;Mii.^.;j;»ll:!SWi ¥':ff.' Ml 1 OP' /\ » \\\ ■-\\ ■ \v I ^ a. AGl/l \- f>:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES THE GIFT OF MAY TREAT MORRISON IN MEMORY OF ALEXANDER F MORRISON ^ • • • • • • • • • * • • • • • • • • • * • • • • • • V :•: : .^ v: : WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. BY IRVING MONTAGU, Author of " Camp and Studio," &'c. LONDON : W. H. ALLEN & CO., LIMITED, 13, ^VATERLOO PLACE, S.W. (All Rights Reserved.) • ••••* • * DEDICATED TO General .§ir %n\M llemball, %%., K. C. B. , A'. C. S. I. , J. P. , n.L., TO WHOSE COURTEOUS CONSIDERATION THE AUTHOR HAS— AS A WAR-ARTIST— BEEN INDEBTED FOR ADVANTAGES WHICH MAKE THIS SMALL TRIBUTE TO HIS KINDNESS A PERSONAL GRATIFICATION. 434427 PREFACE. I BELIEVE that although a large section of the public do not read the prefaces to books, preferring to judge un- biased by the author's promises or apologies for them- selves, there are, on the other hand, many who do, and to whom it is a sort of key-note to the contents ; therefore should it incisively convey a suggestion of the menu with which their mental appetite is about to be appeased. Throughout these pages I have endeavoured, without egotism, to tell a plain, unvarnished tale of my wanderings. Commencing, then, with a first course, in which I touch on my early life and its subsequent vicissitudes, I go on to those campaigns that form the more substantial fare which follows, and which if found acceptable will, before long, be succeeded by the publication of yet another viii PREFACE. volume, which, as a sequel to this, will so far terminate my somewhat eventful history. In the meantime, if my readers have been able, in some sense, to live with me my life over again, to have gone with me tlirough the experiences I have recorded without suffering from eiuiui, then shall I be pleased indeed to have interested them in some of the ^^'anderings of a War-Artist, so that when they next turn over the pages of our illustrated newspapers they may perhaps more fully realise the process by which the point of the " special's " pencil is sharpened. Lhiden Gardens, IV. March, i8Sg. CONTENTS. The Franco-Prussian War 35 The Spanish War 189 The Servian War 303 \AST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. I'ORTRAIT OK TIIK AUTHOR J-'lOlttispicc THAT LUCKLESS ARROW! "OH, don't! I'll never do ii aijain" THE WOODEN SWORD A SORT OF ANIMATED DOOR-MAT A VERY SHADY CHARACTER INDEED A LEARNED-LOOKING PEDAGOGUE I WAS INTERROGATED BY TWO OEKICERS WAVED ME LONG ADIEUX FOLLOWING IN MY EOOTSI'Kl'S WERE A HOWLINC; MOI! I SHALL ITM) HIM YF/1' — NH' AIM's AS GOOD AS EVER over-weighted, foot-sore, and weary bad news from the front a nest of infamy a sort of drain dkmon ... tender-hearted sisters and indefaitgahi.f, doctors (;eneral moquard. — captain COROI a luxurious bivouac a mii.iiary engagement in the inter glorious war a queer char.vcter a palace interior 'rOINETTE A COMMUNIST CLUB A BARRICADE DOWN WITH KVEKVTHINr. ... THE DELICACIES OF THE SEASON IDK I'AGK 3 5 6 if) 21 26 40 44 46 52 61 64 74 11 SS 94 10.5 107 1 12 121 130 132 142 147 150 1 i;2 Xll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. UTTER WRACK AND RUIN CAUGHT RED-HANDED PRISONERS IN THE ORANGERIE THE LOVELIEST RUIN I HAD THEN SEEN FROM CELLAR TO ATTIC OLD CHARON BEHOBIE STRATAGEMS OI" WAR MY OWN GHOST SAVED BARLEY TO THE FRONT WE REALISED OUR DANGER AND TOOK TO OUR HEELS BLACK MANTILLAS AND WHITE THE INBORN SPIRIT OF ROMANCE THE MARKET-PLACE OF IRUN "OU EST LA CLEF, FANCHETTE ? " TUM TE TUM TUM — TUM TUM ! CARLISTS AND CONTRABANDISTA ... IN THE ALAMEDA RUNNING THE GAUNTLET O'dONOVAN ON THE LIGHT FANTASTIC ... A SNUG CORNER A MULETEER LEAVES FROM MY SKETCH-BOOK ARTILLERY RETREATING FROM ORIAMEXDEZ SOME SERVIAN SHOPS A SERVIAN ARMOURER I. FINGERS AGAIN. 2. THE BRITISH RED CROSS GOING FRONT. 3. BRINGING UP THE WOUNDED. CAPTIVE. 5. TURKISH PRISONERS BLESSING THE TROOPS THE SNAKE WOOD FORTY WINKS BY THE WAY SAVOURY DREAMS TO THE A PRE'I I Y P.\GE 170 172 176 180 201 204 206 208 212 222 236 242 246 250 254 264 277 282 286 287 290 308 310 316 320 329 329 VVAN DERI Nisi o^ A VVak-A; --^v I/rHOUGH I have my nurse's authority that I was > not the most docile of infants, I am not in a position to chronicle any particular inci- dents in my earliest child- hood which are likely to bear directly on my after-life ; in- deed, the first of the seven ages, even of the most exalted career, can hardly be of so much interest to the general [Hiblic as to the mother of the illustrious one ; so surely it is wise to dispense with any allusion to that period of jny existence, unless, indeed, it is to say that my first plaything was a drum, and that my