APPENDIX I

My Paris Diary of 1870

The fragment of Diary here printed was begun by me at Paris in the early summer of 1870, a few weeks only before the rupture of relations between France and Prussia. I already knew Paris well, having been a member of the British Embassy there in Lord Cowley’s time, and I had remained in pleasant personal relations with my successors on the Embassy staff, and so found myself in close touch with all that was going on diplomatically. There were few days when I did not see one or other of my Embassy friends. I had only just left the diplomatic service, and now on my marriage I had come to Paris with my wife, meaning to make our temporary home there, before settling down finally to country life in Sussex. I had a romantic feeling about the great capital of the world’s pleasure and was deeply interested in all that concerned France when the war broke out, and was fired with a corresponding sympathy when it resulted in her unlooked for overthrow.

Of Germany, too, her adversary, I had had experience. Among the many posts I had filled as attaché and secretary I had been twice at Frankfort, a place at that time of first diplomatic importance as capital of the Germanic Confederation and seat of the Diet, and had made there my apprenticeship in Central European politics. When I was first appointed to Frankfort in 1860, Bismarck, though already noticed as leader of the Junker party at Berlin, was still at the outset of his political career. The old King Frederick William was still King of Prussia, and Bismarck was not much in his good graces. His place at Frankfort had just been taken by his rival, Count d’Usedom, who was in better favour at Court. Usedom was a highly intellectual man, a leading member of the Liberal party in Prussia, and his sympathies were with the movement for a United Germany, then a Liberal movement having for its acknowledged head the Duke of Saxe Coburg, elder brother of our English Prince Consort, nor was it till Frederick William’s death that Bismarck’s power with the Hohenzollerns found its opportunity.

With Usedom I was intimate, spending most of my time at the Prussian Legation, where I held in some sort the position of child of the house through the favour of Madame d’Usedom, the good-natured Scotchwoman who figures in Bismarck’s memoirs under the name of Olympia as his bête noire, the subject of his unsparing jests. Both she and Usedom were too outspoken to please the Bismarckian ideas of diplomacy; and in their society, though I took little interest as yet in the great world’s politics, I learned much that I have not forgotten of Berlin policy and of the hopes and fears of German patriotism in which the Hohenzollerns under the old King had as yet refused to play a part. I remember a visit paid to Frankfort by the Crown Prince of Prussia, afterwards Emperor William I, and his accession a little later to the Prussian throne, which set Bismarck securely in the saddle and began that intrigue which resulted in the war with Denmark over Sleswig Holstein, as to which Usedom was daily eloquent.

I have dreamlike memories, too, of many hours—some pleasant, some wearisome—spent in attendance on the Princes and Princesses of the Royal and Electoral Houses to whom we at the English Legation were accredited, including Princess Alice of Hesse Darmstadt, our Queen Victoria’s daughter, and a vast number of cousinly allied royalties assembled one summer at the family château of Rumpenheim, where I had the privilege of paying an early court to our future Queen Alexandra while she was still a girl of seventeen, and her sister, afterwards Empress of Russia, pretty but plainly dressed maidens of no acknowledged importance, though we at the Legation had been secretly apprised of the intended marriage of the elder with our Prince of Wales.

All these incidents were unconscious elements in my diplomatic education. My thoughts, however, at the time ran more on poetry than politics, and what interest I took in German thought lay rather in the direction of science which was beginning to perplex me, for Darwin’s “Origin of Species” had only just been published.

My second appointment in Frankfort found the Bismarckian policy in full swing. After three years’ absence at other posts—Madrid, Paris, and Lisbon—I had returned in 1866 in time to witness the great duel in the Diet between Prussia and Austria shortly after to be decided at Sadowa, which displayed Bismarck as the leading force of his generation.

Of the great man himself I have but a single personal recollection, that of a couple of hours spent in his society at tea alone with Lady Malet. He was then still an object of dislike and even ridicule at Frankfort, but already recognized by Lady Malet, a very clever woman, to whom he had paid a certain court while at the Frankfort Legation, and who already saw in him the man of genius he was soon to show himself. My memory of him is of a tall, distinguished personage, still slight in figure, who, having been told about me by our hostess favourably as having some faculty of verse, talked pleasantly and well on literature and science in excellent English for a couple of hours, affecting a certain Anglomania, where he touched on politics. He showed himself thus at his best, and left me with a feeling of the heroic such as a young man gives to one already beginning to be famous and who had been kind to him.

All this, however, had failed to give me when I left Frankfort after Sadowa any enthusiasm for Germany, and when the war of 1870 broke out I was strongly anti-Prussian. My connection with the Paris Embassy in the days of the Napoleonic glory had made me a partisan of France, and I had come to look upon Germany as intellectually the home of barbarism given up to the grosser forms of social life and clumsy in its politics as in all else.

With these few words I leave my diary to tell its own story.

“Paris, 27th May, 1870.—I have taken the first floor of No. 204, Rue de Rivoli, at 8,000 francs rent. My proprietor is M. Desfontaines, one of Louis Philippe’s councillors. He is an old man who lives at Noissy, and his house is managed by his concierge, whom we call the faux bon homme. He sits with his wife all day under the arcade, and the people of the quarter dislike him because he has made 100,000 francs. Every Monday morning he brings us from the country a country bunch of flowers.

“To-day I went with my cousin Francis Currie to the other side of the Seine for furniture. We went to one Recapet’s, a bric-à-brac dealer, and having to ask the way I inquired of a shopwoman in the faubourg, a dealer in religious prints, the road to the ‘Passage Marie.’ ‘The Passage S^te Marie,’ she answered, correcting me. There is still religion in France! Yesterday Francis Currie saw a dead man fished out of the river near the Pont Royal. A woman in the crowd asked what it was all about. ‘A naked man,’ my cousin answered. ‘If it is only that!’ said the woman. I afterwards drove with my wife to the Jardin des Plantes, and back through the Faubourg St. Antoine. Coming home we saw the carriages of ‘Le Singe’ as they call their Sovereign.

“30th May.—We drove down on Saturday to Chantilly by the old Royal Road passing through St. Denis and Luzarches. There are some fine views on the way, but the road is still paved nearly the whole distance. In the Forest we noticed two large oaks on the boundary between Oise and Seine. These are the only trees more than twenty [sic] years old. The races on Sunday were pleasant and the weather fine. A horse called Bigarreau won the principal stakes.

“2nd June.—To Fontainebleau to play tennis. Our party was Frank Lascelles and his wife, Henry Wodehouse and Mr. and Mrs. Fred Ricardo. Lascelles and I played from two till half-past six. The paumier, Garcin, is eighty-three years old. In his time he has played tennis with Wellington and others of the Waterloo heroes. ‘Napoleon Bonaparte,’ he told us, ‘played in the tennis court at Fontainebleau, but did not show much aptitude. Il n’avait pas même des dispositions. Quant à Wellington, il ne faisait que s’y amuser, il venait de gagner la bataille de Waterloo.’ (The old man hobbled into the court to play us a chouette, supported by a granddaughter, who picked up and handed him the balls. He pretended at first not to be able to send the ball over the net, but with five francs on the set he soon recovered his skill and won his money. Anne made an excellent drawing of the court while we were playing.)

“3rd June.—Two great fires have taken place, the one at Fontainebleau, which destroyed a large part of the Forest, the other at Constantinople, a thousand houses burnt at Pera, including the English Embassy.

“People in Paris seem to be becoming aware how grossly they have been cajoled in the matter of Liberal reform. I myself thought three months ago that it was sincere, and I was only surprised that so long-sighted a policy should have been adopted by the Bonapartes, who have always held by small expedients. For the future of the dynasty there could have been no greater folly than a sham conversion to constitutionalism and a repetition of the old trick of the plebiscite. Another such victory and the dynasty is lost. They complain already that Ollivier is nothing else than Rouère over again, and that personal government is precisely what it was last year. I care nothing for all this, not being one of the Singe’s subjects.

