 I have not the slightest desire, after the 
 lapse of many years, to exaggerate an 
 impression which was at the time 
 intensely powerful ; but I felt then, as I 
 feel now, that I was looking upon men 
 and women actuated by the same almost 
 uncontrollable murderous impulse that 
 human beings feel slowly overpowering 
 them when they are drifting together at 
 sea in an open boat, suffering from 
 
 hunger ami thirst. The wolfishncs^ of 
 the gaze, the stealthiness of the tread, 
 and the inexpressible longing on all 
 those people's faces were at once fasci- 
 nating and repulsive. Nothing could 
 give, better than this little incident, an 
 idea of the extremities of suffering anil 
 privation to which the populace of Paris 
 bad been driven by the siege. 
 
384 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER FORTY-ONE, 
 
 A Great Historic Occasion. — The Assembly at Bordeaux. — Thiers in lii* New Rule. — A Political 
 Tragedy in the Theatre do laComedie. - -The Protest of the Alsatians. — The Final Impeachment 
 of the Empire. -A Strange Scene. — Louis Blanc, Victor Hugo, :mi| tin- other Exiles. —The Vote 
 for Peace. — A Stern Renunciation. - The Mayor of Strasbourg Dies of a Broken Heart. 
 
 IN Bordeaux we seemed to lie in 
 another country, if not in another 
 world, after the excitement of the elec- 
 tions in Paris. The constant quarrels 
 of tin.' various political factious, which 
 were beginning t" exercise their hostility 
 now that the siege had ended, and the 
 increasing misery on every hand, had 
 not seemed abnormal until we got out 
 of the lines of tin' war. and came to the 
 compart and picturesque southern city, 
 where all the natives were clamorous for 
 the continuation of the struggle. Peo- 
 ple who came out of the anguish ami 
 turmoil could not refrain from reminding 
 the southern populations that they would 
 not be so anxious for war if they had 
 seen a little more of it. But these crit- 
 ics were set aside as tritlei's. Had not 
 Gambetta resigned his high office, 
 although it must have required much 
 self-denial to do so. when he heard a 
 hint of the negotiations for peace? Was 
 there not strength enough in tin' great 
 south, with its vast resources and its 
 sturdy people, for the organization of a 
 new defence, which should oppose a 
 linn resistance to the Prussian armies? 
 So let the Assembly meet and let it part ; 
 but let it not dare to hint at Prussian 
 desires, or, most especially, at cession of 
 territory. 
 
 It took thirty hours to gel from Paris 
 to Bordeaux, a journey usually accom- 
 plished in twelve hours. The permits 
 to leave the capital, permits which depu- 
 
 ties and private soldiers, citizens, and 
 strangers alike were forced to have, 
 were elaborate documents, printed in 
 French and German, and decorated with 
 numerous stamps. They described ac- 
 curately the appearance, profession, 
 and object of the journey of the person 
 to whom they were issued. When the 
 train had crossed the neutral lines and 
 arrived on Prussian ground at Vitry, a 
 white-gloved and elegantly uniformed 
 Hessian officer came to collect the 
 passes: and while they were rigidly in- 
 spected the train waited an hour. It 
 was somewhat amusing to observe the 
 conceit of the Germans who came and 
 ranged , themselves along the platform, 
 evidently that the French notables might 
 observe their uniforms. The Parisians, 
 however, were fully equal to the occa- 
 sion, and when they saw anything worth 
 praising in the German military scheme, 
 they freely praised it. But they were 
 quite as free in their adverse criticisms. 
 It was only when they saw a ruined 
 house or broken bridge that they mut- 
 tered against the " Prussian vermin." 
 
 At Fort d'lvry we saw a Prussian 
 column, several battalions strong, wind- 
 ing its way among throngs of French- 
 men who had evidently come home to 
 see what was left out of the general 
 ruin. At Choisy-le-Roi, there were the 
 same sad-faced people searching for the 
 remnants of their properties. Here 
 homes were completely ruined ; walls 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 ;;.s;> 
 
 were toppled over, streets encumbered 
 with rubbish, fragments of shell and 
 shot. The great bridge lay in the bed 
 of the .Seine, forming a kind of dam, 
 over which the usually tranquil water 
 was foaming. 
 
 As we moved away from Choisy-le- 
 Roi, we saw another Prussian column 
 moving in, the men's uniforms covered 
 with dirt, and the officers shouting at 
 the laggards. The peasants at each 
 station pointed out the track of the war 
 to the Parisians, and were listened to 
 with great interest. " Do the Prussians 
 annoy and abuse you?" was the question 
 often asked ; and " No, not much," was 
 the invariable reply. 
 
 At Vierzon we were outside the 
 Prussian lines, thanks to the vigorous 
 action of the inhabitants some days 
 before the capitulation. The Prussians 
 had left only a small force there, and 
 the Vierzonese, after having been pil- 
 laged until they could stand it no longer, 
 took their hitherto concealed arms, and. 
 after much loss of life on both sides, 
 drove out the invaders. The armistice 
 intervened in time to save the town from 
 the vengeance of the discomfited enemy. 
 
 Our train was transferred to the 
 branch line leading to Limoges and Pe- 
 rigueux, and towards daylight arrived at 
 the latter town, where we found thou- 
 sands of Mobiles going in all directions, 
 taking up positions to meet the enemy in 
 case the new Assembly should declare 
 for a continuance of the war. Here a 
 train filled with deputies, among whom 
 were Rochefort in a Garibaldian red 
 shirt, Schcslcher, and others of the Rad- 
 ical Paris delegation, was joined to ours. 
 When we reached Bordeaux that after- 
 noon we found that the Red Party had 
 prepared a formidable demonstration for 
 the arrival of its leaders ; and this was 
 a gloomy indication for the future. On 
 
 our way through Angers, Pithouviers, 
 and numerous other towns around which 
 there had been famous battles, we had 
 seen the Prussians in great force, but 
 had seen few native inhabitants of the 
 unlucky villages and cities. Here and 
 there a Prussian in fatigue uniform 
 wore a French cap, which he had picked 
 up on a battle-field. In some of the 
 French railway stations, which had been 
 fortified, French workmen were engaged 
 in taking down the stockades and level- 
 ling the earthworks, — most eloquent 
 protestation against the prolongation of 
 hostilities. Throughout the occupied 
 country there was but one spirit manifest, 
 — a spirit of conciliation; but. where 
 the heavy hand of the invader had not 
 been felt there was no doubt of the war- 
 like determination of the people. 
 
 Bordeaux was proud of the distinction 
 conferred upon it, and offered as a meet- 
 ing place of the Assembly its beautiful 
 theatre, which stands in one of the many 
 handsome squares of the city. We 
 found that at least forty thousand 
 strangers had flocked into Bordeaux to 
 witness the final act of the great drama. 
 The hotels were crowded, the streets 
 were filled witli elegant equipages, in 
 which the Parisians, dressed in black, 
 the color of their despair, were con- 
 stantly parading. Hundreds of soldiers 
 wandered to and fro, many of them, 
 I suspect, never getting to the regiments 
 which were awaiting them. Every day 
 detachments of awkward-looking youth, 
 with new guns in their big hands, went 
 through the principal streets, witli un- 
 practised drummers at their head ; and, 
 on the principal square, long lines of 
 boys, at morning, noon, and night, were 
 going through military drill under the 
 guidance of gruff and red-nosed old ser- 
 geants. On this same square stood three 
 hundred cannon, which had but recently 
 
386 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM 
 
 arrived from America : and iu the great 
 shining river were moored numerous 
 ships, said to contain ample store of 
 muskets and other weapons from the 
 same sympathetic country beyond t lie sen. 
 No National Assembly had been held 
 in France since 1849, and, as the actual 
 machinery and reports and electoral 
 commissions had to be conducted with 
 the greatest care, it was not strange that 
 the great body of representatives accom- 
 plished little before the middle of Febru- 
 ary. Postal communications were sus- 
 pended in forty-three departments of 
 France ; and, although Count Von P>is- 
 lnarck had expressed his desire that the 
 elections should he conducted without 
 the slightest interference from the Ger- 
 mans, it was well known that all letters 
 and telegrams from the French govern- 
 ment to its prefects and other local func- 
 tionaries were opened and Carefully read 
 by the Germans. A week alter the 
 convocations not more than half the 
 deputies had succeeded in reaching Bor- 
 deaux; and the fifteen committees into 
 which the seven hundred and fifty-three 
 members were usually divided were in a 
 very incomplete state. The President 
 
 was even obliged to announce that twen- 
 ty-five members would constitute a full 
 committee tor the first few days. The 
 Orleanists were said to be working with 
 great earnestness, and, until the Parisdel- 
 egation arrived, there were rumors every 
 day that an Orleanist coup d'Etnt might 
 lie expected. The fifteen journals of 
 Bordeaux kept the air filled with most 
 astonishing rumors, magnifying every 
 trifling incident into a dancer for the 
 country. Put the local National Guard 
 behaved most sensibly, and organized a 
 service, through the town and around the 
 meeting place of the Assembly, which 
 effectually prevented riots and attempts 
 at riots. 
 
 ( >n the 13th the curtain rose on the 
 first session in the great theatre. An 
 aged ex-deputy of the old Republican 
 Assembly was called to the chair. At his 
 right sal the Moderates and the Royal- 
 ists in very great numbers, conspicuous 
 among them being M. Thiers and the 
 Duke Decazes. On the left, calm and 
 passionless, sat M. Jules Favre, bowed 
 down by work and grief, and evidently 
 
 anxious to escape particular notice. 
 Next in order to him were Jules Simon, 
 Emmanuel Arago, Pelletan, ( rlais-Bizoin, 
 Garnier-Pages, the temporary minister 
 
 of marine, and the stiff and decorous 
 General Le Flo, Minister of War. 
 
 Gambetta, who after his resignation 
 from the government of National De- 
 fense had been chosen as their delegate 
 by the people of no less than ten depart- 
 ments, was not present on this occasion ; 
 but the thin audience of diplomats, 
 ladies, and the favored journalists who 
 had obtained tickets, was continually 
 asking for him. The story of his organ- 
 ization of the defense had set the seal 
 upon his renown, which was now dis- 
 tinctly great. 
 
 Garibaldi hobbled in early in the after- 
 noon, and sat on a bench remote from 
 any party, an action which was misin- 
 terpreted and commented upon with the 
 amusing French attention to small details. 
 In the diplomatic /»«/''• Lord Lyons, the 
 Prince De Metternich, and the Chevalier 
 Nigra of Italy were the only noticeable 
 figures. After the opening speech was 
 finished the action of the old hero was 
 seen to have its significance, for he had 
 sent a letter to the President's desk, say- 
 ing that he renounced all claim to the 
 title of deputy, with which he had been 
 honored in several departments; and he 
 sought later on to explain his reason for 
 this refusal to accept the honor offered 
 him, but the Right started a great tumult, 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 387 
 
 which almost caused a violent encounter 
 between the opposing parties in the 
 Assembly. The spectators in the galleries 
 shouted and shook their lists like mad 
 men and women ; and all this for nothing 
 at all, save that Garibaldi had tried to 
 make a speech ; that he 
 had resigned as deputy, 
 and was consequently out 
 of order. 
 
 At this session Jules 
 Favre made a plain and 
 straightforward speech, 
 in which he gave into the 
 Hands of the representa- 
 tives of the people the 
 resignation of the gov- 
 ernment of National De- 
 fense. "We arc ready," 
 he said, "to answer to 
 you for all our acts, con- 
 vinced that we shall meet 
 in their examination only 
 the loyalty and justice 
 by which yon will lie in- 
 spired in all your deliber- 
 ations." This speeeli of 
 Jules Favre made a great 
 sensation in Bordeaux. 
 To an Anglo-Saxon 
 nothing seemed more rea- 
 sonable and proper than 
 that the head of the 
 provisional government 
 should quietly lay his 
 powers at the people's 
 feet when the occasion 
 demanded it; but the 
 suspicious and questioning southern 
 French had imagined that there would 
 be a conflict for the possession of author- 
 ity ; that M. Jules Favre and his col- 
 leagues would object to giving up their 
 places, and doubtless M. Favre's correct 
 and dignified attitude increased the faith 
 of these southern populations in the 
 
 Republic. None who were in the theatre 
 that day will forget the kindly voice, the 
 classic head crowned with the silver 
 hair, the eloquent, musical voice, that 
 told the French people the value and 
 dignity of conscience, and declared fe:n- 
 
 ' i '^-.-..',u ill ii!(. 1 ,: :j r,;!^|p;r 1 
 
 mass of the 
 
 GARIBALDI AT BORDEAUX. 
 
 lessly to them that they were beaten 
 and chastised for their sins of omission 
 and commission. Jules Favre counselled 
 the French nation to hasten its decision 
 in this Assembly , and he was wise. In a 
 day or two it was evident that M. Thiers 
 and the party grouped directly around 
 him were to have the complete control 
 of events at Bordeaux. The venerable 
 
388 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CADI. 
 
 statesman had taken up Ms abode at the 
 H6tel de France, where he was within 
 a few minutes' walk of the Assembly, and 
 where all the leading statesmen, politi- 
 cians, and generals also installed them- 
 selves. 
 
 M. Thiers, like all the other Repub- 
 lican politicians who had come directly 
 into contact with the Germans, realized 
 that the Assembly must declare peace 
 rather than war; and he said so pretty 
 frankly in the interviews which he 
 accorded to the seekers after truth. The 
 Assembly was speed}" to recognize M. 
 Thiers as its leader, and while it placed at 
 its head as its working president M. Jules 
 Grcvy, destined afterwards to become 
 the President of the Republic, its first 
 political proposition was that M. Thiers 
 should be made chief of Executive 
 Power, exercising his functions under 
 the control of the National Assembly, 
 with the advice and counsel of ministers 
 to be chosen and presided over by him- 
 self. Although all parties recognized 
 him as a sincere patriot, all the ad- 
 vanced and radical Republicans feared 
 that he would try to bring back an Orlean- 
 ist. lie repeatedly declared that he had 
 no Orleanist sympathies, no hostile in- 
 tentions to the newly launched Republic, 
 anil nothing made him more indignant 
 than hints that he was trifling with the 
 liberties of the people. 
 
 Early in the session the deputies from 
 the departments of the Lower Rhine, 
 the Upper Rhine, the Moselle, and the 
 Meurthe presented their protest and decla- 
 ration, stating that Alsace and Lorraine 
 did not wish to he alienated from France ; 
 that, associated for more than two cen- 
 turies with the French in good as in evil 
 fortune, they had always sacrificed them- 
 selves to the national grandeur; and that 
 they signified to Germany and to the 
 world their firm deteimination to remain 
 
 French whatever might befall them. " Eu- 
 rope," they sail 1 in their declaration, " can 
 neither permit nor ratify the desertion of 
 Alsace-Lorraine by France." The clos- 
 ing words of this document were very 
 eloquent. "We hereby proclaim," said 
 the signers of the declaration, " the for- 
 ever inviolable right of the Alsatians 
 and (he people of Lorraine to remain 
 members of the great French family, and 
 we swear both for ourselves and for those 
 whom we represent, as well as for our 
 children and our children's children, eter- 
 nally and by every possible and practical 
 means to insist upon this light against 
 the usurpers." M. Keller, an eloquent 
 and passionate man, was the leader of 
 this delegation, and some of his speeches, 
 in which he urged the country not to give 
 up the provinces so firmly demanded by 
 Germany, were characterized by great 
 elevationof thoughtand beauty of diction. 
 At the close of February the country 
 had become fully enlightened as to the 
 necessity of speedy peace. The capital 
 was menaced with a huge insurrection, 
 and it was thought prudent to prepare for 
 a government at Versailles; but how to 
 return there when it was occupied by the 
 conqueror? Whichever way the deputies 
 turned they were confronted by this hate- 
 ful question of peace. There were as 
 many opinions as men. Louis Blanc, 
 Victor Hugo, Edgar Quinet, Rochefort, 
 Schielchcr, Gambetta, and Henri Martin 
 the historian ; Delescluze, with the shadow 
 of his coming fate already on his gloomy 
 brow ; Lockroy, Lane, Brisson, Edmond 
 Adam, Clemenceau, the great and good 
 M. Littre, Floquet, and so many others 
 who have since taken a prominent part 
 in the conduct of their country's des- 
 tinies, — each had his scheme for steer- 
 ing the nation through the breakers, and 
 no one seemed willing to yield to any 
 other. 
 
EUROTE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 389 
 
 There were moments when a vote of 
 any distinct proposition for peace seemed 
 impossible. 
 
 M. Thiers had been elected deputy 
 from twenty-six departments ; conse- 
 quently there was but little opposition 
 to the confirmation of his powers as chief 
 of the executive, and in the session of 
 the 19th he presented his new cabinet, in 
 which Jules Favre, Jules Simon, and other 
 distinguished Republicans had prominent 
 places. After this was done, the Assem- 
 bly took a recess; and meantime M. 
 Thiers returned to Paris, and went to 
 Versailles, to see what was the final will 
 of the invader. 
 
 At the close of the month lie returned 
 quite worn out, the railway accident on 
 the journey and the species of prostra- 
 tion into which he had fallen, consequent 
 on the heavy demands of the Prussians, 
 seeming likely to cause a dangerous ill- 
 ness ; but the old man's fiery soul soon 
 revived the wearied frame, and he had 
 been in town hardly an hour before he 
 was at the Assembly, talking freely with 
 the members in the committee rooms, 
 and preparing his colleagues for a vote 
 upon the final act, which had been elab- 
 orated during his absence, and which 
 was conceived as follows: — 
 
 "The Chief of Executive Power of the 
 French Republic proposes to the National 
 Assembly the act, -the tenor of which is 
 as under : — 
 
 "The National Assembly, suffering 
 the consequence of deeds with which it 
 had nothing to do, approves the pre- 
 liminaries of peace, the text of which is 
 annexed, and which were signed at Ver- 
 sailles, on the 26th of February, 1871 , by 
 the Chief of Executive Power and the 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French 
 Republic on the one hand ; 
 
 "And on the other hand by the German 
 Chancellor, Count Otto Von Bismarck- 
 
 Schoenhausen, the Minister of State and 
 of Foreign Affairs of His Majesty the 
 King of Bavaria, the Minister of For- 
 eign Affairs to His Majesty the King of 
 Wurtemburg, and the Minister of State 
 representing His Royal Highness the 
 Grand Duke of Baden ; 
 
 " And authorizes the Chief of Executive 
 Power and the Minister of Foreign Affairs 
 to exchange preliminaries of peace, the 
 reading of which has been made in the 
 National Assembly, and the authentic 
 copy of which remains in the archives 
 of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs." 
 
 It was said that M. Thiers lost his tem- 
 per during the final discussion with the 
 German chancellor, and cried in a fretful 
 humor, " Well, take the whole of France, 
 and make the best of it! " but soon af- 
 terwards was subdued and solemn, and 
 proceeded to the serious business of the 
 harrowing session. 
 
 The 1st of March, the day after M. 
 Thiers's return from Versailles, was 
 full of gloom. M. Thiers had asked the 
 Chamber to act with all speed, reasons 
 of the greatest, gravity exacting that the 
 treaty should be at once ratified. He 
 added that " the ratification would be 
 the signal for the return of our prisoners 
 and the evacuation of a part of our ter- 
 ritory, including Paris." This was un- 
 derstood to mean that the Prussians 
 were in Paris. The newspapers without 
 exception appeared with their pages in 
 mourning ; the ladies on the streets 
 were all in black; the soldiers and offi- 
 cers on duty around the theatre where 
 the Assembly met wore crape upon their 
 sleeves and on their weapons; there 
 was no enthusiasm manifest as M. 
 Thiers went to the Assembly, nor on his 
 return. 
 
 On the Place de la Comedie there 
 was a motley crowd, which waited all 
 through the session to hear the first 
 
390 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND (AIM. 
 
 news of the decision as to the country's 
 destiny. The soldiers formed n hollow 
 square, which kept back the masses 
 from the approaches to the theatre; and 
 all around them were hundreds of soldiers 
 and officers, in greal variety of uniform, 
 — Francs-Tireurs, in leather leggings, 
 Alpine hats, and short swords ; brawny 
 young Mobiles, with sunburnt faces and 
 awkward gray coats ; showy gendarmes, 
 in blue and black, with folds of white, 
 silver cord upon their breasts, and with 
 their carbines at the saddle-bows of 
 their horses; rusty-looking liners in 
 battle-stained uniforms, who were much 
 petted and patted on the back by enthu- 
 siastic ladies ; priests, division generals, 
 newspaper men, army contractors, for- 
 eigners, German spies, scores upon scores 
 of men packed together, and waiting 
 patiently for the close of the historic de- 
 liberations. 
 
 Trumpets rattled, and bugles brayed. 
 Victor Hugo, followed by a little group 
 of Radical literary men. went through the 
 hollow square, hearing on every side 
 whispers of admiration. No one seemed 
 to have the courage to speak aloud. 
 The Alsatian deputies were respectfully 
 saluted. Gambetta had sent word that 
 lie would come to the Assembly only 
 when the discussion on peace began. 
 Gambetta was ill. worried, insane, — said 
 rumors in the crowd. — could not sleep 
 nights, wandered up and down in his 
 room, gazing out of window. The 
 tremendous efforts which he had made 
 since September had told greatly upon 
 
 him. lie was pale, his thick black 
 locks were in disorder, and there was a 
 suggestive stoop in his shoulders, from 
 which he never rceo\ ered. 
 
 By good fortune, and the courtesy of 
 the Chief of Executive Tower to M. 
 Louis Blanc, I .secured a ticket for the 
 session, and was somewhat surprised 
 
 and confused to find that it ushered me 
 into the presidential hnjr, M. Thiers 
 doubtless having, with the courtesy tra- 
 ditional in legislative circles, conferred 
 his best ticket upon his sternest adver- 
 sary. The great theatre was but dimly 
 lighted : but there was no doubt that the 
 deputies were in their places, for a roar 
 of dispute came up from the orchestra 
 stalls, and the President was furiously 
 ringing his bell. In the loge <h- In l'n'si- 
 dence, Madame Thiers, surrounded by 
 a little group of charming girls, was 
 quietly viewing the scene, and the vari- 
 ous Radicals were pointed out to her 
 and to the other guests by one of the 
 priests of her parish church in Paris, 
 whose comments on his political enemies 
 were quaint and satirical. 
 
 The new deputies, who had been pre- 
 vented by exceptional circumstances in 
 their departments from arriving at the 
 first session, were now all in their 
 places; therefore the President and all 
 the members of his bureau had been 
 placed upon the stage. The curtain was 
 up, and displayed M. (Irevy with his 
 head bowed on his desk. One might 
 almost have fancied him at prayer, 
 before he touched the bell a second time 
 and arose. He uttered but one sentence, 
 according the tribune to an Alsatian dep- 
 uty, who at once began a vigorous 
 protest in the name of those whom he 
 represented against the giving up of the 
 provinces whence he came. Then fol- 
 lowed a hubbub. This called the 
 painful matter too quickly to the surface. 
 We were first to hear a lengthy report on 
 the peace preliminaries, lint now came 
 other protests against the cession of Al- 
 sace and Lorraine, the members standing 
 like Leonidas and his comrades in the 
 
 gap. 
 
 A little way "ft- in a quiet street, a 
 man in the prime of life, and until re- 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 391 
 
 cently robust in health, lay broken in 
 spirit and dying. Every few minutes 
 some one of the deputies sent from the 
 Assembly to inquire after the brave- 
 hearted man, who could not bear to see 
 the disgrace of his country 
 and the deal' old province 
 whence lie came. The phy- 
 sicians said lie would not live 
 until the morrow, this fine- 
 spirited Mayor of Strasbourg, 
 and thai he might depart 
 with the turn of the tide 
 from light to dark. 
 
 On the minister's bench, 
 at the front on the right, M. 
 Thiers and Jules Simon were 
 in close conference, and 
 shaking their heads dubious- 
 ly from time to time. M. 
 Simon was doubtless telling 
 his chief how strong the Al- 
 satian protests had grown 
 since M. Thiers's visit to Ver- 
 sailles, and what a battle 
 they might expect that after- 
 noon. 
 
 Now came a huge man 
 with a bulky manuscript. It 
 was M. Le Franc, with the 
 report of the dolorous pro- 
 ceedings at Prussian head- 
 quarters, and what his com- 
 mittee, charged to examine 
 the aforesaid, thought about 
 it. ( hi the left there was great 
 agitation. Hugo, Louis Blanc, 
 Floquet, and others took seats 
 together, as if arranging some preconcerted 
 movement. The report of the committee 
 seemed to evolve nothing except the 
 horrible consequences that would over- 
 whelm France should she refuse the 
 treaty. "The prolongation of the armis- 
 tice," said the reporter, " is refused. 
 The forts of Paris are occupied, the 
 
 enceinte is disarmed. Farther away 
 the inimical armies are massed at the 
 extreme limits of the district covered by 
 the armistice. There they face our 
 disorganized armies and our population, 
 
 VICTOR HUGO AT BORDEAUX. 
 
 that is already beginning to hope for 
 
 peace." These words grated harshly On 
 the ears of sonic patriots in the gallery, 
 and they shouted out: "You are a Prus- 
 sian, and so is every one who talks as 
 you do ! " 
 
 There was no applause when the re- 
 porter had finished. Every one had 
 
392 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 listened with breathless interest, and many years, was now seen. M. Conti 
 
 knew how lie should vote. Meantime demanded permission to address the 
 
 Edgar Quiuet, representing the Republi- Assembly, and as he stepped down to 
 
 <-an Left, entered the tribune, and claimed cross the aisle to the tribune a perfect 
 
 to be heard because he had studied the howl of rage and derision followed him. 
 
 policy of Germany and Prussia for a The agitation could not have been 
 
 great part of his lifetime. lie was greater had the ex-Emperor suddenly 
 
 listened to with impatience. '•The appeared as the embodied misfortune of 
 
 feudal state of Germany," he said. France, the walking shadow of Woerth 
 
 " avenges itself upon our free democratic and Sedan and Wilhelmshohe. The 
 
 institutions by making them contribute Alsatian deputy gave way only for a mo- 
 
 to our ruin. By this treaty peace is nut ment, and Conti proceeded to ascend the 
 
 secured, but war, and war to the knife tribune steps. As he went up. a man 
 
 will soon be resumed." lie declared, near the tribune darted out from a group 
 
 " Prussia wishes not only our fall, but of friends, and was about to seize the 
 
 our annihilation." daring Imperialist and hurl him down to 
 
 M. Thiers started up, half angered on the floor below ; but two or three caught 
 
 hearing M. Quinet thus denounce the him by the arms. Yet he struggled to get 
 
 preliminaries of peace. Meantime, away, screamed for vengeance, did this 
 
 through the crowds at the foot of the excitable Langlois of Paris, — Langlois 
 
 tribune, a stout figure was vigorously who fought so well at Montretout, — and 
 
 making its way. Five minutes after- the tumult continued. From gallery and 
 
 wards this figure was in the tribune, and from diplomatic loges came expressions 
 
 order in the Assembly was submerged of surprise, anger, and fright. Ladies 
 
 in the most frightful confusion that ever arose as if about to leave their seats. 
 
 upset a legislative body. The mention The President tried in vain to maintain 
 
 of one almost-forgotten but odious order; but Conti, with indomitable Cor- 
 
 name had done this. A deputy from sican persistance, had scaled the tribune, 
 
 Strasbourg had ventured to say that the ami, despite the shouts, opened his lips 
 
 proposed treaty was lit to he signed by to defend his late protector. The 
 
 only one man, and that that man was spectacle of the excitable, passionate 
 
 Napoleon III. At the utterance of this audience looking up at him as he spoke 
 
 name, which awoke so many unpleasant must have almost appalled him. There 
 
 memories, not only all deputies present were three men standing at the tribune's 
 
 reproached the orator, but the hundreds foot, looking as if they could almost have 
 
 of spectators muttered their comments, stilled him as he came down, lint Conti 
 
 There was great excitement on the was very cool and collected. lie had 
 ministerial bench, for the treaty had heard the cry of the Paris mob, and had 
 been called odious and a death-warrant, received deskfuls of mysterious threat- 
 Just as M. Thiers was about to reply, ening letters ; had seen many an ad vent- 
 and had begun his speech in an angry ure in political life; had been a member 
 voice, sonic one was heard defending the of another constitutional assembly, and 
 Emperor. Every member of the As- voted for Cavaignac, as he afterwards 
 sembly turned to see who it was. The said. That vote served his purpose but 
 staid anil respectable form of M. Conti, little. lie hail gone oyer to the Impe- 
 special secretary to the late Emperor for rialist faction, and been successively 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 393 
 
 member of the Council of State, special 
 secretary, and even senator. He had 
 lost a line position by the Emperor's fall, 
 but could not refrain from putting his 
 head in through tlie curtains, and saying 
 once more : " Here we are again." 
 
 His plan was clear. He had heard 
 that the Assembly proposed to declare 
 the total wreck of the Empire. He 
 feared it, and wished to rally the small 
 forces at his disposition. There was 
 perhaps a faint hope that universal 
 suffrage might be diverted to the profit 
 of the Empire once more. 
 
 But he was compelled by the storm of 
 hisses and reproaches to descend from 
 the tribune, and, coming down, he met 
 Victor Hugo, wlio glared fiercely at him 
 and then turned his back upon him. 
 
 A little knot of men, who had been 
 consulting together for some ten minutes, 
 now broke up. One of them went into 
 the tribune, and in tremulous tones 
 read a motion, hailed with furious bra- 
 vos, confirming the downfall of Na- 
 poleon HI. and his dynasty, as al- 
 ready pronounced by universal suffrage, 
 and declaring that dynasty responsible 
 fur the ruin, the invasion, and the dis- 
 memberment of France. 
 
 Some few Bonapartists endeavored 
 once more to protest ; but this was too 
 much for the patience of M. Thiers, who 
 fairly scrambled into the tribune, and, 
 standing in his favorite attitude, with 
 one hand placed on the front of the 
 tribune, began a fiery little speech. " I 
 have heard," he said, in his piping voice, 
 " from the lips of sovereigns, that the 
 Imperial princes you represent say that 
 they were not blameworthy for the dec- 
 laration of war; that it was France who 
 should bear the blame. They say that 
 we are the culpable ones. 1 wish firmly 
 to deny this, in the presence of :ill 
 Europe. No ! France did not wish for 
 
 the war," — and here the old gentleman 
 began fiercely to pound the tribune rail, — 
 " it was you, who now protest, you alone, 
 who wanted war ! Do not talk to us of 
 the services rendered to France by the 
 Empire ! " and, giving a final bang to 
 the rail, he retired indignantly. 
 
 Every member of the Assembly was 
 now on his feet, and shouts of assent to 
 M. Thiers's statement were heard from 
 every quarter except one. The Corsi- 
 cans rallied, however, and a lawyer from 
 Bastia, named Gavini, attempted to 
 speak ; but he was silenced, and when the 
 President called on all who agreed to the 
 proposition declaring the Empire dead 
 to rise, only six — the half-dozen Impe- 
 rial deputies — remained seated. 
 
 Conti had certainly hastened the fu- 
 neral of the Second Empire. 
 
 Thenceforward the members of the 
 Left had the session in their hands, and 
 proceeded in regular order with their 
 protests against the treaty. M. Bam- 
 berger, the Alsatian deputy, who had 
 unwittingly provoked the Conti incident, 
 painted a glowing picture of the devo- 
 tion of Strasbourg to France and her 
 appeals for help. Then came Victor 
 Hugo, with his slow and labored delivery, 
 his long pauses for effect, his antitheses, 
 his periods of passionate declamation, and 
 his lion-like glances around the Assem- 
 bly. His speech was disappointing, but 
 was listened to with profound attention. 
 His eulogy of Paris made the deputies 
 uneasy. This was not a time to talk of 
 heroisms: we were making peace; and, 
 when he spoke of delivering Germany 
 from her Emperor, even as Germany had 
 delivered France from hers, a smile flit- 
 ted across the faces of the deputies. 
 The great poet was not in his best form 
 in these early days after his return. It 
 was only a short time after this session 
 that he went out of the tribune in a fit of 
 
304 
 
 ET'ROn-: IN STORM A. YD CALM. 
 
 anger, wrote his resignation, and stalked 
 away from the Assembly, because he had 
 not been listened to with what he consid- 
 ered proper attention. 
 
 The only other speakersof importance 
 on this memorable day were M. Vache- 
 rot, the noted philosopher, and at that 
 time one of the Mayors of Paris, who 
 spoke earnestly and with deep conviction 
 for peace, because, in his opinion, war was 
 impossible. Time, he maintained, would 
 show the Prussians that they could not 
 deal with populations as with lands. 
 
 Louis Blanc had reserved for himself 
 in the day's programme the enunciation 
 of 1 1n* non possiimus and the conscien- 
 tious review of the right and wrong of 
 the treaty. His speech was, in some 
 respects, the best, certainly the most ex- 
 haustive, which the Assembly heard, 
 and was listened to with unflagging in- 
 terest, from the fine opening statement, 
 thai nothing was durable here below 
 save justice, to the close, when he begged 
 the Assembly to declare to Europe 
 thai to take away the quality of French- 
 men from Frenchmen exceeded her 
 power. The audience was spellbound. 
 The right and wrong discussed thus at 
 this meeting would not have been 
 listened to had a less skilful and pro- 
 found thinker been in the tribune. 
 There was something subtle in Louis 
 Blanc's characterization of Prussia as a 
 monarchy whose enlargement was due 
 
 solely to tWO crimes, — the theft of 
 
 Silesia and the division cf Poland 
 His summing up of the situation was as 
 true as epigrammatic. " It is not be- 
 tween war to the death and peace that 
 you are required to choose : it is be- 
 tween war for the maintenance of law 
 and right, and peace for the violation of 
 right; between war for honor and peace 
 at the price of honor." 
 
 General Chansjarhier's feeble voice 
 
 and tottering frame next appealed for 
 peace, and the venerable warrior thought 
 it his duty to cast a stone into the camp 
 of the Left, whose definitions in favor 
 of the moral right he did not recognize. 
 •• I fear," he said, " that such discus- 
 sions will make the enemy lose its re- 
 spect for this Assembly." 
 
 Deputies from the department of the 
 Vosges, who thought it their duty to 
 abstain from voting because they could 
 not bear the thought of prolonged war, 
 yet would not vote their own separation 
 from their countrymen, were rebuked in 
 a liery manner by the only one from the 
 same department who had not joined 
 them. This rebuke brought M. Thiers 
 once more to the tribune to ask all to 
 vote loyally, according to their con- 
 sciences, and not to trifle with false patri- 
 otism. 
 
 At last the deputy, Keller, from Alsa- 
 tia, had his final appeal, in which he 
 called the proposed treaty an injustice, 
 a falsehood, a dishonor. Then came 
 the vote, and an hour of weary waiting 
 for the result : and when the members 
 had all passed over the platform on 
 which stood the fatal urn. and the sec- 
 retaries had slowly counted, the bell was 
 rung, ami every one of the deputies and 
 nearly every person present stood up to 
 hear the result declared. 
 
 The vote was for peace. 546 to 107. 
 The treaty which took' away Alsatia and 
 the greater part of Lorraine from France 
 was ratified; the ransom of five millions 
 of francs was agreed to; and the broken 
 armies of France might now dissolve and 
 go back to the plough, the forge, and the 
 counting-room. 
 
 M. Keller, who had been sitting bowed, 
 with his face hidden in his hands, while 
 his colleagues voted, now climbed tip the 
 steps once more, and there was a dead 
 silence as he stood confronting the As- 
 
EUROVF. IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 395 
 
 seiubly. As he bade farewell to those 
 
 in whom he had not found protect! 
 
 and with his colleagues announced his 
 withdrawal from the Assembly, his atti- 
 tude was full of a noble dignity. ''I 
 call," he said, " to take up the sword, 
 every man who desires to have this de- 
 testable treaty burned and trampled upon 
 as soon as it is possible." 
 
 Then the uniformed usher opened the 
 door of our box, and we regained the 
 open air. It was bright sunlight when 
 we entered, darkness of night when we 
 came out ; and the darkness had fallen 
 upon the hearts of the people. 
 
 Next day we heard that the good 
 Mayor of Strasbourg was dead. The sil- 
 ver cord was loosed by the cruel shock of 
 the news of the vote for peace. Hun- 
 
 dreds of deputies and all the foreigners 
 visiting Bordeaux went in respectful 
 procession to the railway station when 
 the Mayor's little funeral started for 
 .Strasbourg, and a few days afterwards 
 the populace of the conquered city 
 poured forth by thousands to the ceme- 
 tery where the Mayor, who was univer- 
 sally beloved, was buried. Patriotic 
 speeches were made at the open grave, 
 although a display of French sentiment 
 in Strasbourg was dangerous in those 
 days; audit is said that when tin- pro- 
 cession, returning to the gates of the 
 towu, was halted, according to custom, 
 by the sentinel, who said, "Who goes 
 there?" the whole crowd in concert, and 
 as if moved by one unanimous impulse, 
 answered, " France! " 
 
596 
 
 EUROPE l.\ STOIIM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER F( >RTY-TWO. 
 
 Garibaldi and Hi- l!"l. --NVw Italy. -The Upgrowth of Her Nationality. — Causes that Hindered It 
 
 and C luccd t<> It. — The Influence "I' Napoleon Third. — His Fatal Mistake in Counselling the 
 
 Alliance of Prussia and Italy. — Downfall of the Old French Monarchical Policy. - - The Hesitation 
 of France. — Occupation of Rome l>\ tin' Italian Government. — The Pontifical Zouaves. 
 
 GARIBALDI was one of tin- lions tit 
 Bordeaux so long as he chose t < > 
 remain in the extemporized capital, and 
 
 t" show himself in the street, or in the 
 lobbies of the Assembly, from which lie 
 htul resigned with so much dignity. His 
 serene and heroic countenance, his frank 
 gaze, his dignified carriage, and his slow 
 ami imposing gestures were all carefully 
 noted and chronicled. His sayings were 
 reported with utmost fidelity, and where- 
 ever he went he was followed by attentive 
 stenographers. 
 
 The Radicals, ami. indeed, most of the 
 advanced Republicans, did not hesitate to 
 call him the only successful genei'al on 
 the French side in the recent campaign. 
 
 When he left the Assembly, after hav- 
 ing given in his resignation, he made a 
 little address on the steps of the theatre, 
 in which hf said that he had always 
 known how to distinguish monarchical 
 France, the France of the clergy, from 
 Republican France. The first two. to his 
 thinking, merited only execration, 'mi Re- 
 publican France was worthy of all love and 
 devotion. The Radicals were so pleased 
 with Garibaldi that when the Commune 
 was installed tit the Hotel de Ville, in the 
 following month, tin appointment in what 
 ii was pleased to call its army was given 
 him ; but the grand old patriot did not 
 soil his skirts with contact with those 
 noisy swashbucklers who steeped their 
 brains in wine, and damped their swords 
 in the blood of their brethren. He was 
 
 tin eagle, but did not consort with vul- 
 tures ; a hero of insurrections, who had 
 never forgotten thai he was a gentleman. 
 
 The presence of Garibaldi at Bor- 
 deaux brought forcibly to mind the great 
 changes which htul been going on in the 
 Italian peninsula since the influence of 
 the second French Empire htul begun to 
 weaken and totter towards its tall. In 
 these events Garibaldi had played a shin- 
 ing part. His career had often been 
 checked by his fortune ; the French Em- 
 pire, which lie had so detested, had 
 placed its bayonets tit the disposition of 
 his adversaries ; but he lived to see 
 " Italy free from the Alps to the sea," 
 and to witness the complete discomfiture 
 of the man who in his early and ardent 
 youth had professed a warm enthusiasm 
 for the cause of Italian nationality, and 
 who in his mature middle life htul found 
 the support of his nobler ideals incom- 
 patible with the success of his Imperial 
 fortunes. 
 
 Tlic volcanic forces which had been 
 so mysteriously tit work in Europe for 
 many years htul, as it were, shaken and 
 fused together into one composite and 
 homogeneous mass the long separated 
 States of Italy. The hind of volcanoes 
 ami earthquakes htul been convulsed 
 politically, and to its lasting profit. The 
 great movement in favor of Italian unity 
 was no more to be checked by the hand 
 of the fallen French Emperor, or to be 
 hindered by a show of French bayonets 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 397 
 
 in Rome than the lightning in the heavens 
 or the sweep of the winds. The suc- 
 cession of wars from 18G4 to 1870, by 
 which Prussia asserted her supremacy on 
 the Continent, culminating in the tre- 
 mendous struggle and series of victories 
 which we have just outlined, had defi- 
 nitely closed the era of the old monarch- 
 ical policy in France, a policy which con- 
 sisted in pushing the French frontier 
 as far as possible away from Paris and 
 in preventing the cooperation of small 
 states which were neighbors to France. 
 
 Although it is perhaps wise to believe 
 in the mysterious dispensation which 
 brings about the unity of peoples, and 
 creates, despite the harshness of fate 
 and of circumstance, new and powerful 
 nations, it is still an open question 
 whether Italy and Germany would have 
 been unified within their respective 
 bounds for a generation to come had it 
 not been for the weakness of the late 
 policy of Napoleon III. Among the 
 most sincere friends of the late Emperor 
 there are many critics who maintain that, 
 when the French Emperor advised Italy 
 to make its alliance with Prussia in 1866, 
 he opened the door to all the disasters 
 which finally fell upon his government,. 
 This treaty, signed in April of 1866, bore 
 within its breast the germ of Italian 
 unity, the German empire, the suppres- 
 sion of the Temporal Power, the fall of 
 the Imperial dynasty, the dismember- 
 ment of France, and the Communal in- 
 surrection. This is a French view, 
 which is perhaps pessimistic ; yet we 
 have on record the singular saying of 
 Bismarck, when he came back from 
 Biarritz, where the arrangements for the 
 treaty had been made, " If Italy had 
 not existed we should have had to invent 
 her ! " 
 
 Napoleon's assent to this treaty was 
 singular when contrasted with his vacil- 
 
 lating attitude with regard to Rome; 
 but in those days of 186G he had begun 
 the policy which conducted him to his 
 ruin. He counted without his host 
 when he founded all his hope upon the 
 issue of a conflict between Austria and 
 Prussia, a conflict which he hoped to pro- 
 voke by abetting the alliance between 
 Prussia and Italy. It is not strange that 
 the French monarchists call the man who 
 was their Imperial master for half a gen- 
 eration a •• fatal man," for he rendered 
 the future practice of their time-conse- 
 crated policy utterly impossible. M. 
 Thiers, the old and wily monarchist, had 
 sounded his note of alarm in the great 
 debate on the Roman question in the Corps 
 Ligislatif'm December of 1.S07, when he 
 cried out: " No sovereign should volun- 
 tarily create on his own frontier a State 
 of twenty-five millions of inhabitants. 
 Italy, in becoming a great monarchy, 
 at the same time becomes a. disturbing 
 agent and an instrument of revolution. 
 The Germanic federation, which for 
 twenty years was the main authority 
 for maintaining the peace of the world, 
 has disappeared, and has been replaced 
 by a military monarchy, which disposes 
 of forty millions of men ; and you are 
 placed between two unities, one which 
 you made and the other which you per- 
 mitted." 
 
 This wail of M. Thiers for the lost 
 balance of power was hailed with genuine 
 delight by the aspiring spirits in Italy 
 and Germany, who were panting for the 
 consummation of national unity. 
 
 Had Napoleon III. kept his plighted 
 word to the French Republic before 1852, 
 perhaps the dream of Italy might have 
 been sooner realized, and there might 
 have been some hope of a Latin feder- 
 ation, — hope which may now be set aside 
 as vain. But Napoleon as Emperor 
 really set back the progress of Italy 
 
398 
 
 EUROPE f.Y STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 towards lull national stature All iliat 
 he bad clone for the country in 1859 was 
 as naught in the eyes of the Italians so 
 long as his bayonets glittered in the 
 streets of Rome. When Rouher in liis 
 famous speech said that Italy would 
 never enter Rome, the revolutionists 
 beyond the Alps trembled with wrath, 
 and General De Failly's cool remark that 
 the '" chassepGts had done marvels" at 
 Mentana awoke resentment in the Ital- 
 ian mind which the generous French 
 nation, committed to the policy of a 
 government which it detested, was very 
 far from suspecting. 
 
 What wonderful changes had come to 
 
 Italy between 1867 and the close of that 
 fateful vcar of 1870! On that same 
 September day when the Crown Prince 
 of Prussia entered Versailles with his 
 victorious army, the troops <>!' King Vic- 
 tor Emmanuel of Iialv entered Rome 
 altera brief resistance from the Pope's 
 soldiers. M. Iiouher's scornful prophecy 
 had proved false. Italy, on that day 
 which brought disaster to her ancient 
 ally, stood up proud and strong in the 
 face of the world, in full possession of 
 the heritage of which she had been de- 
 prived for more than three hundred and 
 fifty years. What, Italian unity meant 
 to Italians it is almost impossible for 
 Americans tounderstand. This unity had 
 been looked forward to for so lone, and 
 bad been so persistently denied them, 
 that if seemed almost foolish to hope on. 
 In 1848, the greal period of universal 
 revolution in Europe, the Italians almosi 
 clutched the glittering prize ; then il was 
 swept out of their reach once more, and 
 only such stern priests of liberty as 
 Mazzini could keep the lamp of their 
 faith burning brightly in the weary 
 years. All the way down through the 
 generations from Jul ins II., who preached 
 the crusade against the barbarians and 
 
 strangers in the " lovely land of Italy." 
 the country was hopelessly divided. 
 " The Italians." says a despairing writer 
 on Italy, in 1848, "took part, some 
 with France, some with Spain, until at 
 last all Italy laid her weapons at the 
 feet of the fortunate Austrian in 1530. 
 All the interval between Julius II. and 
 Pius VI., between Charles Y. anil Na- 
 poleon, was, for that country, a long 
 agony. Italy was dying. — dying by 
 inches, — dying unconsciously. Tie' 
 chill of death was at the heart; but, by 
 unnatural anomaly from the wonted 
 course of nature, symptoms of vitality 
 weic still discernible at the extremities. 
 
 Milan and Naples were lost ; but Venice 
 
 ami Genoa still stood calm amongst 
 ruins of mediaeval fortune; and Rome, 
 papal Rome, yet preserved some of its 
 prestige, — the vain shadow of spiritual 
 sovereignty. Moreover — and that was 
 yetathird style of supremacy — menstill 
 looked up to Italian genius; for politi- 
 cal annihilation had not yet brought with 
 it mental prostration and degeneracy. 
 
 ••These circumstances contributed to 
 keep up the sad illusion of an Italian 
 existence. The foreign ruler was per- 
 manently established in Lombardy, the 
 centre of Italian wealth in modern limes. 
 He lorded it over both Sicilies, ami from 
 these, his head-quarters, hisnod was law 
 
 at Florence and Pome. He kept the 
 remaining States in continual alarm by 
 open threats, by perfidious intrigues; 
 and these had no defense against him. 
 besides the most scllish, Sllbservien t. 
 pusillanimous policy. 
 
 "All this for nearly three centuries. 
 At the breaking out of the French Revo- 
 lution, in 1789, the death-blow was 
 scarcely needed. Napoleon, in 17'.I7, 
 or his conquerors, in 1814, blotted out 
 Venice' and Genoa, the last cities of 
 genuine Italian growth; 1820 and 1831, 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 399 
 
 stripped Naples, Piedmont, and Rome 
 — those foreign structures of the Holy 
 Alliance, on Italian ground — ■ of their 
 tinsel of nominal self-existence, by 
 throwing them helplessly, for very life, 
 on Austrian protection. From the Alps 
 to the sea the Austrian made himself at 
 home. Where he was not to-day he 
 might be expected to-morrow. All the 
 princes still bearing the name of inde- 
 pendent were only the first of his vassals. 
 Every one of the Italian States presented 
 a melancholy spectacle of a house 
 divided against itself, and it was espe- 
 cially this deep-rooted animosity between 
 government and people that made Italy 
 Austrian throughout. It was a state of 
 things to make many a patriot wish for 
 an actual annexation of this mere Aus- 
 trian dependency to the Austrian mon- 
 archy. The Roman, Neapolitan, and 
 Sardinian governments were, in fact, 
 Austrian with a vengeance." Each suc- 
 cessive revolution in Italy, from 1820 to 
 1848, whether a demand for a French 
 charter or a Spanish constitution, attack 
 upon priestly government or rash insur- 
 rection by hot-headed patriots, without 
 any definite aim except hatred of the 
 Austrian, was crushed with promptness 
 and decision. But this very vigor of the 
 Austrian had for its result the concen- 
 tration of all Italian energies into the 
 national parties. 
 
 Mazzini, early in 1848, declared that 
 the only question henceforth iu Italy was 
 the national one. and that all questions 
 as to the forms of internal policy must 
 be put off until after the close of the war 
 of independence. 
 
 From 1849 to 1859 Austria was then 
 all-powerful in the Italian peninsula. 
 At Modena, at Florence, at Parma, at 
 Naples, and at Rome, the Italians were 
 crushed beneath the Austrian taxes 
 ami the military requisitions. The Lom- 
 
 bard-Venetian kingdom had become an 
 Austrian province. So great were the 
 excesses of the Austrians in the penin- 
 sula that Count Cavour, one of the 
 builders and founders of Italian unity, 
 boldly denounced them ; and it was not 
 long before Piedmont and its sovereign, 
 whose minister Cavour was, saw the 
 Austrian armies arrayed against it. 
 Then, in a generous moment, Napoleon 
 III. espoused the cause of Piedmont, 
 and in swift succession came the battles 
 of Montebello, Palestro, Magenta, and 
 Marignan. Lombardy was swept clear 
 of the Austrians by the victorious French 
 and Italians, and the sanguinary en- 
 counter of Solfcrino brought the cam- 
 paign to an end. 
 
 As the price of the aid which Napoleon 
 gave the Italians in the conflict with the 
 Austrians, the provinces of Nice ami 
 Savoy were transferred to France ; and 
 this had been agreed upon by a secret 
 arrangement, which was not made pub- 
 lic until after the peace. When the 
 populations who had been thus bodily 
 removed from one government to another 
 were called upon to express their ideas 
 on the change, the majority of the votes 
 were favorable to French annexation, 
 and Nice has become, in these latter days, 
 such a jewel iu the Mediterranean garden 
 of cities, such a popular midwinter 
 capital of fashionable pomp and pleasure, 
 that the Italians look longingly towards 
 it, and weep that they cannot have it 
 back again. 
 
 Out of this war came the movement 
 which resulted in the foundation of the 
 constitutional monarchy of Victor Em- 
 manuel. Florence, Parma, Modena, and 
 Bologna declared the downfall of their 
 old governments, and voluntarily an- 
 nexed themselves to the kingdom of 
 Sardinia. This was the first step toward 
 the welding together of the uatiou. 
 
40(1 
 
 El ROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 In Sicily there were insurrections. 
 Garibaldi, :it the head of hi* famous 
 " Thousand," entered Palermo. Sicily 
 was pacified, and Garibaldi came back 
 to Naples in triumph. The events from 
 that time to the present are too well 
 known to need more than hasty recapitu- 
 lation here. Victor Emmanuel entered 
 Naples as its sovereign in 18G0. The 
 populations of Southern Italy finally 
 acknowledged his power. The Italian 
 Parliament met in Turin in 18C1, and in 
 March of that year the kingdom of Italy 
 was proclaimed. Then Garibaldi mani- 
 fested a liery impatience to march upon 
 Home ; but he could not persuade the 
 King to adopt his way of thinking, so 
 he swept down into Sicily, where he 
 raised a. valiant little army, ami was 
 well on his way to Pome to tight the 
 final battle, which would have completed 
 Italian unity, when the King's troops 
 met him at Aspromonte. and held him 
 back. 
 
 All this time France was the chief 
 obstacle to the conquest of Pome. In 
 1864 the French Empire concluded with 
 Italy a treaty, by which Pome- and its 
 neighborhood were to be respected by 
 the Italians, even after the French 
 troops, which had long been the main 
 support of the papacy, were withdrawn 
 from Pome. The Roman question ever 
 since the expedition of 1859 had been 
 a source of grave embarrassment to 
 
 Napoleon III. At, one time be rec - 
 
 mended the Pope to abandon a part of 
 bis temporal empire to save the rest. 
 
 lie even counselled him to give up every- 
 thing except Rome; at another, he 
 caressed the project of an Italian federa- 
 tion which should be presided over by 
 the Pope. Doubtless many of these 
 things were suggested by the influence 
 of the Empress, who was an inflexible 
 opponent of any movement towards 
 
 deserting the Pope. As for Pius IX., 
 he always opposed bis non possumus 
 with a sweet and serene firmness to 
 every expedient which the Emperor of 
 the French suggested. 
 
 The Italian government first mani- 
 fested its direct independence of France 
 when Napoleon III. endeavored to 
 tempt it to the rupture of its alliance 
 with Prussia by offering to secure 
 Yenetia for King Victor Emmanuel. 
 This, thought Napoleon, was a prize 
 which would thoroughly dazzle the new 
 Kiug. The Queen of the Adriatic had 
 long been in mourning in presence of 
 the harsh invader. It would be a grace- 
 ful act, ami would look well in history, 
 to interfere for her restoration to her 
 kindred, lint the Italian court explained 
 that it was too late to break friendship 
 with Prussia. The Italians fully appre- 
 ciated the importance of their new con- 
 nection, and realized that they could 
 free Venice without Napoleon's aid. 
 The French Emperor was taken between 
 the forward movements in Italy ami 
 Germanv '.ike one of those prisoners of 
 the Middle Ages, immured in a cell with 
 moving walls, which came slowly together 
 to crush him. 
 
 Italy had serious misfortune by land 
 and by sea when she entered the ureal 
 and swift campaign of 18G6 side by side 
 with Prussia. She came to grief by 
 land at Custozza, and by sea at Lissa ; 
 but Austria was crushed by the northern 
 German, and Victor Emmanuel came 
 in triumph into the historic square of 
 St. Mark to welcome the bride of the 
 sea back into the family from which she 
 had been so long parted. Old Prince 
 Von Metternich, who was a mauvaise 
 tongue, when he heard that Napoleon 
 III. was coquetting with Cavour, had 
 predicted that the revolutionary empire 
 "would perish on the Italian breakers." 
 
EUROPE IN STORM ASP CALM. 
 
 401 
 
 The old diplomat was well-nigh omnis- 
 cient in all things temporal, and he 
 doubtless foresaw the trend of events 
 taking Italy into the arms of Prussia. 
 
 The French Empire had withdrawn 
 its troops from Home in 1864, after the 
 famous September convention ; but, in 
 18G7, Garibaldi, who was a keen ob- 
 server of the direction of the wind in 
 European polities, began anew a march 
 upon Rome with his volunteers. He 
 saw that the French Empire, up to that 
 time the pivot upon which the polities of 
 the Continent revolved, was beginning f > 
 fail; so hi' boldly stepped across the 
 frontiers, which Italy, by the conven- 
 tion, had agreed to keep sacred from 
 intrusion. The Pope was threatened in 
 his St. Peter's chair. Napoleon was 
 forced to stop in his long list of enter- 
 tainments to sovereigns during the 
 brilliant festival of the Exhibition, and 
 to send out an iron-clad squadron, laden 
 with French troops, to Civita Vecchia. 
 Europe was struck with the celerity with 
 which this French expedition was or- 
 ganized. Prussia was a little dazed by 
 it, and for a short time wondered if it 
 had been mistaken in its estimate of I lie 
 French military disorganization. The 
 prestige of France, which hail steadily 
 lowered after Sadowa, rose up again. 
 But Meiitana was a mistake ; and where- 
 as at the moment of the expedition the 
 French Imperialists fancied that they 
 had recovered their hold upon Italy, they 
 had done the one thing which had finally 
 ruined their influence. 
 
 Italy made one last effort to secure the 
 aid of France in its advance upon Rome, 
 when it sent General Menabrea to Vichy 
 in 1869, to say to Napoleon III. that if 
 he would agree to the embodiment of all 
 the Papal states, with the exception of 
 Rome and its immediate environs, in the 
 kingdom of Italy, that kingdom was 
 
 ready to make with France an offensive 
 and defensive alliance. How different 
 might have been the results of the war 
 which France was fatally destined to 
 have with Prussia, if this Italian offer 
 had been accepted ! 
 
 General Menabrea made spiteful re- 
 marks afterwards about Napoleon's 
 refusal, which he doubtless attributed to 
 family influences. " If is very unlucky," 
 he said to a French diplomat in Florence 
 in 1871, " that we did not conclude that 
 alliance, because, the first duty of two 
 allies being the reciprocal control of 
 their military effectives and resources, 
 we should have been able to show the 
 Emperor that he was not in a condition 
 to make war." 
 
 To the French troops in Rome suc- 
 ceeded a kind of international guard, 
 composed of young gentlemen from the 
 aristocratic families of various European 
 countries, and of adventurers of more 
 or less renown. The life which this 
 body of defenders of the faith led during 
 the three years before the entry of the 
 King of Italy into Pome was hardly an 
 agreeable one. There is a good story 
 which illustrates one of the odd phases 
 of life in this corps. Early in 1868 a 
 young man of noble family, who was 
 burning to distinguish himself in military 
 deeds, went to Koine, and laid his sword 
 at the feet, of the Pope, or, in other 
 words, enlisted in the Pontifical Zouaves. 
 On the day after his enlistment, he re- 
 ported to his superior officer at a dirt}' 
 barracks in an obscure quarter of the 
 Eternal City, and inquired what he could 
 do to fill up his leisure. 
 
 " Go into the court-yard," said the 
 officer, " and peel potatoes." 
 
 The young man of noble family made 
 a respectful salute, but said that he did 
 not understand. Whereupon he received 
 a bluff military rebuke, and was told 
 
402 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 thai Ii<> should go into the court-yard The humiliation of this gentleman, 
 
 :iud peel potatoes, and if he could nol who had had dreams of military glory, 
 
 understand an order when it was given, and found that he had nothing but menial 
 
 he could take three days in the guard- services to perform in a thill garrison, 
 
 house, which were forthwith bestowed baffles description, 
 upon him. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 403 
 
 CHAPTER FORTY-THREE. 
 
 The Great Pier Between the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. — Brindisi and Naples. — The Revival of 
 Commerce. — Industrial Exhibitions. — Universal Progress. — The Struggle Between Church and 
 State. — Pius IX. and Victor Emmanuel. — The High Priest of European Conservatism. — The " Non 
 Po88umii8 " of the Vatican. — Familiar Traits of Victor Emmanuel. 
 
 " TTALY," once said a witty Italian 
 -L friend of mine, " is a great pier 
 extended from the south of Europe into 
 the Adriatic and Mediterranean seas, 
 ami Brindisi and Naples are its pier 
 heads." 
 
 This word " pier," in connection with 
 the " lovely laud of Italy," seemed, at 
 first, to have a jarring sound, for it sug- 
 gested things commercial, which had not 
 been in recent times habitually associated 
 with the peninsula ; hut events have 
 proved that no expression could have 
 been more apt to describe new Italy of 
 the period of unification. 
 
 In fact, from Brindisi and from Naples 
 flow to the east great currents of com- 
 merce which are constantly increasing in 
 volume. England sends her generals, 
 her treasures, and her mails to the 
 Indies by the Italian route: and the port 
 of Naples is never without half a dozen 
 steamers from the Orient, arriving or 
 departing from it, as the most convenient 
 point at which to touch in Southern 
 Europe, before making the long sweep 
 eastward. The piercing of the Alps by 
 numerous tunnels, by the mighty one of 
 Mont Cenis, which wascompletedin 1*71 ; 
 and in these latter years by that of the St. 
 Gothard, has transformed the railway 
 system of Italy as by magic, and has 
 opened new channels for trade, making 
 of ancient and illustrious Genoa the dan- 
 gerous rival of Marseilles ; giving to 
 Venice an impulse which no longer 
 
 seemed possible for her, and binding, by 
 bands of iron and unity of mercantile in- 
 terests, Germany and Italy together as 
 no political alliance could possibly bind 
 them. 
 
 The cities, so numerous in Italy, 
 where the long division into petty states 
 had fostered the up-building and the 
 rivalry of capitals, have all had a touch 
 of the new inspiration. Turin and 
 Florence have ceased to mourn over the 
 departure of the court to Koine. Turin 
 has sprung into first-rate business im- 
 portance. Florence, for a long time 
 weighed down by municipal misfortunes, 
 is beginning to recover its splendor of 
 old lime. Milan, and Verona, and 
 Venice, and Genoa no longer merit the 
 title of cities of the past. They are in 
 immediate and constant relations with 
 the living and enthusiastic present. But 
 exacting critics say that this northern 
 section is not real Italy ; that it is so 
 closely allied with German lands on the 
 one hand, and with France on the other, 
 that its characteristics are composite, 
 and that the enterprise, the quick energy 
 of the northern races, may be well mani- 
 fest there, while it will be entirely lack- 
 ing in the sleepy and sensuous south. 
 
 This is an unjust criticism, and one 
 which the enterprise of Naples, tin: won- 
 derful upbuilding of Rome, the activity 
 manifest even in Sicily — much agitated 
 by politics and volcanoes, — amply dis- 
 prove. At the present writing. Naples 
 
404 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 is about to I"' girdled with a metropoli- he was one of the great artificers of the 
 tan railway, — an institution which Paris national unity. It is due to his immense 
 dors not yet possess; and in most of the persistence and unflagging industry that 
 southern Italian cities, iu public build- the Apennines, which ohee divided Italy 
 iugs, in municipal institutions cf every into numerous distinct basins which 
 kind, the march of progress lias been seemed to be shut out from communiea- 
 as rapid as in any other country in tion with each other by natural barriers, 
 Europe. The rise in the value of Italian are to-day pierced by live railway lines 
 railway stocks was so swift as to cause a between Naples and Foggia, Koine and 
 great and very agreeable surprise to Aneona, Florence and Bologna, Genoa 
 thousands of investors, who could not and Milan, Savona and Turin. New 
 believe it possible that the once divided lines arc constantly created, and the 
 and helpless Italian land had produced Piedmontese, the Lombards, the Romans, 
 such results. The railways of the penin- the Neapolitans, the Sicilians, who once 
 suhi are shortly to be divided into two lived as much apart as it they had been 
 great systems, the Adriatic and the separated bv great oceans, now inter- 
 Mediterranean ; and these, with their mingle, exchange sentiments and im- 
 tiibutary lines running in all directions, pressions ; and the work of welding the 
 will soon develop the rich agricultural nation together goes bravely on. Indus- 
 lields. which have long been destitute of dial exhibitions of great importance and 
 facilities for communication. In Italy, extent have, within the last few years, 
 as in many of the newer States of the given a powerful aid to the completion 
 American Union, the narrow-gauge rail- of Italian unity. The exhibitions at 
 way is a popular institution ; and then' Milan and Turin attracted hundreds of 
 is an Italian company specially organ- thousands of visitors from the southern 
 ized for creating these beneficent and portion of the peninsula : have prompted 
 inexpensive arteries of commerce wher- the creation of new industries, and opened 
 ever they are needed. new channels ; and they did away with 
 
 The commercial movement, up to the the stupid provincialism for which the 
 
 time of the sudden developmeiil of the Italians had long been justly reproached, 
 
 international railway system, had been and put money into circulation where it 
 
 entirely concentrated upon the coast, had hitherto been almost unknown. 
 ami especially upon the western side. In 18G7 beggars were so abundant in 
 
 where were the ports of Genoa, Leghorn, Italy that one could not. take a stroll in 
 
 Naples, and the great Sicilian cities of the street or country without being 
 
 Palermo, Messina, Catania, and Syra- besieged by them. In 1ST" beggars 
 
 ciise. No sooner were the Alps and the had become a less frequent specta- 
 
 Apennincs tunnelled than the Italian cle, both at the great highways of 
 
 trade with the outer world doubled in travel and ill the interior districts. 
 
 volume, ami between 1861 and 1872 Emigration, the new system of railway 
 
 flu' commerce of Italy with Austria-Hun- service, the drafting away of the strong 
 
 gary rose from sixty-seven millions of and capable from districts where they 
 
 francs to four hundred and forty-seven had been too numerous into others 
 
 millions. where they could be utilized in manu- 
 
 The civil engineer is a personage much facturing and agriculture, the upbuild- 
 
 respected iu Italy, and with reason, for ing of a splendid new navy, — all these 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 405 
 
 things had awakened the once depend- 
 ent and .shiftless populations to a sense 
 of dignity. 
 
 The Italian suddenly appeared in the 
 great commercial towns of France and 
 Spain, in Algeria, and in the Levant. 
 When he found the taxation in his home 
 district too heavy to bear he closed his 
 cottage door, and. taking his wife and 
 children by the hand, departed for the 
 nearest seaport, and set his foot upon 
 the ships which took him to South 
 America or to other lands beyond the 
 sea. Hut he always took away with him 
 the hope that he might return to .share 
 the new future, which now looked so 
 bright and promising. 
 
 Literature, painting, sculpture revived ; 
 and, although those liberal arts in which 
 Italy had once led the world were ap- 
 proached with that timidity which is 
 natural in the race that has always had 
 the best models of the greatest masters 
 before its eyes, the achievements were at 
 once honorable and many. Visitors to 
 the Milan Exhibition, in 1881, were con- 
 stantly expressing their astonishment, as 
 they passed from aisle to aisle of the 
 great palace in which were grouped the 
 products of Italian industry and ail. It 
 was evident that the country had re- 
 sumed its old position in the domain of 
 industrial art ; that the glass-makers of 
 to-day in Venice were no whit inferior to 
 their splendid predecessors of the middle 
 ages, and (hat there were still to be found 
 men who knew the lustre of majolicas, 
 and who understood the subtlety of 
 Roman form in jewelry, in mosaics, and 
 in the inlaying of delicate furniture. In 
 the galleries devoted to painting, the 
 critics from Paris, from London, and 
 Vienna expressed their holy horror at 
 the deep blue of the skies, the purple 
 waters, and the general impression of 
 dazzling sunshine, opalescent wave, and 
 
 tropical moonlights; but these critics 
 could not deny that the new Italian 
 painters painted from nature, and that 
 in their devotion to subjects taken from 
 their own laud and beneath their own 
 sky there was a national feeling as keen 
 
 and as pr unced as that which had 
 
 been manifest in politics in the peninsula 
 from 1SGG to the occupation of Koine, 
 lint this very nationalization of painting 
 seemed to shut out the Italian painters 
 of average merit from the great exhibi- 
 tions in northern Europe, to which they 
 had sometimes sent specimens of their 
 work. They had emancipated them- 
 selves from the school of Fontainebleau 
 and Barbizon, and, instead of painting 
 the fleecy skies, the grays and blues of 
 noil hern French schools, the deep and 
 soft greens, and the dells and lakes 
 and glades enshrouded in the luminous 
 haze of Corot, Diaz, and Rousseau, had 
 put uiion canvas the glories of Sorrento 
 and of Naples Ray, the pine woods of 
 Ravenna and the sandy slopes by the 
 Adriatic, or the gorgeous colors on the 
 Venetian horizon, where fantastic archi- 
 tecture seems to spring by magic from 
 sea and sky inextricably blended. In 
 literature there had not been so great a 
 decay as in the other arts ; lint the ful- 
 filment of the national aspirations un- 
 doubtedly gave it a. firmer purpose and a 
 stronger vitality. 
 
 Out of the twenty-eighf millions of 
 native Italians the great majority are de- 
 voted to agriculture. The culture of the 
 silk-worm, of rice, of the vine, of oil, of 
 ligs, raisins, almonds, chestnuts, oranges, 
 lemons, can be made profitable with 
 smaller expense than in any Other 
 European country. The wine and silk 
 industries have within tiie last, few years 
 assumed great importance. Italy ex- 
 ports to France millions upon millions of 
 gallons of wines, inferior in point of 
 
4015 
 
 EUROPE IX STOi:.1t AM) CALM 
 
 fabrication to those of her neighbor State, 
 hut sound and wholesome, and often 
 used in the making of those imitations 
 of famous brands which the French 
 semi to what they call " eccentric " 
 i ountries. 
 
 Onh thirty-six per cent, of the total 
 area of Italy is yet under cultivation ; 
 yet Italy manages to produce in a pros- 
 perous year six hundred million gallons of 
 wine, more olives than any other country 
 in Europe, and one hundred and forty 
 million bushels of wheat; to send Greal 
 Britain oil and hemp and fruit, sulphur, 
 chemical products, wine. tlax. and iron 
 
 ore, and to take in return vast quantities 
 of cotton, iron, coal, and woollens; to 
 employ more than one hundred and 
 twenty thousand women and two-thirds as 
 many children in her silk factories ; and 
 from her rich pasturages t<> export scores 
 of thousands of cattle, sheep, and swine. 
 In spite of the chronic evils of almost 
 universal ignorance among the peasa.nl 
 classes, and high taxation, the country 
 has seen its credit rise slowly and steadily 
 until iis paper money is to-day as good 
 as gold. In each of the great general 
 divisions of the country. Piedmont, 
 Liguria, Lombardy, Venice, Emilia, Tus- 
 cany. Marcia, Umbria, and Rome, 
 Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, order is 
 now uniformly enforced, brigandage al- 
 most entirely done away with, a military 
 service sternly insisted upon, and one 
 kind of money is current through all 
 these States, which were once so proud 
 of their own petty institutions, coinage, 
 and traditions. 
 
 As to the reform of ignorance, Italy 
 is doing its best. Elementary instruction 
 is obligatory and gratuitous by law ; but 
 the resources of the count ry are not suffi- 
 cient to maintain schools in all the 
 country districts, nor can they stand the 
 strain for many years to come. It is 
 
 estimated that nearly every member of 
 the rural population of the kingdom has 
 to find 19 or 20 lire, something like $4, 
 per year to support the government 
 revenue. 
 
 Every year from sixty to seventy-live 
 thousand young men are swept away into 
 the standing army, to serve for three 
 years in the infantry and four years in the 
 cavalry : and a second draft of sixt}' 
 thousand is taken from the farms and 
 workshops to serve six months under 
 the Mag, both afterwards passing into the 
 reserve and the mobile militia. Every 
 valid Italian man remains in the Italian 
 army, in the active or in the reserve, 
 until lie is thirtv-nine years old. Italy, 
 from her twelve military •• regions," as 
 she calls them, can now muster some- 
 thing like a million of soldiers, of which 
 half a million are in the infantry, twenty- 
 two regiments in the cavalry, and nearly 
 one hundred and fifty thousand men in 
 the artillery service. The mobile and 
 the territorial militia is estimated at nine 
 hundred and thirty thousand strong, 
 which, added to the active, would give 
 nearly two millions: hut the putting On 
 fool for immediate service of half this 
 
 number would he a gigantic effort for the 
 country. 
 
 Italy is justly proud of her new navy, 
 which is a kind of mystification for the 
 rest of Europe. The English, the French, 
 ami the Germans all fail to understand 
 why the new kingdom must have nine- 
 teen huge iron-clads, some of them, like 
 the --I )uilio" ami the "Dandolo," carrying 
 four one-hundred-ton, muzzle-loading 
 Armstrong i^nns, and wearing armor 
 nearly two feet thick at the water-line, 
 and eighteen inches thick on the turrets, 
 with their gigantic guns mounted, and 
 worked by hydraulic mechanism. The 
 country has spent four millions of dollars 
 each for those two vast vessels, the 
 
F.rROPE IN STOR.V AND CALM. 
 
 407 
 
 "Italia" and the " Lepanto,"' each four 
 hundred feet long, seventy-two feet 
 broad, and with an extreme draught of 
 water exceeding thirty feet. 
 
 These are the largest warships ever 
 yet built; and their engines are twice 
 as powerful as the engines of any other 
 armored ship ever constructed. The 
 rdle which such formidable monsters 
 will play in some future encounter 
 in the Adriatic or the Mediterranean 
 cannot be prophesied. At present one 
 can only suppose that Italy is building 
 these prodigious ships as floating for- 
 tresses, evidences of her new strength 
 and greatness, and her determination to 
 defend herself, if necessary. The "Italia" 
 and the "Lepanto" have, like the ships 
 before mentioned, each four one-hundred- 
 ton breech-loading guns, carried in a bar- 
 bet, protected by nineteen inches of steel- 
 faced armor ; and, in addition to these, 
 eighteen four-ton six-inch breech-load- 
 ingguus mounted on the broadsides. The 
 old arsenal of Venice, from which weut 
 out the galleys of " Daudolo," the beaked 
 vessels whose crews made Venice the 
 mistress of the seas, has recovered its 
 activity, and the Venetians toil night, and 
 day on the engines for the defense of the 
 great country in which their diverse in- 
 dividualities have so lately been merged 
 
 Thus, after the completion of her nu- 
 merous projects for improving, building 
 and rebuilding, fortifying, defending, 
 and expanding, Italy has been so busy 
 at home that she has played but small 
 part in the international movements since 
 the creation of her unit}'. Within her 
 own boundaries she had had plenty to 
 occupy her attention. 
 
 With the entry into Rome, in July of 
 1871, of Victor Emmanuel, and the es- 
 tablishment of the capital of the new 
 kingdom in the Eternal City, began a 
 formidable duel between Church and 
 
 State, which was continued without in- 
 termission until the death of the great 
 representatives of each power. Pius IX.. 
 whom the Catholic world was pleased 
 to consider as the prisoner of the ex- 
 communicated King of Italy, and Victor 
 Emmanuel finished their lives at the 
 beginning of 1878; the King, who had 
 set his hand to the decree regulating the 
 funeral ceremonies of the Pontiff, being 
 destined to pass away first. From 1870 
 to 1878 the P>ishop of Pome, the Vicar 
 of Jesus Christ, Successor of St. Peter, 
 Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff 
 of the Universal Church, had acted as the 
 high-priest of European conservatism. 
 and had set his face sternly against all 
 the ardent and generous attempts of the 
 House of Savoy to reconcile him to the 
 upspringing of the new nationality and 
 the emancipation from the dogmas of the 
 church. 
 
 Pius IX. was one of the most remark- 
 able men who ever occupied the papal 
 throne, and he sat longer upon that 
 throne than any of his predecessors. 
 He had the face of a saint, and the stern- 
 ness and vigor of a soldier. He had, 
 indeed, been a, soldier in his youth, but 
 a curious nervous infirmity rendered it 
 unlikely that he could succeed in a mili- 
 tary career. So he decided to take holy 
 orders. He was the son of a certain 
 Count Jerome Mastai-Ferretti, a de- 
 scendant of an old family, and a very 
 good one. At eighteen young Mastai 
 was a Liberal, an enthusiast, and a Free- 
 mason, which was thought a dreadful 
 thing in Catholic Europe in those days. 
 After the youth had determined upon en- 
 tering the priesthood he studied theology 
 carefully at Rome, and was ordaiued a 
 priest in 1819. In 1840 he had already 
 reached the cardinalate, and six years 
 later, when Gregory XVI. died, an old 
 friend and fellow-pupil called the atteu- 
 
408 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 tion of the College of Cardinals to Mas- Italy, lie began the policy "f reaction, 
 
 tai's merits, ami he was made Pope in II is ministry was unpopular; Ins chief 
 
 [846. lie took the name of Pins IX., minister was assassinated; the people 
 
 in memory of Pius VII., who was his were furious; and the Pope had to fly 
 
 relative. across the frontier to Neapolitan terrj- 
 
 For a. long time, and especially during tory, where he installed the court and 
 
 the stormy days of 1848, the new Pope's called the diplomatic corps around him. 
 
 position was hut vaguely defined. At It was more than a year and a half before 
 
 one time he was acclaimed and we] ned he was replaced upon the throne of Peter, 
 
 by the Democrats of Italy as likely to and, surrounded by the French baj-onets, 
 he the leader of their cause and to bring without which his career would have been 
 liberty back into the land from which it. closed a gem ration before, he began the 
 had so long been an exile. Put those enunciation of that formidable series of 
 who had been momentarily deceived by doctrines which has resulted in a most 
 his professions of reform were griev- complete change in the attitude of the 
 ously disappointed when they found that Catholic Church to modern institutions, 
 he cared little for practical liberty, and From the day of Garibaldi's successful 
 that, although he was willing to be Pope, expedition to Sicily down to the day of 
 he could not, as he quaintly said, "get his death Pius IX. maintained the atti- 
 himself damned to please the Liberals." tude of one persecuted, bowing to decrees 
 Yd he had apparently gone so far with which he could not interfere, but 
 towards Liberalism at one time that which he refused to admit as other than 
 there was a conspiracy among the mem- transitory and impious. He was quick 
 hers of the Pontifical government to to see that in the march of events in half- 
 bring him back to a correct attitude by a-dozen European countries there were 
 the terrorizing measures which leal so incessant menaces to the temporal power 
 often, it was said, been practised against of the Church ; and, while he opposed in 
 refractory Popes. graceful and dignified language the non 
 In answer to the appeal of Milan and possumus of the papacy, he now and 
 Venice the Romans begged the Pope to then, in his more familiar conversations, 
 take part in the movement for indepen- inveighed with all the vigor of a politician 
 deuce, and to send an army corps against against the enemies of the Church. 
 Austria. Pius IX. hesitated, but at last When he heard that the Italian Parlia- 
 he sent seventeen thousand men to take ment had proclaimed Victor Emmanuel 
 part in the campaign, which pleased the King of Italy, in 1861, and had declared 
 Austrians so little that they hanged a that Pome was the capital of the new 
 Roman soldier whom they had taken kingdom, although the court still re- 
 prisoner, and inscribed upon his gallows: mnined in Turin, Pius IX. declared that 
 " Thus do we treat tin' soldiers of Pius he could not, without gravely wounding 
 IX." his conscience, make any alliance with 
 In 1848 the l'ope was a bolder politi- modern civilization. Shortly after that 
 cian than any great secular sovereign in he. in one of his allocutions, condemned 
 Europe. When he saw the Revolution that same modern civilization, which 
 fairly in progress, and observed that the "does not even prevent heretics from 
 sweeping changes which were made ia taking public office, and which opens 
 France were likely to be insisted on in Catholic schools to their children." In 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 400 
 
 THE LAST BENEDICTION OF POPE PIUS IX. 
 
410 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM A\/> CALM. 
 
 1864, In' published a syllabus, in which 
 tin' Church fulminated against the whole 
 Democratic theory, and opposed cate- 
 gorically and with the most tremendous 
 energy every doctrine of the French Rev- 
 olution and uf the Little revolutions 
 which had grown out of it, and almost 
 every achievement of modern science 
 which had led to Liberalism in thought 
 and action. 
 
 In 18C7 he published an encyclical let- 
 ter against the Italian government, and 
 condemned all the laws voted by the 
 national parliament for secularizing the 
 estates of the Chinch. He declared 
 against the increased facilities for the 
 higher instruction of women in France, 
 against the liberal laws which Austria 
 was beginning to make in harmony with 
 modern ideas. — laws recognizing the lib- 
 erty of conscience and of the press, mixed 
 marriages, primary instruction, etc., 
 These laws, he said, were abominable, 
 contrary to doctrine, to the rights and to 
 tin constitution of the Church. In 1868 
 he sent the famous golden rose, blessed 
 by his own hand, to Queen Isabella of 
 Spain, so soon destined to fly before her 
 enraged people. When the Spanish Re- 
 public came, he forbade the Spanish 
 bishops to take seats in the Cortes or 
 to take the oath of fidelity to the con- 
 stitution of their country. In 1868 he 
 published a bull, convoking the Ecumeni- 
 cal Councilat Koine to meet in December 
 of the following year. In this council 
 he for the second time undertook the 
 profound modification of the creed of 
 the Catholic Chinch. In 1854 he had 
 formally defined the dogma of the Im- 
 maculate Conception ; and now he brought 
 together the great dignitaries of the 
 whole Catholic world, that they might 
 join with him in asserting the infallibility 
 of the Vicar of Christ upon earth. The 
 dogma was thus expressed: " We teach 
 
 and define that it is a dogma divinely 
 revealed that the Roman Pontiff, when 
 he speaks ex catliedra, defining a doc- 
 trine regarding faith or morals to be 
 held by the Universal Church, is, by the 
 Divine assistance promised to him in 
 Messed Titer, | mssessec 1 of that infalli- 
 bility with which the Divine Redeemer 
 willed that his Church should be endowed 
 in defining doctrine regarding faith or 
 morals; and that therefore such defini- 
 tions of the Roman Pontiff are of them- 
 selves, and not through the consent of 
 the Church, infallible." The imposing mi- 
 nority which arose against this decision — 
 minority composed of ( rerman and French 
 ecclesiastics alike — had no effect upon 
 Pius IX. As the wave of Democracy rose 
 he stood more erect and sterner than ever 
 upon the rock of Peter. His discourses 
 were full of allusions to the wicked war 
 made against the Church, to the perver- 
 sion of law, to corrupt artifices for break- 
 ing the boundsof salutary authority. He 
 enjoyed to the full his triumph ,in the 
 Vatican Council. He saw himself sol- 
 emnly proclaimed as infallible, all his 
 opponents except two at the final vote, 
 which was in public session, abstaining, 
 rather than to place themselves on record 
 as opposed to the Successor of Peter. 
 
 Thus at the very moment of the ele- 
 vation of the Pope, who had ruled in 
 Pome for a generation, to the highest 
 honor possible to attain on earth, he saw 
 his spiritual capital invaded by the 
 Italian King, and the old papal resi- 
 dence of the Quirinal occupied by the 
 royal representative of a newly united 
 people. 
 
 When Victor Emmanuel came to the 
 Quirinal he was the most popular figure 
 in Italy. Pius IX. even had a secret 
 liking for him ; and it is said that when 
 the Re galantuomo lav dying in the 
 palace which he had taken from the 
 
EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 411 
 
 Pope, and the Pope himself was con- 
 fined to his bed, and knew that his last 
 hour was not far off, his priestly heart 
 yearned towards the excommunicated 
 son of the Church. lie called to him a 
 run'- of the apostolic palace, and said, 
 " Monsignore, take a carriage and go 
 directly to the Quirinal ; there present 
 yourself in my name, and beg to speak to 
 the King. I give you full power to re- 
 lieve him from all the condemnations." 
 
 The prelate was so astonished that 
 the Pope had to repeat his order before 
 he would go to execute it. But he had 
 no sooner arrived at the Quirinal than he 
 was sent back. The ministers, the 
 aides-de-camp, the physicians, nil pre- 
 vented him from arriving at the King's 
 bedside. It is said that the old Pope 
 turned uneasily on his couch, and said, 
 " Ah, the unhappy creatures ! they wish 
 to arrest the pardon of God ; and this 
 poor culpable King is no more free in 
 his death-bed than he was on the throne. 
 If ever. I regretted not being able to get 
 about the streets of my city of Pome it 
 is now. I wish I had the force to get 
 up. I would go to the Quirinal myself, 
 and I would see whether I should not be 
 let in ! " 
 
 But this movement of charity, as the 
 Catholic world thought it, indicated no 
 weakening of papal sentiment towards 
 the House of Savoy. Pius IX. liked to 
 depict Victor Emmanuel II. as a good 
 Catholic, who was compelled by a host 
 of wicked people surrounding him to do 
 disagreeable things to the Church. He 
 was fond of speaking of the sovereign 
 as a gay and sensual gentleman, who 
 was in his secret heart a bit of a bigot, 
 and who invoked at least three times a 
 day St. Andrew of Aveliue. It was 
 said that the monarch signed the decrees 
 expelling the Jesuits, suppressing the 
 religious orders, confiscating the eccle- 
 
 siastical estates, obliging the priesthood 
 to military service ; but immediately 
 wrote to the Pope letters of supplica- 
 tion, saying that he was constrained, and 
 promised to do all he could to attenuate 
 the effects of these measures. Pius IX. 
 
 
 VICTOR EMMANUEL AND I'KINCE HUMBERT 
 AT THE QUIRINAL 
 
 sometimes called the King the •■ great 
 breast-beater," because he liked to 
 picture him in the attitude of the peni- 
 tent who strikes upon his bosom, and 
 says " Mea culpa! mea culpa!" when 
 the evil is done. 
 
 It was impossible for a man like 
 Pius IX. to divest himself of the influ- 
 ence of his surroundings, and so he 
 
412 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 coiil" 1 lmt believe that the wise and claiming that their country had reached 
 
 generous King, whose gi'eat heart was the stature of :i First-class power, 
 filled with such a burning flame of love Under Victor Emmanuel's reign the 
 
 for his country, could raise himself by a noble and self-sacrificing Mazzini died, 
 
 majestic effort, and one which will render at Pisa, and his funeral, at Genoa, was 
 
 his name immortal, above the tradition attended by more than eighty thousand 
 
 and the petty prejudices in which he had people. The country was not unmindful 
 
 been raised, and affront the mighty in its happy days of those who had 
 
 anger of Rome, with the serene con- worked so industriously in varying paths 
 
 sciousness of one who felt that he was and by widely diverse methods for its 
 
 doing a duty which, although it might unification, and beautiful monuments 
 
 be disagreeable for a time, was necessary were erected to the memory of Cavour 
 
 to the safety of the State. and to Mazzini in Turin and Koine. 
 
 Victor Emmanuel enjoyed the last The history of Italy, from the estab- 
 
 years of his life to the full. He looked lishment of the national capital at Home 
 
 back upon his friendship with Cavour until Victor Emmanuel's death, was full 
 
 with pride and tender affection. Per- of instances of devotion to the memory 
 
 haps he regretted now and then the of patriots. 
 
 necessities of his political situation. Victor Emmanuel died in .January of 
 
 which had made him the opponent of 1878, after a brief illness, and a great 
 
 so great and so energetic a patriot as sadness fell upon the peninsula. There 
 
 Garibaldi; but, with one son called to were few 7 Liberal Italians who would 
 
 the throne of Spain, and his own pailia- have ventured to say that he had 
 
 ment installed in the Eternal City, which not been a good King. "He was," 
 
 had so long been the Mecca of his says a French writer, " in appearance 
 
 hopes; with his family about him in the like an ancient Cimbrian chief, who 
 
 Quirinal, — he had every desire to be possessed what lie had by right of eon- 
 
 courteous and conciliatory in his rela- quest. lie was patient and resolute, 
 
 tions with the Holy Sec. a clever and dexterous politician, and 
 
 In his capacity of sovereign of a new daily gave proof of rare sagacity. With 
 
 and powerful nation he felt it his duty his vast shoulders, his Herculean limbs, 
 
 to make visits abroad ; and his journeys his face, witli its irregular and fero- 
 
 to Vienna and Berlin in 1873 doubtless cious lineaments, he was striking and 
 
 had much to do with the formation, some impressive in uniform, with his helmet 
 
 years later, of the alliance between on his huge head. With his lofty and 
 
 North Germany and Austria, and did majestic carriage, his sparkling eves. 
 
 something to weaken the hostility which and especially in battle, he was quite 
 
 had so long existed between invaded fine." Even his Catholic enemies 
 
 Italy and invading Austria. In 1875 speak enthusiastically of his soldierly 
 
 the Emperor of Austria went even to qualities. A Catholic writer has said 
 
 Venice, which had been so recently taken of him that " he knew little of literature, 
 
 out of his grasp, and in the same year and was hardly interested in art, finding 
 
 the old Emperor ol Germany went to 'those things,' as he called Ih an. in- 
 
 iMilan. The beautiful northern city was compatible with the tradi cf arms oi 
 
 resplendent for a week, and the Italian the exercise of the chase. But he had 
 
 public blustered a little in those days, the temperament of his race, the foxes 
 
EUROPE LV STORM AND CALM. 
 
 413 
 
 of Savoy. lie excelled in bringing of a hero: 'I am covered with 
 out the resources of his good sense, wounds,' when he had only been 
 when he was among his ministers, touched upon the thigh. . . . He 
 whom he treated as he pleased, like was no mediocre monarch, lie knew 
 most of the constitutional sovereigns how to make his homely visage gra- 
 who have hail councils thrust upon cious, amiable, and almost handsome. 
 them. On the field of battle he main- His voice was now rude, uow tender. 
 tained a noble attitude, in spite of his Huge and portly, he knew how to take 
 Hun-like heaviness. He was rather too on soldierly or royal manners, accord- 
 fond of boasting of his military ex- ing to the person whom he was desir- 
 ploits. He would say, with the accent ous of impressing." 
 
Ill EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR. 
 
 The Pope at the Vatican. — The Daily Life of Leo XIII. — lis Picturesque, Spiritual, and Political Aspects 
 The Continuance of the War Between the Vatican and the Quirinal. -The Aims ami Ambitions 
 .if I he Catholic Tarty in Italy. — Evolution or Revolution. — Prophecies of tin- ' 'atholics. — " Unre- 
 deemed Italy." 
 
 TIIF Italian nation insisted that States. Not long ago it was determined 
 
 Victor Emmanuel's mortal remains to build a royal railway train; and when 
 
 should lie laid in the Pantheon, that the King saw tin' jealousy awakened in 
 
 splendid building which stands amoug the different sections of tin 1 peninsula 
 
 the ruins of old Koine as the particular as to the establishment which should 
 
 jewel of ancient architecture ; ami there have the privilege of constructing the 
 
 the monarch isentombed under the same train, he arranged it so that some portion 
 
 mighty roof that shelters the gentle of the equipage should he built in each 
 
 Raphael. To the throne of Italy came part of Italy where railway works were 
 
 Prince Umberto, who. at first much located. 
 
 criticised, and treated perhaps with The Kino' litis a civil list of about 
 mild suspicion by certain factions of his 15,000,000 lire, a modest fortune for a 
 people, has known how to win the af- European sovereign; and to this is 
 fections of the nation, and tit times added 100,000 fraucs or lire, for the ex- 
 to merit their enthusiastic applause, penses of representation. This is less 
 There is metal and grit in these sons of than is allowed to the President of the 
 Victor Emmanuel : in the stately, pale- French Republic. The family gave up 
 faced Prince Amadeo, who was brave all its private domains to the couutry in 
 enough to put away from him the crown IMS. When the King or members of 
 of Spain when he saw that he could not his family travel from place to place 
 with self-respect retain it; and in this in Italy, till the expenses of journey 
 equally stately and equally pale-faced and residence are paid by the nation. 
 King Umberto, who coolly sent his (ami- King Umberto specially likes the <,Juir- 
 pliments to the Pope on the day that he inal, not because his residence there is a 
 reached the throne, and who stood up sign of the victory over Rome, hut be- 
 in his father's tracks with as much ease cause he passed many happy years then' 
 and coolness as if he had practised the as a prima' before he took respousibtli- 
 attitude for years. ties upon his shoulders. 
 
 King Umberto and Queen Margherita This Quirinal Palace was built for the 
 
 have already on their record a host of popes, and litis been a favorite residence; 
 
 courageous, generous, and kindly deeds, of the tenants of Peter's chair since 
 
 Their chief aim is to do till in their the time of Gregory XIII. It has a 
 
 power to consolidate the national unity ; huge court-yard surrounded with a por- 
 
 and even in little things the new king is tico, a magnificent royal hall, the 
 
 careful of the opinion of his various "Pauline Chapel," in which the cardi- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 415 
 
 nals used to assemble in conclave, and 
 where they were wont to vote for the elec- 
 tion of the Popes. In this palace died Pius 
 VII. ; and here he was made a prisoner 
 by order of Napoleon I., when that 
 energetic conqueror had had the papal 
 doors smashed open by blows from 
 axes. 
 
 Pius IX. escaped from this palace in 
 disguise in 184'J. Here was also the 
 private chapel of the Pope, in which is 
 one of the finest works of Guido. The 
 Pauline chapel was deconsecrated by the 
 Pope ou the evening of the entry of the 
 Italian army into Rome, and on the 
 same night the priceless pictures aud 
 tapestries were carried away to the 
 Vatican. 
 
 There is a new Pope at the Vatican, 
 but there is no new policy there. The 
 able and aggressive ecclesiastic who 
 succeeded to Pius IX. accepted the 
 legacy of the dead prelate; and Papal 
 Rome is as unbending in its attitude as 
 it was under Victor Emmanuel. Leo 
 XIII., as he chose to call himself, because 
 he had a great veneration for Leo XII., 
 would in any station of life have been a 
 remarkable man. His originality and 
 his firmness of will are unbounded. 
 When be was Archbishop of Perugia 
 he came into collision with Victor 
 Emmanuel, who was then beginning to 
 extend the Liberal influence of the Savoy 
 Monarchy into Italy. A royal decree dis- 
 persed the members of certain religious 
 orders in the diocese, whereupon the 
 archbishop wrote a letter to the King, 
 protesting in the most vigorous language 
 against the repeated insults to the holy 
 religion, and alluding to the miserable 
 condition to which the new policy was 
 reducing the monkish fraternity. When 
 Victor Emmanuel arrived at Perugia, in 
 1869, the Archbishop was invited, with 
 the civil and military authorities, to 
 
 present his homage to the King ; but lie 
 declined. 
 
 The new Pope had to wait many years 
 for a Cardinal's hat, which he had well 
 won by his services to the Church in 
 Belgium, and other northern countries, 
 for Cardinal Antonelli, who had such 
 powerful influence over Pius IX., was 
 hostile to this grave, studious, ascetic 
 Archbishop Pecci. Gregory XVI., the 
 predecessor of Pius IX., had been ready 
 to give him the cardinalate in 1846 ; but 
 when Pius IX. came in, he made the Arch- 
 bishop, who was meantime installed in 
 Perugia, wait many years. 
 
 After Autonelli's death Cardinal Pecci 
 rapidly came into prominence ; and in 
 the autumn of 1877, when the rumor of 
 the death of Pius IX. was spread abroad 
 in Rome every morning, Pecci's name 
 was constantly mentioned as a probable 
 successor. He had been made a kind of 
 vice-pope while the holy see was vacant 
 during the illness of Pius IX., and every 
 morning his enemies and friends expected 
 to see him come down from his apart- 
 ments to strike his mallet upon the fore- 
 head of the dead Pontiff, and address to 
 him the consecrated formula: "Dost 
 thou not sleep?" 
 
 When on the !>th of February, 187S, 
 Pius IX. dii'd, there was little endeavor 
 made to intrigue against the man who 
 seemed so clearly destined for the' succes- 
 sion to the chair. The Cardinal was very 
 modest, and seemed half inclined to re- 
 fuse the great dignity; lint when, alter 
 the numerous votes in the College of 
 Cardinals, after all the votes of polite- 
 ness, as they are called, according to the 
 Italian custom, had been made, around 
 Cardinal Pecci's name the necessary 
 votes for the election were grouped; so 
 the additional questions were asked him, 
 and he replied: "I think myself un- 
 worthy of the supreme magistracy, but 
 
411) EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 as the Holy College seems t<> be agreed, from one end to the other." The friend 
 I must submit to the will of Uod. In was amused at this, and put him to the 
 remembrance of Leo XII., for whom 1 lest; whereupou the Pope recited pas- 
 have always professed s great veuera- sage after passage in a deep, melodious 
 lion, I wish to be called Leo XIII." voice, evidently with great delight. In 
 Then the first deacon, appearing in the sunn' of his encyclical letters there is 
 exterior loge of the < liurch of St. Peter, the stamp of Dante's style When he 
 uttered the solemn words, which an- was archbishop of Perugia he wrote 
 nouueed to the Romans the election of a much poetry, now in Latin, now in 
 new Pop; 1 : — Italian. 
 
 ■• .[linn ni in vobis gaudium magnum. If the Pope is to be considered as 
 
 /'iijimii habemus Eminentiss. uc-llev- prisoner t<> the wicked Italian govern- 
 
 erindis. Domin. Cardin. Pecci elect ua incut it must be allowed that he has a 
 
 est in Sn in hi a in Pontijicem, et elegit sibi splendid prison. The great Vatican 
 
 iimiirii Leo XIII." cluster of palaces and museums has 
 
 Leo XIII. is tall, and as lean as a monk more than thirteen thousand rooms, 
 of the old Thebaic!. His white robe twenty vast courts, eight state stairways, 
 floats loosely about hi.s almost fleshless and an infinite number of halls, galleries, 
 limbs. It. is sometimes said of him that chapels, corridors, libraries, and muse- 
 he is the image of Voltaire; but, while urns. The Sistiue Chapel and the Vatican 
 the expression of his face is not unlike Library, the Loggie of Raphael, and the 
 that of the eieat philosopher ami sceptic, picture and sculpture gallery form cer- 
 it has less of malice and of sarcastic tainly a noble residence for a scholar and 
 vigor, more of stern determination, a priest. 
 
 tempered by the indefinable sweetness The present Pope leads a laborious 
 
 which seems inseparable from the priestly life, like all his predecessors. lie rises 
 
 expression, and is doubtless bom of at six o'clock, and after a hasty toilet 
 
 purity of life and temperate manners, engages in devotions. At half-past 
 
 Leo XIII. in private life is simple, affec- seven he cues to his particular chapel, 
 
 donate, amiable, witty ; his face is pah', where he celebrates mass. On Sunday a 
 
 but his eves are deep, clear, and, small congregation is admitted, and he 
 
 despite his advanced age, sparkling, lie distributes the Eucharist, lie next at- 
 
 is not an orator, like Pius IX.. but he is tends a second mass, after which he re- 
 
 a clever writer; in the presence of a turns to his private apartments, where 
 
 crowd of listeners he would be troubled, he breakfasts alone, very quickly and 
 
 Pius IX. was a real orator, taking his modestly. 
 
 inspiration from the throne. Whether The part of the Vatican which lias 
 
 he writes in Latin or in Italian, the new been specially devoted to papal residence 
 
 Pope is thoroughly master of his pen. since the sixteenth century overlooks St. 
 
 He i-. a statesman who lias been well Peter's square. Iii it there is a monu- 
 
 nouriahed iu controversial law, and "ho mental staircase, having two hundred 
 
 likes polemics. He is fond of Dante, and ninety-nine steps in white marble, 
 
 and delighted at anv new discovery of which serves the halls in the three stories, 
 
 an ancient and rare edition of the great Here is the famous " Swiss Guard," 
 
 Florentine. He said one day to a friend : which still wears the motley garb adopted 
 
 "1 can recite the ' Divina Commedia' by it in the middle ages. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 417 
 
 On the first floor is the "Hall of the 
 Consistory," where the Pope consults 
 the cardinals on the affairs of the church. 
 At the end of this hall is the pontifical 
 throne. Through a series of antecham- 
 bers one reaches the private offices of 
 the Pope ; and here is the hall of the 
 noble guard, composed of eighty mem- 
 bers of the nobility, com- 
 manded by a Roman prince. 
 Their uniform is that of the 
 garde du corps of Louis 
 XVIII. Formerly this guard 
 accompanied the Pope in all 
 ceremonies; but now that he 
 goes out but little, the insti- 
 tution is falling into decay. 
 The " throne hall " is used for 
 
 all official receptions. Bey I 
 
 are the private apartments, 
 the bedrooms the dining- 
 rooms, and the library of the 
 great head of the Church. 
 
 There is little harmony, and 
 not much exterior splendor, in 
 this group of palaces'and mu- 
 seums, famous throughout 
 the civilized world : but so 
 many traditions cluster about 
 the Vatican, so many histor- 
 ical souvenirs are evoked by 
 it. that not even the most 
 prosaic traveller sees it with- 
 out a thrill. In the old 
 palace attached to the Basilica 
 of St. Peter, which is said to have dated 
 from the time of Constantine, Charle- 
 magne resided when he came to Rome to 
 lie crowned by Leo III., and Pope Inno- 
 cent III. entertained one of the kings 
 of Aragon in the palace which succeeded 
 to this .primitive one. For more than a 
 thousand years the Popes lived in the 
 Lateral) Palace, to which good Catholics 
 suspect the present Italian government 
 of a wish to transfer them again. 
 
 After the return of the Popes from 
 their temporary home at Avignon, in 
 the closing years of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, they adopted the Vatican as their 
 permanent residence. Gregory XL 
 
 liked the pontifical palace because of the 
 
 neighborhood of the Castle of St. 
 Angelo, which he thought afforded the 
 
 ATTENDANTS AND OFFI- 
 CIALS AT THE VATI- 
 CAN. 
 
 papal court greater se- 
 curity than it enjoyed 
 elsewhere. Each Pope 
 seems to have done all 
 that the resources of his 
 treasury allowed to beautify ami improve 
 this head-quarters of the hierarchy of the 
 Christian world. Sixtus the IV. built 
 the Sistine Chapel; Innocent VIII. the 
 Belvedere ; the great Julius II. the cel- 
 ebrated " Loggie," the terraces, and laid 
 the foundations of the Vatican museum. 
 It was he who placed in this museum the 
 Laocoon, the Apollo, and the Cleopatra. 
 Under Raphael's direction Leo X. fin- 
 ished the Loggie. Sixtus V. spoiled the 
 
41* 
 
 Efiiori-: i \ s rni; u i \/> c 1/ >/. 
 
 unity of Bramante's plan by building the stale stnircase was finished, and Hie re- 
 Vatican Librai'3' across the architect's ception-rooms were made superb with 
 rectangle. It was the same Pope who frescoes. 
 
 licjan the imposing palace on the cast Tims, for four centuries, the Popes 
 side of the court of the Loggie, which is have delighted to leave behind them, as 
 now the ordinary residence of the Popes, their especial monuments, the practical 
 Urban V 1 1 1 . ordered the construction of execution of their ideas as to the enrich- 
 t.he Seala Rcgia ; (Teinenl XIV. and Pius menl of the sacred palace. It is said 
 VI. built the fine range of rooms over the that Leo XIII. lias conceived the idea 
 
 of devoting all his spare 
 leisure ti > the creation of 
 a magnificent monument 
 
 c lnemorative of the 
 
 extraordinary pontificate 
 
 ;„J of Pius IX. The plan 
 
 has long been in process 
 
 of elaboration, and the 
 
 , ; ,rt most distinguished sculp. 
 I [V. , .j'y loi-s in the kingdom have 
 
 'ill 
 111 
 
 been consulted about it. 
 Each of the great acts 
 of the reign of Pius IX. 
 arc, it is Said, lo be illus- 
 trated by allegorical mar- 
 ble groups. 
 
 The division of the 
 Pope's laborious day will 
 
 be full Of interest to :dl. 
 After his meagre first 
 breakfast. — which heal- 
 most invariably takes 
 ali me, although now and 
 then, as a special favor, 
 which makes infinite 
 museum named after them; Pius VII. gossip in Rome, he has one or two 
 addeil the wing which covers part of the friends near him while he partakes of 
 celebrated terrace; Leo X. founded a his simple repast, — he goes to wank 
 picture-gallery, which Gregory XVI. as systematically as the most ener- 
 finished ; and this latter pontiff in- getic man of business. At half-past 
 augurated the Etruscan Museum. Pius nine he receives the Cardinal Sec- 
 IX. was never weary of contributing to retary of State, then the Cardinals 
 the splendor of the Vatican. Under his who are prefects of congregations, the 
 reign the Loggie were enclosed in glass. Secretary of Latin Letters, the See- 
 thus saving Raphael's frescoes from the retary of the Briefs, and the Princes ; 
 ravages of weather: the picture-gal- finally such persons as arc admitted 
 leries were greatly improved, tic -rand to the honor of a special interview-. 
 
 POPE LEO Mil. IX HIS PRIVATE CABINET. 
 
KHinPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 ■Hi) 
 
 On Mondays, and sometimes on Thurs- 
 days, he gives public receptions, a 
 ceremonial which is familiar to thou- 
 sands of American and English travel- 
 lers. Leo XIII. is not so fond of 
 these receptions as was Pius IX., al- 
 though the latter prelate sometimes give you hi 
 found his patience almosl exhausted " Very w< 
 
 must withdraw. Upon this she began 
 with greater volubility lhan ever. 
 " Holy Father." 
 
 '• What will you have more, my 
 daughter? " 
 
 •• My husband has begged me to 
 
 photograph." 
 
 ; I accept it. Thank him 
 
 p 
 
 by the infinite number of questions as on my part." 
 well as the great number of compli- " But, Holy Father " — 
 ments hurled upon him by 
 the enthusiastic visitors. 
 Anything that causes the 
 present Pope a loss of 
 time fatigues and annoys 
 him. lie is not fond 
 of making addresses to 
 troops of pilgrims or sym- 
 pathetic Frenchmen, or 
 penitent Austrians, who 
 come and bow at his 
 feet. Pius IX. was more 
 adroit in his manner of 
 treating the multitude 
 than the new Pope can 
 ever hope to be. The 
 former had the more 
 tact ; the latter has the 
 greater majesty. 
 
 A good story is told of 
 Pius IX., showing how even the successor "• What next? " 
 
 of Peter may sometimes find his dignity - I would like to take back to my 
 give way under the pressure of a rude curi- husband your Iloliness's photograph." 
 osity or an indiscreet admiration. One " That is quite right. I will give 
 day when the Pope was quite weary with you one;" which he proceeded to do. 
 a long public reception, a lady who ••And now, Holy Father, if you 
 had a special letter of introduction would kindly write your autograph on 
 knelt before the Pope, begging for his the back of the photograph." 
 
 he bestowed as " Very well," said the Pope ;" I will 
 
 THE POPE RECEIVES 
 VISITOR. 
 
 which 
 
 benediction, 
 usual. 
 
 The lady entered into a long con- 
 fession of her many troubles. The 
 Pope, who was ready to drop with fa- 
 tigue, tried to console her, and the 
 more he consoled the more she talked, 
 until he was compelled to say that he 
 
 do that also." 
 
 Then he was about to throw down 
 the pen with which he had hastily writ- 
 ten his priestly signature, when the 
 lady, laying hold of his skirts, said, 
 " Holy Father, there is one thing 
 more." 
 
42(1 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 "Indeed!" s;ii<l the Pope, with a 
 shiver of indignation, "what can it 
 be?" 
 
 " I must ask you for the pen with 
 which you have written the autograph." 
 
 ■• Very well, take the pen, the ink- 
 stand, and, for Heaven's sake, go at 
 mice, my good woman," cried the Pope, 
 releasing his skirls and making his way 
 t<> his private aparl incuts. 
 
 Leo XIII. sometimes invites visitors 
 
 who please him into his private r is, 
 
 — a proceeding which doubtless would 
 have scandalized tin: other Popes. If 
 a delegation of workmen comes to lay 
 an address at his feet he shows them 
 all about, takes them even into his 
 bedroom, chatting on secular and re- 
 ligious matters with the greatest free- 
 dom, and frequently makes many con- 
 verts and friends for life among 
 the lower classes ill this way. lie 
 speaks French with a strong Italian 
 accent, but with skill and vigor of ex- 
 pression. 
 
 At half-past two the Pope dines 
 alone and frugally; then he takes a 
 little 1 nap, never more than a quarter 
 of an hour in length ; his doctors call 
 this his "Armistice," and insist upon 
 this daily leisure. As soon as he goes 
 out of his private room he recites the 
 divine office, reads for a short time in 
 a religious book, and then goes hack 
 to his duties. At five o'clock he re- 
 ceives the bishops, who always come 
 to bring him the news, and to tell him 
 of troubles which crop up in their 
 dioceses; and the secretaries of the 
 various congregations have an endless 
 
 successi >f reports to make. At this 
 
 hour of the day the Pope represents 
 
 a more wide-spread constituency than 
 
 any other ruler in the world There 
 are Catholics everywhere, and the 
 agents of the Church are daily sending 
 
 to the head-quarters at Home reports 
 of manners and customs, of agriculture, 
 industry, commerce, arts, science, let- 
 ters, politics, and religions. 
 
 A bright writer on clerical affairs calls 
 the Vatican the most elevated of observ- 
 atories, whence the Pope can note with 
 precision the affairs of Honolulu as well 
 as those of Paris or of St. Petersburg. 
 Phe Pope listens with attention and 
 even with curiosity to every letter and 
 written or oral report. In him the am- 
 bition of the Church does not sleep. He 
 is as proud of a spiritual victory at- 
 tained in Dakota as of one which has 
 been won in Germany. He fully appre- 
 ciates the Catholic genius for evangeli- 
 zation, and believes that the strength of 
 his Church is in the marvellous discipline 
 and organization which it is his duty to 
 supervise. The popular Protestant idea 
 of a Pope is a mild and genial elderly 
 gentleman, refined in intellect, and of 
 exalted spirituality, who passes his time 
 in grand ceremonials, amid clouds of 
 incense and the genuflection of elab- 
 orately costumed prelates, and whose 
 leisure is plentiful enough to enable him 
 to enjoy the splendors of ancient and 
 modern Home, by which he is sur- 
 rounded. But the real Pope is, as 
 we have seen, an active, responsible, 
 energetic head, daily awakening to new 
 duties, new crises, new situations, which 
 demand immediate thought. lie has to 
 discuss affairs in Europe, Africa. Ocean- 
 ica. Asia, and America; and daily, 
 alter his inferiors come in with their 
 reports, ami long after they are gone, 
 he leans over his desk, which is 
 heaped with documents and letters and 
 writes, reads, annotates, and muses 
 Until half-past ten, when he is summoned 
 to a simple supper. Now ami then the 
 supper is cut short by an excess of Work, 
 for the Pope goes to lied with military 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 421 
 
 precision at eleven. Sometimes his 
 chamberlain has found him, worn out 
 with thought and toil, with his head 
 buried in his hands, asleep at his desk. 
 It requires a robust physique and great 
 strength of character to support the con- 
 stant and somewhat monotonous round 
 of daily duties to which a Pope gives his 
 life when lie takes the reins of authority 
 into his own hands. 
 
 Since the invasion of Rome, as the 
 Catholics call it, the Pope is not sup- 
 posed to leave the Vatican. Pius IX. 
 adhered sternly to his decision not to 
 appear in any of the ceremonials once 
 so familiar to the populace in the streets 
 of Rome ; and the present Pope is his 
 faithful follower in this respect. Exer- 
 cise, however, he must have, and so he 
 gets it, now by pacing one of the great 
 corridors of the palace ; now he is taken 
 down to the gardens in a sedan chair, 
 through the beautiful loggie of Raphael, 
 
 past the frescoes of the great " School 
 
 of Athens " and " The Dispute ; " or uow 
 he drives a little in the shady alleys of the 
 garden or on the flanks of the neighbor- 
 ing hill. When he goes out he is rarely 
 accompanied by any persons save those 
 on duty that day, and at a little dis- 
 tance a small platoon of the guard, 
 composed of the Roman nobility, which 
 does voluntary service as his escort. 
 In these out-door promenades the Pope 
 is never idle. He either recites his 
 breviary, he opens and reads his de- 
 spatches, which he has brought along 
 with him ; or, if he has invited some 
 prelate to accompany him, they talk 
 business and religion. But he always, 
 says one who is familiar with the inte- 
 rior of the Vatican, seems anxious to 
 get back to his work. 
 
 Leo XIII. is very independent in his 
 choice of functionaries and friends. As 
 soon as he was made Pope he sent for 
 
 the master of ceremonies to proceed 
 with the division of the list of employees 
 at the Papal Court. The master of cere- 
 monies read them off one by one, ami 
 the Pope was ready with a name to 
 place opposite each title. He would 
 hear of no objections to his choice, and 
 he set aside as useless some of the old- 
 fashioned offices, much to the dismay 
 and discomfiture of prelates who had 
 hoped to have obtained them. He has 
 a horror for sinecures, and picks them 
 out with infallible vision, expressing a. 
 keen delight in suppressing them. He 
 would never make a cardinal, as Pius 
 IX. is said to have done in the case of a 
 certain French prelate, because " if I 
 had not made a cardinal of him he would 
 have died of chagrin." The tradition of 
 the Vatican is that when a new Pope 
 comes out from the conclave at which 
 he has been elected, he places the cardi- 
 nal's cap upon the head of the person 
 who served as secretary of the assem- 
 bly ; lint Leo XIII. did nothing of the 
 kind, much to the surprise of the Sacred 
 College. It was a year before the new 
 Pope announced his first promotion in 
 the list of cardinals. He cannot be re- 
 proached with having insisted upon the 
 too Italian character of the Sacred Col- 
 lege, for he has made appointments in 
 many lands. 
 
 The Roman families which claim no- 
 bility are devoted to the Vatican ; and it 
 is but natural that they should lie so, as 
 most of them owe their origin to papal 
 protection. Thus we are told that the 
 Albania got their fortune through Clem- 
 ent XL : the Aldobrandinis, through 
 Clement VIII. ; the Barberinis, through 
 Lilian VIII. ; the Borgheses, through 
 Paul V. ; the Chigis, through Alexander 
 VII. ; the Colonnas, through Martin V. ; 
 the Odescalchis, through Innocent XL ; 
 the Rospigliosis, through Clement IX. ; 
 
422 
 
 EUROPE !\ STORM AND CALM. 
 
 and so on ad infinitum. In Roman 
 society the cardinals take the first place ; 
 princes and dukes come next, and gen- 
 erally, says a good authority, in the 
 tinier of their creation, with the excep- 
 tion always of the chiefs of the Colonna 
 and Orsini families, who are hereditary 
 princes, attendant upon the throne, and 
 who take precedence of all their <•< >m- 
 peers. 
 
 In two years the Pope had changed 
 
 iii EEN OF ITALY. 
 
 his secretary of state twice. He in- 
 tended, and still intends, to allow no 
 one to take in his life the important 
 plaee which Cardinal Antonelli had 
 taken in that of Pius IX.. although the 
 latter was generally accredited with 
 deciding pretty vigorously for himself 
 on great matters. Pius IX. was not 
 very tolerant on any remonstrance ad- 
 dressed liiiu by the College of Cardinals ; 
 but the new Pope is open to conviction, 
 
 and listens to all with the greatest 
 
 attention. He is inflexible in his de- 
 mands for discipline and hard work 
 anioiie | u> followers. It is said that one 
 day a Frenchman, who had just been 
 accorded an interview, said to the priest 
 who had accompanied him, " How very 
 affable the Pope is!" '• Yes," said the 
 priest, with a hitter smile, "affable to 
 strangers." This priest had been kept 
 up all night to study a report with which 
 he was in arrears. 
 
 The notion that the Pope is over- 
 whelmed with contributions of money 
 and treasure from all parts of the world, 
 and that his coffers are overflowing with 
 
 Peter's Pence, is said to be a mistaken 
 one. He talks frequently of the penury 
 of his resources, ami Romans who are 
 in a position to judge say that he does 
 not exaggerate his circumstances. He 
 finds sums for liberal charities, and 
 perhaps takes a little pleasure in giving 
 more generously from his own lean purse 
 than the King, who. as the representative 
 of the nation, feels compelled to give. A 
 committee of cardinals was charged by 
 the Pope, after the hitter's accession to 
 power, carefully to administer the Peter's 
 Pence, which was the most important 
 source of revenue of the Holy See; but 
 nowadays there are perpetual com- 
 plaints that it is not sufficient for the 
 needs of the Vatican. Hundreds, and 
 even thousands, of useless presents are 
 made where money would be more 
 acceptable. The gentlemen of the 
 Roman nobility who are on service at 
 
 the Vatican join with the Pope in some 
 noble charities. One Roman prince 
 gave, in the severe winter of 1879-80, 
 seventy-five thousand meals to the poor 
 of the capital. The Pope himself, on 
 Xew Year's day of that winter, gave 
 
 15,000 francs front his private purse to 
 charity. 
 
 Although he has reestablished very 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXI> CADI. 
 
 l 23 
 
 carefully all the etiquette of the Papal 
 Court, etiquette which had fallen some- 
 what into decay since 1N70, he does not 
 
 allow the cardinals to g it in gala 
 
 carriages. The processions arc all kept 
 carefully within the churches, and the 
 files of chanting brethren, carrying huge 
 candles, which follow funeral processions, 
 arc almost the only relic of the copious 
 and magnificent Catholic ceremonial, 
 sonic phase of which was once visible 
 hourly in Rome. 
 
 The Pope finds time in the midst of 
 his apostolate, in the intervals of the 
 careful study of St. Thomas Aquinas, 
 for whom he lias a veritable passion, and 
 the spread of whose doctrines he recom- 
 mends to all the bishops, to occupy 
 himself with modern progress. lie 
 writes copiously and freely for two or 
 three Roman newspapers, which are I he 
 official representatives of the Papal 
 Court; and there was at one time since 
 his accession a grand project for found- 
 ing a huge newspaper, the size of the 
 " London Times," to be the official jour- 
 nal of the Vatican, and to embody in its 
 many columns every day the epitome of 
 the Catholic world. It was proposed 
 that this novel journal should lie printed 
 in a dozen languages ; but the scheme 
 was given up altogether as extensive and 
 expensive. 
 
 Not long ago the Pope founded an 
 academy for the study of Roman law- 
 anil philosophy, ecclesiastical law, and 
 comparative civil legislation. The grand 
 polyglot academy session, which was 
 held at the Vatican in April, 1880, will 
 not soon be forgotten. It brought to- 
 gether forty-nine different languages, 
 all of which were well spoken by the 
 representatives of the Catholic faith in 
 every quarter of the world. The diplo- 
 mats who arc sent to the Papal Court by 
 countries which still recognize the tem- 
 
 poral sovereignty of the Pope are said 
 to lie somewhat annoyed at the facility 
 with which (he august Pontiff scuds his 
 views to the public journals. He often 
 adopts sudden publicity as a way of 
 getting out of a political situation which 
 is disagreeable to him. 
 
 The programme of the Vatican appears 
 lo be susceptible of but little change in 
 one respect: there will be no recon- 
 ciliation with the Quiriual ; and this is 
 
 kl\o OK ITALY. 
 
 the reason given by the Catholic authori- 
 ties: In the first place, alter his election, 
 Leo XIII. took a solemn oath upon the 
 Gospels, in the presence of the Sacred 
 College, according to the constitution 
 and the canons, that he would not abdi- 
 cate the rights of the Holy See and the 
 domain of St. Peter: and, furthermore, 
 the present King of Italy doe-, not 
 possess the authority to restore the 
 Papal States. With this point of view 
 established in the Catholic mind, it is 
 
Il'l 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM A\H CALM. 
 
 evident that little progress can be made. 
 Leo XIII. 's plan of action is summed up 
 in the words : " Neither concession nor 
 provocation." The Holy See considers 
 the temporal power as an inherent, part 
 of the Constitution of the Church from 
 the earliest dawn of Christianity. Its 
 own historians say that the Popes became 
 sovereigns without knowing how they 
 became so ; that an invisible law raised 
 up the Roman Sec 1 ; and that the chief 
 of the Roman Universal Church is 
 born a sovereign. They scoff at the 
 ■■ law of guarantees," which " established 
 Hi, official relations between the new 
 kingdom and the Holy See." They say 
 that it is a law imposed by the con- 
 queror upon the conquered, and that, 
 although it accords the Pope sovereign 
 lionois, and assigns him a civil list of 
 several millions of francs (which neither 
 the present Pope nor Pius IX. would 
 accept), it is perilous and irreligious in 
 its action. The retreat of Pius IX. to 
 the Vatican was therefore necessitated 
 by the loss of his independence, and his 
 successors must follow his exile until — 
 I'nlil what? The Catholic view of the 
 situation in Italy is, that, in process of 
 time, a radical and republican revolution 
 will sweep away the House of Savoy, 
 and that then the people will proceed 
 to excesses which will necessitate 
 intervention, a return to royalty, and 
 the reestablislrment of all the Papal 
 
 privileges This conviction is so lixed 
 in the minds of many Catholics of 
 Italy that they not only make no secret 
 of it, but have boldly urged the Catho- 
 
 lics to vote and work with the Republicans 
 for the upsetting of this monarchy. They 
 hail every revolution and disorder as a 
 step forward towards the emancipation 
 of Home; yet they might have seen, by 
 events in France in 1871, that a social- 
 istic and radical revolution may be put 
 down without destroying a republic. 
 They say that Italian unity has profited 
 none but the middle or bourgeois class ; 
 that the country is going straight from 
 evolution to revolution : that the re- 
 sources of the kingdom are all absorbed 
 by taxation ; that the constant agitation 
 in favor of the " unredeemed provinces," 
 as the radical patriots call Savoy. Nice, 
 Corsica, Malta, Tunis, Tyrol, and the 
 Tessino, will be a powerful aid in bring- 
 ing about a revolution ; that the Italians, 
 instead of saying in the noble words of 
 Mazzini : "God and People" {Dio e 
 l>opolo), now put an accent over the e, and 
 say, "God is the people" (Dio 6 popolo) 
 They speak of the Republican manifesta- 
 tions and festivities in recent years at 
 Genoa, Bologna, Rimini, Aneona, and 
 Turin, and prophesy that it will not be 
 long before King Humbert will have to 
 convoke a constituent assembly, in which 
 the destiny of the Italian nation will be 
 decided. 
 
 This view of the intelligent and ambi- 
 tious Catholics of Italy is worthy of 
 careful note. Perhaps a portion of their 
 prophecy will be fulfilled; but it is not 
 probable that in our day the temporal 
 power will be restored to the chief of 
 the ( lunch at, the Vatican, or wherever 
 else he may choose his residence. 
 
EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 
 
 425 
 
 CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE. 
 
 The German Parade on Lonjjchamps. — The Triumphal Entry Into Paris. — Shadows of Civil War. — 
 Outhreak of " La Commune." — The Greatest Insurrection of Modern Times — Its Causes and Its 
 Hopes. — The Association of the Generals. — The First Fights. — The Man i testation of the " Friends 
 of Order." 
 
 WHILE the French Assembly was 
 agonizing at Bordeaux over the 
 odious articles of the treaty of peace, 
 King William of Prussia and his suite 
 were passing in review the Sixth and the 
 Eleventh Prussian corps, and the remains 
 of the Second Bavarian corps, on the 
 green sward at Longchamps. King Wil- 
 liam had been over this ground twice 
 before in his life, as a conqueror in 1814- 
 15, and as a visitor in 1867, when sixty 
 thousand of the flower of the French 
 troops marched past him. 
 
 A little less than thirty thousand < rer- 
 mans participated in the review. The 
 old monarch was stationed near the 
 mined race-stand and seats on Long- 
 champs, which had been entered by the 
 Trocadero and Passy route, and by the 
 long and brilliant Avenue de 1' Impera- 
 trice. The King and the Crown Prince, 
 however, returned to Versailles, making 
 no attempt to enter Paris at the head of 
 their troops in the style supposed to be 
 traditionally fit for conquerors. The 
 strict observance of Article III. of the 
 conditions of peace was continued, so as 
 to avoid all danger of collision between 
 the Prussians and the Parisians, 'lite 
 mass of the German army cared very 
 little about the "triumphant entry." 
 Paris was in universal mourning on this 
 1st of March ; a black day for Frenchmen 
 to count from and to swear against. 
 There were but few cannon in the streets. 
 Proclamations had been posted in cer- 
 
 tain quarters containing threats against 
 
 the lives of those who sold anything to 
 ( Germans, or were seen speaking to them. 
 Black Hags and long streamers of mourn- 
 ing were everywhere displayed. The 
 statues of Strasbourg. Metz, Lille, and 
 the sister cities in the grand Place de hi 
 Concorde, were veiled and masked with 
 crape, and here great barriers were 
 erected at the streets into which the Con- 
 vention did not allow the Germans to 
 penetrate. The German troops did not 
 pass under the Triumphal Arch, which 
 had been surrounded with a barrier of 
 iron chains, as if to intimate that no 
 German could soil the sacred earth by 
 his presence. The march called ••The 
 Entry of Paris," which was played by 
 the regimental bands, was lirst heard in 
 the Champs Elysees in 181 1, when the 
 Victorious Allies entered. 
 
 Bismarck came in. almost unperceived, 
 in a little caleche, and, muffled in a huge 
 gray cloak, went to the barriers of the 
 Place de la Concorde. 
 
 One of the must pathetic episodes of 
 the occupation of Paris was the invasion 
 of the Hotel des Invalides. Doubtless 
 there was a little malice cm the part of 
 the Germans in stipulating for this priv- 
 ilege. The haughty invader was glad to 
 penetrate the old sanctuary of military 
 glory around Napoleon's tomb, where 
 some of his aged heroes, toothless, and 
 but poorly provided with legs and arms, 
 were still lingering above ground. Swag- 
 
426 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 gering officers in black anil red, with evacuated by the Germans, should at- 
 their white gloves and their gala swords, tempi i<> take these cannon, why might 
 interrogated the old invalids concerning it not be suspected of designs upon the 
 the flags in the chapel, and probed the Republic? The logic was not very good, 
 carvings around the great Emperor's but the Communists from the first pro- 
 tomb with their weapons. This was an claimed their suspicions that M. Thiers 
 overwhelming measure of vengeance, and and his government meant to bring back 
 so the old French heroes thought. an empire or a monarchy. Early in 
 No doubt there were some excesses March they issued a proclamation say- 
 committed during the short occupation, ing : " The central committee of the Na- 
 I'aul de St. Victor has .said of the Prus- tional Guard, nominated in an assembly 
 sian, taking his inspiration from the of delegates representing more than two 
 portrait of At.tila in the old chronicle: hundred battalions, announces as its mis- 
 sile is frank or crafty, just or unjust, sion the constitution of a Republican fed- 
 temperate or dissolute, humane or cruel, eration of the National Guard, organized 
 according to his interests ;" and, it might so as to protect the government better 
 
 be added, according to his prejudices. than permanent armies have done up to 
 The German soldiers certainly did much the present time, and to defend the men- 
 mischief and damage in certain houses aced Republic by all possible means." 
 where they were quartered in Paris; but The collision came. The government 
 it turned out afterwards that these houses made its attack on the bluff of Mont- 
 were owned by political or literary per- martre, to take the cannon of which the 
 sonages who had been especially (lis- National Guard was anxious to maintain 
 agreeable to Germany. possession. The positions were sur- 
 
 The outbreak of the Communal Insur- rounded by a battalion of chasseurs-a- 
 
 rection came swiftly after the departure pied and another from the < hie Hundred 
 
 of the Germans. On the great plain at, and Twenty-second regiment of the line, 
 
 the top of Montinartre. near t lie old sig- taken by General Faidherbe's army. The 
 
 nal tower of the aerial telegraph, were streets near by were occupied by line 
 
 parked a large number of cannon, which regiments, and there were mitrailleuse 
 
 the National Guard had hauled up thither batteries in all the labyrinth of sideways 
 
 for safe-keeping. All around them they and by-ways of dubious reputation which 
 
 had built barricades to protect them, and covered Montmartre's side, [t is needless 
 
 many of the cannon were pointed towards to recite the history of the conflict, which 
 
 the centre of Paris. The National Guard resulted in a defeat of the liners. The 
 
 threatened vengeance if these weapons movement for carrying away the cannons 
 
 were disturbed by Chanzy, or any other was stopped with a vigorous assault. An 
 
 of the Generals whose troops were now immense disorganized body of the Na- 
 
 arriving in Paris, fresh from the fields tional Guard rushed down upon the liners, 
 
 where they had met. and fraternized with them. Many of the 
 
 Here was the easy pretext for an open regular troops were demoralized because 
 
 rebellion of the National Guard. If their government was lost, and the revo- 
 
 the General Government, which had re- lution was practically declared, 
 turned from Bordeaux to Versailles, and General Vinoy was hissed at. and was 
 
 appeared likely to establish the capital obliged to retire hastily. The National 
 
 of the country in the old city so recently Guard organized a meeting; and while 
 
EUROPE IN STOSM AND CALM. 
 
 1-27 
 
 they were deliberating, an immense crowd 
 of men, women, and children Mocked 
 the passage of the cannon -which the 
 government artillerymen were vainly en- 
 deavoring to move to a place of safety. 
 While this was going on, the battalions 
 of Belleville came puffing and steaming 
 into the fight, hot with a rapid march. 
 The Montmartre rebels retired, the newly 
 
 The agitation spread quickly to Belleville 
 and the Faubourg St. Antoine, and the 
 Place de la Bastille was covered with the 
 rebel troops. 
 
 The funeral procession of Victor Hugo's 
 son Charles was stopped in the Rue St. 
 Antoine by a revolutionary committee 
 engaged on a barricade, who announced 
 that it could go no farther. Towards 
 
 _. .;-. t.-&-^Sf ;ifc »^A^ .:-- 
 
 Iftfc 
 
 4^" 
 
 
 THE TOP OF MONTMARTRE WHERE THE COMMUNIST CANNON WERE 
 
 INSTALLED. 
 
 arrived took their places, and a struggle 
 began; officers were beaten; any man 
 who raised his sword as if to command 
 was shot at. Many of the government 
 soldiers turned up the butts of their 
 muskets in token of adhesion to the 
 Revolution. The shooting grew more 
 frequent and violent : many persons were 
 wounded in the cafes and houses. Several 
 soldiers were slain ; finally the line troops 
 mutinied, and a whole squadron of gen- 
 darmes was surrounded and imprisoned. 
 
 3 o'clock placards were posted announc- 
 ing that the riot was in possession of the 
 Montmartre, Belleville, and Faubourg 
 St. Antoine quarters. In the heart oi 
 the city one heard that a " court-martial " 
 was judging General Le Comte ; the old 
 General Clement Thomas, commander 
 of the National Guard of the city, was 
 a prisoner. An hour later came the story 
 that they had been foully assassinated 
 without achance of justifying themselves, 
 by unknown persons, who compelled the 
 
428 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM 
 
 soldiers of the line to shoot them. Both The second important event in this 
 General Thomas and General Le Comte greatest insurrection of modern times 
 were taken to a small house in the Rue occurred on the 23d of March, when the 
 iles Roziors at tour o'clock that afternoon, " Friends of ( )rder," as they called theni- 
 and, without the semblance of a trial, selves, went in long procession down the 
 were dragged into a garden, tied together, Rue de la Pais to the Place Vendome, 
 and fired upon. General Le Comte was to reason with the rebels, who had there 
 killed at once by a ball which struck him established their head-quarters. Many 
 behind the ear; General Thomas was not people considered this foolhardy attempt 
 wounded by the first discharge, and when as a Bonapartist trick, and refused for 
 the second filled him » ith his death wound, this purpose to associate themselves with 
 lie cried out ••Cowards!" and waited it. The day was line, the sunshine rest- 
 tranquilly for the finishing stroke. ing upon the white fronts of the noble 
 At live o'clock on the afternoon of this buildings in the line de la Paix, and on 
 fated 18th of March the insurgents were the bronze Pegasus upspringing from the 
 in full possession of the Hotel de Yille. roof of the new opera. Thousands of 
 The ministries of war and justice in the ladies and gentlemen had gathered in 
 Place Vendome and the regular govern- this square in front, of the Grand Opera, 
 ment had but one resource, that of retir- and were looking curiously towards the 
 ing speedily to Versailles, or of falling Place Yendoine, where there were four 
 into the hands of captors who might have rows of shabby-looking sentinels, and 
 proved severe judges. The Hotel de where grinning cannon, pointed upon 
 Yillc was occupied by three regiments of the gaping crowd of cockneys, could be 
 the line ; but the Communists succeeded seen. 
 
 in inducing them to retire without light- The Parisian loves danger and lacks 
 ing. Hundreds of thousands of people caution; and therefore the thousands 
 came into the streets, and wandered about who came out to gaze upon the fortified 
 watching the movements of the Com- camp of the insurrectionists surged for- 
 munists ; but none of them was willing ward through the boulevards until they 
 to believe that the movement was serious, were well into the mouth of the street. 
 At nine o'clock, the National Guard of Meantime, the great mass meeting of 
 Belleville were in possession of the whole the •' Friends of ( )rder," held near by, had 
 central part of the city, hail sent to dispersed, and the masses, shouting 
 demand the Official Journal, and were " Long live order!" moved down, sweep- 
 printing manifestoes of what they had ing all before them. In a \\-\\ moments 
 done and proposed to do. They an- the dense mass of men, women, and chil- 
 nounced the raising of the state of siege, dren. nearly all from the upper ranks of 
 the convocation of the people of Paris society, were surrounding the insurgents, 
 for the Communal elections, and guaran- who at once heat their drums. The 
 teed ihe security of all citizens. They greatest activity prevailed in the Place 
 planted the red Hag on the Bastille Yendoine. Messengers were seen gallop- 
 column, took possession of the principal ing oil to summon out new battalions, 
 barracks; and excited foreigners were and new lines of guards sprang into sight 
 telegraphing in all directions that the from behind the barricades at the rear 
 Red Republic would be firmly established of the place. I saw the first line of in- 
 in Paris on the following morning. surgents lilt their guns warningly, aud 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 429 
 
430 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 then retire as if frightened. While women :i ml Ihe yells of frightened men 
 
 standing at the corner of the Rue des resounded everywhere. The blow had 
 
 Petits Champs, which gave a direct view fallen, the Revolution was in earnest, 
 
 upon tin* scene, 1 was amazed to see a and the people of the aristocratic classes 
 
 whole line of sentinels suddenly envel- were now thoroughly convinced of it. 
 oped in the crowd. The gentlemen waved About twenty men remained lying 
 
 their hats in the air ; ladies waving their upon the ground, and were at once 
 
 parasols and handkerchiefs cried <mt. surrounded by the insurgents, who ex- 
 
 " Hurrah for order ! Lay down your arms, amined them. Ambulance men came 
 
 and let us be friends!" At this moment out from their ranks, and the dead were 
 
 there was a discharge of musketry; but carried away on stretchers. .Many 
 
 1 saw that there was no confusion, and people had received uo Is in the 
 
 fancied that s e of the frightened in- arms and legs, but were able to get 
 
 surgents had tired in the air. Suddenly home. In ten minutes after the dead 
 a second sharp rattling volley ran out, were removed the cannon were brought 
 one or two cries of ■' Cowards and assas- up to the entrance of the Place Yen- 
 sins!" were heard, and a general panic dome, and sentinels were pushed for- 
 ciisucd. A few bullets rattled on the ward into the Rue de la Pais. The in- 
 wall at the corner where I stood. One dignatiou among the Friends of Older 
 wounded man was brought from the was so great that many returned along 
 crowd into a side street, two rioters fob the bloody pavements and shook their 
 lowing, and claiminghim as their prisoner, lists in the faces of the soldiers. Num- 
 ainl that he had fired upon them. He bers of these people were arrested, and 
 was in the uniform of :i Captain of Mo- a commission of examination was at 
 biles, and was evidently dying. His once instituted in one of the buildings 
 face was deathly pale, and the foam was in the Place Vendome. 
 at his lips. Little quarrels immediately One man lay dead for two hours in 
 sprang up all around. Well-dressed front of a chemist's on the Rue de la 
 gentlemen took away a musket from one Paix. He had evidently been instantly 
 of the insurgents, and menaced him with killed, and was forgotten in the mette 
 the contents of it if he did not return of picking up, as the rebels were con- 
 into his own lines. The cries became stantly expecting an attack from the 
 louder. People who were hastily putting National Guard of the quarter. An 
 up the shutters in all the shops ami American from St. Louis was also 
 hotels along our street, even to the cor- killed by shots from the rioters. The 
 ner where the Bellevillians stood, joined celebrated banker Hottingner, while 
 in the outcry. Five minutes before, our earing for a wounded man. was hit 
 street had been tilled with (lying people ; in the chest. General Sheridan was 
 live minutes after, it was silent as the an eye-witness of the affair, and, ac- 
 grave. The red-white-and-blue flag, cording to his testimony and that of 
 the Hag of France, was brought towards many others, it would seem that the 
 the line, bayonets and sabres were agi- insurgents certainly received consider- 
 tated violently in the air, the Hag was able provocation to tire. Many of Ihe 
 torn down, and another discharge, this men of order had revolvers in their 
 time louder and more effectual, occurred, pockets, and that they were used in 
 Then Ihe crowd tied, and the screams of the milrr is certain, because some of 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 431 
 
 the Bellevillians were killed, and many 
 were wounded. 
 
 The Rue Neuve des Petits Champs 
 was occupied by a large force, and 
 sentinels were placed before each door 
 to guard against any surprise on the 
 part of the infuriated battalion, which, 
 having had one taste of blood, seemed 
 discontented without, more. The in- 
 surgents gave me a soldier to accom- 
 pany me to the head of the line de la 
 Paix, and on our way we walked 
 around a pool of fresh blood. The 
 sentinels farther on had already as- 
 sumed the revolutionary style. '• Pn.i- 
 sez, citoyen," said each one: and I 
 gained the invaded quarter in safety. 
 All the insurgents with whom I talked 
 seemed sorry that a collision had oc- 
 curred, and some announced their opin- 
 ion i hat it had injured the cause. 
 
 On the following Friday morning I 
 went with the American Consul and 
 other Americans to the Place Veudome 
 to claim the body of our countryman 
 who had been killed. We were readily 
 admitted, and found the greatest calm 
 prevailing in the Place : and an immense 
 number of insurgents was gathered 
 there. We were ushered into the 
 Credit Mobilier, transformed into a hos- 
 pital, and there saw five dead bodies, 
 two of which were pointed out by the 
 insurrectionists as belonging to their 
 movement. One was a fine, stalwart 
 man, with flowing beard, but coarsely 
 dressed in blue garments, with a blue 
 sash around his waist. lie was shot 
 twice in the back of the head with 
 revolver bullets, and we were told that 
 it was the first victim in the collision. 
 One man, exceedingly handsome, richly 
 dressed, and young, had been shot 
 also in the head : and on his counte- 
 nance there was a ghastly expression 
 of terror. The Commandant of the 
 
 Place sanctioned the removal of the 
 body for which we came; and as the 
 
 little procession, with a flag at its head, 
 went out, all the insurgents doffed their 
 hats. 
 
 There were fresh alarms daily, but no 
 more lighting. For many days alter the 
 retirement of Admiral Saisset to Ver- 
 sailles the people of the central quarter 
 of Palis thought they were at the mercy of 
 the Red Republicans, and that there was 
 nothing to do but to compromise the 
 situation. They dreaded an attack by 
 the government from Versailles, where 
 great masses of troops were assembling 
 as fast as they could be returned from 
 Germany; and a friend remarked tome, 
 a few days alter the collision in the Rue 
 de la Paix. that the advance columns of 
 General Ducrot's forces along the Sevres 
 road would cause more fear and trem- 
 bling in the capital than the advent of the 
 Prussians did. We now and then heard 
 great booming of cannon in the Prussian 
 lines, and the Communists claimed that 
 thesegunswere fired in mockeiyof thedis- 
 sensions of the French, — an interpreta- 
 tion which was of course absurd. As for 
 the Prussians, they were well satisfied with 
 the season of rest which had arrived ; and 
 at St. Denis, at Enghien, at Montmo- 
 rency, and at all the suburbs in the 
 northern sections, they were most com- 
 fortably installed. At night the bivouac 
 fires of the outposts were plainly visible 
 from the walls of Paris. Every railway 
 on the main lines had a Prussian in- 
 spector, who never thought of allowing 
 a train to start until its passengers had 
 been carefully examined. The difference 
 in the running-time between Paris and 
 London was increased by one hour de- 
 voted to the Prussians, at St. Denis. The 
 Germans kept this line open during the 
 whole insurrection, and there was never 
 a time, not even excepting the seven 
 
4.>L' EUROPE IN STORM AXD CADI. 
 
 days' fight, when one could nut freely selves, were quite free and easy in their 
 
 have left the capital had he wished to communications with strangers, and 
 
 do so. The Parisians, and especially mauy of the simple workmen, carrying 
 
 those possessing large fortunes, began to guns, standing sentries in the Rue de la 
 
 disappear. In less than a week after the Pai\ and on the central I levards, dis- 
 
 shooting in the Rue de la Pais fifteen closed what they thoupht were the plans 
 
 thousand persons left. Returning from of the Commune to English and Ameri- 
 
 Ihe sea-coast through Civil, one day tOW- can people, and possibly even to Pl'llS- 
 ards the close of .March. I found at that sians, without the slightest reserve. The 
 station about fifty thousand ladies and officers, however, in time forbade con- 
 gentlemen, all iii a state of excitement versation ; but the men only obeyed when 
 which seemed to border on lunacy. The the officers were in sight. The riritiiilirn . s 
 onlv passenger on the train besides myself were uot the least amusing of the odd 
 was a Qneen's messenger, who got out features of the Communal military forces. 
 a! Creil and took the branch line to Yer- They were usually women of middle age, 
 sailles. The refugees from Paris set up a scarcely to be classed as handsome, clad 
 shout when they saw my head at the win- in brown habits, and wearing bonnets 
 dow of the railway carriage, and several whichwerea kind of compromise between 
 gentlemen warned me not to return to the a Phrygian cap and a Tam O'Shanter. 
 city, as there was fighting in every street, They excited much sport during the firsl 
 and the Tenor was shortly to be estab- days of the Commune, before the young 
 fished. These people were so thoroughly fashionables of the .lockcy Club and the 
 convinced of tin' truth of what they said boulevards had become frightened, and 
 that there was no reasoning with them. I when they mercilessly ridiculed every 
 reached the Northern rail waj* station with- public demonstration of the Commune. 
 out adventure, and walked down to my The Communal troops generally ear- 
 apartments in the Rue desPetits Champs tied little red flags stuck in the muzzles 
 
 without seeing au\ evidence whatever of their guns, when they were on the 
 of the insurrection, except the cannon march; and many battalions had ban- 
 grinning from the barricades in the Place neis with inscriptions signifying that 
 Vendome. Paris was for six weeks there- they were the real men of order, etc. 
 after, with the exception of an occasional These troops suffered from lack of food, 
 cannonade and a pretty constant clatter and many of them did not sleep in-doors 
 of musketry at a distance, more tranquil for a week together; but they were all 
 that it usually is in spring and early convinced that Paris would win in the 
 summer. great struggle, and thai the cities of the 
 Presently the situation was clearly de- south would rally to her support. So, in 
 lined. Versailles had determined to the bright sunshiny days, they managed 
 besiege and take the rebels of the capi- to subsist on bread and an occasional 
 tal at no matter what cost of blood and vegetable, and to eel along without pay. 
 treasure. M. Thiers was in an angry The finances of the Commune were not 
 mood, which was not at all softened by at all flourishing, although they were 
 the decrees of the Commune against him administered, according to the testimony 
 and the unroofing of his house in the of so good an authority as the London 
 Place Si. Georges. The new masters of Times, with tile most rigid and absolute 
 Paris, the citizens, as they called them- honesty, even to the disbursing of a 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AST) CALM. 
 
 433 
 
 centime. Jourde, the delegate for the ings at the Hotel de Ville were eharac- 
 financial department, as the Communal terized by considerable decision and 
 phrase had it, was a man of genius for capacity for despatch of business. Assi, 
 finance, and did his work with a. swift- a workman of more than average abilitv. 
 ness, and manifested an incorrupti- usually presided. lie and one of the 
 bility, in striking contrast with the Generals wen- the men who saved the 
 conduct of the officials of the 
 
 Empire who had preceded 
 
 him. But had the success of 
 the Commune been prolonged 
 it is probable that the Social- 
 ists, who had crept into the 
 party, would have found 
 Jourde too good a man for 
 their purpose. 
 
 At the outset of the insur- 
 rection the National Guard 
 from the workingmen's quar- 
 ters were all very sensitive of 
 criticism upon their conduct, 
 and not one of them showed 
 any disposition to profit by 
 the power which had been 
 placed in his hands. The offi- 
 cers would not allow the men 
 to enter even the court-yards 
 of the houses ; and it was an- 
 nounced by printed proclama- 
 tions, and in the orders of the 
 day given to the troops, that 
 any one detected in the theft 
 of the smallest article from 
 house or street would he shot. 
 One evening when I went to 
 the Kiosk for my newspapers, 
 the marchemde was absent, 
 and although the latest edi- 
 tions of the papers were lying 
 ready to the hand of the passers-by, I said 
 to a soldier who was slouching beside the 
 
 COMMUNIST TROOPS GOING TO THE FRONT. 
 
 Commune from the dubious policy of at- 
 tacking Versailles, a course which might 
 have resulted in bringing on civil war 
 
 Kiosk, "You appear to be guarding the 
 
 newspapers." — "Ah," said the soldier, throughout France. 
 
 " there is no occasion for alarm: there On the night before Admiral Saisset 
 
 are no thieves here ; no one would touch left for Versailles. Paris was never more 
 
 the papers were they made of gold." gay and beautiful. Thousands upon 
 
 The insurrectionary committee meet- thousands of people thronged the streets, 
 
4.°,4 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM 
 
 and the great avenues, flooded by the 
 pure moonlight, echoed to the laughter 
 and the shouts of the troops, who seemed 
 inure as if they were on a pleasure ex- 
 cursion than engaged in a military occu- 
 pation. But in some of the streets held 
 by the insurgents, one heard the constant 
 cry, •• Sur la cliaussie, citoyen " (To the 
 middle of the street, citizen); and In 1 
 who diil not get off from the sidewalk 
 was sometimes aided into the street by the 
 butt of a gun. The Commune feared that 
 Admiral Saisset's forces might attempt to 
 occupy the principal points in the central 
 quarter; so they had strong guards at 
 all the important buildings. Hut. when 
 morning came, and they found that the 
 government forces had retreated, the 
 vigilance was relaxed. La, Commune at 
 once began to bluster and to boast. 
 
 On the 26th of March elections were 
 held, the Central Committee which had 
 been the soul of the insurrection desiring 
 to have its powers confirmed. These 
 elections were held on Sunday, and one 
 hundred and forty thousand votes were 
 cast for the Communal body, and about 
 sixty thousand votes lor the opposing 
 faction. Among the elected were 
 Flomvns, Blanqui, Felix 1'yat, and such 
 extremists. It was rather amusing to 
 observe, on this Sunday morning, the 
 ostentation with which the Communists 
 removed the cannon from the Place Yen- 
 dome in accordance with their proclama- 
 tion, stating that no citizen should 
 complain that he had voted at the can- 
 non's mouth. The Central Committee 
 got its powers fully confirmed, and some 
 of its more active members formed 
 themselves into a sub-committee, in 
 which the whole executive power of the 
 Commune was subsequently concen- 
 trated. 
 
 Meantime, at Versailles, M. Thiers 
 was preaching from the tribune that 
 
 Monarchy was forever lost, in France, 
 ami was telling even the Monarchists 
 that they might conspire in vain. It 
 was not until peace with Germany had 
 been voted upon that M. Thiers made 
 any definite declarations as to his con- 
 version to Republicanism. For the 
 Communists, he was. to the latest 
 moment of the great struggle, a Mon- 
 archist. They refused to believe in his 
 professions of faith in the Republic, and 
 it served their purpose to picture him as 
 conspiring to bring back the old monarch- 
 ical machinery. His vigorous action 
 soon brought together, in the villages so 
 recently evacuated by the Prussian con- 
 queror, some eighty or ninety thousand 
 men. The bridge of boats at Sevres 
 was cut by General Ducrot's order; ar- 
 tillery was planted on the hills far and 
 near. With revolution in Paris, in Mar- 
 seilles, and in Toulouse, with hundreds 
 of thousands of energetic men in Paris 
 led by desperate, unwavering leaders, 
 M. Thiers had a gigantic task before 
 him. II is courage does not appear to 
 have weakened for an instant, and his 
 coolness was the admiration of Europe. 
 
 The fusillade of the Place Venddme 
 was a kind of coup d'JEtat. It was fol- 
 lowed up on the 28th of March by the 
 formal declaration of the Commune in 
 front of the Hotel de Ville. The cere- 
 mony was not specially interesting. The 
 members of the Communal Council gol 
 together on a platform in front of the 
 great Henri IV. entrance to the magnifi- 
 cent building, which was doomed to per- 
 ish in the flames a few weeks later; and 
 there was a display of busts of the 
 Republic crowned with Liberty-caps, and 
 ornamented with red ribbons and flags. 
 Salutes were fired from batteries of ar- 
 tillery along the Seine : mam speeches 
 were made ; and there was infinite 
 drinking and shouting. The dates and 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 1.1.-. 
 
 phraseology of the old Revolution began No sooner was this published than the 
 
 to be employed. The OfficialJournal of exodus began, and did nut cease until 
 
 the- 28th of March published the follow- nearly every Parisian of fortune who 
 
 ing notice :" The citizens, members of the could get away had gone. The Com- 
 
 Commune of Paris, are called together munal authorities made a great show of 
 
 to-day, Wednesday, the 8th germinal, preventing departures from Paris, but 
 at one o'clock exactly, 
 al the Hotel de Ville." 
 
 Every smallest and least 
 
 important notice was pre- 
 ceded by the phrase : 
 •• ( 'ommune de Pai'is. — 
 Rep a blique Frangaise. 
 Liberty. Equality. Fra- 
 ternity." 
 
 The Central Commit- 
 tee gave its powers into 
 the hands of La Com- 
 mune, which was a mere 
 matter of form, designed 
 to shield the personality 
 of different members. 
 '• The proclamation," it 
 said, "of the 26th of 
 March has sanctioned 
 the victorious Revolu- 
 tion." It then went on 
 to abuse tlie Versaillais 
 as presumable Monarch- 
 ists, and stated that the 
 first acts of the new 
 power would be a deci- 
 sion as to the lowering 
 of rents and the renew- 
 al of commercial paper. 
 These were measures in- 
 tended to conciliate tin 1 
 middle class, which had 
 been sorely distressed by 
 the long business stag- 
 nation consequent on the siege. The they were powerless in the matter. The 
 Commune abolished conscription, and Commune struck a blow at the landlords 
 decreed that no military force other as soon as it was firmly installed iu 
 than the National Guard could be created power, by decreeing that no rent should 
 or introduced into Paris. All valid citi- be collected from tenants for the terms 
 zens were to be at once incorporated between October, 1870, and April, 1871 ; 
 in the National Guard. and that all the sums that had been paid 
 
 THIERS AND MACMAHON MEETING AT LONGCHAMPS 
 
430 
 
 ECROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 for rent by tenants during those nine 
 months should be credited to them on 
 future terms. This took millions upon 
 millions of francs out of the pockets of 
 the house-owning class, and to this day 
 the proprietaires cannot hear the Com- 
 mune spoken of without getting into a 
 towering passion forthwith. 
 
 The effort of Paris to attain her auton- 
 omy awakened a good deal of sympathy 
 in the minds of the more intelligent of 
 the property-holding classes; but this 
 sympathy was not strong enough to in- 
 duce the sympathizers to act openly with 
 the Commune. Paris wanted, according 
 to the Communists, to lay down an ulti- 
 matum to the general government, de- 
 manding a guarantee tor the autonomy 
 of the great capital and for its recon- 
 quered municipal authority. After the 
 elections the barbers, tailors, shoe- 
 makers, and bakers in the central quar- 
 ters, who had all been a few days before 
 fiery defenders of the law-and-order 
 party, and loud in their denunciations of 
 the assassins and the mob of convicts, 
 became somewhat conservative, and 
 showed a disposition to side with the 
 powers that be. The Commune had at 
 one time almost succeeded in convincing 
 the majority of the Parisians that the 
 National Assembly at Versailles was de- 
 termined to restore monarchy, and that 
 to Paris had been confided the glorious 
 mission of sustaining and definitely 
 founding the Republic. 
 
 Meantime business was at a stand-still, 
 and money was scarce; few shops were 
 open. The Commune, from beginning 
 lo end of its brief career, aped all the 
 tricks of the preceding governments; 
 and so it had an illumination on the 
 night that the Commune was declared. 
 This was .ailed the F&te of the Com- 
 mune. The fete was meagre and of 
 
 true Republican simplicity, — a few paper 
 lanterns hung in the Place de la Concorde 
 and in the Tuileries. The two trium- 
 phal arches were brilliant with gas-jets. 
 At the Hotel de Yille a line display was 
 made. The National Guard and their 
 wives ami daughters paraded the princi- 
 pal streets, singing revolutionary soie_:~ ; 
 and many of the men, despite the strict 
 discipline to which they were supposed 
 to be subject, were too much devoted to 
 Bacchus. Returning home at midnight 
 from an inspection of these illuminations. 
 1 was approaching a sentinel at the 
 coiner of the Rue Mont Thabor, and he 
 halted me when I was certainly one hun- 
 dred paces from him. " Passes au 
 large!" screamed the guardian of the 
 Republic, in a voice which showed signs 
 of the influence of absinthe. liow to 
 pass at any more respectful distance 
 from this exacting sentinel than the 
 width of the street I knew not. I was 
 allowed to advance within ten paces, 
 when, in a drunken rage, he cried, 
 •■ Vbulez-vous passe]' an large?" evi- 
 dently thinking that I meant to disarm 
 him. '• Certainly," 1 said ; " which side, 
 sentinel?" — " .1 votre gaache, alors." 
 (To your left, then.) lint when 1 started 
 to the left, he raised his musket, and, 
 pointing it rather unsteadily at me, said, 
 "Will you keep at a distance?" — 
 "Shall 1 not pass on this side?" — 
 " Sacre" nom de Dieu ! Do you not know 
 which is your left hand ? " 
 
 I begged his pardon for having vent- 
 ured to judge for myself which was my 
 left hand, and was finally permitted to 
 pass alive on the side which I previously 
 supposed to be my right. Drunken sen- 
 tinels were numerous enough in those 
 days, and were a source of annoyance, 
 as. in their cups, they were exacting and 
 suspicious. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 43 7 
 
 CHAPTER FORTY-SIX. 
 
 Decrees of the Commune. — The First Important Battle. — Flourens Loses His Life. — Notes on Communal 
 Journalism. — The Burning of the Guillotine. — Great Funerals. — An Artillery Duel. — An Aston- 
 ishing Spectacle. 
 
 IN the early days of April some of the 
 mote moderate of the Communists, 
 among them Vermorel and Rane, • re- 
 signed, believing that the movement had 
 become too revolutionary and public to 
 admit of further association with it. 
 They did not mean by (heir resignations 
 to imply that they despaired of leading a 
 mob, but that they recognized the move- 
 ment as indefinite in its aims, not hav- 
 ing in view the foundation of any special 
 government, either for Paris or France, 
 but being merely a protest against king- 
 ships, against the clerical reactionary 
 party, and against what Mr. Carlyle 
 called "clothes." 
 
 In these first days of April too, the 
 Commune published its famous decree, 
 by which it impeached Thiers, Jules 
 Favre, Picard, Dufaure, and others who 
 had been prominent in the work of na- 
 tional defence, because, as the proclama- 
 tion declared, "the men of the govern- 
 ment of Versailles had ordered and 
 begun a civil war, had attacked Paris, 
 slain or wounded National Guards, sol- 
 diers of the line, women and children." 
 They decreed the confiscation of the 
 goods and chattels of these personages, 
 and it was not long after that M. Thiers' 
 house was visited ; his art treasures, 
 which were many and very costly, were 
 carried off and deposited in the Louvre, 
 and his papers were tossed about by 
 grimy hands. The decree of the 2d 
 of April also announced the separation 
 
 of Church and State, the suppression of 
 the budget of public worship, and the 
 seizure by the nation as national prop- 
 erty, of till the houses and hinds belong- 
 ing to religious congregations. How the 
 Commune of Paris managed to make its 
 
 decrees national n ie knew, and no 
 
 one of the Communists endeavored to ex- 
 plain. Most of the churches wereclosed, 
 and in many cases, seals of the Commune 
 were placed upon their doors. From 
 time to time they were used for clubs, 
 and offensive and blasphemous language 
 was heard in the pulpits. The violent 
 hatred of the great masses of the sup- 
 porters of thi' Commune for the clergy 
 had been manifest from the beginning 
 of the Commune, and increased in in- 
 tensity until it culminated in the mas- 
 sacre of the Archbishop and his col- 
 leagues. 
 
 On the 3d of April came the first im- 
 portant battle in which the Communist 
 troops were engaged in front of Paris. 
 Flourens here lost his life ; Duval, ;m 
 energetic Communist, was taken pris- 
 oner, and shot ; and the Communist 
 papers were filled witlt details of the 
 ferocious conduct of the Versailles troops. 
 The fact is, that the insurrectionists 
 were treated, from first to last, with the 
 greatest rigor ; and in the early battles 
 of the insurrection, little quarter was 
 given on either side. 
 
 After the disestablishment of the 
 Church by the Commune, the insurrec- 
 
438 EUROPE TN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 tionists took every occasion toshowtheir tures in the comic papers devoted to the 
 
 contempt for religious names and relig- Commune were often extremely irrever- 
 
 ioiis employments. One day an abbe ent. In one, Jules Favre was represented 
 
 applied to the Communal officers for as Judas, and the quotation from St. 
 
 permission to visit a prisoner in the Con- Matthew concerning tin 1 faithless kiss of 
 
 ciergerie. "Who are you?" said tin 1 the betrayer was applied to a big-headed 
 
 Jack in Hoots who was in authority. Favre kissing an ugly-looking wench, 
 
 "I am a servant of Cod," was the in a red dress, supposed to represent 
 
 answer. lie was given a pass con- the Republic. In another, Thiers was 
 
 eeived thus: ••Allow freely to pass Citi- represented as an accomplished acrobat, 
 
 zen - - , servant of a person called upholding on his broad shoulders all the 
 
 God." This partook of mountebankery, aspirants to royalty and the throne of 
 
 and was significant of what was to come. France. 
 
 All tin' Catholic institutions were visited Curious and impressive was the scene 
 and minutely inspected, and (he author!- enacted on the horrible Place de la Ro- 
 ties sought every pretext for their sup- quette, where Troppmann's execution had 
 pression. One superior of a well-known occurred some time before. The Coin- 
 institution achieved a veritable triumph munists, in searching among the prisons, 
 when visited by one hundred armed men. which they were very fond of in- 
 who persist ed in searching his place, saj'- specting, found pieces of seventeen 
 ing that enemies of the Republic were guillotines, old and new, and therefore 
 concealed therein. He opened his doors they sent forth hither and you men to 
 freely, and took them through a long rattle on drums and announce that the 
 suite of rooms, all of which were filled aforesaid guillotines would be publicly 
 with wounded insurgents ; and the would- burned on the Place of the Condemned. 
 lie inspectors went away very much "Come and see, citizens, the promise 
 ashamed of* themselves. of La Commune that a reign of terror 
 The worst kind of journalism began shall not lie reestablished, at least with 
 to flourish so soon as the Commune was guillotines, for it is so easy to be con- 
 fairly installed in office, and lasted until demned by them, once they are in e,„,(| 
 the close of the insurrection. The in- working order; within their fatal arms 
 famous and scurrilous u P$re Duchene" they are always seeking to enfold you. 
 was tin' most disgusting of these journals. Let us annihilate the scarlet destroyers." 
 It was a low, blackguard publication, And so blazing piles were heaped high, 
 like the anonymous prints of Congreve's anil thousands of people danced in joy 
 time, and was, in many respects, an around the fires in which perished the 
 exact copy of its prototype of (he old blood-stained machine under whose 
 Revolution. If was filled with oaths and knife Orsini died. The women were the 
 exclamations which bordered closely on most enthusiastic participants in this cer- 
 revolting vulgarity; and the comments emony of burning the guillotines, and 
 of this ••I'i'rr Duchene" were supposed they danced, marched, and howled about 
 to embody the official opinions of the flames for hours, evidently taking as 
 the Commune. " Pkre Duchene" talked much delight in it as they did in laboring 
 of hanging, burning, drawing and on the ramparts, another of their favor- 
 quartering the bourgeois and llie aristo- ite amusements, fortifying against those 
 (mis without compunction. The earica- whom they were pleased to term the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 439 
 
 "Prussians of Versailles." A common 
 spectacle on the fortifications was a row 
 of National Guards seated gravely smok- 
 ing their pipes while the women were 
 digging at the turf and the soils and 
 piling them up on the ramparts. 
 
 One day near the insurrectionist bar- 
 ricades, on the Place Vendome, 1 dis- 
 covered an acquaintance of mine, aged 
 six years, industriously employed in 
 rearing rival barricades with lots of pav- 
 ing-stones, left where the 
 street had been torn up. 
 In the embrasure of these 
 few stones he and his 
 compa n ions presently 
 mounted a toy cannon, 
 pointed at the defenders 
 of La Commune. A sen- 
 tinel looked curiously on ; 
 bystanders smiled ; the 
 child's hair blew about 
 his forehead, fanned by 
 the evening breeze, and 
 his face took on a fero- 
 cious aspect as he tugged 
 at the heavy stones. 
 
 The One Hundred and 
 First Battalion of the in- 
 surgents was quite fa- 
 mous. It was composed of 
 small, thin, and ignorant 
 workmen from the sub- 
 urban quarters, meanly and not quite uni- 
 formly clad. Their weapons were of all 
 shapes and sizes, and to see them marching 
 along one of the splendid boulevards one 
 might have imagined that Jack Falstaff 
 and his army had come to town. But 
 they fought like demons, never missing a 
 chance in the trenches before Paris. The 
 battalion conducted itself well. It. was 
 the first battalion in the Place Vendome ; 
 it captured two cannon and a mitrailleuse 
 at Chatillon from the Versailles troops, 
 and wherever it appeared thereafter 
 
 among the Communists it was received 
 
 with cheers. 
 
 One morning the bill-boards of the 
 Commune were placarded with tin' fol- 
 lowing notice, dressed in deep mourning : 
 " Citizens: — La Commune of Paris invites 
 you to attend the burial of our brethren 
 assassinated by the enemies of the Re- 
 public during the days of the 3d, 4th, 
 and 5th of April. The meeting will 
 be at the Hospital Beau jean, at two 
 
 DEATH OF FLOURENS. 
 
 o'clock ; burial at the cemetery of Pere 
 La Chaise." 
 
 From curiosity or sympathy, thou- 
 sands attended the funeral, and three 
 immense hearses, with sixteen dead Na- 
 tional Guards in each, moved slowly up 
 the streets to the far-off cemetery that 
 afternoon. I had seen the burial pag- 
 eantry of a Marshal of the Empire, but 
 it was not so impressive as this. Thou- 
 sands of troops followed slowly with un- 
 covered heads, and the armed escort, 
 headed by muffled drums and a number 
 
440 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 of trumpeters playing mournful airs, entirely unarmed when I had visited it a 
 met with marks of respectful sympathy week and a half before, now seemed 
 everywhere. Each man wore an immor- magnificently provided with cannon, and 
 telle, and this gave to the whole proces- vomited fire and smoke continuously. 
 sion the air of a vast parterre covered ' >ver Chatillou little puffs constantly 
 with blossoms. There were few noisy arising showed that the insurgents had 
 demonstrations. The occasional roar of a battery there also, and were making 
 the cannon reminded every one that there the most of the defensive works which 
 was no time for wasting tears or breath, the Prussians had left behind them. 
 As the head of the funeral procession Gradually the whole horizon beyond was 
 reached the point opposite the Chauss<5e enveloped in the smoke from batteries, 
 d'Antin, where there weremany thousands and the thunders of the artillery were 
 of spectators massed together, another distinctly audible for miles around. On 
 funeral procession, composed of a shabby the greal plain below, that which, in 
 hearse with a pine-wood coffin in it, fol- 1867, received upon its vast expanse the 
 lowed by half a dozen humble people, came delegates of all the nations, several thou- 
 out from the Rue Louis le Grand, ami sand men were manoeuvring. The sheen 
 crossed directly at right angles. Misery of their arms, the occasional faint 
 and splendor in burial ceremonial were echoes of martial music, borne to us on 
 never in more startling contrast than the breeze, gave us all the spirit of a 
 here, and a sob of sympathy seemed to review, while we were in the presence of 
 burst from the spectators in profound an active battle. The whole space in 
 unison. The addresses at the cemetery front of the Ecole Militaire was occupied 
 were full of vindictive threats and allu- by regiments of National Guards, who 
 sions to the cowardly assassinations of manoeuvred with much precision. Abrill- 
 the brothers in arms. The death of iant staff rode up and down commanding 
 Flourens, which had been a great blow imperiously, but with our field-glasses we 
 to the Commune, was more than once could discern that they cast timid glances 
 alluded to in a manner which showed in the direction of Issy. where the battle 
 that vengeance was intended. Next day every moment gained in vigor. Its tre- 
 I rode to the review which the Commn- mendous fusillade was showing its white 
 nists had announced to take place on the line of smoke under the batteries of Issy. 
 Champ de Mais, and, in common with and the Versailles troops and the wa- 
 thoiisands of other spectators, was com- vering response on the insurgents' side 
 fortablv ensconcing myself on the sunny indicated that the fort was now in dan- 
 slope of the Trocadero, when my atten- ger. 
 
 tion was arrested by a tremendous can- Suddenly we heard the sharp voice of 
 nonading, which burst suddenly upon our the insurgents' batteries in the neighbor- 
 hearing from the direction of Fort Issy. hood of the Avenuede la Grande Armde, 
 The. thousands of spectators turned their and hastened towards the ramparts at 
 eves towards the fort, and it was evident that point, where a gate opened into the 
 to all that a great artillery duel was be- Porte Maillot. Here I was brought to 
 ginning. The Versailles troops had es- a sharp halt by a sentinel, who assured 
 tablished their batteries on a plateau me that I could go no farther ; and even 
 between Meudon and Issy, ami were the production of numerous Communistic 
 firinc briskly. But the fort, which was passes was of only sufficient avail to 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CADI. 
 
 441 
 
 procure me a threat of immediate arrest now endeavoring to retake. This barri- 
 
 if I ventured to mount the ramparts. I cade was stoutly defended by the insur- 
 
 turned away, ami proceeded in the direc- gents, who were protected by batteries 
 
 tion of the Triumphal Arch. On getting on all sides. 
 
 near this monument, whence I could In and around the Triumphal Arch, and 
 
 have an unobstructed view of the Neuilly half-way down the avenue of the Grand 
 
 gate and as far as Courbevoie, on the Army, in the direction of the fighting, 
 
 long, straight avenue of Neuilly, which was clustered, perched, stuffed, packed, 
 
 runs without the slightest curve or break and jammed together, a crowd of perhaps 
 
 THE RUE PERRONET AT NEUILLY. 
 
 until the hill shuts out the view beyond, 
 I saw that a battle was engaged, and 
 shells were beginning to fall unpleasantly 
 near. Many exploded in the air, and 
 
 each shell was said to have one hundred 
 bullets in it. At the top of the hill just 
 mentioned is a large tower, and half-way 
 between this tower and the gate of the 
 Paris fortifications was a huge barricade, 
 which the Versailles troops had held the 
 day before, had abandoned, and were 
 
 thirty thousand people. Must of these 
 were citizens of Paris, and from the upper 
 classes. They were in carriages and 
 dog-carts, mounted on omnibuses, and 
 on the balconies and roofs of the sur- 
 rounding houses. Men and women, 
 elegantly dressed, joked and laughed 
 over the struggles of the lighting men on 
 the hills and plains below. It was like 
 a ( Wand Prix day in the Boisde Boulogne. 
 It was impossible for a stranger to under- 
 
442 EUROTE IX STURM AND CALM. 
 
 stand how these people of society looked immense clouds of smoke, for ten minutes 
 
 with such evident unconcern at what at a time. Now and then one or two 
 
 seemed to be the beginning of a saugui- men would disappear under the crushing 
 
 nary civil war. The men cheered and explosion of a shell ; then a tremendous 
 
 the women waved their handkerchiefs musket-fire would break out from hedge 
 
 whenever a shell burst, but for what and house and wall, directed at the ap- 
 
 reason they would have been puzzled to proaehing Versailles artillery -men, and 
 say. The foolishly frivolous and fashion- the crowd regarded it as a glorious spec- 
 able class, which neither represented tacle, and laughed, and ate bonbons, and 
 Paris nor France, was in full force en went quietly home to dinner. But it was 
 this occasion ; and once or twice 1 the astonished to learn that, an hour after it 
 Communists, stalking about in the crowd, had left, shells were falling thickly on and 
 showed an inclination to strip these line around the Arch. 
 
 birds of their feathers. Numbers of car- The government troops had got. the 
 riages filled with American ladies and contested barricade again at considerable 
 gentlemen were grouped about the Tri- loss, and were now steadily approaching 
 umphal Arch. Here and there people the gates. When 1 left shells were fall- 
 were so enthusiastic in their praise of the ing by dozens in the rich and fashionable 
 Communal troops as to call out adverse quarter, — the Yersaillais not hesitating 
 criticism from their aristocratic neighbors to bombard tin' capital, although they 
 in the gathering. had called the Prussians Vandals because 
 Now and then a little panic was pro- they hail done the same thing. Many 
 duced by the ambition of^some shell, which insurgents were coming hack from the 
 overleaped the range of the previous fight, cross and bleeding, and elbowing 
 ones, and which fell with a frightful citizens in no gentle spirit; fresh artil- 
 erash, and not faraway. Every moment lery trains driven by liners who had de- 
 shells came up steadily in a little puff of serted at the outbreak of the Commune, 
 white smoke, which was speedily illumi- and the guns, manned by soldiers in 
 Dated by a flash and then died away, all kinds of uniforms, rattled up through 
 Sometimes the line of battle in front of the Champs Klysees. and went towards 
 the gate, only a short half-mile from the the gates. With the glass we could see 
 Arch, would be seen to waver under the that Xeuilly had been badly demolished ; 
 pressure of the tire of regular troops; houses had been riddled with shell, and 
 then the whole avenue would look like a many people were lulled in the street, 
 furnace, with jets of flame escaping from 
 
EURO Pi: IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 443 
 
 CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN. 
 
 Pictures <>f the Commune. 
 Public instruction. - 
 
 — General Cluscret. — Tin- Hostages. —A Visit to the Communal Ministry "i' 
 -The Armistice. — Touching Incidents of the Fratricidal Struggle. 
 
 DURING the whole of the month of 
 April a vigorous but useless fight 
 was kept up between troops of the Com- 
 mune and those nf the regular govern- 
 ment at Versailles. The battle on the 
 road to Neuilly, described in the last 
 chapter, was claimed by the Communal 
 authorities as a victory, and the Com- 
 mune issued a flaming despatch in which 
 it said that "Bergeret himself" was at 
 Neuilly. This " Bergeret himself" 
 •jmused the Parisians who were not 
 sympathetic with the Commune, and the 
 poor fellow never heard the last of it, 
 although he was soon replaced as the 
 delegate for war by Cluseret, who inau- 
 gurated his campaign by posting up a 
 proclamation to the people of Paris, in 
 which he said that the Versailles troops 
 were shooting the prisoners, killing the 
 wounded, and firing upon ambulances. 
 About this time the Parisians discovered 
 that they were doomed to suffer a second 
 bombardment, which seemed likely to 
 prove much more serious than that to 
 which they had been subjected by the 
 Prussians. The bombardment of the 
 siege cost Paris but only one hundred 
 and ninety lives; but that of the Ver- 
 sailles troops was far more deadly, and 
 appears to have been of no use whatso- 
 ever in hastening the surrender of the 
 capital. 
 
 In these early days of April we went 
 into the bombarded quarter every day to 
 see the sights, and to bring back to the 
 deserted boulevards the gossip from the 
 
 front. There was at that time no pillage ; 
 the citizen guards were neither brutal 
 nor impolite. Women were treated with 
 genuine respect, ami although a Belgian 
 correspondent had telegraphed to his 
 journal that the excitement had made 
 every one ghastly anil green with fear, 
 and ready to gnaw his fingers with re- 
 morse, such was not the rase. Am- 
 bulances were almost the only vehicles 
 seen in the bombarded quarters. The 
 red (lag waved on the tops of all the 
 buildings and most of the churches ; 
 barricades were going up right and left 
 in the principal sheets. Citizen Pascal 
 Grousset, destined to become famous in 
 connection with the Commune later on, 
 was the head of the commission for the 
 construction of barricades. Half-way 
 up the Champs Elysees, the officers of 
 battalions guarding that quarter had 
 made a line of demarcation, beyond 
 which only those citizens honored with 
 passes were allowed to go. 
 
 A visit to this quarter which I made 
 on the 9th of April, may serve as typical 
 to visits any day thereafter until the 
 entry of the regular troops into Paris. 
 All the side avenues radiating from the 
 Ale de Triomphe were filled with soldiers ; 
 guns weie stacked in one street, and 
 liners, who had deserted at the outbreak 
 of the Commune, were tranquilly build- 
 ing fires to boil their coffee, paying little 
 attention to the shells which came every 
 minute or two into their neighborhood. 
 We were halted by an officer at the 
 
444 EUROPE IN STORM AM> CALM 
 
 Arch, and this diminutive official pro- and then retire as coolly as if he wore 
 
 ceeded to examine <>ur papers with much leaving his box at the opera, 
 dignity, when a series of sharp hisses In a few moments we were standing 
 
 followed by a deafening crash caused directly in front of the Arch in the 
 
 the little Frenchman hurriedly to crumple Avenue de la Grande Armee ; and here 
 
 up our passes, throw them into our a soldier remarked that the RoyaHsts, 
 
 carriage, and force our reluctant coach- as the Versailles troops were called, 
 
 man forward. The shell struck in the were haul at work. Why they should 
 
 centre of the Avenue des Champs Elys6es, have chosen to bombard the quarter in- 
 
 seudiug its deadly fragments in all direc- habited almost exclusively by wealthy 
 
 lions. Then came a tremendous series Parisians and foreigners this soldier was 
 
 of detonations, and the air was filled at a loss to discover, and we quite 
 
 with bullets, and the d&bris of what was ngreed with him that it would have 
 
 called a mit.raille box. From all sides been, from a Versailles point of view, 
 
 came eel s. sounding like protests from more practical to shell Belleville and La 
 
 the departing owners of the fine residences Villette. When we came back to the 
 
 lining each side of the avenue. At the line de Presl rg, a lady showed us in 
 
 Ottoman Embassy we found numerous the upper chamber of a mansion the 
 
 marks of shot and shell, ami two people wreck of costly furniture, bric-d,-brae, 
 
 Hen- killed at the very doors of the Sevres china, and line paintings just 
 
 Embassy that morning. The younger caused by a shell from a Versailles 
 
 soldiers were so excited that they jostled battery. Near by, a fine villa, occupied 
 
 us right and left and made rather sharp by an American family, had been visited 
 
 comments on the curiosity-seekers. The by so many shells that all the treasures 
 
 men on guard were of the better class; in a beautiful art cabinet were demol- 
 
 somc had been forced in ; others had ished. The day previous to our visit in 
 
 volunteered, and were anxious to light, the direction of the Porte Maillot, while 
 
 In the Hue de Chaillot we saw Mr. a poor woman was giving her soldier- 
 
 Washburne's carriage driving rapidly husband a dinner she had brought him, 
 
 away, the old gentleman quietly reading a shell killed him and carried away part 
 
 the morning paper as he went his round of the woman's face. Almost at the 
 
 of daily duties, which in variety and same time a sentinel was killed by the 
 
 piquancy have never been equalled in discharge from a gun hung over the 
 
 tin 1 history of the American Legation shoulder of an orderly galloping by, 
 
 in Paris. the gun being touched by a fragment 
 
 When the great tight at the Porte of shell, which embedded itself in the 
 
 St. Martin Theatre was at its height, orderly's back. 
 
 when houses on either side of the The curiosity of the Parisians caused 
 
 street were completely wrecked, and many casualties; but as soon as a 
 
 a storm of shot and shell had raged for wounded man was seen a group gathered 
 
 more than two hours, I saw our Ameri- about him, and. while they were gazing at 
 
 (•an minister quietly drive up to the him, the splinters from newly arriving 
 
 barricade, and, stepping into the front shells made many victims among them, 
 
 rank of the regulars, take out his opera- Out of two hundred wounded people 
 
 glasses, survey as much of the situa- taken to the hospital at the Palais de 
 
 tion as was possible through the smoke, I'Industrie, the attendant physicians said 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 445 
 
 that hardly ti'ii per cent, could survive. 
 Nearly all these men were struck down 
 by shells just ready to explode. The 
 avenue leading to the Bois de Boulogne 
 was empty and desolate enough. A 
 few soldiers hang about the gate lead- 
 ing into the w 1. and a solitary sen- 
 tinel on the ramparts was hugging his 
 gnu. 
 
 At the American Legation there was 
 no sign of life. A half-drunken old 
 man, drawing an apple-cart, as he passed 
 the door of the Legation had his patriot- 
 ism awakened by the spectacle of ex- 
 ploring strangers, and had just taken 
 one of us by the collar for a Prussian, 
 when he stumbled and fell ; and there 
 was a terrific crash which nearly fright- 
 ened him out of his senses. Picking 
 himself up, he took his apple-cart and 
 departed in haste for a safer neighbor- 
 hood. It was a curious spectacle to see 
 hundreds of ladies and gentlemen watch- 
 ing the white smoke puffs of Valerien, 
 and to see them retire gradually as the 
 gunners got their range, and as the shells 
 came nearer and nearer. The children 
 went on calmly playing hop-scotch in 
 the streets, and men and women sat 
 in their doors waiting for events, and 
 gossiping about the wounded. No 
 American lady who visited Paris during 
 the Commune thought her morning com- 
 plete without she had been driven out 
 under fire and had seen some incident 
 of the bombardment. The Communist 
 officers were very fond of parading be- 
 fore strangers, and usually made artful 
 appeals to their sympathies. Dombrow- 
 ski, and men of his type, made a good 
 appearance, and their eloquence was 
 sometimes quite convincing. 
 
 One morning I was at the Ministry of 
 War, engaged in conversation with Gen- 
 eral Cluseret's secretary, when a chief 
 of battalion entered, aud announced that 
 
 his men were mutinous and no longei 
 desired to march. " Disarm them, citi- 
 zen !" was the answer. " But 1 cannot 
 disarm them," he said. " They will be 
 about the streets dying with hunger in a 
 few days if 1 do that. You know there 
 is no work, ami we cannot afford" — 
 Here he was sternly interrupted, aud 
 informed that the Commune had no 
 duties towards any man who would not 
 fight U> protect it. and that if the recal- 
 citrant needed any charity, after tlie\ 
 weic disarmed, they might go to Ver- 
 sailles to get it. The result was that 
 the men did not cany out their intention 
 to mutiny. Calhoun speaks somewhere 
 of the cohesive force of plunder; but 
 here it was the cohesive force of a com- 
 mon misery which kept these men in the 
 Communal movement. 
 
 At this time the Communal insurrec- 
 tion was respected and dignified; but it 
 was destined soon to degenerate into the 
 broadest license, and the wildest social- 
 ism, and most vindictive carnage. The 
 Conservative party, in its fright and in 
 its anger, invented accounts of the exe- 
 cution of priests and the sacking of con- 
 vents and churches which had never 
 taken place. The Sacristan of Notre 
 Dame even wrote to the Paris papers 
 that his golden and silver vessels re- 
 mained in the same receptacle where 
 they had lain for years, and denied the 
 story that the Communists had inquired 
 for them. 
 
 The famous decree of the Commune as 
 to hostages was published on the 6th of 
 April, and was provoked, it is said, by 
 the fact that the Versailles troops gave 
 no quarter, and that the hundreds of 
 suspected persons who had been ar- 
 rested and imprisoned in the gloomy 
 garrison building at Versailles were 
 treated with great harshness. Article 
 Fifth of the Communal decree declared 
 
44(! EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 that any executi f a prisoner of war. General Cluseret, in his post as dele- 
 
 or a person of the regular government of gate for war, was the virtual head of 
 the Commune of Paris, should be in- the insurrection until his rigid devotion 
 stantly followed by those of a triple num- to discipline made him unpopular, 
 berof hostages, who should be designated < >ne of his first announcements was that 
 by lot. This was generally considered by he did not intend to be disobeyed. He 
 the property-holding classes as the inau- signed one of his preliminary orders 
 filiation of a new reign of terror. The " Minister of War," on his own ac- 
 arrests of the venerable Archbishop of count, and no one contradicted him, 
 Paris, the dm' of the Madeleine, and because he seemed competent to fulfil 
 various other of the numerous cede ;ias- the duties of that position. His court- 
 tics, and their imprisonment in the Con- niartials worked quickly, and had but 
 ciergerie, constituted a fatal error, and little mercy. The General had lived 
 the more intelligent of the Communists poorly and fared hard for many years in 
 recognized from the first that it had pursuance of the cause of liberty. A 
 placed them under the ban of public consummate energy and a certain dash 
 opinion in more than three-quarters of and bravery were his chief qualities. 
 the communes in Fiance. The Arch- Not very long before; the Empire came 
 bishop wrote a letter explaining his to grief, Cluseret was visited in bis lodg- 
 position ; that he was held as a hostage, ings at Suresnes by some Imperial 
 ami saying that, if the barbarities of agents, who informed him that he was 
 which the Communists accused the Ver- their prisoner. He denied this soft iin- 
 saillais really existed, they were highly peachment, and announced to them that 
 reprehensible. The Archbishop added he was a naturalized American citizen, 
 that he wrote this sentence under no I le insisted upon being taken before Mr. 
 threat, but of his own free will, as a YVashburne, who accompanied him to 
 
 g I French citizen. the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and 
 
 A few days after the prelate's arrest there a species of convention was made 
 a friend said to me, " I have been this by which Cluseret was allowed to re- 
 morning to get my cure released. I told main ten days on French soil. Before 
 the Communists that they were keeping these had expired he had obtained an- 
 in prison a Republican and a much older other ten days of grace; and so he 
 revolutionist than themselves, and that I continued to prolong his residence until 
 myselfwas prosecuted for my liberal prin- he had accomplished the revolutionary 
 ciples long before many of the leaders in work for which he had reentered the coun- 
 this movement were born. They informed try. From the first he was determined 
 me that the cure was kept merely as a not to deceive the Parisians as to what 
 hostage; that they were compelled to use they mighl expect even if they achieved 
 severe measures to diminish the arro- their aim of making Paris a free city, 
 gance of the Versailles troops ; and that He warned them against all Socialistic 
 there were so many priests connected nonsense, and assured the soldiers that 
 with conspiracies for the reestablishment they would have to go back to be simple 
 of the Empire, or fora new monarchy, that workmen as before. Aided by a some- 
 they would doubtless be compelled to ar- what remarkable chief of staff, he re- 
 rest them all. The\ denied, however, ceived hundreds of visitors daily, and 
 that any priest had been maltreated." despatched immense quantities of work. 
 
FIROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 447 
 
 One morning, as I went to his offices, I 
 was accosted by a captain, who said to 
 me in English, " I am from Pawtucket, 
 and have come home just now to help." 
 Another inquired timidly what the Ameri- 
 cans really thought of the cause of 
 Paris, ami scowled as I explained to 
 him the drift of opinion beyond the sea 
 as to the great Communal insurrection. 
 