earliest ambition was to gain family notoriety by the dismemberment of a battalion of wooden soldiers, whose well-glued limbs and pedestals gave way before repeated onslaughts. • ' '. H\iNDX:i:Axrf>,-: of a wa r-a r tjs t. XtX DCrttiiK l-shmdd tiot. pass over my earliest e: r*L*iWifiufiDirs*tIefeat;-sincV 'serving to point a experience of fgiWn'iufiDirs'tlefeat; -since,' 's'erving to point a moral, it may also adorn a tale. I was staying with an uncle in the country. Quartered in the farm buildings attached to his house was a goose of huge proportions, whose fate would probably have come about, in the common course of events, the following Michaelmas, but whom I, imbued with the spirit of mis- chief, brought to an untimely end with a newly-purchased bow and arrow. He had waddled to the window of the k^ft in which he was being fattened, apart from kith and kin, and was looking complacently round the domain, of which he was Major Domo, when that luckless arrow entered his breast, and hastened his departure for that bourne whence no tra- veller or goose has yet been known to return. He must in- deed have passed instantly to those happy hunting-grounds, where the aroma of sage and onions is unknown, for no sooner had the fatal point penetrated than with a frightful flutter, which terrified me beyond all description, and a horrible gurgle, he fell to the ground just where a whole flock of his own kith and kin were discussing what scant pickings the farmyard afforded, and who, could their thoughts have been read, had doubtless till now envied that corpulent victim. From my point of view the enormity of my guilt was terrible indeed, and I fled helter-skelter with fearful velocity, horror-struck, from the scene of my crime — for to me it was one ot the deepest dye. Then came retribution fast and furious, following me up in the shape of that flock, which, however much in life they had hated him, had now united — at least so I thought — to avenge the death ot their fellow. Tarn O'Shanter, when chased by the witches, could not have jjresented a more pitiable spectacle than 1 did, when. EARLY LIFE. 3 close pressed by my infuriated feathered foe, 1 clambered up the nearest live-barred gate. Here, though escaping for the moment the persecutions of the geese, I had yet to come to conclusions with a jackdaw (a great domestic favourite), who, noting my cowardice, hopped on the rail to ^.^ THAT LUCKLESS ARROW ! which, shrieking lustily the while, I clung, and commenced so vigorously to attack my calves with his sharp beak ilial I was nearly in convulsions. Fortunately my screams attracted old Tom, the stable- B 2 4 WANDERINGS OF A WAR- ARTIST. man, and I was soon carried ignoniiniously indoors, strongly convinced that dangerous weapons should be used with discretion, and that wanton mischief brings all too soon its own jjunishment from most unexpected quarters ; for not only was I fearfully scared by the avengers and terribly pecked by their ally the jackdaw, but when that goose was stuffed, cooked, and served up redolent of all that to a hungry juvenile could promise to be delicious, I had the mortification of seeing everyone served save myself, and had to sit during that long-drawn-out repast dinnerless, a hungry spectator, watching with eager eyes the evident en- joyment of those who had thus been provided by me with a dainty dish which I was not permitted to share. Treating, however, these earlier memoirs only in passing, I will come to that turning-point in my youth when I first became acquainted with Bob. " Did Bob wear a wooden sword when he was a little boy?" This has been handed down as a question I used to put, when a child of eight, with reference to a fine strapping fellow of some fifteen summers, known then, as in after-life, by the diminutive of Bob. I speak of the late Robert Lan- dells, who played for many years an important part in the journalistic world, who was, indeed, one of our earliest war- artists. And when it became an ascertained fact that Bob, at my age, had girt about him a wooden sword, I was at once satisfied as to the necessity for doing so myself forth- with. The influence of a boy in his teens on a child with whom he is apt often to come in contact cannot be over- estimated. The moral precepts of the nursery, the gravest paternal advice, go for little under such circumstances ; and if many a Vice-Admiral indirectly owes his distinction to an early acquaintance with Mr. Midshipman Easy, or General < "• .f^;^3^A'- "OH, DON T ! I'll nkvek do M Al-.AIN ! 