“8th June.—We dined last night at the British Embassy, thirty covers. Amongst the guests were some of the new French Ministry—Grammont, Mège, Richard, also Monsaud, Under Secretary at the Affaires Etrangères. Lord Lyons keeps great state at the Embassy, with Sheffield managing the household, and Edward Malet for Private Secretary. They all three go out driving in a barouche every afternoon in the Bois de Boulogne, with a dog named Toby on the fourth seat. The Parisians mock at it calling Malet ‘le petit brun,’ and Sheffield ‘le petit blond.’ The Duke and Duchess of Montmorency were at the dinner. He is the hero of a rather mean adventure. Being by birth a Perigord, he solicited through his wife, who was an Aguado and partly Spanish, one of Empress Eugénie’s set, a grant of the Duchy of Montmorency, the direct line of the Ducs de Montmorency having failed, though there were still collaterals. One of these, the Comte de Montmorency, who now represents the family, scratched out the new Duke’s arms from the panel of his carriage the first time he drove up in it to the Jockey Club. It led to a duel in which the Comte was slightly wounded, and the Club, indignant at the affair, expelled the Duke from their house. On this the Duke appealed to the Court, the Empress happening to be Regent at the time, and the police received orders to close the doors of the Jockey Club if they persisted in the expulsion. The Club succumbed, and so the matter ended. [I was constantly in and out of the Chancery at our Embassy during all this time, having through my former official connection with the Embassy still many friends there, Lascelles, Malet, Saumarez, Claremont, and Atlee, thus I heard the news pretty regularly as the Embassy heard it.]

“The ‘Figaro’ has published a charge. Villemessent, the editor, begins by announcing that he has sold his paper to the Irreconcilables, and articles and letters follow, signed by the chiefs of the revolution. The best is a piece in verse, purporting to be by Victor Hugo in which his style is well imitated. Half the town has been taken in by the hoax.

“11th June.—There is news from Lisbon of disturbances, Saldanha being the hero of these. I used to see this curious old Field Marshal very frequently during the summer I spent at Cintra in 1865. He was a poseur of the first water, and nature had given him a head and figure exactly suited to the part of ancien militaire, which he had been playing ever since the day of the Peninsular War. He is now eighty-five. Twenty years ago he made a revolution in Portugal very like the present one. He got a few regiments together, and when the King marched out against him with the rest of the Portuguese army these at once joined the Marshal, and the King had to gallop back alone with his A.D.C.’s to Lisbon. Saldanha had no political principles, but being a restless, vain old man, could not bear to be forgotten. I saw him again at Rome in 1867, on his way in uniform to the Jesuit church in Easter week, his whole coat, front and back, a mass of stars and orders. He is the most completely decorated personage in Europe. Also he has the pretension of universal knowledge, and has written a book or pamphlet on every possible subject from Pisciculture to the Immaculate Conception. At Cintra he had a garden of acclimatisation. His wife, the widow of a British navy surgeon, was a worthy Englishwoman on whom he imposed absolute silence in society so as to conceal her defects of education.

“Another revolution is an absurd one at Monaco, where the Prince héritier, who married Lady Mary Hamilton last spring, has slapped his wife’s face, and asks for a divorce. The late Duke of Hamilton, her father, so well known here at Paris as the Empress’s cousin and intimate friend, with many faults of conduct, was a grand seigneur. His worst folly was his marriage with a Baden Princess who despised his Scotch nobility and gave him a heavy set of German heirs. He met his death by slipping down the narrow stairs of the Maison Doreé where he had been supping with Henry Howard and a couple of women after an opera ball. The Empress learning what had happened hurried to his rooms and was with him till he died.

“Déjazet is retiring from the stage on which she has been popular for nearly seventy years, having begun as an infant prodigy at the age of five.

“Yet another scandal has been one in the Spanish Royal Family. The ex-King’s pension has been left unpaid, and he sues the ex-Queen Ysabel for arrears.

“I have bought a pair of horses of Mrs. Lyne Stevens for 4,000 francs. She was on the stage, and her husband dying left her an immense fortune which Claremont, our military attaché here, manages for her at a salary of £1,000 a year.

“26th June.—The Orleans princes have addressed a letter to the French Parliament demanding their readmission into France. Courbet, the painter, has refused the legion of honour. The Paris papers consider the refusal a miracle of virtue.

“28th June.—The claim of the Orleans princes has been refused through fear, probably, that they should go on to demand their property in France confiscated by the Republic. The Chantilly Estate is said to be worth 280,000,000 francs. Among the wills and bequests I see that this Estate, bought of the Duc de Nemours, has just been left by Sir Edmund Antrobus to his son, held I suppose fictitiously for the Orleans family.

“Yesterday morning died Lord Clarendon, our Secretary for Foreign Affairs. I met him four years ago when I was staying with the Usedoms in the Villa Capponi at Florence, a sleek white little old man, with a pulse, it was said for some years at forty, and an agreeable old-fashioned manner. His brother, Charles Villiers, I met several times at the Malet’s at Frankfort in 1860, a very brilliant talker, who was kind to me, and interested in my young man’s chatter. Their mother was the Mrs. Villiers of the Byron correspondence.

“1st July.—To Versailles to see whether the historic tennis court there was in a fit state for play. A nice little girl in charge of the place told us that an order had just come from the Ministry for its restoration. The court is miserably out of repair, the floor chipped, and the plaster falling from the walls, the brass plate commemorating the oath of 1789 was taken down by Dalmand the paumier some years ago, and remise à neuf. The court had not been used for four years, and there are but a few rotten old balls to play with, but the court was played in this summer.

“Queen Ysabel has signed her abdication publicly of the Crown of Spain, and the Prince of Asturias, her son, becomes King Alphonso XII. On the same day a rival Prince of Asturias was born to Don Carlos at Geneva. The Pope has sent his blessing to them both. I well remember the Court of Queen Ysabel, and the besa manos ceremonies in which the little Prince Alfonso figured with his parents, set in a tall gilt chair, having his hand kissed fast asleep. He had in those days a most beautiful little Andalusian pony, a miniature horse, but only twelve hands high, with silky mane and tail sweeping the grounds, legs fine as a gazelle’s. When the revolution came which drove the Bourbons from Spain, Prim gave the pony to his son. I met General Prim in the summer of 1863 at the baths of Panticosa, a pale, ugly little man, with no kind of distinction, suffering from an internal disease which gave him constant pain, half his political energy, they said, was caused by this. General Prim was the leader then of the Progresista Party. He was at the baths for his health with his aide-de-camp, General Milans del Bosch.”

The abdication here mentioned of the exiled Queen of Spain was the occasion of the quarrel between France and Prussia a week or two later, which resulted in the disastrous war, the capitulation of Sedan and the overthrow of the Napoleonic dynasty. I was, at the time of writing, strongly anti-Bonapartist, a reader of the “Lanterne” and other journals of that type, more than my diary shows. In this I shared the general view of the Parisian mob, and even of the bourgeoisie who were sick of the Empire. The gossip of the Paris streets was retailed to me daily by my old bonne Julie, who had a curious faculty for gathering news as she was constantly wandering about the streets where she had become a well-known character by reason of her kindness to birds and beasts, and sufferers of all kinds. With the sergeants-de-ville of the Tuileries quarter she was a favourite, for she was always ready to help in cases of sickness, or accident, coming within their province. A Bretonne peasant by birth, (she had had an uncle a priest, massacred during the great Revolution on the steps of the altar, while he was celebrating mass). Her political prepossessions were strongly Orleanist, as became one who had been in their domestic service, for she had been housemaid in her young days under Louis Philippe in the Château, as she called the Tuileries, and knew every room in it from cellar to garret. Another informant of the same class was my cousin, Francis Currie’s bonne Julienne, a pendant of my Julie. She had a German husband, waiter in a restaurant, and brought us gossip from the German point of view, also an amusing woman. To these two may be added our man-servant Desiré who appears from time to time in the diaries.

“4th July.—The ‘Constitutionel’ publishes the news that Prim has offered the Crown of Spain to one of the Hohenzollerns, a brother of Prince Charles of Roumania, and that the candidature is accepted. On this a general outcry from all sides. A Hohenzollern, it is said, at the Escurial will complete the wild beast show of Europe. We have already seen a Bonaparte at Fontainebleau, a Savoy at Venice, a Hapsburg in Mexico, to-day the rage is for German Kings, the most wonderful phenomenon of the age. Yesterday we drove to St. Germain with a mixed company of Americans, French, Jews, and Brazilians, to dine there on the terrace. The event of the day was Grammont’s speech in the Chambers. He declared that if the candidature of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern was not withdrawn ‘France would know how to act without hesitation and without weakness.’ This being considered a declaration of war with Prussia was tumultuously applauded by all parties in the House. The move is considered an excellent one for the Bonapartists, who need a show of energy to cover their humiliations of the past four years, for the first place in Europe is every day becoming more plainly Prussian. Whether the Germans are beat in the war, or the Emperor Napoleon, I shall feel some satisfaction. St. Germain looked lovely as it always does.”