 The list of unsuccessful amputations 
 during these anxious days was enor- 
 mous, considering the reputation for 
 surgery that the French had theretofore 
 maintained. The chief surgeon at the 
 ambulance of the Palais de l'lndustrie 
 told me that of one hundred and forty- 
 five wounded brought to him in two 
 days, all but five per cent, would die. 
 The great number of ambulances, as the 
 extemporized hospitals were called, 
 which had existed during the Prussian 
 siege, had been dissolved or scattered 
 right or left ; and so the Commune under- 
 took to form ambulance companies, each 
 containing twenty doctors or health 
 officers, sixty medical students, ten wag- 
 ons, and one hundred and twenty litter- 
 carriers. Each company was divided 
 into six squadrons, two of which must 
 at any time lie found in the ward to 
 which they belonged ; and all these 
 were to be subject to the orders of a 
 medical commission sitting at the Hotel 
 de Ville. The doctors received the pay 
 of captains. The Communists accused 
 the Versailles government of allowing 
 its batteries to play upon the press am- 
 bulance just inside the fortifications, a 
 hospital in which live hundred seriously 
 wounded men were lying. But each of 
 the contesting forces claimed that the 
 other did not respect the Geneva flag. 
 
 The flotilla of gun-boats on the Seine 
 and the Trocadero batteries were the 
 sensations of mid- April. The eight 
 gun-boats, which had done such great 
 
 service against the Prussians, now hail a 
 red flag floating above them, kept steam 
 constantly up, and were ready to go 
 into any engagement where they could 
 lie useful. Their duty was to keep the 
 Seine clear of any sudden invasion of 
 Versailles troops. The batteries of the 
 Trocadero had been throwing shell into 
 Mont Valerien, a feat which few observ- 
 ers thought they could accomplish from 
 Trocadero, which in those days was a 
 barren plateau with long flights of stone 
 steps leading down to the Seine. The 
 spectacle was remarkably tine. The 
 whole horizon would be obscured by 
 white smoke for a few moments, then 
 the veil would arise, and the battered 
 hulks of forts Issy and Montrouge would 
 loom up and disappear like phantoms in 
 the battle mist. The smoke from the 
 batteries at the Porte Maillot and at 
 these forts hung like a pall over the 
 city one evening, and the fusillade was 
 so heavy and sustained that many peo- 
 ple rushed out of their houses expecting 
 to find Versailles troops in the Place de 
 la Concorde. 
 
 On the morning of the 23d of April I 
 went to the Ministry of War, and, after 
 some waiting, saw General Cluseret, 
 with whom I had an interesting conver- 
 sation. The General was dressed in the 
 simplest manner, wearing an old Ameri- 
 can Alpine hat, and a plain suit of trav- 
 elling clothes, rather the worse for wear. 
 The anteroom, as well as the grand inner 
 hall where the officers of the Second 
 Empire had so lately disported them- 
 selves, was tilled with troopers of all 
 shapes, sizes, and conditions. One cav- 
 alry man, covered with mud from head 
 to foot, leaned wearily on his sword and 
 told the story of an attack ; another 
 stroked his long yellow mustaches, and 
 growled because his men could not 
 get any bread to eat. A group of 
 
448 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 liners, one or two blood-stained and 
 half-famished, clamored for the < General, 
 and insisted on seeing him. When the 
 babel was at its height, Cluseret stalked 
 out of bis office, jostled the soldiers right 
 and left, and exclaimed that he could 
 not be bothered with these silly tales ; 
 and each complaiuer shrank away, lie 
 went to an inner room, where the council 
 of war was at once called, and one could 
 sec him through the open door, deciding 
 and discussing measures anxiously, but 
 with a force of will which swept, every- 
 thing before it. Yet lie admitted that 
 there was plenty of cause for discour- 
 agement, and that not even the most ex- 
 traordinary animal magnetism could for 
 any length of time overcome and cow 
 so manv thousands of unruly spirits as 
 were to be found in the ranks of the 
 ( 'ommuuists. 
 
 Those officers and troopers who came 
 
 and went in the war-ollice seemed will- 
 ing enough to die for the Commune, if 
 it were necessary. Among them were 
 many old men, hard-featured, with sixty 
 winters' snows on their heads; and two 
 or three of these venerable rebels told 
 me that they were volunteers. They 
 were risking their heads for forty sous a 
 day, said the bourgeois; but 1 believe 
 that they were honest in motive, and, 
 had thev been properly drilled, would 
 have done wonders. 
 
 Over the gate of the Ministry of War 
 fluttered the red flag, with an inscription 
 of the Commune of Paris on its folds, 
 .lust within the portico, where the sun- 
 light was merry on the gorgeous glass 
 and gilding, a pretty can.tinie.re had 
 taken off her shoes and stockings ami 
 was washing her feet after a long march. 
 Every few minutes processions of small 
 boys, from eleven to sixteen years of 
 age, marched by, each flourishing a crim- 
 son drupeau. The marines, who were de- 
 
 serters from the Versailles army, were just 
 going out to the front on this day. They 
 
 wen' enthusiastic in their cries for the 
 
 freedom of Paris. A little drummer- 
 boy, eleven years old. marshalled them 
 along, and a great crowd gathered to see 
 them match past. Then came lumber- 
 trains and requisition-wagons, badly 
 mounted orderlies galloping to and fro, 
 and slouching Mobiles, with their guns 
 slung (in their shoulders, men sullen in 
 aspect, and not soldierly in mien. 
 
 Armed with a letter of introduction I 
 went on this same day to visit the citizen 
 Minister of Public Instruction at the 
 Hdtel dc Ville, which edifice 1 found SO 
 surrounded with barricades and sentinels 
 that it seemed impossible to approach. 
 At last, by tortuous ways, we got into the 
 square around which so many revolu- 
 tionary currents had eddied, and where 
 Louis XL's hangmen had elevated their 
 cross-tree and ladder so many times. 
 At the entrance to the last barricade 
 was a citizen more or less under the 
 influence of drink, as Communist senti- 
 nels were too often found. To this citi- 
 zen I was compelled to read my letter 
 of introduction twice, ami to exhibit all 
 the papers which I carried in my pock- 
 ets, among them a telegram some two or 
 three years old. The huge red seal. 
 with the outlined woman supposed to 
 represent the goddess of war sitting 
 upon an outlined throne, with rays of 
 glory about her head, finally satisfied 
 this good man, and I passt d up through 
 a row of mitrailleuses and pieces of 
 twelve, as the French called them, into 
 the gate of the great Hotel de Ville. 
 Some of the cannon were curiously pro- 
 tected by heavy iron shields, so arranged 
 as to shelter the artillery-men in the field, 
 where there might otherwise be but little 
 shelter. Two battalions came inarching 
 iu behind inc. a baud of music playing 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 441) 
 
 :it the head of each, and determined 
 looking officers scolding and fuming at 
 their somewhat undisciplined men. Here 
 and there a stray member of the Com- 
 mune, distinguishable by his red scarf, 
 was promenading with his arms crossed 
 behind his bark and his head bent for- 
 ward as it' he were 
 deciding upon the 
 destinies of the 
 capital. Little 
 boys and gawky 
 youths stood at a 
 respectful dis- 
 
 prison of the Conciergerie, I finally 
 found the Instruction Commission in a 
 loom at the bottom of a long corridor. 
 Entering this room, I was greeted by a 
 gentle, homely-clad hunchback, who an- 
 nounced himself as the Citizen Magnet, 
 
 and begged me to lie seated. 
 
 Citizen Magnet was knee-deep in 
 papers of all kinds. He was evidently 
 delighted with his promotion to high 
 office, and talked fluently about demands 
 for succor from various educational in- 
 stitutions, and the thought that he had 
 to give them. " Since the separation of 
 Church and State, citizen," he said, " and 
 
 m 
 
 fwMifii SIP, 
 
 wmm 
 
 ^S9«? ■ 
 
 tance watching with bated breath the 
 movements of the great man. A throng 
 of youths, aged from fifteen to eighteen, 
 was hastening in and out of the gates. 
 These boys had come to get authorized 
 for various services under the Commune. 
 Making my way up the grand staircase, 
 and passing the private office of Citizen 
 Assi, who had but recently emerged 
 from his disciplinary confinement in the 
 
 EPISODE OF THE COMMUNE. — GEN- 
 ERAL LA CECILIA REVIEWING HIS 
 TROOPS. 
 
 the secularization of the schools, you 
 can imagine that a vast affluence "of 
 communications has come to the com- 
 mission. You can judge of that by the 
 envelopes strewing the floor." There 
 was something impressive, if also a little 
 amusing, in the manner in which the old 
 Communal functionary took for granted 
 the permanent separation of the Church 
 from the State, and the complete suc- 
 cess of all the other revolutionary meas- 
 ures. He seemed convinced that his 
 reign would last for his lifetime, al- 
 
450 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 though In' had only to go to the balcony < m the right, a* I entered the hall, I saw 
 
 at the front of the great edifice and to the fiue fresco representing Lutetia seated 
 
 listen to tin' harsh clacking of the mils- on a throne, with her bow and spear and 
 
 ketry and the boom of the cannon to a gigantic shield, and with the world at 
 
 convince him that the battle was not yet her feet. How had this daughter of the 
 
 over. This deformed and amiable " miu- morn and the child of smiles and stin- 
 
 istei-" bad been heard of before in shine fallen in the la^t few eventful 
 
 France, lie had published a map of months! 
 
 the country, of which the tracts dis- The troops undergoing review looked 
 
 tinguished by the ignorance of their fairly well. Hands not so full as those 
 
 inhabitants figured in Mack, and those of the Empire, but patriotic and blatant, 
 
 of relative intelligence were denoted by marched to the front of the grand 
 
 white. He took great pleasure in show- entrance with a huge tambour-major 
 
 ing me these maps, and expressing his preceding them. When the customary 
 
 indignation at the folly of preceding routine was finished, the Colonel drew 
 
 governments in allowing ignorance so up, took off his hat, and shouted '■ ViVi 
 
 long to disfigure fair France. He spoke /<< Ligne!" — ••Hurrah for the Regular 
 
 hopefully ami sternly of his task, was Army!" — and I then perceived that 
 
 anxious for information from abroad, there were many line soldiers in the 
 
 and said he hoped soon to begin to ex- ranks. These were the men whom, after 
 
 change reports with the great educa- the seven days' light, General De Gal- 
 
 tional commissions of the leading foreign liffet so mercilessly slew. The review 
 
 capitals. I could not bring him to any continuing, the same Colonel called 
 
 expression of opinion as to the merits around him the numerous Captains and 
 
 of his military colleagues, lie put aside electrified them with a short speech. lb' 
 
 all my inquiries with dexterous and def- finished with the loud cry of '"Forward 
 
 erential courtesy, and at last c lucted to light, and die for liberty, for work, for 
 
 me to the office of the Citizen Yaillant. home, for La Commune!" and then, 
 
 who was charged with the highest dll- shaking hands with each ollicer. he raised 
 
 ties connected with public instruction. his sword. All the other swords flashed 
 
 Citizen Yaillant was not to be found, in the air. an oath was taken, and the 
 
 A grand review was in progress in front columns of men went wild with cheering, 
 
 of the Hotel de Ville. Two field bat- Presently appeared members of the 
 
 talions, some three thousand men, had Commune legislative body, which seemed 
 
 been drawn up in line since my entrance, to have for that day suspended its 
 
 ami now stretched across the Place de session for the express purpose of aiding 
 
 Greve. From the long hall fronting on in the process of electrifying the t mops, 
 
 this place, — hall in which the Executive One venerable member, with long, flowing 
 
 Commission and the Bureau of Infor- hair, made a fiery address, rushed into 
 
 mation of tin 1 Commune had established the ranks, shook corporals and rank and 
 
 their antechambers, — [ could see the re- file by the hands, seemed likely to fall 
 
 view in progress and hear the crash of upon their necks and weep, had lie not 
 
 the drums. That which seemed an echo been pressed for time. The burden of 
 
 in the distance was in reality the dull every subject was sacrifice of self for 
 
 music of the Versailles batteries playing the great objects of freedom and the 
 
 vigorously against the Porte Maillot, legal autonomy of Paris. At last the 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 4M 
 
 battalions marched away from the barri- 
 cades, and towards the Champs Klysees 
 and the Porte Maillot. The soldiers, 
 defiant with their glittering swords 
 pressed tight against their right shoulders, 
 seemed capable of courage and disci- 
 pline. Among them were men of all 
 sizes : one officer was six feet high, the 
 next one four feet; hut the eves of each 
 were alight with the same (ire. 
 
 On the 25th of April two hundred 
 and seventeen victims had been carried 
 out of the avenue leading to the gate of 
 Les Ternes, and every day brought fresh 
 slaughter. An armistice had been ap- 
 pointed, then postponed, because the 
 Commune had not succeeded in deciding 
 upon its future war-measures, and the 
 Versailles government had not a fresh 
 number of troops to [nit to the front. 
 Hundreds of thousands of men and 
 women had gone out to the gates pre- 
 pared for a pilgrimage of curiosity to 
 Neuilly during the cessation of hostili- 
 ties, and now, turned back, they were 
 muttering their discontent, and inspecting 
 the great groups of statuary on the 
 side of the Are de Triomphe towards 
 Neuilly, where shells had made great 
 indentations and scratches. In the mid- 
 dleof the grand group representing a war- 
 rior defending his fireside was the scar 
 of a shell, which had struck deeply in 
 and nearly severed the head of the re- 
 cumbent child from its body. Down at 
 the gate thousands of wagons crammed 
 with the furniture which had escaped 
 bombardment choked the entrance. Hag- 
 gard women and half-starved children 
 carrying boxes on their backs wandered 
 aimlessly about. At last an armistice 
 was suddenly decided upon, and we all 
 went out as far as it was possible to go, 
 anxious to get some idea of the progress 
 being made by our besiegers, and so to 
 judge of the probable length of the 
 
 siege. I went out by the Porte Bineau, 
 
 and was soon in the wilderness of semi- 
 ruined streets, through which I at last 
 came into the town of Neuilly, whence 
 1 could look back to the Maillot gate, and 
 see the flames slowly rising from a burn- 
 ing house, out of the cellars of which 
 had just come a Dumber of aged old 
 women who had been lying concealed 
 so long that they could scarcely see in 
 the daylight, and tumbled over the 
 smallest objects, trembling at the least 
 noise. 
 
 A1 Xeuilly the tales of misery and 
 destruction were quite thrilling. At one 
 house the mistress had been rendered 
 insane by the horrors of the bombard- 
 ment, and was so violent that she was 
 Confined in the cellar for ten days, and 
 no one dared to approach her except 
 occasionally to throw her food. In the 
 adjoining house a woman had died on 
 the fourth day of the light, and it was 
 not until the tenth that the little funeral 
 procession could pick its way among the 
 skirmishes to the cemetery. Between 
 two houses we sew half-a-dozen artillery 
 horses in the last stage of putrefaction ; 
 and as we came back there passed us in 
 a cab all that was mortal of a man who 
 had died in a cellar for lack of food two 
 or three days before. In a house on the 
 Avenue du Roule a horrible spectacle 
 presented itself. There had been a fierce 
 combat there a lew days before, ami four 
 National Guards lay dead in a confused 
 heap, their hands tightly clinched, and 
 their faces blackened. One had lost both 
 legs, and another an arm. The court- 
 yard of the house was so strewn with 
 ruins of the Ceilings that I could not 
 find any mark of the entrance of a shell. 
 A woman in the throng of visitors 
 found acollarof pearls in a porch, where 
 a dead man was lying with his musket 
 still loaded and his eves turned towards 
 
\:>j 
 
 EUROPE 1\ STORM AX/) CAI. V. 
 
 the window, whence doubtless came the 
 shut that killed him. 
 
 The Communist leaders, in communi- 
 cating details of the fighting, said that 
 tlic troops of the line did not fighl 
 furiously, but that the genrlnrmes and 
 the old [mperial police of Paris, who 
 were embodied in the Versailles army, 
 went into their deadly work with an in- 
 terest which was not feigned, and usually 
 gave no quarter. 
 
 Arriving at the lines of our besiegers, 
 1 found the regular uniforms of the 
 French army, but very little of tradi- 
 tional French courtesy or grace. Those 
 of us who approached tin' lines narrowly 
 escaped arrest and confinement. A bar- 
 ricade half-way up the avenue was flanked 
 with dozens of cannon, and the artillery- 
 men were all at their post. Two women 
 arrived at the line and tried to pass; 
 
 their house, from which they hud tied at 
 the beginning of the fight, was only a 
 short distance away. The sentinel re- 
 fused passage. They discussed, and he 
 expostulated; -whereupon an officer 
 stepped forward, took" the gun from the 
 sentinel's hands, forced the women back 
 at the point of the bayonet, and said, 
 " That is the way you must talk to 
 them." Once an officer ordered a crowd 
 of Parisians to move farther away or 
 they would receive a fusillade. The 
 howls of indignation at this statement 
 were quite frantic, and the soldiers 
 of the line, although amply protected 
 by the guns of theirown batteries, looked 
 uneasy. 
 
 One touching episode occurred during 
 this day at Neuilly. Among the fragrant 
 blossoms of the lilac bushes were the 
 humble roofs of the Institution of the 
 Holy Cross and the Hospital of Our Lady 
 of the Seven Sorrows. Here, for fifteen 
 days, in the back cellars, weak and dying 
 children had been confined, while the 
 
 shells rent, open the upper stories. The 
 good Sisters of Charity came out, now that 
 this armistice permitted, and. blinking 
 in the unaccustomed light, hastened to re- 
 more the invalids to a safer place. Idiotic 
 and scrofulous infants, blind and in- 
 firm dwarfs, palsied and half-frenzied 
 wretches of uncertain age, were placed 
 in the vast furniture vans from Paris, 
 and jolted away to the capital. More 
 than one beclouded intellect, dimmed 
 by suffering, imagined some dire mis- 
 fortune in this removal, and protested 
 energetically against it. .lust as the 
 wagons were about to depart a sister 
 came running breathlessly to announce 
 that the aged director of the hospital 
 would not leave his post. He was eighty- 
 four years old, and faintly murmured in 
 his cracked tones that he would die in the 
 house that he had founded. lint the old 
 man. in spite of his devotion to duty, 
 was carried away. Many of the Sisters 
 of Charity objected to entering the capi- 
 tal, because they did not wish to coun- 
 tenance the Communal movement, which 
 had dared to offend Holy Church. 
 
 The batteries of the Versailles troops 
 were only two hundred yards from those 
 of the Commune, and here the One 
 Hundred and Fifteenth and Forty-fifth 
 line regiments were stationed. The 
 armistice was announced to finish at 
 five o'clock, and it was half-past four 
 before we had closed our tour of inspec- 
 tion, ami we were obliged to spur our 
 horses merrily to regain the gates. The 
 long, low, dark-gray walls of Paris, sur- 
 rounded by their deep ditches, and the 
 high-standing gate-ways, with their diffi- 
 cult approaches, looked very impressive, 
 and seemed almost impregnable. On 
 the way back we noticed a thoroughly 
 Gallic scene. — a young man in the uni- 
 form of the National Guard was playing 
 •■Mmirir pour In Patrie " upon a piano, 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. t.Vl 
 
 which the frightened owner had just discharges from their batteries to frighten 
 
 moved into the street. Around the mu- away the crowds. The singers instantly 
 
 sician stood a chorus of soldiers, singing dispersed, and the owner of the piano 
 
 with stentorian voices the lugubrious re- had it packed on the backs of some stout 
 
 frain. Just then began a panic, the men, and so it passed through the Porte 
 
 Versailles troops probably Ihine. blank Maillot. 
 
l-'l EUROPE W STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTHi: F< >RTY-EIGHT. 
 
 Domhrowski in (lie Saddle. — The? Foreign Chiefs of the Commune. -Genera] Cluseret. IIh Arrest.— 
 Dclescltizc. -A Despairing Revolutionist. Rosscl. Bcrgcret. The Declamatory Period. — The 
 
 Coinhat at the Southern Forts. — A Hot Corner inn In' Shell Fire. -The Women of the < 'omraune. 
 
 ~\\Tril Dombrowski in the saddle cause of Panslavism, and broke faith 
 * V and invested with the authority with many of his old Polish friends. 
 of commander of the armies of the In 1870 he lav in prison for a long 
 Commune of Paris, the forward move- time in Paris, under the accusation of 
 inenl of the Versailles forces became forging Russian bank-notes, but he was 
 more and inure difficult. Dombrowski acquitted of this charge, which was 
 was one of the picturesque figures of probably the work of his political ene- 
 Ihe great insurrection, and risked his mies. During the Prussian siege he 
 life freely in the cause for which he did good work for the French, and 
 professed supreme devotion. He was after the capitulation he drifted to- 
 a young Polish adventurer, who had wards the Commune, and finally became 
 been admitted in 1848 to the Cadet a member of the famous Central Corn- 
 Corps in St. Petersburg, and had siinl- mittec. From that dignity to the posi- 
 ied at the school of the Russian ecu- tion of military commander of Paris 
 era] stat't. lie had seen smile service it was but a step for a bold and am- 
 in the Caucasus, and had been deco- bitious man like Dombrowski. He had 
 rated by the Russian governmenl for his head -quarters in the Place Veu- 
 his services there. But while he was dOine, where he was always surrounded 
 in garrison at Warsaw he became in- by a rather heterogeneous staff of 
 volved in a conspiracy which preceded young and enthusiastic men, main of 
 the insurrection of I SC3. He was whom 1 am convinced had absolutely 
 suspected, denounced, arrested, and no sympathy with the socialistic wine 
 imprisoned for a year, and lay in the of the Commune, but who were filled 
 citadel as a prisoner while the wave with the faith that Paris, by winning 
 of insurrection swept all around him. back her municipal liberties, would save 
 lie was sentenced lii death, but his the Republic, and would raise up huu- 
 sentence was commuted li> exile to dreds of thousands of allies throughout 
 Siberia. Henceforward his story was the country. To blame those generous 
 as romantic as that of a hero of melo- and ardent men who willingly laid down 
 drama. ( >n the way to Siberia he their lives for the sake of principles 
 escaped, returned boldly to St. Peters- which they believed thoroughly hon- 
 burg, where he was concealed for a orable and patriotic, would be unwise 
 time; then went to Switzerland, Ger- and unfair. There was mine than one 
 manv, and China, arriving in Paris in who knew how to live through those 
 l!S()5. lie was next heard of in the nine weeks of the siege like a soldier 
 Vustru Prussian war, espoused the and a gentleman, never condescending 
 
El'ROPK IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 455 
 
 to any of the excesses in which the 
 grosser spirits of the ( 'ommune indulged ; 
 and those were the men who perished 
 on the barricades, or in close action 
 during the seven days' fight, disdaining 
 subterfuges and disguises by which they 
 might have saved their lives. 
 
 Dombrowski replaced Bergeret, who 
 had been much ridiculed for his vanity 
 and assumption, and who, on the whole, 
 was a clever and conscientious worker 
 in the cause which he thought right. 
 His fatal mistake was made in the dis- 
 astrous expedition against Versailles, 
 where he got his men under the fire of 
 Fort Valerien. During the fourteen days 
 in which he was General-in-chief, he 
 probably made more mistakes than any 
 military commander of modern times; 
 but of his zeal and his capacity as an 
 executive officer, although he was of no 
 use as a General, there was little doubt. 
 When General Cluseret sent him to 
 prison because he had refused to obey 
 there was a great roar among the fol 
 lowers of Bergeret; and he himself wrote 
 on the walls of his cell this prophecy, 
 founded on his satiric insight into the 
 nature of the half-educated and sus- 
 picious master with whom the Communal 
 chiefs were dealing: "Cluseret, I am 
 waiting for you here." lie did not have 
 long to wait, not more than a fortnight; 
 for the 22d of April saw him at liberty, 
 and Cluseret was soon in his place. The 
 disgrace of Cluseret was decided upon 
 the moment that the extremists of the 
 Commune discovered his disapproval of 
 their illiberal and oppressive measures. 
 He even said of his friends, "'They 
 may shoot me, but they cannot make me 
 work against my conscience." At the 
 time that Fort Is^y was announced as 
 likely to fall into the hands of the Ver- 
 sailles troops, General Cluseret had 
 already been undermined on the pretext 
 
 that he had compromised the situation 
 by issuing decrees, which, although good 
 in themselves, could not be carried out, 
 and which engendered complaints from 
 the officers of nearly fifty battalions. 
 One officer, with whom I was personally 
 acquainted, carried to Hie Executive Com- 
 mittee of the ('ommune documents from 
 forty-live battalions, delaying the Clu- 
 seret /•';/'/»'', and demanding that the 
 exacting General be displaced. The 
 Communal journals did not hesitate to 
 accuse him of neglect and incapacity; 
 but most of the officers contented them- 
 selves with criticising him as too ambi- 
 tious. 
 
 There was a story current in the capi- 
 tal, shortly after his arrest, that when 
 the Communists were about to abandon 
 the nearly ruined fort of Issy, and all 
 had left save the one man who was to 
 have tired the fuse which would have 
 sprung a mine, Cluseret, with two hun- 
 dred men, reoccupied the ramparts, and 
 insisted on holding the position. It is 
 certain that he never had any intention 
 of delivering up the fort, as he appreci- 
 ated how disastrous such a course would 
 have Been. I asked several officers who 
 were directly concerned in his removal 
 if there was any accusation of dishonesty 
 against him. and received emphatically 
 negative answers. Among the members 
 of the Commune, however, there were 
 those who said that he had offered to 
 give up Paris for the sum of 8,000,000 
 francs. These gossiping gentlemen 
 bad nothing on which to found these 
 scandals except the great contempt 
 which Cluseret usually manifested for 
 them, and which, perhaps, led them to 
 fancy that he was an enemy who had 
 managed to get a position in their midst. 
 He never sat with the members of the 
 Commune al the Hotel de Ville. When 
 the two members of the Communal 
 
45(3 EUROPE IN STORM AND PALM. 
 
 Committee came to announce the dis- in the Protestant religion, was a pure- 
 satisfaction with him, and to hint at his minded, austere, and vigorous youno - offl- 
 deposition, he answered quietly that he cer, who would have been certain, had 
 had for some time expected it. he not stepped aside into the thorny 
 
 Delescluze, who was the delegate for war paths of insurrection, of winning high 
 of the ephemeral Commune, was a man honors, possibly a marshal's staff, in the 
 of liner mould and of larger mind than French service, lie was a Keen writer 
 most of his colleagues. Journalist, pub- already, a brilliant strategist, and at- 
 licist. and conspirator under the Empire; tracted to himself no little notice in 1869, 
 conspirator again after the declaration when the last volume of the correspond- 
 of the Republic, in 1870 ; imprisoned for ence of Napoleon I. was printed, by 
 the attempted insurrection of the 1st of demonstrating in a clever article, pub- 
 October, — he was already a notable figure lished in the Temjts, that the books on 
 at the beginning of the Communal period, strategy attributed to Napoleon werenot 
 Like Cluseret and Rossel, — the unfortu- and could not possibly have been written 
 nate young soldier who preceded him in by him. At Met/., during the siege, 
 the direction of the Commune's military Rossel was the determined enemy of Ba- 
 affairs, — Delescluze had a profound con- zaine, whom he believed a traitor; and 
 tempt for the drunken helots who aired his hostility was so vigorous that he was 
 their socialistic theories on every possi- imprisoned in one of the forts, lint he 
 ble occasion. While he was in favor of escaped before the capitulation and, dis- 
 extremes, in the conduct of the conflict, guised as a peasant, traversed the Ger- 
 he was perpetually afraid, lest by ex- man lines, and got to Belgium; then, 
 cesses tin.' Commune should alienate after a brief visit to his mother, in Lon- 
 from itself what little sympathy Europe don. hastened to Tours to place himself 
 still felt for it; ami it is reported that at the disposal of the Government of 
 when he heard of the execution of the National Defense. Gambetta knew and 
 Archbishop and the other hostages, his appreciated Rossel, who was an apostle 
 face became quite livid, a great sob of of the doctrine that to treat for peace 
 emotion rose in his throat, and he sank with the Germans was national dishonor, 
 down in his seat, saying, " What a war ! He went straight into the ranks of 
 But we also will show that we know how the Commune as soon as the insurrec- 
 
 to die." He was as g 1 as his word, tiou broke out. and wrote a plain letter 
 
 and died with a composure and bravery to the Minister of War in which he said 
 
 worthy of an ancient stoic. that he placed himself without hcsita- 
 
 The appointment of Rossel as the tion in the ranks of those who had not 
 
 successor of Cluseret was a kind of con- signed peace, and who did not count 
 
 cession to Cluseret's views as to rigid among them Generals culpable of capitu- 
 
 discipline. The new delegate for war lation. lie was Cluseret's chief of staff 
 was but twenty-seven years of age. and for some time, and presided at the court- 
 had graduated from the School of Appli- martial where citizens who refused to 
 cation of Metz onlv three or four years do military duty for the Commune were 
 previously, coming out of that school judged with great severity. Like the 
 
 with the grade of lieutenant. Rossel, others before him he was destined to 
 
 son of a French soldier of merit, and an waste his energy and to spend his cour- 
 
 English mother, who had brought him up age against the incurable negligence. 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 i:>7 
 
 lack of discipline, and jealousies which 
 honey-combed the insurrectionary forces ; 
 and after having vainly endeavored to 
 get together twelve or fifteen thousand 
 men to lift the siege which the Versaillais 
 had laid to Fort Issy, he gave up his 
 office, ironically demanding at the close 
 of his resignation the honor of a cell at 
 Mazas. He was taken at his word, and 
 a committee of public safety sent a 
 guard to arrest him. But he succeeded 
 in escaping from the custody of the 
 ferocious committee and enticed his guar- 
 dian to accompany him ; and it was not 
 until the close of the seven days' light 
 that he was found by the government 
 troops and taken with the rest of the mob 
 to Versailles. No fairer and more prom- 
 ising young life was sacrificed at the 
 posts of execution on the bloody field 
 of Satory than that of Eossel. His 
 broken career has a pathetic interest for 
 all who admire even the first indications 
 of military genius. Rossel fell into 
 the trap which was fatal to so many 
 noble and gifted men. lie believed that 
 the Communal effort was practicable, 
 that it was honest, and that there was 
 really need for combating the govern- 
 ment which had installed itself at Ver- 
 sailles, and which, as he and so many 
 others thought, would reestablish a Mon- 
 archy rather than declare a Republic. 
 
 Bergeret, Cluseret, Rossel, Deles- 
 cluze, Dombrowski and his Poles, La 
 Cecilia, and a few showy officers, — 
 these were the men who were expected 
 by the incompetent and intolerant "Cen- 
 tral Committee " of the Commune to or- 
 ganize, with the rebellious National 
 Guard, the permanent defense of Paris 
 against a compact ami angry army as- 
 sembled at Versailles under the com- 
 mand of Marshal MacMahon, with such 
 men as Ladmirault, De Cissey, La 
 Cretelle, Vinov, Douay, and Clinchaut. 
 
 It is wonderful, when one looks hack 
 upon the resistance of the Commune, 
 and thi' harum-scarum fashion in 
 which it was conducted, despite the in- 
 disputable talent occasionally shown in 
 it, that it should have endured so long 
 as it did. In the train of Dombrowski 
 was a group of four young men named 
 Okolowicz, horn in France, of Polish 
 parents, and all energetic and capable 
 officers. 
 
 During the last half of April the 
 Commune was in its declamatory period. 
 It issued its famous declaration t<> the 
 French people, in which it claimed that 
 the Commune had the right to form and 
 determine the aspirations and the voice 
 of the populations of Paris ; that at this 
 time, as on so many previous occasions. 
 Paris was toiling and suffering lor the 
 whole of France, and preparing, by her 
 combats and sacrifices, the intellectual, 
 moral, administrative, and economical 
 regeneration of the nation. The Com- 
 munists denied that Paris was seeking 
 the destruction of French unity, but that 
 it wanted political unity, the voluntary 
 association of all, local initiative, the 
 free and spontaneous cooperation of all 
 individual energies with the common 
 object of the well-being, liberty, and 
 security of all. The Communal Revo- 
 lution inaugurated a new era in polities; 
 was the end of the old official ami cleri- 
 cal world, of military supremacy and 
 bureaucracy, of jobbing in monopolies 
 and privileges, to which the proletariat 
 oweil its slavery and the country its mis- 
 fortunes. " As for ourselves, citizens 
 of Paris," the proclamation concluded, 
 •■ we have a mission to accomplish, a 
 modern revolution, the greatest ami most 
 fruitful of all which have illuminated 
 history." 
 
 To this Versailles replied with a cry 
 of scorn and indignation, and with the 
 
FYS 
 
 evrovk i\ srn/f.v \\/> cm,m. 
 
 stern announcement that no parley could 
 lie liehl with rebels and deserters. •■ The 
 movement which has broken forth in 
 Paris," said the Versailles proclamation, 
 •• has in it no coherent idea. It is horn 
 of a sterile hatred against social order. 
 It has the fury of destruction for the 
 sake of destruction, a certain savage 
 spirit, the gratification of a desire to 
 live without restraint and without law. 
 The word • Commune ' signifies noth- 
 ing else. It is only the expression of 
 ill-regulated instincts, refractory pas- 
 sions, which fall upon the secular com- 
 munity of France as upon an obstacle 
 to their accomplishment." 
 
 There is as much exaggeration in the 
 statement of Versailles as iu the state- 
 ment of Paris. It is, perhaps, the exact 
 truth to say that the Commune arose out 
 of a mutual misunderstanding. That 
 the men who originally rallied to the 
 movement were actuated by base motives 
 is untrue. The Commune began as an 
 honorable although a misguided protest 
 against kingship, anil against the usurpa- 
 tion of authority over the city by the State. 
 It gravitated speedily to the condition 
 of a vast and dangerous riot, nowhere 
 directed or controlled by a master hand. 
 Then crept in the serpent of socialism, 
 the demons of drunkenness, Inst, and 
 revenge; and all the line theories ami 
 noble aims of the original protesters, 
 the extremists, who, like Delescluze 
 and Milliere and Flourens, had been 
 watching for more than a year for an 
 occasion to take power into their own 
 hands, were swept away in the black 
 smoke of the flames which binned the 
 Tuileries and the Hotel de Ville. 
 
 With the first days of May the combat 
 at the southern forts had been daily in- 
 creasing in vigor. The diapason of the 
 Willis sometimes thrilled the whole city. 
 With early May had come the warm, 
 
 sweet south wind, more suggestive of 
 llyeres and Genoa than of northern 
 Paris ; but on this wind each morning 
 
 WeIC boi'lie tile echoes of tile booming 
 
 cannon. From Trocadei'O, or from the 
 Point i hi Join', on the circular railway, we 
 could see tierce combats engaged in be- 
 tween the three forts standing out in 
 bold relief, and the Versailles batteries 
 so high above them that the gunners had 
 little trouble iii dropping their shells into 
 the fo! tilications. 
 
 Those of the National Guards who 
 kept up their discipline seemed inclined 
 to sell their lives dearly. They had 
 twice besieged Fort Issy and inflicted 
 heavy losses on the Versailles troops. 
 Every step, every successive line of 
 trenches, might be said to have been 
 traced in blood. iland-to-liand combats 
 were frequent. They grew out of the 
 reconnaissances which sergeants of com- 
 panies on either side were constantly 
 making, and which often brought on a 
 general action. Both armies had trenches 
 in front of Issy. positions which were 
 very hazardous. Now and then the Fed- 
 erals, as the Communists were always 
 called, would sally forth, and at great 
 loss attempt to dislodge the Versailles 
 troops, amply covered by their batteries. 
 On one occasion the National Guards, 
 unable to remain quiet under the terrible 
 rain of shells from the batteries sur- 
 rounding Issy, sallied out towards the 
 chdtean of the same name, and, assisted 
 bv a feeble tire from the battered for- 
 tress, chased, at the pointof the bayonet, 
 the Thirty-fifth ami Forty-second line 
 regiments, hut left the ground strewn 
 with their dead. Put when the fire from 
 the fort failed, the line regiments re- 
 turned to the charge, and in the mNie 
 
 which ensued took three hundred of the 
 National Guards prisoners, and killed 
 most of them in the excitement of the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 4. V.I 
 
 prise. Among those taken many were making about three hundred prisoners, 
 
 clad in the uniform of the regular army, A Versailles paper about this time an- 
 
 and those gentlemen passed out of life nounced that it was probable thai the 
 
 at the end of a Versailles gun-barrel. garrison of the Fort Issy would be ac- 
 
 On this same day the Clamart rail- corded no quarter when it fell into the 
 
 way station — an important position for hands of the regular troops. 
 
 the besiegers of Issy While this combat was in progress at 
 
 — was carried by as- 
 sault by the Ver- 
 saillais. This was 
 
 Fort Issy, I was visiting the right wing 
 of the insurgents' line of defense, where 
 some of the heaviest fighting took place 
 for a fortnight after the taking of 
 Asniercs by the Versaillais. A storm of 
 shot and shell was hurled at them from 
 Levallois, a little town only a short dis- 
 tance from the walls of Paris. 
 In Levallois the commandant 
 of this section had his head- 
 
 I'EKItACE OF MKl'DON urc'U'IKI) BY VERSAILLES TROOPS. 
 
 early in the morning, before sunrise, ami quarters : and here. also, was the fien- 
 was intended for a surprise ; but the eral Okolowicz, one of the brothers 
 commander found the insurrectionists as mentioned elsewhere. At this head- 
 vigilant as himself. The Twenty-second quarters 1 found an aide-decamp of 
 battalion of Chassears-d,-pied, although General Dombrowski, who had been 
 subjected to great loss, drove out the detailed to command at this end of the 
 National Guards, inflicting on them a line, lie was a fair type of many of the 
 loss of two hundred and sixty, and defenders in the service of the Commune, 
 
4(10 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 a handsome, athletic Pole, once merchant himself to his map, found oul where said 
 
 of artificial flowers on the boulevard, but house was, and gave the gunners instruc- 
 
 since the riots of L870 interested in tions to burn it. The Communists nad 
 
 politics. He liad fled some years before been using peti'oleum bombs for some 
 
 from Russia, where he had been c i- time, but had not found them very suc- 
 
 pelled to serve in the army, had fought cessful. They claimed that the Versailles 
 
 eighteen months in the Polish insurrec- batteries had, by means of these I bs, 
 
 tion, and had spent two years in an set numerous houses near the Tones 
 Austrian prison as a convict, with a ball gate of Paris on lire. But the most in- 
 and chain attached to one of his legs, telligeut of the staff-officers assured me 
 He was a brave soldier and a rapid and that in experimenting on a small house 
 decisive thinker. The Commandant of across the river, he observed thai it was 
 the place looked more like a stalwart only after the nineteenth shell had been 
 backwoodsman from Manitoba than like thrown that the conflagration was 
 a. Frenchman. He was six feel two, started. All the officers at this point 
 wore superb florid mustaches and were badly mounted, and few were 
 beard, and had a hearty, unaffected decently equipped. Their complete faith 
 manner which was quite winning. The in their final success was quite pathetic. 
 head-quarters was a .small stone house. They all estimated the Versailles forces 
 quite within the lire-line, so that, shells a.s much smaller than their own. The 
 came constantly screaming above it. or commandant de place at this point told 
 falling with ominous crash close beside me he thought the safety of the ('om- 
 it. Here the Commandant had with him inline depended on the reorganization of 
 his wife and child, — the wife a noble- the National Guard, 
 looking woman, who sat calmly when the Among the most impressive examples 
 shriek of the shells was plainly heard, of devotion which I saw at Levallois 
 and who, perhaps, had perfect faith in was that of a young peasant woman of 
 her husband's jesting assertion that the twenty-two or twenty-three, who had 
 house was iron-clad. Every few mo- been night and day attending to the 
 ments the door of this house was swung wounded on the river lineal imminent 
 open by some soldier or under-officer, risk of her own life. As she came in to 
 who came to report or complain. Every head-quarters all the officers rose and 
 half-hour a battalion arrived in front "I' greeted her with stalely courtesy. She 
 the house, coming cheerily up from ils was faint with hunger and exposure, 
 post at some other point on the line, the and, when she sat down beside the Com- 
 ineii singing the Marseillaise and other inandant's wife, grew dizzy and turned 
 revolutionary songs. quite pale. Sin 1 was well cared for. 
 The Commandant invited me to break- ami the commandant himself cooked her 
 fast, and just as we were trying for the breakfast. For two weeks, the officer 
 fourth or fifth time to sit down to table, said, she had found time to eat only one 
 two gigantic artillery-men, grimy with meal a day: and it is only when she is 
 powder and smoke, burst into the room, starved out, said one. that she comes 
 " Commandant," said the grimier of the up to head-quarters. She gently dis- 
 two, '■ we see men on the top of a house claimed all honor for her fidelity. " I 
 just across the river, and they are spy- am not the only one willing to help," 
 inn us out." The commandant betook she said. ••There are fifty of us in 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 161 
 
 all, and we don't mind a little rough- cry raised by the Communists thai they 
 ing it." had been fired on by the citizens in 
 
 From this time forward the days wore Paris. I heard one artillery-man sa\ so 
 ('nil of alarms. On the Sunday evening to his officer, who at once gave orders to 
 after my visit to Levallois the spectacle destroy any house whence a shot should 
 of the bombardment was grand beyond come. 
 
 description. The tire way from the The Commune was not, happy in its 
 batteries at Point dn Jour could he external relations, which were of course 
 seen, — a fire line flashing death and 
 destruction at the southern forts and 
 ai the gate of the Ternes. The bombs 
 fell like hail; one conflagration Iitup the 
 whole section of Paris behind the Tri- 
 umphal Arch, and so 
 increased in intensity 
 that the spectators 
 al a distance fancied 
 the regular troops 
 had entered and were 
 firing the deserted 
 quarters. The Com- 
 munist soldiers ran 
 howling through the 
 streets, anxious to 
 report themselves, 
 almost, despite or- 
 ders, tit the scene of 
 the struggle. One 
 brave 1 remember 
 distinctly- He had 
 partaken somewhat 
 copiously of the juice 
 of the grape, and as 
 he made his way 
 through the dense 
 crowds would stop 
 
 from time to time to invoke an imagi- mainly with the Prussians, and in which 
 nary person, whom he fancied was ex- M. Pascal Grousset, quondam journal- 
 postulating against his departure for the ist, played a prominent part. Each 
 scene of battle. " But it is my duty to time a communication was made to the 
 go," he would cry; and at last he Prussian commander by an individual 
 tumbled quite helpless into a ditch by with a red scarf over his shoulder, the 
 the curb, and, supinely heroic, listened individual was severely snubbed. The 
 with drunken gravity to the cannonading. Commune had a singular confidence in 
 One formidable feature of this alarm the forbearance of the Germans, and 
 on Sunday night in question was the from the first prophesied that they 
 
 COMMUNIST FUNERAL AT NIGHT. 
 
462 EUROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 would not attempt to assist the array af yield their positions. As to surrender, 
 
 Versailles even were Thiers driven to they laughed such an idea to scorn, 
 
 extremes. •• What !" said a French officer, who was 
 
 In those days it became evident thai one of Dombrowski's staff", when I asked 
 
 an attempt would be made at a great him if surrender might uot be the end. 
 
 culminating catastrophe should the Com- "Surrender? Never! 1 am sentenced 
 
 mune lose its battles and either the to death twice. I can die only once. 
 
 troops of the government or of Germany and I will sacrifice all the lives neces- 
 
 attempt to enter the city. All the sary to preserve my own and to make 
 
 houses in the vicinity of the barricades the movement succeed. This uniform," 
 
 of defense inside the capital had their and he pointed to the dress of a line 
 
 windows pasted over with the long slips of officer, which he still wore, — " this uni- 
 
 paper used to keep the glass from break- form condemns me to death, and I will 
 
 ing when a great explosion is expected, not be caught, — and I will not run away 
 
 It was reported that certain sewers hail either." 
 
 powder trains lain in them, and the Saying this, he tossed off a glass of 
 
 leaders of the Commune had sworn to champagne, in which he toasted the suc- 
 
 hlou these sewers up rather than to cess of the Commune. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 463 
 
 CII APTER F< )RTY-NINE. 
 
 The Commune Suppresses the Conservative Journals. — Insincere Professions til' Liberalism. — The Pen 
 Duchene. — The Unroofing of M. Thiers's House. — The Communistic Ideal of Society. — 
 Invasion of the Convents. - Reminiscences of Auber the < "omposer. His Death. —The Fall of the 
 Vcnd&mc Column. — The Communists Rejoice over the Wreck of Imperial Splendor. — Measures 
 against Social Vices. 
 
 T 
 
 HE world lost confidence in the lib- 
 eral professions of the Commune. 
 As soon as the two mad measures of 
 suppression of all the conservative 
 journals in Paris and the absolute nega- 
 tion of the liberty of conscience were 
 enforced, the Communists undertook- to 
 invest with a certain justice even the 
 most illiberal of their decrees, and in 
 suppressing half-a-dozen leading news- 
 papers towards the middle of April, it 
 announced that this was done because it 
 was impossible to tolerate in besieged 
 Paris journals which openly advocated 
 civil war and which gave military infor- 
 mation to the enemy, as well as propa- 
 gated calumny against the defenders of 
 the Republic. There is an amusing per- 
 version of the truth in this statement, 
 and a coolness in the remarks about 
 civil war which has rarely been equalled 
 in degree. That the Communists thought 
 they were defenders of the Republic may 
 be true, but that they were ignorant that 
 they themselves had provoked the civil 
 war which they appeared to deplore, 
 cannot be credited. 
 
 With the suspension of all the con- 
 servative journals with the exception of 
 the Siicle and the Vertti, the sensational 
 journals had full scope for their pe- 
 culiar verbosity. Paris Free and the 
 Commune were the two noteworthy 
 papers which were most sought for by 
 the adherents of the Commune. The 
 
 former paper devoted a great part of its 
 space to printing lists of the political 
 spies who had been employed under the 
 second Empire; audit is not very flat- 
 tering to the French character to note 
 that great numbers of denunciations 
 appeared in these papers, and were evi- 
 dently forwarded to the editor in the 
 hope that under the exceptional circum- 
 stances acts of private vengeance might 
 lie consummated. The printing of the 
 alphabetical list of the spies was a tine 
 stroke of the vindictive Communists. 
 Naturally, the chief of the political 
 police under the Empire had kept every 
 letter of application for the degrading 
 positions ; and these letters, now brought 
 to light, condemned to obloquy many a 
 man and woman who had before been 
 counted respectable. The applicants 
 were usually people in reduced circum- 
 stances, ladies and gentlemen who had 
 no resources and few hopes of any : 
 and in most cases persons whose ante- 
 cedents were not entirely satisfactory. 
 The journal called the Commune en- 
 lightened us with the history of the 
 Black Cabinet in the Post Office, where 
 the Imperial spies used to keep them- 
 selves informed by opening private cor- 
 respondence of all communications be- 
 tween important persons, when they 
 thought it necessary. The Communal 
 government also go tout, at great expense. 
 all the correspondence of the government 
 
Id4 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 of the •• Fourth of September," as it was M. Rochefort's paper seemed to have 
 called ; and the weekly instalments, sold dropped entirely out of notice. The dis- 
 for a sou cadi, had an enormous circula- gusting little Fire Duchene, filled with 
 linn. This, with the publication of the filthy and unquotable comments on the 
 correspondence of the Imperial family, political situation, had a circulation of 
 gave those of the Communists who had ninety thousand copies daily. This jour- 
 any leisure plenty of reading. The nal was entirely written by one man, who 
 Extufvtte was the title of a newspaper pocketedabout3,000franesof clear profit 
 which hail an immense circulation among daily. None of the Parisian journals 
 the lower classes. It was a half-sheet, were allowed by the Communists to pass 
 retailed fur a smi, with spaces between the fortifications; persons carrying them 
 its spicy paragraphs tilled with readily were arrested, and were likely to be thrust 
 executed caricatures of the men of the into a filthy jail, where they might have, 
 moment. The only comic journal which as in the old Revolution, been confounded 
 flourished under the Commune was with the mass of the condemned and been 
 the Grelot, which visited upon both sent off to be shot. The official journal, 
 contending parties its satiric criticism, which the Commune thought it necessary 
 [none of the numbers M. Thiers, attired to have in imitation of previous govern- 
 as an old lady, was furiously apostro- incuts, contained nothing remarkable 
 phizing a tiny child labelled Paris, save the Communal decrees, devoted to 
 
 Maman Thiers: "What in the nan f upsetting everything that existed, and a 
 
 Heaven do y<>u want?" Little Paris: most singular feuilleton, in which a North 
 
 11 I want the moon." And Little Paris American Indian did a vast amount of 
 
 was depicted as regarding the reflection scalping, and declaimed in the fashion 
 
 of the moon in a pail of water. of the Revolutionary orators of the time 
 
 This was looked on as a Versailles of Danton and Robespierre. 
 view of the situation ; and the Column- Communist papers each had their an- 
 nists doubtless notified the editor of the ecdote of Dombrowski's bravery. One 
 Grclot that he would be under surveil- day, while making his way towards Issy, 
 lance. In another caricature in the same we were told, and being accompanied 
 journal Citizen Courbet, the celebrated bv only fourteen men, he suddenly heard 
 painter, was represented as holding a the Qui vive of a Versailles sentinel. 
 levee, at which all the bronze statues of His men turned pale with fright, and so 
 l'aris were in attendance, having come faltered that they were all taken pris- 
 down from their respective pedestals to oners. But Dombrowski boldly ad- 
 beg him to save them. Courbet was also vanced, and said. "Versailles;" ami 
 depicted as having already taken mi- when required to give the countersign 
 der his protection the VendOme column, he rushed upon the sentinel, made him a 
 Another comic journal of lesser impor- prisoner, dealing him a violent blow over 
 tance depicted M. Thiers as an owl sitting his head with his own gun, and brought 
 quietly on a tree labelled ■■ Restoration." him away before the little band of cJias- 
 A flood of light from the rising sun of seurs, lying near at hand, discovered 
 the Commune was poured upon the owl's that they might have captured the leader 
 
 face, and France, a rosy young w an, of the Communists' military forces. The 
 
 was looking at the bird and making scorn- truth was that Dombrowski had been 
 
 fill remarks. spared by shot and shell in places where 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 465 
 
 it seemed that no living man could con- 
 tinue to exist. His soldiers imagined 
 him possessed of a charmed life. All 
 the Polish officers depended much upon 
 the French love of entrain for success. 
 General Okolowicz never went into a 
 dangerous place without crying to his 
 men, •• Who loves me follows me ; " and 
 wherever his voice was heard there were 
 men to respond to his call. 
 
 The unroofing of M. Thiers' s mansion 
 in the Place St. Georges, in obedience 
 to the spiteful decree of the Commune, 
 was one of the silliest episodes of the 
 great insurrection. The slouching sol- 
 diers who were engaged in it were half 
 ashamed of the work, and one or two of 
 them said so to those of us who went 
 to witness the operation. The razing of 
 the house to the ground was never com- 
 pleted ; and M. Thiers probably con- 
 sidered himself amply revenged upon 
 Rochefort, — a chance remark by whom 
 in the Marseillaise was the origin of this 
 Communal measure, — when he saw the 
 popular pamphleteer arrested at Meaux, 
 dragged through the military prisons, 
 and, after a hasty trial, sent off across 
 the seas to the other end of the world. 
 
 If it be true that the first impulse was 
 given to the insurrection by the mys- 
 terious International Society, it is not 
 strange that one of the first blows struck 
 by the triumphant faction was at the 
 established Church. But, whatever in- 
 telligence may have prevailed when the 
 first measures were dictated, the suc- 
 ceeding ones were characterized by noth- 
 ing save a blind fury. Hundreds of 
 thousands of the working people of the 
 capital were, and still arc, rebellious 
 against the authority of the Church ; and 
 it is no exaggeration to say that scores 
 of thousands utterly repel the doctrines 
 of Catholicism and profess a kind of 
 materialism which they would lie puzzled 
 
 to define. They had a vague remem- 
 brance of the persecution of the Church in 
 the old Revolution, and the confiscation 
 of the fat lands belonging to abbeys and 
 monasteries. They recognized, with 
 the unerring instinct of the people, that 
 the Church was one of the strongest 
 pillars of monarchy; and they directed 
 against it all the energy of their hatred. 
 They closed twenty-six of the principal 
 churches of Paris within a fortnight, and 
 put the seals of the Commune upon their 
 doors. Some of these churches were 
 reopened for the meetings of Commu- 
 nistic clubs, as all popular assemblies 
 were called. The priests who dared to 
 protest were imprisoned, and the spolia- 
 tion of some of the religious editiees 
 was boldly undertaken. The academi- 
 cian Maximo Ducamp, whose account of 
 the Commune is not entirely to be relied 
 upon, because ire represents the most 
 violent and prejudiced section of the 
 bourgeoisie, or middle class, nevertheless 
 has a fine faculty for putting his linger 
 upon the weak points of the Commune. 
 lie says, in his criticisms on the attempts 
 against liberty of conscience in the in- 
 surrection: '-Those men who neither 
 knew how to write out a passport or a 
 simple order, without asking for advice, 
 needed no counsel when it came to at- 
 tacking the Church. There they had 
 nothing to do but to overturn, and they 
 excelled at this work. To close churches 
 to worship, and to open them to the 
 chibs, to despoil them, and to imprison 
 priests, and to shoot them, — this was 
 all very easy. It was a persecution 
 which made its martyrs. It is impos- 
 sible even to-day to imagine in the name 
 of what liberty this was done, because 
 among the Communists one could find 
 trace of no philosophy whatsoever. They 
 proclaimed themselves Materialists and 
 Atheists, without understanding what 
 
466 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM 
 
 those (wo terms meant. They had terialism. We may draw this conclusion 
 neither doctrine nor theory. Like tamed from the fact that Robespierre, much ad- 
 parrots, they said over and over again mired as a director of the guillotine by 
 words the sense of which they knew noth- many members of the Commune, was at 
 iug about. Their incoherence was such the same time blamed and despised, be- 
 that they were in permanent contradic- cause he had, as they said, invented a 
 tion to themselves, and did not know it. Supreme Being. The government would 
 A moment before his death Theophile willingly, imitating Anacharsis Clootz, 
 Fene wrote to liis sister: ' Let il be well have declared themselves the personal 
 understood, — no religious ceremony. I enemies of Jesus Christ, whose reputa- 
 die a Materialist, as I have lived.' Then tion Jules Yalles had declared was en- 
 he added : • Place a crownof immortelles tirely overrated. Thus it is easy to see 
 upon the tomb of our mother.' They that every violent measure against the 
 were all like this. They repudiated the clergy was adopted without discussion at 
 belief, but they preserved the emblem of the Hotel de Ville." 
 
 it. They called themselves partisans The Communists carried their denial 
 
 of equality, liberty, and fraternity. This of the liberty of conscience so far that 
 
 was their device. They inscribed it as they took pains to prevent the children 
 
 the protocol of their official acts, on from attending church, and would not 
 
 their flags, on the walls. even let the burial-sen ice be read over 
 
 " They did not understand that it was the dead. One day in April the old 
 by Christianity alone that the peoples be- church in the line St. Jacques was in- 
 came free and the masters of their own vaded by the Federals. Sentinels were 
 destiny. To suppress future life, and the stationed at the doors; the few kneeling 
 belief in the reward promised to courage, worshippers were informed that they 
 sacrifice, and virtue, is to bring man must arise ami depart, or it would be 
 to a condition in which he takes no the worse for them. The priests in the 
 heed for his soul, and seek-- hen- below sacristy were visited by two of the dele- 
 only immediate enjoyment. If we add gates of the Commune, who said they 
 to this the theory of Darwin, of which hail come to make a requisition. Just 
 the Communists hail retained only the at that time a funeral procession arrived 
 dangerous part, we arrive fatally at the and stopped in front of the church. The 
 struggle for existence, which is a perma- mourners and friends entered to attend 
 neiit insurrection, and at the theory of the mass which had been appointed for 
 selection, which leads straight to des- that hour. The sentinels informed them 
 potism. that they could not pass, and, as they 
 
 "The Commune, perhaps without know- found this very strange, the commanding 
 
 inu it, really wished to formulate its ideal officer said, "All that is out of fashion 
 
 of society accordingto these principles, — now. Clear out with your dead man and 
 
 a state of tilings which would have much take him to the cemetery! That is the 
 
 resembled a return to primitive bar- best thing you can do, — by far more de- 
 
 barism. By the application of such cent than to have him sprinkled with a 
 
 ideas we get back to the stone age. The lot of dirty water by the priests." 
 
 Commune perished too soon to unveil or The invasion of the convents and the 
 
 precise its philosophical system, which search for compromising documents and 
 
 would have been of a purely animal ma- evidence of the crimes which the lower 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 4IJ7 
 
 classes have always believed were com- 
 mitted in the mysterious religious edifices, 
 attracted great attention from all who 
 were in Paris during the insurrection. 
 In the Picpus, a celebrated religious in- 
 stitution in the Faubourg St. Antoine, the 
 Communal searchers announced one day 
 that they had found something very 
 horrifying. They came to one cell, 
 which the terrified nun who was com- 
 pelled to serve them as guide refused to 
 opeu ; eo they forced an entrance, and 
 there found in a narrow dungeou three 
 nuns, who had been imprisoned tor nine 
 years. Neither of the three women had 
 sense enough to understand that deliver- 
 ance was at hand, but each seemed dimly 
 to realize that something strange had 
 happened. Noue of them could explain 
 why they had been imprisoned. In the 
 cellars of this convent the Communists 
 dug up the earth, and announced that 
 they there found many skeletons and 
 bones of children. This statement was 
 naturally deuied with much warmth by 
 all the Catholic population ; whereupon 
 the Commune announced that it would 
 place the testimony of its delegates with- 
 out doubt, and opened an inquest on the 
 subject, which was swallowed up in the 
 absorbing excitement of the greater 
 events when the regular troops entered. 
 In these dangerous and disturbed days 
 of the early part of May one sometimes 
 saw walking tranquilly oti the boulevard, 
 as if there had been no interruption to 
 his daily habits or the serenity of his 
 intellectual life, the venerable composer 
 Auber, the "young old" man, as he was 
 called by his compatriots, who persisted 
 in giving him a reputation which pos- 
 terity perhaps will refuse to accord him. 
 Auber was of that race of Parisians 
 which leads an active and vigorous life 
 long after the allotted age of threescore 
 and ten has been reached ; and in bis 
 
 eighty-eighth and eighty-ninth year he 
 was as fiesh and apparently as untram- 
 melled by the ordinary infirmities of age 
 as a man of sixty. lie was usually 
 surrounded by a bevy of charming young 
 women, who delighted in offering him 
 public profession of their admiration ; 
 and he accepted these delicate feminine 
 offices, the presentation of bouquets, and 
 pretty compliments, with a grave and 
 stately courtesy, which belonged to the 
 elder school, and of which the new gen- 
 eration has scarcely preserved a trace. 
 He was a great favorite under the 
 Empire, both with the government and 
 the people ; and I remember to have 
 seen him standing hand in hand with 
 Rossini, on the occasion of a great con- 
 cert given at the Palais de ITndustrie, 
 receiving for more than twenty minutes 
 a tremendous ovation. Wreaths, crowns, 
 and flowers were showered about the 
 two composers who had contributed so 
 much to the intellectual enjoyment of 
 the world. The hundreds of musicians 
 applauded as enthusiastically as did the 
 twenty-live thousand persons in the audi- 
 ence. I question if there was ever a 
 greater popular reception accorded to a. 
 musician. Auber had once been strik- 
 ingly handsome. His face, which was 
 very pale; his deep-set eyes, which still 
 retained a. bit of their quondam sparkle; 
 his white hair, and his dignity of man- 
 ner, — made a pleasant and a striking im- 
 pression. Persons who saw him in the 
 lobby of the Opera Comique, which is a 
 kind of temple to his talent, for we can 
 scarcely accord him genius, would turn 
 and inquire who he was. Tin- old man 
 who had hail such a long and pleasant ca- 
 reer died after an illness of a day or two, 
 in his mansion in the Rue St. Georges, and 
 scarcely any public notice was taken of 
 his funeral, for most of his friends were 
 absent, and the general public had other 
 
468 
 
 EUROPE 1\ STORM AND CALM. 
 
 things than music and the memories of 
 its composer to engage their attention. 
 
 One of the illogical notions of the 
 Commune was that in the event of its 
 success, it would be able to promote 
 general and lasting peace throughout 
 Europe; and early in its ephemeral reigu 
 it decreed that the erection of the Ven- 
 d6me Column had been an insult to 
 sister nations, and should be atoned for 
 by the destruction of this memorial of 
 military glory. Speakers at meetings 
 during the siege had often hinted at the 
 destruction of the Column, saying that 
 the French nation had no interests save 
 those strictly allied with peace, and, 
 therefore, should not maintain a standing 
 menace and memento of triumph. Many 
 a Frenchman who had no sympathy with 
 the ideas of the Commune had penned a 
 philippic against thegreat bronze column. 
 Auguste Barbier was not a great poet, 
 but he was a very good one, ami when he 
 wrote his indictment against the Idol, as 
 he called the Column, he created a pro- 
 found impression. lie awoke an echo 
 which the Bonapartist family would have 
 much preferred to leave sleeping. Victor 
 Iluco hail also cursed the gigantic 
 "•Monument to murder" in verse none 
 the less eloquent because filled with 
 malice and political venom. Barbier 
 wrote a magnificent allegory, in which he 
 described Napoleon as spurring the 
 French people to exhaustion, yet de- 
 manding that they should goon, and for- 
 ever on. II is description of the entry of 
 the Allies into l'aris, in 1814, and the 
 manner in which the French people, 
 which had been mastered by Napoleon I., 
 had been compelled to humble itself 
 before the rude northern men and the 
 warriors of middle Europe, excelled in 
 simple eloquence and pathos any of the 
 protests against the Second Empire. 
 No sooner was the day set by the 
 
 Commune for the taking down of the 
 Column than engineers asserted that its 
 fall would shake the foundations of the 
 most solid houses in the neighborhood; 
 and all the stupid shopkeepers for a mile 
 around papered their huge glass windows 
 with lone, strips of thick brown paper 
 to deaden the results of the concussion. 
 Many people urged that only the statue 
 of Napoleon in his Ca-saric robes should 
 be removed. The Commune had. how- 
 ever, made its contract with an able aud 
 ingenious engineer, who, for the sum of 
 35,000 francs, was to lay the monument 
 low before a certain day, agreeing to pay a 
 forfeit of (it HI francs for each day's delay. 
 The Column, which was erected in imita- 
 tion of the Antonine Column, at Rome, 
 was begun in 1800, one year after Na- 
 poleon's greatest campaign ; and the 
 military administration placed twelve 
 hundred captured cannon at the disposi- 
 tion of the architects. This enormous 
 weight of bronze, amounting to one 
 million eight hundred thousand pounds, 
 was cast into plates, carved in bas-reliefs 
 representing the exploits of the Imperial 
 campaign. Each plate was three feet 
 eight inches high, and was .separated 
 from the one above it by a band, <>n 
 which were inscribed the names and 
 dates of the various engagements. The 
 pedestal, established on the site of the 
 still more famous one on which stood 
 the bronze equestrian statue of Louis 
 XIV., was thirty feet high, and the 
 column itself rose to the height of one 
 hundred and eighteen feet. The eagles 
 upon the pedestal were very artistically 
 carved, and each weighed five hundred 
 pounds. Theeffigyof Bonaparte, placed 
 on high, came down twice in successive 
 generations; and now the third was to 
 fall. On the side facing the Tuilcries 
 Gardens, ami just under the dome on 
 which the Caesar-Emperor was mounted, 
 
EUROPE IN STOini AND CALM. 
 
 469 
 
 was this inscription, "This monument 
 was raised in memory of the glory of 
 the Grand Empire." 
 
 It was said that some of the old Inva- 
 lides wept when the Column fell; but 
 they were at least the only persons who 
 suffered any marked chagrin. For sev- 
 eral days before the fall of the Column 
 crowds thronged the Rue de la Pais and 
 the adjacent streets, the workmen and 
 workwomen being especially anxious to 
 be present at the ceremony. Many quar- 
 rels arose daily in these gatherings, and 
 sometimes a party of irate Communists 
 carried off to prison the men and women 
 who had dared to express themselves 
 against the triumphant faction. On the 
 lOtli of May the official journal an- 
 nounced in a modest paragraph that the 
 demolition of the Column would take 
 place at two P.M. A cordon of cav- 
 alry, the Republican Guard, clad in red, 
 white, and blue, despite the Communistic 
 hate of the tricolor, was stationed on 
 the Rue de la Paix, and presently the 
 usual crowd was so increased that the 
 masses were packed in with scarcely 
 breathing-room. Every few minutes an 
 orderly galloped through the narrow line 
 which was left open, bearing news of 
 fresh disaster or probable victory to the 
 head-quarters. 
 
 In the Place Venddme, and from the 
 other side, battalions of troops going 
 out to the fight beyond the fortifications 
 were singing lusty songs. Workmen 
 mounted on the balcony at the Column's 
 top, whence so many people, tired of 
 life, had east themselves down to die. 
 manoeuvred the ropes which descended 
 to a gigantic capstan, erected at a safe 
 distance from the bed of brush and ma- 
 nure upon which tllC glory Of Napoleon 
 was finally to repose. Towards two 
 o'clock a certain Colonel Henry mounted 
 to the top, and, clinging round the feet 
 
 of Napoleon's figure, thrice waved the 
 tricolor, tin' flag of France, ami then 
 tore it from its staff and threw il into 
 the square. Very little responsive cheer- 
 ing came from the crowds below, 1ml a 
 hand was heard feebly playing the Mar- 
 seillaise. 
 
 In the square, which, as we learned 
 on that day, was henceforth to be called 
 Place Internationale, a huge number of 
 the celebrities of Paris Rouge were col- 
 lected. Roehefort, accompanied by his 
 daughter, his sister, and his secretary, 
 was one of the first to arrive, and was 
 assigned a prominent window. Many 
 of the radical members of the late Corps 
 Ligislatif were in the throng, but re- 
 received little notice from any one. 
 Among the members of the Commune 
 were Arnault, Jacques Durand, Portot, 
 and Fortune, to whom was assigned the 
 speech after the descent of the Column. 
 .Inst as the workmen had begun at the 
 capstan, two hours after the appointed 
 time, and the cables attached to the sum- 
 mit of the Column were beginning to 
 tighten, a rope snapped, and one of the 
 laborers dropped, half killed. lie was 
 taken away, and others mounted at once 
 to the summit to repair the broken 
 cable. The excitable crowd surged up 
 and down, and many of the more violent 
 anarchists talked of imprisoning the con- 
 tractor, who seemed to have failed in 
 his scheme. 
 
 But just then the men at the capstan 
 began to work again: the Column gave a 
 slight shiver, anil an immense scream, 
 half tenor, half delight, arose from the 
 people. Yet it was necessary to pro- 
 cure another cable. Workmen were de- 
 spatched to the Ministry of the Marine, 
 and another hour of waiting was endured 
 by the people, who were profoundly con- 
 vinced thai, the crash would be terrible. 
 At last a sharp whistle warned every 
 
470 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 one to watch, and ji i^i as a black-bearded 
 gentleman behind me observed thai he 
 had been a civil engineer for eighteen 
 years, and that he would stake his repu- 
 tation on the statement that the Column 
 could novcr be gol down that way, (heir 
 was a resonant crack, and the great mass 
 descended rapidly through the air. A 
 dull, dead sound was 
 heard as the weight 
 crashed through the 
 pavement, and then 
 an overwhelming 
 cloud of dust, arose 
 
 and c one e a 1 e d 
 
 everything. 
 
 But the memorial 
 of Imperial glory 
 
 ing up the ladders on to the statue and 
 the crumbling ruins. The contractor 
 had, after taking off one of the great 
 plates of bronze, made a deep incision 
 in the stone work. The Column was 
 then shored up by two huge beams, one 
 of which snapped like an asparagus 
 shoot when the fall began. The Column 
 burst as it fell, and the statue was sepa- 
 rated from the dome. A .sailor jumped 
 upon it, and was about to crush the face 
 of the bronze Napoleon with a stone, 
 but was forbidden by an officer. Dozens 
 of people rushed upon the Place, and 
 carried off bits of the stone and of the 
 shattered plating. 
 
 Fortune's speech was neither long nor 
 eloquent, nor was it listened to. The 
 
 EPISODE OF THE COMMUNE. — THE FALLEN CESAR. — Tl IE COLUMN VENHOME. 
 
 was fallen, and Communists embraced 
 Communists in the ecstasy of their de- 
 light, and women ran hither and yon 
 clapping their hands. The Federal cav- 
 alry was pushed back by the gigantic 
 rush, and retired, growling, and brandish- 
 ing sabres of which no one was afraid, 
 towards the barricades at the entrance of 
 the Place. The smoke and dust having 
 cleared away, we saw men mounted on 
 the pedestal, and brandishing- red flags 
 of the Commune, and other men climb- 
 
 only noteworthy sentence in it was: 
 "This is the day of vengeance; this is 
 the defiance hurled at the assassins of 
 Versailles; this is the day when the peo- 
 ple reclaim their rights," — all of which 
 was somewhat indefinite. During the 
 whole afternoon the sullen booming of 
 the cannon was heard ; and many an- 
 nounced that the Prussians were firing a 
 salute to the Commune, in honor of its 
 dignified conduct in taking down the 
 war memorial. But this is onlv a 
 
EUROrE fX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 471 
 
 N° 1 _ 
 
 TJIM SOU 
 
 sample of the absurd rumors that pre- ; n H ( ,tous dissipation. When the guard 
 vailed. arrived on the night in question, a large 
 
 It was about this time that the Com- number of officers were found supping 
 iiiune, which had declared most radical sumptuously with an equal number of 
 measures against the vice of the 
 great capital, and particularly 
 against the legal recognition of a 
 certain vice, sent a strong detach- 
 ment of soldiers to close the cele- 
 brated Cafe 1 Americain. This brill- 
 iant establishment, on one of the 
 central boulevards, was, I believe, 
 called American because the proprie- 
 tor had long exercised the profession 
 of a restaurateur in America. It 
 was without doubt one of the most 
 luxurious establishments in the 
 world. The private cabinets were 
 adorned with gold ; the panels were 
 of satin, embroidered in superb 
 colors; elegant pianos, sideboards 
 loaded with crystal, and inlaid ta- 
 bles, as well as the faultless cuisine 
 and the excellent wines, had given 
 the cafe an international reputa- 
 tion. It was built towards the close 
 of 1867, when the Great Exhibition 
 had shown the Paris tradesmen what 
 a mint of money might be made ou1 
 of strangers. The public supper- 
 
 RANDE COLERE 
 
 E DUCHENE, 
 
 A propos des jean-foutres de mcuchards rrni voudrafji 
 pousscr hs bons patriotes a la guerre ^Uj 
 
 Sa rjrande motion pour la svpmtur ' 
 fecture de police. .^''^ 
 
 fecture de pol, 
 Arec son apostro, 
 gardes natiak 
 citoyens, 
 
 us v'w 
 
 F AC-SIMILE OF A TITLE- 
 PAGE. 
 
 * 
 
 Carde h- . 
 
 I. ' m. I '. : 
 T af rai- ». 
 
 women, whose costly ap- 
 parel was (heir only claim 
 to consideration. The 
 rooms were rarely opened before midnight, officers were seized, thrown into vans, and 
 and were only frequented by strangers, a sent to the front, where they were trans- 
 few fashionable and dissipated Parisians, ferred to the trenches, and made to work 
 and the ('lite of the dissolute women of with pickaxe and shovel. Thewomenwere 
 Paris. Many of the cafes had already packed off to prison and to hard labor; 
 been visited by the Communists, and the the waiters in the cafe were seized, and 
 garcons, or waiters, taken to serve in the all who had no excuse were drafted. 
 army, lint the Cafe" Americain had up The next day a sentinel was placed at 
 to this time enjoyed a singular immu- the entrance of the cafe, and no one 
 nity. The officers of the innumerable was allowed to enter. The shutters were 
 Communist staffs, resplendent with fancy finally put up. and the brilliant throng 
 decorations, were accustomed to stroll of loungers on the terrace in front was 
 into these places towards midnight when seen no more until the arrival of the 
 they were oil' duty, ami there to indulge regulars. 
 
472 
 
 EUROl'E IX STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTY. 
 
 The Narrow Escape from a r.ei.^n of Terror. — The Men who Composed the Communal Councils. — The 
 Beginning of the End. — The Entry of the Regular Troops.— The Tocsin. — The Night Alarm. 
 
 TOWARDS its close, the Commune 
 tended directly to the establishment 
 of a ■• reign of terror." It did not enter 
 coolly upon such a course, but seems to 
 have been driven to it. both by its own 
 desperate situation and by the madness 
 of its supporters. From the 1st to the 
 I'.'iil of May, no day was without its 
 revolutionary measures, some of them 
 fantastic and ridiculous, others savagely 
 practical and dangerous to the security 
 of the upper and middle classes. A 
 " committee of public safety," composed 
 of resolute men like Arnaud, Mil- 
 Here, Ranvier, and Felix Pyat, had the 
 most extraordinary powers delegated 
 to it. The Commune began to (eel the 
 lack of money, so the great railways had 
 to pay up their back taxes ; and in one 
 morning the representatives of the lead- 
 ing corporations brought into the Com- 
 munal offices many hundreds ofthousands 
 of francs. On the 4th of May, the 
 Commune abolished all political and 
 professional oaths as useless and cum- 
 brous formalities ; and on the same day 
 it decreed the destruction of the " Ex- 
 piatory Chapel," as the modest edifice 
 dedieated !■> the memory of Louis XVI. 
 is called. 
 
 A lew day; later, the Communists be- 
 came bolder. Citizen Fontaine was 
 named as delegate to assume charge of 
 the confiscation of the estates of the 
 churches and monasteries within the 
 domain of the Commune. Presently, a 
 change was made in the membership of 
 
 the " committee of public safety"; and 
 it was then that Delescluze, Eudes, and 
 Grambon were joined to the dreaded or- 
 ganization. It is easy to see what 
 would have been their course from the 
 first proclamation which they made, and 
 which was dated the 24th of Floreal, 
 year '79 ; or in the bourgeois calendar, 
 May 1 1th, 1871. This proclamation re- 
 quired that till citizens should carry con- 
 stantly about them cards establishing 
 their identity, by giving their names, 
 professions, ages, domiciles, numbers of 
 the legions, battalions, or companies, to 
 which they belonged ; and furthermore, 
 their personal description. With this 
 strange law in full operation, no ono 
 would have been safe from arrest. 
 Thousands of people could have been 
 swept into great barracks and prisons, 
 and packed together there as they were 
 in the old Revolution, on the simple pre- 
 text that their identity was not clearly 
 established. The " committee of public 
 safety" alleged, as the reason for this law, 
 that it was necessary to know who weir 
 friends and who were enemies. In 
 other words, it created a class of sus- 
 pects, and if it had once got them into 
 prison, who knows but that it might have 
 made victims of them as it did of the 
 
 hostages ? 
 
 Meantime, die civil officers of the Com- 
 mune were scourged with the fear that 
 tin' Versailles government would achieve 
 by money what it had not, thus far, suc- 
 ceeded in doing by force. They there- 
 
EVROVF. IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 473 
 
 fore decreed that there should be " civil 
 commissioners" representing the Com- 
 mune to act in harmony with, in other 
 words to watch over, the generals of the 
 three armies of the Commune. These 
 generals were Dombrowski, La Cecilia, 
 and Wrobleski. At this time, the hand 
 of Versailles was seen by the Commu- 
 nists in every misfortune, however little 
 effect it might have on their campaigns. 
 When the great cartridge factory in the 
 Rue Rapp was blown up, and one hun- 
 dred persons were killed, this was 
 instantly attributed by the Commune to 
 the enemy at Versailles. 
 
 Another decisive step towards the 
 •• Reign of Terror" was made on May 
 17th, when the Citizen Raoul Rigault, 
 procureur de la Commune, presented 
 with a great flourish of trumpets the 
 following project. "The Commune of 
 Paris, in view of the immediate necessity 
 thereof, decrees: Article 1. — A jury of 
 accusation can provisionally, in the ease 
 (if persons accused of crimes or political 
 offenses, pronounce penalties so soon as 
 it has decided upon the culpability of 
 the accused. Article 2. — Sentences 
 shall he deeided by the majority cf the 
 votes. Article 3. — Sentences shall be 
 executed within twenty-four hours." 
 
 Raoul Rigault hastened to add that he 
 would rather allow a culpable person to 
 escape than to have a single innocent 
 one injured ; and by this single phrase 
 he betrayed himself, for In- knew that if 
 this savage law were put into operation 
 it would entangle in its meshes the inno- 
 cent and the guilty alike. Many simi- 
 lar projects were brought forward in the 
 meetings of the Communists, and if the 
 insurrection had lasted another month 
 they would all have been in full opera- 
 tion. 
 
 Presently new changes were made in 
 the Committee of Public Safety, and, 
 
 frequently reorganized, this body, on the 
 20th of May, issued a warning t<i all 
 individuals who might think of offering 
 or accepting money as bribes, that they 
 would bring themselves under the penal- 
 ties for the crime of high treason, and 
 would immediately be brought before 
 court-martials. 
 
 In these exciting days, when the fatal 
 weakness of the Communist army was 
 beginning to disclose itself, the Com- 
 munal legislative body still found time 
 to devote a little attention to matters of 
 education, and il issued an order sup- 
 pressing all the subsidized theatres, in 
 conformity, to use its own language, 
 " with the principles established by the 
 first Republic, and enunciated by the 
 law of ' Germinal in the year 11.' " But 
 the crowning stroke of audacity was the 
 decree which indicates, more clearly than 
 anything else, the desperate measures 
 upon which the Commune was almost 
 resolved. It was published on the 20th 
 of May, and read as follows : " The 
 inhabitants of Paris are invited to return 
 to their homes within forty-eight hours. 
 After that time their stocks and bonds 
 and the registries thereof will be burned." 
 This emanated from the Central Com- 
 mittee, and was signed by a man named 
 Grelier. It was expected to bring back 
 many thousands of persons who had 
 taken refuge in Versailles. It was the 
 vindictive menace of the non-property- 
 holding class against the property-hold- 
 ers. As a witty French friend of mine 
 [Hit it, the Communists invited the prop- 
 erty-holders to come home and be 
 beaten, and threatened that if they did 
 not accept this invitation their houses and 
 their proofs of wealth would be burned. 
 " Nous limits refuse" mieux que cela," 
 said thi' bourgeois; and they remained in 
 Versailles and the other suburban towns 
 where they had taken refuge. 
 
474 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 General Cluseret's trial before the existence of a Supreme Being, and were 
 Commune was the last exciting incident rnpidlyorganizing a grand scheme of ven- 
 previous to the entry of the regular geauce upon the whole property-holding 
 troops. Cluserel conducted his own class. This company contained in its 
 defense with great coolness and modera- ranks, contrary to what might be sup- 
 tion. responded to the most idiotic and posed from its revolutionary actions. 
 treacherous insinuations with frankness few men of distinguished ability, and 
 and courage, and when hewas acquitted, few who had ever been heard of outside 
 after one or two of the more violent the walls of Paris before. Blanqui, the 
 members had claimed Ids head, with sublime old revolutionist, whose whole 
 ferocity worthy of their prototypes of life seems to have been a blind protest 
 the old revolution he made the assem- against the evils of monarchy, and who 
 bled members a little speech, in which was no sooner let out of prison than he 
 he said that they had seen fit to arrest undertook some conspiracy which speed- 
 liim and had now seen fit to discharm' ily brought him back to durance vile, 
 him. He bore them no malice, and was — Blanqui had no chance to sit in the 
 willing to serve them again if he could. Communal assembly. After actively en- 
 It is amusing to reflect that the most gaging in two or three abortive revolu- 
 iinporlant charge brought against Gen- tions, which preceded the great final 
 era! Cluseret by his incompetent and outbreak of the Commune, he had gone 
 ignorant associates in office was that he into the southern departments to prepare 
 had boasted that his position was worth the faithful in those sections for the 
 a million. " Cluseret," said the apes in coming change at Paris, and was ar- 
 uniform who denounced him. " is going rested ami placed in a fortress. Blan- 
 lo turn traitor and sell us for a million." qui was a man of superior talent ; but 
 As the Genera] himself told the Com- at the time of his connection with the 
 munists, — and as there seems little reason Commune he had been so long in prison 
 to doubt. — the whole story arose over the that he had hist nearly all knowledge of 
 remark of an American who called upon modern progress, as well as his conli- 
 him for a pass with which to leave deuce in the professions of moderate 
 Paris, and who jocosely said to Cluseret Republicans in France. When he was 
 on taking leave of him. " You were finally liberated from prison, seven or 
 not worth much money a. little time ago, eight years after lie had been sentenced 
 but your place is worth a million now." to "perpetual detention" for his partici- 
 This Cluseret repeated, and was forth- pation in the Commune, he was better 
 .with denounced by some busybody. acquainted with the courses of the stars 
 The members of this company of dar- and the phenomena of the heavens than 
 ing adventurers, who thus for more than with every-day politics ; and he survived 
 six weeks maintained the greatest in- his liberation but a short time. There 
 surrection of modern times, kept up a is something pathetic in the history of 
 very vigorous defense against an angry, this old man, nearly thirty years in 
 and, on the whole, well-equipped army prison because of his undying hatred of 
 of regular troops, overturned nearly illiberalism, as well as because of his 
 every important and fundamental prin- valiant attempts to overturn the govern- 
 ciple of society, suppressed religion, ments which displeased him. In the 
 Scornfully kicked at morals, denied the closing years of his life, while he was 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 475 
 
 still a prisoner at Clervaux, it is said 
 that he slept all day and stood wakeful 
 all night at his window, studying the 
 skv, to which lie had been compelled to 
 turn his thoughts because the lower 
 world was closed to him. 
 
 The origins and callings of moel of 
 the members of the Commune were quite 
 humble. Amouroux was a hatter; An- 
 drieu. an accountant; Arnaud, a manu- 
 facturer; Arnold, an architect; Assi 
 and Adrial, mechanics; Bergeret was a 
 commercial traveller ; Beslay, who was 
 a member of the Finance Committee, was 
 described as '-retired from business;" 
 Billiorav was an Italian painter. There 
 were workers in morocco, in brass, in 
 bronze ; bookbinders, shoemakers, stone- 
 cutters, dyers, bank clerks, millers, 
 chemists, jewellers, house-painters, 
 chairmakers, turners, photographers, 
 sculptors in wood, commission agents, 
 doctors, wine-touts, carpenters, lawyers, 
 horse-doctors, corset-makers, teachers, 
 civil engineers, and furniture-makers, in 
 this motley gathering of men who hoped 
 to sway file destinies of Paris, and by 
 their conduct to influence the politics of 
 Europe. Finally, there were in the 
 Communal Council no less than nine 
 journalists, of whom two or three were 
 vigorous writers, and appeared pro- 
 foundly convinced of the justice of the 
 insane movement in which they were in- 
 volved. Delescluze, Courmet, Vermorel, 
 Valles (afterwards the editorof a Radical 
 
 paper in Paris). Vesinier, all had g 1 
 
 local reputations. Cluseret, Gustave 
 Courbet, the well-known and eccentric 
 painter, and Gustave Flourens, were, 
 perhaps, the only Communists whose 
 reputation had extended beyond the 
 limits of their own country. The ma- 
 jority of these men escaped alive out of 
 the great whirlwind of the last of May, 
 1871. Those who were brought to bav 
 
 died philosophically, like Delescluze, or, 
 with a certain bravado, like Milliere and 
 Raoul Rigault. They had boldly staked 
 their existence upon the success of their 
 experiment, and probably the more in- 
 telligent of them were sorry to survive 
 its failure. 
 
 The end came with startling sudden- 
 ness. At one o'clock on the morning of 
 Monday, the 23d of May, I was turn- 
 ing homeward from the central boule- 
 vards, after a loug conversation with a 
 marble-worker of Belleville, who had 
 given me an animated account of a 
 skirmish at the gates of the town from 
 which he had just returned, when, at 
 tin' corner of the Hue Caumartin, I met 
 three friends, and we took our way 
 together in the magnificent moonlight 
 to the upper story of a huge mansion in 
 the Boulevard Malesherbes. The friend, 
 who was the lessee of this apartment, 
 invited us to remain there overnight, 
 putting at our disposition the rooms 
 which had recently been deserted by his 
 family, and mentioned his conviction 
 that important events were close at 
 hand. 
 
 Even as he spoke there came a faint 
 sound borne on the midnight breeze as of 
 music in the distance, or like the clang of 
 village bells. Presently it came again, 
 and at last swelled into a great harmony 
 which was at once superb and exciting. 
 One of the party — an Anglo- Parisian — 
 sprang out on to the balcony, listened 
 for a moment, then rushed back into the 
 room and cried, " It is the tocsin ! " 
 
 It was, indeed, the tocsin ; and, should 
 I live for a century longer, I should 
 hope never to hear again so grand and 
 so imposing an alarum. This night of 
 May was, save for the occasional crack- 
 ing of far-off musketry, so tranquil, so 
 full of perfume of flowers and of the 
 fresh, green leaves, so abounding in the 
 
47(i 
 
 EUROPE TN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 lusty life <it' the opening summer, that it 
 appealed to revery rather than aroused 
 to action. I'ntil the first notes from 
 the mellow bells the central district of 
 Paris was as quiet as a village. As we 
 had walked home we had seen here and 
 there a belated soldier dragging his sore 
 feet wearily along, or a gossiping group 
 of servant-girls; but nothing to call to 
 mind the danger anil the excitement of 
 war. Ten minutes after the brazen 
 clangor of the huge bells in the tower of 
 Node Dame had been borne to our 
 startled ears, soldiers, cannon, drums, 
 trumpets, and bugles seemed to have 
 sprung out of the solid earth. Men 
 were shouting to each other from the 
 roofs of houses; lights and watch-fires 
 sprung up on Montmartre ; little bo dies 
 of National Guards hastened to group 
 themselves into battalions ; and the wild 
 notes of the bugles echoed from every 
 quarter. 
 
 We sat lone, 1 on the balcony, high 
 above the trees, listening to the grand 
 anthem of alarm which resounded from 
 Belleville down to Notre Dame, from 
 St. Sulpice around to St. Germain des 
 l'rcs Then, far away. too. where, as we 
 afterwards learned, the enemy hail just 
 
 entered, some bells pealed their chimes ; 
 others gave solemnly the three regular 
 claims, which, when heard amid the 
 furious beating of the drum, produced a 
 most remarkable effect. Ammunition- 
 wagons rattled away right and left : 
 and on the corner of the Kue Royale, 
 near the noble Corinthian front of the 
 Mad 'leine. a great body of soldiers was 
 
 collected, and we heard presently the 
 monotonous clatter of their footsteps. 
 Presently, mingled with the clangor of 
 the bells, and the roll of the drums, 
 and the rumble of the batteries, we 
 heard the hissing and the bursting of 
 shells, now near, now far away. There 
 
 was no doubt of it; the regular army 
 had entered, and the great final battle 
 was at hand. 
 
 By-and-by the noise of the tocsin 
 faded away into the rush of the night 
 breeze ; and when we were weary of the 
 heavy rumble of cannon going to the 
 front, and caissons jolting by. we stole 
 to bed, and from sheer fatigue slept 
 until dawn. In the morning, when I 
 awoke, after a dream of a garden tilled 
 with fruits and flowers, tin' first thing 
 which I heard was a fresh voice singing: 
 
 '• Bon Fran v ais doit vivre pour elle, 
 Et pour elle lion Franeais doit inourir." 
 
 The sempiternal gamin, the Gavroche 
 of the barricades, was already on hand, 
 — as ready for a combat as for a song. 
 As soon as my companions were astir 
 we started to leave the house, but were 
 met by the concierge with the statement 
 that no one could venture into the street, 
 that a battle was imminent, and that 
 we had barricades on all sides of us. 
 We heard cries of fright beneath our 
 
 windows, and these were amply ex- 
 plained by the siliilation of the shells, 
 which now began to pass over the roof 
 in all directions. From the front win- 
 dows of our lofty apartment we could 
 
 see the dust eailsed bv the crash of the 
 
 falling projectiles; and a conflagration 
 on the Kue de Kivoli was already send- 
 ing up columns of dense black smoke. 
 Ill the 1'laee de la Concorde we could 
 
 distinctly hear the noise of artillery ; and 
 all along the Boulevard Malesherbes we 
 saw the defenders of the Commune, the 
 soldiers in uniform, and the hoys and 
 girls from the workman's quarter taking 
 up the paving-stones and piling them into 
 barricades, cutting down sycamores and 
 dragging them hither and yon for the 
 fabrication of ehevaux de frise. Presently 
 
EUROPI-: IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 477 
 
 we were joined by two or three Ameri- 
 cans, who had been compelled to lend a 
 hand at the barricades before they could 
 pass, and who had only escaped arrest 
 by stating that they had acquaintances 
 in this our house, near the door of which 
 they had been seized. A sergeant, with 
 half-a-dozen men, was marking out a 
 semicircular line of defense at the 
 mouth of the Rue Pasquier, and watch- 
 Ad guards brought into the line of labor- 
 ers all men who chanced to enter the 
 street. We saw many who refused to 
 work smartly rapped over the heads with 
 the butts of guns ; and in some cases, 
 when a man had escaped, men ran after 
 him and dragged him back. The doors 
 and windows on the lower floors of all 
 shops and houses were rapidly closed, 
 and at nine o'clock the Boulevard Males- 
 herbes, which at seven had displayed 
 
 all its wonted activity, was as silent as 
 a country graveyard. We could look 
 directly down upon the barricade, de- 
 fended by two small six - pounders, 
 handled with great skill by half-a-dozen 
 men dressed as soldiers. From the ac- 
 tion of these men we judged that they 
 were confronting a force by which they 
 were likely soon to be attacked, and we 
 watched their movements with breathless 
 anxiety. As it happened this barricade 
 was one of the keys of the situation. 
 The attack upon it from the church of 
 St. Augustin was one of the most ob- 
 stinate and vigorous made by the regulars 
 during the street lighting; and by our 
 accidental visit to this apartment we 
 had secured a capital view of one of the 
 most important episodes of the insurrec- 
 tion. 
 
ITS 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM A.\D CALM. 
 
 Oil A PTER FIFTY-ONE. 
 
 Street Fighting as a Science. --The Barricades.— A Ruse de Guerre. —Looking Down on a Rattle — The 
 Burning of the Rue Royale. — The Defence of Montmartre. — General Dombrowski's I truth. 
 
 IN a short time the Communists in 
 •' our barricade," as we now called 
 it. received orders from sonic authority 
 further back in the centre of the town. 
 The marines manoeuvred their little 
 guns, fired away in the direction of the 
 St. Augustin Church, which wc could 
 nut sec. although we could get a glimpse 
 of part of the broad avenue leading 
 directly to it. There was much excite- 
 ment after this preliminary shot, and in 
 a few minutes it was answered by the 
 boom of a cannon, and solid shot came 
 crashing againstthe great paving-stones, 
 upsetting the little guns and raising such 
 a dust aud smoke that wc could sec 
 nothing for two or three minutes. When 
 we looked, one man was down. The 
 marines had taken off their hats and 
 were shouting, '■'•Vive la Commune" 
 and forty or fifty National Guards were 
 cowering behind the barricade which had 
 been hastily repaired. Crash came an- 
 other solid shot again. The stones Hew. 
 and two men were carried off. At this 
 juncture, sharp-shooters were thrown 
 out in front of our barricade, and a cry 
 arose in the street that the regulars were 
 about to charge. The house in which 
 wc were was what is known in Paris as 
 an Hot. Standing at the angle of two 
 streets, it commanded a view in three 
 directions. From the front windows we 
 could look directly down upon the bar- 
 ricade ju>.t described, on the right upon 
 the Boulevard Malesherbes ; and on the 
 left into two or three streets, which wc 
 
 now perceived were filled with Commu- 
 nists, well fortified behind barricades. 
 A great noise of firing now came from 
 the Champs Elysdes, ami wc heard a 
 bugle sounding the attack. By and by 
 the sharp-shooters retired in confusion 
 behind their barricade, and looking down 
 upon the barricade, we saw that they 
 had left four dead men behind them. 
 
 At litis moment the circular barricade 
 at thi-' corner of the Rue Pasquier was de- 
 serted by its defenders, who had cone to 
 reinforce the greater one. extending di- 
 rectly across the Boulevard Malesherbes. 
 The rushing sound of the solid shot com- 
 ing from the church of St. Augustin was 
 now incessant. The Versaillais hail got 
 the battery at work, and were preparing 
 to make an attack, titter having made a 
 break in the barricades. 
 
 Towards four o'clock the storm of 
 shot and shell became so deadly and 
 overwhelming that our rooms were hardly 
 safer than the open street. The Commu- 
 nists had taken possession of all the bal- 
 conies behind the line of their defense, 
 and sent shot frequently into the 1 win- 
 dows of the houses outside their lilies, 
 because of their suspicion that the 
 regular troops had occupied some of 
 those houses. About half past four we 
 witnessed probably the most singular 
 incident of the whole insurrection. One 
 of our company who was watching at a 
 front window cried out. — '•The Liners! 
 The Liners!" We all tan to see, anil 
 there surely enough was a Versaillais 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 479 
 
 advancing towards the barricade timidly, 
 while the insurgents were loudly cheering 
 him in token of welcome. One of the 
 Communists held his musket reversed in 
 the air, and shook it invitingly. But 
 suddenly the regulars appeared from all 
 corners, came running across the street 
 from the direction of the Rue Boissy 
 d Anglais, and stood huddled together as 
 if waiting some general movement. One 
 held up his hand to his comrades at the 
 church as if urging them not to fire, and 
 then cautiously entered the barricade, 
 lie was received with great joy, embraced, 
 ami called endearing names. Others 
 were inclined to follow him, when all at 
 once a suspicion seemed to thrill the 
 Communist lines, — this might be a ruse 
 il<' guerre, a stratagem ; and twenty in- 
 surgents leaped upon the piled-up stones, 
 and pointed their guns straight into the 
 faces of the regulars, who were now 
 pressing forward, and were so taken 
 by surprise that they crouched behind, 
 looking pitifully up, as if they expected 
 the fatal shots. Just at this juncture a 
 Versaillais officer appeared at the coi- 
 ner of the Rue Pasquier, where a number 
 of his men stood undecided. He angrily 
 called them back, and, throwing away 
 the gun which he had been carrying, 
 drew his sword. Twenty or thirty liners 
 ran swiftly, and succeeded in reaching 
 the court-yard of a neighboring house, 
 the door of which the}' forced open. A 
 Communist officer shot a liner as lie 
 ran ; the man dropped dead in his tracks ; 
 and then a frightful hand-to-hand mildi 
 ensued. The explanation of this singu- 
 lar proceeding was obvious. The regu- 
 lars had intended to take the barricade 
 by stratagem. The insurgents had hoped 
 to incite them to desert and join their 
 force? ; and when each party found 
 its hopes were vain the fight was in- 
 evitable. 
 
 Through the rising smoke we could 
 dimly discern the figure of a woman, 
 tall, angular, ferocious, brandishing a 
 gun, and bringing it down with resound- 
 ing thwacks upon the heads of those 
 assailants who braved the terrible lire. 
 She had evidently just arrived in the 
 barricade. Every ten minutes, which 
 seemed hours, there was a great clamor 
 of bullets and cannon. When it ceased 
 the Versaillais had all disappeared, the 
 insurgents were once more crouched 
 behind the barricades, and many of the 
 wounded were crying out touching 
 appeals for the suspension of hostilities 
 until they could lie helped away. A 
 Versaillais ran out of a door in the 
 Rue Pasquier, and tried to drag in the 
 dead man shot by the Communist officer. 
 A bullet whizzed close to his ear. He 
 dropped the dead man, who festered in 
 the sun for hours thereafter. An insur- 
 gent lay dead at the right corner of our 
 house on the boulevard. An old gray- 
 haired liner reclined directly opposite 
 our house in a door-way, looking as it' 
 he had sat down, and fallen asleep. 
 Half a dozen of the red-breeched soldiery 
 were heaped together in front of the 
 barricade; and behind the stones the 
 wounded were numerous, and their am- 
 bulance men were hard at work. No 
 sooner had the Versaillais retreated 
 than their batteries began tiring solid 
 shot and shell again. From live o'clock 
 until dark the musketry and shelling were 
 unrelenting. The insurgents retaliated 
 by subjecting the line Fasquier and the 
 right side of the Boulevard Malesherbes 
 to a veritable bombardment. The walls 
 and floors of all the adjacent houses 
 trembled, and bullets whistled once more 
 through our apartments, breaking mir- 
 rors and cutting curtains. A gentleman 
 from St. Louis, who had frequently been 
 cautioned by members of our partv 
 
480 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 because lie insisted on looking with a 
 large field-glass out of a window unpro- 
 tected by shutters, learned a lesson 
 which taught him much. He had 
 
 retreated to an arm-chair in the middle 
 of the room, and there continued his 
 observations with his glass, when lie 
 suddenly arose, and went into the dining- 
 room to get a glass of water. When lie 
 returned he was shown two bullet-holes 
 through the back of the chair, and the 
 marks on the marble mantel-piece just 
 behind. Had he not been thirsty at that 
 particular moment the two bullets would 
 have perforated his breast. 
 
 As darkness came on, both parties 
 fired at flashes, and now and then sent 
 shells over the houses. The concierge 
 came to supplicate us not to have can- 
 dles or gas lighted. We retired, for 
 comparative safety, to the back rooms 
 
 of the lower lloois, and supped as best 
 we could off bread, rice, and a little 
 wine, which the landlord, who lived in 
 the house, offered us. American house- 
 wives must be told that in the apart- 
 ment system of the Parisian domiciles 
 the pantry is an unknown institution, 
 and a blockade of twenty-four hours 
 leaves the dwellers in Paris houses des- 
 titute of food. Towards nine o'clock 
 the smoke cloud did rise a little, but all 
 night the angry storm of lead raged at 
 intervals, anil early dawn brought the 
 noise of :i great attack in the Champs 
 Klvsees, and the wild roar of one directly 
 behind our house. The Versa illais were 
 now all around us. From time to time 
 the barricade on our front was deserted, 
 the Nationals, as the Communists now 
 called themselves, rushing to assist in 
 the network of defence in the various 
 streets, Godot de Mauroi, Ferine des 
 Mathurins, and De Seze. On this 
 Tuesday noon a tremendous cannon- 
 ading announced the decisive attack on 
 
 the Place de la Concorde. This was 
 succeeded by a fusillade, much more 
 terrible and far stronger than any yet 
 heard in our street. Now the rush 
 of bullets became unite terrifying. The 
 thunder of shells, the blowing of bugles, 
 and the cracking of chassepots were 
 steadily intensified until half-past four 
 
 in the afteri 1, when a detachment of 
 
 Veisaillais suddenly appeared in the 
 cornels of the streets leading from the 
 Champs Flysees. As they saw the 
 Communist barricades they hesitated. 
 An officer was pricking them on with his 
 sword when a shot from the barricade 
 struck him in the knee. He fell to the 
 sidewalk, still brandishing his sword. 
 The men rushed past him, and poured a 
 sharp volley into the now demoralized 
 insurgents. They saw that they would 
 be taken in the rear if they remained a 
 moment longer, so they fled precipitately, 
 fighting as they went; and the tricolor 
 was seen waving from all the houses 
 near us. 
 
 The liners at once proceeded to ex- 
 amine the knapsacks left behind by the 
 Communists, and it was a quaint sight 
 to see them greedily, and yet suspi- 
 ciously, eating the bread found in them. 
 In a U-w moments the house opposite us 
 was tilled with soldiers, so we appeared 
 on the balcony and hung out an Ameri- 
 can Hag. A dozen guns were pointed at 
 it, but an officer intervened, and expla- 
 nations, which seemed for the moment 
 satisfactory, were made. Our newly- 
 come Versaillais arranged the barricade 
 so as to turn their backs to us. About 
 fifty men were put behind it, and they 
 lay quietly on their arms waiting orders. 
 Bullets now struck the Madeleine's noble 
 walls every moment, and little pieces 
 were chipped from the columns. 
 
 A great conflagration burst out in 
 the Rue Royale, and a dense column of 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 481 
 
 smoke near the Place de la Concorde in- 
 clined us to believe that the public build- 
 ings near at hand had been fired. The 
 insurgents were making a strong fight in 
 the Rue de Rivoli, aud their batteries on 
 the boulevards were playing directly on 
 the houses which the Versaillais had 
 occupied at the junction of our street 
 with the boulevard. We could now vent- 
 ure on to our balconies with compara- 
 tive safety, although the soldiers thought 
 it wise to shield themselves with mat- 
 tresses. The spectacle around was be- 
 yond description. Almost every house 
 save our own was vomiting fire and 
 smoke from twenty windows. Great 
 streams of sparks and cinders were 
 flying over the Rue Royale ; shells were 
 descending there and iu the Place de la 
 Concorde ; batteries were rattling under 
 our windows on the sidewalks, and in 
 the middle of the street, ammunition- 
 wagons on every side of us made the 
 alighting of shells in our vicinity doubly 
 dangerous. The iron hail-storm now 
 seemed to turn anil continue, in a meas- 
 ure, up the boulevards, but presently 
 changed, and we could see that the Ver- 
 saillais had occupied the Place de la 
 Madeleine, and learned that the insur- 
 gents were slowly retreating down the 
 arcades of the Rue de Rivoli. The sur- 
 render of the barricade Malesherbes, 
 which was the way to all the approaches 
 to the Madeleine, and to the whole net- 
 work of barricades between us and the 
 Grand Opera, had been an important 
 move for the invading regulars. 
 
 As soon as our barricade was carried 
 the slaughter in the streets was dread- 
 ful. The soldiers, although quite sober 
 and very well disciplined, bad probably 
 been instructed to give but little quarter. 
 Whenever there was the slightest resist- 
 ance when they arrived they shot the 
 men as soon as made prisoners. We 
 
 saw six insurgents shot in the Rue Go- 
 dot de Mauroi a moment after they were 
 taken. Houses were searched, and any 
 man found with his hands slightly black- 
 ened with powder was instantly shot. 
 The soldiers backed him up against the 
 wall, threw a couple of men into line; 
 two reports were heard, and the dead 
 man's coat was stripped off and thrown 
 over his head. These men were left 
 lying where they fell until Wednesday 
 afternoon. 
 
 The Malesherbes barricade, first at- 
 tacked at ten o'clock on Monday morning, 
 was taken at five on Tuesday afternoon. 
 It held out exactly thirty-one hours, during 
 which time the insurgents in the central 
 part of the town managed to execute de- 
 fenses which otherwise they could never 
 have managed. Had Montmartre not 
 been taken at such an early epoch in the 
 tight the Versaillais would have had 
 far greater losses before reaching the 
 central boulevards. This barricade was 
 defended by about two hundred men, 
 most of whom were very brave. The 
 majority of them were killed or taken 
 prisoners before reaching the boulevards. 
 All the way down the Boulevard Hauss- 
 mann soldiers met with the most deter- 
 mined resistance. "One man, whom we 
 cornered," said an Eleventh-artillery- 
 man to me, "ran into a courtyard, and 
 we agreed to spare him if lie gave up his 
 gun : but he closed his bands so tightly 
 about it that we had to pry his fingers 
 off one by oue. Then we shot him." 
 An old man of sixty, as the same artil- 
 lery-man was standing at the head of 
 the Boulevard Haussmann, was shot in 
 sight of his son of fourteen, who threw 
 himself on the body, and begged to be 
 killed also. " It was pitiful to see." 
 said the rough Lyons boy, turning quite 
 pale. " We have left fifty dead men 
 above here," he added ; " but we shall 
 
482 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 be revenged down below;" and he fered but little from the projectiles thrown 
 
 pointed to the Madeleine. from the great hill ; and early Tuesday 
 
 Although we went into the streets morning the divisions of General Lad- 
 thai Tuesday evening we did n < « t go mirault's troops, taking possession of 
 farther than the barricade, as the sus- all the gates from the Forte Maillot 
 picions of the Versailles troops were very to St. Ouen, had attacked Montmartre 
 strong, and they saw an escaping ('"in- in the rear, while the Duplessis division 
 munist in every civilian. We saw a went up from the Gare St. Lazare through 
 number of arrested persons taken to the the Rue d'Amsterdam. General Clin- 
 line Boissy d'Anglais, where they were; chant then sent reinforcements to all 
 judged and immediately shot. We re- the exterior boulevards ; also to the Rue 
 rnained in-doors that night, and at early Blanche. The barricades on the Boule- 
 dawn went out to find that the insurgents van! des Batignolles, and the streets 
 had been compelled to withdraw from all entering it, were carried without much 
 
 their positions in the neighborh hand resistance; and at halt-past nine the 
 
 from all the central boulevards below the Versaillais entered precipitately on the 
 Rue Drouot ; also that they had fired the Place Clichy, which had been hastily 
 public buildings in their line of retreat abandoned by the Communists. 
 towards the Hotel de Ville. Entering Montmartre then began Bring directly 
 the Rue Royale we found heaps of dead into Clichy, and wrecked numerous 
 men, and saw many of the houses on the houses in the vicinity. Women and 
 right-hand side slowly burning. Fire- men fired from windows upon the regu- 
 nien were inducing every passer-by to lars, and were at once taken out, placed 
 help, and we had to stand in line and against walls, ami shot. The Mont- 
 pass buckets of water, in the primitive martre cannon were finally silenced at 
 Parisian fashion of extinguishing fires, ten o'clock. The regulars flattered 
 before we could establish our right to themselves that they had dismounted 
 pass on. The insurgents, we were told, the insurgent guns; but the truth was, 
 had applied petroleum to burn the quar- that there was no more ammunition on 
 ter when they found thej' could no longer the mountain. The Federals did not. 
 hold it. Here, also, we heard the story expect to he so quickly surrounded, and 
 that, fifty insurgents had been bayoneted ammunition wagons blocked half-a-dozen 
 in the Madeleine; but this was untrue, out-of-the-way streets. Finding their 
 Several men were killed at the church, endeavors to scale the heights and bring 
 but none inside the sacred walls. fresh supplies to the batteries useless. 
 
 The formidable character of the works the drivers were shot from their horses, 
 at Montmartre and the immense nam- Four new barricades were then thrown 
 her of guns accumulated there by the up on the Place Clichy, hut only one 
 insurgents had made every one in the made a determined defense, and cost 
 central quarters of Paris anxious, as the the regular army a large number of 
 Communists had sworn to bombard that men. The liveliest resistance was made 
 section whenever the Versailles troops in the Place Blanche, where a few Fed- 
 occupied it as far as the Grand Opera, erals held out tor two hours against a 
 But General Clinchant's troops, who large force. One of the barricades was 
 had occupied the Pare Monceau during taken by stratagem on the part of the 
 the night and morning of the entry, suf- Versaillais. >vho entered houses directly 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 483 
 
 above the insurgents, and from the 
 windows shot down scores. On the 
 Place Pigale numerous mitrailleuses 
 sent destruction against the attacking 
 forces, but by noon the Federals were 
 driven quite to the south think of the 
 hill. Just as they were preparing for a 
 new stand there the red breeches ap- 
 peared on the hill-top and wildly pro- 
 claimed victory. These men belonged 
 to a division of the Ladmirault Corps, 
 which had swept away the batteries near 
 St. Ouen and took one hundred and five 
 cannon on .the road. Arriving at the 
 plateau on the hill-top, they found it 
 deserted. The mass of the Federals 
 had escaped by the streets leading to- 
 wards La Chapelle. The panic in the 
 retreat was frightful. The streets were 
 strewn for half a mile with knapsacks, 
 guns which the Communists had broken 
 in their fury, with cartridges, and even 
 with uniforms, which many men in their 
 fright had torn off and thrown away. 
 Some cowards attempted to take refuge 
 in a house, but found the doors closed 
 against them, and were shot down like 
 dogs. The stampede was only rallied 
 at La Chapelle, where barricades were 
 hastily erected. The regulars occupied 
 all the houses, searched the rooms, and 
 whenever they found a man apparently 
 fresh from the fight he was shot without 
 mercy. The house of a blacksmith, in 
 the Rue de Navarin, stood a severe siege, 
 but finally all the defenders were taken 
 and killed. At five in the evening the 
 fight was still in progress on the Boule- 
 vard Rochechouart ; but before night- 
 fall all the Montmartre section was in 
 the power of the regular army. 
 
 The defense of this noted hill seems 
 to have been confided to General Clu- 
 seret, but he had not been heard of at 
 the close of the action. The story of 
 General Dombrowski's death is simple 
 
 and almost touching. The insurgent 
 General was at La Muette when the 
 news came that a great attack in that, 
 vicinity had succeeded. An orderly 
 hastily brought him word that the Ver- 
 saillais would probably soon surround 
 the house in which lie had his head- 
 quarters. He at once burned his papers 
 and ran out of the building to the rail- 
 way station of the Ceinture, and finally 
 gained the Place Vend6me, where, it 
 will be remembered, was the central 
 head-quarters. From that point he went 
 to Batignolles, and on Tuesday was in 
 the thick of the light on Montmartre. 
 While riding along the Boulevard Or- 
 nano, accompanied by a large number 
 of his staff officers, about noon, he was 
 struck in the abdomen by a musket bul- 
 let and fell to the ground. Four men 
 bore the dying General, who bit the cloth 
 of the stretcher in his agony, to the 
 Hospital Lariboisiere, where he died 
 shortly afterwards. His last words were, 
 according to one version, "You see how 
 one dies when he has been betrayed." 
 Another account, and probably a more 
 trustworthy one, given by the hospital 
 aids, says that, shortly before death, he 
 cried out: " And those men accused me 
 of betraying them ; " then he babbled 
 of his wife and child, and so passed 
 away. His aides-de-camp carried off 
 his body in a common wagon, after hav- 
 ing theatrically sworn before the death- 
 bed that they would avenge him. 
 
 Dombrowski's melancholy exclamation 
 about treason was prompted by the 
 rumor which had at one time gained 
 ground in the Communist circles, that he 
 had been bribed by the regulars, and 
 that if he had not been corrupt the troops 
 could not have entered. There is no 
 foundation for this slander. Dom- 
 browski, although misguided, was brave 
 and honest. He had perhaps thought 
 
4*4 
 
 ECUoPE IX STORM AXP CALM. 
 
 of making his way through some point of 
 the Prussian lines, and escaping when 
 the battle in Paris became hopeless ; but 
 this does not seem clearly proved. There 
 was a story that he with his "seven 
 hundred horsemen " had intended to 
 gallop to Belgium, cutting their way 
 through any small villages which might 
 offer resistance. But any one who had 
 seen iiis seven hundred horsemen would 
 know that this was absurd. Dom- 
 browski's staff was mounted on omnibus 
 horses, old roadsters who had already 
 done their best service, and presented 
 a most, ridiculous appearance. In the 
 whole of the Commune army there were 
 not threescore men who knew how to 
 ride. 
 
 Early Wednesday morning, just as the 
 first glimpses of dawn were visible, the 
 Bring in and around the Rue Royale and 
 on the boulevards died quite away. The 
 far-oil' cannon shots convinced us that 
 the insurgents had retired towards the 
 Louvre, and were fighting their way to 
 the Bastille. We had returned to sleep at, 
 the house in the Boulevard Malesherbes ; 
 ami at, dawn, on Wednesday morning, 
 we were once more in the Hue Royale. 
 One side of this line street was now 
 almost entirely burnt away, and the re- 
 maining walls tottered and gave forth a 
 peculiar odor, as if dead bodies were 
 burning within. Many of the unfortu- 
 nate inhabitants were doubtless roasted 
 alive in their cellars. Near the junction 
 of the boulevard with the Rue Royale 
 lay the body of an old man, a Com- 
 munist, with a horrible wound in the 
 head. Some passers-by hail removed the 
 covering from his face, and the open 
 eyes were quite frightful to look upon. 
 Farther on was the corpse of a liner. 
 young and handsome. 
 
 At an angle of the Rue Royale was 
 still another victim, beaten half out of 
 
 shape. Down at the great double bar- 
 ricade, at the entrance to the Place de la 
 Concorde, great crowds were collected, 
 peering over at the vestiges of the fight. 
 In the Place, the caryatides supporting 
 the fountain hasins were scarred with 
 bullets, and the great statue of Lille had 
 fallen from its pedestal. The beautiful 
 equestrian statues at the entrance of the 
 Champs Ely sees had miraculously es- 
 caped. Undoubtedly the barricades at 
 the corner of the Rue Royale and the 
 Place 1 de la Concorde had been but poorly 
 defended. A soldier of the line ran close 
 by one of them on Tuesday afternoon, 
 and tore down the two red flags flutter- 
 ing above it before the astonished 
 insurgents could fire a shot. As he re- 
 turned, a discharge of musketry burst 
 from the barricade, and the courageous 
 liner fell flat. A shout arose. " He is 
 dead ! He is dead ! " cried the insurgents. 
 He had only fallen to escape the shots, 
 and scampered back to his own lines 
 unharmed. 
 
 It having been long before determined 
 among the insurgents that, if they could 
 not obtain the municipal franchise of 
 Paris, they should make a systematized 
 attempt to burn all the public monuments 
 ami palaces, as well as the ministries 
 and principal houses, it is not, surprising 
 that the Rue Royale was so readily filed. 
 During the days of Monday and Tues- 
 day, in various houses in the Boulevard 
 Malesherbes, in the Rue de Rivoli. and 
 Rue de la Paix even, little square boxes 
 were placed behind the doors, or in other 
 obscure corners in the court-yards. These 
 boxes, when examined, were found to 
 contain petroleum, so arranged that it 
 could be fired at, a moment's notice. A 
 gentleman whose word 1 cannot doubt, 
 one of the editors of I,i' Temps, told me 
 that the insurgents used every pretext 
 to conceal from the inhabitants the fact 
 
EUUOrE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 485 
 
 that they were firing the houses. Had 
 not the regular troops been very near at 
 hand, when his house was invaded by 
 the Communists, he was certain the 
 latter would have succeeded in destroy- 
 ing it. Men who belonged to what was 
 organized as the incendiary battalion 
 disguised themselves as firemen, and led 
 the flames instead of helping to ex- 
 tinguish them. This sounds almost in- 
 credible, but there is very good evidence 
 of its truth. Men came from all quarters 
 earning bottles of petroleum and in- 
 flammable matches in their pockets, and 
 one's life was not worth a rush anywhere 
 in the street, as it needed only the de- 
 nunciation of the first bourgeois to have 
 any person shot down by the infuriated 
 soldiery. As we turned to leave the 
 Rue Koyale we saw a regiment of liners 
 passing on to the fight at the Louvre, 
 on the double-quick. The officers were 
 swearing at and striking the wounded 
 men, who, overloaded and stained with 
 blood and covered with dust, bad little 
 elasticity in their steps. 
 
 Great jets of fire were streaming up 
 in the direction of the Rue St. Honor^, 
 and beyond the Tuileries. and the burn- 
 ing Ministry of Finances sent up flames. 
 Now and then, from the latter building, 
 a shower of sparks and half-burnt papers 
 came drifting above us, and the air was 
 hot and sulphurous. People's faces were 
 blanched with a new fear, for conflagra- 
 
 tion's are so unusual at Paris that most 
 citizens are frightened even at an or- 
 dinary one. This gigantic series of fires, 
 this wholesale destruction of property 
 by the vindictive Communists, actually 
 turned the heads of many people. The 
 excess of sudden insanity, consequent 
 on the horrors of the seven days' light, 
 was so numerous as to excite universal 
 attention among medical men. 
 
 Wednesday night will always lie re- 
 membered by those who witnessed its hor- 
 rors as the " night of tires." Returning 
 that evening to our old quarters on the 
 Boulevard Malesherbes we remarked 
 among the inhabitants along the route a 
 feverish agitation. Every one suspected 
 every one else of attempting to fire the 
 house in which he lived, and the con- 
 cierges were busy on the roofs with hose 
 watering the walls, or below arranging 
 wet mortar against the cellar windows, 
 or placing barrels of water and heaps of 
 sand in the court-yards. As we passed 
 through the Rue Scribe we saw groups 
 of soldiers marching men and women 
 who were to be shot, a gun. it was said, 
 having been fired from the house in 
 which they had been taken. It was after 
 dark when we arrived at the scene of the 
 late Malesherbes fight. The streets were 
 crowded with soldiery, and hardly half 
 an hour passed without the rattle of 
 musketry, indicating an execution at the 
 military post in the Rue Boissy d' Anglais. 
 
486 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM A.Xh CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO. 
 
 The Night of Fires. — The Pctv 
 
 -The Execution of Women. — Paris in Flames. 
 
 FROM the upper windows of our 
 house we could see the great fires 
 in the Rue St. Honore^ and the Rue de 
 Rivoli, where shops and nouses were 
 constantly fired by the daring incendiary 
 brigade. Shells from the Buttes Chau- 
 mont, where the retreated Communists 
 had now erected their barricades, came 
 regularly, six every live minutes (we 
 counted them repeatedly), to add their 
 terrors to the rapidly increasing flames. 
 The burning Tuileries still sent up their 
 lights, fantastic as a aurora borealis, on 
 the horizon, and the distant clamor of 
 fusillade came borne on the wicked wind 
 which seemed to delight in spreading 
 the flames. Officers passed beneath our 
 windows, constantly enjoining the inhabi- 
 tants to watch their houses with the 
 greatesl vigilance; we were not allowed 
 to have any lights, and had little inclina- 
 tion to run the risk of a domiciliary visit, 
 which might have resulted in our forced 
 departure for the military post, where to 
 
 be suspected was to be executed. 
 
 About nine o'clock we were called to 
 the garret to witness an immense new 
 burst of flame, which we were told was 
 La Villette on lire, the troops having 
 lost no time in firing it. after having 
 summoned the insurgents from the bar- 
 ricades to surrender. The Hotel de 
 Yille. which was now burning, added the 
 vast glow of its conflagration to the 
 spectacle. The accumulation of horrors 
 for the [last few days, the promenades 
 anion"; the heaps of dead and dying, the 
 danger incurred by merely walking in 
 
 the enraged and affrighted throngs, had 
 
 so unsettled our nerves that the sudden 
 appearance of eight gendarmes in the 
 garret, whence we were viewing the 
 scene, almost unmanned us. In harsh 
 tones they demanded why two of our 
 company had mounted to the roof, and 
 bade them come down at once. They 
 descended precipitately, and we explained 
 ourselves. The gendarmes having as- 
 sured themselves of our nationality, re- 
 tired, grumbling, and we refrained from 
 further adventures in pursuit of knowl- 
 edge. Nothing was left but to crawl to 
 the front windows and watch (he reflec- 
 tion of the flames on the sullen sky, and 
 to hear the rumbling of the distant 
 battle. All night we lav wakeful, listen- 
 ing to the cries of fright or of stern 
 command. Towards one o'clock, a cry 
 arose, a cry of fear and anguish of a 
 woman in her last agony. It fairly 
 chilled our blood. We could not refrain 
 f 1*0111 running to the windows and listen- 
 ing. It was a woman taken in the act 
 of firing the street, and we heard her led 
 away, protesting with bitter screams. 
 "You can explain to the commandant," 
 said a voice. The woman was hurried 
 to the Rue Pasquier. Presently there 
 was a shot : then all was still for a few 
 moments. 
 
 The citizens who had not sympathized 
 with the insurrection began to appear 
 on the streets on Wednesday. Pale 
 faces peeped out here and there; shop- 
 keepers took down from their dusty 
 shutters the proclamations which the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 487 
 
 Commune had pasted upon them ; the 
 tricolor was exhibited from every window 
 within the line of the regular troops ; 
 squads of cavalry patrolled the streets, 
 and the ■• men of order." who had care- 
 fully hidden themselves since their dis- 
 comfiture in the Rue de la Paix, on the 
 day of their manifestation, were out in full 
 force, and beat La (ienerale furiously. 
 All of the government people wore tri- 
 color badges on their left arms. Guns 
 were stacked on the pavements, and the 
 shopkeepers and rentiers of the Rue de 
 la Paix, instead of the marlile-workers 
 and masons of Belleville, now commanded 
 us to passer au large. It was curious 
 to notice the thirst for blood which 
 these fine fellows, who might have 
 stopped the insurrection at its outset, 
 lnil who had refrained from just the 
 effort necessary to check it. now mani- 
 fested when the regulars had done the work. 
 The Place Yendome was occupied by 
 the regulars on Wednesday morning. 
 The inhabitants of the quarter screamed 
 with delight as every new prisoner was 
 brought in. Men came with their arms 
 pinioned behind their backs, and. as 
 they entered the square, and passed 
 out of sight of the ferocious, gaping 
 crowd, a detonation would be heard, 
 and all would be over. The same 
 soldiers who had done the execution 
 took their way back to their post of duty 
 amid the acclamations of the people. 
 The officers on the court-martials had an 
 inductive method of getting at the truth. 
 They were mild in their speech, and 
 would say, "Come, now, friend, you 
 might as well confess." The man, tempted 
 by the kindly voice, would own up. after 
 many equivocations, that he had done 
 little or nothing. '-Yes. but you did 
 take part in the insurrection?" and 
 when he answered " Yes,'' his doom was 
 at once pronounced. 
 
 The kindling of the fires seems to have 
 given the property-holders a terrible 
 thirst for blood. If any one ventured to 
 say. ••That man ought not to be shot: 
 he looks like a weak, misguided creat- 
 ure," the unhappy man who thus pleaded 
 for clemency would lie howled at and 
 threatened with arrest if he said any- 
 thing further. Faces in these days 
 shone witli a sort of lurid light. The 
 little petty grocer and the great mer- 
 chant of lace, the shopkeeper and the 
 banker, seemed to think their express 
 duty was now to hoot, kick, strike, and, 
 if necessary, kill defenseless prisoners. 
 Old women, venerable at least by their 
 gray hairs, were called degrading names 
 as the soldiers pushed them onto prison, 
 which few left alive. In dozens of cases 
 these women were simply looking after 
 their husbands or sons, yet they Were 
 arrested on suspicion of endeavoring to 
 fire the quarters. Many of the women 
 were found with their aprons tilled with 
 explosive matches, and thej>e'£roZew.se was 
 a veritable personage, although her ex- 
 ploits were grossly exaggerated. Dead 
 men were allowed to rot uncared lor. and 
 vulgar passers-by pulled the coverlets 
 from their faces and made unfeeling 
 remarks. Our hearts seemed to revolt. 
 Sometimes we could not believe our 
 senses, and went about trembling with 
 horror. A man coming out of a house 
 at the corner of the Rue Pasquier, on 
 Wednesday afternoon, was denounced 
 as a Communist. He was clean, well- 
 dressed, and tranquil. Ten or twelve artil- 
 lery officers drew their swords and were 
 about to cut him down, when it was 
 decided to take him to the post in the 
 opposite street. The crowd grumbled at 
 this, and one old man was so angry be- 
 cause the soldiers did not shoot the sup- 
 posed culprit that he tried himself to 
 kill him with his stout oaken stick. 
 
488 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Around the church of La Trinitd the 
 fight was especially murderous. Great 
 
 havoc was made among the beautiful 
 statues and fountains in the church 
 square. The trees were almost hare and 
 leafless, the fires stripping everything. 
 Our vice-consul, Mr. Alcott, saw from 
 his windows much of the combat, and 
 describes it as appalling. A priest was 
 saved by the regulars from the hands of 
 the insurgents, and the poor old man 
 was so overjoyed that he kissed the 
 whole battalion. 
 
 The barricade on the Place de l'Opera 
 was composed of barrels, water-carts, 
 
 and heaps of earth and paving-stones. 
 It was so arranged as to command the 
 Boulevard des Capucines, the Hues 
 Auber and Halevy. This, as well as 
 the barricade which closed communica- 
 tion between the ( 'haussee d'Antin and 
 the boulevard, was valiantly defended 
 by the One Hundred and Seventeenth 
 Communist battalion. Its guns in some 
 measure protected all the network of 
 barricades between the grand boulevards 
 and the key barrier on the Boulevard 
 Malesherbes. and hindered the progress 
 of the regular troops about twenty-four 
 hours. The fight at this Opera barri- 
 cade was very severe, and two officers 
 of the Communist battalion, not wishing 
 to leave their gnus in the hands of the 
 regulars, drew them off themselves, one 
 by one, amid a shower of bullets. All 
 
 the Federals were finally forced to retire, 
 and then the inhabitants came out and 
 welcomed in the regulars, who descended 
 by the Bue du Helder. One liner 
 mounted to the top of the magnificent 
 editiee of the Opera, tore down the red 
 flag, and. brandishing the tricolor, placed 
 it Anally in the hand of the god Apollo, 
 who holds up to the sunlight a golden 
 lyre. 
 
 Promenading the streets now became 
 
 extremely dangerous. Strangers were 
 treated like Parisians. The National 
 Guards of Order were fretting and fum- 
 ing, as if anxious for a pretext to kill 
 something, and it was unsafe to reason 
 with them. One man assured me that 
 live thousand insurgents had been shot 
 since the troops entered. 1 mildly ex- 
 pressed doubts, lie called out at once, 
 and tried to collect a crowd about, me, 
 lint I left him post-haste. Towards 
 evening the shells fell very rapidly in 
 the Place de l'Opera, anil a woman who 
 was going to the Place Vendome, as a 
 prisoner, was struck down by a shell from 
 the Buttes Chaumont battery. Wounded 
 horses added their screams to the cries 
 of the wounded men. The front of the 
 building in which the Washington Club 
 was located was half torn away. In the 
 glare of the flames from the Ministry of 
 Finances, as night came on. one could see 
 men and women, tied together, and bleed- 
 ing from numerous wounds, marched 
 along, urged forward by kicks and blows 
 from musket-butts into the Place \'eu- 
 d6me, where they were immediately shot. 
 A number of French and American 
 persons (old me the following incident, 
 which I defy any one to read without a 
 certain emotion. On Thursday a very 
 beautiful young girl, taken in the act of 
 scattering inflammable matches against 
 the houses, was marched down the Rue 
 de la Pais to the Place Vendome to 
 execution. She seemed quite innocent, 
 and answered quite quietly when asked 
 what she was doing, and what she had in 
 her apron, " Only some kindlings to light 
 my lire with." Her beauty, her elastic 
 and courageous step, as she marched to 
 execution, did not enlist the women in 
 her favor. The women were much more 
 terrible in their wrath than the men ; but. 
 as she turned and faced the crowd with 
 flashing eye, and as her long, black hair 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 489 
 
 H 
 
 w 
 B 
 
 *0 
 SO 
 >-> 
 GO 
 
 o 
 
 g 
 
 50 
 - 
 H 
 
 a 
 
 SO 
 
 SO 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 SO 
 
490 
 
 EVROPE IX STORM AM> CALM. 
 
 kepi waving in the breeze, many a strong 
 man shed tears. An implacable war of 
 the pcior against the rich, carried now 
 to the extremity of despair, made the 
 3'oung girl march as proudly to the place 
 of execution as if her cause had been 
 won, and Paris were free. 
 
 The military school on the Champ de 
 Mars was a favorite place for execu- 
 tions. Few prisoners who wenl in there 
 came out alive. As fast as the men and 
 women entered the doomed precinct, the 
 tramp of a Bring platoon and the dis- 
 charge of a number of muskets could 
 
 lie heard. The bodies Were heaped up 
 so thai new -cdiners had to climb over 
 them in order to stand at the fatal wall. 
 The dead n ere dragged afterwards to the 
 Champ de Mars into trenches. The 
 millions of visitors to the great Exhibi- 
 tion of 1878 little thought, as they 
 walked on the beautiful green grass of 
 the gardens of the Champ de Mars, of 
 slaughtered Communists buried below. 
 Probably some one who had read Walt 
 Whitman's eccentric verses might have 
 thought, above the unrecognizable graves, 
 of those strange lines: — 
 
 ■• Tenderly will I use you, curling grass. 
 
 ti may bo you transpire from the breasts of 
 
 young men ; 
 It may be if I had known them I would have 
 
 loved them; 
 It may be you are from old people and from 
 
 women, and from offspring taken too scon 
 
 from their mothers' laps. 
 They are alive and well somewhere. 
 The smallest sprout shows there is really no 
 
 death." 
 
 The history of the burning of Paris 
 has been told, both by the Communists, 
 who And, in their adroit fashion, a hundred 
 apologies for their action, and by the 
 moderate Republicans, some of whom, 
 like M. Maxime Ducamp, are a trifle 
 
 immoderate in their condemnation. Had 
 
 the regular troops acted with more 
 promptness, after their arrival, a great 
 number of the principal buildings on the 
 left hank of the Seine might have been 
 saved from the flames. But the hesita- 
 tion of the regular troops is not to be 
 wondered at. The spectacle which con- 
 fronted them was enough to appall the 
 stoutest hearts. The great clouds of 
 smoke from the smouldering Hotel de 
 Ville and the Tuileries made a sombre 
 background to a melancholy picture. At 
 all the street corners dead insurgents lay 
 thickly, sometimes piled in little heaps. 
 Asking the explanation of (his. 1 was 
 told that these were men who had escaped 
 into the houses, and when found were 
 taken into the street and immediately 
 executed. No questions even were asked 
 them when they wane found w itli weapons 
 in their hands or with powder stains on 
 (heir ling/as. The bullet sang its shrill 
 song, and I hey fell dead. 
 
 it is worthy of remark that in the quar- 
 ter of Paris extending from the Hotel 
 de Ville to the Bastille, no hostility to the 
 Communists was expressed by oon-com- 
 batants : elsewhere the complete ferocity 
 of the citizens quite surpassed anything 
 manifested by the soldiers. In the Rue 
 du Temple and in the Rue Vieux du 
 Temple, dead men of both the Com- 
 munal and regular armies were lying 
 about as plentiful as broken boughs in a 
 forest through which a great wind had 
 passed. 
 
 On this Wednesday evening a friend 
 win. walked through the line de Rivoli 
 announced that he saw women washing 
 off the sidewalk in places where the 
 blood had collected in little stagnant 
 pools. They sopped up the blood with 
 wet rags, and, wringing it out into pails, 
 carried it away into the houses. Possibly 
 some enterprising speculator proposed 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 4! >1 
 
 to sell or to exhibit the blood of the 
 victims of the May revolution. 
 
 Around the Palais Royal, and espe- 
 cially in front of the Comedie Francaise, 
 the scene was heart-rending. Soldiers 
 were digging trenches in the middle of 
 the street, and throwing in the dead in- 
 surgents. In front of the barricade in 
 the Rue Montpensier as many as twenty 
 were buried. Amateur grave-diggers, 
 boys and men, tumbled back the dirt 
 and stamped it clown without a trace of 
 emotion on their faces. Nearly at the 
 same time some soldiers were skinning 
 a horse slain by a shell, and were distribu- 
 ting the meat to poor people who begged 
 for it. Many members of the working- 
 class suffered the pang's of hunger for 
 several days during the fight, as the food 
 in certain quarters was entirely carried 
 off to serve the soldiers who were 
 making their way into the heart of the 
 insurrection. 
 
 The Ministry of Finance, the noble 
 colonnades of which occupied an im- 
 mense front on the Rue de Rivoli, was 
 fired inside on Tuesday night by a 
 delegation appointed expressly for the 
 purpose. The archives in the fifth 
 story served as kindling, and in a few 
 hours the whole street line was in a blaze. 
 Hut when the insurgents had evacuated 
 the building, and had been compelled to 
 fall back from the Place de la Concorde, 
 a wine-merchant on the corner attempted 
 to organize o service to save what re- 
 mained of the edifice. He was shot at, 
 and petroleum shells were thrown to in- 
 crease the flames. Towards midnight a 
 strong, wild wind came up. fanning the 
 flames and discouraging hopes of saving 
 anything. A few hours later an at- 
 tempt was made by a few determined 
 men to save the most important papers 
 concerning the finances of Paris, and 
 the great ledger of the city was brought 
 
 out at the risk of their lives by live em- 
 ployes. As there are a large number of 
 volumes of this precious book, and these 
 were stored in an upper room, a chain of 
 soldiers was placed on ladders, and the 
 tomes containing the whole statement of 
 the city's indebtedness were passed from 
 hand to hand, until they reached the 
 ground. At last the fire became so hot 
 that the proceedings were cut short, and 
 a large number of the books were thrown 
 helter-skelter into the street, whence 
 they were picked up by the inhabitants 
 of the quarter and packed in carriages. 
 
 On the Faubourg St. Uonore, one of 
 of the most crowded of Parisian thorough- 
 fares, the destruction was very great. 
 Immense warehouses, establishments de- 
 voted to articles of luxury and taste, 
 flew skywards in clouds of smoke and jets 
 of flame. At the entrance of the street 
 nearest the Rue de Rivoli the slaughter 
 was tremendous. Piled at the Rivoli 
 end of the Rue du Luxembourg, on 
 Wednesday morning, were one hundred 
 and twenty-five dead bodies, brought 
 there from various points. Curious 
 throngs were constantly gathered at this 
 place, and many arrests were made 
 among the spectators for expressing their 
 opinions too strongly. Near the corner 
 of the Faubourg St. Uonore and the 
 Rue Royale a wine-merchant was con- 
 fined in his cellar, with his wife and little 
 girl, driven thither by the intense heat, 
 of the houses burning around about 
 them. The fusillade from the barricades 
 in the Rue St. Ilonore, and from the 
 Madeleine was so severe that he hardly 
 dared venture through what was at best 
 crumbling and red-hot ruins, to save his 
 wife and child in the open air. At last, 
 he decided, urged by the screams of the 
 child, who was almost literally roasted, 
 and. clasping her in his arms. In 1 rushed 
 out through the falling walls and under 
 
492 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 a storm of Imlk'ts. to a passage held by 
 a small detachment of government 
 troops. As he clamored at the gate for 
 entrance, three men pointed their guns 
 at him. " Kill me," he cried, u but save 
 my child !" The corporal, comprehending 
 the situation, rushed forward and took 
 the child in his anus: and the wine- 
 merchant, returning into the ruins, suc- 
 ceeded in rescuing his wife also. A few 
 minutes afterwards the house fell in, and 
 the cellar in which those people had been 
 roasting was filled with live coals. 
 
 The damage in one house in the Rue 
 Royale was estimated at 700,000 francs. 
 The general staff of the insurgents had a 
 grand banquet at a restaurant in this 
 street on the night of the entry of the 
 regular troops, and they drank confusion 
 to M. Thiers in no less than three hundred 
 bottles of champagne. In one of the 
 houses on the corner of the Rue Royale 
 and the Faubourg, those who had hidden 
 iu the cellars on the Monday when the 
 fight began, to avoid service in the in- 
 surgents' ranks, were all suffocated. 
 The owner of one of the huge shops 
 burned on the Hue Royale was found 
 raving in the street on the ruins of his 
 fortune. His loss had quite turned his 
 brain. It was said that one of the 
 fashionable clubs in this street only es- 
 caped burning through the sagacity of 
 some servants, who gave the soldier 
 charged with the firing so much nine that 
 he quite forgot his duty. 
 
 There is no doubt that the Communists 
 intended to make a complete wreck of 
 the Faubourg St. < lermain. Maxime Du- 
 camp has left on record a very concise and 
 careful narrative of the ruin of the Palace 
 of the Legion of Honor, the Count il of 
 State, the Cour des Comptes ; and it is 
 startling to uote with what coolness 
 General Eudes and Megy, the ferocious, 
 half-educated workman who became oue 
 
 of the heroes of the Communal party, 
 escorted by a quintette of women, went 
 from palace to palace sowing destruction 
 upon their track. The houses of rich 
 refugees were invaded : servants who 
 undertook to save the pictures, the rich 
 furniture, and the silver plate of their 
 masters, were shot down. The " gene- 
 rals" and "colonels," excited with 
 drink, and half mad with the sense of 
 coining danger, issued most extravagant 
 decrees. It is even said that Megy 
 signed his decrees with the number 
 which had been stamped upon his prison 
 uniform, as if thus casting defiance in 
 the face of the society which had con- 
 demned him temporarily to lose his 
 citizenship, and to lie reduced to the level 
 of a mere numeral. Long wagon-trains, 
 filled with barrels of petroleum, were 
 ranged in regular order in the court-yards 
 of the building's marked for burning ; 
 and. as the Communists retreated slowly 
 up the left bank of the Seine, living from 
 barricade to barricade before the ap- 
 proaching vengeance of the bourgeoisie, 
 they applied the torch with as much 
 earnestness and joy as it' they had been 
 sacking an enemy's citadel. The beauti- 
 ful pictures of Flandrin and Eugene De- 
 lacroix were deluged with mineral oil. 
 Barrels of this oil were poured down 
 staircases and through corridors, and 
 hundreds of thousands of manuscripts 
 belonging to the archives, audited ac- 
 counts, memoirs of important financial 
 transactions, were trampled into the oozy 
 mass into which the Communists, in 
 their drunken fury, tired their revolvers 
 and threw live coals and matches. M. 
 Jules Valles, who. after taking a promi- 
 nent part in the Commune, escaped, 
 published, shortly before the entry of 
 the regular troops, in his journal, called 
 the "Cri du Peuple," the following state- 
 ment : "All measures have been taken 
 
EUROPE I.V STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 t'.i;; 
 
 to prevent the entry into Paris of any 
 inimical soldier. The ramparts may be 
 battered down, but no soldiers will get 
 into Paris. If M. Thiers is a chemist 
 he will quite comprehend us. Let the 
 army of Versailles recollect that Paris is 
 decided to undertake everything rather 
 than surrender." The employment of 
 
 to find Paris a kind of second Rome, 
 with ruins on every hand. In fact, the 
 Cour des Comptes is almost the only 
 remnant of the Communist fury left as 
 it was in that dreadful week. It is 
 presently to be converted into a museum 
 of industrial art. During the Commune 
 it was occupied by the delegate of the 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE COMMUNIST PRISONERS EATING SOUP WITH THE VERSAILLES SOLDIERS. 
 
 dynamite had been suggested to the Com- 
 mune ; but that powerful political agent 
 had not yet attained the celebrity which 
 it now possesses, and the incendiaries 
 and anarchists of the epoch were obliged 
 to resort to petroleum and to the torch. 
 It was Tuesday evening when the 
 palace of the Council of State and the 
 Cour des Comptes was fired. The 
 Cour des Comptes has long been a 
 place of pilgrimage for the trans-Atlan- 
 tic tourists who go abroad expecting 
 
 Council of State, who, only a few days 
 before the entry of the regular troops. 
 was sent to Marseilles on a revolution- 
 ary mission, where he was arrested by 
 agents from Versailles. It was thought 
 by the regulars that the Council of Stale 
 palace was burned by the fifty-seventh, 
 sixty-seventh, and one hundred and 
 thirty-fifth battalions of insurgents, who 
 had occupied it; and therefore wher- 
 ever these gentry were found during the 
 fight they received no quarter. 
 
194 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 A woman who went by the name of 
 Madame Eudes, the female companion 
 of the Communist general, gave numer- 
 ous festivals at the Legion of Honor 
 palace, which was her comrade's head- 
 quarters, (hiring the brief reign of the 
 insurrection, and some of these festivals 
 are said to have been orgies quite be- 
 yond the power of description. Madame 
 Eudes was wont to descend into the 
 coi nt -yard to shake hands with all the 
 soldiers on guard, taking pains to an- 
 nounce that they might converse with 
 her freely, and might never salute. " I 
 am a daughter of the people," she said. 
 The Paris journals related that she and 
 other women connected with the Com- 
 mune had pillaged the wardrobe of the 
 beautiful and fashionable Marquise de 
 Galliffet, and that they used to appear 
 in her dresses ; but this is probably 
 untrue. 
 
 Around the palace above mentioned, 
 the Hue de Lille was horribly devas- 
 tated by shot, shell, and tire. In the 
 Faubourg St. Germain one of the noted 
 clubs was nearly wrecked by the Ver- 
 saillais batteries, playing from Tro- 
 eadero. One very singular illustration 
 of the damage that can be caused by a 
 single bullet occurred in a mansion next 
 the Agricultural club. A bullet pierced 
 a reservoir in the fifth story which con- 
 tained ten thousand litres of water. The 
 upper story of the house was inun- 
 dated, and thousands of francs' worth 
 of furniture injured before the owners 
 below knew of tin' small deluge. The 
 conflagration in the line du Bac, on the 
 
 left bank of the Seine, was one of the 
 
 most disastrous caused by the despair 
 and malice of the insurgents. It is said 
 that General Eudes and Megy them- 
 selves fired the first houses in this 
 quarter, wishing to inaugurate this great 
 and formidable attack on property, and 
 
 to have their names handed down in 
 history as prim.' mover:; in these 
 final tragedies. Whole houses were 
 destroyed, gulleys ran up and down 
 across the street, and dead bodies lay 
 in the doorways and at corners, de- 
 caying in the hot sun. Hereabouts, the 
 ordinary method of tiring houses was 
 by pouring petroleum from the windows 
 on the sidewalks, and then hurling down 
 burning masses of rags or matches 
 into the cellars. The Luxembourg 
 palace owed its .safety to the prelimi- 
 nary explosion of the powder-magazine, 
 established thereby. This frightened 
 away a large number of men who were 
 sent to lire the ancient home of the 
 Medicis. Thenobleand beautiful Sainte 
 Chapelle, where old Boileau lies en- 
 tombed, miraculously escaped wreck in 
 the midst of the ruin of the Palais de 
 Justice. The noted prison of the Con- 
 eiergerie, so famous in I he old Revolu- 
 tion, was badly damaged, but the regu- 
 lars came too quickly into this neigh- 
 borhood to allow the Complete ac- 
 complishment of the Communists' evil 
 designs. 
 
 On this fatal day, the 24th of May, 
 at the close of which the good Arch- 
 bishop and his comrades in misfortune 
 were destined to be murdered, the 
 official journal of the Commune pub- 
 lished an extract, from another radical 
 journal, warning the insurrectionists 
 again! any violence to the priesthood, 
 saying that its only result would be fifty 
 years more of clericalism. Put the men 
 who might have listened to reason, had 
 the regular troops still been without the 
 fortifications, thought, now that disaster 
 and probable death were at their gates, 
 of nothing luit revenge. M. Thiers 
 came into Paris on this Wednesday, and 
 remained an hour, and it is even said 
 that he or Marshal MacMahon, who had 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 49:1 
 
 - 
 o 
 
 
 
496 EUROrE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 been in Paris since the previous Sunday, principal prisoners were stationed. A 
 oughl to have taken more vigorous mcas- short time after this an officer advanced 
 nres to have rescued the Archbishop to the Archbishop's cell, and in a low 
 from the imminent peril in which he was voice called him by name, 
 placed. When the news of the execu- " The prelate answered, ' Present.' 
 tion of the hostages was announced in " The officer then passed to the cell of 
 the fashionable quarters along the the President Bonjean ; next called the 
 grand boulevards, and in the Rue de la Abbe Allard, member of the Interna- 
 Pai\. the excitement was very great, tional Society for Aiding the Wounded ; a 
 Men went about the street cursing the number of other priests ; the Abbe De- 
 insurrection in loud and bitter tones, guerry, curd of the Madeleine. No 
 and whenever a prisoner was brought in sooner had each prisoner answered to his 
 on his wav to the Place Vcnd6me, they name than he was led through the gallery 
 
 would rush out and strike him with their and down the staircase, and conducted to 
 
 canes. Mr. Washlmrne. our American the Surveillance, on the other side, where 
 
 minister, took constant and careful insurgent guards insulted the prisoners 
 
 measures in the Archbishop's behalf and called them names which 1 cannot 
 
 during the whole of this terrible week, repeat. 
 
 until the fatal Wednesday night. !!<• " They were then taken into the court- 
 himself has given a most interesting ac- yard near the infirmary. The Arch- 
 count of his visits to the distinguished bishop advanced towards the platoon of 
 prelate, and of the fortitude and sweet- execution, which he clearly saw at a 
 ness of temper displayed by him in such little distance from him. and, speaking 
 
 ,-ire stances of deadly peril. A little very quietly, addressed a few words of 
 
 energv, which had been lacking in France pardon. Two men at once ran up to 
 
 since the creation of the Second Empire, him. and before their comrades, kneeled, 
 
 might have saved the worthy Archbishop imploring his blessing. The other in- 
 
 fr the horrors of a brutal death. The surgents then fell upon them and pushed 
 
 most, remarkable version of the execu- them hack, insulting them. The com- 
 
 tion of the Archbishop and his compan- maudanl in the yard swore a frightful 
 
 ions was given on the authority of a Mr. oath. ' Men,' he said, -you are here to 
 
 Girard, who succeeded in escaping from shoot these people, and not to listen to 
 
 the prison where the prelate had been and howl witli them!' Thi' insurgents 
 
 confined. Hesaid, " Monsigneur Darboy then obeyed the orders to load theirguns. 
 
 occupied cell number twenty-one of the "The Abbe Allard was placed against 
 
 fourth division (this was at the cele- the wall first and fell dead. Monseign- 
 
 brated prison of Mazas), while I was cur Darboy then calmly took his place, 
 
 nllned in number twenty-six. The and fell, almost without a. groan. The 
 
 ei ) 
 
 Archbishop had been allowed a table six prisoners were thus shot, only the 
 
 and a chair.— furniture of which the other Abbe Deguerry showing a moment's 
 
 cells were destitute. On the 24th of feebleness, which must he attributed to 
 
 Mav. at half-past seven in the evening, the state of his health, 
 
 the director of the prison, a certain I.e- " The bodies were at once conveyed in 
 
 francais, who had been six years a gal- a railway van to the cemetery of Pere 
 
 ley slave, came into the prison with fifty La Chaise, where they were placed in 
 
 men, and occupied the gallery where the what is called the 'common ditch; ' and 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 497 
 
 the mangled corpses were left uncovered. 
 The platoon of execution was taken 
 from the One Hundred and Eighty-first 
 and Two Hundred and Sixth Battalions 
 of the National Guards, which accounts 
 for the ferocity shown by the liners 
 against the men of these battalions when 
 later on they were .brought in as pris- 
 oners." 
 
 Not less brutal and infinitely more 
 affecting is the recital of the massacre 
 of the Dominican brothers at the prison 
 in the Avenue d'ltalie. The story is 
 told by the only one of the brethren 
 who escaped. These twelve apostles 
 of patient, unrequited labor — men 
 of excellent intelligence and education 
 — had been arrested at a school in 
 Paris. The nuns employed as teachers 
 in this school were sent to the prison for 
 common women, and the brethren to the 
 fort of Bicetre, where they were lodged 
 in the casemate. They were then 
 brought into Paris ; and while being taken 
 through the Gobelins quarter they were 
 several times threatened with death by 
 the populace, but were finally brought to 
 the above-mentioned prison. About 
 two o'clock on Thursday, as they were 
 praying together, an officer entered and 
 said grossly, ''Surplices, forward! you 
 are to be conducted to the barricades." 
 They followed mutely, and found at the 
 barricade such an intense fire that the 
 inhabitants abandoned it, taking back 
 their victims with them. About an 
 hour afterwards they were again sum- 
 moned to the street, and here an officer 
 of the One Hundred and First Battalion 
 ordered his men to load their muskets, 
 and then came the cry: " Enter the 
 street one by one ! " 
 
 They knew this was their death-war- 
 rant, and therefore took adieu of each 
 other. "Come, brethren," said the 
 father prior, " come to the good God ! " 
 
 and he went out, shutting the door after 
 him. A shot was heard, and the next 
 brother who went out saw, as he felt the 
 fatal bullet, the venerable prior bathed 
 in blood. The brother who escaped 
 only succeeded by simulating death, a 
 bullet having grazed him, and he laid 
 quietly among the slain until the execu- 
 tioners had gone away, when he ran 
 into a side street, where a charitable 
 woman concealed him until the arrival 
 of the Versailles troops. 
 
 On the Tuesday after the entry of the 
 regulars, the two hundred other host- 
 ages confined in Mazas prison were 
 taken to La Roquette, known as the 
 prison of the condemned. On the fol- 
 lowing day seventy-four were shot, and 
 out of two hundred and four gendarmes 
 confined in other prisons, one hundred 
 and sixty-nine had been designated for 
 execution. On Thursday the Versailles 
 troops arrived just in time to save them. 
 It will be seen from this that it is not 
 too much to say that the Commune, at 
 its close, was on the verge of inaugurat- 
 ing a reign of terror. 
 
 It is but justice to add that all the 
 high military officers of the Commune — 
 all who merited the name of officer — 
 considered the arrest of the priests as 
 an outrage, and understood how com- 
 pletely the damning violence used 
 against these good men would react 
 upon the insurrection. General Clu- 
 seret had especially incurred the Com- 
 munists' displeasure because of his 
 intervention in the cause of the Arch- 
 bishop. It was frequently said during 
 the insurrection that the Communists 
 intended to take and hold the corre- 
 spondents of foreign journals resident in 
 Paris as hostages, and M. Miot, a pict- 
 uresque figure in the Communal as- 
 sembly, once actually proposed this 
 measure. Whether the Communists 
 
198 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 imagined that by this they could control journalist was shot on the evening of 
 opinion may now never be known. The the -J 1th of May, Raoul Rigault stand- 
 murder of Gustave Chaudej - , one of the ing by the executing plati with a 
 
 editors of the "Steele," who had been drawn sword, and cursing the men be- 
 held as a hostage, seems to have been cause they did not do their work more 
 actuated by a desire for vengeance on rapidly. 
 
 the part of Raoul Rigault, the celebrated The military operations of the govern- 
 
 Communist chief of police. Chaudey ment in l'aris lasted exactly seven days, 
 
 was confined at St. Pelagie, the old Im- hour lor hour. The entry of the first 
 
 penal prison for j nalists and political troops was effected on the afternoon of 
 
 offenders, and his friend, Cernusebi, the Sunday, May 21st, at. four o'clock. On 
 
 noted Italian, who has adopted Paris as that eventful day they were traversing 
 
 his home, came very near to violent the bridge at the Point da Jour, and at 
 
 death himself at the hands of the en- four o'clock on Sunday, May the 28th, the 
 
 raged soldiery when he went to intercede last insurgent barricade at Belleville was 
 
 for Chaudev's life. The unfortunate taken. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 199 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE. 
 
 The New Fight of the Bastille. 
 
 -The Hotel ile Villi-. — The I'ieturesquc ami Ihamalir Episodes of the 
 Great Battles. 
 
 THE red flag fluttered at the top of 
 the column in the Place de la Bas- 
 tille until late Saturday afternoon. Mer- 
 cury, who seemed springing lightly from 
 his elevated perch, up and away from 
 bloodshed and burning, held the ban- 
 ner, which could be distinctly seen 
 from many points in the centre of the 
 city, while the fight was still raging 
 around the site of the old Bastille. 
 
 Once driven from the barricades around 
 the Hdtel de Ville, the insurgents made 
 up their mind to a desperate stand iu 
 the quarters of the city where the in- 
 surrection was born. No one attempted 
 to revive the historic ferocity of the 
 Faubourg Saint Antoine ; not even the 
 feeblest resistance was made there. 
 Belleville, the Buttes Chaumont and the 
 cemetery of Pere La Chaise wen- selected 
 as the localities in which to make the 
 last effort. The people of La Villette had 
 been driven nearly to desperation during 
 the third and fouroh days of the fight, 
 by the return upon them of the beaten 
 insurgents from Montmartre and its 
 environs, and the determined efforts of 
 the troops to dislodge them. Many 
 houses at La Villette were burned, and 
 dozens of innocent people lost their 
 lives by .shot and shell coming from the 
 batteries and barricades of both com- 
 batants. On Wednesday the shells from 
 Montmartre did terrible execution at 
 Belleville ; but the Communists, feeling 
 strong in the knowledge that the bar- 
 ricades of the Chateau-d' Eau were still 
 
 held, refused to retreat, although en- 
 treated by hundreds of families, who 
 saw almost imminent death before them. 
 Suspicion began, however, to do its terri- 
 ble work among the Bellevillians, and 
 the officers found every morning that 
 sonic man bad been shot by his com- 
 rades for having ostensibly aided the 
 enemy. On Thursday, an artilleryman 
 came to a battery at a little distance 
 from his own, and pointed a gun or two. 
 lb- was immediately arrested and shot, 
 the men who did the deed insisting that 
 he was a Yersaillais in disguise. On 
 this same day, also, quite an expedition 
 was organized with the hope of retaking 
 Montmartre, but the men finally refused, 
 considering it certain death, and that 
 their principal duty was to " defend their 
 hearthstones." On Friday there was a 
 grand procession of priests going to 
 execution through Belleville — a species 
 of parody of the great triumphal rides 
 to the guillotine of '93. There were 
 twelve priests and a few gendarmes, say 
 the eye-witnesses, and the unfortunate 
 hostages were shot in the Rue Haxo, 
 with quite a crowd looking on. Friday 
 night, the terror which had electrified the 
 aristocratic quarters on Tuesday and 
 Wednesday bad spread to Belleville, 
 and the Grand Docks, or Custom House 
 of Paris, was in flames. The file spread 
 rapidly to the borders of the grand canal, 
 on which the docks are situated, and 
 whole magazines, filled with oil and other 
 combustibles, went up in sheets of yellow 
 
500 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Same. Toward midnight, large detach- 
 ments of Communists arrived on the 
 scene of the conflagration. Few such 
 miserable and heart-rending processions 
 have ever been seen on the pavements of 
 Paris. Haggard, worn, frightened at 
 the death only a few hours distant, dirty, 
 hungry, and many of them drunk, the 
 officers found it difficult to rally the men 
 to retreat. "Let us lie down and die," 
 said they; and many pref erred to remain 
 and "see the people's vengeance exe- 
 cuted," meaning the fires. 
 
 The defense of the approaches to the 
 Bastille was very thorough and strongly 
 kept up. Barricades at the entrance of 
 the Boulevard de Strasbourg had been 
 taken by the regulars, but the insurgents 
 had intrenched themselves in the Eastern 
 Railway station, at the head of that 
 boulevard, and made a terrible tight. 
 When they were at last dislodged, it was 
 at the cost of much life on both sides. 
 At the Chateau d'Eau the resistance took 
 on tremendous proportions, owing to the 
 presence of some of the leaders of the 
 Commune and the desperation of the 
 insurgents as point after point was swept 
 away. They had established powerful 
 batteries in this grand square, which has 
 in it one of the largest barracks in Paris, 
 ami a huge structure known as the con- 
 solidated shops, which was partially 
 burnt during the fight. The boulevards 
 from the Chateau d'Eau down to the Pile 
 Royale showed how fierce was the 
 shower of missiles that the insurgents 
 sent. Trees were mown down, lamp- 
 posts cut short off, fronts of houses taken 
 out, whole roofs sunk in, statues disem- 
 bowelled, and caf&S gutted. 1 was at 
 the barricade of the Porte St. Denis, 
 held by the government troops, on 
 Thursday afternoon, at four o'clock, and 
 the insurgents were then throwing boltes 
 if mitraitte (shells containing an hundred 
 
 bullets) in such profusion that I con- 
 sidered it prudent to retire. The barri- 
 cade built across the boulevards at the 
 Porte St. Martin Theatre was one of 
 the strongest erected, but on Wednes- 
 day night, when the cannonade had 
 weakened the defenses, the Communist 
 leaders gave orders for the burning of 
 the quarter, and the celebrated theatre 
 of the Porte St. Martin, and many other 
 noted mansions near it, were burned 
 to the ground. The tight continued 
 through the night at the Chateau d'Eau, 
 and on Thursday morning the unfortu- 
 nate defenders heard that the Pantheon 
 had been taken after a desperate struggle ; 
 that tin' Gobelins had been surrendered, 
 and thata strong column was now operat- 
 ing in that remote quarter of Paris, 
 covering the ground with corpses, and 
 shutting up one of the most effectual 
 avenues of escape. The foils of Bicetre 
 and Ivry, which the Communists had 
 boasted of as final strongholds, were 
 thus taken out of the insurgent hands, 
 and the garrisons were called upon to 
 surrender at discretion. Picctre's com- 
 mander refused, and the fort was taken 
 by assault; while General Wrobleski, 
 after submitting to a desperate bombard- 
 ment, blew up his powder magazine, and 
 then surrendered six thousand men into 
 the hands of those from whom they could 
 expect no mercy. 
 
 It would hardly serve the purpose of 
 this narrative to recount fully the ma- 
 noeuvres by which the whole of the left 
 bank of the Seine was finally, on Thurs- 
 day, put into the possession of the gov- 
 ernment troops. The tragic interest 
 deepens with startling intensity from the 
 moment when the Hotel de Yille, a 
 flaming ruin, was surrounded on three 
 sides by the regulars. Thenceforward, 
 the history of the Commune's resistance 
 is tilled with nothing save disaster, which 
 
EUROPE IN STORM A XT) CALM. 
 
 501 
 
 Followed fast ami followed faster," 
 
 until the sullen culmination. 
 
 The H6tel de Ville was then encom- 
 passed thus: Towards the Seine, the 
 corps of General Cissej' had carried 
 the barricades of the Pout Neuf and 
 taken possession of the island and the 
 cathedral of Ndtre Dame , ou the right, 
 
 of Marshal MacMahon would have 
 triumphed; the insurgents would lie 
 crowded back into the narrow tract of 
 the Buttes Chaumont and Pere la Chaise, 
 and would lie crushed between the Prus- 
 sians and the converging effort of the 
 whole regular army. 
 
 The Chateau d'Kau was, therefore, the 
 last point of central resistance. The 
 
 BURNING OF TIIE IlftTEL DE VILLE. 
 
 the troops had attacked a barricade 
 defended well for a time at the Poiute 
 St. Eustache, and after encountering a 
 frightful resistance, had carried it; and 
 the middle column, coming straight tow- 
 ard the late stronghold of rebellion, had 
 already passed the Louvre. 
 
 Nothing was left, then, for the insur- 
 gents but to make their grand, bold stand 
 at the Chateau d'Eau. Once lost there, 
 they knew that the military movements 
 
 regulars did not hesitate to call it the 
 " Key to Belleville." 
 
 On Thursday the approaches of the 
 regular army may lie resumed as fol- 
 lows: The corps of Generals Clinch- 
 ant and Douay rallied by the boulevards 
 of Magenta, St. Denis, and St. Martin, 
 and from the Temple quarter. On the 
 left wing, Ladmirault's corps operated 
 against La Chapelle and LaVillette, and 
 General Vinoy, crossing the Seine with 
 
r.02 
 
 EUROPE IS STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 his men, w:is creeping towards the lias- 
 tille, quite in the rear of lli" Ch&teau 
 d'Eau. 
 
 All around the gigantic square, and in 
 it. the carnage was fearful. Thursday 
 afternoon and evening the struggle cul- 
 minated. On the barricade, Friday 
 morning, amid a heap of twenty or thirty 
 other corpses, the body of Delescluze 
 was pointed out. He was dressed in 
 simple morning costume, with polished 
 boots and beaver hat, and had evidently 
 prepared himself with care, thinking that 
 he would be captured. He was killed 
 at the barricade, while urging on his men 
 to a more energetic resistance. The 
 ball, which struck him in the forehead, 
 killed him instantly. Delescluze seems 
 never to have made any attempt to go 
 away. He intended to die at his post, 
 and did so. For days before he was 
 compelled to flee from the Ministry of 
 War he hardly ever quitted his work- 
 
 r ii. He threw himself on a mattress 
 
 which laid upon the floor near his work- 
 table, and took little naps of half an 
 hour's duration, then cast himself again 
 with fury on his task. His counte- 
 nance in death bole a painful expres- 
 sion of mute despair. He was an old 
 111:111. who had been roughly used in the 
 world, whose kindness had been turned 
 to bitterness by exile, and whose health 
 had been completely broken by mental 
 and physical suffering. His men seem 
 to have made no effort to remove 
 his body, and the regulars found it 
 Friday morning. Delescluze was iden- 
 tified by the fact that a very peculiar 
 cane, which he was known to have car- 
 ried twenty years, was grasped in the 
 dead man's stiffened hand. On his per- 
 son were found a large number of letters, 
 some of which were from women, warn- 
 ing him that he ran risk of being poi- 
 soned, etc. There were also among his 
 
 papers a number of orders, of which the 
 following is a lair specimen : — 
 
 Citizen Milliere, at the head of one hun- 
 dred and fifty fuseens, will burn the suspected 
 houses ami all the public monuments on the 
 right bank of the Seine. 
 
 Citizen Vesinier, with fifty men, is specially 
 charged with the boulevards from the Made- 
 leine ti> the Bastille. 
 
 These citizens must arrange with the chiefs 
 of the barricades fur the execution of the 
 orders. 
 
 Talis, 3 l'rairial, An 711. 
 
 This order is signed by Delescluze, 
 Rainier. Vesinier, Brunei, and Dombrow- 
 ski. Others concern the burning of 
 houses from which people might have 
 been seen firing upon the barricades. 
 
 The bodies were strewn so thickly 
 about tli- square of the Chateau d'Eau 
 that on Sunday, three days after the 
 capture of the locality, many corpses 
 were still lying under the branches of 
 trees, which had been strewn to impede 
 the enemy's progress. Severe hand-to- 
 hand fighting occurred at the Porte St. 
 Martin, or not far from the square, on 
 this Thursday. One young man, who 
 had ensconced himself in a sort of re- 
 cess in the arch, from whence, high 
 above the crowd, he could lire at his lei- 
 sure upon il. remained in his perch after 
 his companions had retreated, and killed 
 half-a-dozen soldiers before the regulars 
 succeeded ill getting up where they could 
 shoot him. The insurgents piled their 
 dead bodies in veritable revolutionary 
 Style on tin' barricades; and when the 
 tremendous artillery duel of Thursday 
 night was over, the spectacle was siek- 
 ening. Cluseret was said to have been 
 shot on Thursday evening, in the retreat 
 from the barricades of the Porte St. 
 Martin ; but he mysteriously made his 
 appearance ai the apartment of an old 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 503 
 
 and neutral friend on that day, sub- 
 sequently escaped from the walls of 
 Paris, and now lives in Constantinople. 
 A friend of mine, on whom he called, 
 told me that, finding nothing could be 
 done in that quarter for his safety, Clu- 
 
 serel rose coolly, gave a pleasant smile 
 and hand-shake, and marched down the 
 staircase as if going to breakfast, al- 
 though his life would not have been 
 •worth a rush if any one had chanced to 
 recognize him outside the house. 
 
504 
 
 EURUVE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR. 
 
 The Retreat from the Chateau d'Eau. — Ruins of the Hotel de Ville. — The Burning of Important Papers. 
 — Piquet. — The Third Period of the Great Seven Days' Fight. — Atthe Buttcs Chaumont. 
 
 THE regulars took sixty mitrailleuses 
 at the Chateau d' Kan, and con- 
 veyed them to the Place de la Bourse, 
 where they were proudly exhibited as 
 conquered anus. The cannon which 
 the insurgents employed during the 
 thirty-six hours of their defence at this 
 point did fearful execution on the houses 
 at the Porte Saint-Martin side. Dozens 
 of Communists hid in houses along the 
 square during the retreat, and were 
 ferreted out and shot as fast as found. 
 The great fountain in the middle of the 
 square was filled with petroleum, and a 
 solid shot had knocked one of the gigan- 
 tic bronze lions into the oily pool. The 
 cross Are under which the regular troops 
 had to traverse the place was horrible. 
 Many a red breeches was killed in the 
 march over the scattered houghs. 
 
 The fight had continued up the grand 
 Boulevard Sebastopol till day Thursday, 
 ami dow u the Boulevard Magenta front 
 the church of Saint-Laurent, so recently 
 made famous by the pretended discovery 
 of skeletons of voting girls there. Can- 
 non from all sides poured shot and 
 shell into the retreating insurgents, and, 
 plunging through the roofs of houses, 
 
 murdered people, who asked nothing 
 better than to lly from the scene of such 
 horrors. Many cilizeiis actually died 
 from fright during the combat. The 
 most reliable accounts say that some 
 starved to death in the cellars to which 
 they were driven by fear of the shells; 
 and sometimes the harmless occupants 
 
 of some of these cellars would be startled 
 by the inroad of excited soldiers, seeking 
 an antagonist who had taken refuge in 
 the house'. A word, a retort in such a 
 case, was enough to procure for one's 
 self a speedy execution, with one's face 
 turned to the wall of his own house. 
 
 Friday morning the retreat from the 
 Chateau d' Fan was consummated. The 
 army's task was now comparatively easy. 
 It consisted in surrounding the insur- 
 gents at the extreme end of the city, at 
 a point where they could not hope to 
 escape front the walls, and forcing them 
 to unconditional surrender. 
 
 Friday morning the same unvarying 
 sunshine; the same thunder of cannon ; 
 terrorism concerning incendiaries, and 
 the red Hag .still Hying from the Pastille 
 column. 
 
 The Hotel de Ville was a lovely ruin. 
 Four essentially popular ami successful 
 governments have been installed then'. 
 The first was the "Commune" of the 
 last century, which, majestic ami fero- 
 cious, occupied the halls from the Kith 
 of August. 1792, to the 27th of July. 
 1793. The second was the Provisional 
 government of '48, from February 24 to 
 May I. The third was the government of 
 National Defense, which, founded on the 
 ruins of the Second Empire, dragged 
 out a shifty existence in a time of siege 
 and starvation ; and the fourth was the 
 last Commune of Paris, which violently 
 took possession of the Hotel on the Kith 
 of March, 1871, and left the edifice in 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 505 
 
 flames on the 23d of May. This 
 great Communal monument owes the 
 placing of its corner-stone to the pro- 
 vost of merchants under Francis I. 
 The ceremony occurred on the 15th 
 of July, 1533, and the ground had 
 then but just been cleared of the ruins 
 of the famous Maison aux Fibers, which 
 dated among the most ancient buildings 
 of the city. Dominique Baecaro was 
 the architect who designed the pristine 
 form of the structure, and Jean Asselin, 
 "Master of Public Works to the City," 
 was charged with the execution. In 
 1550 only one story was completed, and, 
 strangely enough, the civil wars which 
 then desolated France were the main 
 cause of a delay which little pleased the 
 architects. Finally, in 1005, new minds 
 modified the long-neglected designs, and 
 the Hotel gradually took form. Two 
 centuries after, in 1801, the church-hos- 
 pital of the Holy Spirit, and the Com- 
 munion of the Church of St. John 
 were consolidated with the Hotel de Yille 
 edifice, and thirty years after the work 
 of demolishing all the houses in the 
 immediate vicinity was undertaken. It 
 lasted live years, and the result was one 
 of the finest architectural effects in Paris. 
 Napoleon III. increased this effect by 
 widening the space, and by making the 
 modern buildings around the ornate and 
 romantic old Hotel of an extreme sim- 
 plicity. The interior of the building was 
 much more richly ornate than are any of 
 the Gallic palaces. Each chief of the 
 Parisian municipality had for centuries 
 devoted his attention to enriching the 
 various halls with memorials of his time. 
 Painting, sculpture, and furniture here 
 all spoke the languages of an hundred 
 previous decades and thousands of indi- 
 vidual tastes. The arms of Paris — a 
 galley floating — with the legend Flnc- 
 tuat nee mergitur, were, it is supposed, 
 
 carried away before the flames broke out 
 in the Hotel de Mile. Possibly, how- 
 ever, the Communists preferred to have 
 even that precious memento destroyed, 
 because it had a taint of Csesarism. 
 
 Iu this building, so many years ago 
 that only great troubles cause the re- 
 membrance of it, Mirabeau stood up and 
 said, " I consider the National Guard of 
 Paris an obstacle to the reestablishnient 
 of order. Most of its chiefs are mem- 
 bers of the Jacobins, and, carrying the 
 principles of that Society among their 
 soldiers, they teach them to obey the 
 people as the prime authority. These 
 troops are too numerous to take any 
 esprit tie corps; too wedded to the citi- 
 zens to allow the least latitude to royal 
 authority ; too feeble to oppose a grand 
 insurrection ; and too facile to corrupt, 
 not en masse, but individually, not to lie 
 an instrument always at, the will of the 
 factions." 
 
 What Mirabeau said then was strictly 
 true of the National Guard which 
 Father Thiers decided to dissolve. The 
 HOtel de Yille in ruins ; the National 
 Guard dissolved and disarmed ; the 
 Communal Committee of Public Safety 
 dispersed or dead ; the generals of the 
 guards lying on hospital stretchers or 
 heaps of corpses; the final, grand, 
 desperate effort of the people shaping 
 itself in the "eccentric quarters." All 
 
 was, indeed, over. 
 
 That same day, after the fight had 
 begun at Belleville, a captain of regu- 
 lars, after having, with his men, con- 
 quered a barricade, found one of the 
 many prisoners who were to he shot ap- 
 pealing to him. '• Listen, captain !" 
 said he : " I have a watch in my pocket 
 which belongs to the concierge across the 
 way. He gave it to me for safe-keeping 
 several days ago. Let me return it lie- 
 fore I die ! " 
 
506 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 The captain had before him a little 
 black-eyed lad of fifteen, erect, and 
 evidently not afraid. He thought the 
 poor child desired :i pretext for escape, 
 and, tired of his bloody work, he said : 
 •• res, begone, little scoundrel!" 
 
 Bui just as the captain and his platoon 
 of executioners had taken the lives of 
 the other prisoners, the lad came back, 
 running, placed himself before the 
 bloody wall, and said, "Here I am — 
 ready ! " 
 
 No soldiers would fire at him, and the 
 captain once more dismissed him, tears 
 standing in eyes, which opened wide at 
 such exhibition of nobility of character. 
 
 Promenading among the ruins of 
 Wednesday and Thursday was not es- 
 pecially safe, but productive of much 
 revery. One remembered the great re- 
 view that took place before the Hotel de 
 Ville a month before, and the grand old 
 face of the enthusiastic Miot (the pa- 
 triarch of the Commune) inspiriting the 
 soldiers. How the songs rang', how the 
 old man and his comrades embraced the 
 officers, and how the columns marched 
 away into black annihilation and the 
 execrations of the mobs of bourgeois 
 and the commercial people of Paris! 
 
 One of the remarkable men of this 
 great insurrection was Napias-Piquet, 
 formerly a barrister at Troves, and, at 
 the opening of the Commune drama, 
 perhaps fifty-five years old. lie was 
 tall, handsome, with sparkling eyes, and 
 an intense vivacity of manner which 
 only the foreigner who has lived in 
 France can understand. Piquet was 
 placed in the delicate and dangerous 
 position of Mayor at Passy, during the 
 latter days of the insurrection. He 
 had, however, not only power there, but 
 was of much weight in tin 1 Commune 
 councils. To him was largely due the 
 financial promptness of the insurrection- 
 
 ary leaders. He could find money, by 
 legitimate or violent means, when no 
 one else could. The " delegate to the 
 Ministry of Finances," Jourde, only 
 obeyed Piquet. He was also extremely 
 violent in his desires for an attack on 
 property, and had formed the plan of 
 burning all the papers of the various 
 credit societies, the notaries, and the 
 great corporations, that the Paris world 
 might start anew. He desired to level 
 everything, believing that the iniquities 
 of society arose from the unequal dis- 
 tribution of property and the tyrannies 
 connected with the manipulation of large 
 capital. 
 
 One day. almost immediately after his 
 plan for burning all these immensely 
 valuable papers had been mentioned in 
 the Commune, a well - known French 
 gentleman, having no sympathy with the 
 insurrection, but to whom Piquet was 
 deeply indebted for past services, went 
 to sec the fiery attacker of property. 
 He was accompanied by an American, 
 to give character to his visit, which he 
 feared might result in his arrest and in- 
 carceration as an hostage. Piquet re- 
 ceived him with the most friendly cor- 
 diality, and after the gentleman had 
 broached the delicate subject, the Com- 
 munist said : 
 
 •' Yes, we intend to burn every paper in 
 every important business establishment, 
 public and private, all archives, and 
 every record which has any value to the 
 rich and those who have been powerful." 
 
 But here tin' Frenchman delicately in- 
 terposed the thought that the Commune 
 would do much better to carefully put 
 its seals upon all buildings containing 
 these papers, and to preserve the records 
 of the iniquities of property-holders and 
 corporations, and then to publish to the 
 world in future pamphlets all the docu- 
 mentary evidence of what he (Piquet) 
 
EUROPE IX STURM AND CALM. 
 
 507 
 
 asserted. To this the Socialist did not 
 desire at first to listen, but he finally 
 said he would consider it, and next day 
 seals were placed on all offices of nota- 
 ries, corporations, public and private, 
 etc. 
 
 Then came the crushing stroke of 
 MacMahon's entry, ami the Frenchman 
 who had reasoned with Piquet hail, by a 
 little stroke of finesse, saved to Paris 
 the destruction of papers involving in- 
 terests of thousands of millions of 
 francs. Had he attempted to threaten 
 Piquet, he would have inclined the 
 greatest danger ; lint he simply persuaded 
 him to procrastination. 
 
 Piquet was among the first to fall un- 
 der the bullets of the Versailles soldiery. 
 His loss was one of the great discour- 
 agements for those who proposed to 
 continue the desperate struggle. 
 
 The burning of the Palace of Justice, 
 on the < Jim i de I'Horloge, was the sequel 
 to the destruction of the Prefecture of 
 Police. The latter edifice had been pre- 
 pared for burning on the very first days 
 that thi' Commune came into power, as 
 not a member of the insurrection in- 
 tended that the ancient Imperial inquisi- 
 tion should have any place to repose 
 when it came back. On Wednesday 
 night, the 24th, when the regulars were 
 rapidly coming towards them, the dele- 
 gate Ferr4 was busily engaged in dis- 
 tributing money to be carried to the 
 defenders of the barricades, when the 
 news came that he must fly. Rigault, 
 the prefect, was wandering about the 
 prisons, choosing victims on whom to 
 retaliate for the indiscriminate shooting 
 of the Communist prisoners. Fern'', 
 before leaving, took down his book of 
 prisoners. First on the list was the 
 name of one condemned to death ac- 
 cused of having given money lor illegiti- 
 mate purposes to certain members of 
 
 the National Guard. The other prison- 
 ers were released, but Yaisset, the con- 
 demned, was shot at the foot of the 
 statue of Henry IV., and his body 
 was thrown into the Seine. The Pre- 
 fecture was then tired, and certain loud 
 explosions showed that the insurgents 
 intended the work to be thorough. The 
 '• Sainte-Chapelle," which had been 
 especially marked for vengeance, re- 
 mained absolutely untouched, and still 
 stands, revealed in the beauty which had 
 long been concealed in the quaint courts 
 of the Palace of Justice. 
 
 The third period of the great seven 
 days' tight in Paris properly begins with 
 the afternoon of Friday, May 26th, and 
 ends at four o'clock on the afternoon of 
 Sunday, the 28th. During that time 
 several hundred prisoners were executed, 
 the majority of them without trial, and at 
 least ten thousand were marched through 
 the streets of the city, followed by how- 
 ling mobs, en route for Versailles. General 
 Vinoy, who commanded the reserve 
 forces, had, while the tremendous strug- 
 gle at the Chateau d'Eau was in progress, 
 made his way with but little lighting into 
 the Faubourg St. Antoine. Iuasmuchas 
 the active forces got to Belleville much 
 sooner than General Vinoy had antici- 
 pated, he suddenly found himself in a 
 very important part of the action, and 
 cooperated with much energy, uniting on 
 the Seine the corps of General Douay and 
 General Cissey. After the taking of the 
 HOtel de Ville, he was in the first line; 
 and while General Douay was striving to 
 occupy the boulevards from the Chateau 
 d'Eau to the Bastille, Vinoy was preparing 
 to attack the insurgents in think. I have 
 already described the burning of various 
 important public buildings at Belleville as 
 the insurgents retreated, but this in no 
 way checked the progress of the regulars, 
 who. on Thursday afternoon and evening, 
 
, r )()8 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 were vigorously attacking the rebel line 
 of defense on the Lyons and'Yineenncs 
 railways, and who finally carried, with 
 small loss, the barricade under the grand 
 viaduct on the Boulevard de Mazas. 
 The insurgents attempted to burn the 
 Lyons railway station during their retreat, 
 but failed. 
 
 The Place de la Bastille had always 
 been considered by the Communists as 
 one of their principal strongholds. Its 
 position is naturally good for defense, 
 and was exceptionally strengthened by 
 barricades on all the avenues which led 
 up to the grand " Column of duly," such 
 as the Boulevard Beaumarchais, the Rue 
 »St. Antoine, and the three now cele- 
 brated streets, Rues de Charenton, du 
 Faubourg du Temple, and de la Roquette. 
 In these important commercial highways 
 occurred one of the most sanguinary 
 combats in the records of street fighting. 
 The insurgents, driven to despair, made 
 a fortress of every house and fought 
 from its windows, until the invading 
 soldiery came to kill them and throw 
 
 their mutilated bodies into the streets. 
 Although the barricades at each entrance 
 of the three streets were continually 
 tottering under the fearful shocks of the 
 solid shot from the regulars' cannon, 
 they were rebuill hour by hour, and a 
 Gavroche of '71 was always found to 
 replant the red flag high over the paving- 
 Stones as often as an ail ful sharp-shooter 
 brought it down. Finally, the troops 
 "turned" tin 1 barricades, invading on 
 the east the Faubourg St. Antoine, 
 ami those unfortunates who had been 
 flying from the Chateau d'Eau found 
 themselves in the midst of a new deroute, 
 than which nothing could be more com- 
 plete. On what has been named the 
 Charenton barricade, one hundred and 
 live corpses were found. Many were 
 those of old men poorly dressed ; and 
 
 in this quarter the people had evi- 
 dently taken hold in earnest, for very 
 few of the combatants wore any uni- 
 forms. Not far from this scene of 
 slaughter stands the historic house where, 
 in 1848, the most decided resistance in 
 Paris was made. The old mansion still 
 bears marks of these terrible cannon- 
 ades, and its second baptism of fire has 
 made the inmates unwilling to rest 
 within its shaky walls. The streets 
 here, as elsewhere, had the appearance 
 of a battle-field ; and the corpses of men 
 and women lay neglected for two days. 
 General Vinoy quietly continued worm- 
 ing his way from the Place du Trdne 
 until Friday, when he came upon a knot 
 of barricades on the Boulevards Prince 
 Eugene, Philippe-Auguste, and de 
 Charonne. Here was a handful of brave 
 men who reasoned against Fate, and 
 persisted in supposing that their fellows 
 were gaining ground in the centre of 
 tin' city. They were carried on Friday 
 evening. The defenders were put to 
 death, and some of the houses near at 
 hand were burned. General Vinoy 
 camped that night, under a raking fire, 
 at the foot of the green anil lovely hills 
 which bear within their immemorial 
 breasts the most celebrated dead of Paris, 
 — he was before Pere La Chaise. 
 
 At this celebrated cemetery, and the 
 Buttes Chauinont, the superb park for 
 whose beauty Napoleon III. did so 
 much, the insurrectionists made their 
 last stand within the town. 
 
 The most reliable accounts admit that 
 thirty thousand men. women, anil chil- 
 dren, who had been directly engaged in 
 the fighting at Belleville, were finally 
 surrounded in the cemetery, and hun- 
 dreds of these were massacred. I fre- 
 quently heard well-to-do people, with 
 whom I am personally acquainted, say 
 that they hoped that not one of the thirty 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 509 
 
 thousand would escape alive. The bat- 
 teries of the insurgents, placed on a high 
 slope in the middle of the cemetery, com- 
 manded the Opera quarter, and had been 
 firing sharply at every place whence 
 smoke and flame issued for the past two 
 days. On Friday the artillerymen di- 
 rected their attention to the assistance 
 of their brethren in the Faubourg du 
 Temple, and stray shells came whizzing 
 into the Central Markets. The " great dam- 
 age done by these shells to property" is a 
 figment of aristocratic imagination ; even 
 the respectable Paris journals admit that 
 they lit but few fires. They wounded and 
 killed, however, a great many inoffensive 
 citizens. The Communists had made an 
 immense collection of ammunition at 
 Belleville, and having at their command 
 about two hundred cannons, large and 
 small, at first disdained the very correct 
 fire which was penned into their batteries 
 from Montmartre heights, only three 
 thousand five hundred yards distant. As 
 fast as cannon were dismounted, fresh 
 ones were brought up, until the marines 
 on Montmartre wrung their hands and 
 swore that the Devil was aiding the an- 
 tagonists on the Buttes. 
 
 Friday evening. Paris, which, say the 
 Prussians, had been completely envel- 
 oped in smoke for the three previous 
 days, was illuminated by a vast con- 
 flagration, which set the whole anguish- 
 stricken city out in bold relief against a 
 frowning and angry sky. All the in- 
 habitants of tlie suburban towns at once 
 imagined that the final coup had arrived, 
 and that the insurgents had fired the 
 whole town. Hence the wildness of the 
 reports which reached England and 
 America on Saturday and Sunday. 
 
 The final attack was ready. While 
 old General Vinoy took fitful rest in his 
 dangerous quarters, General Ladini- 
 rault had executed a movement similar 
 
 to that which brought Vinoy to Fere La 
 Chaise, and the two army corps were 
 simultaneously in position in the rear of 
 Pere La Chaise and the rear of the 
 Iluttes Chaumont. The troops of Lad- 
 mirault's corps came out on the Place de 
 la Rotonde, the central position of La 
 Villette, having arrived by the Rue de 
 La Fayette anil the Boulevard de la 
 Chapelle. The insurgents, turned to the 
 left after a vigorous defense, retired to 
 the Docks ; — then came the conflagration 
 of Friday evening. 
 
 On .Saturday morning the Communists 
 found themselves shut in to Belleville 
 in a semicircle, the two extremities of 
 which leaned on the ramparts, and the 
 bend of which followed the boulevards 
 from the Bastille to the Chateau d'Eau, 
 and extended along the grand canal from 
 the Faubourg du Temple to the Place de 
 la Villette. It rained ; men were tram- 
 pled into the mud by others advancing; 
 the dead were horrible to contemplate. 
 
 At the left, on theButtes Chaumont, the 
 observer, with a good field-glass, could 
 sei' a garden, the surface of which had 
 been ploughed by descending fragments 
 of shell. At the foot of a tall tree, 
 whose branches were stripped, was a gi- 
 gantic battery. Men, bare-headed and 
 in their shirt-sleeves, were serving it. 
 Every two minutes the battery spoke in 
 thunder tones. Looking from the bluff 
 towards the great double-spired church 
 of Belleville, and beyond the Menilmon- 
 tant quarter, one could see, at the right, 
 a vast bank of verdure, — Pere La 
 Chaise. Flashes at the foot of a huge 
 monument showed the position of the 
 insurgent battery there. A retreating 
 battle-line, following the canal by La 
 Roquette, the Boulevard Richard Lenoir, 
 and the Boulevard de la Villette, showed 
 the progress of the attack. 
 