6 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. to an intimacy with Frank Hilton, or Totn Burke of Ours, then, surely, many a fag has imbibed his first strong im- pressions and indinations from the particular sixth-form /. M THE WOODEN SWOKD. boy in authority over him, just as I did in those days from Bob. Bob bought a pistol— I purchased a pop-gun. Nature herself seemed to aid me. Bob emerged into manhood, I into boyhood, following closely in his track. I, in short. EARLY TJFi:. 7 took up the example which he left behind, till suddenly there came a blank, a gulf, which seemed boundless, be- tween myself and my exemplar. Bob became a " war-artist," and was ordered off to the front by the Illusirated Lofidon News. I distinctly re- member my father explaining to me what " the front " meant, and the craving which came over me to go there too. I felt at that moment, in my childish heart, as if I could fight army corps of the heaviest dragoons if need be, and pictured Bob in top-boots and s])urs riding round the lines making graphic sketches in a very hot-bed of shot and shell. How dear to me was every scrap of Crimean news, small as I was, when I felt that he was playing his part with our armies in the field. Thus it was that my earliest inclinations for the war-path were fostered, and that I first l)egan to look on art as a means to an end, by which, as a war-artist, I might one day wander at will round about the redoubt^ or on the tented field, while slowly, yet surely rising on the Eastern horizon was my bright particular star Bob, whose vivid pictures of Crimean incident in the Illustrated Lotidoii Neivs filled me with amiable envy. Then followed those school-days, so dear to memory, when imbibing the warlike spirit of the times, we devoted every half holiday to mimic battle; w'e had fortifications and earthworks which would — to say the least of it — have astonished the military engineers of those days, or any subsequent times ; yet whatever our tactics may have been, I think the contingencies which sometimes arose, and the expedients we had recourse to, may not have been without their influence on some of us in after-life. Next to Bob Landells, whom T still looked on as a bright though distant luminary, came Tom Beresford, the captain of our eleven, one anecdote concerning whom must not be 8 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. forgotten, as having special reference to the subtle modeller of human clay, our dear old head-master. Ten fellows were absent ; they had gone out of bounds — to " Bradley's " farm, — and, to make a long story short, were caught red-handed in the possession of illicit stores by " the Doctor " ; but it is the way in which their capture was effected that points the moral. Seven were intercepted at the cross roads, laden with supplies ; they were interro- gated as to the names of the remaining three, and, with a sneaking hope of lightening their own punishments, at once gave them up. Alas and alack ! those other three who, all unconscious of their comrades' fate, still remained at the farm were Tom Beresford, Watkins ("Nipper Watkins," not " Long Wat- kins"), and your humble servant, better known in those days as " Peg Montagu." Then came the query to the trembling three, " Who were the other seven ? " We, fondly hoping they had escaped, looked first at each other, then at the Doctor; no one spoke. Threats followed, but with no result. Crestfallen but resolute, we stood to our guns, and returned to the school still in custody. The great bell was rung at an unwonted hour ; terrible was the suspense and excitement ; why, such a thing had not happened since Bully Evans was expelled for robbing the hen-roost. The silence was positively painful as the portentous step of the Doctor was heard approaching. Mounting his rostrum, he took his seat ; you might have heard the proverbial pin drop. The awful moment had come. " Beresford, Watkins, Montagu, stand out ! " And there, disobedient, woe-begone wretches that we felt ourselves to be, we stood, while with eyes and mouths dilated to the utmost limit, sat the whole school awaiting with nervous impatience the issue of events. EARLY LIFE. 9 " I)t) you still refuse to give up the names of those boys who were with you out of hounds?" A pause. " Yes, Sir,' in a sort of loud whisper. " Very well, 1 give you five minutes to decide." And then came the most fearful five minutes we, any of us, in our lives had experienced ; ai the termination of which the Doctor, in a slow and impressive voice, as- if he had been one of " The Council of Ten," continued : " And now, boys, \\-1iat have you to say? \\\\\ you give up those names " (an awful pause), " or do you absolutely refuse to do so ? " An age seemed to elapse ; we felt as if about to place a fusee at a given moment to a barrel of gunpowder, as we replied : " We refuse to give them up, Sir." "Very well," said the Doctor, in a voice of thunder, " since that is the case there is only one course to follow ; come up here each of you, and let me " (another awful pause) " shake you by the hands, and congratulate you on having held on as you have done, in spite of prospective penalties, as a matter of schoolboy honour. 