Though my diary does not record it, I remember well the excitement there was among us that evening at the news which had been brought down by Frank Lascelles, or some other diplomatist of our party, and how in the beautiful summer’s night we walked upon the terrace after dinner, and looked across the river towards Paris, and how someone suggested, though we none of us had much misgiving as to the fortunate issue of the war, the possible trouble there might be for the fair city which we loved. Our imagination for a moment encircled it with a girdle of armed men, and a gulf seemed opened suddenly at our feet of unknown adversity. Yet, as I have said, none of us, not even those who ought to have known it, had a suspicion of the unreadiness of France for a serious campaign. There had been a comparative lack of interest in the Paris newspapers at the first announcement of the Hohenzollern candidature, which was treated by them as only another rebuff for the Imperial diplomacy, and it was not till Grammont made his valorous speech, and after him Ollivier that a cry, à Berlin, began to be raised.

“8th July.—There has been a report that Prim has abandoned his Hohenzollern, but this is not true. The German papers affect not to treat the French menace as serious. At Madrid the Cortes are to assemble for the vote on the 20th. If the present candidature is not withdrawn before that date the position of France will become less simple.

“To-night I start for Southampton to meet my brother Francis, leaving Anne here. He is returning from Australia via the Cape and Madeira.”

[A fortnight’s break occurs here in my diary caused by my absence from Paris.]

“27th July.—I have been more than a fortnight in England, and my journal has been interrupted, but I will recapitulate the events which have led to the declaration of war. In answer to the French demand of a withdrawal of Prince Leopold’s candidature Prim denied the right of France to interfere. At first all previous knowledge of the candidature was denied in Prussia, but it soon appeared that King William had given his assent to the Prince’s acceptance. But on the matter being pressed by the French Government William withdrew his consent, not as King, but as head of the Hohenzollerns, saying at the same time that if Spain still chose to elect the Prince he would not as King of Prussia interfere. Nevertheless France insisted on a formal disavowal of the plan by the Prussian Government. Things being in this position, to the astonishment of all, Prince Anthony, Leopold’s father, writes to the Spanish Government withdrawing his son’s candidature, Leopold himself remaining silent, and the Prussian Government professing not to know even where he is. In France Leopold is thought to have gone incognito to Madrid, as his brother Charles in like circumstances went incognito to Roumania. I have no doubt in my mind that some such stroke was contemplated by Bismarck, as Usedom has often told me that Prince Charles’ expedition was sanctioned by the Prussian Government, and that it was Bismarck’s policy to raise up anti-French influences in every corner of Europe, in Greece, in Italy, and in the Turkish Provinces. In England it was very generally believed that Prince Anthony had settled the matter, and the ‘Times’ sang a Te Deum of peace, the stocks rose prodigiously in London, and two days after, Sunday the 16th of July, as I was sitting in the balcony after dinner in Belgrave Square (number 44, my cousin Percy Wyndham’s house), I heard the news hawkers bawling out, ‘Declaration of War.’ A story had appeared in the ‘Times’ that morning, relating that M. Benedetti the French Ambassador at Berlin had accosted King William contrary to etiquette in the Public Garden at Ems, and had there again urged the claims of France, and that the King turning on his heel had told his aide-de-camp to inform the Ambassador that he had no more to say to him. This story has since been denied, but it has been made use of both in France and Germany to inflame popular passions. On Monday morning the ‘Times’ announced the war, and declared that the French Emperor had committed the greatest crime Europe had witnessed for thirty years. The ‘Times’ has since persisted that the war is one of aggression on the part of France with the Rhine Provinces for object, but I have never met for years past a Frenchman who has not laughed at the idea of taking possession of the Rhine, or who would have given a fig to annex. People expected a battle would be fought at once, but ten days have passed, and no blow has been struck.

“This morning the ‘Times’ gives us a new surprise, the draft of a treaty between France and Prussia (undated) in which the annexation of Belgium and Luxemburg by France is agreed on if necessary by force of arms. The draft has no appearance of authenticity, its style being unlike that usual in treaties, and the French used is poor. Some such scheme may have been talked over between the French Emperor and Bismarck, soon after the late war (the war of Sadowa), but I cannot conceive its having been thus put on paper. I expect the French Government to deny the authenticity of the document, and perhaps ultimately they may make a counter-charge against Prussia of designs on Holland. Feeling in England is pretty well balanced between France and Prussia, but people fail to see that France is in reality fighting for her existence. This is no war of Government against Government, but of race against race, of France the last of the great Latin nations against Germany. If Germany is beaten she will recover, if France she will go the way of the other Latins. The Radical Party in England side with Prussia because they see in it a triumph of atheism and socialism in Europe. France after many years goes forth to the Rhine singing the Marseillaise in the cause of order and religion. It is strange.

“28th July.—We drove this morning to St. Cloud to see the Emperor and his son start for the war. He went off by the back door, and nobody saw him go. The flag was pulled down exactly at ten o’clock. The Emperor has his headquarters at Metz.

“29th July.—It is decided that the French garrison is to leave Rome. M. Visconti Venosta, the Italian Foreign Minister, has engaged to protect the Holy See from the Garibaldians; the Pope, however, is I am sure quite able to take care of himself at Rome. The Foreign Legion is, or was, when I saw it in 1866 as fine a body of men as any in the south of Europe, they did not need the French chassepots to beat the Garibaldians at Montana; however, we shall see. The announcement of the new dogma of Papal infallibility has passed almost unnoticed after all, though there are rumours of a schism in Germany.

“30th July.—To-day we have a full explanation of the projected treaty [that published in the ‘Times’ of the 27th, about Belgium and the Rhine provinces]. Benedetti writes to the official journal, stating that soon after the war of 1866, being one day with Bismarck at Berlin, and talking as they had often talked of proposed territorial changes in Europe, Bismarck said: ‘What is the good of always talking, why not put our ideas in writing.’ Thereupon giving Benedetti a pen and paper, he dictated the famous draft and kept it, as he said, to show the King, a stroke worthy of the golden age of diplomacy. I know positively from Usedom, who was in the thick of affairs in Prussia during the war of 1866, that Bismarck promised the Rhine provinces, or, at least, those south of the Moselle, to France as the price of her neutrality, but never with the intention of keeping the promise. Benedetti must have been a great donkey to be gulled by Bismarck in this way, but the story he gives of the transaction bears the impress of truth. It explains what was so odd in the draft, namely, that in quoting the names and titles of the high contracting parties the King of Prussia’s name stands first. Bismarck is the most wonderful man of his age, but he has outwitted himself as well as Benedetti here. Public opinion in England is veering round from Prussia; and Belgium, which is most interested, acquits France in the matter.

“A skirmish has taken place on the frontier, where strangely enough an Englishman in the Baden service was killed, the first victim of the war, his name Winslow. The addresses of the Emperor and the King to their troops are both published. The King appeals to God the Emperor to Glory, quite in the old style.

“Yesterday we drove to Versailles through the Forest of Meudon, a lovely old deserted road, never used apparently since Versailles became a royal residence and the new high road was carried through Sèvres.

“Lascelles tells me the true history of the message sent by King William to M. Benedetti ‘Allez trouvez son Excellence,’ the King said to his aide-de-camp, ‘et priez le de venir baiser mon c—l.’ He also related an anecdote of Bismarck illustrative of his equally Rabelaisian style of humour.” [This anecdote is omitted as unprintable.]

“Aug. 2nd.—Went last night to the Opera to hear ‘Masaniello.’ Between the third and fourth acts the stage represented the French camp, and Faure in the uniform of the Garde Mobile sang the ‘Rhin Allemand’: Nous l’avons eu votre Rhin Allemand. The Marseillaise was then called for and Marie Sasse came forward with the tricolor and gave it amid great enthusiasm. It was the most emotional thing I ever saw on the stage. Faure afterwards was called for and sang the Marseillaise in his turn, kneeling down at the last verse, and wrapping himself in the flag. All the house stood up while it was being sung. The effect was lessened to me by the uniform and by the tricolour having on it a little gilt eagle, but in spite of this I have seldom been so touched. [The Marseillaise was then being sung for the first time in Paris, after having been proscribed there for twenty years.]

