A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

My Days of Adventure

E >> Ernest Alfred Vizetelly >> My Days of Adventure




But to return to the balloon postal-service which the Government
organized, it was at once realized by my father and myself that it could
be of little use to us so far as the work for the _Illustrated London
News_ was concerned, on account of the restrictions which were imposed in
regard to the size and weight of each letter that might be posted.
The weight, indeed, was fixed at no more than three grammes! Now, there
were a number of artists working for the _Illustrated_ in Paris, first
and foremost among them being M. Jules Pelcoq, who must personally have
supplied two-thirds of the sketches by which the British public was kept
acquainted with the many incidents of Parisian siege-life. The weekly
diary which I helped my father to compile could be drawn up in small
handwriting on very thin, almost transparent paper, and despatched in
the ordinary way. But how were we to circumvent the authorities in regard
to our sketches, which were often of considerable size, and were always
made on fairly substantial paper, the great majority of them being
wash-drawings? Further, though I could prepare two or three drafts of our
diary or our other "copy" for despatch by successive balloons--to provide
for the contingency of one of the latter falling into the hands of the
enemy--it seemed absurd that our artists should have to recopy every
sketch they made. Fortunately, there was photography, the thought of which
brought about a solution of the other difficulty in which we were placed.

I was sent to interview Nadar on the Place Saint Pierre at Montmartre,
above which his captive balloon the "Neptune" was oscillating in the
September breeze. He was much the same man as I had seen at the Crystal
Palace a few years previously, tall, red-haired, and red-shirted. He had
begun life as a caricaturist and humorous writer, but by way of buttering
his bread had set up in business as a photographer, his establishment on
the Boulevard de la Madeleine soon becoming very favourably known. There
was still a little "portrait-taking" in Paris during those early siege
days. Photographs of the celebrities or notorieties of the hour sold
fairly well, and every now and again some National Guard with means was
anxious to be photographed in his uniform. But, naturally enough, the
business generally had declined. Thus, Nadar was only too pleased to
entertain the proposal which I made to him on my father's behalf, this
being that every sketch for the _Illustrated_ should be taken to his
establishment and there photographed, so that we might be able to send out
copies in at least three successive balloons.

When I broached to Nadar the subject of the postal regulations in regard
to the weight and size of letters, he genially replied: "Leave that to me.
Your packets need not go through the ordinary post at all--at least, here
in Paris. Have them stamped, however, bring them whenever a balloon is
about to sail, and I will see that the aeronaut takes them in his pocket.
Wherever he alights they will be posted, like the letters in the official
bags."

That plan was carried out, and although several balloons were lost or fell
within the German lines, only one small packet of sketches, which, on
account of urgency, had not been photographed, remained subsequently
unaccounted for. In all other instances either the original drawing or one
of the photographic copies of it reached London safely.

The very first balloon to leave Paris (in the early days of October) was
precisely Nadar's "Neptune," which had originally been intended for
purposes of military observation. One day when I was with Nadar on the
Place Saint Pierre, he took me up in it. I found the experience a novel
but not a pleasing one, for all my life I have had a tendency to vertigo
when ascending to any unusual height. I remember that it was a clear day,
and that we had a fine bird's-eye view of Paris on the one hand and of the
plain of Saint Denis on the other, but I confess that I felt out of-my
element, and was glad to set foot on _terra firma_ once more.

From that day I was quite content to view the ascent of one and another
balloon, without feeling any desire to get out of Paris by its aerial
transport service. I must have witnessed the departure of practically all
the balloons which left Paris until I myself quitted the city in November.
The arrangements made with Nadar were perfected, and something very
similar was contrived with the Godard brothers, the upshot being that we
were always forewarned whenever it was proposed to send off a balloon.
Sometimes we received by messenger, in the evening, an intimation that a
balloon would start at daybreak on the morrow. Sometimes we were roused in
the small hours of the morning, when everything intended for despatch had
to be hastily got together and carried at once to the starting-place,
such, for instance, as the Northern or the Orleans railway terminus, both
being at a considerable distance from our flat in the Rue de Miromesnil.
Those were by no means agreeable walks, especially when the cold weather
had set in, as it did early that autumn; and every now and again at the
end of the journey one found that it had been made in vain, for, the wind
having shifted at the last moment, the departure of the balloon had been
postponed. Of course, the only thing to be done was to trudge back home
again. There was no omnibus service, all the horses having been
requisitioned, and in the latter part of October there were not more than
a couple of dozen cabs (drawn by decrepit animals) still plying for hire
in all Paris. Thus Shanks's pony was the only means of locomotion.