1 congratulate you, I say, on having refused to give up the names of those other fellows, who, to save themselves, were only too ready to give up yours." How those rafters rang again, as the dear old Doctor gave us that never-to-be-forgotten lesson. A\"hen the e.xcite- men had somewhat subsided, he concluded h\ addressing the remaining seven : '• i have no punishment to give you, except it be by ex- pressing a hope that you may not be so ready on a future occasion to screen yourselves at the expense of others." \Vhen after the ui)s and downs of many school terms I left, I shall not easily forget the Doctor's last words as the coach drew up, and 1 prepared to mount the box. lo WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. "Good-bye — God bless you," said he. " W'hun a fellow leaves here for the big world beyond, I feel like one who is sending out another soldier to whom I have taught the arts of war. Remember in the fight you have before you to defend the right, and ' never give in while you can stand or see.' Think, too, sometimes of your old school, and re- member wherever you are, whatever you do, to be a credit to us ; so that if you win laurels we may enjoy their re- flected light, that those who have known you here may some day be proud of saying, ' We were at school together, he was a Blenheim boy.' Again good-bye — God bless you." Long years have elapsed since then ; but I have not for- gotten the sentiment of that farewell. It was over ; the coach had come and gone ; the boys, having cheered their loudest, were back at their Horace and Virgil, while a lonely schoolboy, bereft at one blow of all his early friends, was — well, the truth must be told — crying his eyes out, by old Griffith's (the coachman) side. ^^'ith this venerable Jehu I was always a welcome pas- senger at vacation time — " one of the young gentlemen known for little tips," as he used to put it — so with him I felt that I could unburden my sorrows without fear of ridicule. " Never mind. Master Peg," said he, in his kindly old- fashioned way, "nevermind. Of course we shall all miss yer for a bit, we alius does them that's been at the Doctor's any time ; but then you know you're a-goin' up to Lunun town, you are, and ha' got all the world afore yer — wish as I 'ad — that's all, I wouldn't be a-driven of this 'ere old coach now — no, not me." * * * * Having left school at the early age of fourteen, I con- tinued studying with my father. My career in London commenced unostentatiously EARL Y LIFE. \ \ Im[)i)ssil)lL' Ajxillos, fantastic fauns, and very shady satyrs occupied for some time my attention at the British Museum, from which I migrated to Marlborough House (then "The A^Tnon (iallery "), to cover innumer- able canvases with most questionable copies of great originals. Here, by the way, His Royal Highness Prince Albert was often graciously pleased to come, i/icoi^., to give some word of kindly encouragement to those who were students at that time. it was a quaint, interesting old place, was Marlborcnigh House in those days, where in idle moments we wandered fancy free through cob-webbed cellars and dusty lumber- rooms. On one occasion several of us were strolling through its deserted passages, when I, being of an inquisitive turn of mind, penetrated into what appeared to me to be a dark capacious cupboard. I'hose with me being amused at my curiosity, and seeing their opportunity, shut the door (which they were quite unaware fastened with a spring), and, ex- pecting me to turn uj) presently, ran off to continue their work in the galleries. Thus " cribbed, cabined, and confined," I remained patient enough at first, hoping it would be but a short-lived jest. However, nearly half-an-hour having elapsed, my temper and patience began to diminish and the situation to pall upon me- in vain did 1 try to make myself heard — so I set about to iind some means of exit. I commenced by slowly feeling and pushing against the walls round about me. Now, strangely enough, and much to my relief, the back part of my prison-house was as flexible as if the paper of the adjoining room were only strained on canvas across it. An idea struck me — nothing could be easier than to lake my penknife and cut a slit 12 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. sufficiently long for