“3rd Aug.—It is officially announced that a division of the French army has captured the heights above Saarbruck and driven the Prussians out of the town, Saarbruck being just over the frontier. The Emperor and the Prince Imperial were present and under fire.

“5th Aug., 9 p.m.—Learned at the Embassy that the Prussians had taken Vissembourg yesterday and that General Douai had been killed, one gun captured. They told me a battle was being fought to-day, the news hitherto rather unfavourable to the French. MacMahon had 80,000 men under his command, so it should be a great battle. [This proved to be the battle of Worth.] I have arranged in case of a defeat to send my wife and Miss Noel [her cousin Alice Noel who was staying with us] to Havre with the carriage and horses. I shall stay here myself. Paris has been very silent this evening. I told Julie at dinner that the Emperor had been killed. ‘Quant à cela,’ she said, ‘si je vois aujourd’hui passer son enterrement je ne dirai que tant mieux.’ The weather since noon has been sultry with an attempt at thunder. There is a heavy black cloud over the sky to-night.

“6th Aug.—Last night at half-past ten, hearing that something was happening on the boulevard I went out. Bands of men were marching up and down singing patriotic songs, the boulevard crowded, people talking in knots. There was the rumour of a defeat. (According to the ‘Times’ the French had been driven out of Vissemberg, one gun taken and 500 unwounded prisoners, also the French camp taken. Vissembourg is a few miles from Rastadt, where the Prussian Crown Prince has his headquarters.) I sat down outside Bignon’s to read the ‘National,’ and was joined there by Malet and Lascelles. They are both staunch Frenchmen. They considered it looked very bad there being no news. They knew a severe battle was being fought that afternoon. I dreamed all night of Prussians and their victories. God rot them!

“This morning I went to the Embassy to volunteer my services to the Chancery, as they have more work there than they can do. They seemed to think that after all there had been no fighting yesterday. At half-past two Julie rushed into the room telling me that a great victory had been won, the Prince of Prussia and 20,000 prisoners taken. It was too good to be true, but flags were being put up everywhere in the streets. I ordered out the carriage and drove down the Rue de Rivoli eastwards and on round the boulevards. The Faubourg St. Antoine and all the east end of Paris was a mass of flags and excitement. After the Boulevard des Italiens, however, on our way back these thinned and at the Madeleine all was bare as on ordinary days, till on arriving at the Embassy, we found that the whole thing was a gigantic canard. Somebody had posted up a telegram with this news at the Bourse, and in a couple of hours the excitement had reached every corner of Paris. In the afternoon an attack was made by the mob on the Bourse and its frequenters. The man who had posted up the telegram was nearly torn to pieces, and the Jews and other rascals who were there had the coats torn off their backs.

“7th Aug.—This morning the news seems bad. The ‘Figaro’ says that it is a time for calm and dignity.

“4 o’clock.—MacMahon has been defeated in a great battle at Reichshoffen [Worth]. He has retreated on Nancy; his communications with Metz were cut, but seem now to be restored. On the same day yesterday General Frossart was driven out of Saarbruck. The Emperor in his bulletin says that great sacrifices must be made by the country. There is great depression in Paris. A band of respectable people came past our house shouting ‘La patrie en danger! Des fusils! A la frontière!’ At this moment a great crowd is collecting round the Tuileries. Julie has gone out to see what the news is. Claremont says the French have been outnumbered, that they had not 200,000 men in the field. The Empress is at the Tuileries. People begin to talk ominously about the present dynasty. Dalmand at the Tennis Court [he was third paumier to the tennis court of which I was a member close by in the north-east corner of the Tuileries Gardens] says he has only one wish, to die by a Prussian bullet!

“Yesterday a mob assembled at the Place Vendôme and forced Ollivier to make a speech from his balcony. He promised the news should be placarded every two hours. Paris is declared in a state of siege. I have ordered the carriage for ten o’clock to-morrow to drive to Nantes, whence Anne and Miss Noel will go on to Deauville. I shall return by train. I am afraid of the horses being seized for the war.

“5 o’clock.—Julie has come back to say that the Emperor’s despatch was that he did not know where MacMahon was. This looks very bad.

“The battle where Frossart was beaten was Forbach. MacMahon’s they call Freshvillers. If MacMahon has been cut off we may expect the French centre to be attacked on both sides and probably beaten somewhere in front of Metz.

“8th August.—No news this morning. MacMahon seems to have joined the main army before Metz. The Parisians are rapidly becoming demoralized, the Bonapartists blaming the Republicans, the Republicans the Bonapartists, and both blaming Fortune. All parties seem inclined to lay down their arms directly the army is beaten. I was not wrong in believing that twenty years of Cæsarism had destroyed virtue in France. It is well to talk of 1792, but the Republicans then were other men than now, and when their army was beaten the people fought on. To-day French patriotism is limited to killing the enemy. Nobody cares to be killed. Paris will probably open her gates to the Germans, and having consented to a disgraceful peace she will then settle matters with her rulers. I have sent Anne, Miss Noel, and the horses to Deauville to wait till events declare themselves. There were no particular disturbances last night. The English are flying from Paris. I believe Paris to be impregnable if held by a sufficient force. It is also too large to invest. If the remains of the army after a defeat were to throw itself into the capital it might form a nucleus for the whole nation. Let them proclaim a Republic if they will or take one of the Orleans princes for king, but let them continue the war. France can never make peace on her defeat or she must perish. The windows of the Tuileries were lighted all last night. It is remarkable that not a word of sympathy with the Empress Eugénie can be heard.

“7 o’clock.—It is reported, but not officially, that King William crossed the Rhine last night with 120,000 men at Colmar. I have been playing tennis with Lascelles. He takes a brighter view of things than I do. He thinks that a defeat would not end the war, but that a Republic will be proclaimed under Gambetta or Jules Simon and the war be carried on. He thinks that if the Prussians enter Paris they will find a Republic there, and will place the Comte de Paris on the throne, but I am certain no Orleans Prince would accept the Crown at such hands. Perhaps Napoleon will put himself in the hands of the Prussians. Who knows, perhaps Bismarck might re-seat him on his throne. All the foreign Ministers have been to Lord Lyons to ask what they shall do in case a Republic is proclaimed. Metternich (the Austrian Ambassador) has sent his Pauline (Mme. de Metternich) to Calais. As we came out of the tennis court we saw Persigny driving past in his Victoria towards the Tuileries.

“12 o’clock (midnight).—Dined on the Boulevard. Great crowds of people. Saw a carriage attacked by twenty or thirty people, a man standing up in it looking very pale and waving his arms. A troop of dragoons came down the Boulevard and people cried, ‘A la frontière!’ This is because they think no troops should remain at Paris. The dragoons trotted on to the Louvre and are now in the Carrousel.

“The Prince Imperial has come back and it is said the Emperor was also there (in the Tuileries); some think he is there now. Ollivier is also supposed to be in hiding at the Palace, though a cordon of police guards his house in the Place Vendôme at night. Julienne’s husband, who is head waiter at the Hôtel Meurice, told Julie that the Comte de Paris was there five days ago. I believe he will be in Paris again as President or King before a month is out. Sedition is talked openly and by respectable persons of all sorts. The ‘Soir’ used guarded but very plain language to-night and I believe it is certain that the deputies of the Left signed a document requesting the Bonaparte family to withdraw from France. If the French can get rid of this incubus they may find heart to fight their battle out. The Emperor has shown himself in this crisis what I have always held him to be, an irresolute man, incapable of any great sustained policy. I believe him to have permitted Grammont’s original speech on the Hohenzollern question with the intention and full expectation of the matter being compromised, but the country carried him away and he was obliged to follow. He has been carried fairly off his legs; even a great victory could now hardly keep him on his throne. Il a gêné la patrie.” [What I did not know at the time of writing this was that Napoleon III was incapacitated from playing the difficult part demanded of him in the crisis by an attack of the stone, which caused him great suffering. The decision, therefore, between peace and war had been left practically in the Empress’s hands, to whom the blame of the decision rightly belongs.]