In the earlier days my father accompanied me on a few of those
expeditions, but he soon grew tired of them, particularly as his health
became affected by the siege diet. We were together, however, when
Gambetta took his departure on October 7, ascending from the Place Saint
Pierre in a balloon constructed by Nadar. It had been arranged that he
should leave for the provinces, in order to reinforce the three Government
delegates who had been despatched thither prior to the investment. Jules
Favre, the Foreign Minister, had been previously urged to join those
delegates, but would not trust himself to a balloon, and it was thereupon
proposed to Gambetta that he should do so. He willingly assented to the
suggestion, particularly as he feared that the rest of the country was
being overlooked, owing to the prevailing opinion that Paris would suffice
to deliver both herself and all the rest of France from the presence of
the enemy. Born in April, 1838, he was at this time in his thirty-third
year, and full of vigour, as the sequel showed. The delegates whom he was
going to join were, as I previously mentioned, very old men, well meaning,
no doubt, but incapable of making the great effort which was made by
Gambetta in conjunction with Charles de Freycinet, who was just in his
prime, being the young Dictator's senior by some ten years.

I can still picture Gambetta's departure, and particularly his appearance
on the occasion--his fur cap and his fur coat, which made him look
somewhat like a Polish Jew. He had with him his secretary, the devoted
Spuller. I cannot recall the name of the aeronaut who was in charge of the
balloon, but, if my memory serves me rightly, it was precisely to him that
Nadar handed the packet of sketches which failed to reach the _Illustrated
London News_. They must have been lost in the confusion of the aerial
voyage, which was marked by several dramatic incidents. Some accounts say
that Gambetta evinced no little anxiety during the preparations for the
ascent, but to me he appeared to be in a remarkably good humour, as if,
indeed, in pleasurable anticipation of what he was about to experience.
When, in response to the call of "Lachez tout!" the seamen released the
last cables which had hitherto prevented the balloon from rising, and the
crowd burst into shouts of "Vive la Republique!" and "Vive Gambetta!" the
"youthful statesman," as he was then called, leant over the side of the
car and waved his cap in response to the plaudits. [Another balloon, the
"George Sand," ascended at the same time, having in its car various
officials who were to negotiate the purchase of fire-arms in the United
States.]

The journey was eventful, for the Germans repeatedly fired at the balloon.
A first attempt at descent had to be abandoned when the car was at an
altitude of no more than 200 feet, for at that moment some German soldiers
were seen almost immediately beneath it. They fired, and before the
balloon could rise again a bullet grazed Gambetta's head. At four o'clock
in the afternoon, however, the descent was renewed near Roye in the Somme,
when the balloon was caught in an oak-tree, Gambetta at one moment hanging
on to the ropes of the car, with his head downward. Some countryfolk came
up in great anger, taking the party to be Prussians; but, on learning the
truth, they rendered all possible assistance, and Gambetta and his
companions repaired to the house of the mayor of the neighbouring village
of Tricot. Alluding in after days to his experiences on this journey, the
great man said that the earth, as seen by him from the car of the balloon,
looked like a huge carpet woven chance-wise with different coloured wools.
It did not impress him at all, he added, as it was really nothing but "une
vilaine chinoiserie." It was from Rouen, where he arrived on the following
day, that he issued the famous proclamation in which he called on France
to make a compact with victory or death. On October 9, he joined the other
delegates at Tours and took over the post of Minister of War as well as
that of Minister of the Interior.

His departure from the capital was celebrated by that clever versifier of
the period, Albert Millaud, who contributed to _Le Figaro_ an amusing
effusion, the first verse of which was to this effect:

"Gambetta, pale and gloomy,
Much wished to go to Tours,
But two hundred thousand Prussians
In his project made him pause.
To aid the youthful statesman
Came the aeronaut Nadar,
Who sent up the 'Armand Barbes'
With Gambetta in its car."

Further on came the following lines, supposed to be spoken by Gambetta
himself whilst he was gazing at the German lines beneath him--

"See how the plain is glistening
With their helmets in a mass!
Impalement would be dreadful
On those spikes of polished brass!"