me to step through into the next ai)an- ment, the door of which most probably would be unfastened- With this prospect of escape, I was just on the point ot making a rent in the canvas, when I heard footsteps, and a cheery voice without, exclaiming — "• Oh ! I say, old fellow, you there still ! we'd forgotten all about you till a moment ago. This is almost too much of a joke ! You might have been there all night." Seeing the knife in my hand, his next inquiry was if I had contemplated suicide during my solitude. " Certainly not ; only I wasn't going to be shut up in such a place when I found I could cut through that parti- tion." " Partition ! what ? that canvas at the back ? " His look of horror startled me. " Yes ; and why not ? " said I interrogatively. " Good heavens ! why you were on the point of walking through ' Childe Harold's Pilgrimage ' — getting through ^6,000 at one step, to say the least of it." It was true enough, too, as I afterwards discovered ; it was Turner's masterpiece which stopped the way, and not, as I had supposed, a canvas wall. One moment more, and 1 might have gained a sudden notoriety in the art world which few would have envied me. I next studied at " Heatherly's Life School." Heatherly, gaunt, pale, kindly, ghostly Heatherly, who has won for him- self any number of such complimentary titles, as '' the Saint," "'the Shadow of Art, ' ts:c., still glides silently from room to room. There was a dusty, quaint, indescribable something about Heatherly's in my time — a grim antiquity which seemed to win one over ; but Time's picture changes, for, when I passed there a little while since, orthodox house-painters were brightening up the front, a trim servant was polishing EARLY LII-E. 13 the brass knobs on the hall door, and the windows of my old art master's Sanctum Sanctorum were being cleaned by an ex-model — aye ! and the blinds drawn up — and then I sighed, as we are all wont to sigh for that which was, and may never be again ; so I hastened on, and turned down that little court which leads to Upper Rathbone Place, and got away into the busy haunts of men, trying to forget that new-fangled, polished, painted sprite which stepped between myself and memory — for it was there, and under clever, genial Tom Nicholson the artist (a worthy contemporary of Sir John Gilbert), that I derived the only personal instruc- tion in art that I ever had. In those early days, however, I never lost any oppor- tunity I could get for practice, sitting often late into the night, by the light of candle-ends accumulated and secreted for the purpose, working hard at the few old plaster casts I possessed, till, having exhausted every conceivable position as far as they were concerned, I fell back on the crockery, wash-hand stand, chest of drawers, and other still life within the narrow scope of my little bedroom. * * How vain are the expectations of youth — how brilliant the pictures which fancy paints — how glorious the goal which lures one on 1 Alas ! how soon may all our anticipa- tions fall through, and the idol we have worshipped lie shattered at our feet. An only child, in the full enjoyment of my parents' love and guidance, surrounded by every home comfort, I was yet, all too soon, to find myself alone — a waif and stray in the great Sahara. My mother, owing to illness, was ordered by our doctor to reside, if not permanently, at least for a considerable time, in the country, where my father, a hard-working and most prolific literary man (some time editor of the Coitrl WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. Journal, Lady's Newspaper, &c.), was unable to join her. Hence it was that she went for a prolonged stay with a relation in Gloucestershire, while my father and I lived en garcon in town. I may say here that concerning his early life there had always been a curious mystery, which to this day has not been cleared up — the loss, after he left Cambridge and emerged into the professional world, of large estates, and a title remaining unfathomed. On this point he was always reticent, though on every other the loving confidence in which my parents lived was exceptional. My mother felt that this peculiar family mystery which attached to his early life was inviolate, and thus the secret still sleeps, my father dying and leaving behind no trace of the shadow which had enveloped his early years — nothing, indeed, as far as this world's possessions are concerned, though rich was I in the inheritance of his bright example, the sunshine of that godly, self-sacrificing nature which so patiently submitted, so hopefully aspired to the end. Thus left alone, as I have said, in London, I was not long in suffering