 General Douay was crushing out the 
 
, r >10 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 last fragmentary resistance in the Fan- ness, the regulars charged into the bat- 
 
 bonrg (In Temple; General Clinchant teries, and a massacre of fugitives began. 
 
 was subduing all the barricades barring Ladmirault meantime obtained La Yil- 
 
 approach to the canal. lette completely, and the next morniug 
 
 At the point where the Boulevard the artillery officers of the Versailles 
 Richard Lenoir intersects with that of army were curiously examining the can- 
 Prince Eugene was a gun barricade, nun in the Buttes Chaumont battery. 
 solidly built, with ditches and embra- Belleville was burning in a hundred 
 sines. It was so protected by barricades places; one could hardly walk forty 
 
 in the adjacenl streets that the regulars yards without seeing t\v - three 
 
 were compelled to relinquish attacks in corpses; and the dismal processions of 
 front, and, going up by the Bastille, and bare-headed condemned, marching away 
 brushing away smaller obstacles, sur- to he shot, were met everywhere. On 
 round the gigautic work, pouring a heavy that Sunday morning, fatal to the Corn- 
 lire upon it from all sides. When, after mime, a few insurgents who had been 
 some hours, the insurgents abandoned it, passed by in the Faubourg dn Temple 
 making a desperate run for life through and the Rue d'Angouleme still held out ; 
 one unlooked-for avenue of escape, the but in the afternoon, at two o'clock, 
 whole section for a quarter of a mile silence was complete. At five P.M. 
 around was in ruins. On the blood- Marshal MacMahon announced to Paris. 
 spattered stones lay corpses blackened in a brief proclamation, that the insur- 
 with powder, clothes covered with gore rection was quelled. 
 
 torn oil' from fever-wild frames by dying Twenty thousand prisoners were taken 
 
 men in their agony, broken ^uns and during the last three days. 
 
 fragments of an exploded caisson and Sunday morning dawned gloriously, 
 
 its contents, half-a-dozen disembowelled and the unwonted tranquillity had in it a 
 
 horses; and the earth, says an eye-wit- sense of blessedness. Cavaliers, many 
 
 ness, was in little clots, which could only mounted on the horses which so lately 
 
 have been produced by a generous ail- had been ridden by the officers of the 
 
 mixture of blood. Commune, galloped gayly everywhere. 
 
 All Saturday afternoon shells rained Officers sauntered arm-in-arm under the 
 upon Belleville, around and above the trees, which showed so many marks of 
 church, and the horizon was enveloped violence, or seated themselves under the 
 in enormous clouds of smoke. The in- cafi awnings and sipped coffee, handed 
 surgents, who were cannonless, were them by waiters "who still showed signs 
 finally driven into the space between tli*- of fear at sight of all uniforms. The 
 Buttes Chaumont and the Chateau d'Eau ; attractions were, as usual in France, a 
 the two wings of the regular army joined, theatrical spectacle, composed of groups 
 throw in",' the remains of the insurrection- of prisoners brought down from Belle- 
 ists upon the centre, which received the ville ami La Villette, and paraded lie- 
 shock without deigning to move forward tween ranks of horsemen. Towards 
 or back. Five o'clock, six. seven, noon on that historic Sunday a ghastly 
 passed, bringing death momentarily to faltering procession of five thousand men, 
 the brave defenders of the Pere La women, and children passed through the 
 Chaise batteries; at eight, just as the city on their way to Versailles. Mar- 
 niiny twilight was surrendering to dark- quis de Galliffet rode at the head of a 
 
EVUOPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 511 
 
 brilliant staff, behind which was a long 
 Line of soldiers who had deserted to the 
 Commune, and who were to be shot. 
 Women and men went arm-in-arm, many 
 a strong man holding up his fainting 
 wife or daughter. There were real 
 family parties, where the strong work- 
 man held one of his loved ones each by 
 the hand, and children followed father, 
 mother, and daughter. One old man, 
 who seemed dazzled by the light and 
 frightened at the execrations of the 
 crowd, fell down repeatedly, and was 
 dragged hurriedly up by his comrades, 
 who feared that the soldiers would shoot 
 him. By far the most horrible sight, 
 however, was that of a man who broke 
 away and ran furiously, dashing aside 
 the hands outstretched to stop him. A 
 troop of cavalry galloped after him. He 
 foamed at the mouth, and ran still faster; 
 now he was down — now up — now a 
 
 horse's feet felled him ; a bugler dis- 
 mounted, and he was placed on the 
 vacated saddle. The cavalry men set 
 off at sharp pace to regain the troop. 
 The man fainted ; his face was covered 
 with blood and dirt; he cried, ••Kill 
 me!" Five minutes from that time, at 
 a street corner not far from where he 
 was captured, his appeal was heeded, 
 and his quivering body thrown into a. 
 cart. A well-dressed man struck it with 
 a cane and called it •• Canaille." 
 
 Near the walls, on that day, at the 
 principal gate leading to Versailles, the 
 Marquis de Galliffet ordered eighty-five 
 of the prisoners shot; and his orders 
 were at once executed. Then on went 
 others over the hot, dusty roads to Ver- 
 sailles, where they were packed into 
 the filthy prisons, and then examined at 
 the rate of one thousand per day. 
 
512 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE. 
 
 Concessions of M. Thiers. — The Vindictiveness of the Middle Classes. — Massacre of the Prisoners. — 
 
 English ( tomments on the Seven Days' Fight. —Last M intsof the Insurrectionists. — Testimonies 
 
 of Eye-witnesses. — Statistics of the Slaughter. — A Curious Photograph. — Out of Storm into 
 ( "aim. 
 
 IT is said that M. Thiers made a brief 
 visit to Paris during the seven 
 
 days' fight, but that he was only too 
 
 glad to return hastily to Versailles. 
 astonished and horrified beyond measure 
 at the ( -a iai age and conflagration visible 
 on every hand. Thiers had never been 
 willing to believe that the Communists 
 would proceed to extremities, and 
 
 Maxime Ducamp re ints that shortly 
 
 before the final battle, three Commu- 
 nists, personages of consequence, called 
 at Versailles, on the Chief of State, and 
 made a final effort at reconciliation and 
 peace. These persons, whose intellectual 
 status was better than that of most of 
 the followers of the Commune, and who 
 were therefore entitled to some attention, 
 endeavored to impress the president with 
 the fact, that unless decent terms were 
 given to the Commune, it would whelm 
 the whole capital in the ruin, which in- 
 volved itself. M. Thiers refused to 
 believe this. "They have said this very 
 often." he remarked, " they have made 
 all kinds of threats, but they will not 
 execute them." The three delegates 
 firmly insisted that he was not familiar 
 with the temper of the insurrectionists; 
 that they would not hesitate to burn the 
 priceless treasures of the Louvre, and to 
 deface if not efface all the monuments 
 of French grandeur. M. Thiers re- 
 flected for some minutes in silence, after 
 which he said to the delegates: "Go 
 back to Paris, anil say that if surrender 
 
 is at once made. I will prosecute no one 
 under the grade of colonel, and I will 
 leave the gates of the city open for three' 
 days. Is not that sufficiently explicit?" 
 
 The delegates professed themselves 
 overwhelmed with his generosity, which 
 amounted to a substantial amnesty for 
 all the chief offenders except those 
 directly connected with the regular 
 army, ami who must therefore lie con- 
 sidered as traitors to the flag; and they 
 went back to Paris full of joy, and two 
 of them went to the Communal Assembly 
 to report. Much to their consternation 
 they were immediately clapped into 
 prison, and informed that they were a 
 brace of idiots. Thus ended the attempts 
 at a peaceable adjustment of thedifficul- 
 ties between Paris and Versailles; and 
 from that moment there was no hesita- 
 tion on the part of the Communists. 
 They hacked, plundered, burned, or 
 destroyed, without rhyme or reason, 
 anxious to pull clown, having demon- 
 strated in the face of the world that they 
 hail no capacity for construction ; they 
 had boasted of the new social edifice, 
 which they were to raise, but could not 
 even lay its foundations. 
 
 The judgment of the chief apostles of 
 liberty in Europe upon their work was 
 full of severest condemnation. Mazziui 
 wrote to a friend, shortly after the close 
 of the Insurrection : "This revolt, which 
 broke out so suddenly without precon- 
 ceived plans, and tinged by a purely 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 513 
 
 negative socialistic clement, abandoned burglary; was reduced to slay in order 
 even by all the French Republicans of to steal ; and found itself finally embar- 
 any renown, but defended with passion rassed by useless crimes, nol knowing 
 and without fraternal spirit of conces- where the treasures, the secret hoards, 
 sion by men who ought to have fought, which it had committed crime in order 
 but who did not dare to light against to possess, were to he found. The com- 
 the foreign enemy. — tended inevitably parison pleases me, and I extend it. 
 to end in the exhibition of ma- 
 terialism, to finish by the 
 acceptance of a principle of 
 action which, even had it ever 
 become law, would have thrown 
 France back into the darkness 
 of the Middle Ages, and would 
 have taken from her for cen- 
 turies to come all hope of resur- 
 rection. This principle is the 
 sovereignty of the individual, 
 which can bring about only un- 
 limited personal indulgence, 
 only the destruction of all au- 
 thority, and the absolute nega- 
 tion of national existence." 
 
 Perhaps Mazzini was a little 
 too severe on the National 
 Guard when he accuses it of 
 not having had the courage to 
 
 light the Prussians; lint all the rest of his Paris was, 
 indictment is without a flaw. Rossel, who in the hands 
 died at the shooting-post on the plain ofthosesav- 
 of Satory, shortly after the fall of the ages, exaet- 
 
 TUE LAST PLACARD 
 OF THE COMMUNE. 
 
 ly like a 
 combination 
 lock. They 
 had gotten 
 n t o t h e 
 
 Commune, left on record a formidable 
 
 and rather contemptuous characteriza- 
 tion of the Commune. " No one of the 
 actors in the drama," he said, " had 
 studied his part for the great play. There 
 
 was no study, no character, no durable house, and 
 
 audacity in the whole party. This pie- the Com- 
 
 beian crowd of workers aspired to pos- inline stood knitting its brows before the 
 
 sess the world, and yet it knew nothing ponderous sale which contained the 
 
 of the world. When a burglar means to social riches, but was obliged to content 
 
 force a house, he first makes a study of itself with the copper which had been 
 
 the surroundings, the doors, the locks ; left outside. Therefore in its vindic- 
 
 he knows where the strong boxes are, tive rage it set fire to the invaded house 
 
 and how to get into them. lint the before it departed." There is the bitter- 
 
 Conimune was a novice at the trade of ness of repentance after deception in 
 
;>14 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 these stinging words of Rossel. He was whole length of the Rue de Rivoli, 
 
 not the only generous and noble s|iirit lighted by fires all along the route, — ■ 
 
 led into the movement, only to find that the Ministry of Finances, the Tuileries, 
 
 he had associated himself with an ignoble and I don't know how many private 
 
 and disreputable crew. houses. The effect of the flames rising 
 
 Bad as the Commune was, terrible as up to the blue sky — for the weather is 
 the wreck of property and of life in most beautiful — is quite startling. Every 
 the great seven days' fight had been, few yards there is a kind of barricade, 
 neither the remembrance of this nor any and around it a heap of corpses. In 
 other thing could excuse the ferocity and the midst of these fires, breathing the 
 vindictiveness of the middle classes of sulphurous air, and under the impression 
 Paris when once they had got the Com- of the indignation and irritation inspired 
 iimnc down. They were not content by so many crimes, man seems to un- 
 witli setting their feet upon its neck, dergo a complete transformation. One 
 but they wished to mangle and torture looks with a kind of cruel satisfaction 
 it. Prisoners were treated with a feroc- upon the faces, yellow as wax, of the 
 itv which would scarcely be credited if bodies struck down by the balls of the 
 it were to be described. I have little chassepdts, and involuntarily one falls 
 doubt (hat dozens, if not scores, of in- to cursing those dead men ill the name 
 nocent people perished because of the of the massacres and the victims every- 
 denunciations of stupid or villainous ser- where to lie seen. It would seem as if 
 vants and zealous tradesmen. Scores sensitiveness would be destroyed, but it 
 of foreigners narrowly escaped death at is, on the contrary, increased. Going 
 the hands of the regulars, simply because back in the evening towards the Champs 
 they were foreigners ami found some Elys£cs, after having passed buckets at 
 difficulty in explaining their presence in the lire of the Hotel de Ville half the 
 Paris. The Marquis de Galliffet was day. I met in the Rue St. Honore a 
 accused, and never made any very ex- long tile of prisoners that soldiers were 
 plicit denial of the charges, of having taking to the head-quarters. Among 
 decimated his processions of prisoners them were women who were really 
 without any trial or other formality than hideous. The men marched, some carry- 
 pointing his linger at the ones to be shot, ing their heads elect; others, with a 
 Many of the stories told of the regular sombre and terrible aspect ; others, com- 
 troops and their excesses of vengeance pletely broken down with fear. In the 
 were exaggerated at the time, but enough party were many young girls, and even 
 is established as history to make one children. One man was leading by the 
 believe that the older a nation grows the hand his two little sons; a daughter, six 
 more terrible is a civil war within its or seven years old. hung about his neck, 
 boundaries. The crowd followed upon the heels of 
 
 From the diary of a French writer, who the prisoners, yelling -Death! Death! 
 carefully observed the seven days' tight. Death to the pitroleuses! Down with 
 I take a few sentences which show the assassins! Don't take them any far- 
 temper of the time. The writer is ther ! Shoot them right here!' And 
 speaking of the closing days of the from the fury which shone in the eyes of 
 light. ••Never again will such a spec- these people, it seemed as if at the first 
 tacle be seen. I have just been up the halt they would precipitate themselves 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 515 
 
 upon the prisoners and tear them to 
 pieces. The little girl looked upon this 
 an^ry crowd with her great black eves 
 filled with an indefinable expression of 
 astonishment, of fright, and of sadness; 
 and the more frightened she became, the 
 more she tugged at the neck of her poor 
 father. His wandering look seemed for 
 a moment to fix itself upon me. I 
 could not restrain myself. 1 ran to the 
 man. who held the little creature like a 
 shield against the death which he very 
 likely merited, and I said to him in a 
 supplicating voice, 'Give me your little 
 daughter. I will give her back to you.' 
 For answer, he only said to me, ' I am 
 innocent. I don't know why 1 have 
 been taken into this company.' Just 
 then soldiers pushed us violently apart." 
 The excited statement of the London 
 "Times" on the last day of May, that 
 Paris was no more, that we might look 
 for it in future, but should find its place 
 only, was scarcely justified by facts. 
 Vet the destruction had been so great 
 that there is nothing wonderful in the 
 formidable nature of the impression 
 which it produced in neighboring capi- 
 tals. The Hotel de Ville, the Lyric 
 Theatre, the Palais Eoyale, the Grand 
 Library of the Louvre, the Council of 
 .State, the ('ours des Comptes, the Palais 
 de Justice, the vast granaries on the 
 Boulevard Bourdon, and the Tuileries, 
 the enormous warehouses on the docks 
 of La Villette, dozens of rich mansions 
 in the Rue de Lille and the line Royale, 
 and in other of the principal avenues — 
 had been either totally destroyed or so 
 damaged that their demolition was 
 necessary ; and such had been the de- 
 termined efforts to burn the historic 
 cathedral of Notre Dame, and the 
 churches of St. Eustache, the Made- 
 leine, and the Trinite, that it seemed to 
 those who read the sensational accounts 
 
 published at the time as if the French 
 capital were razed to the ground; yet 
 two years afterwards there were but 
 few marks of the conflagration or of the 
 battle of the streets visible, and tourists 
 invariably indulged in exclamations of 
 disappointment. There were no ruins 
 to see. 
 
 Here we may take leave of our notes 
 of the great insurrection. French soci- 
 ety revenged itself terribly upon those 
 who had temporarily interrupted its 
 course. The hatred of the classes was 
 intensified rather than extinguished. 
 Men like Rossel, Ferre, Bourgeois, Mil- 
 liere, Delescluze, and Rigault appear 
 to have Left behind them persons who 
 consider them as martyrs, and it was 
 not until after the general and complete 
 amnesty that the aspirations for a second 
 Commune were substantially checked. 
 All those who were anxious for the rec- 
 onciliation of the opposing forces in 
 French society, men like Victor Hugo, 
 men like Father Hyacinthe. did their 
 best by word and pen to bring about 
 a fraternal feeling. But, alas ! Fra- 
 ternity exists only upon the portals of 
 the public buildings, where it is written 
 up in connection with its handmaidens, 
 Liberty and Equality. 
 
 No one connected with the Commune 
 appears to have manifested much hero- 
 ism or bravery when his final moment 
 came. Raou] Rigault had no time to 
 protest or to fume against his captors, 
 lie was pushed against the wall and shot 
 like a dog. The recital of the death of 
 Milliere, who was a man of some power 
 as a publicist, and who at the time of 
 the Victor Noir riots had a temporary 
 notoriety, is rather interesting. Mil- 
 liere was taken after the regular troops 
 had broken down the barricades at the 
 Pantheon, in the home of his father-in- 
 law, who lived hard by, and was brought 
 
516 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 before a general installed near the Lux- you can make me do it if you wish." 
 
 embourg. As the wretched man was The officer then had him forced on to 
 
 dragged into the house with a thousand his knees, and his execution was then 
 
 people howling at his heels, the general proceeded with. He cried, "Fi'ye Vhu- 
 
 said. •• So you are Milliere?" — '• Yes ; " maniti ! " and was going to e ha ut sonie- 
 
 saiil the revolutionist, assuming a certain thing else, when death interrupted him. 
 dignity, "and you must remember that Among the Americans present in Paris 
 
 1 am a deputy." — "That may be so. but during the reign of the Commune and 
 
 1 rather think yon have lost your quality the battles in which it was crushed, no 
 
 of deputy. For that matter, we will pro- one saw more, nor went about more 
 
 eeed to have you identified." The bravely determined to observe, even at 
 
 officer who had arrested Milliere pies- the risk of his life, than Mr. Oiner T. 
 
 ently told him that the general's orders Glenn, of Cincinnati. This gentleman 
 
 were that he should he shot. ••Why?" has kindly communicated to me from 
 
 said Milliere. The officer answered, his private journal a few notes, which 
 
 •■ I only know yon by name. 1 have read are not without a striking interest. 
 
 articles of yours which quite disgusted With reference to the famous courts-mar- 
 
 me. Yon are a viper, whose head must tial, Mr. (Menu writes: "] passed by 
 
 be crushed. You detest society." Mil- the Chatelet Theatre, on every side of 
 
 Here answered, " 1 do indeed hate so- which, except tin 1 rear, large crowds 
 
 ciety iu its present form." — " Very well ; were gathered. Prisoners were being 
 
 then von shall he expelled from its tried rapidly. I had not lone to wait 
 
 midst. Yon are about to he shot." before a. batch of twenty or thirty came 
 
 .Milliere protested that this was barbar- out under guard of the blue-uniformed 
 
 oils cruelty, worthy of savages, etc.; soldiers, who did most, if not all, of the 
 
 but he was taken at once to the Pan- shooting at the Caserne Lobau. These 
 
 Ihcon, where the general, by a refine- prisoners were marched down to the 
 
 incut of cruelty, had ordered he should Caserne Lobau, placed over against a 
 
 be shot in a kneeling position, as if bee- wall: the huge folding-doors of the 
 
 ging pardon of Society for the evil building were then closed, and we im- 
 
 which he hail wrought. A participant mediately heard a rattle of musketry, 
 
 in the execution says that Milliere re- followed by the usual stray shots at 
 
 fused to be shot in a kneeling posture, those who still showed signs of life. A 
 
 The officer said to him. •■ It is the or- gentleman who was with me said, 'Let 
 
 dels: you will be shot thus, and not us get away from this horrible sight : I 
 
 otherwise." lie played a little comedy, can't stand it ;' so we crossed the street, 
 
 tore open his coat, showing his naked and took our way up the Boulevard St. 
 
 breast to the platoon charged to shoot Michel. Here and there soldiers and civi- 
 
 hiin ; so the officer said to him, " You bans were cheerfully at work replacing 
 
 need not indulge in any theatricals: just the paving-stones, levelling barricades, 
 
 take it easily, and it will be much bet- etc. The chances of being called upon 
 
 lei." Milliere answered, ■• I have a to aid in this work were so good that I 
 
 right, in my own interest and in that of concluded to return, after a, promenade 
 
 my cause, to do as I please." — " Very of a few squares; so I went back to the 
 
 well, then, gel on your knees ! " Milliere Chatelet. 
 then said. "1 will never do it myself; •' In a few minutes out came another 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 517 
 
 party of prisoners tinder guard. 
 These were men ranging in age from 
 eighteen to sixty, some of them batless, 
 almost every one appearing to be of 
 the working class. I am inclined to 
 think that they knew they were marching 
 to immediate death; they looked so 
 effaris. Arriving at theCaserne Lobau, 
 the same scene was gone through with, 
 the closing of the doors, the rattle of 
 musketry, one or two cries, then some 
 stray shots. It seemed to me that the 
 executioners wore the same appalling 
 expression of countenance as the prison- 
 ers themselves. I ventured to remark to 
 a bourgeois at my elbow, ' At this rate 
 of destruction, Paris will soon have no 
 workmen left.' — 'Oh !' replied he, ' there 
 are plenty of others to come up from the 
 country.' This butchery at the Caserne 
 Lobau went on for several days. 
 I once went to Pore La Chaise, and there 
 talked to some workmen, who had been 
 burying some executed Communists. 
 The workmen thought they had covered 
 in about four hundred men. I also went 
 to Montparnasse. Here dead men, dis- 
 interred at various points in the city. 
 were being brought in in wagons, to lie 
 thrown into the ditches dug for the Com- 
 munards. As the crowd pressed for- 
 ward to get a view of the bodies about to 
 be tumbled into the trenches, an old 
 guardian, in uniform, would cry out, 
 'Move back, ladies and gentlemen! 
 Move back! It is not :i pleasant spec- 
 tacle, I assure you.' These burials of 
 the wagon-loads of corpses went on all 
 that day. I do not believe there were 
 thirty thousand executions, as has been 
 reported ; perhaps live thousand in all." 
 The official statistics with regard to 
 the punishment of the insurrectionists 
 have a pathetic interest. Of course 
 there is included in these statistics only 
 the punishment of the prisoners who 
 
 were brought before regular courts after 
 the complete cessation of hostilities. 
 This does not comprise the hundreds, if 
 not thousands, who were shot by the 
 sentences of courts-martial during the 
 battle. From the 3d of April. 1871, to 
 the 1st of January, 1872, thirty-eight 
 thousand live hundred and seventy-eight 
 individuals were arrested as participants 
 in the insurrection. Of this number the 
 military courts sat in judgment upon 
 thirty-six thousand three hundred and 
 nine, of which two thousand four hun- 
 dred and forty-five were acquitted, ten 
 thousand one hundred and thirty-one 
 were convicted, and twenty-three thou- 
 sand seven hundred and twenty-seven 
 were liberated after examination. As 
 the official documents of the Commune 
 say that some hundred and fifty thousand 
 armed men took part in the revolt, these 
 figures would indicate that France was 
 not too severe in her punishment. The 
 government papers say that among 
 those arrested were seven thousand four 
 hundred persons who had been previously 
 convicted for crimes against the law. 
 There appear to have been but little 
 more than a hundred sentences to death 
 passed by the military courts from 1871 
 to 1875, at the end of which period the 
 "Commission of Assassins," as the sym- 
 pathizers with the Commune called the 
 Parliamentary Committee which dealt 
 with the prosecutions, made up its re- 
 port. There were many singular and 
 rather inexplicable sentences. Thus, 
 Eochefort, who was not really a Com- 
 munist, lint who had to leave Paris be- 
 cause he told the Commune the danger 
 into which it was marching blindfold, 
 found himself sentenced to confinement 
 in a fortress for life, and was sent off to 
 the other end of the world, whence he 
 made his escape in most romantic fashion, 
 and found his way to New York, and 
 
518 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 thence to Switzerland. Paschal Grous- After the horrors of this prolonged 
 set, the good-looking and amiable young struggle, peace and security seemed to 
 man whom the Commune dignified with bring with them a complete nervous re- 
 the appellation of its delegate of foreign action, from which all who had been 
 affairs, managed to save his head, al- spectators of, ami partial or unwilling 
 though he passed through five minutes participants in the drama, suffered for 
 of the most terrible suspense in front of many days. The principal physicians of 
 the Grand Hotel in Paris, when he was Paris assert that hundreds of people had 
 recognized in a cab, and was saved, as if their brains literally turned by the 
 by a miracle, from being torn in pieces, horrors which they were compelled to 
 He shared Rochefort's condemnation and witness ; and it is not strange that even 
 punishment, ami fad 1 destined him also those who were not predisposed to in- 
 to share in the audacious journalist's sanity were in a mental condition far 
 escape from the penal colony of New from normal for a lengthy period. 
 Caledonia. From Paris I wenl to London, and at 
 In the shop of a bookseller on the St. Denis, as the train crawled out of 
 Boulevard I one day found the photo- the walls of the capital, and passed the 
 graph of a working-man, upon whose half-ruined fortress, we found the Prus- 
 face there was an expression of mingled sians, who departed from their usual 
 awe. contempt, and fear; the look was dignity so far as to give the passengers 
 positively so mysterious and awful that in the train an ironical cheer, and to cry, 
 it at once commanded respectful atten- '■'■Vive la Commune!" Butthisgratnitous 
 tion. [ inquired the history of this sin- insult was far from being in accordance 
 gular picture, and was t<>M that it was with the usual custom of the Germans, 
 the face of a. workman photographed, who, as a man, had quite as great a con- 
 doubtless in the interest of some psycho- tempt for the Commune as the French 
 logical study, a moment or two before he property -holder could have, 
 was executed. The expression of this In London we seemed in another 
 poor fellow, standing thus upon the world. The calm of the great green 
 threshold of eternity, still hot with the parks, the laughter of the children in 
 passions and the enmities of lime, may the streets, and the undisturbed flow of 
 be taken as typical of the attitude of commerce in the mighty metropolis, 
 the fighters for the Commune during seemed almost unnatural, so accustomed 
 the last terrible seven days, of which I had the eye and ear become to the sound 
 have endeavored here to give some ac- of battle and to the sense of danger. 
 count. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 519 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX. 
 
 After Storm, Culm. — London and Paris. — Points of Resemblance and of Difference. — London 
 and Paris Cockneys. — Old London. — Contrasts in Manners, Food and Drink. — Sunday in the Two 
 Capitals. — Mutual Respect and Comical Concealment of It. 
 
 THE contrasts suggested by the ar- 
 rival in London after the con- 
 fusion, the bloodshed, and the dangers 
 in Paris, were highly impressive and 
 striking ; but they are even at ordinary 
 times only less in degree. English sym- 
 pathies had been deeply stirred by the 
 turmoil on the " Continent," as our British 
 cousins with their insular coolness call 
 the greater portion of Europe, and 
 London had, with its magnificent charity, 
 done good alike to Germans and to 
 French. But beneath the sympathy it 
 was not difficult to discern a kind of 
 pity which was not unmixed with scorn, 
 and there was a disposition in the upper 
 chisses to decry and perhaps to deny the 
 value of the revolution through which 
 the neighboring country, the secular 
 enemy and antagonist, but now the 
 prostrate and appealing ally, had passed. 
 That England was stirred by the vast 
 demonstration of German military power 
 there w r as abundant proof. It was ap- 
 parent in the renewed attention to coast 
 defences, the rebirth of the military feel- 
 ing in the remotest centres, the most 
 rural of counties, and the disposition to 
 turn for consolation in the presence of 
 these huge triumphs of a neighbor and 
 kindred race, to the contemplation of 
 the "Greater Britain," of which Sir 
 Charles Dilke has given us so picturesque 
 and adequate an account. England had 
 not been in the midst of important events 
 for the two or three preceding years. 
 
 The Reform Bill agitation over, the 
 country had settled into one of its long 
 periods of inertia, — as it seems to the 
 foreigner, — periods in which the needed 
 next reform seems to crystallize in the 
 national mind without apparent glow of 
 feeling or noisv demonstration of any 
 shape whatsoever. 
 
 London and Paris, between which 
 there is an incessant and most curious 
 interchange of sentiment and of travel, 
 are as unlike each other in some respects 
 as if they were thousands instead of 
 a few hundred miles apart. Each has 
 flowing through its centre an historic 
 stream, whose banks are lined with im- 
 posing, and with venerable mansions, 
 and the citizens of each city pay especial 
 reverence to these rivers, and are as 
 proud of them as if they were Amazons, 
 Congos, or Mississippis. Each city has 
 an ancient and ornate Cathedral church. 
 and the lover of the beautiful finds it 
 hard to choose between Notre Dame 
 and Westminster. Each litis its cor- 
 porations with their innumerous tra- 
 ditions, their fuss and feathers, their 
 gowns and furs, their privileges and 
 accumulated wealth ; each has a muni- 
 cipal legend, which is full of glory and 
 fighting, of careers of citizens enriched 
 by trade and ennobled by their sover- 
 eigns ; each has a huge institution de- 
 voted to military and naval glory ; and 
 each its crypt in which a hero sleeps. 
 There is a kind of eousinship between 
 
520 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 the Pantheon and St. Paul's. Kadi sound of Bow Hells, and he finds little, 
 capital lias its observatory, which it if anything, to object t<> in the monu- 
 thiuks the first in the world ; and each raents or the manners bequeathed to him 
 its academics of painting, which respee- by the Englishmen of past epochs. 
 lively assert their supremacy without Modern Paris, with its enormous and 
 doubt as to the legitimacy of their claims, wide avenues, with their broad side- 
 Each has its parliament, its ministries, walks bordered with graceful trees, with 
 its official " season," and diplomatic lux- the lightn sss and grace of the huge yel- 
 ury, activity, and splendor; each its an- lowish-white mansions, with their balco- 
 nied visitation of the rich and the great, nies ami their immense ranges of plate- 
 who go to Paris ami London because "lass windows, their dexterously deco- 
 thev arc London and Paris, and for no rated shops, and their superb churches, 
 other reason at all ; and each its throng halls, markets, fountains, and squares, 
 of adventurers, who come to prey upon is a dazzling and bewitching vision to 
 the rich and to bask in their sunshine those who first look upon it: and from 
 with that recklessness of the future April to November the beautiful town is 
 characteristic of their class. bathed in delicate sunlight and rarely 
 lint after a little, one finds it diffieull overhung with the gray and frowning 
 to establish analogies between London skies, which, joined to the canopy of 
 and Palis. Both cities arc alike in this sooty and sulphurous smoke, make Lon- 
 regard, that while their citizens manifest don so oppressive to the new-comer, 
 and express the greatest veneration for Put London has a quiet beauty of its 
 
 the relics of the past, the 1 Lin and own, which the great town does not 
 
 new portions of the capitals are unpict- hastily reveal, and which one must learn 
 uresque and prosaic Perhaps the Lou- to find out. There are certain tempera- 
 cloner attaches more importance to the ments specially delighted with what they 
 past than docs the Parisian. In France, are pleased to term the ••mellowness" 
 hundreds of thousands of people date of London. — -its mists, which seem to 
 everything in their country's history give a kind of glamor to the commonest 
 from the Revolution of the last century, objects, its winding streets, with unex- 
 whieh, as Taine says, made " a new pected stairs and gateways, triply pro- 
 France." Put, in England, although in tected with iron hooks and spikes, its 
 their time they have cut oil' a king's broad expanses of court, around which 
 head, they have not cut loose from the ancient houses stare down upon black- 
 traditions, the legends, and the beauties of cned. almost unrecognizable, statues of 
 former centuries, and they still speak of half-forgotten worthies, its mysterious 
 them with bated breath. The Parisian rookeries, dignified with aristocratic 
 cockney is a cynic, and the London names, to which the 1 busy Londoners 
 cockney an enthusiast. If Alphonse or repair for refreshment, the shadowy 
 Adolphe go to Versailles for a Sunday's taverns into which the sun almost never 
 outing, they are more than likely to criti- peeps, the recesses protected by oaken 
 eise the landscape gardening of Le screens, by red curtains, in which men 
 NOtre, and to poke fun at the shade of take their dinners ami drink with the 
 the great monarch. Put 'Any mi the gravity of conspirators and communicate 
 sands at Margate or at Hampton Court in whispers, though they have nothing 
 is as trulv patriotic as when within the whatever to conceal. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 521 
 
 It is worthy <>f note that while Paris 
 is the most literary of European capitals, 
 the stranger is not so prone to associate 
 its architectural and physical features 
 with some literary remembrance as he is 
 in London. One thinks of Dr. Johnson 
 and of Dickens in a walk up Fleet 
 Street and through the .Strand; but one 
 rarely gives a thought to Balzac on the 
 boulevard. In London, the high streets 
 and the by-streets are tilled with children, 
 clean and dirty, well and ill dressed, 
 decorous and screeching, children young 
 and children half-grown, babes under 
 the feet and brats at the corner; but in 
 Paris, one starts in search of a child 
 almost in vain. The street Arab, so 
 familiar to English and American eyes, 
 is unknown in Paris. If the baker's boy, 
 in his white cap. is disposed now and 
 then to be jocular, he docs it with the 
 air of a mature and blase clubman. As 
 for M. Hugo's famous Gavroche, I have 
 yet to see his exact type. He must 
 have gone out with the IMS Republic. 
 But London is a city full of children, and 
 of children who take their ease in their 
 good capital, unrestricted by draymen, 
 policemen, and other functionaries dread- 
 ful to juvenile folk elsewhere. 
 
 While in elegance of modern architect- 
 ure Paris undoubtedly takes the lead, 
 in independence and in quiet comfort, 
 not devoid of a certain picturesqueness, 
 London, if it could get rid of its smoke, 
 would be without a rival. In Paris 
 there is always a feeling of attrition. 
 The life is intensely public, glaring. 
 The street is a salon in extenso. < hie 
 instinctively feels in his pocket for his 
 gloves, and looks to his cane when he 
 goes abroad. At home, there is the 
 lodge-keeper, a kind of jack-in-office, in 
 his den. In a " quarter " of Paris there 
 are a thousand little centres like so 
 many gossiping, covetous, and back- 
 
 biting village circles. Both Paris and 
 London have a curiously provincial flavor 
 which is not perceptible in other great 
 cities. If any thing striking hap- 
 pens in London at two o'clock of an 
 afternoon, it is talked of in Whitechapel 
 and Belgravia in the same minutely gos- 
 siping vein before sunset. " Every- 
 body knows everybody who is anybody 
 in Paris," said a Parisian to me once. 
 As the cities become great, the citizens 
 in them, instead of growing unconcerned 
 in the presence of daily events, take a 
 ludicrously exaggerated concern in them. 
 London, with its four and a half mil- 
 lions, Paris with its two and a half mil- 
 lions, of what might be called intramural 
 folk, and with their colossal aggrega- 
 tions of wealth, of culture, of crime, of 
 misery, of adventure, are as eager for the 
 latest news of a rifle-match or a horse- 
 race as a New England village might be. 
 Much of new London sprang into 
 being during the long wars, when Great 
 Britain was cut off from association with 
 the continent, and when, consequently, 
 her architects and builders were de- 
 prived of models of taste. — when, in 
 fact, the people eared little for taste in 
 their shelters ; hence the miles and 
 scores of miles of hastily-planned, squat 
 and blackened house-fronts, which con- 
 ceal happy and harmonious homes, but 
 which to the outward vision are repulsive 
 enough. When Paris got the informing 
 touch of modern improvement under the 
 Empire, when Napoleon III., who had 
 had his gaze sharply fixed on London's 
 defects during his residence there, re- 
 solved that he would leave a monument 
 built out of the lime-stone quarries of 
 France in the capital, where he managed 
 to maintain his rule well or ill, old 
 Paris, was destined to lose some of 
 its charm and mysteries in the presence 
 of this pressure of improvement, but 
 
522 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 "old London" has kept its strangeness 
 and oddity, and bids fair to keep it long. 
 The wood pavement has found its way 
 into many a black alley and in front of 
 many an antique pile, but the craze for 
 the widening of streets has not been 
 allowed to interfere with old Loudon. 
 
 Many points of contrast between Lon- 
 don and Paris have disappeared within 
 the last twenty years. Of the ordinary 
 Paris, nothing was more impressive 
 before the many changes which invaded 
 the two capitals consequent on the great 
 current of international travel, than the 
 difference in the aspect of the two great, 
 cities on the Sunday. To the American 
 of the Atlantic and the Middle States. 
 the profound repose of respectable Lon- 
 don on the sacred day was as natural 
 and proper as, to his thinking, the open 
 transaction of business, the gayety, and 
 the festal atmosphere of the Sunday of 
 Paris was shocking and detestable. The 
 American found, however, that there 
 was an unpleasant Sunday side to Lou- 
 don, and was duly shocked in presence 
 of the throngs of roughs, and of 
 wretchedly-clad women and even chil- 
 dren waiting, at mid-day, the opening 
 of the public houses, where intoxicating 
 liquors Were freely dispense, 1. But this 
 
 the tolerant traveller noted as the result 
 of the depravity consequent upon igno- 
 rance, while he went back to the old 
 French Revolution, with what he was 
 
 wont to call its mischievous teachings, 
 for the license prevalent in the French 
 capital. Nowadays the Parisians close 
 their shops, not because they consider 
 Sunday as more worthy of observance 
 than any other fete day, but because 
 they take it as the occasion of their 
 weekly ailing, and their promenades 
 among the beauties of the clean streets. 
 Among the fashionable tradesmen Sun- 
 dav-closing is universal iu Paris. In 
 
 the Rue de la Paix, on many of the 
 grand boulevards, and in most of the 
 avenues devoted to shops where articles 
 of luxury are sold, (he shutters are all 
 up. only a Hebrew now and then plying 
 his commerce in bold defiance of the 
 general rule. The hundreds of shops in 
 Paris which depend upon the custom of 
 the foreign traveller arc as careful to 
 keep Sunday as they are to put " Eng- 
 lish Spoken," and " Se Hdbla Es-panol," 
 upon the plate-glass of their windows. 
 
 On the other hand, the sternness of 
 the London Sunday has been much 
 broken by the great invasion of the for- 
 eign element, the Italian, the German, 
 the .lew, the Greek; and the wanderer 
 in the great capital in pursuit of some- 
 thing to eat on a Sabbath afternoon now 
 sees the doois of an inviting riij'r wide 
 open where lie would have sought for re- 
 freshment in vain some years ago. The 
 stranger's idea that all classes of Lon- 
 doners give themselves up with Puri- 
 tanic devotion to a solemn stillness on 
 the Sabbath is incorrect. In some of 
 the upper circles, receptions are held and 
 dinners are given ; in the literary and 
 artistic guild, the day is used for meet- 
 ings and conversation ; but it is rare to 
 hear of a concert, or an entertainment, in 
 the strict sense of the term, at any pri- 
 vate house on Sunday. The trains run 
 at, certain hours of the day; the parks 
 in summer arc 1 tilled with hundreds of 
 thousands of promenaders of all classes, 
 and bands of music sometimes play re- 
 frains taken from opera bovffes which 
 bear the mark of Paris export. The 
 museums are not yet open to the public, 
 as in Paris, although here and there is 
 an exhibition, as at Greenwich, where 
 one may wander through the stately halls 
 and see the pictures of great naval bat- 
 tles and the memorials of Nelson, shown 
 with reverent gestures by the whimsical 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 523 
 
 old guardians ; and a singular feature of 
 London society is the aristocratic gather- 
 ering in the Zoological Gardens (popu- 
 larly known as the Zoo) from four to 
 seven on a summer .Sunday afternoon. 
 The holiday making of the Londoner in 
 the many beautiful resorts near the capi- 
 tal, such as Hampton Court, Richmond, 
 
 riment ; hut the Parisian crowd is not 
 satisfied without a balloon, and, possibly, 
 a horse-race, a shopping excursion among 
 the booths of the fairs, which are as nu- 
 merous as the saints in the calendar, fire- 
 works, and a roystering dinner in the even- 
 ing, with probably a merry carriage-ride 
 home after dinner. In London, people 
 
 SUNDAY MARKET IN PETTICOAT LANE, 
 
 Windsor, Kew Gardens, Dulwich, is 
 vastly more decorous and subdued than 
 that of the Parisian, who, in company with 
 his wife or his sweetheart, finds his way 
 to Versailles or St. Cloud, to Meuclon or 
 Sceaux, to the forests of St. Germain or 
 Fontainebleau, toVille d'Avray or to the 
 pretty villages on the banks of the Seine. 
 If the London cockney indulges in a roll 
 on the grass, it is the extent of his mer- 
 
 go abroad simply for exercise, for which 
 every healthy English man and woman 
 has a kind of mania: in France, no one 
 thinks simply of physical exercise, and 
 the glow of appetite which follows it, but 
 rather of the sensuous beauty of green 
 lanes and turfy lawns, the sight of pretty 
 fountains, symmetrical parks, and a look 
 at the fashions as displayed in the mov- 
 ing throngs. France being a highly 
 
524 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 democratic country, every conceivable 
 kind of vehicle, unless it be an advertis- 
 ing van, is admitted to the liois de Bou- 
 logne. The cook goes to ride with her 
 coachman lover on the box <>t' his cab, 
 which falls into line behind the stately 
 equipage of an English duke, a Spanish 
 grandee, or the President of the Repub- 
 lic, if he happens alone-. But the 
 unfortunate wight who attempts an en- 
 trance to Hyde Park in a numbered car- 
 riage will find himself most haughtily 
 motioned away, and must wait until lie 
 can afford a livery, hired or owned, he- 
 fore he can mingle with the "upper ten." 
 Perhaps there is no sight in London park 
 on any day so amazing as that of the 
 immense number of handsome carriages 
 returning from the Grand Prix, through 
 the Hois de Boulogne, in Paris on a Sun- 
 day afternoon. But two-thirds of the 
 people who li 11 these handsome vehicles 
 
 belong to the great mob of adventurers 
 and adventuresses, who perpetually fill 
 the motley world of Paris. There is a 
 "Hospital Sunday" and a ■■ Studio Sun- 
 day " in London; but in Paris. Sunday 
 is the choosen day for any and almosl 
 every great public_/?fe or celebration. An 
 election is held on Sunday; the "real 
 horse-race of the year occurs on Sunday ; 
 ministers address their constituents on that 
 day : and if lirst performances at the thea- 
 tres are not given on Sunday evenings, it 
 is because the managers have learned by 
 long experience that the Sunday papers 
 are read with more' interest that those of 
 any other day. and they wish the criti- 
 cisms of the /iri'iuirrrs, which take place 
 on Saturdaj evenings, to appear in them. 
 The continental papers are never tired of 
 reviling the English Sunday as a horri- 
 ble institution, calculated to promote sui- 
 cide or despair ; and a lively French lady 
 once informed me that the terrors of the 
 Channel on a Saturday night and the ter- 
 
 rors of a gloomy Sunday in the English 
 metropolis had sufficiently alarmed her 
 to prevent her ever again visiting the 
 British Isles. 
 
 As Paris grows larger it takes on, as 
 London long ago took on, a climate of 
 its own. Humboldt, in a burst of indig- 
 nation against the France which lie never 
 liked, once said that Paris had the worst 
 climate in the world ; and the great 
 traveller's dictum has at least some 
 foundation in fact. When the gloom of 
 November settles down over the fair 
 city. Paris is scarcely more agreeable 
 than London. The vast area of chimneys, 
 letting forth the smoke of the soft Bel- 
 gium coal, year by year, makes the 
 winter atmosphere very like that which, 
 when one first sees it in London, Man- 
 chester, or Birmingham, gives a shudder 
 of repulsion. But in great cities, people 
 lake small note of the weather, their 
 lives being artificial and indoors, for 
 your true Londoner is. despite his frantic 
 devotion to exercise, an indoor being 
 eight months of the year. It is not 
 strange that he should be so in a climate 
 which elicits such mention as I once read 
 in an English journal, namely, "January, 
 February, March, April, May. June, anil 
 the other winter months." Paris has its 
 fogs, dreary and uninviting as those 
 of London. It sometimes has cold and 
 rainy Junes; and the weatherwise say- 
 that the climate of the north of Europe is 
 slowly changing to cold, fog, and damp. 
 Both the Parisian and the Londoner 
 seem determined to fortify against this 
 inroad of the elements by an increased 
 devotion to alcohol, and since the great 
 warof 1870-71 Paris has learned to drink 
 deeply. Both in Paris and London, eat- 
 ing and drinking are elevated to the 
 dignity of pursuits. Some of the finest 
 and most imposing edifices in newer 
 Loudon are joint-stock restaurants, with 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 525 
 
 palatial halls above and deep and warm 
 basements, where juicy steaks and chops 
 sputter upon the grills, and where the 
 foaming ales and wines, presumably 
 good, flow freely until the small hours, 
 except on Saturday night, when every- 
 thing is relentlessly closed on the stroke 
 of twelve; and if ''Big Ben," in his 
 tower by the Thames, should sound the 
 last of his twelve strokes before the bar 
 of the publican and the cafi keeper is 
 shut, a burly policeman h at hand with 
 first a friendly warning and next a 
 peremptory summons. The rigidity with 
 which the laws regulating small matters 
 are enforced, in both London and Paris, 
 is a source of constant wonder to the 
 American, accustomed to more latitude 
 in the earning out of laws which he 
 makes for himself. 
 
 It is odd to remark that the citi- 
 zens of each capital constantly reproach 
 those of the other with their lack of 
 knowledge of the art of cookery. It 
 is a firm article of faith in the French- 
 man's calendar that the English are- 
 savage in their appetites, and have no 
 national dishes ; while the Englishman is 
 unshaken in his conviction that the 
 French live upon messes and slops, and 
 numerous bits and corners of things of 
 which the fastidious stomach of the 
 Anglo-Saxon would not allow him to par- 
 take. The real fact is that good and 
 wholesome cooking is to be found in 
 the homes of the middle classes in each 
 of the great cities, and thai when you 
 come to the tables of the nobility, the 
 merchant princes, and the nouveaux 
 riches, in London or Paris, yon find their 
 dinners composites made up by cosmo- 
 politan cooks, and showing a choice not 
 always in harmony with the laws of 
 health, from the luxuries of every country 
 under the sun. Strong and lone pota- 
 tions have goue out of fashion in the 
 
 highest society iu England. There is no 
 longer heavy drinking at lunch or dinner. 
 It is reputed bad form; and in Paris it 
 was never good form outside the bour- 
 geoisie; as for the "people" of each 
 capital, it drinks whatever comes handy, 
 and all it can get, and for the last few- 
 years, wretched adulterated stuffs have 
 been sold in both cities. The populations 
 of London and Paris are swindled with 
 pale sherries, Marsalas and Beaunes, 
 St. Emilions, and other seductive fluids 
 with exotic names, which are concocted 
 out of the strangest materials ; and the 
 vin ordinaire, a huge bottle of which is 
 placed before the workman of Paris at 
 his noonday meal, comes from a. glucose 
 factory scarcely half a dozen miles from 
 his restaurant. Gone are the festal days 
 when, in the lustrous lands of the south, 
 the soldier and the peasant paid for their 
 wiues by the hour and not by the bottle, 
 — having, for a. modest subscription, 
 free access to the casks at the cabarets. 
 In London, the omnipresent beer-can 
 still holds its place iu the popular fancy, 
 and beer does its work in keeping hun- 
 dreds of thousands of artisans and all the 
 serving classes in a befuddled state of 
 content, under conditions which might 
 otherwise arouse their liveliest com- 
 plaints. 
 
 To the American mind the importance 
 attaching to the food supply in England 
 especially is very striking. Yon open 
 the morning paper and you find columns 
 upon columns on the mutton from Aus- 
 tralia, the wheat from Dakota, the Rus- 
 sian and Hungarian supplies of grain, 
 the prospects of a crop in Egypt, the 
 bad harvests because of the rain iu Eng- 
 lish counties, and all this treated with 
 an earnestness which betokens its na- 
 tional importance. The Paris paper 
 lightly gossips of Lamartine in his palmy 
 days, or tells a tale of Louis Philippe or 
 
52(5 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Napoleon I. The London paper grap- but he is enthusiastic, when the stranger 
 pies with the problems of the crowded is not by, in his praise of English order, 
 quarters of the East End, ami waxes respect for law, the grand regularity of 
 eloquent over the "dead meat supply." Parliament with its ancient formulas and 
 (hit of this struggle for food, this recog- imposing traditions, the modest preten- 
 nition of the fact that the nourishment sions of royalty, and the popularity of 
 must and does come from without, has its representatives, anil although he does 
 grown the "Imperial policy" of Great enjoy .seeing the lion's paw caught in 
 Britain, with its Woolwich, its navies the net, still, when the lion roars, he 
 which sweep the seas, its tremendous ae- cheers as loudly as if England had not 
 cumulation of money in colonial enter- been his secular euemy, had not invaded 
 prises, its venturesome speculation in his country fourteen times, and had not 
 countries thousands of miles away, and sat in Calais town for more than three 
 probably its tremendous antipathy to hundred years. The Londoner of high 
 protection. Twenty years ago, France, and low degree showed how intense was 
 plethoric and proud, ridiculed England his real admiration for Paris when she 
 lor this close attention to the food ques- was in her great struggle, and while he 
 tion ; but now the crisis has fallen upon is wandering about the avenues of the 
 Prance also, and her legislators, ceasing capital on his Easter holiday, or in mid- 
 to quarrel vainly among themselves over summer, when the whole city seems 
 idle questions of "groups" and dynas- transformed into a beautiful garden filled 
 lies, cafe factions and church cliques, with stately palaces, he is hearty in his 
 begin to talk of protective duties on compliments, and it is not until he gets 
 foreign wheat ; and the word pork is, on home again, and has lost, the thin edge 
 some days, found as often as the word of his souvenirs of travel, that he begins 
 picture in the scholarly and thoughtful anew to consider the Frenchman as prone 
 French periodicals. to frogs, as deficient in manly strength, 
 Finally, London and Paris have an and. possibly, in need of moral backbone, 
 intense and well-grounded respect for Yet there is not so much intercourse be- 
 each other, which each is always doing tween the two capitals as might be sup- 
 its utmost to conceal under an assumed posed from their proximity. It is said 
 cynicism and critical coldness. Your that but fifty-five thousand English peo- 
 Parisian talks of the fogs, the blackness, pie came to the great, l'aris Exhibition 
 and the gin palaces, and the brutality of of 1878, and in 1867 the number must 
 the Anglo-Saxon with great contempt ; have been less. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 . r )L>7 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN. 
 
 The Germans at Dieppe. — The English Channel. — An Effective Fortification. — The " Precious Isle set in 
 the Silver Sea." — The North Sea Coast. — English Seaside Resorts. — The White Cliffs of 
 England. — The Great Commercial Highway. — ■ George Peabody at Portsmouth. 
 
 IT is said that when the Germans were 
 at Dieppe, they indulged in some 
 speculation as to the ease with which the 
 Channel could be crossed, and England 
 invaded. They might have erected a 
 column to their speculations, like the 
 " Napoleon's Column" which stands 
 on the heights of Boulogne, and as it 
 weaves to and fro in the brisk salt 
 winds which blow over the cliff, serves 
 to remind the passers by of the vanity of 
 Napoleon First's great plan. The Ger- 
 man hosts were wild with triumph in 
 those days of 1870, when they talked so 
 coolly of a bold enterprise, and they 
 were perhaps pardonable. The French 
 have long since given up any wild 
 schemes for the invasion of the island 
 which stands to the northward, boldly 
 rising out of the stormy waters, the 
 '•precious isle set in a silver sea" of 
 which Shakespeare spoke so fondly ; and 
 whatever may be the ambitious dreams 
 of the German Chancellor, they can 
 scarcely have extended so far as to com- 
 prehend within their airy scope a hostile 
 excursion from Amsterdam or Rotterdam 
 to Harwich or Dover. If some day the 
 absorbing process of which one now 
 hears so much is completed, and Ger- 
 many gains a new shore line on the North 
 Sea, there may be much bluster about 
 coercing England ; but the time for that 
 has not yet come. 
 
 The English, however, are fully awake 
 to the possibility of danger, and their 
 channel and north-easterly coasts are 
 
 amply fortified. The defences of the 
 Thames, and of the roadway of Dover, 
 the entrenched camp of Plymouth, the 
 great works at Milford Haven and Pem- 
 broke, awaken the admiration even of 
 the jealous Continental powers ; and the 
 fortifications of Portsmouth Harbor, 
 where hundreds of thousands of pounds 
 have been spent in the creation of ar- 
 mored forts, seem to leave little to be 
 feared. The gigantic guns in the forts 
 on the pier at Dover are among the 
 wonders of Europe. Yet although the 
 project of a tunnel underneath the chalky 
 bed of the channel has been agitated for 
 more than twenty years, it has made but 
 little practical progress. Itis of no avail 
 that the French protest that such a 
 tunnel can in no case be made use of for 
 military purposes, that it might be neu- 
 tralized by act of Conference, that it 
 could be effectively neutralized by act of 
 dynamite, that no force sufficient to 
 capture even a small town could under 
 the most extraordinary circumstances be 
 forced through it; John Bull prefers to 
 distrust the foreigner, as he distrusted 
 him at the beginning of the century, 
 when he was striking at him with all his 
 might and main. The channel has been 
 crossed by balloon, crossed by hardy 
 swimmers, who had not the fear of 
 sharks before their eyes. Human beings 
 have done their best to bring the " silver 
 streak " into contempt and show that it 
 is not difficult to traverse ; yet England 
 considers it her practical fortification, 
 
528 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 especially when she sets afloat on it her which clashed with her interests or with 
 
 superb Channel fleet, a floating fortress her ambitions. She points her cannon 
 
 which, in normal times, may be ordered at the Continent, and at the same tune 
 
 away to any danger point, but in periods professes desire for absolute peace with 
 
 of disturbance mi the northern part of ;ill Europe. 
 
 the Continent is at its post. The island A wonderful const line is this of the 
 fortress has round about it a tremendous North Sen and the English Channel on 
 moat filled with the most capricious and the Continental side, with its ancient his- 
 ilillienlt waves in the world. The coast- toric cities, and its hustle of nineteenth- 
 guard squadron, with its iron-clad tur- century movement and commerce. At 
 ret-ships, its torpedo boats, and some a fishing village five miles from Bou- 
 of the •'wooden walls" which are still logne, one may fancy himself transported 
 valid, is very powerful. Twenty years back to the Middle Ages. There is little 
 ago the coast fortifications of the United if any hint of modernism in costume or 
 Kingdom were absurdly insufficient, architecture or anything else therein. 
 The " Martello " towers of the old days In the French coast towns, Cherbourg, 
 could be knocked to pieces in a few Havre. Dieppe, Boulogne, and Calais. 
 
 minutes with] lern artillery; but when there is a curious contrast of the old and 
 
 rifled cannon came in, the English deter- new; fishing towns nestle about the 
 mined to fortify their coasts so that they churches on the hillsides, and down by 
 should have no cause for regret. the water are fine quays and imposing 
 After 1860 the work went on with warehouses. Of these French coast 
 great rapidity, and the new port of towns. Calais and Dieppe are, perhaps, 
 Lowestoft, the huge group of batteries the most picturesque. < >u the breezy 
 at the mouth of the Stowc at Harwich, heights of Saiute Adresse, back of 
 the works at Shoeburyness and at Sheer- Havre, are innumerable chdteaux and 
 ness. the [Too and Darnett forts protect- villas, where the merchant princes who 
 ing the great arsenal at Chatham, the once owned great fleets have retired to 
 perfected defenses of Dover Castle, and the enjoyment of fortunes such as their 
 the splendid lines of forts which hedge successors may never hope to make, 
 about the maritime establishment at Trouville, on its pretty sands, behind 
 Plymouth, — forts having granite walls its black rocks, and backed by an ex- 
 three feet thick, strong enough to defy quisite, almost idyllic, succession of rural 
 almost any known projectile, and their glades filled with picturesque Norman 
 embrasures furnished with metallic buck- farms, is a famous midsummer rendez- 
 lers, — all these immense and formidable vous for the fashionable world. At 
 chains of iron, steel, and stone bulwarks Trouville, under the Second Empire, 
 have been paid for by the nation mi- September was the high season ; when 
 eoniplaininglv. but they have added the courts arose and the magistrates 
 enormously to its burdens. Great Brit- went to bathe, all the social world fol- 
 ain complains but little of the debt con- lowed them. All along the coast of 
 sequent on playing at the game of war. Normandy and Brittany smart towns 
 More than two-thirds of her national are springing up, filled with hotels and 
 indebtedness is due to one long series of country houses created for the residence 
 wars which have been waged by her of the English, the American, the Bel- 
 withiu our modern days against powers gian, and the German travellers, who 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 529 
 
 like to spend a few weeks by the Ninth- monumental hotels, solemn as Egyptian 
 era Sea. The English come in throngs pyramids, and sometimes almost as 
 to the French bathing places, and the gloomy, yet with substantial comfort 
 French go in turn to walk over the cliffs bestowed within their massive walls. 
 of Dover, or to dwell for a time in the lint the curse of the English fashionable 
 gorgeous hotels at Brighton. An Eng- hotel is its intense devotion to regula- 
 lish duke takes up his station at Dieppe, lions. Everything seems arranged by 
 and a French duke goes to Portsea, or rote, until one grows to fancy himself 
 to Ventnor, or some other ro- 
 mantic nook on the pretty 
 shores of the Isle of Wight. 
 
 The English coast towns on 
 the Channel are perhaps less 
 cosmopolitan than their con- 
 tinental rivals opposite, lint 
 some of them, like Brighton, 
 are quite splendid. Brighton 
 is more than ever " London- 
 super-mare," now that the 
 swift express trains from the 
 central railway stations in the 
 metropolis are so frequent. A 
 famous novelist, a poet fond 
 of contemplating the waves, 
 or a smart scientist, will have 
 their houses at Brighton and 
 yet keep in the London move- 
 ment, getting away from the 
 smoke and steam of the dingy 
 metropolis as night settles 
 down over it. Time was w hen 
 Brighton had a physiognomy 
 of its own ; but this is now 
 gone. The long promenade, 
 with its front of noble hotels 
 and villas, shaken and rattled 
 by the impetuous wind, might 
 
 be taken for a quarter of London which in a prison rather than in a hostelry. 
 had been accidentally blown out to sea. One must regulate life by stern method ; 
 Hastings has more flavor than Brighton, and this the Briton does readily ; and 
 It is, especially in midsummer, charming, it is noticeable that he grumbles only 
 and at Easter, when crowded with visitors, when he travels abroad, submitting at 
 almost as gay as its more fashionable home to small tyrannies quite past coin- 
 neighbor, prehension. After the hotel, in iinpor- 
 
 The characteristic features of an Eng- tance, comes the '-pier." A first-class 
 lish seaside resort are enormous and bathing town often has two piers, and 
 
 THE SCOTCH VOLUNTEERS AT BRIGHTON. 
 
530 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AM> CALX, 
 
 on these daring structure's, which run hend the weekly excursions of throngs of 
 
 far i>ut into the stormy water, concert- cockneys. 
 
 rooms and restaurants are constructed, At the French seaside resort, the 
 
 and one has the pleasure of risking hat Casino, with its gay crowds of richly 
 
 or bonnet in u struggle with the wind, in costumed ladies of the upper, middle, 
 
 company with thousands of others, and the lower worlds, and the beach, 
 
 every morning, while listening t<> the with its freakish and perfectly unre- 
 
 niusie of a regimental band. In iin- strained carnivals of bathing, furnishes, 
 
 portant naval and military stations, then 
 is almost no show of uniforms, for tin 
 
 perhaps, mure amusement than can be 
 found in any English coast town. The 
 
 English officer doffs his costume as soon continental peoples do not go to the 
 
 ON THE SANDS AT BRIGHTON, 
 
 as he is off duty. The variegated as- 
 pect of the street, of a German garrison 
 town, where hundreds of officers are 
 clanking their swords and perpetually 
 saluting, is unknown in England. The 
 hotel, the pier, the promenade along 
 the shore, the daily assemblage, espe- 
 cially' in ports like Dover and Folke- 
 stone, to see the new arrivals and to 
 comment upon them, — these, joined to 
 the most discreet bathing, in which the 
 sexes are separated with prodigious care, 
 are the main points observable at Eng- 
 lish seaside resorts, unless we compre- 
 
 seaside for rest or recreation, they go 
 for jollity, perhaps for dissipation, for 
 frolics. The English ride, drive, walk, 
 play lawn tennis, bathe, and feed, on 
 scientific principles ; they are not in pur- 
 suit of pleasure so much as of health 
 and repose. 
 
 Very beautiful and impressive arc the 
 white cliffs of England, rising out of the 
 Channel on a calm summer's day, and 
 very remote and much-to-be-louged-for 
 do they seem when the traveller is toil- 
 ing towards them in a diminutive packet 
 in the midst of the boiling surges in win- 
 
EUROPE W STORM A XI) CALM. 
 
 531 
 
 ter. The Channel ports, on either side, 
 are small and inconvenient, and the craft 
 which can enter them afford but poor 
 accommodation to the traveller. Up and 
 down the great highway of ihe North 
 Sea and the Channel, and the way to the 
 mid-Atlantic, go the silent fleets, great 
 lines of steamers trading from Holland 
 to the Indies, the German and the Bel- 
 gian ships, the enormous argosies on 
 their way to Antwerp, now one of the 
 principal ports of Europe. The Orient 
 pours its riches through this narrow 
 strait into the Scheldt and the Zuyder 
 Zee, whence they are dispersed through- 
 out the vast domain of Germany and of 
 the North. The quays of Antwerp can 
 receive and discharge in one day more 
 freight-ears than any other three terminal 
 stations in Europe. Antwerp is the 
 greatest distributing point on the Conti- 
 nent to-day. 
 
 When the storms and fogs begin, the 
 list of disasters on the Channel length- 
 ens with frightful rapidity. Collisions 
 must naturally lie frequent on a route so 
 thronged witli craft of all kinds, from 
 the huge merchant steamer to the small 
 fishing-smack. There is a sudden crash 
 in the night ; two great shadowy forms 
 have met; hundreds of lives are lost, 
 and the next morning a hundred news- 
 papers tell a story of horror. It seems 
 as if these disasters were fated to occur 
 from time to time. Innocent emigrants 
 bound over seas are swept out of exist- 
 ence before they have got out of sight 
 of land. Now and then the Channel 
 swallows up a victim in a most mys- 
 terious manner, as it took down the 
 " Eurydice " close by the Isle of Wight. 
 
 It is strange that there is so little said 
 and sung about the Channel in England, 
 while so much is made of it in France. 
 It is true that the English have their 
 attention diverted to greater seas and 
 
 narrower escapes farther from home, but 
 they have produced no one who has sung 
 or spoken so melodiously or forcibly of 
 the historic strait as the old gray-haired 
 poet wlio lived on a Channel island for 
 half a generation rather than breathe 
 the air of Paris with the usurper. Vic- 
 tor Hugo is a good sailor, immensely 
 fond of the sea, and from his coign of 
 vantage in Guernsey, studied the Chan- 
 
 VICTOR HUGO. 
 
 nel as lovingly as in his youth lie had 
 studied Paris. In his -'Toilers of the 
 Sea " it is always the phenomena of the 
 Channel that he describes, the worn and 
 crumbling rocks, the bold shores, the 
 tormented waters, the sudden storms, 
 the flashing of the lightning, and the 
 mysterious and deadly mists of La 
 Manche. He tells with pathetic force 
 in one of his books the story of that 
 brave Captain Harvey who went down 
 in the Channel on the night of the 17th 
 
532 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 of March, 1870, while making his usual residence of his friend. Sir Curtis Lamp- 
 trip in his line steamship the " Nor- son. and while the dead merchant lav in 
 mandy," from Southampton to Guern- state in Westminster Abbey, thousands 
 sey. Harvey was known to the vener- of poor came to pay their tribute of re- 
 able poet, because lie had taken him to spect to one who had known how to 
 see the review of the English fleet at make so good use of his wealth. The 
 Sheerness on one occasion, and had scene at Portsmouth at the time of the 
 decorated his ship, saying that he had embarkation was quite affecting. Thou- 
 done it " for the exile." This touched sands of the poorer classes appeared t< 
 Victor lingo's heart, and when Captain think it an occasion on which they 
 Harvey's ship, the "Normandy," collided should show special respect, and the de- 
 
 with a great screw steamer going from parture of the " Monarch" from the 
 
 Odessa to Grimsby with a load of live port, attended by the capricious little 
 
 hundred tons of wheat, and went down corvette the •■ Plymouth," which looked 
 
 in the mists and the waves, he gave him like a swallow alongside a barn when in 
 
 such an epitaph as only a Hugo can the immediate neighborhood of her Brit- 
 
 give. lie drew a picture of the noble ish convoy, was saluted by the thundei 
 
 captain standing erect on the bridge, of hundreds of cannon. 
 revolver in hand, keeping back the sell- I shall never forget the quaint remark 
 
 ish and unruly, forcing into the boats of an old man at the railway station. 
 
 one after another all bis passengers and I inquired of him, on the morning ot 
 
 his crew, saying a pleasant word to a little the ceremony, at what time the train 
 
 boy who was sent last ; and then quietly bearing the remains and the delegation 
 
 going down into the waves with the ship, from London would arrive. "Well, 
 
 from which he would not be separated, sir, we are expecting of 'im down at nine 
 
 •• Every man," said Victor Hugo, "lias o'clock," placing an indefinable emphasis 
 
 one light, the inalienable right of becom- on the " 'im," which indicated that in his 
 
 ing a hero, and Captain Harvey used his mind the departed merchant was still a 
 
 right." vital personality. 
 
 It was from Portsmouth, in the early George Peabody certainly left tin- 
 days of 1870, that the line war-ship impress of his talent as well as of his 
 the" Monarch " sailed for America, hav- munificence upon the great capital, and 
 ing on board the remains of the great it is almost startling to those who had 
 American merchant who had so long known him in life to come upon his 
 made London his home, and who had bronze figure, serenely seated in the 
 endowed its poor with so many charities, midst of the bustling crowd, bard by 
 Mr. Peabody died iu London, at the the Loyal Exchange. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 .533 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT. 
 
 England's " Silent Highway." — The Sources of Her Greatness. — Her Protect ion of Her Trad •. — Wool- 
 wich the Mighty. —Greenwich and lis History. — The Procession of Commerce. — London's Tort. 
 — The Dorks and Their Revenue. — London Bridge. — Dore in London. 
 
 WE have said elsewhere that England 
 has carefully defended the passes 
 of the Thames, the great " silent high- 
 way," as if is called, one of tin.' chief 
 avenues of the commerce of the world, 
 and the most miraculous spectacle, when 
 international commerce is in its normal 
 condition, on the face of the earth. To 
 the stranger, however, the first sight of 
 the Thames is a disappointment, for no 
 foreigner can share the feeling of the 
 British tar who. on returning from a long 
 cruise in the Levant, looked up with rap- 
 ture to the cloudy sky above him. as 
 he entered the Thames, and exclaimed, 
 '•'Thank God! uone of your beastly blue 
 sky here!" There are moments in sum- 
 mer when the spectacle of the 'Thames, 
 bearing upon its noble in-coming tide its 
 majestic procession of barges and light- 
 ers, tilled with riches from all parts of 
 the world, is not only picturesque hut pos- 
 itively beautiful. Through the hazy 
 shimmer of a June afternoon this vision 
 of the wealth borne obediently by Father 
 Thames every day into the metropolis, 
 is one not to be forgotten. But the 
 blackness of November is nowhere so 
 black ami dreary as by the 'Thames side ; 
 nowhere does architecture seem so spec- 
 tral, fantastic; nowhere misery so re- 
 pulsive, so frightful. The creatures that 
 cower in the recesses of Westminster 
 Bridge seem far more wretched than the 
 poor of Naples or of Dublin. By day 
 the mud-Hats, when the tide 1 is out, with 
 their fringe of huge brown, or almost 
 
 blackened, buildings, with the mazes of 
 alleys anil piers, and innumerous small 
 craft Hying hither and yon, as if hope- 
 less of finding their way in the general 
 gloom, — ali these ive a shiver, and one 
 is inclined to tarn from the contempla- 
 tion of them. 
 
 If the Seine may now and then lie said 
 to woo to suicide, it is difficult to imag- 
 ine the 'Thames as tempting to self-mur- 
 der. It is something to fly from, and 
 although iii its muddy waters and its 
 slimy ooze poor wretches do now and 
 then And death, suicide being punished 
 with the greatest rigor by English mag- 
 istrates, as a crime against s iciety, even 
 the hungry are wary of jumping in. 
 
 On the Lower Thames we have the 
 commerce, and the military preparations 
 which advance and protect commerce, 
 band in hand. He who watches the 
 arrival of the stately Heels from every 
 clime under heaven, understands why 
 Woolwich, — the vast arsenal and prep- 
 aration field of the army. — has its ex- 
 istence. England fully understands the 
 maxim that " he who trades must be 
 prepared to tight." and Woolwich is a 
 standing advertisement of the British 
 willingness to protect her commerce, and 
 to seize upon any favorable opportunity 
 for aggression where her commerce may 
 find a new outlet. 
 
 So too, Greenwich, in its historic re- 
 pose and monumental calm, represents 
 the nobility of the British marine in a 
 worthy maimer. There are broad lawns, 
 
534 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 noble arcades, great gray halls filled 
 with pictures of battles on sea, chapels. 
 monuments, and comfortable homes for 
 the <>1(1 sea-dogs, who accept the homage 
 and the gratitude of the nation with be- 
 coming dignity. Greenwich gives one 
 an idea of what England ha* done ; 
 Woolwich is a perpetual reminder of 
 what England can do. 
 
 There is not much that is romantic on 
 the Lower Thames. Gravesend, below 
 which are the six great military works 
 which protect the entrance to the river, 
 is pretty enough in summer time, and is 
 lull of historical souvenirs. There it 
 was that, in 1522, the great emperor, 
 Charles V., embarked with Henry VIII. 
 and Cardinal Wolsey in a procession of 
 barges waiting to receive them ; there 
 that Henry VIII. landed when lie was 
 on his way to invade Franc ■ ; and there 
 that Charles I., when he was a prince, 
 and when starting on his harum-scarum 
 trip to the court of Spain, narrowly es- 
 caped recognition and arrest by the 
 ferryman for whom he had no silver. 
 and whose palm he w-as obliged to cross 
 with a piece of gold. 
 
 From Gravesend, in the old days, cum- 
 brous barges, sometimes marvellously 
 decorated with carved and gilded orna- 
 ments, used to ascend the Thames; and 
 il was not uncommon to see a royal train 
 of these barges, thirty-live or forty in 
 number, slowly making their way to the 
 upper reaches of the river, escorting 
 some majesty who had come from foreign 
 parts and landed at Gravesend. To- 
 day, the town is a yachting station, where 
 the Royal Thames Yacht Club has its 
 head-quarters, in the season, and where 
 thousands of fashionable folk go when- 
 ever the races are announced. Up river, 
 a little way, is Greenhithe. another 
 favorite resort for yachtsmen, and re- 
 nowned as the place from which Sir 
 
 John Franklin sailed, in 1845, on his dis- 
 astrous voyage to the Arctic Ocean. 
 Still farther up, on the left, is the noble 
 park at Greenwich, on a lofty point in 
 which stands the famous observatory, an 
 humble group of buildings without any 
 architectural pretensions whatever. 
 Greenwich is famous for that peculiar 
 delicacy of the Thames, the infinitely 
 little whitebait, at whose shrine annually 
 worship all the ministers of the Crown, 
 who even go down to Greenwich to in- 
 dulge in a dinner at which speeches, 
 supposed to be pregnant with the coming 
 political policy of the year, are pro- 
 nounced. 
 
 The old manor of Greenwich was a 
 royal residence in the fourteenth century, 
 and it is on record that Edward I. "made 
 an offering of seven shillings at each 
 holy cross" in the chapel of the Virgin 
 at Greenwich in 1300. There stood, in 
 1433, a palace, romantically known as 
 the Manor of Plaisaunce. This was 
 owned by Humphrey, Duke of Glouces- 
 ter, and at his death, the manor and the 
 palace reverted to the Crown. Henry 
 VIII., who was born at Greenwich, was 
 very fond of the old town, and spent 
 large sums of money in the erection, 
 savs an ancient chronicler, of sumptuous 
 houses. ■• Greenwich," says Lambarde, 
 ■• was, when Henry VIII. came to the 
 throne, a pleasant, perfect, and princely 
 palace." There the king married his 
 first wife, Katharine of Aragon ; there he 
 astonished all England by introducing 
 at the feast of Christmas, in 1511, a 
 masked dance " after the maner of 
 Italic;" and there, in 1533, the Princess 
 Elizabeth was born. Greenwich Hos- 
 pital, which covers a wider area than any 
 royal palace of England except Windsor, 
 is. to my thinking, one of the finest 
 buildings on the Thames. There is 
 nothing in central London, not even 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 535 
 
 F 
 O 
 
 f 
 
536 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Somersel House, whicli can be compared Sir John Rennie remodelled, with won- 
 with ii. [ts lofty cupolas and its hand- derful skill, all these docks and work- 
 some colonnades rival in beauty the finesl shops, created a vast steam- reverse 
 
 of tlu ntinental palaces: and the basin, mast-slips, and river-walls, and 
 
 •■ painted hall " is oue of the most unique Woolwich was soon as well equipped for 
 
 museums in Europe. From the observ- building first-class iron steamers as it 
 
 atory there is a pretty view of the river had been tor sending forth the old 
 
 and the perpetual procession of ships, wooden " first-rates." lint itwasfound 
 
 It is said that, this observatory stands insufficient for the building of new ar - 
 
 upon the site of a. tower which, in Eliza- clad ships: their enormous tonnage could 
 
 beth's time, was called " Miretleur." and not he launched forth on so shallow and 
 
 is supposed to he the " Tower of Mira- crowded a river; and so. in course of 
 
 tlores."' referred to in the celebrated time, Woolwich Dock-yard fell into dis- 
 
 roinance of ••Amadis de Gaul." use. and has now been transferred to 
 
 In Woolwich, over opposite, hut few the War Department, ami absorbed into 
 
 things of importance have ever hap- the domain of the Royal Arsenal. This 
 
 pened. The town is mean and p in arsenal is the only one in the kingdom; 
 
 appearance, straggling along the Thames all other military establishments at dock- 
 side in uncomely fashion. The inhabi- yards receive their supplies from Wool- 
 tants have a local witticism to the effect wich, and from Woolwich go forth all 
 
 that "more wealth passes through the stores for the innumcrous campaigns 
 
 Woolwich than through any other town of England in foreign lands. Ton 
 
 in the world." Kul. unfortunately, this thousand men are here, in normal times, 
 
 wealth is in the holds of ships which do constantly employed iii buildings and 
 
 not stop there. The Royal Dock-yard yards, which cover three hundred and 
 
 extends along the river for i v than a thirty three acres; and when England is 
 
 mile on the western side of the town, making a special effort the number of 
 anil, like that at Deptford, was founded workmen is nearly doubled. Here are 
 by Henry VIII. For at least three the heavy artillery for the land and the 
 hundred and fifty years the work of sea service, — the carriages, the shot and 
 preparing and maintaining England's su- shell, the cartridges, ammunition for 
 premacy at sea went on almost uninter- smallarms, torpedoes to protect the coast, 
 l'uptedly in this commonplace and ordi- ami everything for the trade of war, 
 narv-lookiii'_r government establishment, which is a distinct branch of trade, — a. 
 Old l'cpvs. who was a "clerk of the trade to protect all other trades, 
 acts of the navy," has told n> much of In the chief la hoi atory there are more 
 Woolwich, and the great " business and than five hundred machines of various 
 confusion" which prevailed there in his sorts in operation. There the Martini- 
 time. In the latter half of the last ecu- Henry bullet is made at the rate of a 
 turv, and in the long wars at the begin- million a week. and. if need lie. three 
 run" 1 of the present one, Woolwich grew, millions weekly can he turned out. In 
 The national strength seemed drained the cap factory are machines producing 
 
 into it. Immense granite wharves and thirty thousand caps per I r: and the 
 
 docks, ranges of workshops and ware- gun factories, where the great thirty- 
 houses, sprang up ; and when steam and eight-ton guns are made, and w here one 
 iron were brought into use in the navy, may see the eighty-oue-ton >j,uu. which, 
 
EirROPE W STORM AND CALM. 
 
 537 
 
 with a charge of three hundred pounds, 
 will send a shot of one thousand four 
 hundred and sixty pounds with an initial 
 velocity of one thousand six hundred 
 and forty feet per second, are very ex- 
 tensive. The coiling machines, the fur- 
 nace, with its forty-ton hammer, which 
 cost £50,000, with its steam-crane, 
 which can lift one hundred tons with 
 its tongs, which weigh sixty tons, 
 and takes a dozen men to manoeu- 
 vre, with the dooi-s of its furnaces, 
 which look lilce the gates of infernal 
 region, with its turnery, where the tubes 
 and breech-pieces of thirty-eight-tou 
 guns are handled like toys, with its 
 rifle ordnance factory, its uniting fur- 
 naces, its pattern-room, in which exact 
 duplicates of every kind of gun made in 
 the arsenal are shown to those of whom 
 the authorities are not suspicious, the 
 forges, with their steam-hammers, their 
 travelling-cranes, their lathes and shears, 
 and hydro-pneumatic apparatus, all cm 
 a gigantic scale, — all these form a daz- 
 zling galaxy of wonders, and confirm 
 the opinion of the visiting foreigner that 
 order and foresight are the first qualities 
 in the Anglo-Saxon mind. 
 
 The stores, or Control Department, as 
 it is called in the military jargon, form a 
 most extraordinary spectacle at Wool- 
 wich, and from these stores ten thousand 
 troops can he at any moment supplied 
 with everything that is necessary for im- 
 mediate entrance on a campaign. This 
 is not so astonishing now as compared 
 with the matchless preparations for war 
 in ( iennany ; but at the time when it was 
 first done, there was nothing like it, or 
 at all to compare with it, in all Europe. 
 
 But we must not linger at Woolwich 
 longer than to peep at the garrison 
 buildings and the Royal Artillery bar- 
 racks. — one of the few imposing struct- 
 ures in the town, glance at the Crimean 
 memorial, the bronze statue of John 
 
 Hell, or at the great bronze gun captured 
 in India in 1828, or at the Royal Artil- 
 lery .Museum and the Military Academy, 
 founded by George II. It was at this 
 academy that the unlucky Prince Im- 
 perial, the son of Napoleon III., finished 
 his military education as a queen's 
 scholar, and his school-fellows paraded 
 at Chiselhurst when his body was brought 
 home from South Africa, and buried be- 
 side that of his father in the new home 
 of the' Imperial exiles. 
 
 Ilatton, the writer, in the early part 
 of the last century, said that London 
 with Westminster resembled the shape 
 of a great whale. Westminster being the 
 under-jaw ; St. James's Park, the mouth ; 
 Pall Mall, etc., northward, the upper- 
 jaw ; Cock and Pie Fields, or the meet- 
 ing of the seven streets, the eye ; the 
 rest, with the city, and southward to 
 Smithfield, the body ; and thence east- 
 ward to Liinehouse, the tail; ••and it is 
 probably," he adds, in his quaint descrip- 
 tion, "• according to the proportion, the 
 largestof towns, as the whale is of lishes." 
 
 From a point below Woolwich to Lon- 
 don Bridge the river is known as the 
 Port of London, — a port six and a 
 half miles long, with a depth, at low 
 water, of even twelve feet at London 
 Bridge. The tide of this Thames is 
 quite remarkable. The water rises twice 
 a day to the height of seventeen feet at 
 the Bridge, and, in extreme spring tides, 
 to twenty-two feet. On this Lower 
 Thames one finds perpetual amusement 
 in the contemplation of tin' docks, on 
 which more than 8,000,000 sterling 
 have been expended in the present cent- 
 ury. Nearly all of them are on the 
 east side of the town, and have been 
 brought into existence by joint-stock 
 companies. Altogether they cover about 
 eight hundred acres. The most exten- 
 sive of them, the West India Docks, 
 begun in 1800 by William Pitt, were 
 
538 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 finished in two years. Their area, of 
 three hundred acres, is surrounded bv 
 walls five feet (hick, and the chief im- 
 port dock is one hundred and seventy 
 yards lone- by one hundred and sixty- 
 it is said that ill the ware- 
 houses of these docks one 
 
 hundred and eighty thousand 
 tons of goods can be stored at 
 once. In 1813 
 
 six wide 
 
 GUARDIANS OF TTITC TOWEI!. 
 
 revenue returned on a capital of £1,200,- 
 000 of this company was £141), 000. The 
 St. Catherine's Docks, close by the 
 frowning ancient Tower of London, and 
 near the centre of the great commercial 
 metropolitan market, furnish an admir- 
 able instance of the resistless [power of 
 
 commerce in making room for itself, 
 even in the most crowded centres. The 
 ei cation of these docks, found necessary 
 
 in Isl'7, necessitated the displacement 
 of nearly twelve thousand inhabitants 
 and the pulling down of thirteen hun- 
 dred houses. The Surrey, the London, 
 the East India, the Commercial Docks, 
 all cover scores of acres ; and in one 
 single warehouse in the London Docks 
 one hundred and twenty thousand chests 
 of tea can he stored atone time. These 
 are the great wine docks of London ; and 
 here from forty to forty-live thousand 
 ]ii[ies of wine are always in stock. 
 
 London Bridge is certainly one of the 
 most curious and remarkable spectacles 
 in Europe. Seen from one of the bridges 
 above, upon the Thames, or from the 
 shore, it presents to the view an endless 
 procession of loaded vans, drays, car- 
 riages, carts, and omnibuses ; and, as one 
 cannot, see the wheels of these vehicles, 
 they seem to he moving by magic along 
 the stone coping of the great structure. 
 In the immediate neighborhood of this 
 artery of travel, spanning the stream, 
 are some of the noblest of the London 
 monuments. The Tower is not far 
 away ; the streets by the water side are 
 crowded with traffic to an extent the 
 description of which would seem almost 
 incredible. Blockades exist for hours; 
 draymen expend their vital force in 
 oaths innumerable. All in vain : the 
 avenues of London are too small for the 
 commerce which encumber them. Dorc 
 was fond of wandering in this part of 
 London, and once told me how much he 
 enjoyed the stupefaction of the team- 
 sters, who, engaged in a blockade, and 
 wedged in among other teams, could rot 
 prevent him from sketching them, but 
 Mew into a passion and shook their lists 
 at him. This weird and curious quarter 
 of London especially struck the fancy 
 of the great French artist, who has left 
 on record most truthful impressions of 
 the long and narrow alleys lined with high 
 warehouses. 
 
EUROPE J.V STOUM AND CALM. 
 
 r>:u> 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE. 
 
 Up River. — The Historic Thames. — The University Races. Oxford and Cambridge. — The Great R;u c 
 of 1869. — Harvard vs. Oxford. — Putney. — Wimbledon. — Hammersmith. — Mortlake.— Thames 
 Tactics. — A Reminiscence of t Iharles Dickens. — His rowers as an After Dinner ; pcaker. 
 
 ABOVE Blackfriar's bridge the 
 Thames has been fringed within 
 the last twenty years by a stately em- 
 bankment which rivals the handsomest 
 quays of Paris, Berlin, and Vienna. 
 Ranged along this fine embankment are 
 the historic gardens of the Temple, with 
 their monumental new structures in 
 si liking contrast with the older, dingy, 
 and more interesting ones of Somerset 
 House, one of the finest monuments in 
 London, with huge masks of oceau and 
 the eight rivers, the Thames, the num- 
 ber, the Meuse, the Medway, the Dee, 
 the Tweed, the Tyue, and the Severn, 
 ou the quay stones of the river arches or 
 water gates. This Thames front of 
 Si unerset House is enriched with columns, 
 and pilasters in Venetian style. In 
 front is a terrace under which is the 
 central water gate, and on the balustrade 
 is a colossal figure of the Thames. This 
 is one of the few monuments which were 
 created in the reign of George III., and 
 in this handsome building the Inland 
 Revenue has its home. Here the births, 
 deaths, and marriages of the inhabitants 
 of England are inscribed. Just above 
 Somerset House is the Waterloo Bridge, 
 which is led up to by Wellington street, 
 a fact which never fails to attract the 
 attention of Frenchmen visiting London. 
 The new embankment describes a stately 
 curve, and sweeps around past the new 
 handsome quarter where once stood 
 Northumberland House, but now filled 
 with mammoth hotels and clubs, and 
 
 theatres as fine as those of Vienna or 
 Paris; past the Whitehall Gardens and 
 the governmental quarters, and finishes 
 at Westminster Bridge, just beyond which 
 stand the Houses of Parliament. ( )n 
 the other side of the Thames we have 
 a London, unimpressive, yet startling 
 in magnitude, a labyrinth of streets, 
 all of which look very much alike, 
 with undecorated house fronts, with 
 shops which seem all cut out after 
 one pattern, with here and there vast 
 breweries, potteries, warehouses, and 
 an occasional mansion rising out of the 
 surrounding mediocrity. Everywhere 
 one is confronted with the spectacle of 
 the daily struggle for food on the pint 
 of the very poor. Everywhere is the 
 same sharp contrast between the luxury 
 attendant upon wealth, and the crime 
 attendant upon long-continued poverty. 
 The great rambling structure over the 
 Thames opposite Westminster Palace 
 attracts your attention ; it is a hospital. 
 Further up is Lambeth with the Arch- 
 bishop's Palace, — Lambeth, a, great city 
 by itself, confronted on the other side by 
 Westminster, another vast community, 
 and one, it is said, where mote wretched- 
 ness and misery tire concentrated than in 
 any other part >>t' London. Yet through 
 it run avenues filled with luxurious houses 
 and with splendid hotels. Out of it 
 rises the great gray Abbey, and near by 
 tire the breezy expanses of St. James's 
 Park ; and in ten minutes one may walk 
 out of slums such as no other capital iu 
 
540 
 
 FJ'ROl'K IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Christendom can show, to the very gates onslaught made upon them by Charles 
 
 of Buckingham Palace, where, in the Reade, perhaps because so many chatn- 
 
 scason, the Queen receives, at what she is pions who were thought Id lie certain of 
 
 pleased to call a Drawing-room, those long and robust life have turned up as 
 
 ladies who have arrived at the felicity of confirmed invalids of slinky tenure of 
 
 :i court presentation. existence just after their University 
 
 Passing in review our journey up the course and boat triumphs were over. 
 Thames, we find that the first con- It is not difficult to understand why 
 spicuous object on the stream was Wool- the inhabitants of an island and the 
 wich, and midway between Woolwich greatest sailors in the world should be 
 the Arsenal, and Windsor the Palace, intensely interested in a contest of oars- 
 is the Parliament House, whence the men ; but the stranger is struck with the 
 p ilicy of the nation radiates upu aids to vehemence of opinion manifested on this 
 the sovereign and downwards to the engi- weight y topic even by cabmen, and huck- 
 neers and artisans, who put the national sters, and persons who might be supposed 
 will m force. But we will come back to confine their interest to subjects con- 
 to the Parliament later on, and meantime nccted with their daily toil. Charles 
 continue >ur journey up the stream past, Dickens reported that, shortly before the 
 the walls of gloomy Millbank Prison, international contest on the Thames in 
 past Chelsea, with its memories of Car- 18G9 he heard one cabman confidentially 
 lvl •. aul its rows of uiiromantic-looking remark to another that he hoped the 
 houses, and on to Putney, Hammersmith, Americans would win. hut that he was 
 Mortlake, Richmond, Twickenham, .and sure they would not. The cabman's cou- 
 llampton Court, picturesque and verdur- fident prophecy was correct : the Ameri- 
 ous resorts, which seem to belong to cans did not win, and undoubtedly 
 another world when compared with the because of the reasons which were 
 oozy marshes and mud-flats of the lower assigned by their English critics. There 
 stream. The stretch of river from Put- was never a race in the whole calendar 
 ncy, or, more properly speaking, from of the annual contests which awakened 
 Hammersmith Bridge t < Mortlake, is so much interest and national feeling as 
 specially renowned as the annual contest this one, in which the trans-Atlantic 
 ground of the University crews; and cousins had at first seemed to make so 
 the charms of this lied of stream have good a figure. Their training was watched 
 been recited in [nose and verse by a with jealous scrutiny, and renowned 
 hundred authors. All classes of London boatmen like Harry Kelly indulged in 
 society are annually agitated over several daily mysterious bulletins, all of which 
 events which belong to the domain of seemed to point to the conclusion that 
 spoil, and in othel countries would the laurels would be carried over sea. 
 interest only a certain class. In the The old University of Harvard hail sent 
 British Islands no one feels aliove attend- a goodly crew in the highest sense repre- 
 ing a horse-race, and aquatic sports are sentative of the whole country. There 
 distinctly within the range of aristocratic was even a man from far-off Oregon, 
 amusements. — a man who had but to appear on the 
 
 Of late years boating and boat-racing river to excite admiring cheers, for he 
 
 have ceased to lie classed as healthful wasa young Hercules. Trainers, wi iters, 
 
 sports, perhaps because of the furious and loungers spent a merr\ three weeks' 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 54] 
 
 time at ancient Putney, walking over 
 the breezy downs of Wimbledon, and 
 along the banks of the stream, drop- 
 ping in at boating-dubs, lunching in 
 balconies overlooking reedy hills, or 
 following at respectful distance the flash- 
 ing oar blades of the practising crews. 
 The International race was appointed 
 for the midsummer season, long after 
 the usual time for the University race, 
 and only a few weeks before I he fashion- 
 able world usually departs from the 
 capital. But. despite its lateness in the 
 season, it seemed as if all London, if 
 not all England, had come forth to wit- 
 ness the contest. 
 
 The various points along the stream 
 on this University race-course are among 
 the most interesting in the neighborhood 
 of London. Putney, itself a part of 
 the manor of Wimbledon, was a favorite 
 resort of Queen Elizabeth, where she 
 visited old John Lacy, a wealthy mem- 
 ber of the Clothworkers' Company of 
 her time ; and one of the last visits of 
 her life was to Putney, where she dined 
 on her way to Richmond, but two 
 months before her death. At Putney the 
 parliamentary generals had their head- 
 quarters when Charles I. was at Hamp- 
 ton Court. Cromwell long had his 
 abode in a house in Putney, although 
 the exact site of the edifice is unknown 
 to-day. Just across the stream is Ful- 
 ham, with a noble lawn shaded by mag- 
 nificent trees, and a bishop's residence 
 not far away. At Putney 7 , too, Gibbon 
 was born, in 1737, and the house in 
 which the great historian spent his youth 
 and a portion of his mature life was 
 afterwards the residence of the cele- 
 brated traveller, Robert Wood, author of 
 the "Ruins of Palmyra." At Putney 
 Heath, in 1652, occurred the famous 
 duel between Lord Chandos and Colonel 
 Henry Compton ; and there, too, in May, 
 
 1798. William Pitt, Prime Minister of 
 England, stood up, pistol in hand, against 
 William Tierney, a Member of Parlia- 
 ment ; but no bloodshed ensued. Eievcn 
 years later, on this same heath, two 
 cabinet ministers fought a duel, and 
 George Canning was shot and danger- 
 ously wounded by Lord Castlereagh. 
 
 The scene at the water-side at Putney 
 in the boating season is very animated. 
 The boat-houses, simple in construction, 
 
 are thronged by smart young geuth >n in 
 
 white and blue flannel, — gen tl, 'men whose 
 faces bear evidence of prolonged Study 
 or familiarity with affairs in the city, as 
 well as gentlemen who appear never to 
 have undertaken anything at all beyond 
 the laborious task of amusing them- 
 selves. The inns are odd and old to the 
 American eye, but they are quiet, com- 
 fortable ; and the tyrannous waiters, who 
 tell you what you want, and even insist 
 upon what you shall have, are service- 
 able when once one has learned their 
 peculiarities. This was the starting 
 place for the Thames regatta when it 
 was in its prime, and now the Oxford 
 and Cambridge crews both take up their 
 abodes at the famous Star and Garter, 
 or at a private house, while undergoing 
 what is called their '• coaching." For 
 ten days before the celebrated race, and 
 for a day or two afterwards, Putney is 
 transformed int.: a kind of fair. Ambu- 
 lating negro minstrels, so called, being 
 merely cockney singers with their faces 
 blackened, indulge in sentimental ditties, 
 after which they demand sixpences and 
 pennies from every passer-by. The 
 classic game of Aunt Sally is in full 
 swing, and boating parties, composed of 
 ambitious young gentlemen who only 
 know how to catch "crabs," and rosy- 
 faced damsels who are afraid of the 
 water, are innumerable. Then, on the 
 great day, all London proceeds to 
 
542 
 
 EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 install itself on house-roofs, on bridges, 
 on towpaths, in every nook nnd coiner 
 whence a glimpse of the race can be 
 obtained, and indulges in unrestrained 
 excitement during the few minutes of 
 the struggle. Colors are worn as proudly 
 as in the days of York and Lancaster, 
 and the return to the centre of the town 
 by every imaginable sort of craft on the 
 river, by every vehicle, from an aristo- 
 cratic drag to an humble omnibus, is not, 
 so indecorous as the return from the 
 Derby, but is characterized by almost as 
 much noise and excitement. 
 
 It was from a point just below Ham- 
 mersmith bridge that the International 
 race was started, and that the Harvard 
 crew set. off with such a tremendously 
 rapid stroke that those unfamiliar with 
 Thames tactics at once accorded them 
 the victory, lint the old boatmen and 
 the experienced habitats of the race 
 shook their heads, and said that that 
 stroke would not win. It was not far 
 from winning, despite its had form; hut 
 the knowledge of the course and the 
 peculiar slow and steady stroke of the 
 Oxfords was destined to win. England 
 put all its national pride into one great 
 shout on that bright afternoon when the 
 Oxfords came in ahead at Mortlake, 
 and there could have been no doubt, if 
 any had existed before, after that shout 
 was heard, that, in matters of rivalry, 
 England considers Americans as for- 
 eigners quite as much as if there were 
 a total difference of language and of 
 manners, as in the case of the French or 
 the Germans. 
 
 Hammersmith is celebrated for the 
 site of the old Dove coffee-house, which 
 was renowned in the last century, and 
 which is now a little inn called the 
 Doves. A room overlooking the river 
 is still pointed out as the place where 
 Thomson wrote part of his " Seasons," 
 
 composing the lines about winter while 
 looking on the frozen Thames and the 
 country round about, covered with snow. 
 From the window out of which the old 
 poet looked there is a. line view of the 
 long reach of the Thames across Cliis- 
 wick Eyot far away. In the parish 
 church, is a monument to Lord Sheffield, 
 Karl of Mulgrave, who was the com- 
 mander of a squadron against the Span- 
 ish Armada, and was knighted by Queen 
 Elizabeth for his services. In Ham- 
 mersmith, once stood the celebrated 
 Brandenburg House, now demolished. 
 It was built by Sir Nicholas Crispe, in 
 the reign of Charles I., and was one of 
 the most splendid of English residences 
 even in that time of general splendor. 
 Fairfax made this house his head-quar- 
 ters in 1647, and many years after the 
 house was given to Margaret Hughes, a 
 pretty actress, of whom Pepys tells us 
 indiscreetly that " she was a mighty 
 pretty woman, but not modest." It was 
 in Brandenburg House that Queen Caro- 
 line, the wife of George IV., rested dur- 
 ing her trial in the House of Loids; and 
 there, too, she died, in 1821. It was 
 shortly after her death that the house 
 was pulled down. 
 
 It is not far from Putney to Wimble- 
 don, where the great annual contests of 
 the riflemen of Great Britain are held. 
 The encampment of these marksmen 
 lasts for several days during the summer 
 season, and is visited daily by thousands 
 of people from the centre of London. 
 A friendly rivalry is kept up between 
 the rifle teams of the north and south, 
 the British, the Scotch, and the Irish 
 competing with each other in skill, and the 
 whole occasion reminds an American of 
 an old-fashioned training-day. Some- 
 times, when the season is rainy, the 
 mushroom booths and buildings of the 
 encampment are but poor shelters, and 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM 
 
 543 
 
 the riflemen pass a miserable week. 
 
 Now and then royalty lends its prestige 
 to the matches, which are controlled 
 with the greatest rigor, and the reports 
 of which attract great attention in all 
 parts of the kingdom. 
 
 Among other interesting points along 
 the University race-course 
 
 resque with swans' nests, was the point 
 at which the International boat-race 
 between Harvard and Oxford was prac- 
 tically decided. It was there that the 
 struggle was the sternest, and that the 
 Oxford tactics definitely asserted them- 
 selves. At Chiswick lived Pop.' before 
 his retirement to Twickenham, and in 
 the British Museum there are many let- 
 ters addressed to " Mr. Pope, in his 
 house in New Buildings. Chiswick." 
 There also lived Rousseau when lie 
 was visiting England. The author of 
 the " Nouvelle Heloise " boarded at 
 a small green-grocer's shop in the 
 town, and a writer of the time tells 
 us that he used to sit in the shop 
 and listen to the talk of the custom- 
 ers, thus learning the Eng- 
 
 BOAT-RAOE ON THE THAMES. 
 
 on the Thames, Chiswick is of first-rate. 
 Here is the famous villa of the Duke of 
 Devonshire ; and here Hogarth's house is 
 still shown, and his tomb is hard by his 
 old residence. Chiswick Hall was once 
 the residence of the masters of West- 
 minster, and is better known in these 
 days as the Chiswick Press, from which 
 such noble specimens of English typog- 
 raphy have been sent forth. The Chis- 
 wick Ait or Eyot, an osier bed, pictu- 
 
 lish language. Charles Holland, the 
 celebrated comedian, was also born at 
 Chiswick, and was buried from the 
 church there. He was the son of a 
 baker, and after the funeral Foote said, 
 "We have just shoved the little baker 
 into his oven." 
 
 The end of the race-course, Mortlake. 
 is but a short distance to the east of 
 Richmond, and was an old residence of 
 the Archbishops of Canterbury. There, 
 
54 I 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Anselm celebrated the famous Whitsun- 
 tide of 1099, aud there, one of the arch- 
 bishops died of grief, after his excom- 
 munication by Pope John XXI. There, 
 too, | >it-t< ni:i 1 tapestry was first woven in 
 England, Sir Francis Crane having es- 
 tablished works there in rivalry with the 
 royal tapestry works in France. Many 
 portraits of Crane and Nan Dyck were 
 wrought at Mortlake in tapestry, and 
 Charles I. was munificent in his patron- 
 age of this establishment. The Mort- 
 lake copies in tapestry of the Raphael 
 cartoons are still to be met with in Eng- 
 land. Under the Moor of the church in 
 Mortlake lies ] )r. Dee, the most renowned 
 of English astrologers; and there, too. 
 is buried Partridge, the almanac-maker, 
 whose burial Steele described in the 
 " Tatler ; " and in the same church lies 
 Phillips, the fellow-actor of Shakespeare, 
 who left . as one of his bequests, a thirty- 
 shilling piece in gold to the immortal 
 
 poet. 
 
 Shortly after the International boat- 
 race, in 18G9, the defeated Harvard crew 
 was entertained by one of the aristocratic 
 London rowing-clubs at a grand dinner 
 at the Crystal Palace, at Sydenham. 
 This Crystal Palace, which was built out 
 of materials taken from the edifice of the 
 noted World's Fail- of 1851, crowns the 
 summit of pretty Sydenham hill, not far 
 from London, and contains within its 
 roomy corridors a series of Egyptian, 
 ( ireek, Spanish. Assyrian, Byzantine, and 
 mediaeval courts illustrative of archi- 
 tecture, as well as numerous museums, 
 theatres, aquariums, aviaries, and other 
 curiosities calculate 1 to strike the public 
 fancy. In one of its stately dining-rooms, 
 overlooking the beautiful gardens, the 
 dinner of the conquerors was given to the 
 conquered . and a goodly company of Eng- 
 lish celebrities gathered to soften the 
 d( feat of the strangers. It has often been 
 
 said of Charles Dickens that he was the 
 prince of after-dinner speakers: but 
 never did lie distinguish himself with 
 more charm than on this occasion, when 
 he was sorely puzzled what to say. 
 Dickens was then beginning to show 
 signs of the extreme fatigue which he 
 had undergone in his later years, but he 
 knew how to summon, despite physical 
 weariness, the vivacity which, added to 
 hi> humor and felicity of diction, made 
 him irresistible. 
 
 When he arose to begin the speech of 
 the evening, at tin 1 close of this banquet, 
 he stooil as if completely lost and abashed 
 for some two minutes, during which 
 people began to whisper and to gossip, 
 wondering what might be the cause of 
 this strange hesitation. But, presently 
 commencing in a low voice, he recited a 
 simple anecdote concerning the rdle of 
 Harvard in the great civil war in America. 
 He told the story of the Harvard Memo- 
 rial, and before he had spoken a dozen 
 sentences, he had not only awakened the 
 greatest sympathy but the most profound 
 interest with and in the guests of the 
 evening. From the pathos of the sacri- 
 fices of the children of the great Univer- 
 sity during the war, to sparkling and half- 
 satirical comments on the uselessness of 
 sending the nervous American into the 
 moistEnglish climate to grapple with the 
 sinewy sons of Albion, was a leap which 
 Dickens made with dexterity and safety ; 
 and when he sat down he had not 
 only apologized for the defeat of the 
 Americans as well as anyone of them- 
 selves could have done it, but he had 
 given, in complete and admirable fashion, a 
 little glimpse of the university life beyond 
 the sea. — a glimpse which otherwise the 
 English public would not have obtained. 
 The homage and deference paid to Dick- 
 ens, as a master in his art, and one of 
 the foremost writers of his time, was 
 
KURol'K IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 545 
 
 well shown on this evening, when Eng- 
 lishmen of far wider accomplishments 
 than his cheerfully took second place, 
 bowing before the celebrity which had 
 been won by the exercise for a quarter 
 of a century of one of the most dazzling 
 and remarkable talents of the epoch. Only 
 a year later, Dickens lay ill Westminster 
 Abbey, and of all the sorrowful messages 
 Sent over sea, there were mine more 
 sincere than these which came from the 
 
 children of old Harvard. 
 
 Beyond this sinuous < se devoted to 
 
 the water-sports, the Thames bends 
 away into pretty tlats. fringed with wil- 
 lows and with green lawns, where, in 
 summer time, the artist moors his house- 
 boat, or the privileged sportsman stalks 
 abroad with his gun. Far away is the 
 great botanical establishment at Kew 
 Gardens, fringed round about with 
 handsome towns and villas, which look 
 seductive from a distance, but are. when 
 closely examined, proved to be built in 
 flimsiest fashion. All London, indeed, 
 is hemmed with loosely and carelessly 
 built houses, which rent for modest 
 sums, but which are soon out of repair. 
 Building is a gigantic speculation, dear 
 to the heart of the London capitalist, 
 but it has brought sorrow to thousands 
 of moneyed men. who have desired too 
 large returns for their reckless expendi- 
 ture. 
 
 Kew has a rather ugly-looking church, 
 in which the organ, long used by Handel, 
 still makes music. In the church-yard 
 lies the great Gainsborough, landscape 
 and portrait painter, and there formerly 
 
 st 1 Suffolk House, the residence of 
 
 one of the great Dukes of Suffolk. An 
 old chronicle tells us that, in 1595, 
 Queen Elizabeth dined at Kew with Sir 
 John Puckering, Lord Keeper of the 
 
 Great Seal. "Her entertainment for 
 that meal was great, and exceedingly 
 costly. Al her first lighting, she had a 
 tine fanne, with a handle garnisht with 
 diamonds. When she was in the middle 
 way between the garden gate and the 
 house, there came running towards her 
 one with a nosegay in his hand, and deliv- 
 ered yt unto her with a short, well- 
 neued speech. Yt had in yt a very rich 
 Jewell, with many pendants of unfirl'd 
 diamonds, valewed at £400 at least. 
 After dinner, in the privey chamber, he 
 gave her a fair pair of virginals. In her 
 bedchamber, he presented her with a 
 gown and juppin, which things were 
 pleasing to her Hignes ; and, to grace 
 his lordship the more, she of herself 
 
 took from him a salt, a s[ ic, and a 
 
 forcke of faire agatte." 
 
 Kew lias been the residence of innu- 
 merable celebrities. There Sir William 
 Chambers long had charge of the forma- 
 tion of the botanical garden ; and in 
 1 76.3 lie published an account of the 
 various temples and ornamental build- 
 ings which he hail erected in them. 
 George III. for a long time lived at Kew 
 House, and appears to have been very 
 much the slave of his servants, for it is 
 recorded of him that, after the death of 
 his head-gardener, he made a personal 
 visit to the nnder-gardener, and in a 
 tone of much gratification said, " Brown 
 is dead : now yon and I can do what we 
 please here." After George III.'s death, 
 until the accession of the present Queen, 
 Kew was apparently neglected. In 1840, 
 the gardens were adopted as a national 
 establishment, and. under the able man- 
 agement of the present directors, the 
 botanical establishment lias become the 
 richest, if not the most beautiful, in all 
 Europe. 
 
54(3 
 
 EUROPE AV STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTY. 
 
 Richmond ml its Romance— Rich ml Hill. -Th 
 
 Thames Valley. -Twickenham. -The Orli 
 Hill. Hampton Court. — Wolsey aiul< Iromwc 
 
 IT is a little more than eight miles 
 fr< in Hyde Park corner to 1 £ i< -I i- 
 mond : hut the transition is as great as 
 it' th • distance were live hundred miles. 
 The aspect of gloom and severity which 
 reigns in the metropolis the greater part 
 of the year is entirely left behind, and 
 one has before him, on Richmond Hill, 
 a vast and noble prospect of parks and 
 winding rivers, of stately trees, pretty 
 bowers, and comfortable villas. 
 
 There is nothing exactly like the view 
 from Richmond Hill to be found in any 
 other part of Europe. The mellowness 
 of the landscape, with its prolusion of 
 beautiful elms, is very striking; the 
 atmospheric effects are soft, and lend a 
 kind of enchantment to the great vista 
 of the park. Overlooking the most 
 beautiful section of tins pleasure ground 
 is the famous " Star and Garter" Hotel, 
 renowned in the annals of gastronomy, 
 and the scenes of many famous reunions 
 of statesmen, and of the literary and 
 artistic guilds. Mr. Barnett Smith, in 
 his "Life of Gladstone," tells us of a 
 speech made by the Premier when he 
 was a much younger man, at the '• Star 
 .and Garter," and of the phenomenal 
 impression which the eloquence of the 
 statesman, afterwards to be so cele- 
 brated, then produced. It was on the 
 occasion of the visit of the Emperor of 
 Russia to England, and at his dinner 
 Mr. Gladstone proposed the toast of the 
 " Prosperity of the Church of St. James 
 in Jerusalem, and of her first bishop." 
 
 ■ " Star and Garter." — The Richmond Theatre. — The 
 :ms Kxilcs anil Their English Home. — Strawhcrry 
 11. — The Royal Residence. — Windsor and [ts Origin. 
 
 '• Never," says the author, •■ was heard 
 a more exquisite speech. It flowed like 
 a gentle and translucent stream : and. as 
 in the second portion, he addressed 
 Alexander directly, representing the 
 greatness ami the difficulty of (he charge 
 confided to him, the latter at, first 
 covered his face from emotion ; then 
 arose and returned thanks with dignity 
 as well as with feeling. Subsequently 
 we drove back to town in the clearest 
 starlight, Gladstone continuing with 
 unabated animation to pour forth har- 
 monious thoughts in melodious tone." 
 
 Richmond is said to have got its 
 present name by command of Henry 
 VII., who, before the battle of Bosworth, 
 was Earl of Richmond in Yorkshire; 
 but its old name shows that it was held 
 in high esteem before the tenth century, 
 for the splendor of its views and the 
 charm of its great forests. It was 
 called Syenes, which is supposed to be a 
 corruption of the German Schon. There 
 Edward I. had a country house : Edward 
 III. died in the palace there : Richard II. 
 lived in Richmond in the early years of 
 his reign : there his first wife Ann of 
 Bohemia died, whereupon he cursed the 
 place, and had the palace torn down. 
 Then Henry V. had it rebuilt, and 
 founded several " Houses of Religion." 
 Early in 1 192, Henry VII. held a -rand 
 tournament at Richmond, "upon the 
 green without the -ate of the said 
 manor." There Philip I., King of Cas- 
 tile, staved for three months while the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 047 
 
 negotiations for his marriage with the 
 Lady Margaret were in progiess ; and 
 there the Spanish monarch was enter- 
 tained with great magnificence, ami many 
 notable feats of anus took place at the 
 tournaments held in his honor. 
 
 Henry VIII. held a series of splendid 
 entertainments at Richmond, and there 
 Cardinal Wolsey came now and then to 
 reside, by permission of the King, after 
 he had presented his newly-erected palace 
 of Hampton Court to Henry. All 
 through the succeeding centuries Rich- 
 mond appears to have been a favorite 
 resort for royalty. James I., in Kilo, 
 gave Richmond to his son, Prince Henry. 
 In 1647 tlie Parliament ordered the 
 palace to be made ready for the recep- 
 tion of the King, but Charles refused to 
 go there, contenting himself with an 
 occasional hunting excursion in the then 
 new park. At the lime of (he restora- 
 tion the palace was dismantled, and the 
 accounts of the time say that "several 
 boat-loads of rich and curious effigies, 
 formerly belonging to Charles I., but 
 since alienated," were taken from Rich- 
 mond to Whitehall in 1660. Thus, more 
 than a century before the great French 
 Revolution, the English did exactly for 
 Richmond what the French were destined 
 to do for Marly, the old palace in which 
 Louis XIV. had spent his declining years. 
 
 Richmond Palace is said to have 
 covered an area of more than ten acres. 
 In the middle of the eighteenth century 
 " Richmond Green " wasoneof the most 
 fashionable of suburban resorts, and 
 there the line gentlemen of die period 
 came to play whist at the clubs on Satur- 
 days and Sundays. " You will naturally 
 ask," says one of the chroniclers of that 
 tim ', " why they cannot play at whist 
 in London on these two days as we'll as 
 on tile other five. Indeed, I cannot tell 
 you, except that it is so established a 
 
 fashion to go out of town at the end of 
 
 the week thai people do go, though il be 
 only into another town." 
 
 Richmond Lodge was a favorite abode 
 of Caroline, wife of George II.. and 
 there she had costlier buildings than had 
 been previously seen in England, erected 
 on a. gigantic scale. There she created 
 a ••hermitage." a "Merlin's cave," a, 
 "grotto," a dairy, and a menagerie, 
 (he interior of the "hermitage" was 
 ornamented with busts of Newton and 
 Locke ; and the presiding genius of 
 the locality was Robert Boyle, his head 
 encircled -with a halo of gilded rays. 
 George III., who had little sympathy 
 with the improvements made by Queen 
 Caroline, had diem all swept away, and, 
 in a fit of spite, destroyed the terrace 
 which she had buiit along the river, — a 
 terrace which was said to be. at that 
 time, the. finest in Europe. 
 
 Beyond the entrance of the gates of 
 the Richmond Park, on Richmond Hill, 
 is the prospect of which old Thomson 
 wrote in his somewhat conventional verse 
 a century and a half ago. Thomson and 
 Turner have both celebrated the beauti- 
 ful landscape, and, if they could come 
 back to earth now, would be shocked to 
 see that the wavy ocean of tree-tops has 
 been intruded upon here and there by 
 prosaic lines of house-fronts. The view 
 up the great valley of the Thames from 
 Richmond Hill is thus described by Mr. 
 Thorne in his charming work on the en- 
 virons of London: "A thickly-wooded 
 tract, relieved by open meadows and 
 gentle undulations, where the eye rests 
 always on the tranquil surface of the 
 river, with its eyots. skiffs, and swal- 
 lows; and the beach-clad hills of Buck- 
 inghamshire, the Surrey heaths and 
 downs, and the Berkshire heights, over 
 which dimly visible through a veil of 
 purple haze — 
 
54b 1 
 
 I / HOPE I.X STOH 1/ AXf) CM. M. 
 
 ■■ ■ M.ajestic Windsor lifts his princely brow.' 
 
 '■'Hampton House,' with the elm- 
 groves and avenues of elm-walks on 
 one side of the river, and on the other 
 the dark massive forms of Hampton 
 Court, and the lone chestnut-avenues of 
 liiislirv Park, are as prominent and effec- 
 tive features in the landscape as when 
 Thomson wrote. But the ' raptured 
 eye exulting ' looks from the terrace in 
 vain for 'huge Augusta' or 'the sister 
 hills which skirt her plain,' or even 
 'lofty Harrow,' though the lights may 
 be made out from the garden terrace 
 of the Star and Garter, and in clear 
 weather from some part or other of the 
 park. The view is one of a wide ex- 
 panse of quiet, cultivated scenery. Its 
 charm is not dependent on the hour or 
 the season. It may receive an added 
 grace or assume ;i nobler beauty at cer- 
 tain seasons, or in any exceptional at- 
 mospheric phenomena : but it is alike 
 exquisite, seen, as we have seen it, in 
 the earliest dawn or broad daylight, 
 when bathed in the crimson glory of a 
 sinking sun, or lit by a full or waning 
 moon ; in the first freshness of the 
 spring, the full leafiness of summer, the 
 sober gold of autumn, or the sombre 
 depth of advancing winter." 
 
 At the Star and Garter Hotel Lou- 
 is Philippe stayed for several months 
 after his flight from Paris ; there Napo- 
 leon III., when he was a struggling 
 prince, now and then had apartments, 
 when he had a windfall of money. The 
 famous " Four-in-Hand Club" used to 
 drive down and dine there every Sunday, 
 and near by Sir Joshua Reynolds gave his 
 pleasant little dinner parties in the sun- 
 shine, gathering about him the most 
 eminent of his admirers. One of the 
 few landscapes which Reynolds painted 
 was a view from the drawing-room win- 
 
 dow of his Richmond villa. Mrs. Fitz- 
 herbert lived on Richmond Hill when 
 she won the affections of the Prince of 
 Wales, who afterwards became George 
 IV. At the noted "Queensberry House" 
 there was a brilliant coterie, for many 
 years, until the Duke of Queensberry 
 grew tired of his country-seat, where he 
 he hail entertained Pitt, Chatham, the 
 
 Duchess of Gordon, and other celebri- 
 ties of the time ; and one day he left it 
 forever, saying that there was nothing 
 to make so much of in the Thames, and 
 that he ■• was quite weary of it. and 
 its flow, flow, How, always the same." 
 
 The neighborhood is tilled with splen- 
 did mansions, each one of which has 
 its history and legend, too long to re- 
 cite here. 
 
 The Richmond Theatre has been fa- 
 mous for more than two centuries and a 
 half. The present edifice was built by 
 Garrick, and there Garrick, Liston, Mrs. 
 Siddons, Mrs. Jordan, and Charles 
 Matthews often appeared. Charles Mat- 
 thews the elder made his "first appear- 
 ance on any stage" at Richmond; and 
 there Edmund Kean died, in a small 
 room in a house attached to the theatre. 
 Kean had, in his latest years, played 
 many a time to " a beggarly account of 
 empty benches." 
 
 It is a. pleasant walk through these in- 
 tensely interesting regions, from Rich- 
 mond t<> Twickenham, a village prettily 
 placed on the Thames, between the high 
 ground of Strawberry Hill and a. range 
 of verdant meadows backed by Rich- 
 mond Hill and Park, on the other side of 
 the river. Horace Walpole was the 
 genius of this locality, and has done 
 more than any one else to make Twick- 
 enham celebrated. It is but a small 
 hamlet, once owned by the monks of 
 Canterbury, but, when the monasteries 
 were suppressed, it was annexed to 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 )49 
 
 Hampton Court, aud Charles I. gave it 
 tci his Queen. Then it wasseized bythe 
 Parliament, and, after many changes of 
 ownership, finally reverted to the crown. 
 Twickenham is chiefly interesting as a 
 favorite' resort for exiles from the conti- 
 nent during this century. There Louis 
 Philippe came in 1800, when lie was 
 Duke of Orleans, with his two brothers 
 whom lie had met in London for the first 
 time since their exile from France after 
 the great revolution. He took up his 
 alh.de there, and their resilience came to 
 he known as "Orleans House." Des- 
 tiny brought Louis Philippe hack to it 
 again when he was a second time an ex- 
 ile, half a century after his first visit. 
 The old king bought it in 1852, of 
 Lord Kilmorey, who went to live near 
 by, while the present Due d'Aumale took 
 np Lis residence in Orleans House, and 
 there held, until after 1870, when he re- 
 turned to France, a kind of literary 
 court. His spacious picture-gallery, his 
 superb collection of ancient and modern 
 pictures and drawings, miniatures, enam- 
 els. MSS., and his exquisite library, 
 were celebrated throughout Europe. 
 Gradually all the members of the ex- 
 iled family grouped themselves at 
 
 Twickenham. The C tede Paris lived 
 
 in York House, the Prince de Joinville 
 at Mount Lebanon, and the Due de Ne- 
 mours at Bushey Hill. Twickenham was 
 the head-quarters of ( )rleans politics, and 
 so great was its prestige in the eyes of 
 the Bourbons that Don Carlos of Spain 
 went to live there in 1876, after his un- 
 successful campaigns in the Carlist cause 
 among the Basques in the Pyrenees. 
 Pope's villa, at Twickenham, is also cele- 
 brated. There the little poet resided 
 until his death in 1711. and there he 
 worked in his garden in the internals of 
 verse-making and the entertainment of 
 his friends. 
 
 Almost every travelled American has 
 
 visited Strawberry Hill, where Horace 
 
 Walpole had his famous Gothic Castle, 
 from which he used to indite the biting 
 epistles which became classics in Eng- 
 lish ; and not far away lived Lady Mary 
 Wortley Montagu, (nice Pope's fast 
 friend, but later <>n his hitter enemy. 
 Charles Dickens lived in Twickenham 
 Park in 1838, and there Thackeray. 
 Douglas Jerrold, Landseer, Stanfleld, 
 and Maclise, had, according to the testi- 
 mony of John Foster. •• many friendly 
 days " together. 
 
 Further up stream lies Hampton ( oiu t 
 and the village of Hampton, from which 
 is a pleasant view of the long reaches of 
 flic Thames, with their lines of little 
 islands or eyots, and the broad meadows 
 on either hand, tin' elms of Bushey Park, 
 the towers and prettily-massed roofs of 
 Kingston, aud the wooded hills of Sur- 
 rey. At Hamilton proper is " Garrick 
 Villa," which, in Garrick's time, and 
 when lie came frequently there, was 
 known as Hamilton House. There the 
 noted actor built an ambitious Corin- 
 thian portico, and had handsome 
 grounds laid out. On the lawn he 
 erected a Grecian temple, in which he 
 shrilled a statue of Shakespeare, for 
 which it is said he stood as model, and 
 so enraged the sculptor by his caprices 
 during his sitting for the work, that the 
 artist threatened to give up the commis- 
 sion. There Garrick was fond of giving 
 dinner and garden parties and festivals 
 at night, when his grounds were lighted 
 by colored lights. Thither came the 
 Spanish minister of the time, the Duke 
 of Grafton, Lord and Lady Rochford, 
 Lady Holderness, and Horace Walpole. 
 Old Johnson even penetrated to Hampton 
 House, and when Garrick asked him how 
 he liked it, said, "It is the leaving of such 
 places that makes n death-bed terrible." 
 
. r )f)() EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Hampton Court, much vidted by Claypole, died. History tells us that the 
 
 cockneys and tourists, is a kind of gen- greal Protector had an organ taken away 
 
 teel asvlum for the widows of distin- from Magdalen College, Oxford, and set 
 
 guished servants of the crown. In fact, up in the great gallery at Hampton Court, 
 
 both Hampton Court and Kew Palace are The first and second Georges liked the 
 
 occupied by aristocratic pensioners, who palace and lived there; but, after their 
 
 have rooms or suites of rooms assigned time, the state apartments and grounds 
 
 them at the hands of Her Majesty. Old were much neglected. Few visitors came 
 
 Cardinal Wolsev, when he bought to see them ; but now hundreds of thou- 
 
 Hampton Court, was at the height of sands come yearly to the palace and the 
 
 his power ; and it is said that, expect- park. The tapestries, of which there 
 
 ins still greater honors, he meant to are many very beautiful ones, arc the 
 
 make there one of the finest palaces in chief curiosities. The pictures are qu- 
 
 Europe The structures which he raised merous aud poor. In what is called the 
 
 at Hampton wen' the cause of the envy " Presence Chamber," there-are the cele- 
 
 wliich linalh cost him his position, and brated "Hampton Court Beauties," a 
 
 led him to regret his high ambition, famous series of portraits of the ladies 
 
 Aiter a noble entertainment which Wol- of the court of William and Mary, 
 
 sey cave at Hampton to the French am- familiar in engraving to all the world, 
 
 bassador in 1527, King Henry himself Bui the especial jewel of the upper 
 
 felt envious, and asked Wolsey why he Thames region, and the one most, sacred 
 
 had built so costly a house. in the English eye. because it is the 
 
 " To show how noble a palace a subject residence of the Queen, is Windsor, of 
 
 may offer to his sovereign," said the which Dean Swift wrote to Stella, " that 
 
 Cardinal, biting his lips, and handing it was in a delicious situation, but that 
 
 over the splendid establishment to His the town was scoundrel." Modern 
 
 Majesty, who accepted it with alacrity. Windsor town has nothing of especial 
 
 It was at Hampton Court that Henry interest in it. Its streets look prosaic 
 
 had the first news of the death of Wol- and uninviting enough; but here and 
 
 sey. Thither Princess Elizabeth was there is an aucient inn like the "Garter," 
 
 summoned from Woodstock, and urged which boasts in its records of the patrou- 
 
 to abjure Protestantism; and there the age of old Pepys and of Sir John Fal- 
 
 great council of the Lords was sum- staff. Not many years ago the houses 
 
 moned by Elizabeth, in 15G8, to consider of Mistress Page and of Master Lord 
 
 the accusations against Mary Queen of were still pointed out; but they have 
 
 Scots, respecting the murder of Darnley. now been swept away, and but few 
 
 There .lames 1. and Charles I. succes- memorials of the " Merry Wives of 
 
 sively lived, and there Charles sought Windsor" remain. 
 
 refuge with his Queen from the tumult Tl Castle" is noble and imposing. 
 
 in London, and there, in 1647, he was a Chief of the royal palaces, wind are 
 
 prisoner. few in number, it is also the chief by 
 
 Hampton Court has echoed to the toot- the multitude of interesting associations 
 
 steps of Oliver Cromwell, who was very grouped about it. It has been for seven 
 
 fond of the palace, and came often to it ; hundred years a royal residence, the 
 
 and there one of his daughters was mar- scene of beautiful pageants, of courtly 
 
 ried, and his favorite daughter, Lady assemblages, of many crimes and cele- 
 
EUROrE IN STORM AM> CALM. 551 
 
 brated political events. Viewed from him sign the Great Charter ; and later on 
 the park it springs with incomparable the barons besieged the Castle, but it 
 grace and majesty from tin' eminence held firm against them. Under Henry 
 overlooking the broad valley of the III. Windsor was the finest royal dwell- 
 Thames, and the little town seems to inn in Europe. There Edward I. and 
 nestle confidingly at its feet. Of course Edward II. held court and councils, gave 
 its origin is attributed to " William the audiences, had jousts and tournaments; 
 Conqueror," as it is necessary that the there Edward III., Edward of Windsor, 
 sovereign's abode should be intimately as he was called by the older historians, 
 connected with the beginning of the pres- lived long and happily; and he it was 
 cut aristocracy in England. It is said who built the " Hound Tower," the most 
 that the Conqueror got the manor by striking feature of the castle. Here he 
 exchange from the Abbot of West- held his famous "Hound Table," which 
 minster, and that he then made Windsor he had conceived the fancy of rees- 
 a royal residence. " But," says Thome, tablishing in imitation of Arthur and his 
 "there is no evidence that his works loyal knights; and here, in 1344, was 
 were more than additions to already ex- inaugurated the newly founded "Order 
 isting buildings." of the ( iarter." On this occasion knights 
 Under William Rufus, Windsor Castle from every part of Europe Hocked up to 
 was both a prison and a palace, and Windsor, and the huntings and hawk- 
 there the Earl of Northumberland was ings, the banquets and dances, and the 
 long confined. Henry I. held his court tournaments lasted for many weeks. In 
 at Windsor in 1106, and there sum- the bright pages of old Froissart, the 
 
 n ed the nobles of England and those sprightly chronicler, there are many de- 
 
 of Normandy. There Henry II. lived scriptions of the festivals at Windsor on 
 
 anil lavished money on the vineyards St. George's Day. when the knights, 
 
 which then flourished in the neighbor- with the king at their head, proceeded to 
 
 hood. From Windsor Castle King John the chapel where the rites of installa- 
 
 set out to meet the barons who made tion were performed. 
 
552 
 
 EiUiil-E IN STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE. 
 
 English Royalty. - The ( "int. - Me rials of \\ in 
 
 — The Iloj-al Palaces. — Drawing-Roonis at 
 Palace. — ' 
 
 THpNGLAND is very far from Laving a 
 -I — ^ court in the sense that the word is 
 understood in Germany or even iu Austria. 
 M. Philippe Daryl, in his clever book 
 on public life in England, tells us that 
 no court proper is to be found in that 
 country, and thai it' there be one ai all 
 it only exists on paper. •■The alma- 
 nach," he says, - l gives us :i pompous 
 list of officials, a lord chamberlain, a 
 vice-chamberlaiu, :i lord steward, a mas- 
 ter of the horse and a master of the 
 hounds, a mistress of the robes, a dean 
 of the Chapel Royal, physicians and 
 surgeons in ordinary, controllers, treas- 
 urers, equerries, gentlemen in waiting, 
 the grooms of the chamber, a poet 
 laureate, pages, women of the bed 
 chamber, maids of honor, etc. Every- 
 one of these draws a salary and partakes 
 generally of the fortunes of the cabinet; 
 but the duties are practically sinecures, 
 ami. except on tare occasions, neither 
 regular service nor regular attendance is 
 demanded. They recall in nothing the 
 traditions of Louis XIV." Doubtless 
 this is in some measure tine; yet there 
 is none the less the strictest of court 
 etiquettes kept, up at Windsor, and it is 
 accounted the highest honor which a 
 distinguished civilian can receive to be 
 asked to the Castle and presented to 
 the reigning sovereign, and possibly be 
 
 asked to stay to dinner. As for the 
 military people of distinction, they all 
 look forward to the time when they shall 
 get from the august resident therein 
 
 Isor.— St. George's I Impel. — The Park at Windsor. 
 Buckingham Palace. — Memorials "f Buckingham 
 
 some pleasing message. The humblest 
 railway or steamship servant wounded in 
 an accident, the soldi ;r stretched out on 
 some far off plain, or the general who 
 has just carried through some great 
 enterprise in the interest of that trade 
 which always follows just behind the 
 army — all look to Windsor for their 
 reward. In France, the different min- 
 isters intervene between the chief of 
 State and the recipient of favor or 
 honors, but in England the messages 
 often come so direct that they seem to 
 bring the citizen into closest relation 
 
 with that majesty for which he has such 
 
 profound respect. Furthermore, al- 
 though a court nniy not he kept up in 
 the pompous and ornate fashion of 
 Berlin at all times at Windsor, there is 
 a court circle which cannot he broken 
 into, oik' which is always maintained 
 above and outside the sphere of ordi- 
 nary conventional society, and which 
 has its expression in the levees or draw- 
 ing-rooms in the parlors of Buckingham 
 Palace or St. James. 
 
 Queen Victoria has associated her 
 name with Windsor almost as closely as 
 that of tiny of her predecessors. Eliza- 
 beth was delighted with Windsor Castle. 
 and had a line gallery and banqueting 
 house built there as well as many ear- 
 dens laid out. all of which have long ago 
 been swept from existence. She it was 
 who built the north terrace, and in her 
 new gallery in the latest years of the six- 
 teenth century. Master William Shake- 
 
EUROPE IX STORM .l.\7> CALM. ■'•>•> 
 
 speare's sprightly comedy of "The Merry ments, its images, and its costly fittings. 
 
 Wives of Windsor " \v:is played by Ilcr and the soldiersof the Parliament bnntecl 
 
 Majesty's command, the poet himself the deer in the royal park and forest, 
 
 directing the rehearsals and the Qrsl To Windsor the body of Charles I- was 
 
 performance. A few years later Ben brought, shortly after his execution, and 
 
 QI'EEX VICTORIA. 
 I'hotogmpli lij \. tiassano, OW nrmcl street, r.onrton. 
 
 Jonson's "Music of the Gipsies" was was carried, on the 9th of February, 
 
 presented at Windsor, having previously 1649, from the great hall, where Charles 
 
 been played before King .lames on two had so often held stately levees, to St. 
 
 occasions. When the Parliamentary George's Chapel, where it was buried 
 
 Generals came in they stripped St. without bell or book. 
 
 George's Chapel of its plate, its vest- History tells u> that Charles II. took 
 
.">."> 1 EUROPE IN STORM \\I> CALM. 
 
 the sum of £70,000 sterling, voted centre of the chapel stands the sarcoph- 
 
 after the Restoration, for the removal agus of the Prince, bearing a recum- 
 
 of the iindy of Charles I. to :i fitting bent statue, habited inn suit of armor, 
 
 sepulchre ; bill that noble monarch The body of the good Prince does not 
 
 never rendered any account of the repose here, but in the Royal Mausoleum, 
 
 money. Under George III. there was a at Frogmore. 
 
 veritable court at Windsor, and it. used That portion of Windsor in which the 
 
 to assemble on Sunday afternoons on the Queen resides is nut very often open to 
 
 terrace In listen to the music of the mili- the public, for the Queen spends the 
 
 tary bands, the King with theQueen,the greater portion of her time at Windsor, 
 
 children, and the royal suite promenad- visiting her castle in the Northern High- 
 
 iii". up and down a lane composed of his lands, and simple, but pretty Osborne 
 
 loyal subjects, who bowed low as he House, on the shores of tile Isle of 
 
 passed them. Wight, only for comparatively brief 
 
 Under the reigu of the present Queen periods. The private life of the Quejii 
 
 great improvements have been made at is described as simple in marked degree, 
 
 Windsor. 'The Prince Consort was very made up of the same quiet and refined 
 
 fond of tin' old building, and sugg !Sted pleasures which lill the life of any lady 
 
 most of the changes, among which are of distinction, interspersed, however, 
 
 tin' restoration of the lower ward, that of by seasons of hard work ; for the Queen 
 
 St. George's chapel, the Wolsey chapel, is not a queen in vain, and has papers 
 
 which is a kind of memorial of the Prince manifold to sign, and iu troublous times 
 
 Consort himself, and manj' of the changes many complaints to hear and questions 
 
 in the upper ward, the entrance hall, and to ask. She has a special wire from the 
 
 the state staircase. Prince Albert's im- Houses of Parliament to Windsor, and 
 
 provements were very skilful, and have when she is at the Castle knows all tint 
 
 added immensely to the beauty of the fine is going on a very short time after it 
 
 range of buildings, which stretches fifteen occurs. At any hour of the night or 
 
 hundred feet from east to west along the day she may read from the slip of paper 
 
 high table-land, around which, on its which rolls out from the machine the 
 
 western end, tin' Thames makes a great story of the debates, the accidents, and 
 
 sweep. incidents which have occurred in the 
 
 St. George's chapel is often enough kingdom. All bills, orders in council, 
 
 described in our days, as it is the scene etc., are drawn up in her name, according 
 
 of christenings, marriages, and funerals to the pleasant formula which assumes 
 
 in the very numerous branches of the thatshe governs as well as reigns. She 
 
 royal family. It is a noble burial-place has to attend to the post every day or 
 
 of kings, and in its vaults lie Henry VIII., two, with as much care as if she wen' 
 
 Jane Seymour, Chailes I.. George III . the head of a commercial establish- 
 
 George IV., William IV.. Queens Char- raent. Foreign despatches, proclama- 
 
 lotte and Adelaide, and many lesser dig- tions, ratifications, decrees, letters-patent, 
 
 nitaries. On the Albert Me rial chapel, orders for execution, — all these great 
 
 or Hie Tomb House, as it was formerly and small affairs require the "Victoria 
 
 called, the Queen has expended large R." before they are legal. "In sum- 
 
 siuns iu restoration or decoration, in mer," M. Daryl fells us, "she signs 
 
 memory of her husband ; and in the these papers, seated in a pretty tent 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 .1.1.) 
 
 pitched on the lawn at Balmoral." We 
 are told that she is very fond of letter- 
 writing, and keeps up an enormous cor- 
 respondence with her German relatives. 
 
 The Audience chamber at Windsor is 
 decorated with Verrio's conventional 
 ceilings, but the walls are hung with the 
 riches! tapestry from the Gobelins, and 
 illustrate the life of Ksther. Here, too, 
 are many portraits of members of the 
 English royal family, ami a noble picture 
 of Mary Queen of Scots. In the Van- 
 dyck room are no less than twenty-two 
 portraits by the celebrated painter; and 
 in the Queen's state drawing-room are 
 pictures of the different Georges. The 
 fondness of the English for recording 
 the glory of their Continental campaigns 
 is illustrated in the Waterloo chamber, 
 which is a fine hall used for state ban- 
 quets. Around this hall are ranged the 
 pictures of the sovereigns, the generals, 
 and the politicians who took part in the 
 war that ended at Waterloo. 
 
 The Presence chamber, or Court hall- 
 room, bung with beautiful tapestries 
 and ornamented with granite vases ; 
 .St. George's hall, more than two hun- 
 dred feet long, with its trophies of arms 
 and armor, its shields and banners, em- 
 blazoned with the arms of all the knights 
 from the foundation of the celebrated 
 order; the Guard chamber, filled with 
 military and naval trophies; and the 
 Queen's Presence chamber, — are the 
 only looms ordinarily shown to the 
 public. But beyond them lie the real 
 treasures: the Queen's and King's clos- 
 ets ; beautiful cabinets filled with pictures 
 by Holbein, Claude Lorraine, Titian, 
 Rembrandt, Tintoretto, Rubens; and 
 the Rubens room, the Council cham- 
 ber, the Throne room, which contains 
 some superb portraits by Gainsborough ; 
 the great Corridor, five hundred and 
 twenty feet long, lined with busts of 
 
 noted personages ; the Plate room, which 
 contains the nautilus cup of Benvenuto 
 Cellini ; the Library, the Raphael cabi- 
 net, — these are not exceeded in magnifi- 
 cence and interest even by the superb 
 ducal residences in England. Many of 
 the dukes have palaces which compare 
 very favorably, however, with the other 
 royal abodes. 
 
 .Miles away to the south of the town 
 stretches Windsor's great park, full of 
 the noblest and wildest forest scenery, 
 
 breezy slopes, over which herds of deer 
 wander, great avenues with the boughs 
 of trees interlocked above, cool glades 
 through which little brooklets glide, and 
 throughout the whole an atmosphere of 
 refined age and calm. Here ami (here 
 the ancient elms are decaying and have 
 fallen ; hut the forest keepers take ten- 
 derest care of them. Many of the trees 
 are inscribed with brass plates and bear 
 especial names, like " the oak of Wil- 
 liam the Conqueror," and " Queen Vic- 
 toria's Tree." 
 
 Of this park, and of Windsor as seen 
 from it, M. Daryl, in his admirable 
 book, says: '-With its foliated pas- 
 sages, its winding corridors, its grand 
 round tower, iis little window-panes 
 sunk into lead, its irregular roofs and 
 innumerable steps, this immense palace is 
 assuredly not a model of simplicity or of 
 architectural regularity, lint what a 
 grand appearance it has upon the ter- 
 race heights overlooking the Thames, 
 when the setting sun is lighting up its 
 windows, which rise high above the level 
 of the forest trees 1 How much this 
 mass of feudal walls and modern build- 
 ings resembles the British constitution, 
 and how that fantastical decoration 
 seems the natural surroundings of that 
 sleeping beauty, the English monarchy. 
 More than Westminster Abbey or St. 
 Paul's — more than anv edifice — Windsor 
 
556 EUROPE /.V STORM AND CALM. 
 
 has a calm majesty, which is quite in the now appeal's as the giver of fetes as well 
 fitness of things, and surpasses your ex- as of military decorations. The musty 
 pectatious. All is grand, sumptuous, balls of Buckingham Palace are aired 
 :ind striking. The trees in the Long and thrown open ; levees and drawing- 
 walk, four or five centuries old, and rooms are announced; (ho court, of 
 dying of old age, as they border an which M. Daryl denies the existence, 
 avenue two leagues in length; the gold conies out of its enchanted nap, and 
 plate, worth folly million francs; the proceeds to dazzle the eves of the 
 pictures, which any museum in the groundlings; the heir-apparent is sent 
 world would he proud to possess; the to the disaffected sister island, there to 
 park, in which the deer are fed; the dispense hospitality and money, and to 
 guards in their grand uniforms, who hear with good grace (he lack of recip- 
 keep watch at the posterns; and, rocal courtesy. 
 
 above all, the machicolations, and Besides her residence of Windsor the 
 the ramparts, two hundred feet above Queen has three royal metropolitan 
 us, profile against the sky dominating palaces: Buckingham Palace, properly 
 the horizon of a dozen counties. If we the residence of the sovereign and (he 
 met a live unicorn at the end of an court . ; St. James's, used exclusively 
 alley we would hardly feel surprised, for State receptions and levees; and 
 At Windsor the atmosphere almost Kensington Palace, where Queen Vic- 
 seenis Shakespearian, as at Versailles toria was born, and where she held her 
 one seems to be walking in a tragedy of first Council. Buckingham Palace is far 
 .lean Racine." more impressive in exterior than in in- 
 Our sprightly French friend alludes terior. It is pretty enough in the midst 
 with certain fantastic cynicism to what of iis symmetrical shrubbery and in the 
 he is pleased to term the Sleeping neighborhood of the green slopes of St. 
 Beauty; 1ml the monarchy in troublous James's park in summer, when the sea- 
 times awakens from its feudal dream, son is at its height, and when the long 
 and shows that it knows how to take procession of high-swung barouches 
 part in the vicissitudes and troubles bears to it the hundreds of ladies who 
 which come to the nation. As these are presented at court. These poor 
 pages arc written the English world is ladies undergo a ferocious inspection 
 disturbed by a deadly struggle with from the populace, which Mocks up to the 
 Arab fanaticism, by the resistance of a park to see the swells as they wait in 
 so-called Prophet, resistance heightened line their turn to descend within the 
 and strengthened by the conviction of palace grounds; and the assembled 
 the Arabs that their cause is just; and people pass many a rough comment upon 
 no sooner has the strain been fell in the bare-shouldered dowagers and the 
 England than the head of the aristocracy shrinking maidens who brave the de- 
 rises to the level of an astonishing ments and the eyes of the vulgar on their 
 activity. The Queen, who lias such way to pass before the platform on 
 marked dislike for public ceremonials, which the Queen stands to receive her 
 and who has so studiously refrained subjects. On Drawing-room days the 
 from participating in them since the loss Queen wears a mourning costume with 
 of the Prince Consort, — whose life- diamonds, and the Order of the Garter, 
 long mourner she is determined to be, — and about her are grouped the princesses 
 
EUROrE l.\ STORM AND CALM. 
 
 557 
 
 and many of the dignitaries of the royal 
 household. The ladies pass slowly be- 
 fore the platform, their long trains, 
 the feathers in their hair, — for Mowers 
 are forbidden at court, — giving them a, 
 mosl singular appearance. Then' is no 
 buffet, and the fatigue of the long wait- 
 ing ami the erush in the Drawing-room 
 are sometimes so prostrating that a lady 
 who has been presented at court does not 
 again appear in society during the season. 
 The etiquette is of the greatest rigidity. 
 The moral character of every person 
 who is presented for presentation is 
 inspected microscopically, and no lady 
 who has been caught in the meshes of a 
 divorce suit, no matter how faultless she 
 herself may be, can hope for the momen- 
 tary glimpse of the majesty of the realm. 
 Buckingham Palace doubtless stands on 
 the old Marlborough garden, which was 
 planted by James I. in the seventeenth 
 century, and which, after his time, was a 
 popular resort, where people of the best 
 quality, according to old Evelyn, used 
 to go to be "exceedingly cheated at." 
 There Dryden was wont to go with his 
 mistress, Mrs. Anne Reeve, to drink 
 sweetened wine and eat cheese-cakes. 
 Later on there was a Buckingham House, 
 which the Duke of Buckingham built 
 in 1708; and Defoe speaks of this as 
 one of the great beauties of Loudon. 
 George III. lived at Buckingham House, 
 
 and there many of his children were 
 born. There Dr. Johnson used to go to 
 consult books in the tine library, and 
 there he had a famous conversation one 
 day with George III. 
 
 When the Palace was reconstructed, 
 in the second quarter of the present 
 century, the celebrated Marble Arch, 
 which has long stood on the north-east 
 corner of Hyde Park, was one of the 
 ornaments of the Palace. It was re- 
 moved in 1851. The marble hall and 
 sculpture gallery; the grand drawing- 
 room, where, on the occasion of state 
 balls, the famous tent of Tippoo Sahib is 
 erected; the Throne room, beautifully 
 hung with crimson satin, with the royal 
 throne or chair of state, in which Her 
 Majesty is seated when she receives ad- 
 dresses ; the picture-gallery of moderate 
 merit, and several other gaudy drawing- 
 rooms, — are the principal features of the 
 Palace. During the present reign a few 
 Costume Balls, as they are called, have 
 been held in these halls ; but since the 
 death of the Prince Consort the only 
 festivals have been the drawing-rooms 
 for presentation, and at all of these at 
 which gentlemen are presented the Prince 
 of Wales represents the Queen. The 
 royal stables are close by; and the 
 Palace can hardly be a healthy resi- 
 dence, since under it runs one of the 
 greatest of the Loudon sewers. 
 
558 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO. 
 
 St. James's Palace. - Tlic Story of Kensington. — Its ( lardens. — The < lharges which Royalty Entails. — 
 The Prince of Wales. -An fmlustrious flcir Apparent. -Marlborough [louse. — The Title >>!' 
 Prince of Wales. — Habitual Views of Allowance* t" Roval Personages. — Samlringham. 
 
 ^i'r. James's Palace, on the north side Y'eoinen of (lie Queen's Guard on Levee 
 
 r of tlie Park, is an ugly old pile of ami Drawing-Rooms days, in honor of 
 
 blackened brick, one" a hospital for lep- distinguished visitors. 
 
 rous females. But it is historically mosl Not far away is Clarence House, where 
 
 interesting, and when il stood in the the Duke of Clarence, who afterwards 
 
 midst of green fields, and before il was became lvine William IV., for sometime 
 
 dwarfed by the immediate vicinity of resided. This mansion is now the Lon- 
 
 the lofty Marlborough House, ii was. don residence of one of the Princes 
 
 perhaps, impressive. Henry VIII. first Royal. 
 
 made a royal palace of St. James's: Kensington Palace, which is in the 
 
 Edward and Elizabeth occasionally re- parish of St. Mark's in Westminster, is a 
 
 sided there: Mary made it the place of handsome edifice of brick with st • 
 
 her retirement during the absence of her foundations, and stands upon the site 
 royal spouse, Philip of Spain; and of the mansion which was destroyed by 
 there she died. From the Chapel Royal, lire in li'.'.U. In the new palace Queen 
 which is one of the fashionable places of Mary and King William, Queen Anne 
 worship in London, Charles 1. set forth and the Prince Consort, and George IL 
 from the Park guarded with a regiment died. George III. rarely visited Ken- 
 of foot and partisans to Whitehall, on the sington ; but the' Duke of Kent was very 
 morning that he lost his head. There fond of residing in the lower south- 
 Monk planned the Restoration: there eastern apartments, underneath the S0- 
 the Dukes of York and Gloster were im- called King's ( S-allery : and there Queen 
 prisoned in the civil wars: and at the Victoria was christened on the 24th 
 close of the seventeenth century, the June, 1819. The story of her reception 
 Court at St. James's was very 1 nil- of the intelligence of the death of 
 bant. This phrase, the ■■Court of St. William [V. has been often told, b'tt 
 James's," so constantly used in diplo- may be once more recited here. The 
 matie jargon, came into use shortly after noted painter. Sir David Wilkie, has 
 the burning of Whitehall, in 1G97, when left a representation of the scene, but 
 the St. James's Palace was lirsl used with a painter's license he departed 
 for important state ceremonials. George somewhat from the truth In the diaries 
 IN', was born in this palace, and, in IS] t, of a lady of quality, under the date of 
 the Emperor of Russia and the King of June. 1837, is the following entry : "On 
 Prussia with oltl Dluchcr wore installed the 20th at two a. m. the scene closed 
 therein during their visit to London. ( this is an allusion to (he death of King 
 The old ceremonials of the honors of the William), and in a very short time the 
 Guard Chamber are still enacted by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 559 
 
 Conyngham, the chamberlain set out to 
 announce the event to their new .sover- 
 eign. They reached Kensington Palace 
 at about five. They knocked, they rang, 
 they thumped for a considerable time, 
 before they could arouse the porter at 
 the gates. They were again kept wait- 
 ing in the court-yard, then tinned into 
 one of the lower rooms, where they 
 seemed forgotten by everybody. They 
 rang the bell, desired that the attendant 
 of the Princess Victoria might be sent 
 to inform her Royal Highness that they 
 requested an audience on business of 
 importance. After another delay, and 
 another ringing to inquire the cause, the 
 
 attendant was summ d, and stated 
 
 that the Princess was in such a sweet 
 sleep that she could not venture to dis- 
 turb her. Then they said, 'We are 
 conic to the Queen, on business of state. 
 and even her sleep must give way to 
 that.' It did ; anil, to prove that she did 
 not keep them waiting, in a few minutes 
 she came into the room in a loose white 
 night-gown and shawl, her night-cap 
 thrown off. and her hair falling upon her 
 shoulders, her feet in slippers, tears in 
 her* eyes, but perfectly collected and 
 dignified. The first act of the Queen 
 was of course to summon the Council, 
 and most of (he summonses were not 
 received until after the early hour fixed 
 for its meeting. The Queen was, upon 
 the opening of the doors, found sitting at 
 the head of the table. She received 
 first the homage of the Duke of Cumber- 
 land, who I suppose was not King of 
 Hanover when he knelt to her. The 
 Duke of Sussex rose to perform lie 
 same ceremony, but the Queen stood up 
 and prevented him from kneeling, kiss- 
 ing him on the forehead. The crowd 
 was so great, the arrangements were so 
 ill-made, thai my brothers tell me the 
 scene of swearing allegiance to their 
 
 young sovereign was more like that of 
 the bidding at an auction than anything 
 
 else." 
 
 Not far away are the delightful Ken- 
 sington Gardens, several hundred acres 
 in area, and there, when King William 
 lived in the Palace, the great gardens, 
 which Queen Caroline had caused to be 
 laid out, were opened to the public on 
 Saturdays; and all visitors were required 
 to appear in full dress. It was Queen 
 Caroline who formed the serpentine, 
 which divided the Palace grounds from 
 the open Hyde Park; and near the 
 bridge over this serpentine then' are 
 many line walks beneath line old Spanish 
 chestnut-trees. 
 
 The nation is proud and pleased to 
 pay all the charges which royalty entails 
 upon it; and these charges are various 
 and numerous enough to bear recapitula- 
 tion here. Theoretically the Queen's in- 
 come is free from all taxes and charges; 
 but we learn that Sir Robert Peel, when 
 he was prime minister, in 1842, an- 
 nounced that the Queen had declared her 
 determination to submit to the income 
 tax. This statement was received with 
 enthusiasm; but the Queen is supposed 
 from that day to this never to have paid 
 any income tax. Among the so-called 
 Civil List charges on the Consolidated 
 Fund are £60,000 for Her Majesty's 
 privy purse ; £131 ,260 for Her Majesty's 
 household, including annual salaries and 
 retired allowances; £172.500, expenses 
 of Her Majesty's household ; £13,200, 
 royal bounty, alms, and special services ; 
 pensions granted by Her .Majesty. £23,- 
 71 1 ; unappropriated items, £8,040 ; reve- 
 nues of the Duchy of Lancaster drawn 
 by Her Majesty, about £44,000 annually ; 
 expenditure on the royal palaces, several 
 thousand pounds : on the great park, 
 £25,000 annually, — in short, on all the 
 immediate personal expenses and those 
 
5b"0 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 connected with the royal residences, thousand acres, and her rental from 
 
 nearly £500,000. The royal yachts and Aberdeen, Hants, and Surrey is about 
 
 the naval charges amount to £34,656; £5,500. The grand estate of Windsor 
 
 and this is the annual average cost of is more than ten thousand acres, and is 
 
 the four royal yachts for ten years, valued at £22,000 odd per annum. The 
 
 Escorts and salutes, and the pay of Queen bought Claremont for £74,000, in 
 
 naval and marine aides-de-camp cost 1882. This noble property cost Lord 
 
 about £5^000 more; the military aide- ('live nearly £150,000, and covers four 
 
 de-camp, the household troops, pensions hundred and sixty-four acres. Besides 
 
 in connection with the Orders of the her English possessions the Queen has 
 
 Bath and of St. Patrick, allowances to property at Coburg and at Baden, in 
 
 marshal of ceremonies and trumpeters, Germany. 
 
 and other small items which come under Other payments by the nation to the 
 the head of royal escort, cost £70,000 royal family may he briefly reviewed 
 annually. Many items formerly defrayed as follows : U.K. II. the Princess Royal, 
 by the revenues of the crown, such as present Crown Princess of Prussia, the 
 grants to the Church of Scotland, royal able, amiable, and interesting wife of 
 functionaries in Scotland, hereditary Prince Frederick William, heir to the 
 usher, the hereditary keeeper, master of German throne, received yearly, after 
 the audience court, the officers of the 1858, £8,000 ; and there is an odd little 
 Order of the Thistle, the six trumpeters, item of £40 for a special steamer to con- 
 Her Majesty's historiographer, clock- vey the Crown Prince to and fro when- 
 maker, the warden at regalia, Her Majes- ever he visits England attached to the 
 ty's charities and bounties, the Ulster estimates on behalf of this princess 
 king-at-arms, the pensions paid to Eng- royal. When she was married, the nation 
 lish clergy, the pensions paid to French gave her a money grant of £40,000. 
 refugee clergy, bounties to the clergy and The Prince of Wales has received 
 school-masters of the Isle of Man, and annually since 1863 £40,000, as a 
 many other items, are now assumed by charge on the Consolidated Fund, tbe- 
 the nation, anil count in the sovereign's sides which lie enjoys the revenues of 
 Civil List, the total payments on account the Duchy of Cornwall, which have 
 of which are about £619,000 annually, averaged £05.000 annually for the last 
 1 (urinu: the life of the Prince Consort ten years. This Duchy of Cornwall is 
 £30,000 per annum was payable to him, a little treasury in itself. The lands of 
 and the total sum drawn under the act the duchy are about seventy-four thou- 
 giving him a yearly sum had been sand acres in area, and the coal, tin, 
 £630,000. In 1852 a generous gentle- and lead mines yield enormously. The 
 man bequeathed £250,000 sterling to invested ami cash balances of the duchy 
 Her Majesty for her personal use. amount to €1. '10, 000. For annual re- 
 It is but propel- that the Queen pairs of Marlborough House the Prince 
 should he a great land-owner, as she has about £2,000. The Princess of 
 is the head of a landed aristocracy, Wales has a separate annual charge on 
 and her private estates, while they do the Consolidated Fund of £10.000 ; and 
 not rank in size with the great ducal whenever the Prince makes a journey in 
 possessions, are ven considerable. In the interest of the nation, as when he 
 Aberdeen she has more than twentv-live went to St. Petersburg to invest the 
 
EUROPN AA r STORM AND CALM. 
 
 . r )l»l 
 
 CzarwiththeOrderof the Garter, his trav- exchange of despatches. The Prince is 
 elling expenses are from £2,000to£3,000. but a .small land-owner, for ho has but 
 Shortly before he reached his 
 
 majority the Prince of Wales 
 received the accumulated rev- 
 enues of the Duchy of Corn- 
 wall, amounting to more than 
 £000,000. Of this sum one- 
 third was invested in the pur- 
 chase of Sandringham, and a 
 part of the remainder was 
 spent in building the pretty 
 mansion there, and in fitting 
 out the Prince and his house- 
 hold for his active campaign 
 of social duty. The Prince of 
 Wales is the first gentleman, 
 as the Premier or Prime Min- 
 ister is the first man, in Eng- 
 land. The position of heir- 
 apparent to the throne is by 
 no means a bed of roses. 
 It is as trying and requires 
 as energetic conduct as that 
 
 of a great politician ; and in 
 
 troublous times the conduct 
 
 of the present Prince, as well 
 
 as his energy and courage, 
 
 have done much to prevent 
 
 crises. When the Queen is 
 
 puzzled and annoyed at Mr. 
 
 Gladstone's course it is the 
 
 Prince of Wales who pops 
 
 into the Premier's olliee and 
 
 makes him a friendly call. 
 
 When there is a chance for a 
 
 favorable alliance on the con- 
 tinent, it is the. Prince of 
 
 Wales who appears in Paris 
 
 or Rome, Berlin or Vienna, 
 
 leaving always an excellent 
 
 impression behind him, and 
 
 often accomplishing in a few moments' a rental of £10,000 from fourteen thou- 
 
 conversation what the diplomats have sand eight hundred acres in Norfolk and 
 
 been bringing up to the verge of accom- Aberdeenshire. Should the Princess of 
 
 plishment during long months of weary Wales survive her husband she would 
 
 PRINCE OP WALES. 
 From Photograph by \. liassano, Old Bond street. London. 
 
5()2 EUROPE IN STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 receive from the nation £30,000 per eign, that he has a right to assume it 
 annum, or £10,000 less than she now as soon as he is horn. But the fact is 
 receives in addition to lier own portion, that every heir-apparent to the English 
 When the Prince went to India, in 1875, throne is Prince of Wales only hy an 
 out of the £142,000 expended during the act of special creation in his own par- 
 journey, £60,000 was allowed as pocket- tieular case. Sometimes this act is de- 
 money and to be given as gratuities. It laved for many years, and sometimes 
 is not astonishing that all who partici- it is not enforced at all. Edward II. 
 pated in that memorable excursion never was the first Prince of Wales, the story, 
 cease to sine- the praises of the Prince which lias been told recently in the 
 of Wales. British press on (he occasion of the 
 The entrance to Marlborough House, majority of the eldest son of the present 
 
 which is the town residence of the Prince Prince, being that, "to reconcile the 
 
 and Princess of Wales, looks like the Welsh people to their subjugation, and 
 
 entrance of a great club, and the to the recognition of the sovereignty 
 
 stranger might he pardoned for niistak- instead of the mere suzerainty of the 
 
 ing it for a club-house, as it stands in English, King Edward 1. promised them 
 
 Hie region of the costly palaces which a prince horn in their own country, and 
 
 the great number of club associations unable to speak a word of English." 
 have adopted as peculiar to their own. The legend tells us that the shrewd 
 
 This house, which has been much iin- Edward kept his promise by presenting 
 
 proved in later years, was built for the to the Welsh people his son Edward, who 
 
 great Duke of Marlborough, in 1710, had just been born at Carnarvon, and 
 
 was at one time the residence of Queen who certainly could not speak English, 
 
 Adelaide, widow of William IV.. and and who would have found it just as 
 
 later on. was a kind of museum, until the difficult to speak Welsh. Edward II. 
 
 department of science and art was re- was not created Prince of Wales until he 
 
 moved to South Kensington, when Marl- was seventeen; Edward III. was never 
 
 borough House was prepared for a princely made Prince of Wales, but was called 
 
 residence. There all the Prince's chil- the Earl of Chester; the Black Prince 
 
 dred, except the eldest, were born, and Edward was called Prince of Wales when 
 
 there the heir-apparent lives a cosy and he was thirteen, and from his time date 
 
 honest English life, receiving cordially the three ostrich feathers and the motto 
 
 great numbers of friends without much " Ich Dien" (I serve), the princely de- 
 
 of that strictness and etiquette which vice, which the present heir-apparent 
 
 prevails in his goodly mother's palace of thoroughly fulfils. Some of the princes 
 
 Windsor. The sentries, majestic in of Wales, notably lie who became 
 
 their bearskin caps, who walk up and George IV., certainly served no one but 
 
 down before Marlborough House and the themselves. The famous Madcap Prince, 
 
 entrance to St. James's Park, are the of whom Shakespeare has given us such 
 
 only indications that royalty "races the pleasant pictures, was a Prince of 
 
 neighborhood. Wales; and after him there is a lone 
 
 It is generally supposed in America line of primes good, and princes bad. 
 
 and on the continent that the title of George I.'s son did not become Prince 
 
 Prince of Wales is hereditary for the of Wales until he was thirty-two. 
 
 eldest son of the reigning English sover- Among the bad princes may be set 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 563 
 
 down Frederick, Prince of Wales, This Fred, however, left a son to lie 
 
 whose reputation is summed up in the Prince of Wales, and afterwards to be 
 
 hitinjj; epitaph written shortly after his George IIL, of whom America heard 
 
 death : — much. 
 
 PRINCESS OF WALES AND FAMILY. 
 I''i«tm Photograph by W. & I>. Downing, Eluiry street, London. 
 
 " Here lies Fred, who was alive and now is dead. 
 Hail it been his father, I had much rather, 
 Had it been his brother, sooner than any other, 
 Hail it been hia sister, there is no one who 
 
 would have missed her, 
 Had it been his whole generation, best of all 
 
 for the nation ; 
 But since it's only Fred, there is no more to be 
 
 said." 
 
 In an interesting article published in 
 the " Daily News " last year, occurs the 
 following statement concerning the finan- 
 cial arrangements for the Prince of 
 Wales: "Until the accession of the 
 Queen, the annuity of the Prince of 
 Wales had depended solely on the then 
 
5<>4 
 
 EUROrE l.X STORM AND CALM. 
 
 reigning sovereign, and was granted by 
 him out of the t'i\il List. George I. 
 gave out of a Civil List of £700,000 a 
 year an annuity of £100,000 to the 
 Prince of Wales, the revenue of the 
 Duchy of Cornwall being about £10.000 
 a year. After he became king la 1 did 
 
 DEPARTURE OF T1IF. PRINCE op WALES FOR 1-N'IHA. 
 
 not emulate his father's generosity. 
 George II. was the Harpagon of kings, 
 lb- must have been the original of the 
 king in the nursery rhyme, who was al- 
 ways in his counting-house, counting of 
 his money, for that was one of his 
 favorite occupations 1 . Horace Walpole 
 mentions that one of his bedchamber 
 women, with whom he was in love. 
 seeing him count his money very often, 
 
 said to him: ••Sir, I can bear it no 
 longer. If you count your money once 
 more I will leave the room." The 
 contrast, between the miserly father and 
 the spendthrift son is quite in the vein 
 of the old comedy. It belongs to the 
 oldest comedy, that of human nature. 
 •• ( leorge II., out of 
 his Civil List of £800,- 
 000, allowed to Fred- 
 click, Prince of Wales, 
 a • poor, dissolute, flabby 
 fellow - creature,' says 
 Carlyle, an annuity of 
 £GO,000, which, with 
 his hereditary revenue 
 I as Duke of Cornwall, 
 gavehirn£60,000ayear. 
 The alleged inadequacy 
 of this allowance was, 
 at the instigation of 
 Bolingbroke, brough t 
 before the House of 
 Commons by Pulteney, 
 whom tlie King struck 
 oil' the list of the Privy 
 Council for his pains. 
 Through the intrigues 
 of the Court at Leicester 
 1 louse, a motion for its 
 increase was nearly being 
 carried. The annuity 
 which ( ieorge III. him- 
 self granted to his Prince 
 of Wales, afterwards 
 ( ieorge IV., was £50,- 
 000, the annual revenue of the Duchy of 
 Cornwall amounting to about £12,000. 
 (leorge. Prince of Wales, bore consid- 
 erable resemblance, in character, to his 
 grandfather, Frederick, Prince of Wales. 
 He imitated him in political intrigue, 
 and endeavored, through his friends in 
 the House of Commons, to obtain an 
 increase in the annual allowance made to 
 him. After some unsuccessful attempts, 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 565 
 
 the King, not desiring to run the risk 
 which his grandfather had incurred on 
 Mr. Pulteney's nearly successful motion. 
 made a proposal by Mr. Alderman Not- 
 tage, in the House of Commons, in 17*7. 
 for granting an additional £10,000 a 
 year out of the Civil List. In 1795 an 
 additional annuity of £65,000 was set- 
 tled upon the Prince, and in 1803 a fur- 
 ther addition of £10,000 a year was 
 made. This increase was, however, 
 practically mortgaged for the payment 
 of the Prince's debts, put down at 
 £050,000, and did not swell the income 
 available for his personal expenses." 
 
 It is said, that, as the numerous grand- 
 children of the Queen marry, the sums 
 which have been voted by Parliament to 
 the members of the royal family will be 
 enormously increased. The Princess 
 Beatrice, the last of the children, will, 
 doubtless, have as generous a propor- 
 tional allowance as has been made in the 
 case of her brothers and sisters. " But," 
 says a recent writer, '• when the time 
 comes for dealing with the third genera- 
 tion of the royal house, it may be neces- 
 sary to reconsider what is expedient and 
 practical." The grandchildren of George 
 III., to whom annuities have been voted, 
 are only three, — the Duke of Cambridge 
 and his two sisters. The English-born 
 grandchildren of her present Majesty 
 are no fewer than eighteen, — very likely 
 to be more. It is well, perhaps, that 
 the prospects to be made in respect to 
 provision for them should be established 
 in a new House of Commons, more 
 fairly representing the general owners of 
 
 the country than any of its predecessors. 
 Ml'. Bright once described the public 
 service of the country as a gigantic sys- 
 tem of out-door relief for the aristocracy. 
 The statement is much less true now 
 than when Mr. Bright made it. The 
 younger members of the aristocracy, 
 the Lord Walters and Lionels, and the 
 Hon. Alans and Johns, are Hocking into 
 commerce, professions, and adventures, 
 are tilling a state and clearing the back- 
 woods. The time may come when the 
 remoter scions of the Royal House may 
 find the need and the happiness of taking 
 a similar course. 
 
 The heir-apparent of the heir-appar- 
 ent, Prince Albert Victor Charles Arthur 
 Edward, known to his family and at his 
 university as Prince Edward, has re- 
 cently attained his majority, after having 
 been to sea, as becomes an English 
 Prince, and seen a good bit of the world. 
 At Trinity College. Cambridge, which 
 Macaulay called the noblest place of 
 education in the world, he has been read- 
 ing many hours daily, and his first public 
 acts, such as the exchange of notes with 
 the venerable Gladstone, and numerous 
 representatives and politicians, indicate 
 much strength of character. Sandring- 
 ham. where the festivities on his coming 
 of age took place, lies in a pretty coun- 
 try near the sea, among hills and rich 
 marsh meadows, dotted with cattle and 
 wild and picturesque stretches of heath, 
 broken by plantations. The house is 
 surrounded by a handsome park dotted 
 with lakes. 
 
5(i(i 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CAL.M. 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE. 
 
 Fortunes and Incomes of Members of the English 1 
 The tnvisihle Court. —Its Functionaries.—! 3 
 
 loyal Family. — Ancienl and Hereditary Pensions. — 
 residency. — The Aristocratic Element in the House 
 
 r~|"MlK charges upou the " Consolidated 
 -*- Finid," caused by the maintenance 
 of the I v < > %" : 1 1 Family, do not cease with 
 the handsome payments to the Queen 
 and to her eldest son. His Royal Highness 
 Alfred. Duke nf Edinburgh, lias received 
 annually, since attaining his majority, in 
 1865, £15,000, and after his marriage in 
 1874, £10,000. His pay and allowance 
 as Rear Admiral and superintendent of 
 naval reserves, amount to nearly £1,500 
 per annum. He has the free use of 
 Clarence House, on which Parliament 
 spent a vast sum in altering it and 
 lilting ii for his use. He is shortly to 
 inherit the great estates and wealth of 
 the reigning Duke of Saxe Coburg and 
 an income of fully £30,000 yearly. His 
 wife brought him a pretty fortune of 
 £90,000, besides a marriage portion of 
 £300,000 and a life annuity of more 
 
 than £1 1,000. In case she outlives the 
 Duke, she is to have £6,000 in Consols. 
 The immense accumulation thus enu- 
 merated was the basis of the strenuous 
 opposition of Sir Charles Dilke and 
 others, in 1874, to a new errant to the 
 Prince, who had married the richest 
 
 heiress in Europe. But only eighteen 
 people ventured to vote against the 
 Crown. Her Royal Highness Eleanor, 
 Princess Christian, is allowed £6,000 
 annually, and on the occasion of her 
 marriage was given £30,000. She has 
 Cumberland Lodge, Windsor Park, as a 
 royal residence. The Prince Christian, 
 who is the Park Ranger, gets from the 
 
 Queen £500 a year, besides many per- 
 quisites. The gracious and charming 
 Marchioness of Lome, her Royal High- 
 ness Princess Louise, also receives 
 £6,000 from the nation, and had out of 
 the annual appropriations £30,000 when 
 she was married. She lives in Ken- 
 sington Palace, lent free. The late 
 Princess Alice of llesse also had an 
 annual grant of £6,000 in Consols, a 
 dowry of £30,000, and during her life- 
 time received from the nation £126,000. 
 His Royal Highness Arthur, Duke of 
 Connaught, up to his majority in 1871, 
 had received £6,000 per annum, and 
 since his majority has had £10.000 an- 
 nually. He draws £4,000 every year as 
 military pay, and his wife brought him a 
 dowry of £15,000. Mr. Gladstone, who 
 supported the annuity bill in Parliament 
 for this Prince, was excluded from the 
 list of invitations when the Duke was 
 married. The Duke of Connaught has 
 a suit: of rooms in Buckingham Palace, 
 and a tine mansion at Bagshot Park, 
 built for him and administered by the 
 Woods and Forests Department. From 
 1874 to 1882, his late Royal Highness, 
 the Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, 
 
 received annually £15,000; £10,000 a 
 year when he was married, in 1882, and 
 at the time of his marriage was given 
 £140,000 by the English people. Her 
 Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cam- 
 bridge, has received £6,000 annually 
 since her widowhood in 1850. Her 
 Roval Highness Augusta, Princess and 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM 
 
 567 
 
 Duchess of Meeklinburg-Strelitz,has had 
 £3,000 yearly since 1843, when she was 
 married ; and whenever she journeys 
 abroad, it is in a speeial steamer, for 
 which £80 is allotted. His Royal High- 
 ness George, Duke of Cambridge, has 
 t'l 2,000, besides game-rights, residences, 
 and pasturages, amounting to £3,000 
 more per year. As Field Marshal com- 
 manding-in-chief, he has £4,500 per 
 year, and as Colonel of the Grenadier 
 Guards, a little more than £2,000 per 
 year. Thus the head of the army receives 
 about£°>3,000 every year, as commander- 
 in-chief, and nearly £70,000 as a gift 
 from the nation. Audaeioiis attempts 
 have been made ill Parliament to reduce 
 these payments. Joseph Hume, John 
 Bright, and others have attempted to 
 lower them to £8,000 or £12,000, but in 
 vain. In London, the Duke of Cam- 
 bridge resides inGloster House. inPicca- 
 dilly, which has been given him by the 
 Queen as his town residence. 
 
 Mary. Princess of Teck, has £5,000 
 annually. Ilis Serene Highness the 
 Prince Edward of Saxe Weimar has 
 about £3,500, and various nephews have 
 half-pay or retired pay-, as vice-admirals 
 or as governors of castles or park-keepers. 
 In addition to these there is a long list 
 of pensions to servants of deceased 
 sovereigns ; and the grand total of money 
 paid out by Great Britain, in twelve 
 months, in connection with the royal 
 family, is about £870,000, (o which 
 should be added the cost of keeping up 
 the royal public parks and pleasure-gar- 
 dens, — Battersea, Bethnal Green, Bushy 
 Park, Chelsea Military Asylum, Edin- 
 burgh Royal Botanic Gardens, Green- 
 wich, Hampton Court, Kew, Holyrood, 
 Kensington, Regent's Park, and Prim- 
 rose Hill, Richmond Park, St. James's 
 Park, Victoria Park, etc., ad infinitum. 
 But the nation gives this money very 
 
 willingly, because it really considers it as 
 spent upon its own pleasures, and it pre- 
 fixes each park with the word "royal," 
 to confer upon it an additional dignity. 
 The nation sums up and embodies its 
 own majesty in the royal family, and it 
 considers that it gives proof of its own 
 magnificence in treating these hereditary 
 representatives magnificently. 
 
 At all times, until recent years, the 
 sovereigns of England have felt free to 
 bestow pensions with reckless generosity, 
 and Great Britain has an enormous list 
 of ancient and hereditary pensioners. 
 The present Queen has in forty-six years 
 expended nearly £750,000 in Civil List 
 pensions. The unredeemed ancient pen- 
 sions, the grants made by Parliament in 
 perpetuity, and pensions granted since 
 the passage of the Restraint Acts, and 
 made payable for more than one life, 
 give an enormous total. But England is 
 not the only country which is encumbered 
 with pensioners. It is to lie noted, how- 
 ever, that, year by year, a large part of 
 the increase iu expenditure on pensions 
 and gratuities comes from the army esti- 
 mates, and is due to the constant small 
 and large wars in which England is 
 engaged. The Financial Reform Al- 
 manac calls attention to the fact that, in 
 that black year of trade, 1884, John 
 Bull has had to pay a corps of 110,000 
 pensioners, military, naval, and civil, for 
 doing nothing, and that their drawing, 
 amounting to £7,500,000 sterling, swal- 
 lowed up the whole of the income tax 
 laid on the national profits during twelve 
 months. 
 
 A brief review of Her Majesty's 
 household and the expenses attendant 
 upon it may not be considered uninter- 
 esting by republican readers. In the 
 Lord Steward's department, the Lord 
 Steward. Rt. Hon. Earl Sydney, receives 
 £l',000 a year; the Treasurer of the 
 
568 
 
 EUROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Household and the Controller, £1,000 
 each ; Masterof the Household, £1,158 ; 
 Secretary to the Board, £500; Keeper 
 of the Privy Purse and Private Secretary 
 to Her Majesty, Hou. Sir II. F. Pouson- 
 bv. whose name is so often seen affixed 
 in telegrams sent from Her Majesty, 
 £2,000; an Assistant Keeper, £5,000; 
 another Assistant, £500; Secretary of 
 the Privy Purse, £3,000; and Clerks, 
 trivial salaries. In the Lord Chamber- 
 lain's department, the Lord Chamber- 
 lain, tiie Earl of Kinmare, has £2,000 
 per year ; the Vice-Chamberlain, nearly 
 £1,000 ; the Controller of Accounts, the 
 same ; the Chief Clerk, £700 ; Paymaster 
 of the Household, £500; Masterof the 
 Ceremonies, £3,000; the Lords-in-Wait- 
 ing, each £702 ; the extra Lord-in- Wait- 
 ing gets no salary ; Grooms-in-Waitiug, 
 eaeh £334, but extra Grooms-in- Waiting 
 are without pay ; the Gentlemen Ushers 
 of the Privy Chamber, eaeh £200; the 
 Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, 
 £2,000; Gentlemen Ushers, daily wait- 
 ers, considered a very honorable ap- 
 pointment, each £200; Grooms of the 
 Privy Chamber, each £120; Gentlemen 
 Ushers, quarterly waiters, eaeh £80; 
 Sergeants-at-Arms, each £80; the Poet 
 Laureate, Lord Tennyson. £100; the 
 Examiner of Plays, £500; the Librarian 
 at Windsor, £500. In addition to these 
 
 there are attached to this intangible 
 court, for which the French writer, M. 
 Daryl, seems to have sought in vain, a 
 Painter in Ordinary, a modern Painter 
 and Sculptor, a Surveyor of Pictures, 
 a German Librarian, a Governor Con- 
 stable of Windsor Castle. Her Maj- 
 esty's Body Guard of Yeomen of the 
 Guard, with a captain, at £1,200 a year: 
 an honorable guard of Gentlemen-at- 
 Aiins. with a captain, at £1,200, with a 
 standard-bearer, wiih a clerk of the 
 cheque, an adjutant, and a sub-officer. 
 
 There is also a Master of the Horse, 
 the well-known Duke of Westminster, 
 at £2,500 ; a Masterof the Buck Hounds, 
 at £1,500; a Clerk of the Marshal, at 
 £1,000; an hereditary Grand Falconer, 
 if you please, at £1,200; a Crown 
 Equerry and Secretary to the Master of 
 the Horse, at £8,000; several Equerries 
 in Ordinary, at £600 and £500; extra 
 Honorary Equerries, pages of honor. 
 In the department of the Mistress of the 
 Holies there is first the mistress, the 
 Duchess of Roxburghe, who receives 
 £500 a year, Ladies of the Bed-chamber, 
 extra. Ladies of the Bed-chamber, Bed- 
 chamber Women, extra Bed-chamber 
 Women, a Lady attendant upon 
 Princess Beatrice, the Maids of 
 Honor, each of these last receiving 
 £300 a year; the (I room of the Holies, 
 and a Clerk of the Holies. There are. 
 furthermore, the Dean of the Chapels 
 Royal, who is no less a personage than 
 the Bishop of London; a Sub-Dean, a 
 Clerk of the Closet, Deputy Clerks of the 
 Closet, a Domestic Chaplain, a Domes- 
 tic Chaplain of the I [ousehold, an heredi- 
 tary Grand Almoner, a High Almoner, 
 a Sub-almoner, a Secretary and a Yeo- 
 man. There are also numerous phy- 
 sicians in ordinary, extraordinary, 
 surgeons in ordinary, surgeons extraor- 
 dinary, physicians of the house hold, 
 surgeons of the household, surgeon 
 apothecaries, surgeon at Osborne, sur- 
 geon OCUlistS, Surgeon dentists, dentists 
 of the household, ami chemists and 
 druggists, all attached to the Royal 
 1 louse. 
 
 The arrangement of the Prince of 
 
 Wales's household is, on the whole, ex- 
 tremely simple, ami there are no salaries 
 attaching to any of the appointments: 
 the Keeper of the Privy Seal, the Lords of 
 the Bed-chamber, the Controller and 
 Treasurer, the Grooms of the Bed-chain- 
 
EUROl'E IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 , r )i;:> 
 
 ber, the Equerries, the extra Equerries, 
 the Private Secretary, the Librarian and 
 German Secretary, the Clerks, the Gover- 
 nors for the Prince, the Physicians, Sur- 
 geons, etc., and they are few as compared 
 with the great array of the Queen's attend- 
 ants. The household of the Princess of 
 Wales is composed of the Chamberlain, 
 the Ladies of the Red-chamber, who are 
 always ladies of high distinction ; Bed- 
 chamber Women, extra Bed-chamber 
 Women, and a Private Secretary. All 
 this enormous expenditure and weight of 
 salaries, paid for services which are, to 
 say the least, in a great majority of cases 
 entirely unnecessary and rarely per- 
 formed, is placed upon the broad backs 
 of the English middle classes, and is 
 borne almost with ease. 
 
 The vast superstructure of royalty and 
 aristocracy is apparent to the stranger no- 
 where so palpably as at a public banquet, 
 where, after the toasts are begun, he ob- 
 serves that it takes almost as long as is 
 allotted to ordinary speeches in dinners in 
 many other countries to get down to the 
 subject-matter of the evening. There 
 are, first, what are called the loyal t< >:ists, 
 which are never omitted, and which, at 
 dinners of importance, almost invariably 
 comprise the army and navy, the church 
 and the law, if I he law is present. The 
 reason for this is easily found in the 
 table of precedency, which is as familiar 
 ami as much a matter of course to Eng- 
 glisli men and women as it is odd and 
 singular to many foreigners. The table 
 naturally begins with the sovereign, and 
 descends in the following order: the 
 Prince of Wales, the Queen's younger 
 Sons, the Grandsons of the sovereign, 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord 
 High Chancellor, the Archbishop of York, 
 the Archbishop of Armagh, the Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin, the Lord President of 
 the Privy Council, the Lord of the Privy 
 
 Seal, the Lord Great Chamberlain, the 
 Earl Marshal, the Lord Steward of Her 
 Majesty's Household, the Lord Chamber- 
 lain ; then come the Dukes, according to 
 their patents of creation, of England, 
 Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and those 
 created since the Union; in the same 
 order as dukes, dukes' eldest sons, earls, 
 according to their patents, marquises' 
 eldest sons, dukes' younger sons, vis- 
 counts, according to their patents, earls' 
 eldest sons, marquises' younger sons ; the 
 bishops of London, Durham, and Win- 
 chester; all other English bishops, ac- 
 cording to seniority of creation ; bishops 
 of t he Irish Church created before 1869 ; 
 Secretaries of State, if they be barons; 
 barons, according to their patents. We 
 have now come down through a. long list 
 to a very important parliamentary func- 
 tionary, who is heard quite as much of 
 in the course of a year as the Queen or 
 the Prince of Wales, but who, as will 
 readily be seen, is a long way from the 
 throne, — this is the Speaker of the 
 House of Commons. Below him is the 
 Treasurer of Her Majesty's Household, 
 the Controller of Her Majesty's House- 
 hold, the Master of the Horse, the Vice- 
 Chamberlain of Her Majesty's House- 
 hold, the Secretaries of State under the 
 degree of baron, viscounts' eldest sons, 
 earls' younger sons, barons' eldest sons. 
 Knights of the Garter, Privy Councillors, 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the 
 Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 
 the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's 
 Bench, the Master of the Rolls, the 
 Lords Justice of Appeal, the Lords of 
 Appeal, Judges, according to seniority, 
 viscounts' younger sons, barons' younger 
 sons, baronets, according to date of 
 patents, Knights of the Thistle, Knights 
 of St. Patrick, Knights of the Grand 
 Cross of the Bath, Knights ( i rand Com- 
 manders of the Star of India, Knights of 
 
, r )7() 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 the Grand (toss of St. Michael and St 
 George, Knights Commanders of the 
 Bath, Knights Commanders of the Star 
 of India, Knights Commanders of St. 
 Michael and St. George, Knights Bache- 
 lors, Judges of County Courts, Com- 
 panions ol' tin' Bath, Companions of the 
 Star of India, Companions of St. Michael 
 and St. George, Companions of the In- 
 dian Empire, eldest sens of the younger 
 sons of peers, baronets' eldest suns, 
 eldest sons of Knights of the Garter, 
 Thistle, St. Michael and St. George, St. 
 Patrick, the Bath, the Star of India, 
 Knights Bachelors, younger sons of the 
 younger suns of peers, baronets' younger 
 sons, younger suns of knights in the 
 same order as eldest sons ; and, finally, 
 gentlemen entitled to bear arms, in 
 whom we recognize our old friend Armi- 
 ger or Esquire. The ladies take the 
 same lank as their husbands or as their 
 brothers; but merely official rank on 
 the husband's part does not give any 
 similar precedence to the wife. When 
 it is remembered that in every large 
 assembly, like that of a meeting be- 
 fore a great banquet, or a reception, 
 a crush, a party, this table of prece- 
 dence takes form in the mind of the 
 persons who manage or give the enter- 
 tainments, and is adhered to with all the 
 rigidity possible under the circumstances, 
 it is easy to see that conventional form 
 is a prime clement ill every English 
 gathering, or at the public dinners. It 
 is sometimes galling to cultivated and 
 distinguished representatives of the 
 United States to be placed in inferior 
 positions at table, far below the Japanese 
 Minister, or. possibly some petty East 
 Indian potentate, simply because 
 America sends abroad only ministers 
 with extraordinary powers; and an am- 
 bassador must necessarily take prece- 
 dence of a minister. 
 
 The aristocracy represented in this 
 court practically governs England ; and 
 it is striking to observe that in the 
 House of Commons the aristocratic and 
 landed interest far exceeds any other. 
 In the present House, for instance, 
 there are one hundred and forty-one 
 members who are connected with the 
 peerage by birth, and one hundred and 
 twenty-eight connected with it by mar- 
 riage, and three Irish peers. There 
 are one hundred and sixty-eight officers 
 of the army, retired officers, prominent 
 officers of the navy, the militia, ami 
 the yeomanry : there are seventy-nine 
 sons and heirs of peers who are great 
 land-owners, one hundred and ninety- 
 eight land-owners, and but four farm- 
 ers, one mason, and one miner. It 
 is estimated that the House of Com- 
 mons represents a collective ownership 
 of seven millions five hundred seventy- 
 seven thousand nine hundred and sev- 
 enty-lour acres of land, which yield a 
 rent-roll of £5,901,218; but the House of 
 Lords represents an ownership in acres 
 ol' fifteen million two hundred thirteen 
 thousand two hundred and eighty-nine, 
 giving a rental of £12,751,596; and if 
 to this we should add the acres and 
 rentals of representative peers, we 
 should have, as the total land representa- 
 tion of the peerage, — sonic live hundred 
 and twenty-four men, — sixteen million 
 four hundred eleven thousand nine 
 hundred and eighty-six acres, worth 
 £13,542,620 per annum. All 1ml thirty- 
 three of the peers who sit in the House of 
 Louis arc land-owners, and there is paid 
 to them, in annuities, pensions, and 
 salaries. £598,000 annually, of which the 
 peers royal get £100,000 odd, and the 
 prelates or spiritual peers, about £165,- 
 ()()(). Although the House of Lords is 
 pretty fairly divided into Conservative 
 and Liberal sections, on questions of land 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 571 
 
 the Liberals flock over to the Conserva- 
 tive side. The fortunes represented in 
 this ancient, and latterly, rather tried, 
 body of aristocrats, are enormous, and 
 a few facts relating to them, recently 
 published In England, arc worth giving 
 here. The Duke of Northumberland re- 
 ceived £520,000 in 1873 from the rate- 
 payers in Loudon for his old castle in 
 Trafalgar square. The Duke of Suth- 
 erland had £300,000 invested in railways 
 in the north of Scotland in 1874. It 
 was estimated that the value of the 
 estates in the West End of London 
 owned by the Duke of Westminster was 
 £i'l'0,000 a year, — more than a million 
 dollars a year as ground rental. The 
 Duke of Hamilton, who has coal-fields 
 coveriug nearly nine thousand acres, 
 gets royalties of £114,000 annually, aud 
 the ultimate value of these coal-fields is 
 estimated at more than $60,000,000. 
 This is the noble Duke who sold his 
 
 library for £170. in 1884. An idea 
 
 of the fortune of the Marquis of Bute 
 may be had from the fact that he spent 
 £1,000,000 sterling on Cardiff docks 
 to improve them. The Karl of Derby 
 owns Bootle and Kivkdale, Liverpool, 
 and gets enormous sums from the Mer- 
 
 sey Dock Board. The Karl of Sefton 
 got a quarter of a million sterling from 
 the corporation of Liverpool for three 
 hundred and seventy-five acres of land 
 for a park. Karl Dudley exhibited the 
 diamonds of his Countess at the Vienna 
 Exhibition, and their value was stated 
 at £500,000 sterling. The Duke of 
 Norfolk sold a market to the Sheffield 
 Corporation in 1876 for £276,000. Tin- 
 Karl of Sealicld has forests forty-one 
 thousand acres in extent. Their wood 
 was estimated in 1856 to be worth 
 £1,200,000. It is said that, in thirty 
 years from this time, one of these forests 
 will give £50,0(10 a year from its nine- 
 teen thousand acres. The Karl of Stam- 
 ford got £175,000 for one estate of three 
 hundred acres of wooded land in 1*7"). 
 No wonder these great land-owners cling 
 to their land. Hundreds of the smaller 
 land-owners, finding their tenant farm- 
 ers discontented and deserting them, 
 say, in melancholy lone, that they are, in 
 the expressive southern phrase, " land 
 poor." Out of the whole seventy-seven 
 million eight hundred thousand acres in 
 the United Kingdom, twelve men own 
 four million four hundred forty thousand 
 acres. 
 