Millaud, who was a Jew, the son, I think--or, at all events, a near
relation--of the famous founder of _Le Petit Journal_, the advent of which
constituted a great landmark in the history of the French Press--set
himself, during several years of his career, to prove the truth of the
axiom that in France "tout finit par des chansons." During those anxious
siege days he was for ever striving to sound a gay note, something which,
for a moment, at all events, might drive dull care away. Here is an
English version of some verses which he wrote on Nadar:

What a strange fellow is Nadar,
Photographer and aeronaut!
He is as clever as Godard.
What a strange fellow is Nadar,
Although, between ourselves, as far
As art's concerned he knoweth naught.
What a strange fellow is Nadar,
Photographer and aeronaut!

To guide the course of a balloon
His mind conceived the wondrous screw.
Some day he hopes unto the moon
To guide the course of a balloon.
Of 'airy navies' admiral soon,
We'll see him 'grappling in the blue'--
To guide the course of a balloon
His mind conceived the wondrous screw.

Up in the kingdom of the air
He now the foremost rank may claim.
If poor Gambetta when up there,
Up in the kingdom of the air,
Does not find good cause to stare,
Why, Nadar will not be to blame.
Up in the kingdom of the air
He now the foremost rank may claim.

At Ferrières, above the park,
Behold him darting through the sky,
Soaring to heaven like a lark.
At Ferrières above the park;
Whilst William whispers to Bismarck--
'Silence, see Nadar there on high!'
At Ferrières above the park
Behold him darting through the sky.

Oh, thou more hairy than King Clodion,
Bearer on high of this report,
Thou yellower than a pure Cambodian,
And far more daring than King Clodion,
We'll cast thy statue in collodion
And mount it on a gas retort.
Oh, thou more hairy than King Clodion,
Bearer on high of this report!

Perhaps it may not be thought too pedantic on my part if I explain that
the King Clodion referred to in Millaud's last verse was the legendary
"Clodion the Hairy," a supposed fifth-century leader of the Franks,
reputed to be a forerunner of the founder of the, Merovingian dynasty.
Nadar's hair, however, was not long like that of _les rois chevelue_, for
it was simply a huge curly and somewhat reddish mop. As for his
complexion, Millaud's phrase, "yellow as a pure Cambodian," was a happy
thought.

These allusions to Millaud's sprightly verse remind me that throughout the
siege of Paris the so-called _mot pour rire_ was never once lost sight of.
At all times and in respect to everything there was a superabundance of
jests--jests on the Germans, the National and the Mobile Guard, the fallen
dynasty, and the new Republic, the fruitless sorties, the wretched
rations, the failing gas, and many other people and things. One of the
enemy's generals was said to have remarked one day: "I don't know how to
satisfy my men. They complain of hunger, and yet I lead them every morning
to the slaughterhouse." At another time a French colonel, of conservative
ideas, was said to have replaced the inscription "Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity," which he found painted on the walls of his barracks, by the
words, "Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery," declaring that the latter were far
more likely to free the country of the presence of the hated enemy. As for
the "treason" mania, which was very prevalent at this time, it was related
that a soldier remarked one day to a comrade: "I am sure that the captain
is a traitor!" "Indeed! How's that?" was the prompt rejoinder. "Well,"
said the suspicious private, "have you not noticed that every time he
orders us to march forward we invariably encounter the enemy?"

When Trochu issued a decree incorporating all National Guards, under
forty-five years of age, in the marching battalions for duty outside
the city, one of these Guards, on being asked how old he was, replied,
"six-and-forty." "How is that?" he was asked. "A few weeks ago, you told
everybody that you were only thirty-six." "Quite true," rejoined the
other, "but what with rampart-duty, demonstrating at the Hôtel-de-Ville,
short rations, and the cold weather, I feel quite ten years older than I
formerly did." When horseflesh became more or less our daily provender,
many Parisian _bourgeois_ found their health failing. "What is the matter,
my dearest?" Madame du Bois du Pont inquired of her husband, when he had
collapsed one evening after dinner. "Oh! it is nothing, _mon amie_" he
replied; "I dare say I shall soon feel well again, but I used to think
myself a better horseman!"

Directly our supply of gas began to fail, the wags insinuated that Henri
Rochefort was jubilant, and if you inquired the reason thereof, you were
told that owing to the scarcity of gas everybody would be obliged to buy
hundreds of "_Lanternes_." We had, of course, plenty of sensations in
those days, but if you wished to cap every one of them you merely had to
walk into a café and ask the waiter for--a railway time-table.