considerably from that most painful of complaints, want of funds, and the text from which I chronicle the following experiences of my early life may best perhaps, be found as follows : — JOHN M 1 N C H 1 N I Licensed Dealer IX Tea, Coffee, Tobacco, and S nuff. The board was of rough deal, and on a field of white in- scribed in ordinary (or I should say extraordinary) black letters may still be found, for all I know, the above legend. EARLY I.ll-l: 15 The escutcheon ol ihi- Miiuliins, general dealers, Walhain (Ireen, was amongst the earliest endeavours l)y whicii I absolutely turned my brush to account. I was exceedingly hard up at the time, and so, unfortu- nately for me, was my patron John. We, however, came to terms as follows : he to supply mc with all necessary materials in the shape of paints, brushes, &c. ; I to execute the work, within certain limits as to time, and to receive payment to the extent of three-and-ninepence (I fought hard for four shillings, but in vain), three shillings of which was to be in edibles from his stores, and ninepence in hard cash. I think I shall some day make a pilgrimage to Walham Green, and try to find out (if he be still in the flesh) my old friend " John," and ascertain if, at an advance on the original cost, he will sell that tablet; it would make an interesting panel, not exactly for one's front door — strangers might make mistakes — but it might at least find a place in some quaint cabinet in one's sanctum, as a relic of " Auld Lang Syne " — one which some would not care to recognise — they would doubtless prefer gazing on that curiously wrought spoon proverbially associated with their birth. So far so good, but the less we say about our insignificant associations the better, especially if it be with reference to those whose fathers have tilled the soil and sown the seed for them to reap the harvest, and to whom reference is then only made when well within the inner walls of their most secret chambers. Good, honest John Minchin ! his patronage did not stop by any means at his first commission, for he had a friend whose brother was engaged to the daughter of a man whose uncle kept an oil-shop in the Fulham Road, and to this friend he mentioned me. Thus it was that the flowing tide of my fame spread even i6 IfAA/^EA'/.YGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. till it reached the threshold of that oil-shop, and bore away a counter commission to paint the owner's favourite dog, which, being of the skye terrier type, was chiefly a study in hair — a sort of animated door-mat — a subject treated boldly, owing much to accident, and which was said to be remark- ably like the shaggy original, so much so that the fortunate / A^ A SORT OF ANIMATED DOOR-MAT. possessor persuaded an acquaintance, a milkman, to give me an order for a " dun cow," which work of art was also acknowledged to be " so life-like " as to win for his estab- lishment a genuine reputation. Nor did my renown cease here. /■'. /AV. )■ /.//•■/■. 17 I lis wife's sister, a young woman who took in manglinj^, was so delighted with it, that she begged that I would make yet another essay. The subject, domestic, was a reproduc- tion, upon a well-worn board which hung outside the kitciien window, of — "the Mangle" — a powerful conception in '' black antl while," to which lettering in vermilion to the effect that this necessary homely operation was '''■ done here" gave a touch of colour which most effectively relieved the monotony of the subject, and which at the same time was an "^j7;-(Z consideration."' In this manner my reputation extended by slow but sure degrees, beyond the — to me — wide circuit of the Fulham Road. I forget how my next acquaintance sprang up ; it was with a gentleman whose occupation it was to arrange with thrifty housewives little matters of exchange, in which pea- green vases, round which impossible blue and white roses essayed to climb, on the one part, and " old clothes " on the other, formed the staple commodities of commerce. By this genial gentleman, Nathaniel Lyons, of 22, Petti- coat Lane, E.G., I was introduced to many equally kindly sons of Jud?ea, who " took me up," and when they saw the life-like portrait I was then painting of Mr. Lyons, in Prussian blue, moire-anticiue, plentifully bedizened with rings, chains, and other effective jewellery, they instituted a portrait club, which led to my spending much time in their midst. I wonder where Nathaniel is now, and if he is ever likely to see this reference to himself; if so, I should like him to know that the two pounds sterling which he gave for that portrait — a perfect mine of wealth in those days — has not been without its