“I am more hopeful of the National honour to-night. The army beaten, the French ought still to have heart to win the campaign, holding as they do the sea [Prussia at that time had almost no navy]. They can in time starve the enemy out. As I sat at dinner the poet Morin came to speak to me. He was very earnest in asking my candid opinion on the state of France. He seemed much émotioné, but I noticed that he ate a capital dinner.

“9th August, 12 o’clock (noon).—At the Embassy they talk of a Republic under the dictatorship of General Trochu. I confess I never heard of him before. The Chamber opens to-day. Great bands of blouses have marched there, and a great band also of police. They say the Opposition will demand the immediate arming of all the citizens of Paris inscribed on the Electoral Roll. This morning Julie came in to me with my little dog Rachael dying in her arms.

“Something must have happened to the Emperor; he has either run away or abdicated or been shot. These ideas pass through one’s mind. No one ever mentions him.

“2 p.m.—They are shutting the Tuileries garden gates.

“6 p.m.—I ran out and found the gates shut, but at the Tennis Court gate by saying I was a sociétaire they let me in, and looking over the balustrade of the terrace, saw some thousands of people collected in the Place de la Concorde and on the Bridge in front of the Corps Législatif. Biboche and Sérafin and Dalmand, the three paumiers, are absurdly impressioned by the course of events. Biboche is a Bonapartist, Dalmand a patriot without colour, Etienne, the marker, fancies the Republic, and Sérafin has tout simplement a wife at home with the scarlet fever. All look upon France as lost. At three o’clock we were turned out of the Tennis Court, and the garden was cleared of nurses and lovers. I went and sat in the Place de la Concorde for an hour, till driven in by a thunderstorm, which stopped any revolution, if such was intended.

“A band came by our house just now, singing, with a ridiculous young negro marching in front flourishing a wooden sword. I am beginning to tire of the crisis. General Lebœuf has resigned his command, Bazaine becomes Commander-in-Chief. [It was Lebœuf who, when the Emperor asked him whether the army was completely ready for war, answered ‘Jusqu’au dernier bouton.’]

“12 p.m. (midnight).—On a motion by Jules Favre for the organization and arming of the National Guard throughout France the Government have been beaten by 243 to 21. A second proposal for the formation of a Committee of National Defence in the House was also thrown out. In consequence of the first vote the Ministry has resigned. Count Palikao (General Montauban) is charged with the formation of a new Ministry. This is considered as being virtually an overthrow of the Empire. It is expected that the new Ministry will declare the House the supreme authority, and that the Imperial Family will be invited to leave France. Marshal Bazaine has accepted the command in chief. General Changarnier the Republican has been received by the Emperor at Metz and has appeared in public with him. [Changarnier had been a rival candidate to Louis Napoleon when they stood for the Presidentship of the Republic in 1850.]

“I dined with Lascelles and met M. de Hübner (the Austrian). He is a violent hater of Prussia, but declares that she must crush France. I cannot think that if only Frenchmen will be true to themselves, if the army can throw itself into Paris, all may yet be well. Austria, Denmark, and even England may think it the moment to intervene; Prussia cannot support a long war with all her ports blockaded. But if the French accept the terms offered on a defeat they will be lost for ever. Imperial France has no virtue to fall back upon; a Republic is their best chance; it is the only name that has a power to rouse.

“When I came home Julie talked of her recollections of the Emperor. She remembered seeing him when he came back to Paris in 1852, and, when kneeling on the steps of the Madeleine, he was blessed by the curé. As he rode from the church and entered the gate leading from the Place de la Concorde into the Tuileries garden, a crown of flowers was let down from the upper part of the grille upon his head, and the people called out for the first time, ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ Three weeks later he was crowned at Notre Dame. She also talked of his marriage, and Julie knew the details because she was in Henry Howard’s service, and he was Mrs. Gould’s lover.[23] Mademoiselle Montijo was taken to Compiègne by Mrs. Gould, though she was not invited, and there the Emperor saw her out riding. She was very beautiful, and had a wonderfully fair complexion. The Emperor, although he knew she was the Marquis d’Aguado’s mistress, had a caprice for her, and wanted to make her leave Aguado, but she said he must marry her and he did so, in spite of his friends and Ministers. He said in his excuse that having, as they told him, done so much for France, France must do this for him. According to Julie, Napoleon and Eugénie made mauvais ménage at first, but the Empress had never been reproached for misconduct since the marriage. The child, the Prince Imperial, was certainly hers, as any one could see by comparing her photograph with the boy’s. People had said that he was not, but this was untrue. Julie has often been with letters from Howard to Mademoiselle Montijo, when she lived with her mother in the Place Vendôme, un misérable entresol sur la cour. The house is No. 4, I think she said, in the south-east corner of the square. She and her mother kept two women servants, a cook and a bonne. Julie cited as a sign of the misère in which they lived, that these women wore handkerchiefs on their heads instead of caps. Aguado, elder brother of the Comte and Vicomte, kept a one-horse remise for her, and provided for them in other ways. Julie declares that, Eugénie had other worshippers, too, ‘même des Allemands.’ Aguado was married to an Englishwoman, who is now remarried to his brother, the Vicomte. He went mad when Mademoiselle Montijo married the Emperor, and afterwards died. She lived on in the Place Vendôme till the week before her marriage, when she was taken to the Tuileries to be married from there at Notre Dame. Such is Julie’s account. Julie and M. Perrier, Howard’s valet, used to talk these over together, ‘Ce pauvre M. Perrier qui est mort.’ History is written from such intimate talk.

“My own recollections of the Emperor are not very many. I saw him for the first time in 1851, on the day of his coup d’état, when he became President for life. We, my brother Francis and I, with our mother, were passing through Paris on our way to Italy, and we were staying at the Hotel Wagram, only two doors from my present apartment here in the Rue de Rivoli. Francis and I went out with our tutor, Edmund Coffin, to see what was going on in the streets. The Rue de Rivoli was full of people, and there was a cordon of gendarmes between it and the Place de la Concorde. ‘Liberté, Egalité, et Fraternité’ was still written up everywhere on the walls. The President rode by close to us with his Staff, and passed up the Rue Royale. This was a very early recollection, before he was Emperor. When I next saw him it was at Biarritz in 1863. He used to walk about there leaning on the arm of his Chamberlain, Tascher de la Pagerie, moving slowly like an old man. I went one evening to a ball at the Pavilion, and was presented to him and the Empress. The Empress reminded me that she had seen me at Madrid some months before, which was true, for I had been to an audience of the Corps Diplomatique when she was paying her visit to Queen Isabella. At the ball the Emperor walked about looking bored, not at all as if he was in his own house. He is a thick-set, coarsely made man (with legs too short for his body), and in his uniform might be taken for a sergeant. He has nothing remarkable in his face, except his cold green eyes, which have a strangely fascinating, but repellent power. They give him a certain distinction. I have since, while at the Embassy, been to balls at the Tuileries, but have never had personal speech with him. I have listened to him, however, talking once for twenty minutes at a time with Lord Cowley, at one of the receptions while the Empress was finishing her cercle. They were discussing on that occasion a review there had been of the English and French fleets, and his remarks were the essence of commonplace. He has none of the ease of manner, the lightness of thought, the esprit Gaulois which go so far in France, a heavy, slow-thinking man, talking French with a provincial accent. It is strange that such a man should have ruled the French for twenty years. If he had died a month ago he would have left a great name in history. Now who knows? He may be ranked on a level with Louis Philippe. Such are the chances of a man’s glory.

“10th Aug.—I have drawn £40 in five-franc pieces for the siege. It is already difficult to change bank notes. The town is quieter to-day. No news from the army. A list of the new Ministry is published, Palikao, La Tour d’Auvergne, Magne, Rigault, Girardin—more Bonapartist than ever. The Chamber supports them for the present. Paris is full of troops, 500 Marines marched past our house this morning on their way to the war, all stout, smart fellows. I take it no troops have ever fought better than the French have done.