572 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTY-F01 R. 
 
 The Parliament Palace History and Tradition. — The New Horn.- of the Plutocrats. — The Victoria 
 
 Tower. -Westminster Hall. — Tin' lions,. ,,|' Louis.— Procedure in the Hereditary ( hainbcr.— 
 The Force of rncrtia. Parliamentan i aim. 
 
 r I"MIL huge gothic palace opposite the 
 J- Thames is certainly the most im- 
 pressive of modern English monuments, 
 and is s:\id to be the largest range <>(' 
 public buildings erected for several cen- 
 turies in Great Britain. Every great 
 nation thinks it possesses the first legis- 
 lative assembly of the world, and that 
 when the members of that assembly 
 come together, the listening peoples in 
 the four quarters of the globe tremble 
 with excitement. But there is some 
 foundation for the English boast that 
 the Parliament Houses shelter the first 
 parliament of the world; for in no two 
 other legislative chambers is so wide a 
 range of force, and one covering and 
 surrounding so vast an extent of sea 
 and land ever discussed and directed. 
 When we hear on the Continent of 
 " parliamentary government," and of 
 •• parliamentary procedure," these terms 
 mean something so totally different from 
 what they represent in England, that a 
 comparison of the difference would be 
 almost astonishing. A mass of flowery 
 tradition of almost as rich a gothic as 
 the exterior of the Parliament Houses 
 surrounds all the proceedings of the 
 
 English legislative bodies: yet the pal- 
 ace in which they meet is as new 
 
 as the plutocracy which has crept 
 into legislative representation in Great 
 Britain. 
 
 The new Westminster Palace stands 
 on the site of the old royal palace of 
 the kings of England from Edward 1. 
 
 to Elizabeth. It is first named in a 
 charter of Edward the Confessor, made 
 
 a little after L052 ; and within the old 
 palace walls the Confessor died. In 
 1066, William the Norman held his 
 councils there; there the Abbot of 
 Peterboro was tried before the Kino in 
 1069; there William Rufus built his 
 great hall with its majestic and phe- 
 nomenal roof, which not even the mali- 
 cious liish patriots with their dynamite 
 can shake, anil which is quite as likely 
 as royalty itself to last for many cen- 
 turies to come. In this great hall Wil- 
 liam Rufus held his court in 1099; 
 there also Henry I. gave many a fes- 
 tival. In 1238 the boisterous Thames 
 invaded the great hall, and dignitaries 
 of the State went to anil fro in boats 
 under the roof of William Rufus. But 
 repeated conflagrations ate away the 
 greater part of the old palace, the great 
 hall always being kept in good repair 
 for feasts, for coronations, for arraign- 
 ment of personages charged with 
 treason, and for the keeping of the 
 courts of justice. There Henry VIII. 
 detied the legate of the Pope; and 
 sometimes parliaments were held therein. 
 In 1834 a great lire swept away St. 
 Stephen's Chapel, the House of Lords, 
 and many of the surrounding parlia- 
 mentary buildings : and Tinner painted 
 a picture of the lire. The old House of 
 Lords. — the walls of which were very 
 thick and strong, and underneath which 
 was the cellar where (iuy Fa wives hatched 
 
EUROPE TN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 57.' 
 
 his Gunpowder Plot, was taken down the Royal State Apartments, the House 
 about 1823. Many of the other line of Lords and the House of Commons, 
 rooms have disappeared, among them and the great Central Hall. Enlight- 
 the Prince's chamber, which was hung ened by the sad experience of the pre- 
 with tapestry representing scenes in the vious fires, Mr. Barry endeavored to 
 babyhood of Queen Elizabeth. At the make his building fire-proof. All the 
 time of the lire of 1834 
 the House of Lords < ><•- 
 cupied the old Court of 
 Requests, which was 
 hung with tapestry rep- 
 resenting the defeat oi 
 the .Spanish Armada. 
 
 This new Parliamen- 
 tary palace was begun 
 on the 27th of April, 
 is 10. from the designs 
 of the architect Charles 
 Barry, who was selected 
 outof ninety-seven com- 
 petitors. Mr. Barry's 
 plan has often been se- 
 verely criticised ; but he 
 built with a view to the 
 future, and although to- 
 day his palace stands op- 
 posite to unsightly rows 
 of factory chimneys, and 
 has but a little way from 
 it some of the vilest 
 slums of Europe, when 
 the march of improve- 
 ment goes up the 
 Thames, the palace, u itli 
 its noble twin, West- 
 minster Abbey, stands in 
 no danger of being- 
 dwarfed by any structure 
 
 which may be placed opposite or near it. bearers of the floor are cast iron, with 
 The enormous pile covers about eight brick arches from girder to girder. The 
 acres, and has four principal fronts, the roofs are of wrought-iron cast around 
 terrace on the Thames being nearly one galvanized plates. The stone of the 
 thousand feet long. There are eleven wall is unfortunately beginning to decay, 
 quadrangles or courts, and within the and commissions have repeatedly been 
 walls are five hundred apartments and appointed for discovering remedies for 
 eighteen official residences, exclusive of hardening the walls. 
 
 INTERIOR OF TIIE IIOFSF. OF COMMONS. 
 
. r >71 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 The main features of the palace, which by Westminster Hall. In the first days 
 is of the Tudor style, with here and of :i parliamentary session this hall is 
 there imitations of the picturesque town- frequently crowded with people from all 
 halls of the Flemish cities, are the Clock classes of the London population, who 
 Tower, at the northern end. which is like wait patiently hours to see the different 
 that of the Town-House at Brussels, and celebrities pass in. and to cheer and to 
 the great Central Hall, with a stone hoot them, as their inclination mav 
 lantern and spire. The Clock Tower is prompt. < >n such occasions the hall is 
 one ol the features of London ; it is lined on two sides with gigantic police- 
 three hundred and sixteen feet from its men, forming a line through which the 
 base to the top of the steeple. The deputies of the nation may safely pass 
 clock has the largest dials in the world, to their labor; and no matter how inl- 
 and the minute-hand is said to require, portant a place in the social scale a spec- 
 on account of its great length, velocity, tator may have, if he does not obey the 
 weight, friction, and the action of the injunctions of these policemen, he is liable 
 wind upon it, twenty times re force to to lie turned out neck and crop. Mid- 
 drive it than the hour-hand, which is nine way on the eastern side of Westmin- 
 feet long. The mellow tones of the great ster Hall is the members' entrance to the 
 bells of this tower striking the quarters, House of Commons. At the south end 
 halt's, and full hours, may be heard in a broad flight of steps leads up to St. 
 nearly all the districts of London, espe- Stephen's [torch, and here is a noble 
 cially at night; and as long as Parlia- window, the stained glass of which 
 ment is in session the lime light burns on represents the insignia of the different 
 the tower's top. sovereigns. On the left there is an 
 
 The Victoria Tower, three hundred entrance into St. Stephen's Hall, and 
 
 and thirty-six feet high, is covered with the Central Hall, which has an immense 
 
 figures which, seen from the street, look span of stone Gothic roof, is just beyond. 
 
 almost infantine, but which are really ( )f course there is a royal entrance to 
 
 colossal figures, ten feet high. This Parliament, and this is from the Victoria 
 
 tower was originally intended as a re- Tower. A staircase leads to the Nor- 
 
 positoryfor the state papers and records man porch, beautifully ornamented with 
 
 of the nation, and is divided into eleven statues of kings of the Norman line, and 
 
 stories, each of which contains sixteen with frescoes representing scenes in 
 
 fire-proofrooms. The roof of the tower Anglo-Norman history. On the right is 
 
 weighs four hundred tons. At the portal tin' Queen's Robing-room, and beyond is 
 
 below are great statues of the Lion of the royal gallery, where those fortu- 
 
 Kngland, bearing the national banner; nate people who are admitted to seethe 
 
 and here and there, in the carving, are Queen open or prorogue Parliament wait 
 
 the royal arms of England's former until the arrival of the procession, which 
 
 sovereigns. Here also are the statues of comes through St. .laiues's Park and 
 
 the guardian saints. St. George, St. makes its entry through the Victoria or 
 
 Andrew, and St. Patrick; and in a niche royal gallery into the House of Lords, 
 
 in the archway over the royal stairs is The Hereditary chamber, which has 
 
 the statue of the present Queen. recently seen so many fierce attacks upon 
 
 The public entrances to the Houses its very existence, and which bases iis 
 
 are by the St. Stephen's staircase, and claims to respect chiefly upon its period 
 
EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM 
 
 575 
 
 the canopied niches with pedestals sup- 
 ported by angels bearing shields, illustrated 
 
 of duration, like Thomas Hardy's vil- 
 lager, of whom his comrades said " lie 
 he mighty ancient ; 
 that he his chief 
 quality," — sits in a 
 chamber which is 
 modern when com- 
 pared even with the 
 House of Represen- 
 tatives in Washing- 
 ton. It was only 
 completed in 1860, 
 and Sir Charles Har- 
 ry seems rather to 
 have overdone the 
 stained glass, the 
 escutcheons, the uni- 
 corns, the lions, the 
 gilding, the poly- 
 chrome coloring. 
 Lord Redesdale is 
 reported to have 
 said that the House 
 of Lords resembled 
 the parlor of a casino. 
 M. Philippe Daryl, 
 in a spiteful moment, 
 remarked that, on 
 grand days, when 
 the peeresses fill the 
 gallery, in their blue 
 dresses, red flowers 
 and fans, and pale- 
 green feathers, the 
 appearance is that 
 of a Bohemian glass 
 shop filled with por- 
 celain. This spiteful 
 saying exaggerates 
 the somewhat glar- 
 ing incongruities of 
 
 color and of costume perceptible at an as- with the arms of the barons who won 
 semblyof rankand fashionon the occasion MagnaChartafromKingJohn,theflatccil- 
 of a speech from the throne. The three ing with its royal monograms and its heral- 
 great archways with their wall frescoes, die devices, the walls covered with oaken 
 
 RECENT DYNAMITE EXPLOSIONS AT THE MOUSE OF COMMONS 
 IN LONDON. 
 
576 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 panellings and busts of the sovereigns of of the House of Lords :is it appears to 
 England, the galleries with red metal the comprehension of a cultured Eng- 
 railings, the great throne at the south lishman : " It is not only in the respects 
 end covered with its pretty scarlet carpel of sumptuous ornamentation, the pres- 
 bordered with white rows of lions, and euce of ladies full in the sight of as- 
 fringed with gold colors, the Peers' Lobby sembled legislators, that the interior of 
 and the Library, a superb range of the House of Lords presents such a con- 
 rooms, and the decorations of the cor- trast to the House of Commons. There 
 ridors which lead to the Central Hall is an air of agreeable abandon in the 
 and thence to St. Stephen's, and so to mien and behavior of their lordships, 
 the Westminster Hall entrance, — are The countenances of the members of the 
 all imposing but scarcely harmonious. House of Commons have, for the most 
 
 The throne is of course the chief feat- part, the look of anxiety or preoccupa- 
 ure of the House of Lords, and is al- lion. They enter their chamber like 
 ways saluted by a peer upon his entrance men oppressed with the eonscious- 
 as a kind of concession to loyalty's ness of responsibility, burdened by a. 
 omnipresence. There are three divisions despotism of immutable laws and rigid 
 of the throned canopy. On the central etiquette. There is nothing of the 
 one the Queen lakes her seat; on the sort in the House of Lords, no painful 
 right, the Prince of Wales ; and the left evidence of the thraldom of cere- 
 has been vacant since the death of the monial rules or customs, or of the ruth- 
 Prince Consort. It would require pages less sacrifice of pleasure to duty. The 
 to describe the decorations of the chairs whole atmosphere is redolent of well- 
 of state, and the standards, the crests, bred nonchalance and aristocratic re- 
 the shields, thi' pedestals, the coronal pose. For instance, there is in theory a 
 pendants, and (he shafts surmounted by Speaker of the House of Lords, called, 
 crowns. The peers have seats on benches though lie always is, the Chancellor, 
 covered with reel morocco leather, which just as there is a Speaker of the House 
 extend around three sides of the central of Commons; but the functions of the 
 table. Behind these benches are galler- two are separated by a gulf which is 
 ies for the wives and daughters of peers, conclusive as to the difference of their 
 for the press, and for spectators who are relative positions, and also as to the spirit 
 invited. There are seats for only two in which the business of the two Houses 
 hundred and thirty-five peers, although is conducted. The Speaker of the House 
 there arc more than double that number of Commons is .something more than 
 in the House of Lords; but the sitting- primus inter pares. For the time being 
 space is never crowded. " If is rare," he is regarded as of a nature different 
 says Mr. Escott in his " England," "to from and superior to the honorable 
 find more than a third of the sittings of gentlemen by whom he is surrounded, 
 the House of Lords occupied. There is Though there is nothing which the House 
 no need for members, as in the House of of Commons likes better than a personal 
 Commons, to come down a couple of encounter, or a vituperative duel between 
 hours before the business of the day any two members, there is nothing 
 begins and bespeak places for themselves approaching to disrespect of the gentle- 
 by affixing a. card." man who is the first commoner in 
 
 Another quotation from Mr. Escott's England, the custodian and embodiment 
 
 able work will give us a capital notion of its privileges, that it will tolerate. 
 
EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 The Speaker of the House of Commons 
 is, in fact, the commissioner-in-chief of 
 the privileges and prerogatives of the 
 House of Commons, whom (lie House 
 has accorded to make the depositary of 
 its ceremonial interests. To 
 the Lord Chancellor no such 
 trust has been delivered. The 
 peers are a self-governed body, 
 the preservers of tlieirown or- 
 der. and the protectors of their 
 own privileges. Though the 
 keeper of the Queen's conscience 
 may sit enthroned in majesty on 
 the wool-sack, he is not fenced 
 round by a divinity sufficient to 
 deternoble lords from lounging 
 indolently at half-length upon 
 its well-padded sides. Save for 
 the dignity of his garb the Chan- 
 cellor might lie nothing more 
 than a Chancellor of the Court. 
 Unlike the Speaker in the House 
 of Commons his lordship does 
 not decide who shall have prior- 
 ity. When more than one peer 
 rises their lordships keep order 
 for themselves. The Chancel- 
 lor has not even a casting vote 
 when the numbers in a division 
 are equal, and his only strictly 
 presidential duty is to put the 
 question, and read the titles of 
 measures. On the other hand 
 he is the direct representativeofroyaltyon 
 all occasions when the sovereign communi- 
 cates with Parliament, and he is the repre- 
 sentative official mouth-piece of the House 
 of Peers when they hold intercourse with 
 public bodies or individuals outside." 
 
 When the Lord Chancellor takes his 
 seat, winch is shortly after four o'clock, 
 he wears a red robe and an ermine 
 mantle, a tremendous wig, and three- 
 cornered hat. At his feet are seated 
 clerks in magisterial robes, and on the 
 right of the wool-sack is another clerk, 
 
 whose duty is to keep :i list of those 
 present. Private bills are first con- 
 sidered, the stranger gaining nothing 
 from the mumbling formula that the 
 Chancellor reads, except that the "Con- 
 
 .lolIN" BRIGHT. 
 From Photograph t'\ Elliott .^ Fry, 1 don 
 
 tents " have it; and then business pro- 
 ceeds very much in the same order :is in 
 the House of Commons, with the ex- 
 ceptions above noted in the paragraph 
 from Mr. Escott's volume. The Minis- 
 terial Whip, or whipper-in. or. to he more 
 explicit, the able gentleman who makes 
 it his business to see that members are 
 on hand tor party purposes at the 
 proper moments, is us prominent a 
 feature of the House of Lords :is of the 
 Lower House. The spiritual peers, the 
 bishops, and the gathering of Privy 
 
578 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Councillors and sons of peers in the legislative bodies. They have already 
 
 space in the Strangers' Galleiy are feat- had a foretaste of what they may expect 
 
 ures which will strike an American as in the heated and animated speeches of 
 
 very odd and curious. In the Lower some of their members on the questions 
 
 Mouse forty is a quorum ; in the Upper of the extension of the franchise and 
 
 House, three, [n the Lower House par- the redistribution, [nboth I louses there 
 
 ticular notice is required for the asking is a tendency to attack discussion of 
 
 of questions of ministers, and the rule even the most vital crisis in the slow, 
 
 is very rigid ; but in the Upper House formal, and elaborate manner which 
 
 members of the Opposition embarrass never ceases to surprise the stranger, no 
 
 the government with as many questions matter how many times he may have 
 
 as they like. What is the use of assisted at the beginning of such a dis- 
 
 privileges unless one can employ cussion. England opposes what might 
 
 them? So think the noble lords who paradoxically be called the force of her 
 
 disdain the rigidity of the Commons, inertia against the immediate settlement 
 
 Nowadays the taking of a divisiou in of pressing questions; and .she does it 
 
 the House of Lonls is very similar to with great effect. Go back to 1867, 
 
 that in the Commons. The "Contents," and you will find that Parliament had 
 
 as the •• Ayes" are called, go down into just finished the slow and steady discus- 
 
 theright lobby, and the "Non-Contents," siou and adoption of the Reform Bill. 
 
 — the "Noes," — into the left lobby ; and, <b> forward to 1884, and you will find 
 
 as they return, their votes are counted Parliament slowly and steadily adopting 
 
 and announced to the Lord Chancellor, the extension of the franchise with 
 
 A striking characteristic of the Eug- almost the same forms, the same men, 
 
 lish Parliament, and one which renders with slight exceptions, and the enormous 
 
 it totally different from that of most slowness noticeable half a generation 
 
 legislative bodies, is the calmness and ago. Mr. Bright is in the same hall, on 
 
 the gravity with which issues of the the same, platform, at Birmingham. He 
 
 most tremendous importance are (lis- fights the same battle, but it is on a 
 
 cussed in the Upper House. The self- slope still further advanced. There has 
 
 confidence and poise are founded upon been progress, but it, has been a thin red 
 
 the lone; possession of great fortunes, line steadfastly, unwaveringly advanc- 
 
 each member who rises to discuss the ing, without fuss or < fusion, without 
 
 issue feeling somehow convinced that, cheers or excitement : progress which 
 whatever happens to the world at large, the nation is content to have slow, be- 
 or to the British Empire, he will enjoy cause it feels it sure. The nation is 
 ease and comfort to the end of his days, anxious that iniquities and injustice 
 This is not the feeling of a member of abroad should be crushed or thrown 
 the French Senate or the French Cham- aside at lightning speed ; but at home it 
 her of Deputies, nor of the German is willing to wait, ready to adopt com- 
 pariiamenlary bodies, nor of any eonti- promises, make sacrifices, everything in 
 nental assemblies for deliberative pur- favor of the good old motto •• Festina 
 poses. When the noble lords enter into lente." Nothing surprises Parliament, 
 a discussion of the reform of the tenure I! is a cynical, blasi body, willing 
 of landed property in Great Britain they enough to engage in a contest, but de- 
 will perhaps appreciate the lack of calm- termined not to he shaken out of its 
 ness sometimes perceptible in continental primitive and abiding calm. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 579 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE. 
 
 The Irish Members. — The House of Commons. — The Speaker. — The Peers and the Creation of New 
 Peers — The Passion for the Possession of Land. — An Active Session. — Procedure. — Eringing 
 In Bills. 
 
 THE Irish Question does not alarm 
 the British Parliament. Go back 
 to 1867, and you will find the government 
 passing a bill for suspending Habeas 
 Corpus in Ireland. You will read long 
 debates on perturbed affairs in the sister 
 island. Go forward to 1 88 1 , 1832, 1 883 , 
 and 1884, the same discussions are re- 
 opened, the same rigorous measures of 
 coercion are applied, the same dogged 
 determination is manifest ; yet progress 
 has been made; concessions where not 
 unreasonable have been accorded. Go 
 back again to 1867, you will liud Parlia- 
 ment discussing the question of an ex- 
 pedition of Abyssinia. Go forward again 
 to the last twelve months, and you will 
 find the Committee of Supply discussing 
 the credits of an expedition to the Sou- 
 dan. The same programme of the asser- 
 tion of the national strength, of pushing 
 forward the national trade, of increasing 
 the circle of the British Empire's influ- 
 ence, has been steadily pursued during 
 the half generation witli but little inter- 
 ruption because of the ups and downs of 
 ministries, with, on the whole, but few 
 approaches to danger. The total lack 
 of the dramatic faculty in the mass of 
 English politicians is noticeable to any 
 one who has long lived among Continen- 
 tal people. M. Daryl puts down in his 
 note-book on the occasion of his first 
 visit to the lobby of the House of Com- 
 mons, that u no one assumes an air of 
 importance, no one rushes away with 
 frenzied air, as if about to communicate 
 
 news of the utmost consequence : in short, 
 there are no poseurs in English politics 
 
 as there are n in English literature or 
 
 in English art." The Rt. Hon. gentleman 
 who comes down in evening dress, re- 
 freshed by his frugal dinner, to the 
 House of Commons, and who with a 
 flower in his button-hole sits listening to 
 the lengthy platitudes of some country 
 members, betrays but small impatience 
 when he rises to respond to some silly ac- 
 cusation oi- groundless criticism. Prime 
 Ministers in England accept with meek- 
 ness a vast amount of flummery and the 
 infinity of useless questions to which 
 they are subjected. But when they at- 
 tack the business on hand, whether it be 
 the extension of the franchise or the rec- 
 tification of a frontier, they stale the 
 ease with extreme plainness, rarely with 
 any flowers of rhetoric, although Lord 
 Beaeonsfield sometimes remembered his 
 ancient floridness of metaphor in his later 
 speeches. Nothing can lie more strik- 
 ing than the plainness with which orators 
 like Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright ex- 
 press their ideas. There is elegance in 
 tone and inflection and in look, but none 
 of the passionate or flowery utterances 
 of a Cambetta or a Castelar. The chil- 
 dren of the north, while they appre- 
 ciate eloquence, set it coolly aside in 
 their own discussions and statements in 
 Parliament. A hero is praised, but not 
 in exaggerated terms. There is a sense 
 of the dignity of the place and the occa- 
 sion always noticeable in speeches of 
 
f>.SO EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Pari iament except in those thai an ex- ling studies called " The Point of View," 
 cited Irish member, a noble marquis, makes an American citizen, wearied with 
 or a piping little lord may indulge in, — Europe's petty divisions and formulas, 
 language which they afterwards regret, indulge in sonic pleasantries at the ex- 
 just as Mr. Chamberlain sometimes takes pense of the British House of Commons, 
 the liit in his teeth, and wishes he had which is discussing at great length the 
 not later on. But within the walls of Hares-and-Rabbits Bill, the Deceased 
 Westminster Palace decorum of speech, Wife's Sister's Bill, the Burials Bill, 
 if not always of action, is the rule. In and other things which, he adds, are of 
 the lace of such an issue as thai about to such infinitesimal importance. There 
 lie decided in Central Asia, where two are indeed seasons when the British 
 opposing forces seem with resistless Parliament seems to confine its atten- 
 attraction approaching each other for a tion to matters better fitting the con- 
 final and desperate crash, the English sideration of a town council or a body 
 Prime Minister, although realizing thai of ••selectmen." as we say in New Eng- 
 liis ministry for the moment does not land: lint there are also long periods 
 stand upon a secure foundation, states during which every evening, when l'ar- 
 with utmost calmness, and with ex- liainent sits, is occupied with questions 
 ceeding brevity just exactly what Eng- of far-reaching influence, and the greatest 
 land is prepared to do. In France he gravity, and to pore oyer the verbatim 
 would expect to be talked about in the reports of last night's session in the 
 
 newspapers for a week after this declara- '•Times" is enough to convince one that a 
 
 tion. Enthusiastic reporters would de- conscientious member of Parliament 
 scribe his attitude, his dress, and his must study the history of the whole uni- 
 gestures when he made an important verse. He knows more about the Antip- 
 statemcnl. Old anecdotes would be odes than he knows about White 
 furbished up and made to do duty anew. Chapel, and he hears more talk of the 
 In England he uoes home quietly at .Mauritius, the Bermudas, the Afghan 
 three in the morning, after an exhaust- frontiers, and the Upper Niger, than of the 
 ive night, to his official residence, and pollution of the Thames, or the rebuild- 
 nothing is said about his personality in ing of Soho, or the condition of the 
 the morning papers. When, as in recent poor in Liverpool; in short, the Parlia- 
 times, the ebullition of a certain .small ment is Imperial first and local after- 
 party, like the Irish members in the wards. It does not occur to the Amcri- 
 IIousc of Commons, causes a conflict can mind that England is an Empire 
 anil a necessity for answer to swiftly until one gets into Parliament, and hears 
 given and generally odious accusations, the constant repetition of Imperial and 
 the calmness of the Ministry seems to of Empire. 
 
 increase rather than to diminish, and It is difficult to reconcile the pre- 
 
 the imperturbability of the Speaker is dictions of Radical gentlemen that the 
 
 bey 1 reproach. Mr. Gladstone has House of Lords will some day thwart 
 
 latterly lent his influence with a grim the will of the people, and will then be 
 
 good-humor to enforce the closure, swept away, with the continuous creation 
 
 which is recognized as an heroic remedy of peers by cabinets headed by illus- 
 
 against the delay of public business. trious commoners like Mr. Gladstone 
 
 Mr. Henry .lames, in one of his spark- himself. The creation of these peers is 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 )81 
 
 set down as one of the necessities of 
 political life ; and it is accepted as per- 
 fectly natural that a great orator or a 
 plutocrat, who lias gathered to himself 
 ample acres, should sit in the body to 
 which belong the princes of the blood 
 royal, all the dukes, marquises, earls, 
 viscounts, and barons of the realm. A 
 peer is made out of an orator who is 
 needed in the House of Lords, as was the 
 case with Lord Derby. The Gladstone 
 ministry has created sixteen peerages in 
 three years ; the preceding ministry made 
 forty-three peers in six years, and of 
 their numbers was Mr. Disraeli, elevated 
 to the title of Lord Beaconsfleld. The 
 Gladstone Cabinet, before that, made 
 thirty-six peers in live years, and one 
 peeress, the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. 
 Lord Beaconsfleld himself said, in one 
 of his early novels, that the English 
 peerage was due to three sources, — the 
 spoliation of the Church, the open and 
 flagrant sale of its honors by the elder 
 ■Stuart, and the boroughmongering of our 
 own times. " These," he added. " are 
 the three main sources of the existing 
 peerages, and, in ray opinion, disgraceful 
 ones." Mr. Disraeli used his scornful 
 phrase before successive Reform bills had 
 made Parliament a cleanlier body than 
 of old. ''But it is still true," says an 
 able Radical writer, " that the exercise 
 of electoral influence is the surest road 
 to the House of Lords." This same writer 
 says : " When the Tories were in office, 
 in 1866, several peers were created who 
 owe their titles to political partisanship, 
 and, from 1M74 to 1880, the large-acred 
 Tories had a rare time of it. while 
 superannuated or incompetent colleagues 
 of the minister were elevated into the 
 House of Lords when offices could not 
 be found for them. For nearly forty 
 years Sir John Parkington sat for 
 what was once the pocket-borough of 
 
 Durham. In 1N74 the people of Dur- 
 ham asserted their independence and 
 rejected Sir John. He was at once 
 created Lord Hampton. Colonel Wilson 
 Pallen, another old colleague, hail to be 
 provided for, so he was created Lord 
 Wilmarleigh. The Ormshy Gores had 
 done much for the Tories in Shropshire 
 and other counties, ami the late Lord 
 Harlech had his reward in his elevation 
 to the Upper House, in 1876. Mr. 
 John Tollemache had long served the 
 Tories in Cheshire and Suffolk- ; lie had 
 his reward the same year by being created 
 Lord Tollemache. Mr. Gerard had helped 
 
 to SCOre for Lancaster; he became Lord 
 
 Gerard. Mr. Hilton Joliffe, whose seat for 
 Wells was abolished by the last Reform 
 Bill, was consoled with the title of Lord 
 Hylton. Sir Charles Adderley retired 
 from the ministry and became Lord Nor- 
 ton. Mr. Disraeli became Earl of Bea- 
 consfleld ; Lord Cairns became Earl 
 Cairns ; and Mr. Gathorne-Hardy became 
 Viscount Cranbrook." This same writer 
 makes the assertion that, since the acces- 
 sion of the House of Hanover, a very 
 huge portion of the modern aristocracy, 
 probably one-half, owe one or more titles 
 tii the exercise of electoral intimidation. 
 Bui whatever influence the Mouse of 
 Lords may be disposed to exercise is 
 more than neutralized by the constant 
 and deliberate attempts of (he House of 
 Commons to bring up the laboring classes 
 to a position where the}' can defend 
 their rights, and to actually place their 
 rights in their own hands, as has been 
 done in the case of the agricultural 
 laborers by the passage of the recent 
 Franchise Bill. 
 
 The passion for the possession of land 
 by men who have accumulated much 
 wealth in England surpasses all other 
 passions. For a long time to come, des- 
 pite the agrarian agitation, the owner- 
 
582 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 ship of land will be the basis of power 
 and influence and the stepping-stone to 
 a fixed place among the nobility. It is 
 said that out of one great manufacturing 
 establishment in South Wales two peer- 
 ages and a baronetcy have been pro- 
 duced during the present century. This 
 was brought about by the absorption of 
 all tlic land in the neighborhood by the 
 wealth of the Welsh iron-masters. A 
 Mr. Lovil. who went up to London own- 
 ing no acres at all, leaves as his suc- 
 cessor a son owning more than thirty 
 thousand acres of land in eleven different 
 counties, and a seat in the House of 
 l.onls. The law and the army furnish 
 from time to time able recruits to I lie 
 Upper House; ami there are also what 
 are called (he Civil Service peerages. 
 There distinguished servants of the 
 Crown are placed to give the country the 
 advantage of their experience, legal and 
 general. Since 1859 the House of Lords 
 has hail added to its ranks Lords Raglan, 
 Civile. Strathearn. Sandhurst, Napier, 
 Magdala, Airey, Wolseley, and Alcester. 
 Historians, poets, and novelists, and 
 such small-beer, rarely reach the House 
 of Lords, unless they are also important 
 wire-pullers and distinguished politi- 
 cians. 
 
 The House of Commons in the midst 
 of an active session looks like a modern 
 chapel which has been taken possession 
 (if by a genteel company of practical 
 men who feel somewhat out of place. 
 If the great House of Representatives 
 in Washington, with its noise, its sudden 
 darting to and fro of pages, the clapping 
 
 of hands, and the buzz of voices from 
 
 the galleries, is confusing to the stranger, 
 the British House of Commons is simply 
 bewildering. Ushered through the brill- 
 iant lobby into one of the dark galler- 
 ies, tlic visitor looks down upon a small 
 and compact hall with its twelve side 
 
 windows painted with the arms of the 
 boroughs, with the green olass compart- 
 ments in its ceiling, tinted with floreated 
 circles, and with its floor of perforated 
 east- iron. " If is impossible," says 
 Mr. Timbs in his " Curiosities of Lon- 
 don," " to burn the House down. You 
 might set tire to and destroy the furni- 
 ture and fittiugs, but the flooring, walls, 
 and roof would remain intact." Mr. 
 Timbs did not think of dynamite; eveu 
 that, as we have recently seen, can do 
 but comparatively slight damage. On 
 three sides of the House are galleries for 
 members and strangers, the six hundred 
 and fifty odd M.P.s having scarcely 
 three hundred .seats around the table, 
 upon which lie the papers and docu- 
 ments, and just behind which, at the 
 head of the room, Mr. Speaker is en- 
 throned upon a kind of Gothic chair on 
 a platform. The reporters are huddled 
 into a small gallery over the Speaker's 
 chair, and above them is a little cage, out 
 of which the ladies are allowed to look, 
 as Oriental dames peer through the mys- 
 terious lattices of Turkish towns. At 
 the north end of the House is the Bar, 
 and there sits the Sergeant-at-Arms, a 
 terrible and important functionary. On 
 the Speaker's right, on the front bench, 
 sit the ministers ; on the left front bench, 
 the leaders of the Opposition, the Ins 
 fronting the Outs so closely that even a 
 whisper can be heard. Below the Speak- 
 er's chair stands the Clerk's table, on 
 which lies tin' Speaker's mace while the 
 session is in progress; and on cither 
 side of tin' House tains the lobby, into 
 which, at a division, the members pass, 
 I lie ■■ Ayes " to the west, the " Noes" to 
 the east. This has been the home of 
 the Lower House of Parliament since 
 1852, and here the second and third 
 stages of parliamentary reform have 
 been originated and pushed through. 
 
F.rnnpE in storm and calm. 
 
 583 
 
 The procedure in the House of Com- 
 mons is simple enough, I nit too long 
 Cur detailed description here. L - The 
 House," says Mr. Eseott, "is at once 
 a mirror and epitome of the national 
 life. There is no rumor of any sort, 
 social, commercial, diplomatic, or politi- 
 cal, which does not make its way into the 
 lobby of the House." " Before the 
 House," says Mr. Palgrave, "passes 
 yearly every national anxiety." In the 
 House of Commons originates the taxa- 
 tion of the realm, and there also arc 
 born most of the bills which directly 
 affect home politics. A member of Par- 
 liament gets no compensation for his 
 services, and the unhappy men who 
 try to follow their regular professions 
 and keep pace with political life very 
 often break down under the strain, or 
 arc compelled to neglect their private 
 interest, and thus to travel on the verge of 
 ruin. A conscientious membcrof Parlia- 
 ment has to work in committee in the 
 morning, and if he does not go to secure 
 one of the three hundred regular seats, or 
 a coigne of vantage in the members' gal- 
 lery while the chaplain is saying prayers 
 at four o'clock at each session, even if he 
 only comes in after dinner, he will find 
 his strength all taken by the long ses- 
 sion, which on several days in the week 
 does not close before two and three in 
 the morning. The scene in the Com- 
 mons, with these politicians of the three 
 kingdoms, some lounging, some silling 
 erect in correct morning or in faultless 
 evening dress, and every one, excepting 
 the person who happens to be speaking, 
 with his hat jammed over his eves, is 
 rather amusing. The daily programme 
 is usually the same. Before the dinner 
 hour, which grows later every year in 
 London, petitions and private bills arc 
 in order. If an important debate is 
 expected, after dinner, members flock 
 
 down from the chilis and from their 
 houses, and by placing a card in the 
 brass rack on a seat, or leaving papers 
 in- "loves, they secure a good place for 
 the evening's work. The presentation 
 of petitions is simple in the extreme, and 
 is often merely the inscription of the 
 subject and its origin, says Mr. Eseott, 
 on a piece of paper, sent to the report- 
 ers' gallery. There are. however, official 
 books on the table in front of the Speak- 
 er's chair for the reception of these 
 important documents. A member who 
 wishes to be troublesome can have the 
 petition read out at length by one of the 
 clerks at the table. Next come notices of 
 motions relative to questions, resolutions, 
 or bills ; and these motions illustrate in 
 the amplest manner the inconvenience of 
 having a responsible ministry that sits 
 in cither House. The time and patience 
 wasted over these absolutely formal and 
 generally useless questions it is impossible 
 to estimate. As there are always more 
 motions than can be handled readily, 
 members have to ballot for days on 
 which they may present their motions : 
 and many bores are thus eliminated. 
 Tuesdays and Fridays are for motions. 
 Mondays and Thursdays are govern- 
 ment nights, Wednesday is open for bills 
 only, not for motions; but on this day 
 Parliament rises before dinner and does 
 not sit again in the evening. 
 
 The bringing in of bills and carrying 
 them through their different stages to 
 the royal assent, which makes them Acts 
 of Parliament, is attendi d with numer- 
 ous formulas, which conic from the old 
 Norman procedure. When a bill having 
 passed through the various stages in the 
 Commons is sent up to the Lords, the 
 clerk of the Commons indorses on it 
 " Soi baitti aux seigneurs;" and a bill 
 sent down from the Lords to the Com- 
 mons is indorsed in the same wav. When 
 
584 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 a bill has passed through both Houses, stances, where the Royal assent is re- 
 
 and Majesty has given its consent in fused to a bill, the Clerk says, "i« 
 
 person to its being made law, if it lie lieigne s'avisera." (The Queen will 
 
 a bill of supply, the Clerk reads forth the think about it.) All private and per- 
 
 French phrase: " Ln Reigne remercie sonal bills are passed upon petitions, 
 
 sen /"ins sitjetx. acct-ptent lear binivolence, and many of them have to be advertised 
 
 etainsile mill." To other public bills in newspapers, especially if there is any 
 
 the form of assent is. "in Reigne le interference proposed with land or with 
 
 ri'iili ; " to private bills, " Soi fait other property. 
 comme il est desire"." But in rare in- 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 ;>K5 
 
 CHAPTER .SIXTY-SIX. 
 
 The Treasury A\" li i p. — Parliamentary Forms. — Oddities of the House of Commons. — Authority of the 
 
 Speaker. — The Home Rule Members. — [rishmeu in London. — Anomalies of English Represen- 
 tation. — "Reform." — Tiie Reconstruction of London's Municipal Government. 
 
 THE Treasury Whip, or the party 
 agent who attends to the as- 
 sembling of the majority for the govern- 
 ment during any important debate, is 
 more active ami indispensable in the 
 House of Commons than in the House 
 of Lords. lie has an office hard by the 
 Parliament, whence he can send forth 
 lithographed notices by scores, whipping 
 into the ranks the deserters and neg- 
 ligent ; and in many cases he sends 
 despatches hundreds, even thousands of 
 miles. A prominent member of Parlia- 
 ment will travel from Nice or Naples at 
 the summons of the Whip without com- 
 plaining, and it is amusing to notice the 
 precipitation with which active members 
 bolt their dinners at the club and depart 
 from the comfortable bachelor palaces in 
 the gustiest and muddiest of weather so 
 soon as the summons is heard. After 
 a great discussion, when the issue is to 
 be decided by a division, the lobbies of 
 the House of Commons seem like the 
 ante-chambers of a palace on lire. 
 People are rushing to and fro, some to 
 summon, others to answer summons. 
 The legislators of the Kingdom muster 
 as obediently as school children under 
 the Peers' gallery, and then divide to 
 right and left into their respective lob- 
 bies, after which the door-keepers in- 
 dulge in an exploration in the hall and 
 even look under the benches to see if 
 any member has forgotten his duty. 
 Back again come the voters, sometimes 
 witli the tumult of triumph manifest, but 
 
 only on occasions when the issue is 
 national. The dignity of the House is 
 rarely startled out of its equilibrium, al- 
 though in recent years, under the vexa- 
 tions of the Home Rule party, anil the 
 strong and sweeping accusations made in 
 the heat of the struggle for direction of 
 the foreign policy or for the franchise bill, 
 there have been wrangles and disputes 
 quite as singular and as much to be dep- 
 recated as those which often occur in 
 legislative chambers in Latin countries. 
 Hut those who wish an elaborate des- 
 cription of the procedure in the House 
 of Commons, will find it in Mr. Escott's 
 excellent hook, already referred to, or 
 in many a compendium of Parliamentary 
 law. The House is full of formulas 
 handed down from generations when 
 monarchy was by no means so limited as 
 it is to-day in its prerogatives, the 
 manner of going into committee, by 
 replacing the Speaker for the time being 
 by the Chairman of the ways and means 
 being one of the most interesting of 
 these survivals. It comes, Mr. Escott 
 tells us, from the old days of the Tudor 
 and the Stuart despotism. The Speaker's 
 motion " That I do now leave this 
 chair" is based upon the old exclusion 
 of the King's emissary and spy, their 
 speaker, whom the Commons did not 
 choose to have in their midst when they 
 were engaged in important committee 
 worlc. The presence of the ministry in 
 Parliament, the acceptance or rejection 
 by the government of clauses ami 
 
586 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 amendments in lulls, the constant decla- 
 rations of tli*- Government's policy, and 
 the lengthy and evasive speeches of the 
 Premier or of his right-hand man, when 
 tin' Ministry desires not to commit itself, 
 — all these are strange, and striking to 
 the stranger, but seem perfectly natural, 
 and the only proper way to the English 
 mind. In fact, nothing can exceed the 
 rigidity of the English belief that things 
 are done in England as they should be 
 done, and that, foreign ways, it' they dif- 
 fer from English ways, must necessarily 
 lie erroneous. 
 
 One of the oddities of the House of 
 Commons is that the Speaker cannot 
 leave his chair lor the evening until the 
 adjournment is formally moved, and if 
 Mr. Biggar, or other of the enemies of 
 the present Speaker, could manage to pre- 
 vent the moving of adjournment until 
 all the members had left, the Speaker 
 would stand an excellent chanee of re- 
 maining in his place all night. Il is 
 recorded that the House was once 
 deserted save by the Speaker himself, 
 who had to sit on and on until a mem- 
 ber of Parliament should be hunted up, 
 and brought in to make the necessary 
 motion. Mr. Escott tell us that when 
 the House session is closed for the 
 night, the Speaker, "rising from his 
 chair, bows to the Secretary of the 
 Treasury, who acts as his adjutant, and 
 who returns obeisance. Immediately 
 after this is audible the cry of • Who 
 goes home?' a relic of those times when 
 members of Parliament used to make up 
 parties for the homeward journey to 
 protect themselves against the attacks of 
 highwaymen. The police in the lobbies, 
 however, do not echo this shout, but 
 simply announce that ' House is up.' 
 
 The authority of the Speaker has been 
 much more definite and pronounced since 
 1881, at which period the small hut com- 
 
 pact Irish party undertook the obstruc- 
 tion of public business by a campaign 
 such as only the Celtic mind, with its 
 whimsical love of fun, and its ingenuity 
 when bent on annoyance, could devise. 
 The adoption of the closure, bor- 
 rowed from French parliamentary prac- 
 tice, was much criticised when first 
 brought into operation; but it has on 
 
 the whole worked well. It must be 
 conceded that a parliamentary body has 
 the right to force a decision as to the 
 closing of a discussion which is sterile 
 and profitless, when public business is 
 delayed and pressing. The Irish rejoin- 
 der to this is of course that all is fair in 
 war, in anything which hinders the 
 action of England, and, furthermore, that 
 Old Ireland will not get her rights unless 
 she insists upon thrusting them on the 
 public view* at any and all hours. Frosty 
 and well-bred Mr. Parncll, with his 
 keen incisive way of speaking, his 
 polished manners, and his imperturbable 
 temper, is now and then somewhat 
 embarrassed by the action of the more 
 impulsive members of the Irish group, 
 some of whom would, if they dared, dance 
 a jig on tin Speaker's table, and play leap- 
 frog over the venerable Premier's shoul- 
 ders, if they thought that by so doing they 
 could cause a. check in the management 
 of public affairs. It is noteworthy that 
 when an Irish member has something 
 definite to say, and says it in a manly 
 and straightforward fashion, he is almost 
 always listened to, if not with sympathy, 
 :ii least with courtesy, and the present 
 Premier is extremely painstaking in his 
 
 responses even to the youngest of the 
 boisterous company. Several very young 
 men have been returned to the Home 
 Rule Party in Parliament, and among 
 them is a son of the famous novelist ami 
 essayist, Justin McCarthy, and T. P. 
 O'Connor, who possesses real eloquence, 
 
EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 587 
 
 aud who, although he wrote a bitter and 
 savage book cm Lord Beaconsfleld, 
 actually possessed the good-will and 
 possibly the admiration of Disraeli until 
 his latest day. The loyal Irishmen, 
 those who do not affiliate with the Sepa- 
 ratists and Home Rulers, are as fire- 
 brands to their noisier and more patriotic 
 brethren, who never fail to engage in a 
 contest which perhaps has been merely 
 hinted at in some very mild remarks. 
 Many of the young Irish members find 
 their parliamentary laurels rather diffi- 
 cult to wear. In London they are en- 
 vironed with an atmosphere of dislike 
 which no sensitive man can long endure 
 without feeling resentment and allowing 
 it to warp his judgment ; and, further- 
 more, as they have no compensation and 
 little lime for professional work of any 
 sort, they accumulate obligations more 
 pressing than those which they have 
 towards their constituencies. 
 
 The Home Rule members of the Irish 
 representation in Parliament are twenty 
 in number, and it is to an American 
 curious to note the small number of 
 electors in comparison with the popula- 
 tions of tin' districts by which they were 
 placed in otliee. But a little more than 
 five thousand electors voted to put John 
 Deasy ami Mr. Parnell in Parliament as 
 the representatives of Cork, which has 
 one hundred thousand inhabitants. But, 
 in considering the number of electors. 
 we have to remember that large numbers 
 of electors in Ireland were permanently 
 disfranchised as a condition of Catholic 
 emancipation, aud that it took the peers 
 until 1850 to decide that it was safe to 
 allow the Irish suffrage to be lowered to 
 a £12 rental, which has been retained at 
 this figure ever since (hat time ; and not 
 later than 18s:) a bill for the assimila- 
 tion of Irish to English electoral rights 
 was thrown out. It is also true that 
 
 Irish voters are compelled to appear in 
 person if objected to at the revision 
 courts, and there is a system of legalized 
 conspiracies for disfranchising objections, 
 similar to those which were kept up by 
 the action of the House of Lords and 
 its confederates in Great Britain until 
 public opinion swept them away. Mr. 
 Justin McCarthy was returned from 
 Athlone, which has six thousand nine 
 hundred inhabitants, by three hundred 
 aud sixty-five electors ; Mr. Dawson, 
 from Carlow. with seven thousand inhab- 
 itants, by three hundred and eight elect- 
 ors ; Mr. Moore, from Clonmel, which 
 has ten thousand population, by four 
 hundred and thirty-four voters; Mr. 
 O'Donnell, from Dungarvan, by three 
 hundred aud ten electors, out of seven 
 thousand population ; Mr. Kenny, from 
 Ennis ; Mr. Laver, and Mr. T. P. O'Con- 
 nor, the last two from ( ralway, which has 
 nearly nineteen thousand inhabitants, 
 by one thousand one hundred and twenty- 
 four electors ; Mr. Smythwick, from Kil- 
 kenny, Mr. Collins, from Kinsale, and 
 The O'Donoghue and Messrs. Mac- 
 Mahon, Gabbitt, O'Brien, Redmond 
 Power, Leamy, W. II. Redmond, and 
 Sir John McKenna, by electors in about 
 the same proportion as the others. 
 
 The English representation in the Par- 
 liament of Great Britain is divided into 
 that from cities, boroughs, and districts, 
 and that from counties anil divisions ; 
 and in the last session of Parliament 
 one hundred and seventy-nine cities, 
 boroughs, burghs, and districts, possess- 
 ing an aggregate population of three 
 million two hundred and eighty thousand 
 three hundred and thirty-eight, and sub- 
 mitting to aggregate assessments of 
 something like £38,000,000, had in Par- 
 liament two hundred and thirty mem- 
 bers, who were returned by four hun- 
 dred forty-three thousand six hundred 
 
588 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 and seven electors; seventy-two cities, in the kingdom. ... It is prepos- 
 boroughs, burghs, and districts, having tenuis that forty-two little boroughs 
 eleven million five hundred and thirty- should send forty-two members to the 
 seven thousand one hundred and twenty- House <>t' Commons, while the nineteen 
 four population, and an aggregate elector- great citizen boroughs, with more than 
 ship of one million five hundred and two twenty-seven times the population, and 
 thousand four hundred and thirty-six. as with twenty-five times more electors, and 
 well as an aggregate assessment of assessed at nearly fifty times the amount 
 £253,710,700, returned but one hundred of income tax. have only one more rep- 
 and thirty members ; ninety-eight coun- reseutative. To secure a real representa- 
 ties and divisions, with seven million tiou of the people one thing is essentially 
 four hundred and ninety-four thousand requisite, namely, electoral districts, 
 eight hundred and three population, and doing away with the distinction between 
 an aggregate electorship of four hundred counties and boroughs, whose real and 
 and eighty-seven thousand three hundred permanent interests are identical." 
 and eighty-seven, and aggregate assess- During the recent campaign in favor 
 incuts of £102,427,491, returned one of the extension of the franchise, and 
 hundred and fifty-eight members; while while the plan for redistribution was be- 
 sixtv-one other counties and divisions, ing arranged, a. list of one hundred and 
 with twelve million five hundred and sixty towns and places, each one of 
 forty thousand seven hundred and which had more than ten thousand popu- 
 seventy-seveu population, seven hundred lation, hut none of which had direct 
 and fifty-seven thousand one hundred representation in Parliament, or were 
 and twelve aggregate electorship, and incorporated for parliamentary purposes 
 an aggregate assessment of twenty- with represented cities, boroughs, or dis- 
 five per cent, larger than that of the tricts, was published. These one hun- 
 whole ninety-eight other counties and died and sixty towns had an aggregate 
 divisions, returned hut one hundred population of three million two hundred 
 and twenty-five members. This will and ninety-seven thousand two hundred 
 strike any one as a curious anomaly ; and and seventeen, exceeding that of the 
 "these figures demonstrate," says a writer seventy-two boroughs and cities, which, 
 in the '• Financial Reform Almanac." as we see above, were represented by 
 " with equal clearness, first, the mon- one hundred mid thirty members. Yet 
 strous anomalies of our present electoral they had no voice in Parliament what- 
 system ; and, secondly, the folly of our ever; whilst the latter sent seventy-two 
 pseudo-philosophers, who imagine that members to the House of Commons 
 the only true principle of representative alone. A striking illustration of the 
 government, uanielv government by manner in which the system worked is 
 majorities, is erroneous, and ought to lie furnished by St. Helens, which has a 
 partially nullified by minorities. They have population of nearly sixty thousand in- 
 sofar succeeded bymeansof their three- habitants but uo member in Parliament ; 
 cornered crotchet as to place the great while Port Arlington, with scarcely two 
 towns of Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, thousand live hundred inhabitants, has 
 Glasgow, and Manchester on a footing just as much vote-power as Manchester, 
 of perfect equality, as regards the vote But the House of Commons is indus- 
 power, with the most insignificant place triously reforming itself, and reforming 
 
EUROPE IN STORM A.XD CALM. 
 
 5X9 
 
 out of existence the privileges which 
 have so long kept millions of men who 
 should have been voters practically non- 
 voters ; and the Distribution Bill, which 
 has been led into the public view by the 
 new-born Franchise Bill, is to sweep with 
 a vigorous broom the old constituencies. 
 All boroughs which have less than fifteen 
 thousand inhabitants are to be merged 
 in surrounding county districts; those 
 boroughs with less than fifty thousand 
 inhabitants are to have but one member 
 each; and those between fifty and one 
 hundred and sixty-live thousand are to 
 retain two members each. All urban 
 constituencies with more than one hun- 
 dred and sixty-five thousand inhabitants, 
 and all counties, without exception, are 
 to be divided into districts, represented 
 each by a single member. Both Sir 
 Stafford Northcote anil Lord Salisbury 
 are understood to adhere warmly to this 
 plan, which has nevertheless been tried 
 with small success for several years in 
 the French Parliament. Gambetta tried 
 with all his might to break up thesingle- 
 member constituencies, and to substitute 
 for Scrutin d'Arrondissement the Scrutin 
 </< Liste ; in other words, to build a com- 
 pact and vigorous party which could be 
 handled and controlled by the usual 
 party agencies, rather than to allow the 
 continuance in office of a set of petty 
 representatives, each committed to all the 
 hobbies, and possibly all the faults, of 
 his small group. Liberals like the late 
 Mr. Fawcett, after a careful survey of 
 the Redistribution Bill proposed by their 
 party, decided that they could not give 
 it their support. Mr. Courtney even 
 resigned his office as Secretary of the 
 Treasury, and when he did so said that 
 Mr. Fawcett, if he had lived, would have 
 retired from the postmaster-generalship 
 as an indication of his disbelief in the 
 one-member system. The Redistribution 
 
 Bill, in its present shape, is the result of 
 a compromise, which seems to have been 
 somewhat suddenly resolved upon, and 
 to which the leading statesmen of both 
 parties will adhere, because they feel in 
 honor bound to do so, although, on 
 second thought, they may not find the 
 measure the best that could have been 
 proposed. Parliament professes to have 
 been anxious to secure a substantial 
 representation of minorities, and of all 
 important interests, and that it can do 
 so by separating the rural from the 
 urban voters. 
 
 The history of England for the past 
 thirty years may be said to represent a 
 constant progress towards electoral re- 
 form, and towards an amelioration of the 
 abuse consequent on the maintenance 
 of privileges, — progress checked and 
 hindered, sometimes absolutely set aside, 
 by the pressing anxiety of attending to 
 affairs abroad. England is willing and 
 able to set her house in order, but every 
 time she takes the mop in hand, and 
 has made ready to goon with the cleans- 
 ing, a disturbance outside calls her 
 forth, and the internal economy must 
 suffer for the time being. Two great 
 parties in the enormous metropolis of 
 London are at present eager to do battle 
 oxer the question of municipal reform. 
 The absorption, the concentration, the 
 centralization party finds itself con- 
 fronted by the passionate admirers of 
 the vestry system. The old-fashioned 
 and amiable gentlemen who have long 
 been prominent in vestry affairs look 
 forward with horror and with some little 
 contempt to the advent of professional 
 politicians; and the question would be 
 decided within a year, doubtless in 
 favor of the centralizing party, were 
 it not for the constant aggravation of 
 the Egyptian problem, and the necessity 
 for the nation to concentrate its strength 
 
590 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 upon extension and self-protection 
 abroad. Very likely the Redistribution 
 Hill has been put back for a long time 
 by the death of Gordon at Khartoum; 
 but, although delayed and harassed 
 by the peculiar duties which England 
 chooses to assume abroad, the plan of 
 liberal reform is never relinquished. 
 During a period of six years of Conserv- 
 ative rule, when Imperialism was thought 
 of more importance by those who had 
 the governing power in their hands 
 than the correction of abuse and the 
 consequent spread of contentment at 
 home, the Liberals never lost hope, ami 
 they took up the unfinished work where 
 they had left it when they left power. 
 
 The centralization of the city govern- 
 ment in London, or, to speak by the card, 
 the reconstruction of the government of 
 London by means of a municipal bill, will 
 doubtless be taken up by the same Parlia- 
 ment which will have to inaugurate some 
 of the sternest legislation ever known in 
 England with regard to the tenure of 
 land, and it is not until the tenure of 
 land has been changed in its form that 
 the absolute reconstruction of London 
 and of its government can lie hoped for. 
 It is the privileges of gentlemen like the 
 Dukes of Portland, Bedford, and West- 
 minster ; it is the fact that vast tracts of 
 land within the metropolitan district 
 are in the possession of families from 
 
 whose grasp they will not. under present 
 legislation, he allowed to pass, and of 
 
 aristocratic owners, who have nothing to 
 gain and much to lose by the march of 
 popular improvement, — it is to these 
 things that the delay in the rebuilding of 
 London, as Paris ami Vienna have been 
 rebuilt, is to be attributed. No emperor 
 can. with magic wand, cause streets of 
 palaces to rise where now there are 
 grimy acres of three-story, mean-looking 
 houses, built of greasy bricks. The 
 landed interests in London clash ; they 
 
 could not be brought harmoniously to 
 work in favor of a great improvement, 
 ami London must wait for its rebirth 
 until the country has passed through its 
 bitter experience of agrarian reform. 
 Doubtless London, like Paris, will al- 
 ways be kept more or less under the 
 thumb of Parliament, for it is the capi- 
 tal, and, as such, must be subjected to 
 restrictions and rules to which other 
 cities might, with reason object. Rut 
 when some mighty alchyinist has melted 
 up in his crucible of municipal reform 
 all the antique plate and jewelry of the 
 Mate, and all the formulas and rubbish 
 of the petty vestries, with their cross- 
 purposes and their maintenance of old 
 privileges, there will arise out of the 
 vapors a capital which, while it may 
 not be gifted with the beauty of more 
 southern cities, will have a might and ele- 
 gance, and a grandeur worthy of the 
 largest collection of human beings in any 
 civilized countrv. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 591 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN. 
 
 The Evolution Towards Democracy. — Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain. — English Directness 
 and Plainness of Speech. — Lord Hartington. — Mr. Labouchei'e. — English Sources of Revenue. 
 
 — The Land Tax. — How it i- Evaded. — Free Trade in Land. — Taxing the Privileged Classes. 
 
 — Tin' < loming Struggle. 
 
 "OT even the first gentleman in 
 England pretends to deny that 
 the country is formally engaged in the 
 gradual evolution towards democracy. 
 Now and then some two-penny dema- 
 gogue, who wishes to obtain notoriety as 
 tin agitator, insists that tin' progress is 
 imaginary rather than real, and that 
 nothing can lie accomplished save by 
 violent and immediate revolution. But 
 this sort of demagogue is not even con- 
 sidered respectable within the limits of 
 his own advanced party, ami to lie thought 
 not respectable, in the English sense of 
 the word, is equivalent to the complete 
 wrecking of one's hopes. Radicalism 
 itself, from the aristocratic point of view, 
 is naturally thought low. If a gentle- 
 man of birth and position like Sir Charles 
 Dilke, or a gentleman of undoubted ca- 
 pacity and fitness for affairs like Mr. 
 Chamberlain, openly associates with the 
 Radicals, he is qualified as eccentric, but 
 the unwritten and unspoken criticism 
 which those who daily meet these gentle- 
 men in the political arena reserve to 
 themselves, is that their eccentricity is 
 perilously near the verge of the disrepu- 
 table. 
 
 Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamber- 
 lain, and other advanced standard bear- 
 ers of the democratic idea, trouble them- 
 selves hut little as to the opinion of the 
 aristocratic class. They occupy them- 
 selves in the most iudustrious and prac- 
 tical mauuer with directing the pacific 
 
 revolution which will bring in its train 
 greater changes than tiny other country 
 in Europe litis seen in this generation. 
 Mr. Chamberlain is perhaps, open to the 
 reproach of too great frankness in 
 pointing out tin- sweeping reforms or 
 alterations which are to be made in the 
 systems of government and society. He 
 rouses an antagonism which otherwise 
 might have slumbered contentedly on its 
 carved and painted benches. What Mr. 
 Bradlaugh, in his Hall of Science', may 
 or may not say , is thought by the mem- 
 bers of the House of Lords of small 
 consequence: but when a cabinet minis- 
 ter and the Director of the Board of 
 Trade openly advocates changes in the 
 property laws, they are roused not only 
 to resentment but to action. There 
 never was, in the history of American 
 political campaigning, a more active, 
 energetic and determined canvass of a 
 country than that undertaken against 
 Mr. Gladstone and his works by the 
 Marquess of Salisbury, in the autumn 
 and summer of 1884: neither is there in 
 the heat of American political speaking 
 any greater violence of language, or, I 
 had .almost said, vituperation, than was 
 manifest in the speeches of those who 
 opposed the Franchise Hill. That state- 
 linos and elegance of diction in writing 
 and speaking on political affairs, which 
 was once characteristic of the greal lords 
 
 of the country, has long been conspicu- 
 ous by its absence. It was the firmness 
 
592 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 of their belief in the durability of their vast empire and destroy our influence 
 
 privilege which gave them Mich self-pos- abr 1. Let us not listen to Quakers, 
 
 session. Now they begin to sec that like Mr. Bright, and Utopian theorists, 
 
 the increase in the Democracy's power like Mr. Chamberlain, or to shriekers, 
 
 fatally means the decrease of their like Mr. Bradlaugh, who would have us 
 
 own. concentrate our whole attention upon the 
 
 Every well-educated Englishman of poorer classes at home." Between the 
 
 Protestant training has that inconven- claims of the old aristocracy and the 
 
 ient conscience which will not permit new democracy, — claims so diametri- 
 
 liim. for a long time, even when it is lor cally opposed to each other, — a Liberal 
 
 his own interest, to advocate a measure minister of war, like Lord Hartington, 
 
 which may do wrong to any one, and must from time to time, suffer great 
 
 since the full and frank exposure by tin 1 perplexity. A Liberal cabinet, with men 
 
 apostles of the new democracy of the within it who believe that England 
 
 abuses of privilege which were grafted should send no military forces on con- 
 
 lipou the land system and upon the quest, and men within it who believe 
 
 grounding of political power on the pos- just the opposite thin", is a divided 
 
 session of land, many a lord of high force, which can but suffer from the divis- 
 
 tlegree is beginning to confess that a ion. That notable English conscience 
 
 change would not lie unwelcome even which prevails, as we have said, among 
 
 to himself. Men like the Marquis of the aristocratic as well as lower down in 
 
 Salisbury, who have a linn belief in the the social scale, is conspicuous in the 
 
 Imperial idea, in the necessity for Eng- case of the Marquis of Hartington, the 
 
 land of a constant aggressive attitude, eldest son of one of the very greatest of 
 
 in tin' perpetuation of Lord Beacons- all the English land-owners, the Duke of 
 
 field's dangerous policy, comfort them- Devonshire, whose estates extend iuto 
 
 selves with the conclusion that no fourteen different counties, and who 
 
 de cracy can maintain or direct the owns nearly two hundred thousand 
 
 antique policy of Greal Britain without acres of laud, which give him almost as 
 having the protection of a governing many pounds sterling as annual rental, 
 class having leisure, because of its for- who has forty-two church-livings in his 
 tune got from land, to occupy itself in a gift, six magnificent country-seats, — 
 dignified manner with the conduct of Chatsworth, Hardwick, Holker Hall, 
 armies and navies, with the regulation Compton Place, Bolton Abbey, Lismore 
 of treaties ami the chess-board games of Castle, — and Devonshire House in Lon- 
 diplomacy. "A democracy," so say don. Not more than three centuries 
 these noble lords, •• would place us in the and a, half ago (he head of this great 
 precarious position of a second or third house was an obscure country gentle- 
 class power in Europe. If we have an man in Suffolk ; to-day his descendants 
 upheaval of the substrata of society, and hold three peerages and two hundred 
 the accession to power of men who know and twenty thousand acres of land in 
 nothing of din old plan of government, England and Ireland. This founder of 
 we shall go to war. (Jive us Beacons- the house was William Cavendish, sup- 
 field's game, with its risks and dangers, posed to be he who wrote the life of 
 rather than the stay-at-home policy of Cardinal Wolsey, and whom Shakespeare 
 the Radicals, who would break up our mentions. The Cavendishes have always 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 593 
 
 had the reputation of being good land- 
 lords, and a more touching demonstration 
 of affection was never witnessed in Eng- 
 land than at the great gathering of the 
 tenants at Chatsworth, when Lord Fred- 
 erick Cavendish, who had been assassi- 
 nated in Ireland, was brought home to 
 be buried. 
 
 The Marquis of Hartington, now a 
 comely gentleman of fifty, is reported 
 to be utterly frank in his opinions as 
 to the future. He was once asked 
 by an American how he could con- 
 tribute to a current of opinions which 
 would one day sweep away till mem- 
 bers of his class, and he answered that 
 there was no help for it; by which 
 he doubtless meant that his conscience 
 compelled him to it. Such men stand 
 high in the estimation of both parties ; 
 at the same time, like the young noble- 
 man in Mr. Henry James's story, they 
 have not the remotest notion that all the 
 revolutions in the world will abate the 
 amount of their income one jot. Lord 
 Hartington went into the House of Com- 
 mons when he was twenty-three ; thence 
 to St. Petersburg, whither he attended 
 Earl Granville, who was then ambassa- 
 dor ; in process of time, found himself 
 vested with a mission of bringing about 
 a vote of non-confidence against the 
 ministry in Parliament ; did it with 
 much skill ; made a parliamentary repu- 
 tation, interspersing his political labors 
 with social enjoyment with the Prince of 
 Wales, whose elder he was, and with 
 whom lie has in his time indulged in 
 many a frolic; and when he was of ma- 
 ture years stood in the rather unique 
 position of being heir to one of the 
 noblest of the English duchies, in pos- 
 session of a vast income of his own, a 
 leader of fashion, and an acknowledged 
 leader of the Liberals. Minister of war 
 to-day, he can look back to the age of 
 
 thirty-three, and reflect that he then 
 held the same office. He was a civil 
 Lord of the Admiralty at thirty ; in fact, 
 he was fully up to the level of his ad- 
 vantages and improved every one of 
 them; when he could not be in active 
 political ministry he was willing to be a 
 postmaster-general. He is one of those 
 who like to do everything thoroughly. 
 If he drives a drag it is faultlessly cor- 
 rect in style. He is a great hunter. 
 He loves whist, and he enjoys to the 
 
 JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. 
 
 From Photopraph by London Stereoscopic Co. 
 
 utmost one of those old-fashioned 
 parliamentary sittings, such as some- 
 times occur over a debate on the 
 address, when good sound blows are 
 given and taken with perfect temper 
 on either side. A stammering and 
 rather shy speaker, what he says is 
 always telling. 
 
 .Some degree of the resentment pri- 
 vately cherished against Lord Harting- 
 ton by members of the landed aristoc- 
 racy, who, while they respect, cannot 
 agree witli him, is visited openly upon 
 new-comers, like Mr. Chamberlain, who is 
 
594 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 called with English bluntness a parvenu, blow up his Sloane-street residence with 
 
 and like Sir Charles Dilke. who isconsid- dynamite. On the continent ho is popu- 
 
 ered as unreasonably radical. These gen- lar. He lias a country-house near 
 
 tlemen occasionally receive verbal easti- Toulon, where he goes to get rid of the 
 
 gation from some noble marquis or other melancholy gathered in the London fogs, 
 
 able aristocratic politician ; but this only and it gives him a certain pleasure to 
 
 adils fuel to the flame of their enthusi- be interviewed by radical Frenchmen, 
 
 asm. Sir Charles Dilke is the brother who attribute to him monstrosities of 
 
 of Ashton Dilke, who died some years statement which make the hair of the 
 
 ago, and who was far more advanced in aristocratic gentlemen in the House of 
 
 radicalism than the present representa- Lords stand upon end with horror when 
 
 five of the family and owner of the they read them. 
 
 •■ Athemeum," — the principal literal v There are several gentlemen in the 
 critical journal of London, — lias ever House of Commons who form an able 
 presumed to lie. Mr. Chamberlain does addition to the little corps of distin- 
 uot in his speeches talk so much of pos- guished and wealthy Liberals and Radi- 
 sible republicanism as of practical meas- cals ; men like Mr. Labouchere, of 
 ures for reform in legislation : but in his large fortune, of consummate journal- 
 public writings and speeches Sir Charles istic ability, freshness of style, and 
 Dilke has clearly shown that he likes re- charm of manner, yet with frankness 
 publicanism with a continental flavor. He born of complete independence, and who 
 was, even when at the University, thor- tell the truth to shame the devil, no 
 oughly radical in his ideas. He adored, matter if England be the worse for it. 
 as indeed did every one who met him, Mr. Labouchere is twin member for 
 the Italian patriot, Mazziui. He is Northampton with Mr. Bradlaugh, and 
 said to have attempted to convert the has well and firmly St 1 for his col- 
 Prince of Wales to republican opinions, league each time that the great free- 
 He had that symmetrical education thinker and free-speaker has forced 
 which enables all English gentlemen to his way in only to be expelled again 
 do so much and many things so well. forthwith from the House of Commons, 
 To him is due the phrase of " Greater which dislikes to receive him. .Mr. 
 Britain," which has been embodied in Labouchere goes everywhere. Now he 
 English politics. A man of twenty-live, may be found at Marlborough House, 
 he circled the world and made a. brilliant getting the latest gossip from the Prince 
 
 I k. At twenty-six he was a Liberal of Wales, and next he will be heard of 
 
 leader in Parliament, and the old family in his place in the Commons, demanding 
 home in Sloanc street was the scene of the full withdrawal of the English troops 
 many brilliant gatherings of the lights from Egypt. lie is a kind of guerilla, 
 of the literary and scientific society of lighting on the side which pleases him 
 Northern Europe. Sir Charles is a best, and always anxious for truth, the 
 straightforward politician. Although a word which he has inscribed as the title 
 good Democrat he docs not sympathize of his picturesque and sparkling journal. 
 with the Irish demand for separation, Democracy means, among other things, 
 doubtless prompted by the growth of the a careful investigation into the sources 
 Democratic feeling in Ireland as in Eng- of revenue and of expenditure in Eng- 
 land; and there have been threats to laud; and during the last ten years the 
 
El ROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 595 
 
 nation has awakened to the fact that 
 the landed aristocracy has, during its 
 long season of privilege, managed to 
 abate or abolish the greater part of taxa- 
 tion upon its land, and also to convey 
 into its own family circles nearly all the 
 important revenues from government 
 service. The statistics on this point 
 are extremely curious and interesting. 
 It is confidently asserted that the House 
 of Lords represents 211 families of 
 barons, who have 2,4'.)2 people, hold- 
 ing 4 , < J ; ) L) offices, receiving from the 
 English nation £31,126,188 annually; 
 60 families of viscounts, with 963 people, 
 holding 1,561 offices, and receiving 
 £11,211,202 per year: 200 families of 
 earls, with 3,391 people, holding 5,903 
 offices, with £48,181,202 per annum; 
 33 families of marquises, with 626 
 persons in 1,252 offices, at £8,305,950 
 yearly ; and finally, 28 ducal families, 
 with 51'J people, holding 1,013 offices, 
 at £9,760,090 every year. Thus the 
 gigantic total of 108^ millions sterling 
 remains in the hands or in the disposi- 
 tion and gift of the House of Lords. 
 What ducks and drakes the coming De- 
 mocracy will make of this money, and 
 how quickly it will wrest it from the 
 hands of the hereditary House! The 
 stinging English statement that the pub- 
 lic service is a house of refuge for the 
 poor relatives of the aristocracy is 
 founded upon absolute fact. These ap- 
 pointments, represented in the 13,888 
 offices, which the House of Lords in one 
 way and another disposes of , are in the 
 army, the navy, the church, the uni- 
 versities, the Colonial and Indian civil 
 and military administrations, — the es- 
 tablished church furnishing some of the 
 fattest places. There are hundreds upon 
 hundreds of appointments of £10,000, 
 £5,000, £3,000, £1.5(10. and £1,200 
 yearly. It is not astonishing that, with 
 
 this superabundance of power and pat- 
 ronage in its hands, the hereditary 
 house should frown upon the admission 
 to the franchise of the two millions of 
 voters whose liberation must be ac- 
 counted the final triumph of the Demo- 
 cratic spirit in< Ireat Britain. In England, 
 quite contrary to the case in Ireland, no 
 great bitterness of feeling seems to 
 enter into the agitation for land reform ; 
 Imt the movement is characterized by 
 the very greatest determination. The 
 race question is of course eliminated. 
 The farmer, too, has a kind of pity for 
 tiie gentleman who is stranded finan- 
 cially by having left upon his hands the 
 farms which can be no longer worked 
 to advantage ; and the farmer looks 
 with a little suspicion upon the elevation 
 of the agricultural laborer to political 
 independence. Such is the respect for 
 rank in England that there is a kind of 
 reluctance to take away, or to hint at 
 taking away, the broad acres upon which 
 the ducal and baronial claims and fortunes 
 are founded. There is not, nor ever can 
 be, the least possibility of a Jacquerie in 
 England. The Democracy is cool and 
 long-headed, and understands that it 
 must keep itself well in hand to gain its 
 victory by votes, not by shouting and 
 fighting. To tight were hopeless; to 
 demonstrate in noisy crowds is of com- 
 paratively little use. In last summer's 
 campaign each party ridiculed and de- 
 nied the authenticity of the other's 
 demonstrations in mass meetings. The 
 vote is the thine-, and the Democratic 
 voters feel that in time they will lie more 
 than a match for aristocracy and plu- 
 tocracy combined. 
 
 The statistics of land-ownership, and 
 particularly in England ami Wales, have 
 been very carefully collected by the con- 
 tending parties since 1872, when the 
 agitation took definite shape. John 
 
596 
 
 EUROPE f.V STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Stuart Mill and John Bright had made 
 many statements as to the monopoly of 
 land in the kingdom ; and so a Parlia- 
 mentary Commission was established to 
 investigate the holdings of rentals, and 
 came before the public with the aston- 
 ishing statement that, instead of there 
 beiDg few, there were a great many 
 owners of land in the three kingdoms; 
 in fact, that there were more than 
 1,100,0(10 persons, having a combined 
 holding of 72,000,000 acres. They 
 took care, however, to exclude such 
 parts of certain counties as are included 
 in the metropolis of Loudon, which would 
 have made a very great difference in 
 their aggregate. Furthermore, they had 
 reckoned leaseholders as owners, which, 
 as a member of Parliament said at the 
 time, was very much like calling a hired 
 horse an owned horse. They had also 
 tumbled into this curious return of land- 
 ownership all the crown property, the 
 war-offices and railway property, the 
 asylum, almshouses, charity, poor, and 
 other trustees; church-wardens, parish 
 and police-officers, colleges, ecclesias- 
 tical commissions, and dozens of other 
 bodies or persons who could not officially 
 he defined as owners of land. They 
 also stated tin' extent of commons and 
 waste lands in such a manner as to 
 lender their whole return untrustworthy 
 and misleading. From careful returns 
 made in 1871 it appears that in Eng- 
 land and Wales 12 persons own more 
 than l.oi)(),oi)i) acres; (JG persons, 
 1,917,076 acres; 100 persons possess 
 3,917,641 acres; 280 persons, 5,425,764 
 acres, or nearly one-sixth of all the en- 
 closed land in the two countries; 523 
 persons own one-fifth of all England 
 and Wales ; 710 own one-fourth of both 
 countries ; 871 persons possess 9,267,031 
 acres; and 10,207 persons possess two- 
 thirds of the whole of England and 
 
 Wales ; 4. '.100 men own more than half 
 England and Wales ; 26 persons own half 
 the county of Northumberland, which 
 contains 12,200 acres. In Scotland a 
 striking instance of land absorption is 
 that of the Duke of Sutherland, who 
 owns nearly one-eighteenth part of the 
 whole land. In Ireland, out of the 
 whole area of twenty million odd acres, 
 12 persons own 1,297,888 acres; 292 
 persons own one-third of the island ; 744 
 own nearly one-half of it ; and two-thirds 
 of the land of Ireland is possessed by 
 1,942 people. 
 
 The aim of the new democracy is free 
 trade in laud, the prevention of the ap- 
 propriation of common lands by private 
 land-owners, very possibly a change in 
 the system of tenure, increase of land- 
 owners, and the game-laws, the con- 
 version of lands now lying idle to the 
 supply of food, thus lessening the neces- 
 sity for foreign imports, and the bring- 
 ing up of the land tax to its old level 
 of four shillings in the pound, — a tax 
 that was levied by legislation in the 
 time of William and Mary, but that 
 has been regularly avoided by an in- 
 genious system of allotments and re- 
 demptions ever since. The democratic 
 statisticians reckon that some thirty or 
 forty millions might be restored to the 
 annual revenue if the tax-evading land 
 owners could he made to pay up. The 
 redemptions or sales of land tax, at 
 eighteen or twenty odd years' purchase, 
 according to value, came in at the time 
 of Mr. Pitt, who took any means to raise 
 money ; and it has been practically main- 
 tained ever since by the system of 
 quotas. In the south counties of Great 
 Britain the land-owners have rarely been 
 made to pay more than one shilling in 
 the pound ; many have had to pay but 
 six pence, some only one penny ; and 
 some less than a farthing. The general 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 597 
 
 average for land taxation of Great 
 Britain was only one and three-fourths 
 pence, in the assessments of 1877-78. 
 " This," says the author of a powerful 
 article on the British Revenue System, 
 " is a pretty account to be given of a tax 
 called by act of Parliament one of four 
 shillings in the pound on the full annual 
 value." In fourteen years of the reign 
 of William III., the whole public income 
 from all sources was £107,437,540, to 
 which the land tax contributed more 
 than one-fifth of the total amount. But 
 in 188:3 the public income from taxes 
 and ordinary receipts amounted to £87,- 
 205,184, to which the land tax con- 
 tributed but one-eighty-second part of 
 tin 1 whole. 
 
 Thus the coming struggle to put the 
 taxation upon the privileged class, to 
 modify, substitute, possibly withdraw, 
 many of their privileges, to bring into 
 the public service new classes of men not 
 representing special families, or branches 
 of families, to establish party govern- 
 ment rather than class government, — all 
 
 this is meant by the democratic and 
 radical revolution in England. There 
 is no need to fear bloodshed, or ruin of 
 property. The Englishman is eminently 
 conservative, and especially with regard 
 to the sacreduess of property. Then' 
 will be changes of ownership without 
 destruction of the things to be owned. 
 In 1832 the first Reform Bill was 
 thought by the conservatives to have a 
 reign of terror behind it; but 1867 came 
 slowly to the front and brought no grizzly 
 horrors of revolution. The conservative 
 country squire might say that the prog- 
 ress of these reforms had indirectly 
 brought about the dynamite atrocities 
 and the revolt across the Irish channel ; 
 lint few would be willing to grant this. 
 Between 1867 and 1884 a new England 
 has been constructed within old England, 
 but it is still behind (he curtain. It will 
 appear in the twinkling of an eye one 
 day presently, and then all the world 
 will consider its advent natural and 
 proper. 
 
598 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT. 
 
 Public and Popular Speakers. — Spurgeon in his Tabernacle. — The Temperance Question. — The Finan* 
 cial Reform League. — Facts for Rich and Poor. — Bradlaugh in the Hall of Science. — Republican 
 
 Meeting in Trafalgar Square. — Gladstone al a Funeral. — " Oh ! How Dreadful ! "— Public Meetings 
 
 in England. — The Lord Mayor of London. — Banquets at the Mansion House. — The City Com- 
 panies. — " Lord Mayor's Day." — The Procession. 
 
 ALTHOUGH the Radicals are from ual, abounding in homely metaphor, 
 time to time disposed scofflugly to yel sometimes mounting to the height of 
 denv that the House of Commons and genuine eloquence. He sways his tre- 
 1 1 if House of Lords constitute a peo- mendous congregation, made up from the 
 pie's parliament, they an' in no wise lower middle classes of London's shop- 
 deprived of the most ample opportuni- men, workmen, and women, irresistibly 
 lies for public and even noisy discus- whichever way lie wills. To the thou- 
 sion of all the questions which vitally sands for whom the higher intellectual 
 concern Great Britain. The frankness life is scarcely possible he is an unfail- 
 and plainness of speech so prevalent ing fountain of inspiration, and he draws 
 in Parliament, the indisposition to dis- to the huge Tabernacle, as it is called, 
 guise unsavory truths by ambiguous perhaps the oddest collection of strangers, 
 phrases, are still more apparent in the from all parts of the world, that can be 
 speeches of public orators not in political found in any building used as a church. 
 life; and while they do not quite reach Foreigners go out of curiosity, the 
 the virulence sometimes remarked in the piously inclined visit the Tabernacle to 
 addresses of politicians in America, yet. judge for themselves of Spurgeon's spirit- 
 they are extremely plain. We have in ual force, and hundreds of the Arabs of 
 America heard so much of the inability London, — people homeless and almost 
 of tin- English to speak in public freely destitute, men and women from the 
 and without embarrassment, thai itsome- slums, — steal into the great galleries as 
 what surprises an American residing for if coming to the sanctuary for a refuge 
 a short time in London to discover a which they can find nowhere else. Spur- 
 great number of excellent public orators genu rarely touches directly on the great 
 outside as well as within the sphere of national topics, but, when he does, his 
 politics. touch is firm and vigorous. His denun- 
 Two men who speak directly to the eiation of a. mistaken policy has weight 
 public heart, whose spheres of influence which is felt up river at Westminster, 
 are widely different, and whose reputa- In him are none of the tricks and lollies 
 tions have passed far beyond the boun- found in the delivery of the fashionable 
 daries of their native land, merit a clergyman. There is no hesitancy, no 
 moment of our attention. Spurgeon and coughing, and no interpolation of " Alts " 
 Bradlaugh are great forces in the metrop- and " Ohs." Indeed, all the great 
 olis, forces which are undoubtedly used English speakers enunciate their words 
 for good. Spurgeon is intensely spirit- quite fully and clearly, and with much the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 599 
 
 same inflection found in American ora- 
 tors. 
 
 The Metropolitan Tabernacle, in which 
 Spurgeon preaches, is certainly one of 
 the curiosities of London. It stands in 
 a rather frowzy section of the great city, 
 — where rambling streets, ill-kept, are 
 lined with low and dingy houses ; and as 
 the great congregation of nearly seven 
 thousand persons pours outof the Taber- 
 nacle, on Sunday mornings, it is com- 
 pelled to pass through a doulile row of 
 degraded men and women, who are wait- 
 ing impatiently for the opening of the 
 public houses from one to three o'clock. 
 The amiable Londoner of the upper 
 class, wheu asked to give a good reason 
 for the laws regulating the sale of liquor 
 on Sunday in the British capital, frankly 
 confesses that he knows nothing of it, 
 save that it seems planned to promote 
 rather than check intemperance. On a 
 dull Sunday the London workers and 
 the equally large class of people out of 
 work rise late, and, instead of bending 
 their thoughts on church and chapel (for 
 in England the dissenting churches are 
 called chapels, to distinguish them from 
 the established Episcopal church), pace 
 the streets or linger at corners, longing 
 for the moment when the Sunday carouse 
 may begin. In the mid-day hours the 
 gin-palace doors swing widely open, long 
 processions of miserably clad people 
 hasten to and fro, bearing jugs or bot- 
 tles, or crowd around the high counters, 
 paying their hard-earned money for that 
 which is not bread. At three o'clock 
 they are turned out, and the doors are 
 banged remorselessly together ; but from 
 six o'clock again gin and rum reign 
 supreme until a late hour. Throughout 
 each quarter of London inhabited by 
 the poor classes the public houses have 
 monopolized the best street cornel's. 
 They are of uniform type, neatly painted 
 
 outside, divided into stalls with high 
 partitions, the fever for class distinc- 
 tions prevailing even in these establish- 
 ments. To foreigners, nothing can be 
 more comfortless than these dens, where 
 the new comers constantly crowd out 
 those who precede them, and where the 
 language and the atmosphere leave much 
 to be desired. The worthy gentlemen 
 of the Financial Reform Association — 
 a league established nearly forty years 
 ago for the advocacy of eci mical gov- 
 ernment, just taxation, and perfect free- 
 dom of trade — constantly lay before 
 the people the ruin wrought on the 
 nation by the favors heaped upon the 
 publican because he contributes so pow- 
 erfully to the revenue. This Reform 
 League says a revolution is needed in 
 fiscal matters, when the lands of the 
 rich pay but £1,000,000 sterling a year 
 in land tax, while the pipe and pot of 
 the laborer pay £30,000,000 sterling 
 per annum in customs and excise duty : 
 when the rich man's quota of taxation 
 is collected from him cheaply and 
 directly, but the workingmen's allot- 
 ment is collected by a system that robs 
 them of still another £30,000,000 ster- 
 ling in the process; wheu the lands 
 which are bequeathed by the rich at 
 death pay no probate and little succes- 
 sion duty, but the savings of the people 
 in the lower and middle classes arc taxed 
 at the rate of six and one-halt' millions 
 yearly by probate and legacy duties; 
 when the remedy of the law and the 
 transfer of small land and house prop- 
 erties is kept out of the reach of the 
 mass of the people by the heavy exactions 
 in deed stamps and other legal fees 
 and charges ; when sobriety and tem- 
 perance are discouraged by a tax of 
 £4,500,000 sterling per annum on the 
 workman's tea, coffee, and cocoa, and 
 the workman has to pay still other 
 
COO 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 millions for the collection of these 
 £4,500,000. 
 
 The Financial Reform League is not 
 in error in condemning the excise as one 
 of the most grievous burdens on the 
 people. These excise duties were first 
 imposed in England in 16GG. They were 
 then solely laid on public drinks, — beer. 
 cider, spirits, coffee, and tea, — and they 
 took the place of a revenue, hitherto 
 due from the land in the shape of feudal 
 rents. The amount of the latter revenue 
 in 1660 was £100,000 sterling per year, 
 hut the amount of the newly imposed 
 excise was £610,000 sterling per annum. 
 Thus, the facility with which the poor 
 can he robbed for the benefit of the rich 
 being established, the retention of excise 
 ever since asagreat branch of the revenue 
 has followed. The famous malt duty- 
 was abolished some time ago; but Mr. 
 Gladstone substituted for it. in 1880, 
 an excise on beer, which has since 
 brought in an enormous revenue. It 
 seems to the impartial observer as if the 
 English workman drank his beer ami 
 spirits in large quantities to no other 
 end than to aid in supporting the fleets 
 and armies of Her Britannic Majesty, 
 and the maintenance of her great body 
 of collectors and officials throughout the 
 immense extent of territory over which 
 the English flag floats. Hut- the work- 
 man would probably say. as indeed he 
 does say. when the subject is brought to 
 his attention : — 
 
 " 1) — n a man's eyes, 
 If ever lie tries 
 To rc>l> a poor man of his beer." 
 
 Mr. Spurgeon, from hi.s outlook in the 
 high pulpit of his Tabernacle, sees clearly 
 what is going on around him, and battles 
 against the intemperance of the lower 
 classes : lint the battle is a long and 
 dillieult one. 
 
 The stronghold of the redoubtable 
 Bradlaugh, whose name is as familiar as 
 that of the Prince of Wales to London- 
 ers, is in an unpretentious structure in 
 Old Street, in the City Road, — another 
 quarter which to American eyes seems 
 shabby and somewhat degraded. All 
 around it are the humble, although 
 cleanly, houses of the commoner sort of 
 mechanics and laborers, liberally inter- 
 spersed with the shining gin-palaces 
 above alluded to. Within the Hall of 
 Science, as Mr. Bradlaugh's secular 
 
 church is called, order, however, reigns 
 supreme. There is always a great crowd 
 to hear the distinguished orator and 
 Republican, who is usually accompanied 
 on the platform by Mrs. Besant, whose 
 name has been so long associated with 
 his work, or by some other of the ladies 
 or gentlemen of the advanced Radical 
 party in the kingdom. Strangers of all 
 shades of opinion are welcome, and now 
 and then a sturdy supporter of the Mon- 
 archy gets up in his place and indulges 
 in an assault, on Bradlaugh, if it hap- 
 pens to be one of those nights when that 
 orator attacks what he calls " The House 
 of Brunswick." Nothing can exceed 
 the ingenuity with which Bradlaugh 
 manages to escape the accusation of dis- 
 loyalty, while at the same time he plainly 
 condemns Monarchy as a system. To 
 be rated as "disloyal" in England is to 
 be not respectable, and would be pretty 
 nearly equivalent to social ostracism. 
 Bradlaugh is a born controversialist, and 
 of no mean order. He should have been 
 a politician, and would have been far 
 more useful to the slate in that capacity 
 than in his coveted role of simple agitator 
 and social economist. In his oratory, 
 which is nearly always striking, some- 
 times brilliant, often profound, there are 
 slight traces of an early humble origin — 
 nameless shibboleths — lapses from pro- 
 
EUROPE 1\ STORM AND (AIM. 
 
 (',01 
 
 priety in speech, which seem to cling 
 more closely in England than in America 
 to men who have fought their way up 
 from the bottom. Bradlaugh never for- 
 gets what is due to his congregation, 
 which gives him an abiding place, a foot- 
 hold, in the great city, the majority of 
 whose inhabitants is entirely hostile to 
 him. But he knows that out beyond Lon- 
 
 lays down his accusations of what has 
 or has not been done in Parliament 
 House. Then the crowds start in pro- 
 cession for Westminster, but are always 
 turned back by the police before they 
 reach Parliament, and disperse good- 
 humoredly, without more than the usual 
 proportion of broken heads, when the 
 people are "out" in London town. In 
 
 MASS-MEKTINti ON TRAFALGAR SQUARE. 
 
 don, and outside of the trading class, 
 there is an England which listens to him 
 with admiration and respect. 
 
 Now and then he sallies forth on 
 some great occasion, regardless of the 
 danger, always prominent in London, of 
 butting liis head against the law. lie 
 summons thousands of the populace to 
 meet him in Trafalgar square at the foot 
 of the Nelson monument, and there he 
 
 Paris this would be magnified into the 
 proportions of a great riot; the prime 
 minister would be asked to " explain ; " 
 some one would say that a revolution 
 was at hand. But it is thought odd if 
 on a Lord Mayor's Day. or on the return 
 from tiie Derby, there be not some well- 
 cracked iieads. The blows seem to lie 
 the result of surplus energy rather than 
 a disposition to do injury. I once saw 
 
602 
 
 FrROTE IN STORM AND PALM. 
 
 in front of Charing Cross half-a-dozen 
 rough young fellows push into the very 
 midst of a Lord Mayor's procession, 
 striking out right and left, rolling over 
 and over in their haste, and coming out 
 on the other side all in the best of good 
 nature, each having taken the other's 
 buffeting as a part of the ceremony. 
 
 Bradlaugh naturally frowns on dis- 
 order, and tin' authorities have no fear 
 of his meetings. Half-a-dozen gigantic 
 policemen stroll sleepily through the 
 crowds, and if a disturbance occurs they 
 walk lazily towards it, confident that it 
 will have ceased ami thai the disturbers 
 will he dispersed by the time the repre- 
 sentatives of the law arrive on the scene. 
 Bradlaugh at the liar of the House of 
 Commons: Bradlaugh in the loliliv of 
 the House, scuffling with the officials who 
 expel him; Bradlaugh in the courts, 
 where he is prosecuted for technical 
 irregularities ; Bradlaugh in his own 
 vigorous newspaper and in his reported 
 lectures, in his hooks, and cm his John- 
 street platform, — is a figure which London 
 will miss more than it. now fancies when 
 he has passed away. He adds to the 
 piquancy and picturesqueness of public 
 life, and. when the new Democracy lias 
 got far on its road, he will probably grow 
 tamer and more dignified, settling into a 
 permanent and comfortable place. At 
 present lie is proud to he called atheist, 
 which dread word carries with it his con- 
 demnation in every orthodox household 
 in London. Democrat, Republican, 
 energetic advocate of temperance, he is 
 never happy if not in opposition. When 
 the police forbade him to speak within 
 tin" limits of Devonport he made his 
 address from a boat on the waters of the 
 Tamar which was three feet from Dev- 
 onport shore, hut outside its jurisdic- 
 tion : when the mechanics of London 
 had built a hall on a lot of land which 
 
 was suddenly claimed by the landlord 
 and adjudged to him by the courts, and 
 when this greedy landlord claimed, ac- 
 cording to law, the building also, Brad- 
 laugh came up with a hundred men who 
 carried the building off piecemeal. 
 When Disraeli discovered, in 1868, that 
 Bradlaugh's paper, the " National lie- 
 former," had never deposited the £800 
 of caution money exacted by the law as 
 a preventive against blasphemous or 
 seditious publications, and when he 
 called on Bradlaugh to pay up or cease 
 to print, Bradlaugh's only response was 
 the insertion, under the heading of the 
 journal, of this phrase, "A Paper pub- 
 lished in Defiance of the Interdiction of 
 the English Government." For this he 
 was brought before a jury, hut the case 
 was dropped. Gladstone, when he 
 came into the ministry, took it up and 
 prosecuted it, but it was taken by Brad- 
 laugh to the Supreme Courts, and there 
 the atheistic orator was victorious on 
 every point. 
 
 Bradlaugh is very popular in Paris, 
 where he is not quite understood, but is 
 supposed to he something very radical 
 ami desperate. lie finds a certain sup- 
 port among the respectable French Radi- 
 cals, for whom his atheism is not so 
 shocking as it is to the English Liberals. 
 The voters of Northampton, who have 
 sent him three times to the House of 
 Commons, believe in and admire him. 
 His colleague, tin- witty and wealthy Mr. 
 Labouchere, part owner of the " Daily 
 News" and sole proprietor of the 
 sprightly " Truth," never loses an 
 opportunity in the House of Commons 
 to give Bradlaugh a lift, and does it 
 with much grace and courtesy. 
 
 To bring out the volcanic force which 
 lies at the bottom of Bradlaugh's tem- 
 perament, he must he deeply moved by 
 an attack, not upon himself, hut upon 
 
Eunorm m storm and calm. 
 
 603 
 
 some doctrine dear to him, or some one street, for when he wants a mighty cou- 
 
 wlio enunciates theories which he holds gregation he goes to the grassy slopes of 
 
 sacred, lie is the least self-conscious Hyde Park, or stands amid the sculpt- 
 
 of men. If he alludes to himself it is ured lions which lie around the Nelson 
 
 only as the representative of others. I Memorial. 
 
 once heard him in an inspired burst of Mr. Bradlaugh is no longer looked 
 
 oratory, which, like many others, passed upon by the Conservatives, since the ad- 
 
 awav without record, but it was enough vent of Mr. Chamberlain, as the chief of 
 
 
 ,» 
 
 LOUD MAYOR'S DAY. —SAILORS IN PROCESSION. 
 
 to give any speaker lasting fame. He 
 was describing the persistence of his 
 own purpose, and his faith in the ulti- 
 mate results towards which he strove. 
 Few men in England, few in Europe, 
 could have spoken better than he did 
 then ; none could have carried in their 
 words greater weight of conviction. He 
 does not need a larger room than the 
 diminutive "Hall of .Science," in John 
 
 terrors. His star has perhaps paled a 
 little before the lustre of the career of 
 this slight, boyish-looking man, who, 
 from the platform in Birmingham as 
 from his place in Parliament, states the 
 most revolutionary propositions in quiet 
 and dignified language, adding to them 
 that authority which comes from his 
 position as a member of the Cabinet, 
 " He wore," says Mr. Lacey, in his re- 
 
604 EUROPE IN STURM AXD CALM. 
 
 cently published diary of the two Par- or a distinguished merchant, is found 
 
 liaments, "on the occasion of his first nest on the paper, and presents his 
 
 appearance, in 1*77, in the House, not views. Then the resolution is "put," 
 
 spectacles, with tin or brass rims, as and it is at this point that the unex- 
 
 Felix Holt would inevitably have done pected speeches happen in and add to 
 
 had his sight been impaired, but an eye- the interest. In the University meetings 
 
 pllass — positively an eye-glass." Mr. in the spring ; at the great assemblies in 
 
 Lacey goes on to inform us that the St. James's Hall, in London, St. George's 
 
 Conservatives had a preconceived notion Hall, in Liverpool, and that famous 
 
 of Mr. Chamberlain's appearance and building where John Bright has for so 
 
 manner: that they had "evolved some many years held forth before his always 
 
 fancy picture." and that they were admiring constituents, in Birmingham, 
 
 greatly surprised " at seeing the genial the audiences are so similar to our own 
 
 member for Birmingham in a coat, and that an American feels at home a ig 
 
 even a waistcoat, and on hearing him them. 
 
 speak very good English in a quiet, nn- At the hospitable board of the Lord 
 demonstrative manner." A Radical with Mayor of London, and in the numerous 
 an eye-glass and a bank account appeared corporation buildings in the "city," 
 to the Conservative mind an anomaly, so many great speeches are made yearly, 
 fixed is the impression that those who The Lord Mayor occupies a lofty posi- 
 ask for land-and-revenue reform are tion, and one which costs him dearly to 
 greedy and needy Socialists in disguise, keep up. Hut every incumbent of the 
 All the Liberals, without exception, are office takes a special pride hi spending 
 looked upon somewhat askance by the the £8,000 which the city gives him for 
 Conservative people in the country dis- his year, and as much more out of his 
 tricts. Mr. Lacey himself tells us that own pocket, while he is lodged at the 
 an old lady, reared in an atmosphere Mansion House, in entertaining political, 
 of clericalism, on having Gladstone literary, and commercial dignitaries and 
 pointed out to her among the celebrities celebrities. He holds the first place 
 at the funeral of a distinguished friend, in the city, after the sovereign, and 
 whispered, "Oh, how dreadful! I do is the only man in England who can say 
 trust he is not coining to create a dis- when he is within his own boundaries 
 turbance." that hi' has precedence of tin' Prince 
 Public meetings in England are al- of Wales. George IV. disputed this 
 ways conducted according to certain privilege, hut it has never been ques- 
 well-established and long-practised rules, tioned since his time. The Lord Mayor 
 lint are characterized by much the same is annually chosen, by what is called the 
 freedom ami energy of expression found Livery, in tin' last days of September in 
 in America. There is none of the cast- eaeli year, and rules a twelvemonth, 
 iron formalism which flourishes on the He is ordinarily the senior alderman. 
 Continent, and the English plainness of the city proper having twenty-six wards, 
 expression flourishes to the fullest ex- each returning an alderman, and sub- 
 tent. A meeting always has a resolu- divided into precincts, each of which 
 tion laid before it; speeches are then returns a common-council man. The 
 made by the mover and the seconder, alter Liverv men who choose the Mayor are 
 which a noble lord, or a lit. Rev. bishop, the chief dignitaries of the Trade Com- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 605 
 
 panies, who furnish a voting constitu- 
 ency of about ten thousand persons. 
 They, with the senior aldermen, choose 
 the principal officers of this ancient city 
 corporation, the style of which is the 
 Mayor, Commonalty, and Citizens of 
 London. Next to the Lord Mayor arc 
 two sheriffs and a recorder, which latter 
 
 palace, and appears a little mit of place 
 in the midst of the intense hustle and 
 hurry over the smooth pavements in tin- 
 vicinity of Lombard street and the Lank. 
 On reception nights, and when grand 
 banquets are given, the Egyptian Hall 
 is open. This lofty room can accommo- 
 date four hundred guests, and the diu- 
 
 
 & 
 
 DINNER WITH THE LORD MAYOR. 
 
 functionary officiates in the Lord Mayor's 
 Court, held at Guildhall. This recorder 
 has an unlimited jurisdiction, both legally 
 and equitably, for cases within the city 
 boundaries. His court is one of the 
 curiosities of London, the modes of pro- 
 cedure being derived from the ancient 
 customs of the city, in large part. The 
 Mansion House, the official residence of 
 the Lord Mayor, is a rather gloomy 
 structure, built in imitation of an Italian 
 
 ners are veritable feasts. The Lord 
 Mayor and Lady Mayoress — the Mayor 
 in his civic robes, with his gold chain of 
 office — personally receive their guests, 
 who are then assembled in the ban- 
 queting-room in the order of precedence 
 so rigidly established in England. Be- 
 hind the Lord Mayor is a massive row 
 of gold and silver plate, the antique 
 treasures of mighty London ; and near 
 him stands a bearded functionary with a 
 
1506 
 
 EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 stentorian voice, whose duty it is to cry 
 the toasts as they are announced. The 
 turtle, the Madeira, and the clarets of 
 the Mansion House are far-famed, and 
 
 one sees at the table of the great Mayor 
 those traditional figures of aldermen 
 which he seeks elsewhere in vain. 
 
 The riches of certain of the trading 
 guilds are almost fabulous. Their yearly 
 incomes from ancient investments, for 
 which they have no possible use unless 
 for charity, are, it is said, squandered in 
 costly banquets, and in the accumulation 
 of rich stocks of wines ; so that it is not 
 Strange if the aldermen of London have 
 fat paunches and rosy cheeks. There 
 are no less than eighty-two of these citv 
 companies, each one having its hall, and 
 all being rated in the order of precedency. 
 Guildhall, in King street, Cheapside, 
 the town-hall of the city of Loudon, is 
 the chief of all the halls, and is rich 
 with historic memories. It is in this 
 room, where the colossal giants (iu^ and 
 Mngog keep watch, where six or seven 
 thousand people may he assembled on 
 great occasions; ami there, for more 
 than three hundred and fifty years, the 
 inauguration dinners of the Lord Mayors 
 of London have taken place. There 
 
 the Sovereign dines on the Lord Mayor's 
 Day which succeeds his or her corona- 
 tion. There George IV. met with Alex- 
 ander of Russia and Frederick William 
 III. of Prussia, at a. great dinner, which 
 cost £25,000, and at which, it is said, 
 gold and silver plate worth £200,000 
 was employed. There have been held 
 the successive dinners which have marked 
 the progress of the Reform bills since 
 1831 ; and when the mighty hall is 
 lighted up with the six or seven thousand 
 gas-jets, arranged in stars, mottoes, and 
 devices, and when at the dinner on 
 Lord Mayor's Day. the Mayor and his 
 quests are marshalled to the banquet by 
 
 the sound of trumpets, and the twelve 
 hundred invited guests sit down to din- 
 ner, the spectacle is highly imposing. 
 This dinner annually costs £1,500, of 
 which the city gives £200, the Lord 
 Mayor half, and the two sheriffs the 
 other half of the remainder. Mr.Timbs, 
 in his •• Curiosities of London," tell us 
 that for this colossal feast forty huge 
 turtles are slaughtered, anil the serving of 
 the dinner requires two hundred servants 
 ami eight thousand plate changes. 
 
 The most ancient of the great city 
 companies is the mercers, whose char- 
 ter was granted in 1393. Next come 
 the grocers; then the fish-mongers; 
 then the goldsmiths, skinners, and 
 bakers, whose charters are earlier, but 
 whose rank seems to have been deter- 
 mined as less. Then come the saddlers, 
 carpenters, weavers, and parish clerks. 
 Out of the Mercers' Company have come 
 kings, princes, ninety-eight Lord Mayors, 
 and the illustrious Whittington and 
 Gresham. It is said that the Fish- 
 Mongers' Company purchased the land 
 
 near L Ion Bridge, on which stands 
 
 one of its halls, at the enormous rate of 
 £630,000 per acre. This company has 
 furnished fifty Lord Mayors to Loudon. 
 The banqueting-halls, the museums of 
 plate anil treasure, the festival and pict- 
 ure-rooms of these ancient companies 
 give, as nothing else can. an idea of the 
 accumulation of wealth and the splendor 
 brought together on the dingy banks of 
 the Thames. 
 
 The 9th of November, generally 
 foggy or muddy and rainy, is Lord 
 Mayor's Day in London. Then the 
 newly elected functionary proceeds from 
 the Mansion House westward, along- 
 Fleet street, and the Strand, past tin' 
 site of old Temple Bar (which was 
 demolished a few years ago), on to 
 Westminster, where he takes the oath 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 607 
 
 before the Baron of the Exchequer. In hold are no less than twenty gentlemen, 
 
 recent years the procession has varied The Mansion House is rent free, and the 
 
 much in character, according to the plate and ornaments are worth £30,000 
 
 fancy of the mayor-elect. Sometimes it or £40,000. The Lord Mayor keeps 
 
 is military, allegorical, or historical in three tables, a tine retinue of servants, 
 
 character. But one is sure to see Gog and in the < >1<1 days, like a very monarch, 
 
 THE THAMES FROM THE TOP OF SAINT PAUL'S. — WESTMINSTER PALACE IN THE 
 
 DISTANCE. 
 
 and Magog, and a good fight, before the 
 procession has passed by the point from 
 which lie views it. The Mayor and Lady 
 Mayoress ride in their state coach, 
 followed by the sheriffs in their state 
 coaches, and by aldermen. 
 
 The city uives the Lord Mayor his 
 ci inch, but not his horses. He is ex- 
 pected to supply the Lady Mayoress witli 
 her carriages and horses. In his house- 
 
 lie kept his own particular fool. He is 
 chief butler to the Sovereign at coronation" 
 feasts. On state occasions, lie wears a 
 massive silk robe, richly embroidered; 
 at courts and civic meetings, a violet 
 silk robe with fur, and bars of black 
 velvet; and when he presides at the 
 Criminal Court, or on the bench at the 
 Mansion House, a scarlet robe with furs 
 and borders of black. As the repre- 
 
608 
 
 EUROPE I.V STORM AND CALM. 
 
 sentativeof England's commercial power 
 and wealth, lie relieves the court of 
 much expense and trouble, and allows 
 those distinguished aristocrats, who are 
 removed by several generations from the 
 atmosphere of trade, the privilege of 
 not coming in contact with those who are 
 Still carving' out their fortunes, or whose 
 grandfathers carved them out for them, 
 by creating a special court for this latter 
 class. 
 
 ARCHBISHOP MANNING PREACHING TEMPERANCE. 
 
EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 
 
 609 
 
 CHAPTER. SIXTY-NINE. 
 
 'The City." — The Daily Pilgrimage to It. — Exact Limits of the City District. — Demolition of Temple 
 
 Bar. — The Griffin. — Fleet Street. — Cha :r's Battle in this Famous Avenue. — The Newspaper 
 
 Region. — The Temple. — The Inns. The Law Students. — St. Paul's and its Neighborhood. — 
 The Crypt in St. Paul's. — The Publisher's Haunts. — The Bank. — Lombard Street.— Christ's Hos- 
 pital.— The "Times.'' 
 
 FROM eight to ten o'clock on every 
 morning of the week, except Sun- 
 day, hundreds of trains and omnibuses 
 — trains in subterranean avenues, on the 
 street level, and on high viaducts, from 
 which one may look down upon the attic 
 windows of acres of houses — carry the 
 commercial and professional classes of 
 London into what is called "The City." 
 Within this tract is concentrated three- 
 fourths of the intellectual and financial 
 activity of the largest city in the world. 
 From ten o'clock to four the vast avenues 
 are crowded with hurrying, anxious folk, 
 primly dressed, polite and deferential 
 even in their haste, knowing the value 
 of a minute and exacting its full worth, 
 settling transactions which involve thou- 
 sands, and sometimes millions, in inter- 
 views that hist barely half an hour, and 
 exercising influence over dozens of small 
 countries scattered up and down the 
 mighty seas. The city man is aware 
 of his own importance in the world's 
 economy, and is gifted with becoming 
 dignity. He is hard to get at in the 
 first instance, — seems inclined rather to 
 repel than demand business, as befits 
 one who may take his choice of the best 
 enterprises set on foot ; but, once having 
 given his attention, he decides and acts 
 with the greatest swiftness. 
 
 The " City." so called, is that part of 
 London which, in the old days, was 
 within the walls, together with what was 
 
 known as " The Liberties," which im- 
 mediately surrounded them. "The Lib- 
 erties," says Mr. Timbs in his " Curi- 
 osities of London," " are encompassed 
 by the line of separation, the boundary 
 between them and the county of Middle- 
 sex, and marked by the Bars, which 
 formerly consisted of posts and chains, 
 but are now denoted by lofty stone obe- 
 lisks, bearing the city arms, which may 
 be seen, eastward, in White Chapel, the 
 Minories and Bishopsgate street ; north- 
 ward, in Caswell street, at the end of 
 Fair alley, and in St. John's street, and 
 westward, at Middle row, Holborn ; 
 while at the west end of Fleet street, the 
 boundary is the stone gate-way called 
 Temple Bar." This old stone gate-wav is 
 gone now, and, had it remained, it would 
 have seemed insignificant enough under 
 the shadow of the somewhat gloomy 
 and ill-arranged palace where London 
 has finally placed the numerous tribunals 
 which were formerly crowded into small 
 and old-fashioned rooms in the neigh- 
 borhood of Westminster. Near where 
 Temple Bar stood, at the entrance into 
 Fleet street from the Strand, is a me- 
 morial monument with a griffin sprawl- 
 ing on its top, and with bas-reliefs, which 
 the populace, urged by some curious 
 feeling difficult to explain, took delight 
 in breaking shortly after they were placed 
 in position. 
 
 Fleet street, with its thousand ancient 
 
610 
 
 V A XD CALM. 
 
 souvenir- - ric exhibition and pos- 
 
 - ssious, aud with its associations with 
 Ismith and Johns - I 
 
 lurnalism in London. 
 s of all tlie great 
 newspapers, excepl ■ i s." "The 
 Daily Telegraph "' and •• The Daily 
 News" have palatial abodes: and I 
 writers of the articles which move I 
 thought <>f England meet to - 
 polities aud literature in dusty, vener: 
 taverns, whose owners arc proud of I 
 memories which their I ses evoke, aud 
 turn them to excellent account. In 
 Wine-office court, just off Fleet street. 
 is the •• Old Cheshire Cheese." where the 
 favored visitor is allowed to sit in a chair 
 from which Dr. Johnson ti: forth 
 
 - magniloquent sentences ; and close by 
 is the house where Goldsmith lived in 
 
 . when John- si visited him. 
 
 Johnson's house, in * rt named 
 
 after him. from which he used to march 
 
 - s1 tely promenadi - 
 Fleet street, i- se al hand. The 
 
 house in Bolt court, where he died in 
 1774. was burned more than half a 
 century : _ I aucer and Milton 1 
 lived at times in Fli - : and the: 
 
 a pretty story told of Chaucer's once 
 having soundly thrashed a Franciscan 
 friar in t avenue, when he 
 
 was a student of the Inner Temple, and 
 being fined two shillings for the offence. 
 The taverns and coffee-houses are usually 
 to be found in dark little passages or 
 alley- s. istinctively looks for 
 
 5 of past ages, and is snrpi - 
 the quaint rooms crowded with 
 gentlemen sprucely dressed in the I:; - st 
 
 - lion of tlu We-: End. I street 
 is almost the only portion of the city in 
 which there is a considerable movement 
 at night. During the - -- s of Parlia- 
 ment, or in exciting war time?. pr< 
 sions - as antlv moving 
 
 w stminster and the newspaper 
 offices : but by oui . in the morn- 
 
 ing nothing is heard save the beating 
 the great presses, deep down in the sub- 
 cellars, under the muddy streets. Fleet 
 s often called the cradle of steam- 
 printing. There Beasley. Woodfall. and 
 Taylor, by their joint exertions, finally 
 
 eeded in a ylindrical prinl 
 
 1 s was mediately adopted by 
 ■• Times." in 1814. 
 
 At the upper end of Fli t si ; there 
 -way to the Inner Temple: and 
 no rami ile in London is more interes 
 than that through the tortuous lanes and 
 little -' -. and between the houses in 
 which the lawyers and law students 
 the metropolis reside. Out of Fleet 
 street leads Chancery lane, tilled with 
 the offices of barristers and legal print- 
 On the st s of this street is 
 Lincoln's Inn. In these old court- 
 chambers, which were mainly built in 
 the time of James I., was the ancient 
 hall in which the Commons of the 
 ty used to meet for their masks and 
 Christmas festivities, when the bench - 
 laid aside their dignity and the students 
 danced before their judges. The new 
 hall aud library. — noble buildings of 
 the Tudor style. — the council-room, are 
 all most interesting, and one cannot but 
 wonder that so serene and tranquil a 
 retreat, like that of s >ld university, 
 
 has been preserved in the very heart of 
 one of the busiesl cities 
 
 new hall in Lincoln's Inn has a 
 vaulted kitchen forty-rive feet square 
 and twenty-five feet high. Attached to 
 it aud adjoining are cellars capabh 
 
 taining one hundred pipes of wine: 
 whence we may conclude that good 
 
 r reigns in Lincoln's Inn. Farther 
 away, on the north side of Holborn, is 
 
 r's Inn, also a noted rendezvous of 
 the legal fraternity, possessing an oval 
 
EVROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 fill 
 
 hall, built throe hundred years ago, with the successful students. Nevertheless, 
 
 persons may still be called to the bar re- 
 gardlessof the lectures and examinations ; 
 but, in all eases, keeping Commons by 
 dining in the hall is absolutely necessary. 
 These dinners in the various halls are 
 
 a great oaken roof divided into seven 
 bays by Gothic arched ribs. All the in- 
 mates of these four inns of court, — the 
 two Temples, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's 
 Inn — have the exclusive power of prac- 
 tising as advocate or council 
 in superior courts. The stu- 
 dent who wishes to gain ad- |S''';-,^8£ 
 mittance to any of these has 
 a sharp fight for the privilege : 
 but once admitted lie is en- 
 titled to the use of the libra- 
 ries, •• to a scat in the church 
 orchapel, and tohave his name 
 set down for Chambers." 
 " He is then required to keep 
 Commons by dining in the 
 hall twelve terms (four terms 
 occurring each year) ,on com- 
 mencing which he must de- 
 posit with the treasurer £100, 
 to be retained with interest, 
 until he is colled. Butresident 
 members of the universities 
 are exempt from this deposit. 
 The student must also sign a 
 bond, with sureties, for the 
 payment of his Commons and 
 term fees. In all the inns 
 no person can lie called unless 
 he is above twenty-one years 
 of age, and three years' stand- 
 ing as a student. A Council 
 of Legal Education has been 
 established by the four inns 
 of court, to superintend the 
 subject of the education of 
 students for the bar. and. 
 
 by order of this council, law lectures very curious. At five or half-past five 
 are given by learned professors at the o'clock in the afternoon the barristers 
 four inns, all of which any student and students assemble in their gowns, 
 of any of the inns may attend. The and the benchers proceed in procession 
 examinations also take place, and to the dais. The steward then strikes 
 scholarships. certificates, and other the table three times, grace is said by 
 marks of approbation are the rewards of the treasurer or senior bencher present, 
 
 AT THE PUNCH AND JUDY SHOW. 
 
612 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 and the dinner begins. Each table is Napoleon 1. at the Invalides in Paris, 
 arranged by messes, and to each mess is In the crypt of St. Paul's stands the 
 allowed a bottle of port wine. The state ear on which the body of Welling- 
 dinner is usually simple, but there are ton was conveyed ti> the cathedral at 
 many ancient formularies and ceremo- his funeral. At the Chapter House of 
 nies. some of which provoke a smile this church, every time a new political 
 to-day, like that observed in the Inner party assembles, there is a kind of new 
 Temple on the 29th of May. when each clerical parliament, composed of a dean, 
 member drinks to the happy restoration four canons, twelve minor canons, six 
 of Charles II. in a golden cup of sack, lay figures, and twelve choirists. Here 
 At Cray's Inn they occasionally toast the Lord Mayor's chaplain preaches his 
 the memory of Queen Elizabeth. Now annual state sermon, and on the anni- 
 aud then the younger students from versary of the great fire, 1666. In May, 
 these vast ranees of buildings called during the anniversary festivals, noble 
 ••Courts" hold high wassail in the concerts are given in tin 1 church, and 
 public houses and queer old taverns on the animal gathering of the charity chil- 
 Fleet street, and show that Englishmen dren, eight or ten thousand in number, 
 of to-day drink as deeply as Englishmen held in St. Paul's in June, is one of the 
 of Dr. Johnson's time. prettiest and most pleasing of English 
 The neighborhood of St. Paul's is one public assemblies. Thither go the 
 of the most interesting quarters of the judges and law-officers, in long proces- 
 city. St. Paul's is the Pantheon of sion. for blessing on their labors before 
 England's naval and military heroes, the beginning of the annual sessions, 
 and the burial-place of many of her Back among numerous streets and mi- 
 greatest painters. In the crypt lies Sir romantic places in the neighborhood of 
 Christopher Wren, who built the great St. Paul's are the publishers. One of 
 church, and whose handiwork is visible the most famous streets in which the 
 everywhere in the city; Sir Joshua purveyors" of literature abound is Pater- 
 Reynolds, immortalized by Flaxman's noster Row, so called from the sellers of 
 statue as much as by his own work; rosaries and the text-writers who lived 
 Parry, Cpie. Lawrence, and Van Dyck ; there in the time of Henry IV. From 
 Turner, West, and Milton Archer Shee ; Paternoster Row and its immediate vicin- 
 inthe middle of the crypt, under an altar itygo outmost of the great works which 
 tomb, are the remains of the great Nelson, have done so much during the Victorian 
 In this crypt, for more than two years, period to ennoble English literature, 
 lav the body of the Duke of Welling- The London publishers do not indulge, 
 ton, the cofiin placed upon the top of the like those in Paris, in costly and luxuri- 
 sarcophagus which covered that of Nel- ous offices, with tapestries and pictures 
 son ; but now the old Duke reposes in a and bric-dr-brnc. They do their work in 
 porphyry tomb, sculptured out of a business hours, in plain and simply fur- 
 single block, weighing more thanseventy nished rooms, and reserve their comfort 
 tons, and placed upon a massive base- and luxury for the suburban homes, to 
 ment of Aberdeen granite, at each corner which they hasten as soon as four o'clock 
 of which is sculptured the head of a sounds from the church-towers of the 
 guardian lion. This severely noble city. The man who at one o'clock 
 tomb is far more impressive than that of may be found lunching in a modest little 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 613 
 
 rookery in some hack alley, in a dark, 
 open stall, where' there is no cloth upon 
 the table and where napkins are un- 
 known, sits down to dinner at seven 
 o'clock in his noble country-house, look- 
 ing out upon a splendid lawn, and chics 
 his evening work in a costly library. 
 Loudon is their rendezvous, and nothing 
 else. A solicitor will receive you in a 
 hack office simple as that of a Hebrew 
 
 labor; black care goes home with them, 
 and lurks beside (lie turtle-soup and I he 
 buttle of old port on their dinner-table. 
 In front of the Mansion House, and 
 pasl the Royal Exchange, and down 
 Threadneedle street,, in the neighbor- 
 
 1 1 of the First Bank of England, 
 
 whose structures cover mure than four 
 acres, there is a continual rush of teams, 
 carriages, drays, omnibuses, and other 
 
 SATURDAY NIGHT IX WORKMAN'S QUARTER. 
 
 retail dealer just beginning business ; 
 but, if he invites you to bring your 
 papers to his house, you will find he 
 lives like a merchant prince. Every city 
 man sacrifices about two hours daily in 
 going to and from his business. When 
 the trains leave the city in the afternoon 
 they are crowded with men who are 
 studying brief's, prospectuses, and memo- 
 randa, which they extract from little 
 black bags, placed carefully beside them. 
 One feels that their going into the city 
 has been but the beginning of their dav's 
 
 vehicles of almost every description, 
 from early morning until after business 
 hours ; and through this moving mass 
 hundreds of thousands of pedestrians 
 pick their way with the deftness born of 
 long practice. Near by is Lombard 
 street, so called from the old •• Longo- 
 bardi," the rich bankers who settled in 
 that district of London and grouped their 
 countrymen around them before the 
 time of Edward II. There also were 
 the goldsmiths, who lent money on plate 
 and jewels, and from the badge of the 
 
6 1 4 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Lombards, or Longobardi, the three 
 golden pills of the Medici family, we get 
 inn- modern pawnbroker's sign. "The 
 days bave long passed when," as we 
 are told in the " Life and Times of Sir 
 Thomas Gresham," "all sorts of gold 
 and silver vessels were exposed to sale, 
 as well as ancient and modern coins, in 
 such quantities as must surprise a man 
 the first time he sees and considers 
 them." The wealth of the men of Lom- 
 bard street does not to-day consist of 
 golden chains, like that of Gresham, as 
 was found to he the ease after bis death. 
 But gold and silver laccmen still had 
 their places of business in the street at 
 the beginning of this century. For 
 more than live and a half centuries this 
 celebrated avenue has been devoted to 
 finance ; and in the long and narrow 
 streets, with their gloomy courts which 
 radiate from it, are the business offices of 
 some of the most powerful commercial 
 houses in tiie world. The first idea of 
 the Loudon Exchange came from Sir 
 Richard Gresham, who proposed to 
 ( 'romwell " to make a place for merchants 
 to repair unto in Lombert Streete." 
 Underneath the dust of this avenue are 
 the ruins of Roman houses, and many 
 Roman remains have been found. They 
 are the last lot unearthed, and are sup- 
 posed to indicate that they belonged to 
 the period when London was burned by 
 Boadicea. The value of the ground in 
 this neighborhood may lie adjudged by 
 Hie following instance, which Mr. Timbs 
 gives us in his valuable book on London : 
 A piece of ground at the corner of 
 Lombard street, formerly the site of 
 Spooner & Co.'s banking house, was let to 
 the Agra & Masterman's Bank, for nine 
 years, at £66,000 per year. Owing to a 
 change in the management of that bank, 
 it was next sold to the City Offices Bank, 
 at a premium of £70,000 sterling. Later 
 
 on. a building was erected upon it, at a 
 cost of nearly £70,000, the gross rental 
 of which is estimated at £22,000, — the 
 London anil Canada Bank paying £12,- 
 ()()() for the ground floor and basement. 
 It is not easy to get building sites in the 
 centre of the banking world. The Mer- 
 cantile and Exchange Bank purchased 
 premises in Lombard street for £20,000. 
 The directors of the bank then let the 
 first floor of the bouse to the Asiatic 
 Banking Corporation for £1,000 per 
 year. The amalgamation of the London 
 Bank of Scotland with the Mercantile 
 and Exchange Bank having made it 
 necessary to value the premises in Lom- 
 bard street, the directors of the Bank of 
 Scotland paid £10,000 to the share- 
 holders in the Mercantile and Exchange 
 Bank as their proportion of the increased 
 value of the premises, which are now 
 estimated as worth £40,000. The value 
 was thus doubled within a year. 
 
 Every week-day, and at all bonis of 
 the day, — even later hours than those 
 kept by the regular city man, — hosts of 
 able people from all corners of the earth 
 Hock into the city, bearing in their busy, 
 and often aching, brains, schemes which 
 they hope to float in the inspiring atmos- 
 phere of this commercial centre, and by 
 which they hope to enrich themselves. 
 Among these waiting and hoping folk 
 the Americans are very prominent. 
 They are of all types: the breezy, fresh, 
 and enthusiastic Western man, who, 
 despite the English assertion that gush 
 and a confidential air will kill any en- 
 terprise offered in the city, behaves 
 in unconventional London in the same 
 boisterous and buoyant way that he 
 would at home; the sharp, quiet-man- 
 nered financier, who has come determined 
 to measure capacities with the magnates 
 of Europe's financial head-quarters; the 
 wild-cat speculators, who find persons 
 
EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 615 
 
 resembling them in the London market, 
 and who slowly lay their plans for gull- 
 ing the public; and, finally, the large- 
 brained but timid inventors, — the men 
 with every kind of novelty from per- 
 petual motion to a new barbed-wire 
 fence, — all learning by bitter experience 
 how hard it is to turn the current of 
 suspicious capital into their own particu- 
 lar channels. The Odysseys of these 
 speculative-minded men, amid the rocks 
 and waves of Loudon, are often attended 
 with pathos, and sometimes terminate in 
 tragedy- " Hope deferred maketh the 
 heart sick," and as there are at all times 
 from six to seven thousand important 
 schemes waiting attention, it is not odd 
 that the many thousands of less impor- 
 tant enterprises are swept aside, forgot- 
 ten, or readily dismissed. It is precisely 
 the uncertainty, the delightful suspense, 
 the dreamy anticipation of success, which 
 tempts so many foreign investors to stay 
 on and on in London until their credit, 
 their courage, and often their health, have 
 departed. They arrive fresh with vigor, 
 and will tell yon they are well aware of 
 all the obstacles, have profited by the 
 experience of others, and have come to 
 stay. And they do stay, moving from 
 the huge and glittering hotels, in which 
 they at first installed themselves, into 
 the more modest quiet of the West End 
 square ; then into cheaper lodgings ; 
 again to second-rate taverns ; finally, 
 into the country, but clinging on with 
 perhaps no other capital than a good 
 hat and umbrella and their ever-seduc- 
 tive address, determined against fate. 
 Out of this throng of unsuccessful people 
 sometimes leaps to the very height of 
 financial victory a man who had seemed 
 marked for disaster. Some lucky chance 
 has brought him to the front, and all the 
 others, seeing the good turn fortune has 
 done him, struggle on, using an energy 
 
 and patience which, in more legitimate 
 pursuits at home, would have made them 
 solid fortunes. 
 
 The Royal Exchange is imposing, ami 
 is filled with memorials of Sir Thomas 
 Gresham, who carried out the project 
 which his father had recommended to 
 Cromwell, and hail his famous crest, a 
 grasshopper, placed over the first ex- 
 change in Lombard street. Then the 
 " Burse," as it was called, was placed 
 in Cornhill, whither, in 1570, came to 
 the dedication, "'midst the ringing of 
 bells in every part of the city, the 
 Queen's majesty, attended witli the 
 nobility, from her house in the Strand, 
 called Somerset House, and entered the 
 city by Temple Bar, through Fleet 
 street, Cheap, and so by the north side 
 and the Burse, through Threadneedle 
 street, to Thomas (iresham's house, in 
 Bishopsgate street, where she dined." 
 Sir Thomas Gresham died before he 
 had half completed his plan for enrich- 
 ing the Exchange with statues. This 
 building was destroyed in the great lire 
 in London, and, oddly enough, the 
 founder's statue was the only one which 
 did not fall into the flames. The sec- 
 ond Exchange was opened at the close 
 of the seventeenth century, being built 
 by the city and the Mercers' Company. 
 It was a noble structure, well studded 
 with statues of kings. But this in its 
 turn was burned in 1838, and as the fire 
 reached the clock-tower at midnight the 
 bells were heard chiming the familiar 
 air. "There is nae luck about the 
 house." The present Exchange, dedi- 
 cated by Queen Victoria, in 1844, is 
 renowned for its portico, adorned with 
 Westmacott's sculpture. On this por- 
 tico is the inscription: "The earth is 
 the Lord's and the fulness thereof." 
 Mr. Henry George, while addressing an 
 open-air meeting recently in front of 
 
016 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 the Mansion House, pointed to this raents of the West End, the citv restau- 
 
 inscription on the Royal Exchange and rateur lias counted his cash and closed 
 
 said if should read :" The earth is the for the night. The City is the besl 
 
 landlord's, and the fulness thereof." paved, the cleanliest kept part of the 
 
 In this building are Lloyd's subscrip- metropolis, ami contains many of the 
 
 tion-rooms, where meet the noted mer- most brilliant shops in London. In 
 
 chants, ship-owners, underwriters, in- Cheapside, in the Poultry, in the neigh- 
 
 surance, stock', and exchange brokers boil 1 of the General Post-office, in 
 
 of London. Lloyd was an old coffee- King William and in Cannon streets, 
 house keeper, from whose establish- a stranger may shop to great ail- 
 ment at the corner of Abchurch lane, vantage. In Cannon street a frag- 
 Lombard street, Steele used to indite ment, of the London Stone, supposed to 
 his epistles to the " Tatler." be the great central mile-stone from 
 The Bank of England looks like a which the British high roads radiated. 
 great fortress, and it is well protected and to have been placed in its present 
 externally from attack. At night there location more than a thousand yearsago, 
 is a military force on duty, and clerks is still to be seen. It is mentioned as a 
 are also detailed to keep a night-watch, landmark in a list of rents belonging to 
 There is little danger, however, that Christ's Church in Canterbury, in the 
 the masses, whether excited by Mr. time of King Athelstan, wdio reigned in 
 Henry George or any other agitator, will the tenth century. 
 
 ever attempt an assault upon the ven- One of the noblest charities in the 
 erable and exalted financial institution, city of London is Christ's Hospital, 
 It is not far from this centre of com- which was due to the exertions of the 
 mercial London to the water-side, and good citizens to provide for a large 
 the great Custom-house, with its majestic homeless population. Henry VIII. as- 
 front, live hundred feet long, with a sisted this work by large grants, and 
 broad esplanade between it and the young King Edward VI. gave the lios- 
 river, and to the long avenues, literally pital its name. The hospital was not 
 crammed with heavy drays, beating to originally, as it is to-day, a school ; but 
 and fro every conceivable sort of mer- at all times its directors rescued young 
 chandise from the ships which crowd the children from the streets to shelter, feed, 
 docks. Here anil there throughout the and clothe them. For more than three 
 city rises a tine building devoted entirely hundred years Christ's Hospital has 
 to the providing of refreshment. The been a .school, and is proud of its old 
 city restaurant-keepers acquire fortunes traditions and its ancient uniform, 
 in a very short lime. Their custom is Many a fashionable mother presents with 
 certain. Yet they court it by bestowing pride her son attired in the long blue 
 upon their customers every possible com- coat and yellow stockings, and wearing 
 fort and luxury. From ten o'clock until the livery girdle which all the children 
 four these great restaurants and the received at Christ's Hospital must wear. 
 numerous clubs scattered throughout the They go bareheaded in all times and 
 
 city quarter are overflowing with hun- seasons; and one of these boys his 
 
 gry people ; but after sunset few people vacation visit to the Continent, is as 
 
 linger, and by the time the lamps ale lit much followed and stared at as a lion 
 
 in the gorgeous gastronomic establish- or an elephant would be. There are 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 in- 
 
 tuit a few arches and a bit of a cloister 
 of the old building remaining. Many 
 of the oldest buildings have been re- 
 stored. From Newgate street the pub- 
 lie can look in upon the great hall, and, 
 on any Friday, may get admittance to 
 seethe children having their supper in 
 this hall, the eight or nine hundred boys, 
 in quaint costumes, going carefully over 
 the various ceremonies which have come 
 down to them from the sixteenth century. 
 The Charter House, in Aldersgate street, 
 is another noble charity, founded by a 
 London merchant, where eighty pension- 
 ers live together in collegiate style, and 
 where forty poor boys are annually re- 
 ceived for free education. This Charter 
 House, which has given to the world .Sir 
 William Blackstone, Addison, Richard 
 Steele, John Wesley, George Grote, and 
 Bishop Thirlwall, has an income of 
 £29,000 sterling annually. Yet another 
 college is that named after Sir Thomas 
 Gresham, where lectures are annually 
 delivered on different sciences, free of 
 any charge to the public. 
 
 Christ's Hospital is filled with memories 
 of Coleridge, Charles Lamb, and Leigh 
 Hunt, all of whom are blue-coat boys. 
 It has many ancient privileges, such as 
 that of addressing the Sovereign on the 
 occasion of his or her coming into the 
 City to partake of the hospitalities of 
 the corporation. Presentations to this 
 school are greatly coveted. The insti- 
 tution has five hundred governors, headed 
 by the royal family, and many of tins!' 
 have the privilege of presenting pnpils. 
 
 Not far from Blackfriar's Bridge and 
 looming up a conspicuous monument as 
 the traveller from west to east enters 
 the domains of the City by way of the 
 embankment, is the office of " The 
 Times." which is now in the hundredth 
 year of its existence, and which was 
 never more brilliant and prosperous thau 
 
 at present. "The Times" is the e| it- 
 ome of English achievement, day by 
 day, and has the utter hick of self-con- 
 sciousness and the quiet dignity which 
 are so noticeable in an Englishman ; and 
 it also has the abundant confidence and 
 the utter inability to look at any subject 
 from other than an English point of 
 view. In its huge red brick building 
 •• The Times" sits enthroned a positive 
 authority, against which many cavil. Iml 
 none dare rebel. The present office 
 stands upon the sight of the old Mon- 
 astery of Blackfriars, in Printing House 
 Square. Mr. W. Fraser Rae, a noted 
 English publicist, has recently given to 
 the world a brilliant monogram on the 
 centenary of " The Times," in which hi' 
 traces through a hundred years the 
 course of the great paper. Perhaps no 
 incident in the history of this journal 
 is more striking than its exposure of a 
 vast conspiracy that had been Conned 
 for swindling foreign bankers out of 
 £1,000, 000 sterling. '-The Times" was 
 quite successful in the unearthing of this 
 fraud, and its services to commerce arc 
 commemorated by a tablet in the Royal 
 Exchange. There have been three gen- 
 erations of Walters, proprietors and 
 conductors of "The Times," which is a 
 magnificent property. In the printing 
 of this journal, which sometimes com- 
 prises sixteen large and well-printed 
 pages, a perfected press, invented by 
 the third Walter, is used. The main 
 features of this are simplicity and com- 
 pactness, combined with enormous speed 
 in working. A large reel, covered with a 
 canvas roll of paper, revolves at the 
 one end; at the other end the printed 
 sheets issue, folded and printed ready 
 for the publisher, at the rate of fifteen 
 thousand copies per hour. The paper 
 on the reel is four miles long. In le^> 
 than half an hour these four miles of 
 
618 
 
 Europe ix srm:.\i ami calm. 
 
 paper are converted into newspapers, the civilized or partly civilized world, 
 
 "Every night," says Mr. Rae, " when constitute one of the most wonderful 
 
 the Walter presses are running in 'The intellectual achievements of modern 
 
 Times' office, a quantity of paper weigh- times. No matter how tremendous the 
 
 ing ten tons, and representing a roll one expense and effort attendant upon the 
 
 hundred and sixty miles long, is thus (jotting of telegraphic news, "The 
 
 transformed into newspapers." The Times" never blusters about these 
 
 SALVATION ARMY. 
 
 editor of " The Times " is no longer a 
 one-man power, striking terror because 
 of his very mystery. Much of the work 
 of decision is done in council ; but there 
 is still an enormous amount of detail, 
 which falls upon the shoulders of the 
 chief; and it is no secret that Mr. 
 Chenery, the late editor, who has been 
 succeeded by the able Mr. Buckle, died 
 of overwork. The telegraphic pages of 
 "The Times," embodying as they fre- 
 quently do on a Monday morning, 
 lengthy dispatches from every part of 
 
 things, but prints, in its bright, clear 
 type, on its immaculate paper, the news 
 of the world. 
 
 There are always "causes'" to take 
 up much of the attention of the papers of 
 the ureal city, and among the latest is 
 the movement for perpetual religious 
 excitement known as the " Salvation 
 Army." The military nomenclature of 
 its machinery masks a worthy scheme 
 for reaching a class that is not touched 
 by the churches. It is not wisely man- 
 aged, but it does much good. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 619 
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTY. 
 
 The Smoke ami Dirt of London. — Temperature. — Poor People and Dirty People. — The London 
 Season. — What it Is, and What it Means. — The Races. — The Derhy. — Going Down to 
 Epsom. — The Return. — Goodwood. — Ascot. — The Royal Academy. — John Millais. — Sir 
 Frederick Leighton. — Music and Musicians. 
 
 AT six o'clock on a June morning 
 the stranger who takes a walk 
 through London can scarcely realize that 
 it is the same city, in the same country, 
 which he visited on four o'clock of a 
 November afternoon. Before the mil- 
 lions of fires are lighted, and the thick, 
 black smoke begins to pour out from the 
 chimneys, the soft gray of the skies, and 
 the grayish-brown of the noble lines of 
 buildings, walls, and monuments, and 
 the great houses and bouquets of trees 
 and evergreen foliage, harmonize per- 
 fectly. In this tranquil morning hour 
 London would be, if its streets were 
 clean, almost as beautiful as Paris. But 
 the smoke, meeting the mist, hovers in 
 the street, as soon as the thousands of 
 founderies, breweries, manufactories of 
 all sorts, and the domestic hearths have 
 lighted their fires ; and from nine o'clock 
 in the morning until late at night Lon- 
 don has a climate peculiar to itself. 
 "The temperature of the air in the 
 metropolis," says Mr. Timbs, " is raised 
 by the artificial sources of heat existing 
 in no less than two degrees, on the aver- 
 age mean, above that in its immediate 
 vicinity." All the artificial sources of 
 heat, with the exception of the domestic 
 fires, continue in full operation through- 
 out the summer. 
 
 It would seem as if the excess of the 
 London temperature is still greater in 
 June than in January, but the fact is 
 otherwise. The excess of the city tem- 
 
 perature is greater in winter, and at 
 that period seems to belong entirely to 
 the nights, which average considerably 
 warmer than in the country, while the 
 heat of the days, owing, without doubt, 
 to the interception of the solar rays by 
 the constant fall of smoke, falls, on a 
 mean, about one-third of a degree short 
 of that in the open plains. "There are 
 hundreds of places in London," says 
 Mr. Timbs, " into which the wind never 
 finds admission ; and even on the wider 
 streets there are many through which a 
 free current is rarely blown. It is only 
 in the night, when combustion, in some 
 measure, ceases, and the whole surface 
 of the earth is cooled, that the oases 
 are gradually removed and the whole 
 atmosphere of the city is brought into 
 an equality." 
 
 If London could dispense with the 
 burning of coal it would be transformed, 
 in less than a month, from one of the 
 smokiest and dirtiest cities in the world 
 into one of the most picturesque and 
 beautiful. The mists and fogs which 
 visit the metropolis would lend an addi- 
 tional picturesqueness to the old and 
 mysterious city, but they are mixed with 
 sulphurous fumes, which are very un- 
 healthy, for many medical authorities 
 assert a constant lowering of the physi- 
 cal type in London, and question whether 
 the London population could be per- 
 petuated without a perpetual influx of 
 fresh blood from outside England and 
 
G20 
 
 EUROTE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 front other countries. The smoke and clever dramatist and journalist, Mi 
 the coal-dust, the sulphate of ammonia, George Sims, electrified benevolent Lon- 
 produeed in the atmosphere by the burn- don when he showed, in a well-written 
 ing of enormous quantities of coal, and pamphlet, how the poor of London live ; 
 the sulphurous acid, are at first intensely how they are crowded in dens such as 
 disagreeable to the stranger, [fa window exist in nocontinental city. The instinct 
 be leftslightly open, books, writing-paper, of decency and cleanliness seems to be 
 line linens, and silks are found soiled banished from the souls of these people, 
 and .smirched with the black particles who live in an atmosphere of unsavory 
 which hover in to do their unpleasant odors, and whose methods of thought are 
 work; and a wristband, immaculate at so muddled by constant absorption of 
 nine o'clock, must be changed at noon, beer and spirits thai they do not realize 
 One soon discovers why it is that the their own degradation. In addition to 
 Londoner is perpet- the very poor there is an adventurous 
 ually washing his class, several hundred thousand strong, 
 hands, and that toi- which passes a wretched existence of 
 let-rooms are to be expedients and make-shifts, living in 
 
 almost bare, comfortless lodg- 
 ings, knowing no warmth or 
 ^. light save that of the public 
 house or the theatre, or 
 
 Till-: QUEEN'S CARRIAGE 
 
 found in every crowded thoroughfare. 
 From the difficulty of keeping clean in 
 London town probably arises the fashion 
 prevalent, among the upper classes of 
 
 speaking of the | r as dirty people. In 
 
 no other place in the world is a smart, 
 even an elegant, exterior so important 
 as in London. The papers record with 
 surprise the appearance of a well-dressed 
 man in the dock of a police or criminal 
 court. To be ill-dressed is almost a 
 crime. 
 
 The poor people in London are indeed 
 dirty people, and they have few facilities 
 for the promotion of cleanliness. That 
 
 that of the too rare sunlight during the 
 short summer. 
 
 London has its fashionable season, its 
 period of social and intellectual, as well as 
 chief commercial, activity, in the months 
 of March, April, May, dune, duly, and 
 August. The •• season " proper may 
 lie said to begin after Easter, and to 
 close punctually with the rising of Par- 
 liament, on the ll'th of August,. In 
 February and March publishers are busy 
 
 with new 1 ks, the painters are frantic 
 
 with preparations for annual exhibitions. 
 horse-racing begins, the university crews 
 are briskly at work on the river, finish- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 621 
 
 ing with their animal struggle. But house-keeper is nervous with ambition to 
 
 "town," as all Englishmen call it, is make money ; and in the great metropo- 
 
 not at the height of its gayety until the lis, with four and a half millions of 
 
 breezy and pleasant days of May. people, a stranger who arrives on a sum- 
 
 8V1 
 
 .., 
 
 fc ; ' 
 
 
 
 THE QUEEN CONFERRING THE ORDER OF KNIGHTHOOD. 
 
 Then the rich families come in from mer evening has an excellent chance of 
 
 their country retreats. The fashionable sleeping in the streets, if he has not 
 
 hotels treble their rates. The gentle- engaged his rooms several days before- 
 
 men who pay ten guineas for their suite hand. 
 
 of moms during the spring arc asked to It is not the foreigners, but the Eng- 
 
 pay thirty after the first of May or to lish of the upper and middle classes, 
 
 retire. Every landlord and lodging- who spend the money during the season. 
 
622 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AX/> CALM. 
 
 The British hotel-keeper professes some 
 slight disdain for American patronage, 
 because the American does not drink 
 wine. A country squire, :i prosperous 
 clergyman, with his family, or a rich 
 manufacturer, with his half-dozen grown- 
 up daughters, one or two smart sons, 
 and his hustling wife, will spend as much 
 money at dinner at a London hotel as an 
 American party will dispense in a day. 
 The well-to-do country people enjoy 
 their London season and lavish money 
 upon it. If they economize it is in the 
 discreet privacy of their rural home. 
 One cannot pass through the London 
 season without heavy expense. The 
 ancient and rather shabby lodging- 
 houses in the historic streets on the 
 Strand, and in the great squares at the 
 West End, arc almost as expensive as 
 the mammoth modern hotel. The thea- 
 tre, the opera, and concert are all dear in 
 comparison with ordinary prices in Amer- 
 ica. A seat at a fashionable theatre, 
 where the play begins : ,t a quarter before 
 nine o'clock and closes promptly at 
 eleven, costs half a sovereign, or $2.50. 
 Flowers, fruit, and, in short, everything 
 which partakes of the nature of a 
 luxury, are dear, even at a central mar- 
 ket like Covent Garden. But England 
 is filled with people who are rich and 
 whose fathers were rich before them, 
 and who scarcely appreciate the value of 
 money. The luxurious and handsome 
 hotels in London, at the termini of the 
 great railways, profess to make moderate 
 charges; but to live in them as one lives in 
 an American hotel one must pay nearly 
 double the American charges. London 
 plucks the stranger within her uales, 
 whether he comes from outside England 
 or from foreign parts; but the resident 
 finds it a cheap, healthy, and agreeable 
 place to live in. He learns not to think 
 of the weather at all. In-door life is 
 
 comfortable and entertaining, and when 
 the Englishman goes out of doors, it is 
 for vigorous exercise on horseback, on 
 tin' river, in the cricket Held, or a brisk 
 walk along the suburban .streets, or a, 
 thirty-mile promenade on the tricycle, 
 which has become almost as prominent, 
 an institution in Loudon as a family 
 carriage. 
 
 The holidays, festal occasions, politi- 
 cal and sporting anniversaries are im- 
 portant events in the London season. 
 After Easter comes a Bank holiday, 
 while business is suspended when the 
 Quarter Sessions begin. On the second 
 Sunday after Easter the Conservatives 
 celebrate what is called Primrose Day, 
 the anniversary of the death of Lord 
 lleaconslield. in 1881. In May the 
 Academy exhibition of paintings is 
 opened, and on the eveuing preceding 
 it, unless it be a Sunday, a grand din- 
 ner is given at Burlington House, at 
 which the president of the Royal Acad- 
 emy presides, and speeches are expected 
 from the Prime Minister, foreign ambas- 
 sadors, distinguished orators and writers. 
 In May, too, comes the anniversary of 
 the birth of Queen Victoria, — a Bank 
 holiday, — when all the commercial world 
 enjoys a rest, and the younger class of 
 employes a great frolic. Next in order 
 art the Epsom races, and the Whitsun- 
 tide holidays. 
 
 The Derby, famous the world over, is 
 one of the most curious and interesting 
 of the racing-festivals in England, and 
 brings out the most motley collection of 
 people of all classes that can be seen 
 during the year. The great annual 
 meeting, on Epsom Downs, takes place 
 just before Whitsuntide, from Tuesday 
 to Friday. Wednesday is the Derby. 
 Friday is the Oaks, or, as the populace 
 would call it, •• The Iloaks." If the 
 English think it extraordinary that the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 623 
 
 French should always choose a Sunday 
 for any grand parliamentary display be- 
 fore the beginniDg of an important de- 
 bate, the French think it no less singular 
 that the English should adjourn their 
 Parliament in order that its members 
 may attend a horse-race. Legislation is, 
 in fact, invariably adjourned for the 
 Derby : and Sir Wilfred Lawsou and 
 other reformers spend their breath in 
 vain in pointing out the wickedness of 
 wasting people's time in attendance 
 upon a trivial sport. The passion for 
 horse-flesh is so great in England that 
 it infiltrates into conversation and 
 metaphor. The slang of the turf is 
 often used in political illustration, and 
 instances may be mentioned where it has 
 been employed in describing the charms 
 of an actress or a professional beauty. 
 The sailor and the jockey contribute 
 thousands of phrases to English con- 
 versation. On the Derby day, in the 
 afternoon, all business in London is sus- 
 pended, except the important business 
 of transportation. Thousands upon 
 thousands of people have gone down by 
 road on drags and coaches, packed with 
 hampers of food and drink, and, long 
 before the hour of the races, are ranged 
 in rows on the furzy and irregular hill- 
 sides, which are thronged with a col- 
 lection of mountebanks, gypsies, and 
 adventurers of all classes; and brown- 
 faced fortune-tellers, mounted on stilts, 
 come to the drags to tell the fortunes of 
 the ladies seated there. Young clerks 
 from the city have begun their libations 
 at an early hour, and soon quarrel and 
 fight. A " Welcher," or a betting man 
 who cheats, is thrashed within an inch of 
 his life. The enormous grand-stand, 
 which can accommodate thousands, 
 sends forth a shout of half awe-struck 
 pleasure when the arrival of the Prince 
 of Wales is announced, and it is not too 
 
 much to say that when the horses are 
 led forth upon the turf fifty thousand 
 people rush to their heels to admire and 
 comment upon their points. The race 
 itself is like all horse-races, — interesting 
 mainly to those who have risked upon 
 the result. The races have been regu- 
 larly run at Epsom since the time of 
 .lames I. when he lived at Nonsuch 
 palace, and was fond of visiting the 
 Derbys to see the horses run. In their 
 present form the races date from 17:50. 
 Formerly there were spring and autumn 
 meetings, but now there is :i spring meet- 
 ing in April, lasting only two days, and 
 from which the fashionable world holds 
 aloof. Then there is the May meeting. 
 from the Tuesday to Friday before Whit- 
 suntide, unless Easter comes in March. 
 when the races take place after the 
 Whitsuntide week. Edward, twelfth Fail 
 of Derby, established the race Known by 
 his name, in 1780 ; and in the year pre- 
 vious to this he established the " Oaks," 
 so called from one of his country seats. 
 The Derby race proper is a one-and-one- 
 half-milo contest for three-year-old 
 gelds and fillies, and is usually run in 
 from two minutes and forty-three seconds 
 to two minutes and fifty-two and one- 
 half seconds. Thirty years ago Tatter- 
 sail's, the great sporting rendezvous in 
 Auction Hall for horses in London, was 
 crowded at the book-making before the 
 Derby day with a miscellaneous collec- 
 tion of peers and plebeians and prize- 
 fighters, " butchers, bakers, and candle- 
 stick-makers." farmers, soldiers, and 
 even ladies, — all anxious to indulge in 
 this form of gambling. The owner of a 
 Derby winner, on one occasion, had to 
 receive £70,000 from the ring at Tatter- 
 sail's, and so strict are the regulations 
 that on the settling day all this money, 
 with the exception of £200 or £300, was 
 in the hands of his bankers. Jockeys like 
 
r.i' l 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Archer, Fordham, and Wood accumulate 
 large fortunes; and Archer, who heads 
 the list of winning jockeys in England 
 and France (for he often rides at the 
 races on Longchamps, in Paris), makes 
 as much money as the most successful 
 of dramatic authors or leading actors. 
 
 During the 
 last racing 
 season five 
 pro m i lie n t 
 English gen- 
 tlemen, own- 
 ers of live 
 s t u d s o f 
 horses, won 
 more than 
 £10,000 each; 
 Mr. T. Ham- 
 mond winning 
 £12,379; Mr. 
 
 ON THE ROAD TO EPSOM. 
 
 1!. Peck, £11,906; the Duke of West- 
 minster, £11,769 ; Mr. Manlon, £11,494 ; 
 and Mr. Rothschild, £10,931. 
 
 The return from the Derby is a. sight 
 
 that. -e seen, is neverto he forgotten. 
 
 Thousands of coaches, drags, light car- 
 riages, omnibuses, and country wagons 
 stream down past the grand-stand, from 
 
 which the view extends, on one side, to 
 Windsor Castle, and on the other to St. 
 Paul's Cathedral ; and all the way up to 
 London, fifteen miles, along pleasant 
 country roads, well dotted with rural inns, 
 with furzy banks, copious forests, country 
 valleys, surrounded with handsome shrub- 
 bery, — there is a veritable carnival of 
 the rudest horse-play and sport. The 
 noisy people feel it their duty and. their 
 privilege to attack quiet people, and as 
 two-thirds of the holiday-makers ride 
 upon the topsof drags or in open wagons 
 a kind of battle goes on. Now and then 
 the quiet people are provoked into re- 
 taliation by streams of water poured on 
 them from squirt-guns, made especially 
 for the occasion, and by a shower of 
 pocket-flasks, stale biscuits, hits of lob- 
 ster-shells, and even champagne bottles. 
 Every license that the exhilaration of 
 fresh air ami an unlimited quantity of 
 wine can produce seems permitted, and 
 the interference of the police would be 
 looked upon as an unheard-of innova- 
 tion. The object of the rougher class 
 seems to be to ruin the garments and 
 spoil the pleasure of the 
 gentler number, and in this 
 they thoroughly succeed. 
 The result is that gentle- 
 men who visit the Derby 
 clothe themselves for the 
 occasion in garments of 
 simple gray and in white 
 hats, which they count upon 
 laying aside as useless 
 thereafter. The ladies, 
 with their customary tact, dress in sober 
 colors, and if the road carnival becomes 
 too uproarious they take refuge in the in- 
 terior of the coaches. It was once my 
 fortune to visit the Derby with a party 
 who hail in their service a huge, good- 
 natured, and neatly dressed American 
 negro. This unfortunate servant oceu- 
 
EUROPE I.V STORM AND CALM. 
 
 625 
 
 
 
 
 I 5 •• .Jfe/.- 
 
 
 r 
 
 - 
 
 FOX-HON'nNG IN' ENGLAND. 
 
 pied a conspicuous place on the front 
 of the drag ; but before we had gone 
 five miles on our return he \v;is hidden 
 under the back seat in the interior, 
 whence he hardly dared to emerge after 
 he was in the comfortable security 
 of the stable at a London hotel. Here 
 and there on the road from Epsom up to 
 
 London certain societies post good- 
 looking men, who hold Lip placards for the 
 contemplation of the crowd. These 
 placards arc generally adorned with re- 
 ligious mottoes and devices, and on one 
 occasion a huge poster displayed these 
 words, "Where will all this end? In 
 hell-tire." 
 
626 EUROPE /.V STORM AND CALM. 
 
 There are numerous races alter the in his noted picture of " Chill October." 
 
 K|ischm during the season ; the summer The Academy is filled with capricious 
 
 meeting at Sandown, the Ascot, to which painters, who delight in fantastic and 
 
 the fashionable world goes in throngs, unnatural subjects, in which they can 
 
 the New Market meeting, ami the Good- use colors evolved from their own imagi- 
 
 woodmeeting, — all these aregreatevents nation rather than copied from anything 
 
 for society ; and even the Queen has beeu in the visible universe. In portraiture 
 
 known to attend the races at Ascot on the Academy is strong. All the English 
 
 the cup day. Perhaps the most brilliant pictures, except the above-mentioned 
 
 assemblage of ladies in the early part of portraits, have a strong literary tinge, — 
 
 the London season is to be found at they tell a. story, often striking, some- 
 
 K|isoni. on the Oaks day. — the Derby times touching. The English painter is 
 
 being more especially reserved for gentle- not satisfied, like the French, with mere 
 
 men. contrast of color without coherence, he 
 
 The private view da}'s at the Academy wishes to recite something, to interest 
 and the Grosvenor exhibitions bring more in his subject than in his technique. 
 together large gatherings of celebrities. The military painters are not very 
 In the handsome rooms devoted to i he numerous for a nation so often at war 
 Royal Academy in Burlington House as Great Britain. Neither do the 
 some seventeen hundred pictures, or painters appear to have profited by flic 
 perhaps half as many as arc annually picturesque facilities offered in India and 
 displayed at the Paris Salon, are exhib- other dependencies of Great Britain for 
 itcd. The characteristics of the English the choice of taking subjects. English 
 painting are too well know n to need much and Scotch people, it is said, wish Eng- 
 discussion here. The foreign observer lish and Scotch pictures ; and there is no 
 looks in vain for the brilliancy of tone doubt they will pay liberally for them, 
 and the harmony of color to which the Nowhere else 1 in the world does the mod- 
 continental schools of painting have crn painter get more splendid reumnera- 
 accustomed him. lie finds in the solid tion than in London. Half-a-dozen of 
 and enduring works of John Millais, the leading artists live in veritable pal- 
 Alma Tadema, Mr. Watts. Luke Fildes, aces, which are the outgrowth of their 
 Mr. Iloll. Mr. Herkomer, and Sir Fred- own industry, — '•industry" is perhaps 
 crick Leighton. enough talent, even the proper word. John Millais lives in 
 genius, to bestow renown upon any a noble mansion, and has a spacious 
 academy. Sir Frederick Leighton is studio, in which he often receives royalty. 
 the accomplished and versatile president Sir Frederick Leighton inhabits a. phe- 
 of the Royal Academy. The foreigner nouienal house, with tessellated pave- 
 looks with astonishment upon the great ments, cool court-yards, cabinets tilled 
 mass of dull ami flaccid compositions by with antiquities and costly bric-d,-bnic, 
 the younger men. If English ail needs and receives like a prime minister or a 
 any informing purpose it is that of sun- peer of the realm. George Boughton 
 shine. It wants blue sky ami tianslu- and Alma Tadema also have tine places 
 cent atmosphere. Now and then a mas- of residence. Tadema's house is like 
 ter like Millais can extract a weird his work, archa-ological and fascinating. 
 poetry and charm from the sombre and In the neighborhood of Holland Park 
 gray qualities of a Scotch landscape, as there is an artistic colony, with dozens 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 627 
 
 of roomy, noble houses, where painters 
 live in a very different style from that 
 of the traditional garret to which they 
 were supposed to be condemned. Besides 
 the annual Academy exhibition there is 
 a line display of the works of living 
 painters, in oil and water colors, on 
 the 1st of May, at the Grosvenor Gal- 
 lery, which was established by Sir Coutts 
 Lindsay a few years ago, doubtless to 
 give increased facilities for exhibition to 
 painters who are crowded out of the 
 Academy. Theu there is a society of 
 painters in water-colors, of which Sir 
 John Gilbert is the president; also the 
 institute of painters in water-colors ; the 
 Society of British Artists; and the 
 general exhibition of water-colors, which 
 has a black-and-white exhibition during 
 the season, and other minor displays. 
 The English government eives a liberal 
 aid to art, and the multiplication of art- 
 schools throughout the kingdom is very 
 remarkable. All this movement in favor 
 of art-schools and art-education sprang 
 from the exhibition of 1851. and from 
 the impulse given to the study of the 
 beautiful by that good anil able man, 
 the Prince Consort. 
 
 Of good music in London thrne is no 
 lack during " the season." London has no 
 opera-houses which can vie in splendor 
 with those of Paris and Vienna, but in 
 prosperous seasons there are two Italian 
 operas and a German opera, conducted 
 by Hans Richter, who has a great repu- 
 
 tation in London. The concerts are 
 legion. The real impulse to musical 
 culture in London is given by the Ger- 
 mans. Sir Julius Benedict is deservedly 
 popular, and, despite his great age, still 
 
 < lucts with vigor and skill. Sir Arthur 
 
 Sullivan, famous because of his light 
 operas, is already renowned for solid 
 musical accomplishments. Sir George 
 Grove and Mr. McKenzie arc among the 
 chief authorities in the musical world. 
 The aristocracy does but little for good 
 music. The famous Philharmonic Society, 
 which Mendelssohn used to conduct, 
 gives concerts at St. James's Hall, begin- 
 ning in February, and continuing into 
 the season. The Richter concerts are 
 ,ils, i given at St. James's Hall. The 
 Philharmonic's audiences are mainly re- 
 cruited from the upper ranks of English 
 society; the prosperous and cultivated 
 Germans and Jews attend the Richter 
 series. < )ne of the odd institutions of Lon- 
 don is the '"Ballad Concert." The popu- 
 lace is never tired of the little tooting 
 ballad or simple song. Its appetite for 
 these modest forms of musical composi- 
 tion is enormous. The culture of sacred 
 music is very important. There is a 
 sacred harmonic society conducted by 
 Charles Halle, a German, who has lived 
 in London for nearly a half-cent m\ : 
 also the Albert Hall Choral Society, con- 
 ducted by Mr. Barnaby, and the Bach 
 Society, where Mr. Goldschmidt, the 
 husband of Jenny Lind, wields the baton. 
 
628 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE. 
 
 Queen's Weather. —The Coaching Meets. — The Flower Shows. — Simplicity of English Manners. 
 
 Eccentricity and Excellence.— Foreigners anil English Society. — The London Theatre. — Ellen 
 Terry. — Wilson Barrett. — English Comedy Writers. —In the Parks. — Rotten Row. — Some 
 
 Noble Houses in London.— A Town of Men. — Political Influence.— The Unix. 
 
 IN the high London season there is when the sun is radiant and there are 
 more out-of-door life, there are more no sudden changes that it is "Queen's 
 lawn and garden parties, more assem- Weather." Oddly enough, whenever 
 Wages of fashionable ladies and gentlemen Her Gracious Majesty appears in public, 
 at the flower shows of the great horticnl- sin- is blessed with tranquil skies and 
 tural societies, than would at .first seem the absence of down-pom-; but other 
 possible in a country with a climate so members of the Royal Family and other 
 variable as that of England. If the cli- English personages are not so fortunate, 
 mate is variable, however, it is also eecen- The orator who goes to address a pub- 
 trie; and now and then the Londoners lie meeting without his Macintosh or his 
 are gratified with a summer which lias umbrella is as foolish as if he went with- 
 the strange charm of the North with the out the subject-matter of his speech, 
 sweetness and snlitilty of the South. In The " Coaching Meets " and the " Flow- 
 1S.S4. for instance, in the great gar- er Shows " bring together as fine a collec- 
 dens attached to the South Kensington tion of handsome men and pretty women 
 Museum, where a successful " Health as can he found in any European capi- 
 Exhibition " was held, thousands of tal. London takes a special pride in its 
 gentlemen in evening dress paraded Mowers and fruit, which are forced info 
 after dinner on the green lawns ami on a precocious and somewhat abnormal 
 terraces until the late darkness came, at maturity in the great conservatories and 
 half-past nine or ten o'clock, after which forcing houses. The prosperous mer- 
 the grounds were illuminated, and Lou- chant likes to boast of his orchids, rho- 
 don seemed transformed into Upper dodendrons, and an infinite variety of 
 Italy or Southern France. Mr. Punch, roses. This is indeed a more creditable 
 in his sprightly periodical, once illus- fashion than a pronounced extravagance 
 trated by means of a picture the reason in the line' of fast horses, wines, or even 
 whv the British public did not take old china. There is in the English capi- 
 kindly to cafes of the Parisian form, tal a very large class devoted to the 
 lie showed a crowd of stout dowagers doctrines of Mr. Bunthorne, — a class 
 and fat fathers of families suddenly sub- which, while perhaps it docs not accept 
 jected to a shower of sleet, just, as they Oscar Wilde as its apostle, still follows 
 
 had begun to enjoy their coffee in the pre-Raphaelitism in dress and in the fur- 
 open ail'. The people of London have a nishings of its homes. These people 
 phrase, however, which illustrates their stand out in hold relief against the 
 devotion to the Royal Family and their sturdy mass of English folk of all 
 appreciation of a fine day. They say classes, and there arc few- if any of them 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 629 
 
 in the upper circles. An English Duke 
 is bluff and simple in his ways, delight- 
 ing rather, if he boasts at all, to boast 
 of his drawings by Raphael, and his 
 majestic parks and lakes, than of any 
 peculiarities in costume or speech. 
 There is even an affectation of simplicity 
 on the part of certain noblemen of high 
 rank, a, kind of deference to the glow- 
 ing democratic feeling, but a deference 
 which the gentlemen in question would 
 doubtless be slow to acknowledge if 
 they were accused of it. An ill-natured 
 critic has said that an English public is 
 captivated by eccentricities quite as 
 much as by excellence. This is but 
 partly true. Originality in thought and 
 expression is always respected by Eng- 
 lish society, although it sometimes calls 
 forth comments of extreme bluntness, 
 and criticisms which in some circles 
 might be called rude. To win the 
 respect of the English the foreigner 
 must remain himself, and never attempt 
 to copy English ways of speech or dress. 
 Taking the London season altogether 
 it may perhaps be called the most inter- 
 esting one in Europe. There is less of 
 dramatic, but more of musical, brilliancy 
 in the London than in the Paris season. 
 There are more circles, each one larger, 
 more entertaining, and wealthier, in Lon- 
 don than elsewhere. Set down a. for- 
 eigner in London from any part of the 
 world, accord to him a good appearance 
 and character, a certain refinement, and 
 a few letters of introduction, and if he 
 does not at once find Hie soil of society 
 which lie likes he will be very hard to 
 please. He will not find the upper 
 world at all difficult of access, if he is 
 celebrated, amusing, or instructive : and, 
 on the contrary, if lie is dull and selfish, 
 even though he have millions, he cannot 
 enter the charmed sphere. London 
 wants the best in people and in things, 
 
 and recognizes, with great impartiality 
 and good-nature, all kinds of merit. 
 When it has once adopted a favorite in 
 a certain specialty it hesitates for 
 some time before accepting a rival in the 
 same line. It appears to think that it 
 can be loyal to but one excellence in a, 
 single department, and if that excellence 
 receives the seal of royal praise it is 
 guaranteed a permanence in public favor 
 which nothing short of a great scandal 
 or misfortune can destroy. 
 
 The theatre plays an important part 
 in the recreations of the London high 
 season, and great progress has been 
 made in the last few years in the mount- 
 ing and production of plays. In scenic 
 splendor London is easily the superior 
 of Paris to-day, the Parisians having 
 given themselves bodily to the spectacle, 
 with its inane jokes, and its silly, fairy 
 extravagances ; while the ordinary French 
 comedy, illustrative of manners and 
 morals, requires no scenery beyond that 
 of a parlor, a field, or a garden. The 
 latent production of the brilliant Du- 
 mas, the comedy of " Denise," is in 
 four acts, without any change from the 
 scenery of the first act. Mr. Irving, 
 and, later, Mr. Wilson Barrett, have 
 given a sharp influence to the archaeo- 
 logical school upon the stage. In their 
 productions at the Lyceum and the 
 Princess's Theatre of Shakesperian 
 plays and melodramas they have ex- 
 pended large sums in strict adherence 
 to realism, and with the view to great 
 splendor. Mr. Irving is, and will long 
 remain, facile princejis in the London 
 theatrical world, for In 1 unites to his 
 extraordinary ability as a stage man- 
 ager that grain of genius, combined with 
 eccentricity, which captivates the Lon- 
 don heart. No one is better fitted than 
 Miss Ellen Terry to serve as a piquant 
 contrast to his varied moods, and to 
 
630 EUROPE l.X STORM AND CALM. 
 
 portray the chief feminine characters in van, furnish all that is necessary. The 
 the plays which he has so strongly London critics of the theatre and the 
 stamped with his own individuality. Mr. concert are severe and just. Among them 
 Wilson Barrett is :i newer applicant for are many celebrities, like Mr. Burnand, 
 London favor, but has made rapid prog- editor of "Punch" ; Mr. Knight, of the 
 ross, and stands almost shoulder to "Athenaeum"; Mr. Sala, of the "Tele- 
 shoulder with Irving. In three or four graph"; Mr. Yates, of the "World"; 
 \-ears lie has secured a prominence which Mr. ('lenient Scott, Mr. Sa.ville Clarke, 
 
 , iu> dared prophesy for him. The and l he industrious Mr. Sims, who both 
 
 production of "Claudiau" and similar writes and criticises plays. If the Lon- 
 
 plays marks a new era at the old and don stage has not: yet produced artists 
 
 well-known Princess's. Of good come- to take the place of Phelps and Buck- 
 
 dians. men and women, London lias no stone, and of Adelaide Neilson, there is 
 lack; main of them are as familiar no reason to believe that it will not one 
 to the American as to the English puh day find them ; and it seems certain that 
 lie: Mr. and Mrs. Kendal, Mr. and at no remote period England will have 
 .Mrs. Bancroft, Mr. David James, Mr. a school of contemporary comedy writers 
 Arthur Cecil, Mr. Hart Conway, Mr. as good as those of the old days. The 
 Charles Wyndbam, Mr. Toole, Miss obstacles that block the way at present 
 Ellen Terry, Miss Calhoun (an Atueri- are the indisposition of the public to 
 can girl, who has made a line reputa- listen to the treatment of English social 
 tion in London). Mr. Forbes Robert- topics with the frankness with which 
 son. Mr. Terriss (who appears to have French comedians can discuss French 
 been created expressly to act harmoni- society, and the ease with which a 
 ously and impressively with our brilliant Freucb. piece can be adapted, remodelled, 
 compatriot, Miss Anderson), and others and anglicized, so as to make a de- 
 ltas known outside of London, yet who lightful work, five from guile, and 
 compare favorably with the actors and sparkling with wit. English society is 
 actresses of Vienna. With bright fun s.i different in many small and, at first 
 and burlesque London is amply sup- sight, imperceptible, particulars, even 
 plied; and a house in which the orches- from American society, that when Mr. 
 tra stalls are occupied by country llronson Howard undertook, in con- 
 parsons ami their families, or by prim junction with Mr. Albery, the adaptation 
 old dowagers from the upper circles of of " The Banker's Daughter " to a Lon- 
 M.me rich county, will listen without, don stage, he "as met in almost every 
 apparent prudislmess to what would scene with the remark from his eo- 
 scarcelv pass unchallenged on the Amer- laborer, "That will not do here; that 
 iean stage. What Mr. Irvine, Mr. must be changed. Our audiences would 
 Barrett, and one or two others have not understand that; the young lady 
 done for the London theatre is to raise would not do that in London ;" and so on 
 it from the level of an amusement to ad infinitum . 
 
 that of an art for those who wish The "Rotten Row" has sometimes 
 
 merely to be amused the late Mr. Byron been thought to derive its odd name 
 
 and the very lively and witty Mr. Albery, from Route du It"! — the King's Way ; 
 
 as well as the perennial Mr. Gilbert, but Mr. Timbs tells us that the name 
 
 the Siamese twin of Sir Arthur Kulli- •■rotten" is distinctly to he traced to 
 
EUROPE IV STORM AXD ri /, V 
 
 63 1 
 
 rotteran, to muster. This seems natural 
 enough, as Hyde Park was used for a 
 muster-ground during the civil war, and 
 many great reviews have Keen held 
 there. It must he a very ugly day in- 
 deed when ■• Rotten Row," in Hyde 
 Park, is mil filled during the high season 
 from five to seven o'clock, and often in 
 the morning hours, with throngs of 
 pretty women of all ages from sixteen 
 to sixty, escorted by gay young cava- 
 liers, or by hale and fat old millionuaires 
 aud members of Parliament, peers and 
 promoters of compauies, merchants aud 
 professional men, taking their ride, 
 and exhibiting as pretty a command of 
 noble horses as can be seen anywhere 
 in the world. From all the aristocratic 
 sections, — from Grosvenor and Berke- 
 ley squares, from Park lane and May- 
 fair, from Belgrave square and St. 
 James's square, and even from the grave 
 and decorous district westward from 
 Portland place, between Oxford street 
 anil Marylebone road; from Westbourne 
 terrace ; from the pretty districts around 
 Regent's Park, — hundreds of horsemen 
 and equestriennes take their way to the 
 park after a late lunch, ride till dinner 
 time, and return home only in time todress 
 for that repast. The fashionable day, 
 to use an Ilibernianisui, is in the night. 
 The daylight hours are spent in vigor- 
 ous recruiting of the energies which have 
 been exhausted by " ball and rout " (for 
 the English still use the old-fashioned 
 "rout"), by receptions and dinner-par- 
 ties, crushes in the salons of the am- 
 bassadors, or late suppers after the 
 theatre. During I he " season" most of 
 the noble town houses of the aristocracy 
 are occupied. Some of these arc veri- 
 table palaces, worthy of the best days of 
 Italy. Apsley House, the old home of 
 the Duke of Wellington, at Hyde Park 
 Corner, is above a centurv old. aud a 
 
 nioh demonstration at the time of the 
 first liefonn Pill broke its windows, 
 whereupon the old Duke put up iron 
 shutters, which remained there during 
 his lifetime. Apsley House is famous 
 for its picture-gallery, in which the 
 Waterloo banquet was annually held on 
 the 15th of June, until 1852. It con- 
 tains one of the most noted Correggios 
 in the world. Stafford House, the town 
 residence of the Duke of Sutherland, 
 dates from the early part of this century. 
 Here the hospitable Duke receives com- 
 pany from all parts of the world; and 
 now and then the mansion, which is not 
 unlike a Genoese palace, has a grand 
 staircase, and is filled with celebrated 
 pictures and statues, is thrown open to 
 persons who attend a concert or enter- 
 tainment in aid of some charity. The 
 picture-gallery in Stafford House is 
 said to be the most magnificent room 
 in London. Murillo, Thorwaldsen, C'or- 
 reggio, Lawrence, Etty, and Landseer 
 have contributed to the decoration of 
 this noble house, built for the late Duke 
 of Yolk, at whose death the lease was 
 sold to the first Duke of Sutherland. 
 The Marquis of Westminster has a grand 
 mansion, called Grosvenor House, in 
 Upper Grosvenor street, and it contains 
 Murillos, Titians, Guidos, Rembraudts, 
 a miraculous Paul Potter, and a group 
 of the best works of Iiubens, four of 
 which were bought out of a Spanish 
 convent for £10,000. The Duke of 
 Devonshire has a plain, rather ugly, 
 mansion, called after his title, in Picca- 
 dilly. It is not strange that a man who 
 has so splendid a country home as 
 Chatsworth should not cure for an expen- 
 sive London residence. In Lansdowne 
 House, belonging to the Marquis of 
 Lansdowne, Priestley made the discov- 
 ery of oxygen, and in the picture-gallery 
 there hang the portraits of Hogarth, of 
 
632 
 
 EUROPE IN STORV AND CALM. 
 
 Peg Woffiugton, and of the paiuter uim- 
 self. The Marquis of Hertford, Sir 
 Robert Peel, Lionel de Rothschild, the 
 Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Dudley, 
 the Duke of Norfolk, and many other 
 noblemen have fine collections of paint- 
 ings, ancient and modern. 
 
 London speedily impresses the stranger 
 as a town of men. At lirst sight the 
 foreigner moving about in the great 
 metropolis seems to discover in it no 
 place in public for the gentler half of 
 the human race. While in Paris one 
 finds ladies almost everywhere that gen- 
 tleiiien may go, in London they seem to 
 be confined t<> their homes, to the parks, 
 and to brief excursions from their car- 
 riages to shops. At the theatre, and at 
 some of the fashionable restaurants, 
 brilliant toilets and pretty faces may be 
 seen ; but the exterior of London is not 
 sufficiently inviting to draw forth the 
 ladies daily and at all hours, as one may 
 see them in Paris and Vienna. In Lon- 
 don the masculine mind is supreme. 
 From time to lime there have been salons 
 governed by ladies of distinction and 
 having a wide influence, as in Paris, but 
 now they scarcely exist. Mr. Escott 
 tells us that it is •• because the social 
 conditions of English society have 
 changed that the salon, in the sense in 
 which it is usually spoken of, has almost 
 ceased to exist, rather than because no 
 opportunities or inducements are to be 
 found to influence politics through so- 
 ciety." He also tells us that Lady 
 Palmerston, who died in 1868, has had 
 no successor. Lord Palmerston was in- 
 debted for most of his influence and 
 popularity to the social tact of his wife 
 and to her salmi. •• Lady Palmerston." 
 savs Mr. Escott, "received not only 
 at nielit. bul in the day. and all her in- 
 vitation cards were written with her own 
 hand. By consummate skill she pre- 
 
 served for her assemblies the seal of 
 distinction, and every one who was in- 
 vited to them regarded the invitation as 
 an honor, although he was not single in 
 the enjoyment of it." There was no 
 resort, in London so interesting to the 
 man of the world, or so useful to the 
 politician. Ministers went thereto ascer- 
 tain Ihe line current of public and polite 
 opinion. Mr. Escott goes ,, n ( i v \\ u ^ 
 that " more than one great lady has tried 
 to till the place left vacant by Lady 
 Palmerston," but that she has uniformly 
 failed, because her invitations were in 
 the hands of, and were issued by, secre- 
 taries, whips, and clerks. He adds that 
 the great leaders of the two chief politi- 
 cal parties in the state cannot and will 
 not study the art of social entertain- 
 ment, and that dinners and receptions 
 are given as matters of necessity and not 
 of choice. 
 
 A considerable political influence is 
 doubtless wielded by the mistresses of 
 many country-houses, who enjoy good 
 position and large fortune, and who can 
 invite to their homes large categories of 
 celebrities every year. A lady who lives 
 for six months in a palatial home only 
 two or three miles from the metropolis, 
 and who assembles about her the best 
 minds of the times, sometimes takes 
 pleasure in giving these minds an im- 
 pulse ami watching the result of that 
 impulse, during the four or five months 
 of the high season, when the political 
 anil intellectual activity of London is at 
 its best. Mr. Escott says that English 
 society has been greatly modified since 
 the Reform Hill of 1832, and that it al 
 present comprises, closely blended to- 
 gether, the aristocracy, the democracy, 
 and the plutocracy. lie thinks flic 
 aristocratic principle has been strength- 
 ened anil extended in its operation by 
 the 1 plutocracy, but the antagonism 
 
EUROPE TN STURM AND CALM. 
 
 633 
 
 between wealth and birth has long been 
 disappearing. Yet the homage paid by 
 society in England to the aristocratic 
 principle is genuine. In clubs the blend- 
 ing of aristocracy and plutocracy con- 
 stantly goes on, although the plutocrat 
 often has to submit to extreme rudeness 
 on the part of the aristocratic gentlemen 
 whose society he covets and courts. 
 Many a newly enriched Englishman 
 makes himself permanently unhappy by 
 forcing his way into a club the other 
 members of which owe their wealth to 
 their parents, and are beginning ti> 
 assume that haughtiness which appears 
 to accompany remoteness from trade in 
 Great Britain. " To belong to a club," 
 remarks Mr. Escott, " does not neces- 
 sarily guarantee a personal acquaintance 
 with any one of the members." " In some 
 clubs where a less rigid system of eti- 
 quette exists it is not thought irregular 
 for one member to address another of 
 whom he knows nothing if they happen 
 to occupy contiguous chairs in the smok- 
 ing-room. In such matters as these, and 
 in many others, every London club of 
 importance has special features of its 
 own." Clubs, he thinks, are useful as a 
 connecting link between society and 
 statesmanship. The Liberal clubs are 
 more comprehensive and homogeneous 
 than the Conservative clubs. The Carl- 
 ton, the Conservative head-quarters, is 
 "a purely political and social institu- 
 tion — the accepted rendezvous and 
 head-quarters of the accredited repre- 
 sentatives of a party. The Reform Club 
 lacks political uniformity among its mem- 
 bers, and a pervading consciousness of a 
 political purpose." This English view 
 of the two great representative and op- 
 posing English clubs must, I think, have 
 special interest for us. The passion for 
 exelusiveness, so foreign to the Ameri- 
 can character, so prominent in the Eng- 
 
 lish, is equally pronounced in Liberals 
 and Conservatives. "Club-land "— Pall 
 Mall, St. James' street, Albemarle 
 street, Hanover square — is a curious 
 district. The club structures are truly 
 palatial, imposing — models of comfort 
 within. Hundreds of men may be seen 
 at eleven o'clock in the morning, loung- 
 ing at the wiudows, looking at the muddy 
 streets and dull houses, apparently think- 
 ing of nothing and doing nothing. These 
 gentlemen are faultlessly dressed, have a 
 languid air. and a Frenchman would 
 accuse them of being troubled with 
 spleen. The truth is that most of these 
 gentlemen are active enough in their 
 special and peculiar directions, social, 
 political, or even commercial. The daily 
 lounge at the club is a part of the " good 
 form" which is so requisite to the Lon- 
 doner of the upper classes. In the Re- 
 form and the Carlton, and at Brooks, 
 nearly all the political celebrities of Eng- 
 land may be seen some time during the 
 season. If a foreign visitor could stand 
 in Pall Mall for twelve hours, and have 
 pointed out to him by some one familiar 
 with London faces the gentlemen who 
 go in and out of the clubs, he would, be- 
 fore two o'clock in the morning, have 
 seen two-thirds of the leading English- 
 men. The clubs of the Army and 
 Navy, of the Athenaeum, the Travellers', 
 the United Service, the Union, Ox- 
 ford and Cambridge, the Oriental, the 
 Junior Carlton are thronged every day 
 during the eight or nine months of the 
 year with the wittiest, brightest, the 
 most powerful, and the bravest. So long 
 as these chilis maintain their present posi- 
 tion, the salon with lailies in command 
 is not likely to reappear. Eastward, 
 and in the Strand, and in Covent Gar- 
 den are the literary, artistic, and theat- 
 rical clubs ; and the Garrick Club house, 
 in Covent Garden, and the Savage, in the 
 
* ;:; t 
 
 EUROPE W STORM AND CALM 
 
 Savoy, are familiar to all travelled Amer- of the Six Services ; clubs of the Church 
 ieans. In oue or two club organizations of England; clubs for yacht-owners; 
 the rather unwonted experiment of bring- clubs for the promotion of canoeing ; for 
 ing ladies and gentlemen together has the cultivation of chess; diplomatic 
 been encouraged, but has met with small dubs ; fat-cattle clubs, and clubs for 
 
 whist : as well as chilis politi- 
 cal, literary, artistic, and 
 theatrical. There are Shake- 
 speare, " Xew Shakspere," 
 j| Plato, and Goethe societies; 
 
 and lately, societies for the 
 study of even contemporary 
 poets, as Browning, which 
 often draw upon themselves 
 considerable ridicule by their 
 enthusiasm. The Browning; 
 society is active in study of the 
 great poet to whose fame it has 
 devoted its efforts. Of course 
 Mi 1 . Browning, a man of ex- 
 ceptionally robust and serious 
 
 sense, though most kindly and 
 unassuming in social contact, 
 luis nothing to do with the cu- 
 rious association which assumes 
 his name. The yacht clubs, 
 with their club-houses at 
 success. London has clubs for people ('owes. Southsea, Queenstowu, Har- 
 int rested iii mountain explorations, in wich, Oban, Rothesay, Southampton, 
 sporting and coaching ; for amateur artists Ryde, and Greenhithe on the Thames, 
 and collectors of art ; for merchants and nearly all are presided over by aristo- 
 
 bankers; for officers in the East India cratic comi lores, the Prince of Wales, 
 
 service; for gentlemen devoted to the Dukeof Edinburgh, Duke of Connaught, 
 noble art of pigeon-shooting ; polo clubs Lord Richard < irosvenor, Prince Edward 
 in great numbers; clubs for improving of Saxe Weimar, and others, all paying 
 the breed of dogs; clubs for the officers special attention to this sort of sport.. 
 
 ROBERT RROWNING 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 635 
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO. 
 
 The Strand. — A Historic Avenue. — The City and Country Types. — English Love for Nature. — The 
 Farmer and his Troubles. — Rural Beauty in Warwickshire and Derbyshire. — The Shakespeare 
 Festival in 1879. — Stratford. — Birmingham, the "Toy Shop of Europe." 
 
 "XTOWHERE does the pulse of Lon- 
 -L. ^ dim heat more feverishly than in 
 the "Strand," — the long and crowded 
 avenue which leads from Charing Cross 
 to the site of the ancient Temple Bar. 
 Here all classes of English society meet 
 and jostle as nowhere else within the 
 limits of three-quarters of a mile every 
 day. and especially for an hour or two 
 after dinner. Here, too, vice flaunts its 
 dirty wretchedness as it dares not do 
 in New York or Paris. London will not 
 have its social irregularities classified or 
 licensed, and gives them full liberty in 
 certain quarters. On the evening of a 
 great national holiday the spectacle in 
 the Strand, and in many streets leading 
 from it, is often shocking. Almost every 
 foot of the historic thoroughfare (which 
 got its name from being at the brink of the 
 Thames) has its interest. In North- 
 umberland Court Nelson lodged, and 
 Ken Jonson lived when a boy. In 
 Craven street Benjamin Franklin long- 
 resided. In York House, now replaced 
 by a shop in the Strand, Lord Bacon 
 was born. In Buckingham street lived 
 old Samuel Pepys. At the Adelphi 
 Lady Jane Grey was married. At 
 Coutts Bank Queen Victoria keeps her 
 private account. In Cecil street Con- 
 greve invented the rocket. In Fountain 
 Court Blake the painter died. At No. 
 132 Strand stood the old Drake's Head 
 Coffee-house, of which Dr. Johnson was 
 so fond. In Arundel street is the 
 Arundel Chili, whose members sit up all 
 
 night to discuss grave questions, and arc 
 known as the latest club men in London. 
 In Norfolk street lived William Peun. 
 Dr. Johnson and Boswell often took 
 supper at the Whittington Club, still in 
 existence. In Exeter street lived the 
 bookseller from whom Johnson and his 
 pupil Garrick borrowed £5 on their joint 
 
 note when they first came up to L Ion ; 
 
 and at a wigmaker's, in Maiden Lane, 
 Voltaire lived during most of his three 
 years' stay in England. It was the 
 flood of reminiscences and the proces- 
 sion of ghostly figures from the roman- 
 tic past that made Charles Lamb, 
 as he quaintly tells us, " often shed tears 
 for fulness of joy at sight of so much 
 life in the Strand." 
 