influence. It was a lift at the right moment — in the right direction — from an unexpected source — to one then floundering on the shifting sands of London life. c i8 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. When on business Nathaniel was a most ordinary "old clothesman"; he wore a fustian jacket and red necktie, while a well-oiled curl depended gracefully beneath his " several " hats. "At home," however, he was "monarch of all he surveyed." He had always a whole shopful of excellent second-hand clothes at command, only carrying on business, as he told his customers, with the aristocracy and gentry ; and since I spent long days at his shop, I can speak not only as to his hospitality, but as to the nature of it. We had what to me then were most delicious and substantial tea-dinners, which took place when he returned in the evening from business, and after a good day's work he never failed to give me some small change, saying in a kindly, cheery way as he did so : " To pay yer bus yer know, for Chelsea's a long vay from Petticut Lane, when yer have to go on Shanks' pony." Now it was when returning from Nathaniel's one after- noon that, passing down Cornhill, I looked in at the quiet bank-like window of Cockerell's the coal merchant. What prompted me I know not, but, with a confidence which certainly is foreign to me now, I walked in and asked for an interview, which in a few moments that venerable gentleman accorded me. In a vague way which seemed greatly to amuse him, I asked if he required "an artist's" help. It w-as in the early days of illustrated advertisements, so I suggested that some such pictorial heading as " miners at work in a pit," lumps of the best Wallsend picturesquely grouped on a coal truck, or a solitary " black diamond " with the current prices written in flame colour thereupon, might fit in somewhere with his business views. Suffice it to say that, before I left that office, I felt I had won Mr. (Jockerell's goodwill, and promised to return with a sugges- tive sketch in a day or two. EARLY LJl'E. 19 When I did, il took the form of an elegant fireplace, the bars of which were in bas-relief, and in which, by a dex- terous arrangement of red and yellow tinsel and wool, and infinitesimal blocks of real coal, I produced the effect, at a first glance, of a miniature fire. Nor had I forgotten the probable inlliKiicc of the outside atmosphere, having care- fully covered the whole with a thin solution of gutta-percha (my secret), by means of which it was to withstand the weather for at least three or four months, long enough at all events to serve my patron's purpose as to duration, and mine as to mutability. Those posters kept me going pretty comfortably, while I looked round for fresh subjects to apply myself to ; but, sad to say, only a very short time elapsed before I had a rival. Some nameless knight had entered the lists, who bore upon his shield a similar device to mine, with the blood- curdling challenge athwart its bar-sinister of " half-price." Before him I for a time recoiled, his weapon was too strong for me, but it was only a short-lived glory. He, after all, only "made hay when the sun shone," and the first shower laid him low, i.e., reduced his rival posters to pulp. He had failed to think of one thing in their con- struction, a solution which should have made them for a time as impervious to the weather as 7ny secret had ; so that the "quality of mercy" which came literally "as the gentle dew from heaven " in the shape of rain, completely re- instated me in my former position. His productions dis- appeared from the face of the earth, while mine went on flaring away with a brilliancy — to me at least — delightful to look upon. Those early struggles, and the remembrance how, skim- ming round the extreme outside edge of art, I lived through them, always puzzle me, and I never can quite understand c 2 20 ]\-AAnER/XGS OF A U\l K-A R TIS T. how I came to the front at all. Like the swallows, I was decidedly migratory. During the three or four years in which I was thus an Arab in the great metropolitan desert, several times was I lost to sight, though to memory dear, as far as my landlady was concerned, and not infrequently did I find myself in such queer quarters as " Soho Chambers," or " The Albion," on the sites of which a large trimming warehouse in the one case, and Novello's the music publishers in the other, are now situated. Those were times when often an aerated bun and a draught of water from a drinking fountain formed the chief meal for the day. I had two reasons for purchasing that tasty morsel : firstly, it was cheap and looked large at tht price ; secondly, I discovered that by