“I have been reading Prévost Paradol’s last book, ‘La France Nouvelle,’ published last year. The concluding chapter reads prophetically now. He gives the future of the world to the English race, true enough if it includes our off-shoots, American and Colonial, but he hardly foresees what must happen, the extinction of England herself. England’s political life will be over the day that Holland is annexed to Germany. There is also little sign of the continuance of the intellectual eminence of our race. Literature never long survives a nation’s decline, and in the English speaking off-shoots no sign of intellectual life has yet been given, though America has had a hundred years of independence. The English language, however, is never likely to become a dead one. Her literature will still live, even if it ceases to be productive; in France it is otherwise. French will be a dead language, as dead at least as Spanish is. As for German, which is to become the language of Europe, it shows no sign of producing a readable literature. The only German I can read is Goethe’s, who took the best of his inspiration from Rousseau. Where he is purely German, he is pedantic and wearisome. Germany possesses some good lyric poetry, but romance, tragedy, history, all are dull. What is really meritorious is the scientific writing, but that is owing to the matter rather than the manner. The Volkslieder have the melancholy charm of barbarous poetry, but the serious poets are without humour. German is bourgeois and its literature bourgeois. [This is a poor diagnosis. I ought to have at least excepted Heine, but I left him out, I suppose, as being a Jew living at Paris, and more of a Frenchman than of a German.]

“14th Aug.—Deauville. I came here on the night of the 11th, as there was no special news at Paris. The day I left, old Barre (the doyen of the Paris Tennis Court) came to breakfast with me and after it we played tennis, Brinquant making us a chouette. Barre was playing in better form than I can remember him. Brinquant has just been called out to join the army, being between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five. He will have to go as a ‘simple pioupiou.’ Substitutes are still to be had at 8,000 francs, but it is considered dishonourable not to march in person. In the middle of our game a company of grenadiers marched in through the door by the net, and took formal possession of the Court, turning us out. The officer in command saluting us politely from the net with his drawn sword, saying, ‘Messieurs, vous êtes priés d’evacuer le jeu.’ [This proved to be absolutely the last game old Barre, the champion paumier of his day, ever played, for he died of the hardships of the siege, though not till 1872. He was a wonderful player, especially on the floor of the Court, so that though I was then young and active, he could still give me the walls. In private life he was excellent company, and some of us used to invite him to restaurant dinners, where his stories were of the best of an extreme grivois kind, for he had led the gayest of gay lives.] In the train, as I came down here from Paris, I got into conversation with two deputies from Mantes. One narrated his having asked Grammont how it was that the army had been caught unprepared? Grammont had answered that before making his declaration to the Chamber he had inquired of Le Bœuf, ‘Are you ready?’ and Le Bœuf had replied, ‘I can put 600,000 men on the Rhine in a fortnight.’ Everybody is angry with Le Bœuf.

“A letter is published from the Prince de Joinville offering his services to the Emperor. Changarnier has been made Commandant de place at Metz. He is seventy-two years old. On Friday the 12th, Anne, Alice Noel, and I drove to Glanville, from which village the Glanvilles of Catchfrench claim originally to have come. There is a château there, which we visited, of the time of Louis XIII, undergoing restoration by its proprietor, M. de Glanville, a man of sixty, whom we found at work weeding in his grounds. I noticed that the coat of arms over the door was not our English Glanville coat, and he told me that he had not the pretension of descending from the original family. It must have been a picturesque old place before the restoration, the avenues and the park round it good, the elms just like the Cornish elms at Catchfrench, the country about it beautiful and very English. We then drove on to Pont l’Evèque, a charming, sleepy old town full of cats, and dined at the Bras d’or, a drum was beating there, and a crier calling out all men from twenty-five to thirty-five for the war. Later we saw the mayor posting up a notice announcing the capture of Nancy by a detachment of the enemy’s cavalry.

“16th Aug.—Paris. I came up yesterday morning by train from Deauville, and on my way to the station read a telegram announcing that the French army had crossed to the left bank of the Moselle, and meeting the Prussians in force had repulsed them. The telegram is dated Longueville and signed Napoleon. The Emperor seems to have left Metz on the 14th at two o’clock intending to go to Châlons. Nancy, which is in the hands of the Prussians, is a town of 30,000 inhabitants. It is quite open, and was occupied by them without resistance. The advance posts of the enemy have been pushed on to Toul and S. Mihiel.

“Yesterday was the festival of S. Napoleon, probably the last which will be ever celebrated in France. Paris was silent as the grave, and when I first arrived I thought a disaster must have happened. Bands of men were at work on the fortifications. There is much to do before Paris can resist a siege, houses to be razed and trees cut down. There were no illuminations and scarcely a flag. I remember the fête of the 15th of August in 1864 when I had just joined the Embassy as attaché. The Emperor was then still popular, believed to be the longest head in Europe. The Place de la Concorde, the Quays and the Invalides were one great crowd, theatres open to the public gratis, shows and entertainments at every corner. A balloon was being sent up from the Champ de Mars. Carriages were forbidden to circulate in the too crowded streets, all but those of the foreign Ambassadors. I had only that morning arrived, and Lady Cowley took me with her and her daughter, Lady Feodore, and Sudley in her own barouche, and we drove up the Champs Elysées at a foot’s pace, a conspicuous figure in the good-natured Parisian crowd for the illuminations. Now quel degringolage!

“The night before last there was an émeute in the Villette, a band of men crying ‘Vive la Republique,’ attacked some unfortunate pompiers in their guard house, killed two or three, and then fired into the mob who were coming to the rescue. They were some fifty or sixty armed with daggers and revolvers, but after a show of fight they ran away, some being caught and almost torn to pieces. The incident has been put down to ‘the gold of Bismarck,’ just as in former days there was talk of ‘the gold of Pitt.’ Paris is still full of Germans; there will be a general massacre of these if it comes to a siege, perhaps of us English too. At this end of the town everything is quiet. Count d’Aquila who arrived at Deauville with eighteen of his favourite horses the day before I left, has made over his house in the Avenue de l’Impératrice for an ambulance, so I hear has Evans the American dentist.

“5 p.m.—A letter has been posted officially from the sous-prefet of Verdun, stating that cannonading was heard the whole of yesterday, and that it was reported the Prussians had lost 40,000 men the day before near Metz. On the other hand the ‘Independence Belge’ gives a despatch from Berlin from King William to the Queen of Prussia announcing a glorious victory. Edmond About writes in the ‘Soir’ describing the entry of the Prussians into Saverne and MacMahon’s retreat. The French, he says, were ridiculously commanded. The Prussians are levying contributions in France just as they did in Frankfort and Homburg in the war of 1866.

“17th Aug.—This is my birthday of thirty, it finds me healthy, wealthy, and wise, three things I never thought to be. Anne has made me a birthday present of a silver coffee pot, I have long coveted, a Louis XVI one of very beautiful French design. I have nothing left to wish for as a birthday gift, except the destruction of the German army.

“I went last night to the Gymnase theatre, where they gave ‘Diane de Lys,’ the moral of which is, ‘Il a voulu garder sa femme et il l’a gardée.’ The French pieces now generally give the beau rôle to the husband on the stage as is also the case sometimes in real life, such as in that of Beaumont who wounded his wife’s three lovers one after the other. One of the three duels was with Metternich. Metternich has, as all the world knows, been Mme. de Persigny’s lover, and then made court to Mme. de Beaumont. She taxed him one day with his former devotion, and to prove to her that it was at an end he made over to her Mme. de Persigny’s letters to him. These were found by Beaumont in his wife’s drawer along with letters to her from Metternich. The Ambassador, who is no Palladin, refused to fight. Beaumont threatened to expose his treachery to Mme. de Persigny. The matter was laid before the Emperor, and Metternich, it being decided he must fight, was run through the body, but soon recovered. Beaumont also wounded du Hallay and another, whose letters also had been found. Now nobody dares approach Mme. de Beaumont. Metternich is what is called a gros fat, who likes to be called Monseigneur. I have played tennis with him, but he is a poor performer. Du Hallay is a fat, funny young man, fond of a joke, but one would think innocuous in a virtuous household.

“De Voguë, MacMahon’s aide-de-camp, was killed at Worth, a good-looking, very charming man of about thirty-five, bald, but the ideal of the beau militaire. I used to know him in 1865, meeting him often at Madame Arcos’ (the Empress Eugénie’s lady in waiting). He was at that time Princess Poniatowska’s lover—she a very pretty woman, tall, blonde, and amusing.

“The Orleans Princes have been refused service in the army.