 Half the gentlemen whom one meets 
 on Regent street or in Piccadilly 
 have what we should call in Amer- 
 ica a "country air." There is in 
 their dress and in their manner a name- 
 less something which betrays the fact 
 that they spend the greater part of their 
 time outside the walls of a large city. 
 Put them on horseback in the park and 
 they appear more at case than in the 
 crowded and fashionable thoroughfares. 
 Nine out of ten of them much prefer the 
 easy and luxurious comfort of their 
 secluded homes, buried in the depths of 
 
 blossoming gardens, and surrounded by 
 
 blooming hedges in summer, and still 
 keeping in winter something of the ver- 
 durous richness lor which the rainy 
 island is famous, rather than the hurry 
 
(lot) 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 and smoke of the metropolis. To the 
 tenacity with which the Englishman in 
 comfortable circumstances clings to liis 
 country or suburban home, and refuses 
 !<> be ranged and numbered as a constant 
 dweller in the city, may be ascribed the 
 enduring individuality so marked in 
 England. In truth, the great cities 
 throughout the islands might almost be 
 regarded as Mots upon the exquisite 
 landscapes. There can be few more 
 startling transitions than that from the 
 sylvan tranquillity of the country round 
 about Chatsworth to the smudge and 
 prosaic gloom of Birmingham; or the 
 arrival in Liverpool after a day's wan- 
 derings through the quaint streets in 
 ancient Chester, or the journey from 
 Warwickshire by a swift train into Lon- 
 don. Louis Blanc used to say that, in 
 France, there was "an abyss between the 
 city and the country." Surely there is 
 also a sharp separation and difference in 
 England between town and country. 
 The wealthy Englishman delights in 
 rusticity, lie apes none of the foreign 
 distaste for green meadows and for robust 
 exercises. Ninety-nine Englishmen out 
 of one hundred feel a thrill when par- 
 ticipating in the vigorous sports of the 
 country-side: the fox hunt, with its 
 brutal pursuit of the wily but fleet enemy 
 of the farmer; the leaping of fences 
 and water-courses; the heavy fall; the 
 assemblage over the sherry bottle before 
 and after the ride, and the discussion 
 after dinner of the day's outing. The 
 lilisst'ul glow which follows a complete 
 use of bodily strength all day in the 
 open ail' is thought liner by many an 
 Englishman than the Italian's ecstatic de- 
 light at the opera, or the Oriental's semi- 
 swoon in the rapture induced by perfect 
 climate and lack of aggressive nerves. 
 
 Everywhere in the country one finds 
 noble houses, line lawns, beautifully kept 
 
 gardens, greenhouses and fruit orchards ; 
 and one sees healthy and placid people 
 quietly enjoying an unambitious and 
 pleasant existence. — not a selfish one, 
 hut one filled with hospitality, ami of en 
 graced by refined thought ami expression 
 of it. The passion for hunting helter- 
 skelter oyer fields, without much regard 
 to whom they belong, has received grave 
 checks both in England and Ireland 
 since the land agitation has begun. Mr. 
 Anthony Trollope lias told us no little 
 about it in the pretty story of •• The 
 American Senator," and the daily press 
 has sufficiently enlightened us as to the 
 peril to Irish aristocrats who try to follow 
 the hounds and sometimes find them- 
 selves facing an infuriated Hibernian 
 moli. Going down from London to 
 Portsmouth, one day in midsummer, I 
 observed that all my fellow-travellers in 
 the compartment looked out of the win- 
 dow with great eagerness, anil presently 
 I discovered they were noting the 
 game ; that whenever a grouse appeared, 
 or a hare scudded away to shelter, they 
 found an amount of pleasure in the 
 spectacle which it was quite out of my 
 power to share. These people live close 
 to Nature, finding a charm in the con- 
 trast of Nature's wildness in one region 
 with her complete subjugation to and 
 marriage with art in another close beside 
 it. The era of small farms, minute sub- 
 divisions of tilled land, — which would 
 do away with the great " plantations." 
 as they are called, and with the unculti- 
 vated places where one who can pay for 
 the privilege may bunt as frequently as 
 primitive man did. — would lie looked 
 upon as an unfortunate period by hun- 
 dreds of thousands of Englishmen. The 
 arrival of tin' peasant proprietor on the 
 scene would he thought to take away its 
 Chief attraction. Yet that advent is near 
 at hand. In many a country a rich land- 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 63 
 
 owner finds his tenant-farmers giving up open by the aristocrat, and by 
 in disgust under the pressure of foreign discovers that lie is heir to the 
 agricultural competition, bad seasons, and lies in presence of which the ar 
 poor harvests. The gentleman owner 
 discovers that hemusl let land lie fallow 
 and the agricultural laborer is driven 
 by sheer distress to think of creating 
 an independent position. Tenant- 
 farmers, where they are not disposed to 
 give up, are becoming more exacting. 
 Troubles rise out of the very soil to 
 cluster about the once happy and thor- 
 
 -and-by 
 difflcul- 
 istocrat 
 
 STOPPING THE HUNTING. 
 
 oughly independent landed proprietor, had lost his courage. Yet land is the 
 
 The great aristocrats make concessions thing most coveted by men of newh 
 
 in the hope of tiding over the temporary acquired wealth in England, and will be 
 
 difficulties, incomes are diminished, and so for many a long year to come. The 
 
 people shift their investments from land " Statesman's Year Book "of 1884 shows 
 
 in England to land in Dakota or Egypt, that while the cultivated area in the 
 
 The plutocrat pops into the place left kingdom has increased by marly teu 
 
638 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 thousand acres since 1881, the area un- essay will there be found much sighing 
 
 del' all kinds of crops lias decreased by alter the suit South, with its semi-tropi- 
 
 forty thousand acres. cal warmth and profusion of flowers. 
 
 In London one gets the idea that Eng- The Northerner rejoices in the rugged- 
 land is perplexed with a thousand difficul- ness of his hills, his stormy shores, his 
 ties. — annoyed by innumerable anxie- mysterious mists ami fogs, his quaint 
 ties. The atmosphere is oik- of unrest, rocks and inlets. .Midland people boast 
 The talk is nt' a military expedition to of their great parks and noble pastures, 
 .some remote country, the haps and their splendid castles and well-kept 
 mishaps of commerce, the phases of the fauns; and the Southerners, of thegrassy 
 "Eastern Question," the consolidation downs, and sheltered nooks where even 
 of the Colonial Empire, the future of exotic shrubs prosper, and where in 
 Egypt, th«' advance of Russia, the com- summer there is a luxuriance of vegeta- 
 petition of America, and the discontent tion and blossom worthy of the Medi- 
 of Ireland. lint it is easy to get out terranean shores. If one wishes to get 
 of this atmosphere of uncertainty ami an adequate notion of the supreme con- 
 ambition into a serencr England, where tent of the Englishman with his island 
 the present in nowise disturbs the repose home let him attack its advantages and 
 of the |iast and the beauty of its ac- belittle its excellences. He will soon 
 cumulated memorials. However much find sturdy responses to all his strictures 
 London may he convulsed with stormy and criticisms. Doth the English and 
 discussions which seem to involve the French are fond of comparing every- 
 future of tlic whole British Empire, the thing they see abroad with something at 
 peasants and tiie middle classes one or home, and of making comparisons advan- 
 two hundred miles away from tin- capi- tageous to their own possessions. 
 tal are but little interested by these A curious feature of the country dis- 
 debates. In the pleasant country towns triets in England is often remarked, par- 
 things go on in the same old dreamy ticularly by American travellers. Al- 
 and tranquil way in which they have though it is said that Great Britain is 
 been progressing for hundreds of years, intensely populated the country does 
 The great land-owner is secure in hi> not appear to be so thickly settled as in 
 castle, and appears unconscious of the the older portions of the United States. 
 fiery utterances of Mr. Chamberlain. Thousands of acres an givenupto" plau- 
 The "Squire" is not in the slightest tations " of young trees. Onemay travel 
 fear of approaching revolution, and the miles without meeting a human being or 
 peasantry seem scarcely to have heard without seeing a farm. The roads, ex- 
 of the great change;- supposed to be im- cepting in the vicinity of the great 
 pending. There is little doubt that they manufacturing towns, are never crowded. 
 all know that a silent transformation is Driving or walking through "Warwick- 
 beginning; but I hey make little allusion shire or Derbyshire one does not meet at 
 to it. every turn, as in France, Belgium, and 
 
 The rural beauty of England is so other continental countries, peasants 
 
 great that the Englishman is excusable going to and coining from market, or 
 
 for the extreme pride which he takes working by the roadside, or bands of 
 
 in it, and for his enthusiasm in the de- strollers. One is often tempted to stop 
 
 scription of it. In no English novel or and inquire where the people have gone. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 (539 
 
 The ancient towns seem unlikely to be 
 awakened from their immemorial sleep. 
 The birth-place of .Shakespeare is as 
 quiet as it was three hundred years 
 ago. 
 
 In Warwickshire, in Derbyshire, and 
 in the Lake Region, the rural beauty of 
 England is manifest in its perfection. 
 Here are no mighty glens, no lofty 
 mountains, no enormous lakes or majes- 
 tic streams ; but, although everything is 
 on a modest scale, it forms a harmo- 
 nious picture which is absolutely enchant- 
 ing. Stratford, with its quaint streets, 
 its sleepy church among the noble trees, 
 its flowery lanes bordered by com- 
 fortable cottages; Warwick, with its 
 ancient hospital and its noble castle; 
 Charlecote, where Sir Thomas Lucy, 
 whom Shakespeare lampooned as " Jus- 
 tice Shallow," built a rambling hall in 
 Queen Elizabeth's reign ; Hampton Lucy 
 Luddington, in whose church Shake- 
 speare is said to have been married ; 
 Coventry, with its numerous spires, its 
 legends and its embowered streets — 
 all these in midsummer are surpassingly 
 beautiful. To go from London to Bir- 
 mingham by the old highway, the travel 
 on which is said to have contributed 
 to the up-building of Stratford before 
 Shakespeare's birth in that town had 
 made it a place of pilgrimage, takes 
 one through the exquisite Arden dis- 
 trict, where the hedges, woods and cop- 
 pices, the gentle hills, the beautiful valleys, 
 the " mooted granges " of which Tenny- 
 son speaks, the winding streams and wild 
 glens, offer a perpetual feast to the eyes. 
 
 Stratford itself is familiar to all the 
 world, and I therefore shall not attempt 
 to describe it. The Shakespeare house, 
 where " Nature nursed her darling boy," 
 has somewhat the aspect of a museum, 
 and the temptation to meditate within 
 its walls is lessened by the business- 
 
 like air with which the custodians exact 
 sixpence for access to the birth-room, 
 and sixpence to the museum. At the 
 tercentenary Shakespeare anniversary 
 and festival, held at Stratford in 1879, 
 there was a great gathering of Shake- 
 spearian scholars and commentators, and 
 of the lovers of poetry and the drama, 
 to witness the dedication <>f the Memo- 
 rial Theatre, which now stands in a pleas- 
 ant garden on the banks of the river. 
 This simple ami unpretentious festival, 
 which lasted for several days, seemed to 
 awaken but small enthusiasm among the 
 country people in the neighborhood, 
 some of whom would perhaps have been 
 puzzled to tell who Shakespeare was. 
 But no monument can be so appropri- 
 ate as this stately pile of Kli/.abethan 
 architecture — this theatre, with museum, 
 library, and picture-gallery, attached. 
 A company of London comedians per- 
 formed the comedy of •• .Much Ado About 
 Nothing." Actors and actresses, in the 
 intervals of their labor, joined in pretty 
 excursions in the evergreen byways and 
 the verdurous fields. Perhaps some day 
 there will be founded a school of acting, 
 the influence of which will do much to 
 improve the public taste for Shakespeare 
 and his works. The theatre is but a 
 little distance from the village church, and 
 above the tomb in this church is the old 
 monument which represents Shakespeare 
 writing upon a cushion, with an entabla- 
 ture bearing his coat-of-arms above the 
 niche in which bis image appears. 
 
 The famous Inns at Stratford are small 
 and quaint. The "lied Horse" has 
 been immortalized by Washington Irv- 
 ing, and thi' Shakespeare Hotel has its 
 rooms adorned with paintings illustrating 
 the chief scenes in the great poet's com- 
 edies and tragedies. The waiters in this 
 unique hostelry have long been ac- 
 customed to designate each room bv the 
 
640 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 name of the play from which its painting member. < Md Hatton, in the eighteenth 
 
 is taken, and in the morning, before the century, made a prophecy concerning the 
 
 guests have emerged, one hears the future grandeur of industrial Birming- 
 
 servants calling out: "Hamlet wants ham. He said: "We have only seen 
 
 his boots ; Ophelia wants his hot water ; her in infancy, comparatively small in 
 
 .lulins Cfesar wants his brandy and water ; her size, homely in her person, and gross 
 
 Coriolanus wishes his breakfast sent in her dress, — her ornaments mostly of 
 
 up at once." Throughout Warwickshire iron from her own forge; but now her 
 
 the common people have a curious flavor growth will be amazing, her expansion 
 
 in their speech, a dry humor, and odd rapid, perhaps not to be paralleled in 
 
 forms of expression, which it is perhaps history. She will add to her iron orna- 
 
 m>t presumptuous to characterize as ments the lustre of every metal that 
 
 Shakespearian, [n drawing his peasantry the whole earth can produce, with all 
 
 the poet simply put his immortal wit and their illustrious race of compounds, 
 
 his pungent philosophy into the homely heightened by fancy and garnished 
 
 phrase which lie heard every day around with jewels. She will draw from 
 
 him; and a great contemporary novelist, the fossil and vegetable kingdoms; 
 
 in following this illustrious example, press the ocean for her shell, skin and 
 
 shows that the men of England can coral. She will also tax the animals 
 
 talk to-day as picturesquely as they did for horn, bone, and ivory; and she will 
 
 three centuries ago. decorate the whole with the touches of 
 
 In Birmingham one steps out of the her pencil." 
 domain of history and souvenir, and Birmingham has done all this, even 
 comes down to the prosaic present, more. To the far Orient she sends or- 
 Birmingham has no older history than naments of every description ; to Prussia, 
 that of many of the towns of New to India, and to America, she exports 
 England. It took no part in the brass and iron, steel and silver, and 
 politics of the nation before the lie- bronze am! gold. she enrages the 
 ginning "1' the present century, except, French by making their " Articles de 
 when Charles I. and his Parliament Paris;" she makes copper coins for half - 
 were at war. Then Birmingham was a-dozen governments. Her silver and 
 zealous in the cause of the "Round her electro-plating, her brass foundries, 
 Heads." and even seized the 1 Royal her chemical works, her guns, swords, 
 plate which King Charles left when pass- pistols, jewelry and trinkets, her lamps, 
 ing through the town from Salisbury to her pins, her ornamental glass, — these 
 Loudon. Birmingham was punished for arc scattered over the world. " The 
 this audacious act by Prince Rupert's Toyshop of Europe" is a proper name 
 plundering expedition on the following for Birmingham. She applies the same 
 year. It seems odd to reflect that Bir- energy and patience to the fabrication 
 raingham had no representation in Par- of a pin that she does to the construc- 
 liament until after the passage of the tioii of an hydraulic jack big enough 
 Reform Hill of 1832, — a triumph for to launch the Great Eastern, or raise the 
 which the Political Union had worked Cleopatra Needle to its pedestal on the 
 vigorously. Not until after the repre- Thames embankment. Her public build- 
 sentation of •■The People's Act.'' in ings and parks, her statues, her non- 
 1806, did Birmingham get its third conformist churches; her memorials of 
 
EUROPE IX STiiHM AND CALM. 
 
 li-il 
 
 Peel and Priestly, Watt and Boulton, "Adam Bede." 
 Murdock and Eglington ; her halls, from ancient Peacock 
 w h i c h h a v e 
 gone forth such 
 splendid utter- 
 ances in favor 
 of Liberalism. 
 — are all worth}' 
 of her wealth 
 and the taste 
 of her citizens. 
 The varied in- 
 dustry, how- 
 ever, has left 
 its stain on the 
 town, which, 
 like Manchester 
 and Liverpool, 
 is dingy, cold, 
 ami a trifle re- 
 pellant in ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 Hawthorne 
 states that in 
 Derbyshire is 
 
 to be found the most exquisite scenery he crags, filled with 
 ever beheld. Thither George Eliot went ing streams, and 
 for the scenery and her characters for 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT. 
 
 Rowsley, and the 
 Inn ; the old seats 
 of the Dukes 
 of R u thin d ; 
 stately Chats- 
 worth, with its 
 long halls tilled 
 with drawings 
 by Raphael, 
 and with its 
 costly gardens, 
 conservatories, 
 orchid houses ; 
 Matlock, Buck- 
 stone, Bickwell 
 and Words- 
 worth, Hard- 
 wick Hall and 
 Bolsover ( !as- 
 tle, — stand in 
 the midst of 
 romantic val- 
 leys, walled in 
 by rocky and 
 foliage - elad 
 grottos, nooks, charm- 
 well-kept forests. 
 
642 EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE. 
 
 The Lake Country. — The Home of Poets and Essayists. — Scotland. — Glasgow, its Commerce and its 
 
 Antiquities. — The Great Northern Seaport. — Edinburgh and its Memorials. — The Home of 
 Burns. 
 
 rP^UE '• Lake Country " of England Miss Martineau lived for many years. 
 
 -L has for us a double interest be- Not far away is Dr. Arnold's old bouse, 
 
 cause of the indefinable charm asso- where the great Rugby master used to 
 
 ciated with its richly chid hills, ils pretty come in vacation time to recruit from 
 
 expanses of water, and its rich valleys, his arduous duties. In the vale of Gras- 
 
 aud because the district was once the mere Mrs. Hemans wrote some of her 
 
 home of Wordsworth, De Quincey, most sentimental verse. De Quincey and 
 
 Southey, Arnold, Harriet Martineau, and Wordsworth both lived for short periods 
 
 Mrs. Hemans. There are iu all this in Grasmere village, and there in the 
 
 district no mountains which rise above bumble church-yard is the grave of 
 
 the heiglll of four thousand feet, no Wordsworth. 
 
 lakes which wo should account large; It is hut a short walk from Amble- 
 but lake and valley, and forests and side to Ryda] Mount, the favorite home 
 country roads, are all in the most ex- of the poet, — a charming cottage liicl- 
 quisite setting. Here and there, on the den under ivy and rose-trees, the very 
 "Fells" and " Scars," as they are place for contemplation ami the cultiva- 
 ealled. there are hits of wild scenery tion of the muse. Professor Wilson 
 approaching the grand. One should used to say there was " not such another 
 enter this district by Grange, after cross- splendid view in all England as can he 
 iug what Wordsworth called "themajes- had from the eminences alone- the road 
 tic barrier of the Lancaster sands," and from Ambleside. The views of Wiuder- 
 which annually demands the lives of mere from this route are indeed delight- 
 many uncautious travellers; and after fill. The islands lie clustered together; 
 an excursion to old Kurness Abbey and the hikes seem like a grand tranquil river 
 to Ulverstone, one may set off through bending around a point. Bold or 
 the crumbling villages and sheltered gentle promontories," adds Professor 
 roads to Windermere and Coniston, near Wilson, "break all the banks into fre- 
 which latter lake John Ruskill has a ipient hays, seldom without a cottage, 
 country-seat. Thence one may go to or cottages, embowered in trees, anil 
 Ambleside, where a day or two at the the whole landscape is of a sylvan kind ; 
 old ••Salutation" tavern will he found parts of it are so studded with woods 
 a perfect rest. This pretty country is that you see only here and there a wreath 
 dotted with mansions and picturesque of smoke, hut no houses, and could al- 
 cottages. At Elleray stood the old most believe that you were gazing on 
 home of Professor Wilson (Christopher the primeval forests." 
 North), (lose by Ambleside is the ivy- From Ambleside to Keswick the route 
 shrouded house or " The Knoll," where is charming, and in holiday time is 
 
EUROPE IX STURM AND CALM. 
 
 G43 
 
 thronged with excursionists from London. 
 At Keswick is the old home of Southey, 
 — Greta Hall, — on a small hill, close by 
 a pretty river, on the road to Cocker- 
 mouth. Lake Uerweutwater, with its 
 picturesque islands, with its silvery ex- 
 panses, within an amphitheatre of rocky 
 Imt not high mountains, broken into 
 fantastic shapes, heaped and splintered 
 with little precipices, with shores swelling 
 into woody eminences — is the gem of 
 this region. Near it is the resounding 
 cascade, Lodore, about which Southey 
 wrote his astonishing verses, intended 
 to represent the babble of the waters, 
 for the amusement of his children. 
 Near by also are the mountains of 
 Ilclvellyn and Skiddaw. 
 
 Scotland has for us a romantic in- 
 terest which nothing can abate, although 
 long years have passed since the " en- 
 chanter of the north" aroused the cu- 
 riosity of the world concerning the 
 legends and the history of the great 
 northward promontory, with its moun- 
 tains, morasses, and waste lands jutting 
 out into the Northern sea. Scotland 
 does not impress one as a sterile country, 
 and yet three-fourths of its surface are 
 unproductive agriculturally. Scarcely 
 more than five millions of acres arc 
 under cultivation on the main land and 
 the numerous islands. But the little 
 population of hardly more than four 
 millions of people is one of the most 
 prosperous and interesting in Europe. 
 Glasgow is to-day the second city in the 
 United Kingdom, larger, but perhaps 
 not wealthier, than Liverpool, and is one 
 of the great ocean termini of the world. 
 Approaching Glasgow by night, through 
 the picturesque upland country which 
 lies between Keswick, Penrith, and 
 Carlisle, and crossing the debatable 
 ground where for centuries the borderers 
 waged merciless war upon each other, 
 
 the strange land which has produced so 
 many great men, — the land where Carlyle 
 was 1 Kirn. and where he lies buried, — one 
 sees the landscape lighted up by hun- 
 dreds of weird flames, the skies aglow; 
 and many a stranger, taking his first 
 walk in Glasgow city, inquires of the 
 amused passers-by where the great con- 
 flagration is in progress. By day the 
 flaming chimneys and the little moun- 
 tains of coal refuse do not look so 
 interesting. Glasgow has its beauties, 
 however, — its broad and solid commer- 
 cial avenues, lined with stately stone 
 buildings, its simps, which vie in splen- 
 dor and importance with those of London 
 and Dublin. The great wharves along 
 the Broomielaw are [lacked with goods 
 of every description; little steamers on 
 the Upper, and great steamers on the 
 Lower, Clyde, seem almost innumerable. 
 Down river the ship-building yards are, 
 even in dull and panicky times, crowded 
 with thousands of operatives, who toil 
 upon the iron and steel monsters, which 
 plough the seas throughout the civilized 
 world. One feels that here is a great 
 outlet like London, Antwerp, or Mar- 
 seilles. Here the pulse of commerce 
 beats strongly, albeit not feverishly. 
 
 There is a sturdy independence of the 
 metropolis in Glasgow, as indeed through- 
 out Scotland. The names of celebrated 
 English authorities in science and in 
 literature, of English poets and painters, 
 are not so often heard here as those of 
 the Edinburgh school. Scotland is not 
 England, although it is now an integral 
 part of Great Britain. It is an individual 
 country, with a profound originality, with 
 its old customs and methods of thought 
 but little trenched upon by political union 
 with the South. One-third of its popula- 
 tion is packed into eight large manufact- 
 uring cities: Glasgow with 770,000, 
 Edinburgh with 230,000, Dundee with 
 
644 
 
 EUROPE IS STORM AND CALM. 
 
 1 13,000, Aberdeen with 105,000, Green- 
 ock, the port of Glasgow, with 6G,000, 
 Leith,the porl of Edinburgh, with59,000, 
 Paisley with 55,000, and Perth with 28,- 
 (100. The t < » t : 1 1 town and village popu- 
 lation is two-thirds of the whole, — very 
 small encouragement for the fanner; yet 
 the wild hill country, stretching away from 
 the outskirts of Glasgow 1" Cape Wrath 
 ami (he far Hebrides, contributes largely 
 lc the wealth of the busy city; pours 
 into it ils flocks and herds, and the prod- 
 uce of its lakes and inlets, and lakes 
 hack merchandise brought from every 
 port of the world. In the most seem- 
 ingly inaccessible nook in the Highlands 
 yon may find evidence of frequent inter- 
 course with the outer world. 
 
 On the hill :it the top of the famous 
 "High Street" stands the old Gothic 
 cathedral, with its large aisles, broken by 
 short transepts, its dozen bays exactly 
 alike, ami its uniform clere-story windows. 
 Nothing in all England is more beautiful 
 than the crypt of the cathedral, with its 
 
 sixty-five beautiful pillars, surmounted 
 by delicately carved capitals and grace- 
 ful early English arches, with the light 
 streaming in through the lancet windows. 
 Curious, too. is the old church-yard, 
 paved with gravestones, and the Necrop- 
 olis, perched high on an eminence beyond 
 the cathedral, not unlike the fantastic 
 Odd Fellows' cemetery in San Francisco, 
 or like some ancient Turkish cemetery. 
 Here are the monuments of celebrated 
 men like John Knox, the Reformer, and 
 of Dr. Win. Black ; and within the cathe- 
 dral is the tomb of Edward Irvine;. This 
 old cathedral, which bra veil the fury of the 
 Reformation, was so loved by the citv 
 nestling at its feet, that, when the Pres- 
 byterian ministers had prevailed on the 
 magistrates in the sixteenth century to 
 Lave it destroyed, tin- guilds of the city 
 arose in arms and dared the officers of 
 
 the law to execute the decree. From 
 many a point of vantage among the vast 
 marble monuments in the Necropolis 
 one can look out oyer Glasgow, with its 
 thousands of chimneys, along the seem- 
 ingly endless lines of masts on the Clyde, 
 and over the hills of Lanark and Argyll, 
 above which hangs the vaporous blue or 
 the peculiar gray so noticeable in Scottish 
 scenery. Glasgow is faithful to the 
 memory of the great " Scotch Wizard ; " 
 and in the centre of George's square 
 rises a monument of Sir Walter, with a 
 group of statues illustrating the different 
 characters which sprang from his teem- 
 ing brain clustered about the foot of the 
 monument. Westward, in modern Glas- 
 gow, is the great University, opened 
 half a generation ago. Glasgow is tilled 
 with students, — hundreds of painstaking 
 young men who come from the hills and 
 the shores of the inland lakes and rivers 
 to carve out solid careers in the face 
 of poverty and difficulty, nowhere 
 so stern and so persistent as in this 
 strange, barren land, which yet produces 
 so much wealth, intellectual and material. 
 As in certain quarters of London one 
 seems to go hand in hand with Dickens, 
 and to meet in the different localities 
 visited the characters which never had 
 existence save in his fiery imagination, 
 so in Glasgow and Edinburgh one is 
 constantly reminded of Sir Walter Scott 
 and his creations. The Cross, the Gal- 
 lowgate, the Salt Market, the old corner 
 of Trongate and High streets, where 
 stood the prison into which " Rob Roy" 
 was thrust in Glasgow, and the Grass 
 market, Castle Hill, the Cowgate, St. 
 Giles's Church, Arthur's Seat, Cannon- 
 gate, Holyrood, and most of all, Mel- 
 rose, in and about Edinburgh, recall 
 to mind those enchanting days when one 
 was first introduced to Walter Scott's 
 world. The Scotch do not hesitate to 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 r.-tr. 
 
 call Edinburgh the finest city in the 
 kingdom, and Mr. Baddeley tells us that 
 in no cit)', unless it be Bath, " has Art 
 so successfully turned to account the 
 peculiar advantages vouchsafed to her 
 by nature. In both cities the archi- 
 tects, whether designedly or not, seem 
 to have gone to work thoroughly in har- 
 mony with the physical lines laid down 
 for them, and their success is unques- 
 tionable. "While the smooth green slopes 
 and woody meadows, forming the girdle 
 of the ' Queen of the West,' called 
 forth a regular style of architecture 
 which should not displease the eye by 
 any startling discord, the rugged inequali- 
 ties and sudden transition from smiling 
 plain to bare and frowning rock, which 
 mark the site of the ' Modern Athens,' 
 seem to demand a corresponding incon- 
 gruity in their artificial treatment. 
 Edinburgh is a city of contrasts, bold 
 and striking." 
 
 The sense of contrast is heightened 
 when one comes directly by swift ex- 
 press train from Glasgow to Edinburgh. 
 Unaccustomed to picturesqueness in the 
 great majority of British towns, the 
 stranger is startled and delighted at the 
 exquisite scene presented to him as he 
 looks from hill to hill over the town and 
 the rugged castles, the noble monuments, 
 and the flue public edifices. New Edin- 
 burgh harmonizes well enough with the 
 character of ancient Edinburgh, and this 
 result, so rarely accomplished when an- 
 cient cities have modern quarters added 
 to them, has not been achieved without 
 much study and care. This new quarter 
 was not in existence a century ago, and 
 the magistrates of the city, in order to 
 promote its creation, offered a premium 
 of £20 to the first 1 milder of a house in 
 it. Now it is a great district of fine 
 streets, squares, and monuments. 
 
 Prince's street, with its evergreen plots. 
 
 its gardens, its deep dell, out of which 
 arise the black crags of the Castle, is a 
 splendid avenue. At its east end is 
 Calton Hill, and above if Waterloo 
 Place, where stands a rather audacious 
 imitation of the Parthenon, called " The 
 National Monument." A little beyond 
 are the Nelson's monument and the 
 Observatory; also the monuments to 
 Dugald Stewart and to Professor Play- 
 fair. Northward lies Leith and the 
 Forth; eastward. Portobello, one of 
 the sea-side resorts of Edinburgh ; and 
 close at hand is Arthur's Seal. On the 
 south side of the street, and not far 
 from the handsome Waverly station, is 
 the beautiful gothic monument to Sir 
 Walter Scott, with a statue of him 
 underneath the airy arches. In the 
 niches, as in the Glasgow memorial, are 
 characters from the works of the great 
 poet, and novelist. Scotland has bor- 
 rowed boldly from the Greek architec- 
 ture in the construction of its National 
 Gallery, and its museums. In Palmer- 
 ston Place stands a tine Gothic Cathe- 
 dral, — St. Mary's, — founded by two 
 ladies, who spent £100,000 upon the 
 edifice. Eastward, in Melville and 
 George streets, are many memorials 
 and bronze statues, the Albert Memo- 
 rial, with the Prince Consort on horse- 
 back, and the Melville Monument, — 
 an imitation of the Trajan Column. 
 
 The great feature of Edinburgh is the 
 Castle, which may be reached from the 
 new town across the valley of the Prin- 
 ces Street Gardens, — once the basin of 
 the Nor Loch, in which offenders against 
 the laws were ducked, — and so along 
 by the Waverly Bridge, of (lie " Mound," 
 as it is called, on which stands the 
 National Gallery. The Castle is entered 
 through a portcullis gate under the Old 
 State Prison, whence two luckless 
 Argylls, in the history of Scotland, have 
 
646 
 
 EUROTE IN STOH.V A.YD CALM. 
 
 been taken forth to execution, — one 
 for his loyalty to Charles II.. and the 
 other for his allegiance to Monmouth. 
 Those rather antiquated hits of furni- 
 ture, — the Regalia of Scotland, — have 
 a room to themselves, where they have 
 reposed since they were unearthed two 
 generations ago by a search-party, 
 headed by Sir Walter Scott himself. 
 They had been hidden away in the times 
 of the Stuarts, in a fortress on the coast 
 at Kincardine, lest their exposure to view 
 should awaken feelings hostile to the 
 treaty of Union with England. Queen 
 Mary's room, St. Margaret's Chapel, 
 and the enclosure in which stands the 
 ancient cannon, the origin of whose 
 name of Mons Meg is a matter of such 
 grave dispute, are I he other chief features 
 of the Castle. The outlook over Edin- 
 burgh ami the Frith of Forth and the 
 hills of Fife beyond is fascinating. On 
 
 Castle Hill, the old house of the first 
 
 Duke of Gordon, the General Assembly 
 loom of the Church of Scotland, where 
 John Knox met the first Assembly in 
 1560; the Free Church Assembly Hall ; 
 the Grass Market, where hundreds of 
 Covenanters perished for their religion, 
 and where the Porteous riots took place 
 in 1736; Grey Friars' Church, with the 
 tombs of the Covenanters ; the university 
 and museum with their splendid natural 
 history collections; Cowgate, .James's 
 court, where Johnson was received by 
 Boswell on his tour to the Western 
 highlands, and where Hume wrote part 
 of his history of England; the Long- 
 market and High street, with St. (iiles's 
 Church ; the old city Cross, tin- Tolbooth, 
 or "The Hearl of Midlothian ;" Parlia- 
 ment square, with its equestrian statue 
 of Charles II. and the humble stone on 
 which appear the letters and figures 
 "I. K., 1572," supposed to lie the site 
 of John Knox's grave ; Parliament 
 
 House, with its noble roofs of carved 
 oak, and its superb library; the Tron 
 Church, where stood the weighing-beam 
 to which the keepers of false weights 
 were nailed by the ears; the high, fan- 
 tastic, narrow house in which John Knox 
 lived from 1559 to the time of his death ; 
 Moray House, from the balcony of 
 which Mary Stuart and Lord Lome 
 looked down upon the Marquis of Mont- 
 rose as he was led to execution; the 
 Canongate church-yard, where lie buried 
 Adam Smith, Dugald Stewart, and Dr. 
 Adam Ferguson; Queensberry House 
 ami the old White Horse Inn ; and 
 last, and of most importance, the beauti- 
 ful and original Holyrood Abbey and 
 Palace, — these are wonders and treas- 
 ures such as few other towns in Great 
 Britain can boast of, grouped together 
 by accident as well as if the grouping 
 had been in obedience to some harmo- 
 nious, preconceived design. In Holy- 
 rood Lord Darnley's rooms and Queen 
 Mary's apartments are still shown, and 
 at the entrance to the audience chamber 
 a little dark stain upon the floor is pointed 
 out as the blood of the unfortunate 
 Rizzio. 
 
 From Glasgow and from Edinburgh 
 the chief excursions are not, as might 
 be supposed in a country so devoted to 
 manufacturing and to the special pursuit 
 of wealth, to coal mines, or great nietal- 
 lurgic establishments, but to the homes 
 and graves of poets ami romancers. The 
 brief and pleasant ride from (llasgovv 
 takes one through interesting old towns 
 like Paisley, where Christopher North 
 was born ; like Irvine, where Robert 
 Bruce surrendered to the English army, 
 and where the poet Montgomery first 
 saw the light; past Troon, the great 
 summer resort of the Ayrshires, near by 
 the frowning ruins of Dundowning Castle, 
 and brings one to Ayr. on the pretty sea- 
 
EUROTE TN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 1)47 
 
 const at the mouth of the river of the was married to Jean Armour, and where 
 same name. Here, on this picturesque his plough turned up the mouse's nest; 
 country side, everything is filled with and farther away, near Dumfries, is 
 memories of the poet whose lyric genius Ellisland farm, where Hums wrote Tain 
 lifted him into immortality. Here one 
 may wander along the Doon, visit the 
 Burns monument, in which may still be 
 seen the Bible which Burns gave to " High- 
 land Mary," note the quaint statues of 
 Tam O'Shanter and Souter Johnnie, in a 
 grotto, peep in at the Auld Alloway 
 Kirk, the woodwork of which has nearly 
 all been carried off by the carving tour- 
 
 PKEK-STALKINU IN THE HIGHLANDS. 
 
 ists, and enter the rude cottage in which O'Shanter and the ode "To Mary in 
 
 the poet was horn. Straying through Heaven." Thousands of pilgrims an- 
 
 the woods and fields from Mauchline to nually visit the humble house in Dum- 
 
 Montgomerie, one comes upon the pretty fries, where Burns lived when lie was 
 
 house where " Highland Mary" lived as exciseman, where he died, and where, in 
 
 a dairy-maid, and " Poosie Nansie's" the vault beneath the mausoleum in St. 
 
 cottage, where the "•Jolly Beggars" Michael's church-yard, the poet and his 
 
 met : the farm at Mossgiel, where Burns wife repose. 
 
648 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHA PTER S EV ENTY-FOUR. 
 
 Scotlantl : i n*l Ireland. — The Scotch Highlands. — Scenes of Scott's Stories anil Burnss Poems. — 
 Balmoral. - Over to Belfast. — The Irish Land League.- Imprisonment of Parnel] and his Parti- 
 sans. — The Crimes Act and its Causes. — A Land League .Mass Meeting. -ThcWild and Savage 
 Peasantry. 
 
 IX the Scotch Highlands the " Globe when lie crosses Loch Lomond without 
 Tri >tter," who is familial- with stately seeing the peaks and crags of which he 
 mountains, with yawning precipices, and lias heard so much, and concerning which 
 noble sea views, from India to Canada, he lias formed such tremendous expec- 
 is often tempted to stop and inquire of tations. In the Trossachs (the bristly 
 himself whether he would really be inter- country) when the sun shines brightly 
 esled in the Scottish uplands and hills through the oak copses, among the sil- 
 if it were not for their sturdy charm, very gray birches, and when it gilds the 
 Loch Lomond, with its guardian moun- purple crags and the rich carpets of 
 tains ; Loch Katrine, Stronachlachar, green yrass, there is plenty of excuse 
 Tarbet, Callendar, Oban, the Caledonian for the wildest enthusiasm. The color 
 Canal, Inverness, the hinds of Ross and charms of Scotland are mild as corn- 
 Sutherland, the Isle of Lewis, with pared with those of Switzerland and 
 pretty Stornoway ; the Isle of Skye, the Italy, but to the dweller under the gray 
 Chain of Highlands, Staffa and lona ; and rainy sides of England they seem 
 the Crinan canal, threading its way surpassingly beautiful. Glasgow, which 
 through the moist green pastures, — these is by all reports one of the thirstiest 
 places arc all celebrated; lint without towns in the three kingdoms, and which 
 the enthusiastic celebration of them by does not always content itself with water, 
 writers and poets native to the soil they has made I.oeh Katrine, which is thirty- 
 would have remained in comfortable ob- four miles from the city limits, its chief 
 scurity, enjoyed only by (he shepherd, reservoir. For the building of the aque- 
 the fisher, and the hold hunter on the duct from the lake to the city a sum of 
 steep mountain sides. A certain hide- £1,500,000 was necessary, and seventy 
 finable attraction seems to exhale from tunnels had to be rebuilt. The leafy 
 Scotch scenery, even in the dispiriting glens filled with labyrinths of rocks, and 
 environment of the mists which conn' so mounds studded with oak, rowan, and 
 frequently and stay so long. Out of the birch, are perhaps more weird in a rainy 
 great gray clouds come dashing little than in a sunshiny day ; but the greater 
 showers, which seem to have a kind of part of Scotch scenery needs sunshine 
 malice, and drench the traveller to the to bring out its values, 
 skin before he can reach shelter. In One of the noblest stretches of High- 
 tliese rains and misls, tin.' lochs, with hind scenery is that which lies along the 
 their deep mountain walls, disappear as railroad from Callendar to the great 
 if by magic. The holiday tourist, w hose fashionable seaside of Oban. The ride 
 time is limited, bemoans his sad fate from the Trossachs to Callendar is from 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 649 
 
 end to one! associated with Sir Walter 
 Scott's poem of " The Lady of the Lake." 
 At the foot of Loch Yennachar the trav- 
 eller is shown the spot where Roderick 
 Dim flung down his gage to Fitz James. 
 It is a high tribute to creative genius that 
 the guides always speak of Sir Walter 
 Scott's characters as if they had really 
 lived. The route from Callendar to 
 Oban takes one through the pass of 
 Lucy, where gentle heights, clad with 
 silver birch, hazel, oak, and heather, 
 rise gradually into irregular and majes- 
 tic hills. Loch Earn, Glenogle, Pilchurn 
 Castle. Loch Awe, the passes of Brandon 
 and of Awe, the bridge of Awe, — around 
 which cluster memories of Bruce and 
 Wallace, — and 1 tunstaffnage ( 'astle, are 
 all picturesque, and many of them im- 
 posing. Oban is a pretty town extend- 
 ing alone- the shore of the semicircular 
 bay which gives it its name, and which 
 seems landlocked by the island Kerrera. 
 From Dunnolly Castle, a noble ivy- 
 shrouded ruin, on a pedestal of rock on 
 the north end of Oban bay. the sea-view 
 is delightful. In the harbor lie dozens 
 of yachts, and from these little crafts there 
 is always an influx of titled and aristo- 
 cratic ladies and gentlemen, who fill the 
 hotels with the show and glitter of Lon- 
 don ; who delight in parties, mountain 
 excursions, and balls; who, in short, 
 carry into the remote recesses of the 
 highland sea-shore the gavetv of the 
 metropolis, exactly as the Frenchman 
 takes his theatre, his sweetheart, ami bis 
 horse-racing with him when he goes to 
 the sea-side for what he is pleased to 
 term his "mid-summer repose." Through 
 the pretty archipelago one goes to the 
 little bay of Crinan, whence by the At- 
 lantic' canal travellers are transferred to 
 Ardrishaig, — a three-mile ride inacanal 
 boat, something larger than a wash-tub, 
 — an excursion which is decidedly de- 
 
 pressing when performed in the midst of 
 a pouring rain. At Ardrishaig great 
 steamers, equipped with American lux- 
 ury, with showy restaurants and hand- 
 some parlors, fly downward past Rothe- 
 say, one of the most fashionable Scutch 
 sea-sides, and thence by the Clyde to 
 Greenock. Northward from ( (ban leaves 
 the great water-route of the Caledonian 
 canal to Inverness through what is called 
 the Great Glen of Scotland, which con- 
 sists of a chain of lakes connected by 
 shallow streams. This route is so 
 straight that the steamer's course is only 
 four miles longer than the air line taken 
 by the crow in his migrations. On Loch 
 Ness is the celebrated fall of Fyers, 
 sometimes described as the most magnifi- 
 cent cataract in Great Britain, and the 
 one which inspired Robert Burns with a 
 poem. Inverness, the capital of the 
 Highlands, is a well-built modern town, 
 prosperous and canny. Near it is the 
 battle-field of Culloden. where the house 
 of Stuart met its final ruin nearly a cen- 
 tury and a half ago; and a lover of 
 Shakespeare can make an excursion to 
 Cawdor Castle, a noble specimen of the 
 old baronial strongholds of the north. 
 
 Landed proprietors in Scotland fully 
 appreciate their privileges, and lease the 
 temporary enjoyment of them for enor- 
 mous sums. Millais, the painter, and 
 other artistic celebrities lease fishing 
 and hunting grounds for sums which 
 would be thought ruinously extravagant 
 in America. John Millais is very fond 
 of painting in the Scotch Highlands, 
 working energetically out of doors in 
 rain or sunshine every day for months 
 together, lovingly studying (hat nature 
 which he knows so well how to repro- 
 duce. The Queen, if is said, enjoys no 
 portion of her year so much as that spent 
 at Balmoral Castle, between Ballater and 
 Braemar. All through this region the 
 
650 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 scenery is wildly picturesque. Prince A southward journey from Glasgow 
 Alberl speedily fell in love with it, and through the Frith of Clyde and across 
 there bought a handsome property, which the North channel brings the traveller 
 to-day comprises ten thousand acres of in a single night from Glasgow to Belfast, 
 clearing, with more than thirty thousand Scotland and [reland have not much in 
 of deer forest. In this secluded retreat common, but the sturdy Scotch-Irish 
 the Queen receives only a few persons character produced by the intercourse 
 belonging to the Court and those semi- and crossing of the two races in southern 
 weekly messengers who brine' from Lou- Scotland and northern Ireland is one of 
 don the constantly accumulating massof the brightest composite elements of 
 papers which the royal hands are obliged American nationality- If all Ireland 
 to sign. could be permeated with the hard corn- 
 Stirling, with its noble ancient castle, mon-sense of Scotland, and if all Seot- 
 whieh in 1304 resisted the battering of land could receive a diffusion of the gen- 
 all the besieging instruments brought erosity of the Irish nature, both countries 
 from the Tower of London: with its would be supremely benefited. In north- 
 monument to Bruce, its historic Towu ern Ireland there is all the stir and ac- 
 lloiise. and the Old Ridge, where the tivity of the energetic Scotch. 
 Scots under Wallace defeated the Eng- Belfast, handsome and industrious, 
 lish ; Dunblane and Bannockburn, the seated on its pretty slopes on River 
 ruins of Linlithgow Palace, in the castle Logan, just before it Hows into the lake, 
 of which Queen Mary hhs born — are is a strange contrast, to the shiftless 
 all worthy of attention. Nobly situated towns of the south. The pushing Prot- 
 Perth, with its Roman memories, its estant merchants of Belfast are the 
 palace, in which the Scottish kings were envy of the lazier ami less ambitious 
 Crowned, and its quaint church of St. commercial men of Dublin and of the 
 John, where John Knox used to preach ; southward towns. Belfast grows with 
 Dundee, mi the banks of the Tay. with almost American quickness. It adds 
 its greal ranee of docks covering more twenty or thirty thousand to its popula- 
 tion thirty acres; and Aberdeen, on the tion every ten years. "This great and 
 Dee. with its great lines of masts ex- flourishing city," says a local writer. 
 tending for miles, and its old brig of "with all its houses and inhabitants, 
 Balgownie, celebrated by Byron in Don stands on the territory of one proprietor, 
 Juan. — all oiler ample inducement to the the Marquis of Donegal, to whom the 
 .student and the tourist. Both Scotland whole town belongs, and to whom the 
 and Spain have an extra European flavor citizens pay tribute." Belfasl was pre- 
 which is quite piquant. Both are rugged senteel by James I. to Sir Arthur Chi- 
 promontories extending into strange seas. Chester as an insignificant village, and 
 Each has a certain wilduess which is would, but for the lone leases granted 
 fascinating, each a delightful history and by the former proprietor, have given to 
 crowded past, each a certain barrenness the Marquis of Donegal an income of 
 contrasted acutely with a perfection of more than £300,000 sterling annually, 
 color ami of utility. To get out of mid- The rights and incomes of Scottish land- 
 die Europe into either of these countries is lords have Keen greatly reduced in recent 
 a side excursion — a run into the bowers times, but. there are many such instances 
 — which is exhilarating ami refreshing'. as that of Belfast. The ureal linen fac- 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 <;■>] 
 
 tories contain a bustling and somewhat 
 bold number of operatives who, when 
 there are burning questions agitated 
 between South and North, manifest 
 broken heads with the utmost freedom. 
 Hundreds of thousands of spindles are 
 here employed, even in times of great 
 depression in trade. On the river there 
 are docks and ship-building establish- 
 ments, out of which the great White 
 Star fleet, one of the noblest that ploughs 
 the ocean, has come. A few miles from 
 Belfast is Clandeboye, the country-side 
 of the Earl of Dufferin, who has had so 
 full and prominent a political career in 
 the last twenty years, and who has now, 
 in times of trouble fur the Indian Em- 
 pire, been called to the high position of 
 Viceroy of that great realm. Lord Duf- 
 ferin is a consummate politician, and an 
 able diplomat, who has been offered ex- 
 cellent opportunities to study in Russia 
 and in the East those burning questions 
 which arc to be fought out on the plains 
 of Central Asia, and the settlement of 
 which will decide the future of England 
 and its Imperial domain. Northward 
 from Belfast lead pleasant routes to 
 Tort Rush and the Giant's Causeway, to 
 ancient ami decaying Dunluce Castle, 
 and to a hundred other historic points 
 along the doubly indented coast. 
 
 From time to time the English people 
 appear to have forgotten that Ireland 
 exists, or if they allude to it at all, it is 
 in a tone of contemptuous indifference 
 or of reproach, because the "Union" 
 has not been attended with that harmony 
 of sentiment political, religious, and 
 social, which ought to be expected of 
 fellow-subjects of one sovereign. But 
 for the last few years all England has 
 had its attention closely called to, and 
 even centred upon, Ireland and Irish 
 politics. The leading papers of London 
 every day have columns filled concerning 
 
 the distress or the agitation prevalent in 
 the " Green Isle ; " and the landlords of 
 England may now and then have fancied 
 they saw the handwriting on the wall, 
 when they heard of the ruin of Irish land- 
 lords, because of the leagues of the 
 peasantry, and their persistent ostracism, 
 (which took its name from an ostracized 
 person and became "boycotting"), and 
 when they saw the energy of the Home 
 Rule party fighting its way against dis- 
 tress and dislike, but guaranteed a hear- 
 ing by that love for fair play which is so 
 striking a characteristic in the English 
 mind. After the decline of the Fenian 
 agitation England had resumed its in- 
 difference with regard to Ireland, until 
 the upspriuging of the Land Leaguers 
 and the creation of "Centres "all over 
 Ireland, and the determined uprising of 
 the peasantry, in the wild regions where 
 they had been content to live with as 
 little comfort as the bony swine which 
 trotted in and out of their cabins. When 
 Mr. Gladstone came into office, after the 
 resignation of Lord Beaconsfield, and 
 the final retirement of the Conservative 
 leader from polities, he found that he 
 had inherited a formidable list of Irish 
 difficulties, and that the sixty-live Home 
 Rulers, who had come into the new 
 House of Commons, were determined 
 that these difficulties should have ample 
 discussion, and settlement if possible. 
 Lord Beaconsfield, at the close of his 
 political career, issued a political mani- 
 festo, 'a letter to the Viceroy of Ireland, 
 denouncing the Home Rulers in the 
 strongest terms, and declaring the agra- 
 rian agitation in that country a danger 
 which, in its ultimate results, would be 
 scarcely less disastrous than pestilence 
 and famine. With the troubles caused 
 by the alarm of famine and the outcry 
 raised against the demands for no rent 
 by the disciples of Mr. Parnell, Mr. 
 
652 
 
 EUROPE TX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Gladstone resolutely grappled, and did 
 the best that he or any one else could 
 have done in the presence of the exact- 
 ing and jealous opinion of England. To 
 Mr. Parnell's strong character and un- 
 consciousness was due the rapid advance 
 which he made as to a supreme position. 
 His advice to the peasantry to hold the 
 land and pay only such rent as they 
 deemed fair, and the quickness with 
 which this advice was adopted, led to 
 the reopening of the Irish land question, 
 which we need not follow through its 
 varied phases here. The attitude of 
 Parliament to Ireland has been one of 
 commiseration, mingled with the deepesl 
 distrust. The noble gentlemen who have 
 endeavored to regulate the affairs of the 
 " Emerald Isle " seem to place them- 
 selves in the position of admitting that 
 the possession of landed property in Ire- 
 land needed instant reform, but that it 
 was inexpedient to put the reform in 
 operation. The period of outrages began 
 just so soon as the Land League had de- 
 cided that tenants should pay no more 
 than the " prairie " value, 25 percent, 
 of the value of the letting of ordinary 
 land, " when the basis of rating was (ixed 
 according to the low standard of agri- 
 cultural prices which ruled a generation 
 ago." 
 
 The Land League meetings and the 
 tremendous agitation which they roused 
 throughout the greater part of Ireland 
 soon brought about the prosecution for 
 seditious conspiracy against Mr. Par- 
 nell and other home-rule members, as 
 well as the officers of the Laud League. 
 
 England rather hesitated before under- 
 taking the statute prosecutions, realizing 
 that they would not stop the lawlessness 
 in Ireland. Meantime the uprising in 
 1880 reached its height, and a veritable 
 army was sent to crush down public 
 opinion anil compel the Land League to 
 
 retire from its aggressive attitude ; but it 
 was found that troops could not prevent 
 an indignant population from intimidat- 
 ing those who were unpopular in its 
 midst. With 1881, when this agrarian 
 reign of terror seemed at its height, 
 Europe was offered the spectacle of lib- 
 eral Mr. Forster moving in the House of 
 ('ominous the introduction of coercion 
 bills ; and then came a great struggle in 
 Parliament, first over these bills, and then 
 afterward over Mr. Gladstone's long- 
 promised Land Bill. Meantime, although 
 the coercion bills checked outrage in the 
 year of 1881, the Laud League organ- 
 ization grew in strength. Tenants re- 
 fused to [iay rent, landlords hesitated 
 before the process of eviction which 
 they had been so quick in old times to 
 employ, and by-and-by all Ireland re- 
 belled against the Coercion Act with a 
 force which fairly startled England out 
 of its traditional inertia and indifference 
 with regard to Irish affairs. 
 
 The Land Act had become a law, and 
 England thought Ireland should lie satis- 
 fied with the modifications which it 
 brought in regard to the 1 control of 
 landed property. Many of the moderate 
 Home Rulers had declared in favor of 
 this act, and Mr. Parnell himself is said 
 to have hesitated before deciding against 
 it. Meanwhile the reflex opinion of the 
 agitation in America, and the suddeu 
 blossoming of the dynamite policy, 
 brought matters to a crisis. English 
 opinion revolted in presence of the ex- 
 aggerated rumors concerning the atro- 
 cious means which agitators in America 
 and Ireland were said to propose for 
 coercing British opinion, .lust at this 
 junction Mr. Parnell appeared with his 
 new- doctrine, aimed directly at the Land 
 Act, and intended to show that justice 
 required the reduction of the total rent 
 of Ireland from £17,000,000 sterling 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 653 
 
 annually to between £2,000,000 and 
 £3,000,000. This England considered 
 an imiios.sil.ile standard of " fair rent," 
 and English landlords holding land in 
 Ireland and native land-owners were 
 enraged. Mr. Gladstone called this doc- 
 trine of Parnell the "Gospel of Public 
 Plunder." Even the Catholic bishops 
 were lukewarm in their appreciation 
 of it. 
 
 The Land League was now bolder than 
 ever; but presently Mr. Parnell, Mr. 
 Sexton, Mr. Dillon, Mr. O'Kelly, and 
 oilier prominent agitators, were arrested 
 under the Coercion Act, and lodged in 
 Pill as "suspects." Riots in Dublin 
 and Limerick, caused by these arrests, 
 were promptly put down, and for the 
 time it seemed as if the implacable aver- 
 sion of the Land League to all compro- 
 mising measures on the part of England 
 hail resulted in the destruction of the 
 League itself. A proclamation was is- 
 sued publicly suppressing the League, 
 but at the same time the Land Commis- 
 sion was opened, aud applications for 
 fixing fair rent began to come in ; but in 
 the southern provinces the "no-rent" 
 policy was adopted by thousands of 
 tenants. What the agitation really did 
 secure was the practical reduction of 
 rents throughout Ireland. " Iu Ulster, 
 Munster, and Connaught," says the 
 "Times"of 1881, "rents were generally 
 reduced from twenty to thirty per cent., 
 and in many cases much more. Tenan- 
 cies on old estates where rents had been 
 (laid twenty, thirty, or even fifty years 
 were as freely handled as new tenancies 
 on properties purchased in the Landed 
 Estates Court. The landlords were 
 struck with dismay, and vehement pro- 
 tests were made on their behalf." It is 
 odd to notice that when the Land Pill 
 was first introduced in Parliament, the 
 Ministry thought that no reduction of 
 
 existing rents was possible, and every- 
 body said that all the tenants would be 
 glad to make friendly regulations with 
 their landlords, realizing that if their 
 rents went into court they would be 
 raised rather than diminished. The 
 surprise of the Ministry when it discov- 
 ered how times had changed was very 
 great. The land agitation, which had 
 been kept out of England and Ireland 
 by the ■" silvery streak," as our British 
 cousins call the Channel, nearly a cen- 
 tury after it had been triumphant in 
 Fiance, and for more than a generation 
 after it had been completed in an aristo- 
 cratic country like Hungary, had at last 
 crossed the water and begun its work. 
 The English say that it did not come by 
 the Channel, but went round via America 
 and crossed the Atlantic. 
 
 The year 1882 opened with Mr. Par- 
 nell still in jail, with the Protection Act 
 administered with resolution by Mr. 
 Forster, and with theeffectsof the Land 
 Act gradually becoming visible. There 
 was an invariable reduction of rent 
 every day from one-fifth to one-third of 
 the previous rentals. Yet the exacting 
 tenantry held out in large numbers for 
 no rent, kept away from the courts, and 
 announced their implacable hostility by 
 outrages which wrung cries of horror 
 from both England and America. The 
 now defunct Land League was working 
 in the dark, but denied any connection 
 with the perpetrators of the outrages. 
 
 By-and-by Mr. Forster, who was tired 
 of hearing himself called opprobrious 
 names, resigned his position as Secretary 
 for Ireland. The Protection Act was 
 abandoned, the Land- Leaguers were re- 
 leased, and came back to the House of 
 Commons, where they began a tremen- 
 dous onslaught on Mr. Forster, who found 
 himself in the ticklish position of a 
 private citizen defending his late course 
 
654 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 in a public position. Mr. Gladstone 
 appeared with the statement that Mr. 
 Parnell seemed willing to help the cause 
 of order, and England smiled at what it 
 called the Kilmaiuham treaty, or the 
 understanding between the Ministry and 
 the Land League party. Then came the 
 appointment of Lord Spencer as Viceroy 
 of Ireland, with the generous and high- 
 minded Lord Cavendish as Chief Secre- 
 tary ; and, just as the official circles were 
 congratulating themselves upon the pa- 
 cification of Irish feeling and the absence 
 of any need of coercion, the assassination 
 of Lord Frederick Cavendish, and the 
 under Secretary, Mr. Burke, in Phoenix 
 Park, within full sight of the vice-regal 
 lodge, was announced. This extraordi- 
 nary assassination made a deep impres- 
 sion on English feeling, and the better 
 classes in Ireland recoiled from any as- 
 sociation with such detestable crime. 
 
 There has rarely been a greater out- 
 pouring of sympathy than was mani- 
 fested when tins second sun of the Duke 
 of Devonshire was 1 nought home to be 
 buried at the noble country-seat of 
 Chatsworth, after his brief career as a 
 liberal official desirous of conciliating 
 the opinion of what is ironically called 
 the "Sister Island." Now came, with 
 swift feet, the " Crimes Bill," which all 
 parties, with the exception of Mr. Par- 
 nell and his disciples, supported. The 
 police system in Inland was reorganized ; 
 the application of the law was made 
 more certain; and although the people 
 still worked in the dark, — a presiding 
 justice narrowly escaped the attack of 
 an assassin ; a juror in an agrarian 
 case was stabbed and left for dead, men 
 were beaten and mutilated in their 
 cabins at night; horses and cattle were 
 killed, and houses and farms were 
 burned, — still it was thought that the 
 peasantry would be won over to the 
 
 cause of order by the Land Act. But 
 the Laud League declared that the Eng- 
 lish Parliament had failed to conciliate 
 Ireland, demanded an enlargement of 
 the scope of the Land Act, the control 
 of local taxation by Nationalists, and, 
 in short, a local economy such as Ire- 
 land has never enjoyed. 
 
 The land agitation which had now 
 gone on for three or four years in stead- 
 ily increasing proportions in Ireland, 
 began to have its influence in England. 
 Lord Salisbury issued a cry of warning 
 in an article called "Disintegration," 
 published in one of the reviews. He 
 also showed his foreknowledge and fore- 
 sight of what was coming by bringing 
 forward his views on the " housing of 
 the poor." At the same time Mr. 
 Chamberlain had come into Parliament 
 by a vigorous attack on the land-owning 
 classes, on whom he threw the duty of 
 removing all the dwellings unlit for hab- 
 itation, and replacing them by good, 
 substantial houses. Next came the doc- 
 trine of land nationalization, — the out- 
 growth of the agitation of Mr. Henry 
 George, in America ; and throughout 
 1883 English laud-owners were as busy 
 with questions directly affecting their 
 own interests as they had been two 
 years before with those affecting only 
 the Irish land-owner. The law weighed 
 heavily upon Ireland all through 1883. 
 The formation of the National League 
 at the close of 1882 was understood as 
 the old Land League under thin dis- 
 guise, and it was observed that the 
 speakers at the meetings of the National 
 League were all chiefs of the Separatist 
 party. 
 
 The conspirators known as "The 
 Invineibles," who had planned and 
 carried out the assassination in Phcenix 
 Park, the murder of the man who had 
 informed against The Invineibles, and 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 655 
 
 the conspiracies for the use of dynamite 
 in London, Birmingham, and Glasgow, 
 enraged the English, and the outcome of 
 four busy years of parliamentary tinker- 
 ing seemed to have resulted only in the 
 triumph of the peasantover the landlord, 
 and an increased determination of the 
 
 and Scotland. Innocent travellers 
 coming from the continent were sub- 
 jected to all the rigors which alarmed 
 customs officials could invent. An Al- 
 pine hat or an American accent was suf- 
 ficient to subject tin 1 wanderer to careful 
 watching by the police ; and such explo- 
 
 A LAND-LEAGUE MASS-MEETING. 
 
 Home Rule party to pursue its policy 
 regardless of difficulties and opposition. 
 The Separatists had received a severe 
 shock at the time of the conspiracy dis- 
 closures, but in 1884 recovered, and 
 assailed the Executive in Dublin with all 
 their force, and by means which were 
 scarcely creditable to their frankness or 
 sincerity. The dynamite party became 
 so aggressive in its bearing that its ex- 
 ploits created a veritable panic in England 
 
 sions as occurred at Victoria station, at 
 St. James square, Scotland yard, Lon- 
 don Bridge, and, finally, at Westminster 
 and the Tower of London, so shocked 
 and enraged the public that it was un- 
 willing to hear of any conciliatory meas- 
 ures with regard to Ireland. But events 
 in which the honor, and even the very ex- 
 istence, of Imperial Britain are connected 
 have compelled a certain modification of 
 tone, even of sentiment, and the Heir- 
 
65(5 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 Apparent to the throne finds it not ineon- 
 nt with his dignity to hold court in 
 Dublin, and to make a long journey 
 through the disaffected districts. 
 
 The Laud League agitation, and the 
 meetings and gatherings of thi - ntry 
 
 when this agitation was at its In • i _ I 
 were some of the most curious features 
 of tin- revolution gradually being accom- 
 
 peared, bearing green banners and 
 r national emblems, and leading 
 essions of men. women, and chil- 
 dren, who were to listen to the speakers 
 
 -- mbled at a cottage just rebuilt by 
 the Land-Leaguers after it had 
 torn down to render practicable the 
 eviction of a tenant who refused to 
 pay rent. This was one of the most 
 
 m 
 
 *;~y 
 
 plished in the •• Emerald Isle.'" I n 
 an excursion into Ireland short! 
 
 fess ' _ nizatiou and 
 
 the arrest of its principal members. 
 1 i Galway for mil - j the 
 
 road which I took on my way to a 
 Land-League mass-meeting, tin- fields 
 een lying fallow for many years: 
 hundreds of cabins were - and 
 
 unroofed, and dozens were 
 
 than 
 At every <- 
 on this rai:. Sut rs ap- 
 
 A FAMILIAR HUSH 
 XK. 
 
 daring things which had been done in 
 Ireland. The defiance of the law was 
 patent, and I was not a little surpi ■ 
 
 arish priest at the head of 
 movement. Arriving on a bleak 
 hill overlooking Lough Corrib, where the 
 _ was to be held. I was met by 
 the priest, who introduced me to a num- 
 ber of country squires, ami to certain 
 pale-faced agitators who had come up 
 ressly from the Irish cities to help on 
 the movement. 
 
 A few hundred yards from this e 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 657 
 
 which was the visible expression of the 
 Land League's resistnnee to the law, 
 three or four hundred soldiers of the 
 " Constabulary," as it is called in Ire- 
 laud, were drawn up in military array, 
 and a smart young officer, approaching 
 the priest, touched bis hat courteously 
 and announced that he should detail two 
 of his men to protect the government 
 reporter. " Bring him on," said the 
 [uiest, " but don't let the hoys get at 
 him. I would not answer for him this 
 day." So presently the government 
 stenographer, on whose report was to 
 he based any prosecutions which mighl 
 ensue for treasonable language, was 
 brought up under guard and seated at the 
 hustings. Then arose a yellof execration 
 from the crowd, which now numbered 
 two or three thousand people, and which 
 was soon to be reinforced by long 
 lines of peasantry whom we could sec 
 miles away, marching around I he end of 
 the lake. At the head of one of these 
 processions fluttered an American Hag. 
 home by a stalwart farmer. Some of 
 tin- peasants carried wooden swords and 
 pikes, artistically stained with red. sup- 
 posed to imitate the Saxon gore which « :is 
 some day to be spilled. Numbers of the 
 patriots had imbibed spirituous fluids to 
 counteract the omnipresent moisture ; and 
 now and then an ardent defender of the 
 Irish cause questioned my presence and 
 my identity, with the addition of epithets 
 not altogether agreeable. One inflamma- 
 ble gentleman, who had recently returned 
 from the United States, informed me, 
 while I was on the hustings some 
 twenty feet from the ground, that 
 I might lie a Saxon reporter, and that if 
 it were found to In- so he would have me 
 handed down. The parish priest, how- 
 ever, took this gentleman to task for 
 having begun his festivities too early in 
 the day, and threatened him with the 
 
 waters of Lough Corrib if he was rude 
 
 to the stranger. 
 
 The scene was wild ; tile tierce faces 
 of the peasantry, — faces thin with 
 want, and flushed with an angry pleasure 
 as they heard the government assailed, 
 — as they heard stories of tyranny, and 
 incentives to rebellion catalogued and 
 recited, were wilder still. This was the 
 beginning of revolution likely to go far, 
 and do much damage, if not checked by 
 artful legislation. Even the gentlemanly 
 and courteous priest forgot his mildness 
 when he addressed the people. 
 
 The greatest demands of Mr. 1'arnell 
 and his followers were thought mild and 
 insufficient by this throng of laborers 
 who had never until recent years dreamed 
 that they could rebel against the land- 
 lord. Now this thought was uppermost 
 in their minds: [low can we dispense 
 with the landlord altogether? How can 
 we become ourselves possessors of the 
 soil? I thought that in the frequent 
 appeals of the priest to the people to 
 remain within the letter of the law there 
 was a mild satiric flavor. His eye 
 twinkled when he had finished his ad- 
 dies-,; and the cries and curses which 
 rose from his hearers when the name of 
 any unpopular landed proprietor or 
 official was mentioned appeared to give 
 the good man positive pleasure 
 
 As 1 drove home on the jaunting-car 
 that, night, under the Hitting moonlight, 
 and over the roads wet and soggy with 
 the protracted rain, I came from time 
 to time upon sentinels posted at cross- 
 roads, and now and then dark figures 
 rose up cautiously from behind the walls 
 or hedges, and disappeared, as if satis- 
 lied that the passer-by was a neutral. 
 
 and was not to he molested. 1 confess 
 
 that had 1 been a land-owner of the 
 neighborhood I should not have ridden 
 home alone and unarmed that night. 
 
658 EUROPE IN STORM A.\/> CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE. 
 
 Dublin and its Chief Features. — The Irish Climate. — Trinity College. —The Environs of the Irish 
 Capital. — The Great Western Gateways, — Queenstown and Liverpool. 
 
 lne- 
 
 ff^IIE Irish are justly proud of their the climate is trying, variable, and so 
 
 -L capital, which is in no wise inferior what exhausting. 
 
 in tlic beauty of its streets and the ele- The long streets are shrouded in 
 gance of its shops to London or other fog, and the barren slums, with their 
 large towns in England. There are a picturesque and motley population of 
 few picturesque hits in the city proper infirm old men and women (and where 
 on the hanks of the River Liffey, which are there such old men and old women 
 divides the town into two nearly equal as in Ireland ?) are pitiable enough. The 
 parts, — eastward into the noble bay on beggars are numerous and aggressive. 
 one side, on which is the famous hill of They bless and curse with equal volubil- 
 Howth ; and on the other, Killiney hill. ity. The gift of sixpence is sufficient to 
 Around the great Custom-House always draw down blessings for a twelvemonth 
 cluster flocks of vessels, and one would upon the giver's head. The soldier, red- 
 scareely fancy, while looking at the com- jacketed, smartly groomed and attired, is 
 mercial head-quarters of Ireland, that the seen on every corner. England keeps a 
 country is cursed with poverty, ami that formidable garrison, nearly thirty thou- 
 its manufactures as well as its agriculture sand strong, in Ireland, and will not 
 are in an almost prostrate condition. withdraw it. even in the face of most 
 June is the time to visit Dublin — Tune, pressing needs outside, until the with- 
 with its bright sunshine, interspersed drawal is imperative. The Castle, as it 
 with sudden showers (it rains in Ireland is called, where the lord-lieutenant or 
 every day), and with its splendor of the viceroy . as he is somewhat bombas- 
 vcrdure and blossom on the neighboring tically denominated, holds his court and 
 mountains. In the midsummer season has his official residence, is not quite so 
 it is broad daylight until almost ten imposing as the Castle of Edinburgh, but 
 o'clock in this far northward city, and is said to have been in former times a 
 daylight comes again after but three, or. noteworthy structure. 
 at most, three and one-half, hours of One chief room is the vice-regal 
 darkness. Visiting Dublin some years chapel, where the lord lieutenant and 
 ago, on the occasion of an international his family attend divine service. This 
 festival, and being nightly called to chapel has a curious feature in the 
 attend some banquet or prolonged social shape of sculptured heads on the win- 
 festivity. I had, in a period of three dows ami doors, like those around the 
 weeks. ight : it all. for when I went Place Venddme in Paris. The vice- 
 to my engagement it was still light regal apartments contain an ornamental 
 enough to read a newspaper in the hall, with a throne richly embroidered 
 streets, and when I went home to rest it with gold, where, on the ran' occasions 
 had long been bright daylight. In winter when royalty condescends to visit the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 659 
 
 sister island, levees and crushes are 
 held. The ball-room, known as St. 
 Patrick's Chapel, the Council Chamber, 
 and the magnificently furnished drawing- 
 room, are the only very interesting 
 things. There are two kinds of society 
 in Dublin, whiclf for the stranger may 
 be well enough classified as the loyal 
 and the national. Around the lord 
 lieutenant is a formidable group of the 
 resident Protestant English and Protes- 
 tant Irish, of the more important land- 
 owners of both nationalities, the official 
 world, the magistrates, ami placemen of 
 all kinds. The Nationalists arc not so 
 strong, but profess to have a more brill- 
 iant social organization. Royalty, how- 
 ever, draws them strangely near together, 
 as it has done in the recent visit of the 
 Prince of Wales. The lower classes, 
 turbulent and irreconcilable, watch with 
 jealous eye the conduct of their city offi- 
 cials, and if any one from the Lord 
 Mayor of Dublin down dares to curry 
 favor with English loyalty or English 
 opinion he is signalled for vexations 
 innumerable. 
 
 Of the exterior features of Dublin 
 none is more striking than Trinity Col- 
 lege, which stands in College Green, 
 directly opposite the old Bank of Ireland. 
 This college, which was founded under 
 a bull obtained from Pope John XXII., 
 was closed in the time of Henry VIII., 
 but was opened again in the reign of 
 Elizabeth, who made it a corporation in 
 the name of the "College of the Holy 
 and Indissoluble Trinity." Within and 
 without it is rich with works of art of 
 highly respectable character. Portraits 
 of Dean Swift, Bishop Berkeley, Arch- 
 bishop King, Lord Oriel, Professor Bald- 
 win, Grattan, and Frederick, Prince of 
 Wales, ornament the halls. In front of 
 the college are statues of Oliver Gold- 
 smith and of William III. The dinner 
 
 in the grand hall of the Refectory, with 
 the officials of the college in their robes, 
 and with the singularly pleasing arrange- 
 ment of toasts and musical responses, 
 is one of the most novel features of 
 European social life. The uproarious 
 demonstrations of the students of Trinity 
 occasionally disturb the decorum of 
 Dublin, the Celtic student apparently 
 considering it his privilege in Ireland, as 
 in France, to make himself disagreeable 
 to the government and to his neighbors 
 upon the most trivial provocation. 
 
 The Bank of Ireland is the Old Par- 
 liament House, in which, 1 suppose. Mr. 
 Parnell and his followers would like to 
 install their Home Pule Parliament by- 
 and-by- The old House of Commons is 
 now the cash office of the bank, and the 
 House of Lords is still left as it was in 
 the times when Ireland had a Parlia- 
 ment, save that the site of the throne is 
 occupied by a statue of George III. 
 The dilapidated tapestries on the wall 
 represent King William crossing the 
 Boyne, and the Siege of Derry. Under 
 the (lavement of the cathedral of St. 
 Patrick lie the mortal remains of 
 Dean Swift and Esther Johnson, who 
 was the " Stella" of his poetry. Swift 
 was once dean of this cathedral, which 
 was restored about twenty-five years 
 ago by a celebrated Dublin brewer, 
 who expended more than £100,000 
 upon it. The Nelson Monument, raised 
 by the Irish admirers of the hero of 
 Trafalgar, and the Wellington Testimo- 
 nial, erected by Wellington's townsmen. 
 are objects of interest. The Military 
 Hospital, the Carlisle bridge, the Na- 
 tional Gallery of Ireland, and the Royal 
 Hibernian Academy, ate the chief public 
 building's. 
 
 The admirer of the great O'Connell 
 may renew his souvenirs of that tre- 
 mendous orator by a visit to Conciliation 
 
GOO 
 
 EUROPE TN STt'liM AND CALM. 
 
 Hall, when' O'Connell achieved some of 
 his greatest triumphs. The gilded harp 
 and the shamrock of Ireland are still 
 preserved "ii the ceiling of lliis hall, but 
 a corn-merchant now occupies the prem- 
 ises. In Glasneviu Cemetery is the tomb 
 of O'Connell, a granite round town- one 
 hundred and sixty feet high; and there, 
 too, reposes the illustrious Curran. <»n 
 Stephens Green, a pretty square with 
 clusters of trees and shrubs, surrounded 
 on all sides with the handsomest man- 
 sions in the town, is the Royal College 
 of Surgeons, with a museum, a statue 
 of George II., and an industrial 
 museum of very creditable character. 
 Stephens Green is the scene of many 
 of the Nationalists' manifestations, but 
 it is in Phoenix Park that the population 
 of Dublin loves best to manifest. This 
 [>ark covering an area of more than 
 seventeen thousand acres, is very beau- 
 ful, and is often a scene of grand mili- 
 tary reviews when England desires to 
 show her strength to her Irish neigh- 
 bors. The immediate vicinity of Dublin 
 is of rare and exquisite beauty. Kings- 
 town harbor — the port of Dublin — is 
 pretty ; and the fashionable resort of 1 >al- 
 key, where the old Dublin merchants of 
 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
 preferred having their goods landed lather 
 than allow (heir ships to venture into the 
 bay and attempt the passage of the 
 Liffey, is a pretty suburb. Powers- 
 court, one of the few Irish estates 
 whose landlord was always popular with 
 his tenants, is an admirable specimen of 
 an Irish country residence. The great 
 baronial mansion, in the midst of delight- 
 ful scenery, contains a vast parlor, where 
 George IV. was entertained when he vis- 
 ited Ireland in 1821; and the Glen, 
 through which the Dargle Hows, is one 
 of the most romantic in Ireland. The 
 charms of the Wicklow mountains, of 
 
 the Headland of Bray, the Devil's (den, 
 
 the Seven Churches, and the Vale of 
 A \ oca have so often been celebrated in 
 both prose anil verse that there is little 
 new to say about them here. The stran- 
 ger who abides for some lime within the 
 gates of Dublin will lit' sure to hear a 
 fair Irish maiden singing, with the deli- 
 cate lisp and the clearness of enunciation 
 which characterize the English spoken 
 in the Irish capital, Moore's pretty ballad 
 aboul the Avoea, which begins thus ■ — 
 
 " There is t ■> it in the wide world a valley so 
 sweet 
 As the vale in whose bosom the bright waters 
 
 meet. 
 
 Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must 
 
 depart 
 Ere the hie if thai valley shall fade from 
 
 iny heart." 
 
 At all concerts and musical festivals 
 given at Dublin the national poetry is 
 brought out in strong relief, and always 
 awakens a storm of enthusiasm. The 
 south of Ireland is a pretty country, 
 rich in legend and romance, and in 
 varied scenery, which, while it never 
 approaches the grand and bold, is emi- 
 nently satisfactory and sometimes be- 
 witching. The old seat of Waterford, 
 and the town with its church about 
 which Father Prout wrote, — 
 
 " The bells of Shandon, 
 That sound so grand on 
 The pleasant waters of the River Lee; " 
 
 the cove of Cork, or Queenstown, with 
 its majestic harbor.- — ample enough to 
 contain all the navies of the world, 
 Blarney, Youghal and the Black Water, 
 Killarney and the lakes, the Gap of Dun- 
 loe and the Black Valley, Loch Lean, In- 
 nisfallen, Muckross Abbeyand the Peaks. 
 I'landon, Glengariff, and Bantry, — all 
 these embrace a. curious mixture of wild- 
 
EUROPE IN storm AND CALM. 
 
 urn 
 
 H 
 
 a 
 
 - 
 
 a 
 o 
 
 
 ■ 
 
6f>2 EUROPE IX STURM AM) CALM. 
 
 uess and of gentle beauty. The great London, — and thai it brings in nearly 
 cliffs, the lofty blue crags, and the high- two million and a half of cotton bales 
 lands, which break into the vast expanse from America and from India every Year 
 of the Atlantic, are beautiful under the to be worked up in the great factories 
 summer sun, bul in Hie mists and winds in twenty cities not far away. The 
 of winter are forbidding and desolate, stately St. George's Hall, the palatial 
 (tueenstowu is oneof the greal gate- business structures on Water street, the 
 ways out of Europe to America, and the statues of the Prince Consort and Queen 
 harbor is always alive with the enormous Victoria, the Wellington Monument, the 
 steamers crawling across the greenish- Foreign Exchange, the Mausoleum of 
 blue waves, with the sprightly tugs and Huskisson, the huge docks of Lairds. 
 tenders transporting passengers to and covering five hundred acres on the 
 from the ocean arks, and with meil-of- Birkenhead side of the Mersey, — are 
 war, which drop in casually, as if to say the chief features of Liverpool. 
 to Ireland, " Be tranquil." The city has its slums, into which one 
 There is constant commercial inter- is obliged to stray with care if he wishes 
 course between Dublin and Liverpool, — to come out alive. There is within five 
 the great western gateway of Great minutes' walk- of the principal corn- 
 Britain, — Liver] I which has grown mercial avenues a labyrinth of streets 
 
 rich and prosperous out of the American and alley-ways containing more misery 
 trade, and, for that matter, out of the trade and tilth and abject wretchedness than 
 of every country under the sun. Here the can lie found in any other European 
 finest docks in the world would be vastly city. The Liverpool Irish arejusth de- 
 imposing if one could have an atmosphere nominated the most degraded people in 
 for the space of a single day in which the kingdom, and around them and their 
 to visit them. Liverpool was a little scarcely less wretched and vicious 
 hamlet three hundred years ago; to-day English fellows there is a fringe of 
 its population is a little more than half cosmopolitan vice and want, an inter- 
 a million, and it i* said there are always national tangle of ignorance and poverty, 
 at least thirty thousand sailors prome- a population which scarcely seems to 
 nading its vast quays. It is a proud city, have souls, and which veritably seems 
 proud of its wealth, proud even of its beyond the reach of redemption. One- 
 cliiuate, which it fiercely defends as in third of the trade of Liverpool is with 
 nowise objectionable ; proud of its great America. The Liverpool merchant is 
 River Mersey, with its stone banks, of the a cultivated man. with no prejudices; 
 fleets of ships and steamers which come the breadth of the broad sea.s in his 
 in and go out in hundreds daily: proud character; he is generous, quick, and 
 of the fact that it has at least two-thirds energetic, and enjoys his fortune as in- 
 of the whole shipping of Great Britain telliaently and modestly as any landed 
 anil one-tenth of her foreign trade. — proprietor. 
 half as much trade as the great port of 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 663 
 
 CI I A ITER SEVENTY-SIX. 
 
 Lord Beaconsfiekl. -Mr. Gladstone. Two < lareers Entirely Different in ( lharacter, Purpose, and Result. 
 — Personal Description of the two < ir«-:it Premiers. — Imperial Policy. — The Eastern Question in 
 L875. — Mr. Gladstone's Attitude.— The Slavs of the South. — Servia, Herzegovina, Bosnia, 
 and Montenegro. 
 
 I am overwhelmed," were the words of 
 the dying Beacor.sfield, as be rinsed 
 his long and agitated career, twelve 
 months after he had surrendered liis 
 premiership, in the tranquil retreat of 
 Hughenden; and it then seemed as if in 
 his words there was all the sadness of a 
 prophetic confession. The Imperial policy 
 which he had inaugurated with such 
 dazzling audacity, and conducted with 
 such dexterous, although somewhat sinis- 
 ter, skill, had received so many severe 
 cheeks, had brought upon the realm of 
 Britain so many disasters, that the Eng- 
 lish people were right in questioning 
 whether it were wise that it should be 
 prosecuted to its logical conclusions. 
 
 Ail English premier takes his defeat as 
 he takes his accession to office, with pro- 
 found philosophy: for he knows that the 
 people quickly return upon any judgment 
 which they have found erroneous, or which 
 they think erroneous, and that the lease 
 of power is not very permanent. Just 
 as in the autumn of 1873 the people 
 showed that they were becoming nervous 
 with regard to the reforming zeal of 
 the ministry, and that they wished to 
 give it a cheek, so, in 1880, after Mr. 
 Gladstone's tremendous Midlothian cam- 
 paign, the people began to waver in 
 their devotion to the brilliant policy 
 which had seduced them by its promise 
 of glory and of fortune. Mr. Gladstone 
 was a severe and an uncompromising 
 critic of Lord Beaconsfield's administra- 
 
 tion, lie said that the premier's policy 
 of ''Empire and Liberty" had simply 
 nieant denying to others the rights that 
 England claimed for herself. He pointed 
 lo the disasters in Afghanistan ; to the 
 fact that India •• had not advanced, hat 
 was thrown back in government, sub- 
 jected to heavy ami unjust charges, sub- 
 jected to what might also be termed, in 
 comparison with the government of for- 
 mer years, a singular oppression ; at home 
 the law broken, ami the rights of Parlia- 
 ment invaded." It was in vain that 
 Beaconsfield, who had so lately been the 
 
 adored of the London populace, the dar- 
 ling of the eyes of the Conservative 
 dowagers, anil the hero as much in White- 
 chape! as in Belgravia and Mayfair, — 
 in both of which widely separated sections 
 he was considered as a new champion of 
 England, who was to revive the ancient 
 prestige of the island kingdom, and 
 reduce to a sense of their relative un- 
 importance the ambitions powers of the 
 North, as he was popularly supposed by 
 his English admirers to have done at the 
 Berlin Congress, — it was in vain that he 
 struck back against his resolute adver- 
 sary, that he referred to the attempts made 
 to sever the constitutional tie between 
 England and Ireland, ami issued his fa- 
 mous proclamation calling on " all men 
 of light and leading" to resist this de- 
 structive doctrine. It was in vain that 
 he accused the Liberal party of attempt- 
 ing, and failing, to enfeeble the English 
 
664 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 colonies by their policy of decomposition ; tiou of independent States. But the 
 in vain that he cried out that he had policy of intrigue and of petty vexations, 
 long previously recognized in the dis- the policy of attempting to check the 
 integration of the United Kingdom a Russian hear hy scattering bits of orange- 
 mode which would not only accomplish peel in his path, had been adopted in- 
 but precipitate that purpose ; in vain that stead of the bold and straightforward 
 he persisted in his statement that peace plan which England might have adopted ; 
 rested on the presence, not to say the and were Lord Beaconsfield alive to-day 
 ascendency of England in the councils of to sec the natural outcome of his policy, 
 
 Europe. The impression grew that the so far as it was carried forward, he 
 
 Conservative Ministry, which had been might again say, as he said with his 
 in power from 1874, had not only caused latest breath, " 1 am overwhelmed." 
 a veritable and lamentable interregnum Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, who rose to 
 in the great progress of reform at home, lie Lord Beaconsfield, and Mr. William 
 but had weakened the Empire by need- Ewart Gladstone, who might lone ago 
 less wars abroad, and that its clandes- have been seated in the House of Lords 
 tine acquisition of the Island of Cyprus if he would have listened to proposals 
 had brought upon it the gravesl criti- for his elevation, have so long been 
 cisnis. Although the proudest moment familiar ami imposing figures on the 
 of Keaeonslield's life was the moment of stage of English politics, and in inter- 
 his entrance into the House of Lords, on national politics generally, that little 
 his return from the Berlin Congress, still new can be said of them here. Both 
 not even the fallen Premier himself could these distinguished men had attained in 
 conscientiously assert that he had by his London and in Europe that eminence 
 support of this treaty gained anything which attaches to a long continuance of 
 for his famous Imperial policy. He power, to frequent returns to its oxer- 
 could not have believed that the barrier cise, and to indisputable authority and 
 of the Balkans could permanently sepa- skill in the management of men. Each 
 
 rate the two halves of the new Bulgarian represented a special and peculiar scl I 
 
 nation ; that they could remain Ll similar of English thought ; yet each has always 
 in race, in religion, in memories, the had throughout his career a marked in- 
 one free, the other still enslaved ; ' nor dividuality which seemed to distinguish 
 that Kussia would be permanently him from the mass of Englishmen. Lord 
 checked in her advance on Constanti- Beaconsfield was perhaps — and partieu- 
 nople by the measures which a few larly from 1874 to his downfall — more 
 diplomats seated round a tabic covered strictly popular than Hit: Gladstone. It 
 with green cloth chose to imagine as is certain, however, that he stood upon 
 obstacles to that progress from north to a lower level, and that nearly every one 
 south which all history tells us is neces- who professed for him such passionate 
 
 sarv and vital, and which is as resistless admiration knew that he st 1 upon a 
 
 as an inundation. lower level ; hut there was a glamour 
 
 Mr. Gladstone hail always pointed out about him and all his works, an accent 
 
 that the great barrier to a. b'usshin ad- of sincerity in his speeches, even when 
 
 vauce on Constantinople was flic crea- they supported the shiftiest of pretexts 
 
 or the most fallacious of positions, which 
 
 'O'Connor's Life of Lord Beaconsfield. lulled to rest any outcropping suspi- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 665 
 
 cions. Beaconsfield bad worked himself 
 up from u very humble position to thai 
 which ho had coveted in his youth, and 
 which he had boldly asserted lie would 
 get. He had conquered prejudice, had 
 almost conquered rate. He had that 
 profound belief in himself which carries 
 men over the most difficult obstacles, and 
 finally deludes them into the conviction 
 that they arc all-powerful before it al- 
 lows them to be tripped up and to be 
 beaten on the scene of action. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone had not been obliged 
 to toil up from the lowest place, but had 
 stepped with easy grace at an early age 
 into the career for which he had such 
 consummate fitness. lie had inherited 
 a handsome fortune, which allowed him 
 to devote his entire energies to the 
 public service; bad a wonderful talent 
 for finance, a thorough business apti- 
 tude, an abiding , classical education, 
 a fervent religious spirit, and a sen- 
 sitive conscience, — too sensitive per- 
 haps for modern English polities, with 
 its expedients, its trickeries, its anxi- 
 eties, and its dangers. One of his 
 biographers has said of him that u he 
 unites cotton with culture. Manchester 
 with Oxford, the deep classical joy over 
 tlii' Italian resurrection and Greek inde- 
 pendence with the deep English interest 
 in the amount of duty on Zante raisins 
 and Italian rags." He was already a 
 prominent politician when the first Reform 
 Bill was brought forward, in 1832, and 
 fifty years afterward his voice was heard 
 more powerfully than that of any other 
 in the English Parliament in advocating 
 the completion of the reform which, 
 while its progress has been so slow, 
 has been so very thorough. Lord Bea- 
 consfield, in his youth, when he wished to 
 make his maiden speech in the House 
 of Commons, had been thoroughly 
 laughed at. but hail turned upon his 
 
 tormentors, and in terrible tones had 
 informed them that the lime would come 
 when they would hear him. Mr. Glad- 
 stone had made his Parliamentary dibvt 
 without melodramatic effect, at once 
 commanding the respect and attention 
 of all his fellow-members. His very 
 first speeches in Parliament were in con- 
 nection with the liberation of slaves, 
 
 LORD BE M iONSFIELD. 
 From Photograph by London Stereoscopic Co, 
 
 and forty years afterward he was vigor- 
 ous and earnest as when a youth in 
 demanding the freedom from oppression 
 of the Christians in the East. Mr. 
 Disraeli seems to have considered litera- 
 ture as one of the intellectual dissipa- 
 tions of his youth. In it he exhaled 
 the fiery enthusiasms of his soul, em- 
 bodied in correct anil facile prose the 
 dreams of the career which was before 
 him, foreshadowed many of his attempts 
 and aims, betrayed many of the weak- 
 nesses and follies of his nature, and 
 
6fi() EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 indicated as clearly as could have been party into it. he will open his mouth and 
 indicated !>y an ethnologist all the prej- speak the truth. No sneer of foreign 
 udices, fancies and hatreds entailed cabinets, or threat of enemies, or danger 
 1 1 1 >< >i i him by his race. In his books of mobs ;it home, will prevent him from 
 may be found the Semitic contempt for deserting the Soudan, and from saying 
 Christian civilization, the Jewish eager- the full truth about South Africa. If 
 ness t'> control and lead the Christian ; he felt that England, in order to main- 
 and, in all matters of Eastern policy, the tain her position as a first-class power, 
 Jewish unwillingness to aid the Chris- were fated to carry out, at all risks and 
 thin to resume the place actually his, hazards, an Imperial policy, which would 
 but usurped by the barbarian. also be a policy of greed and of plunder, 
 Mr. Gladstone, while he had not had and interference with other pe< pie's 
 so glittering a literary distinction as his rights, he would not sanction that policy 
 great antagonist in his youth, has made for any consideration whatsoever, 
 literature in its higher form the delight Lord Beaeonsfield might have been 
 of his middle life and his declining laid in Westminster Abbey had it not 
 years. His mildest literary recreation is been for the strict instructions in his 
 the enthusiastic study of Homer and the will that he was to be bin ied in Hughen- 
 Homeric age. He is one of the few den, beside the wife whom he so tenderly 
 Englishmen who thoroughly comprehend loved, and who had done so much for 
 the Greek mind, ancient and modern, the upbuilding of his career. He some- 
 lie has never allowed his position as Eng- times said, with profound emotion, that 
 lish statesman to interfere with the care- to his wife he owed everything. Doubt- 
 ful, non-prejudiced study of continental less there were moments in his existence 
 politics from stand-points not entirely when he would have given up the 
 English. Reformer and agitator by struggle, and relapsed into deep indif- 
 instinct, he is moderate in language, ference, had it not been for her unfailing 
 and his consideration for his opponents support and counsel. Mr. Gladstone 
 is proverbial. Ilis patience in the pies- wasthefirst to propose that the deceased 
 once of great difficulties is unlimited; Premier should have the honors of a 
 his disregard of public clamor when he public funeral in Westminster Abbey : 
 thinks ii ill-founded may be carried but it was not to be. The Great Coin- 
 very far; he is not the man to resign in nioner, the Grand Old Man. as he is 
 a passion, nor until he feels that the lovingly called by his admirers and 
 whole majority of his party, to the last scornfully spoken of by his enemies, 
 man, has given up the situation. lie is thepeople's William, the ardent supporter 
 content with the progress of each day; of Liberalism in aristocratic and con- 
 he does not threaten or prophesy, — he servative England, will undoubtedly be 
 works; he is ready for crises, because laid beneath the stones of the ancient 
 he always foresees them ; he knows the Abbey, to rest in the noble company 
 value of a penny, and never fails to in- near whose shrines he has spent so many 
 sist upon it ; but he does not hesitate lone' years of activity in tin' Parliament 
 to ask enormous sums when the honor House. Westminster, the epitome and 
 and dignity of England are threatened, crowning glory of England, must act 
 If he thinks a war unjust, even though now and then as an inspiration to public 
 he may have been pushed by his own men as they pass to and fro beneath its 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 667 
 
 GLADSTONE. 
 From Photograph by Elliott A Try. London. 
 
 shadows ; for to be placed there is higher Canning, Grattan, and Wilberforce is 
 honor than to be put in the House of an appropriate resting-place for Glad- 
 Lords during lifetime; and for that stone. 
 
 matter the Abbey is likely to be the chief It is related of John Bright that, 
 
 of London's monuments many centuries being in the lobby of Parliament one 
 
 after the House of Lords has been but a day, he was approached by a lady of 
 
 tradition. The pavement which shrouds his acquaintance, who had brought her 
 
 Chatham, Pitt, Fox. Castlereagh, two little boys to sec the political celeb- 
 
668 EURorE i.v storm and calm. 
 
 riiiis, ami who remarked that (Mad- to the poet- laureate and to the favorite 
 
 stone was not present, and that she did actor. Gladstone's lustrous eyes, a.s 
 
 nut regret it. as she had but small ad- piercing and magnetic as they were wiien 
 
 miration for him, repeating numerous he was thirty, were unusually brilliant on 
 
 reasons as to why she did not like his that occasion ; and, as he sat in his com- 
 
 public record. " Madam." said tin' tollable box, surrounded by bis family, 
 
 great orator, assuming bis most, impos- he presented the finished typeof a culti- 
 
 ing mien, "when yon have an oppor- vated, accomplished, and successful Eng- 
 
 tunity to see Mr. Gladstone here, bring lish gentleman, than which no aristo- 
 
 your two boys with yon, and when cratic family could furnish a liner. lie 
 
 you have been told which is Mr. Clad- was the sublimated man of the people, 
 
 stone, point liini out to these children, the best outcome of the sturdy strength 
 
 and say to them, 'There is the greatest of England 
 
 Englishman of all England,' and you All politicians have something of the 
 will say the truth." comedian in (heir composition. Thev 
 Both Beaconsfield and Gladstone have know bow to make their entries and their 
 always been fond of promenades in Lon- sorties with skill; and Lord Beaconsfield 
 don town, so that they are well known excelled in this theatrical quality. His 
 to the citizens. Gladstone is the most curl became historic. A pet phrase, 
 unceremonious of mortals, and when be delivered with a peculiar gesture, made 
 lived in Hurley street, some years ago, its impression and went into history. A 
 used to walk, in all weathers, down to consummate dandy in bis youth, be had 
 Parliament House, wrapped up in bis something of dandyism in bis old age. 
 big, high, rough overcoat, and with bis A frock-coat may have its eloquence as 
 thick leather leggings, looking something much as a, spoken word. The indiscreet 
 like a country squire who had just arrived gaudiness of the Hebrew was left aside 
 at Kuston station. Yet, despite the affec- after he reached maturer years, to reap- 
 talion of rusticity, the love for felling pear only now and then in one of his 
 trees, or long walks and rides in the speeches, written under strong excite- 
 country, and his .simplicity of dress and incut. In 1*78 Mr. Lacey, the able 
 demeanor, he knows bow, when it is author of the new " Diary of Two Par- 
 proper, to maintain the utmost elegance liaments," wrote thus about Lord Bea- 
 aml dignity of manner. In these latter consfield : — 
 
 years of bis premiership, when be ( us 
 
 to the evening .if a great speech, there Strangers may now occasionally meet in the 
 
 are evidences of careful attention to Ins neighborhood of Parliament street a notable 
 
 dress. He has a fresh coat, and a flower fi S ure making its way through the throng. 
 
 in the button-hole, or is in irreproachable They """' '"'"' fr:,il and Wl ' ! "'>' the '""'■>' 
 
 ., , seems, how bent the shoulders, how sunken 
 
 evening costume. Seen anywhere, and ,, , , , , , . 
 
 the cheeks, imw leaden-hued tin- lineaments; 
 
 under any circumstances, he would strike ,„,, t | iey also ,„„,. the dauntless spirit Khu . h 
 
 the observer as a remarkable man I still affects a jaunty carriage, and makes be- 
 like best to think of him as I saw him lieve that progress is slowly made only because 
 one evening at the play, on the first there is n0 hurrv - They further observe with 
 
 admiration the careful newness of the aeees- 
 
 representation of Tennyson's •■(' 
 
 when a brilliant audience had gath 
 
 in the Lyceum theatre to do honor both neckcloth, the pearl-gray gloves, guiltless of 
 
 „ories of the figure, — the shapely coat of the 
 when a brilliant audience had gathered lightes , , n: „„„ :|K „ R , negligent but ,,,.,.„„ 
 
EUROPE W STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 669 
 
 wrinkle, and the glossy liat. But these tilings 
 are, however, only for commonplace occa- 
 sions. On the day which marks a crowning 
 stage in his memorable career lie puts on an 
 old coat, liis second-best hat, and the dingy- 
 brown trousers of long ago. 
 
 He walked into Palace yard as if lie 
 were immensely surprised to find it packed, 
 and went into the House of Lords without 
 looking up, and with an air of being absorbed 
 entirely in his forthcoming speech, although 
 he must have known that, instead of the 
 empty benches usually seen, the chamber was 
 thronged from end to end, that the privy- 
 councillors were in their places before the 
 throne, and that the hues of a flower garden 
 were blended with the soft colors of a rain- 
 how, which the beauty and rank of the Empire 
 formed, and through which, after the storm 
 of the Berlin Congress, the sun shone down on 
 the Prime Minister. 
 
 Lord Beaconsfield, when he returned 
 from Berlin in company with Lord Salis- 
 bury, and was on his way from the rail- 
 way station to the little black house in 
 Downing street, where the prime minis- 
 ters have always resided, was cheered 
 to the echo by the waiting thousands; 
 
 and yet the otiteon f his visit was 
 
 nothing more than the return to slavery 
 of a million Christians, — a million 
 wrested awav from the other millions of 
 liberated ones, — who, if the right pol- 
 icy had been adopted by England, might 
 have been made England's firm allies. 
 Lord Beaconsfield's triumph was, as has 
 been truly said by one of his biogra- 
 phers, " a triumph not of England, not of 
 an English policy, not of an English- 
 man : it was but the triumph of Judea, a 
 Jewish policy, a .lew." 
 
 Five years before the overwhelming 
 of Beaconsfield and his policy Glad- 
 stone had aroused all liberal England 
 to a keen interest in the great- events 
 which were beginning in south-eastern 
 Europe. There the Turkish oppression 
 had filially become intolerable, and 
 
 culminated in tin insurrection in Herze- 
 govina. This revolt of the peasantry 
 against their Mahometan landlords in 
 die rocky and picturesque provinces 
 which had been under the Turkish do- 
 minion for more than four hundred years 
 was at once recognized by careful stu- 
 dents of European affairs as the opening 
 of the Eastern question, with till its 
 perils, its penalties, and its possibilities. 
 Of this insurrection in Herzegovina I 
 saw much, and to all who looked on 
 at the desultory fighting against the 
 Turks in those autumn days of 1H7."> it 
 was evident that a great movement for 
 the independence and consolidation of 
 the Slavs, who had so long been sepa- 
 rated and crushed, had begun. Russia 
 was moving mysteriously to promote this 
 outbreak against the Turk, but the Turk 
 was determined to resist with till his 
 power the inroad upon the provinces 
 which he had not known how to develop 
 or to conciliate. 
 
 Bosnia and Herzegovina, lying on 
 the confines of Austria, and possessing 
 a population speaking the same Slavic 
 tongue spoken by so many millions of 
 Austrian subjects, were somewhat more 
 accessible to the influences of the outer 
 world than provinces like Bulgaria and 
 Roumelia. The insurrectionists in Her- 
 zegovina and in Bosnia were amply 
 aided by warriors from the unconquered 
 '• Black mountain," — the Montenegrins, 
 so long the guardians of Freedom on 
 the frontiers of Europe. The Egyptian 
 and Asiatic troops combating against 
 these wild men. born among the stones 
 and accustomed from their earliest 
 infancy to hardships, had but little 
 chance of success. Wherever they 
 could inflict atrocious cruelties they 
 did so. The Austrian frontier was 
 lined for miles with camps id' the 
 refugees from the Turkish vengeance. 
 
•'"II EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 On the iher Save, which forms the covered with dense forests, was unoccu- 
 
 linc of demarkation between Bosnia pied l > v that augusl race, probably on 
 
 .•Hid Austria, I saw, while making a account of the difficulty of tracing the 
 
 journey from Belgrade, in Servia, to strategetical routes uniting these and 
 
 Sissek, dozens of mutilated bodies of the consolidated provinces with the iso- 
 
 nien and women floating down the lated stations of Pannonia and the colo- 
 
 streain. These were the persons who nies of the Asiatic shore. In the first 
 
 had been murdered by the Bashi- half of the seventh century the Avars, 
 
 Bazouks. At Rugusa, in October, profiting by the departure of the legions 
 
 1875, the camps of refugees must Lave of the Emperor Heraclius, rallied to fight 
 
 contained many thousands of people to the Persians, invaded the province, de- 
 
 whoni the Austrian government was vastated it, and occupied it in part. It 
 
 compelled to serve daily pensions, un- was about that time that numerous Slavic 
 
 less it wished to see these people (lie of tribes, who had come from beyond the 
 
 starvation upon its hands. In rich and Carpathians, established themselves, by 
 
 fertile Bosnia, with its towns teeming consent of the Emperor, in the country, 
 
 with an active, industrious population, after they had expelled the Avars. The 
 
 the insurrection was at first quite Servians, properly so called, occupied 
 
 successful; but. there the Turks were Upper Moesia, Sirmia, and Ilascia. The 
 
 very prompt and soon brought it under Chrobates, or Croates, already held all 
 
 subjection. It was therefore to the that country between Istria and Cettina, 
 
 fastnesses and strongholds on the — to-day Croatia and a part of Dalmatia. 
 
 Herzegovinan frontier, hard by the The Zachlum, originally from Chelin, on 
 
 Dalmatian coast, that the leaders and the borders of the Vistula, and the Na- 
 
 their faithful followers retreated and rentines, — the old enemies of Venice, — 
 
 reorganized the guerilla warfare which who gave their name to the river Na- 
 
 proved so efficient in bringing about renta, or who, perhaps, took their name 
 
 the greater contests soon to follow, from it. populated the land of Herze- 
 
 With sympathetic populations on the govina. Another tribe came after the 
 
 Austrian side of the frontier the in- first, established itself in what is now 
 
 surgents were not likely to lack for Montenegro, and its people were for a 
 
 supplies, and so they kept up their re- long time called Dioclates, from the 
 
 sistance, waiting impatiently for the ancient name of the Black mountain. 
 
 standard of revolt to be raised in Bosnia was soon invaded by these mi- 
 
 Servia, Bulgaria, and in all the rich grating tribes, and the new Slavic Slate 
 
 countries of Turkey iis Europe. was formed. United for a short time 
 
 Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Monteue- under Douchan, these various States 
 
 gro were a pait of the old country of the were soon separated after the fall of the 
 
 Dalmatians, which was united to the Servian empire, and each once enjoyed a 
 
 Roman Empire under Tiberius, and com- separated existence, — Bosuia under its 
 
 prised, besides the above-mentioned coun- kings, Herzegovifla under its dukes, 
 
 tries, a part of present Dalmatia. of Montenegro under its vladikas, up to 
 
 Upper Slavonia, and of Servia. The the time of the Ottoman conquest. Ser- 
 
 Romans appear to have colonized onh a via fell in 1457, Bosnia in 1463, Iler- 
 
 part of the proviuce. All that portion zegovina in 1467, before the invading 
 
 siruated in the centre and on the east, Turk ; but Montenegro, sheltered by her 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 1)71 
 
 mountain ramparts, never surrendered 
 at all. Bosnia and Herzegovina together 
 have about twice the area of Belgium. 
 Montenegro is a little labyrinth of rocks, 
 interspersed with deep grottos and can- 
 yons, — the Montenegrin legend being 
 that when the good God was sowing- 
 rocks and mountains in space, he carried 
 them all in a great bag, and that as he 
 was passing over a certain point the 
 bottom of the bag fell out, and all the 
 mountains and rocks in that day's stock 
 constituted Montenegro. 
 
 Servia, a compact anil fertile Slate of 
 one thousand square miles in area, well 
 watered by noble streams and studded 
 by splendid forests, is divided into two 
 distinct regions : Upper Servia. lying 
 between the two Moravas, — the Ser- 
 vian, rising in the west, and the Bul- 
 garian in the south ; and Lower Servia, 
 formed by the ample basin of the Great 
 Morava in which these two streams 
 unite, has all the elements of empire 
 within it. Had it not been for the 
 baleful influence of the Turk, under 
 whose horses' hoofs no grass can grow, all 
 these various Slavonic States now spring- 
 ing into a fresh ami vigorous national ex- 
 istence might have become very rich anil 
 powerful. The Servians were the first 
 of the Slavs who had embraced Chris- 
 tianity. After the schism of Photius 
 they hesitated for some time between 
 Rome and Constantinople, and finally at- 
 tached themselves to the Greek Church, 
 while their neighbors, the Croats, re- 
 mained Roman Catholics. Up to the 
 tenth century they underwent many po- 
 litical vicissitudes. They were subjects 
 or vassals of the Greeks and the Bulga- 
 rians until the day when one of their 
 chiefs declared himself independent of 
 the monarchies of Byzantium, and took 
 the title of king, which his descendants 
 bore after him. This Chief Simeon ab- 
 
 dicated in 111)5, and became a monk, 
 under the name of Stephen. He had 
 two sons; Stephen-the-First-Crowned, 
 so called because he was the first Ser- 
 vian prince who received the royal 
 unction in 1*217, who succeeded him. 
 like his father went into a cloister 
 toward the close of his days; the 
 second son founded the national church 
 of Servia. In 1346 Stephen Douchan, 
 the Powerful, the ninth successor to the 
 Servian monarchy, had brought under 
 his domination the greater part of the 
 Balkan peninsula, and carried his con- 
 quering banners even to the gates of 
 Constantinople, called himself "Tsar," 
 and was recognized by the republic of 
 Venice and by the Holy See. I lis son. 
 who reigned after him. was assassinated 
 in 1367, and in 1371 the crown passed 
 to another family, — -to the Prince Loza- 
 rus of the Servian popular ballads. Un- 
 der the reign of this Prince Lozarus 
 the Turks, commanded by Murad II.. 
 gave battle to the Servians at Kossovo, 
 on the 13th of June, 1389. Both the 
 sultan and Lozarus were killed, and the 
 Turks were victorious, and Servia lost 
 her independence. 
 
 The Servian throne was not over- 
 turned, however, until 1 ).">!>. when 
 Mahomet II. attacked Servia, ami defi- 
 nitely incorporated it with the Turkish 
 Empire. The Slavs then seemed hope- 
 lessly condemned to captivity and subju- 
 gation. Servia disappeared from history 
 until, after three centuries and a half of 
 unwilling slavery, a heroic swineherd 
 of the Servian mountains lose against 
 the Turks, and led his followers to vic- 
 tory. Becomiug a true leader of the 
 people, a wise and good dictator and 
 prince, driving the Turks beyond the 
 frontier, he was invested with supreme 
 power, and reigned from 1804 to 1813. 
 Then back came the Turks to drive out 
 
<WL> 
 
 EUROPE IX STOR U AND CALM. 
 
 the newly installed government, and for a few years the must tremendous 
 more than two years the unhappy popu- changes had taken place. Early in 187G 
 latlon was subjected to the most terrible the insurrectionists gained a victory 
 excesses. Massacres and e ery torture over the Turks in Herzegovina. Then 
 that Turkish vengeance <•< >uld suggest came the scheme of reform presented by 
 were the order of the day. In 1815 the Count Andrassy in favor of the insur- 
 people rose again at the voice of Milosch, units, and this was accepted by the sul- 
 ulioni Russia supported as best she tan's government in February of 187G. 
 could, and after fifteen years' fighting tiie But in May came the news of the Bul- 
 valianl little country succeeded in getting garian outrages, the terrible atrocities at 
 its autonomy recognized by the Porte, Batak, the vengeance of the oppressor 
 ami by a firman of the same epoch the upon the oppressed before they could es- 
 victor was declared hereditary Prince of cape from his tyranny. The massacres by 
 Servia. To-day the country is an inde- the Circassians in Bulgaria were thor- 
 pendent kingdom, recognized as such by oughly chronicled in the •■ Daily News," 
 the treaty of Berlin in ' s7,s, and Prince the leading liberal journal in London, by 
 .Milan, the cultivated and accomplished .Mi-. MacGahan, who investigated them 
 ruler, was made king. Servia has a con- at the risk of his life, and told of them 
 stitution according hereditary sover- with the simple eloquence of conviction, 
 eienty. rendering ministers responsible What Mr. MacGahan saw in the Bulga- 
 before the National Assembly, and giv- rian towns was enough to prove that 
 ing exercise of the legislative power sixty or seventy villages had been burned, 
 simultaneously to the king and the pub- that fifteen or sixteen thousand people 
 lie legislature, which meets annually, hail been massacred, thai among the 
 The Senate of Servia has been dans- dead were thousands of women and 
 formed into a Council of State, charged children, and the women had been < 'tit- 
 wit 1 1 the "elaboration of the laws" pre- raged before death, and that there was 
 pared li\ the general power above men- no provocation on the part of the Bul- 
 tioned. garians, beyond their well-known desire 
 With Bosnia. Herzegovina, Monte- for freedom, to prompt to such awful 
 negro, and Servia in insurrection, al- carnage. 
 
 most one-half of the vast and beauti- The horror and commiseration which 
 I'ul domain of Turkey in Europe was in the recital of these atrocities aroused in 
 revolt, and if was easy to see that the Europe were nowhere more pronounced 
 movement would soon spread to Bui- than in England. There was a conference 
 garia, and might cross the Balkans, and at Berlin of the Emperors of Russia and 
 <ro downward to Constantinople. The Germany, Bismarck and Count Andrassy 
 tone of public sentiment in Russia also being present. They put their heals 
 showed, even in these days of 1875, that together; the British fleet in the Medi- 
 the advance of a liberating army through terranean was ordered to Besika Bay; 
 Bessarabia and Roumania to the rescue Constantinople was in terror over (lie 
 of the Christians in the south was not insurrection in Bulgaria, which, although 
 among the impossibilities. Yet Europe it had been put down with such violence, 
 went on in its blind, old. sleepy way. pro- was still a bugbear to the peace of Tur- 
 claiining that there was no danger of any key. The shrinking and incapable sul 
 change in the situation, although within tan, Abdul Aziz, was deposed at 
 
F.I ROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 (>7o 
 
 Constantinople, to perish miserably by 
 his own hand, or, as Mime say, by hired as- 
 sassins. Later on, Murad V., who suc- 
 ceeded him, announced that the Turkish 
 government was henceforth to grant tin- 
 liberties of all. Europe smiled at the 
 possibility of a Turkish Parliament. 
 
 Meanwhile Disraeli took a jocular 
 view of the massacres in Bulgaria, and 
 announced that the British Government 
 had taken measures for the maintenance 
 of peace. It was apparent, however, 
 that there was to be no peace in the East 
 until the Slavs had set themselves free. 
 In June of 187G Prince Milan of Scrvia 
 left Belgrade and went to his army on 
 the frontier. The time had come, he 
 said, to meet the Turk face to face 1 . The 
 situation of Servia was no longer toler- 
 able, and witli insurrection in Bosnia 
 and Herzegovina, the Servian people 
 must declare war. The Montenegrins 
 joined their fortunes to Servia. The 
 troops of these bold little States were 
 at first defeated. But presently came 
 another revolution at Constantinople. 
 Murad V. was succeeded by Abdul 
 Ilamid II. All Europe was now turn- 
 ing its gaze to the East ; Russia was 
 aiding the Servians, who, in a burst of 
 enthusiasm, finally proclaimed Prince 
 Milan King of Servia ami Bosnia, — a 
 proclamation which they had later on to 
 see annulled by Act of Congress. Mr. 
 Gladstone had placed himself on record 
 as the uncompromising enemy of the 
 Turkish executive power in Bulgaria, 
 and in all other States. " Let the 
 Turks," he said, " carry away their 
 abuses in the only possible manner — by 
 carrying off themselves." In the same 
 address, in characterizing the Turkish 
 Government, he said, "We may ran- 
 sack the annals of the world, but I know 
 not what research can furnish us with 
 so portentous an example of the fiendish 
 
 misuse of the powers established by ( !od 
 for the punishment of evil-doers, and 
 for tlie encouragement of them that do 
 well. No government ever has so 
 sinned, none has so proved itself incor- 
 rigible in sin, or, which is the same, so 
 impotent for reformation." As the Ser- 
 vian war progressed the Czar of Russia, 
 made a proposition for the joint military 
 occupation of Bosnia and Bulgaria; it 
 was felt that, Austria might presently 
 appear on the scene; public feeling in 
 Russia and Turkey was greatly excited; 
 finally, a short armistice between Servia 
 and Turkey was exacted at the instance 
 of the Russian Government. Lord Salis- 
 bury was sent on his famous journey to 
 ( lonstantinople, via Paris, Berlin, Vienna, 
 and Koine, to get the views of the various 
 governments on a proposed conference 
 on the Eastern Question. During this 
 journey Lord Salisbury satislied himself 
 of the truth of many things, none more 
 interesting perhaps than that, the Triple 
 Alliance between the three great mili- 
 tary empires of Russia, Germany, and 
 Austria, decided on their respective lines 
 of policy when war should break out, in 
 the Last, had been consummated as 
 early as 1*7;;. This must have caused 
 some surprise when it was first made 
 known in Europe, and threw a new light 
 upon all the movements in the East. 
 The leading features of the Berlin Treaty 
 
 of 1878 had, it is said, been decided upon 
 
 several years before the downward move- 
 ment of the Russian armies toward 
 Bulgaria. Lord Salisbury, although rep- 
 resenting a pro-Turkish party in the 
 English cabinet, was informed during 
 his journey that the English Government 
 had decided that England would not 
 •• assent to or assist, in coercive meas- 
 ures, military or naval, against the Porte. 
 The Porte must, on the other hand, be 
 made to understand, as it has from the 
 
6 i I EUROPE IN STnRM AND CALM. 
 
 first been informed, that il can expect Meanwhile turn with me from this 
 
 no assistance from England in the event contemplation of the progress of events 
 
 of war." Had England used its intln- in the East to recall a curious incident 
 
 ence t<> coerce the Turk in those days, of the Herzegovinan insurrection, — a 
 
 tlie succeeding campaigns, the entrance visit which I made in company with two 
 
 of Russia upon the scene, and her as- >>r three other journalists to the in- 
 
 sumption of predominating influence in surgents' camp, established among the 
 
 Eastern Europe might have been checked almost inaccessible crags not far from 
 
 or averted. the coast, in the autumn of L875. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 675 
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN. 
 
 A Day with a Voivodft. 
 
 An Insurgent Leader. — Among the Rocks. — A Picturesque Experience. — 
 Turk and Slaw — Ljubibratic and his Men. 
 
 A S we rode down the little hill be- 
 -£^a- tween Ragnsa and Gravosa it 
 suddenly occurred to us that every one 
 else had gone to sleep in the quiet of 
 the warm October afternoon, and that it 
 was especially absurd to he starting upon 
 a long and toilsome journey, when we 
 could sit under the cliffs by the Adriatic 
 and he lulled into delicious repose liy the 
 music of the blue waves breaking against 
 the reddish-tinted rocks. The tiny villas 
 nestling in the olive-groves seemed to 
 Mink sleepily at us as we passed; the 
 peasants lying curled up by the wayside 
 in curiously picturesque heaps slept 
 soundly; the boatmen huddled beneath 
 the awnings of their small crafts were 
 snoring in unison as we came to the ba- 
 sin at Gravosa ; tin- vast hills, which rose 
 stern, stony, terrible in the distance, ap- 
 peared to li«' dreaming in the tremulous 
 autumn sunshine. In the cqfi of Gra- 
 vosa half-a-dozen stalwart mountaineers 
 had laid aside their packs, and, burying 
 their faces in their hands, were leaning 
 forward upon the tallies. In the post- 
 office the venerable clerk had doffed his 
 heavy Austrian cap, laid his head against 
 the wall near the wicket, ami luxuriously 
 closed his eyes. It was one of the clock 
 in the afternoon in Dalmatia, and men 
 who walked abroad, and seemed bent 
 upon some errand at that hour sacred to 
 sleep, would have been watched as dan- 
 gerous had there been any one awake 
 to watch them. 
 
 The general sleepiness seemed to op- 
 
 press us, although we had need of all 
 our faculties at that moment. The driver, 
 who appeared ready to fall from his scat, 
 overcome with somnolence, pulled up 
 his horses beneath the shade of a large 
 tree, ami we leaned hack in the rickety 
 carriage, and were fast yielding to temp- 
 tation when we were aroused by the 
 sharp, clear voice of our guide, who had 
 been lingering behind. " We must go 
 on to Ombla," he said. " The voivoda 
 will soon follow us, anil we must get 
 boats ready and lose no time when he 
 catches up with us, or we -hall not reach 
 the camp before dark. And strangers," 
 — said our guide, Tomo, witli a half-dis- 
 dainful inflection upon the word, — 
 '• strangers cannot pick their way among 
 the Herzegovinan rocks after nightfall." 
 
 " But there will be a full moon," we 
 ventured to remark. 
 
 '■ So much the worse for you." said 
 Tomo, speaking slowly in the Italian, 
 which was difficult for his Slavic tongue, 
 but was the necessary vehicle of con- 
 versation. "The moonlight might lead 
 the gentlemen to break their necks. The 
 moon plays queer tricks in these rocky 
 fields. She makes one believe that there 
 is solid stone where there is a yawning 
 precipice. She tries the eyes of the 
 mountaineer, puts magical charms be- 
 fore his gaze, and makes him lose his 
 way. The gentlemen could not even 
 walk among our crags and rocks in the 
 moonlight. Better a thick darkness : then 
 one is not dazed ; and one can grope." 
 
676 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 So saying, Tomo shouldered his gun. 
 turned gracefully from us. and set oul 
 for Ombla. The driver impatiently gath- 
 ered up his reins, murmuring, •• Mad re 
 di TJiol when shall we be well rid of 
 these Greeks?" and we rattled alone,' in 
 Touio's wake. 
 
 A turn in the road just as we seemed 
 about to plunge into the Adriatic, a drive 
 alone a narrow causeway with an arm 
 of the sea on one side and high stone 
 walls and scraggy houses on the oilier, 
 and at last we came to a square sur- 
 rounded with low villas. A little alley 
 led down to the water-side. At the foot 
 of three steps a large boat was moored. 
 In the boat la\ iis owner asleep. Here 
 we were to await the voivoda. 
 
 Picture to yourself a vast amphi- 
 theatre of colossal rocks rising majes- 
 tically from blue water fringed with a 
 few straggling trees. As far as the eye 
 can reach hillward nothing but stones, 
 bald, uncouth, tremendous, piled one 
 upon another in confusion which no pen 
 can describe. Here the walls which 
 shut out the rich valleys and smiling 
 fields beyond seem almost perpendic- 
 ular. One cannot imagine that among 
 then) there are roadways, or even paths 
 along' which goats and their shepherds 
 may stray. In the centre of the amphi- 
 theatre are a. lew scattered white cottages 
 surrounding a mysterious rivulet which 
 bubbles up from the rocks, and, after 
 (lowing in an impetuous current for a 
 short distance, disappears again among 
 them. It is a region from which there 
 seems no outlet save that by which we 
 entered it, one narrow strip of winding 
 load. Such is the basin of hill-guarded 
 Ombla. 
 
 The coast of Dalmatia, at this point, 
 where its mountains touch the frontier 
 of Herzegovina, is wonderfully rich in 
 color. At early morning purple tints 
 
 seem to lie lovingly upon the slopes and 
 terraces of stone ; at noon great glorious 
 waves of light break over them, and 
 magically transform them into reddish- 
 brown ruined castles, or deep gray mon- 
 asteries, or [link or golden forests ; every- 
 thing seems strange ami supernatural. 
 Late in the afternoon the shadows gather 
 in the ten thousand nooks and crevices, 
 and lend a forbidding aspect to the enor- 
 mous barriers which seem to have some 
 secret toguard,aud to refuse admittance 
 
 to the land beyond to the anxious wan- 
 derer. Oue feels as if one were upon 
 enchanted ground. 
 
 Of the many routes which lead into 
 Herzegovina from Ragusa, the near- 
 est Dalmatian port, there is but one 
 which is in any sense practicable for 
 even the rude wagons or the pack-mules 
 used in the transportation of supplies to 
 the Turkish fortresses. All the others 
 lead through small villages perched 
 
 among the mountains at points where a 
 little soil and a few springs of fresh 
 water are to lie found. The unhappy trav- 
 eller who should attempt alone to thread 
 these comparatively unfrequented and 
 absolutely labyrinthine paths would in- 
 cur imminent risk of dying of exhaus- 
 tion, or might fall a prey to the small 
 banditti always hovering along the Aus- 
 trian frontier, bidding defiance to the 
 gendarmes, or, if caught, pretending to 
 be insurgents on the lookout for arms 
 and ammunition. If the traveller be ac- 
 companied by a stout guide he will yet 
 Mud himself many times on the point of 
 SUCClimbingto the dreadful fatigue which 
 overcomes him as he clambers inces- 
 santly up. up, up. with little or no chance 
 for repose, ami with the sun's rays beat- 
 ing down with terrific force upon his 
 head. Those who have ever wandered 
 along the side of Vesuvius under an 
 August sunlight can in a faint degree 
 
EUROPE IX STiiHM AX/) t'U.U. 
 
 677 
 
 appreciate the terrors of :i climbing 
 joust in the mountains on the Herzego- 
 vinan frontier. 
 
 Our guide, Tomo, had many times told 
 us of the dangers of the way ; indeed, 
 he took a certain malicious pleasure in 
 depicting every horror, and in setting it 
 in the most repulsive light. This he did 
 not from any ill-will towards us, but from 
 that natural instinct which leads the 
 mountaineer and the sailor always to 
 mock at those who are unaccustomed to 
 precipices or to the sea. Our gay and 
 cosmopolitan party, gathered from all 
 corners of the world to witness the great 
 struggle in progress in the autumn of 
 l.STo by the oppressed Christians against 
 their oppressive Turkish masters, upon 
 whom they had finally turned with all 
 the energy of men made desperate by 
 long suffering, had been snugly en- 
 camped in the garrison town of Ragusa 
 for some days, patiently awaiting a sum- 
 mons from one of the insurgent chiefs, 
 camped near the Austrian border, to visit 
 him. The committee of Slavs in Ra- 
 gusa interested in the success of the in- 
 surrection had forwarded to one of the 
 camps a request that we should be es- 
 corted to the centre of operations, and 
 introduced personally to the leaders who 
 were fighting for freedom and for the 
 maintenance of the Christian religion. 
 Several times, a day had been appointed, 
 and guides had been sent to meet: us. 
 but before we had left Ragusa news had 
 arrived that the insurgents had broken 
 camp and were on a forced march of 
 many days. Thus we had waited in un- 
 certainty, until one morning we were in- 
 formed that the main body of the rebels, 
 twenty-five hundred strong, was en- 
 camped in the almost inaccessible vil- 
 lage of Grebzi, in a corner of Herze- 
 govina, within a few hours' march of 
 Ragusa. Footsore, exhausted, and with 
 
 ammunition-boxes nearly empty, this lit- 
 tle army had resolutely placed its picket 
 lines within half an hour's march of a 
 formidable Turkish fortress, and had 
 determined to study the situation before 
 proceeding farther. The chiefs held a 
 meeting, and decided to send their leader, 
 the voivoda, a stern, brave, well-edu- 
 cated man. named Ljubibratic, to Ragusa, 
 that he might, during his brief visit, get 
 some idea, of the opinion of the outside 
 world concerning the struggle. The voi- 
 voda came from his fortress to Ragusa ; 
 there we met him and were invited to 
 return with him to the rock-surrounded 
 camp of Grebzi. The invitation was ac- 
 cepted. The news, speedily bruited a I iron d 
 in Ragusa, so astonished the Turkish con- 
 sul that lie ipiite forgot his dignity, and 
 calling on us one by one, entreated us 
 •■ not to risk our lives among the ruf- 
 fians ; " not ■■ to believe the hundred lies 
 we were sure to hear from the Greeks ;" 
 and, finally, not to give the insurgents 
 any details relative to the positions of 
 Turkish forces which we had seen during 
 a recent journey made on the high road 
 to Trebigne. an important Turkish post. 
 We fancied that we could detect a twin- 
 kle of malice in the consul's eye as he 
 deprecatingly bade us good-by when he 
 found that we were determined to ven- 
 ture among the insurgents, and it did not 
 require a lively imagination to picture 
 him sending a messenger in hot haste to 
 the nearest Mahometan fort, advising 
 its commander to intercept us, and not 
 only capture the wandering voivoda, but 
 cut off the heads of his companions. An 
 encounter with a Turkish patrol was 
 among the possibilities, but we dismissed 
 the unpleasant thought of it from our 
 minds, as we stood looking at the sombre 
 and precipitous banks of Ombla, and 
 concentrated our attention upon the ex- 
 acting task before us. 
 
678 EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 Meantime the voivoda, with his little with martial air. Handsome fellows 
 
 body-guard of tall, lithe Herzegovinans, were tl;cy, with long, coal-black hair 
 
 well armed with trusty, although ancient and mustaches, with noble necks and 
 
 rillcs, with yataghans taken from the chests, sinewy and symmetrical limbs, 
 
 bodies of dead Turks, and with pistols Their teeth were like pearls, their eves 
 
 half a yard lime-, was supposed to be were bright, their gait was elastic. In- 
 
 plodding on from Ragusa to overtake voluntarily they glanced at us. then at 
 
 us. and at Omblft we were all to start the rocks overhanging Ombla, and then 
 
 together for the mountain ascent. An they shook their heads. We felt ehal- 
 
 liour passed ; the boatman awoke, rolled leuged to put forth our best efforts on 
 
 and lighted a cigarette, swore a gentle the march, ami nerved ourselves ac- 
 
 oath. looked at the sun, then at us. ami cordingly. 
 
 shrugged his shoulders ; no voivoda came. Voivoda Ljubibratic looked like an 
 
 Another hour passed, during which tin' ancient Servian king stepped out of the 
 
 boatman ami Tomo, besides continually margin of some illuminated manuscript 
 
 consuming cigarettes, now and then bursl of Stephen Douchau's time. lie wore 
 
 into violent invectives; still no voivoda the costume of the people of Servia, 
 
 came. The Frenchman in our party sang among whom lie had lived nearly all 
 
 a soul; ; the Italian fumed ami fretted ; his life, although he was Herzegovinan 
 
 the Slavic professor maintained an at- born. A green tunic, with looselv-flow- 
 
 titudc expressive of mild astonishment ; ing sleeves, was girt about his waist with 
 
 the Russian agent, sent to dispense a simple hell, in which there were no 
 
 moneys and charities, frowned treincn- weapons. At his side hung a fine sabre 
 
 douslv, ami hinted that the voivoda was of modern make, the symbol of his au- 
 
 not as good as his word; and we two thority. His leggins and his (i/tiinl,'s. 
 
 Americans looked from one to the other or slippers, were of line material, but 
 
 of the members of the eccentric group, much worn and frayed by long inarches 
 
 and then glanced along the dusty road in the rocky hv-uavs. Beneath the tunic 
 
 down which the voivoda was expected. his ample chest was covered by a Ser- 
 
 There he was! An old man. almost vian jacket, richly embroidered with gold 
 grovelling in the dust, was kissing his and silver. His face, exceptionally line 
 hand, worshipping in him the would-be in repose, bore an expression of simple 
 liberator of his race. Surely, the voi- good-humor when animated; a lofty 
 voda was a romantic and impressive fig- brow, only partly shaded bv a. Monte- 
 ■ne as he strode a few steps ahead of his uegrin cap ; line eves, which had a sin- 
 guard through the village. The hybrid gular fashion of looking out and away 
 Slavo-Italian children bowed and courte- from present objects, as if their owner 
 sieil ; the nut-brown maidens blushed were continually endeavoring to exain- 
 aml cast down their eves; the old ine the future ; a sensitive month and a 
 women shrieked with delight, " Voivoda ! noble brown heard, were the conspicuous 
 voivoda! Now may Heaven bless ami features. One instinctively felt proud 
 preserve you many years, ever good to take the voivoda by the hand, 
 voivoda, our only trust, our all ! " The This title of "voivoda " was not the 
 affection, the earnest adoration, were exclusive property of our friend Ljubi- 
 almost painful to witness. The men-at- bratic. In thecampal Grebzi were half- 
 arms grinned with delight and strutted a-dozen other chieftains who, from the 
 
FJ'RDVF. IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 (579 
 
 fact that they commanded large bodies 
 of men. wire privileged to employ the 
 same prefix t<> their names; but, recog- 
 nizing the fact that there must be only 
 one supreme authority, they had vested 
 it in Ljubibratic, and had permitted him 
 to be recognized in all the country round 
 as the voivoda. I have endeavored to 
 give the singular name the English 
 spelling which most resembles its sound 
 when it is pronounced by the Slavs 
 themselves. In Servia there are five 
 grand territorial divisions called voi- 
 vodies, created for convenience in 
 grouping the militia of the country, and 
 the leaders of the troops are called 
 voivoda. 
 
 As soon as he could free himself from 
 the exuberant caresses of the people in 
 the village the voivoda beckoned the 
 boatman to approach, The obsequious 
 fellow doffed his hat, and came running 
 up the stone steps, muttering compli- 
 ments iu his Italian dialect. •' Set us 
 across al yonder point," said the voivoda, 
 pointing to a lone-, ragged promontory of 
 stone some distance In-low the little white 
 houses of Ombla. " And remember," 
 he added in liquid Italian, which he spoke 
 far better than the boatman himself, 
 " let no one in the village say whither we 
 have gone or how many we are." lie 
 laid his hand heavily on the boatman's 
 shoulder. The brown hand of the Italian 
 came up to his breast and made a sign as 
 of complete subordination to the voivo- 
 da's will. We hastened into the boat, 
 and were soon on the opposite shore. As 
 we began to climb among the rocks two 
 rough-looking fellows, the very counter- 
 parts of the Italian brigands we have all 
 so often seen in operas, arose mysteri- 
 ously from behind a crag, and, without 
 even deigning to notice our parly of 
 strangers, clad in the ugly, civilized 
 clothes which are looked upon with such 
 
 contempt in the Levant, set off at a sharp 
 pace ahead of us. 
 
 The voivoda was thoughtful. The sun 
 was pouring great Hoods of scorching 
 heat down upon the bare stones, I mt he 
 seemed oblivious alike of the warmth and 
 of the mighty ascent. He lounged slowly 
 behind all the others, rolling cigarettes 
 in an indolent, thoughtful way. as every 
 one does in these Eastern countries, ami 
 now and then stopping to take a long 
 look at the Turkish frontier, which we 
 could see as soon as we had climbed to 
 the top of the first ridge. He seemed to 
 be studying every rock, as if calculating 
 how all these mule force's could be turned 
 into agents to aid in destroying the op- 
 pressive Mahometans. 
 
 It seemed like tempting Providence to 
 climb such awful heights under a burn- 
 ing sun. There were moments when the 
 courage of our party gave way during 
 th" first half-hour, and we determined to 
 return. We looked up; there towered 
 the mighty, bald masses, unutterably 
 erand, silent, severe; there seemed no 
 way through them or around or beneath 
 them. We looked down, and we saw 
 the blue waters of the inlei at < )mbla, the 
 boatmen tranquilly rowing in the breezy 
 waves or lying luxuriously stretched out 
 beneath their awnings as their little craft 
 rocked to and fro, and we were anxious 
 to get down to safe ground again. The 
 thought of night amoug these mountains 
 seemed almost frightful to us. But we 
 rose and staggered alone. 
 
 Suddenly we turned a sharp corner 
 and came to a rocky ledge, from which 
 we had a glorious view of the tranquil 
 Adriatic. How beautiful was the sea. 
 girdling the little dun-eolorcd islets and 
 setting boldly in to the romantic inden- 
 tation-, of the coast ! Miles below, on 
 the Dalmatian shore, we could see here 
 anil there a chapel lonely upon a hill- 
 
680 EUROPE IX STORM \XD CALM. 
 
 side, or a dark clump of olive trees, or neck. A second glance at the mass 
 
 a little village clinging to the rocks out showed that it was a fortification which 
 
 of which it was built. We turned from we had seen many times before, — the 
 
 the sea with a sigh, and clambered once round, picturesque fort of Czarino, 
 
 more. on the Turkish frontier. ^Vith the aid 
 
 Tomo, the guide, reminded me much of our field-glasses we could see figures 
 
 of those stalwart bronze-colored men moving about on the ramparts, and the 
 
 whom I had seen in the Indian Territory, Russian agent insisted that they, too, 
 
 those still splendid tj'pes of the fading were sweeping the sky with glasses, 
 
 Cherokee and Choctaw races lb' had and that they saw us. 
 
 the same graceful quickness of limb, the "What matter?" said the voivoda 
 
 same stern repose of feature, the same serenely. " We may sit here and make 
 
 Contempt for fatigue. He never sat mOUths at our enemies : we are on Aus- 
 
 down to rest : be was in perpetual move- trian territory, and they dare not fire on 
 
 ment. If we came by chance to a little us; and as to their sending a patrol it 
 
 terrace where some miserable peasant could not even leave the fort without 
 
 had taken advantage of half an acre of being signalled to our people at Grebzi 
 
 untrustworthy soil to grown straggling and down to us here before the Turks 
 
 vineyard, he diil not stretch his limbs in could have got well underway. There 
 
 the shade of the vines, as we did ; but are men in that fort who know these 
 
 he leaped f rom rock to rock, he vaulted mountain ways : they were brought up 
 
 lightly across a chasm, clambered up a in Herzegovina; they are renegades 
 
 peak, ran for a few yards, stood poised to their religion and to their race ; they 
 
 almost as if he were about to fly away arc the last men to venture out among 
 
 like a bird. Sometimes he sang a rude, the precipices so near nightfall; and as 
 
 but not unmusical song, in which lie was for the Asiatic portion of the garrison 
 
 joined by two Montenegrins who were there is no danger that it will come to 
 
 with us. and who kept time to the refrain us, for it is quaking with terror in antici- 
 
 liy brandishing their weapons as they pation of an attack upon the walls of 
 
 walked. Tomo constantly came to us, Czarino this very night." And the 
 
 encouraging us. speaking kind words in voivoda tranquilly lighted another cigar- 
 
 his Italian patois: "Courage! the worst ette. 
 
 is over. You will soon be at a little vil- This tort of Czarino occupies an al- 
 
 lage where miii can rest. Andiamo!" most isolated crag, about half an hour's 
 
 After an hour's climbing we found our- ride from the city of Rngusa, It donri- 
 
 selves on a huge shelf from which we nates tin' only practicable route from 
 
 could look out hundreds of yards over southern Austria, into Herzegovina 
 
 the rocky field in every direction. The and the other provinces subject to 
 
 voivoda. came to us and smilingly Turkey. The insurgents persisted in 
 
 pointed to a dark, round mass on the hovering near it. although there was 
 
 horizon, which, as birds fly, would have but little chance of securing it. " If 
 
 been scarcely a quarter of a mile distant, I had but two batteries of mountain 
 
 but which could have been reached in artillery ! " sighed the voivoda. " lint 
 
 these terrible mountains only by the we have nothing, not even ammunition 
 
 high-road from Ragusa, or by several enough to fight a good battle." He 
 
 hours of clambering at the risk of one's turned away in silence, and the Russian 
 
EUROTE IX STORM AXD CAL 1/ 
 
 681 
 
 agent began to say comforting words, 
 and to hint at the support which would 
 ho mysteriously forthcoming at the 
 proper time. 
 
 Crawling, scrambling, leaping, our 
 heads dizzy, our shoulders and limlis 
 lame, we finally came to a plateau, at 
 whose farther extremity, under the 
 shadow of a rocky hill, we saw a little 
 village. There were a. few green trees, 
 and low one-story houses, miserably 
 thatched, and heaped about with stones. 
 A ragged population came out to meel 
 us. The women were mainly engaged 
 in carrying heavy burdens, fagots of 
 wood or bundles of grain, on their 
 heads. Incessant toil had taken away 
 most of their enthusiasm ; they merely 
 courtesied as the voivoda passed. The 
 men greeted the chief with effusive 
 friendship and reverence. Although 
 still in Austria, Ljubibratic fell thor- 
 oughly at home here, because the people 
 were of the same race, religion, and 
 sentiment as the ignorant and oppressed 
 Hevzegovinans over the border. As 
 we stepped in upon the circle of a stone 
 threshing-floor, and sat down to drink 
 from a gourd, and to bathe our swollen 
 hands, torn and bruised with grasping 
 the rocks, a noble and statuesque old 
 man, fully six feet and a half in height, 
 came forward to greet the voivoda. 
 This venerable man was as erect and 
 stately as he had been at twenty-live ; 
 his eyes were dim. but he still had a 
 firm gait and a noble port, although he 
 had seen ninety years. His Hue head 
 was enveloped in a voluminous red 
 turban, but the rest of his garments 
 were, little better than rags. This was 
 the chief of the village, and he held a 
 long and animated conversation with 
 the voivoda, urging him. so said Tomo, 
 the guide, to do some (hiring act which 
 should so compromise the Slavic popu- 
 
 lation in Austria that, they would be 
 compelled to join in the struggle against 
 the Turks. When the old man had 
 finished his remarks he gravely kissed 
 the hand of the voivoda and retired, 
 saluting us with staid, solemn gestures. 
 
 From the village to tin' camp at, ( trebzi 
 there were yet two hours of vigorous 
 climbing and scrambling to be under- 
 gone, and we made but a brief halt. 
 The avant-coiiriers who laid joined us 
 at Ombla had not halted at all. lint were 
 now lost to sight beyond the jutting 
 stones on the horizon. As we left the 
 collection of miserable hovels villagers 
 crowded on the steps of the voivoda, 
 some proffering complaints that his men 
 hail robbed them of Kids or goats ; others 
 that he did not make decisive move- 
 ments enough ; yet others that he al- 
 lowed strangers — alluding to us — to 
 come into the country and to discover his 
 forces. To all these he replied by scorn- 
 ful waves of the hand, or now and then 
 by loud, imperious commands of silence. 
 We soon left the grumblers behind, and 
 were once more alone with the rocks. 
 
 But presently, as the hour of sunset 
 approached, we encountered large Hocks 
 of goats coming down from their dubious 
 pasturage of the day to their folds for the 
 night. Sometimes the only practicable 
 route was not large enough to permit of 
 the passage of our party and a flock of 
 goats also. A leader of the horned and 
 bearded denizens of the mountains would 
 eye us for a few moments, as if he con- 
 templated giving battle, but. after a sur- 
 vey of our numbers, would turn back 
 with an angry snort and a choleric stamp 
 of his fore lee',. Mori' than once T climbed 
 a high rock with a view of protecting 
 myself from the possible attacks of these 
 wild goats, that rebel even against the 
 rough mountaineers who own them. 
 
 Night came suddenly. The rocky 
 
<W2 EUROTE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 ways became obscure; one looked up came a peculiar hail, a Ions;, low crv. In a 
 in surprise to li 1 1< 1 the sky darkening moment ii was repeated. Then if wasan- 
 above him ; there seemed no slow, in- swered from our side, and also repeated, 
 sidious approach of twilight, as in lower Presently, from the left, came a similar 
 regions We quickened our pace. The hail, similarly answered liv our men, 
 body-guard scattered hither and yon, and who had gone in that direction. In a 
 no longer chattered in the smoothly moment more the rocks all around us 
 flowing Slavic Our party, French, Iial- swarmed with armed men, who jumped 
 ian, Russian, American, was oppressed down joyously, crying, " Voivoda! voi- 
 and overwhelmed by the coming dark- voda!" Many of them crowded around 
 ness. The rocks took on fantastic shapes : him, kissing his hands and the hem of 
 a belated shepherd a little way off seemed his garment, while others entered into 
 to us like a pinnacle overhanging the a noisy explanation of the events which 
 narrow path, and half-a-dozen pinnacles had occurred since his departure. Sooth- 
 looked like Mahometan soldiers wail- ing and quieting them as if they had been 
 ing to tire upon us as we passed. We children, lie led the way. calling us to 
 descended into a valley, then wearily follow, across a terribly rugged patch of 
 climbed another ridge. Nowhere now rocks a mile or two long, then down a 
 was there visible a tree or clump of fo- lane walled in on cither side, and intro- 
 liage or minutest shrub; nowhere any- duced us without warning to one of the 
 thing save rocks, — rocks on all sides most unique spectacles that my eves 
 On the top of the ridge the guards halted, have ever rested upon. 
 One of them sal down and listened in- The lane terminated abruptly <>n a 
 tently. The voivoda, who now preceded ledge from which we looked down into 
 us. motioned us to halt. Parties of the a cup set in the hills, and guarded on 
 insurgents moved to the left and the every hand by a succession of rolling 
 right. At last the voivoda seated him- valleys filled with jagged masses of stone, 
 self on a convenient stone, and calling In this deep, cup-shaped space a large 
 to us. and pointing down into a second number of little camp-fires were burn- 
 valley, now almost concealed in the rap- ing, and flitting to and fro among them 
 idly deepening shadows, and then to the we could see stalwart men armed to the 
 rugged ghostly hills beyond, he said. teeth. A loud hum. the echo of the 
 
 "Gentlemen, welcome to my domain! noisy conversation around the fires, 
 
 You arc in the Herzegovina." drifted up to our ears. Here ami there, 
 
 Nowhere was there sight or sound of where the Maine burned out, brightly, we 
 camp. The waste seemed untenanted, could sec small, ugly, black cottages. 
 Our hearts sank" as we imagined a long Away off among the rocks we heard 
 night-journey to the village among the the monotonous refrain of a song, doubt- 
 rocks. We rose with the energy of de- less sung by some warrior, who in halt- 
 spair when the voivoda invited us to con- i no- rhythm was celebrating his exploits 
 tinue the route to Grebzi. Where were of the past week or of the day. 
 the insurgent forces? The transition from tin 1 solemn and 
 
 We began to descend into the valley, awful calm of the Herzegovinan high- 
 Here there was a. narrow path of smooth lands — the calm which we had felt with 
 stones. We had gone but a few steps such terrific force just as the curtain of 
 when from the bosom of the rocks there darkness was fiuallv drawn — to this half- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 683 
 
 joyous, half-savage vivacity of the camp 
 and the village, was almost repulsive. 
 There seemed something weird, super- 
 natural in it. We dreaded to go down, 
 lest we might find that we iiad ventured 
 upon a Walpurgis Night, or some dread- 
 fill assemblage of sorcerers from below. 
 There was, however, just at this moment 
 a smart commotion in the camp: hasty 
 words were heard; there was a rattle 
 of arms ; men ran to anil fro : and a few 
 careless shots were tired. 
 
 " What is it. Tomo? " we ask eel of the 
 guide. 
 
 " It is the voivoda's arrival." he said. 
 " Probably some one on an out-of-the- 
 wav peak saw us coming, and rushed in 
 to give an alarm, thinking it might lie 
 the enemy ; but now our men have ar- 
 rived and the mistake is corrected, and 
 we shall all be welcome. You will see ;" 
 and Tomo bristled witli pride and stroked 
 his long black mustaches. 
 
 We did sec. The voivoda sprang 
 lightly down from the ledge, — it seemed 
 as if he were leaping from a high preci- 
 pice into an abyss, — but he landed safely 
 on a rock below, then upon another, and 
 we followed him. Tomo shouted to us 
 to keep in the background till he came, 
 as strange faces might not please some 
 of the more ignorant of the insurgents; 
 but our curiosity spurred us on, and 
 we strode along a narrow village street, 
 flanked on either side by one-story stone 
 hovels. Suddenly a torch Bared up, and 
 a croup of noble and impressive-looking 
 men approached. The voivoda hastened 
 toward the elder and graver of the two 
 foremost, and the pair embraced, kiss- 
 ing each other repeatedly. He then 
 gave tlie same affectionate greeting to 
 all the others, and, after some hurried 
 conversation, introduced us to Peko 
 1'avlovie, the renowned and terrible 
 slaver of Turks, and director of the 
 
 movements of a large part of the 
 f< irees. 
 
 The first instinctive movement, on 
 hearing Peko's name, was one of repul- 
 sion, for he had been described to us, 
 even by his ardent admirers, as a demon 
 incarnate, a species of Hans of [celand, 
 breathing out slaughter, delighting in the 
 mutilation of the bodies of his victims, 
 and cherishing the most fiendish malice. 
 In the early days of the insurrection Peko 
 had established tit Slivnitza — a camp 
 not far from Grebzi — a "reliquary," 
 where the heads of Turks slain in bat if 1 
 were kept as ghastly trophies. A young 
 Russian officer informed me that he had 
 visited this reliquary, and that Peko ex- 
 hibited to him with the greatest pride the 
 corpse of a Turkish officer, which iiad 
 been carried away from some skirinish- 
 lield, and was kept there that the insur- 
 gents might gloat over the corruption of 
 their enemy's body. 
 
 A moment after we had looked on Peko 
 our repulsion had vanished. lie is a 
 nobly formed Montenegrin of the heroic 
 type, pretty well past the flower of his 
 middle life. His face i> as clearly cut as 
 that of a handsome woman; his brows 
 shade a pair of deep, sombre eyes, with 
 nothing whatever murderous in their 
 glance. His thin li|>s arc shaded by a 
 broad black mustache ; his massive 
 chin, his square jaw, give evidence of 
 strength of will and character. His 
 might v chest was sheathed in a. silver 
 jacket of mail, the front, of which was 
 very elaborately ornamented. This bit 
 of mediaeval splendor, of which most 
 of the Montenegrin chiefs are very fond, 
 must have cost Peko a pretty penny. To 
 describe his weapons would lie merely to 
 puzzle the reader: suffice it to say that 
 in his girdle he wore nearly a dozen 
 small-arms, and that on the march he 
 invariablv carries a rifle, which he uses 
 
G84 
 
 WROTE IX srnilH AM) CM 1/ 
 
 unerringly. Peko has all tin 1 befitting most forcible human expressions of 
 
 qualities of a chief save education: lie the four-hundred-year period of hate 
 
 is ignorant, ami the voivoda, although of the Montenegrin for the Turk that 
 
 loss versed than Peko in the science' of I have ever seen. lie has given his 
 
 mountain warfare, lias frequently saved whole body ami soul to the task of driv- 
 
 him from blunders into which he would ing the Moslems from the mtries 
 
 have rushed, compromising the whole which they have so long oppressed, ami 
 
 iusuirection in the eves of neighboring hi' will labor mercilessly to that end 
 
 nations. When tin voivoda first came until his dying day. 
 
 from Belgrade to Herzegovina to start Peko and his fellow-chiefs, Herzego- 
 
 thc rebellion againsl tin' Turks, Peko vinan ami Montenegrin, greeted lis 
 
 was sent out by the Prince of Mou- kindly. Luca Petcovic, one of the most 
 
 tenegro to check him. and to warn him noted of the elder chieftains, was absent, 
 
 that the time was not vat. l'eko met, but there were others whose scars and 
 
 Ljubibratic, ami told him his mission; the renown of whose exploits entitled 
 
 but the voivoda would not listen to per- them to notice, who wandered with tis 
 
 suasion. Upon this l'eko seized Ljubi- about the camp, explaining, through the 
 
 bratic, had him bound hand and fool joyous and willing Tomo, everything 
 
 and conveyed to the frontier, and lie which we did not understand. As it 
 
 want lo see that the orders were obeyed, was not thought wise to attempt an ex- 
 
 l'.nt on the way to the Austrian border planation of the mission of journalists 
 
 Ljubibratic succeeded in persuadiug Peko to the common soldiers we were intro- 
 
 that the insurrection in Herzegovina duced to the group as gentlemen who 
 
 was ripe and should be begun, and that had come to inspect the " Italian squad- 
 
 the Prince of Montenegro ought to be ron," which was proving itself a most 
 
 prevailed upon to aid it, at least tacitly, efficient aid to the insurrection ; ami 1111- 
 
 Peko at once ordered the voivoda's bands der these borrowed colors we succeeded 
 
 to be unloosed, returned with him to a in obtaining a cordial welcome from every 
 
 camp, joined the insurgents, ami ac- one. The warriors left off their whining, 
 
 knowledged his late prisoner as his com- monotonous chants as we approached. 
 
 mander-in-chief. Since that time he had and rose to greet us courteously. Two 
 
 implicitly followed the lead of the voi- men were despatched to a spring, which 
 
 voda in general matters, venturing only was a long distance from the camp, for 
 
 now and then to differ in regard to the water, which they transport in these 
 
 conduct of an expedition or the treat- mountain regions in pig-skins, as they 
 
 incut of a captured enemy. do also in Spain ; and two or three other 
 
 l'eko is still a force in Herzegovina stout fellows, having slaughtered a. 
 
 against the Turks. lie rushes down sheep ami dressed it, spitted (he animal 
 
 from the mountains with a little band on an old sabre, and were soon roasting 
 
 and annihilates a convoy, beheads it whole before a cheerful lire. Having 
 
 an a°"il or a bev. or throws half-a- no longer any legs to stand on. we sank 
 
 dozen soldiers over a precipice, before down, a tired and demoralized group, 
 
 the astonished Moslems can say a upon some rocks near tin' hut in which 
 
 prayer. He kills with frenzy, but the Italians were quartered, ami watched 
 
 behind all his apparent barbarity there the warriors as they came and went, or as 
 
 is a fixed motive. He is one of the they stood indolently smoking their long 
 
EUROPE I.\ STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 68J 
 
 pipes and listening in a lialf-suspicious, 
 half-amused manner to the jargon of 
 
 English, French, and Italian which 
 echoed from our party. 
 
 Noble men physically, these warriors, 
 — the best products of Herzegovina; 
 yet men so aliased by centuries of op- 
 pression that they were hopelessly igno- 
 rant, and weri' bringing up their children 
 in ignorance. Shapely, cleanly men, of 
 fine instincts, one would say ; no low 
 cunning in their faces ; not men to knock 
 a traveller on the head, like a Sicilian 
 or Corsican mountaineer, hut men who 
 needed only a chance at development to 
 improve it. They had sent all their 
 wives and children over the Austrian 
 border, where they would be safe from 
 the murderous vengeance of the Turks 
 and of those fanatical Slavs who long 
 ago renounced the Christian religion for 
 Mohammedanism; and they felt free to 
 fight. My heart went out to these down- 
 trodden, misunderstood " rayahs," — 
 these men who might at any time be 
 hampered in their struggles for freedom 
 by the intrigues of greater nations near 
 them, — these men who followed so will- 
 ingly and obeyed so implicitly their 
 voivoda, and who looked upon him as a 
 demi-god. 
 
 Not a. house in this village camp of 
 Greb/.i had a, chimney ; the two or three 
 hovels into which we ventured were so 
 filled with smoke from the tires on the 
 hearths that we were compelled to re- 
 treat. The furniture was of the simplest 
 description. There were no beds, but 
 low stone couches, like those one sees in 
 houses in Pompeii ; on these straw and 
 blankets were spread. Chairs, tables, 
 and such luxuries "evidently had never 
 been heard of at Grebzi. It was a mis- 
 erable little village, forlorn, in the crags. 
 Before the women and children, who cul- 
 tivate the fields, had fled, it might have 
 
 been just tolerable to look at; but even 
 then it must have appeared barbarous. 
 We were lodged that night in a house 
 which, as the voivoda assured us with a. 
 smile, was once the home of a wealthy 
 fanner. It consisted of three rooms un- 
 der one thatched roof. Two of the rooms 
 were perhaps half a story higher than 
 the third, and in those we slept. The 
 inner one resembled a. cellar; its floor 
 of stone was littered with straw ; light was 
 admitted through two small apertures in 
 an immensely thick wall, and the door 
 was scarcely high enough to admit any 
 one of us. In the outer room a tire 
 
 sii lderedon the hearth, and the smoke 
 
 wandered into every corner. A lew 
 wooden bowls, trenchers, one or two rude 
 knives, an iron wash-basin, and a camp- 
 stool made in liagusa, were the only 
 articles of furniture we could discover. 
 These had contented the wealthy farmer 
 all his life, Tomo said with a grin, as he 
 arranged our sleeping-room : why should 
 we ask for more? 
 
 Before we retired t<> this abode of lux- 
 ury the chiefs came in friendliest fashion 
 to see us partake of the supper which 
 had been prepared for us. I was much 
 amused at the manner in which the men 
 who were delegated to serve us managed 
 their apologies for a lack of numerous 
 necessary articles, such as salt, bread, 
 etc. Each of them would approach the 
 voivoda respectfully and demand per- 
 mission to whisper in his car. He would 
 then very privately communicate his in- 
 telligence to the voivoda, who in his turn 
 
 would inform us thai there was no salt 
 or bread to be had. Thereupon, our 
 cooks, with a. bow to us, would withdraw 
 with a contented air, as a good ho. se- 
 wife does in America alter she has ma- 
 ligned her own cookery in the presence 
 of her guests, and given a hundred 
 reasons why it is worse than usual. 
 
68*5 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 We wore too wearv to eat much, but upon their toilets; upon the breasts of 
 
 we drank refreshing draughts of the cool Peko and one or two of his companions 
 
 water, and made our way speedily to the Russian medals glittered. The sun's 
 
 cellar-room, where we lav down upon rays threw a halo around the picturesque 
 
 the straw with Tomo as guard in front, little group, and for a moment the sheen 
 
 of the door, stretched out with his head of the weapons worn by all was dazzling. 
 
 in the smoke. The arrival of a Turkish The voivoda, in his green tunic, and with 
 
 battalion could hardly have succeeded his fine head bared to the morning breeze, 
 
 in awakening us. and the innumerable was a noble figure. Each chief as he 
 
 wood-lice and bugs native to the locality delivered his opinion stood up in the 
 
 only did it once. middle of the circle and spoke in low, 
 
 It was dawn at three o'clock. Tomo, solemn tones, sometimes gravely ges- 
 
 building the lire, aroused us. In a few ticulating with his pipe. (July one or 
 
 minutes he brought us cups of hot, fra- two of tin 1 men showed signs of anger 
 
 grant coffee, made in the Turkish fash- or excitement, and that was when they 
 
 ion. We seemed endowed with new pointed to the mountain ridge beyond 
 
 strength ; our fatigues of yesterday were which the Turks were encamped in their 
 
 forgotten. The cool air rushing in fortresses. 
 
 through the stone aperture which served The twenty-live hundred insurgents 
 for a window was inspiring. In an hour were busy polishing their arms, prepar- 
 more the camp was astir. Warriors who inn their coffee, — which appeared to lie 
 hail sung persistently until the small the only breakfast that they took, — and 
 hours appeared fresh and prepared for singing, or rather crooning, their monot- 
 war. We went down into the streets or onous melodies. A small party was de- 
 lanes, and soon mot the voivoda walk- tailed to CTOSS the Austrian frontier and 
 in" leisurely to and fro, with his hands descend to the town of Ragusa for the 
 clasped behind him. '-The council of bread, furnished by an " insurrectionary 
 war is called for six o'clock,'' he said, committee" composed of sympathetic 
 •• and you must see ii . Only, pray do not Slavs, whose breach of neutrality was 
 come too near to it. as some chief might winked at by the Austrian government, 
 fancy his sense of dignity offended." Toward seven o'clock the sentries who 
 
 We promised, and at six, as the hills had been watching all night on the peaks 
 
 all around resounded to the pipes of the round about the camp came in weary 
 
 shepherds who were leading their thicks and famished with hunger, and reported 
 
 of goats to their favorite pasturage, we that they had left others in their places, 
 
 climbed to a little eminence where grew As soon as the council broke up, huri- 
 
 some grass and a U-\\ stunted trees, dreds of men pressed about the chiefs, 
 
 There a dozen chiefs were seated in a anxious to learn their decision; ami a 
 
 circle, with the voivoda in the centre, joyous shout, which would not have been 
 
 Their gravity was as stern and uurelent- at all relished by the Turks had they 
 
 ing as that of our Indians. Most of the heard it. announced that another march 
 
 men were smoking, but the Herzegovi- and an offensive movement had been 
 
 nan rarely lays aside his pipe save when resolved upon. 
 
 he sleeps or tights. It is second nature Then came the gathering of the com- 
 
 to him to smoke. The Montenegrin panies. There was no pretence at a for- 
 
 chiefs had bestowed some little attention mal review : the nature of the ground 
 
F.riWPE LV STORM AND CALM. 
 
 687 
 
 would not have permitted it. and the 
 men were hardly well enough disciplined 
 for it. They needed no training: they 
 followed their leaders blindly, and foughi 
 desperately, in the Herzegovinan fash- 
 ion, from behind the rocks and ledges, 
 as long as their ammunition lusted, and 
 then they retreated. The voivoda pasaed 
 from group to group of the insurgents, 
 talking cheerfully and familiarly with 
 all ; then he dismissed them with a wave 
 of his hands, and turned to us, saying, 
 " These men will march all through to- 
 night, fight all day to-morrow, clamber 
 among the rocks lor hours after the hat- 
 tie, ami will go without food and water 
 for twenty-four hours at a time. If they 
 hut hail modern guns and plenty of am- 
 munition ! " 
 
 The testimony of a young French offi- 
 cer who had joined the insurgent forces, 
 and who was proving a very efficient aid 
 to the voivoda, was that these men fought 
 well, and even witli skill, seeming by in- 
 stinct to understand many things in war- 
 fare which men of other countries must 
 learn. Every one of them had regis- 
 tered a solemn vow that he would never 
 quit- the field until the Turks were driven 
 from Herzegovina or he were dead : 
 and all have kept their word. The in- 
 surrection became a war; the voivoda 
 was unluckily divested of his command 
 by the tyrannical action of the Austrian 
 government officials, who perhaps feared 
 that the Slavs in Austrian territory 
 might l>e urged to imprudent interven- 
 tion in Turkish affairs by the influence 
 of his splendid example ; hut neither 
 Peko nor any of the other chiefs, nor any 
 humblest Herzegovinan, will ever forget 
 that to the voivoda Ljubibratic, the leader 
 and master, was the first great movement 
 for freedom in Herzegovina due. 
 
 Noon came, and the insurgents pre- 
 pared to break camp. "We set out upon 
 
 our return journey. The voivoda gave 
 us an escort, and himself accompanied 
 us to a point near the frontier. Leaning 
 against a huge rock he talked for an 
 hour in his grave, stern way of his hopes, 
 his fears, his ambitions. For merciless 
 war to the Turk he was fully inclined : he 
 fell that he had men enough, but no 
 proper arms, and but little moral support 
 from the outside world. " We shall 
 make no concessions." he said simply, 
 '• and we will never lay down our arms." 
 I am glad to note that the veteran Peko 
 has carried out these principles to the 
 
 letter. 
 
 Ljubibratic looked heroic, as he stood 
 with his arms folded across his massive 
 chest, and with his figure braced against 
 the bowlder, which rose gigantic, casting 
 a shadow over us all as we gazed upon 
 him. It was by no means an agreeable 
 task for a man of his culture and breed- 
 ing to go back to daily association with 
 and constant peril among the rough 
 men in the camp behind him, — to the 
 petty dissensions of the chiefs and the 
 squalid huts on the rocky hills. — but he 
 never wavered for an instant before that 
 which he conceived to be his duty. It 
 was evident that the men felt lost with- 
 out his constant presence, for he had not 
 been with us long before little squads 
 followed him from the village and tried 
 in a hundred ways to attract his atten- 
 tion. When his hour's talk was finished 
 he sainted our whole party with that dig- 
 nified and friendly kiss upon both checks 
 which is so universal a form of salutation 
 in Servia and in many of the adjacent 
 provinces. We bade him good-by, and 
 fell to scrambling Ragusa-ward over the 
 rocks. At a descent in the path we 
 turned, and saw him still standing with his 
 eyes fixed upon us. He waved his hand ; 
 we responded with shouts, then descended 
 into the valley, and saw him no more. 
 
(i.S.S EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CII A PTER SEVENTY-EIGHT. 
 
 The Montenegrins. The Inhabitants <>i' the Black Mountain. -An Unconqnercd Race. — Amongthe 
 Rocks. — The Implacable Enemies of ihc Turks. — A Valiant Little Army. — The Montenegrin 
 Women. The Ohl Prince-Bishops of Montenegro. 
 
 I SAW my first Montenegrin as I was ing trousers; <>n his feet were the 
 
 leaving the pretty port of Spalatro, opank&s, or cowhide sandals, of his 
 
 on tho Adriatic sea, for Ragusa in Dal- native land, and on his head was the 
 
 matia. I had been wandering for weeks round cap with the red top which every 
 
 among (he warlike Serbs and Bosnians, Montenegrin seems to feel it his sacred 
 
 along the noble rivers which divide Aus- duty to wear. But I looked in vain for 
 
 tria from Turkey in Europe, and had any symptoms of ferocity or of military 
 
 seen many line specimens of the Slavic fervor in this innocent child's face, over 
 
 race, but whenever 1 had ventured to which the soft Adriatic breezes played 
 
 praise the manly qualities which 1 had almost caressingly. Was this, then, a 
 
 so often observed,] was always answered, representative of the dreaded mountain- 
 
 " Von have not seen the Montenegrins." eers whom the Turks feared as they 
 
 It was true, and I was constrained to tear to lose Paradise ; of the people who 
 
 silence. Yet it did not seem to me thai esteem most him who has beheaded 
 
 there could be, even in the redoubtable the greatest number of enemies in battle ; 
 
 Montenegro, the " Black Mountain " of of the little band who fought the French 
 
 which such wondrous stories were told, so fiercely at the beginning of this een- 
 
 meii superior in Strength of body, in turv. and whose descendants have so 
 
 symmetry ami suppleness of limb, in often since made the Mussulmans lower 
 
 heroism and patriotism combined with their standards on the plains of Grahovo? 
 
 stern ferocity and Sterling honesty of Was this the type for which I had been 
 
 purpose, to my good friends of Servia prepared by so many thrilling anecdotes 
 
 and Bosnia. [ looked forward , however, of heroic actions among the crags and 
 
 to a great surprise some daw and had along the edges of tin' precipices in the 
 
 awaited the appearance of the first Mon- Tsernagora? I was about to turn away, 
 
 tenegrin type with impatient curiosity. incredulously smiling, when the boy, as 
 
 When I saw this type I was lor a if he were conscious of having been 
 
 moment grievously disappointed. Just keenly observed, turned toward us half 
 
 as the ruined walls of Diocletian's palace defiantly, and then for the first time 
 
 were fading in the horizon, and our [ noticed that the girdle which he wore 
 
 little steamer was running well out. to about his waist was literally crammed 
 
 sea, my attention was called by a fellow- with weapons. An enormous yataghan, 
 
 passenger to a boy of fourteen or fifteen whose lull was incrusted with silver, and 
 
 who stood among the pea-ants and which seemed too huge for the bo\ to 
 
 soldiers on the lower deck. Theboywas swing unless he used both hands, was 
 
 dressed in a while tunic and gray How- the prominent object in this peranum- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 689 
 
 luting arsenal. Grouped around it wen 1 
 two huge, ungainly pistols, each nearly 
 as long as the yataghan, a dagger con- 
 cealed in a sheath curiously inlaid with 
 silver, and a knife such as every Dal- 
 matian and Montenegrin invariably 
 carries, finding it equally convenient to 
 thrust into his enemy's heart or to cut 
 the pieces of roasted kid which he eats 
 for his supper. 
 
 As the boy turned he instinctively 
 placed one hand upon the hilt of his 
 yataghan. The gesture had nothing of 
 menace in it. but it was a fitting revela- 
 tion of the national characteristic. Alert, 
 vigorous, shapely, keen, the young 
 mountaineer's attitude at last excited 
 my admiration, and I finally accepted 
 him as the type of his race, expect- 
 ing nevertheless soon to encounter speci- 
 mens more in accordance with my earliest 
 ideal. 
 
 During the two days' voyage which 
 followed my companion entered into the 
 good graces of the young Montenegrin, 
 and found that this sublime boy was 
 already a noted warrior ; that he had 
 left his native peaks and rocks because 
 he wished to aid the Christians in Bosnia 
 against the Turks, and, having fought 
 well there, had been sent on a mission to 
 Trieste, whence he was then returning. 
 What was his mission? Ah, that was a 
 secret! He shook his head and looked 
 fierce when some one suggested that he 
 had been sent to buy arms for the Her- 
 zegovinan insurgents. Once he smiled 
 scornfully, and then he said in a quick, 
 fierce tone, "When we want arms we 
 take them from the Turks." History 
 certainly confirms this assertion. In 
 1858, during some of the many disputes 
 between Turkey and Montenegro, the 
 Montenegrins fell upon an invading 
 army vastly superior in numbers to their 
 own and disarmed it. A few weeks later 
 
 an Austrian officer who had visited the 
 Black Mountain announced that he had 
 seen two thousand two hundred and 
 thirty-seven skeletons of Turkish soldiers 
 on the field where this "disarmament" 
 occurred. 
 
 He who wanders among the rocks of 
 Montenegro readily understands the char- 
 acter of the people. The little prin- 
 
 MOXTEXEGRINS ON THE WATCH. 
 
 eipality has without doubt a more re- 
 markable situation than any other country 
 in the world. Travellers who have looked 
 down upon it from the summit of Mt. 
 Lovchen, its dominating peak, say that 
 it resembles an immense petrified sea. 
 As far as the eye can reach in any direc- 
 tion nothing is to be seen but vast stony 
 waves and wrinkles in the black surface 
 of the rocks, — waves and wrinkles 
 which, if one were close to them, would 
 prove gigantic precipices, yawning 
 chasms, valleys deep and sheltered, in 
 which a few hardy Montenegrin women 
 watch the goats and sheep cropping the 
 
600 EUROTE IN STURM AND CALM. 
 
 short grasses among the stones. In this him. The struggle, the hatred, was 
 delicious southern climate the cloudless never greater than now, ■ was Monte- 
 blue sky in summer arches tenderly negro ever bolder, for behind her stands 
 above these frowning and terrible rocks, a power whose prudence in aiding her 
 these colossal walls, and one is led to against the Turk is only exceeded by its 
 wonder why, instead of this oppressive firmness ami the immensity of its re- 
 aml appalling desolation, he does not sources, — a power that is feared in 
 see hundreds of rich vineyards with Turkey, formidable and determined in 
 their purpling fruits gleaming in the sun. Russia. 
 
 or groves of olives, or lawns watered by Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Montene- 
 
 picturesque rivers, rushing seaward past gro all formed a part of the ancient 
 
 flower-strewn banks. But the Montene- country of the Dalmatians, which was 
 
 grin never asks himself these questions, united to the Roman empire under Tibe- 
 
 Born aimine (he rocks, he loves them, rius. These various territories were 
 
 and would on no conditions exchange settled, toward the middle of the seventh 
 
 them for the pleasures of fertile valleys century, by the Slavic tribes which 
 
 or fruitful hill-sides. He loves to cele- came from beyond the Carpathian moun- 
 
 brate in his songs the charms of the tains. Had these tribes been united 
 
 paths along- the dizzy eminences where permanently, they would to-day have 
 
 he only can tread freely; h< mpares formed one of the most powerful nations 
 
 himself to the falcon ; he is in his "lory in Europe, lint up to the date of the 
 
 when his province is invaded, ami he is Ottoman conquest they wwc generally 
 
 at liberty to fight from rock to rock, to separate and distinct. Bosnia was ruled 
 
 lie in wait foi' hours behind piles of by kings, Herzegovina by dukes, and 
 
 stones, to leap exultant into the very Montenegro by vladikas, or prince- 
 
 midst of his foes, brandishing his sword, bishops. The people of each province 
 
 and shouting "Glory to the people! " did deeds of valor, but all save Monte- 
 
 The frontiers of Montenegro have negro succumbed before the fury of the 
 
 always been uncertain. For several Ottoman sword. The mountaineers have 
 
 centuries the territory has varied in ex- for four hundred and fifty years kept the 
 
 lent according to its fortunes in war. Turk at bay, although he has succeeded 
 
 Never for a moment owning the domina- in maintaining a foothold in every one 
 
 lion of the Turks, its people have been of their kindred provinces except l)al- 
 
 constantly embroiled with them, and matia, which is protected by the Austrian 
 
 have kept such frontiers as they chose flag. 
 
 to establish as long as they could by Montenegro is bounded on the north 
 
 force of arms. From time to time the and north- west by Herzegovina, on the 
 
 Turks have succeeded in forcing their north-east and east by Bosnia, and on 
 
 way in; then the Montenegrins have the south-east and east by Albania, 
 
 risen and reasserted their rights by and on the south-west by Dalmatia. In 
 
 driving out the enemy, and by cutting form its boundaries are not unlike a 
 
 off the heads of all Turks left on the rudely shaped star. B had no outlet 
 
 battle-field. The Montenegrin was and upon the Adriatic sea until after the 
 
 is cradled to the sound of songs which Russo-Turkish war, since the Austrians 
 
 tell him to hate (he Turk and to kill him held the port of Cattaro, one of the 
 
 whenever and wherever he may meet loveliest spots in Southern Europe, 
 
EUROPE IN STollM AND CALM. 
 
 fi91 
 
 which would have been the most practi- 
 cable port for the Montenegrins ; and 
 Dulcigno, the next best, was in the pos- 
 session of Turkey. The latter town, with 
 its surrounding district, was surrendered 
 to Montenegro under pressure of the 
 great powers, in 1880. The principal 
 route to its capital among the rocks and 
 crags, and arrived at only by the paths 
 through seemingly inaccessible moun- 
 tains, leads from Cattaro, which the 
 traveller may reach by steamer from 
 Trieste in a little more than four days. 
 One's first impression on gazing at the 
 rocks around Cattaro is that he is dream- 
 ing. Everything seems fantastic, un- 
 real, stagey; one is reminded of a fairy 
 scene in a spectacle at a theatre. The 
 Dalmatian coast, witii its vast crags 
 towering skyward, touched here and there 
 with white, which contrasts admirably 
 with their arid, reddish garb of stone, 
 docs not prepare one for the wonders 
 into whose presence he is ushered at the 
 " Bocca di Cattaro." 
 
 The name Montenegro, according to 
 that amiable patrician of Cattaro, Mari- 
 ano Bolizza, who explored the country at 
 the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
 and made a report upon it to the Vene- 
 tian republic, was given to this section 
 by the Turks, because its gloomy re- 
 cesses were associated in their minds 
 with so many attacks from enemies 
 whom they could never see or seize. 
 Whoever gave the land the name, its 
 appropriateness cannot be questioned. 
 When the traveller crosses the lake of 
 Scutari, in Albania, and sees before him 
 an impenetrable amphitheatre of moun- 
 tains clad in most sombre colors, of 
 rocky surfaces filled with an infinite 
 number of recesses where the shadows 
 gather, and of uplands covered in sum- 
 mer with thick but dark foliage, and in 
 winter with nothing save the blackened 
 
 skeletons of boughs, he will strive in 
 vain to discover a better appellation for 
 such a panorama than .Montenegro. 
 
 The population of this little princi- 
 pality is barely one hundred and ninety 
 thousand ; and fully one-third of the men 
 are nearly always absent from home, 
 engaged in warlike expeditions. The 
 Montenegrins welcomed the Ilerzego- 
 vinan insurrection with joy, because it 
 gave them a new chance to tight and to 
 kill Turks. They could hardly persuade 
 themselves to obey the injunction which 
 their prince was compelled to serve 
 upou them, not to aid the insurrection 
 by organized action in large bodies. 
 They vanished across the frontier two by 
 two, and found their way into the various 
 head-quarters of the insurgent chiefs, 
 where they were received as men who 
 would never yield to the Turk nor listen 
 to his promises. So inflamed with rage 
 against the Moslems are the Montene- 
 grins of late years that they cannot even 
 hear the latter mentioned without grasp- 
 ing their weapons convulsively. At the 
 battle near Utowo, in the autumn of 
 1875 these fiery mountaineers broke 
 ranks and rushed with drawn knives 
 upon the battalions of Turks. Nothing 
 could withstand them, and the Turks, 
 throwing away their guns, tied as if the 
 foul fiend were after them. 
 
 The country is divided into provinces, 
 or natrie, as they are called, four be- 
 longing to Montenegro proper, and four 
 to the Berda, the name given to the moun- 
 tainous district in the interior. Each 
 of these provinces is subdivided into 
 plemena, which correspond to the can- 
 tons of Switzerland, and the plemena 
 are divided into villages. Every prov- 
 ince lias a distinctly marked type of 
 inhabitant ; people who live but a few 
 miles apart are radically dissimilar in 
 temperament, in stature, and in methods 
 
092 
 
 EUROPE LN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 of thougbl ; :iinl this is the most curious 
 of the many peculiarities of Montenegro. 
 The finest type of the mountaineer and 
 warrior is tin- man six feet tall, with 
 grave, thoughtful face, which contrasts 
 singularly with his quick, nervous gait, 
 lie generally lias high cheek-bones, like 
 an Indian; his eye is black and pierc- 
 ing; his lips are shaded by a square 
 black mustache; there is a slight stoop 
 in his shoulders, accounted for by the 
 fact that he is constantly bending for- 
 ward as he ascends difficult heights ; 
 his feet are hum'. Bat, and ungraceful, 
 made for the solid business of gripping 
 the rocks and clinging to them. The 
 Montenegrin of every type is by no 
 means devoid of tact; he is artful in 
 deception when dealing with an enemy ; 
 fond of ambush and stratagem ; cruel, 
 sanguinary, and unappeasable in re- 
 venge; enthusiastic in his friendships; 
 not given to sudden anger, but slow to 
 repent of wrath, even though he may be 
 in the wrong. He is probably the most 
 agile human being on the soil of 
 Europe. He can go anywhere that the 
 chamois can. The goats sometimes 
 hesitate to follow their Montenegrin 
 shepherds when there is a dangerous 
 pass to be crossed. Every inhabitant 
 of the principality, man, woman, or 
 child, possesses the most extraordinary 
 power of enduring hunger and thirst. 
 The men will march for days among the 
 rocks, eating nothing but coarse bread 
 made from bitter roots, and now and 
 then descending into the valleys to taste 
 the brackish water in the pools. He 
 who cannot endure tremendous fatigue 
 is looked upon as worthless in Montene- 
 gro ; the women frown upon him, and 
 his fellow-men abhor him. Dming the 
 last century the warriors now and then 
 degenerated into banditti, and some- 
 times made fierce raids along the fron- 
 
 tiers ; lint this practice was so sternly 
 relinked in L796 by one of their rulers 
 that it has now quite fallen into decay. 
 The Turks are molested by their warlike 
 neighbors only on occasions when some 
 new broil between the two nationalities 
 has occurred. There is a deep religious 
 feeling among all classes; even the 
 rudest warrior, when he arrives on the 
 hills from which he can look down to 
 the monastery at Tsettiuje. will doff his 
 cap and with bared head will murmur 
 a prayer. In the insurgent camp in 
 Herzegovina I frequently saw Monte- 
 grins who were known to be extremely 
 cruel in battle entering a wayside cot- 
 tage with the peaceful salutation of 
 " God lie with you ! " or with the words, 
 
 "By my God, by thy God!" The 
 effusive Slavic manners prevail among 
 these rough men. They kiss when they 
 meet and part ; they hold each other 
 clasped in fast embrace for a moment, 
 then they separate gravely and deco- 
 rously. Tin- stranger among them is 
 treated with the same cordiality, unless 
 he manifest a disposition to resent it. 
 
 The Montenegrins have frequently 
 been accused of slavery to superstition; 
 but this is a slander. There are some 
 few remnants of superstitious practices 
 among them, but these are fast fading 
 out. They are far too healthy and vig- 
 orous beings to become the prey of any 
 absurdities. Their bearing is wonder- 
 fully fine ; their sight is so acute that one 
 fancies them boasting when they tell him 
 how far they can sec. Their accuracy 
 of aim is remarkable. During the insur- 
 rection of 18G9 the Austrian soldiers 
 attempted to coerce some of the moun- 
 taineers near Cattaro into obedience to 
 the conscription laws. The riflemen of the 
 insurgents shot into the loop-holes of a 
 fortress which they were besieging, and 
 did it with such precision that no Aus- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND C 1/ I/. 
 
 693 
 
 trian soldier could maintain his position 
 near the embrasures. The Montengrin 
 rarely misses his aim, and when he does 
 he considers it a personal dishonor, which 
 can only be wiped out by some glorious 
 deed. 
 
 The popes or priests of the Greek 
 Church, to which the Montenegrins ad- 
 here, are fully as warlike as their pa- 
 rishioners. Half a dozen of them are 
 prominent among the leaders in the Iler- 
 zegovinan insurrection. They rejoice 
 in the deeds which one would imagine 
 their religion would compel them to re- 
 prove. At night they gather around 
 them the young and old men, and with 
 musical voices, although to a monotonous 
 chant, they recite the valorous deeds of 
 their ancestors, and do not forget those 
 which they have done themselves. They 
 love to point to the trophies which they 
 have taken from the dead bodies of their 
 enemies, and to recount the slaughter 
 necessary to secure them. At Tsettinje 
 there is a priest who was a brave guerilla 
 chieftain in one of the recent wars. 
 Many a Turk has he sent to the other 
 world ; and he is very proud of it. On 
 the breast of his robe are sewn a dozen 
 decorations which he has received for 
 deeds of valor. Nothing is more com- 
 mon than to see a child of twelve or 
 thirteen who has already been in a 
 dozen battles, and who bears as many 
 scars on his body. 
 
 The formation of a regular military 
 system in Montenegro has been of great 
 service in preventing many jealousies 
 and avoiding numerous bloody feuds. 
 There are at present two strong divisions 
 of ten thousand men, each under the 
 command of the prince, and armed with 
 excellent modern weapons. In this val- 
 iant little body there is a chance for pro- 
 motion, and the genius and skill which 
 have hitherto been wasted in desultory 
 
 warfare are concentrated. The army 
 has a general-in-chief, known :is the voi- 
 voda, and other voivodas hold ranks cor- 
 responding to those of division and briga- 
 dier generals. The Montenegrin woman 
 is in many respects an object of pity to 
 the travellers who pass through the 
 strange little principality ; but there is no 
 woman in the country who would nol tie 
 grievously offended at any show of sym- 
 pathy. To work incessantly and to suf- 
 fer is the destiny of the women of this 
 race. They are not even welcomed into 
 the world : a Montenegrin father, when 
 asked by his neighbor what the sex of 
 his new-born child is, answers, "God 
 pardon me! it is a girl;" sometimes he 
 says, " It is a serpent," which is a poeti- 
 cal manner of expressing his regret at 
 the birth of a daughter. The girl grows 
 up neglected, and often cursed ; she 
 carries fagots of wood on her head, in 
 order that she may earn a few coins with 
 which to buy arms for her brothers. 
 She has no youth; at twenty-five she 
 seems already old. She is married 
 young, and bears and cares for her chil- 
 dren while supporting labor in the fields 
 which would be hard even for strong 
 men. She trembles before her father, 
 her brother, her husband ; she only 
 awakens to freedom and independence of 
 action when excited by the noise of the 
 combat, to which she frequently follows 
 the warriors. She luges them on, and 
 loads their guns, and dresses their 
 wounds. The Montenegrin woman is 
 rarely beautiful of feature, and the coarse 
 work which she performs soon ruins her 
 form. Her virtue is beyond reproach; 
 intrigues are unknown in Montenegro, 
 and gallantry would find a sharp reproof 
 at the point of a yataghan. The women 
 wander unattended wherever I hey please 
 throughout the country ; for while a 
 Montenegrin warrior would never think 
 
694 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 of relieving a woman from the heavy courage and his prowess in front of the 
 
 burden of fagots or provisions which she enemy. 
 
 may be fainting under, and while he may, This overworked and much-abused 
 
 perhaps, rail at her for her weakness, lie creature 1ms one gracious accomplish- 
 
 would not by word or deed offer her ment: the Montenegrin woman is ex- 
 
 the slightest insult. The woman is ceedingly expert in embroideries, and 
 
 almost servile with regard to her 1ms- they are a prominent feature of the 
 
 band; if she sees him coming along the national costume. The women work at 
 
 road, she turns off, or passes him rapidly, them when they are walking along the 
 
 that he may not be compelled to recog- roads bearing upon their heads burdens 
 
 ni/.e her. Should the warrior be seen which seem heavy enough to crush a 
 
 wasting his time in loitering by his wife's pack-horse. 
 
 side, he would be subjected t<> reproach White is the national color, and the 
 from the elders in the village. A few very height of Montenegrin elegance is 
 years since one could not have found a white tunic embroidered with gold. A 
 in the whole (if Montenegro cue woman garmenl of this kind sometimes costs 
 knowing how to read or write ; latterly more than $300. The ordinary costume 
 some few schools, to which women have of the warrior consists of a. tunic de- 
 access, have been established. scending to the knee and confined at the 
 The duties of hospitality all fall upon waist by a girdle ; a huge waistcoat, the 
 the woman. it i^ she who unlaces the top of which shows above the loose 
 boots of the stranger when he arrives, tunic, and is generally embroidered in 
 anil who washes his feet, who serves at "old or studded with precious stones; 
 the table, ami holds the flaming pine- and trousers of the Turkish pattern, 
 knot by which the others see to eat. made of blue cloth, and knotted below 
 The husband does not even notice his the knees by garters. 
 wife, unless it be to request some menial The prince ami one or two other high 
 service of her. dignitaries wear a cloak of red cloth. 
 It is a wonder Montenegrin babies very rich and graceful, over all the other 
 ever live through the severe course of garments. Every warrior wears a small 
 swaddling which they undergo from their girdle, called the Jcolan, which is made 
 earliest day until they are weaned. They of leather or red morocco, and is divided 
 are strapped to boards and slung over into compartments intended for pistols, 
 the back's of their mothers, and thus, daggers, and yataghan. Every boy 
 winter and summer, they make long wears one from earliest childhood, but 
 journeys in the mountains and among until he can be trusted with a. pistol is 
 the rocks. allowed to carry only such innocent play- 
 When the husband falls ill it is not the things as a dagger and small sword, 
 wife who cans for him, but his parents. The strouka is a garment common too 
 Etiquette demands that the wife should both sexes. It is a. broad ami long 
 appear indifferent to his condition, ami woollen scarf with tasselled ends, some- 
 should attend to her duties in house ami what resembling the blanket worn in 
 field as if he were in no danger. Hut Southern Spain, and is woven by the old 
 when he dies she is expected to burst women who can no longer bring wood 
 into loud lamentations, ami in all the from the mountains. This blanket is the 
 country round sing the praises of his Montenegrin's only protection from wind 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 695 
 
 or rain or biting cold ; and a local prov- 
 erb says, " Rain or shine, take j'our 
 strouJca with you : you can sleep under 
 it or on it." The opankb, or hide slip- 
 per, which the mountaineers, men and 
 women, wear, is clumsy in shape, but 
 wonderfully convenient for rock-climb- 
 ing. The Austrian soldiers in the moun- 
 tains near Cattaro endeavored to adopt 
 the opank&s for chasing' insurgents, but 
 they discovered that it requires long 
 practice to learn how to walk in them. 
 They are tied on with a multitude of 
 strings, and it is a work of art to learn 
 how to slip them off speedily. 
 