Once before I referred to the caricatures of the period, notably to those
libelling the Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie, the latter
being currently personified as Messalina--or even as something worse, and
this, of course, without the faintest shadow of justification. But the
caricaturists were not merely concerned with the fallen dynasty. One of
the principal cartoonists of the _Charivari_ at that moment was "Cham,"
otherwise the Vicomte Amédée de Noé, an old friend of my family's.
It was he, by the way, who before the war insisted on my going to a
fencing-school, saying: "Look here, if you mean to live in France and be a
journalist, you must know how to hold a sword. Come with me to Ruzé's.
I taught your uncle Frank and his friend Gustave Doré how to fence many
years ago, and now I am going to have you taught." Well, in one of his
cartoons issued during the siege, Cham (disgusted, like most Frenchmen, at
the seeming indifference of Great Britain to the plight in which France
found herself) summed up the situation, as he conceived it, by depicting
the British Lion licking the boots of Bismarck, who was disguised as Davy
Crockett. When my father remonstrated with Cham on the subject, reminding
him of his own connexion with England, the indignant caricaturist replied:
"Don't speak of it. I have renounced England and all her works." He, like
other Frenchmen of the time, contended that we had placed ourselves under
great obligations to France at the period of the Crimean War.

Among the best caricatures of the siege-days was one by Daumier, which
showed Death appearing to Bismarck in his sleep, and murmuring softly,
"Thanks, many thanks." Another idea of the period found expression in a
cartoon representing a large mouse-trap, labelled "France," into which a
company of mice dressed up as German soldiers were eagerly marching, their
officer meanwhile pointing to a cheese fixed inside the trap, and
inscribed with the name of Paris. Below the design ran the legend: "Ah! if
we could only catch them all in it!" Many, indeed most, of the caricatures
of the time did not appear in the so-called humorous journals, but were
issued separately at a penny apiece, and were usually coloured by the
stencilling process. In one of them, I remember, Bismarck was seen wearing
seven-league boots and making ineffectual attempts to step from Versailles
to Paris. Another depicted the King of Prussia as Butcher William, knife
in hand and attired in the orthodox slaughter-house costume; whilst in yet
another design the same monarch was shown urging poor Death, who had
fallen exhausted in the snow, with his scythe lying broken beside him, to
continue on the march until the last of the French nation should be
exterminated. Of caricatures representing cooks in connexion with cats
there was no end, the _lapin de gouttière_ being in great demand for the
dinner-table; and, after Gambetta had left us, there were designs showing
the armies of succour (which were to be raised in the provinces)
endeavouring to pass ribs of beef, fat geese, legs of mutton, and strings
of sausages over several rows of German helmets, gathered round a bastion
labelled Paris, whence a famished National Guard, eager for the proffered
provisions, was trying to spring, but could not do so owing to the
restraining arm of General Trochu.

Before the investment began Paris was already afflicted with a spy mania.
Sala's adventure, which I recounted in an earlier chapter, was in a way
connected with this delusion, which originated with the cry "We are
betrayed!" immediately after the first French reverses. The instances of
so-called "spyophobia" were innumerable, and often curious and amusing.
There was a slight abatement of the mania when, shortly before the siege,
188,000 Germans were expelled from Paris, leaving behind them only some
700 old folk, invalids, and children, who were unable to obey the
Government's decree. But the disease soon revived, and we heard of
rag-pickers having their baskets ransacked by zealous National Guards,
who imagined that these receptacles might contain secret despatches or
contraband ammunition. On another occasion _Le Figaro_ wickedly suggested
that all the blind beggars in Paris were spies, with the result that
several poor infirm old creatures were abominably ill-treated. Again, a
fugitive sheet called _Les Nouvelles_ denounced all the English residents
as spies. Labouchere was one of those pounced upon by a Parisian mob in
consequence of that idiotic denunciation, but as he had the presence of
mind to invite those who assailed him to go with him to the nearest
police-station, he was speedily released. On two occasions my father and
myself were arrested and carried to guard-houses, and in the course of
those experiences we discovered that the beautifully engraved but
essentially ridiculous British passport, which recited all the honours and
dignities of the Secretary of State or the Ambassador delivering it, but
gave not the slightest information respecting the person to whom it had
been delivered (apart, that is, from his or her name), was of infinitely
less value in the eyes of a French officer than a receipt for rent or a
Parisian tradesman's bill. [That was forty-three years ago. The British
passport, however, remains to-day as unsatisfactory as it was then.]