“18th Aug.—Yesterday at half-past five Blount, the Banker, came to the Embassy, and announced that a great victory had been won the day before, the 16th. He stated that he had seen press copies of the despatches, and that the details were most complete. Schneider, President of the Chamber, fully believed the news, and Ministers were only waiting to announce it till written accounts should come. All the result was a telegram published ‘hier 16. Il y a eu une affaire très sérieuse du côté de Gravelotte. Nous avons eu l’avantage dans le combat, mais nos pertes sont grandes. Comte de Palikao.’ And this morning the ‘Figaro’ gives an account of the battle of Borny fought under the walls of Metz, otherwise called of Longueville. Gallifet is reported to have charged the enemy. Gallifet is a brave man, and I always liked him in spite of his swagger. It used to be a fine thing to see him play tennis with Smijthe of our Embassy, who is a cool-headed man with one shoulder higher than the other, an accident which gave him an extraordinarily heavy cut stroke on the floor, most exasperating to Gallifet, who is a wild hitter. Gallifet plays well, but was overmatched by Smijthe, who was the best player in the tennis court three years ago. Gallifet used to call out, ‘Ah dites donc, M. Smijthe, vous m’exasperez avec votre damnée patience; tappez donc, M. Smijthe.’

“I have been talking with Julie. She tells me her father was maire of a village in Brittany and her uncle a bishop murdered at the altar during the revolution. She had a brother older than herself killed in the campaign of Russia under Bonaparte, and her father died of grief. He left her a dot of 40,000 francs, but her worthless husband ate it all. She tells me that we have a mouchard here on the fifth floor, whose wife is a chatterbox. She has let out to Julie that the Empress has just sent the husband to England with her jewels.

“19th Aug.—General Trochu is named Commandant of Paris. I went yesterday to look at the fortifications. The guns on the walls are ridiculous old pieces such as my Uncle Toby might have mounted on his horn work. I was sent about my business by the sergent-de-ville. Carriages still pass into the Bois de Boulogne over a narrow plank bridge. The Germans describe the battles of Borny and Gravelotte as victories, and say the French army has been driven back into Metz.

“21st Aug.—Caen. I went down on the 19th to Deauville by train, where I found Anne much better, and the next day, yesterday, we drove here, stopping at Dives for half an hour to see the church. This is interesting on account of the list of names kept there of those knights who followed William of Normandy to England in 1066. I counted some seventy names of families still existing in England, among them the Byrons, de Buron. Here at Caen we are at the Hôtel d’Angleterre. The town is full of conscripts, some in blouses, some in coats, all in red trousers, young and happy. I have heard more singing in the streets here these two nights than during all the last fortnight at Paris.

“With difficulty I procured a copy of the Paris ‘Journal.’ Things seem drifting towards a quarrel with England. The ‘Times,’ which has taken a violent side for Prussia in the war is now exasperating the French with its good advice. Now, it says, is the moment for the neutral powers to insist on peace. I expect to see proposals made for an armistice, to be followed by peace on the principle of the status quo ante bellum, France to retain Alsace and Lorraine, but with the condition of immediate disarmament. If such be accepted tout serait sauvé fort l’honneur. I consider the position so critical that, instead of going to Brittany as we intended, we start to-morrow for the north. France, if she quarrels with England, will be virtually outlawed and fighting for her life, and we cannot expect any but the laws of necessity to rule her. Already the days are being recalled to mind when France threw defiance in the face of all Europe in the shape of 10,000 heads upon her scaffolds. She will scarcely stop to distinguish between friend and foe, but I trust my precautions may not be needed. The French army may yet be victorious, and the ‘Times’ is not England, but who can say? In the case of a rupture my sympathies must be with France, but I am bound in form at least to my own country.

“22nd Aug.—Pont l’Evèque. We left Caen at ten, and driving on got here at five, having stopped three hours for breakfast at Dozulé, our inn there the White Horse, rustic, but good. Another capital country inn here, the Bras d’or.

“The news to-night is bad, none for two days from Bazaine, who is shut up in Metz. A letter has come from Lytton in Vienna, who expects nothing but disaster for the French army. I still believe the Prussians will be driven out of France. Prussia is blockaded and nearly bankrupt.

“25th Aug.—On the night of the 23rd we slept at La Bouille, a village on the Seine to which Rouen merchants go out to dine on summer evenings, and yesterday to Rouen, Hôtel de France. We shall have to wait here two days until our carriage wheels have been new tyred.

“The news to-day is better. Communication with Bazaine restored. Bazaine declares that if he is still in Metz it is that he chooses to stay there. The news from Prussian head-quarters absolutely contradicts this. In England they choose to believe the Prussian account. I do not. Neither Bazaine nor Palikao would dare in the present state of France to publish news directly false. The position of Englishmen in France is becoming precarious, indeed of any person without visible occupation. Prince Lubomirsky was arrested two days ago as a spy, and many quite innocent people have been mal-treated by the mob. I shall go back to Paris for a night to see how things are going on, and then drive to Dieppe and send Anne and Miss Noel to England.

“Strassburg is being besieged. There was a report yesterday that Phalsbourg had been taken. The King of Prussia has appointed Governors of Alsace and Lorraine as Prussian provinces.

“27th Aug.—Rouen. I have been again to Paris. Going up in the train I heard another spy story. The man who told it seemed to be a Rouen merchant and the victim a friend from the country, a Normand, a bel homme of fifty years. He had asked some questions about the mobiles in front of the barracks, had been arrested by a sergent-de-ville, and got his clothes torn by the mob. In Paris a decree has been issued expelling ‘les bouches inutiles.’ A letter in the ‘Figaro’ asks whether the ladies of pleasure may be properly so styled. The Government has answered the question seriously by sending 2,000 of these women to the Conciergerie, ready to be packed off at a moment’s notice.

“At the Embassy I found them in little anxiety. Brinquant is not yet ordered off. Webster, the old Queen’s messenger and Philip Currie’s boon companion, is dead. Lord Hertford has also chosen the moment to die at Bagatelle, his house in the Bois de Boulogne. He also was a type, the original of Thackeray’s Lord Steyne. He remained to the day of his death a patron of the half world, and has left illegitimate children and no will they say. He was fond of jokes, à la Regence. The most amusing of them was connected with a young clergyman he had engaged as chaplain [but I forbear transcribing it]. His Lordship has long been légendaire in Paris, yet such is the disturbance in the public mind, his death is mentioned without special comment in the papers.

“The Prussians are at Châlons, and in a few days, unless great events happen, must be in front of Paris. The city will be summoned to surrender and threatened with destruction on refusal. The army is far away and the garrison insufficient for defence. The Prussians will hardly postpone a bombardment, and it is possible Paris may be taken by storm and burnt. The Crown Prince, who is believed to be marching in advance, probably counts on an insurrection as soon as he shall make his appearance at the gates, or he would hardly risk so desperate an adventure with two French armies in his rear. The Chamber is in an uproar, Gambetta calling for news of the army, but the town is quiet and cheerful and the Parisians seem ready to do their duty. Trochu has command of the place. Edmond About, in the ‘Soir,’ croaks ominously. He has been in the jaws of the lion and dreads its teeth. The ‘Gaulois’ says that the Emperor is in such a state that a surprising announcement might be any day made. How strange it is to remember the early days of the war a month ago when the Empress told her son ‘Va donc mon enfant et sois digne du sang des Bonapartes et des Guzmans,’ and when the train was out of sight, ‘Sa Majesté redevint femme.’ At the first engagement at Saarbruck we were told: ‘Le Prince Impériale ne se laissa nullement impressioner; les vieux soldats le voyant si calm fondirent en larmes . . . Quand commença la canonade le Prince demanda à l’Empereur “Dites donc papa c’est une balle qui siffle auprès de nous, ou bien un boulet.” “On ne peut jamais savoir au juste mon fils,” répondit l’Empereur. . . . Après la défaite de l’ennemi le Prince Impériale présenta au jeune Conneau [his favourite playfellow] une balle qu’il avait ramassée sur le champ de bataille.’ This is what the ‘Gaulois’ used to tell us.

“I left Paris last night, looking sorrowfully on the Tuileries and its garden, with the trees brown in it like autumn. The sergent-de-ville and the sentinel stood as usual at the garden gate, the fountain played, the sun shone, and the children and bonnes chattered as though the world were not already crumbling about their ears. Julie is left with orders to bring away the plate and pictures in case of the worst, and I shall take Anne over to England and then come back if the siege is not begun, but one cannot foresee. I dream every night of armies and victories and defeats.”

This was my last visit to Paris before the city was invested by the German armies and the siege began.