 The costume of the women is not un- 
 graceful. The chief article is the Ion-/, 
 a long basque without sleeves, which 
 descends to the knee. If the family be 
 rich, this gown is sometimes embroid- 
 ered with costly stuffs. But, whether 
 a woman be rich or poor, she usually 
 wears an apron made of silk or of some 
 glistening material, and an ample girdle 
 surmounted with an object very much 
 like an enormous door-plate. Into this 
 girdle she thrusts all her sewing mate- 
 rials, her dagger, her jewels, and such 
 of her broideries as she does not wish 
 for the moment to display. Until the 
 day of their marriage the women wear 
 round caps exactly like those worn by 
 the men. From that moment they always 
 appear in public wearing the marama, a, 
 vast kerchief of silk or wool, which 
 completely conceals their hair and falls 
 down to the waist, covering the shoul- 
 ders and giving the wearer the look of 
 a nun. 
 
 The lupii, which the male Montene- 
 grin wears as his head covering, has its 
 legend, poetic and sanguinary. The 
 warrior mivs that the red ground of the 
 cap signifies the lake of blood into which 
 the country has been plunged ever since 
 the great and disastrous battle of Ko- 
 
 sovo ; that the black border denotes the 
 veil of mourning extended over the 
 whole section; that the golden disk 
 shown emerging from this funereal crape, 
 and surrounded with an aureole, is the 
 Montenegrin sun rising on a bloody 
 horizon, but rising to warm into new 
 life with its generous rays a regenerate 
 and liberated race. No warrior of the 
 " Black Mountain" country would wear 
 any other head covering than this Jcapa 
 for any consideration whatever. 
 
 In the old days the Montenegrin via- 
 dikas, or prince-bishops, had entire pos- 
 session of the civil, military, and re- 
 ligious power of the country, and the 
 populations, bound to them by mysteri- 
 ous reverence, were passionately devoted 
 to their service. Peter II. was the last 
 of the vladikas. He died in 1851, after 
 a singularly brilliant and satisfactory 
 career, during which lie did much to 
 soften the manners of his people. In 
 his early youth he had been a shepherd, 
 Imt he was subsequently educated in 
 Russia. Some years before his death 
 he .showed rare poetical taste, and on 
 the different occasions when he visited 
 European capitals he was recognized as 
 a man of marked talent in literature. 
 Dying, he designated his nephew Da- 
 nilo to succeed him. When Daniloeame 
 to the throne he announced his inten- 
 tion of relinquishing the old theocratic 
 power with which his family hail been 
 invested for a century and a half, and 
 that he would content himself with reign- 
 ing as civil and military chief of the 
 country. The senate ratified this deter- 
 mination, the Russian Government lent 
 its powerful support to the new pro- 
 gramme, and Montenegro became an 
 absolute monarchy under the hereditary 
 government of a prince. Danilo's as- 
 sassination at Cattaro. in August of 18G0, 
 bv a returned exile, brought to the throne 
 
696 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM 
 
 the present prince, Nicholas I., a man showed great skill in managing his res- 
 
 of rare talents, fine sympathies, and con- tive people and in responding smoothly 
 
 siderable tact in politics. All who have to the irritating demands of the Turkish 
 
 seen this prince in his simple palace envoys, who only sought an excuse for 
 
 among the rocks at Tsettiuje unite in invading his territory. The forts which 
 
 according him generous praise. In the Turkey is allowed to maintain on the 
 
 troublous moments of the autumn of Montenegrin border are a perpetual 
 
 1878, when imprudent action on the part menace to the independence of the little 
 
 of Montenegro might have precipitated principality, ami are the cause of dozens 
 
 all Europe in war. Prince Nicholas of skirmishes yearly. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 697 
 
 < 1 1 AFTER SEVENTY-NINE. 
 
 Prince Nicholas of Monteiit 
 
 -The Outpost of Russia. — The Montenegrin Capital. 
 Turks. — Legends of Tsernagora. 
 
 Battle with the 
 
 PRINCE Nicholas has evidently a 
 higher opinion <if women than 
 most of his countrymen have, for when 
 he visited Rnssiti. in 1869, lie left the 
 regency in the hands of Milena Niko- 
 lawa, his wife, a lady of much beauty 
 and rare character. The visit of the 
 prince to St. Petersburg was not without 
 political significance. From that time 
 may be said to date the public ac- 
 knowledgment of the species of pro- 
 tectorate which Russia has established 
 over Montenegro. Russia has made of 
 this little star-shaped province her avant- 
 poste in the East. It was even said 
 jestingly in Austria that Mr. Alexan- 
 dre Yonine, the Russian consul at Ra- 
 gusa, the chief Dalmatian town near the 
 •• Black Mountain,'* was the real prince 
 of Montenegro, because through him it 
 was believed that the Russian government 
 directed the policy which, with the aid of 
 Montenegro and Montenegrin enthusi- 
 asm, it hopes to carry out. By sup- 
 porting Prince Nicholas in his mountain 
 home in his battles against the Turks, 
 and by aiding Prince Milan in Servia to 
 continue rebellious, Russia was steadily 
 preparing the downfall of the Turkish 
 power in Europe and the reuniting of 
 all the long-separated branches of the 
 Serbo-Shivic family. 
 
 The prince voluntarily abdicated many 
 of his rights as absolute monarch in 
 1868, and the Montenegrin senate now 
 has very large powers. But the prince 
 is still all powerful in matters of foreign 
 
 policy, and the people are quite content 
 that in those his will should be the law. 
 The route from Cattaro to Tsettinje 
 runs through one of the prettiest valleys 
 in Montenegro, — a valley which gives 
 its name to the reigning dynasty, — 
 the Niegroch. But after the charms of 
 Cattaro even the Niegroch seems savage 
 and forbidding. Cattaro has grand old 
 villas with red roofs, terraces loaded 
 with luxuriant blossoms, eminences 
 crowned with poplars and acacias. 
 Out of the labyrinth of crooked but 
 cleanly streets peer little gardens whose 
 rows of shrubs and flowering plants are 
 fantastically trimmed. Over dingy and 
 massive balconies huge ancient vines 
 wind and turn in loving and clinging 
 profusion and confusion. At each step 
 one comes upon half-ruined memorials 
 of Byzantine architecture; a sculptured 
 balustrade is seen through a grove of 
 orange trees ; among the citrons one 
 ctin dimly discern capitals of mouldering 
 pillars, porticoes, artistic bits of iron 
 and steel decoration fastened upon the 
 fronts of mansions, all the chaste and 
 elegant remnants of a vanished past. 
 Here onelooksshudderinglyforthe shades 
 of the Saracens who held the old town in 
 the ninth century, long titter the Romans 
 
 — who esteemed it one of their best ports 
 when they held Dalinatia in their grip 
 
 — had been forgotten. Many masters 
 have held Cattaro siuce then ; the Vene- 
 tians left their mark upon it ; the kings 
 of Bosnia thought it one of their best 
 
698 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 strongholds; then the Venetians took if 
 again, and kepi it fur nearly four hun- 
 dred years, making it one of the centres 
 of the arts, the learning, and the mili- 
 tary genius of the period. From 17;i7 
 until 1808 Cattaro was successively 
 Austrian, French, Russian, French 
 again, and, finally, in 1814, came once 
 more under Austrian domination. The 
 population of the surrounding district 
 lias never liked the Austrian*, and rarely 
 misses an occasion to testify its repug- 
 nance. The commerce of the town is 
 with the Montenegrins, and so are the 
 sympathies of its merchants. It is a 
 brave little fortress-ridden community, 
 which the rocks seem determined to 
 push off into the sea, but which main- 
 tains its hold, and serenely survives 
 earthquakes, revolutions, and changes 
 of government. Were it not for the 
 few stiff and awkward soldiers whom 
 one sees strutting about the entry of the 
 port one could with difficulty persuade 
 himself that Cattaro is an Austrian 
 town, for the Montenegrin men and 
 women arc everywhere to lie seen in the 
 narrow streets. Every mountaineer, as 
 he arrives at the dividing line between 
 the city and the country, is compelled to 
 deposit his arms with a frontier guard, 
 when he is going into Austria. This he 
 considers a great indignity, and it is the 
 source of frequent recriminations, and 
 sometimes of bloody quarrels. In the 
 market, on the outskirts of the town, the 
 hardy Montenegrin is allowed to bear 
 his weapons about with him. 
 
 The traveller leaves tin- stony hemi- 
 cycle of the pori, the charms of Cattaro, 
 and enters upon a zigzag route dug in 
 the side of the rocks when he departs 
 
 for Tscttinjc. 'I"he prudent wanderer 
 will start before dawn; for as soon as 
 the ^llli develops its fervor the ascent is 
 almost perilous. On the arid .surface 
 
 the heat beats down with terrific effect. 
 Then 1 is no comfort in the gleam of the 
 distant blue sea. Above, the crags 
 tower, pitiless and gigantic. The path 
 or staircase winds round and round, 
 never continuing more than a few yards 
 in a straight line. The very monotony of 
 those abrupt turns becomes inexpres- 
 sibly wearisome. Sure-footed mules, 
 driven by women or children, and loaded 
 with wool, with fish, or with grain, often 
 blockade tin- way, and the traveller is 
 sometimes at his wits' end to contrive 
 an escape from some abyss into which 
 the crowding caravans seem about to 
 urge him. If one escapes without seri- 
 ous adventure in his journey up this 
 tortuous path, he finds himself presently 
 entering upon a wider but still more 
 rocky route, and at last reaches the 
 valley of Niegroeh, in a little nook of 
 which Prince Nicholas was born, and 
 where, in a quaint villa, erected some 
 years since, the royal family passes 
 some portion of every summer. 
 
 The journey from Cattaro to Tsettinje' 
 occupies live hours of active climbing ; 
 and if the Montenegrin guide is in a 
 communicative mood, and persists in 
 telling you, in his poetical and rich 
 Scrbo-Slavic language, the legend of 
 every stone which lies by the way, a 
 whole day may be readily consumed. 
 Tscttinjc is a little village composed of 
 two streets among the rocks. There 
 are sixty or seventy small white cot- 
 tages, the interiors of which arc by no 
 means so invitingly clean as one could 
 desire. One or two of the residences 
 perhaps merit the name of mansions; 
 these served in past days as the habita- 
 tions cf princes. The hall occupied by 
 the present Montenegrin senate, the 
 government printing office, the arsenal, 
 the treasury, and the ••archives'' is 
 small, and quite devoid of any architect- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 699 
 
 ural pretensions. Onec upon a time it 
 was the royal palace ; and because a 
 billiard table was brought to it on the 
 
 backs of men from Cattaro, the people 
 of the neighborhood to this day call it 
 Bigliardo. The "palace" at present 
 occupied by Prince Nicholas is a very 
 plain, one-story edifice. It once pos- 
 sessed a roof covered with lead, but 
 there came a time when bullets were 
 much needed, and the lead was wrenched 
 off and used to kill Turks with. This 
 was but one of many free-will offerings 
 from the prince to his people for the 
 common safety- Under a great tree in 
 the centre of the village the warriors 
 meet when rumors of battle are in the 
 air. They sit in a semi-circle, smoke 
 much, talk little, decide quickly, and 
 then go forth to slaughter. If they 
 need any inspiration they have only tr 
 turn their gaze in the direction of the 
 " Turks' Tower," a small, round edifice 
 on a high rock which overlooks the 
 town. On this tower it has been from 
 time immemorial the custom to nail the 
 heads of decapitated enemies. The 
 prince who preceded Nicholas sup- 
 pressed this public barbarism; but 
 neither he nor his successor will ever 
 succeed in preventing the Montenegrin 
 who has slain a Turk in battle from 
 cutting off his head. Unimpeachable 
 witnesses assert that fifty-five Turkish 
 heads were brought away from the fight 
 at Utowo ; and Peko the Terrible, who 
 was one of the most active of the 
 Montenegrin agents in the Ilerzegovinan 
 insurrection, himself told me that the 
 practice of dissecting an enemy still pre- 
 vails among his people. 
 
 The venerable monastery of Tset- 
 tinje is the only picturesque building in 
 the whole neighborhood. It was erected 
 at the close of the fifteenth century by 
 niie of the vladikas, near the site of a 
 
 cloister which had been founded in 1484, 
 but- had been much injured in serving 
 alternately as a fortress against the 
 Turks and a plaything for violent earth- 
 quakes. The monastery of to-day serves 
 as a home of the vladika and the archi- 
 mandrite, the chief of the orthodox reli- 
 gion professed according to the Greek 
 rite throughout Montenegro, and also as 
 a prison for women who need correction. 
 Prince Nicholas now and then gives a 
 banquet to his warriors in his modest 
 palace, and the spectacle on such occa- 
 sions is unique in the extreme. From 
 all points in the little principality come 
 tall, gaunt men, clad in their gala cos- 
 tumes, and wearing cuirasses of silver 
 or steel. Gathered round the banquet 
 table, they are decorous and diffident, 
 saying but little until the prince leads 
 them on to tell of their exploits. Late 
 at night, after the princely festivities are 
 over, the warriors gather in a circle 
 around a little fire in a cottage, and 
 sing songs filled with memories of com- 
 bat. 
 
 The prince is cool, hardy, and resolute 
 in the midst of danger. He narrowly 
 escaped assassination at the hands of 
 a Turk some years ago, but he wanders 
 about the country unprotected whenever 
 he pleases, with no fear of a second 
 attempt. His conduct during the disas- 
 trous day when Omar Pacha in 1802 suc- 
 ceeded iii gaining a temporary victory 
 over the Montenegrins was in the high- 
 est degree manly and wise. His father, 
 Mirko, who was a terrible scourge to the 
 Turks, and who was aiding in the com- 
 plete military development of the princi- 
 pality, was ordered by a treaty signed 
 at Scutari between Omar Pacha and the 
 Montenegrins, at the conclusion of the 
 campaign of 1862, to be expelled from 
 the country, lint although the Turks 
 were in a condition to force a treaty upon 
 
700 EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 
 
 the Montenegrins, they could not sum- three hours' march from Tsettinj6, not 
 
 niou force enough to make them accept far from the Albanian frontier of Mon- 
 
 its odious conditions, and Mirko the tenegro. Near it is a manufactory of 
 
 Valiant remained among his native arms, recently established by the govern- 
 
 mountains. Prince Nicholas rises often ment. The convent at Rieka was once 
 
 at dawn, and wanders, attended by a very famous ; in the sixteenth century 
 
 small suite, through the streets of Tset- the vladikas, who were driven out of 
 
 tinjr, hearing the complaints of the poor other fortress-convents by the Turks, 
 
 and the oppressed and the reports of took refuge there, and made it one of 
 
 his warriors. He enters the senate the centres of the Slavic learning of 
 
 house and listens to the noisy discus- the time. Rieka has nothing to recoin- 
 
 sions of the sixteen conscript fathers, — mend it to attention nowadays save an 
 
 discussions always accompanied by the occasional fair, to which the warriors 
 
 clang of arms. Each senator has his and maidens come to buy the Albanian 
 
 heavy weapons laid upon the desk before jewelry and Turkish pistols and yata- 
 
 him, but keeps his pistols and daggers ghans. 
 
 in his girdle. Each one smokes a long The monastery of Ostrog is one of the 
 
 pipe furiously during the session, and curiosities of Montenegro, and is an 
 
 when speaking emphasizes his many edifice never mentioned in the Black 
 
 gestures with it. The prince sometimes Mountain without reverence. High up 
 
 makes an address there, and is not sur- among the rocks stand two plain stone 
 
 prised now and then to find himself flatly structures, which form a species of double 
 
 contradicted. He visits the prisons, the monastery. In one of them the valiant 
 
 courts, often acts as counsel for a crim- father of the present prince successfully 
 
 inal who has no defender, gives advice held at bay a small Turkish army with 
 
 to the ignorant, and even settles fainih fourteen men in L857. The convent is a 
 
 disputes. If he gets hungry while prom- place of pilgrimage for all the orthodox 
 
 cnading. he has only to return to the populations of Montenegro, Bosnia, Al- 
 
 senate house, where the fathers daily bania, Herzegovina, and Dalmatia ; and 
 
 roast a sheep whole, and partake of the the peasants sometimes endure incredi- 
 
 smoking flesh while still continuing to ble hardships in braving the storms 
 
 discuss affairs of state. in those terrible mountain ways that 
 
 In winter the snows rest heavily upon they may say their prayers at the doors 
 
 the huge crags, and in the deep valleys of Ostrog. All the rocks round about 
 
 the flocks sometimes suffer for food, are memorials of bloody battles between 
 
 But the snows do not hinder the moiin- Turks and Christians. Ostrog is the 
 
 taineers from making long journeys in seat of one of the excellent schools 
 
 pursuit of game or the Turkish soldier: which the Montenegrin government, with 
 
 indeed, the women are often alone tin/ the aid of Russia and Servia, founded 
 
 whole winter-time. When the husbands several years ago. In the savage solitude 
 
 depart they do not tell their wives where of Ostrog lives the venerable Ljubitch, 
 
 thev arc going, and no Montenegrin the archimandrite, who teaches theology, 
 
 woman would be brave enough to ask grammar, history, and science to the 
 
 her lord and master any indiscreet ques- pupils sent him, and waits patiently for 
 
 tions. them to manifest their "vocation." Some 
 
 Rieka is a pretty little town, about of them don the priestly gown, but none 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 701 
 
 ever put aside the weapons which 
 they have worn from earliest child- 
 hood. Climbing to the summit of Mt. 
 Lovchen, near Tsettinje, where the 
 tomb of Peter II., the distinguished 
 vladika, stands out, a landmark seen 
 from miles around, against the clear blue 
 of the sky, and looking down over the 
 rugged, rocky country stretching away 
 to the sea, the traveller reflects with 
 astonishment upon the energy and will 
 which have built up a state, and pro- 
 tected it for more than four centuries 
 against a formidable enemy in such sur- 
 roundings. Montenegro yearly becomes 
 more and more important to the Euro- 
 pean family ; her population, despite the 
 
 ravages of war, constantly increases, 
 and her political importance is to-day of 
 a very high rank, since a declaration of 
 Prince Nicholas in the stony streets of 
 Tsettinje' may cause the downfall of half- 
 a-dozen thrones. It is probable that tin' 
 little country will be permitted to keep 
 her autonomy inviolate, whatever may 
 be the other results of the coming events 
 in which her warriors will take a promi- 
 nent part. .She is universally respected 
 because of her own strength and inde- 
 pendence, — doubly at this moment be- 
 cause of the mysterious support which 
 she receives from that Russia which has 
 been her occasional ally since the (lays 
 of Peter the Great. 
 
7U2 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTY. 
 
 Danubian Days. — Hungarians and Slays. — A Turkish Fortress. — Tho Footprints of Trajan. — Orso\a 
 the Fair. — Gypsies. — Animals in the East. — Lower Hungary and its Peculiar Features.- 
 Wayside Inns Along the Dauube. — The Harvesters Coming Home at Eventide. — Gypsies at 
 Drenkova. — Through the Iron Gates. 
 
 ADA-KALE is a Turkish fortress Mussulman in the place could have been 
 which seems to spring directly captured in twenty minutes. I passed 
 from the bosom of the Danube, at a 1 > v there one morning on the road from 
 point where three curious and quarrel- Orsova, on the frontier of Hungary, to 
 some races come into contact, and where Bucharest, and was somewhat amused to 
 the Ottoman thought it necessary to see :m elderly Turk seated in a small 
 have a foothold even in times of pro- boat near the Roumanian bank fishing. 
 found peace. To the traveller from Behind him were two soldiers, who 
 Western Europe no spectacle on the way served as oarsmen, and rowed him gently 
 to Constantinople was so impressive, he- from point to point when he gave the 
 fore the war of 1*77. as this ancient and signal. Scarcely six hundred feet from 
 picturesque fortification, suddenly af- him stood a Wallaehian sentry, watch- 
 fronting the vision witlt its odd walls, ing his movements in lazy, indifferent 
 its minarets, its red-capped sentries, and fashion. Ami this was at the moment 
 tiie yellow sinister faces peering from when the Turks were bombarding Kalafat 
 balconies suspended above the current, in Roumania from Widdin on the Bulga- 
 It was the first glimpse of the Orient rian side of tin' Danube! Such a spec- 
 which one obtained; it appropriately tacle could be witnessed nowhere save 
 introduced one to a domain which is gov- in this hind, " where it is always after- 
 erned by sword and gun; and it was a noon," where people at times seem to 
 pretty spot of color in the midst of the suspend respiration because they are too 
 severe and rather solemn scenery of the idle to breathe, and where even a doe 
 Danubian stream. Ada-Kale is to be will protest if you ask him to move 
 razed to the water's edge, — so at least quickly out <>( your path. The old Turk 
 the treaty between Russia and Turkey doubtless fished in silence and calm until 
 has ordained. — and the Servian moun- the end of the war. for I never heard of 
 taineers will no longer see the crescent the removal of either himself or his corn- 
 flag flying within rifle-shot of the crags panions. 
 
 from which, by their heroic devotion in The journeys by river and by rail from 
 
 unequal battle, they long ago banished Lower Roumania to the romantic and 
 
 it. broken country surrounding Orsova tire 
 
 The Turks occupying this fortress extremely interesting. The Danube 
 
 during the recent war evidently relied stretches of shimmering water among the 
 
 upon fate for their protection, for the reedy lowlands — where the only sign of 
 
 walls of Ada-Kale are within a stone's life is a quainl craft painted in gaudy 
 
 throw of the Roumanian shore, and every colors becalmed in some nook, or a 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 r<)3 
 
 guard-house built on piles driven into the 
 mud — are perhaps a trifle monotonous, 
 but one has only to turn from them to 
 the people who come on hoard the 
 steamer to have a rich fund of enjoy- 
 ment. Nowhere are types so abundant 
 and various as on the routes of travel 
 between Bucharest and 
 Rustchuk, or Pesth and 
 Belgrade. Every com- 
 plexion, an extraordinary 
 piquancy and variety of 
 costume, and a bewilder- 
 ing array of languages 
 and dialects are set before 
 the careful observer. As 
 for myself, I found a 
 special enchantment in the 
 scenery of the Danube, — 
 iu the lonely inlets, the 
 wildernesses of young 
 shoots in the marshes, the 
 flights of aquatic birds as 
 the sound of the steamer 
 was heard, the long 
 tongues of laud on which 
 the water-buffaloes lay 
 huddled iu stupid con- 
 tent, the tiny hummocks, 
 where villages of wattled 
 hovels were assembled. 
 The Bulgarian shore 
 stands out in bold relief. 
 Sistova, from the river, is 
 positively beautiful, hut 
 the now historical 
 Simnitza seems only a mud-flat. At 
 night the boats touch upon the Rouma- 
 nian side for fuel. — the Turks have 
 always been too lazy and vicious to de- 
 velop the splendid mineral resources of 
 Bulgaria, — and the stout peasants and 
 their wives trundle thousands of barrows 
 of coal along the swinging planks. Here 
 is raw life, lusty, full of rude beauty, 
 but utterly incult. The men and women 
 
 appear to be merely animals gifted with 
 speech. The women wear almost no 
 clothing; their matted hair drops about 
 their shapely shoulders as they toil 
 at their burden, singing meanwhile some 
 merry chorus. Little tenderness is be- 
 stowed on these creatures, and it was uot 
 
 
 
 o-rfm- 
 
 /■ ■.„■'./■ 
 
 W V.'i'AV'.;' -,/>« 
 
 THE RUSSIANS CROSSING 
 THE DANUBE IN FRONT 
 OF SISTOVA. 
 
 without a slight twinge of 
 the nerves that I saw the 
 huge, burly master of the 
 boat's crew now and then bestow a. ring- 
 ing slap with his open hand upon the 
 neck or cheek of one of the poor women 
 who stumbled with her load, or who 
 halted for a moment to indulge in abuse 
 of a comrade. As the boat moved away, 
 these people, dancing about the heaps of 
 coal in the torchlight, looked not unlike 
 demons disporting in some gruesome 
 nook of enchanted land. When they 
 
704 
 
 El ROPE 7.V STORM AND 
 
 ALM. 
 
 were gypsies they did not need the aid of 
 the torches : they wen' sufficiently de- 
 moniacal without artificial aid. 
 
 Kalafat and Turnu-Severinu are small 
 towns which would never have been 
 much heard of had they not been in the 
 region visited by the war. Turnu-Sev- 
 erinu is noted, however, as the point, 
 where Neverinus once built a mighty 
 tower ; and not far from the little hamlet 
 may still be seen the ruins of Trajan's 
 immemorial bridge. When' the Danube is 
 twelve hundred yards wide and nearly 
 twenty feet deep Apollodorus of Damas- 
 cus did not hesitate, at Trajan's com- 
 mand, to undertake the construction of 
 a bridge with twenty stone and wooden 
 arches. He builded well, for one or two 
 of the stone piers still remain perfect, 
 alter a lapse of sixteen centuries, and 
 eleven of them, more or less ruined, are 
 yet visible at low water. Apollodorus 
 was a man of genius, as his oilier work, 
 the Trajan Column, proudly standing in 
 Rome, amply testifies. No doubt he 
 was richly rewarded by Trajan for con- 
 structing a work which, Hanked as it 
 was by noble fortifications, bound the 
 newly captured Dacian colony to the 
 Roman empire. What mighty men were 
 these Romans, who carved their way 
 along tin 1 Danube banks, hewing roads 
 and levelling mountains at the same 
 time that they engaged the savages of 
 the locality in daily battle! There 
 were indeed giants in those days. 
 
 When Ada-Kali - ' is pissed, and pretty 
 Orsova, lying in slumbrous quiet at the 
 font of noble mountains, is reached, the 
 last trace of Turkish domination is left 
 behind. In future years, if the treaty 
 of San StefailO holds, there will be little 
 evidence of Ottoman lack of civilization 
 anywhere on the Danube, for the forts 
 of the Turks will gradually disappear, 
 and the Mussulman cannot for an in- 
 
 stant hold his own among Christians 
 where he has no military advantage. 
 But at Orsova, although the red fez and 
 voluminous trousers are rarely seen, the 
 influence of Turkey is keenly felt. It is 
 in these remote regions of Hungary that 
 the real rage against Russia and the 
 burning enthusiasm and sympathy for 
 the Turks were most openly expressed. 
 Every cottage in the neighborhood is 
 filled with crude pictures representing 
 events of the Hungarian revolution ; and 
 the peasants, as they look upon those re- 
 minders of perturbed times, reflect that 
 the Russians were instrumental in pre- 
 venting the accomplishment of their 
 dearest wishes. Here the Hungarian is 
 eminently patriotic; he endeavors as 
 much as possible to forget that lie and 
 his are bound to the cm] ire of Austria, 
 and he speaks of the German and the 
 Slav, who are his fellow-subjects, with 
 a sneer The people whom one encoun- 
 ters in that corner of Hungary profess 
 a dense ignorance of the German lan- 
 guage, lint if pressed can speak it glibly 
 enough. 1 won an angry frown and an 
 unpleasant remark from an innkeeper 
 because 1 did not know that Austrian 
 postage-stamps are not good in Hungary. 
 Such melancholy ignorance of the sim- 
 plest details of existence seemed to my 
 host meet subject for reproach. 
 
 Orsova became an important point as 
 soon as the Turks and Russians were at 
 war. The peasants of the Banat stared 
 as they saw long lines of travellers leav- 
 ing the steamers which had come from 
 Pesth and Bazias, and invading the 
 two small inns, usually more than 
 half empty. Englishmen, Russians, 
 Austrian officers sent down to keep care- 
 ful watch upon the land, French and 
 Prussian, Swiss and Belgian military 
 attachis and couriers, journalists, artists, 
 amateur army-followers, crowded the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 TO. - ) 
 
 two long streets and exhausted the mar- 
 ket. Next came a hungry and thirsty 
 mob of refugees from Widdin, — Jews, 
 Greeks, and gypsies, — and these prom- 
 enaded their variegated misery on the 
 river banks from sunrise until sunset. 
 Then out from Roumanian land poured 
 thousands of wretched peasants, bare- 
 footed, bare-headed, dying of starvation, 
 fleeing from Turkish invasion, which 
 happily never assumed large propor- 
 tions. These poor people slept on the 
 ground, content with the shelter of house 
 walls ; they subsisted on unripe fruits, 
 and that unfailing fund of mild tobacco 
 which every male being in all those 
 countries invariably manages to secure. 
 Walking abroad ill Orsova was no easy 
 task, for oue was constantly compelled 
 to step over these poor fugitives, who 
 packed themselves into the sand at noon- 
 day, and managed for a few hours be- 
 fore the cool evening breezes came to 
 forget their miseries. The vast fleet of 
 river steamers belonging to the Austrian 
 company was laid up at Orsova, and 
 dozens of captains, conversing in the 
 liquid Slav, or the graceful Italian, or 
 guttural German, were forever seated 
 about the doors of the little cafis, smok- 
 ing long cigars and quaffing beakers of 
 the potent white wine produced in Aus- 
 trian vineyards. 
 
 Opposite Orsova lie the Servian moun- 
 tains, bold, majestic, inspiring. Their 
 noble forests and the deep ravines be- 
 tween them are exquisite in color when 
 the sun flashes along their sides A few- 
 miles below the point where the Hun- 
 garian and Roumanian territories meet 
 the mountainous region declines into 
 foot-hills, and then to an uninteresting 
 plain. The Orsovan dell is the culminat- 
 ing point of all the beauty and grandeur 
 of the Danubian hills. From oue emi- 
 nence richly laden with vineyards I 
 
 looked out, on a fresh April morning, 
 across a delicious valley filled with pretty 
 farms and wdiite cottages, and orna- 
 mented by long rows of shapely poplars. 
 Turning to the right I saw Servia's bar- 
 riers, shutting in from the Cold winds 
 the fat lands of the interior, vast hill- 
 sides dotted from point to point with 
 peaceful villages, in the midst of which 
 white churches with slender spires arose, 
 and to the left the irregular line of the 
 Roumanian [teaks stood up, jagged and 
 broken, against the horizon. Out from 
 Orsova runs a, rude highway into the 
 rocky and savage back-country. The 
 celebrated baths of Mehadia, the " hot 
 springs" of the Austro-Hungarian em- 
 pire, are yearly frequented by three or 
 four thousand sufferers, who come from 
 the European capitals to Temesvar, and 
 are thence trundled in diligences to the 
 water-cure. But the railway is pene- 
 trating even this far-off land, where 
 once brigands delighted to wander, and 
 Temesvar and Bucharest are now bound 
 together by a daily "through-service" 
 as regular as that between Pesth and 
 Vienna. 
 
 I sat one morning on the balcony of 
 the diminutive inn known as "The 
 Hungarian Crown," watching the sun- 
 beams on tin 1 broad current of the 
 Danube and listening to tin' ripple, the 
 plash, and the gurgleof the swollen stream 
 as it lushed impetuously against the 
 banks. A group of Servians, in canoes 
 light and swift as those of Indians, had 
 made their way across the river and were 
 struggling vigorously to prevent the cur- 
 rent from carrying them below a favor- 
 able landing-place. These tall, slender 
 men, with bronzed faces and gleaming 
 eyes, with their round skull-caps, their 
 gaudy jackets, and ornamental gaiters, 
 bore no small resemblance ai a distance to 
 certain of our North American red-skins. 
 
i (III EUROTE IN STORM AST) CALM. 
 
 Each man had a long knife in his belt, tions. Then tremendous echoes awoke 
 
 and from experience I can say that a among the lulls. Peal after peal echoed 
 
 Servian knife is in itself a complete tool- and reechoed until it seemed as if the 
 
 chest.. With its one tough and keen cliffs must crack anil crumble. Sheets 
 
 blade one may skin a sheep, file a saw. of rain were blown by the mischievous 
 split wood, mend a wagon, defend one's winds, now full upon the unhappy fugi- 
 self vigorously, if need he, make a but- lives, or now descended with seemingly 
 ton-hole, and eat one's breakfast. No crushing force on the Servians in their 
 Servian wh<> adheres to the ancient dancing cauoes. Then came vivid light- 
 costume would consider himself dressed nine-, brilliant and instant glances of 
 unless the crooked knife hung from hi- electricity, disclosiug the forests and 
 girdle. Although the country side along hills for a moment, then seeming by 
 the Danube is rough, ami travellers are their quick departure to render the ob- 
 said to need protection among the Servian senrity more painful than before. The 
 hills, 1 could not discover that the in- fiery darts were hurled by dozens upon 
 habitants wore other weapons than these the devoted trees, and the tall and grace- 
 useful articles of cutlery. Yet they are I'ul stems were bent like reeds before 
 daring smugglers, and sometimes openly the rushing of the blast. Cold swept 
 defy the Hungarian authorities when through the vale, and shadows seemed 
 discovered. " Ah !" said Master Josef , to follow it. Such contrast with the la- 
 the head servantof the Hungarian crown, minous, lovely, semi-tropical afternoon, 
 ■• many a good fight have I seen in mid- in the dreamy restfulness of which man 
 stream, the boats grappled together, and beast seemed settling into lethargy, 
 
 knives flashing, and our fellows draw- was crushing. It pained and disturbed 
 
 ing their pistols. All that, I for a the spirit. Master Josef, who never lost 
 
 few llasks of Negotil), which is a musty, an occasion to (loss himself, and to do 
 
 red, thick wine, that Heaven would for- a few turns on a little rosary of amber 
 
 bid me to recommend to your honorable beads, came and went in a kind of a 
 
 self and companions so lone- as I put in dazed mood while the storm was at its 
 
 the cellar the pearl dew of yonder vine- height. Just as a blow was struck 
 
 yards," pointing to the vines of Or- among the hills which seemed to make 
 
 sova. the earth quiver to its centre, the varlet 
 
 While the Servians were anxiously en- approached, and modestly inquired if 
 
 deavoring to land, and seemed to be in the "honorable society" — myself ami 
 
 imminent danger of upsetting, the roll of chance companions — would visit that, 
 
 thunder was heard and a few drops of very afternoon the famous chapel in 
 
 rain tell with heavy plash. Master Josef which the crown of Hungary lies buried, 
 
 forthwith began making shutters fast [ glanced curiously at him, thinking that 
 
 and tying the curtains, for " now we possibly the thunder had addled his 
 
 shall have a wind," quoth he. And it brain. " Oh, the honorable society may 
 
 came. As by magic the Servian shore walk in sunshine all the way to the 
 
 was blotted out. ami In fore me I could chapel at five o'clock!" he said, with 
 
 see little save the river, which seemed an encouraging ",rin. ••These Danube 
 
 transformed into a roaring and foaming storms come and go as quickly as a Tsi- 
 
 ocean. The refugees, the gypsies, the gane f rom a hen-roost. See! the thun- 
 
 Jews, the Greeks scampered in all direc- der has stopped its howling, and there is 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 707 
 
 not a wink of lightning. Even the rain- 
 drops are so few that one may almost 
 walk between them." 
 
 I returned to the balcony from which 
 the storm had driven me, and was grati- 
 fied by the sight of the mountain side 
 studded with pearls, which a faint glow 
 in the sky was gently touching. The 
 Danube roared and foamed with mali- 
 cious glee as the poor Servians were 
 still whirled about on the water. But 
 presently through the deep gorges, and 
 along the sombre stream, and over the 
 vineyards, the rocks, and the roofs of 
 humble cottages stole a warm breeze, 
 followed by dazzling sunlight, which 
 returned in mad haste to atone for the 
 displeasure of the wind and lain. In 
 a lew moments the refugees were again 
 afield, spreading their drenched gar- 
 ments on the wooden railings and 
 stalking about in a condition narrowly 
 approaching nakedness. A gypsy lour 
 feet high, clad in a linen shirt, and trou- 
 sers so wide as to resemble petticoats, 
 strolled thoughtlessly on the bank, sing- 
 ing a plaintive melody, and now ami 
 then turning his brown face skyward 
 as if to salute the sun. The child of 
 mysterious ancestry, this wanderer from 
 the East, this robber of roosts, ami cun- 
 ning worker in metals, possessed neither 
 hat nor shoes ; his naked breast and his 
 unprotected arms must suffer cold at 
 night; yet he seemed wonderfully happy. 
 The Jews and Greeks gave him scornful 
 glances, which he returned with quizzi- 
 cal, provoking smiles. At last he threw 
 himself down on a plank, from which 
 the generous sun was rapidly drying the 
 lain, and, coiling up as a dog might 
 have done, he was soon asleep. 
 
 With a marine glass I could see dis- 
 tinctly every movement on the Servian 
 shore. Close to the water's edge nestled 
 a small village of neat white cottages. 
 
 Around a little wharf hovered fifty or 
 sixty stout farmers, mounted on sturdy 
 ponies, watching the arrival of the " Mer- 
 eur," the Servian steamer from Belgrade 
 and the Sava river. The " Mercur" came 
 pulling valiantly forward, as uncon- 
 cerned as if no whirlwind had swept 
 across her path, although she must have 
 been in the narrow and dangerous canon 
 of the - l Iron < lates " when the blast and 
 the shower were most furious. On the 
 roads leading down the mountain sides 
 I saw long processions of squealing and 
 grunting swine, black, white, ami gray, 
 all active and self-willed, lighting each 
 other for the light of way. Before 
 each procession marched a swineherd 
 playing on a rustic pipe, the sounds 
 from which primitive instrument seemed 
 to exercise C'ireean enchantment upon 
 the rude flocks. It was inexpressibly 
 comical to watch the masses of swine 
 after they had been enclosed in the 
 "folds," — huge tracts fenced in. and 
 provided with shelters at the corners. 
 Each herd knew its master, and as he 
 passed to and fro would salute him with 
 a delighted squeal, which died away into 
 a series of disappointed anil cynical 
 groans as soon as the porkers had dis- 
 covered that no evening repast was to 
 be offered them. Good fare do these 
 Servian swine find in the abundant pro- 
 vision of acorns in the vast forests. The 
 men who spend their lives in restraining 
 the vagabond instincts of these vulgar 
 animals may perhaps be thought a col- 
 lection of brutal hinds ; bur, on the 
 contrary they are fellows of shrewd 
 common sense and much dignity of feel- 
 ing. Kara-George, the terror of the 
 Turk at the beginning of the century, 
 the majestic character who won the ad- 
 miration of Europe, whose genius as a 
 soldier was praised by Napoleon the 
 Great, and who freed his countrymen 
 
70S EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 from bondage, — Kara-George was a of Servian wishes. Thus the two coun- 
 
 swineherd in the woods of the Schau- tries are theoretically at peace and prac- 
 
 madia until the wind of the spirit fanned tically at war. While the conflict of 
 
 his brow and called liim from his simple 1877 was in progress collisions between 
 
 toil to immortalize his homely name. Servian and Hungarian were of almost 
 
 Master Josef and his fellows in < )rsova daily occurrence, 
 
 did not hate the Servians with the bitter- The Hungarian's intolerance of the 
 
 ness manifested towards the Roumani- Slav does not proceed from unworthy 
 
 ans, \e( they considered them as aliens, jealousy, bul rather from an exaggerated 
 
 and as dangerous conspirators against idea of the importance of his own coun- 
 
 the public weal. " Who knows at what try and of the evils which might befall 
 
 moment they may go over to the litis- it if the old Serb stock began to renew its 
 
 sians?" was the constant cry. And in ancient glory. In corners of Hungary, 
 
 process of time they went ; but although such as Orsova, the peasant imagines 
 
 Master Josef had professed the utmost that his native hind is the main world, 
 
 willingness to take up arms on such an and that the rest of Europe is an uunec- 
 
 occasion, it does not appear thai he did essary and troublesome fringe around 
 
 it, doubtless preferring, on reflection, the edges of it. There is a story of a 
 
 the quiet of his inn and. his flask of white gentleman in l'esth who went to a deal r 
 wine in the court-yard rather than an in maps and inquired for a globus of 
 exclusion among the trans-Dauubian Hungary, showing that he imagined it to 
 hills and the chances of an untoward be the whole round earth. 
 fate at the point of a Servian knife. It So fair were the land and the stream 
 is not astonishing that the two peoples after the storm that I lingered until sun- 
 do not understand each other, although set. gazing out over river and on Servian 
 only a strip of water separates their hills, and did not accept Josef's iuvita- 
 frontieis for a long stretch, for the tion to visit the chapel of the Hungarian 
 difference in language and in its written crown that evening. But next morn- 
 form is a most effectual barrier to inter- ing before the sun was high I wandered 
 course. The Servians learn something alone in the direction of the Roumanian 
 of the Hungarians' dialects, since they frontier, and by accident came upon the 
 come to till the rich lands of the Banat chapel. It is a modest structure, in a 
 in the summer season, Bulgarians and nook surrounded by tall poplars, and 
 Servians by thousands find employment within is a simple chapel, with Latin iu- 
 in Hungary in summer and return home seriptions. Here the historic crown re- 
 when autumn sets in. But the dreams poses, now that there is no longer any 
 and ambitions of the two peoples have use for it at Presburg, the ancient capital, 
 nothing in common. Servia looks long- Here it was brought by pious hands after 
 inglv to Slavic unification, and is anxious the troubles between Austria and Hun- 
 to secure for herself a predominance in gary were settled. During the revolu- 
 the new nation to be moulded out of the tion (he sacred bauble was hidden by 
 old scattered elements. Hungary be- the command of noblemen to whom it 
 lieves that the consolidation of the Slavs had been confided, and the servitors 
 
 would place her in a dangerous and who concealed it at the behest of their 
 
 humiliating position, and conspires day masters were slain, lest in an indiscreet 
 
 and night to compass exactly the reverse moment they might betray the secret. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 709 
 
 For thousands of enthusiasts this tiny 
 chapel is ili<> holiest of shrines, and 
 shouM trouble come anew upon Hungary 
 in the presenl perturbed times the crown 
 would perhaps journey once more. 
 
 It seemed pitiful that the railway 
 should ever invade this out-of-the-way 
 corner of Europe. I>ut it was already 
 crawling through the mountains; hun- 
 dreds of Italian laborers were putting 
 down the shining rails in woods and glens 
 where no sounds save the song of birds or 
 the carol of the infrequent passer-by had 
 theretofore been heard. For the present, 
 however, the old-fashioned, comfortless 
 diligence keeps the roads; the herib- 
 boned postilion winds his merry horn, 
 and as the afternoon sun is getting low 
 the dusty, antique vehicle rattles up t<> 
 the court of the inn, the guard gets 
 down, dusts the leather casing of the 
 gun which nowadays he is never com 
 pelled to use ; then he touches his square 
 hat. ornamented with a feather, to the 
 maids and men of the hostelry. When 
 the mails ire claimed, the horses re- 
 freshed, and the stage is covered with its 
 leathern hood, postilion and guard sit 
 down together in a cool corner under the 
 gallery in the court-yard and crack various 
 small flasks of wine. They smoke their 
 porcelain pipes, imported from Vienna, 
 with the air of men of the world who 
 have travelled ami who could tell you a 
 thing or two if they liked. They are 
 never tired of talking of Mehadia, which 
 is one of their principal stations. The 
 sad-faced nobleman, followed by the 
 decorous old man-servant in fantastic 
 Magyar livery, who arrived in the dili- 
 gence, has been to the baths. The mus- 
 ter is vainly seeking cure, comes every 
 year, and always supplies postilion and 
 guard with the money to buy flasks of 
 wine. This the postilion tells me and 
 my fellows, and suggests that the " hon- 
 
 orable society " should follow the worthy 
 nobleman's example. No sooner is it 
 done than postilion and guard kiss our 
 hands; which is likewise an evidence 
 that they have travelled, are well nut 
 with every stranger and all customs, and 
 know more than they say. 
 
 The Romans had extensive establish- 
 ments at Mehadia, which they called 
 the " Baths of Hercules," and it is in 
 memory of this that a statue of the good 
 giant stands in the square of the little 
 town. Scattered through thehills, many 
 inscriptions to Hercules, to Mercury, 
 and to Venus have been found during 
 the ages. The villages on the road 
 thither are few and far between, and are 
 inhabited by peasants decidedly Dacian 
 in type. It is estimated that, a million 
 and a half of Roumanians are settled in 
 Hungary, and in this section they are 
 exceedingly numerous. Men and women 
 wear showy costumes, quite barbaric and 
 uncomfortable. The women seem deter- 
 mined to wear as few garments as pos- 
 sible and to compensate for lack of 
 number by brightness of coloring. In 
 many a pretty face traces of gypsj 
 blood may be seen. This vagabond taint 
 gives an inexpressible charm to a face 
 for which the Hungarian strain has al- 
 ready done much. The coal-black hair 
 and wild, mutinous eyes set off to per- 
 fection the pale face and exquisitely 
 thin lips, the delicate nostrils ami beau- 
 tifully moulded chin. Angel or devil? 
 queries the beholder. Sometimes he is 
 constrained to think that the possessor 
 of such a face has the mingled souls of 
 saint and siren. The light undertone of 
 melancholy which pervades gypsy beauty, 
 gypsy music, gypsy manners, has an 
 extremely remarkable fascination for all 
 who perceive it. Even when it is almost. 
 buried beneath ignorance and animal 
 craft it is still to be found in the gyps\ 
 
710 EUROPE IN STOIiM AND CALM. 
 
 nature after diligent search. This strange lawn and a cool breeze fanned the fore- 
 race seems overshadowed by the sorrow heads of the listeners. When the light 
 of some haunting memory. Each indi- was all gone, these men. as if inspired 
 vidual belonging to the Tsiganes whom by the darkness, sometimes improvised 
 I saw impressed ine as a fugitive from most angelic melody. There was never 
 Fate. To look back was impossible ; of any loud or boisti rous note, never any 
 the present, be was careless ; the future direct appeal to the attention. 1 in- 
 tempted him on. In their ninsic one variably forgot the singers ami players, 
 now and then hears bints of a desire to and the music seemed a part of the liar- 
 return to some far-off and half-forgotten mony of Nature. While the pleasant 
 land. But this is rare. notes echoed in the twilight troops of 
 There is a large number of "civil- jaunty young Hungarian soldiers, dressed 
 ized gypsies," so called, in the neigh- in red hose, dark-green doublets, ami 
 borhood of Orsova. 1 never saw one of small caps, sometimes adorned with 
 them without a profound compassion tor feathers, sauntered up and down the 
 him. so utterly unhappy did he look in principal street ; the refugees huddled 
 ordinary attire. The musicians who in corners and listened with delight ; the 
 came nightly to play on the lawn in Austrian officials lumbered by, pouring 
 front of the Hungarian Crown inn be- clouds of smoke from their long, strong, 
 longed to these civilized Tsiganes. They and inevitable cigars; and the docs for- 
 bad lost all the freedom of gesture, the got their perennial quarrel for a few 
 proud, half-savage stateliness of those instants at a, time. 
 who remained nomadic and untrammelled The docs of Orsova and of all the 
 by local law and custom. The old in- neighboring country have many of the 
 stinct was in their music, and sometimes characteristics of their fellow-creatures 
 there drifted into it the same mixture in Turkey. Orsova is divided into 
 of saint ami devil which I had seen in " beats," which are thoroughly and care- 
 
 tbe '•composite" faces. fully patrolled night and day by bands 
 As soon as supper was set forth, of dogs, who recognize the limits of their 
 piping hot and Hanked by flagons of domain and severely resent intrusion, 
 beer ami wine, on the lawn, and the In front of the Hungarian Crown a large 
 guests bad assembled to partake of the doc. aided bv a small yellow cur and a 
 good cheer, while yet the after-glow lin- black spaniel, mainly made up of cars 
 gered alone the Danube, these dusky and tail, maintained order. The after- 
 musicians appeared and installed them- noon quiet was generally disturbed about 
 selves iii a corner. The old stream's four o'clock by the advent of a. strange 
 murmur could not drown tli" piercing canine, who, with that expression of ex- 
 and pathetic notes of the violin, the ecu- treuie innocence which always character- 
 tie wail of the guzla, or the soft thrum- i/cs the animal that knows he is doing 
 mine of the rude tambourine. Little wrong, would venture on to tic forbid- 
 poetry as a spectacled and frosty Alls- den ground. A low crowd in chorus 
 trian officer might have in his soul, that from the three guardians was tin- inev- 
 little must have been awakened by the ifable preliminary warning. The new- 
 songs and the orchestral performances comer usually seemed much surprised at 
 of the Tsiganes as the sun sank low. this, and gave an astonished glance, 
 The dusk began to creep athwart the then wagging his tail merrily, as much 
 
EUROPE I.V STORM AND CALM. 
 
 711 
 
 as to say, "Nonsense! I must have 
 been mistaken," lie approached anew. 
 One of the trio of guardians there- 
 upon sallied forth to meet him. fol- 
 lowed by the others a little distance 
 behind. If the strange dog showed his 
 teeth, assumed a defiant attitude, and 
 seemed inclined to make his waythrough 
 any number of enemies, the trio held a 
 consultation, which I am hound to say 
 almost invariably resulted in a fight. 
 The intruder would either fly yelping, 
 or would work his way across the inter- 
 dieted territory by means of a series of 
 encounters, accompanied by the most 
 terrific barking, snapping, and shriek- 
 ing, and by a very considerable effusion 
 of blood. The person who should inter- 
 fere to prevent a dog-light in Orsova 
 would be regarded as a lunatic. Some- 
 times a large white dog. accompanied by 
 two shaggy animals resembling wolves 
 so closely that it was almost impossible 
 to believe them guardians of flocks of 
 sheep, passed by the Hungarian Crown 
 unchallenged ; but these were probably 
 tried warriors, whose valor was so well 
 known that they were no longer ques- 
 tioned anywhere. 
 
 The gypsies have in their wagons or 
 following in their train small black dogs. 
 of temper unparalleled for ugliness. It 
 is impossible to approach a Tsigane tent 
 or wagon without encountering a swarm 
 of these diminutive creatures, whose 
 rage is not only amusing, bul sometimes 
 rather appalling, to contemplate. Driv- 
 ing rapidly by a camp one morning in a 
 fanner's cart drawn by two stout horses 
 adorned with jingling bells. I was fol- 
 lowed by a pack of these dark-skinned 
 animals. The bells awoke such rage 
 within them that they seemed insane 
 under its influence. As they leaped and 
 snapped around me I felt like some 
 traveller in a Russian forest pursued bv 
 
 hungry wolves. A dog scarcely six 
 inches high and but twice as long would 
 spring from the ground as if a pound of 
 dynamite had exploded beneath him, 
 and would make a desperate effort to 
 throw himself into the wagon. Another, 
 howling in impotent anger, would jump 
 full at a horse's throat, would roll be- 
 neath the feet of the horse, but in some 
 miraculous fashion would escape unhurt, 
 and would scramble upon a bank to try 
 again. It was a real relief when the 
 discouraged pack fell away. Had I shot 
 one of the animals, the gypsies would 
 have found a way to avenge the death of 
 their enterprising though somewhat too 
 zealous camp-follower. Animals every- 
 where on these border lines of the Orient 
 are treated with much more tenderness 
 than men and women are. The grandee 
 who would scowl furiously in this wild 
 region of the Banal if the peasants did 
 not stand by the roadside and doff their 
 hats in token of respect and submission 
 would not kick a dog out of his way. and 
 would manifest the utmost tenderness 
 for his horses. 
 
 The railway from Verciorova, on the 
 frontier, runs through the large towns 
 Pitesti and Craiova on its way to Bu- 
 charest. It is a marvellous railroad : it 
 climbs hills, descends into deep gnllies. 
 and has as little of the air line about it 
 as a grea) river has, for the contractors 
 built it on the principle of " keeping 
 near the surface." and they much pre- 
 ferred climbing ten high mountains to 
 cutting one tunnel. Craiova takes its 
 name, according to a somewhat misty 
 legend, from John Assan, who was one 
 of the Romano-Bulgarian kings, Craiova 
 being a corruption of ( 'rai Iran { " King 
 John"). This John was the same who 
 drank his wine from a cup made out of 
 the skull of the unlucky emperor Bald- 
 win I. The old laws of Craiova gave 
 
712 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 their title to the Roumanian silver pieces rapidly emptying. The host was a mas- 
 
 now known as bafii. Slatina, farther sive man, with bulbous nose and sleepy 
 
 down the line, on the river AItu (the Aluta ryes; he responded to all questions with 
 
 of the ancients) , is a pretty town, where a stare, and the statement that he did 
 
 a proud and brave community love to not knew, and seemed anxious to leave 
 
 recite l<> the stranger the valorous deeds everything in doubt until the latest. 
 
 of their ancestors. It is the centre from moment possible. His daughter, who 
 
 which have spread out most of the was brighter and less dubious in her 
 
 modern revolutionary movements in Rou- responses than her father, was a slight 
 
 mania. " Little Wallachia," in which girl, with lustrous black eves, wistful 
 
 Slatina stands, is rich in well-tilled lips, a perfect form, and black hair cov- 
 
 liehls and uplands covered with fat cat- ered with a linen cloth that the dust, 
 
 tie. It is as fertile as Kansas, and its might not come near its glossy threads, 
 
 people seemed to ine more agreeable When she made her appearance, tlash- 
 
 and energetic than those in and around ing out of a huge dark room, which was 
 
 Bucharest. stone paved, and arched overhead, and 
 
 lie who clings to the steamers plying in which peasants sat drinking sour beer, 
 
 up ami down the Danube sees much she seemed like a ray of sunshine in the 
 
 romantic scenery and many (anions middle of night. But there was more 
 
 types, but he loses all the real charm of dignity about her than is to be found in 
 
 travel in these regions. The future most sunbeams; she was modest and 
 
 tourist, on his way to or from Bulgaria civil in answer, but understood no com- 
 
 and the battle-fields of the " new cru- pliments. There was something of the 
 
 sade," will lie wise if he journeys leis- princess-reduced-in-cireumstauces in her 
 
 tirely by farm-wagon — he will not be demeanor. A royal supper could she 
 
 likely to find a carriagi — along the serve, and the linen which she spread on 
 
 Hungarian bank of the stream. 1 made the small wooden table in the back court- 
 
 thc journey in April, when in that gentle yard studied of lavender. 1 took my 
 
 southward climate the wayside was al- dinners after tin' long days' rides, in 
 
 reaily radiant with tlowers and the mil- inns which commanded delicious views 
 
 low sunshine was unbroken by cloud Of of the Danube, — points where willows 
 
 rain. There were discomfort and dust, overhung the rushing stream, or where 
 
 but there was a rare pleasure in the crags towered above it. or where it, 
 
 arrival at a quaint inn whose exterior flowed in smooth, vet resistless, might 
 
 front, boldly asserting itself in the through plains in which hundreds of 
 bolder row of house-fronts in a long peasants were toiling, their red-aud- 
 village street, was uninviting enough, white costumes contrasting sharply with 
 but the interior of which was charming, the brilliant, blue of the sky anil the 
 In such a hostelry [ always found the tender green of the foliage. 
 wharfmaster, in green coat, and cap, [f the inns were uniformly cleanly and 
 asleep in an arm-chair, with the bingo- agreeable, so much could not he said for 
 master and one or two idle landed pro- the villages, which were sometimes de- 
 prietors sitting near him at a card-table, cidedly dirty. The cottages of the 
 enveloped in such a cloud of smoke that peasants — that is of the agricultural la- 
 one could scarcely see the long-necked borers — were windowless to a degree 
 llasks of white wine which they were which led me to look for a small and 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 713 
 
 dull-eved race ; 1 nit the eleganl orbs of 
 youths and maidens in all this Banat 
 land are rarely equalled in beauty. I 
 found it in my heart, to object to the 
 omnipresent swine. These cheerful ani- 
 mals were sometimes so domesticated 
 that they followed their masters and 
 mistresses afield in the morning. In 
 this section of Hungary, as indeed in 
 must parts of Europe, the farm-houses 
 are all huddled together in compact vil- 
 lages, and the lands tilled by the dwell- 
 ers in those communities extend for 
 miles around them. At dawn the pro- 
 cession of laborers goes forth, and at 
 sunset it returns. Nothing ean give a 
 better idea of rural simplicity and peace 
 than the return of the peasants of a 
 hamlet at eventide from their vineyards 
 and meadows. Just as the sun was 
 deluging the broad Danube with glory 
 before relinquishing the current to the 
 twilight's shades I came, in the soft 
 April evening, into the neighborhood of 
 Drenkova. A tranquil afterglow was 
 here and there visible near the hills, 
 which warded off the sun's passionate 
 farewell glances at the vines and flowers. 
 Beside the way, on the green banks, sat 
 groups of children clad with paradisaical 
 simplicity, awaiting their fathers and 
 mothers. At a vineyard's hedge a sweet 
 g'ul. tall, stately, and melancholy, was 
 twining a garland in the cap of a stout 
 young fellow who rested one broad 
 hand lightly upon her shoulder. Old 
 women, bent and wrinkled, hobbled out 
 from the fields, getting help from their 
 sons or grandsons. Sometimes I met a 
 shaggy white horse drawing a cart, in 
 which a dozen sonsie lasses, their faces 
 browned by wind and their tresses 
 blown back from their brows in most 
 bewitching manner by the libertine 
 breeze, were jolting homeward, singing 
 as thev went. The young men in their 
 
 loose linen garments, with their primi- 
 tive hoes and spades on (heir shoulders, 
 were as goodly specimens of manly 
 strength and beauty as one could wish 
 lo look upon. It hurt me to see them 
 stand humbly ranged in rows as I passed. 
 But it was pleasant lo note the fer- 
 vor with which they knelt around the 
 cross, rearing its sacred form amid the 
 waving grasses. They knew nothing of 
 the outer world, save from time to time 
 the Emperor claimed certain of their 
 number for his service, and that perhaps 
 their lot- might lead them to the great 
 city of Budapest. Everywhere as far 
 
 as (lie eye could reach the land was cul- 
 tivated with greatest care, ami plenty 
 seemed the lot of all. The peasant lived 
 in an ugly and windowless house be- 
 cause his father and grandfather had 
 done so before him, not because it was 
 necessary. It was odd to sec "iris tall 
 as Dian, and as fair, bending their pretty 
 bodies to come out of the contempti- 
 ble little apertures in the peasant houses 
 called "doors." 
 
 Drenkova is a long street of low cot- 
 tages, with here and there a, two-story 
 mansion, to denote thai, the proprietors 
 of fhi' land reside there. As I ap- 
 proached the entrance to this street I 
 saw a most remarkable train coming to 
 meet me. One "lance told me that, it 
 was a large company of gypsies, who had 
 come up from Roumania, and were going 
 northward in search of work or plunder. 
 My driver drew rein, and we allowed the 
 swart, Bohemians lo pass on, — a courtesy 
 which was gracefully acknowledged with 
 a singularly sweet smile from the driver 
 of the first cart. There were about two 
 hundred men and women in this wagon 
 train, audi verily believe that there were 
 twice as many children. Each cart, 
 drawn by a small Roumanian pony, con- 
 tained two or three families huddled 
 
714 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 together, and seemingly lost in contem- 
 plation of the beautiful sunset ; for your 
 real gypsy is akeen admirer of nature and 
 her charms. Some of the women were 
 intensely hideous: age had made them as 
 unattractive as in youth they had been 
 pretty ; others were graceful and well 
 formed. Many wore hut a single gar- 
 ment. The men were wilder than any 
 that I had ever before seen: their matted 
 hail', their thick lips, and their dark eyes 
 gave them almost die appearance of 
 negroes. One or two of them had been 
 foraging, and bore sheeps' heads and 
 hares, which they had purchased or 
 " taken " in the village. They halted 
 as soon as they had passed me. and pre- 
 pared to go into camp; so I waited a 
 little to observe them. During the proc- 
 ess of arranging the carts for the night 
 one of the women became enraged at the 
 father of her brood because lie would not 
 
 aid her in the preparation of the simple 
 tent under which the family was to re- 
 pose. The woman ran to him, clinching 
 her fist and screaming forth invective. 
 
 which. I am convinced, hail I underst 1 
 
 it, and had it been directed at me, 1 
 should have found extremely disagree- 
 able. After thus lashing the culprit 
 with language for some time, she broke 
 forth into screamsand danced frantically 
 around him. lie arose, visibly dis- 
 turbed, and 1 fancied that his savage 
 nature would come uppermost, and that 
 he might be impelled to give her a brutal 
 beating, lint he, on the contrary, ad- 
 vanced leisurely towards her and spat 
 upon the ground with an expression of 
 extreme contempt. She seemed to feel 
 this much more than she would have felt 
 a blow, and her fury redoubled. She 
 likewise spat; he again repeated the 
 contemptuous act; and. after both had 
 gratified the anger which was consuming 
 them, they walked off in different direc- 
 
 tions. The battle was over, and I was 
 not sorry to notice a few minutes later 
 that pater familias had thought better of 
 his conduct, and was himself spreading 
 the tent and setting forth his wandering 
 Lares and Penates. 
 
 A few hundred yards from the point 
 where these wanderer's had settled for 
 night I found some rude huts, in which 
 other gypsies were residing permanently. 
 These huts were mere shelters placed 
 against, steep banks or hedges, and 
 within there was no furniture save one 
 or two blankets, a camp-kettle, and 
 some wicker baskets. Young girls 
 twelve or thirteen years of age crouched 
 naked about a smouldering lire. They 
 did not seem unhappy or hungry ; and 
 none of these strange people paid any 
 attention to me as I drove on to the inn, 
 which, oddly enough, was at some dis- 
 tance from the main village, hard by 
 the Danube side, in a gully between 
 the mountains, where coal-barges lay 
 moored. The Servian mountains, cov- 
 ered from base to summit with dense 
 forests, cast a deep gloom over the vale. 
 In a garden, on a terrace behind the inn, 
 by the light of a flickering candle. I ate a 
 frugal dinner, and went to bed much im- 
 pressed by the darkness, in such striking 
 contrast to the delightful and picturesque 
 scenes through which I had wandered all 
 day. 
 
 But I speedily forgot this next morn- 
 ing when the landlord informed me 
 thai, instead of toiling oyer the road 
 along the crags to Orsova, whither I 
 was returning, 1 could embark on a tug- 
 boat bound for that cheerful spot, and 
 could thus inspect the grand scenery 
 of the Iron Gates from the river. The 
 swift express boats, which in time of 
 peace run from Vienna to Rustchuk, 
 whisk the traveller so rapidly through 
 these famous defiles that he sees little 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 715 
 
 else than a panorama of high, rocky 
 walls. But the slow-moving and clumsy 
 tug, with its train of barges attached, 
 offers better facilities to the lover of 
 natural beauty. We had dropped down 
 only a short distance below Drenkova 
 before we found the river path filled 
 with eddies, miniature whirlpools, de- 
 noting the vicinity of the gorges into 
 which the great current is compressed. 
 These whirlpools all have names : one 
 is called the "Buffalo;" asecond, "Ker- 
 daps ; " a third is known as the " De- 
 vourer." For three or four hours we ran 
 in the shade of mighty walls of porphyry 
 and granite, on whose tops were forests 
 of oaks and elms. I could fancy that the 
 veins of red porphyry running along 
 the face of the granite were blood- 
 stains, the tragic memorials of ancient 
 battles; for, wild and inaccessible as 
 this region seems, it lias been fought 
 over and through in sternest, fashion. 
 Perched on a little promontory <>n the 
 Servian side is the tiny town of Poretch, 
 where the brave shepherds and swine- 
 herds fought the Turk, against whose 
 oppression they bad risen, until they 
 were overwhelmed by numbers, and 
 their leader, Hadji Nikolos, lost his 
 head. The Austrians point out witli 
 pride the cave on the tremendous flank 
 of Mt. Choukourou, where, two cen- 
 turies ago, an Austrian general, at the 
 head of seven hundred men. all that 
 was left to him of a goodly army, sus- 
 tained :i three months' siege against 
 large Turkish forces. Tin's cave is 
 perched high above the road at a point 
 where it absolutely commands it, and 
 the government of to-day. realizing its 
 importance, has had it fortified ami 
 furnished with walls pierced by loop- 
 holes. Trajan fought his way through 
 
 these defiles in the very infancy of the 
 Christian era; ami in memory of his 
 first splendid campaign against the 
 Dacians he carved in the solid rock 
 the letters, some of which are still visi- 
 ble, and which, by their very grandilo- 
 quence, oiler a mournful commentary 
 
 HUNGARIAN TYPES. 
 
 on the fleeting nature of human great- 
 ness. Little did he think when his 
 eyes rested lovingly on this inscription, 
 beginning : — 
 
 " Imji. Cces. />. NtrvcE Films Nerva. 
 Trajanvs. Germ. Pont. Maximus" 
 
 that Time, with profane hand, would 
 
 wipe out the memon of many of his 
 glories and would undo all the work 
 that he had done. 
 
716 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE. 
 
 A Journey through [ioumania in War Time. -- \ Khan. — Its Advantages and Disadvantages. —Primitive 
 LiteoJ the Villagers. - On the Greal Plains.- The Water Wells. -The Approaches to Buchatest.— 
 Roumanian Legends. —The Frontier <>i Europe. — French Influence in Run mania. Cui barest and 
 \rw < >rlcans. 
 
 M 
 
 /TIDNIGHT. A. lonely khan on the They had forgotten for a few moments 
 
 crest of a Roumanian hill, at to bay tlie moon, and had snatched a 
 
 whose base stretches away a forest, fitful nap; hut our third shout brings 
 
 Eastward, a broad plateau, impressive them around us in almost formidable 
 
 by reason of its vastness. Here and numbers. One or two brutes leap ii]> to 
 
 there, dotting the darkness which we snap al us, and the little liorses snort 
 
 have left behind us, camp-fires, with with tenor; for your true Roumanian 
 
 rude figures seated around them. The dog has very much of the wolf left in 
 
 musical clink of a hammer on a gyp- him, and will lunch off a live traveller 
 
 sy's anvil is borne I" us on the breeze: from time to time, while a dead one is 
 
 the brown Bohemian is repairing a team- always acceptable. Jusl as we meditate 
 
 stir's cart. He will labor all night, and firing our revolvers into the pack of 
 
 to-morrow will slumber peacefully in the clamorous dogs a curious figure ap- 
 
 shade of a tree. Midnight, and we are proaches. One glance is sufficient to 
 
 hungry and weary ; so we raise our reveal that it is the night-watchman of 
 
 voices in a prolonged shout. No an- the locality. He is a shambling, awk- 
 
 swer. ward youth, clad iu red leggings, a 
 
 But presently a huge black mass stuffed short jacket, and a sheepskin 
 
 comes lumbering towards us. It is a cap. In one hand he carries a long and 
 
 water-buffalo. He marches slowly, sol- antiquated gun, in the other a knife, in a 
 
 eiuiily up to the horses, sniffs them wooden scabbard, from which an elab- 
 
 contemptuously, then stands impudently orately carved handle of bone protrudes, 
 
 eying us. wagging his stupid head, Without vouchsafing us a single word 
 
 covered with baked mud, to and fro, he steps to the side of the khan's low 
 
 and almost persuading us that he con- wall, and in a shrill voice addresses a 
 
 templates an attack upon our party with series of reproaches to some unknown 
 
 his crooked, useless bonis. Is be the person within. The language is not 
 
 guardian of the khan? choice, so I will not repeat it. Presently 
 
 We shout again, and charge on the a wide door swings open, and the 3011th, 
 water-buffalo, forcing him by smart saluting us with the knife, shambles 
 blows with our whips to retire, moan- into the shadows again, the does, who 
 ing, and evidently considering himself a evidently recognize his authority, re- 
 much-injured boast. Still HO answer. speetfully following him. 
 
 We hatter at the door of the khan Dismounting from our jaded horses 
 
 with all our might, and once more halloo we enter the chief room of the khan, 
 
 with full force. Now the dogs awaken. On its mud floor half-a-dozen figures are 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 717 
 
 stretched, and we can dimly see that 
 they are human. Near the wall a huge 
 black hog reclines, indulging in dreams 
 of a porcine paradise. The light of the 
 feeble lamp which the master of the 
 khan carries in his hand enables us to 
 see this, as well as to remark that fowls 
 roost over the fireplace, and that a gaunt 
 dog shows his teeth from a recess near 
 that occupied by the swine. On the 
 right hand from the entrance is a small 
 room, the only furniture in which is a 
 long wooden bench in front of a coarse 
 counter and a few casks of wine backed 
 against the wall. On the left is the 
 room in which we are to sleep. A low 
 divan extends around three sides of this 
 small and uninviting chamber, and on the 
 window-sills are placed painted imams 
 of St. George and St. Michael. A 
 rosary hangs from a wooden peg, and 
 an ancient gun, of such complicated 
 mechanism that it must require a liberal 
 education to lire it off, stands in a corner. 
 A Turkish water-basin and pitcher of 
 beaten metal sit on the floor. A faint 
 odor of binned garlic and cheap wine 
 pervades the whole khan, and we awake 
 in the morning impressed with the feel- 
 ing that we have been immersed in a bath 
 impregnated with those subtle aromas. 
 
 The host, who is the only person in 
 the village who appears to possess a 
 whole coat, looks bewildered when asked 
 by our guide if he can furnish the mate- 
 rials for breakfast. lie rolls a cigarette, 
 looks helplessly from side to side, and 
 at last begins a series of apologies. 
 The hens had laid some eggs yesterday, 
 but Russian officers on the way to Bul- 
 garia had purchased them. He does 
 not like to kill his chickens. He is cot 
 sure there is any bread left in the house. 
 As lor meat, where can it be found? 
 Certainly none of the inhabitants have 
 any. Cheering prospect! On what, 
 
 then, do the villagers subsist? The 
 guide leads us to the door opening into 
 the huge barn-yard of the khan and points 
 to the driver of our wagon, who is seated 
 on the ground, w ith a bit of straw spread 
 before him. On this Stray is a small 
 loaf of black bread, a large piece of 
 white cheese, and a, little clay pot tilled 
 with coarse hominy. Near by stands an 
 earthen vase containing water. " That 
 is the stuff that the villagers eat," said 
 the guide. ••Sometimes they take the 
 trouble to cook meat ; it is easy enough 
 to get, but they are generally too lazy to 
 prepare it. See, this is the end of the 
 world ! How can you expect civilization 
 here?" We go out, through a "ale in 
 the wall, and look at the village. My 
 first thought is that [ have suddenly been 
 transported to Africa. Surely, these 
 low, wattled huts, with round tops, with 
 tiny doors, and scarcely any windows, 
 are African in form ; and the dark faces 
 [icering suspiciously from behind bits 
 of fencing, are they not those of 
 negroes? 
 
 The strone; men and womenare afield, 
 working actively before the heat of the 
 day comes on. and only the children, 
 the superannuated folk, and the dogs 
 remain in the village. Most of the 
 youthful population from the age of four 
 to fourteen is naked, and leaps and 
 runs unashamed along the hard roads 
 between the huts. The only indication 
 of real civilization in this community is 
 a steam threshing-machine, which one 
 of the landed proprietors of tin' neigh- 
 borhood erected only last year. There 
 is no church, no school, no public build- 
 ing of any kind. No inhabitant seems 
 to know anything of the country ten 
 miles beyond Lis village. There is 
 more intelligence among the wandering 
 gypsies than in these stupid tillers of 
 the soil, who arc content with so little. 
 
71. S 
 
 EUROPE I.\ STORM AND CALM. 
 
 and who fancy that the Roumanian prin- 
 cipality is the whole world. 
 
 This is, however, an exceptionally 
 degraded section. We have passed 
 through neat and handsome villages, 
 where the small cottages, with the noisy 
 storks clacking mi their roofs, were 
 grouped in picturesque fashion, and 
 where the Greek church-spire pointed 
 heavenward, and the primary school was 
 housed in a decent structure. Pretty 
 girls in gay costumes were gathered at 
 the fountains, and stout men leading 
 bullocks attached to carts laden with the 
 clops from the rich lands dolled their 
 caps and sainted ns gracefully. But 
 here, in this sun-baked, sun-swept, sun- 
 burnished land, the men are surly, the 
 women Ugly, the children sauev ami vi- 
 cious. We begin to feel out of temper 
 with this strange Roumanian province. 
 
 1'resenllv we recover OUl' ei|lia lliinit V, 
 
 for our wagoner, having thoughtfully 
 finished his own breakfast first, manages 
 to collect scraps enough for us, and my 
 companions and I can at last ride on 
 across the seemingly endless plains, 
 through tin' forests of rustling corn, 
 towards Bucharest. The sun is hoi; 
 each horse as he plunges bis hoofs into 
 the line sand in the way causes a dense 
 cloud of dust to rise. As far as the eye 
 can reach we can see the level plain 
 before us, and a long row of well-sweeps. 
 — which seem beckoning to us with their 
 weird arms to hasten forward — marks 
 the spots at which we must not fail to 
 pause, and refresh our horses with 
 
 water. Tin' Roumanian traveller offers 
 
 drink to his steed every half hour; the 
 beast moistens his lips, pricks up his 
 ears, which were beginning to droop, and 
 continues, much encouraged. 
 
 The distances between these wells are 
 strewn with the skeletons of bullocks 
 and horses which have perished by the 
 
 way: the deadening heat, under which 
 unfortunate animals are often compelled 
 to drag heavy burdens twelve or sixteen 
 hours daily is fatal to them. It is a 
 painful sight to see poor oxen, with 
 tongues lolling out and eyes protruding 
 from their sockets, struggling to reach a 
 well before the death-stroke falls upon 
 them. The unlucky teamster who tinds 
 himself stranded on the sands by the 
 loss of his team betakes himself to the 
 
 whimsical objurgation of which the Roil- 
 inanian peasants are so fond, then 
 lights his cigarette and sits down philo- 
 sophically until help arrives. In the 
 open country in Roumania, as in Turkey, 
 no one takes the precaution to bury 
 carrion ; and he who has ever been un- 
 fortunate enough to pitch his camp in 
 the vicinity of some perished beasts of 
 burden will never foiget it. 
 
 On our journey from the Danube back 
 to Bucharest we discovered that the 
 only way to secure attention in the 
 Roumanian villages of the section 
 through which we were then passing was 
 to command it. The peasants under- 
 stood commerce but very poorly; an 
 offer to buy food and grain was received 
 much as a request for arms would be in 
 Western Europe; but peremptory orders, 
 though not much to the peasant's taste, 
 were effectual. In this be much resem- 
 bles bis Bulgarian neighbor ou the other 
 side of the Danube. The stubborn- 
 ness of the Roumanian with regard to 
 some matters is remarkable, and is 
 doubtless attributable to the indepen- 
 dence that has crept into his character 
 with the adoption of the exceedingly 
 liberal new political constitution of the 
 country. In endeavoring to purchase 
 some of the bright although coarsely 
 patterned carpets which the peasant, 
 women weave there is no chance for 
 barter. You may take or leave a ear- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 719 
 
 pet, as you please : no persuasion ran 
 alter the price primarily fixed upon it. 
 
 Perhaps the most remarkable feature 
 of Roumania is the enormous difference 
 between the villages and the towns of 
 moderate size, as well as the cities. 
 Louis Blanc says that in France there 
 is an abyss between the city and the 
 country ; and this would certainly seem 
 to be the case in the Wallachian princi- 
 pality. The towns are full of activity, 
 and in certain kinds of trade manifest 
 real energy ; but five miles from any 
 town most of the villages are semi- 
 barbaric. They spoke with discouraged 
 tone of the burdens of war and the slow 
 progress of education consequent upon 
 the poverty of the country. But it 
 must not be supposed that Roumania is 
 indifferent to the cause of national edu- 
 cation. The constitution provides for a 
 liberal primary instruction, and renders 
 it compulsory " wherever schools arc 
 established." Each village or district is 
 supposed to provide funds for the sup- 
 port of free schools, but the villagers 
 plead their extreme misery as an excuse, 
 and prefer to keep their children steadily 
 at work as soon as they arc Strong 
 enough to go afield, rather than to ac- 
 cord them time to study. There were, 
 nevertheless, but a few years since, 
 nearly one hundred and twenty-live thou- 
 sand children frequenting rural primary 
 schools, and over sixty thousand were 
 receiving elementary education in city 
 schools. Instruction in Roumania is di- 
 vided, as in France, into three grades, — 
 primary, secondary, and superior or pro- 
 fessional. In the highest grade the 
 Roumanians have numerous establish- 
 ments which will bear favorable com- 
 parison with similar ones in other lands. 
 
 The khan, the monastery, and the 
 villager's hut being the only shelters for 
 the traveller across the mighty plains or 
 
 through the rugged mountains of the 
 principality, it is not astonishing that 
 when lie arrives in Bucharest, the capi- 
 tal, he is ready to bestow upon it all the 
 extravagant titles which it has received 
 during the last generation, such as "The 
 City of Pleasure," " Paris in the East," 
 " The Wanderer's Paradise, "etc. After 
 months of weary wandering in Turkey in 
 Europe, he who reaches the well-kept 
 and tidy streets of the handsome new 
 quarter of Bucharest, — who finds himself 
 once more dazzled by the glitter of Eu- 
 ropean uniforms and surrounded by evi- 
 dence of luxury and fashion, the very 
 memory of which had begun to fade from 
 his mind, — is amazed and enchanted. 
 It is like coining out of a dreary desert 
 directly upon a garden filled with choice 
 and beautiful flowers, with rippling riv- 
 ulets and plashing fountains. We en- 
 tered Bucharest from the plains, and so 
 its picturesqueness and the magic of the 
 change were both enhanced. Advancing 
 rapidly, two hours before sunset, towards 
 the town, which I could see before me 
 miles away, I could observe nothing 
 specially attractive in its appearance. 
 But as I reached the vicinity of a long 
 line of massive ancient buildings in the 
 outskirts of Bucharest the sun was just 
 deluging their gayly painted and deco- 
 rated walls with floods of light. The 
 picture was a lovely one. and distinctly 
 original. I rode on in a kind of spell, 
 produced by the mystical afterglow, 
 through narrow lanes lined on either side 
 with liliputian houses set down in the 
 middle of green lawns ; under frowning 
 arches ; through alleys paved with stones, 
 each one of which seemed struggling out 
 of the earth to smite the impertinent 
 new-comer; past a convent with its por- 
 tals covered with pictures of saints and 
 martyrs; past a grim modern barrack, 
 in front of which stood a swart sentry 
 
720 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 holding a drawn sword; then over a who in ancient times pastured his Hock 
 
 naked parade-ground ; and, finally, in on a hill now occupied by the cathedral 
 
 rugged and unimposing procession, my and legislative palace, and who had 
 
 companions ami 1 drew rein on a boule- then' built a chapel to St. Athanasius, 
 
 van! no whit inferior in magnificence, as as well as a hut for himself. His chil- 
 
 far as it extended, to those of I'aris, and dren are supposed to have taken the name 
 
 alighted at a palatial hotel, which formed of the Hucnresci, the plural of Bucur, 
 
 a curious contrast to the khan before according to the custom, and to have 
 
 whose door a few evenings previous we given it to the hamlet which their father 
 
 had loudly clamored. had founded. MacarillS, the Patriarch 
 
 The Roumanians are very proud of of Autioch, who visited the town about 
 
 their capital, which is the most impor- the middle of the seventeenth century, 
 
 taut city in all the Danubian principal- has left in his memoirs the statement 
 
 ities. and has an entertaining history, that it then had one hundred thousand 
 
 Belgrade is but a miserable village com- inhabitants, six thousand houses, and 
 
 pared with Tiucuresci (pronounced Boa- forty churches and monasteries. Since 
 
 courechti, if you wish to represent that time, despite most frightful visita- 
 
 faithflllly to yourself the Wallachian lions of pestilence, — to which it appeals 
 
 name of thecitv). There are so manv to have been particularly subject during 
 
 legends concerning the origin of this the last century, — despite conflagrations 
 
 quaint name that people generally choose and wars, and foreign occupations, it 
 
 that, which pleases their fancy most. has grown to comprise within its limits 
 
 The intelligent classes seem to divide over two hundred and fifty thousand 
 
 their preference between two stories. people. The plague has not visited 
 
 The first explains the manner in which Bucharest since 1813, when seventy thou- 
 
 Bucharesf gained the sobriquet of "City sand persons perished in less limn six 
 
 of Pleasure. " It is related that once weeks. The principality hardly rallied 
 
 upon a time, when the Turks had in- for a generation after this crushing blow, 
 
 vaded VVallachia, before retiring they Turk, Russian, and Austrian made 
 
 demanded a tribute of ten thousand themselves very much at home in Bucha- 
 
 ducats and five hundred boys. Great rest iu the eighteenth century, and one 
 
 was the indignation at tins insolent can excuse some of the extreme jealousy 
 
 demand, and the result was a battle, in which Roumanians of the present day 
 
 which Mii/ea the Elder defeated the feel with regard to strangers when one 
 
 Ottomans with terrific slaughter, and remembers how unhappy their experience 
 
 compelled the survivors to fly. Thank- of foreigners has been. When the Rus- 
 
 ful for his victory, he built a memorial sians first came into the country, in 1*77. 
 
 chinch and a princely palace at. a spot numbers of tlic elder inhabitants groaned 
 
 which is now the site of Bucharest, and aloud aial exclaimed. " What shad we 
 
 which is supposed to have gained its lose this time ? " 
 
 name at that time from the mail} rejoic- Bucharest can he reached from the 
 
 ino'B over victory, as bucurie in the Ron- capitals of Western Europe by three 
 
 inanian tongue means "joy." This ionics, the most direct and important 
 
 legend being somewhat misty, others being the railroad leading through the 
 
 believe that Bucharest takes its name Austrian Bukovina and by way of Lem- 
 
 from an historical shepherd named 1 Incur, berg and Cracow to Vienna ; I he second a 
 
EUROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 721 
 
 railway passing through the fertile re- 
 gions of Little Wallachia to the Danube 
 bank, and thence toOrsova,in Hungary, 
 where it now connects with the branch 
 tapping the main line from Pesth t<> 
 Vienna ; and the third by steam-boat on 
 the Danube from Vienna or Pesth to 
 Giurgevo, the Roumanian port opposite 
 Rustchuk, in Bulgaria, and one of the 
 most important of the Russian stations 
 during the war with Turkey. Four days 
 of steady travel by express trains and the 
 expenditure of a little more than a hun- 
 dred dollars in gold for fares and trans- 
 port of baggage will take the traveller 
 from Palis to Bucharest by the most 
 direct route. 
 
 The Roumanian gentleman is usually 
 educated in France, and always pre- 
 serves the fondest remembrance aud 
 liveliest affectiou for that cheerful 
 country. Indeed, the stranger who 
 plunges into Roumania without any pre- 
 vious knowledge of its history or charac- 
 ter can almost persuade himself that lie 
 has fallen upon a French province in 
 the Orient. The uniforms of gendarmes 
 at the railway stations, of customs offi- 
 cials, of policemen, are French iu pat- 
 tern ; the army officers seem to have just 
 left the barracks of Paris ; and French 
 is spoken with great purity aud with no 
 perceptible foreign accent by all edu- 
 cated people. The Roumanians, like 
 the Russians, appear to possess an ex- 
 traordinary facility for acquiring foreign 
 languages. Now that they have a Ger- 
 man prince to rule over them, the upper 
 classes cultivate the German language, 
 and the names of the fashionable trades- 
 men on the principal streets end in em 
 or ein, and are prefaced with the respect- 
 able and venerable patronymics of 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Jew 
 has a certain commercial force and in- 
 fluential position in the principality, al- 
 
 though he is bitterly hated and often sub- 
 jected to downright abuse by the native 
 Roumanians. In a small town near 
 .lassy. during my visit to Roumania in 
 the spring of last year, two .lews were 
 beaten almost to death, with circum- 
 stances of barbarous and bestial cruelty 
 attending the ferocious punishment, 
 simply because one of them had given a 
 quick answer to a police-master who 
 told him that Jews had no business to 
 be silting outside their houses late at 
 night. Both Russians and Roumanians 
 are intolerant and ungenerous in a star- 
 tling degree with regard to the Hebrew 
 trader. It is also to be said that the 
 .lew gives considerable provocation, and 
 that his extreme sharpness in money 
 matters provokes envy and a desire on 
 the part of the ignorant and often fa- 
 natical agricultural population of Rou- 
 mania to get even with him by means 
 of sundry well-bestowed thrashings and 
 kickings. Thousands of .lews followed 
 the Russian army into Roumania and 
 down to the Danube, and a recital of 
 some of the expedients to which they 
 resorted for amassing fortunes speedily 
 would go far in the minds of many to 
 excuse the extreme measures sometimes 
 taken against them. It is probable 
 that as Roumania becomes more gener- 
 ally intelligent and prosperous a preju- 
 dice which is degrading and unworthy of 
 the civilization of the nineteenth century 
 
 will die away, and the Hebrew will pur- 
 sue those callings for which he has es- 
 pecial fitness unrestrained ami without 
 fear of ill-treatment. 
 
 In midsummer there are many charac- 
 teristics in the life of Bucharest which 
 remind tin- American of New Orleans. 
 Both are lowland cities ; both allow the 
 
 visitor to realize to the full the inex- 
 pressible witchery of the strange south- 
 ern twilight and the glamour of restful 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 afternoons; and both have an immense 
 vagabond population. As New Orleans 
 has the vagrant negro, so Bucharest has 
 the gypsy, the joyous, thievish, patient, 
 long-suffering, and, on the whole, much- 
 to-be-admired Tsigane. The mystic 
 children of the Hast number more than 
 three hundred thousand in Moldavia and 
 Wallachia, the two ancient provinces 
 now definitely united under the name 
 of Roumania, and naturally there art 
 many thousands of them in Bucharest. 
 The race has been freed from slavery 
 only about twenty years, and is still 
 much lower in the ■intellectual and moral 
 scale than our freedmen of the Southern 
 lowlands. The Tsiganes emigrated by 
 thousands from Roumania into Austria 
 ami Hungary as soon as the war began. 
 They possess the impudence of the de- 
 mon, and are masters in the art of lying. 
 But little is expected of them, and the 
 Bucharestians, who are in general de- 
 cent, and in many respects refined, folks, 
 complacently allow gypsy women un- 
 clad to bathe in broad daylight in the 
 river Dimbovitza, which courses directly 
 through the middle of the populous city. 
 They say. "It is only a gypsy; and 
 what does it matter? " 
 
 The visitor to (he Roumanian capital 
 must beware of one danger if he wishes 
 to continue in the good graces of the cit- 
 izens. He must on all occasions, and 
 with extreme gusto, praise the Dimbo- 
 
 vitza as the most charming of European 
 streams. It really is nothing of the 
 soil ; it is a small yellow current, and 
 looks so uninviting that one can scarcely 
 understand how the gypsy beauties can 
 consent to lave their dusky persons in it. 
 Hut. every descendant of Trajan's colo- 
 nists believes it to be a stream quite as 
 classical as the Tiber, and a loving 
 couplet in the soft Roumanian language 
 asserts — - 
 
 " Dimbovitza, loveliest water ! 
 lie who drinks can never leave thee." 
 
 Let, me Sadd that this superstition, 
 which would be rather pretty if the 
 water were clearer, has thousands of 
 believers among the lower classes, who 
 are eminently superstitious. The gypsy 
 mason, before he lays the foundations of 
 the stone house which he is engaged to 
 build, slyly measures the shadow of 
 some unwary passer-by with a branch 
 which he buries in the soil where the 
 nether stones are to repose. He and 
 all companions in his craft throughout 
 Roumania believe that the person whose 
 shade is thus measured will die soon 
 thereafter, and that his spirit is doomed 
 to haunt the house when it is built. 
 Each house has its staltib, or spirit, of 
 this kind, and many wondrous stories 
 are told of their mysterious appearances 
 and disappearances. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 72;: 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO. 
 
 Notes on Bucharest. — Streets ami Street Types.- - The Wallaeliiau Soldiers. — ( lonscriptc 1 Peasantry. - 
 Roumanian Independence. — Priests and Churches. 
 
 years ago. In spring and summer it is 
 a delightful promenade, and from seven 
 to ten o'clock on summer evenings all the 
 ladies of Bucharest society are to la- seen 
 there, languidly reposing in their car- 
 riages, and sipping iees. Bucharest lias. 
 I should think, as many carriages as New 
 York, for there are on all occasions 
 hundreds to be had if wanted, and the 
 drivers urge their horses forward at such 
 a rattling pti.ee, except during the grand 
 procession of fashion on the Chausse'e, 
 that the stranger finds some little diffi- 
 culty in keeping his seat. These drivers 
 in Bucharest, and in most of the large 
 Roumanian towns, are members of the 
 sect of Russian Skoptsi, or self-muti- 
 lators. They wear flat bine caps, long 
 blue coats, and fancy boots. — a gala cos- 
 tume which accords but poorly with their 
 faces of parchment, their lack-lustre eyes, 
 their piping voices. Most, of them do 
 not know ten words of the Wallachian 
 language, and they are guided entirely 
 by gestures. A touch on their right arm 
 sends them to the right ; on the left, to 
 the left ; and a tap on the back brings 
 them to a full stop. The spectacle of 
 several hundreds of the carriages racing 
 madly to and fro, filled with officers 
 beating perpetual tattoo on the backs, 
 arms, and ribs of the blue-coated autom- 
 atons, as on the occasion of the arri- 
 val of the Czar of Russia in Bucharest, 
 was at. once ludicrous and inspiring. 
 
 I fancy there is no other avenue in 
 Europe where one may see as many curi- 
 
 i>TJT to return to Bucharest. It has 
 -L-' a principal street, called the " Podan 
 Mogosoi'" {sol being pronounced as if it 
 were i-ho'i). This runs from south to 
 north through the city, and along its 
 sides are ranged the principal hotels, the 
 cafes, the one pretty theatre (Teatru 
 National" ) , the palace of the reigning 
 prince, some of the ministerial offices, 
 and nearly all of the consular and diplo- 
 matic residences. Bucharest has always 
 been considered an important point for 
 the maintenance of diplomatic agents, as 
 from thence one gets a wide lookout 
 over Turkey in Europe; and all the great 
 powers have handsome mansions estab- 
 lished there, in which keen consular 
 agents with diplomatic functions keep a 
 sharp wateli on each other and write long 
 reports to their governments. In inter- 
 vals of leisure they amuse themselves 
 with attending to court etiquette, and 
 with the pleasant and brilliant society of 
 this odd capital, so far away from the 
 shining centres of Western Europe. 
 Many of these agents have written clever 
 books on the Roumanians and their neigh- 
 bors. Beyond these diplomatic mansions 
 the Podan Mogosoi leads past oue, or at 
 most two, story houses, set down in little 
 gardens, until it reaches the Chaussee. 
 This pretty park, with tine drive-ways 
 running through it, was named the 
 "Chaussee Kisselef" (Kisselef road), 
 after the Russian general, who originated 
 its plan ami urged the inhabitants to 
 create it, when he was stationed there 
 
724 
 
 Eri;i>VE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 ous and striking figures as on the Podan 
 Mogosoi. There are prosperous farmers 
 in Roumania, although the villages are 
 squalid and semi-barbarous, and these 
 
 people take solid satisfaction in coming 
 to Bucharest once or twice a year. All 
 summer long, and at all hours of the 
 dav. the promenadcr may meet the tiller 
 of the soil, his wife, and their pretty 
 brown-eyed daughter in procession visit- 
 ing the shops on the Mogosoi. The 
 father weai-s a linen suit, ornamented 
 with red or blue; the trousers are so wide 
 that they seem like meal-bags; the 
 jacket is also ample, and the bold rustic 
 displays the massive square of his more 
 or less heroic breast, which is burned to 
 a deep red by the generous sun. His 
 head is crowned with a broad black hat, 
 almost as ugly as that of a Spanish priest ; 
 sometimes he is barefooted, and some- 
 times he wears coarse shoes. The 
 women's costumes are at once simple and 
 picturesque : their jackets and skirts are 
 made of coarse stuffs, tastefully orna- 
 mented ; and a scarf protects the head 
 and face from the blinding light. In the 
 spring and autumn rainy seasons, when 
 the Roumanian village streets are turned 
 into mud-beds, the women wear tall 
 boots, which disfigure them and render 
 their gait exceedingly awkward. The 
 failed is armed usually, but only with a 
 little knife, which would serve in ease 
 some vagabond attacked him. Crime is 
 not frequent in Roumania : cases of as- 
 sassination are almost unheard of in the 
 large towns, anil in the wild and remote 
 districts brigandage yearly becomes less 
 aiidless troublesome. The brigand, when 
 he is caught, gets short shrift. A friend 
 of mine was travelling ten years since iu 
 a thinly settled section of the province, 
 and was attacked in a wooded place by 
 two rascals, who shot at him anil his ser- 
 vant. As they approached the wagon 
 
 my friend took good aim and shot one of 
 the brigands dead ; the other ran away. 
 
 The gentleman drove to the next 
 
 town, and narrated the occurrence to 
 the local authorities. " Hum ! " said the 
 police agent: " we'll send some one out 
 to find out who it was. and to bury him, 
 in a day 01 two." 
 
 The stout and awkward Wallachian 
 soldier is a familiar figure on the 
 Mogosoi. lie is not handsome, and the 
 national cap, to which In- so fondly 
 clings, does not palliate his naturally 
 uncouth appearance. Bui he is good- 
 natured, earnest, and there never was a 
 viler slander than that which denounced 
 him as cowardly. He demonstrated his 
 valor in front of Plevna again and 
 again. His uniform is extremely simple, 
 and he cannot be persuaded to wear it 
 trimly and neatly. He looks supremely 
 unhappy when compelled to maintain a 
 still' military aspect, as when on guard 
 at the prince's palace or one of the 
 ministries. He loves to crouch down 
 on the sunny side of a wall and smoke a 
 cigarette and listen to a good story. 
 But if he sees the priest coining he will 
 instantly rise to his feet, doll' his homely 
 cap, bend his knees, and kiss the priestly 
 hand which is held forth in token of 
 favor. 
 
 There are numerous smartly uniformed 
 special corps in the Roumanian capital. 
 The lifeguards of the prince are mighty 
 fellows, six feet two or three inches tall, 
 ami ariayed as gorgeously as the carabin- 
 eers in Offenbach's opera. There is a 
 body dressed somewhat in imitation of 
 Italian bersaglieri, ami a detachment of 
 these bright little fellows in jaunty 
 dress mart-lies through the principal 
 streets at noontide to the sound of in- 
 spiring music, carrying the garrison 
 Hag when they go to relieve guard. A 
 peculiarity which puzzled me was the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 725 
 
 constant playing by the military bands 
 of our old war tunes, such as : " Tramp, 
 tramp, tramp," "John Brown," " Mother, 
 I've come home to die," etc. At first it 
 occurred to me that an American band- 
 master might be among the musicians ; 
 but I could not discover one. Perhaps 
 the Roumanians have found that the 
 simple melodies of which our soldiers 
 were so fond have also a special fitness 
 for their own military purposes. It is 
 certain that they have adopted them in 
 large numbers. 
 
 The policemen, the officers of crack 
 corps, the prefects and sub-prefects, 
 and, in short, most of the uniformed 
 officials, follow French models with the 
 greatest closeness. Enter a cafe or a 
 chocolate-vender's on the Mogoso'i on a 
 summer evening, and one may persuade 
 himself that he is in Paris, — all the more 
 readily as it is probable that nine out of 
 ten persons will bespeaking the Gallic 
 tongue. If some representative of the 
 court happens in, every one will fall 
 back into Roumanian, or possibly some 
 few will indulge in German. The officers 
 are elegant, dashing fellows, and bestow 
 quite as much attention on their toilets 
 as is allowable for man. The plain, 
 sturdy Russians looked at them with 
 some contempt when they first came 
 among them, on account of their affecta- 
 tion ; but when they discovered that the 
 handsome boys could tight as well as 
 twirl their mustaches they were de- 
 lighted. 
 
 A sorrowful spectacle on the Mogoso'i 
 now and then is a conscripted peasant 
 in the clutch of the military authorities. 
 The poor wretch hurries angrily along, 
 his brow clouded, often his eyes filled 
 with tears, while behind him walks a 
 gendarme with drawn sword, ready to 
 cut him down if he attempts to escape. 
 The peasants of Roumauia suffer nearly 
 
 as much from homesickness as do the 
 Turks, and when the conscription drags 
 them from their beloved villages they 
 are half ready to commit suicide. The 
 glare and glitter of the "Paris of the 
 East" does not compensate them for the 
 change from farm to garrison. They 
 sigh for the tall fields of rustling corn, 
 the hot breezes which now and then blow 
 from the south across the vast plains, 
 the water-buffaloes, and the huts in 
 whose thatch the stork trustingly nestles. 
 Since Roumania has won her inde- 
 pendence her army has become of greater 
 importance than ever before, and offers 
 a good career to many enterprising men. 
 Rut it is unfortunate that so small a 
 state is compelled to maintain a com- 
 paratively large standing army. If the 
 forty or fifty thousand men Roumania 
 now requires as soldiers and officers 
 were engaged in manufactures, or in 
 developing the marvellous mineral and 
 agricultural resources of one of the 
 richest of provinces, the country would 
 so, ,11 take important rank in Europe. 
 At present every Roumanian is com- 
 pelled to serve either in the permauent 
 army or in the militia. This latter 
 organization always amounts to about a 
 hundred thousand men, thirty-two regi- 
 ments of which arc known as the 
 dorobansi, who take the place of the old 
 frontier guardsmen ; twelve regiments as 
 calarasi, or departmental gendarmerie, 
 and fourteen flatteries of artillery, which 
 oddly enough perforin in peace the duties 
 of firemen. These are garrisoned in the 
 principal towns. The Roumanians real- 
 ize to the fullest extent that the Hun- 
 garians are their implacable enemies, and 
 that part of their frontier which touches 
 Hungary is most efficiently guarded. 
 The five millions of Roumanian folk in 
 the kingdom know also that there are 
 three or four millions more of the same 
 
72*1 EUROPE IS STORM AND CALM. 
 
 blood scattered about in Hungary, Tran- ideal of the priesthood. He has the sad, 
 
 sylvania, and the Bukovina, and it may sweet face, with the low brow crowned 
 
 be with sunn' idea of bringing their wan- with flowing locks parted in the middle, 
 
 dering brethren under the old flag at a such as we have seen in the works of the 
 
 future day that they keep their army up, old Byzantine artists. An expression of 
 
 spending even in ordinary years, as they tender and subdued melancholy hovers 
 
 did in 18S4-5, twenty-one millions of about the thin lips, and a chastened spirit 
 
 francs upon it. and only about a third as beams from the frank and widely opened 
 
 much on agriculture, commerce, and pub- eyes. A tine inspiration seems to hover 
 
 lie works. As for the Roumanian navy, about the man, warding off the grossness 
 
 it is easy enough to support, for it boasts of the lower nature and urging him on 
 
 only one large war-ship, the " Mirzea," to lofty ami noble deed-.. His step is 
 
 finished in 1883, besides three gun-boats, slow and plantigrade; his gestures are 
 
 three torpedo boats, ami a number of impressive ; liis benedictions imposing. 
 
 police sloops for the Danube, and musters I have not wondered when I have seen 
 
 scarcely a thousand men. peasants kneeling in a kind of adoration 
 
 The stranger on the Mogoso'i is puz- before such a man as he blessed their 
 
 zled in noticing that some police agents bread, their houses, or their babies. 
 
 and postmen wear red stripes upon their The Cossack, as he rode through the 
 
 uniforms, while others are striped with streets of Bucharest on his way to Bul- 
 
 black, others with green, and still others garia, bent from his saddle to kiss the 
 
 with yellow and blue. The fact is that hand of the priest, and crossed himself 
 
 Bucharest is divided into five large wards, religiously when passing the decorated 
 
 which are distinguished from each other portico of some one of the many wooden 
 
 by the names of colors. The northern churches, (hie fat and rather disagree- 
 
 sectiou, in which the aristocracy reside, able-looking old priest, who was evi- 
 
 has yellow for its line, and this color dently a dignitary of high order, 
 
 will he found on the letter-boxes, lamp- promenaded the Mogosoi' every day of 
 
 posts, the collars of uniforms, etc. my stay in Bucharest. At his approach 
 
 Red is the commercial and plebeian dye ; women began to crouch, men to drop 
 
 green means west; black, east, and their cigars or to hide them, and to 
 
 blue, south. A strongly marked local shuffle their rosaries, and children stood 
 
 pride is visible among the inhabitants pale and mute before him. Form is 
 
 of each of these quarters; and the everything in Rounmuia, and the exterior 
 
 lucky result is that there is no section formulas of religion are scrupulously 
 
 of Bucharest which does not boast at observed by all classes born in the faith 
 
 least one or two fine edifices, public or of the Orthodox Greek church. I have 
 
 private. often met a slow and solemn procession 
 
 Priests are plenty on the Mogosoi*,— of priests bearing the sacrament to the 
 priests large and small, fat and lean, dying. The principal offlciator marched 
 old and young. They are not always proudly ahead with swelling front; be- 
 cleanly, I regret to say, and when their hind him followed meek curis and 
 fall brimless hats and long black robes acolytes with eyes bent on the ground, 
 arc stained and dusty they are not in- Companies of chanting priests were 
 (.cresting figures. But now and then one always meeting the Russians at impor- 
 ts to be seen who seems the incarnate tant points both in Bulgaria and Rounia- 
 
El'ROl'l-: IX STORM AND CALM 
 
 727 
 
 nia in 1877, holding up the sacred 
 images for them to kiss, and offering 
 them bread and salt in token of welcome. 
 Some of these ceremonies were notably 
 impressive. Emperor and grand dukes 
 bowed before the uplifted hand of the 
 rustic man <>t' Cud, and the Emperor's 
 first act on arriving at Bucharest was to 
 kiss the golden crucifix which the metro- 
 politan archbishop held out to him. 
 
 The Roumanian church is free from 
 any foreign dominion whatsoever. The 
 principality is divided into eight dioceses. 
 of which two are archbishoprics, having 
 their scats at Bucharest and .Jassv. and 
 six are bishoprics. The Archbishop of 
 Bucharest is the chief, and is known by 
 the high-sounding title of ■• the Metro- 
 politan of Hungro-Wallaehia." The 
 clergy is divided into •' secular" and 
 •■ regular." each class comprising from 
 nine to ten thousand men. All other 
 religions besides those of the established 
 church are as free as in America. Even 
 the persecuted .lew is not troubled on 
 account of his religion, and may have 
 his choice of thirty synagogues and 
 oratories in Bucharest to worship in. I 
 fear that the Roumanian men are at 
 heart as little devoted to Greek as 
 Frenchmen are to Roman Catholicism. 
 In both countries it is the women who 
 maintain the Church. The sumptuous 
 ceremonials of the Greek religion have a. 
 powerful hold on the imaginative, ro- 
 mantic, sensuous Wallaehian women. 
 
 It is but a short distance from the 
 Podan Mogosoi', along a beautiful tree- 
 bordered avenue, to the hill on which 
 stands the Metropolitan Church of Bu- 
 charest. From the plain it looks more 
 like a fortress than a house of God, for 
 three stout towers surmount the huge 
 structure, built in the form of a cross, 
 like most Greek churches, with the 
 head turned towards the cast, and 
 
 surrounded by a vast cloister studded 
 with small towers. The domes and the 
 roof of the basilica are covered with 
 lead. The church was restored in 1834, 
 hut it is probable that the leaden roofs 
 are much the same as those of which 
 the Patriarch of Antioch speaks in his 
 account of Bucharest, written about the 
 middle of the seventeenth century. 
 Macarius reported that this roof weighed 
 more than a hundred thousand pounds. 
 Inside the edifice is ornamented with 
 much luxury and taste. The arabesques 
 especially remind one that he is in 
 South-eastern Europe. The frescos cm 
 the exterior walls are mostly crude, and 
 in some cases worse than ordinary. 
 They represent episodes from the 
 Apocalypse and from the Scriptures 
 in general. All Roumanian churches 
 have something of this exterior decora- 
 tion, and one or two of the churches 
 are brilliant in color. If a Puritan 
 could see them in the midst of their 
 pretty gardens he would cry out against 
 them as too gav for houses of prayer. 
 In the same cloister which surrounds 
 the Metropolitan Church the National 
 Chamber of Deputies is installed. 
 Looking down in midsummer from the 
 entrance to this legislative hall over the 
 city, one can see nothing hut a far-ex- 
 tending ocean of verdure, pierced here 
 and there by a yellow tower or a white 
 dome. Bucharest seems asleep among 
 the trees. 
 
 St. Spiridion the New, not far from 
 the Metropolitan, is the most beautiful 
 as well as the most costly church in 
 Roumania, always excepting the match- 
 less Cathedral of Argesu. It is scarcely a 
 generation old, ami nearly all the marbles 
 and frescos in it are the work' of young 
 Roumanian artists. The standards and 
 sceptres of the Fanariote beys, who for- 
 merly came to the church which once 
 
728 
 
 EUROPE J.V STOIDf AND CALM. 
 
 stood 011 this siii- to be crowned, are 
 preserved in St. Spiridion the New. 
 With St. Spiridion the Old, which stands 
 in the commercial quarter of Bucharest, 
 a strange story is connected. The body 
 of the voivoda Constantine Hangerli, 
 who was beheaded by order of the Porte, 
 in L799, lies buried there. The man- 
 ner in which this unfortunate official 
 met his death admirably illustrates the 
 barbarous conduct <>!' the Turks in 
 their subject Danubian provinces. The 
 government at Constantinople was 
 dissatisfied with the administration of 
 Constantine, whom it hail placed in power 
 in Bucharest, ami determined to replace 
 him. This is the way in which it was 
 done: One day a Turkish official, ac- 
 companied by a hideous negro and two 
 slaves, arrived in Bucharest, and went 
 straight to the palace. Without ex- 
 plaining their mission they entered 
 Constantine's apartment, and the negro 
 killed him with a pistol-shot. The 
 Turkish official then plunged his knife 
 
 into the dead mall's breast, CUt Off his 
 head, ami threw the body, stripped 
 naked, into the court-yard covered with 
 snow. This interesting party then re- 
 tired, carrying off the slaughtered voi- 
 voda' s head, and in course of time 
 the l'oiie named a successor to Constan- 
 tine. The Roumanian population was 
 so horrified by this barbaric acl that it 
 was some days before any one dared to 
 remove the body. Ami this happened 
 little more than three-quarters of a cen- 
 tury ago ! 
 
 The memory of another Constantine, 
 who was also beheaded by his ferocious 
 masters, the Turks, after he hail Keen 
 hospodar of Rou mania for a short time, 
 is recalled by the Church of Caltzea, 
 which is one of the interesting edifices 
 of Bucharest. This church is said to 
 have been constructed by the Swedish 
 
 soldiers who took refuge in Roumania 
 after their disaster. Charles XII., 
 when he was transferred from Bender to 
 Demotica, in 1713, passed a night at 
 Caltzea. which was then just finished. 
 The hospodar, Constantine Brancovano, 
 went to meet the great man at the gates 
 of the city, and in the course of compli- 
 mentary conversation observed, "We 
 have heard that Your Majesty has slain 
 as many as twenty Janissaries with your 
 own hand." " Ah ! " said Charles, mod- 
 estly. " you know people always exag- 
 gerate by at least one-half." 
 
 On the Mogosoi stands the Sarindav, 
 a church in which is carefully enshrined 
 a so-called miraculous image of the 
 Blessed Virgin. [Matthew Bassaraba, a 
 pious prince, built the church in 1634, 
 and Roumanian annals record him as 
 instrumental in the building of thirty- 
 nine other sacred edifices. When the 
 prince or any other great personage 
 falls seriously ill the sacred image is 
 
 taken from the Sarindav and borne to the 
 house of the sufferer hy priests, who ride 
 in a gala carriage, before which lighted 
 
 candles are borne. The people in the 
 streets kneel, or make profound obeisan- 
 ces, as the image passes. If the sufferer 
 is a person in ordinary circumstances a 
 monk in a hired carriage bears to him a 
 small image which is a copy of the more 
 wonderful one. 
 
 of the ninety-six Orthodox churches 
 of Bucharest about one-half ate his- 
 torically interesting. Each has its 
 legend, its ballad, or its curious inci- 
 dent, which the parishioners are never 
 tired of repeating to strangers. Most 
 of the intelligent inhabitants arc familiar 
 with the story of the origin of the 
 monastery church of Mihail Voda, pict- 
 uresquely situated on one of the few 
 eminences in Bucharest. " Vlad the 
 Devil," a great ruler and fighter in the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 729 
 
 Wallachian days, is believed to have 
 founded this church in 14oC. This Ylad 
 was a wild fellow, and perhaps desired 
 to ease his conscience by establishing 
 churches. His career was filled with 
 deeds of the most diabolical ferocity, 
 and it is said that he once caused 
 twenty-five thousand Turkish prisoners 
 to be impaled. The old church is now 
 rapidly crumbling to decay. 
 
 The barefooted and often bareheaded 
 newsboy, rushing wildly along beneath 
 the awnings in the heated streets and 
 thrusting sheets damp from the press 
 
 under the noses of the pedestrians re- 
 minds the American of home, and that 
 the press is absolutely free in Roumania. 
 Everything and everybody receive ample 
 criticism, and at all hours of the day 
 one hears the boys crying " Prisa!" 
 " Momanul!" ''■Romania Libera!" and 
 a dozen other journals more or less 
 important. Bucharest has a large read- 
 ing population, but nine out of ten of 
 the village folk can neither read nor 
 write, and look upon a newspaper as the 
 most utterly superfluous of things. 
 
730 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE. 
 
 The Garden of Herestreu. — Gypsy Music. — Roumanian Amusements. — Prince Gortschakoff ai Bucha- 
 rest. General I^natieff. — Roumanian Houses. — Ploiesci. — A Funeral in Roumania. — A Bit "i 
 History. —A Liberal t onstitulion. — Kin<f Charles. — The Upgrowth of Literature. 
 
 THE gypsy's eves are wonderfully Wallachian beer. A few semi-civilized 
 brown and soft, and as- he lays tillers of the soil are galloping home- 
 aside his ijn'Jii. the musical instrument ward on their merry little horses, whose 
 from which he has just evoked such pas- breakneck pace seems likely to bring 
 sionate sounds, and approaches us. ex- misfortune to the unsteady riders. Wine 
 tending his lean hand and shrugging his has (lowed in rivulets in the shops in the 
 shoulders with deprecatory air, it is hard shabby streets just outside the town, for 
 to send him away with an angry word, it is a "market-day." At Baniassa, 
 A few bard content him, and he returns once a favorite suburban resort for Bu- 
 to the shade of a friendly tree, and, with charest's fashionable folk, a few thou- 
 his companions, sings a round of deli- sand sturdy Russians are encamped, and 
 cious melodies, each and till filled with :i hum arising from their tented city is 
 wild and plaintive chords, wilh lender borne on the evening breeze to listeners 
 melancholy, and a rude eloquence almost a mile away 
 
 surprising. Within this magic close of Herestreu 
 
 We are seated in the garden of He- one forgets everything but the entranc- 
 
 restreu, outside- the city of Bucharest iug melody of the dark-skinned vaga- 
 
 llerestreit is tin oasis crowded with dc- bond choir squatted under the trees. 
 
 lights iii tlie middle of a comparatively Who would have suspected that beneath 
 
 uninteresting plain. When the rich these scowling brows, these uneasy eyes, 
 
 southern moonlighl showers its glory these foreheads crowned with masses 
 
 on the green sward and among the odor- of inky hair, lay such power of poetic 
 
 mis vines and flowers the beauty and expression? The men are marvels: 
 
 fashion of the Roumanian capital seek when they sine they seem inspired ; 
 
 respite from the toils of the parlor and their faces are transfigured ; their hands 
 
 the ball-room in this charming spot, tremble ; their lips quiver with excite- 
 
 For half a mile round about, pretty vil- ment. On the throbbing current of their 
 
 las surrounded by well-kept gardens sensuous song one is borne into a region 
 
 are scattered tit rare intervals ; but with of enchantment. < hie hems the musical 
 
 this exception, the stretch of land is flow of the great Danube past the mighty 
 
 barren and uninviting. At a place crags and through the vast valleys where 
 
 where four roads meet, a long, one-story Trajan once camped and fought and 
 
 inn, with grotesque figures painted on worked; one sees the misty blue of the 
 
 it -table-door, rears its abject front, hills over which the Hungarian hunter 
 
 In the yard of this caravansary a few tramps merrily at sunrise to the refrain 
 
 slatternly "iris are romping, and one or of the horn : one seats oneself in nooks 
 
 two peasants sit moodily drinking sour where the purple grape-clusters move 
 
EUROrE IS STORM AM> CALM. 
 
 731 
 
 heavily to and fro above him ; one 
 stands by the foot of some moss-grown 
 cross in an ancient village and watches 
 youths and maidens treading the curious 
 mazes of the Hora Tanz. So subtle 
 is the spell that one wIki is under its 
 influence feels a contempt I'm' the tame 
 sensations of more thoroughly civilized 
 Western Europe. The mystery, the 
 voluptuousness, the dreaminess of the 
 Orient seize on him and claim him for 
 their own. 
 
 Presently the music dies away; the 
 clear, piercing tones of the youngest of 
 the singers stop shortly just as they are 
 taking a flight in mid-air. The calm 
 after this melody is almost startling. 
 Twilight is coming rapidly. I sit and 
 muse for an hour; the charm holds long 
 and well. At last I look up and see the 
 gypsy musicians stretched upon their 
 hacks, with their dusky faces turned 
 toward the veiled sky. They are fast 
 asleep, and unless the proprietor turns 
 them out of the garden they will remain 
 so until morning. They seem to have 
 exhaled all their strength in their song, 
 When they wake they will wander to the 
 nearest stream, throw aside (heir ex- 
 tremely scanty garments, and plunge and 
 lie in uncouth positions in the muddy 
 flood, as their friend the water-buffalo 
 does. After this simple toilet they will 
 tramp before the sun is hot, breakfaston 
 a crust and a fragment of old cheese. 
 aud sing again wherever they are per- 
 mitted so to do. 
 
 The Roumanian common folk have no 
 very definite ideas of amusement and 
 recreation as compared with those of va- 
 rious other nations. There is a certain 
 amount of grace and a rude rhythm in 
 the Hora, — the dance which the peas- 
 ants indulge in at night in rustic caba- 
 rets, or on festal days in the towns, — 
 butthere is not much merriment in it. The 
 
 men and women both act as if they were 
 not sorry when the dance is over and 
 they can relapse into their normal condi- 
 tion of siouchiness. Sometimes one 
 chances upon a downright merry com- 
 pany; but it is the exception. I went 
 one afternoon to a fair in the outskirts 
 of Bucharest, having been informed thai 
 il would be a gay spectacle and could 
 only be seen once a year. After infi- 
 
 nite difficulties in finding the place indi- 
 cated, all that I discovered was a series 
 of wooden booths, in which languid and 
 sallow women, none of whom were emi- 
 nent for beauty or smartness of attire, 
 weii' selling clot lis. prin ted handkerchiefs, 
 carpets woven by the industrious wives 
 of villagers near the capital, and articles 
 of fantasy imported from the Palais 
 Royal, in Paris. There were feu buyers, 
 and the sellers appeared more anxious to 
 forget the dull September heat in sleep 
 than to dispose of their wares. 1 fancied 
 
732 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 thai the war and its sorrows (for the famous, when an indiscreet fellow-coun- 
 
 Roumanians had then just crossed the tryman or a pushing diplomat tool* 
 
 Danube to join the Russians in the siege advantage of his apparent good-nature 
 
 of Plevna) had deadened the customaiy to be rather daring. Prince Gortscha- 
 
 gavi'tv ; but friends in Bucharest assured koff showed his age. He walked rather 
 
 me that "it was as lively as usual." feebly, and generally appeared on the 
 
 The terrible extremes of the Roumanian street at Bucharest supported cm the 
 
 climate keep the people from that dis- arm of some one who was young and 
 
 play of vivacity which one expects of the strong. His temper was cheerful in a 
 
 southern temperament. They bake in surprising degree ; nothing seemed to as- 
 
 summer, and they freeze in winter, tonish him. The scries of alarming 
 
 They love music, and through all the rumors which came to him from beyond 
 
 pleasant months they crowd the gardens, the Danube, after General Gonrko's re- 
 
 where regimental bands play, and singers turn from his impetuous raid across the 
 
 retail the latest fragments of opera Balkans, were enough to try the nerves 
 
 bouffe. " Rasca's " and the ■• Swiss of fresher and more vigorous men than 
 
 Union" — little parks laid out in the the aged premier; but his cheerfulness 
 
 Austrian fashion, with restaurants am! was always remarked just at moments 
 
 beer-fountains attached — possess open- which seemed gloomiest toother friends 
 
 air theatres. That year the various of the Russian cause. In his relations 
 
 entertainments for the purpose of gain- with the Roumanian authorities — rela- 
 
 ing funds for the hospitals brought all tions naturally of extreme delicacy, 
 
 Bucharest to " Rasca's." because anything like pressure on the 
 
 The pretty Princess Elizabeth, with officials of the tiny State was far from 
 
 the ladies of her court and hundreds of his thoughts, and firmness might at any 
 
 exquisitelv beautiful young girls, — beau- moment be construed by the susceptible 
 
 ti ful, alas ! only to fade ere their worn- people into arbitrary demand, — he cay,. 
 
 ,,nli 1 has begun, — wandered in the proof of a gentle consideration which 
 
 shady aisles with scenes of brilliantly made him both respected anil loved. It 
 uniformed Russian dukes, princes, and is to be feared that General Ignatieff did 
 barons. All the dignitaries of Bucha- not give the Roumanians the same treat- 
 rest, from the minister of foreign affairs ment. If the rumors be true he was 
 to the prefect of police, were to be seen not mealy-mouthed when he arrived 
 in an evening's promenade. The music in Bucharest to ask for the recession of 
 on such occasions was exceptionally Bessarabia to Russia, and hinted that 
 good; the acting and singing execrable, they would be wiser to give it in ex- 
 — a legacy of histrionic horrors, from the change for something else than to see it 
 slums of Paris, St. Petersburg, Moscow, taken violently from them. There is no 
 and Odessa, having beeu forced upon the denying the fact that the Roumanians 
 unfortunate citizens of Bucharest. Yen- were from time to time rather preten- 
 erable Prince Gortschakoff did not hesi- tions in their relations to the Russians: 
 tate to exhibit himself in this garden and that some of their requests were de- 
 froni time to time, to laugh with the nied simply because it would have been 
 brightest of the maidens, and to utter impossible to grant them. At one time 
 those singularly non-committal answers it seemed as if they delighted to place 
 to "leading questions " for which he is obstacles in the way of the Russians: 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 F33 
 
 but they soon began to work in unison 
 with their Northern friends when they 
 learned that nothing' less than the demoli- 
 tion of the Turkish power in Europe was 
 contemplated. 
 
 A Roumanian house is a perfect laby- 
 rinth of stair-ways, small and large, 
 lighted anduulighted ; of balconies over- 
 hanging' other houses ; and of long pas- 
 sages open at both ends. At night the 
 servants, men and women, sleep on the 
 floor on these balconies and in the cor- 
 ridors, and the traveller entering after 
 midnight for the first time oue of the 
 populous mansions of Bucharest might 
 readily fancy that the way to his 
 bedroom was strewn with corpses. He 
 would have to step over the cook, who, 
 with a single blanket thrown about ber 
 portly form, would perhaps be dream- 
 ing and murmuring a voluble Wallachian 
 prayer ; to steer cautiously around the 
 maid-of-all-work, on whose olive-colored 
 face, framed in a night of untidy locks, 
 the moon might be easting its dangerous 
 beams; and, escaping this Scylla, he 
 would confront the C'harybdis of the 
 serving-man, who wears a long knife in 
 his belt, and whose temper is bad when 
 he awakes in a fright. Awaking before 
 dawn one morning at Ploiesci, I heard a 
 strange rustling sound on my balcony, 
 and, peering from the bedroom window, 
 saw the whole landing loaded with the 
 ungainly forms of wagoners, who had 
 come in during the night, and who slept, 
 shrouded in their sheepskin mantles, as 
 if they reposed upon couches of "roses 
 besprinkled with dew." Others, who 
 had found the balcony occupied, were 
 snoring comfortably on heaps of soiled 
 straw in the very centre of the barn-yard, 
 as the dirty enclosure known as the 
 "court "of the hotel would have been 
 called in America, and were not likely 
 to waken until the fowls hopped over 
 
 them and the inquisitive pig of the 
 locality rooted them out. But this was 
 no more remarkable than the strange 
 nest in which a whole Bulgarian family, 
 my hosts in Tirnova, slept nightly. It 
 was a species of little fortress, con- 
 structed of carpets, cushions, and the 
 garments of the father, mother, statu- 
 esque daughter, and " small brother." 
 who were all ensconced there; and il 
 was in the entrance-way, so that no one 
 could go on! at early morning without 
 stepping over, and sometimes unwarily 
 upon, tin; unconscious sleepers. 
 
 A mystery, which must foreverremain 
 unexplained, is the magical manner in 
 which the man-servant, who is usually 
 dressed in white tunic and trousers, and 
 who in tlic day appears clean and well 
 clothed, manages to keep up appear- 
 ances after sleeping and grovelling every 
 night in these same garments on the 
 dusty floor. If is wonderful, too. that 
 one does not hear them complain of 
 colds, of rheumatism, or of fever. In 
 winter they inutile themselves in sheep- 
 skin or in thick blankets made in the 
 mountain hamlets and sold for a trifle. 
 
 There are numerous evidences of for- 
 mer Turkish domination to be seen in 
 Bucharest, — perhaps none more striking 
 than the servile submission of the masses 
 to any small authority, whether it lie 
 employed in an offensively arbitrary 
 manner or within decent limits. The 
 people, although living under a consti- 
 tution wonderfully liberal for Europe, 
 still show that they have once been sub- 
 jected to the rule of a country whose 
 only law is the sword. I was amazed, 
 on the occasion of the arrival of Czar 
 Alexander in Bucharest, to see the gen- 
 darmes of the city driving peasants out 
 of the way of the procession with good, 
 stinging blows from their whips or with 
 their hands. The fellows thus roughly 
 
7.", 1 
 
 HUROl'E L\ STORM AND CALM. 
 
 treated merely shrank away, lookiug re- 
 proachfully at their tormentors. 
 
 Turkish architecture peeps out from 
 street-corners in the Roumanian capital. 
 The peddlers of fruit and vegetables carry 
 their wares suspended from the long, 
 ungainly, ami inconvenient yoke which 
 inie sees everywhere in Turkey; and 
 M>ine of the must palatal ile of Mussulman 
 dishes hold their place still against the 
 innovations of French ami Austrian 
 cookery. Probably Romania Libera. 
 as her citizens now like to call the liber- 
 ated St: te, will endeavor hereafter to 
 
 dispense with everything which reminds 
 it of < Mtomaii rule and < Ismanli tyranny. 
 I do not think that the Roumanians of 
 the present generation feel any of that 
 intense hatred of the Turk felt by the 
 
 Servians, hut they fully recognize his 
 unfitness for contact with modern civil- 
 ization, and are glad that he is to lie 
 banished from the countries which he 
 refuses to improve. 
 
 A funeral in Roumania is somewhat 
 startling to him who sees it for the first 
 time. The dead are borne through the 
 streets, lying uncotliued, in a hearse 
 whose class sides permit every "lie to 
 see the last of poor mortality. If it be 
 a man he is di'essed in his finest clothes ; 
 if a woman — and especially if a young 
 one — she is robed in white, and gar- 
 hinds of flowers, natural and artificial, 
 crown her tresses or repose upon her 
 bosom. Priests bearing the sacred 
 emblems ami clad in robes such as they 
 wear when officiating at the altar pre- 
 cede the mourning friends, many of 
 whom follow on foot. There is some- 
 thing ghastly and revolting in this 
 spectacle of the dead carried thus 
 through the crowded streets. Wher- 
 ever a procession passes all vehicles 
 not connected with it stop, and the 
 drivers reverently cross themselves. 
 
 Slow and solemn dirges are sometimes 
 the accompaniment of these funeral 
 parlies, bands or portions of bands 
 according their services. There is a 
 wonderful wealth of affection in the im- 
 pulsive Roumanian character, — an in- 
 tense love for home, family, and friends ; 
 and grief in affliction is violent, un- 
 reasoning, often alarmingly despairing. 
 
 A mighty civ of anguish went up 
 from the stricken little country when at 
 least a fourth of the brave army of 
 Roumania was slaughtered in front 
 of Plevna, ami for a time it seemed as 
 if the stay-at-home relatives would fairly 
 revolt unless the government ordered 
 the survivors to return across the Dan- 
 ube and risk themselves no more. ISut 
 this unreasonable freak of temper was 
 fortunately of short duration. 
 
 Roumania's history has been stormy 
 and full of striking incidents. The 
 country which is properly Roumania 
 
 to-day was the home of the ancient 
 
 Dacians, who were of Thraciau origin, 
 
 and bole a marked resemblance to the 
 Gauls. Trajan came with his terrible 
 legions, and the Dacians succumbed, 
 and were swept like chaff before the 
 valorous Romans, who were Hushed with 
 victory and a thirst for new conquests. 
 The Dacians had peopled the sections 
 now known as Moldavia, Wallachia, 
 the Banat, Transylvania, the Bukovina 
 and Bessarabia ; and as they disap- 
 peared their places were taken by the 
 colonists whom Trajan summoned from 
 Italy and Spain. These colonists were 
 the ancestors of the people who have 
 finally become the Roumanian race. 
 For a century or two the new province 
 enjoyed such prosperity that the chroni- 
 clers of the time speak of it as Dacia 
 Felix. Then came the invading Goth, 
 who drove out or frightened into re- 
 moval large numbers of the colonists. 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AM' CALM. 
 
 735 
 
 But the majority of them remained, liv- 
 ing among the Goths, hut not mingling 
 with them, until still other invaders 
 came aud dispersed both Goth and 
 Daco-Komau. The latter took to tin- 
 mountain regions, and in the great re- 
 cesses of the Carpathians nourished iuto 
 vigor a national life which was des- 
 tined to have numerous reverses, but to 
 support them all with hardihood. Tow- 
 ards the latter half of the thirteenth 
 century the real Roumanians, who had 
 of course taken something of the Dacian 
 character from intermarriage, came down 
 to the plains and began to assert them- 
 selves. Under the command of two 
 chiefs, Rodolph the Black and Uragoch. 
 they established the principalities of 
 Wallachia and Moldavia. This, by 
 Roumanian historians, is always spoken 
 of as " the descent," and is their start- 
 ing-point. Wallachia was doomed to 
 possess an independent existence but a 
 short time: in 1393 the Turk came in, 
 and the principality placed itself under 
 the "protection" of the Porte. The 
 Ottomans gradually strengthened their 
 influence until it became tyrannical rule 
 but not before there had been many 
 splendid revolts. In those wild days 
 uprose " Vlad the Devil," he who 
 scourged the Turks and at one time im- 
 paled twenty-live thousand Turkish pris- 
 oners. 
 
 In 1511 Moldavia capitulated to the 
 Turks. Her people had been able to 
 resist for a much longer time than the 
 Wallachians because of their mountain 
 fastnesses ; but the fatal day came for 
 them also. The history of the two sis- 
 ter principalities for the next three 
 centuries aud a half may be divided iuto 
 three periods — the first that during 
 which, although under Ottoman suze- 
 rainty, they were governed by native 
 princes; the second the " Fanariote 
 
 epoch," from 1716 to 1822, in which 
 they were goverened by foreign rulers 
 named and maintained in power by the 
 Porte ; and the third and present that 
 which is sometimes called the " Rou- 
 manian Renaissance," denoted by the re- 
 turn to native rule, by the recognition 
 of the rights of the country by the great 
 European powers, and at last by the 
 declaration of independence of 1877. 
 It is noteworthy that all the countries 
 originally peopled by the colonist ances- 
 tors of the Roumanians now have in 
 thrni large numbers of people speaking 
 the Roumanian tongue ; and if King 
 Charles could get a slice of Hungary, a 
 good bit of Austria, and could have kept 
 the Bessarabia deeded to Roumania at 
 the time of the humiliation of Russia by 
 the powers, but which she was compelled 
 to give back as the price of her liberties 
 to the great Northern power, he would 
 find himself ruling over more than ten 
 millions of subjects. 
 
 It is odd that these Danubian folk. 
 who have borrowed so much from the 
 French, did not think it worth while, by 
 some clause in their constitution, to 
 trammel the press and the spoken word. 
 They did not, and the result is that 
 King Charles knows exactly what the 
 people think of him whenever he under- 
 takes a measure likely to be unpopular. 
 No editor or speaker feels called upon 
 to mince his phrases in discussing the 
 inmates of the palace, the ministers, the 
 judges, or the general. There is a 
 " Red " party in the country, an 1 it has 
 its say as often as it chooses, an 1 some- 
 times has power in its hands. King 
 Charles came to the throne at the 
 close of a very excited and dangerous 
 period in Roumanian affairs. Naturally 
 enough there had been a revolution at 
 Bucharest in 1818, when the great demo- 
 cratic wind swept over Europe and 
 
m 
 
 EVROPE TN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 stirred even the hiuds on the far-stretch- 
 ing plains by tlie Danube to a sense of 
 their political degradation. A liberal 
 constitution was proclaimed, and the 
 national party daily grew strong and 
 courageous. But (he Turks were not 
 inclined to see their rule shaken off, and 
 they pushed Omar Pacha with a large 
 army to the banks of the Danube, de- 
 posed the rulers who had succeeded to 
 the short-lived '"provisional govern- 
 ment" of revolution, and presently 
 occupied the two principalities con- 
 jointly with the Russians. After the 
 various foreign occupations of the 
 troublous times preceding, during, and 
 at the close of the Crimean war. Rou- 
 mania had the satisfaction of seeing its 
 historic rights recognized, and of finding 
 its privileges placed under the collective 
 guarantee of the great powers. In 
 1861 the temporary union of Moldavia 
 and Wallachia was proclaimed at Bu- 
 charest. Three years later there was a 
 coup d'Etat. The reigning prince dis- 
 solved the National Assembly and sub- 
 mitted a new project of law to the 
 people. This prince was a Colonel 
 
 Couza, who was elected in 1859. He 
 abdicated in 1866, after what may be 
 fairly considered a successful reign, and 
 in April of that year Prince Charles 
 
 came in. with the shadow of the already 
 
 menacing power of Germany behind 
 him. lie was no sooner firmly seated 
 on the throne than the present constitu- 
 tion was proclaimed, and the union of 
 Wallachia and Moldavia was confirmed, 
 recognized, and guaranteed by Europe. 
 Roumania was thus created ; it re- 
 mained for her only to emancipate her- 
 self from the hateful suzerainty of the 
 Porte, to which greedy government she 
 was compelled to pay a million francs 
 of tribute money yearly. Austria. 
 France, Great Britain, Italy, Prussia, 
 
 Turkey, and Russia were the nations 
 recognizing and welcoming Roumania to 
 the world's family. 
 
 In a previous chapter I have spoken 
 of the national representation. The 
 election of senators by two colleges 
 composed exclusively of persons having 
 large fortunes is perhaps open to 
 criticism ; and it might have been as 
 well to have given universal suffrage in 
 its unadulterated form to the whole 
 people, instead of compelling those who 
 only pay small taxes to be content with 
 inferior facilities for expressing their 
 choice. The King is of course invio- 
 late ; the eight ministers are responsible 
 to the country; and, judging from the 
 very free criticisms which 1 heard made 
 upon their most innocent actions, each 
 of them earns his salary, which is twelve 
 thousand francs (twenty-four hundred 
 dollars) yearly. All Roumania is di- 
 vided into thirty-three judicial districts. 
 
 presided over by prefects, and these 
 districts are subdivided into one hun- 
 dred and sixty-four wards, which in turn 
 are partitioned into two thousand and 
 eighty parishes. 
 
 King Charles, a German of the best 
 tvpc, • — brave, cultured, and sympa- 
 thetic, — good-humoredly studied the 
 Roumanian language, and finally be- 
 came master of it. This flattered his 
 new subjects, to whom he has attached 
 himself in many other ways. In 1869 
 he married the present queen, Eliza- 
 beth, of German birth; and she also 
 had the talent to make herself beloved. 
 She has adopted the national costume 
 — which, by the way. is exceedingly 
 beautiful — as her dress on state occa- 
 sions, groups the beauty and fashion 
 of the land around her, has given a 
 healthy check to tin' absenteeism which 
 
 was fast making a second Ireland of 
 Roumania; and in the terrible days of 
 
EUJiOPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 737 
 
 1877, when the army was fighting the 
 Turks, she worked unweariedly in the 
 hospitals, inspiring all other ladies bj 
 her example. 
 
 The palace in which King Charles 
 resides in winter is a large mansion, 
 almost wholly devoid of exterior orna- 
 ment. When the Ban Constantino 
 Golesco was building it, at the begin- 
 ning of this century, his father came ti> 
 examine it, and remarked, " My son, 
 you are foolish to build such enormous 
 rooms: you can never light them.'' 
 " Father," answered Constantine, who 
 foresaw many other things besides the 
 introduction of gas into Roumania, " I 
 am building' for the future." 
 
 Golesco was a noble patriot, and 
 really laid the foundations of the " Rou- 
 manian Renaissance." The national in- 
 dependence was born and nourished in 
 this sombre old palace. Cotroceni, the 
 summer residence of royalty, was once a 
 monastery. It is more than two cen- 
 turies old, and owes its origin to the 
 following circumstances: Two powerful 
 families, the Cantacuzenes and the 
 Ghikas, were at deadly enmity, and 
 Cherban Cantacuzene, tracked by his 
 enemies through the forests which in 
 old days covered the hills around Bucha- 
 rest, built a monastery on the spot where 
 he had successfully hidden until a truce 
 was declared. Although the old pile has 
 been restored it is still in a dilapidated 
 condition, and the King must have an 
 easily contented mind to accept it as an 
 agreeable summer home. lb' can, if he 
 pleases, go and dream away the hottest 
 of the merciless summer days in the 
 lovely valley where stand the ruins of 
 Tirgoviste, the ancient capital of Walla- 
 chia, deserted more than a hundred and 
 fifty years ago for less picturesque and 
 more unhealthy Bucharest. Tirgoviste 
 is one of the loveliest spots on earth, and 
 
 the wrecks of noble edifices scattered 
 along the slopes and in the glens prove 
 that there were other giant builders be- 
 sides Manol the Unlucky in the elder 
 days. In the ancient metropolitan 
 Church of Tirgoviste is the tomb of 
 Bishop Stephen, the first man who 
 printed books in the Roumanian lan- 
 guage; and there also are the tombs of 
 the famous Cantacuzene family. The 
 leaden roof of the church was melted up 
 for bullets in 1821, and was replaced by 
 one made of iron. King Charles can 
 reach this old and moss-grown town by 
 a railway ride of about fifty English 
 miles from Bucharest to Gai'coci, and a 
 six hour's journey thence along pretty 
 country roads bordered with villages, 
 on the roofs of whose houses the eternal 
 stork clatters and struts. To-day Tir- 
 goviste has only five thousand inhabi- 
 tants; but there are evidences thai it was 
 once very populous. No chronicler has 
 given an exact account of its origin : 
 tradition and history are at odds on this 
 point; but it seems certain that Mir/ca 
 the Elder, who is a mighty figure in the 
 annals ofWallachia ami who became the 
 ruler of that province towards the close 
 of the fourteenth century, transferred the 
 seat of government from ('mica Argesu. 
 where Manol and his companions had 
 long before begun the great cathedral, to 
 Tirgoviste. Mirzea was a notable war- 
 rior, but he does not seem to have pre- 
 vented an incursion of barbarians which 
 nearly cost the new town its existence. 
 In the sixteenth century Michael the 
 Brave fought a terrible battle with the 
 Turks on the plain near the town, and 
 defeated the enemy. A century later a 
 Roumanian prince massacred all Turks 
 found in the neighborhood, and a year 
 after this occurrence the Mussulmans 
 committed such terrible reprisals that 
 Tirsroviste was decimated. At the end 
 
i"" s EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 of the seventeenth century one of the personage than Rodolph the Black, chief 
 
 Cantacuzcnes constructed a superb of the Wallachians at the time of the 
 
 castle near the town. It is now only a famous " descent " from the mountains, 
 
 confused mass of ruined subterraneous Roumania boasts another ancient castle, 
 
 passages, chaotic walls, and massive por- "Campii Lungii," at the foot of the 
 
 tals ; lnii the shepherds in the valley Carpathians on a plain traversed by the 
 
 point up to it, and with bated breath tell Dimbovitza river, on its winding way to 
 
 the stranger that it is the ensile of the Bucharest. Here once stood a noble 
 
 ancient voivodas, and that it is haunted cathedra] several centuries old, but it 
 
 by the spirits of the departed. At Tir- was thrown down by an earthquake in 
 
 goviste there are one or two important 1819, and has been replaced by one of 
 
 military establishments, and an arsenal the most ordinary products of the modern 
 
 has been improvised in an old monastery architect's imagination. 
 said to have been founded by nu less a 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 ?39 
 
 ( IIAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR. 
 
 The Early Roumanians. — The Language. — Greek Plays. — Agriculture. — The Minor Towns of 
 Roumania. — Jassv. — On the Bessarabian Frontier. — Galatz. — National Manners.— Roumanian 
 Monasteries. 
 
 I~) ESPECT for the genius of the early 
 *> Roumanians increases at each step 
 which one takes among the ruins of their 
 castles and churches, monasteries and 
 fortresses. There is no builder of the 
 race to-day who could accomplish any 
 of the works that seem to have been 
 done with ease in the olden time. The 
 peasant puzzles his ilull brain to con- 
 struct a flimsy cottage with thatched 
 roof and wattled sides, — a trap which 
 would afford but small shelter in a more 
 uncertain climate. Colossal men of 
 great deeds were the fathers, but there 
 
 is almost no r rd of (hem. No written 
 
 account in Roumanian can befoundwilh 
 an earlier date than the last half of the 
 seventeenth century. After that time 
 there was a decadence of the small 
 literary acquirements of the struggling 
 nation. In the first quarter of the 
 preseni century the Roumanian could 
 scarcely claim the dignity of a written 
 language. Gradually men of talent awoke 
 to the necessity of a great effort for a 
 literary revival. The language to-day 
 has not a positively settled orthography : 
 one journalist spells a disputed word in 
 one manner, while his rival insists upon 
 another; thus much confusion arises 
 and many comical blunders ensue. A 
 newly made ■• Academy" is hard at work 
 upon a grammar and a dictionary, and 
 romances, poems, and historical works 
 have been published, but arc read by 
 only a very few persons. In the old 
 book-stalls in Bucharest I found editions 
 
 of works by Roumanian authors printed 
 in the Slavic language. It is worthy of 
 remark that in Roumania, as in Greece, 
 the literary renaissance preceded the 
 political revival and the declaration of 
 independence. A young Roumanian ■ — ■ 
 whose mastery of the English language 
 is so perfect that it seems almost im- 
 possible to believe that he lias never 
 been either in England or America — ■ 
 has made a translation of Hamlet into 
 his native tongue, and the pretty lan- 
 guage seems quite as well adapted as 
 Italian for expressing the majestic verse 
 and grandiose sentiment of the monarch 
 of poets. 
 
 The Roumanian i> an agreeable lan- 
 guage, but it is passing curious. When 
 I first heard it spoken it seemed to 
 me that I was listening to French or 
 Spanish. I hearkened intently, expect- 
 ing to understand ; but 1 did not gather 
 a single idea. It was vexatious, for it 
 sounded familiar. Just as I was begin- 
 ning to feel certain of the meaning of 
 the speaker, around some dubious cor- 
 ner, at a breakneck pace, dashed the 
 reckless sentences and were beyond my 
 
 reach. People arc excessively voluble 
 in Roumania (especially when cursing 
 their horses) ; but a stranger with a good 
 knowledge of Latin and cither Italian 
 or French could learn the language in 
 a few months. It is derived directly 
 from the rustic Latin which Trajan's 
 colonists spoke, but mingled of course 
 with thousands of words and phrases 
 
740 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 borrowed from the dialects of the peo- may be considered permanent, although 
 
 pit's who inhabited the country when the possibly many of the prominent Greek 
 
 conquering Romans came. The Latin citizens of Bucharesl would not consent 
 
 which the colonists brought into these to this proposition. The Greek society 
 
 provinces was the Latin of the centre of the principality is highly cultured, 
 
 and north of Italy and the neighboring refined, and well-to-do. [ attended sev- 
 
 coun tries, which had already undergone eral representations of Greek plays in 
 
 considerable modification. There were Bucharest. One of them, which was 
 
 great uumbers of people from the sec- given before a very large audience, — in 
 
 ti< >ns now known as Spain and Portugal, which, by the way, I did not observe a 
 
 and (here were also Gauls among these single Russian soldier or officer, — was a 
 
 colonists ; so that it, is not astonishing that spirited drama representing the uprising 
 
 words clearly of Spanish or Gallic origin of the Greeks against their oppressors 
 
 arc f id side by side to-day with words and foreshadowing the call to arms for 
 
 of indisputable Peninsular origin. Da- the succor of those Creeks in Thes- 
 ci.ui words are still found, and the saly and Crete still under the barbarous 
 language is deeply indebted both iodic domination of the Turk. There arc ten 
 Slavic and the Greek tongues. The thousand Greeks in Roumania, and they 
 Slavic language almost displaced the havebeenof substantialserviceinpromot- 
 Roumanian at the time of the great ing insurrection in the provinces of Tur- 
 schisin in the fifteenth century. The key in Europe. Manv a hai - d blow struck 
 Moldavians were so indignant at the for freedom has been rendered possible 
 decision of the Council of Florence that by their generous gifts of money. Vol- 
 they deposed their bishop, rejected the nines in Greek are occasionally printed 
 Latin characters which they had hither- in Roumania, and theatre programmes 
 to used in all their printed 1 ks, and and newspapers, in the prettiest of (ire- 
 adopted the Slavic letters as well as cian type, arc seen on all the cafe tallies. 
 liturgy. It is well that the Roman al- King Charles is earnest in endeavors 
 phabet was resumed at a later day, and to promote the growth of literature, 
 it is to be hoped that some time the and offered a handsome prize for the 
 Russians will be willing to dispense best history of the participation of 
 with their eccentric letters, which pro- Roumania in the war of 1877. The lan- 
 duce such a confusing effect on the mind guage is well adapted to poetical expres- 
 of him who sees them for the fust time, sion : it. is graceful, flexible, and lends 
 The blindest German type is as nothing itself readily to the conceits of metaphor 
 besides these Muscovite monstrosities, and the rhythmical fancies so indispensa- 
 Tbc Slavic was long the official language ble to true poetry. There is something 
 in Roumanian land. Greek had its of the wildness and the weirdness of the 
 day under the Fanariots at the end of great plains on which it is spoken in its 
 theseventeenthcentury ; and so rapid was form. In objurgation and invective it is 
 the progress of its incursion that, in less so wonderfully elastic that, the stage- 
 than a century it had invaded the court, drivers of the Pacific coast and of Texas 
 the capital, the schools, the legal triliu- would retire from the field in despair 
 nals. and the whole administration. The after having once beard a Wallachian 
 reaction began with this century, and teamster when thoroughly angry with his 
 the triumph of the Roumanian speech horses. The utter whimsicality of the 
 
EUROVE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 741 
 
 expressions used, and with which one 
 becomes familiar in travelling day after 
 da} - through the country, was some- 
 times so overwhelming that my compan- 
 ions and I were compelled to roar with 
 laughter when we should have reproved 
 our drivel' for want of respect both for 
 us and his beasts. 
 
 Seven hundred thousand families live 
 by agriculture in Roumania, and all the 
 others who labor are engaged in trade, 
 for manufactures make no progress. No 
 native capitalist will risk competition 
 with Austria, England, Russia, and 
 France. It' the government would but 
 intimate to the three hundred thousand 
 gypsies in the principality that they 
 must work or lie treated as vagabonds 
 are served in other countries, production 
 might be remarkably increased. The 
 u\psy has mechanical talent, and would 
 make a good operative. But the Rou- 
 manians say that he would break his 
 heart if obliged to labor for a certain 
 number of hours daily ; that lie would 
 forget his task, and wander away in the 
 track of any sunbeam without the slight- 
 est idea that he was doing anything 
 wrong. About three-fifths of the enor- 
 mous amount of cereals produced in the 
 country are consumed at home ; the rest 
 is exported to neighboring countries. A 
 bad season for crops and a pestilence 
 among the cattle would place hundreds 
 of thousands of Roumanians in danger 
 of starvation. The country must have 
 manufactures before it can attain to any- 
 thing like solid prosperity. 
 
 It is strange that a land where manu- 
 facturing is almost unknown should have 
 a large number of populous towns. 
 Galatz, on the Danube, has eighty thou- 
 sand inhabitants ; Jassy, which may fairly 
 be considered the chief city of Upper 
 Roumania (old Moldavia), has ninety 
 thousand. Although my impressions of 
 
 Jassy are somewhat less enthusiastic 
 than they would have been had not abso- 
 lutely pouring showers of rain partially 
 damped them, I left the old metropolis 
 of the ancient Dacians convinced that its 
 people were enterprising, liberal, and 
 likely to have an important commercial 
 future. The principal streets are hand- 
 somely paved with asphalt, laid down 
 as well as in Paris ; here and there I 
 spied a mansion of which Fifth Avenue 
 or Beacon street might be proud; and 
 the public buildings were models of so- 
 lidity and comfort. The hotels do not 
 merit the same compliment. I thought 
 the court-yard of the inn at Jassy the 
 most uninviting place 1 had ever entered 
 when I came into it one rainy afternoon : 
 the mud was almost knee-deep; the 
 horses floundered through it, snorting 
 angrily ; some half-broken mvjlks, clad 
 in greasy fur coats, were harnessing vi- 
 cious-looking beasts, putting the high 
 
 w len collars, decorated with bells, on 
 
 them. I began to fancy that I had 
 made a mistake in my reckoning and had 
 slipped over tin- Russian frontier. As I 
 tramped across the wooden gallery which 
 ran around the exterior of the hotel's 
 second story, servants in blue flowing 
 trousers tucked into enormous boots, 
 in red or green blouses tied at. the throat 
 with gayly colored cords, and with bushy 
 hair hanging low down upon their fore- 
 heads, rose from their seats before their 
 masters' doors and stood bowing obse- 
 quiously until I had passed. It seemed 
 like a 'leaf out of one of Tourgucneff's 
 transcripts of Russian life. In the vast 
 bedroom offered me stood a mighty 
 porcelain stove, — a veritable monument, 
 extending to the ceiling, and provided 
 with such a labyrinth of whitewashed 
 pipes that it resembled an organ rathel 
 than a heating apparatus. In the din- 
 ing-room the landlord seemed astonished 
 
742 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 because the small glass of cordial with proud front in Jassy. The inhabitants 
 
 which the Russians usually begin a meal tell you with much emphasis that it is 
 
 was refused. He commented en the re- " under the invocation of St. Gregory, 
 
 I'usal, seemed to think that it argued a St. Chrysostom, and St. John," and 
 
 lack of good sense, and presently asked swell with enthusiasm as they point to 
 
 me if I were an Austrian. its light and graceful towers, the ara- 
 
 It is not astonishing that Jassy has a besques on the gigantic walls, ami the' 
 
 Russian imprint, for it is hut a short silver lamps in the three long and sombre 
 
 distance from the frontier of the great naves, lighting but faintly the portrait 
 
 northern empire, and has been occupied of the church's founder, "Basil the 
 
 many times by the troops of the Czars. Wolf," whose very history most of the 
 
 As in the war of 1*77 it was the first citizens have never heard, hut who, they 
 
 place into which a force was thrown vaguely say, " was a great man and had 
 
 after the various passages of the Prilth, seventeen children." The Three Ilie- 
 
 from the beginning of the eighteenth rarchs and St. Nicholas — a monastery 
 
 century to the middle of the nineteenth, built in 1471 by Stephen the Great — are 
 
 At the time of my spring visit Russian the chief w lers of Jassy. Princes 
 
 officers were already there, buying forage and their retainers have moved to Bucha- 
 for the arms* soon to arrive. A French rest, and their mansions, dignified with 
 writer recounts that on one occasion a the title of "palaces," have fallen into 
 Muscovite General (in times past, he it the hands of the Jews. The Hebrew 
 understood) learned that there were not thrives at Jassy. 1 had the honor of 
 cattle enough to draw the transport being presented to the principal banker 
 wagons from Jassy on towards the Dan- of that persuasion in the town, and sat 
 uhe. •■Well, then, we must hitch up with him in his office on Sunday to see 
 the hoyards" (the Roumanian aristoc- him attend to business. Long-bearded 
 racy), said this lively General. The men. clad in skull-caps and gabardines. 
 Prince de Ligne, in his correspondence hovered about, seeking his presence 
 from Jassy, in 17.ss, tells a good many eagerly, and a group of them engaged 
 stories which do not reflect credit on the in conversation ornamented and em- 
 conduct of the Russians. Perhaps a phasized by stately gestures was unlike 
 certain rude northern impatience of the anything to he seen in western Europe. 
 slow, shiftless character of the Rouina- Poor Jews and indescribably filthy and 
 nian peasantry was the cause of some rheumatic gypsy beggars abounded, and 
 severe Russian measures. made the air ring with their appeals for 
 
 Jassv, like Bucharest, is very rich in alms. The melancholy sect heretofore 
 
 churches and in relics. Roumania is alluded to as self-mutilators flourishes 
 
 everywhere provided with about ten in this town ami possesses a church. 
 
 times as many churches as the people These people were driven out of Russia, 
 
 can use. The forms of religion in all but have never been refused permission 
 
 sections of the country seem to promote to remain in Roumania or in Bulgaria, 
 
 the growth of innumerable monasteries, in which latter country there are many, 
 
 shrines, cathedrals, and minor houses Wretched as the environs of Jassy 
 
 of worship. The "Three Hierarchs," appear when soaked with rain, when the 
 
 the only worthy rival of the massive and cottages seem about to float away 
 
 exquisite cathedral of Argesu, rears its through the tall grass, and when the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 743 
 
 philosophical stork, calmly perched on 
 one leg, seems to have decided, after 
 due survey, that it is about time to go 
 somewhere else, — in summer these same 
 fields are ravishingly beautiful. The 
 hills are covered with flowers, the plains 
 with abundant crops. Riding along the 
 roads leading to Bucharest, or out toward 
 the Austrian Bukovina, one comes even- 
 few minutes upon some rustic hind who 
 is in dress and figure almost the exact 
 counterpart of the captive warriors to be 
 seen on the bas-reliefs of the famous 
 Trajan Column. The type lias changed 
 little if any in twenty centuries. It 
 seems impossible that such specimens of 
 humanity as these blank-faced tillers 
 should make the landscape blossom thus 
 with plenty. But they do it, and if 
 educated would accomplish far greater 
 wonders. 
 
 From .lassy a picturesque and little- 
 frequented road leads to Bolgrad, a 
 quaint town of ten thousand inhabitants, 
 situated in that portion of Bessarabia 
 ceded by a treaty to Russia, only to be 
 re-ceded, by the Treaty of Paris, to Mol- 
 davia, and to lie again handed over to 
 Russia by King Charles of Roumania, 
 in exchange for the Dobrudscha, which 
 had been wrested from the Turks in 
 Bulgaria. The population in this Bessa- 
 rabian land, which Russia has so long 
 coveted, is distinctly Roumanian. The 
 men are rather more manly in bearing 
 than their brethren of other sections; 
 they have broad foreheads, frank eyes, 
 long, coarse hair, dense black mustaches, 
 well-turned limbs, and generally carry 
 weapons. But they live in hideous little 
 cabins, unfit for the habitations of cattle, 
 banked with mud and furnished inside 
 with the rudest articles of prime neces- 
 sity. In winter, when the heavy snows 
 cover the roadways so deeply that loco- 
 motion is next to impossible, these 
 
 worthies hibernate in their villages. 
 They protect themselves from the cold 
 by sheepskin coats and huge shaggy 
 mantles. The women are dull, submis- 
 sive, and rarely pretty. There are one 
 hundred and forty thousand inhabitants 
 in Bessarabia, and King Charles thought 
 so much of them that he considered him- 
 self a loser by taking the Dobrudscha, 
 which gave him two hundred thousand 
 subjects. 
 
 Between Bucharest and Jassy, on or 
 near the line of rail leading to the Rus- 
 sian frontier, there arc many important 
 and interesting towns, rendered doubly 
 attractive of late by the fact that war 
 has jusl swept through them or hovered 
 near them. The land is rich with sou- 
 venirs of other campaigns than those of 
 Russians. The peasant now and then 
 unearths some coin or bronze or brass 
 ornament bearing the effigy of Alexan- 
 der the Great, who once made an expe- 
 dition into Dacia. On mountain slopes 
 arc the traces of old cities whose his- 
 tory no man knows, and excavations 
 among the half-buried walls of the long- 
 forgotten temples and palaces bring to 
 light potteries, glass, bones of domestic 
 animals, stone weapons, and bits of effi- 
 gies in metal, so corroded that they can- 
 not be distinguished. The earth is here 
 a vast tomb of dead-and-gone civiliza- 
 tions, wars, and conquests ; it is tranquil 
 as the centuries roll on. awaiting the 
 signal for another period of fruition. 
 At the noted Barbosi — one of the first 
 places to become celebrated in 1S77, 
 because the Russians seized upon a 
 bridge there in time to protect it against 
 a descent meditated by the captains of 
 Turkish monitors — are the remains of a 
 vast Roman intrenched camp and for- 
 tresses. The churches inGalatz and the 
 ramparts in Braila are built of the mas- 
 sive stones taken from the walls which 
 
744 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 the elder Romans piled up as memorials 
 of their valor, and guarantees of their 
 reward for it. Catacombs containing 
 bas-reliefs, urns, statuettes, and inscrip- 
 tions were also discovered at Barbosi 
 during the last century. Galatz, near 
 Barbosi, is renowned chiefly for possess- 
 ing the tomb of Mazeppa and as an im- 
 portant commercial port. The Greeks 
 are quite as numerous and powerful 
 there as in Bucharest, and in the first 
 quarter of this century rose with great 
 spirit several times against the Turks, 
 on one occasion slaying hundreds before 
 their wrath was appeased. The Mus- 
 sulmans were not slow at reprisal. Mow 
 many times has the water of the Danube 
 been crimsoned with the blood of 
 battle ! Vet the majestic river flows 
 through lands which seem to have been 
 intended for the home of eternal peace. 
 Let us hope that with the new era of 
 progress will come freedom from all 
 barbaric struggles such as in time past 
 have made Servia, Roumania, and Bul- 
 garia a. veritable " dark and bloody 
 ground " in Europe. 
 
 Bucharest has a tine national museum, 
 which has been greatly enriched within 
 the last few years by the collections of 
 antiquities unearthed by the delving 
 peasants. At first the Walloons did not 
 fancy these things worth preserving. 
 The fanner broke up statues to use them 
 for boundary stones, and the teamster 
 who found a rusty coin while lighting 
 his evening camp-fire spurned it away be- 
 cause it was not bright and new, like the 
 Ira and luii'ii — the Roumanian francs and 
 centimes — of the present day. An 
 eminent archaeologist, named Odobesco, 
 who has written much on the subject of 
 the tumuli scattered everywhere in Rou- 
 mania, believes that a careful search 
 would bring to light many articles be- 
 longing to the Stone and Bronze Ages. 
 
 In the eastern flanks of the Carpathians 
 lie buried secrets which were unknown 
 to Herodotus himself, and upon which 
 we may some day stumble. If the 
 newly emancipated principality is per- 
 mitted to enjoy permanent peace im- 
 portant discoveries will be made within 
 its limits in the course of a few years. 
 In addition to the treasures in the Bu- 
 charest museum several princes and one 
 or two wealthy private citizens have 
 rich collections of coins, statues, and 
 vases, which serve to illustrate the his- 
 tory of the earliest years of the Christian 
 era. 
 
 In all the Roumanian townswhich rise 
 above the dignity of villages there is a 
 large class of persons who do nothing 
 from year's end to year's end. Mow 
 they exist is a puzzle past comprehen- 
 sion. In Ploiesci, which was for some 
 time the head-quarters of the Czar 
 Alexander and the Grand Duke Nicholas 
 at the beginning of the Russian campaign 
 against Turkey, there were hundreds 
 of families enjoying leisure, but without 
 any visible means of support. The 
 husbands sat all day in the cafis smok- 
 ing cigarettes and discussing the situ- 
 ation, or reclined on benches in their 
 gardens indolently enjoying the soft, 
 sprint' breezes. Their wives and 
 daughters appeared to outdo their nat- 
 ural protectors in laziness. Yet all 
 were well dressed, and even made a 
 certain pretension to style, affecting to 
 sneer at the rough, homely ways of 
 some of the northern folic who had 
 come down to fight the Turk. The 
 .lews controlled the trade. The Rou- 
 manian felt himself too tine, evidently, 
 to Sell linen coats at ten francs apiece 
 and bottles of colored water labelled 
 "Bordeaux" at the same price to the 
 Russian new-comers. In Giurgevo the 
 same lazy, listless 'lass was to be seen 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 74. r ) 
 
 everywhere, and seemed too idle to move 
 out of the way of the bombardment. 
 At Simnitza, Master Nicolai, with whom 
 for a short time I had the pleasure of 
 residing, endeavored to explain his cir- 
 cumstances. "The crops, you sec. 
 bring in a little," he said; "the fowls 
 a little more; once in a while I sella 
 butt of wine ; and, Mou Dien ! one does 
 not need much money after all." This 
 was eminently true in Master Nieolai's 
 case, for lie seemed to live upon air and 
 cigarette smoke. 1 never saw him at 
 table during my visit, and it is my firm 
 belief that in a week he did not consume 
 as much solid food as a full-grown Eng- 
 lish or American lad would eat in a 
 single day. 
 
 Towns like Ploiesci, Giurgevo, Crai- 
 ova, Slatina, all have a certain smart- 
 ness, and take their tone from Bu- 
 charest ; but there is no solid prosperity 
 in them. Morals are rather looser than 
 the best class of Roumanians would like 
 to admit. Money is too powerful, and 
 will buy almost anything. A little 
 money will shake an obstacle to the 
 completion of a contract, — will secure 
 exceptional privilege and honor ; a great 
 deal of money makes all opposition to 
 one's wishes vanish as by magic. Ve- 
 nality is not so marked in the peasantry 
 as it is in the middle classes. Of the 
 corruption of society in the principal 
 towns much has been said and written. 
 It is as bad as it can be ; but the Hun- 
 garians and Austrians. who spend much 
 of their time in criticising the Rouma- 
 nians, are quite as faulty as the inhabi- 
 tants of the little Kingdom. Divorce 
 is easy and frequent throughout Rou- 
 mauia. There is little or no violent ven- 
 geance practised in eases of domestic 
 infelicity. The, exterior of society is 
 spotless ; and the stranger spending a 
 few days among the people would fancy 
 
 them absolutely undisturbed by any ir- 
 regularities of conduct. King Charles 
 and his wife have always given an ex- 
 ample of the utmost devotion to the 
 sacredness of the family tie. and as a 
 natural consequence are universally 
 loved and respected by the members of 
 refined society in the state. 
 
 Almost every Roumanian town, small 
 and large, possesses innumerable gar- 
 dens, which m summer make even the 
 ordinary dwellings agreeable residences. 
 In winter the wooden houses are not 
 quite so pleasant, for the Wallach under- 
 stands as poorly as the Italian how to 
 warm himself, and he growls all through 
 the severe cold season, which he con- 
 siders as a kind of penance. With the 
 cessation of the spring rains his serenity 
 of temper returns. Each town has its 
 gypsy quarter, and the types seen there 
 are simply indescribable. Men and 
 women of this class have extremely prim- 
 itive ideas with regard to clothing, and 
 appear absolutely devoid of shame. For 
 four hundred and fifty years the Tsigane 
 has been known in Roumania, and the 
 race has made little or no improvement 
 m that time. The gypsies still steal when 
 they dare, be«' when they can, and work 
 only when obliged. 
 
 The country is as rich in monasteries as 
 m churches. What a wonderful Held are 
 these grand Carpathians for the painter, 
 who as vet has left them unexplored ! The 
 crags, crowned with turrets ami ramparts ; 
 the immense forests, which extend from 
 snow-capped summits to vales where the 
 grass is alwaysgreen ; the paths winding 
 along verges of awful precipices ; the 
 tiny villages, where shepherds come to 
 sleep at night, and where the only per- 
 sons who have ever seen people from 
 western Europe are the soldiers and the 
 priests, who mayhap have travelled a 
 little ; the exquisite sunsets filled with 
 
74(5 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 semi-tropica] splendors, which 11 1 and 
 
 transfigure the vast, country side, — all are 
 new and wonderful, and offer ten thou- 
 sand charms to him who is weary of 
 Switzerland and the Alps, the Scot- 
 tish highlands, and the woods of Fontaine- 
 bleau. Despite the rains which followed 
 me when I threaded the paths in the 
 neighborhood of superb old Niamtzo's 
 fortress and monastery, only six hours' 
 ride by diligence from a convenient point 
 on the railway from Bucharest to Jassy, 
 I returned enchanted with the beauties 
 of the Carpathian range. I do not re- 
 member in which of the novels of Ouida 
 there is a description of this Roumanian 
 mountain country and one of the monas- 
 teries in an almost inaccessible nook ; but 
 I know that in journeying about the moun- 
 tains it seemed to me that she had not 
 exaggerated, and that her rhapsody was 
 full of profound truth. 
 
 Niamtzo is the chief of Roumanian 
 historical monasteries. Its bells rang to 
 call the faithful monks to prayer a hun- 
 dred years before Columbus discovered 
 America, yet some of its massive walls 
 are still in good condition. The savage 
 grandeur of its site, in a spot among 
 high mountains tipped with snow, with 
 fir-trees standing round about it like sol- 
 emn sentinels, is sufficiently impressive ; 
 but the edifice is more striking than its 
 surroundings. To-day it has two 
 churches, ten hell-towers, and live or six 
 hundred monks. These lead a laborious 
 albeit rather irresponsible existence. 
 The old fortress near it was elected in 
 the thirteenth century, by a body of Teu- 
 tons whom a Hungarian king had em- 
 ployed to check the incursions of the 
 Tartars, and hence the name of both 
 fort and monastery, for Niamtzo, or 
 Xt mi-.ii. in Roumanian means "German." 
 After the Germans who built it had 
 passed away, Niamtzo was the scene of 
 
 many hi ly battles. Tradition informs 
 
 us that Stephen the Great, unfortunate 
 in battle with the Turks, fled toward the 
 fortress, but that his mother Helen com- 
 manded the gates to be shut in his face, 
 crying out that unless he came home 
 victor he was no son of hers. Where- 
 upon this dutiful son recovered his pres- 
 ence of mind, and, rallying his flying 
 men, turned and inflicted upon the Turks 
 a chastisement which the Osmanli nation 
 remembers to this day. 
 
 Niamtzo possesses various buildings 
 of more or less modern construction — 
 an insane asylum, and one or two cloth 
 factories m which the monks labor. 
 Not far from the old monastery is a 
 famous convent for women, distinguished 
 from similar institutions in Roman Cath- 
 olic countries by the extreme freedom 
 of the inmates. This convent of Agapia 
 has contained as many as five hundred 
 ••nuns" at a time, all belonging to the 
 upper ranks of society. None of these 
 ladies considered themselves as bound 
 to ghostly vows, and Agapia and other 
 
 Convents became the centres of so much 
 
 intrigue that the government was com- 
 pelled some years since to place re- 
 strictions upon them. The clergy aided 
 the secular officials to reform many 
 scandalous lapses from discipline in 
 these establishments. Sojourn in the 
 convent, once adopted, is for life, and 
 many rich Roumanian families sacrifice 
 one of their daughters that they may 
 have more wealth for the child they love 
 best. The revenues of both the monas- 
 teries and con vents are enormous. Niamt- 
 zo. which was at one time under the 
 special protection of the emperor of 
 Russia, disposes of nearly nine hundred 
 thousand francs yearly, ami Agapia's in- 
 come is one hundred and twenty thou- 
 sand francs. There are many convents 
 in the mountains near Niamtzo, and 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 747 
 
 indeed there are few sections of Rournania 
 in which these institutions do not exist. 
 
 In a convent not far from Bucharest 
 a consul, who was a guest for the after- 
 noon, was somewhat surprised to hear 
 a number of nuns constantly repeating 
 for more than an hour a woman's name. 
 At last his curiosity prompted him to 
 ask the lady superior what was the 
 reason of this repetition. 
 
 "Oh," said she smiling, "it's only a 
 jprivighiero." 
 
 " And what is that? " 
 
 "It is a prayer for the death of 
 a certain person who has won the 
 affections of a great dignitary away 
 from his lawful wife. The privighiero 
 is paid for by the wife, and is to 
 be continued at short intervals for forty 
 days." 
 
 The consul did not dare to ask the 
 lady if she thought the prayer would be 
 answered. 
 
748 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE. 
 
 With the Russians in Bulgaria. -On the Danube. -Simnitza. — The Extemporaneous Imperial Head- 
 Quarters. -The Early Campaign in Bulgaria. Singing of the Russian Troops. — Sistova. — Bul- 
 garian Men. The Fanners. M ra or the Russian Army < officers. — The Grand Duke Nicholas. 
 
 — The Elder Skobeleff. — The Russian Emperor in the Field. 
 
 A S I approached Simnitza just at teamsters, broad-hatted, gloomy, and 
 
 -^J- dusk one evening in June. 1*77, dazed by the spectacle of the thousands 
 
 I saw a. long line of fires blazing on tlic of strangers who had suddenly invaded 
 
 hills beyond the Danube ami hailed their country ; Russian generals followed 
 
 them with joy. They were the funeral by stall's wlmse uniforms had once 
 
 pyres of Turkish oppression, the beacon been brilliant, but were now indescriba- 
 
 lights of liberty and law in the East; blydusty and worn ; and genial, amiable 
 
 they denoted the presence of the new Muscovite infantry-men trudging i liilo- 
 
 crusaders, the sturdy Russians. sophically alone- the roads, hunting in 
 
 At the foot of the little hill down which vain for food, for medicine, for water. 
 
 my rude wagon was rattling a large camp for wine, — for everything. In those June 
 
 was located. Lights gleamed from tiny days Simnitza was preeminently the 
 
 tents. The clash of arms and the murmur place where nothing was to be hail at 
 
 of thousands of voices were borne with any price. Food was quite out of the 
 
 the stifling dust to my ears. For days I question. The army passing by brought 
 
 hail lived in dust, had breathed it, had its cattle with it ; bread was unheard of ; 
 
 drunk it in my tea, and eaten it with the soldier subsisted on the ration of 
 
 my hard bread and harder Roumanian soup, with a huge round of beef, which 
 
 cheese. I had slept in it in filthy khans, the regimental cooks served out to him 
 
 in filthier villages, where half-grown daily. But the civilian ? For him there 
 
 boys and giils ran about naked. I was was no food, unless he had brought it a 
 
 coaled with dust. When I moved clouds hundred mill's, unless his servants could 
 
 arose around me. When a Cossack' pa- cook it, and unless those servants could 
 
 trol passed, spectral in the gathering go half a mile from town to procure the 
 
 darkness, he left behind him a pillar of fuel with which to make the the. All 
 
 dust which seemed to mount to the very this we learned within ten minutes after 
 
 skies. Interminable wagon trains, drawn our arrival in Simnitza. 
 
 by shaggy, ill-tempered Russian horses. There was a hotel — a vast, rambling 
 
 wallowed in the wearisome highways structure, with long galleries out of 
 
 which stretched for miles across the which chambers opined somewhat like 
 
 treeless wastes. Artillery creaked cells in a penitentiary : but this was full. 
 
 slowly forward. The shuffling landlord seemed to take 
 
 As we drove into the diminutive town malicious pleasure in refusing all de- 
 
 we found ourselves in the midst of a mauds. Threats, entreaties, money, were 
 
 shouting, hustling crowd of Hebrew of no avail. Even the stable-yard was 
 
 merchants crazy for gain ; Roumanian crowded with Russian wagons, and Cos- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 749 
 
 sucks were lying about on the straw 
 smoking, and singing quaint songs which 
 stirred one's poetic sense curiously. A 
 bath, clean clothes, something to cat. 
 and a lew hours of repose would have 
 enabled one to enter thoroughly into 
 the spirit of the scene. But one might 
 as well have asked for the moon or the 
 chaste Pleiades or the soothing Orion. 
 
 In sheer desperation I went with my 
 companion, while the servants prose- 
 cuted their search for lied and board, 
 to the long plateau near the Danube 
 shore. The moon had arisen, and en- 
 abled us to see the great silent river 
 flowing steadily and majestically past 
 the islands and the steep banks oppo- 
 site, as serene as if no great battle had 
 ever been fought near it. A long line 
 of gleams indicated the position of the 
 bridge of boats established after the 
 Turks had been driven from the hills 
 of Sistova. Numerous correspondents 
 of English and French newspapers who 
 presently joined us said that on the Bul- 
 garian bank abundant food and excel- 
 lent wine were to be found. This was 
 aggravation. We sighed for the prom- 
 ised laud, spent the night in a wretched 
 apology for a chamber infested by 
 fleas and other small vermin, and awoke 
 next morning uurefreshed. We then 
 presented ourselves at the Imperial head- 
 quarters. 
 
 I.. .. large enclosure on a bluff near 
 the Danube majesty and authority had 
 pitched their tents, and directly oppo- 
 site them were numerous ambulances, 
 in which lay the brave fellows wounded 
 in the attack on Sistova. Grand duke, 
 high officer of justice, aud prince, gen- 
 erals of division and aides-de-camp were 
 lodged under canvas covers, beneath 
 which the dust cruelly crept. By day 
 the sun scorched the unhappy crusad- 
 ers ; by night a cold wind blew from the 
 
 river and chilled them. The Czar of all the 
 Russias slept in a disused hospital and 
 ate his dinner in a marquee. Sometimes 
 the dust was half an inch thick on the 
 plates on the Imperial table. At noon 
 lunch was served for all gentlemen at- 
 tached to the head-quarters ; in the even- 
 ing tin' Emperor selected his guests. The 
 foreign military attachis, the journalists, 
 and the artists set up their tents aud 
 shifted for themselves. They longed for 
 the definite advance into Bulgaria, for 
 inaction and privation together were 
 simply intolerable. 
 
 Every day, over the poorly traced 
 highway leading from Giurgevo to Sim- 
 nitza, came thousands of troops, grimly 
 bending to their work, setting their faces 
 sternly to the East. We never tired of 
 watching the solid infantry-men as they 
 plodded by, now answering the saluta- 
 tion of a General with a shout, which 
 made one's heart beat taster than usual, 
 now singing almost reverently in chorus. 
 The Cossacks wen' our chief delight. 
 Dust and fatigue seemed to have no 
 power to choke the harmony which welled 
 up melodiously, as from the pipes of a 
 mighty organ, whenever a Cossack reg- 
 iment halted. On they came, now at 
 dawn, now at dusk, thousands of lithe, 
 sinewy, square-faced, long-haired youth, 
 with shrewd twinkling eyes, small hands 
 and feet, nerves of steel, ami gestures full 
 
 of utmost earnestness. The leader of 
 each squadron usually "lined" the hymn 
 or ballad which was sung. Behind him 
 hundreds of voices took up the chorus, 
 and prolonged it until the heavens seemed 
 
 filled with sweet mites. Sometimes the 
 singers recited the exploits of an an- 
 cient hetman of their tribes ; sometimes 
 an exquisite and tender sentiment of 
 melancholy pervaded their song — a 
 longing for home, for kindred, for babe 
 aud wife ; sometimes a rude worship per- 
 
750 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 meated every note. From the camps of 
 these stout fellows, who are the eyes and 
 ears of the Russian army when it is in 
 an enemy's country, nightly arose the 
 mournful and spiritual cadences of the 
 "Evening Prayer," followed by the Rus- 
 sian national anthem, than which no na- 
 tion has a grander. When the 'breezes 
 were favorable we could hear the singing 
 of the Russian troops beyond the Dan- 
 ube, and from time to time through the 
 long night, cheer answered cheer across 
 the wide dark waters. This singing was 
 a marked feature of the early campaign 
 in Bulgaria. On the march, when near 
 the enemy, infantry and cavalry were 
 alike silent, grave, watchful, but at night 
 nothing could restrain thechoriis. ( Jrand, 
 plaintive, often pathetic, it mounted to 
 the stars; and when the Turks heard it. 
 it must have impressed them powerfully. 
 In the savage self-complacency of his 
 own prayer the Mussulman may have 
 disdained the Giaour's expression of 
 worship and adoration, but his soul 
 must have been touched by the har- 
 mony ami rhythm. I know that the 
 stolid faces of certain Anatolians who 
 were held as prisoners at Simnitza bright- 
 ened a little when they heard the bands 
 of singing Cossacks pa^s : but whether 
 the brightness was caused by hatred or 
 admiration 1 cannot tell. The Bulga- 
 rians seemed dazed by so much singing ; 
 ami although at a later period they tried 
 to imitate it. even inventing a ■•national 
 hymn," which was at best but a. melan- 
 choly affair, they always did it in a 
 half-hearted ami frightened manner, as 
 if they feared that the ferocious Turk, 
 with bastinado and knife, were about 
 to appear. 
 
 At last the army authorities, who had 
 held us back, informed journalists, 
 artists, and all civilians who had re- 
 ceived permission to follow the army 
 
 that visits to Sistova were allowed and 
 that the road into Bulgaria was open. 
 
 Seen from the Danube, Sistova does 
 not present a very attractive appear- 
 ance. Here and then' a white minaret 
 gleams in the sun ; masses of small cot- 
 tages with thatched roofs, colored like 
 the cliffs to which they cling, are grouped 
 with but little pictnresqueness. Near 
 the Danube there are a few large ware- 
 houses and "hotels." But that part 
 of Sistova which cannot be seen from 
 the river is quite imposing, and there 
 the Turk, who has an eye for the beau- 
 tiful in nature, had chosen his quarter, 
 where he dwelt proudly apart from the 
 despised Christian. 
 
 We scrambled down the steep banks 
 from Simnitza one terribly hot day, 
 fought our way through the throngs 
 of Jewish merchants, pushed past the 
 troops waiting the signal to cross the 
 bridge, and were finally permitted to 
 pass on. Dismounting from our horses, 
 we led them across this remarkable pon- 
 toon structure, which was afterward sup- 
 plemented by a second and stronger one, 
 though, as the event has proved, not 
 more capable than the first of holding 
 its own against Father Danube's wintry 
 wrath. In each pontoon sat a hardy 
 sailor, silent, contentedly munching 
 black-bread or reading a, Moscow news- 
 paper. The Russians were wise ill 
 choosing Simnitza as their principal 
 crossing-point . for there the islands aided 
 in the work. But when later in the 
 campaign, in the dreary rainy days of 
 autumn, those islands had become 
 transformed into lakes of liquid mud, 
 the spectacle of dead and dying horses, 
 men suffering with fever in the insuf- 
 ficient shelter of tents, broken and 
 almost submerged wagons, was dis- 
 heartening. A Scotch journalist insists 
 that the greatest battle fought by the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 751 
 
 Russians was with the Danube during 
 the whole of one terrible day and night, 
 when the river seemed anxious to aid 
 the Turks and to carry out the pro- 
 gramme which Abdul Kerim had so 
 fondly imagined possible, — that of is- 
 olating the invader in Bulgaria, and 
 then falling upon him both in front and 
 rear. 
 
 The approaches to Sistova by the only 
 practicable road are wildly romantic, 
 weird, desolate. I could think of nothing 
 but the region described by Robert Brown- 
 ing in his poem, " Childe Harold to the 
 Dark Tower came." A sense of fore- 
 boding seemed to fasten on one as he 
 rode in among the giant hills. But there 
 was no enemy left to be wary of, even 
 at that early dab'. Audacious tactics, or 
 "lack of tactics,'' as the Austrian mili- 
 tary attacM insisted upon saying, had 
 succeeded, and at the cost of compar- 
 atively few lives. Dragimiroff and his 
 braves had pushed the Turks well back 
 toward Tirnova. So we slept in peace 
 at Sistova in the court-yard of a pretty 
 cottage which a wealthy Turk had left 
 in haste, and which the Bulgarians had 
 plundered afterwards. The Bulgarians 
 had not been civil enough to leave us 
 even a chair or table ; so we were com- 
 pelled to unpack our camp equipage. 
 The servants built a fire in the yard, 
 made tea, produced a thin Turkish wine 
 which they had found in the town, gave 
 us bread, — which seemed a miracle, as 
 we had been absolutely without it for 
 three days, — and even hinted at the 
 possibility of having a fish out of the 
 Danube. But that was too much. We 
 battled witli temptation, and, consoling 
 ourselves with tea, retired to rest in our 
 wagon. No Turk came to disturb us, 
 although the Bulgarians had assured us 
 that we should have our throats cut if 
 we dared to remain in the Turkish quar- 
 
 ter over night ; but our horses, picketed 
 at the wagon-pole, seemed inclined at 
 intervals in the night to munch our un- 
 protected toes; and this caused us no 
 little uneasiness. Lying wakeful in the 
 mellow moonlight, whose beams stole 
 even under tile wagon's leathern hood, 
 nothing could be more inexpressibly 
 comical than the grave, elongated, sym- 
 pathetic, inquiring faces of our four 
 horses as they peered in at us. I slept 
 as dawn came, and dreamed that the 
 Turk had returned and was pillaging his 
 own house. 
 
 Many points in Sistova remind one 
 of old Italian towns. A crumbling for- 
 tress on a pinnacle : a mysterious-looking 
 mansion set on a shelf of rock ; a bal- 
 cony half concealed by perfumed shrubs 
 and fair blossoms ; a street of stairs hewn 
 from solid rock ; a white pathway winding 
 along the edge of a miniature precipice, 
 — these were elements of the picturesque 
 which we had seen elsewhere. But the 
 dark faces which glared at us from behind 
 lattices ; the old kaimakam of stately 
 port and turbaned head ; the captive 
 bashi-bazouk, with his hideous, igno- 
 rant scowl, his belt filled with weapons, 
 and his shambling gait : the timorous Bul- 
 garian women, in their bright, neatly 
 woven garments. — the women who 
 rose up at our approach, and seemed 
 not to dare to believe that their souls 
 were their own, — these were new types. 
 We were not specially inclined to ad- 
 mire the humbler samples of the Bul- 
 garian men : their ways were the least 
 bit fawning, and they seemed deficient 
 in energy. These much down-trodden 
 folk were beginning however to have 
 some semblance of national feeling. 
 They covered their red head-gear with 
 handkerchiefs or strips of linen, and 
 marked them with the image of the 
 redeeming cross. It was also under- 
 
752 
 
 EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 stood by the Bulgarians that the cross 
 upon the door of a shop or house would 
 preserve it from intrusion when prying 
 Cossack and more inquisitive native 
 l»«'jj,;> ii to search for plunder in the sur- 
 rendered town. Some critics who have 
 been anxious to please the carping Eng- 
 lish conservatives, who naturally desire 
 to place the Bulgarians in as unfavor- 
 able a light as possible, have accused 
 the latter of much pillaging and cruelty. 
 That they did aid the Cossacks in sack- 
 ing the Turkish houses in Sistova and 
 Tirnova after the oppressor had lied 
 there can be no doubt — no more doubl 
 than that almost any other nation that 
 had been so horribly abused for centuries 
 would have gone further, and on the ap- 
 proach of the deliverer would have mas- 
 sacred the oppressor rather than have 
 allowed him to flee. After the first flush 
 of excitement was over the goods taken 
 from Turkish houses wen' piled in one 
 of the public squares, and official notice 
 was given that when the Turkish inhab- 
 itants returned they might identify and 
 reclaim their property. 
 
 If the mass of Bulgarian men did not 
 impress us favorably, it was not so with 
 the educated and refined specimens sent 
 forth from our American college in Con- 
 stantinople. The acute English critics, 
 who seemed to follow thi' campaign for 
 the express purpose of finding fault with 
 even thing, professed to like the educated 
 Bulgarian still less than his uneducated 
 brother. They found him arrogant, pre- 
 tentious, idle, ami lacking in stamina. 
 We found him gentle, possessed of the 
 
 soft and yielding manner of these south- 
 ern peoples.it is true; hut we also found 
 him earnest, well grounded in general 
 knowledge, and anxious for special study. 
 He seemed to us like a young American, 
 so well did he speak the English which 
 he had. learned in Robert College, and 
 
 so exactly had he caught our national 
 inflection. Out of this little group of 
 young men may spring the one who is 
 to prompt the nation to a new intellect- 
 ual life. It is but fair to say that, we did 
 not see the representatives of the better 
 classes of Bulgarians at Sistova. The 
 young men who had received an English 
 education were generally natives of points 
 nearer the Balkan range. The people 
 near the Danube have been much more 
 bitterly oppressed and degraded than 
 those on the Balkan slopes or beyond 
 the mountains. The Turkish tax-gath- 
 erer's most, ferocious raids were made 
 (jn the fat lands near the great river, and 
 there the people were naturally less inter- 
 esting. All individuality seemed to have 
 been crushed out, of them. They were 
 jealous and suspicious of their friends, 
 as well as of their known enemies. I 
 narrowly escaped a. severe beating at, 
 an angry and herculean peasant's hands 
 one evening because 1 insisted that, he 
 should sell some grain from his overflow- 
 ing store for my starving horses. He re- 
 fused, and Hew into a passion when com- 
 pelled to sell. Long contact with the 
 treachery and greed of the Turk had 
 made the farmer morose and mean. If 
 he could only keep what In' had accu- 
 mulated, even though it might rot, he 
 thought himself lucky. lie knew little 
 of the value of exchange, and cared less. 
 
 Farther in the interior of Bulgaria we 
 found the peasant, Turkish and Bul- 
 garian, willing to trade and sharp at a 
 bargain. But in a squalid village of 
 huts near the Danube one day we paid 
 two francs for some bread and cheese, 
 for the privilege of reposing in a cottage, 
 after eight hours in the saddle, and for 
 some milk. The coin was placed on the 
 low Turkish table around which we had 
 been seated ei'OSS-legged while we ate 
 our simple meal, and when we went 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 753 
 
 away it was still lying untouched. They 
 were not even curious to know what it 
 was, nor did they thank us for it. I feel 
 convinced that they did not comprehend 
 that it was money. They gave help if 
 one's wagon-wheel came off, or drew 
 water from the wells for one, or told the 
 route, and warned us against dangerous 
 roads with alacrity and zeal, and some- 
 times crossed themselves, saying that 
 they did the service in Christ's name ; 
 but barter was difficult, and annoyed 
 and angered them. 
 