But let me pass to other instances. One day an unfortunate individual,
working in the Paris sewers, was espied by a zealous National Guard, who
at once gave the alarm, declaring that there was a German spy in the
aforesaid sewers, and that he was depositing bombs there with the
intention of blowing up the city. Three hundred Guards at once volunteered
their services, stalked the poor workman, and blew him to pieces the next
time he popped his head out of a sewer-trap. The mistake was afterwards
deplored, but people argued (wrote Mr. Thomas Gibson Bowles, who sent the
story to The Morning Post) that it was far better that a hundred innocent
Frenchmen should suffer than that a single Prussian should escape. Cham,
to whom I previously alluded, old Marshal Vaillant, Mr. O'Sullivan, an
American diplomatist, and Alexis Godillot, the French army contractor,
were among the many well-known people arrested as spies at one or another
moment. A certain Mme: de Beaulieu, who had joined a regiment of Mobiles
as a _cantiniere_, was denounced as a spy "because her hands were so
white." Another lady, who had installed an ambulance in her house, was
carried off to prison on an equally frivolous pretext; and I remember yet
another case in which a lady patron of the Societe de Secours aux Blesses
was ill-treated. Matters would, however, probably be far worse at the
present time, for Paris, with all her apaches and anarchists, now includes
in her population even more scum than was the case three-and-forty years
ago.

There were, however, a few authentic instances of spying, one case being
that of a young fellow whom Etienne Arago, the Mayor of Paris, engaged as
a secretary, on the recommendation of Henri Rochefort, but who turned out
to be of German extraction, and availed himself of his official position
to draw up reports which were forwarded by balloon post to an agent of the
German Government in London. I have forgotten the culprit's name, but it
will be found, with particulars of his case, in the Paris journals of the
siege days. There was, moreover, the Hardt affair, which resulted in the
prisoner, a former lieutenant in the Prussian army, being convicted of
espionage and shot in the courtyard of the Ecole Militaire.

Co-existent with "spyophobia" there was another craze, that of suspecting
any light seen at night-time in an attic or fifth-floor window to be a
signal intended for the enemy. Many ludicrous incidents occurred in
connexion with this panic. One night an elderly _bourgeois_, who had
recently married a charming young woman, was suddenly dragged from his bed
by a party of indignant National Guards, and consigned to the watch-house
until daybreak. This had been brought about by his wife's maid placing a
couple of lighted candles in her window as a signal to the wife's lover
that, "master being at home," he was not to come up to the flat that
night. On another occasion a poor old lady, who was patriotically
depriving herself of sleep in order to make lint for the ambulances, was
pounced upon and nearly strangled for exhibiting green and red signals
from her window. It turned out, however, that the signals in question were
merely the reflections of a harmless though charmingly variegated parrot
which was the zealous old dame's sole and faithful companion.

No matter what might be the quarter of Paris in which a presumed signal
was observed, the house whence it emanated was at once invaded by National
Guards, and perfectly innocent people were often carried off and subjected
to ill-treatment. To such proportions did the craze attain that some
papers even proposed that the Government should forbid any kind of light
whatever, after dark, in any room situated above the second floor, unless
the windows of that room were "hermetically sealed"! Most victims of the
mania submitted to the mob's invasion of their homes without raising any
particular protest; but a volunteer artilleryman, who wrote to the
authorities complaining that his rooms had been ransacked in his absence
and his aged mother frightened out of her wits, on the pretext that some
fusees had been fired from his windows, declared that if there should be
any repetition of such an intrusion whilst he was at home he would receive
the invaders bayonet and revolver in hand. From that moment similar
protests poured into the Hôtel-de-Ville, and Trochu ended by issuing a
proclamation in which he said: "Under the most frivolous pretexts,
numerous houses have been entered, and peaceful citizens have been
maltreated. The flags of friendly nations have been powerless to protect
the houses where they were displayed. I have ordered an inquiry on the
subject, and I now command that all persons guilty of these abusive
practices shall be arrested. A special service has been organized in order
to prevent the enemy from keeping up any communication with any of its
partisans in the city; and I remind everybody that excepting in such
instances as are foreseen by the law every citizen's residence is
inviolable."

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