There is not much in my diary worth quoting after this. Having had our carriage wheels new tyred we drove on to Dieppe, arriving there 29th August, in heavy rain, to find the whole place full of refugees. “There are a thousand men drilling here on the beach in blouses with a red cross on their left sleeves. I am struck with the number of able-bodied men one sees everywhere idle, although the whole country has been called to arms. Perhaps there is a want of weapons. Dieppe is full of English who affect sympathy with Prussia. General Trochu has at the eleventh hour ordered all the Germans out of Paris within three days, one would have expected within three hours. The bombardment of Strassburg has done great damage. Kehl has been burnt. A shell burst in a Pensionnat at Strassburg where the young ladies were at their history lesson. Seven were killed. Phalsbourg holds out bravely.

“30th Aug.—Julie has just arrived from Paris; very amusing about her troubles in getting away. The Hôtel Meyerbeer, where I used in former days to lodge, has been sacked. Some Frenchmen came to dine there, and the landlord (a German), seeing them out at elbows, thought fit to remark, ‘You are too poor to dine here. I have just got an order from the King of Prussia for a dinner of ninety covers for this day week.’ The men, upon this, fell on him and wrecked his house. There are said to be 40,000 Germans in Paris. Our Proprietaire, M. Desfontaines, has come into No. 204 from Noissy, through fear of the invasion.

“31st Aug.—The Embassies are to remain at Paris, the Empress Regent having declared her intention of remaining. Princess Mathilde has sent away her valuables, as have probably most others who are rich. The heroism of non-combatants in Paris will be shown mainly in their purses. I go to England to-morrow to see Francis [my elder brother], who starts shortly on his way back to Madeira.

“2nd Sept.—At Worth Forest Cottage. The ‘Daily News’ announces in large capitals, ‘Decisive Battle, MacMahon totally routed,’ and prints a telegram from William to Augusta: ‘May God, who has hitherto befriended us, continue his protection to our arms.’ I felt very sick and angry, the more so because I have found everybody here at home crowing over this final result of the war. Awake half the night, thinking bitter things. There was a great battle before Sedan yesterday.

“3rd Sept.—Spent the morning fishing at Cinderbanks. On coming in I heard the news of the surrender of the remains of the French army by General Wimpfen, MacMahon’s second in command, and of the Emperor. Great numbers of French and many German soldiers, driven on to Belgian soil, have laid down their arms. Count Flahault, one of the last men of the First Empire, died yesterday. Many years ago he eloped to Gretna Green with the heiress of the Keith Barony, and always after Madame de Flahault came to England for her couches, so that her children should be British subjects, and her son have a right to his seat in the House of Lords.

“5th Sept.—To London for the day, and saw Philip Currie at the Foreign Office, who gave me an alarming account of the disturbed state of France. He showed me a letter just come from a girl who was governess at a French château in the south. She wrote that the peasantry were surrounding the house.

“6th Sept.—Back to Dieppe.

“8th Sept.—Crossed back again with Anne to Newhaven in a gale of wind. We were thirteen hours at sea, and ran some risk of being driven on to Beachy Head. At Newhaven we found our Swiss horses, and drove on to Worth Forest. Before leaving Dieppe I sent Julie a box containing 100 lb. of ship’s biscuits, with a letter of instructions as to her conduct during the siege. I also offered my apartment to the maire as an ambulance, but my proprietor refused his consent. [The biscuits fortunately reached Julie just before communication with Paris ceased, and proved a Godsend to her during the four months the siege lasted. My cousin, Francis Currie, whom, though I have said nothing about him in my diary, I had seen constantly during my last weeks at Paris, making our speculations on the course of events together, remained on quietly in his rooms in the Palais Royal right through both siege and Commune, continuing his philosophic occupation, the pursuit of pleasure, without disturbance or much hardship. I should have stayed on with him, but for my wife’s expected confinement, and seen the drama out. It was an opportunity missed I still regret.]

“25th Sept.—Since my return to England I have not read a newspaper, nor shall till peace is made.”

A few extracts from letters, written me just then by my friend Robert Lytton, dealing with public events, may here be added. He was at the time first Secretary of Embassy at Vienna, but on leave in England, and in close touch with all our chief diplomatists.

“11th Sept., 1870.—Knebworth. I am very doubtful as to the Germans claiming Alsace and Lorraine, but if they do claim it, it will be baseless, abominable, unprecedented, and irredeemable should England stand by quiescent while her boasted ally of yesterday is being dismembered. Yet a colleague whom I met yesterday, fresh from the Foreign Office, told me the Government is firmly resolved to do nothing, and does not seem to think the situation worth a Cabinet Council. We shall pay dearly and perhaps more than we can afford by and by for the excessive prudence of our present policy, which is, I am told, strongly recommended by Lyons, who is afraid of burning his fingers and losing his reputation as a safe man. France will, of course, be thrown into the arms of Russia, and sell her support in the East for a European alliance of vengeance on her faithless friend across the Channel.”

I remember that my own feeling at the time about Alsace Lorraine was one of rejoicing that the Germans, whom I hated, should have let slip an opportunity of high-minded moderation which would have redoubled the glory of their victories. While at Worth Forest with my brother Francis, we used to argue the French and the German case, he strongly maintaining against me that the French defeat had delivered Europe from its chief danger. Germany, he thought, could never be a serious menace.

“3rd Oct., 1870.—Ormeskirk. Odo Russell [our Ambassador at Berlin] who sees all the despatches now as soon as they arrive, and is therefore a good authority, writes to his wife, who is here, that Bismarck has intimated to us his intention of eventually, after taking Paris I suppose, sending the Emperor back to France with a slice of Belgium by way of a letter of recommendation to the French people. You may fancy how this has fluttered our Downing Street dovecote. I can myself hardly believe the story, but if Bismarck really does play off this practical joke on us what a reductio ad absurdum it will be of the lauded prudence of the Gladstone Cabinet in regard to that absurd Belgian treaty. Odo adds that Bismarck wishes to keep Bazaine locked up in Metz with the whole garrison till the end of the war, but not to attack them or destroy them, because it is his wish to hand over to the Emperor at the end as large a remnant as can yet be saved of the Imperial army. Meanwhile Russia is certainly arming fast, and the Russian merchants in the city have already created a panic there by their expressed apprehension, which seems to me perfectly well founded that she is about to attack Turkey. I take it that whenever she pleases Russia can do this with perfect impunity and success.”

“7th Oct., 1870.—Knebworth. In connection with the story I mentioned in my last, Odo says that Bismarck avers that, although it is necessary to keep Bazaine safe in Metz, he is anxious, if possible, not to starve or otherwise destroy the army shut up in that town, in order that at the end of the war he may hand over to the Emperor as much as can be spared of the Imperial forces for the preservation of order in France. However, I still disbelieve the story. In a letter which Lady Emily received from her husband the day I left Lathom, he said: ‘The French Government has again for the third, and it says for the last time made a most earnest and pathetic appeal to us as the old friends and allies of France to come to the rescue, to which we have replied by a long despatch to the effect that we pity France, but can’t help her. This document is a very painful one to read, and it is one which I am certain your dear father [Lord Clarendon] would never have written.’

“Lady Cowley, who did not go to see the Emperor at the request of the Empress but on her own hook from Frankfort, said he was looking in much better health than she expected to find him, that he seemed deeply mortified by the abuse of the French Press, but maintained that he was still the favourite of the French people, and seemed to count on returning to the Tuileries. The Empress wrote him a most insulting and heartless letter calling him a ‘lâche,’ the receipt of which was the occasion of that fainting fit which gave rise to the rumour of his attempted suicide. He told Lady Cowley that he was literally without a sixpence. Grammont, who has been staying with Lord Malmesbury, declares this to be perfectly true, and that the utmost the Emperor’s few remaining friends hope to be able to make up for him is £1,200 a year. The Empress, I believe, has some fortune of her own, but they are on the worst possible terms. I hope I shall soon be able to invite myself to Worth as Lady Cowley invited herself to Wilhelmshöhe.

“Did you see that the French papers, learning from the English Press that the Prussians were supplied with the best information from their general staff, exclaimed in chorus: ‘Nous savons maintenant qui est cet espion qui a fourni aux Prussiens tant de précieux renseignements; c’est M. le General Staff, homme d’une astuce remarquable.’”

END OF MY PARIS DIARY OF 1870.