 To be compelled to hurry was likewise 
 very distasteful to Bulgarians every- 
 where. We offered four francs for a 
 small kid cooked and so wrapped up 
 that we could have it in our wagon to 
 rely on for supper in a certain village. 
 The good man who was to do the work 
 finally gave it up, saying that it never 
 could be ready for live o'clock in the 
 morning, although the order was given 
 at three o'clock on a previous afternoon. 
 Nothing awed and amazed the peasantry 
 so much as to see a plain white with 
 tents at evening, and when they arose 
 in the morning to find the camp 
 gone. The women were loud in their 
 complaints against the Turks in all the 
 Danube country. Near the Balkans they 
 said but little, and seemed ashamed to 
 acknowledge that they had ever been 
 under Turkish domination. The moun- 
 taineers were every way more effective in 
 serving the cause than the peasantry of 
 the plain, who seemed to look at the 
 passage of the Russians with nothing 
 more than gratitude and curiosity. In 
 Sistova the peasants seemed densely 
 stupid; in Gabrova, sympathetic, and 
 even sharp. Gabrova lies at the foot of 
 the mountains. 
 
 We pressed onward from Sistova. ex- 
 pecting that the head-quarters would 
 soon be transferred to some point in 
 
 Bulgaria ; and our expectations were 
 not vain. At a miserable village called 
 Tzarevitza, where there had been a con- 
 siderable Turkish population, we found 
 nothing but empty huts, and one or two 
 regiments camped in the pleasant woods 
 near by. In the afternoon all the fine 
 gentlemen of the head-quarters arrived, 
 half famished, choked with thirst, and 
 the gorgeous uniforms which they had 
 put on for their entry into the enemy's 
 country tarnished and almost ruined. 
 Generals young and old, princes, cap- 
 tains, diplomatic agents, and attaches 
 broke suddenly upon our little camp, 
 which we had established in the middle 
 of a forest, and demanded food and 
 drink. The tent-mattings were littered 
 with yataghans, beautiful Kirghese 
 swords, — souvenirs of Central Asian 
 campaigns, — Smith & Wesson revolv- 
 ers, the jewelled rapier of the court 
 official, and the thin blade of the diplo- 
 matist. The unfortunate representatives 
 of Russia's dignity and authority were 
 destined to wait nearly twelve hours be- 
 fore their wagons, containing tents, food, 
 drink, aud clothing, came up with them. 
 So they beguiled the hours with mighty 
 draughts of tea, which we were happily 
 able to furnish them, and charmed us 
 with those two prominent traits of the 
 Russian gentleman's character, demo- 
 cratic freedom from affectation and 
 perfect amiability. These are good qual- 
 ities, especially in warriors. Add to 
 these an almost excessive frankness, 
 even in dealing with their own faults, 
 and 1 think one may safely say that the 
 Russians are worthy praise. Then' is in 
 them much of the keenness of the< >riental. 
 They can dissemble when they feel that 
 they are surrounded by those who arc 
 hostile to their aims, and if need be can 
 cajole as well. The Russian has a sharp 
 sense of resentment, especially if he 
 
754 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 fancies that his motives are misunder- as they marched by. The Generals and 
 
 stood or wilfully misinterpreted; but he other superior officers are very like those 
 
 has none of the stiffness of the Prussian, of America, in their complete disregard 
 
 — nothing whatever of his arrogance, of anything like formulas and their con- 
 
 A correspondent once unwittingly gave tempt for undue assumption of dignity. 
 
 his card t le grand duke, asking him From the emperor to the aide-de-camp 
 
 to hand it ti> another. The person ad- there is not a single degree of rank in 
 
 dressed promised, with the most perfect which one does not find unfailing, ser- 
 
 politeness, to do it, and did not appear viceable politeness, — that politeness 
 
 tn think it extraordinary. which has been so accurately described 
 
 There was but one critical remark as proceeding from "natural goodness 
 
 which some of the journalists following of heart." 
 
 the army were inclined to make, and The Grand Duke Nicholas, brother of 
 
 that was, that perhaps these gracious the -Emperor, and commander-in-chief of 
 
 and amiable gentlemen who chatted so the Russian armies in Europe, arrived in 
 
 pleasantly in our tent at Tzarevitza, and Tzarevitza toward evening, and took up 
 
 whose manners were so perfect while so his quarters in a deserted cottage. The 
 
 utterly simple, would disdain their enemy, only sign of his presence was a small flag 
 
 or would neglect some great opportunity and an infantry hand, which astounded 
 
 to crush him, which would result in their the few Bulgarians left in the village 
 
 own undoing. The persons who had with some rather noisy selections from 
 
 suggested this were not slow to insist the repertoire of Maltre Offenbach. I 
 
 that it was true when the Plevna check first saw the Grand Duke engaged in 
 
 occurred, and for a time they exulted in cooking live]- and bacon over a huge tire, 
 
 the pride of what they were pleased to precisely as our frontiersmen cook venison 
 
 term their foresight. lint presently — in slices spitted on a large hard-wood 
 
 Plevna fell, and a hundred voices conn- stick. As evening approached a certain 
 
 selled Turkey to sue for peace. Certain amount of ceremony was preserved in 
 
 la\itics of discipline and freedom from the yard of the cottage, where most of 
 
 proper caution observable early in the the members of the staff had gathered, 
 
 Campaign were corrected when the whole hut Nicholas paid small attention to it. 
 
 vast military machine was thoroughly in lie strode to and fro with long, elastic, 
 
 motion. The rigidity of Prussian train- swinging step, superintending his own 
 
 ing is impossible to Russians: their dinner, although there were numerous 
 
 natures and their sense of individual servants in attendance. The veteran 
 
 manliness alike rebel against it. Officers ( lossack < General, Skobeleff, father of the 
 
 and men are much nearer to each other youthful General whose reckless heroism 
 
 than in German or other armies. A has given him fame throughout Europe 
 
 country ruled by a man who has absolute and America, had witli his own hands 
 
 power over the subject has an army in slaughtered and dressed a sheep, and it 
 
 which the officers are often familiar, and was now roasting in the fashion which 
 
 generally free and easy, with their sol- has been known in the East for the last 
 
 diers. During the entry of certain regi- three thousand years. 
 
 incuts into Tirnova a lieutenant whom Nicholas had a face which in repose was 
 
 we knew came to our room, and from its proud, imperious, and showed wonderful 
 
 windows pelted his own men with flowers capacity for passion. A lightning-like 
 
EVROTE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 755 
 
 temper might at a moment's notice be 
 betrayed by those keen eyes, ordinarily 
 filled with pleasant smiles. Quick in 
 all his motions, he liked quickness in 
 others ; he rode a horse which it wore 
 others out to follow, and was fond of 
 
 GENERAL SKor.Kl.EFF. 
 
 dashing away to some distant village, 
 and then sending for the others to come 
 up with him, while he was on the road to 
 Tiruova. lie told me with great glee 
 how he left the palace of Cotroceni in 
 Bucharest by stealth, went down to the 
 Danube, and had half his plans per- 
 fected before any one outside his immedi- 
 ate personal circle knew of it. He 
 spoke English as perfectly as a foreigner 
 can : it was the first language that 
 he learned, anil he had a Scotch nurse. 
 His dress was always simple in the ex- 
 treme, and while to accept tile deference 
 paid him by the officers who surround 
 him seemed second nature to one bred to 
 it, he would not receive it from strangers, 
 
 anil even disliked to lie called by his title. 
 On the whole he had the strength of 
 character and fine sense of honor which 
 are the family traits, with a winsome, fas- 
 cinating manner added to them. Of his 
 abilities as a military commander the 
 world has been able to judge. Although 
 he was surrounded by competent advisers, 
 he was nevertheless entitled to much 
 credit for the successes which the Rus- 
 sians, in the face of tremendous ob- 
 stacles, finally achieved. 
 
 The Russian Imperial family found 
 itself in an exceedingly difficult position 
 in 1*77. Forced by the enthusiastic 
 agitators of Moscow toward a war which 
 
 must of necessity be long and bl ly, 
 
 they entered into the campaign almost 
 with reluctance ; but once engaged in it, 
 the Emperor and the Grand Dukes all 
 showed their willingness to share the 
 perils and many of the privations which 
 fell to the lot of the humbler, and were 
 active from the time of the cross- 
 ing into Bulgaria at Simnitza until the 
 surrender of Osman at Plevna. Al- 
 though the Czar was for much of the 
 time in delicate health, he refused to 
 quit the field, and remained in fever- 
 ridden Biela long after it seemed dan- 
 gerous in the extreme for him to slay. 
 An engineer officer of the United Stales 
 army who spent some time in the 
 Russian camps informed me that the 
 Imperial Majesty of all the Rus- 
 sias was more indifferently lodged at 
 Biela than an American Colonel would 
 be during an expedition on the plains. 
 The kitchen of majesty was doubtless 
 better served than that of the com- 
 mon soldier, but the clouds of dust, 
 the draughts of air. the all but intol- 
 erable smells, the occasional invading 
 scorpion and the innumerable inquisi- 
 tive bugs respected Czar no whit more 
 than Cossack. 
 
756 
 
 KLUori; L\ STURM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX. 
 
 General Radetzky.— Russians on the March. — Infantry-Men. — i lossaeks.— Dragimrroff. — In Camp. — 
 
 Reception of the Liberating Russians by the Bulgarians. — Enthusias f the Women and < 'hildren. 
 
 Welcome by the Monks and Priests- -The HWile beside the Yantra. -- The Arrival at Tirnova.— 
 Triumphal Procesiion. — The Grand Duke Nicholas in Church. — The Picturesque City on the 
 Yantra. — The Greek Ladies. — Fugitives from Eski Zaghra. 
 
 FINDING that the Eighth corps, 
 under command of General Ra- 
 detzky, had been ordered to push forward 
 us rapidly as possible into the interior of 
 Bulgaria, we joined our fortunes to the 
 staff of this brave fragment of the Rus- 
 sian army, — a fragment destined to be 
 so cruelly tried, and so severely punished 
 in the campaign. The grand ducal staff 
 was difficult to find after five o'clock in 
 the morning: it vanished, and we were 
 compelled either to follow it across fields 
 and over by-roads at a venture, or to 
 journey with the staff of one of the 
 corps. We preferred the latter course. 
 Two or three days' marches through a 
 rolling country, where the crops were 
 already in splendid condition, and where 
 a few peasants had gathered courage to 
 reappear in the fields, brought us to a 
 picturesque region where hills were 
 loftier, fields were, if possible, more 
 fertile, than in the Danube basin, and 
 the men and the women were of nobler 
 type than those by the river-side. Long 
 before dawn a stout band of Cossacks 
 started and rode carefully and diligently 
 over the whole route of the day's march. 
 They penetrated to all the villages on 
 the right or left, pursued roving bands 
 of hashi-bazouks if any were to be 
 found, and reported by faithful couriers 
 to the General commanding the corps. 
 
 By six the infantry was on the march. 
 moving forward with slow, deliberate 
 
 step, as if determined to expend as little 
 force as possible. Then followed artil- 
 lery ; next miles on miles of wagons, 
 for the baggage-train even of a Russian 
 army corps or of a battalion is of phe- 
 nomenal size in comparison with those 
 in other armies. The ambulances and 
 a small rear-guard came lumbering 
 behind. This marching column was 
 usually so long drawn out, so very thin, 
 that it would have been cut in two a 
 dozen times daily had the Turks had 
 any effective regular or irregular cavalry. 
 A few horsemen on the brow of a hill at 
 right or left sometimes produced an ex- 
 cellent effect : the column, in which 
 great gaps had been growing for an hour 
 or two, came together in solid fashion 
 once more. But the Turks never im- 
 proved their advantages in a single 
 instance. The bashi-ba/.ouks were too 
 cowardly: they desired to light only 
 when they were certain of incurring 
 small personal risk ; and a dash into the 
 middle of a marching column had a 
 spice of adventure in it which they did 
 not relish. 
 
 With but very short intervals for re- 
 pose the troops usually marched until 
 noon, and sometimes, if water were not 
 readily to be had, until three o'clock'. 
 The officers said but little, generally 
 gave their commands in low voices, and 
 used their own discretion in allowing 
 rest. If the sun were very hot and no 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 air were stirring — a terrible trial in a 
 
 treeless country — a halt would lie ordered 
 and company after company would 
 throw itself on the ground with that feel- 
 ing of intense relief which only he who 
 makes the soldier's effort can know. 
 Yet the men were never heavily loaded. 
 The officers allowed them to pack their 
 knapsacks and blankets into the wagons, 
 and to march weighted down by noth- 
 ing save their light linen suits and 
 their guns. We often found our wagon 
 after a halt half tilled with knapsacks. 
 This at first puzzled us, but we soon 
 discovered that the proper plan was 
 to stipulate for the carriage of a cer- 
 tain number. The others were promptly 
 thrown out, and presently we would 
 see their owners stealing up with roguish 
 smiles to recover them. As soon as the 
 village or the river near which we were 
 to encamp was reached, the bands began 
 to play lively airs, and the soldiers, un- 
 less orders had been for some pruden- 
 tial reason issued against it, broke into 
 singing. Then tents were speedily pitched 
 and by four or five o'clock the weary 
 soldier was invited to a hot and substan- 
 tial meal. The use of tobacco among 
 these troops seemed insignificant as 
 compared with the enormous consump- 
 tion of that article in the Prussian and 
 French armies. A Prussian Uhlan or a 
 foot-soldier has his porcelain pipe or 
 cheap cigar in his mouth every moment 
 of the day that such indulgence is pos- 
 sible ; but I have seen the Cossacks sit 
 for hours idly singing or basking in the 
 sunshine, and evidently anxious for no 
 narcotic. When the Cossack has taken 
 too much liquor he is daugerous, and 
 sometimes very brutal. It is then that 
 his passion for stealing horses becomes 
 developed to an alarming extent. The 
 Cossack, when he enters tin- service of 
 the Czar, is humid to furnish his own 
 
 steed, and as it may often become a 
 very sorry beast in the course of a cam- 
 paign, he is frequently anxious to change 
 it for a better one. But when he is so- 
 ber he realizes to the utmost the danger 
 which he would incur by any display of 
 lawlessness. On the march to the Bal- 
 kans there were few if any sutlers — or 
 "market-tenders," as they are called — 
 in the train, and soldiers had no chance 
 to replenish their scanty stores of liquor 
 at a merchant's counter. 
 
 Near Ivantcha, a pretty village which 
 had suffered much from Turkish rapac- 
 ity and brutality, the Eighth corps, a 
 compact little army of thirty thousand 
 men, came upon the high-road leading to 
 Tirnova from Rustchuk. At six on a 
 breezy summer morning we found the 
 veteran Radetzky seated on a rock at the 
 summit of one of the tumuli, or obsei - - 
 vation-mounds, to lie found everywhere 
 in Bulgaria. The long lines of infantry 
 were slowly defiling below, and from the 
 throats of the men of each battalion as 
 it passed the point of observation came 
 a loud cry of " Morning ! " in answer to 
 the friendly " Morning, brothers ! " of the 
 General. Radetzky is a tranquil, easy- 
 going commander of the old school ; he 
 takes every event in the most matter-of- 
 fact way, seems utterly devoid of energy 
 until the very last moment, when he 
 summons it, dues just the right tiling, 
 and acts with marvellous celerity, as he 
 did at the time of Suleiman Pacha's furi- 
 ous attack on the positions in the Shipka 
 Pass. In appearance he is more like 
 a good bourgeois shopkeeper than like 
 a general ; stretches himself with the 
 utmost unconcern on a carpet in camp ; 
 tosses off a dozen huge bumpers of scald- 
 ing tea ; smiles at the name of Turk ; 
 crosses himself as devoutly as do any of 
 the Cossacks, and inspires every one who 
 comes into contact with him with genuine 
 
758 , EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 affection. His chief of staff, Dimitri- He is dark complexioned, of medium 
 
 owski, a veteran of Central Asian cam- height; time has taken tribute of his 
 
 paigns, bestrode a Kirghese horse, which hair, but has not abated his energy. 
 
 had faithfully borne him in more than His order of the day for the conduct of 
 
 fifteen thousand miles of campaigning, the troops who were detailed to cross the 
 
 To sec these two amiable gentlemen rid- Danube in front of Sistova was filled 
 
 ing slowly across fields together one with the same brief, incisive instructions 
 
 would never fancy them to be soldiers ; winch Suwarrow was so fond of giving. 
 
 yet both were valiant in the highest de- The most noteworthy thing in this order 
 
 give at Shipka. The chief of staff was was the command to the soldiers to listen 
 
 dangerously wounded then', while Ra- to no signal of retreat under any circuin- 
 
 detzky rushed into the light as impnl- stances whatever. The duty plainly al- 
 
 sivcly as a boy of twenty, and repelled lotted them was to take Sistova and the 
 
 forces largely outnumbering his own. positions dominating the point at which 
 
 From this high mound in the centre the Russian engineers wished to con- 
 
 of a broad plain, where General Radetz- struct their bridge — to take and hold 
 
 ky had installed himself, we could see these points, or to perish in the attempt. 
 
 a thin white line moving slowly along General Dragimiroff was justly proud of 
 
 the road two or three miles away, and his achievement, and as lie threw hini- 
 
 presently the morning sun flashed 11)1011 self from his horse on that lovely July 
 
 the tops of ten thousand polished gun- morning and scrambled up the mound to 
 
 barrels with dazzling splendor. Out of greet his General, he did not realize that 
 
 this blinding light suddenly rode, pound- weary weeks in hospital were soon to lie 
 
 ing vigorously on his sturdy charger along his portion. He was disabled at Shipka 
 
 the hard turnpike, and followed by a by a severe leg wound during Suleiman's 
 
 rakish-looking detachment of Cossacks, attack. 
 
 General Dragimiroff, the hero of the At our left, and perhaps two miles dis- 
 tight before Sistova and commander of taut, arose a steep and thinly wooded 
 a division of the famous fighting Eighth, mountain range, which, according to the 
 Dragimiroff is a man of mark in Russia ; Bulgarians, afforded shelter to several 
 he is the disciple of the great Suwar- thousandsof irregular Mussulman troops, 
 row. who made the Russian soldier, who had hidden themselves at the ap- 
 and who gave him the thousand maxims proach of General Radetzky. It was 
 for military conduct, filled with common (anions to observe the tactics of the Cos- 
 sense and manly feeling, which one sacks in exploring the country near this 
 hears in the ranks. Before Suwarrow mountain. With our glasses we could 
 the Russian. soldier was a machine ; now see them trotting swiftly across the un- 
 tie is a man. General Dragimiroff is a even field, their lance-points glistening 
 handsome gentleman of elegant deport- in the sun. As they approached a vil- 
 ment, a little past the prime of life ; now Iage they gathered into a little knot, to 
 and then, when he [Hits on his spectacles separate swiftly again as they found 
 and begins a discussion on tactics, he nothing to impede their progress. Then 
 seems the least bit like a school-master, they came circling and swooping back 
 lint when he is in the saddle, surrounded toward the main line, and when they 
 by officers and rattling toward an en- were near enough to be clearly observed 
 gagement, he looks every inch a soldier, we saw that most of their saddle-bows 
 
EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 759 
 
 were decorated with chickens or fat 
 geese. 
 
 As we moved slowly forward that day 
 we saw villages in flames on our right 
 and left. Some of them were burned 
 by Mussulmans flying before the wrath 
 to come and anxious to leave uo stores 
 behind for the comfort of the Russians ; 
 others were set on fire by Cossacks ; 
 other fires still were kindled by Bul- 
 garians, to burn Turkish houses as soon 
 as the occupants had departed. But uo 
 enemy was to be found, and we camped 
 that evening in a romantic valley beside 
 the Rushitza river, a wide and deep 
 stream at this particular place. The 
 Turks, with their usual kindness, had 
 left a large wooden bridge intact. In- 
 fantry and cavalry poured over this, and 
 soon found quarters in a pleasant wood, 
 while the artillery forded the stream. It 
 would have been gratifying to see at 
 least a few hundred hostile horsemen or 
 a little band of infantry wearing the red 
 caps of the Turks, but none were visible. 
 The Ottomans had encamped on this 
 very spot but a short time before, how- 
 ever, and it was believed that they could 
 not be far away. 
 
 The Grand Duke slept in the tiny vil- 
 lage of Palikvast. twenty minutes' gal- 
 lop from our camp, that night, and next 
 morning prepared fur his triumphal entry 
 into Tirnova. Our Eighth corps marched 
 merrily over the hills and through the 
 deep vales until it came to a small town 
 just at the entrance of the magnificent 
 defile at the opposite end of which Tir- 
 nova is situated. Here the inhabitants 
 were assembled, dressed in their best 
 attire, tin' women and ^irls wearing gold 
 and silver ornaments, which they had 
 rarely dared to put on under Turkish 
 rule. A half-smothered cry of admira- 
 tion and joy burst from the hundreds 
 assembled from all the country-places 
 
 near by as the staff entered the 
 village. Flowers were handed to the 
 horsemen. Little maidens modestly and 
 timidly proffered fruit anil bread. The 
 village priests with tear-stained faces 
 stood holding the holy painted images 
 of the saints and muttering words of 
 praise and consolation. A lusty youth, 
 appointed to ring the chimes on a musi- 
 cally tuned bar of steel, which had beeu 
 extemporized to serve instead of the bells 
 so sternly forbidden by the Turkish op- 
 pressors, rang and danced, and laughed 
 and wept alternately as he danced and 
 rang. The women clasped their children 
 to their breasts with fierce and proud ca- 
 resses, and cried as if their hearts would 
 burst for joy. From the wooden-grated 
 window of a room in the khan of the 
 hamlet two Turkish prisoners — turbaned 
 Mussulmans, who would have been ven- 
 erable had it not been for the horrible 
 atrocities of which they were convicted 
 — glared out upon the arriving troops 
 with a dull, hopeless ferocity. One of 
 these ancient ruffians had been twice lib- 
 erated on account of his great age, but 
 the second time he fell into an uncontrol- 
 lable fury, spat upon the ground, and, 
 drawing his knife, prepared to run 
 amuck among the villagers, when he was 
 rearrested. The ignoble miscreant had 
 murdered several innocent children in 
 the course of his worthless life. lie and 
 his companion were hanged during our 
 stay in Tirnova. 
 
 The Russian infantry-men, marching 
 stoutly by to the music of inspiring 
 strains, such as Bulgarians had never 
 heard before, seemed to astonish the ig- 
 norant villagers beyond measure. They 
 constantly inquired for "Alexander," 
 the beloved name representing in their 
 minds the deliverance. The Cossacks 
 seemed inspired on this occasion : they 
 had caught the spirit of delirious joy 
 
71)0 
 
 EUROPE IS STORM ASK CALM. 
 
 which prevailed among the Bulgarians, 
 and as a regiment of the brave fellows 
 came slowly through the town, beating 
 time with wild gestures to their own 
 wilder SOUg, which swelled and swelled 
 in volume until the narrow valley seemed 
 too small to contain it, enthusiasm lost 
 all bounds. Many women threw them- 
 selves, sobbing hysterically, Oil the 
 ground, hiding their faces, while their lit- 
 tle children tugged at their skirts. Mean- 
 time fighting was in progress not 
 far away. A Cossack captain showed 
 us a goodly store of richly mounted arms 
 and saddles, bridles and cloths worked 
 with gold, brought in from a village 
 twenty miles distant, where the Turkish 
 peasants had made a bold stand against 
 twice their number of Cossacks. Only 
 the threat that, the town would be burned 
 could induce the villagers to give up 
 their arms. 
 
 We rode on through the mighty defile 
 beside the beautiful Yant ra to Tirnova, 
 the ancient capital of the Bulgarian 
 kings, and positively the most pictu- 
 resque town that I have ever seen. We 
 left the troops behind, and galloped 
 along a narrow road where two hundred 
 men might have held the pass against 
 ten thousand. That the Turks should 
 ever have been foolish enough to yield 
 this defile without the defence which 
 it. was so easy to make seems incredible. 
 On either hand, perched high among the 
 rocks, is a monastery, from which the 
 old and young monks had come down 
 to greet us. ( renerals and minor officers 
 doffed their hats and bent reverently 
 for the monkish benediction, then 
 passed on. crossing themselves. Soon 
 we saw the roof of a mosque glittering 
 in the sun, and clambering up a long and 
 stony ascent, and clattering through the 
 narrow and duty streets, we made our 
 way to a many-gabled, quaintly -balconied 
 
 house, which an officer of the advance- 
 guard had hastily chosen for General 
 Radetzky's head-quarters. Behind us 
 the street was speedily tilled with an 
 immense detachment of cavalry, which 
 had come in by another road and 
 was pushing straight on to the 
 Balkans. So we sat for an hour 
 on our horses watching this human 
 torrent as it swept by, and wondering 
 how many of tin' thousands of horsemen 
 would ever sec Russia again. 
 
 At Tirnova, as at the little village, the 
 cry was for " Alexander." People did 
 not seem to know who Grand Duke 
 Nicholas was ; they only knew that 
 after an absurdly ineffectual resistance 
 the Turk had lied and the Russian de- 
 liverer had come in his place. And 
 what joy bubbled and frothed in laughter 
 and song or evanesced in tears as the 
 freed people promenaded the crooked 
 avenues, arm in arm, crying " Hurrah!" 
 as if they were not used to doing it but 
 thought it a good accomplishment to 
 acquire ! 
 
 When the street was once more pass- 
 able we hastened to the high walls over- 
 looking the valley to observe the entry 
 of the Grand Duke ami his staff. Trav- 
 ersing tin 1 town, and now and then 
 following the Cossacks down steep 
 avenues, where one's neck was in immi- 
 nent danger, then climbing a street set 
 upon the outermost edge of a very preci- 
 pice, we came to a plateau whence we 
 could sec a long procession of horsemen 
 winding through the sunlit valley, 
 and finally pausing before a company of 
 priests, who bore them the bread and 
 salt of hospitality and the divine sym- 
 bols, that, they might kiss them. The 
 procession made its way as best it could 
 to flu' principal church, where Nicholas, 
 hand on sword, stood for half an hour 
 listening to the chants of the priests and 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 7<U 
 
 the somewhat monotonous music of the 
 choir-boys. In this church we caught 
 sight of Bulgarian beauty, which unsym- 
 pathetic Hungarians anil sneering Rou- 
 manians had taught us to consider a 
 myth. Dark-eyed, dark-haired girls 
 crowded toward the altar to see the 
 deliverer, bowed their pretty heads rev- 
 erently when he kissed the crucifix, and 
 shot bewitching glances at the young 
 officers, who had donned their most brill- 
 iant uniforms for this memorable occa- 
 sion. In single file the Duke, his aides- 
 de-camp aud half a hundred officers 
 passed out of the town to a hill a short 
 distance beyond it, where, in a hand- 
 some suburban villa, the ducal head- 
 quarters were established. The plain 
 near by was white with tents, and col- 
 umns of men filled the only two roads 
 in the vicinity. Had the Grand Duke 
 dreamed that at that moment Osman 
 Pasha was moving toward Plevna he 
 would have considered his own arrival 
 in Tirnova as hazardous. But in igno- 
 rance of any such movement every one 
 was ready to declare that, as far as 
 Philippopolis or Sofia, the war would be 
 nothing but a, promenade militaire. 
 
 From the plain where the Russians were 
 encamped, Tirnova appeared rather like 
 a faery city risen at the command of an 
 enchanter than like a town built In- 
 human hands. The lowest range of 
 dwellings is placed on a bluff above the 
 Yantra river, and the highest on a high 
 pinnacle of the lofty gorge. The com- 
 binations of color, of form, are infinite : 
 one never tires of gazing at the streets of 
 slairs, down which the Cossacks ride 
 on horseback fearlessly; at the masses 
 of slated roofs, from which the inhabi- 
 tants of neighboring houses carry on 
 animated conversations in high-pitched 
 voices; at the balconies, latticed or 
 open, from which one can look down 
 
 hundreds of feet into yellow water, or 
 upon odorous gardens, where the richest 
 blossoms flourish. A house in Tirnova 
 appears to have no foundation ; it is in 
 some mysterious manner inextricably 
 connected with those above and those 
 below it, and its cellars and sub-cellars 
 seem to extend into tin' bowels of the 
 earth. The houses of well-to-do citizens 
 are ample, even vast; the court-yards 
 are surrounded by veritable parapets 
 and ramparts. The interior furnishing 
 is simple and Oriental: divans, low and 
 covered witli coarse carpets, are more 
 common than beds ; and in the recess 
 of a great window, so placed as to catch 
 the faintest sigh of the breeze, one 
 usually finds carpets and cushions form- 
 ing couches, where the rich Bulgarian 
 takes his siesta when the sun is hot. 
 The Greek families in Tirnova are 
 numerous, and the Greek ladies are 
 renowned for their beauty. The Bul- 
 garian peasant women are stately, and 
 possess a quiet dignity which has a 
 certain charm. They talk lint little: 
 :i bevy of girls drawing water at a foun- 
 tain are as silent as if at a funeral. 
 They bear pain with great fortitude. 
 
 We had an excellent opportunity to 
 observe this trait in their characters 
 when the fugitives from Roumelia came 
 crowding through the Shipka Pass and 
 down the foot-hills of the Balkans to 
 Tirnova. For days the streets were 
 filled with half-starved women and girls, 
 most of whom had lost husbands, 
 brothers, or protectors in the dreadful 
 massacres in and around Kski Zaghra, 
 and some of whom had been wounded ; 
 but none complained aloud, and all bore 
 their troubles witli a patient resignation 
 which was extremely touching. They 
 cannot control themselves in joy so well 
 as in pain, — probably because they 
 have had in their lives much more of the 
 
7(5 S 
 
 EUROPE IN ZTORM AND CALM. 
 
 latter than of the former. Women who 
 have seen their children wrested from 
 their arms by merciless and fanatical 
 oppressors, and buried alive, can endure 
 almost anything. The women of Loft- 
 scha who escaped from the massacre 
 with which the troops of Osman Pasha 
 whetted their swords wore upon their 
 faces a settled expression of terror which 
 was awful to witness. We saw hun- 
 
 dreds of these poor creatures on the 
 Selvi road a few days after their escape. 
 Old and young alike seemed to have 
 constantly before them the memory of a 
 dread vision which could only pass 
 away with death. They moved about 
 listlessly : life no longer appeared real 
 to them. It is not astonishing, for they 
 had been far down into the Valley of the 
 .Shadow. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 763 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN. 
 
 Previous Insurrection in Bulgaria. — A Retrospect. — Servia's Aid to Bulgaria. — Russian Agents. — Tlio 
 Triple Alliance— Rustchnk, Its Defence.— Turkish Transports. — The Road to the Balkans.— 
 Gabrova. — Turkish Time. — Bulgarian Schools and their varying Fortunes. — Renegades. — The 
 Passes of the Balkans. — Prince Tserteleff. — The Shipka Pass. — Mount St. Nicholas. — Suleiman 
 Pasha and Radctzky. 
 
 BULGARIA'S first insurrectionary 
 movement, in lS(i - 2, not only as- 
 tonished the Turks but greatly alarmed 
 many civilized powers, who saw the 
 danger of a general European war in 
 this uprising of a people supposed to 
 be thoroughly subjugated. The unhappy 
 Bulgarians had been groaning under the 
 Ottoman yoke so long, and seemed so 
 powerless to help themselves, that even 
 their kindred had begun to despise their 
 seeming lack of courage. Nearly five 
 hundred years had passed since the 
 fertile plains at the slopes of the Balkans 
 and the fat fields beside the Danube had 
 fallen into Turkish hands ; yet during 
 that long period the oppressed Slavs had 
 done little or nothing to renew their 
 vanquished glories or to justify their 
 right to an independent existence. 
 From the time of the seizure of Con- 
 stantinople, in 1453, by the terrible 
 Mohammed II., until the middle of the 
 nineteenth century, the Turk encoun- 
 tered no resistance from the natives of 
 the land which he had invaded. Even 
 the Austrians had done something 
 toward the liberation of the Slavs ; the 
 Bulgarians had done nothing. But at 
 last the breeze of revolution passed over 
 the prostrate people, and awoke them, 
 as by enchantment, from their lethargy 
 of ages. 
 
 Servia had been inspired to resistance 
 by the contemplation of Austria's many 
 
 struggles with the Ottoman power on 
 the banks of the Save, and by means of 
 brilliant and tremendous popular efforts 
 from 1800 until 1860 had succeeded in 
 winning from the Forte an unwilling and 
 imperfect recognition of her undoubted 
 rights. In 1851 the Bulgarians, weighed 
 down by the taxation of a merciless and 
 alien government, made a weak attempt 
 to revolt, but their crude conspiracies 
 were crushed beneath the bloody heels 
 of pashas and their brutal soldiers. At 
 last, however, the decisive moment came, 
 and the league known as " Young Bul- 
 garia" was formed. The Servians gave 
 it all the aid that they could without ex- 
 posing themselves to the charge of par- 
 ticipation in it, and the Roumanian 
 authorities permitted it to hold meetings 
 undisturbed in Bucharest. The Rus- 
 sians were not backward in expressing 
 their sympathies for their oppressed 
 Christian brethren, and promised them 
 arms and money. The noted Midhat 
 Pasha, who afterward became a fugitive 
 from his own. country, was then governor 
 of Bulgaria. lie speedily discovered 
 the conspiracy, and rightly attributed 
 its origin to Servian influence. As he 
 was known to be cruel and bloody- 
 minded, nearly all the young men in 
 Bulgaria tied into neighboring States; 
 but Midhat succeeded in securing fifty- 
 four, who were carried in chains to 
 Rustchuk. Ten were hanged ; the rest 
 
764 
 
 EUROPE /A" STORM AND CALM. 
 
 were exiled. Midhat pretended to be 
 moderate and clement, and endeavored 
 to induce the fugitives to return ; lmt 
 they with one accord manifested a 
 singular indisposition to venture into his 
 clutches. Very shortly afterward the 
 hypocritical Midhat showed his true 
 colors by taking violently from an 
 Austrian steamer at Rustchuk two per- 
 sons furnished respectively with Servian 
 and Roumanian passports, but who had 
 been denounced to him as agents of the 
 "Young Bulgaria" committees, and 
 causing them to be shot. This arbitrary 
 act aroused the indignation of Europe, 
 and the zealous Midhat was recalled 
 from his post, the Porte consoling him, 
 nevertheless, with the announcement 
 that he was •• invited to higher func- 
 tions." 
 
 In June of 18G8 a formidable expedi- 
 tion of insurgents was ready to enter 
 Bulgaria, when the assassination of the 
 reigning prince in Servia and the conse- 
 quent confusion into which that province 
 was thrown destroyed the needed unity 
 of movement. The General appointed 
 to the regency of Servia during the 
 minority of young Prince Milan was 
 unwilling to risk anything by aiding the 
 Bulgarians. Despite this discourage- 
 ment, an heroic little band of one hun- 
 dred and fifty youths entered Bulgaria 
 and marched toward the Balkans, trying 
 to arouse the timid peasantry. After 
 two or three sharp fights these young 
 martyrs to the cause of liberty were sur- 
 rounded in the mountains not far from 
 the old town of Gabrova, and nobly per- 
 ished to a man, not one of them consent- 
 ing to lay down his arms. 
 
 Then ensued another scries of years 
 of apparent inaction. But the Bulgarian 
 peasant was beginning to think, to hope, 
 to dream, of independence. lie heard 
 vaguely that the Austrians ami the Rus- 
 
 sians were indignant at the manner in 
 which the Turks treated their subjects ; 
 that some day there would be a great 
 war for Christian liberation ; that per- 
 haps the powerful, although perturbed, 
 rule of the Bulgarian Czars might be re- 
 vived ; and that unceasing labor to pro- 
 vide money and crops for the consump- 
 tion of rapacious tax-gatherers was not. 
 the chief end of man. Sometimes a 
 Russian agent, who, despising the Turk, 
 hardly took the trouble to disguise him- 
 self, fanned the feeble flame in the 
 peasant's breast, or aroused a vague en- 
 thusiasm in the mind of the dull village 
 priest, by hinting at. " crusades" to come. 
 Russians were familiar figures to the 
 Mussulmans, who knew very well that 
 Muscovite officers had as early as 1840 
 studied the great routes from Rustchuk 
 to Adrianople, and from Widdin to 
 Philippopolis, with especial view to the 
 inarch of numerous army corps, and had 
 carefully jotted down on war maps the 
 names of even the most insignificant 
 villages. The Austrian consuls sympa- 
 thized openly with Bulgarian sufferers, 
 and many a Turk spat upon the ground 
 as he saw the representatives of Francis 
 .Joseph passing to and fro. Those people 
 who to-day wonder at the " triple alli- 
 ance" have only to review the history of 
 the century to discover that after 1848 
 Austria ceased to afford the Turks the 
 poor consolation of moral support, and 
 was no longer an obstacle to the plans 
 of Russia for Bulgarian redemption. 
 The Austrians had been compelled in 
 times past, to intervene ill Bosnia for the 
 protection of Christians ; and they quite 
 understood the motives which led Russia 
 to make gigantic preparations for a war 
 which might be long postponed, but 
 which could not be averted. 
 
 Purely local insurrections are easily 
 suppressed in a country where the most 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 705 
 
 horrible punishments may be inflicted 
 without mercy. The Turks soon dis- 
 covered that the Bulgarians had awakened 
 into new life, and they forthwith began 
 a reign of terror. The tax-gatherer was 
 more exacting than before ; innocent 
 people were murdered on the pretext 
 that they were plotting against the gov- 
 ernment ; and the wretched Slavs' cup 
 of misery was full to running over, when 
 a new sorrow came to them in the arrival 
 of large bands of marauding and lawless 
 Circassians, encouraged by the Porte to 
 settle in Bulgaria, probably because it 
 was expected that they would overawe 
 the peasantry and spread a healthy fear 
 throughout the towns. The outrages 
 committed by these Mussulman Circas- 
 sians — fiends in human form — seem in- 
 credible when one hears them recited. 
 The English Conservatives, when they 
 heard of them, steadily refused to believe 
 them, and to this day find it vastly 
 amusing to laugh at the phrase, " Bul- 
 garian atrocity." 
 
 Despite Circassians, regular Turkish 
 troops, bashi-bazouks, and all the forces 
 at the disposition of the Sultan, the in- 
 surrectionary symptoms of 1875-76 were 
 fated to appear, and many Bulgarian 
 notables were compromised. With what 
 sanguinary tyranny these symptoms were 
 put down, the unimpeachable testimony 
 of Mr. Schuyler, Mr. MacGahan, and 
 numerous other gentlemen has ac- 
 quainted the world. The Circassians 
 who violated maidens, and slew and 
 burned innocent babes by hundreds at 
 Batak, were akin to the murderers who, 
 under Suleiman Pacha, after the Russian 
 retreat from Eski Zaghra in 1877, 
 slaughtered ten thousand innocent peas- 
 ants. The assassins who burned scores 
 of villages and dashed out the brains of 
 helpless old men in the districts around 
 Selvi and Gabrova after the last insur- 
 
 rection was put down were the brethren 
 of the followers of Osman Pasha, who 
 buried little children alive at Loftscha 
 and mutilated wounded men while the 
 breath was still in them ; as also of the 
 Kurds, who. at Shipka and Plevna, cutoff 
 the heads of gasping soldiers, — an act 
 of barbarism which in this century has 
 been heretofore heard of onlv iii Central 
 Asia, or among the savages on the 
 Ashantee coast. 
 
 Rustchuk, on the Danube, is an inter- 
 esting although not a very pleasant place. 
 I was there two days before the Russians 
 crossed the Pruth, and was struck with 
 the general air of decay and neglect in 
 all the government buildings at the wa- 
 terside. On the hill to the right as we 
 came down the river I saw a huge camp, 
 fortified and filled with men. Two 
 months later, from the Roumanian side 
 of the stream, I watched this same camp, 
 and from the advanced Russian batteries 
 I could see the Turkish soldiers peace- 
 fully manoeuvring, as if the Muscovite 
 were a thousand miles away, although a 
 hurtling piece of iron soaring across the 
 Danube to strike among the Moslems 
 reminded them that the enemy was near 
 at hand. When the war was first begun it 
 was expected that a crossing might be at- 
 tempted at Rustchuk. The Roumanians, 
 who had not then found out their own 
 strength, quaked as they thought of an 
 incursion by yellow-dyed barbarians 
 from Asia, and 1 dare say that the Turks 
 were uneasy when they thought of Cos- 
 sacks cantering through the streets of 
 Rustchuk. As it happened the Turks 
 were able to do little or nothing to cheek 
 the advance of Russian troops by 
 means of their heavy guns on the hills of 
 Rustchuk. Thi' railway from Bucharest 
 brought troops to a station called Ero- 
 testi, quite out of reach of the Turkish 
 cannon, and thence they took up their 
 
76G EUROPE IS STORM AND CALM. 
 
 march at some little distance from the bered list of them, and indemnity was 
 Danube's banks as far as Simnitza, required of the Turkish government 
 where they crossed into Bulgaria. Land- before peace was concluded. ( Imar Pasha 
 ward, the Turks defended Rustchuk made Rustchuk celebrated in 1854 by 
 well, and after nine months of fighting the valiant and energetic manner in 
 no <>ne of the fortresses composing the which he crossed the Danube from that 
 famous quadrilateral was vet taken. town with forty-five thousand men, after 
 On the whole, Rustchuk disappointed having driven the Russians from an 
 me. I felt as it' I had a right to expect island where they were strongly en- 
 more of Oriental atmosphere in this, the trenched. 
 
 first Turkish town I had sel foot in. The From Rustchuk a road which must be 
 railway with its noisy locomotives of- accounted good in a country where there 
 fended mi' : it savored too much of West- are few decent highways leads through 
 ei n Europe ; but the dark-faced, scowling Tirnova and < J-abrova to the Shipka Pass, 
 men standing sleepily on the barges at in the Balkans, and across the moun- 
 the wharves, brandishing bright guns tains to the rose-embowered villages of 
 solemnly, as if in feeble protest at the Roumelia, and to Adrianople. Gabrova 
 Russian advance, which they knew is as picturesque as Rustchuk is coin- 
 would soon begin floundering in Rouma- monplace. From Tirnova. the road to 
 nian mud, were certainly as unlike Eu- the Balkans leads across some mighty 
 ropeans as human beings could well be. hills, from whose summits one catches 
 They seemed perfectly willing to pass glimpses of beautifully cultivated vales 
 their lives in listless and drowsy enjoy- below. The villages are few and unin- 
 meiil of the sunshine and of the murmur viting : the khans are sometimes entirely 
 of the great current. They did not even deserted, sometimes frequented by bul- 
 manifest the slightest enthusiasm when locks, sheep, and goats in such numbers 
 a little fleet of transports, bringing sol- that one prefers to sleep in the open air 
 diers for Widdiu from Constantinople, rather than to undergo their companion- 
 passed merrily up stream with blood-red ship. AtGabrova, whoever mounted to 
 crescents on their flags and with white- the principal hall of tin' khan was com- 
 rolied, sallow-faced Imaums solemnly pelled to pass through an incomparably 
 parading among the soldiers squatted filthy stable, and to dispute passage with 
 cross-legged on the decks. Verily, a rak- an elderly ram who occupied the lower 
 ish crew was to lie found abroad on the step of the stairs during the heat of the 
 Danube in those few days before the day as well as at night, and who fre- 
 Russians arrived in Lower Roumania. quently was little disposed to disturb him- 
 Many a quaint, old-fashioned Turkish self for strangers. But the private houses 
 ship, looking like a galley of the fif- of the better class in Gabrova are cleanly, 
 teenth century, and painted in glaring and sonic of them make pretensions to 
 colors, was worked over to the lion- elegance. The town rambles along the 
 manian shore in the night, and manv a hanks of the Yautra, which there brawls 
 peaceful shepherd's cottage was invaded and lollies over broad, flat stones or 
 by murderous Circassians. The murders bounds down into deep pools at the 
 and robberies committed in this manner base of large, Mack rocks ; and some 
 wen 1 so numerous that the Roumanian of the cottages appear to spring from 
 minister of foreign affairs kept a mini- the very bosom of the stream. Stone 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 7<'7 
 
 bridges span the water here and there, 
 and clusters of houses with queer balco- 
 nies and misshapen windows are tenanted 
 by industrious artisans, who labor all 
 day at the preparation of textile fabrics, 
 for which Gabrova is famous. At night 
 the rumbling of dozens of water-wheels 
 is heard. Almost every house Is so placed 
 as to enable its inhabitants to avail them- 
 selves of a ••water-privilege." Every 
 morning a long procession of Gabrova's 
 prettiest maidens arrives at the Yantra, 
 each girl loaded with the family wash- 
 ing. The beauties tuck up their skirts 
 and proceed to their work in the hearti 
 est manner. Strangely enough, they are 
 silent at their toil. I found this people 
 in the neighborhood of the Balkans curi- 
 ously devoid of animation on occasions 
 when one would naturally expect it. In 
 a market-place the women never chatted, 
 ami the men seemed to joke in a weary, 
 faint-hearted fashion. The same num- 
 ber of persons in France or Spain would 
 have made the heavens ring When 
 the prisoners were brought down from 
 the Shipka Pass into Gabrova, and. with 
 their hands tied, were inarched over one 
 of the bridges, with Bulgarians guarding 
 them, there was no murmur either of 
 exultation or execration among the Ga- 
 brovans. Feeling was deep, but audible 
 expression of it was lacking. 
 
 The Bulgarians were always largely in 
 the majority in this town of twelve or 
 thirteen hundred houses, and the Turks 
 had during the last two generations ac- 
 corded it certain rights, although they 
 had felt constrained to burn it no longer 
 ago than 1798. Gabrova, by special 
 clemency of the Grand Turk, was al- 
 lowed bells in its churches, and facili- 
 ties for founding schools were given the 
 wealthy inhabitants. The happy Chris- 
 tians had of course placed bells wher- 
 ever there was the slightest pretext for 
 
 doing so ; and nothing was more per- 
 plexing to me than to hear a bevy of 
 them ringing in the small hours of the 
 night. Turkish time is three hours faster 
 than that of Western Europe ; and I have 
 been frequently awakened by a peal of 
 bells sounding six, to find no one stirring 
 in the town, and to hear nothing save the 
 harmonious hum of distant water-wheels 
 or the purling of the Yantra. 
 
 But by four o'clock folk were astir. I 
 do not speak of the Russian soldiers, who 
 were coming and going at all imaginable 
 times. It seemed as if now and then they 
 were anxious to make their lines seem 
 stronger than they were by going round 
 and round, as supernumeraries do on the 
 stage. But the towns-people came out a 
 very long time before the sun did. The 
 men, who seemed to sleep in their coarse 
 black- caps, laid them off as they came 
 to the stone fountains, where they washed 
 their hands and faces. No sooner hail 
 they shaken the water well about them 
 than they lighted cigarettes and began 
 talking listlessly. Presently they were 
 compelled to make way for a crowd of 
 bare-limbed girls, each bearing heavy 
 buckets balanced on the ends of a slen- 
 der pole ; then matrons with their ket- 
 tles appeared ; and children were brought 
 out and treated to vigorous duckings. 
 The horses came next, and refreshed 
 themselves leisurely while their guardians 
 relighted innumerable cigarettes and 
 lazily crossed their legs. Most of the 
 artisan class, in appearance lazy, are 
 really very industrious, and are seated at 
 their looms or benches before daylight. 
 Some of the streets of Gabrova are filled 
 with small shops in which clay floors and 
 grimy benches are the only embellish- 
 ments. These are the workshops of* the 
 artificers in gold and silver, who have 
 always made the interiors of their estab- 
 lishments as poor and uninviting as pos- 
 
70S 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 sible, in hopes that they might escape 
 the rapacity of the Turk. Many of the 
 goldsmiths buried all their really beau- 
 tiful stork at the beginning of the war ; 
 and their only fear was that if the Turks 
 should beat the Russians and reenter 
 Gabrova, they might try to force the 
 Christians by torture to tell where their 
 treasures were hidden. 
 
 Bulgaria proper, with a population of 
 three million one hundred thousand in- 
 habitants, of whom ouly four hundred 
 thousand were Mussulmans, had not a 
 single school which could be called na- 
 tional as late as 1835. In the Danubian 
 region there were a few schools where 
 the Greek language was taught, but it 
 was not until the principal citizens of 
 Gabrova took the initiative that the Bul- 
 garian school system was introduced. 
 Gabrova has kept the lead which it so 
 gallantly took on that occasion, and in 
 1871 had eight schools with fifteen hun- 
 dred pupils. The teachers had a nar- 
 row escape from a cruel fate not very 
 long ago ; and the' story of the cause 
 which led to their arrest and imprison- 
 ment illustrates admirably the incurable 
 negligence and bad faith of the Turks 
 in the administration of their conquered 
 provinces. The Central government had 
 grudgingly consented to establish a postal 
 service, as the commercial people of 
 Gabrova asserted that it would make 
 affairs much better; but the Turk ap- 
 pointed to go and come with the mail 
 spent his hours in inglorious ease, lolling 
 on the divan of a cafi and smoking his 
 pipe. This moved one of the teachers 
 to reproach him bitterly, and to threaten 
 him with exposure if he did not mend 
 hi-- ways. The Turk at once complained 
 to i hi' kaimakam, the local Turkish au- 
 thority, that the Bulgarian teachers were 
 all connected with the insurrectionary 
 league, and that they were engaged in 
 
 correspondence against the government. 
 The pasha of Tirnova was notified, and 
 at once ordered the closing of the Ga- 
 brova. schools and the imprisonment of 
 the instructors. It was only after long 
 incarceration and great difficulties that 
 the Bulgarian community succeeded in 
 explaining matters. The offending niail- 
 earrier was not even reprimanded by the 
 Turkish officials. 
 
 In the vicinity of Gabrova are numer- 
 ous villages inhabited by the Pomatzy 
 ("renegades"), as they are called by 
 the Christians. These worthies are de- 
 scended from Bulgarians who embraced 
 Mohammedanism because of some real 
 or fancied slight of their patriarch. They 
 are divided broadly into two classes — 
 dangerous fanatics, who were especially 
 troublesome during the Russian war, 
 and mild Islamites, supposed still to 
 have a weakness for Christianity. 
 The villages of the Pomatzy are much 
 like those of their Christian brethren. 
 except that minarets abound in them, and 
 that their neighborhood is usually haunted 
 by brigands. The bashi-bazouks found 
 refuge in the hamlets of the fanatical 
 Pomatzy when they were hotly pursued 
 by Radetzky's Cossacks, and if cornered 
 speedily appeared in the guise of quiet 
 and peace-loving farmers. 
 
 The Balkans were so frequently men- 
 tioned in the course of the Russian 
 campaign in Turkey in Europe as a ter- 
 rible obstacle to progress that even the 
 Muscovites themselves had begun to be- 
 lieve great sacrifices would lie necessary 
 in order to cross them. Each of the sev- 
 enteen practicable passes in this roman- 
 tic and beautiful chain of mountains had 
 been carefully studied at intervals in tiie 
 last fifty years by Russian officers; and 
 
 it was because the strength of the forti- 
 fied positions in the Shipka Pass was 
 well known that General Gourko, when 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 7G9 
 
 he made his famous raid into Roumelia, 
 preferred to work his way through a defile 
 much less known and offering many more 
 natural obstacles. Prince Tserteleff, 
 the amiable and able young diplomat, 
 who was charged with Russian inter- 
 ests at Constantinople for a time, and 
 who accompanied General Ignatieff on 
 his tour to the principal European capi- 
 tals just before war broke out. has the 
 glory of having explored and recom- 
 mended the passage through which 
 Gourko made his raid, and after pass- 
 ing which he was enabled to fall upon 
 the rear of the Turkish positions at 
 Shipka. The prince, who was a very 
 young man, disguised himself as a Bul- 
 garian peasant and went ahead, at, the 
 risk of his life, to make sure both that 
 the route was available and that the 
 Turks did not discover the movements 
 of Gourko's force. The adventure was 
 completely successful. Here and there 
 the little army came upon narrow paths, 
 along which it was almost impossible 
 to drag artillery, and now and then a 
 cannon toppled into the ab\ - ss. But 
 after severe struggle the column 
 emerged on the fertile plains, and, had 
 it been properly supported, would have 
 carried consternation to the gates of 
 Adrianople in less than six weeks. 
 
 It is but a short ride from Gabrova to 
 the picturesque heights where the fa- 
 mous Shipka Pass commences, and from 
 thence a rough road leads around the 
 bases of frowning 1 summits and up hills 
 until an elevation of a little less than 
 five thousand feet is reached. The 
 Turks had crowned every peak dominat- 
 ing the road with well-built redoubts, 
 and had stocked them with immense 
 quantities of provisions and ammunition. 
 All these stores, when the Mussulmans 
 found themselves assaulted in front ami 
 rear, fell into Russian hands. It is said 
 
 that the pasha commanding the troops 
 at one point was so alarmed at what he 
 
 believed was a Russian advance from 
 all sides that he put spurs to his horse 
 and galloped away without even order- 
 ing his men to retreat. 
 
 Mount St. Nicholas, a vast irregular 
 pyramid, rises abruptly from among the 
 rolling hills, and seems an impregnable 
 position. The Russians insisted that 
 once in it the Turks could never get 
 them out ; and at one time, when it 
 was feared that some of Osman Pasha's 
 troops would move forward from Loft- 
 scha and endeavor to crush the feeble 
 forces at Gabrova, Prince Mirsky, of 
 the Eighth corps, had orders to retire 
 to Shipka, and, shutting himself and 
 his men up in the redoubts, to await 
 reinforcements. It is as incomprehen- 
 sible that the Turks should have aban- 
 doned the eight splendid positions in the 
 Shipka Pass as that they should have 
 made no attempt to defend the defiles of 
 the Yantra, near Tirnova, — positions 
 where armed peasants might have 
 checked the advance of the flower of 
 European armies. 
 
 A superb surprise awaits the weary 
 horseman as he approaches the top of 
 the pass. Turning to glance occasion- 
 ally behind him he sees only ranges of 
 dull hills clad in monotonous green, or 
 perhaps fields of waving grain ; but, 
 looking forward, In- suddenly has spread 
 before him the ample panorama of ex- 
 quisite Thrace, one of the gardens of the 
 world, — a land where millions of roses 
 distil their subtle perfumes upon the air, 
 and where villages are embowered in 
 vines and flowers. Shipka means "wild 
 rose," and Shipka village, lying a long 
 way down the descent on the Roumelian 
 side, justifies its name. Yet here in this 
 loveliest region, where nature seems to 
 have lavished comfort upon man, in July 
 
770 
 
 EUROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 of 1877 such horrors were enacted although they as; 
 that the stoutest heart quails even they could not 
 at their reci- 
 tal. Suleiman 
 Pacha the Cruel 
 swept with the 
 besom of des- 
 truction all 
 those sections 
 from which the 
 Russia us were 
 forced hastily to 
 retire when the 
 advance was ar- 
 rested by the 
 ominous appari- 
 tion of ( tsman 
 and his soldiers 
 at Plevna and 
 Loftscha. Sulei- 
 man, fresh from 
 the massacre of 
 
 , BULGARIANS DEFENDING A MOUNTAIN PASS. 
 
 W o 111 e II a II d 
 
 babes, threw himself into the gorges Roumelia, where 
 of Shipka, and sent his butchers by Russian troops 
 to be butchered in their turn ; but, to surrender. 
 
 aulfced ferociously, 
 move the veteran 
 Radetzky from 
 his tracks. He 
 drank his scald- 
 ing tea morn- 
 ing, noon, and 
 night, anil held 
 on valiantly 
 against deatli 
 and the devil 
 until Gourko 
 caossed the Bal- 
 kans once more 
 by passes quite 
 as difficult as 
 that which served 
 him on the 
 first occasion. 
 Then Radetzky 
 rose, and drove 
 the Turks before 
 him down into 
 they were stopped 
 and were compelled 
 
EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 771 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT. 
 
 The Mutilation of the Russian Wounded. — A Convent for Women near Gabrova, and Bulgarian 
 Monasteries. — Through the Balkans. — Kezanhk. — Rose Culture and the Rose Gardens. 
 Eski Zaghra and the Massacre. — The Malice of Suleiman Pasha. — The Vengeance of the Agas. 
 — The Bulgarian Army. — The National Life of the Bulgarians. 
 
 THE story of the horrible mutilation 
 of the Russian wounded in the 
 Shipka Pass is pretty widely known, but 
 an incident connected with it will serve 
 to show what tierce pride some of the 
 Asiatics took in their fiendish perform- 
 ance. When the Russians occupied the 
 positions which the Turks had abandoned 
 late in July they found a number of 
 bodies of both soldiers and officers dis- 
 membered and treated in the most shock- 
 ing manner. Arms, legs, heads were 
 scattered about, and there was abundant 
 proof that some of the wounded had 
 been beheaded while living. Among the 
 Turkish prisoners was a certain detach- 
 ment of Kurds, who were tusked if they 
 could throw any light on the subject of 
 the mutilations. One or two denied all 
 knowledge of it, but at last a soldier 
 stepped out of the ranks and with rude 
 joy announced that he had cut off one 
 or two heads ; that most of his comrades 
 had doth' the same thing, or would have 
 had occasion offered ; and that he and 
 others carried Russian heads, mounted 
 on sticks, to the pasha, who made no 
 remark whatever. Prince Mirsky in- 
 formed me that on the day when these 
 mutilated bodies were buried, and when 
 the indignation against the Turks must 
 necessarily have been very great among 
 the rank and file, he saw Turkish 
 wounded receiving most careful and 
 patient attention at the hands of Rus- 
 sian infantry-men not a hundred rods 
 
 from the spot where the burial took 
 place. 
 
 On the slope, and not far from Ga- 
 brova, is a convent for women, where 
 the nuns lead a life quite different from 
 the self-sacrificing existence of the Cath- 
 olic devotee. They are at liberty to re- 
 ceive whom they please, to engage in 
 any industry which suits them, and to 
 go into the world whenever they like. 
 But a broad distinction must be made 
 between these convents and those in 
 Rounvania, which are in many respects 
 a disgrace to the Church under whose 
 patronage they are established. 
 
 It has been remarked that the Rus- 
 sians at first chose comparatiyely un- 
 frequented and difficult passes in the 
 Balkain chain, in order that they might 
 surprise the enemy. But for the passage 
 of the main army of occupation after the 
 Turks were pushed back there were 
 numerous good roads besides that by 
 Shipka. One leads over the Travno- 
 Balkan, as it is called, to routes which 
 communicate with Kezanlik ; another, by 
 which Osmau Pasha had hoped, in ease of 
 disaster, to retire from Plevna and Loft- 
 scha with his army, leads through the Bal- 
 kan range by Trojan and Kalofer. This 
 last-named pass is practicable only in a 
 relative sense. The bones of horses that, 
 have succumbed by the way strew the 
 sides of the bridle-paths. The convent of 
 Trojan, one of the most venerated of Bul- 
 garian shrines, is accessible from the pass. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AM) CALM. 
 
 There forty or fifty monks live in ease 
 and comfort, and cultivate fields for miles 
 around, — fields which yield fat reve- 
 nues. These Oriental monks thoroughly 
 understand good living: their cells 
 are fitted up with divans and carpets; 
 they regale themselves with coffee and 
 liquors; and mi the walls hang dozens 
 of stent weapons, which are used in 
 repelling the assaults of enterprising 
 brigands or in securing game for the 
 monastic larder. 
 
 The most imposing and delightful part 
 of the route through the Balkans by Tro- 
 jan and Kalofer is the passage of the 
 Rosolita, nearly six thousand feet above 
 the level of the sea. Vast peaks, around 
 which eagles hover, looking down with 
 curiosity upon the adventurous travel- 
 ler, rise into the air; below are yawning 
 precipices, overwhose edges one can see 
 yet other peaks with (heir tops wreathed 
 in mist. The passes which lead out of 
 Servia across the Balkans into Bulgaria 
 have from time immemorial been infect- 
 ed with brigands, and the guard-houses 
 are surrounded by little cemeteries, which 
 contain the remains of assassinated trav- 
 ellers. Both the Servian and the Turk- 
 ish governments pretended to keep strong 
 military forces on these roads for the 
 protection of the innocent, but the bashi- 
 bazouks representing Turkey were gen- 
 erally in league with the brigands, or 
 with trifling temptations were capable of 
 crime on their own account. 
 
 Kezanlik, through which the tide of 
 war swept rudely 7 , lies in a sweet, vale 
 not far below the village of Shipka. 
 On every side it is surrounded by gar- 
 dens in which the delicate and beautiful 
 rose of Damascus is cultivated expressly 
 
 for the perfumes to be distilled from ii. 
 On this side of the Balkans the villages 
 have a more decidedly Turkish aspect 
 than those between Gabrova and the 
 
 Danube ; the houses are painted in 
 tender colors, which harmonize delicious- 
 ly with the landscape; and nearly every 
 residence, rich or poor, has a little 
 
 pleasaunce-ground attached to it, in 
 which vines, rosebushes and fruit trees 
 make a very agreeable shade. The 
 many minarets, the latticed cages which 
 denote " harems " in the Turkish quar- 
 ter, the market-places, with their fantas- 
 tical ranges of low wooden shops, — all 
 remind one of the far Orient. Kezanlik 
 was rich before the return of the Turks 
 to it after Gourko's retreat, and many 
 of the young Bulgarians engaged in 
 commerce are men of intelligence and 
 refinement. In conversation with one 
 of them who was preparing to remove 
 his merchandise by way of Bucharest 
 to Vienna. I was surprised to hear him 
 say that the " Bulgarian question " could 
 be settled only by the retirement of the 
 Mussulmans from the province. "The 
 two races,*' he .said very emphatically, 
 '• cannot live together on terms of 
 equality such as any conference after 
 the war would doubtless be willing to 
 establish. The great majority of the 
 Turks consider us as inferior animals, 
 made to be oppressed by them and to 
 serve them. They do not hate our 
 religion, but they take advantage of the 
 social inferiority which it imposes on us 
 to rob us, to abuse us as any tyrannical 
 invaders might, and to murder us when 
 we resist. Even if there were any 
 willingness on (heir part to agree tem- 
 porarily to some amicable arrangement, 
 they would not long keep their promise, 
 anil our lives would be made wretched 
 by revolution after revolution. In their 
 eyes we are but dogs, unworthy of 
 their attention save as servitors. This 
 point of view must never be forgotten 
 in estimating Turkish conduct in these 
 provinces. The Turk desires distinctly 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 77.", 
 
 to live by the product of our toil, and 
 not to be in harmony with us. He must 
 go, as he did from Servia, or there will 
 he no peace for us." This gentleman 
 also thought that unless the Russians 
 should leave an occupying force large 
 enough to enforce upon the Turkish 
 population any measures supposed to he 
 the natural fruit of the war they would 
 have rendered hut a sorry service t<> 
 Bulgaria. 
 
 The very name Kezanlik commem- 
 orates an injustice on tin- part of the 
 Turks against which the inhabitants 
 wire compelled to protest. Tradition 
 recounts that long ago a sultan making 
 a tour in the mountains saw a great 
 number of children dressed in white 
 robes coming to meet him, whereupon 
 he cried out, " Nell isterler bou atclikia 
 kezanlik?" (" Whatdo all these pretty 
 babes in white gowns want, of me?") 
 The last word in the sultan's sentence 
 became the official name of the locality. 
 But tradition dues not state what, answer 
 the sultan made to the prayer of the 
 children, fur they had come to tell him 
 that because their fathers had been 
 violently incorporated in the Turkish 
 army their fields were uncultivated and 
 their village was in ruins. Probably the 
 sultan said that it was all Christian hum- 
 bug, ami sent the children away with 
 empty compliments. 
 
 The men and women in the rose gar- 
 dens in and around Kezanlik are of fine 
 stature and graceful manners, and, al- 
 though the women are rarely beautiful 
 they possess that nameless charm born 
 of perfect health and proud virtue. The 
 distillation of the essence of ruses is a 
 very simple process, both in the large 
 establishments in the town ami in the 
 farmer's own abode. Sometimes the 
 still is erected in the shade "fa huge 
 tree. Donkey-luads of flowers are 
 
 brought to it, all day lung. The priest 
 comes tn Mess Ihe Arcadian labor, and 
 tu chat, with the women who strip the 
 rose petals from their steins. As many 
 as eighty thousand roses are often used 
 in the preparation <if a single small flask 
 of the precious odor. 
 
 The thriving region extending fur 
 miles around Eski Zaghra, the next, town 
 of importance in this part of Bulgaria, 
 was so utterly ruined by Suleiman's vin- 
 dictive campaign that it must, remain a 
 partial desert for many years. The sol- 
 diers and the Mussulman peasantry aimed 
 especially at, the destruction of the 
 churches and schools in the villages near 
 Eski Zaghra, as well as all Christian in- 
 stitutions in the last-mentioned town. 
 Every farmer was accused of having 
 given aid and comfort to the Russians, 
 and was massacred as sunn as caught, 
 without, trial and without any semblance 
 of justice. I doubt if there has been 
 such wholesale slaughter — murder mi so 
 large a. scab' — at any previous time in 
 the present century. The testimony 
 was unimpeachable. Thousands of fu- 
 gitives straggled across the mountains 
 in the first days of August, and spread 
 the details of their misery throughout, the 
 Yantra, valley. Gabrova and Tiruova 
 were filled with motherless children and 
 with childless mothers. A more piteous 
 Spectacle than these poor wretches pre- 
 sented as they made their way through 
 the Shipka Bass could nut, he imagined. 
 More than sixty villages in the plain 
 near Eski Zaghra were burned : the pop- 
 ulation had fled tn the large- town, 
 thinking then- to secure protection from 
 i\\r Russians or the fragments of the 
 "Bulgarian Legion ;" but they found the 
 Russians already preparing tu retire be- 
 yond the Balkans. Those who remained 
 were nearly all killed. The Bulgarian Le- 
 gion fought as well as it could for the de- 
 
774 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 fenceof EskiZaghra, but wasof course no who had left their farms at the approach 
 
 match for the trained troops of Suleiman of the Russians now gratified their de- 
 
 — veterans who had been pitted against sire for vengeance bv massacring their 
 
 the Montenegrins — even if those troops own Christian farm-laborers and tenants, 
 
 had not been twenty times their number. They personally conducted soldiery to 
 
 The Legion endeavored, when it found these farms, and enabled them to distill- 
 
 that its ranks were rapidly thinned, to guish between Christian and Mussulman, 
 
 retreat, protecting the population; but In the town of Eski Zaghra, where thirty 
 
 Suleiman's artillery was brought to bear thousand Christians must have been 
 
 on the fleeing women and children, and gathered that evening, the number of 
 
 thousands were so frightened that they murders amounted to more than ten 
 
 preferred to face death in the town rath- thousand. The Christian quarter was 
 
 er than in the fields. As evening came fired, that the murderers mighl see to do 
 
 on the poo]- Bulgarians began to take their work, and the miserable people saw 
 
 courage, for the artillery fire had ceased themselves denounced by Turks who had 
 
 and the battle seemed over; but they been their neighbors for years. The 
 
 did not understand the devilish malice wounded were despatched with hatchets 
 
 of Suleiman. He had surrounded the and rude stone hammers in the hands of 
 
 town just as dusk fell (this was on the women. Schoolmistresses were sought 
 
 thirty-first of July), and by means of an out, arrested, and I need not dwell upon 
 
 endless chain of pickets made sure of the sad fate which awaited them. Mur- 
 
 his prey. Nearly all who endeavored der finally released them from a captivity 
 
 to get out were butchered, although a which was ten-hundred-fold worse than 
 
 gentleman farmer, named Naumof, from death. Two beautiful young women, 
 
 whom 1 received my account of the who had been highly educated and were 
 
 Turkish conduct on this fearful night, es- the pride of the town, were murdered in 
 
 caped some time after the massacre had the most revolting manner, and savagely 
 
 begun. As soon as the sentinels were mutilated afterward. The inhabitants of 
 
 placed Suleiman sent a force of Circas- Guneli-Mahlesi, of Radni-Mahlesi, of 
 
 siaus, guided by Mussulman inhabitants Bech Tep<5, of Guneli, of Baghdan- 
 
 — who hail tied from the Russian Mahlesi, populous fanning communities, 
 
 advance, hut hail now returned with the were nearly all in Eski Zaghra, and most 
 
 Turkish forces — to begin the work of of them perished there. On the day of 
 
 murder. My informant was warned to this massacre I rode with Prince Mirsky 
 
 escape bv a neighbor who. while in the and his stall' from Gabrova to Selvi, as 
 
 loft of his own house, heard a noise in it was then supposed that the Turks 
 
 the kitchen below , and was almost para- were advancing toward the latter place 
 
 lyzed with terror on seeing two Circas- from Loftscha, and at Selvi we heard 
 
 siaus pillaging there. .More .lead than plenty of tales of atrocities quite as 
 
 alive, he managed to leap from a small awful as those which a few hours later 
 
 back window, and gave the alarm to were echoed from Eski Zaghra. The 
 
 Naumof. The screams of women were Bulgarians paid a terrible price for 
 
 heard and flames were aiisiue- from Gourko's unsupported advance into 
 
 burning houses as the two farmers fled Roumelia. 
 
 together toward the mountains. The kaimakam of Eski Zaghra had 
 
 The agas ami other Turkish notables the unparalleled effrontery two months 
 
EUROPE IS STOHM AXD CALM. 
 
 775 
 
 after the massacre to publish .1 state- 
 ment which was sent out like a diplo- 
 matic circular, from Constantinople, and 
 which announced that the Bulgarians 
 had fallen upon and murdered hundreds 
 of Mussulmans in the foulest manner. 
 It is unnecessary to add that this state- 
 ment had 110 foundation in fact. 
 
 That the Bulgarians were making an 
 earnest effort to help themselves was 
 visible during the hist weeks of my des- 
 ultory tour in their war-ravaged country. 
 The Russian troops at that time were- so 
 few and so widely scattered that the 
 Turks could readily have committed 
 twice the havoc which they succeeded 
 in doing. Indisposition to attack, bul 
 great bravery, persistence, and skill in 
 defending a place which they had them- 
 selves occupied and fortified were the 
 distinguishing features of the Turkish 
 campaign on the Danube side of the 
 Balkans at that particular period. Selvi, 
 a threatened point, had not Russians 
 enough in it to fight a small battalion 
 until a. Turkish occupation seemed im- 
 minent, when three or four thousand 
 men were thrown hastily forward, leav- 
 ing other important points uncovered. 
 But at Selvi the Bulgarians were armed, 
 roughly uniformed, hail placed strips of 
 white linen ornamented with the cross 
 over the red skull-caps which they had 
 worn under Turkish domination, and 
 were scouring the country for bashi- 
 bazouks and Circassians. The least ru- 
 mor placed every man mi the alert, and 
 it was pleasant to see these men, who 
 had been, in the estimation of the world, 
 but cowering hinds for long centuries, 
 suddenly asserting their right to inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 And why should they not he inde- 
 pendent? The Bulgarians have :i history 
 which will bear favorable comparison with 
 that of many small nations who are much 
 
 louder in their claims for immediate at- 
 tention — the Roumanians, for example. 
 Sprung from a stout Finno-Ural tribe, 
 which made its name anil fame feared, 
 and knocked at the gates of Constan- 
 tinople more than once ; which fixed the 
 residence of its kings at a point near the 
 heights on which the virgin Mussulman 
 fortress of Shumla, " the tomb of the in- 
 fidel," stands to-day ; and which finally 
 merged with the Slavic race, adopting 
 Christianity and the Slavic idiom at the 
 same time. — the Bulgarian of the pres- 
 ent has no occasion to lie ashamed of 
 his origin. In the struggles with Byzan- 
 tium, both before and after the savage 
 had become a. Christian, and had estab- 
 lished a rude literature, the Bulgarians 
 appear to have had the advantage quite 
 as often as the Greek emperors had. It 
 is not a little curious that the first time 
 the Russians, or people from the terri- 
 tory now Russian, entered Bulgaria, it 
 was to aid Byzantium against the Fin- 
 no-Bulgarian power in 9G3, and to fight 
 a battle near Adrianople which enabled 
 the Greek emperor to subjugate his 
 formidable enemies. Then the Russian 
 prince, who had brought down his forces 
 to aid in punishing the Bulgarians, did 
 not wish to leave the country, and the 
 Greek emperor was compelled to drive 
 him out. The history of the second and 
 third Bulgarian dynasties — for the 
 national life revived under a, new form 
 iil'ter two severe trials, during which its 
 
 enemies fancied that they hail crushed 
 it, — the history of these dynasties is 
 filled with records of alternate triumphs 
 and humiliations. There is but one 
 epoch in the annals of the Bulgarians 
 when they seem to have leaned toward 
 the ( hurch of Rome, and that was in the 
 days of Pope Innocent III., who sent 
 legates to stir them up against the 
 schismatic Greeks. The story of the 
 
776 EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 
 
 refusal of Baldwin I., Latin emperor of to facilitate its development into a 
 
 Constantinople, to aid the Bulgarians in strong state. 
 
 their proposed campaign against these The assertion that the Turks have 
 Greeks is familiar to students of his- never used any portion of the money 
 tory. Great misfortunes befell Baldwin which they wring annually from the 
 because of this refusal ; for the Bui- Christians in Bulgaria for improvements 
 Erarians joined with the very Greeks useful to the Bulgarians themselves is 
 whom Pope Innocent had excited them susceptible of proof. The road into 
 against, captured Baldwin and his army Roumelin by way of Shipka was almost 
 in a great fight at Adrianople, and impassable for years, but one line day 
 finally put him to death with cruel the sultan wished to make a species of 
 tortures at Tirnova, where the tomb of triumphal journey to Silistria, so the 
 the wretched monarch is still pointed route was put in order. If any money 
 out. Tirnova was long the residence of were expended in public works, those 
 the Bulgarian czars, and was mercilessly works were sure to be of a military 
 sacked by the Turks when they took it character, and did not profit the 
 in 1393. The Turk came into a section Christians a particle. Turkish authority 
 of Europe which was so divided between lias frequently prevented Bulgarians 
 numerous nationalities, already ex- from making improvements even at their 
 hausted by struggles against each other, own expense, and any stranger propos- 
 that lie hail an easy task in subduing ing the introduction of commercial en- 
 tire Bulgarians. terprise was pretty certain to suffer in 
 
 One of the bugbears which the enthu- some fashion, 
 siastie patriots who formed the league The great abuses in taxation in this 
 of '"young Bulgaria " fancied that they fertile province sprang out of a system 
 found in their way was a tendency on planned with marvellous cunning. In 
 the part of their population to emigrate the cities and large towns the collection 
 to Servia, and for a long time it was of taxes was conducted with some show 
 feared that nearly all the farmers would of fairness. Each community being 
 desert to the neighbor state. The Sea-- divided into mahedes, or " quarters," in 
 vians ware naturally willing to take which Turks, Christians, and Jews lived 
 advantage of such a feeling; 1ml now by themselves, the "chief" of each 
 that Bulgaria has a chance for her quarter fixed the amount of the tax and 
 autonomy, her farmers and artisans are collected it. lint the unfortunate people 
 not at all anxious to desert her. Thou- in (he villages and farmers in remote 
 sands of stout fellows who have been country districts were not allowed such 
 in the habit of working in Hungary, favors as this. Numbers of districts 
 Roiunania, and Servia every summer and were consolidated, and -'sold out" by 
 autumn will now devote their energies order of the government at public 
 to building up homes for themselves in auction for a large sum. The people 
 •heir native land. Bulgaria has rich who paid this sum to the government 
 soil, a people admirably adapted for were always Mussulmans, and they 
 highly intelligent agriculture: and now exercised no mercy in collecting tin- 
 it needs only roads, schools, and rail- money, crops and stock necessary for 
 ways — in short, precisely that which it their reimbursement. They might col- 
 can never obtain under Turkish rub — iect fourfold the amount justly due : the 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 777 
 
 government would say nothing, having 
 been paid. Or even if some authority 
 were inclined to examine into the com- 
 plaints of the wretched Bulgarians, a 
 share of the ill-gotten gains of the plun- 
 derers soon stilled the official's meagre 
 sense of justice. The peasant might 
 become proprietor of land in various 
 wars, although the whole country was 
 recognized as being the personal prop- 
 erty of the sultan. But whenever a 
 pasha or an envious Turk wished to 
 acquire a farm which a Bulgarian had 
 been laboriously developing for years, 
 he had but to signify his wish, and for a 
 small sum the fanner was compelled t'> 
 see the fruit of his labor pass into the 
 hands of another. This proceeding had 
 become so common in Bulgaria during the 
 last few years as to have excited numer- 
 ous indignant remonstrances from Euro- 
 peans inhabiting the country. In time 
 of war there was no end to oppression 
 by thi' Turks. It might literally lie said 
 that Christians had no rights, and that 
 if they had possessed any they would 
 
 not have Keen respected. 
 
 All these things may be spoken of as 
 in Hie past, for it is reasonably certain 
 thai (lie Bulgarians will never again sub- 
 mit to Turkish taxation. When I left 
 Gabrova a blonde-bearded Russian who 
 had come directly from a Central Asian 
 campaign to aid in transforming Bulga- 
 ria was equipping trustworthy peasants 
 with guns and badges, and delegating 
 lo them authority as police-agents in 
 the various villages in the neighborhood. 
 Life and property were soon to become 
 sab' in a region where Christians had 
 not heretofore known the blessings of 
 the security which is the fruit of just and 
 well-executed law. The Russians were 
 as methodical and, earnest in their labors 
 as if they intended to lix Muscovite 
 power for ages in the country : and it 
 
 was difficult to understand that they in- 
 tended to withdraw after the conclusion 
 of a satisfactory peace. 
 
 From Selvi I went forward in the di- 
 rection of Loftscha, but found that Prince 
 Mirsky had ordered the troops to go into 
 intrenchments, which indicated a delay 
 of many days before active operations 
 were likely to begin. As I rode across 
 country through dozens of Mussulman 
 villages, some of which contained as 
 many as eight thousand inhabitants, 
 alarms were frequent, but generally 
 causeless. In a Christian village, set 
 down oddly enough in the very centre 
 of a district inhabited almost entirely 
 by followers of the Prophet, I found 
 the whole population under arms and in 
 a state of intense excitement because of 
 the rumor that a large force of Turks 
 had been seen in the adjacent mountains. 
 The chief of the village had caused the 
 arrest of two travelling peasants sup- 
 posed to be spies, and the visages of 
 these worthies as they sat upon the 
 ground waiting until the villagers could 
 find time to shoot them were not pleas- 
 ant to contemplate. The madman of 
 the hamlet had felt it his duty to join in 
 the affair, and as I rode up be came car- 
 acoling and gambolling out of a field, 
 stark naked, with his head crowne'd with 
 straw- and wild-flowers, and chattering as 
 fiercely as an enraged ape. The insane 
 are allowed to wander thus unmolested 
 in Bulgaria, as in some parts of Spain. 
 I have rarely seen a figure at once so 
 picturesque and terrible as this miser- 
 able creature. 
 
 The Turkish villagers were civil 
 enough, probably because strong de- 
 tachments of Russian troops occasion- 
 ally passed over the road, although in 
 my ride of sixty miles 1 saw only one 
 officer and four Cossacks. Several col- 
 lections of bashi-bazouks, guarded by 
 
77S 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AXD CALM. 
 
 the newly-organized Christian police, 
 passed me, their hands tied behind their 
 backs and their faces testifyingto a proud 
 disdain. Their gayly-colored garments 
 were tattered, and their ample collec- 
 tions of weapons, carried in carts behind 
 the processions of prisoners, indicated 
 that a general raid upon this murderous 
 gentry had been organized. Most of the 
 villagers disclaimed any knowledge of 
 their movements, and hastened to give 
 us proofs of their good-will by offering 
 us water and fruit and by saying pleas- 
 ant things. Their superb corn, such as 
 
 one sees elsewhere only ill America, had 
 
 been left untouched by the Russians; 
 but the watermelons and pumpkins had 
 all vanished from the crawling vines, 
 the soldier finding the temptation greater 
 than he could resist. 
 
 I arrived near Tirnova in the middle 
 of the night, and while my horse was 
 
 slowly picking liis way across the pretty 
 range of hills which hems in the Yantra, 
 a gray-coated sentinel started out from tin' 
 hushes near a smouldering watch-fire and 
 bade me halt. The " Svoi'" — " Yanis" 
 given in return did not seem to satisfy 
 him, hut alter a careful examination I 
 was allowed to pass on down into the val- 
 ley between odorous thickets from which 
 thousands of fire-flies sent forth their fit- 
 ful gleams; down to a plateau whence 
 I could see the lights of Tirnova, like 
 myriads of stars hoveling close to earth ; 
 down to to the camp, whence came up the 
 old Homeric hum so impressive after the 
 stillness of the country bridle-paths and 
 the forests over and through which I had 
 just passed. 
 
 Meantime the great battle which had 
 been fought mar Plevna had checked 
 the advance of the Russians. They 
 proposed, but Osman Pasha disposed. 
 
EUROrE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 779 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE. 
 
 Plevna and its Influence on the Russian Campaign. — The Roumanians. — Their Valor in the Field. — 
 Osman Pasha. — The Despair of Skobelcff. — Across the Balkans. — The Descent Upon Con- 
 stantinople. — Hostility of England to Russian Designs. — The Berlin Congress. — Its Result.— 
 The Partition of South-Eastern Europe. 
 
 THE picturesque and heroic incidents 
 of the Ensso-Turkish war are still 
 too fresh in the minds of all to require a 
 detailed recital here. After the appear- 
 ance of Suleiman Pasha upon the scene 
 it seemed as if the title had begun to 
 turn against the crusading Russians. 
 The taking of Loftcha by the Turks; 
 the march of Gen. Gourko to Yeui- 
 Zaghra, and the capture of the town ; 
 the defeat of the newly -organized 
 Bulgarian Legion at Eski-Zaghra ; the 
 retreat of Gourko to the northei n 
 side of the Balkans ; the fortifica- 
 tion of the Shipka and the HainkoV 
 Passes ; the terrible atrocities com- 
 mitted by the Turks upon the helpless 
 Russian wounded ; the sudden develop- 
 ment of a formidable military force out 
 of the heretofore derided and underesti- 
 mated Roumanian army ; the siege of 
 Plevna, with its fearful losses and its 
 protracted miseries, — all these things 
 rang throughout Europe, and had their 
 echoes in America. The Russians had 
 already begun to exercise their sover- 
 eignty in Bulgaria, had proclaimed laws 
 exempting the Christians from odious 
 taxes, had abolished tithes, and were 
 gradually substituting themselves for the 
 Turkish authorities, when the severe 
 check in front of Plevna changed the 
 whole character of the campaign. It is 
 said that the loss of the Russians in 
 killed, wounded, sick, and prisoners, 
 during the actions of the 19th, 20th, and 
 
 21st of July, and in tin' great battle of 
 the .'list before Plevna, amounted to 
 more than ten thousand men. The 
 heroic Gen. Skobeleff — one of the few 
 men of genius in the Russian army — 
 did prodigies of valor in these fights. 
 but all in vain. 
 
 The critics who say that the Russians 
 had, in their descent into Bulgaria, be- 
 lieved that the Turks would offer only a 
 slight resistance, are quite correct. The 
 Russians crossed the Danube with in- 
 sufficient forces, and during all the 
 early weeks of the campaign they saw 
 so few Turks and encountered so little 
 opposition that they fancied they could 
 go straight to the gates of Constanti- 
 nople without more than an occasional 
 skirmish. Plevna was not only a great 
 surprise, it was a veritable disaster. 
 The consternation in Roumania was 
 frightful after the news of the defeat of 
 the Russians, but this news had for its 
 effect the awakening of the valiant 
 Roumanian people into an energy which 
 they had not even suspected themselves 
 of possessing. When it looked as if the 
 Russians were about to lie annihilated, 
 that the forces in Bulgaria would be 
 cut off from the Danube, and that the 
 Turks would cross the historic stream 
 and invade the principalities which had 
 so long been independenl of them, the 
 Roumanian government rose to the emer- 
 gency. But the Russians sat quietly 
 down and took the defensive, and sent 
 
780 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 home for one hundred thousand men, been such obstinate and well disputed 
 
 who were soon on their way. The posi- fields. Osman Pasha had succeeded, 
 
 tions in front of Plevna were strongly since the occupation of Plevna in .Inly. 
 
 fortified and armed with artillery; com- in turning a simple village into an elab- 
 
 panies of cavalry were dispatched on orate fortress, bristling with redoubts 
 
 independent expeditions, with Hie view and trenches. The Russian wave swept 
 
 of blocking the passes through the up from time to time against these for- 
 
 Balkans, and the Russians were greatly midable defences, only to be swept back 
 
 encouraged by the failure of the Turks again. Skobeleff wore out his heart in 
 
 to assume the offensive in any important heroic, but always reckless endeavors. 
 
 degree. Meantime the emperor of to break the Turkish lines. On the 11th 
 
 Russia lived in the most unostentatious of September there was a great Russian 
 
 manner in the little village of Gorny attack on Plevna. A temporary success 
 
 Studen, suffering privation and discom- was. however, followed by an ultimate 
 
 tort with that excellent temper and defeat of Kriloff's and Krudener's ili- 
 
 entire lack of affectation which char- visions. This '•battle in the mists" 
 
 acterized the man. Suleiman Pasha, was described by an eye-witness as 
 
 thundering at the gates of Shipka e of the most, thrilling and terrible 
 
 attempted in vain to dispossess of the whole campaign. "Along the 
 the Russians of their hold on the Bal- course of the Radisovo range," wrote the 
 kaus, making upwards of one hundred brilliant and courageous Mr MacGahan, 
 distinct attacks in less than seven days. — who was destined not to survive the 
 When the mouth of August closed, in fatiguing campaign, hut to die in a hos- 
 1.^77. the fortunes of the Russians had pita] at Constantinople, — ••the Russian 
 improved. They rallied from the check guns could be perceived at work with 
 received at Plevna ; they held their own figures flitting round them, dimly seen 
 at the Balkans; reinforcements were through the smoke, strangely magnified 
 appearing, and new operations were by the intervention of the fog, until the 
 resumed with vigor. The Russo-Rou- gunners appeared like giants, and the 
 inauian army, commanded by Prince guns themselves, enlarged and distorted 
 Charles, of Roumania, now sat down by the same medium, seemed like huge, 
 before the important positions at Plevna, uncouth monsters from whose throats 
 and sustained a furious attack by Osman at every instant leaped forth globes of 
 Pasha on the last day of August. This flame. There were moments when 
 was one of the most sanguinary com- these Hashes seemed to light up everv- 
 bats of the campaign. The Russians thine, around them ; then the guns and 
 and Roumanians both fought with gunners appeared for an instant with 
 desperate valor, and Osman, who had fearful distinctness, red and lurid, as if 
 expected to (hive the enemy from all tinged with blood. Then they sank back 
 his positions, was compelled to admit again into shadowy indistinctness. The 
 his complete failure. uproar of the battle rose ami swelled 
 The September combats in front of until it became fearful to hear — like 
 Plevna are famous, ami reflect the the continuous roar of an angry sea beat- 
 greatest credit on the courage of Turks, ing against a rock-bound coast. coin- 
 Roumanians ami Russians. Rarely in biued with that of a thunder-storm, with 
 the history of the century have there the strange, unearthly sounds heard on 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 i81 
 
 board a ship when laboring in a gale." sword broken, his decorations twisted on 
 In the contest of this day General his shoulders, his face black with pow- 
 Skobeleff's splendid fighting added new der and smoke, his eyes bloodshot, and 
 lustre to his already phenomenal reputa- his voice broken. When asked the rea 
 t ion. No obstacle seemed to daunt son of the disaster, he said no reinforce. 
 linn ; nothing could frighten him. Even ments had been sent him, and added, "I 
 after the Russians had fallen away from blame nobody ; it was the will of God." 
 the terrific fire of the Turkish redoubt The Roumanians had meantime taken 
 Skobeleff rallied 
 the stragglers 
 and carried them 
 forward into the 
 very enemy's 
 lines ; his own 
 sword was cut 
 in two in the 
 middle, while he 
 was leaping a 
 ditch; his horse 
 shotdead under- 
 neath him, and 
 he rolled i n t o 
 the ditch, but 
 sprang to his 
 feet with a shout, 
 and finally led 
 the mass of 
 men over the 
 ditch, scarp and 
 con nters carp 
 and parapet, and 
 into the redoubt. 
 
 This little affair cost Skobeleff two and held the redoubt ; but the attack on 
 thousand men in killed and wounded, or Plevna, as a whole, was a disastrous 
 one-quarter of bis whole attacking force, failure. This attack had cost, in a, few 
 The wonderful manner in which he es- days of fighting, twenty thousand men. 
 .■aped all harm confirmed the belief The Roumanian army had no surgical ar- 
 amongst his men that he bore a charmed rangements, and the wounded were left 
 life. On the afternoon of the 12th he to die for the want of ministering hands. 
 was compelled to suffer defeat. The The Russian medical and sanitary staffs 
 redoubt which he won at such terrible were quite inefficient in presence of this 
 cost was deserted by the Russians in the tremendous drain upon them, and the 
 presence of an overwhelming force soldiers looked forward to the horrors of 
 brought to hear against them, and Sko- a winter campaign with shuddering fear. 
 beleff came out of the linal tight with his The dead left neglected on the battle- 
 clothes covered with mud and tilth, his fields were mutilated by the. Turkish 
 
 EPISODE OP THE SIEGE OP PLEVNA. 
 
782 
 
 EUROPE l.\ STORM AND CALM. 
 
 irregulars, and the wounded subjected to 
 the most atrocious cruelties while the 
 breath of life was leaving them. When 
 September closed m> one could have 
 prophesied that the Russians would suc- 
 ceed in driving the Turks from their 
 stronghold, and the enemies of Russia 
 boldly announced the complete failure 
 of the campaign for the relief of the 
 Christians in the East. The Russian 
 emperor maintained his head-quarters at 
 Gorny Studen, leading an active life, 
 devoting the morning to current affairs, 
 having about him only a little suite of 
 fifty officers, working late at flight, and 
 being awakened for the telegrams ar- 
 riving from the capital, although they 
 
 came lone after the small hours. 
 
 Early in October the Russian rein- 
 forcements had arrived in Bulgaria, but 
 Osman Pasha had also received new 
 forces. By and by the Imperial Guard 
 had a serious brush with the enemy, 
 which resulted in the capture of a posi- 
 tion completing the investment of Plevna. 
 Four hundred siege-guns were planted 
 about the town. Skobeleff resumed his 
 old daring activity; General Todleben 
 conducted the siege with marked ability ; 
 Russian cavalry, scouring the roads to 
 the southward, captured the supplies 
 which Osman Pasha needed lor his 
 hungry troops. At the beginning of 
 November the length of the investing 
 line was said to lie thirty miles, occu- 
 pied by an army of one hundred and 
 twenty thousand men. Autumn faded 
 into winter; the suffering was great in 
 all the armies, the bad management of 
 the Russian camps contributing greatly 
 to the mortality on the Russian side. 
 In November came the expedition of 
 General Gourko into the Balkans, the 
 great and dangerous passage over the 
 mountains, the evacuation of Etropol by 
 tin' Turks, and finally, in December, the 
 
 last great effort of the Turkish army to 
 break through the investing lines, its 
 furious encounter with the Russians and 
 the Roumanians, followed by negotia- 
 tions for a surrender. Plevna was at 
 the end of its resources. The Emperor 
 and his suite had been summoned in 
 haste to the mount of Radisovo, where 
 they witnessed the failure of Osman 
 Pasha's attempt to Secure his liberty. 
 The attempt to break through the Russo- 
 Rouinanian lines lasted about six hours. 
 cost (he Turks five thousand men in 
 dead and wounded, and from thirty 
 thousand to forty thousand as prisoners 
 of war. The Russian loss in this latest 
 battle was only about fifteen hundred. 
 Tin' Turkish commander was highly 
 complimented by the Grand Duke Nich- 
 olas and all the members of his staff, 
 and by Prince Charles of Roumania, on 
 his gallant defense of Plevna. It is 
 thought that Osman Pasha supposed 
 General Gourko to have weakened the 
 Russian investment-line by taking away 
 so many men when he started on his 
 expedition across the Balkans. It is 
 also said that the Turkish General had 
 received imperative orders to light his 
 way through the lines at any cost. 
 
 The statistics of the combating forces, 
 published at the time, indicate that Rus- 
 sia and Roumania had an effective of 
 one hundred and nineteen thousand 
 men, with live hundred and fifty-eight 
 held guns. The forces iu the' Balkans 
 numbered thirty thousand men. with one 
 hundred and sixty-two guns. The army 
 of the Lorn, commanded by the (,'zare- 
 witch, had seventy-three thousand men. 
 with four hundred and thirty-two guns ; 
 and the forces in the Dobrudscha and 
 Eastern Roumelia comprised thirty-eight 
 thousand men, with four hundred and 
 forty guns. The Turks had, in "West- 
 cm Bulgaria, ninety-two thousand men, 
 
EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 783 
 
 with one hundred and thirty-two guns, 
 and in these are included the army of 
 Osiuan Pasha taken by the Russians; 
 and in addition to these were about four 
 thousand irregulars, who did most of the 
 mutilating and slaughter of the wounded. 
 The Turkish forces in the Balkans 
 amounted to twenty-two thousand men, 
 with seventy-six guns, a number of mor- 
 tals, and a horde of fanatical irregulars ; 
 and, finally, one hundred and thirty-Dve 
 thousand men in the Quadrilateral and 
 the Dobrudscha, with three hundred and 
 eighty-six guns, and fully sixty thousand 
 irregulars. 
 
 By this time English opinion was 
 greatly excited against Russia, and 
 prophecies were constantly made in 
 Great Britain that the Russians would 
 never succeed in getting over the Bal- 
 kans and on their way to the fertile 
 slopes of Roumclia, although they had 
 smilingly broken the strongest resist- 
 ance to their advance upon the Turkish 
 capital. 
 
 Plevna fell on the 9th of December, 
 1*77. The Russians had been victorious 
 in Asia. Suleiman Pasha had received 
 a severe defeat in his assault on the 
 lines of the Czarewitch, and there was 
 great consternation in the Turkish capi- 
 tal. The new Sultan went through the 
 farce of opening the Turkish Parliament, 
 gave an address from the throne as if ho 
 had been a veritable constitutional sover- 
 eign ; indulged iii moderate language 
 about the revolt of his provinces, and 
 indicated his disbelief that they would 
 succeed in permanently wresting them- 
 selves from his grasp. Meantime the 
 Servians had again taken up arms and 
 were vigorously pushing the disheartened 
 and broken Turkish forces along their 
 frontier. Europe was indisposed to 
 mediate in favor of the preservation of 
 Turkey, although England used her best 
 
 interests to secure such mediation. The 
 Czar of Russia returned through Bucha- 
 rest, where lie had a most imposing re- 
 ception, and through the cities of South- 
 ern Russia to St. Petersburg, where, in 
 the great Kazan Cathedral, he was re- 
 ceived by the Metropolitan, and stood 
 before the ( I rand Altar to give thanks 
 for the victory which seemed likely to 
 liberate the Slavs. Imposing ceremonies 
 lasted several days. The Emperor com- 
 memorated the centennial of the birth of 
 his uncle, Alexander 1., and made a pil- 
 grimage among the tombs of his ances- 
 tors, kissing the marble of each shrine. 
 Commemorative medals, struck for the 
 occasion, were laid upon the tombs. All 
 Russia was in joy. Prince Gortschakoff 
 remarked that if England wanted war 
 she would have to declare it, and if she 
 wanted peace she would have to wait for 
 it, — concise and frosty definition of the 
 situation at that time, which would, per- 
 haps, have served admirably for a de- 
 scription of the situation in the spring of 
 1885. 
 
 The winter campaign of the Rus- 
 sians in the Balkans and across them 
 was a memorable feat of arms. The 
 terrible snow-storms, the breaking of 
 the pontoon-bridges over the Danube, — 
 which were the only connection that 
 the Russians had with their base of 
 supplies, — the inefficiency of the trans- 
 port system, the difficulties of marching 
 thousands of shivering Turkish prisoners 
 onward and across the great plains, the 
 destitution which followed in Russia as 
 a natural consequence of the great saeri- 
 iice for the prosecution of the war, — all 
 these gave much hope to the enemies of 
 Russia, who had now set themselves vig- 
 orously to work to [ire vent the northern 
 [lower from reaping the reward of her 
 energy and bravery. General Gourko's 
 advance over the Balkans, his descent on 
 
<S| EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 the southern side, the surprise and the but an edifice riddled with bullets, inca- 
 
 dis iragement of the Turks, — allthese pable of defense. 
 
 things have been ably chronicled by the At this juncture England threw her 
 brilliant correspondents who accompa- shadow across tin- Russian advance, 
 nied the expedition, by men like Millet An Englishman of talent. Baker Pasha, 
 and MacGahan. General Gourko swept was openly aiding scattered remnants of 
 down upon the town <>f Sophia, when' Suleiman's army in such resistance as 
 he was nut by thousands of citizens led they were in condition to make. The 
 by priests with banners, crucifixes, and British Parliament was wild with exeite- 
 lanterns. One of the priests carried a ment, and £6,000,000 sterling was voted 
 salver with bread and salt. For the as a possible war credit by an enthusias- 
 lirst time since 1434 a Christian army tic majority. The Conservative party 
 was within the walls of the ancient town, clearly defined its policy of at all iiaz- 
 Orders had been sent from Constantino- aids preventing Russia occupying Con- 
 pie to burn Sophia and to blow up the stantinople, and of undoing-, so far as 
 mosques ; but this order was not heeded, possible, the results of her crusade. 
 Nor was there time to execute such or- Turkey was not to be destroyed; the 
 der. Meantime the Servians were sue- •• sick man" of Europe was to be pre- 
 cessful. The frontier town of Nisch served from his impending dissolution. 
 surrendered. Gen. Gourko renewed his London was stormy with rumors of war; 
 advance towards Constantinople ; Philip- the Jingo taction sang songs, and be- 
 popolis was abandoned, — Philippopo- smirched Mr. Gladstone with indecent 
 lis. which might have been occupied in refrains in music-halls. An armistice 
 August of 1877 if the Russians had was concluded; but the Russians con- 
 been in force to crush the intruding tinned their advance, and set up a claim 
 Osman Pasha when he first appeared at to take back the portion of Bessarabia 
 Plevna. ceded to Moldavia in 185G, — a claim 
 The heroic valor of Fuad Pasha was which greatly dissatisfied their Rouma- 
 of little avail ; the Turkish army under nian allies. Turkey was evidently pow- 
 his command was defeated and dispersed, erless in Russia's hands, and it. was then 
 At the same time through the Shipka that the English determined to send a 
 Pass came Gen. Radetzky, Suleiman British fleet to the Dardanelles, to force 
 Pasha's army was annihilated, and there a passage there if necessary, and to anchor 
 were proposals for an armistice. Greece their ships in sight of Constantinople. 
 was agitate! ; (here was an insurrection When the Russians heard that the 
 in Thessaly ; European Turkey was (lis- Ihitish were about to send a detachment 
 appearing like " the baseless fabric of a of the Mediterranean licet to afford 
 vision." Adrianople was next aban- protection, in case of need, to English 
 doned by the Turks, and. while peace subjects residing in that city, they an- 
 aegotiations dragged slowly forward, the nounced that for precisely the same 
 Russians went with confident and swift object they had in view the entry into 
 step to the gates of the Turkish capital. Constantinople of part of their troops. 
 Turkish troops were concentrated at Gal- Needless to say that this Russian sug- 
 lipoli ; the Servians and Montenegrins, gestion was received with great disfavor 
 grown bolder, won numerous victories, in England, and that it strengthened the 
 Turkey in Europe was no longer anything war party's hands in that country. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 785 
 
 Presently the head-quarters of the 
 Grand Duke Nicholas, as commander of 
 tlic Russian armies, was removed from 
 Adrianople to San Stefano, where the 
 Russians were only twelve miles from 
 the Turkish capital, on the Sea of Mar- 
 mora, and where it was proposed to 
 consult as to the signature of the treaty 
 of peace. General Ignatieff, the able 
 Russian ambassador to the Porte, who 
 had had complete power over the unfor- 
 
 in the south -east of Europe was extreme. 
 •' If," says a recent writer, " the treaty 
 of San Stefano had been allowed to 
 stand, the next step in the southward 
 march of Russia — namely, the acquisi- 
 tion of Constantinople — would have 
 been even more facile than it is now. 
 So easy and certain, indeed, that Russia 
 could well have afforded to wait until, in 
 a generation or two, the step could be 
 taken with much less fear of awakening 
 
 SIGNING THE TREATY OF SAN STEFANO. 
 
 tunate Sultan Abdul Aziz, was the 
 principal Russian agent for the negotia- 
 tion of the treaty. The arrival of the 
 Russians in San Stefano wa.s intended 
 as a counter demonstration to the pres- 
 ence of the British fleet in the Sea of 
 Marmora. Peace was signed on the 3d 
 of March. 1878, in a little valley by the 
 sea-side, — a valley from which the 
 minarets of the ancient mosque of St. 
 Sophia, ia Constantinople, could be seen. 
 The excitement in England over this 
 consecration of the victories of Russia 
 
 European fears or exciting their jealousy. 
 No wonder so sweeping a revolution as 
 that effected by the treaty of San Stefano 
 fell like a thunderbolt on the nations, 
 and caused a feeling of general distrust. 
 With blood-dropping sword and battered 
 harness the gigantic figure of Muscovy 
 strode over the prostrate and gasping 
 Turk; but in the distance, behind the 
 dispersing mists of war, stood the Powers 
 of Europe which had an interest in the 
 final settlement, and chief amongst them 
 the enormous force of England." 
 
786 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 The Berlin Congress grew out of this Germany, Austria, Hungary, France, 
 influence of England, whose conserva- Great Britain, Italy, Russia and Turkey 
 live forces were so ably marshalled by had scut, plenipotentiaries to lie seated 
 Beaconsfield ; but the proposition that round a green table in the Radziwill 
 the Congress should meet in Berlin came Palace, which was at that time occupied 
 from Austria. Lord Beaconsfield hail by Prince Bismarck. Representatives of 
 determined to call out the English re- Greece, Roumania, and Servia, waited 
 serves; warlike preparations were at the doors of Congress, in the hope that 
 abuudaut throughout Great Britain, but they might lay their claim before this 
 moii 1 difficulty was found in mobilizing diplomatic parliament. The Jews h id 
 an efficient army of a size competent to sent an important delegation to plead 
 cope with the great forces afield on the their cause. The three great Premiers 
 holders of the Orient. The English of Europi — Bismarck', Gortschakoff, 
 claimed that they could, within three and Beaconsfield — were each at that time 
 months, or a shorter time, if necessary, suffering from severe indisposition, 
 despatch from their shores an army of Gortschakoff was crippled with gout; 
 one hundred thousand men in the highest Bismarck had just risen from a sick-bed, 
 state of efficiency. " The facility with where he was placed from exhaustion 
 which we can shift our base and move at from overwork, and Beaconsfield was 
 pleasure by sea," said the "Times," "at obliged to repose every hour in which he 
 least doubles the military power of Eng- was not engaged in the deliberations of 
 land." Despite the signature of peace, the Congress. On the 13th of June, 
 the Turks were unanimous in theirdesire 1878, this distinguished body met, and 
 to renew the war with Russia, and the proceeded with its work of putting back 
 course adopted by England in bringing the hands of the Russian clock. Adiplo- 
 nji from India large masses of native matic Congress in Europe is a battle- 
 troops greatly encouraged the Turks in ground in which fierce jealousies, unre- 
 their hope of a revival of hostilities. In leutiug hatred, and petty prejudices race 
 Germany and in Austro-Hungary there without much restraint, although the 
 was a decided anti -Russian feeling. It phraseology employed is of the most 
 was said that the Russians were estab- delicate and courteous nature, 
 lishing a theoretical depotism in In the Congress Prince Gortschakoff 
 Bulgaria; Roumania itself protested brought out clearly the position of the 
 against the treaty of San Stefano, and Christian races in Turkey, explained the 
 even appealed to the English government antagonism of the Greeks and the Slavs, 
 to he allowed representation at the and the limits of Bulgaria ; Beaconsfield 
 Berlin Congress. At last this Congress unfolded his policy of checkmating 
 met in the capital l<> which the political Russia; the Austrian designs on Bosnia 
 power had been transferred from Paris and Herzegovina were set forth; the 
 as the result of the great German mili- independence of Servia was confirmed; 
 tarv victories. The French haughtily the Russian confjuesls in Asia were con- 
 held aloof , chagrined and annoyed at the sidered, and the treaty of San Stefano 
 manifestation of their secular enemy's thoroughly overhauled. The dexterous 
 power in Europe. Lord Beaconsfield hand of Prince Bismarck was more than 
 arrived in Berlin early in June of 1878, once interposed with marked advantage 
 and was received with great honors, to the harmonious working of the con- 
 
EUROPE /.V STORM AND CALM. 
 
 787 
 
788 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 ference. The alterations in European shores of the ^gean. On the other 
 Turkey effected by the treaty, which whs hand it gave Austria permission to 
 the outcome of the Berlin Congress, were occupy Bosnia, and gave her command 
 not so great as those intended by the over Montenegro, thus affording a new 
 treaty of San Stefano, but were enormous, protection against the Turk to the heroic 
 and had for their substantial result the little country. In short, by the Berlin 
 banishment of the Turk, who had grown Congress England had made asubstantial 
 tired of the lands he so long 
 misgoverned. To-day he 
 has but a slender foothold 
 in Constantinople, and is 
 menaced even in his pos- 
 session of this historic 
 capital. Lord Beacons- 
 field and his followers 
 claimed that the treaty of 
 Berlin placed tin' Turkish 
 empire in a position of in- 
 dependence : hut this is 
 altogether too much to 
 claim for it. It did indeed 
 protect what little was left 
 of the Turkish Empire in 
 Europe, but that was so 
 little as to be scarcely 
 worth preserving. The 
 modifications of the San 
 Stefano treaty were, how- 
 ever, numerous. The new 
 treaty divided the so-called 
 Bulgaria into two prov- 
 inces, — one to the north of the Bal- 
 kans being tributary to the Sultan ; 
 one to the south, Eastern Kounielia, 
 to lie under the Sultan's direct authority, 
 but with administrative autonomy, and 
 with a Christian governor-general. The 
 Berlin treaty reduced the stay of the 
 
 THE RADZIWILI, r.\EACE, IN 
 \VHICn TIIE BERLIN' CON- 
 CRESS WAS HEED. 
 
 demonstration 
 against the ad- 
 vance of Russia, 
 a id the estab- 
 lishing of a 
 
 southern Slavic 
 
 empire, but had raised no impassable 
 Russian army in European Turkey from barriers against the Russian advance, 
 two years to nine months, and gave to Perhaps a less "imperial" policy on 
 Roumania as compensation for the part the part of Lord Beaconstield and his 
 of Bessarabia, — of which Russia had followers, — -a policy which should have 
 demanded the return, — a greater allowed Russia free scope for her pcr- 
 amount of territory south of the Danube fectly justifiable advance in south- 
 than had been given by the San Stefano eastern Europe, — might have deter- 
 treaty. It kept for Turkey the northern mined the Emperor of the North not to 
 
EUROPE IN STORM A.VD CALM. 
 
 789 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 Si 
 w 
 
 i-3 
 t> 
 SS 
 H 
 
 O 
 f 
 
 &> 
 
 t) 
 
 i-3 
 
 Si 
 
 o 
 
71)0 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 have made such gigantic strides in the and (his is as tru< w as it was when 
 
 direction of the Indian frontier; but the brilliant Frenchman said it. The 
 Lord Beaconsfield wanted to undertake Turkish empire, with its innumerable 
 a task for which he would have needed traditions, with its religious formulas 
 seven times the military resources at his and its fanaticism, its lust of conquest 
 command. He wished to get complete and its rapacity and injustice' in deal- 
 control in Afghanistan, to make the ing with subjugated provinces, will re- 
 north-west frontier of India, impregnable main in history as a warning to civilized 
 against the Russians, while at the same powers not to degenerate into tyrants, 
 time he prevented Russia, from securing Its rdle in Europe is practically at an 
 her coveted outlets in the south, and end, and this is a sufficient gain for the 
 
 from protecting her kindred in the 
 south-east of Europe. What lie 
 succeeded in doing was in strength- 
 ening Russian hostility to England, 
 
 .. 
 
 H 
 
 Jlfrrrr, fillip 
 
 moment. The en- 
 thusiastic Slavs, who 
 say that out of the 
 two hundred and 
 eighty million inhab- 
 itants of Europe 
 there are eighty-six 
 millions of their own 
 nationality ; thatthev 
 are more numerous 
 than the Germanic 
 race, and occupy a 
 wider space in Eu- 
 rope than both the 
 Germanic and Latin 
 
 races, doubtless 
 hoped that on t of 
 recent events would 
 and increasing Russian determination to lie horn the unification of their vari- 
 wrest from England complete assent to mis branches, and that to a might} 
 a. policy of assimilation, if not absorp- Slavic empire would lie given the pre- 
 tion, in south-eastern Europe. To-day ponderance of power. Rut this is a 
 Russia, is hammering at the Afghan gates 
 for apparently uo other reason than to 
 show England that she must be eoucilia- 
 
 ~i^ 
 
 PALACE OP TITE SULTAN AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 tory, or submit to a sudden and powerful 
 assault upon her Indian frontier. 
 
 dream which will not be realized for 
 many long years to come. Germany 
 and Italy have been unified, but the 
 Slavs must wait. Before they can be 
 merged in one great nation, Austria 
 It is not our purpose here to enter into must have disappeared, Russia must 
 a detailed account of the progress of have given evidence of a resistless mil- 
 Turkey since the severe blow which it itary force which she does not yet appear 
 has received from the numerous iusur- to possess, and Germany must have 
 reetions in south-eastern Europe, cov- given her consent to the unification, or 
 ering a period from 1875 to 1878. have been forced to accord it. The 
 Lamartine said long ago of the Turk face of south-eastern Europe has been 
 that lie was only encamped in Europe, changed. (Hit of small anil subjugated 
 
Ill HOPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 791 
 
 principalities have come almost inde- 
 pendent and energetic kingdoms and 
 provinces. The march of enterprise is 
 visible in the now fertile fields and the 
 noble forests along the great streams, 
 and in the mountain passes, where it 
 had not been seen for four hundred 
 years. One of the richest, most fertile, 
 beautiful, and enchanting portions of 
 Europe, which had been lying in ruins 
 and in neglect since the battle of Kos- 
 sovo, has now, within a period of ten 
 
 years, been open to all the influences of 
 civilization, and the effect upon the 
 whole European community of the vast 
 changes in this section cannot fail to be 
 very great. It is not dangerous to 
 prophesy that in some of the new storms 
 that are soon to sweep over Europe the 
 standard of the Crescent will recede 
 from Constantinople, and will disappear 
 into those Asiatic recesses out of which 
 it came. 
 
71)2 
 
 EUROPE IN SToRU AM) CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER NINETY. 
 
 Munich in its Slimy Plain by the Isar. — The Cold Greek Architecture of the Bavarian Capital. — 
 The Monarchy of Bavaria. — The Present King Louis. — An Eccentric Sovereign. — Wagner 
 unit Bayreuth. — Gambrinus in Munich. 
 
 BERLIN," says M. Victor Tissot, 
 "is in the midst of a desert of 
 sand. Munich stands in the centre <>!' a 
 stony plain, which seems to express only 
 the sharpest and the most brutal things." 
 M. Tissot went into Germany with a. 
 determination to see merely the unfavor- 
 able side of things; hut he has told the 
 truth with regard to the situation of two 
 of the great German cities. 
 
 Munich is a part of new Europe, for 
 all that makes it specially attractive to 
 
 the traveller has 1 n placed on the 
 
 above-mentioned stony plain within the 
 hist hundred years. The showy and 
 pretentious edifices, often classical and 
 refined enough iii architecture, seem to 
 shiver in the cold and inhospitable 
 
 atmosphere of tie' vast expanse at the 
 foot of the Bavarian Alps. In certain 
 old quarters of Munich may still he 
 found the quaintness anil picturesque 
 charm so characteristic of the elder 
 German towns; and one is inclined to 
 turn to these nooks and by-streets 
 rather than to the sham splendors which 
 ambitious monarchs have heaped to- 
 gether, with more reference to quantity 
 than to quality. 
 
 There an 1 views on the hanks of the 
 rapidly rolling Isar which are striking. 
 and it is hut a short journey from Munich 
 into the wonders of the Bavarian moun- 
 tain regions. The great Ludvvigsstrasse, 
 or the street of palaces which t he faith- 
 ful people named after its capricious 
 
 monarch, Louis, is, when first seen, quite 
 imposing. Here is the " Hall of Gen- 
 erals," a lodge in the Italian style, with 
 niches adorned with statues ; the great 
 Gate of Victory, with bronze statues 
 and reliefs; a church which contains the 
 loyal tombs ; equestrian statues ; the war- 
 office ; the stately library with its beauti- 
 ful statues ; and here and there are hand- 
 some churches, always in the Italian 
 style. 
 
 The Germans of the south were am- 
 bitious of creating a new Athens at Mu- 
 nich, and Louis I., of Bavaria, deserves 
 the thanks of his generation for haying 
 grouped about him a great number of 
 clever painters, who were perhaps a little 
 too willing to glorify the modest triumphs 
 of this Teutonic sovereign. Greece and 
 Egypt have both contributed to the glorifi- 
 cation of Munich. Tin' visitor looks with 
 astonishment upon a palace richly ornate 
 with porticos and Tuscan columns, ami 
 is told that this is the post-office. The 
 Royal Theatre has a Corinthian peri- 
 style, and is adorned with frescos which 
 depict Apollo ill the midst of the Muses 
 nine. A colossal museum, overladen 
 with decoration, frescos, anil statues, 
 and called the Maxiinilianeum. is well 
 stocked with good paintings. 
 
 The people of Munich are very proud 
 of their city, and are a little inclined, 
 like the worthy citizens of some of our 
 western capitals, to gauge their esteem 
 by the amount of money which edifices 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 793 
 
 cost. The Bavarian burgher may even 
 be heard saying, " Such and such a 
 palace is splendid ; it cost an enormous 
 sum." 
 
 In what M. Tissot rather satirically 
 calls the " Hellenic section " of Munich 
 stands the Propyhea. a superb gate-way, 
 imitated from that of the Acropolis at 
 Athens, and erected at the time when 
 Louis I. was indulging in fantastic vis- 
 ions of the union of Greece and Bavaria. 
 This monument was intended to cele- 
 brate the war during which the Greeks 
 threw off the Turkish yoke, and called 
 to the throne King Otho I., founder of 
 the Gra?co-Bavarian dynasty. As fate 
 would have it, the day after the inau- 
 guration of the celebration of this gate- 
 way the ex-monarch of Greece came 
 home to his native city of Munich to 
 remain there. 
 
 The museums known as the old ami 
 new Pinakotheks and the Glyptothek 
 contain tine collections, which would 
 have appeared to vastly better advan- 
 tage had they both been united in one 
 splendid structure ; and one cannot help 
 wondering why the Bavarians cannot 
 call them by German rather than by 
 Grecian titles. Outside the city, in what 
 is known as the Hall of Fame, stands a 
 colossal statue of Bavaria, nearly seventy 
 feet high ; and climbing up into the 
 head of this monster one ma)' look out 
 through the vast apertures, which serve 
 as eyes, over the city, the plain, and its 
 environing mountains. Munich looks 
 unreal and unsubstantial, and as if a 
 great wind sweeping down from the Alps 
 might blow it away. 
 
 Stories of the old King Louis of Ba- 
 varia, father of the present sovereign, 
 are so well known that I shall not 
 attempt to recite them anew. His artis- 
 tic and amatory ambitions have been 
 imitated in some measure by his son, who 
 
 is eccentric in a high degree, yet who is 
 immensely popular among his people. 
 The anniversary of his birthday is cele- 
 brated with loyal effusion and infinite 
 beer and fireworks, and the invading 
 centralization of northern Germany 
 does not seem likely to do away with 
 the fondness for the Bavarian royal 
 family. The present King Louis is of 
 delicate temperament, and it is said that 
 his moody and exalted condition is due 
 to a disappointment in love when he was 
 but a youth. This story does not appear 
 to have been contradicted. 
 
 The King's ruling passion at present 
 is music, to which he devotes himself 
 with all the ardor of a great composer. 
 He is, I believe, the only monarch in 
 Europe who has a whole operatic per- 
 formance given for himself alone. lie 
 believes in enjoying to the full the privi- 
 leges of a king, and esteems it necessary 
 that he should be screened from the gaze 
 of the common herd whenever it pleases 
 him to be so, no matter how much this 
 may annoy his subjects or what moneys 
 it may cost them. Now and then he 
 arrives, late at night, and without warn- 
 ing to any of his servitors, at one of his 
 many fantastic palaces in some pretty 
 nook in the mountains or by a pleasant 
 lake. In his train are musicians, singers, 
 painters, and poets. A little intellectual 
 court is organized : fites are held, and, 
 just as the inhabitants of the locality 
 are beginning to congratulate themselves 
 on the presence of their sovereign, he 
 whisks himself off with all the swiftness 
 of a prince in a fairy-tale. He has long 
 ago given up dreams of any political 
 rdle in southern Germany; yet, unlike 
 the King of Wurtemhurg, he has not, in 
 effacing his own importance before that 
 of the dominating Prussian influence, 
 run the risk of losing the respect of his 
 people. When his ministers annoy him 
 
7 ( .)4 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 with stories of what he must or must they criticised the King's generosity I" 
 
 nut (In he takes to the mountains him, had chosen Bayreuth as his resi- 
 
 and leaves them in the lurch. On one dence, King Louis was willing to build 
 
 occasion, in ls7.">, in order Lo escape him whatsoever he wished, 
 them, lie trotted off through the Tyrol, Thither came the great artists from 
 
 and the ministers caught his royal skirts Vienna, and there Hans Richter, who 
 
 just as he was disappearing into Italy. has since become so famous in London 
 
 It is said of him that when a pale- with his orchestra of a hundred nnisi- 
 faced ambassador brought to him the cians, picked from all the musical theatres 
 news that the Prussians were in Nurem- of Germany, brought forth the master's 
 berg, and would soon march upon weird and mystical allegories, and pa- 
 Munich, the King, who was in costume raded before the eyes of the most scepti- 
 as one of the heroes of a Wagnerian cal people in the world the gods and 
 libretto, showed but little agitation, and goddesses of their banished Pagan my- 
 whcn the ambassador had departed sat thology. It was not Louis II.. during 
 down at his piano as tranquilly as if Wagner's lifetime, who held court at 
 nothing had happened. Bayreuth : it was Wagner himself; and 
 
 The King of Bavaria was so fond of none more sincerely mourned for the 
 Wagner that he could refuse him nothing, great composer, when he finished his 
 On one occasion Wagner asked the King laborious and agitated life in the calm 
 to tear down a whole quarter of the city, seclusion of Venice, than did the Vouth- 
 and build in its place a vast amphitheatre ful ruler of Bavaria, 
 which would hold fifty thousand specta- There is one monarch who stands quite 
 tors; and King Louis was about to as high in the affections of the populace 
 giant the request when a practical sub- of Munich as King Louis, and that is 
 ject put into his head the question of the venerable Gambrinus, to whose court 
 expense, and suggested that to raise all classes daily repair. The breweries 
 the money would wreck the treasury of of Munich arc renowned throughout 
 the kingdom. Without a monarch like Europe, and the drinking-halls connected 
 Louis II., of Bavaria, a composer like with them offer a very curious spectacle 
 Richard Wagner would have found it when night lias closed down over the 
 difficult, if not impossible, to carry out capital. In Munich there is in the even- 
 his grandiose conceptions. The great ing none of the exuberant gayety and 
 musical theatre of Bayreuth, with its vivacity of the Paris streets; but there 
 scenic and orchestral effects, could is plenty of wassail within the walls, and 
 scarcely have been created in northern deep drinking is one of the principal 
 Germany. The old Emperor of Ger- pastimes, especially of the middle and 
 many, it. is said, contributed but three lower classes. The Hof-Brau, or Royal 
 hundred thalers to the Wagner Theatre. Brewery, is the most popular resort in 
 while the Viceroy of Egypt alone gave .Munich. The citizens sometimes laugh- 
 five thousand ; but the royal treasury of ingly observe that the Bavarian court 
 Bavaria furnished the greater pail of the has long drawn the chief of its revenues 
 funds. The King was delighted with from the gratification of the nation's 
 the idea of having a musical Mecca es- thirst. In former days the court re- 
 
 lablished within his territory, and so soon ceived a very hands e annual sum from 
 
 as Wagner, who disliked Munich, and the privilege of supplying the rich city 
 
 detested the citizens of Munich, because of Augsburg with water, and to-day ii 
 
EUROPE LV STORM AND CALM. 
 
 795 
 
 gets from the royal brewery a splendid 
 yearly income. 
 
 In the sombre and ill-lighted nails of 
 the brewery after nightfall the stranger 
 can almost fane}' that lie has been trans- 
 ported backwards into the Middle Ages. 
 In one corner of the hall, and near the 
 court-yard, through which stout serving- 
 men, clad in leather, are constantly roll- 
 ing fresh hogsheads, stands a huge gen- 
 darme^ resplendent in a brazen helmet 
 and wearing immaculate white gloves 
 and a handsome sabre. This is the rep- 
 resentative of the royal authority, and he 
 looks unmoved upon the guzzling throng 
 which now and then becomes boisterous, 
 but is quieted by the simple intimation 
 of the presence of authority. 
 
 Around this splendid gendarme's feet 
 run rivers of beer, from the overflowing 
 stone mugs which the careless drinkers 
 come to fill for themselves. From time 
 to time bright-faced servant girls make 
 tin rounds of the tables, and collect 
 from each drinker the money due from 
 him. Hundreds upon hundreds of the 
 working-people bring their meals to this 
 place, and eat them there while they 
 drink the royal beer. And what things 
 the populace of Munich eats ! Nameless 
 things, pretexts for eating, the French, 
 the English, or the Americans would 
 call them: sausages and cold meats un- 
 known in other climes ; black bread, and 
 strange composites of cabbage and 
 onions, — the prime requisite with the 
 Munich man of the people being that 
 his stomach should be filled, it matters 
 little with what kind of solid food. Hut 
 he is vastly particular in his cups, ami a 
 lowering of the quality of (lie royal beer 
 would breed a revolution in Munich 
 more quickly than any tyrannical meas- 
 ure oi' taxation. 
 
 In October, during the great festival 
 which lasts six days and six nights, all 
 Munich devotes itself to the first "lasses 
 
 of the winter beer, and celebrates the 
 new brewing with as much joy and cere- 
 mony as it would use in saluting the 
 advent of a new prince. It is said that 
 during one of the October festivals in 
 Munich nine hundred thousand bottles 
 of beer — a bottle holding more than a 
 quart — were consumed daily by the 
 thirsty throng. The ordinary xti'iit, or 
 stone mug, in use in the royal brewery, 
 holds much more than a quart of still 
 cold beer, and is enough quite to turn 
 the head of a stranger accustomed to 
 moderation in drink. 
 
 In the towns the Bavarian populations 
 are sceptical, although great outward 
 attention is paid to all the Catholic forms 
 of religion. In the mountain regions 
 the Catholicism is as deep and earnest, as 
 firmly engrafted in the manners of the 
 people as it was live or six centuries 
 ago; and the gentle wood-cutters of the 
 pretty mountain district in which stands 
 the village of Ober-Ammergau have 
 called the attention of the whole world 
 to their devotion by the periodical pro- 
 duction of the Passion Play. The war 
 in 1870 interfered to prevent the repre- 
 sentation of the Mystery Play in that 
 year, but in 1*71 the wood-carvers, who 
 had done good service in the army, were 
 back again in their homes and gave the 
 Bible story with their usual realistic 
 power. In 1881 the play was again pre- 
 sented, and so every ten years "ill be 
 given to the world, in solemn fulfilment 
 of the vow made by the peasants of 
 Ober-Ammergau long ago, in the hope 
 that their devotion might save them 
 from the pestilence which had shown its 
 hideous face in their smiling valley. 
 
 The representation of 1881 was in 
 many respects more striking than any 
 which had preceded it at Ober-Ammergau 
 during this century, and I have set down 
 my own impressions of it in the following 
 chapter. 
 
796 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER NINETY-* )NE. 
 
 The Passion-Play atObcr-Ammergau. — The Theatre of the Passion.— Old Miracle Plays.— The Chorus 
 at Ober-Ammergau. — Bavarian Wood-carvers is Actors. — The Personator of the Saviour. — 
 Caiaphas. — The Figures of Peter and .Indus.— The Women Interpreters of the Passion. — The 
 Departure from Bethany, and the Last Supper. — Comments of a Distinguished American Actor. — 
 The Scourging and the Crown of Thorns. — The Despair of Judas. — Effective Portrayal of the 
 Judgment and Crucifixion. — A Beautiful, Holy , and Noble Dramatic Sketch of the Most. Wonderful 
 Life and Death. 
 
 THE rain was falling when we awoke, 
 "ii a September morning, in Obcr- 
 Amrnergau, and the sky indicated that 
 settled weather eould not be expected. 
 But fortunately we were provided with 
 covered scats in the theatre, and could 
 therefore afford to smile at the clouds. 
 We looked at the clock, and found that 
 it was seven. A neat-handed maiden 
 served us with a light breakfast, and at 
 tins early hour she had to hasten away 
 to the theatre, where she was to appear 
 as " one of the crowd " in an early scene. 
 .By the time breakfast was over the rain 
 had ceased, but the clouds threatened to 
 give us more of it at any moment. We 
 took our umbrellas and tramped across 
 the meadows to the village street, and 
 thence to the theatre. 
 
 The Crown Prince was there before 
 us, and the crowds were saluting him 
 
 with shouts of ■• Iloch ! Hoch ! " sent 
 
 up at regular intervals, and somewhat 
 as if they had been told to do it just so 
 many times. Friederich WilheliD got 
 into his place presently, and then we 
 were permitted to climb along some 
 wooden stair-ways and passages, and at 
 last to gain our places in the covered 
 lodges. 
 
 The theatre of the Passion, at Ober- 
 Ammergau, is very spacious and solid. 
 I should think that more than six thou- 
 sand people can get into it. ami there are 
 
 five thousand scats. It is so arranged 
 that every person in it can see the stage 
 perfectly. Although built of common 
 planks, without any especial attempt at 
 decoration, it is exquisitely clean, and 
 perfectly comfortable. Sitting in the 
 reserved places, under cover, one looks 
 down upon the open space, in which 
 three thousand persons can sit, and do 
 sit at every performance, no matter 
 whether it rains or not. The reserved 
 seats rise in rows, like those of an am- 
 phitheatre in a lecture-room or a circus. 
 The most expensive places are farther 
 from the stage than the least expensive 
 ones, and 1 think they are preferable, 
 because the illusion is heightened by 
 1 icing somewhat removed from the actors 
 in the [lions drama. 
 
 The stage is the most remarkable feat- 
 ure of the theatre. It consists of a 
 vast proscenium, which is open to the 
 sky; of a central stage, inclosed with a 
 portico of Roman form, and " practica- 
 ble " doors and balconies on cither side 
 of the middle in which the curtain rises. 
 On cither side of this central curtain 
 there are sets of streets, which run back 
 a long distance, and which are quite as 
 spacious as many of the real streets in 
 Jerusalem. When, therefore, the cur- 
 tain of the central stage is raised and 
 the scene inside it is set to represent a 
 street, one has before him a very good 
 
EUROTE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 7 <t; 
 
 picture of the interior of Jerusalem. 
 "When it is necessary to represent a tab- 
 leau in .1 scene in the drama which de- 
 mands but a small place, then only the 
 central stage is used. The old mystery 
 stage consisted of nine compartments : 
 the ancient classic theatre of Greece had 
 the same arrangement of proscenium 
 which the villagers of Ober-Ammergau 
 have adopted. Doubtless they have ex- 
 cellent traditions upon which to found 
 their present manner of arranging their 
 stage. They manage it so as to get the 
 very best scenic effects with the smallest 
 machinery. For example, the spectator, 
 when he first sits down to look at the 
 scene, sees the balcony and a door on 
 either side of the curtain, and at first 
 fancies that they are placed there as or- 
 naments. But he is agreeably surprised 
 when, in the progress of the play, he 
 finds that one of them represents the 
 balcony of Pontius Pilate, and the other 
 one that above the palace of Annas. 
 Probably the monks of the monastery of 
 Ettal or of some of the other institutions 
 in the valley possessed accurate records 
 of the manner in which mysteries at all 
 epochs have been represented, and how 
 long these representations have been 
 popular. 
 
 As early as 1110 Geoffrav,a Norman, 
 wrote a mystery play called " Saint Cath- 
 erine." He had many successors and 
 imitators, some of them writing produc- 
 tions which required seven or eight days 
 for their complete representation, like 
 the plays of the Chinese, who repre- 
 sent the stories of their gods aud heroes. 
 One play in the Middle Ages undertook 
 to represent the whole of scripture his- 
 tory, and lasted rather more than a week. 
 The famous Coventry mystery, which be- 
 gan with the Creation and ended with 
 a representation of the Judgment Day, 
 must have been one of this class. The 
 
 passion of Christ and the slaughter of the 
 Innocents were among the subjects most 
 commonly represented. The name " mys- 
 tery " appears to have been given to this 
 order of play because it taught the doc- 
 trinesof Christianity, which in the Middle 
 Ages were always considered in the high- 
 est degree mysterious. The origin of the 
 theatre in France, and indeed, in the whole 
 of Europe, dates from the introduction of 
 these mysteries in the fourteenth and fif- 
 teenth centuries. The Comedie-Fran- 
 eaise was founded on the ruins of a 
 privilege once accorded to the Confrerie 
 do hi Passion, so-called because they rep- 
 resented the closing scenes in the life of 
 Jesus. In the early days the mysteries 
 were never considered by any class of 
 people as an amusement, but rather as 
 solemnities ; it was only with degraded 
 manners and a dissolute age that inounte- 
 baukery was added. 
 
 The Ober-Ammergau people have done 
 wisely in banishing from their version of 
 the Passion anything like the grotesque 
 or vulgar. Thirty or forty years ago they 
 were \vi nit to represent Judas as torn open 
 and disembowelled by demons ; but now 
 they would not tolerate any such thing 
 on their stage. When the mysteries 
 first began, the services in churches in 
 France were shortened, in order that 
 people might attend them. Thus the 
 Church directly encouraged the theatre 
 as a growing institution worthy of pat- 
 ronage. But in the course of time they 
 degenerated, particularly in Fiance, into 
 something dangerously like travesty. In 
 the mysteries represented in the Trinity 
 Hospital aud in the Hotel deBourgogne, 
 a view of heaven was given with Cod 
 the Father seated on a throne and sur- 
 rounded by angels. I have myself seen a 
 representation of the interior of heaven on 
 the stage of the Porte St. Martin theatre 
 in Paris. Hell was figured by a huge pit 
 
798 eurote i.v storm and calm. 
 
 in the centre of the stage, out of which was written by one Andreino, and dedi- 
 large and little devils arose from time to cated to Maria Do Medicis. The subject 
 time ; and heaven was supported bylofty was the fall of man. The actors were 
 scaffoldings. The actors, when they I'm- the Eternal, the devil, the angels, Adaui, 
 ished their parts, did not retire from the Eve, the serpenl, death, and the seven 
 stage, but sat down on benches at the side, deadly sins. At the close of the play, 
 in full view of the audience, and waited these sins danced a break-down with the 
 for their " cues " to summon them once devil, and produced roars of laughter. 
 more into action. Not so much attention Milton was so much excited by the 
 was paid to historical truth in those days sober and solemn part of the play that 
 as now. In a mystery of the Middle Ages, he at once began a tragedy, in which 
 Herod is represented as a Pagan, and Satan and the angels fallen from Heaven 
 Pilate as a Mohammedan. Hut to-day appear, and actually wrote an act and a 
 the Ober-Ammergau peasants are scrupu- half of it before he gave it up. 
 lously careful to have all their properties Some of these things we remembered, 
 in accordance with the historical record, as we sat looking out over the high wall 
 One looks in vain for anachronisms in at the right of the stage upon the green 
 their play. In old times after the scene meadow and the great uplift of nioun- 
 of the crucifixion, a ludicrous (lance of tain, or gazing down at the four thou- 
 devils, or something similar, was given sand heads which were ranged in 
 to put the spectators in good-humor regular order below us. There were all 
 again. But now such a thing would be our peasant friends of the previous day ; 
 1 loked upon as a sacrilege. The peasants they had slept somewhere over nii; I it, and 
 sit silent, with streaming eyes and tivni- were now waiting impatiently for the be- 
 bling lips, after the curtain has fallen up- ginning. On the left was an orchestra, 
 on the crowning woe of the sacrifice of sufficiently large to produce a proper 
 Christ. Certainly it is better, in the in- effect in the vast iuclosure. The lnusi- 
 lercsts of both religion and art, that no cians were playing an overture, which 
 buffoonery should intrude upon the touch- had many claims to merit, above all, a 
 ing and tender story of the Passion. gentle harmony which seemed full of 
 Victor Hugo's lively description of reverence and peace, well calculated to 
 the mystery called "The Good Judg- prepare the mind for the scenes to come, 
 mcid of the Virgin Mary," in the first The sound of a cannon-shot was heard; 
 book of "Notre Dame," is doubtless it was the signal that the play was to 
 familiar to thousands of American begin ; and the procession of the chorus 
 leaders. Hugo shows that buffoonery marched slowly and solemnly upon the 
 was still in full force in the mysteries stage. 'Phis chorus consists of eighteen 
 and moralities at the close of the fifteenth singers, whose duty it is to announce the 
 century. Anil who does not remember tableaux to he shown, then to fall hack 
 Voltaire's pleasant description of the on either side of the stage when the cur- 
 mystery which Milton saw when in his tain rises, and when it, falls, once more 
 youth he was travelling in Italy, and to come forward and chant the moral, 
 which became the germ of the immortal When the whole space is needed for 
 poem of "Paradise Lost"? This action, as in processions, etc., the sing- 
 mystery, which was produced in Milan, ers retire in single file, nine on each side, 
 was called " Adam, or Original Sin," as they entered. They are persons of 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 7'.)!) 
 
 commanding figure, and with sweet and 
 harmonious voices. The leader of the 
 chorus is required to make very great ex- 
 ertion, for if he did not his single voice 
 could scarcely be heard by a large por- 
 tion of the immense audience. Some of 
 the women have graceful figures, but 
 none of them are pretty. Their gestures 
 and attitude while singing show the re- 
 sults of rather formal training. But 
 they serve on the whole admirably to till 
 up the intervals between the tableaux 
 and dramatic action, and toward the 
 close of the mystery their music rises to 
 the height of veritable eloquence. 
 
 Behind the curtain in the central 
 stage, for a few minutes before the 
 first tableau is shown, all the actors 
 and actresses kneel in silent, prayer. 
 This is never omitted, although they 
 have already attended mass at six 
 o'clock. After the prayer each one 
 noiselessly disperses to his or her place, 
 the curtain rises as the chorus finishes, 
 announcing the subject to be displayed, 
 and falls back, and the audience is 
 shown "the fall," — the expulsion of 
 Adam and Eve from Eden. 
 
 And, before proceeding to comment 
 upon the various parts of this singularly 
 impressive religious drama, it may be 
 well to remark that the ardor which the 
 Ober-Aminergau peasants have displayed 
 in their endeavors to show the connec- 
 tion between the Old Testament and 
 the New is a constant and the only 
 drawback to the perfection of the 
 '• mystery." The peasants, on the con- 
 trary, believe that the chief importance 
 of their work lies in the establishment 
 of this connection, and here and there 
 they have most lamentably strained the 
 law and the prophets, in order to perfect, 
 to their own satisfaction, the analogy. 
 By means, too. of these tableaux from 
 the Old Testament, they detract from 
 
 the dramatic unity and the impressive 
 beauty of the scenes from the New. 
 The more thoroughly to appreciate this, 
 let any one who has been at Ober- 
 Ammergau during the summer remem- 
 ber how wonderfully he was impressed 
 by that, section of the Passion-Play 
 which portrays the wanderings and trials 
 of Christ from the time he enters Je- 
 rusalem until, having taken leave of the 
 people, after driving the money-changers 
 from the Temple, he retires with his dis- 
 ciples to Bethany. There is a solid, 
 coherent bit of drama, exquisitely pre- 
 sented, and if the story were carried 
 straight on, without any interference of 
 Old Testament history, the result would 
 lie vastly more imposing. Of course, 
 the gentle wood-carvers and housewives 
 of Ober-Ammergau, if asked to change 
 in any manner the arrangement of the 
 mystery, would reply with a " Nnn 
 Possumus," from which there would lie 
 no appeal. 
 
 The first two tableaux, which are 
 symbolical of the fall of man and the 
 redemption, are not especially impres- 
 sive. Adam and Eve, in llesh-colored 
 tights and garments of skins, have a 
 very theatrical look. The angel with 
 the flaming sword looks like a rather 
 robust young woman, dressed in blue 
 
 and white. There is nothing whatever 
 aerial or angelic about her, and the 
 serpent, twining round the apple-tree is 
 suggestive of papier machi. But, the 
 solemn chant of the (.-horns is touching, 
 and thoroughly explains the idea which 
 the author of the mystery had in his 
 mind : — 
 
 " Dochvon Feme von Calvarias Elohen. 
 Leuchtet durch die Nacht ein Morgengliihin 
 Aus des Kreuz baurn.es Zweigen Wehen. 
 Friedenslufte durch die Welten kin." 
 
 The second tableau represents a host 
 
800 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 of little children, dressed in white, kneel- 
 ing at the foot of the cross. Some of 
 these village babes are attired as angels. 
 This is pretty, but it gives one, as a pri- 
 mary impression, a feeling of disappoint- 
 ment, destined, fortunately, to pass 
 away almost immediately. The chorus 
 marches slowly, with trailing robes and 
 solemn step, off from the stage to left 
 and fight, ami the curtain in tiie centre 
 is once more lowered. Here the illusion 
 once more seizes upon the beholder, nor 
 dors it leave him readily. lie lias 
 before him two streets, right and left, 
 and these have suddenly been peopled 
 with men, women, and children, in 
 bright Oriental costumes. Tittle children 
 
 run to and fro. lltteiillg joyful cries 
 and waving palm-branches ; grave elders 
 advance slowly, conversing together 
 < > ■ i some event of marked importance; 
 and the women are wild witli joy. 
 Down the central street and under a 
 frowning gate-way they come; men 
 uprise from bazaar and stall to join 
 them, and presently one sees (1 know 
 that in my own case it was with a joyful 
 emotion, which 1 should have been at a 
 loss to analyze) the figure of tin' Sav- 
 iour mounted upon an ass, moving 
 forward in the midst of his disciples. 
 The impression of reality is greatly 
 heightened l>v the leisurely manner in 
 which this scene is enacted. Everything 
 moves as naturally as in real life; and 
 the crowd increases so rapidly that it is 
 difficult for one to persuade himself thai 
 he is not witnessing a genuine outpour- 
 ing from a glad capital's streets. 
 
 Arrived on the proscenium, the Sav- 
 iour alights, and conies forward grace- 
 fully and with humility. lie does not 
 shrink from the homage bestowed, but 
 implies by his gestures that it is not 
 for himself, but for a higher power of 
 which he is only the instrument. As he 
 
 pauses in the midst of his disciples, and 
 utters, while the hosannas of the multi- 
 tude are dying away, those memorable 
 words, '• The hour is come that the Son 
 of Man should be glorified. Verily, 
 verily. I say unto you, except a corn of 
 wheat fall into the ground and die, it 
 abideth alone ; but if it die, it bring- 
 eth forth much fruit," his figure is 
 instinct with gracious piety. Joseph 
 Maier, who personates the Saviour, is of 
 good stature and remarkably line figure ; 
 his face, although not very spiritual in 
 repose, has, when he is speaking, some 
 pathetic lines ; his features are not so 
 distinctly Oriental as were those of his 
 predecessor, Tobias Flunger, but his 
 l«>se is noble, and his long black hair 
 and his symmetrical beard add to his 
 prophet-like appearance. In his simple 
 robes he walks like one who feels the 
 dignity of an inspired mission, yet who 
 is keenly sensible of his humanity. 
 
 There are five hundred persons on the 
 stage in this remarkable scene, and I 
 think it is safe to say that not one of 
 them appears awkward or ill at ease, so 
 perfect has every one's training been. 
 The high-priests and a group of Phari- 
 sees approach, looking wonderingly at 
 this strange central figure, with its sweet 
 resonant voice, its gentle gestures, and 
 its mildness. 
 
 The curtain of the central stage rises, 
 disclosing the interior of the Temple, 
 with the money-changers trading across 
 their tables and with the hubbub of 
 traffic rising among the sacred columns. 
 The Saviour looks at this scene of pro- 
 fanity for a time, then folds his hands 
 and bows his head in silent prayer. 
 When his prayer is finished, he advances 
 to the Temple, utters the famous protest, 
 ami asks the priests how they can look 
 on silently ami see such sacrilege. 
 "Who is this man?" cry the money- 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CA1 if. 
 
 801 
 
 changers and the priests. " It is the 
 great prophet from Nazareth," answers 
 the crowd, and meantime Jesus, ad- 
 vancing among the frightened traders, 
 catches up a rope which had been used 
 to bind lambs for the sacrifice and 
 scourges the men forth. This is done 
 in most realistic fashion ; the tallies are 
 overturned; the money-changers grovel 
 in their gold ; "the seats of them that 
 sold doves " are upset, and the birds 
 flutter away in all directions. At this 
 juncture, Caiaphas flies into a great rage, 
 and makes several passionate addresses 
 to the people Sadoc, of the Council, 
 demands Christ's authority for his inter- 
 ference. Moses is invoked as the only 
 true prophet, and the Pharisees and 
 priests are doing their best to inflame the 
 people's minds against the new prophet, 
 when Jesus and his disciples depart for 
 Bethany. One view of this superb scene, 
 which from first to last contains nothing 
 that can offend the susceptibilities of 
 the most reverent spectator, is more 
 useful in fixing forever in the mind the 
 mournful story than a hundred readings 
 of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It 
 sticks in the mind as a bit of masterly 
 painting does. 
 
 Caiaphas is an important personage 
 in the Passion-Play. He makes, I think, 
 the longest speeches, and his stately 
 figure, in its rich garments, moves 
 to and fro through the piece with great 
 
 effect. Caiaphas is played by Johann 
 Lang, who, 1 believe, was once the 
 Burgomaster of Ober-Ammergau. lie 
 
 lias a grand he-id. and the priestly coif- 
 fure brings out all the good points in his 
 face to great advantage. The disciples 
 are almost without exception very sat- 
 isfactorily represented. If any failed. 
 it was John, who did not quite seem to 
 reach our ideal of the beloved one. But 
 the figures of Peter and Judas had a 
 
 strange fascination for me. They are 
 reproductions from the " old masters'" 
 
 e :eptions of those disciples, ami they 
 
 have by long practice become astonish- 
 ingly proficient in movement and group- 
 ing, so as constantly to remind one of 
 the paintings from which the modern 
 Christian world has formed its ideal. 
 
 There was an atmosphere of quaint- 
 ness, of rough, commonplace greed, 
 about Judas, which never deserted him, 
 not even in the moment of his suicide. 
 
 The acting of the Apostles is emi- 
 nently realistic, at least it was when I 
 saw them : then' was no ranting, no 
 whining, no ostentation. These were 
 real men ; every spectator felt it. Jacob 
 llett, who personates Peter, and Lech- 
 ner. who is Judas — for he is so natural 
 that no one can conceive of him as acting 
 — are, like Maier, wood-carvers. Hett's 
 specialty is the production of small cru- 
 cifixes, anil Lechner is very skilful in 
 the same line. A lady friend told me 
 that she was lodged at the house of 
 Judas, and that Ik worked late at his 
 carving-bench on the night before the 
 
 performance. 
 
 Judas, as represented in this mystery, 
 awakens a. feeling of compassion. It is 
 impossible to consider him as anything 
 else than the unwitting victim of a su- 
 preme power, singled out to bring on the 
 great sacrifice. He is wordy, is poor 
 Judas, ou the road t<> Bethany, although 
 he tries his best not to be so. His belly 
 is empty; the cool night-air of the 
 mountains trouble him, and he is afraid 
 of coining catastrophe. When he 
 repents of his mighty crime, and, in 
 agony of grief and humiliation, throws 
 the sack containing the pieces of silver 
 at the foot of the vile tribunal into 
 whose merciless keeping he has sold his 
 Lord, the whole public feels a vast pity 
 for him. When Judas was playing this 
 
802 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 scene on the day that I saw the Passion- cussion is long and stormy. The money- 
 Play, a thick, heavy rain-storm was pour- changers are sent for, and come in to 
 iug on the heads of the three thousand suggest a vindictive programme. One 
 peasants and other unfortunate people of them announces that he thinks he 
 who were in the uncovered scats; hut knows a disciple who will betray the 
 
 not i individual arose to leave his or prophet. At this statement the Sanhe- 
 
 her scat. Judas held them all by the pas- drira breaks up joyfully, and the curtain 
 
 sionate natural vehemence of his acting, falls, leaving the spectator impressed 
 
 Even in the little question, "Is it I?" with the reality of a scene which lias 
 
 at the Last Supper, there is a note of been enacted on a rude stage in a 
 
 human anguish, which dues not fail to meadow in an obscure mountain region. 
 
 start responsive tears in the eyes of the Then come two other intrusive tab- 
 
 spectators. But 1 am proceeding a little leaux, one showing young Tobias taking' 
 
 too far ahead. leave of his parents, and the other the 
 
 From the moment that the anger of Mourning Bride of the Canticles. These 
 the priests and money-changers is are intended to lead the minds of the 
 aroused, Christ's doom is clearly fore- audience up to (he scene of the depart- 
 shadowed in every part of the mystery me of Christ from Bethany and his 
 until the end conn's. After the scene leave-taking of his mother. And now 
 in the Temple the chorus returns, and Christ and his disciples appear in pict- 
 sings the prelude to a tableau which uresque procession before the house of 
 discloses the sons of Jacob conspiring Simon. Here the illusion of Orieutal- 
 agaiusl their brother Joseph; and a ism is well sustained. The gestures of 
 moment after, a second tableau, portray- those who come to invite Christ to 
 iug the wicked brethren as about to enter the banquet-room, their costumes, 
 cast Joseph into the well on the plain their gait, all are grave, Eastern, and 
 of Dotlian, is shown. These are sup- filled with a certain quaintness which 
 posed to be emblematical of the perse- is not without its force. It was in this 
 ciitiou which Christ was doomed later scene in Simon's house, as il seemed to 
 to suffer. They are more vigorously me, that Joseph Maier, as the person- 
 conceived and richly dressed than the ator of Christ, achieved one of his prin- 
 preceding ones from the < >ld Testament, cipal triumphs. Here In 1 was the man, 
 But when the central curtain rises and suffering from fatigue, from persecu- 
 displavs the magnificent '-set" of the tiou, from a foreboding of the trial to 
 Sanhedrim, in which the high-priests come ; but his presence was noble and 
 of the synagogue are discussing meas- his dignity noticeable. Jus! as he has 
 ures to he taken againsl the prophet of seated himself, and while Martha is 
 Nazareth, one cannot help regretting waiting upon the hungry and tired dis- 
 that the unity of the action is inter- eiples. Mary Magdalen, whom the 
 rupted by tableaux. Ober-Ammergau dramatists consider 
 
 This Sanhedrim scene is very realistic, as the same as Mary the sister of 
 
 Caiaphas in superb dress, with his breast- Martha, rushes in, and throwing herself 
 
 plate ornamented with twelve precious at the feel of Jesus, proceeds to anoint 
 
 stones, presides. Annas, robed in white, them with costly ointment. When the 
 
 sits near him, and the others are ranged woman kneels before him, Maier cries out 
 
 around the rooms in tribunes. The dis- " Maria !" and rises with that startled, 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 803 
 
 deprecatory air which any pure and noble 
 man would put on when finding himself 
 adored by beauty. I thought it a real 
 stroke of genius. But when Judas 
 comes shuffling forward in his dirty 
 yellow gown, and tries to quarrel with 
 the Magdalen for wasting so much 
 money in ointment, and the actor arises, 
 saying, '• Let her alone, she hath 
 wrought a good work on me," the con- 
 trast from meekness to sudden assump- 
 tion of authority is exceedingly striking. 
 I think that Simon and his family 
 as actors would put to shame a good 
 many stock actors in our minor theatres. 
 It is true that they have the traditions 
 of two hundred and fifty years, during 
 which this Mystery Play, in one form 
 or another, has been carried on, to help 
 them; but, even with that inheritance, 
 it is odd that they should be so clear, 
 remote as they are from the refining 
 and educating influences of any large 
 theatre. I suspect, however, thai 
 neither the leading nor the minor char- 
 acters in the '• Mystery " would thank 
 us for j uaising them as actors. They 
 are filled with the idea that the func- 
 tions which they perform are religious, 
 and they at all times think more of the 
 religion than of tin 1 art. It is very 
 evident that all the peasants ami the 
 mass of Catholic German visitors to 
 the Passion .share this feeling. 
 
 The Passion-Play is not fortunate in 
 its women interpreters. She who plays 
 Mary is sincere, and avoids any very 
 sharp criticism, but her acting nowhere 
 rises to the level of that shown by the 
 personators of Caiaphas, Peter, and 
 Judas. The only scene in which it ap- 
 peared to me that Mary was sufficiently 
 effective was in the meeting with the 
 Saviour as he is about to leave Bethany. 
 Joseph Maier has a rich, melodious voice ; 
 perhaps there is a slight tiuge of 
 
 artificiality in its pathos, but in general 
 it was very agreeable ; and when he mur- 
 murs in the ear of the kneeling mother 
 •• How am I prepared to consecrate mv 
 work' of atonement?" I saw many a 
 tearful face around me. The tears arise 
 unbidden at the sight of this Bible made 
 flesh, this living and breathing New 
 Testament. I know that as I sat gazing 
 at this scene, a vision of my childhood 
 arose before me, — the old school-house 
 with its worn benches, the tender breeze 
 of a New England summer morning that 
 swayed the delicate petals of the flow- 
 ers on the teacher's desk, and the soft 
 voices of the scholars as they read the 
 sacred book. If my youthful imagi- 
 nation had been touched and fired by 
 such scenes as this Passion-Play con- 
 tains, how tremendously vital would 
 have been mv memory of every slightest 
 circumstance in the mysterious and holy 
 drama which began at the Temple and 
 ended at Calvary ! Put would a Passion- 
 Play be possible among the New Eng- 
 land hills? Mary, in an agony of grief, 
 beseeches her s<>n not to risk his pre- 
 cious life, and the women with her join 
 with Simon in urging her to enter the 
 latter's house, and to repose. This scene 
 never fails to produce immense effect; 
 and its climax is found, as the curtain 
 falls, in the sombre attitude of Judas, 
 who is still meditating over the squan- 
 dering of money by the Magdalen on 
 the ointment, and who mutters, "Those 
 
 three hundred pence that she spent 
 would have been enough for me. With 
 them I could have lived content." 
 
 And so the holy drama moves stead- 
 ily on. The little band of disciples, hud- 
 dled around the Master, goes back to 
 Jerusalem. It is useless to attempt a 
 description of all the pictures which fol- 
 low one another in rapid succession 
 until the famous scene of the Last Sup- 
 
804 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 per is reached. The Old Testament haps the finest Old Testament tableau in 
 tableau, which is supposed to prefigure the Passion-Play, — the sending down of 
 Christ's rejection of the Jews as a pun- manna to the Israelites in the wilder- 
 ishment of their sins, is that of Ahasu- ness. In this living picture one hun- 
 erus putting away Vashti and taking dred and fifty children and nearly twice 
 Esther in her stead. This Hit* away that number of grown persons are en- 
 like the memory of a dream, and while gaged. Moses and Aaron occupy prom- 
 the leader of the chorus is still address- inent positions in the foreground ; youths, 
 iug his warning to Jerusalem, our atten- maidens, mothers with babes in arms, 
 tion is invited to a group upon the brow all are stretching out their hands or 
 of the Mount of Olives. In the distance 1 raising their eyes thankfully to heaven, 
 lies the Holy City, over the unhappy pel- from whence the manna gently descends 
 versity of which the Master weeps. like snow. .V second tableau, showing 
 
 Here occurs a very dramatic seem', the spies returning from the Promised 
 amply anil nobly written out in dramatic Land, follows this superb one. 
 form, wherein the disciples learn that It is said that all those persons whose 
 Christ goes towards his doom, and en- religious feelings are somewhat aroused 
 deavor to dissuade him from it. At against the performance of the sacred 
 last Peter and John are sent forward to ceremony of the sacramentof the Lord's 
 prepare the feast of the Passover, and Supper on the stage, go away with their 
 Judas, who is afraid to go to Jerusalem, objections removed after they have seen 
 and is selfishly anxious that the Master the Passion-Play; for, in this part of 
 should provide lor his sustenance, in- the Passion, Joseph Maier and those 
 dulges in a long and powerful soliloquy, who surround him are entitled to the 
 in which avarice and conscience struggle highest praise. They do not fall short 
 for the mastery. Meantime, the spies of the mark ; their work has a sacred 
 of the Sanhedrim and the money-changers quality in it.. A tremendous sincerity 
 arrive, and Judas falls an easy prey to underlies their every action. The cur- 
 their propositions, lie stifles his better tain rises on the hall in Mark's house, 
 nature, ami rushes wildly off to Jerusa- and as the disciples enter and group 
 lem, there to watch his chance for the themselves at the table, it is easy to see 
 Master's betrayal. This scene is pre- at a glance that they reproduce Leo- 
 sented with a graphic force and intensity nardo da Vinci's noted picture. Every 
 which never fails to impress the spec- attitude is closely reproduced ; Peter 
 tators. The money-changers are in grim sits on the right, John on the left of the 
 earnest, Judas's anguish of mind is real, Saviour. The ceremony of the distribu- 
 and, were manifestations of applause tion of the bread and the wine is per- 
 allowed in the theatre, there is no doubt formed with the greatest dignity and 
 that there would he plenty of them at. sweetness by Joseph Maier. This ro- 
 this point in the mystery. markable scene lasts more than half an 
 
 The next scene shows Peter and John hour, and the aggregation of detail in it 
 
 seeking out the house of Mark in Jeru- is so enormous that it burns itself into 
 
 salem. — a fine little hit of realism, — the senses as real. The washing of the 
 
 intelligently acted, with an immense disciples' feet by the Master is done in 
 
 amount of detail: and then comes the the most reverent manner. That these 
 
 act of the Last Supper, prefaced by per- men should he able, Sunday after Sun- 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 805 
 
 day, to go through this ceremony without 
 fatigue or blunder, with grace and rev- 
 erence, and with spiritual enthusiasm, 
 proves that they feel a certain consecra- 
 tion for the 'work. The peasants in the 
 audience take mosl intense interest in 
 this supper; its representation is an acl 
 of high religion for them. The old 
 women, with tear-stained faces, gaze at 
 the form of the Saviour bending over 
 the feet of Peter, and when they hear 
 the apostle say, "Thou slialt neverwash 
 my feet," and hear Christ answer. '• If I 
 wash thee not, thou hast no part with 
 me," they are terribly moved. While 
 the foot-washing is in progress, soft 
 music is heard, and singers intone a 
 hymn. The communion is celebrated 
 next, and some little relief is afforded 
 to tht-' audience, which has been spell- 
 bound, while the sacred bread and wine 
 are given by Christ to the disciples. 
 when Judas receives the sop and rushes 
 confusedly from the chamber. Perhaps 
 the best feature of this part of the Pas- 
 sion is the affliction of the disciples when 
 the Master has given the cup, and says. 
 "• As often as ye do tins, do it in remem- 
 brance of me." They show their fears 
 that he is to lie taken from them, and 
 John lays his head upon tin- Saviour's 
 breast, while Judas sits moodily eying 
 the dishes on the table This is most 
 happily conceived. 
 
 The betrayal follows in a series of 
 weird pictures winch are like relievos. 
 Each one embodies an important inci- 
 dent. The curtain rises to show us 
 Joseph sold to the Midianites > for twenty 
 piecesof silver, — type of the action which 
 Judas is about to commit. This scene 
 is prepared with great care ; the costumes 
 of the Midianites, the heads of the camels 
 appearing through the foliage of the 
 oasis, the attitude of young Joseph stand- 
 ing stripped of his coat of many colors, 
 
 and endeavoring to defend himself from 
 the brutality of Ins brethren. Every- 
 thing in the living picture is studied wit!: 
 perfect attention to truth. This vanishes, 
 and the chorus closes in to sing a quaint 
 
 reproof to Judas, who is alioiit to follow 
 
 the example of the wicked brethren. 
 
 And now the tribunal of the Sanhe- 
 drim appears mice more before us: 
 Caiaphas and Annas are addressing the 
 council in the most violent manner, and 
 demand that the Galilean be put to death 
 as soon as he is captured. The discus- 
 sion which ensues i?. eminently natural ; 
 and when Nicodemus and Joseph of 
 Ai'imathea utter their famous protests, 
 and step down from their seats, de- 
 claring that they will have nothing 
 to do with the deed of blood, a thrill 
 runs through the vast, audience. Judas 
 arrives, accompanied by the money- 
 changers, and the money which is to pay 
 for the betrayal is counted out to him. 
 The figure of the old man in his yellow 
 gown, trying each piece on one of the 
 tables of the Temple, and then placing it 
 in the bag at his side, is sinister and re- 
 pulsive. Joseph and Nicodemus are 
 reviled by the priests, and t lie council 
 breaks up with cries for the blood of the 
 prophet who has dared to interfere with 
 the corrupt practices in the Temple. 
 Next we are shown Adam digging to get 
 his bread by the sweat of his brow, and 
 Joab giving Amasa a kiss while he 
 plunges a dagger into his heart, Adam's 
 toil typifying Gethsemane, and Joab the 
 treachen of Judas's kiss. 
 
 The great space of (lie proseeuium is 
 used with effect in a host of by-play 
 which adds immensely to the realism. 
 For instance, just before we are shown 
 the scene in Gethsemane's Garden, we 
 see the betrayer and a delegation of 
 priests, escorted by a line of Roman sol- 
 diers, pass silently across the stage. 
 
806 EUROPE TN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Then the curtain rises upon the Mount and a half hours of close attention, is 
 
 of Olives, and the Saviour, accompanied not sorry to get into the street and to 
 
 by his weary disciples, appears. Peter, rest his brain from the sombre impres- 
 
 James, and John are to watch with the sions of the last few scenes. The thou- 
 
 Man of Sorrows, but they one by one sands of people hasten away in all direc- 
 
 fall asleep, and the Redeemer is left tions to their dinners. At table, in the 
 
 alone with his prayer. Maier's acting hotels, one is served by a Midianite ; has 
 
 here is full of strong self-control; it is his boots blacked by one of the sons of 
 
 never sensational, but always simple and Jacob, and his coat brushed by a Roman 
 
 natural in the highest degree. Thetradi- soldier; a Jewish maiden brings him a 
 
 lions of the mystery demand that blood glass of beer; a priest hires a carriage 
 
 should be seen flowing down the Saviour's in which to leave town at the close of 
 
 cheeks at the close of liis mournful cry, the afternoon's performance ; and Judas 
 
 " Take away this cup from me ; neverthe goes to take a look at his wood-carving, 
 less, not as I will, but as Thou wilt." The peasantry, on the day that I was 
 
 The figure kneeling on the rocks, with present, were soaked with rain, and this 
 
 hands outstretched in supplication, and doubtless accounted lor the fact that 
 
 with an angel hovering above it, docs during the intermission, on the plan of 
 
 not move when the clash of arms is similia simUibus, they drank enormous 
 
 heard, and the betrayer arrives. But quantities of beer. Most of them con- 
 
 the disciples huddle toe-ether in con- tented themselves with frugal meals of 
 
 sternatiou. Out of the darkness sud- bread and sausage, and were back in 
 
 denly spring the lights of torches and their places long before the cannon fired. 
 lanterns, and Judas, advancing, greets The second half of the Passion-Play is 
 
 the Saviour and kisses him. When Christ unquestionably the most impressive, al- 
 
 declares himself, the soldiers fall to the though it seems to me that no other por- 
 
 grouud, dropping their spears, and the tion of the mystery is so finely executed 
 
 priests and traders are in commotion ; but as that embracing the departure f.om 
 
 presently Malchus, with his comrades, Bethany and the Last Supper. But the 
 
 comes to bind Christ Peter strikes his interest is so concentrated in the second 
 
 noted blow of defense, but is rebuked by part upon the meek, shrinking, pathetic 
 
 the Saviour, when the soldiers brutally figure of Christ, that one thinks of little 
 
 push the captive forward, and inarch oft else. from the moment of the arrest, in 
 
 into the night with him. These soldiers the garden of Gethsemane, Herr Maier 
 
 are played with considerable skill by vil- personifies tin Saviour as the sufferer 
 
 lagers who have had long training. Their for the sins of the world ; he is as clay 
 
 dress, their weapons, and their manners, in the hands of the potter; his slender 
 
 have been made the subjects of careful form bends beneath the blows which it 
 
 research. They give wonderful character receives; his face is pale ; his limbs are 
 
 to their trilling rOles. weak : but he is of majestic sweetness and 
 
 With the departure of Jesus in the noble in his humility. After having seen 
 
 bonds of his captors, and the laineii- him in this character I renounced all 
 
 tations of Peter and John, who have idea of a private interview with him, 
 
 shrunk away from following their Lore, fearing that I might be shocked at the 
 
 and Master, the first part of the Passion- contrast between the man's private life, 
 
 Play closes, and the spectator, after three however good i; might be, and the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 807 
 
 marked excellence of his assumption of 
 the Saviour's character in the Passion- 
 Play. 
 
 A distinguished — the most distin- 
 guished — American actor, who visited 
 the Passion-Play tins summer, professed 
 a certain sense of disappointment. 
 He was prodigal of compliments for 
 the marvellous picturesqueness and force 
 displayed by the peasantry in their act- 
 ing and their use of costumes; but that 
 they were men of genius he was inclined 
 to deny. "In fact," he said with a 
 smile, " we had had our minds so worked 
 up by the gorgeous accounts furnished 
 of this play that we were prepared to be 
 contented with nothing less than the 
 supernatural." He argued that it was 
 impossible, also, for an actor, in looking 
 on at this spectacle, to take a non-pro- 
 fessional view of it, anil to forget that. 
 the players in the great morality aim to 
 he devotional rather than anything else. 
 I should not like to have it said that I 
 have exaggerated the merits of the 
 mystery. But doubtless the imagination 
 plays a powerful part, when one re- 
 cords his impressions of this curious 
 mosaic wrought together on the hare 
 hoards of a theatre with such loving 
 care and patience. 
 
 In the afternoon the performance 
 began at one o'clock, on the day when I 
 witnessed it, and it was rather amusing 
 to see the discomfited peasants hasten- 
 ing hack, with their bread and cheese in 
 their hands and the water dripping from 
 their garments. The chorus sang. 
 Begonnen ist tier Kampf cler Schmer- 
 zen, ami the piteous story was brought 
 promptly before us. First Christ was 
 haled before Annas, and here the 
 rude realism of the actors was in sonic' 
 small cases repulsive. This scene, like 
 those which immediately followed it, was 
 acted with great dignity. Maier, in his 
 
 personation of the Saviour from this 
 point in the mystery forward to the cru- 
 cifixion, allows himself to appear 
 literally like clav in the hands of the 
 potter; he is the patient sufferer for the 
 sins of others; his eloquence is mute, 
 and his humility is imposing. For the 
 sake of convenience I will pass over the 
 Old Testament tableaux, which, in this 
 second division of the Passion, are 
 shown before each episode in the life of 
 the Saviour, and will review them later. 
 After the scene before Annas, the cen- 
 tral curtain rises, and we are shown a 
 loom in the house of Caiaphas. On a 
 dais the high-priest, dressed in splendid 
 robes, stands, surrounded by his subor- 
 dinates, 'and the hound Saviour is pushed 
 in before him. from another entrance 
 arrive Samuel ami the five witnesses. 
 The impressive' presentation of the 
 episode in which the Saviour declares 
 himself, — " Thou hast said ; nevertheless 
 I say unto you, hereafter shall ye see 
 the Son of man sitting on the right hand 
 of power, and coming in the clouds of 
 heaven," was exceedingly striking. 
 Caiaphas indulged in a line (it of rage at 
 what he considered this blasphemy; 
 there was a great clamor, and the assem- 
 bly broke out with cries of ••Death! 
 Death!" after the Saviour had been 
 ordered to appear before the Sanhedrim 
 on the morrow. The curtain fell and the 
 gloomy picture of Judas in his gown of 
 startling color, appeared once more. 
 Judas was stung to his conscience's 
 quick, and his soliloquy was given with 
 a real pathos. Shortly afterward came 
 a scene which has provoked no little 
 criticism in the orthodox world, because 
 of its intense realism. It represents 
 Christ sitting, bound and blindfolded, 
 on a stool in an anteroom of the Sanhe- 
 drim. The brutal soldiers are tor- 
 menting him. I confess that it seemed 
 
808 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 tonic needlessly prolonged and painful, ever laughs at the agony of .Indus. Il 
 The soldiers beat their captive, sang seems real and fully justifies the encomi- 
 rude songs in his curs, tipped him over, urns lavished upon it by celebrities in the 
 and said, "Now if thou art a King, get histrionic world. When the curtain rises 
 upon thy throne agaiu," and thrust :i again we are in the Sanhedrim. The 
 crown of thorns upon his tortured richly-robed priests are in their places, 
 brows. I could hear the deep breathing exulting in the savage decision which 
 of the peasants in the seats below me they have lately made, when Judas, hag- 
 while this was in progress. The ladies gard and ferocious, rushes in, and in 
 seated near me turned awa^ their faces passionate reproach curses the assembly 
 and would not look. for the sad work to which it has tempted 
 Jiisl before this occurs the scene in him. The high-priests sneeringly bid 
 which Peter betrays his Master, accord- him cease his clamor. lie seizes the 
 ing to the prophecy. It is quaintly con- money-bag at his girdle, hurls it down 
 ceived and executed. We are shown a at the foot of the blood-stained tribunal, 
 large hall, with a bevy of querulous maids and rushes out of the hall, leaving the 
 lighting a lire, each one of them abusing priests quaking upon theirseats with fear 
 the Saviour heartily. Peter ami John and indignation. There is a brief interval 
 come in and try to warm themselves with- in the tragedy of Judas, in which we are 
 out exciting observation. While Peter is shown a delegation of priests before the 
 
 rubbing his hands before the flames one house of Pilate. A Roman servant steps 
 
 of the women points him out and de- out and eves them scornfully. They tell 
 
 nounces him. He protests, and imme- him that they cannot enter his master's 
 
 diately the cheerful notes of chanticleer house, because it is the residence of an 
 
 are heard behind the scenes. As this is unclean heathen, but that they can speak 
 
 repeated for the third time, there is the with him if he will appear in his balcony. 
 
 clash of arms, the soldiers who have been This elicits from the servant the well 
 
 lounging off duty spring to their feet, and known reproof about straining at a gnat 
 
 the Saviour enters, guarded by a dozen and swallowing a camel, and the delega- 
 
 men. " lie is sentenced to death," says lion passes on. 
 
 Selpha, very simply ; and Peter, shrinking The curtain rises on the suicide of 
 
 away from the mild ami sorrowful gaze Judas. We are shown a wild, weird spot, 
 
 of the man-God, bursts into fears, covers in the centre of which is a small mound 
 iiis face with his hands and departs. with a tree growing upon it. I notice 
 This is stirring and dramatic, and is so that Mr. Jackson, in his line work on tin' 
 well played by the actors that for a Passion-Play, alludes to a Satan which in 
 moment il assumes all the proportions of the mysteries of the Middle Ages used to 
 reality. At the close of this part of the beckon to .lildas from the branches of 
 plav we are shown Peter pouring out his this tree. Happily all such mummery as 
 soul in a violent torrent of self-reproach, this was long ago abandoned, ami all 
 Words are sadly incompetent for the poor Judas sees is the image of his de- 
 description of Hie act in which Judas, spair beckoning him on to death. The 
 in race and despair at his own folly, takes acting which precedes I he final despairing 
 his life. A certain class of spectators suicide is remarkably good. Judas docs 
 profess here and there to discern laugh- not rant nor mouth, but he delivers the 
 able places in the Passion-Play, but no one beautiful and affecting lines which Pastor 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AX/> CALM. 
 
 809 
 
 Daisenberger has put into his mouth, with 
 great dignity and pathos, and now and 
 then a certain grim sorrow, which cuts to 
 the heart. Judas then rushes to the tree, 
 and is about to hang himself as the 
 curtain falls. As I have remarked in the 
 previous chapter he is the Judas of the 
 Catholic world, — a Judas who is 1 nit an 
 unfortunate instrument in the hands of a 
 supernatural power, — a Judas for whom 
 we feel decided pity as the victim of fate. 
 The characters of Pilate and Herod in 
 the Passion-Hay are assumed with much 
 skill. Pilate appears upon his balcony, 
 accompanied by his guard, and listens to 
 the noisy accusations of the high-priests 
 and Jews who bring Christ before him. 
 He treats them all with mild contempt, 
 as members of a conquered race, but 
 shows an earnest desire to do justice. 
 In this scene the smallest details arc 
 lovingly elaborated until the patience of 
 the audience is perhaps a trifle tired. 
 A messenger enters and tells Pilate of 
 his wife's dream. The just Roman 
 governor is struck by the vision which 
 his wife has had, and he cries out, " Is 
 this man from Galilee?" — " Yes," cries 
 the rabble, "he is simply a Galilean; 
 he is from Nazareth, in the territory of 
 King Herod." — "Then take him to his 
 own king ; Herod hath come to Jerusa- 
 lem to celebrate the feast; let this man 
 be taken before him;" and Pilate retires 
 from the balcony, leaving the angry 
 priests and the mob to follow the bound 
 and helpless Saviour to Herod's palace. 
 The scene before the monarch is very 
 impressive. It is a room in the central 
 stage, with Herod on a golden throne, 
 dressed in velvet garnished with silver 
 and white. When Christ is brought 
 before him, Herod rallies him, taunts 
 him. says. " If you are a prophet, or a 
 god, do a miracle." When he sees that 
 nothing can lie made of this treatment. 
 
 he ridicules the Saviour still more, and 
 orders the garment of ridicule to be 
 placed upon him, and a sceptre in his 
 hand. It is impossible to describe the 
 rude realism with which this scene is 
 given. Herod dispatches the business 
 speedily when he discovers that there is 
 no amusement to be had, and sends the 
 company back to Pilate. ()nce more the 
 procession arrives under the Roman 
 governor's balcony, and clamors for 
 blood; then, in obedience to Pilate's 
 command, follows tin- scourging-scene, 
 which is suchan exhibition as would not, 
 1 suspect, be allowed in America. All 
 the rough force of the mediaeval drama 
 — the bold, courageous mediaeval drama, 
 
 which told the truth and shamed the 
 devil — is here. Christ is scourged until 
 it mtiiis as if the human frame can bear 
 no more, and his body falls against the 
 tormentors. 
 
 The succeeding scenes arc painful in 
 the highest degree. If the Old Testa- 
 ment tableaux were cut out, and the 
 performance were (bus shortened, the 
 interest in these last dramatic pictures 
 would doubtless be intensified. The fact 
 is that the spectators become so tired as 
 hardly to be able to appreciate the 
 beauty ami sublimity of the mystery, 
 There is one grand musical effect, when 
 the chorus, on the proscenium, is telling 
 the story, and as a sombre refrain we hear 
 in the distance the cries of the populace 
 for the release of Barabbas and the 
 murder of the Saviour. A striking 
 picture is formed when Pilate places 
 Christ and Barabbas side by side on his 
 balcony, and asks them which they will 
 have. Barabbas, and the two thieves 
 who are brought on in prison garb, with 
 ropes on their hands and feet, are terri- 
 fying figures. 
 
 When Pilate has washed his hands 
 and the judgment of death by crucifixion 
 
810 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 between the two thieves has been pro- may really be called adequate. The 
 
 uounced upon Christ, the spectators sound of hammers is heard, and, as the 
 
 betray, by uneasy movements in their chorus retires, we are shown the hill of 
 
 seats, and by many expressions, some- Golgotha. The two thieves, tied to their 
 
 thing very like a disinclination lo wit- crosses, form a most lugubrious spectacle. 
 
 ness the coming spectacle. A certain But all attention is concentrated on the 
 
 reverence seems in bid them look with figure of the Saviour <m the central 
 
 fear as well as sorrow upon the awful cross. It is impossible to detect from 
 
 tragedy of the crucifixion. Feasant any place among the spectators the 
 
 women sometimes faint when they see manner in which Herr Maier is sus- 
 
 the procession of the soldiers conducting pended. He seems actually nailed to 
 
 the Saviour to the place of execution, the fatal tree, and the sight is so sail 
 
 I am bound to say that these final pict- that one involuntarily turns his eves 
 
 incs did not impress me so much as the away. Of course the expedients adopted 
 
 earlier ones did. But there has rarely are very simple, and I do not feel railed 
 
 been on any stage a more perfect piece upon to describe them. In front of the 
 
 of ''setting" than that given by the place of execution the men who have just 
 
 Ober-Ammergauers in the "bearing of finished the crucifixion are playing at 
 
 the Cross to Golgotha." The soldiers, dice for the garments of the victims ; on 
 
 the executioners, the centurion, the the right stand the priests, reviling him 
 
 sordid figures of the two thieves drag- whom they believe to be a false prophet; 
 
 ging their crosses, and Herr Maier's and at the back of the cross stands Mary 
 
 slight form weighed down by the heavy with her friends, Mary Magdalen, 
 
 burden until lie falls, as the Saviour fell ; Joseph of Arimatliea. and Nieodemus 
 
 the howling mob. the group of sorrow- and John. The whole story as given in 
 
 ing women, and Mary the mother of the gospel is enacted. Nothing could 
 
 Christ frantic in her grief, the priests, — be finer than the noble attitude of Herr 
 
 all surrounded by a group of three or Maier in the last moments on the cans-, 
 
 four hundred people, — make a most when he turns lus eyes upon his mother 
 
 striking picture. I think this painful and and his beloved disciple, and says. 
 
 touching portion of the play covers half "Woman, behold thy son!" — ••Son. 
 
 an hour. Nothing is omitted, from the, behold thy mother!" or when, at the 
 
 conduct of the good centurion to the last great instant he cries Es ist 
 
 final resolve of Mary to follow to the VOlltmcJlt ! — It is finished '. — and his 
 
 very foot of the cross. When the pro- head falls to one side, 
 
 cession passes on around the corner The storm and the rending of the veil 
 
 and the last robe is lost to sight, there of the Temple in twain are but clumsily 
 
 is an immense sigh of relief. This rendered, but the imagination of the 
 
 revivification of sacred history is won- spectators has been already so worked 
 
 derfully exciting and saddening. upon that everything seems to them re- 
 
 The chorus appears in mourning gar- markable. The executioners proceed in 
 
 incuts, just before the scene of the cruci- the coolest and most brutal manner to 
 
 lixion is disclosed by the raising of the kill the thieves by breaking their limbs 
 
 curtain of the central stage. The music anil ribs with clubs, after which the cen- 
 
 ai this point is particularly effective. I turion pierces the side of the Saviour 
 
 think it is the only occasion in which it with a spear, and a jet of blood springs 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 811 
 
 out. Then the thieves are taken down, 
 after which executioners, soldiers, and 
 the alarmed and superstitious priest- 
 hood retire, and the followers of the 
 Saviour are left alone with the crucified 
 body. The descent from the cross is 
 copied from the noted painting by 
 Rubens, and forms a beautiful group. 
 The descent, the mourning, the anoint- 
 ment, the placing of the body in the 
 sepulchre, are performed with a tender- 
 ness, solemnity, and grace, beyond all 
 praise. While this was in progress I 
 really felt that I was witnessing a 
 religious ceremony. 
 
 The resurrection and the ascension are 
 but inadequately represented. It would 
 be far better for the Ober-Ammergauers 
 to rest their efforts with the close of 
 the crucifixion scene, but one is always 
 compelled to bear in mind that they are 
 aiming at the recital of the whole story 
 — in the fullest if not always the most 
 dramatic manner. The final chorus : — 
 
 " Bringt Lob und Preis dem Hachsten dar, 
 Di'in Lamrae tins getodtet war, 
 Halleluja! Halleluja! " 
 
 produces an exquisite effect. As the 
 last members of the chorus disappear 
 from the stage at the close of the •■ As- 
 cension," the Passion-Play closes. 
 
 The tableaux from the Old Testament 
 in the second portion of this curious 
 mystery are in many respects liner than 
 those in the first section, but they do not 
 appeal to the sympathies of the specta- 
 
 tors. For instance, just before the res- 
 urrection, we are shown " Jonas cast on 
 dry land by the whale," — a veritable 
 New England primer conception of this 
 curious event: and this is followed by 
 "the Israelites crossing the Red Sea in 
 safety." The bearing of the cross to 
 Golgotha is prefigured l>\ " Young Isaac 
 carrying the altar-wood up Mt. Moriah ;" 
 and the healing and atoning virtues of the 
 
 cross are symbolized by the magical effects 
 which Moses produced when he raised the 
 brazen serpent on a cross in the wilder- 
 ness. In this tableau three hundred 
 persons take part. A very noble history 
 picture, which I ought to have mentioned 
 in its proper place, is •• Joseph made 
 Ruler over Egypt." In this there are 
 evidences that the Ober-Ammergauers 
 must have spent their money without 
 stint in costumes, and the thousand and 
 one properties necessary for such a re- 
 production, a festival in the times of the 
 Pharaohs. 
 
 There were various rumors at the time 
 that the celebrated mystery will never be 
 performed again. Those who arc famil- 
 iar with the history of the vow made by 
 the Ober-Ammergauers to perform it 
 indefinitely every ten years will not 
 believe them likely to change their minds, 
 it is a beautiful, touching, holy, and 
 noble dramatic sketch of the most won- 
 derful life and death on record, and he 
 who can go away from it without re- 
 ceiving some beneficial lessons must 
 have a very hard heart, indeed. 
 
812 
 
 EUROPE I.Y STOMA! AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER NINETY-TW< ). 
 
 Vienna, where the East meets the West. - The Emperor of Austria. — His Simple Life. — The Slavs anil 
 Hungarians. — Berlin ami Bismarck. — The ajiciH icrntan Emperor. — Startling Progress of ( lerman 
 Industry. — The Thrones of the North. — Nihilism ami Socialism. -Colonial Schemes. -Possihlc 
 Absorption of the Small Countries of Europe. 
 
 ONG before the new and astonish- ■•And." said the gentleman, with a 
 
 -L-^ iny; development of the struggling smile, "I will transfer the whole lot to 
 
 nations in south-eastern Europe, — you if you will pay into my hands fifty 
 
 development which has been bill briefly gulden." 
 
 described in these pages, — Vienna was While the financial craze lasted in 
 
 beginning to feel a new commercial in i - southern Germany there was the usual 
 
 pulse, and to profil by the wealth poured growth of buildings, and even the usu- 
 
 into her coffers by speculators, mer- ally sedate and cautious government 
 
 chants fr the East and West, and by caught the infection, and began a series 
 
 the hundreds of luxury-loving aristocrats of lofty piles, parliament houses and 
 from all the lands bordering on the municipal structures, which had to re- 
 Orient. ( Hd Vienna, picturesque and main unfinished with scaffoldings about 
 rather dirty, was gradually environed by them for many a lone year after the 
 a magnificent " ring " of statelv palaces, corner-stones were laid. 
 not specially remarkable for refined taste, The famous Ring, or circular boulevard 
 but of noble proportions, and, taken col- extending around the whole of old Vienna 
 lectively, more imposing than auvthing is one of the ga\'est, most picturesque, 
 else in Germany. and most charming promenades in Eu- 
 Yienna is now a town containing more rope. In fact Vienna is distinctly gay. 
 than one million and one hundred thou- There the primness and ceremonial still- 
 sand inhabitants within its fortifications, ness of western Europe begin to fade 
 and it would seem as if at least one-fifth into the harmonious irregularity of the 
 of these inhabitants were struggling in Orient. As in Berlin everything seems 
 the money-market for sudden riches. The to be constructed with a view to bring- 
 story of the Krach, as it was so appro- tug out the angles, so. in Vienna, all (he 
 priately called, — the great financial crash corners art' rounded off. Colors are 
 which came, a few years ago, to warn the bright, and ofteu dazzling; music is 
 incautious Viennese that all was not voluptuous; wines and sweets, fruits 
 gold that glittered, and reduced, in the and ices, are displayed in tempting 
 
 twinkling of an eye, thousands of people, profusion. Out-of-door life abounds, 
 who had fancied themselves millionaires, and the people are merry and free in 
 to absolute beggarj - , — is appalling. 1 their manners. They have an abun- 
 was once shown, while visiting the dant humor. The town is filled with 
 mansion of a well-known Vienna gentle- line horses, finely dressed men. heauti- 
 man, a heap of stocks which originally ful women, with soldiers in every con- 
 represented 10t>,<MH) Austrian gulden. eeivablc tint of uniform. The East and 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 si;; 
 
 the West here touch hands, but there 
 is a Leaning towards the Orient. Aus- 
 tria does not bear her name in vain. 
 She is the "Empire of the East;" or, 
 rather, she is determined so to be, de- 
 spite Russian intrigue and the thousand 
 obstacles which have weighed upon her 
 progress to the sea and towards Con- 
 stantinople. The composite character 
 of the population of the empire-king- 
 dom is felt and seen everywhere. The 
 German language, which is the official 
 one in Austria, and which rules supreme 
 at the court theatres and at the opera, 
 is not so often heard in the street as 
 the jolly but highly erratic Viennese 
 dialect, against which the northern 
 German may butt his head without 
 comprehending it. The southern Slav 
 contributes hi;: plaintive and imagina- 
 tive temperament to the composition of 
 the Vienna populace. 
 
 The north Germans say that Vienna is 
 not a German city ; and they say this as 
 if it were a reproach. Although the 
 Catholic church is the state religion, 
 and is powerful, and prominent in all 
 public places, maintaining the splendid 
 out-of-door processions and ceremonials 
 which have been banished from most of 
 the northern capitals, there are Greek 
 and Armenian Catholics, Protestants, 
 Byzantine Greeks and Jews, in plenty 
 to maintain their cemeteries, monasteries, 
 nunneries, and churches in Vienna. 
 
 In the superb cathedral of St. Stephen, 
 which springs with airy grace from its 
 ancient site in the very centre of the old 
 city, the Catholic ritual is seen in splen- 
 dor such as is scarcely to be found else- 
 where outside of Spain. Close by one 
 may peep into a Jewish synagogue. The 
 old feeling of intolerance, the old pas- 
 sion lor illiberalism which once charac- 
 terized Austrian governments, appears 
 to have melted away. Austria, under 
 
 the influence of her disasters and the 
 changes rendered necessary by them, 
 has become liberal and progressive ; is 
 anxious for education, for elevation of 
 the masses, instead of that military 
 glory which was so completely over- 
 shadowed on the Held of Sadowa, and 
 which is such a vanity and vexation of 
 spirit even after it is obtained. 
 
 The Emperor of Austria is one of 
 those wise men who has learned by ex- 
 perience; who knows that politics is the 
 science of expedients, and who has 
 moulded himself to the times Once a 
 violent opponent of Hungarian expan- 
 sion, he has come to be King of Hungary 
 as well as Emperor of Austria ; has 
 llonrishcd his sword to the four corners of 
 flu 1 earth, and sworn to defend Hungary 
 and its people from invasion coming from 
 any quarter, and has submitted for years 
 with exemplary patience to the predomi- 
 nance in the empire-kingdom's ministerial 
 councils of Hungarian statesmen, who, on 
 the whole, have done fairly well for both 
 countries. He has the tenacity and the 
 unfaltering patience of the Ilapsburgs ; 
 and he has, too, their noble fortune, 
 which he uses with taste and with gener- 
 osity. One of the richest men in Europe. 
 he fosters literature, music, and art. 
 His private library is that of a man of 
 letters. He is a careful and conscien- 
 tious administrator, — up in the morning 
 at five o'clock', winter and summer, ready 
 after prayers for his simple breakfast of 
 bread and coffee, and then at work at 
 his desk at eleven, with no companion 
 save his secretary and one of the long 
 cigars, called Virginias, of which the 
 Viennese are so fond. Towards noon he 
 has pot-luck and a glass of beer, like 
 the simplest of his subjects ; then works 
 on (unless sonic ceremony or state 
 affair calls him from the palace) in his 
 private office until dinner-time, when he 
 
S14 
 
 EUROPE IS STORM AND CALM. 
 
 meets liis family and spends an hour or 
 two with them. 
 
 His private office is between his 
 dressing-room and the Council hall, in 
 which the ministers meet. Over his 
 plain office-table hang the portraits of 
 his children, and two line pictures of the 
 Empress painted by Winterhalter. He 
 is :i good listener, is never imperative, 
 
 EMPEItOE OF AUSTRIA 
 
 hates phrases and long speeches, is 
 unaffected and simple in his address, 
 and now and then goes down among 
 the people, conversing 1'reely with 
 them. The Catholic church claims his 
 humblest devotion. Once every year lie 
 is seen on fool and bareheaded, behind 
 tin' archbishop, walking through the 
 streets: and once each year, also, the 
 Emperor and Empress attend in :i room 
 in the palace upon a delegation of the 
 poor, whose feet they wash in token of 
 humility. The Emperor, although unfor- 
 tunate as a soldier, is fond of the army. 
 
 and never appears to such advantage as 
 in uniform. He is an intrepid hunter; 
 fond of the dangerous spoils in the 
 Austrian Alps, where chasing the cha- 
 mois is by no means a pastime for in- 
 experienced sportsmen. In the Hunga- 
 rian mountains, as at Schcenbrunn or at 
 Isehl, he may often be seen clad in a 
 simple frock, and, with a huge stick in 
 his hand, walking through the Melds of 
 some farm and chatting with the farmers. 
 When he visits Budapest the old Hun- 
 garian city brines out its many splendors 
 to lay them at his feet ; and he has the 
 singular advantage of being a popular 
 monarch in two countries, radically dif- 
 ferent from each other. 
 
 In public, at the opera, at state balls 
 or diplomatic receptions, he has the 
 languid era.,.,, and elaborate manners 
 of the aristocracy of which ho is the 
 head. Austria is one of the few Eu- 
 ropean countries which can still show a 
 veritable aristocracy, whose privileges 
 have not been cut down, and who have 
 not learned to yield a little in pres- 
 ence of the invading democracy. The 
 manners of the middle and lower classes 
 show that there is little tendency as yet 
 to assail the aristocrat in his position. 
 
 Vienna has a season like London, 
 when everything is doubled or tripled in 
 price ; when every desirable apartment 
 in the great hotels and mansions, the 
 numerous palaces and villas, is taken up 
 by country gentlemen, with interminable 
 suites of servants. Then the handsome 
 capital is wild with excitement; the 
 streets are thronged with rapidly rolling 
 carriages ; the operas and theatres are 
 packed : the parks are brilliant with 
 equestrians ; museums and the fashion- 
 able restaurants are tilled, and servants 
 are content only with gratuities which 
 would seem extravagant and princely 
 elsewhere. 
 
EUROPE IN STO/.'.V AND CALM. 
 
 815 
 
 The Vienna grand opera is incom- 
 parably the best in Europe. In point 
 of scenic completeness it is superior to 
 that of Paris, while the monument in 
 which the opera is shrined is not so 
 imposing as the Parisian one. All 
 through the pleasant weather the Vien- 
 nese adopt every slightest pretext for 
 assembling in the beautiful halls with 
 which the city is amply supplied, to 
 listen to the bewitching music of the 
 .Strauss brethren, who are the spoiled 
 children of Austria, and who sum up 
 in their mad waltzes the Viennese 
 spirit, its deep passion of the South and 
 mysterious languor of the Orient, its 
 dash of gypsy vagabondage, — -all blended 
 together in proportions which, according 
 to the verdict of the whole civilized 
 world, are positively enchanting. 
 
 The Viennese are the most hospita- 
 ble of peoples, and a more splendid 
 succession of f&tes than that given dur- 
 ing the sessions of the International 
 Literary Congress, in 1881, has rarely 
 been seen. These festivals were held 
 both in public halls and in private man- 
 sions. The Mayor and municipality 
 entertained in the famous Blumen Saal, 
 and hundreds of ladies and gentlemen 
 there attended a kind of informal feast, 
 in which the lusty wines from the vine- 
 yards about Vienna played a prominent 
 part. 
 
 In midsummer there are lew more 
 charming sights than Vienna, on its 
 plain opposite the Blue Danube, with 
 the abrupt height of (he Kahlenberg 
 nearby. All around are vineyards and 
 gardens ; pretty valleys leading up to 
 rugged mountains ; rich expanses of 
 waving green ; ancient villages, mon- 
 asteries, and churches. It is but a short 
 distance to Presburg, once the pretty 
 capital of Hungary, now a sleepy old 
 city, literally embowered in vines. 
 
 From Vienna and Budapest one or 
 two daily express trains run with deco- 
 rous gravity. There is not much social 
 intercourse between the two capitals. 
 Pest is a superb new quarter, as new as 
 Chicago, and built up. like Chicago, out 
 of profits made on grain. The Danube 
 here is large and majestic, and the con- 
 trast of rocky old Ofen on the right bank 
 with new and dazzling Pest on the left 
 bank of the stream is most striking. 
 From Vienna to Pest the beautiful Aus- 
 trian river is literally the blue Danube, — 
 the Danube of the Strauss waltzes and 
 the popular ballads, — a lovelier stream 
 than the Rhine, and flowing past almost 
 as many noble ruins as its northern 
 sister can boast. With this great high- 
 way to the Orient what wonder is it 
 that Austria has irresistible tendencies 
 towards Constantinople and the Past! 
 
 The Hungarians, who now number 
 nearly fifteen millions, are such stem 
 enemies of the Russians that they are 
 glad to see Austria assuming prominence 
 
 as a great Slavic empire, although they 
 lea i- that they may themselves one day 
 be surrounded and swamped when the 
 great unification of the Slavs takes 
 place. 
 
 Pel ween these capitals of the southern 
 empire-kingdom and that of the German 
 empire, the city of the Hohenzollerns, 
 in its sandy plain on either side of the 
 Spree, there is the widest contrast of all 
 sorts, and especially in the men who hold 
 the helm of state in either. Nowa- 
 days in Europe when any one thinks 
 of Berlin he also thinks of Bismarck. 
 The great Chancellor has dwarfed every- 
 thing else in Germany ; his colossal statue 
 overtops the Emperor; the talented and 
 cultivated Crown Prince, all the shining 
 lights of the military party, and of course 
 all the literary and artistic celebrities. 
 In fact, so far as the rest of Europe is 
 
816 
 
 EUnOTF IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 concerned, < !ermany is a kind of luminous 
 mist, out of which arises the towering 
 figure of the great unifier and wire- 
 puller. 
 
 Prince Bismarck never fails ii> place 
 himself in the second rank when he is 
 spoken of in connection with German 
 |M>!ilirs, but lit' by ii" means believes 
 
 EMPEROR WILLIAM OF GERMANY. 
 
 that he occupies such rank, tie is 
 proud of being called the " King's man : " 
 but it would be more just lo call him 
 tin' man who supports the King, or the 
 Emperor. 
 
 The aged German sovereign is a fine 
 figure-head, the beau iili-nl of ;i veteran 
 soldier and of a finished gentleman, — 
 one of the hist of the inonarclis who 
 fed that they rule by incontrovertible 
 right, and (hat if any concession lie 
 made to popular sovereignty it is out of 
 generosity, rendered easy by the security 
 of their own positions. The Emperor 
 has his importance in these Inter years. 
 
 because it is felt that he is a kind of 
 "stop-gap;" that he stands in the 
 breach to prevent hostile collision be- 
 tween the great northern powers which 
 have assumed such prominence in the 
 last three decades ; in other words, that . 
 so lone- as lie lives, Russia will not fight 
 ( lermany. 
 
 When the Emperor William disap- 
 pears possibly the attitude of Russia to 
 Germany may change. The thrones of 
 the two countries will he occupied by 
 men of undisputed will-power, wide- 
 reaching ambition, and considerable hos- 
 tility to each other's aims. For the last 
 ten years it has been sufficient, whenever 
 there was a disturbance of Russian opin- 
 ion against Germany, for the two Em- 
 perors to give fresh proofs of their mutual 
 good-will i 'der to allay all excite- 
 ment. 
 
 Alexander has gone now. beckoned 
 away by the bony hand of that spectre, 
 which, as M. Thiers so truly said, " has 
 left France and gone promenading in the 
 North." But Alexander's son, anti- 
 German as he is in feeling, will not he 
 likely to move his hand against Germany 
 while the venerable Emperor William 
 lives. 
 
 Berlin and Bismarck, Bismarck and 
 Berlin; — these words have been heard 
 almost constantly in Europe since 1878. 
 With the Berlin Congress came the 
 definite recognition of the fact that 
 Europe must go to Berlin for leave and 
 license to carry out its plans, and from 
 the Congress which revised the Treaty 
 of San Stefano to the conference which 
 carved out the Congo State, in this 
 present year, German predominance and 
 prestige have grown and strengthened 
 until they are becoming to certain high- 
 spirited nations somewhat irksome and 
 exasperating. The efforts of Great 
 Britain to ignore the leading rdle of 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 Si 7 
 
 Germany are well known. Thus far 
 they have been without practical result ; 
 not even so distinguished a Liberal as 
 Mi 1 . Gladstone finding it easy lo tilt 
 against the Bismarckian windmill with- 
 out breaking a few lances and getting 
 severely bruised. 
 
 The German position in Europe is in 
 many respects most singular; a nation 
 which has carved out its unity at the 
 point of the sword finds itself at the 
 height of power, possessing without 
 question the finest military organization 
 in the world, equally equipped for offense 
 aud defense, yet earnestly striving to 
 maintain peace, and by all reasonable 
 means to keep its own armies out of 
 action. While surrounding nations, and 
 in fact most of the nations of the world, 
 have been looking upon Germany for 
 the last eighteen years in constant ex- 
 pectation of her downfall, because of Ihe 
 drain upon her resources caused by the 
 maintenance of her army, Germany has 
 managed to develop her industry and 
 commerce in a remarkable degree, and 
 to-day competes with France and Eng- 
 land in those great foreign markets 
 which the Briton and the Gaul once 
 proudly claimed as exclusively their 
 own. A careful observer is forced to 
 the conclusion that Germany maintains 
 its army for the purpose of overawing 
 Europe, and getting its own way in 
 everything by a display of the force 
 which can compel assent it' persuasion 
 fails. 
 
 The French find to their cost that the 
 industrial triumph of Germany is greater 
 than her military triumph. The Ger- 
 mans, who so long passed for being slow 
 and unambitious, have proved the 
 quickest and keenest traders in Europe. 
 With workmen carefully and symmetri- 
 cally educated ; with a country tilled 
 with the best of schools, general and 
 
 technical ; with the sinews of men 
 trained by the best and most intelligent 
 physical exercises in and out of the 
 army, — Germany has a body of workmen 
 surpassed in no country, and equalled in 
 few. These workmen can and do live 
 on small wages ; they are scattered about 
 in diminutive communities, where housing 
 and food are cheap and easily obtainable, 
 and they pull together in the industrial 
 war against the rest of the world, as 
 they did in the military struggle for 
 supremacy for which they had been 
 preparing through fifty years of silent 
 study. 
 
 The indisputable triumphs of northern 
 and middle Germany in industry and in 
 the political world could not have been 
 achieved without the masterly leadership 
 of Prince Bismarck ; and the nation, 
 appreciating this, associates his name 
 with every national move. His powers 
 are of course limited ; but he is unwilling 
 to confess this, and he tries to invent 
 remedies for everything, even for the 
 crying curse of Socialism, which is eat- 
 ing out the heart of many great German 
 communities, and preparing for a revolu- 
 tion, which may be put off, but cannot, 
 he permanently averted. lie bends the 
 currents of trade towards Germany, or 
 distributes them through it. His hand 
 is seen in the boring of the St. Gothard 
 Tunnel, aud the opening of new com- 
 mercial currents towards Genoa and the 
 Southern Seas, just as it is seen in the 
 creation of syndicates in Hamburg for 
 monopolizing the African trade in the 
 very teeth of England and France, both 
 of which countries feel that they must 
 have Africa at all hazards. 
 
 The sudden arrival of Germany upon 
 the field of colonial enterprise, two or 
 three years ago. created an almost ludi- 
 crous consternation in European circles. 
 France, which had been told by the 
 
Ms 
 
 /■/ ROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 dving' Lithe thai it must colonize it' it 
 wished for military prestige anywhere, 
 as she could no longer hope for it in 
 Fkirope, has expanded her dominion in 
 
 North Africa, and even knocked at the 
 doors of the celestial empire. England, 
 in her jealousy of France, has narrowly 
 escaped coining to blows with her neigh- 
 
 EMPEROR OF RUSSIA. 
 
 bor and friend, and the English press 
 has been full of allusions to the old days 
 when France and England were con- 
 stantly jostling each other in the field 
 of colonial conquest. Italy and Spain, 
 fretting within their narrow bounds, and 
 anxious for glory beyond seas, have 
 cast covetous eyes upon the African 
 lands near them. Russia has pushed 
 her standards dangerously near the gates 
 of India, hurrying on across the deserts 
 in Central Asia to (he gardens just 
 beyond them. Austria has used up her 
 surplus activity in Arctic expeditions, for 
 lack of something better. Meantime 
 Germany, which has been quietly and 
 
 silently building a vast fleet, having got 
 it into shape for service, steps forth 
 upon the colonial field, ami announces 
 her decision to take a portion of Africa. 
 It would be difficult to imagine a more 
 high-handed proceeding than that of the 
 German government in its acquisition of 
 African territory; yet other European 
 countries can do nothing to prevent it, 
 and are compelled to sit around the 
 diplomatic table in Berlin to make sure 
 that they can keep their own colonies. 
 
 The northern [lowers, Russia and Ger- 
 many, present the spectacle of great 
 nations, not spontaneously acting in 
 obedience to some inherited 'policy of 
 expansion or unification, but driven or 
 moulded into certain courses by the will 
 of strong men. I suppose these nations 
 may say that their collective will has 
 been summed up in certain individuals. 
 In both countries there is protest, con- 
 stant and strong, against the one-man 
 power and the injustice and hardship 
 which it necessarily inflicts on numerous 
 classes. Socialism in Germany is but a 
 mask for the advanced, untaught, and 
 dangerous republicanism which Europe 
 must lwive, before it can have an en- 
 lightened and self -controlling democracy. 
 Nihilism in Russia, with its men grovel- 
 ling in the earth to lay mines of pow- 
 der, or slinking through corridors with 
 daggers in their hands, or holding meet- 
 ings in remote and gloomy forests, is 
 another and a. ruder phase of the repub- 
 lican movement. The most terrible form 
 of nihilism, manifested in the doctrine of 
 the destructionists, who wish to do away 
 with society without substituting any- 
 thing in its place, who seem to have de- 
 voted their existence to the work of mere 
 tearing down, is the result of the terrible 
 repression in Russia. Emperor William 
 of Germany escaped the assassin's hand, 
 although he was struck at with the same 
 
EUROl'H IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 819 
 
 unrelenting persistence and malevolence 
 that finally laid the Emperor Alexander 
 of Russia in his grave. Bismarck, all 
 powerful as he seems, realizes that he 
 treads on a volcano, and cannot affirm 
 that an eruption may not overwhelm 
 him just as he seems about to " crown 
 the edifice " at the end of his illustrious 
 career. 
 
 Should Bismarck live to b" a very old 
 man many strange things, now only 
 whispered about in Europe, might 
 become actualities. Those persons who 
 talk with hated breath of the absorption 
 of Holland and Switzerland into the 
 German Empire as an impossibility 
 might find that it was quite within the 
 scope of Bismarck's genius. Having 
 demonstrated his power to draw the 
 centre of control to Berlin, and to main- 
 tain it there, why might he not boldly 
 change the map of Europe a little more ? 
 Heaven knows it has been changed fre- 
 quently enough in the last half genera- 
 tion ! Besides, he is a master of the 
 policy of " give and take." As in the 
 Congo Conference he brought the Erench, 
 his most implacable enemies, to cooperate 
 with him simply because they knew they 
 would profit materially by so doing; so 
 if he chose to attack the autonomy of 
 the brave little countries which have a 
 Germanic tinge, he might find plenty of 
 bribes with which to stop the mouths of 
 the objectors. 
 
 The industrial progress of Germany is 
 so powerful that it may break down all 
 barriers which would keep it from a 
 wide outlet upon the Northern sea, and 
 which might claim complete control of 
 the great highwajs that, burrowing 
 under the Alps, lead out to the seas 
 which wash the shores of the Italian 
 peninsula. 
 
 Europe has become so accustomed to 
 regard Prince Bismarck as magnificently 
 
 permanent that it would be shocked to 
 its centre if he were to be carried off in 
 one of his many illnesses. In recent 
 years he has shown symptoms of great 
 and general fatigue, manifest principally 
 in a petulance quite astonishing in one 
 of his robust intellect, against any who 
 dare to cross even his least important 
 plans. In his long fight with the Ultra- 
 montanes he was no more imperious than 
 he is on the simple matter of some 
 measure of home taxation. He is a 
 driver who keeps his horses well in hand, 
 reaily to flourish the whip whenever there 
 is any manifestation of independence on 
 the part of the steeds. A Frenchman 
 has called him " the Mikado of Ger- 
 many." This rather indefinite definition 
 admirably hits the general French opinion 
 of the great man. It is certain that 
 Bismarck has maintained his dignity 
 better than Thiers, better than Guizot, 
 better than Beaconsfield, in carrying 
 through the gigantic schemes in which 
 he has been engaged. He has, however, 
 had a more docile people to handle than 
 the French or the English, who rebel 
 more readily against tin 1 display of 
 authority than the Germans, with their 
 memories of the great Frederick, can for 
 a long time hope to do. 
 
 At Friederiehsruhe or at Varzin, in 
 his cabinet or in the parliament in Berlin, 
 he is the unyielding master, who brings 
 the dart of Jove into play the moment 
 that he finds persuasion not strong 
 enough. An American is reluctantly 
 forced to the conclusion that Europe is. 
 on the whole, fond of being bullied, and 
 will fall at the feet of him who can bully 
 with the roundest voice and the biggest 
 fist. In very recent days Prince Bis- 
 marck has, by his personal influence on 
 general European affairs, forced the 
 German nation more prominently into 
 view than ever before. Not satisfied 
 
820 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 with carving a German colonial empire 
 in Africa, out of the territories which he 
 took bodilyfrom under the grip of France 
 and England, he now assumes to be the 
 arbiter of Egyptian affairs, and will not 
 give England peace until she consents to 
 bring Egypt, as everything else lias been 
 brought, on to the' green cloth at Berlin. 
 It is from the North alone that per- 
 
 mission for the definite reopening of the 
 •• Eastern Question" can be obtained; 
 and the country which, twenty years 
 ago, would scarcely have been considered 
 in the arrangement of matters in the 
 East, is now the one which must be first 
 consulted by those who were wont, to 
 look upon her as a second or third class 
 power. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 821 
 
 CHAPTER NINETY-THREE. 
 
 The Storm of Europe diverted into Africa.— How Great Britain was drawn into Egyptian Affair-. — 
 The Revolt of Arabi. — Rise of El Mahdi. — ( iordon to the Rescue. — The Long Siege of Khar- 
 toum. — Fall of the Soudanese Stronghold and Reported Death of (iordon. —The Recall ol 
 Wolseley. 
 
 THE storm of Europe is not till con- 
 fined within its narrow boundaries, 
 but reaches over the world, and dis- 
 charges its lightnings, sweeps with its 
 terrible winds, and devastates with its 
 floods and fires. Even now two Euro- 
 pean powers, that are also Asiatic powers, 
 are confronting each other in Afghanis- 
 tan ; and who dare say that war in 
 Europe may not result from this dispute 
 of Russia and Great Britain? — the latter 
 barring now, as so often before, the way 
 of the Muscovite empire to the sea, 
 shutting up the path to the Persian Gulf, 
 as it has forbidden the Straits of the 
 Bosphorus and the prize of Constanti- 
 nople In Africa, as we shall see later, 
 the powers of Europe meet peacefully 
 now, — thanks to Stanley and King Leo- 
 pold, and. above all, to Bismarck. — upon 
 the Congo ; but occasion of strife there 
 is yet remote. Elsewhere in Africa also 
 tin' ] xnvers meet and conflict, at the 
 mouth of the Nile and at ancient Cairo, 
 where the all-potent interests of trade 
 and money have compelled the govern- 
 ments of France, England, Germany, 
 and Italy, to concern themselves in the 
 government of Egypt, and consequently 
 in the religion of Islam. The business 
 interests of all are identical, but no other 
 power has as much at stake in Egypt as 
 Great Britain, for not only is it of 
 moment to her that the government 
 should be stable, solvent, and willing to 
 pay the interest on its immense debts, 
 
 lull through Egyptian territory passes 
 the Suez Canal, the gateway to the great 
 Indian empire, built by the French De 
 Lesseps, but now chiefly owned by (Meat 
 Britain. It is neutral in case of war for 
 the world's commerce, but the fortunes 
 of war do not always respect the most 
 guarded of agreements. The necessity 
 of keeping at the head of affairs in 
 Egypt a government that could lie man- 
 aged so as to secure the moneyed inter- 
 cuts of Europe was what provoked the 
 one war which Mr. Gladstone's late gov- 
 ernment originated, for it inherited the 
 other wars it has taken part in from 
 Lord Beacousfield's "Jingo" policy. So 
 when, in September, 1881, Arabi Bey, a 
 colonel in the Egyptian tinny, and others 
 of his rank, headed an insurrection to 
 demand a new ministry; and when, dis- 
 satisfied with the new ministry when it 
 was given, and still more dissatisfied 
 when foreign intervention came, the 
 colonels drew the army into active rebel- 
 lion ; there was nothing for Great Britain 
 to do but put down the patriots, as they 
 called themselves. Thus started the 
 trouble of the English in Egypt. Arabi 
 was an Egyptian, and. the first of Egyp- 
 tian blood who had held so high a rank 
 among the Turks, made much out of his 
 professionof patriot. He was an ignorant 
 man, — he could not lead Arabic even; 
 lint he knew his country had been abused 
 long enough by its Turkish rulers, who 
 had plundered it by the Sultan's imposts 
 
822 
 
 EUROPE TN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 and for their own extravagances, and 
 had brought it into debt on every hand, 
 grinding the luckless fellaheen to the 
 earth under hopeless oppression. The 
 man was incompetent to his rdle of 
 savior, and his success would have been 
 ruinous to his country, but there was 
 never any chance of his succeeding. At 
 first there was talk of the Sultan, the 
 
 Khedive's suzerain, taking possession of 
 the land in force: but England would 
 not have allowed that: it would have 
 made matters worse instead of better. 
 There was also talk of joint occupation 
 by England and France, but finally the 
 policing of Egypt, the protecting of its 
 helpless nominal ruler, the Khedive, and 
 the putting- down of the rebellion of the 
 colonels, was committed to England 
 alone; and how she accomplished those 
 tasks we need not recall in detail. 
 
 As before said. Arabi was ignorant ; 
 the present Khedive recently related an 
 amusing instance of the depth of his 
 ignorance. " I shall never forget," he 
 said, " one incident that occurred while 
 he was secretary of war. It was at the 
 time of the excitement about the Italians 
 taking Asab on the Red Sea. It was at 
 a meeting of the council where I pre- 
 sided. Arabi said, ' Italy must not he 
 allowed to do this. We will prevent it 
 by destroying the Suez Canal so that 
 they cannot get to the Red Sea.' I said, 
 1 What do you mean? You will destroy 
 the Suez Canal ? Why. the Sue/. Canal is 
 an international highway, and you would 
 not be permitted to do it. Besides, if 
 you diil, you would not prevent the 
 Italians sending their ships around by 
 the Cape of Good Hope and entering the 
 Red Sea from the south.' — ' What,' said 
 Arabi, ' is there another way of getting 
 to the Red Sea than by way of the canal?' 
 The fact was that he had not the slightest 
 idea of the shape or raison d'etre of the 
 
 Red Sea, though it is a body so inti- 
 mately connected with Egypt that it may 
 almost be said to lie Egyptian." Not 
 only was he ignorant, but we fear he 
 must be confessed a coward ; his sole 
 virtue was his blind feeling that every- 
 thing was wrong, the fellaheen abused, 
 ami the foreign officers, who really 
 owned the country, much too arrogant; 
 but this, and the small education ho had 
 in military affairs, did not suffice for the 
 occasion. Alexandria was bombarded 
 July 1 1 , 1882 ; Sir ( iarnct Wolseley, who 
 had won a reputation in the Ashantee 
 war, arrived to take command of the 
 British troops in the Khedive's service, 
 August 15, and Arabi and his army of 
 sixty thousand Egyptians were utterly 
 routed at Tcl-el-Kebir on September 13, 
 only three days over a year since the 
 day when he, at the head of four thou- 
 sand men, had confronted the Khedive 
 with a demand for the resignation of the 
 ministry and the formation of a. new 
 one, the assembly of the Notables, and 
 a constitution. Wolseley was made a 
 baron for Tel-el-Kebir, and Arabi went 
 to prison, was afterward tried for treason. 
 and exiled to Ceylon, where lie now 
 lives, at the cost of the Egyptian govern- 
 ment, in a comfortable house at Colombo. 
 He is trying to learn English, and is 
 supposed to be ambitious of literary 
 fame in a history of his times, while 
 without question he is getting up a col- 
 lection of autographs of his visitors, who 
 
 all sign their names in his big 1 k. 
 
 While the English were finishing this 
 job, another much more troublesome one 
 was preparing for them in Upper Egypt. 
 In July, 1881, five months after the 
 military riot in which Arabi first came 
 into notoriety, and when discontent was 
 glowing every day, came tiie news of 
 the appearance of a prophet in the Sou- 
 dan, who asserted that lie was the Mahdi. 
 
EUROrF IN ST OEM AND CALM. 
 
 823 
 
 the great savior and reorganize]' of 
 Islam This was an event ominous of 
 dire disaster or not, according as he 
 should prove able to impose himself upon 
 the people, for there have been many 
 false prophets presenting that claim, who 
 have had sometimes great success for a 
 time, but sometimes also none at all. 
 The idea of the Mahdi is the same with 
 the idea of the Messiah ; it is the Persian 
 version in fact of the Judaic original. 
 When everything is getting as bad as 
 possible in Islam, and Satan, or the 
 Beast of the Apocalypse, or Antichrist, 
 or the false prophet, whom the doctrine 
 of Islam calls Deddjal (the Impostor) — 
 appears, — then the true prophet is to 
 come This personage must be of the 
 family of Mahomet ; at the head of the 
 true believers he will master, one by one, 
 the Moslem kingdoms, and his title will 
 be El Mahdi, or He who is led. At the 
 coming of Deddjal, too, Jesus is to 
 descend from heaven, but not to play 
 the foremost part, as in Christian proph- 
 ecy, but as assistant to the Mahdi, 
 who will be his Imam, after whom he 
 will repeat his prayers. Jinny Mahdis 
 have had their day, and their failure has 
 proved them false prophets ; this one. now 
 he has failed, will be fatalistically regarded 
 as another, and the Moslems will proceed 
 to look for the true Mahdi, who should 
 come after the false. He had a good 
 many of the marks ; he bore the same 
 name as the Prophet, Mohammed Ahmed ; 
 his father bore the same name as the 
 Prophet's father, Abdallah ; his mother, 
 like the Prophet's mother, was Amina ; 
 he was forty years old when he appeared, 
 and that is the sacred age, — Mahomet's 
 own age at his revelation; and, more- 
 over, he had been carefully brought up 
 as a candidate for the position. Yet 
 against these advantages it must be 
 said that the ulemas declared him an 
 
 impostor, and the cherif of Mecca, the 
 head of the sacred tribe of the Koreish, 
 pronounced him the false prophet. 
 However that may be, Mohammed 
 Ahmed has been constantly growing in 
 power to this day, when he occupies 
 nearly all the Soudan, and he has cost 
 the English much money, a great many 
 soldiers, and several generals, chief 
 
 EL MAHDI. 
 
 among them the strange hero known as 
 " Chinese ( lordon." 
 
 The first attempt to bring the Mahdi 
 to terms was disastrous to the small de- 
 tachment charged with the duty; an- 
 other fared no better, and in . I line. l<s,s-_\ 
 he, with his Soudanese, swept out of ex- 
 istence the Egyptian army of the Soudan, 
 numbering six thousand men, under Yus- 
 suf Pasha, slaying all but a few soldiers. 
 From that victory la' began offensive 
 war. overran the wide country without 
 check, and brought to his side nearly 
 every tribe of the region. He was de- 
 
824 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 feated at Barn and again in his liner 
 assaults on El Obeid, capital of Ivordo- 
 fan, where he was thrice repulsed and 
 lost, it is said, ten thousand men. But 
 afterward, early in 1883, he took Bara, 
 and then El Obeid surrendered, and 
 nearly all its garrison took service with 
 him, and he made the town his dwelling- 
 place. It was not until after this tri- 
 umphant career, and the establishment 
 of a mighty prestige with the lawless 
 tribes of the region, that the Egyptian gov- 
 ernment began to consider the necessity 
 of suppressing his formidable rebellion. 
 It must not lie forgotten that this region 
 of the Soudan, populated by intelligent. 
 vigorous and free races, had been for 
 many years subjected to the grossest 
 tyranny and exaction, under the reign of 
 the Khedive Ismail and his pi'edecessor. 
 Before this it was that Charles George 
 Gordon had had his wonderful career as 
 Governor-General of the Soudan, in 
 which In 1 had greatly lightened the bur- 
 den of tin- cruel rule of Egypt, and the 
 atrocities of the slave-trade. His was 
 the first administration in which hu- 
 manity and respect for the rights of the 
 Soudanese had been shown, and its ex- 
 perience had intensified the discontent 
 
 of the people, and they Were rile for 
 
 revolt when the Mahdi gave them the 
 opportunity and impulse. It was a scat- 
 ered popular movement that the Egyp- 
 tian government now undertook to put 
 down. The Khedive, after the fall of 
 El Obeid, organized such an army as he 
 could lo oppose the dangerous rising. 
 
 and sent it thither under the ci nand 
 
 of an Englishman, Hicks Pasha. Abd- 
 el Kader, an Arab, with a small force, 
 had already entered Nennaar and gained 
 some success, when Hicks arrived at 
 Khartoum, in March. At first, it seemed 
 that Hicks would save the fortunes of 
 the Khedive's rule. He defeated a large 
 
 force in Sennaar, April 29, and the 
 Mahdi's vizier was among the slain, 
 while the Mahdi himself was shortly 
 after beaten, and tied to Kordofan. 
 Thereafter for months Hicks had a 
 career of uninterrupted success, and 
 things looked hopeful when, in early 
 autumn, he set out at the head of ten 
 thousand men to quell the Mahdi by one 
 blow. He was betrayed into an am- 
 bush, and his force utterly destroyed; 
 no European at all survived, and the 
 Egyptian campaign against the Mahdi 
 was at an end — the resources of the 
 
 Khedive were exhausted. 
 
 The English had waited too long, 
 flail they supported the Khedive from 
 the start, as they had morally bound 
 themselves to do by their suppression of 
 Arabi's rebellion, the Mahdi's career 
 might have been cut short. But the 
 government had declined to help Egypt 
 in subjugating the Soudan. Lord Gran- 
 ville had stated in Parliament in the 
 spring of 1883 that " Her Majesty's 
 government were in noway responsible 
 for the operations which hail been under- 
 taken on the authority of the Egyptian 
 government, or for the appointment and 
 action of General Hicks." But when 
 Hicks and his army had been massacred, 
 a certain sense of responsibility began 
 to creep over the managers of British 
 foreign affairs. Something must lie 
 done. At once the attempt was made 
 to get Egypt to abandon the Soudan, 
 for conquer it she could not. nor would 
 England help her. But that was con- 
 ceded — for. really, what choice had Tew- 
 iik, a powerless "protected" prince, 
 the mere administrator of British will? 
 Then arose the question of the garri- 
 sons, thirty thousand soldiers, mostly 
 Egyptians, in Khartoum, and Berber, 
 Doiigola. Kassala, and other places, 
 who would assuredly be butchered bv 
 
EUROPE IS STORM AND CALM. 
 
 825 
 
 the fanatic followers of the Mahdi if 
 they were left there. It was at this 
 juncture that the British thought of 
 Charles George Gordon. This wonder- 
 ful soldier of fortune, whom some call 
 the greatest Englishman of his age, <li<l 
 not desire the work, for he knew what it 
 was, none so well ; and, moreover, he 
 had already half-engaged with the King 
 of the Belgians to go to the upper Congo 
 and supplement Stanley's work, by ex- 
 tirpating the slave-trade of Central Af- 
 rica. For that he had quitted his re- 
 treat in the Holy Land, where he had 
 been meditating and producing that 
 1 iook of mystical religious thought since 
 published; yet- "hen he asked the per- 
 mission of the British government to 
 take that service, and yet retain his 
 commission as major-general, there was 
 some difficulty made about it. But as- 
 sent was gained when, on the eve of de- 
 parture for that service, Gordon was 
 sought for the Soudan. The govern- 
 ment was not the first to ask for Gor- 
 don ; that was left for the newspapers, 
 and they were not backward in doing 
 their duty. Said the "Pall Mall Ga- 
 zette:" "If we have not an Egyptian 
 army to employ, and if we must not send 
 an English force, what are we to do? 
 There is only one thing that we can do. 
 We cannot send a regiment to Khar- 
 toum, but we can send a man who. on 
 more than one occasion, has proved him- 
 self more valuable in similar circum- 
 stances than an entire army. Why not 
 send Chinese Gordon to Khartoum, to 
 assume absolute control over the terri- 
 tory, to treat with tile Mahdi, to relieve 
 the garrisons, and do what can lie done, 
 to save what can he saved, from the 
 wick in the Soudan? His engagement 
 on the Congo could surely he postponed. 
 No man can deny the urgent need in the 
 midst of that hideous welter of confusion 
 
 for the presence of such a man, with a 
 born genius for command, an unex- 
 ampled capacity in organizing • Ever Vic- 
 torious ' armies, and a perfect knowledge 
 of the Soudan and its people. Why not 
 send him out with carte blanche? " 
 
 The British government knew all this 
 well; they knew Gordon's genius and 
 gifts and the great things he had done in 
 
 c;KN C. <;. GORDON. 
 
 China, and what former service as Gov- 
 ernor-General of the Soudan, the most 
 popular one that ever ruled, and the only 
 one that had ever done any good there 
 except Sir Samuel Baker. But Cordon 
 was a man of greater resources and more 
 striking character than the excellent 
 Baker. He had shown one of his eccen- 
 tricities by refusing a salary of £10,000 
 a year, when the Khedive appointed him 
 governor of the tribes in upper Egypt in 
 1S77, and would take but £2,000, saying 
 that the money was wrung from tin- pov- 
 erty of a wretched people whom he pitied. 
 He was made a pasha, and. in February, 
 
826 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 1877, he was made Governor-General of tian government. The Britisli govern- 
 the Soudan. In the course of that year ment had the choice of simply aiding 
 lie travelled through the whole of this this policy, which it had advised the Khe- 
 great proconsulate, settling difficulties, dive to adopt, or of supporting the Khe- 
 paeifying hostile tribes, removing officers dive by British troops, numerous enough 
 who oppressed the people, gaining the to pursue an active and destructive cam- 
 love of the people by his brilliant insight paign against the formidable false pro- 
 ami unswerving justice, and winning an phet. Gordon made a memorandum of 
 almost superstitions admiration by tin 1 his own plans, which, as read now, indi- 
 rapidity of his movements and the cate the impossibility of working in Lon- 
 celerity of his despatch of affairs. The don andat Khartoum on two very different 
 great work of his administration was not lines. The evacuation of the Soudan, 
 the putting down of rebellion in Darfur, the mere rescue of the Egyptian garri- 
 or the ending of the war with Abyssinia, sons, could have been accomplished had 
 hut the crippling of tin- power of the there been no other considerations, lint 
 slave-dealers at the very source of their Gordon also planned to make a disposi- 
 snpplies. He captured hundreds of slave tion for the future of the country. Not- 
 caravans, and put an end to a dominion withstanding that he had said at the start 
 which had for years been stronger in " I understand that Her Majesty's gov- 
 actual influences than the power of the eminent have come to the irrevocable 
 Khedive. In doing this Gordon hast- decision not to incur the very onerous 
 ened the way of his own death (if. in- duty of securing to the peoples of the 
 deed, he be dead), for when his able Soudan a just future government," in 
 lieutenant, the Italian Romulus Gessi, the same paragraph he went on to 
 executed the penalty of death upon Sulei- say that, "as a consequence, Her 
 man, the robber chief, son of Zebehr, the Majesty's government have determined 
 king of the slave-traders, the act, al- to restore to these peoples their inde- 
 though Zebehr acknowledged its rightful- pendence ; " ami. further on, he says: 
 liess, was not forgotten or forgiven by " My idea is that the restoration of the 
 that important personage, who was able country should be made to the different 
 to direct from his detainment, under sur- petty sultans who existed at the time of 
 veillance at Cairo, the operations of trai- Mehemet Ali's conquest, and whose 
 tors who opened the gates of Khartoum families still exist ; that the Mahdi should 
 to the Mahdi. But this is to anticipate, be left altogether out of the calculation 
 Having these things in mind the Brit- as regards the handing oyer the country; 
 ish government did appoint Gordon, and, and that it should be optional with the 
 ever ready to obey the summons to a sultans to accept, his supremacy or not. 
 Held of immediate and pressing action. As these sultans would probably not be 
 he responded promptly, informing King likely to gain by accepting the Mahdi as 
 Leopold that he should hope to be able their sovereign, it is probable that they 
 to carry out his engagement with him con- will hold to their independent positions. 
 cerning the Congo after he had accom- Thus, we should have two factions to 
 plished his work on the Soudan. He deal with, namely, the petty sultans as- 
 went with the clear understanding that serting their several independence, and 
 the end to be accomplished was the the Mahdi party aiming at supremacy 
 evacuation of the Soudan by the Egyp- over them." The arsenals, therefore. 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 827 
 
 should be handed over to the sultans, and 
 not the Mahdi ; but in Khartoum, Don- 
 gola, and Kassala, towns which have 
 sprung up since the first Khedive's eon- 
 quest, there were no old ruling families, 
 and there Gordon thought it should be 
 left to the people to deeide as to the arse- 
 nals, etc. All this involved precisely 
 what Gordon had plainly said he knew 
 the British government would not do, and 
 what, in fact, it did not do. Neverthe- 
 less, it was with these ideas that he left 
 for the Soudan. " It would he an iniq- 
 uity to reconquer these people and then 
 hand them hack to the Egyptians without 
 guarantee of future good government." 
 And, therefore, he did not desire that the 
 British should take the part of the Egyp- 
 tian government, but he did outline a pro- 
 gramme of sustaining the local sultans as 
 against the Kordofan prophet which in- 
 volved a great deal larger force and more 
 fighting than the government at London 
 ever contemplated. Thus, although the 
 government never promised to fulfil 
 Gordon's plans, itdid express the utmost 
 confidence in his wisdom, and tell him to 
 go ahead, with " full discretionary power 
 to retain the troops for such reasonable 
 period as you may think necessary in 
 order that the abandonment of the coun- 
 try may be accomplished with the least 
 possible risk to life and property." And 
 Gordon sailed with this unrecognized but 
 most serious difference between himself 
 and the government. 
 
 The late Governor-General of the Sou- 
 dan reached Khartoum February 18, 1S.S4. 
 His first acts were to liberate prisoners 
 and prepare for the removal of the gar- 
 rison to Berber. In nine days more he 
 had surveyed the field and come to the 
 conclusion that it was necessary, in order 
 to accomplish his plans, to crush the 
 Mahdi. ami he began telegraphing to 
 Sir Evelyn Baring that it could then be 
 
 done without great cost in men or money. 
 
 lie required also for his lieutenant wl 
 
 but his old enemy Zebehr, the slave- 
 trader! Shortly after he astonished the 
 world by proclaiming in Khartoum non- 
 interference with the slave-trade. The 
 inconsistency of this action with Gor- 
 don's professions and previous record 
 seemed impossible to explain ; but the 
 British government expressed their con- 
 fidence in his judgment in the emergency. 
 Seven-eighths of the population of the 
 Soudan were slaves at that time, and 
 Gordon had to reassure the Soudanese 
 against the impression disseminated by 
 the Mahdi that Gordon's purpose was 
 to extinguish their property in slaves. 
 Whether he intended or not, at the start, 
 to subjugate the Mahdi, he found when 
 he got on the spot that if he did not. 
 nothing could save Egypt from his ad- 
 vance after the Soudan was conquered, 
 as it soon would be, and he thought the 
 British government might better do the 
 job then, when it would lie comparatively 
 easy, than suffer the influence of the 
 Mahdi to spread until he possessed an 
 irresistible force. But the British gov- 
 ernment sent no more troops and paid 
 no heed to Gordon's demand for Zebehr. 
 Gordon grew desperate, if we may judge 
 by his lies] latches at the time, and espec- 
 ially by his diaries since published. 
 Things had been going constantly against 
 him. Colonel Valentine Baker, in the ser- 
 viceof the Sultanas Baker Pasha, had suf- 
 fered a severe defeat at Tokar, February 
 4 : Tewtik Bey had, a week later, tried to 
 cut his way with his garrison out of 
 Sinkat, but all the six hundred men were 
 slain by the forces of Osman Digna, who 
 was now recognized as the Mahdi's viz- 
 ier. Tokar had surrenderee!. A mas- 
 sacre of Egyptians, endeavoring to escape 
 from the country, had occuredat Shendy. 
 There had been a temporary gleam of 
 
828 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AXD I'.l/.M. 
 
 success in General Graham's defeat of 
 a force near Trinkitat : but that was 
 more than offset by the massacre of a 
 
 part of the Egyptian army under com- 
 mand of Colonel Stewart, for it revealed 
 the existence of treachery ; two pashas 
 having been detected in their negotia- 
 tions and shot. Meantime, (.bin Ion's 
 communications with the world were 
 often cut off, and repeatedly he tele- 
 graphed for reinforcements, declaring 
 his conviction that he should be caught 
 in Khartoum. April 8 he got through 
 the following message to Sir Evelyn 
 Baring : — 
 
 " I have telegraphed to Sir Samuel 
 Baker to make an appeal to British and 
 American millionaires to give me £300,- 
 
 000 to engage Turkish troops from the 
 Sultan and send them here. This will 
 settle the Soudan and Mahdi forever; 
 for my part I think you will agree with 
 me. 1 do not sec the fun of being 
 caught here to walk about the streets tor 
 years as a dervish with sandalled feet ; 
 noi that ( I). V.) I will ever he taken 
 alive. It would be tiie climax of mean- 
 ness, after I had borrowed money from 
 
 the people here, had called on them to 
 sell their grain at a low price, etc. to go 
 and abandon them without usinc every 
 effort to relieve them. Whether these 
 efforts are diplomatically corrector not, 
 
 1 feel sure, whatever you may feel 
 diplomatically. I have your support — 
 and every man professing himself a 
 gentleman — in private. Nothing could 
 be more meagre than your telegram, 
 ' Osman Digna's followers have been 
 dispersed.' Surely something more than 
 this was required by me." 
 
 Eight days later In wrote as follows : 
 " As far as I can understand the situa- 
 tion is this: You slate your intention of 
 
 not sending any relief up here or to 
 Berber, and you refuse me Zebehr. I 
 
 consider myself free to act according to 
 circumstances. I shall hold on here as 
 lone- as 1 can. and if I can suppress the 
 rebellion I shall do so. If I cannot, I 
 shall retire to the Equator, and leave J 0U 
 the indelible disgrace of abandoning the 
 garrisons of Sennaar, Kassala, Berber, 
 and Dongola, with the certainty that, you 
 will eventually be forced to smash up 
 the Mahdi under greater difficulties, if 
 you retain peace in Egypt.'' 
 
 For months thereafter nothing was 
 heard of Gordon any more than if he 
 had been in the moon. A diary of the 
 siege of Khartoum, written by a news- 
 paper correspondent named Power, 
 reached London September .'■>, contain- 
 ing the first information from the belea- 
 guered place for live months. What 
 fighting Gordon did in the interim was 
 from his steamers on the Nile. The long 
 siege was sustained, not by the bravery 
 of the garrison, foi . as Mr. Power wrote, 
 the Egyptian soldiers were such pol- 
 troons that •• one Arab can put two bun- 
 dled of our men to flight," nor by the 
 abundance of provisions, lor they grew 
 very scarce, but by the invincible spirit 
 of Gordon. This, however, did not 
 make him more popular with the people 
 of Khartoum, who. doubtless, did not 
 understand the conduct of such a man. 
 It was a. month later before word was 
 had directly from Gordon, giving details 
 
 of the siege. At that time he had sent 
 
 important sorties, and even expeditions, 
 from Khartoum, in one of which Berber, 
 captured in May by the Mahdi, bad been 
 retaken by Colonel Stewart. But, on 
 the way back. Stewart and Power and 
 another European, making their way 
 down the river in a small steamer, were 
 wrecked, and the whole party murdered 
 by a local sheikh, in whose professions 
 of friendship they had trusted. It 
 became more ami more evident that the 
 
II I, UPE IX STORM AMD CALM. 
 
 829 
 
 Soudanese were impatient at the occupa- 
 tion of their country, and more inclined 
 to accept the lead of theMahdi. It was 
 recognized in England that this was the 
 character of the movement that con- 
 tinued to be called a " rebellion." Mr. 
 Gladstone, in Parliament, replying to 
 "Jingo" attacks, spoke of the Mahdi as 
 one leading a people to freedom ; and 
 it was true. All the while, therefore, 
 the Mahdi's strength continued to in- 
 crease, and he was constantly gaining 
 small victories, and closing in on Khar- 
 toum. The diaries of Gordon have 
 enabled us to follow the whole course of 
 this time, when he felt that he was 
 abandoned by the British government, 
 and when there was a loud cry went up 
 in England almost to cursing the gov- 
 ernment ; but yet the authorities de- 
 clared Gordon in no danger. Lord 
 Granville asserted that in the House of 
 Lords, and said that if lie felt himself 
 abandoned, it was because the govern- 
 ment despatches had not reached him. 
 In May a meeting of the Patriotic Asso- 
 ciation was held in St. James Hall, 
 London. The Earl of C'adogan presided. 
 Mr. Chaplin, M.P. , moved, and the Earl 
 of Dunraven seconded a resolution 
 "•that this meeting condemns the aban- 
 donment of General Gordon by Her 
 Majesty's ministers as dishonorable to 
 them and discreditable to the country." 
 It was then declared that he had asked 
 for money, and it had not been sent; 
 had asked for Zebehr, and had been 
 refused ; had prayed for troops, and 
 been told there were none. It was often 
 said that Gordon could get out if he 
 would, and there is no doubt that he 
 might have done so alone, but that he 
 called, in his uumincing manner, " sneak- 
 ing out," and he could not sneak. 
 
 At the beginning of August, it is 
 known from the diaries, Gordon's troops 
 
 had fired about half a million cartridges ; 
 two of his little steamers had received 
 on their hulls nine hundred and eight 
 hundred hits, respectively; yet only 
 thirty men had been killed or wounded. 
 But the strain Upon the besieged was 
 terrible. Great economy of food was 
 necessary: every one was rationed, and 
 food had become thirty times dearer 
 than its usual price. He had borrowed 
 money to feed the starving, and he had 
 issued paper to the extent of over 
 £2(1, 00(1. while lie owed the merchants 
 twice as much more. He struck medals 
 for the defence of Khartoum; for of- 
 ficers, in silver, for privates, in silver- 
 gilt and pewter. These bore the device 
 
 of the crescent anil the star, with a 
 quotation from tin 1 Koran, a date and 
 
 the inscription "Siege of Khartoum." 
 
 •• School children and women." he writes 
 in his diary, " also received medals, 
 so that I am very popular with the 
 black ladies of Khartoum." The stores 
 of ammunition grew low, and had to be 
 husbanded very carefully. Gordon was 
 everything ; without him there was no 
 strength whatever. The military, the 
 ulemas, sojourners, and citizens of 
 Khartoum, on August 19, telegraphed 
 to the Khedive as follows : " Weakened 
 and reduced to extremities, God in his 
 mercy sent Gordon Pasha to us in the 
 amidst of our calamities, or we should 
 all have perished of hunger and been 
 destroyed. Put sustained by his intelli- 
 gence and great military skill, we have 
 been preserved until now." That shows 
 what Gordon was to his Mohammedan 
 friends ; yet at this time he was writ- 
 ing, " We appeared even as liars to the 
 people of Khartoum," because nothing 
 that he asked for was granted him. 
 Finally, August 2G, he sent to the 
 Khedive, to Sir Evelyn Baring, and to 
 Nubar Pasha, this significant despatch : 
 
,s.;ii 
 
 EUROrE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 " I am awaiting the arrival of Brit- 
 ish troops, in order to evacuate 
 the Egyptian garrisons. Send me 
 Zebehr Pasha, and pay 
 him a yearly salary of 
 £8,000. I shall surren- 
 der the Soudan to the 
 Sultan as soon as two 
 hundred thousand Turk- 
 ish troops have arrived. 
 If the rebels kill the 
 Egyptians, you will be 
 answerable for their 
 blood. I require £300,001 
 for soldiers' pay, mydaily 
 expenses being t'l ,500." 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 Meanwhile it bad been at last deter- 
 mined in England to attempt the relief 
 of Gordon. On the 5th of August, a 
 credit of £300,000 was voted lo prepare 
 for such an expedition, and Lord Wi 
 lev, of Egypt, was directly after an- 
 nounced to command it. It was resolved 
 to build a railway up the Nile valley. 
 
EUROPE IN STURM AND CALM. 
 
 831 
 
 Four hundred boats of light draught were 
 ordered, and ship-yards at Liverpool, 
 London, Hull, Hartlepool, and Dundee 
 were busy with the noise of labor day 
 and night; presently four hundred more 
 were ordered. On the 30th of August 
 the Nile was reported rising, and it was 
 time things were on the move. Lord 
 Northbrook was to accompany Wolseley 
 so far as Cairo. There were prepara- 
 tions swiftly made in London for the 
 departure of the troops, and there was 
 great excitement as sonic favorite regi- 
 ment embarked upon the Thames. Some 
 troops were ordered from India, and the 
 whole force to go south of Assouan, that 
 is, above the cataracts, was determined 
 to comprise eight thousand British 
 troops, two thousand five hundred Egyp- 
 tians, and a flotilla of nine hundred and 
 fifty boats ; the cost of the campaign was 
 reckoned at £8,000,000. There were 
 already ten thousand British troops in 
 Egypt, and the reinforcements were to 
 number five thousand. There grew a 
 great popular interest in the war move- 
 ment, for Jingoism is a permanent quality 
 in England ; the colonies felt the demand, 
 and troops went from Australia and 
 from Canada. The Marquis of Lans- 
 downe, Governor-General of the Domin- 
 ion, enlisted a contingent of six hundred 
 boatmen of the St. Lawrence and Ot- 
 tawa, who had long navigated the rapids 
 of those mighty rivers of the North, 
 to conduct the troop-boats up the 
 rapids of the Nile, under command of 
 Major Dennison of the Governor-Gen- 
 eral's body-guard. The popular songs 
 in London streets were of Egypt and 
 Gordon ; and this interesting composi- 
 tion bade the Caughnawagas God-speed 
 on their service : — 
 
 " Oh, the East is lmt the West, with the sun a 
 little hotter, 
 
 And the pine becomes a palm by the dark 
 Egyptian water ; 
 
 Anil the Nile's like many a stream we know 
 that tills the brimming cup, 
 
 We'll think it is the Ottawa, as we track the 
 batteaux up. 
 
 Pull, pull, pull ! as we track the batteaux up! 
 
 It's easy shouting homeward when we're at tie- 
 top." 
 
 This is quite in the measure and spirit 
 of the Canadian chantis, as they call 
 
 LORD WOLSELEY. 
 
 them, and very likely was sung on the 
 Nile among the boatmen's own simple 
 lays, — a picturesque incident of a waste- 
 fid and ineffectual war. 
 
 Lords Northbrook and Wolseley 
 reached Alexandria September 9, the 
 same night reached Cairo, ami there 
 Wolseley waited until the troops and 
 transports had passed the second cata- 
 ract, the former by land, the latter 
 pushed by the poles of hundreds of 
 half-fed laborers. Above Dongola the 
 advance was to be by water. The 
 enlistment of a camel corps, for the 
 
832 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 crossing of the desert, — a novel experi- 
 ment, which proved of great practical 
 service, — was ordered. The railway 
 corps were set to building a road 
 across twenty miles of desert, beyond 
 Sarras, to escape the Semnch cataracts. 
 When everything was ready Wolseley 
 was to advance to Wady Haifa and 
 direct operations thence. Meantime 
 then' were many combats going on over 
 other parts of the Soudan which were 
 draining the English purse and losing 
 English lives to no permanent purpose 
 and little present effect. The Malnli's 
 Ion-.' was greatly scattered, and much 
 of it uncertain. The Mudir of Dongola 
 remained loyal to the Khedive, and was 
 a bulwark against the Mahdi's advance. 
 Now Gordon had made striking moves 
 outside of Khartoum, and reports went 
 over the world of the most singular 
 character, so that there was actually 
 triumphant talk, September 21st, over a 
 despatch from the Mudir recounting 
 victories gained by Gordon in July and 
 August, the latest a month hack, which 
 the Mudir said resulted in raising the 
 siege of Khartoum. Hut though the 
 lines were broken several times by the 
 magnificent dashes of Gordon and Stew- 
 art, and the food supplies of the be- 
 leaguered place replenished, the siege 
 was destined never to he raised. It 
 was on October 3, Wolseley being then 
 at, Wady Haifa, and the expedition mak- 
 ing slow progress up the Nile, that Gen- 
 eral Gordon advanced with two steamer's 
 from Khartoum, bombarded Berber, and 
 retook it from the Mahdi's forces, on the 
 return from which expedition Colonel 
 Stewart, and Mr. Power were killed. 
 This success had determined the false 
 prophet, upon an absolute investment, 
 and he gathered forces from far and 
 near, and soon had over 15,000 men 
 around Khartoum. On the 4th of 
 
 November he called upon Gordon to 
 surrender; but, that stanch heart did 
 not fail him, and he returned answer, 
 •• Not for tea years," and afterward sent 
 word. "When you, () Mahdi ! dry up 
 the Nile and walk across dry-shod with 
 your troops and get into Khartoum and 
 take me, then I will surrender the town, 
 and not before." But, as a matter of 
 fact, la- did not intend to surrender the 
 town, or himself ; nor did he intend to 
 accept from the expedition a personal 
 relief for himself, or the relief of that 
 garrison alone. About this time, in his 
 diary, he repeatedly expressed his deter- 
 mination never to leave Khartoum so 
 long as there remained a garrison in the 
 Soudan unrelieved, or without a govern- 
 ment being established of some sort. 
 " If any emissary or letter comes up 
 here ordering me to come down, I will 
 not obey it," he wrote, "but will stay 
 here and fall with the town, and run all 
 risks ; " for lie felt that the people had 
 placed in him their entire confidence, 
 and it would be treachery in him to 
 abandon them, even should lie only stay 
 as nothing but a private person, without 
 authority. Little was heard from him 
 outside for months; but a, few words 
 occasionally got through on bits of paper 
 stuffed in the hollow of quills and car- 
 ried in the messenger's bushy hair, and 
 by other such means. These were 
 sometimes full of despair, as in a note 
 received in November by a friend at 
 Cairo, saying, "Farewell; yon will 
 never hear from me again. I fear that 
 there will he treachery in the garrison, 
 and all will be over by Christmas." 
 Sometimes they were cheerful, as the 
 line '• Khartoum all right, 14th Decem- 
 ber," which reached head-quarters at 
 Korti, on New Year's Day. 
 
 The column under General Herbert 
 Stewart made a rapid march across the 
 
EUROPE rN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 833 
 
 desert, and the camels were extremely 
 satisfactory. The advance had reached 
 Gakdul Wells and Iloweiyat Wells, 
 near Metemneh, January 10, and Gen- 
 eral Gordon's steamers were plying on 
 the river between Khartoum and Me- 
 temneh, not only to keep 
 the water-way open, but 
 
 to communicate, as soon 
 as possible, with the re- 
 lief force and to gather 
 supplies, which 
 they succeeded 
 in doing. The 
 second 
 part, of 
 
 men approached Abu Klea Wells, they 
 were attacked by from 8,000 to 10,000 
 of the Mahdi's followers, at a point 
 
 twenty-three miles -th-west of Me- 
 
 temneh, and lost sixty-five iu slain 
 and eighty-five in wounded, after 
 lulling eight hundred of the rebels and 
 wounding as many more. General 
 Stewart formed his troops into a hol- 
 low square, with his field-pieces at the 
 coiners and with the invalids and the 
 provisions in the centre. The Arabs 
 made their attack in a tumultuous rush, 
 directed principally upon the side of the 
 square held by the hussars. It was a 
 fierce hand-to-hand tight most of the 
 time. A steady and deadly fire was 
 kept up by the hussars and the mounted 
 infantry, while the artillery maintained 
 
 DEPARTURE OF TROOPS For EGYPT 
 
 the forces travelled much more slowly 
 across the desert than the first, for 
 every ounce of food and water had 
 to be carried, and there was terrible 
 suffering from thirst. General Earle's 
 party were making their way up the 
 Nile, and the forces were expected 
 sunn to unite. On the afternoon of 
 the lGth, as the little aj-iny of 1,500 
 
 an enfilading lire, which piled dead 
 Arabs up in heaps. The space in 
 front of the British right flank was a 
 veritable slaughter-pen. Hut among 
 the English dead were some important 
 men, most noteworthy being Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Fred Burnaby, who made the 
 famous ■• Hide to Khiva," ami who was 
 killed by an Arab spear thrust through 
 
83 1 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AXI> CM.M. 
 
 his neck. The victory had been gained 
 at great cost. 
 
 Twelve days later another battle was 
 fought at Metemneh, and with disas- 
 ter. Genera] Stewart was desperately 
 wounded, and two London newspaper 
 correspondents were killed, — St. Leger 
 Herbert, of "The Morning Post." and 
 Mr. Cameron, of "The Standard." The 
 little force, amid the storm of bullets, and 
 under command of Sir Charles Wilson, 
 began a retreat to the Nile, firing in a 
 running fight all along the line as they 
 went. Not till night did the enemy 
 withdraw. But, having placed them- 
 selves in a strongly-fortified position 
 at Gubat on the Nile, the English 
 troops rested secure. The next day 
 four of Gordon's steamers came down 
 from Khartoum, with a reinforcement 
 of live hundred soldiers and several 
 guns. General Earle's column in a few 
 days arrived at Berti, and occupied it. 
 There was now every hope of a speedy 
 entrance into Khartoum. This was Gen- 
 eral Wolseley's expectation, and the 
 people of London were full of rejoic- 
 ing. 
 
 Suddenly, without the least prepara- 
 tion, a cruel blow fell which crushed 
 all the British hopes. On the . r .th of 
 February the news reached England that 
 Khartoum had fallen into the hands of 
 the Mahdi ; that massacre had followed : 
 and that the fate of the brave Gordon 
 was unknown. 
 
 Sir Charles Wilson had steamed up the 
 Nile, January 24, with twenty men of the 
 Sussex Regiment and three hundred and 
 twenty Soudanese, who had but just 
 before come down from ( tordon. As the\ 
 neared Khartoum they found, to their 
 alarm and surprise, that every point on 
 the way was in the hands of enemies, 
 and when they had approached within 
 eight hundred yards of the walls, instead 
 
 of Gordon 10 welcome them, they were 
 confronted by thousands of Arabs, wildly 
 waving Hags, and a dozen pieces of 
 artillery, hacked by a thousand rifles, 
 opened tire upon them. Against this 
 odds it was, of course, impossible to 
 land, and Wilson retreated down the 
 river. His steamers were both wrecked 
 on the way, by treacherous pilots, but 
 the men all escaped, and remained three 
 days on tin island before they were 
 rescued. The whole story of the fall of 
 Khartoum bas never been told by any 
 reliable person, though there have been 
 a score of minute accounts, each one 
 contradicting every other. The most 
 that, is credibly ascertained is that Khar- 
 toum was betrayed by three Soudanese 
 sheiks, whom Gordon had treated only 
 too well. Faragh Pasha, whom Gordon 
 had once had condemned to death and 
 then pardoned, is said to have been the 
 man who opened the gates of the city. 
 and some add even that he was the one 
 who struck Gordon dead. Many pictures 
 have been drawn of Gordon's death, the 
 most probable being that, hearing an 
 unusual noise on the street, he stepped 
 to the door of the government house, and 
 was stabbed on the threshold. There was 
 a romance which many wished to believe, 
 that the brave soldier had been made 
 captive by the Mahdi, who would treat 
 him well ; and, indeed, there are those 
 who do believe that Gordon yet lives. 
 Tltc story of the Soudan is not yet 
 finished, though Wolseley has returned 
 to England with no new honors, and tin' 
 garrisons of the Egyptians tit Kassala 
 and other places have not been relieved. 
 Suakim, on tin' Red Sea. is in the British 
 hands ; the Italians hold Massowah, 
 against the protests of the King of 
 Abyssinia, but Osman Digna possesses 
 all the coitntn between there and the 
 Nile, except where sundry fierce tribes 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 835 
 
 dwell that will not recognize the Mahdi; 
 and the region is in its normal state of 
 predatory war. The Soudanese want to 
 be free from the Egyptians, free from 
 the British, and left to their own way of 
 life, without the innovation of the tax- 
 gatherer, that leech that drains the life 
 of the poor fellaheen. Whether they 
 had much religious confidence in the 
 Mahdi may lie questioned, hut he was 
 a leader for liberty, and that has 
 been enough. Of late Mohammed 
 
 Ahmed has been reported dead and 
 revived again alternately so often that it 
 is somewhat a mystery. Hut it is no 
 mystery that the British in the Soudan 
 have sustained great loss of prestige, 
 and have accomplished nothing toward 
 the strengthening of their dominion in 
 the East, where they are destined to be 
 forever menaced by the ambition of 
 rulers, the rivalry of trade, the restive- 
 ness of subject nations, and the treachery 
 of allies and tributaries. 
 
836 eurote ix storm and calm. 
 
 CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR. 
 
 The Death of Victor Hugo.— The Greatest European Man of Letters since Goethe. — Napol 1 III.'s 
 
 Irreconcilable Foe. — 1 1 1 - Obsequies. —The Pantheon Secularized. — In State Beneath the Arch 
 of Triumph. — A Vast Procession. — The Demonstration of the French People. 
 
 ONI-;. if the memorable events of the (hat while the great criminal reigned in 
 
 present year in Europe, unques- France, he accepted exile, " have it nor 
 
 tionably, was the death of Victor Hugo, end nor term " : — 
 Long acknowledged as the greatest of 
 
 all the poets of France, living or dead, "I!e there a thousand, I am one; or if our 
 
 strength 
 Have but one hundred left. Sylla i- braved by 
 
 and famous in his prime a.s the leader 
 
 of the Romantic revolution in French 
 
 me ; 
 
 literature and the august head of that [f only ten continue, I will be the tenth; 
 
 school, he had become the principal man \iid if but ene remain, I then that one will lie." 
 
 in European letters since Goethe; more 
 
 than that, he had home a great pari in After Hugo's death the London 
 the advance of Europe toward freedom. " Times " cavilled, as it had in his life, 
 in all fields of life, in social and political, at his constant appeals in behalf of 
 in national and international movements, causes for charity 01' pity, declaring that 
 Born an aristocrat, he became the inosl he did little lor humanity, and that his 
 radical and broad-minded of republicans, sentimentalism was rather vague and 
 and was true to the people in their storm inoperative. This was unfair and Un- 
 as in their calm. He hail no toleration generous. Victor Hugo was as thorough 
 foi tyrants; nothing could make him a warrior for ideals as were William 
 
 compromise his principles bj udoning Llovd Garrison or John Brown; he 
 
 the crime of the Second of December, and was ready at any time to lay down 
 when many another republican of 1848 his life or sacrifice his fortune for the 
 had accepted office, and almost all im- truth. Some far-off day, when the Im- 
 munity from Napoleon III. , Victor Hugo, man race shudders as it remembers that 
 faithful to his professions, would not society once practised capital punish- 
 reenter France, but hurled his fierce in- ment upon criminals — thus announcing 
 vective against "This beggar-wretch," — its own disbelief in that sacredness 
 
 of human life which it sought to teach 
 
 " This brigand whom the Pope hath blessed in — the passionate and constant protests 
 
 allhissin; llf - fj U g against the barbarity of ese- 
 
 This sceptre-fingering, this crowbar-handed .. .,, , , 
 
 v cutloncrs will be treasured as memo- 
 one ; ,-,iii- 
 This Charlemagne by the devil hewn out of a "^ "'' :l courage winch has had lew 
 Manadrin," equals in the nineteenth century. His 
 
 sentimental appeals have done more 
 
 as he called him iii a poem of •• Les for the progress of liberalism in legisla- 
 
 t'hatiineiits." wherein also he declared Hon and in thought in Europe than a 
 
EUROPE IX STURM AX1> CALM. 
 
 837 
 
 score of the most prominent English 
 writers have effected. Reformer, with a 
 pen tipped with lire, the good man 
 wrote his denunciations of shams and 
 tyrannies without the smallest regard for 
 the evil eonsequences which his daring' 
 
 might bring n x himself. The praises 
 
 at this moment accorded him in France 
 are somewhat extravagant ; vet it is not. 
 too much to say that no other man has left, 
 so strong an impression on this century. 
 lingo may be said to have had three 
 lives — through all of which runs a con- 
 sistent thread of noble effort for the 
 improvement of humanity. Even in his 
 earlier poems he is already the vates. 
 The things say themselves ; he is but 
 the medium ; his spirit is a delicate lyre 
 through which the wind of the world 
 flows, awakening it to harmonious notes, 
 now tender, now martial. In his middle 
 life of struggle and exile he appears 
 both as vates and as consummate artist. 
 He hears tin- voices of the hidden choir, 
 ami in reporting their messages to men 
 lie clothes them inmost felicitous phrase. 
 All that he does, he does best : it is 
 pitched in exalted key; his subject, as 
 Emerson said of poetry, is always 
 ••lifted into air." In the final period, 
 when struggle is over, and when he is 
 looking back, with gaze chastened and 
 cleared by earthly sorrows, his whole 
 strength is turned to the task of preach- 
 ing love, reconciliation, forgiveness, 
 peace. In Senate and in his library he 
 labored for mercy, lor the comfort of the 
 toiling masses, for the pacific accom- 
 plishment of social reform. He was an 
 advanced republican of the highest type ; 
 and the sentiments which he so boldly 
 proposed will do more than anything 
 else to briug about disarmament, arbitra- 
 tion, sincerity in politics. Men said 
 '• the age of Voltaire ; " they will say 
 '• the age of Hugo." 
 
 The burial of the great man was 
 preceded and accompanied by the most 
 elaborate and exceptional ceremonies, 
 notwithstanding that in bis will be had 
 written that he wished to be borne to his 
 grave in the hearse of the poor. A 
 committee representing the best in French 
 literature, painting, and sculpture made 
 preparations to celebrate the dead ; the 
 government decreed the secularization of 
 the Pantheon to receive his remains, and 
 to the great scandal of the Roman Church 
 the stone cross that surmounted ils portals 
 was hewn off in visible symbol of the 
 divorce of religion from the temple which 
 Louis the Well-Beloved built; which 
 the Revolution in 1791 consecrated to the 
 illustrious dead of the nation, entomb- 
 ing therein Voltaire, and Rousseau, and 
 Mirabeau ; which the Bourbons restored 
 to the Church, and called by the name 
 of Ste. Genevieve, and which the pious 
 Louis Napoleon, in 1851, gave back to 
 the Church after another brief period of 
 popular possession. There was a certain 
 fitness that Hugo's sepulture should undo 
 the consecration given by the grace of 
 Napoleon Le Petit. His body could 
 not have been buried there while the 
 Church held the splendid building, for 
 bell or book Hugo would have none. 
 Not that he was irreligious ; although he 
 refused the visit of a priest, in his last 
 hours, he was not without God in the 
 world. In his will, or testament mystique, 
 as it is called, Hugo made a philosophical 
 explanation of his beliefs. He has 
 always and on all public occasions, when 
 it, seemed appropriate, affirmed his belief 
 in Cod. His contempt for the modern 
 materialist was nearly as great as his 
 scorn for the bigot, Catholic or Protes- 
 tant. His religion was the religion of 
 humanity; love was its central and in- 
 forming purpose ; love for Cod, love for 
 his neighbor. 
 
s:is 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 All funerals in France arc surrounded 
 with many ceremonious observances; 
 the pomp of death is, indeed, given a sort 
 of luxurious indulgence, and there lias 
 never yet been a thought of adding 
 " Please omit (lowers" to the elaborate 
 letters of invitation which arc always 
 dispatched to friends by the nearest 
 relative of the deceased, on heavy black- 
 bordered paper, folded over and mailed 
 without envelopes. When the dead is a 
 distinguished man or woman there are 
 more pains taken, and among the features 
 of French news always are the funerals 
 of notables. Such an occasion has more 
 than once centred or started a popular 
 movement, and the government always 
 has a careful oversight of the burial of the 
 ureal, as it had over that of Victor Hugo. 
 The Conservatives and the Monarchists 
 had the notion that the funeral parade 
 would be made the occasion for a mani- 
 festation against property, or, possibly, 
 against the government, l>v the Anarch- 
 ists; in fact, the bourgeois were in a 
 veritable funk. The Catholics felt that 
 should the funeral be disgraced in some 
 way by misconduct of the assembled 
 thousands, they might say. ••Yon sec to 
 what a secular funeral leads." But these 
 were all disappointed. The management 
 of funerals in Paris is under the charge 
 c>f the Pompes Fun&bres, a cooperative 
 society under government patronage, 
 which has the monopoly of the trade in 
 coffins, so that there are no undertakers' 
 shops in Paris, ami which supplies the 
 entire machinery of the funeral at a 
 lixed price, set down in a printed tariff. 
 A State funeral, like that of Henri Mar- 
 tin, the historian, costs sonic 15,000 
 francs, and the Pompes Fun&bres furnishes 
 a master of ceremonies, a corps of official 
 mourners, huge mortuary carriages and 
 a colossal hearse, while the government 
 adds a military escort and immortelles. 
 
 The Pompes Funibres did its best to 
 fulfil i he demands of the great occasion 
 of Hugo's burial; but most of the dis- 
 play was quite beyond its power and 
 scope. Greater honors were paid to the 
 poet than have been paid to any sover- 
 eign of France for three hundred years, 
 notwithstanding his desire for a modest 
 burial, beside the remains of his wife and 
 daughter, which lie in the little grave- 
 yard of the parish church of Villequier, 
 on the light bank of the Seine, halfway 
 between Rouen and Havre. The people 
 would not have it so. and thus, although 
 his body was borne to its rest on the 
 pauper's hearse, it was as the centre of a 
 triumphal procession, and, although no 
 church rites were observed, there were 
 such spontaneous demonstrations of 
 affection and admiration by the people 
 as rendered the perfunctory honors of 
 clerical routine quite insignificant. The 
 assembly voted 20,000 francs for the 
 funeral expenses. Committees were ap- 
 pointed of the Senate, of which Victor 
 Hugo was a member, and of the Chamber 
 of Deputies, to attend the obsequies. 
 Deputations were appointed from all 
 parts of France and Europe, from munici- 
 palities, and from societies. From the 
 Academy were sent the last four members 
 elected to the fellowship of the Forty 
 Immortals, — Pailleron, Mazade, Coppee, 
 and De Lesscps. The list of the depu- 
 tations tilled seven and a half closely 
 printed columns of a large journal the 
 evening before the funeral. 
 
 The body of Victor Hugo was laid in 
 state, beneath the Arch of Triumph, 
 during Sunday, May 01. The evening 
 before it had been placed in the coffin, 
 in the presence of witnesses, among 
 whom were Mine. Lockroy (mother of 
 Georges anil Jeanne Hugo, the poet's 
 grandchildren), Auguste Vacquerie, Paul 
 Meurice, and Leopold Hugo. In the 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 839 
 
 inner coffin beside the body were placed 
 the photographs of Hugo's children and 
 grandchildren, a bronze medallion of the 
 elder Vacquerie, — the husband of Hugo's 
 favorite daughter, Leopoldine, and sharer 
 of her tragic death by the oversetting of 
 a boat forty years ago; bronze medals 
 of Hugo's face, and a bouquet of roses. 
 Then the coffins were closed, and early 
 Sunday morning, in the dawn of a beau- 
 tiful day, the employes of the Pompes 
 FunSbres carried their charge to the 
 Triumphal Arch, hoping at that hour to 
 be uninterrupted in their work of installa- 
 tion within the catafalque. But so great 
 was the curiosity of the people that by 
 the time the wagon containing the body 
 leached the Arch there was a compact 
 crowd of ten thousand men, with un- 
 covered heads, all around the square of 
 the Etoile. The catafalque was very 
 high, and immense black velvet draper- 
 ies, seamed with silver, hung around it, 
 while all around were heaps of flowers 
 and wreaths, several feet high. The 
 receptacle for the coffin was in form like 
 a vast sarcophagus, black and silver, 
 placed upon a double pedestal, and deco- 
 rated in front with a crown traversed by 
 palms, and a medallion of the Republic, 
 with these words beneath : " Liberty , 
 Equality, and Fraternity." This sarcoph- 
 agus was so artfully arranged that 
 from whichever point one approached the 
 Arch its black and silver were distinctly 
 seen. Great mourning bands of crape 
 were artistically draped from the summit 
 to the base of the mighty Arch. Tin' 
 catafalque was half buried beneath 
 flowers whose perfume loaded the air. 
 The " lost provinces " were given a prom- 
 inent place, and among the inscriptions 
 were : " The City of Strasburg to Victor 
 Hugo;" "The City of Mulhouse ; " 
 " The Ladies of Thann to Hugo." Near 
 by was a handsome wreath bearing the 
 
 words: " The City of Boston to Victor 
 Hugo." Under the superb sunshine of 
 the afternoon the spectacle — with the 
 faces of flags draped in black, the mam- 
 moth lampaclaires placed in a circle 
 around the Arch, the shields bearing 
 the names of the poet's works, and the 
 unending crowds passing with bowed 
 heads — was vastly impressive. At even- 
 ing, after the torches were lighted, the 
 scene was weird. The glitter of the 
 uniforms of the cavalry and infantry 
 guards, the innocent faces of the young 
 children from the school battalions, the 
 uplifted visages of the rough men pass- 
 ing by, many with eyes brimful of tears 
 as they came beneath the Arch, the 
 reverent hum of the myriads of voices, 
 — all these were imposing. The Master 
 reposed beneath the monument which he 
 had so often celebrated in his verse, — the 
 monument which celebrates the victories 
 of Jemappes, Marengo, Zurich, Hohen- 
 linden, Austerlitz, Eylau. Above and 
 around him were inscribed the names of 
 three hundred and eighty-six generals 
 and one hundred and twenty-six vic- 
 tories. Behind his sarcophagus stretched 
 the Avenue de la Grande Armee. 
 
 The grand procession and the entomb- 
 ment in the Pantheon, on Monday, June 
 1, were characterized by features which 
 made them unprecedented in Paris. No 
 such number of people has passed under 
 the Triumphal Arch during one day since 
 the return of the ashes of Napoleon the 
 ( i-reat to the Invalides. But on that occa- 
 sion nothing like the enormous throng 
 which gathered this morning on the 
 Place l'Etoile was seen. By noon there 
 were certainly 750,000 people in the area 
 between the Tuileries Gardens and the 
 Porte Maillot and the net-work of streets 
 radiating in all directions from the Arch. 
 By nine o'clock, the hour appointed for 
 the assembling of the hundreds of asso- 
 
840 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CA1 V. 
 
 eiations, which were divided into no less 
 than twenty-eight different groups, the 
 morning was cool and bright, and the 
 throngs were in the best of good-humor. 
 All the exaggerated notions of the Con- 
 servatives about the danger of a Com- 
 munistic demonstration were rendered 
 groundless by the energetic action of the 
 police agents, who. whenever they saw 
 a delegation headed by a red flag, took 
 possession of the emblem, advising the 
 rnanifestors not to resist, as it might be 
 unpleasant for them to do so in the midst 
 of a crowd whose majority were cer- 
 tainly anti-Communistic in sentiment. 
 There were but eighteen red flags brought 
 from the whole of the Communist quarter 
 of Paris and from the various cities of 
 France, ami these were taken away, to 
 be handed back on the morrow to those 
 who Could show title to them. The whole 
 clerical party professed to believe, up to 
 the last moment of the procession's pas- 
 sage along its line of route, that, there 
 Would be scenes of wild disorder, and 
 
 that the Commune would make itself 
 visible and demonstrate its growing 
 strength. The Ministry felt that there 
 would be no manifestation, both because 
 it could have been instantly suppressed, 
 and because even the Anarchists had 
 decency and sense of consistency enough 
 to sec that it would be wrong to mani- 
 fest at Hugo's funeral. 
 
 Those who were fortunate enough to 
 
 lie in the immediate neighborhood of the 
 Arch, and to look down upon the scene 
 of the official ceremony, found it very 
 picturesque and entertaining. There 
 were the official delegate ms, accompanied 
 by brilliant escorts of cuirassiers, the 
 generals and presidents who repre- 
 sented the military household of the 
 President of the Republic, all the 
 officers of the Legion of Honor, the 
 Ministry, the Diplomatic Corps, the 
 
 Senate, the Chamber, the twenty Mayors 
 of Taris. the Municipal Councillors, the 
 Academicians in their somewhat gro- 
 tesque uniforms ; all these being harmo- 
 niously grouped about the towering 
 catafalque, which stood in hold relief 
 against the brilliant blue of the sky. 
 The official speeches began. Of course 
 only those who were close at hand could 
 hear them, and those who were far away 
 missed little, for. with few exceptions, 
 the speaking was dry and tame. Emile 
 Atlgier, the poet's old friend, said some 
 eloquent words, declaring that the occa- 
 sion was not a funeral, but a consecra- 
 tion ; and Minister Floquet entered into 
 direct rivalry with him by pronouncing 
 it not. a funeral, but an apotheosis. 
 Hugo, said Floquet, was the immortal 
 apostle who bequeathed to humanity that 
 gospel which could lead the people to 
 the definitive conquest of " Liberty, 
 Equality, Fraternity." M. Goblet, 
 president of the Chambers of Deputies, 
 declared that Victor Hugo will remain 
 the highest personification of the nine- 
 teenth century, the history of which, in 
 its contradictions, doubts, ideas, and 
 aspirations, was best reflected in his 
 works. 
 
 While the speeches were going on, down 
 below, along the slopes of the Champs 
 Elvsees. thousands of workmen and work- 
 women were driving a brisk trade in the 
 leasing of ladders and the tops of 
 wagons, chairs, improvised platforms, 
 and other expedients for allowing the 
 late-comers to see over the heads of the 
 more fortunate ones who had preceded 
 them. Ambulating merchants sold sau- 
 sages and beer, cider, wine, and brandy 
 to the thirsty ami hungry, who had left 
 their homes before dawn in order to be 
 in time for the procession's passage. 
 The lame and blind beggars sprawled 
 upon the sidewalk; the blue-bloused 
 
EUROPE I.X STORM AND CALM. 
 
 841 
 
 workmen chatted and laughed ; and, in- 
 deed, the whole mass of the populace 
 evidently regarded the day more as a 
 celebration of Hugo's glory than as the 
 sombre occasion of his funeral rites. 
 This was well enough, for mourning was 
 a week old. and the real demonstrations 
 of grief on the part of the people were 
 sincere and voluminous enough when 
 the news of the old poet's death was 
 first announced. It should not be for- 
 gotten, too, that the "people" meant to 
 manifest, and did it, on the whole, in a 
 very intelligent fashion. 
 
 The funeral was a little more than 
 twice as large as that of Gambetta. 
 The black musses of delegations which 
 came into view- in front of the Arch 
 seemed endless. They were not very 
 entertaining, — on the contrary, somewhat 
 monotonous; but their numbers were 
 overpowering. The wreaths, crowns, 
 inscriptions, beds and banks of flowers, 
 borne in the procession, are said to have 
 cost about three millions of francs. In 
 this show the hearse of Hugo was a 
 sombre spot. It was the same in which 
 Jules Valles, the Communist, had short- 
 ly before been borne to his last abode. 
 Of the plainest description, even the 
 bumble ornaments which usually be- 
 deck it were removed. Within the 
 hearse was placed the coffin, draped with 
 a black cloth, and two laurel wreaths 
 
 were placed at its head. Thousands 
 upon thousands of school children, ar- 
 ranged in what are called the school 
 battalions, and arrayed as soldiers and 
 sailors, and many thousands of the 
 young men enrolled in the gymnastic 
 corps, were in the parade. There was 
 also a vast throng of Freemasons, and 
 the military parade was quite huge. 
 The Army of Paris, as the corps of 
 ■_'(i.i>oo or 30,000 men. all stationed here, 
 is called, was on duty. Thousands of 
 soldiers formed ;i kind of living hedge 
 to keep back the enthusiastic spectators ; 
 other thousands headed the procession, 
 and kept guard over the eleven great 
 chariots heaped with flowers and 
 wreaths ; and still other thousands 
 brought up the rear, the sparkling c n- 
 pany of infantry, cavalry, and art ilerj 
 being interspersed with many bands of 
 music. At the corner of the Luxem- 
 bourg garden, where a statin' of Victor 
 Hugo has been erected, each group 
 halted and the bands played a funeral 
 march. All heads were bared when the 
 simple hearse passed. The steps of the 
 Pantheon were covered yards high with 
 flowers. By four o'clock the last word 
 had been said, and the body of Victor 
 Hugo was borne to the vault in the crypt, 
 and laid to rest beside the tomb of 
 Rousseau. 
 
842 
 
 EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE 
 
 Laborers for Peace. — The New Territories given to European Powers by the Congo Conference.— 
 
 Impossibility of Permanent Peace. —Believers in Arbitration. — M. De Lesscps and Mr. Stanley. — 
 The United States of Europe. — Victor Hugo's I 'ream. — Republican Sentiment. - The Strengthen- 
 ing of the French Republic. — Will Storm and Culm Forever Alternate in Europe ? 
 
 ENTHUSIASTIC believers in the 
 possibility of permanent peace in 
 the world might derive some support for 
 
 KING OF BELGIUM. 
 
 (heir belief from the fact that so many 
 men in exalted station are engaged in 
 pacific enterprises, rather than in those of 
 conquest. They could point to the King of 
 the Belgians as a conspicuous instance of 
 one, who. aided by the ablest and wisest 
 of lieutenants, has made what might 
 have been a sanguinary and reprehensi- 
 ble conquest only a tranquil, although 
 
 resistless, pushing forward of civilization 
 into the troubled wilderness. Mr. Stan- 
 lev's story and his relation to the King 
 of the Belgians in their joint magnificent 
 enterprise are now well-known through- 
 out the world. As the result of the Congo 
 Congress, mentioned in a preceding 
 chapter, there has been a greater exten- 
 sion of European influence over African 
 territory than is generally supposed. 
 Mr. Stanley himself, in his terse and 
 excellent account of the Conference, 
 says: "Two European powers emerge 
 out of the elaborate discussions, pro- 
 tracted for such a long period, with 
 enormously increased colonial posses- 
 sions. France is now mistress of a West 
 African territory, noble in its dimensions, 
 equal to the best tropic lands for its 
 vegetable productions, rich in mineral 
 resources, most promising for its future 
 commercial importance. In area it 
 covers a superficies of two hundred and 
 fifty-seven thousand square miles, equal 
 to that of France and England combined, 
 with access on the eastern side to five 
 thousand two hundred miles of river 
 navigation. On the west is a coast line 
 nearly eight hundred miles long, washed 
 by the Atlantic Ocean. It contains within 
 its borders eight spacious river basins, 
 and throughout all its broad surface of 
 ninety millions of square hectares not 
 one utterly destitute of worth can be 
 found. Portugal issues out of the 
 Congress with a coast line nine hundred 
 
EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 843 
 
 and ninety-five English miles in Length, 
 three hundred and fifty-one thousand 
 square statute miles in extent, a territory 
 larger than the combined areas of France, 
 Belgium, Holland, and Great Britain. 
 On the LowerCongo, its river-bank is one 
 hundred and three miles in length. It can 
 now boast of healthy pastoral lands to the 
 south, oil and rubber producing forests 
 northward, mineral fields in the north- 
 eastern portion of its territory, and val- 
 uable agricultural regions in its eastern 
 borders. If herown population were added 
 to the aboriginal population of this Afri- 
 can colonial territory, and extended over 
 its area, there would still be sufficient to 
 give thirty-two and three-fourths acres to 
 each Portuguese white and black subject. 
 Her home aud colonial populations of all 
 colors number in all eight million three 
 hundred thousand. The area of her terri- 
 tories in Africa. Asia, and the Oceans 
 measures seven hundred and forty-one 
 thousand three hundred ami forty-three 
 square miles, or four hundred and seventy- 
 four million five hundred thousand acres, 
 — sufficient to give each subject fifty- 
 seven acres. Great Britain, on the other 
 hand, with all her vast acreage of five 
 billion fifty-six million of acres, can 
 only give to each of her two hundred ami 
 forty-nine millions of people the small 
 portion of twenty and one-fourth acres. 
 The International Association surren- 
 dered its claims to sixty thousand three 
 hundred and sixty-six square miles of 
 territory to France, and to Portugal 
 forty-live thousand four hundred square 
 miles, for which consideration six 
 hundred square miles of the north hank 
 between Boma and the sea w ere conceded 
 to it, besides cordial recognition of its 
 remaining territorial rights from two 
 powerful neighbors. To the world at 
 large, the two [lowers above mentioned 
 have been also duly considerate, for 
 
 the territories surrendered to them by 
 the Association have been consecrated 
 to free trade, which, along with those 
 recognized as belonging to the Associa- 
 tion, and preordained for such uses, and 
 those yet unclaimed by any power, but 
 still reserved for the same privileges, 
 form a domain equal to one million 
 six hundred thousand square miles in 
 extent, throughout which most excep- 
 
 HKN'UY M. STANLEY. 
 
 tional privileges have been secured by 
 the cordial unanimity of the riveraine of 
 the United States and European powers 
 for commerce. With due reserve for the 
 sovereign rights of Portugal and Zanzi- 
 bar, this free trade area extends across 
 Africa to within one degree of the east 
 coast, thus enlarging the privileged com- 
 mercial zone to two million four hundred 
 thousand square miles." 
 
 The acquisition of these immense 
 territories by France and by Portugal, 
 and the opening. of the vast domain 
 of the Free State to the one country 
 
844 
 
 EVRorE I.V STORM AND CALM. 
 
 which could best profit by its opening, 
 to Great Britain, — .-ill this is emi- 
 nently tlif work of Mr. Stanley, who has 
 within less than fifteen years stepped 
 from the position of a roving special cor- 
 respondent to that of the first of modern 
 explorers and a politician and diplomat 
 of no mean order. 
 
 All tiie distinctly great men in Europe, 
 men of comprehensive \ isiun and aecn- 
 
 M. DE LESSEPS. 
 
 rate knowledge, are anxious for peace. 
 Bismarck himself wants peace, and 
 means to compel it by demonstrating 
 the uselessness of undertaking to combat 
 the armies which he could bring to hear 
 against an intending enemy. Thiers, 
 even after the rude shock which his 
 theories of the balance of power in 
 Europe hail received in the Franco- 
 German conflict, hoped that European 
 peace might be maintained, although 
 iii the very year of his death the conflict 
 between Russia and Turkey was raging. 
 
 There is little need to remind the Amer- 
 ican reader that Mr. Gladstone is a firm 
 
 disciple of peace, and that in these 
 latter days he is not averse to leading 
 141 to the general adoption of the great 
 principle of arbitration in international 
 disputes. 
 
 All the intelligent and capable politi- 
 cians in France want peace : it is only 
 the blustering and incompetent who 
 clamor for a war of vengeance, or who 
 would like to see France enter upon a 
 policy of adventure, in connection even 
 with the most illustrious allies. The 
 ports, the philosophers, the great build- 
 ers and engineers, men like the brilliant 
 and phenomenal De Lesseps, are all in 
 favor of peace, and the colossal vision 
 of the old French poet — •'the United 
 States of Europe," of which he fondly 
 dreamed while in his exile amid the 
 rocks of the Channel Islands, is often 
 enough talked of as the forerunner of a 
 possible reality. But although kings 
 labor in peaceful channels, and dip- 
 lomats prepare war that they may main- 
 tain peace, — although they establish 
 formidable alliances to prevent the pos- 
 sibility of sudden declarations of war. 
 there is no man so wise and none so 
 daring 111 Europe as to prophesy that 
 the shadow of war may not fall across 
 the historic lands ; that Europe may not 
 once more, and almost without warning, 
 be plunged into a period of storm just 
 as she is beginning to appreciate the 
 blessings of calm. Every European 
 country is making great material prog- 
 ress, striving towards higher levels of 
 education, of industry, of scientific and 
 artistic attainment ; but every one has 
 some quarrel with its neighbor, or is in 
 some danger from surrounding nations. 
 None is completely at ease. The fed- 
 eration of which the poet sings may 
 scarcely be expected before the more 
 
EUROPE TN STORM AM> CALM. 
 
 845 
 
 powerful of the great States have ab- 
 sorbed such of the smaller States as they 
 wish to absorb. 
 
 Men like M. De Lesseps and Mr. 
 Stanley, in the calm and steadfast con- 
 duct of their gigantic enterprises, do nol 
 reflect thai they are sowing the seeds of 
 possible conflict by opening up new 
 fields for commerce and new highways 
 to these fields. When M. De Lesseps 
 dug his canals through the sands of 
 Egypt, in the face of the sneers of Pahn- 
 erston, and indeed of nearly all 
 Englishmen of influence, he scarcely 
 thought that he was awakening jealous- 
 ies which might endanger from time to 
 time the friendly relations of France 
 and England, neighbor countries which 
 have every interest to remain at peace 
 with each other ; and he has always 
 persistently denied, when led to express 
 an opinion with regard to his Panama 
 enterprise, that there was the slightest 
 danger of a collision between European 
 and American forces for the control of 
 the huge water-way connecting the At- 
 lantic and Pacific oceans. Perhaps Mr. 
 Stanley, now and then remembering the 
 conflicts along the sandy shores of 
 Florida, and on the lower Mississippi 
 between European nations long ago. re- 
 flects that France and Germany, or 
 Great Britain anil competing European 
 powers, may yet join battle beside the 
 waters of the Congo. Wherever trading 
 interests begin to conflict, war follows 
 witli its devastating tread. There is 
 scarcely a war in the European calendar 
 since the beginning of the century which 
 is not directly or indirectly due to some 
 difference about trade or to some deter- 
 mined effort to divert trade from one 
 channel to another. Europe sighs for 
 peace, but there is no peace ; so long as 
 interests are diverse, ambitions mani- 
 fold, and the heart of man is above all 
 
 things deceitful and desperately wicked, 
 storm and calm must have alternate rule. 
 The folly of an incapable monarch, the 
 precipitation of a prime minister, or the 
 energy of a merchant, — any one of 
 these causes may plunge nations into 
 the miseries of conflict, waste untold 
 millions, and ruin scores of thousands of 
 lives. 
 
 It is difficult to And, in the growth of 
 Republican sentiment in Europe, any 
 definite guarantee of peace. The French 
 Republic has been so busy with struggles 
 to maintain and assert its existence that 
 it lias taken no thought of foreign war 
 further than to prepare against a second 
 disastrous invasion of its eastern frontier. 
 If Germany should by some cataclysm 
 lie transformed into a Republic, it must 
 of necessity be for long years to come a 
 military power, ambitious, and perhaps 
 more aggressive than the present Empire 
 has been. The slow unfolding of Re- 
 publican principles in many European 
 countries serves, in a certain way. to 
 promote European dissensions. It 
 unites ( 'atholic parties of different nation- 
 alities into one compact body, ready to 
 rise at the bidding of a capable leader 
 against nations and peoples against 
 whom it would otherwise have no hos- 
 tility There is no denying that the in- 
 fluence of the Roman church is against 
 the rise of the people to power. " Gov- 
 ernment of flu- people, by the people, 
 and for the people," docs not consist 
 with the secular claims of the Pope. 
 The unfriendliness of Church and State- 
 in France is notorious, and naturally in- 
 creases when the Commune rears its 
 hateful head in the Assembly, or in the 
 City Council of Paris, as it is doing of 
 late, or when the government secularizes 
 the Pantheon to bury Victor Hugo. The 
 maintenance by the Pope of his studied 
 pose as •• the prisoner of the Vatican" 
 
846 
 
 EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 is nothing but a refusal to recognize thai Germany, a power really hostile to many 
 the people have the supreme and ulti- of England's greatest interests abroad, 
 mate right to choose their own govern- simply because they wish support in their 
 ment. In Spain it is the clerical party opposition to the democratic programme 
 that retards the advance of the Republic, at home. 
 
 more than any love for monarchy. The Then' is no space here to treat in 
 
 detail the growth of the one European 
 
 ;:,,,, Republic which has demonstrated its 
 
 . ' ,, right to live during the last few years. 
 
 Founded by its enemies in spite of them- 
 selves, and narrowly escaping strangula- 
 tion in its cradle, the French Republic, 
 alter numerous vicissitudes since 1.N77, 
 lias reached a point at which it is afraid 
 neither of resolute conservatives nor 
 half-crazed radicals. M. Thiers, who 
 had the reward of his great services 
 during the war and the German occupa- 
 tion in his accession to the presidency, 
 fell before the reactionists, hut lived 
 long enough to feel that the Republic 
 would ultimately triumph. Marshal 
 MacMahon, who inaugurated the septen- 
 nial presidencies, doubtless acted ac- 
 cording lo his lights while in the exalted 
 office. lie was not strong enough, 
 however, to prevent the monstrous injus- 
 tice of the counter-revolution of 1*77. 
 as it came to he known in European 
 young king is pursuing the only safe polities. This was a deliberate attempt 
 course for kings nowadays, living simply on the part of ministers hostile to the 
 and showing himself deeply concerned in Republic lo inaugurate a state of terror- 
 the welfare of his people. L : — .111 which should render the reestablish- 
 
 Monarcliical diplomats, while profess- ment of monarchy possible. In other 
 ing to look upon the growth of Repuhli- words, the conservatives, who had been 
 can spirit with equanimity, are constantly growing bolder daily since the fall from 
 watching an opportunity to do the lie- power of Thiers, desired to provoke the 
 publican cause a had turn. It is not Republicans into some breach of the 
 unreasonable to suppose that as this public peace, ami then, setting up the 
 liberalism becomes more intense and old cry of the necessity of order, get a 
 wide-spread in Europe, conservatives who monarch in before Republican institutions 
 have heretofore held apart from each began to take root. The inagnificeni 
 other should Hock together for mutual prudence of Gambetta under the greatesl 
 support. At Ibis moment the English provocation during this whole period of 
 Tories offer a tine illustration of this repression added immensely to his repu- 
 particular fact, striving to cooperate with tation. It showed that he was well 
 
 KING OF SPAIN. 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AND CALM. 
 
 847 
 
 qualified to take the lead in the moderate guished men from all parts of France 
 Republican party which was afterwards and of Europe, between lines of silenl 
 admitted to be Ins natural right. Even men and women, was a. warning to the 
 Thiers was surprised to find Gambetta ministry in power that it could not turn 
 SO much of a statesman as lie proved in a nation aside from its convictions. A 
 that crisis. million of people on foot in Paris on that 
 
 The Bonapartists were active, but not September day proclaimed their devotion 
 in the front of this conspiracy against to the Republican idea which Thiers 
 the Republic. The death of Napoleon had so frankly defended, after having 
 III., in 1873, in the sylvan 
 seclusion of Chiselhurst, in 
 England, removed the chief 
 pretender from the scene, 
 and but little fear was had 
 of the movements of his son. 
 who was quietly finishing his 
 education in an English mili- 
 tary academy. Hut no one 
 knows what party might have 
 come uppermost had a, breach 
 of order been provoked ami 
 the Republic destroyed in 
 
 1 S 7 7 . It was inexpressibly 
 sad that M. Thiers should 
 pass away when tins cloud 
 of darkness was over the 
 country for which he had 
 done so much, — sad that his 
 last days might not have 
 been cheered by the spectacle 
 of a successful liberal govern- 
 ment, like that to which he 
 frankly owned his own con- 
 version. The funeral of this great been, as he was wont to say, a monarch- 
 and good man, on the 8th of Sep- ist almost all his life. Paris, on that 
 tember, 1*77. was one of the most day. learned a lesson of self-control 
 striking spectacles that I ever wit- which has been very useful to it in 
 nessed. The Republican party intended many troublous times later on. 
 to make it a tremendous manifestation, No American reader who has not 
 
 but felt the necessity, in doing this, of lived in Europe can form any adequate 
 preventing, at all cost, any violence or idea of the pressure brought to bear 
 display of strong emotion, as this would upon Republicans during this year of 
 have afforded a pretext for the repression 1877 in France. The whole weight of 
 which was ready to hand. The dead prejudice, of the prestige of centuries 
 Thiers, followed to Pere La Chaise by of wealth, of established religion, was 
 thousands upon thousands of distin- brought to bear upon liberals; and the 
 
 THE END op a ROMANCE. NAPOLEON III. ON Ills 
 DEATH-BED. 
 
MS EUROPE IN STORM AND CALM. 
 
 burden was so grievous that at times vigor with which his face was filled. It 
 they could scarcely support it. Distin- was not a handsome lace, nor vet an 
 guished orators and publicists were artistic or refined our ; but a stranger 
 compelled to speak in little and ill- who had heard little of Gambetta, and 
 ventilated halls, to -which none but their who had never seen him, would say, in 
 constituents were admitted, and these contemplating it, " This is the face of a 
 by ticket, in the old, stingy fashion in man of vast power, who would overcome 
 tone under the Empire. Public meet- obstacles unsurmountable by other men, 
 tngs in their broadest sense were mi- who would not be east down in adversity ; 
 known. Louis Blanc refused me a a man fertile in surprises, abounding in 
 ticket to one of his addresses before unexpecting triumphs, capable of turning 
 his constituents, saying, that it' I were imminent danger into immediate victory." 
 recognized as a nou-voter the conse- He will long be remembered as the pas- 
 quences tor me and for the controllers of sionately eloquent lawyer, the defender of 
 the meeting would he most unpleasant. Baudin, the mighty tribune, the brilliant 
 When this final conservative effort was member of the opposition to the Second 
 at an end, ami the weights were taken Empire-, the ex-dictator, the fiery soul 
 from the Republic's breast, there was which could not brook the idea of tame 
 rapid progress for several years ; yet the .submission even when all hope was lost, 
 almost majestic programmes of men like the noble parliamentarian, the sincere 
 Gambetta were thwarted and even set Republican, the patriot, the adroit ami 
 aside because of the jealousies of inferior far-seeing Republican. He was the 
 men. the intrigues of churchmen and of fountain from which sprang the Re- 
 specialists. Gambetta had a fine political publican energy. There were moments 
 career as President of the Chamber, in when the entire Republican organization 
 
 which official position he was very power- of the c ntry seemed epitomized in him. 
 
 ful ; but his enemies, after having crowded He was leader, teacher, master, father, 
 
 him out of the presidential chair and mentor. 
 
 forced him into the ministry, which he It was commonly said in Germany, 
 
 did not wish to enter, merely thai they after Gambetta ami Skobeleff hail both 
 
 might have the pleasure of compelling disappeared from the- scene of European 
 
 him to leave it afterwards, made his action, that Prussia had been spared by 
 
 latter days unhappy. His death, which providential intervention in her behalf a 
 
 was caused by a pistol wound in one of tremendous campaign against her. It is 
 
 his hands at a time when his system was certain that General Skobeleff — whose 
 
 greatly enfeebled, would have been a brilliant young lite was cut short by a 
 
 catastrophe lor the Republic had he not swift stroke of late in Moscow, where he 
 
 left behind him capable men who could was sojourning in one of the intervals of 
 
 carry out the brilliant programme he his busy military career — and, Gambetta 
 
 had sketched. He left behind him not were both much in favor of n waragainst 
 
 only this noble plan, but an untarnished < termauy ; a war the date for which was 
 
 reputation as an administrator in troub- by no means decidedon ; a war which could 
 
 Ions times. Looking al his picture the not be indefinitely postponed. Taken 
 
 night after his strong and earnest life between the millstones of Russia and 
 
 ended with the year 1882, I was pro- of France, some of the German peoples 
 
 roundly impressed with the abundant might possibly have been crushed. 
 
EUROPE IX STORM AXI> CALM. 
 
 849 
 
 After the death of the Prince Imperial, 
 as the English people still continue to 
 call the son of Napoleon III., the hopes 
 of the Imperialist party in France fell to 
 the ground. The young prince had had a 
 good military training, and was a gallant 
 soldier ; hut his skill and zeal availed 
 him nothing against the arrows of a few 
 naked South Africans, and he was brought 
 home to lie in the little chapel of St. 
 Mary's at Chiselhurst, to which the 
 Empress makes melancholy pilgrimages, 
 often mournfully alluding to it as the 
 shrine which holds the wreck of all her 
 earthly grandeur and her hopes. The 
 funeral of this young prince at Chisel- 
 hurst was a very remarkable affair. It 
 brought out the whole strength of the 
 English aristocracy, which adopted the 
 occasion as a kind of manifestation, even 
 the Queen coming to pay her last respects 
 tothe son of Napoleon III. It was observ- 
 able, however, that there were but few 
 French people present, and scarcely any 
 who represented the highest genius or 
 intelligence of France. 
 
 The Republic goes steadily on its way • 
 rejoicing, now and then in fear and 
 trembling, but never retreating, and its 
 influence in Europe is wider than is 
 imagined by even the most enthusiastic 
 French Republican. Threatened men, it 
 is said, live long : and the downfall of 
 the Republic has been predicted so often 
 by England, Germany, even Italy, by- 
 Austria, by Spain, and by other powers 
 too numerous to mention, that its longev- 
 ity is now believed in. It had but one 
 victory to accomplish, — the victory over 
 itself, over its follies and licenses, which 
 had been so conspicuous in the past ; 
 and when the huge pageant, greater than 
 any ever before seen in Paris, poured 
 through the Champs Elysdes the other 
 day, behind a simple hearse, in which the 
 bod} - of the master poet of his time was 
 carried to the Pantheon, it was notice- 
 
 able that Jacobinism and anarchy were 
 scarcely represented at all in the throng ; 
 and even Jacobins and anarchists who 
 had the audacity to parade were com- 
 pelled before they took part in the 
 procession to lav aside their tlags and 
 emblems. On the day of Victor Hugo's 
 burial listening Europe seemed to heat 
 a voice from the Pantheon preaching, as 
 
 PRESIDENT GUEVY, 
 
 the poet had preached all his life long. 
 peace and good-will, fraternityof peoples. 
 unity of action and of sentiment, the 
 abolition of superstitions and formular- 
 isms, diffusion of education and of light, 
 pardon. reconciliation, and hopeful 
 struggle towards the highest ideal. Eu- 
 rope listened ; but will she take the 
 words to heart? Will she not alternate 
 from storm to calm, from calm to storm. 
 through the latter years of this century, 
 as she has through its first and middle 
 periods, putting away from her the noble 
 epoch of continuous peace and harmony 
 which the venerable poet so boldly pro- 
 claimed ? 
 
INDEX 
 
 A 
 
 Adam, M Edmond, and the National Guard, 231. 
 
 Agriculture in Roumania, 741. 
 
 Ai ami ■.■ i! , i ieneral, 70. 
 
 Alber r Edward, Prince of Wales, Income of, 560. 
 
 — — — — Influence of, at home and abroad, 561, 
 Household of, 568. 
 
 Am K2 vi . Dii . Historj of, 118. 
 
 — Cathedra] of the, 11^'. 
 
 — Gardens of tin-. 130. 
 
 — I )c San In. in , 123, 
 
 At < - i 1 (.in Paris during the Revolution, 488. 
 
 Alexandi i II., of Russia, Attempted assassination of, 26. 
 
 — Visit i" Paris, 25 
 
 Alfonso XI J . King of Spain, 79, 
 
 — Marriage of, 93. 
 
 — At a Bull-fight, 103. 
 Ai fonso i he t It iod, 129. 
 Algeria, Politii a] pi isi mers in, 45. 
 
 Ai r .mm. Hi'' AM"', E secul ion of, 496. 
 Alsatia demanded by the Germans, 272. 
 Ai.sai i vns, The protest of, 388. 
 Ai vari • I »i I -una, I ion, 121. 
 
 Vmadbo of llaK , 7s. 
 
 \mi. i an< i ( 'OMPANIES, during the Commune, 447. 
 
 \ l ■■ Ml ii', rhe, in Paris during the Com- 
 
 mune. 444. 
 Ameru ans in Paris during the Commune, 431, 180. 
 
 \ \ ■ i i \ , 1 25 
 
 \ . ; m \-- \ . I ount, 672. 
 
 \ ro ; i i i. ( .iulm.il, and Leo XIII. 115. 
 
 Ai i ii - . Hie, Tunnels through, 404. 
 
 '■ \ i ii \i to the People," The, 44. 
 
 A psi iv Hoi i- . 631 
 
 Ai:.\ in Bey, Revi ill of, 821. 
 
 Aranjuez, gi 
 
 Ai n i ration, The believers in, 844, 
 
 Ari di Triomphe, The, Statuary on, 451. 
 
 \ ri ii r.i .ii' ip i ii Pa Ris, Arrest of, 446. 
 
 \; in r, Fred, in England and Paris, 624. 
 
 \RGENTEUIL, View of Paris from, 334. 
 
 ■ Effect oi the wai in, 382, 
 Army oi the Rhine . I he, 321. 
 Art in Spain, ill 
 Art-s< hoi -I in I .ondon, 627. 
 \ . , John, 711. 
 Assi, Citizen, 44'.i. 
 A roi h .\ Chi f c h , 93. 
 A i in \ .i i m I i in of Barcelona, 86. 
 V' mi , the composer, Reminiscences of, 467. 
 An rhi IM, during the siege of Paris, 279, 
 Augier, Emile, at the funeral of V. Hugo, 840. 
 Ai ii n IK' Emperor of, Characteristics and simple life 
 of, 813 
 
 Austria. Religion in, 813 
 
 Ai -■ i rians, The, in Italy, 399. 
 
 \\ im i n'l talie, The prison in the, 407 
 
 \ \ i mi i de la Grande Akmee, 444. 
 
 B 
 
 BACCARO, Dominique, 505, 
 
 Bailen, I lm hess of, 95 
 
 Baker, Sir Samuel, in the Soudan, 825. 
 
 i'.Ai DWIN [., 771'.. 
 
 Balkans, The neighborhood <>f the, 766. 
 
 — Through the, 772. 
 
 — The Russians in the, 7s:; 
 Banderillero, The (Bull-fighter), 106. 
 Ba ik of 1- ngland , The, 616 
 
 Barbier, .A , and the Venddme Column, 468. 
 I Iarce lona, 1 >e: i i iption of, 85 
 
 — To Valem ia, Journ< y from, HG 
 
 Ba n ' valor al I .e Bourget, 824. 
 
 B iRi im. Wilson, 630. 
 
 Bashi- b \/< iuks, The, 756. 
 
 ! 136 
 
 Bavaria, flu monarchs of, 792-4. 
 
 — The Royal Brewer) in, 704. 
 
 — t 'atholit ism in, 795. 
 BAVA RIAN Si 'I I'll I-, 216. 
 
 [:\\ aim ', Statue of, 301 
 
 Bazaini . Marshal, and ( '■< neral Frossard, 202. 
 
 — Retreat upon Metz, 207 
 
 — In Metz dui ing the lege 310 
 
 — Advi( e i" Ins soldiei - . 310. 
 
 — His army at Metz, 316? 
 
 — (.'nurse at Metz criticised, 319, 
 Razeilles to Ills', From, after the war, 257. 
 Beaconsfield, Lord, Policy of, 092, 
 
 — And the Home Rulers, 6E1. 
 
 — \n4 Mr, i Uadstone, 663. 
 
 — Ilis career, 664, 
 
 — His I k: , 666 
 
 — Personal description of, 668. 
 
 — Return from Berlin, 669. 
 
 — At the Berlin Congress, 786. 
 Be .\im< >vi . Battle in, 243. 
 Beaumi int-Va v, Vici irnte • 
 
 , 650, 
 Be lgia .- . 1 h< King of the, 842, 
 Bellemare, < ieneral de, at Montretout, 368. 
 Belleville, Proci ssion through, 499. 
 
 — Episode during the fight at, 505 
 Beni detti, Count, and Bismarck, 153 
 
 — Visit i.. King William, 168 
 
INDEX. 
 
 851 
 
 Benedict, Sir Julius, 627. 
 Berlin and Bismarck, 616. 
 
 — Congress, The Representatives at, 780. 
 Its results, 790. 
 
 — Treaty, The, 786. 
 Bergeret imprisoned, 455. 
 Berryek, M., Eloquence of, 14.". 
 Biarritz, Description of, 58. 
 Birmingham, its history, 640, 
 
 Bismarck, Count Von, at the Berlin Congress, 786. 
 
 — In Paris during the Exposition of 1807, 28, 
 
 — And Napoleon III., 152. 
 
 — And Count Benedetti, 153. 
 
 — In difficulty, 177. 
 
 — And the surrender of Napoleon III., 252. 
 
 — Interview with Napoleon III., 255. 
 
 — And M. Jules Favre at Ferriferes, 270. 
 
 — (hi the policy "f France since Louis XIV., 271. 
 
 — Personal characteristics of, 273. 
 
 — On Napoleon III., 27-4. 
 
 — And General Boyer, 320. 
 
 — At tlv Coronation at Versailles, 365. 
 
 — And the National Guards, 368 
 
 — And Berlin, 816. 
 
 — His influence in Europe and what it may lead to, 810. 
 Black Cabinet in the Post-office, Paris, 163. 
 
 Black Hand, <>r, Mann Negra, Society uf the, 12.".. 
 Blanc, Louis, Speech in the Assembly at Bordeaux, 394. 
 Blanqui, Thirty years in prison, 474. 
 Blois, The Imperial Court at, 176. 
 Bois i»n Vesinet, French troops in, 369, 
 Bonaparte, Joseph, King of Spain, 55. 
 
 — Joseph, 126. 
 
 — Prince Pierre, 133. 
 
 '•'< indy, Am ; .iii wood of, 349. 
 
 — Massing of uncus in, 350. 
 Bonim, General Von, at Nancy, 290, 
 
 Bi i Iain. General, Celebrated charge of, 199, 
 
 Bordeaux \ -■ e h bi . , The, 385. 
 
 Bo i \. History of the insurrection in 1875,669. 
 
 Bi iuu igne, Burning i if v illage of, 360 
 
 Boi rbaki and Belfoi i , 366. 
 
 Bourbi in, I )on Enrique de, 130. 
 
 Bourbons in Spain, The fall uf the, 57. 
 
 Bradlaugh, Mr . in the Hall of Science, 600. 
 
 — In London and Paris, 602. 
 BrASSEUr's heroism, 324. 
 Bridgi of the Dead, 314. 
 Bright, John, at Birmingham, 578. 
 
 — His opinion of Gladstone, 668. 
 Brighti in, 529. 
 
 Brindisi and Naples, 403. 
 Bri M iH rON, < leorge, 626. 
 Bry-sur-Marne, Battle at, 341. 
 Bw iw M-.' ., Ri ib< it, 634, 
 Bucharest, The city of, 719. 
 
 — The plague in, 720, 
 
 — Routes to, 72M-1, 
 
 — And New Orleans, 721. 
 
 — Notes on, 722. 
 
 — Legends of the Capital, 720. 
 
 — The Podan Mogosol, 723. 
 
 — The priests in, 726 
 
 — The Metropolitan Church. 727. 
 
 — St. Spiridion the New, 727. 
 
 — Evidences of Turkish rule in, 733. 
 
 Bucharest, Greek plays in, 740. 
 
 — And Jassy, The towns between. 743, 
 Buckingham Palace, Memorials of, 556 
 Bulgaria, The Russians in, 748. 
 
 — Imperial headquarters at TV.arevitza, 753. 
 
 — " Young Bulgaria " League, 1 he, 763, 
 
 — Insurrection of 1862, 763, 
 
 — 1 he Circassians in, 765, 
 
 — Villa-es of the Pomatzy, The, 768. 
 
 — Russian agents in, 704. 
 
 — Schools of, 768 
 
 — Passes in, 771-2. 
 
 — Sketch of the history of, 775. 
 
 — Turkish rule and taxation in, 776-7. 
 
 — 1 he insane in, 777. 
 
 Bi lgarian atrocities, The, 672. 
 
 — Men, 752. 
 
 — Peasants, 752. 
 
 Bt 1 1 .a rians, The, in 1851, 763. 
 
 Bulgarian's views of the Bulgarian Question, 772. 
 
 Bull-fighting in Madrid, 101-110, 
 
 Bi ri ■ is Cathedra) , 60. 
 
 Bi rgoyne, sir John, saves the Empress, 22.8. 
 
 Burnabv, Lieut. Col. Fred, Heath of, 833. 
 
 Burns, Robert, The home of, 047. 
 
 I : ' ii. Marquis of, 571. 
 
 Buttes Chaumont, The final struggle on the, 509. 
 
 Buzenval, Battle at, 271 
 
 C/Esar, Augustus, 64. 
 Cafe Americain, The, 471 
 Cambridge, The Duke of, 567. 
 Canal de L'< >URCQ, 348. 
 I \ oi i r 1 . < ■ >. m i.il, 213. 
 Cari ists, The, 56 
 
 (. AS3 i.m LOBAU, Executions at the, . r >16. 
 Castelar. Tour through Spain, . r '7. 
 
 — Political career of, 7s. 
 
 — At home, 97. 
 
 — And the United States, 98, 
 
 — As a leadei , 99. 
 
 — And Gambetta, 100. 
 Catalanian People. The, 85. 
 Catholic ceremonial of marriage, 96. 
 Cattaro, History of. HI'S 
 
 Cattakm toTsettinj£, Journey From, 697-699 
 Cavendish, Lord F., Assassination of, 654. 
 Cavour, Count, and the Austrians in Italy, 399. 
 Cespedes; poet, painter, etc , 124. 
 Chamberlain, Joseph, and Sir Charles Dilke, 594. 
 
 — In Parliament, 604 
 Chambers, Sir William, 545. 
 ChAMBOrd, Cotnte de, Protest of, ,''.4. 
 Champigny, Rattle at, 341. 
 
 — The country around after the battle, 346. 
 Champ de Mars, Execution on the, 490. 
 Champs Elvsees, Communists in, 443. 
 Changarnier, Genera], Pint of, 42. 
 
 — Visit to Friederich Karl, 316, 
 
 — Appeals for peace, 394 
 
 Chapei of " The new Kings," The, 122. 
 
852 
 
 im>/:a 
 
 Charles T\ ,55 
 
 ( kase, The, in Fram 
 
 ( mai i ai d' I' ai , The battle at the, 500. 
 
 — — The jetie.it from, 505. 
 
 — • >i 1 ra aii. I he, 310 
 Chateaudun, Heroic defense of , 307 
 Chatillon, The fight at, 266, 
 Chatswok in, 041. 
 
 Chaucer, in 1 leet Street, 610, 
 
 Chaude \ , i lustave, M urdei of, 498. 
 
 Chei !.(■ 5, Vbbej of, 340. 
 
 ' in erv, Mi , editor of the "Time--." 618, 
 
 Children oi London and Paris, The, 521. 
 
 Chiswh k, I listoi i> so ties in, 543 
 
 — Historic al events in, 543 
 Choisv-le-Roi, after the war, Scenes in, 3S4, 
 Chris i ina, Vn hdu< hess, 04 
 Christmas in War Time, 354. 
 
 I ii ami s i a i l in Spain, 7:' 
 
 — mi La Trinite", The fight around, 488. 
 
 — of Saini Laurent, 504 
 
 — of San J i an de los Reyes, The, 122. 
 
 — of the Virgin dei Pilar, The, 64. 
 
 ClD CAMPl \ i " iR, lOl 
 
 ( i sy, Gen. ral, 501 
 
 City i n Pleasure, The, "19 
 
 Civita Vei chia, French expedition to, 401 
 
 C lam art K ah w ay Statu in, The fight for, 459. 
 
 ( i ft re . row Ijarku a i 'I-. The, 508 
 
 ( i mi in-, M Jules, on the Germans, 184 
 
 Clin want, < leneral, at Montmartre, 4M' 
 
 \ii.u 1 ..n the « li.ik-.ui d'Eau, 501 
 t.. l.cn mi de , Pi ini i ■■• . and tin l mpress, ;> 
 Cl userei . * leneral, at the head of the insurrection, 146, 148 
 
 — At the head, etc., 448. 
 
 — At Fort Issj . 155 
 
 — Arrest of, 455 
 
 — rrial of, 171 
 
 — Escapes to Constantinople, 503. 
 < i iBi i •- 1 ■', Troops hi, IN5. 
 
 Coli mbi ., * in istophei , 123. 
 
 ( 'i immis i' -■■ oi V: a sins, 11m-, 517 
 
 Communai Tri iop . The, 132 
 
 — Journalism, Notes on, 438. 
 
 — Instruction Commission, Visit lo, 449. 
 Ci iM mi -I- , The, ' nem < menl oi . 54 
 
 — First action of, 221 
 
 — Hard at work, 224 
 
 — i tutbreak oi the, 420. 
 
 — 1 teclaration ol the, [34 
 
 — I ami ius de< i ee i 't , 137, 
 
 — The hostages decree, 145 
 
 — The fete of thi . 136 
 
 — First important battle, 4:'>7. 
 
 ■1.1 n-\ lew . 150 
 
 — Armistice, 451 
 
 — Touching i pi ;ode dm ing, 152, 
 
 — The di ( Kim. tint v pei iod, 157 
 
 — The combal at the southern forts, 458, 
 
 — Suppresses the newspapers, 163 
 
 — Journal of, H>1 
 
 — And the Established ( hurch, 465 
 
 — Measures against soi ial /ices, 471. 
 
 — Decree of the Committee of Public Safety, 47;;. 
 
 — The members of the, 475 
 
 COMMUNI : LDIE1 I - ! 
 
 i--i Prisoners, Massacre of, 514 
 Communists, The, during the siege of Paris, 303. 
 
 — And the landlords, 4.;.". 
 
 — At the funeral of V. Hugo, 840. 
 
 — Methods uf tiring houses, 485 
 
 l OMPIEGNE, Imperial Court at. 31 
 
 — In the time of Louis Philippe, 31 
 
 — Visit of the Emperor and Empress to, 37. 
 \musements of the Court at, 38 
 
 — The programme of the season at, 38 
 
 — Visit of the King of Prussia lo, 151, 
 ( "Mil-: de Laborde, The. 125. 
 
 ( oni ii i -:i, i in-, The noted prison of the, 404, 
 i !ond£, Prince of, 14-'-. 
 Congo ( oni ;ress, The result of the, 842. 
 ( ■ i is i \ble of Castile, 121. 
 
 Constantinople, General < rko's descent upon, 784 , 
 
 The Turk in, 788 
 Conti, M., at the Bordeaux Assemblj Excil 392 
 
 l i >N\ ENT "l Jl RUSA LEM, ,;i - 
 
 t onve ■ rs oi Paris, Invasion of thi . 166 
 
 v i i] i- I .EGISI ATI! Ill 1S52, 1 10 
 
 — — Invasion of the, 231 
 Ci irdi >\ a, The city of, 124 
 
 < orbi ii , The Prussians in. 297. 
 t i >i i es, Palai e of the, 112 
 
 Coi -,i ii hi State, Palace of the, 493. 
 i i >i p n'l i a i , The, 4:; 
 
 — Arrest of the deputies . 1 1 
 
 — Horrors of the, 45-6 
 
 Cour des ( omptes, Palace of the, 193 
 
 Courbet, Gustave, member of the Communal Council, 475. 
 
 < il : i i -, . Mi , 589 
 i ■ ,i !olonel, 736 
 
 i ovi n i < Iardi is, The clubs in, 633. 
 
 t 'rani . Sir Franc is, 544. 
 
 Creil, Scenes in, 432. 
 
 I [.. i,\i\\i-:i i . I 'liver, at Ham J >lon ( '<mi I , ,V>0 
 
 i rown Prini i of Prussia, The, and Steinmetz, 203. 
 
 — — — At the Coronation at Versailles, 365 
 t 'ri a\ ■. Prince's Redoubt, The, 378. 
 Crystal Palace, The, 544 
 
 Cure of the Madeleine. Arrest of. 446. 
 Curious Photograph, A, 518. 
 
 D 
 
 Dai matia, The co?st of, 676 
 Dampiekre, General, Death of, 304. 
 Dam be . I he si enery of, 703-705 
 
 — A Sturm on, 706. 
 
 — i lypsies on, 707. 
 
 — Wayside inns along the, 712 
 
 I i >.' i.i \ . Archbishop, Execution of, 496. 
 Deauville, Arrival of the Empress at, 237. 
 De Failly, General, at Beaumont, 242 
 I >i i.i i rry, The Abbe", Execution of, 196 
 I hi esi luze and the Communists, 456 
 
 I leath of, 502 
 De Lesseps M . and H M Stanley, 844. 
 I >i-\n crac s in I- ngland, 591 . 595 
 
 — Aims of, 596 
 
 1 h km , At the, 623 
 
INDEX. 
 
 *:,:; 
 
 Derby Day, Scenes on the road, 624. 
 
 — Ear], 571. 
 
 Derbyshire, Rural beauty in, 639. 
 
 Devonshire, Duke of, 592. 
 
 De Wimpffen, Genera], Arrival at Metz, -44. 
 
 — Character of, 245. 
 
 — As General -in-Chief , 246. 
 
 — Letter to Napoleon III., 248, 
 
 — Quarrel with Ducrot, 251. 
 
 — And Bismarck, 252. 
 
 D'H^risson, Count. Account of the flight of the Em- 
 press, 235. 
 " 1 1[,\ ha," The, 93. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, as an after-dinner speaker, 5 I L, 
 Dieppe, The Germans at, .">L'7. 
 Dilke, Sir Charles, at home and abroad, . r ''.i4. 
 Dimitriowski and General Radetzky, 758. 
 ] Iocs, in the East, 711. 
 Dombrowski, General, sketch of his career, 454. 
 
 — Death of, 4s;;. 
 
 — His seven hundred horsemen, 484. 
 Dominican Brothers, Massacre of the, 4'.>7. 
 I li in Carlos, 56, 
 
 DoN' Emilio, 90. 
 
 Do re iii London, 538. 
 
 Douay, General, at Weissenburg, 192. 
 
 — In the Faubourg du Temple, 509. 
 Douchan, Stephen, 671. 
 
 Dkagimiroff, General, Personal description of, 758. 
 Drenkova, Gypsies at, 713 
 Dublin and its chief features, 658. 
 
 — The environs of, 660. 
 
 — And Liverpool, 662. 
 
 In ( ami . Maxime, Criticism of, 465, 
 
 — And M. Thiers, 512. 
 
 hi i rot, General, in Strasbourg, 170. 
 
 — Tactics of, criticised, 247. 
 
 — Escape of, 322. 
 
 — At Champigny, 341. 
 I tuFFERiN, Lord, 651 
 
 Dupin, M. and Napoleon III., 33. 
 Duval. Death of, 437. 
 
 E 
 
 Earle, General, in Egypt. 833. 
 
 Eastern Question in 1875, 669. 
 
 Ecumenical Council at Rome, The, 410. 
 
 Edinburgh, old and new, Memorials of, ii4. r >. 
 
 Edward, Prince, 565. 
 
 Egypt, Battle at Tel-el-Kebir, B22 
 
 — The El Mahdi, 823. 
 
 — Battles at El ( >beid ; Hicks Pasha and his force, 824 
 
 — The Mudir of Dongola ; Bombardment of Beibi-i, ^i.'. 
 
 — Abu-Klea, 833 
 
 — The battle at Metemneh ; Fall of Khartoum, 834. 
 h<.-, ptian War, The origin of, 821 
 
 El Gebir, 128. 
 
 Eliot, George, 641. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, at Windsor Castle 552 
 
 Elsasshausen to Morsbronn, 199. 
 
 Elysee, The, Palace of the, 43. 
 
 Enghien, Battle near. 336 
 
 Em. i. and and the food supply. 525. 
 
 — Its fortifications, 528 
 
 England, The white cliffs of, 530. 
 
 — Plain speaking in. 591. 
 
 — Radicalism in, 591, 595. 
 
 — Sources <d revenue in, 594. 
 
 — The coming struggle, 597. 
 
 — Public meetings in, 0il4. 
 
 — Fox-hunting in, 636. 
 
 — Tenant farmers in, 636. 
 
 — Rural beauty of, 638. 
 
 — The Lake Country, 642. 
 
 — And the Riisso-Turkish War, 7*4. 
 Engi \nd's Soudan Campaign, 821-835. 
 I <■! i-.n Channel, The, 527. 
 
 — Seaside resoi ts, 529. 
 
 — Royalty, charges which it entails, 559. 
 
 — Painters. 626 
 
 — Manners and dress, 629. 
 
 — Army m 1878, 1-.Hh.i- ikv of, 786. 
 
 — Royal Family : Queen Victor! 
 
 Albert Edward, Prina oi Walt -. 56L 
 
 — Princess of Wales, 561 
 
 Prince Edward, 565. 
 
 — Duke of Edinburgh, 566. 
 
 — — — Princess Louise, 566. 
 
 — Duke of Connaught, f)66. 
 
 Duke of Albany, 5G6. 
 
 — Duke- of Cambridge, 567. 
 
 i ■ : *.y, before and after the war, L93. 
 
 Epinai after the war, 382. 
 
 Episode in the Franco-* lerman War, 382. 
 
 Epitaph on Frederick, Prince of Wales, 563. 
 
 Ep< ii li i if Unifica i ion, The, 1 1*. 
 
 Escott's England, Extracts from, "77, 583. 
 
 I si iiviAL, The great vault of the, 62, 
 
 Eski Zaghra, Destruction and massacn in, 773, 
 
 i G neral, at the burning of Paris, 192. 
 
 — Madame, I'M 
 
 l genie, Empress, and the war, 177. 
 
 — Flight of, 235. 
 
 — Dangerous passage across the Channel, 238. 
 
 — Arrival in London, 238, 
 
 — Despatch of, to Napoleon III , 239 
 
 — Wardrobe of, 239. 
 
 — Library of, 262 
 
 Evans, Dr., and the Empress Eugenie, 236. 
 Exiles, The, Return of, to France, 261, 
 Expiatory Chapel, The destruction of, 472. 
 
 Faidherbe, General, at St. Quentin, 366, 
 
 Failly, General de. 183. 
 
 Faubourg St. Hi inorii, The destruction on the, 491. 
 
 Favre, Jules, in the Corps Legis'.atif, 143. 
 
 — And Count Bisman k, 1 16 
 
 — And Ollivier, L'L'i). 
 
 — Speech and motion nf, 224. 
 
 — And Bismarck at Ferrieres, 270. 
 
 — Impressions of Bismarck, -''.'>. 
 
 — Conclusion of the interview with Bismarck, 273. 
 
 — Account of the insurrection in Paris, 326. 
 
 — Letter to Gambetta, 340. 
 
 — Mission to Versailles, 373, 
 
 — And Bismarck at Versaillc-s, .".74. 
 
 — Speech at the Bordeaux Assembly, 387, 
 
854 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Ferdinand II, 128 
 
 Ferdina s'd VI 1 , 55. 
 
 Kerre, rheophile, Extract from lettei of, J66, 
 
 i ■ y of M Jules Favre to, 270. 
 
 Ferry, Jules, election in 1869, 144. 
 
 — And the insurrection in Paris, 325 
 Figaro ["hi , 50 
 
 I i i [A l Reform League, The (London i, 599, 
 
 I i ! ■ IN : m i r, Mr; ,548. 
 
 I i i .. ■; i i , M and the visit of Alexander II. to Paris, 
 
 — At t he obsequies of V 1 1 ugi >. 840 
 
 !■ 'i oi ii is, ' !u ;.iv e, I ailun and flight of, 103, 
 
 — Heads the insurrei tion, 326 
 
 — Death of, I .;: 
 
 Forsti r, W K , and the Irish Question, 653. 
 Fort Issy, 360 
 
 — — During the Revolution, 458 
 
 I i \ ■.' e during the Si cond Empire, L' 1 - "• 4 . 
 
 — Danger of riots in, in 1870, 158 
 
 — The " n ibune " I <Q 
 
 — I vents in, 1870, 165, 
 
 — Policj of, since I ouis XIV., 271 
 
 — 1 1 1 1 1 r rals in, S38. 
 
 — \inl the n suit of the ( i mgi i I oni rence, 3 (J 
 Franco-German War, The, 165-384 
 
 i i a ■ i i < irt, Wounded soldiers at, 216, 
 I ! I m ii re in i860, 1 he, 132-136 
 
 — Imperial press law and stamp tax, 138. 
 
 — i hambei , opening i en im mies, 1 HI 
 
 — Army, condition ol the, in 1870, 172. 
 
 — And Pi ussian history, * rreai events in, 318, 
 
 — And * lerman soldiers compared, 338. 
 Friends of < >rder, The, 428. 
 Froshwe i ler, The village of, 198. 
 
 G 
 
 < ; abri w \ , fight near, 7t',4. 
 
 — 1 he town of, 766-7. 
 
 — S< hools of, in 1871, 768 
 
 — Convent for women near, 771. 
 Gai.atz, 7 1 4 
 
 Galliffet, Marquis de, and the desei ters, 511, 
 G i : a and i !ast< lar, 57, 100 
 
 — And the Baudin subscription, 136, 
 
 — And iht Rlveil Journal, 136. 
 
 — 1 [ead of the " Irrei on< ilabli ■ ." 138 
 
 — In tin- Corps Legislatif, 143. 
 
 — And M. Thiers' projei i , 230 
 
 — And the invasion of the Corps Legislatif, 231. 
 
 — Voyage in a balloon, 304, 
 
 ■ - Slanderous accusation against, 328 
 ■ \\ ork in the South, 328, 
 
 — Death of, 848 
 
 i . Ahi i;a i i 'i ai E'ordi aux, 380 
 
 — H is influem e ai Bordeaux, 396 
 
 — And In- Famous "II sand," 400, 
 
 i ,.\ RNir r-Pagi ,167 
 
 i ,,\i rh i, at Hampton « "ourt, 5 19 
 Gasparin, M. Agenoi de, at Belleville, 174 
 Gate oi i in- Si -;. The I Puerta del Sol ), 122. 
 ( '.i mi ia, I Kike oi , Pi in< e of thi Hou ■ i if S n 03 . 58 
 Gi er iHEiM, < in the road to, 191. 
 
 1 tesi t iption of, 196. 
 George II ,564. 
 
 1 -i 1 .i- [II., and his Court ai Windsi u , 554 
 German Army, The, in 1870, 186, 
 
 — — The, in the North, 366, 
 
 — Military discipline, 218 
 
 — * hitposts, how Eortified, 348, 
 ■ — Soldiei 5 in Paris, 126, 
 
 ( Iermany, The Passion Play in, 795 
 
 — Its position in Eun >pe, 817. 
 
 — Industi 1.1I ti iumph of, 817, 
 
 — In Africa, 818. 
 
 Girard, Mr., account of the execution ol Archbishop 
 
 Darboy, 496, 
 ( riF ardin, M I' mile de, 50. 
 Glenn, Mr , in Paris during thi ( ommune, 516 
 Gladstone, M P., and the Irish question, 652, 
 
 — And Lord Beaconsfield's policy of empire and 1'berty, 
 
 663. 
 
 — His ( areer, 664 
 
 — As .i siatesman, 666 
 
 — 1 11 and "Hi of Parliament, 668 
 
 — Persona] des( 1 iption of, 668, 
 
 — < >n the Turkish govi rnment, 673, 
 
 — Ministry, The, and the creation of peers, 581. 
 
 < .1 asgow, its commerce and its aniiquitii i, 643 
 
 — The water supply of, 648, 
 
 I ioBi 11. M , at tin nbsequies of V. Hugo, 840. 
 Goni 1 . rhe guard at, 317 
 Goi d 1 hmidt, Mr., 627, 
 
 < Ii 'i esCi ■. ' 'onstantine, 7.:7. 
 
 Gordon, < '. G., < reneral, as ( '.overoor-Gener.il of the 
 Soudan, 824-826 
 
 — Ami Km- Leopold, 826, 
 
 — In Khartoum, 827, 
 
 — Despatches to Sir E. Baring, 828, 830, 
 
 — 1 ,;i acts from diary, 829. 
 
 — And Zebehr Pasha, 830 
 
 — Extracts from letters "f, 832. 
 
 — Death of, 834. 
 
 — Relief expedition, Tin 1 , £30 
 
 Gorny Sti den, The Russian emperor at, 780-2. 
 
 I .. iR r.SCH AKi IFF, I 'mi. i;, 7ML'. 
 
 — At the Berlin Congress, 786. 
 
 Government of National Defense, Proclamation of, 367 
 
 — — — Proclamation <if, at the end of tin.- siege "f Paris, 
 
 375 
 G01 1 i.''. 1 '■■ neral, expedition of, into the Balkans, 782-4. 
 Graham, i General, in Egypt, 828 
 ( Irami ■-. 1 , I Hike de, 1»>7 
 Grand Docks oi Paris, The, in flames, 499. 
 Gravesend, II istoi i> ,il souvenirs "1 . 53 I 
 
 l Ire \ 1 1 . .mm] 1 ■ 1 ai II [GHWAY, The, 531. 
 ( .1, i \ i I ' SERALS, 439 
 
 Grebzi, The village "f, 685. 
 
 — The rebel army in. *'>77. 
 Greeks in Roumania, 740. 
 
 — In Tirnova, 7t;l 
 
 i Irei ley, Horace, 50, 
 
 Greenhi 
 
 i .11 bnwii ii. r>;::; 
 
 Historii si 'in - in. 534. 
 
 — Hospital, 534 
 
 ( Ire m am, sic Thomas, 615. 
 
 Grew, M Jules, President of the Assembly at Bordeaux, 
 
 388 
 i ■ ■ .i Gai LERY, The, 627 
 
 — House, 63] 
 
INDEX. 
 
 855 
 
 Grotto of Heri ules, 11.". 
 Grousset, M.Pascal, and the Commune, 461. 
 — Sentence and escape of, 518. 
 Grove, Sir George, 627 
 Guildhall, 606. 
 Guillotines, Burning of the, 438. 
 
 H 
 
 Halle, Charles, in London, 627, 
 Hamilton, Duke of, 571. 
 Hammersmith, Historical events in, 542. 
 Hampton Court, its history, 549 
 
 The tapestries of, 550 
 
 Hangerli, Constantine, Assassination of, 728 
 
 Hapsburgs, The, 96 
 
 Hartington, The Marquis of, 593, 
 
 Hastings, 529 
 
 Hatton, on the future of Birmingham, 640. 
 
 Henry II. before Metz, 318. 
 
 Henry III. and the Protestant Montbrun, 812. 
 
 Herzegovina, a day with a vbivoda, 677. 
 
 — History of the insurrection in. 1875, 660. 
 
 — Among the rocks of, 675. 
 
 — Journey from Ragusa to, 676. 
 
 — Tomo, the guide, 680. 
 
 — Peko Pavlovic, 683. 
 
 — Council of war, 686. 
 Herzegovinan Warriors, 685 
 Holland, Charles, at Chiswick, 543. 
 Horse-racing, Scenes at Epsom, 623. 
 
 Famous Jockeys, 624. 
 
 The Ascot and the < >ak, 626, 
 
 Hotel lies Invalided, Invasion of, 425. 
 Hotel de VlLLE, The procession to the, 234. 
 
 Communists in, 428 
 
 During the Commune, 448 
 
 — — The burning of, 486,500. 
 Ruins of, 504. 
 
 House of Commons, Aristocratic element in, 570. 
 
 The Speaker, 577. 
 
 The Irish members in the, 587 
 
 The procedure in, - r is:'. 
 
 A conscientious member, 583. 
 
 The Treasury Whip; Parliamentary forms, 585. 
 
 Oddities of, 586. 
 
 English representation in, 587 
 
 Anomalies of English representation, 687. 
 
 Reform of, and the redistribution bill, 588, 
 
 House of Lords, The throne, 576. 
 
 The Lord Chancellor, 577. 
 
 The procedure in the, 578 
 
 Additions sine- 1859. 582. 
 
 Offices disposed of by, 595, 
 
 Hugo, Charles, Funeral of, 427. 
 
 — Victor, and the Imperialist cause, 44. 
 In Spain, 55 
 
 — — Return from exile, 261. 
 
 Speech in the Bordeaux Assembly, 393 
 
 And the Vendome Column, 46S. 
 
 On the death of Captain Harvey, 532 
 
 And the English Channel, 531, 
 
 Protest against capital punishment, 836 
 
 Religion of, 837. 
 
 Verses of, on Napoleon III. ; Death of, 836, 
 
 Hugo, Victor, Obsequies of, 839 
 
 A retrospection, 848. 
 
 What he preai hed, 849. 
 
 ]]i mbert, King, and Queen Marghenta, 414. 
 Hungarian < rown, The chapel of the, 708. 
 1 [ i ngary, * raiova, 711. 
 
 — Features "i, 709. 
 
 — Orsova, 704-9 
 
 — Mehadia, 70l>. 
 
 — The Tsiganes, 710 
 
 — The dogs of Orsma, 71t>. 
 H ym- Park , scenes in, 631. 
 
 I< inatieff, < leneral, 732 
 
 Industrial Exhibition in Milan and Turin, 404. 
 
 i . ii [sitio -■. The, 130, 
 
 Institution of the H<>ly Cross, The, 452. 
 
 International Asm h iation, The, 843. 
 
 Of workingmen, The objects of, 51. 
 
 Letter of, 175. 
 
 — Boat-race at Putney, 540, 542, 
 Internationale, The < Irigin of, 52. 
 
 — Programme of, 52-53. 
 
 — Influent e of, in Spam, 55. 
 
 — Movement of, in 1870, 174. 
 Invisible Court, The, of Kn^land, 568-569. 
 Ireland, The Land League, 652, 
 
 — The Coercion Act, 652. 
 
 — The Crimes Bill, <•■">!. 
 
 — The land agitation in, 651. 
 
 — Crimes in, 654. 
 
 — "The Invincibles," 654. 
 
 — A Land League mass meeting, 656 
 
 — The wild and savage peasantry of, 657, 
 
 — Dublin ( astle, 658 
 
 — Trinity College, 659. 
 
 — St. Patrick's Cathedral, 659. 
 
 — Phcenix Park, 660 
 
 — Queenstown harbor, 660, 662, 
 | ■, i ?IG Henry, Gl*0. 
 
 I . ... |; : ,,.,. , I >■■ ■ ■ ption -i journey from, G I. 
 
 I -aim I., Queen, 56, 94, 
 
 Italian Army ami Navy, The, 406. 
 
 — War-ships, 407. 
 Italy, and France, 1 tS, 
 
 — Upgrowth of her nationality, ."-00. 
 
 — Alliance of Prussia and, 397, 
 
 — Prom Julius II. to Pius VI., 398. 
 
 — And Prussia, ( ampaign of, 100. 
 
 — Beggars in, 404. 
 
 — The civil engineer in, 404. 
 
 — Railways in, 4H-J. 
 
 — Painting in, 4'>.~>. 
 
 — Agricultural progress in, 105-6. 
 
 — Education in, 406. 
 
 — The struggli i ' hurch and State, 407, 
 
 — Civil list of the Kin- of, 41 1, 
 
 — Propheeies of the Catholics in, 4L'4. 
 
 Jacobins, The, at the funeral of Victor II'. 
 [ai.hks, The, at Montretout, 366, 
 
85U 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Jass\ , Impressions of, 741 
 
 — The Russians in , " The Three Hierarchs," ~i~ 
 
 — Saint Nu holas, 742 
 
 Jaumont Qi arrii , Stor) of the, 214. 
 
 Jeri ime, King, 37. 
 
 [esi i rs, The expulsion of, from Spain, . r >7. 
 
 J.ian of Arc, 31. 
 
 John II, King, 1 — I 
 
 Johnson, In . house in Fleet stree : , 61(1 
 
 f' il RDE, 433. 
 
 Kaiserslautern, Adventures in, 192, 
 
 K.ARA-1 rEl iRGE, "(IS. 
 
 Karl, Prince Friedrich, Field equipage of, 187. 
 
 i »n the road to Metz, 203. 
 
 In froul oi Metz, 310 
 
 Kean Edmund, 548 
 
 Kelli :, M., at the Bordeaux \ss« mbly, 3S8. 
 Kehi , ' ierman batteries at, 279. 
 Di >ti hi tion of, 281, 
 
 KENS1 -.(, 1 1 IN I rA RD1 MS, 559 
 
 — Pa lace, \n episode of, 558. 
 km . and k'-w i lai dens, 545 
 Kezanlik, Turks and Bulgarians in, 772. 
 
 — Tradit oi 773 
 
 Knight of La Mancha, 114. 
 
 La Ri ique i te, Visit to the pi ison ■ if, 160. 
 
 — — Prison, Executions in, 497, 
 
 La Villi i i i ■ , The I ommunists in, 199. 
 Labi it ■ here, Mr , 594 
 
 — And Mi Bradlaugh, 602 
 Lambeth, 539 
 
 Land I \x, The, oi i In ai Bi itain, 596 
 Landai . A visit to, I 1 "' 
 
 l . \ -. lois, oi Paris, scream* for vengi anc e, 392. 
 Landwbhrsme.m, The, in Versailles, 354. 
 Landsdowne, Marquis of, and the Gordon Relief Expedi- 
 tion, 831 
 Law Students in England, 611. 
 Lawson, Sii Wilfred, 623 
 I i Bo. . i, Marshal, Failure of plan of, 181. 
 Le Bi iuri .i i . I lespi rate battles .it, 323 
 Le Comte, General, \ ■ ■ ■ ination of, IC8. 
 I,k Franc, M , at the Bordeaux As icmblj , 3 '1 
 i i .: ; ■ I Jarago a, 88 
 
 — ( If the i liuw.li of Mihail Voda, 728. 
 
 — ( ti the Kapa, 695 
 Legends, of Bucharest, 720, 
 
 I eigh 1 1 in, Sir Fredei i< k, 626 
 
 Leo \ 1 1 1 , Persona] appearance and character of , 41ii 
 
 Daily i ife of, 116-421 
 
 Founds an academy, I 1 -'.'- 
 
 Leopold, Prince, and the Spanish thsone, 166. 
 
 — Of Hohenzollern, 365 
 
 Leva i lois, during the n volution, 459. 
 Liverpoi il, Wealth and povi rty of, 662. 
 
 1 .IVRi >'. , I ;ity of, 82. 
 
 Livry, Industry of the soldiers in, 349. 
 Ljubibr \ rn . Voivoda, 678 
 Lli iyd's, 616. 
 
 Li hre Armi . The defeat of, 345, 
 I .i imbard^ , Napoleon III. in, 398, 
 London and Paris Compared, 519. 
 
 Mutual respeel between, D26, 
 
 -- I h inking customs in, 525. 
 
 — The poi I ' if. 537 
 
 -■ rhe docks and their revenue; Bridge, 538. 
 
 — Somerset 1 1 < 539 
 
 — 1 1 ishmen in, 587. 
 
 — Municipal reform, 589 
 
 — The land owners of, 590 
 
 — Public-houses in, 599. 
 
 I lie Hall of Si ience, 600. 
 
 — The Metropolitan Tabi rnai li , 599. 
 
 — The Lord Mayor, 604-607. 
 
 — The Recorder; The Mansion House, 605. 
 
 — Guildhall, 60fi 
 
 — Lord Mayor's 1 »ay in ; The < ity ( ompanie , 606. 
 
 — City in in rhe I - mple Bar and Memorial, 609. 
 
 — Fleet street and its historical memories, 610. 
 I inc iln's Inn, 610, 
 
 — St. Paul's ; Paternoster Row, 612, 
 
 — Lombard strei t, 613. 
 
 — \iu.:i icans in, 614 
 
 — rhe Royal Exchangi . 615 
 
 — The Citj of; Banli of England, 616. 
 
 — ( lirist's Hospital, 616 
 
 — Tile Charter Housi . ' ["hi rimes," 617. 
 
 — The smoke and dirt of, 619. 
 
 — The Roj .i! Ai ademy, 626, 
 
 — The Philharmonic Society, 627. 
 
 — Seasons, The. 620, 629 
 
 — I heatre, 1 he . Rotten Row, 630. 
 
 — Some noble houses in, 631, 
 - rhe i lubs of, 633 
 
 — The Strand, 635 
 
 — Book publishers, 612 
 Longchamps, The German parade on, 4'J">. 
 I miis I , of Bavai ia, 792. 
 
 Lot ill , of Bavaria, 793. 
 
 Loi is XII. Chateau of, at Maisons Laffitte, 333. 
 
 I.mi i-. \|Y 190 
 
 — Palace of, at Versailles, 358, 
 Lowell, James Russell, 98 
 Luxembi 'i ]' . Ai I \ ik, The, 153. 
 
 — Panic, The, 29. 
 
 — Palace, The, 494. 
 
 M 
 
 M \ Gah w, Mr , in Bulgaria, 672. 
 
 — Account nf the attack on Plevna, 780. 
 MacMahon, Marshal, I haracter of, 184. 
 
 — \i Woerth; Defeat of, 1!>!>. 
 
 — In action, 201 
 
 — At Chalons, 205. 
 
 — Telegram of, 241. 
 
 — Disastei lo, 246 
 
 ■ - \iM the Republh . 846 
 M \ di id, First impressions of, 64. 
 
 — And its gloom, 92 
 
 — Bull-fighting in, 101 
 
 — Museum of Painting in, 111. 
 
 — Noted tapestries in ; Public buildings of, 112 
 
INDEX. 
 
 857 
 
 Magnan, Marsha!, 35. 
 
 Magnet, Citizen, 441*. 
 
 " Maiden's Tower," The, 31. 
 
 Maison aux Pilieks, 505. 
 
 Maison de la Revolution, The, 142. 
 
 Malesherbes Fight, The, 481. 
 
 Mano Negra, The society of the, 125. 
 
 Marlborough House, 562. 
 
 Marseillaise Journal, The, 133. 
 
 Marseilles, Wealth and resources of, 83. 
 
 — Plague of, 1720-21, 84. 
 Marx, Karl, 52. 
 
 Matador, The (bull killer), 1<>7. 
 
 Mathilde, Princess, and marriage of Napoleon III., 37. 
 
 — Retreat of, at St. Gratien. 337 
 M \t pas, M. de, 45. 
 Maximilian, Execution of. 29. 
 Mayence, Military scenes in, 186. 
 Mazas Pris< in, 497 
 
 Mazzini and the Italian war of Independence, ■">' s 
 
 — Funeral of, 412. 
 
 — Letter of, on the Insurrection, 512. 
 Mediterranean, Journey to the, 67. 
 Megy, General, at the burning of Paris, 492. 
 Merimee, M., and M. Thiers, 223, 
 Metropolitan Church, The (Seville), 128 
 Metropolitan Tabernacle, The, 599 
 Metternich, Princess de, 'M , 
 
 — Prince de, and the Empress Eugenie, 236, 
 Metz, in lSTd, 169. 
 
 — Great battles in front of, and around, 203-213. 
 
 — Condition of the French troops in, 205, 
 
 — Bazaine's retreat upon, 207. 
 
 — Road to, 209; Environs and history of, 308-310. 
 
 — German losses outside, 311. 
 
 — Diversions of German soldiers during the siege of, 312, 
 
 — Within and without during the siege, 313. 
 
 — Poisoning the wells around, 314. 
 
 — Surrender of, 317; Events after the surrender of, :;is. 
 Mexico, End of the French expedition in, 28. 
 Mezquita, The mosque of tin-, 125. 
 
 MlCHEL, General, 17U. 
 
 " Midi " (Southern France), 82, 
 
 Midhat Pasha, as Governor of Bulgaria, T* •-* i 
 
 Milan, Prince, 672-3 
 
 Mn LAIS, John, 626; In Scotland, 649 
 
 Milli&re, Execution of, 516. 
 
 Milton, John, and the origin of Paradise Lost, 798. 
 
 Ministry of Finance, The burning of, 491. 
 
 Mmi, M., 4!)7. 
 
 Mirabeau, Speech of, 505. 
 
 MiRSKY, Prince, 769. 
 
 Mmi tke. Von, and the German armies, 17* 
 
 — Journeys before the war, 182; And De Wimpffen, 253. 
 
 — Saves his papers, 306; In Versailles, 330, 365. 
 Mont Avron, 360 
 
 Mi int Cenis Tunnel, The, 403. 
 Mont Valerien, Story of, 332 
 
 Monteneorin, Manners and customs of the, 692. 
 Montenegrins, A type of the, 688, 692. 
 
 — The Moslems, 691. 
 
 Montenegro, History and legend of, 670-1; The army 
 of, 693; Costumes in, 694; Legend of the Kapa, 
 695; Peter IL, Danilo, 695; Nicholas I., 696-7; Its 
 situation, 689; Its boundaries, 690; The conscript 
 fathers, 700 ; The monastery of Ostrog, 700, 
 
 MONTIJO, Mdlle. Eugenie de, .".2; Ami Napoleon [II. ,33. 
 Montmartre, 426; The defense of, 182 
 Motn medy, lira very of a French officer at, .>ll 
 Mow i morency, The town of, 335. 
 Montpensier, Duke de, 130. 
 Montretout, The assault at, 368-369 
 Moorish Victories over the Goths, Legend of the. 115. 
 Mortlake, Historical events in, 544. 
 Moselle, [ ort, 308, 
 Mi iun r ^t Nich< 'I.a- . 769 
 Mi NH h, The city and people of, 792. 
 — The museums and statue of, 793. 
 Murillo, 130. 
 
 Mr seum OF Painting, in Strasbourg, Destruction of, 284. 
 Museum of the Prado, in Madrid, The, 111. 
 Music, in London, 027. 
 
 N 
 
 Nancy, comical incident in : Story of the capture of, 'J' 1 ! 
 
 Napias-Piquet, and the burning of important papers, 506 
 
 Napier, Lord, 9G. 
 
 Nam es, The port of, 403 ; Railways in, 404. 
 
 Nam ileon, Prim e, and Rai hel, -' ; ' s 
 
 Napoleon, Prince Louis, as President "f the French Re- 
 public, 40. 
 
 Naii leon III. and his Court, 22; Marriage of, .'14 ; Pro- 
 claimed Emperor, 4K; Futile efforts for reform, 49; 
 And his ministers, 138; Speeches of, 142; Senate 
 of, HO; And the King of Prussia, 151 ; Intrigue of, 
 152 ; Departure for the war, 174 ; At Saarbruek, 204 ; 
 Taken prisoner, 222; At Sedan, 24S . At home, 235. 
 Surrender of. 250 ; I leparture from Sedan, 254; 
 Journey of, through Belgium, 258; A prisoner at 
 Wilhelmshohe, 258; Library of, 262; And the alli- 
 ance of Italy with Prussia, 397; Policy in Italy,398; 
 Espouses the canst.- of Piedmont, 399; Ami Pur, 
 IX., 400; Death of, 847. 
 
 Napoleon's Column, 527 
 
 National Assembly, The, and the Imperialists, I ! 
 
 N ATK in a l Guard, The, at Montretout, 370; 1 (isciplineof, 
 
 426 : And the Communists, 426. 
 National Guard Mobile, The, 171; Origin of, 227; 
 
 After the surrender of Strasbourg, 287. 
 Neuilly, Fighting on the road to, 441. 
 
 — T hrilling tales of the destruction at, 451. 
 Neutral Zone, The, 377. 
 
 Ney, Count Edgar, 36. 
 Niamtzo, The monasteries of, 746. 
 Nice, ced-d to the French, '.'>'■>'■>. 
 Nicholas, C.rand Duke, Character of, 754. 
 
 — Entry into Tirnova, 760, 
 Nn ih ilas I.. Prince, ,; ' ( 7 
 
 Niel, Marshal, Reform law of, 171. 
 
 Niomt of fires. The, 4*6. 
 
 Noir, Victor. Assassination of, 133 
 
 North Sea Coast. The, 528 
 
 Northumberland. Duke of, 571. 
 
 Notes from the diary of a French writer. 51 1-515. 
 
 o 
 
 Ober-Ammergau, The Passion Play In, 796. 
 
 Old London, 520 
 
858 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Ollivier, Emile, and the Imperialists, 24, 143 
 
 i * ■ iration of, 106 
 
 — 1 onversation with a political friend, 178. 
 
 — 1 1, feal of ministry of, 220 
 
 < >k wn / , The brothi rs, 157, 
 
 < Imbla, Pictures in, 076 
 
 ( i.mnibi t • in Madi id, 91, 
 Orders Day in Versailles, '■'<■■> 
 
 < hi eans l.M i I , Fhe, and their English home, 549. 
 ( >rso\ \. Scenery in, 704; Railways in, 709 
 
 < Ism an Pasha, at Loftscha, 765; At Plevna, 782, 
 Oub I vdv of Seven Sorrows, Hospital of, 452, 
 " i in Lady Of [*he Pillar," Legend of, 65. 
 
 Pain i \ rs a m ■ Pain i ini , in Italy, 405- 
 
 Painting, Museum of, in Madrid, 111. 
 
 Pai vci of Justice, The burning of, 507, 
 
 Pai w Bourbon, Description of, L42 ; Invasions of , 143. 
 
 Palais de l'1 ndustrie, 1 17. 
 
 Palais Royal, Heart-rending scenes around, 491. 
 
 Palais Royal Company, The, 39 
 
 1'ai.a i in k te, Troops iii the, 190, 
 
 Pali i ■ General, ( lount de, Ministry of, 220, 
 
 — Projeci of, 230. 
 
 Palmerston, Lady, Receptions of, 632. 
 
 Lord, at < lompiegne, 37 
 Pantheon, The, Ml , 01 the Spanish kit 
 Papai Nuncio, 95 
 
 Paradol, M., in the United States, 157; Suicide of, 158. 
 Paris, Exposition of 1867, I he, 23, 29 
 
 — Journey from Madrid to, Si, 
 
 — Palace of I ndustry in, 101. 
 
 — During the war, 21K; Return of regiments to, 229. 
 
 — - Preparations for the siege of, 262 , The sieges of, 263 
 
 I'm -mii prisoners in, 265 ; The forts round, 300. 
 
 — Terms of the armistice, 275. 
 
 I »e1 ills ' if the pr< paration for the defensi i if, 301 
 
 — Journey around, during the siege, 332 
 
 — Bombardment of, 359 ; End of the siege of, 375 
 
 — Destruction of public institutions in, 361 
 
 P .il reminiscences oi the cli ise of the siegi of, 37C. 
 
 — England's aid to, after (he siege, 377. 
 
 — Triumphal entry into, 125 
 
 — Outbreak of the Commune, 126 
 
 — Second bombardnienl of, 443. 
 
 — Entry of regulai troops into, 476 ; Execul sin, 190 
 
 — The burning of, 190; The seven days fight in, 499-511 
 
 — Communist pr ssion in, 500. 
 
 — The destruction in, during the Commune, 515 
 
 — And London compared, 519-526 
 
 — Of to-day, 520 ; In a fog, 524; Drinking customs in, 525 
 
 — The Passion Play in, 797 
 
 — The Pantheon, the entombment of Victor Hugo in, 839. 
 
 1 lie army of, at the obsequies of Victor Hugo, 841. 
 Paris Journals during the Commune, " Paris Free," 
 
 " * ommune," 163 ; " Estafette," " < rrelot," " Pere 
 
 Dm In !i> ," 4i;i 
 Parking! on, sir John, 581. 
 Parliameni Building, The, 572-576. 
 Parnell, Mr., in the House of Commons, 586. 
 
 — In Ireland, 652; Imprisonment of, 653 
 Passion Play, 'I he, ai < Iber- immergau, 798-811. 
 
 j 0Sl p h Mail r, 800, 80*2; facob Hett, 801. 
 
 Passii ■'. Play, Repri sentation of : — 
 
 Pan I —The fall of man, 799; Christ in the Temple, 
 800; the Sanhedrim scene, 802, 805; the Lord's 
 Supper, 804; the betrayal, 805 ; the scene in Geth- 
 semane , 806 
 Part II.— The scene before Anna-., 807; Petei di 
 iiial, 808 ; Suicide of J udas, 808 ; Christ be fore 
 Pilate, 809; the bearing of the Cross to Go! 
 and the Crucifixion, 810. 
 
 Pavia, i ieneral, 79, 
 
 Peabody, George, in London, 532 
 
 Pi so Pavlovic and Ljubibratic, 684 
 
 l'i msio! in I ngland, Ancient and hereditary, 566-568 
 
 Pe-re Jean, his opinion of Napoleon III ,295. 
 The story of, 295, 
 
 PfeRE la Chaise, < Cemetery of, 496; Massacre in, 508. 
 
 Perez, Alouzo, I teath of, 12] 
 
 Pest, S15 
 
 Petei II, \\'X> 
 
 Peter's Pence, 422. 
 
 Pe i ion, Mayoi , of Paris, 135. 
 
 Petit Ji ii r \ i i if P \ ris, 139 
 
 Pe i ri it i i-i s, The, 487. 
 
 I ': u . |. lurney into the, 188 
 
 Philip II., the terrible, 63 
 
 Pli li RES OF 111! Ci IMMUNE, 444. 
 
 — Old Masters, The, 111-112 
 Pie] imi in i , The Austrians in, 399 
 Pietri, Imperial Prefect of Police, 226 
 
 Pius IX., Sketch of his life ; Ancestors of, 407, 
 
 And Victor Emmanuel, 108-411 
 
 Pi m ro, 102, 
 
 Place Stanisi k\ --, Scenes in the, 290 
 
 — D'ArMES, The parades on the. 329 
 
 — Vendome, FumM.uI.: of the, 130- Regulars in the, 487. 
 - in la Bastille, 499 
 
 — De la Concorde, Exciting scenes on the, 229; Al- 
 
 tai k on the, 480. 
 
 — De l'Opera, The barricade on the, 488 
 
 — De la Ri ".'■■ i in, Scenes on the, 138 
 
 — Du * A.RRI 'i -l i , 140. 
 Pi A/A iu- TOROS, The, 102 
 
 '■ Plebi - i ; i , The," 46. 
 
 Plevna, and its influence on the Russian campaign, 77!'. 
 
 — The fall of, 783. 
 
 Pi i mi iuth, The forts at, 528 
 Poets, Homes and haunts of, 642. 
 Pomeranians, The, at the siege of Metz, 316 
 
 PO .11 FICAL Z< IUAVES, The, 40l 
 
 I ■ i ,: Twickenham, 549. 
 
 Popes, The, and the Vatican, 417. 
 
 Portugal and the result of the Con ■■ ■ l ongress, *4l' 
 
 Pouyer-Quertier, M., and Bismarck, 269, 
 
 pRA do M useum, The, 112. 
 
 Prim, General, and Marshal Serrano 57 
 
 — Suppresses telegrams, 66; Death of, 94 
 
 — And Bismart k, 165. 
 
 Prince Consi ir i at Windsor, 554. 
 
 — i Ieorge of Saxony, 364 
 
 — Imperial, Short careei and death of, 849. 
 
 — Of Wales, The title of, 562 
 
 Princes oi Wales, The, since Edward II , 562 
 Printing Press of the " Times," The, 617, 
 Provencal Lam. hale, Tin-, 84, 
 
 Prussia, The Crown Prince of, at Si Cloud, 305 ; In Ver- 
 sailles, 330. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 859 
 
 Prussian Soldier in 1870, Uniform of, 1*7 
 — Spy, Capture of, 221. 
 Puerta dei- Sol, The, '■*-. 
 
 PUTNEY, Aquatic spurts in, 540 ; Historical events in, Ml 
 Pyat, Felix, 303, 
 
 Q 
 
 Quaint Old Spanish City, A, G5. 
 Queen of the Adriatic, The, 100 
 Queue-en-Brie, Effect of the wai in, 350 
 Quirinal Palace, The, 414. 
 Qi i .i i, Edgar, at Belleville, ITt 
 — Speech at the Bordeaux Assembly, 392. 
 
 i; 
 
 Race for the Rhine, The. 182 
 Rachel and Prince Napoleon, 3« 
 Radetzky, General, 7">7. 
 
 l ' \ i and the C munists, 437 
 
 Red Republic, The, 428 
 
 Regiment of the " Guides," The, lftl 
 
 Regnault, Death of, 371. 
 
 Regnier and Bazaine, 319 
 
 Reign of Terror, The, 45-46, 
 
 Rennie, Sir John, 536. 
 
 Republic in Europe, Advance o[ the, 849 
 
 Republicanism in Europe, 845; In Spain, !>* 
 
 Revolution, The, of 1851, 44-4S 
 
 Reynolds, sir Joshua, ">4s. 
 
 Rezonville, Battle at, 211. 
 
 Rhine, The, Military scenes on, 186; Med of, 196 
 
 RrcHMMND, The " Star and Garter" lintel; Gladstone at, 
 
 H-H; ; Its romance, ">4t> ; Louis Philippe at, 548; 
 
 Hill, r»47; Lodge, 547; Theatre, 548. 
 Rigault, Raoul, Project * « f . 47."; Death of, 515 
 Riviera, Francis de la, 70, 
 Rochefort, Henri, and the " Figaro," 50. 
 
 — Elected deputy, 132; Meetings uf, lf>K. 
 
 — And his yellow gloves, 146. 
 
 — Arrest of, 162 ; Release from prison, 240. 
 
 — Resignation of, .';l'7 ; Sentence and escape of, 517. 
 Rome, Occupation of, by the Italians, 107 
 
 — Nobility of, and the Vatican, 4lll 
 Romero de Ronda, Francisco, 102. 
 Rose Culture in Bulgaria, 7~:> 
 Rossel, sketch of his career, 456. 
 
 — Characterization of the Commune of, 513. 
 
 Roth an, M , on Prince Bismarck, 177 ; And the Duke de 
 ( iramont, 179 ; Interview with Marshal Le Bceuf , 180, 
 Rouher, M , " Vice-Emperor," 50; As a speaker, 143. 
 
 — Extracts from speech of, 152, 
 Roumania, A khan in; The clogs of, 716. 
 
 — Primitive life of the villagers, 717 ; Education in, 719. 
 
 — French influence in, 721, 7LT> ; Jews in, 721, 
 
 — The Dirnbovitza, ~~- ; Crime in, 7'J4. 
 
 — The press in, 7_'!'. 
 
 — The Garden of Herestreu ; Gypsy music in, 730 
 
 — Climate of, 732 
 
 — Funeral in ; Sketch of the history of, 734. 
 
 — The Turkish in; Queen Elizabeth, 736 
 
 — King Charles, 7:'.r.-7o7. 
 
 — Cotroceni ; Tirgoviste ; Mirzea, 7^7 
 
 Roum wia, The Language of, 739 ; Greeks in, 740, 
 
 — Agriculture in ; Impressions of Jassv, 741. 
 
 — Bessarabia, 743; Ploiesci and t ralatz, 744. 
 
 — The towns of, 74.". ; The monasteries of, 74ti. 
 
 — And the treaty of San Stefano, 786. 
 
 — Streets and street types in, 724. 
 
 — Army and navy of, 7-.V720 ; Churches of, 727-728. 
 Roumaniai l hi ri M, I lir, "27; Houses, 733. 
 Roumanians, 779; Superstitions of, 722 ; The early, 730. 
 Rot ai. Academy, The, 626. 
 
 — Wedding, in Spain, 93, 
 
 Ki B de i a Paix, The rebels in 1 1 > , 430 
 
 — Di la Sourdiere, Meetings in the, 147. 
 
 — Rait, L'he E splosii m on the, 47;: 
 
 — Royale, The Burning of the, 480. 
 
 — St. J \o,iri,-,, [nvasion of, 166. 
 Ki ssia, Nihilism in, 818 
 
 — The Emperor of, in the field, 7.">< r >. 
 
 — Emperor of, in the Kazan Cathedral, 783, 
 Russian Army, The manners of the officers of, 753. 
 
 — Soldiers, on the march, 756 . v. ossack . 758-759 
 Russian ; in Set \ ia, 673 
 
 — The, in Bulgaria; The singing troops, 749 
 Russo-Tukkish War, Sistova, 758 ; Rustchuk, 765 ; 
 
 Prince Tserteleff, 7G9 ; The Balkans, 7«;s ; Shipka 
 Pass, 769; The massacre in Eski Zaghra, 774. At 
 Selvi, 77."); The horrors of Plevna, 770; Shipka 
 Pass, Mutilation of the Russian wounded in, 771 ; 
 Statistics of the forces in, 782; England intervenes, 
 784 
 Rustchuk, The Turks in, 765. 
 
 s 
 
 SaarbrUck Affair, The, 204. 
 
 Sacristan of Notre Dame, The, and the Communists, 
 
 44. r >. 
 SADOWA, Victory of Prussians at, 152. 
 Sainte Adresse, The heights of, 528. 
 St, Catherine's Doi ks, 538. 
 Si i loud, Burning of the palace of , 305 
 
 Journey through the park at, 379 
 
 Scenes in, after the war, 379; The palace at, 380 
 
 Sainte-Croix, Church of, ;;:'._' 
 
 St. Cyk, The library of, 371 
 
 St. Denis, The bombardment of, 373; Prussians in, 431, 
 
 St. Eugenie'^ I*a\ , 37 
 
 Saint Gkatien, Visit to, 337, 
 
 St. Hilairb, M. BartheJemy, 146 
 
 St. James's Palace, Historj of, 558. 
 
 St. Paul's, and its ni ighborhood, 612. 
 
 St. Privat, Battle at, 212, 
 
 St. Stephen's Cathedrai (Metz), 309. 
 
 St. Thomas Aquinas, 423. 
 
 St. Vicente, 80 
 
 Salisbury, Lord, ."'''-'; Journey to Constantinople, 673 
 
 Salvation Army, The, t',7* 
 
 Samuel, Captain, Telegram of, 182. 
 
 San Juan, Church of, 76 
 
 San Juan de ins Reyes, Church of, 122. 
 
 San Sebastian, Biarritz to, 59 
 
 San Stefano, Signing of the treaty of, 785. 
 
 Sandringham 
 
 Santiago Chapel, 121 
 
 Saragossa, Quaint scenes in, 64; Rebellion in, 6G. 
 
860 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Sarcev, M. F., on the retreat from Chatillon, 266. 
 Sartrouville, Scenes in, 334. 
 
 .■I teider, M . .u i! the triki ■■ . 171. 
 
 — In the Corps Legislatif, 219; Narrow escape of , 232. 
 Scotland, Agriculture in ; Cities in, '14;;. 
 
 — rhe old '."I'm cathedral, G44; St. Mary's cathedral, 
 
 645; Holyrood Vbbi ) , 646 
 
 — The Highlands, 648. 
 
 — At Ardrishaig, 649; At Stirling, 650 
 
 — Am! Ireland, 650 
 So n i . Sir Walti i . 649 
 
 Second Empire, The, in Paris, in 1867, 21 ; Decline of, 
 24 . i Irigin of, 40 . Historj of, 18; Senate of, 148; 
 Fall of, 224 
 ■:■ i ., Phe retreat to, 243 ; Capitulation of, 249. 
 r I . i in-, of the stu render of, 255 
 Seafield, Earl of, 571. 
 Sefton, Earl oi . 57 1 
 ,ii. I lir gun-boats on, 447. 
 ., Marshal, 57. 
 Servia and «i ^ rulers, 671 . Turkish atrocities in, n'7J 
 Servian Smuggi ers, 706 
 Servi ans mii! Bulgai ians, 708, 
 Seville. Past and present, 127, 128. 
 Shakespeare House, The ; Festival, in 1S79, 639, 
 Sheffield, Lord, Earl of Mulgrave, 542 
 Sheridan, < leneral, in Paris, 430. 
 Simni i za, Scenes in, 748. 
 Simon, Jules, Extract from speei !i of, 143 
 
 I '.M iamentai y reputation of, 1 16 
 Sims, < leorge, 620 
 Sind, I hristian, 194, 
 Si Mt Cha pei . The, 417. 
 Sistova,750; General Dragimirofi at, 758. 
 9. i-.' iBi i i s- 1 . rhe eldei , 754. 
 
 — General, .it Plevna, 781 . I leath of, 848. 
 Sla\ .1 he, 763, 790 
 
 Socialism in France, Appearance of, 53; In Germany, 818. 
 
 Si ><ii- i v • if mi M \ ■■' i N RGRA, 125. 
 
 Soudan and the Soudanese, 824. 
 
 Spain, The Revolution in, 56; The Republic in, 57 ; Roy- 
 al wedding in, 93; Present condition of, 97 ; National 
 sport of, 102 , Republicanism in, 98, 846. 
 
 Spa nish Bishop, A. 87, 
 
 — Politics since 1869, 78; Cloak, The, 113; Beggars, 116, 
 Speyer, Crown Prince of Prussia at, 188 
 
 .- pi ri .i i in, Mr., in Ins 1 ab u nai le, 598 
 
 Stafford Hi -use . 631 
 
 ■■■ i am i- \ , II M . "n the < ongo l 'ongress, 842 
 
 s i einmetz, i leneral, 189; Recalled from active service, 310 
 
 Strand, The, a historii avenue, 635 
 
 STRASEi iUKG, in 1870, 170. 
 
 — Preparations for an assault upon, 278. 
 
 — Bombardment of; Cathedral, Famous towei of; As 
 
 •i military fort, 280. 
 
 — As built by Vauban, 1682-85,281 : Publi. Library, 284 
 
 — Expulsion of the Germans from, 282; [n flames, 283. 
 
 — Bishop of, and the i hief of the Prussian staff, 285 
 
 — Perilous journey of the Prefect of; Surrender of, 287. 
 
 — Journey through, after the bombardment, 289 
 
 — Mayor of, approai hing death of, :'.:'l ; Death of, 395 
 S i ree i Fir.HTiNG, m Spain, 71 ; As a s< ience, 478. 
 Stewart, Colonel, in Egypt, 828, 832 
 
 ' General Herbert, 832. 
 
 ITFi IR I i-i IN- VVON, 639 
 
 St E2 ( anal, The, 821 . 
 
 Suleiman Pacha and Radetzky, 770. 
 
 At Eski Zaghra, 77:'., 765. 
 
 Defeat of, 784 
 
 Si i ian of Turkey , The, in Paris, 26. 
 
 Si mdav, in I .i udon and Pai is, 522. 
 
 Sutherland, Duke of, 571 ; At Stafford House, 631. 
 
 Tadema, Alma, 626, 
 
 ! ral Von der, at Sedan, 257. 
 
 Ia pes i ries . Noted, 112. 
 
 I a i 1 1 rsa i i '-, 623 
 
 Temple Neuf, The, Destruction of, 284, 
 
 I i i riss, Mi , 630 
 Terry, Ellen, 629, 
 
 l . » :i . The, from Woolwich Arsenal to Wii dsor Castle, 
 533-551 . \ grand sight on, 533 
 
 — Embankment, The, 539. 
 Tula i re, The origin of, 7!>7. 
 Thea i re F i a:.-, ai , 1 he, 39. 
 
 Tufa i re of the Passion Play, I he, 796 
 
 — Of the Porte St Martin, Burning of, 500, 
 Thiers, Louis Adolphe, in the * !orps Legistalif, 143. 
 
 — And Ins attitude towards the Second Empire, 114. 
 
 — And M. Rouher, 152 
 
 — Protest of, 168. 
 
 — Joins the Committee of I tefense, 221. 
 
 — And M. Jerome I >.i\ id, 222. 
 
 — Declines to hi ad the govt n ut. 223; Projei t of, 230. 
 
 — Ami iIk' Governmenl oi National I tefense, 325. 
 
 — [nterview with Bismarck, 325 ; At Versailles, 327, 
 
 — And the Bordeaux Assembly, 388. 
 
 — Elet ted deputy and forms a t abinet, 389 
 
 — Speech againsl the Bonapartists, 393 
 
 — Spei i li on the Roman question, 397, 
 
 — And the ' 'ommunists, 432. 
 
 — Vigorous action of, .it Versailles, 434. 
 
 — Mansion of, unroofed, 465, 
 
 — In Pans during the conflagration, 494, 
 
 i oncess s of, 512; Funeral of, 134, *47. 
 
 I'mii rs, Madame, in the loge de la Pre\sidence, 390. 
 Thomas. < leni ral, Assassination of, 428 
 Tirnova, Triumphal entry of tin.- Russians into, 759, 
 
 — 1 >es< ription oi a house in, 761 
 
 Ti ibai i i i, Use of, in the Russian and Prussian armies, 757. 
 To< i '■, The, in Paris, 176 
 Todleben, General, outside Plevna, 782. 
 I .'i edo, Visit to the city of, 113. 
 
 — The military school of, 117 . Cathedral of, 120. 
 Tortosa, 87, 
 
 Tkafai i . w: Si. 'i \i.f. 601. 
 I i ... a i 'i i o, I he battel ies of, 447. 
 Tro< m , i General, preparing for tlie siege of fans, 263. 
 
 — At ( !hampigny, 345. 
 TRAJAN, The footprints of, Tn4. 
 Trojan, ( lonvenl of, 771. 
 Troppmann, Execution of, 159 
 Trouville, 528, 
 
 Tsettinje\ I he village of, 698; The Turk's rower, 699. 
 
 Tin eries, Procession to the, 234, 
 
 Turkey, Czarino fort, 680; And the Montenegrins, 690 
 
 — Ada-Kale* fort, 702 
 
INDEX. 
 
 861 
 
 Turkish Empire of to-day, The, 790 ; Time, 767. 
 Twickenham, Walpole at; Due d' Aumale at, 548. 
 — Historical event in ; Louis Philippe at, 549. 
 
 u 
 
 UHRICH, General, in Strasbourg, 280. 
 United Stated, Castelar and the, Q$. 
 University Boat-race, The, 541. 
 Unredeemed Italy, 4_'4. 
 
 v 
 
 Vacherot, M . 394, 
 Vaisset, Execution of, 507. 
 Valencia, Journey to, 67. 
 
 — Bombardment of, t'-s ; The nine days' fight in, 72-76. 
 
 — The Passion Plaj in, 80 
 
 — Market-place of, ss ; Cathedral, 89 
 Valencian Credit Institution .is a fortress, 70. 
 
 — Republicans, Costume of, 70. 
 Vai i es, M. Jules, Statement of, 492 
 Vatican, Palace and Museums of the, 41tl. 
 
 — The Pope at the, 416; The Loggie, 417. 
 
 — And the Quirinal . Programme of the, 423. 
 Velasquez, [sidoro,93; Pictures of , 111. 
 Vendome Column, The, Description and fall of, 168 
 Venice, Industrial arts in, 405, 
 
 Vermay, Jehan i ornelius, 112. 
 Vermorel and the Communists, 437, 
 Versaillais and the Revolutionists in Paris, 479. 
 Versailles, Capitulation of, 268, 
 
 — Journey from E pei nay to, 294. 
 
 — The Prussians in, 298 
 
 — Panics in, during the siege of Paris, 306, 370, 
 
 — Hotel des Reservoirs, :i;:l 
 
 — Rue Neuve, 331 
 
 — Royal interview in, 352; Conspiracy in, 353. 
 
 — Christmas in, 354 ; Scenes on the canal in, 355. 
 
 — New Year's Day at head-quarters, ;.:,">7 
 
 — Scene in the palace at, 359 
 
 — The Coronation of King William 
 
 — The Royalists in, 444 
 
 — Troops, The, and the insurgents, 440. 
 \ i uvius, 21. 
 "Vice-Emperor/' M. Rouher, 50 
 
 Vn roR Emmanuel, King, entry in Rome, 398. 
 At the Quirinal, 410. 
 
 — — Death, and personal traits of, 412 
 
 Effect of Journeys to Vienna and Berlin, 412, 
 
 — — Sons of, 414; And the Archbishop Pecci, 415 
 Vn roRiA, Queen, Private life of, 554. 
 
 ■ — Income of, 559; Landed property of, 560. 
 
 — ( Jrandchildren of, 565 ; Anniversary of birth of, 622. 
 
 — Household expenses of, 567 ; In Scotland, 650 
 
 Vu MA, The financial crash in; The famous Ring, 812. 
 
 — The opera in, 815, 
 
 \ ii i ionese, The, and the invaders, 385. 
 Villi- d'Avray, in Peace and War, 379. 
 
 VlLLEMESSANT, M. dc, 139 
 
 Villiers, Desperate fighting at, 342. 
 
 — And vicinity after the battle, 346, 
 
 Vinoy, General, attack on the Chateau d'Eau, 501, 507 
 
 — Before Pere la Chaise, 508, 
 Volcanic Shimmer, The, 21 
 
 w 
 
 Wagner, and King Louis 1 1 , 794 
 Wai i tCHiAN Soldier, The, 724 
 War Ph m res, 378-381, 479-481, 510. 
 Warwickshire, Rural beauty in, 639, 
 WASHBURNE, Mr. in Paris, 111 
 
 — Mr. and Archbishop I tarboy, 496, 
 Wellington, Duke of, 612, 
 Werder, * General Von, Protest of, 281. 
 West India Docks, The, 537. 
 Westminster Hall, 574, 
 
 — Palace, 572, 574 ; The Clock Tower, 574 
 Whitman. Walt , Quotation from, 490 
 Wickede, Von, on the surrender of Sedan, 255. 
 Wilhelm, Prince Friedrich, at the Passion Play, 796. 
 WilhelmshShe, Napoleon III at, 258 
 
 William, of Prussia, Ring, in Paris during the Exposi- 
 tion of 1867, 28. 
 
 — On the battle-field, 212; Narrow escape of, 213. 
 
 — Journey across the battle-field, 257 ; In Versailles, 330. 
 
 — Delegation to, 352, 
 
 — < rowned Emperor of Germany, H ! 
 
 — Emperor of Germany, 816 
 
 Wilson, Professor, on the Lake Country. 642. 
 Wimbi edon Camp, 542 
 Windsor, Town and Castle of, 550, 
 
 — Edward HI. at, 551; Memorials of, 552. 
 
 — Queen Victoria at, 552; St. George's chapel. 554 
 
 — The Audience Chamber ; Treasures of ; Park, 555. 
 Weissenburg, during the war, Echoes from, 192. 
 
 — The Crown Prince at, 197 ; Prisoners of war in, 321 
 Woerth during the Franco-German war, 198. 
 
 — The horrors of the retreat from, 201 
 Wolsey, Cardinal, at Hampton Court, "<^. 
 Wolseley, Lord, at Tel-el-Kebir, 822. 
 
 — And the Gordon relief expedition. 830 
 
 — Return to England. 834 
 
 Women, Execution of, 488; < >f the Commune, The, 460 ; 
 
 Of Loftscha, The-, 762; < tf Montenegro, 693 
 Wooj wii h Arsenai . 533, 536; Town, Dockyard, 536 
 Wren, Sir Christopher. 612 
 Wrobleski, General, Surrender of, 500 
 
 Yacht Clubs in England, 634. 
 YONINE, Alexandre, 697 
 
 7. 
 
 Zebehr, and General Gordon, 827. 
 
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