drinking water be- tween each mouthful, it w-as a bun which had a marvellous capacity for expansion ; so in this way, and with a large stretch of imagination, I convinced myself that I was as re- plete as though I had had a substantial meal. I suppose similar places of accommodation to those above mentioned still exist for those to whom three shillings a week for a wooden partition with a bed in it, in a long noisy dormitory, is a consideration. But the advantages of " Soho Chambers " did not stop here ; it had its reading- room with its daily papers, its kitchen with its blazing fire, with lockers ranged round the walls in which to keep your modest supplies of bread, butter, coffee, or bloaters ; and, moreover, its common room, in which of winter nights a firr crackled, and where a very motley crew assembled. Some there were in that scantily furnished apartment who had utterly gone to pieces, and who, failing before long to find the wherewithal to pay the rent, would emerge from those doors to glide from the last stages of borrower to general hanger.s-on and horse-holders, till that " union " EARLY LIFE. 21 wliich doesn't always represent strength opened its bare arms for the final embrace, which only relaxed when, beyond the reach of care and want, they became, " unhonoured and unsung," fit subjects for the scalpel of " Guy's,' " King's," or " Middlesex." A VERY SHADY CHARACTER IXDEEU. There were those, too, who had yet to win their spurs, who were only, so far /// transitu : and yet again another type, the great rollicking, idle, impecunious throng ; while the rear was brought up by several very shady characters indeed, of whom we spoke in whispers only, and on whom 22 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTlSl\ the upper-ten of that motley company looked rather with awe than admiration. These, far from being the loafing vagabonds to which the tribe of ne'er-do-wells belonged, were men of business to the back-bone — seldom going out till dusk, it was true, but forming quite a little fraternity of their own, always to be found during the day in the common-room, chatting in an undertone, as if their very existences depended on suffering from a sort of sore throat by which they nearly lost their voices. Then, on the other hand, there were men of very different mould, those who had been reduced, by circumstances over which they had positively no control, to a position which they accepted, for the time being, with the utmost resignation. The man whose "bunk," shall I say, was next to mine had written with chalk upon his door — Deal l)oards do not a pri.son make, Nor plaster walls a cage, They surely must be fools who take These for a hermitage ; thus paraphrasing "Lovelace" with some point, as applied to the deal box in which he was constrained to pass his long winter nights. This man, quite young, was the son of a clergyman in the midland counties, who, in consequence of some unfortunate love affair, a long, romantic, and mysterious story, had for the time to keep out of sight. Opposite to his was another retreat, which greatly ex- cited my curiosity, as it was always kept unlet, and con- cerning which I interrogated the keeper of the chambers one day. " Fever ? " I mildly enquired. " Some one died there ? prejudice against it ? " and so on. "Well, no, Sir, no — that's not it. Why, bless yer, we wouldn't let that there room on no account. Come in and ave a look at it." EARLY J./FE. 23 And 1 Weill in, and Uiere, on the [)anclling and all over the plaster walls were graphic sketches of character from an appreciative pencil, little bits of real life below stairs, pro- duced with that point and picturesqueness, which in later years have placed (ieorge Augustus Sala on the literary pinnacle from which he now so justly and proudly looks down, beaming upon the countless lesser lights who glimmer round him. In this room it was that he for some time slept when trying to penetrate the meshes of that net which the fates were weaving. " There, Sir, that's why we won't let it. The sort of people what comes here, as a rule, would soon ' improve ' them there sketches off the face of the earth. So I keeps the key in my pocket and shows it to those who wonder why it's shut, and seem ' 'igh-class like.' " A similar sort of place, too, was "The Albion,"' "The Albion Hotel," we called it, and perhaps it was a few de- grees higher in the cheap lodging-house scale than the other. To this I afterwards repaired when my artistic or, I should say, " signboardistic " hori/.on began to clear, just, in fact, when a scheme was developing into a reality, and, having taken a cheap workshop in Crawford Street, I had established myself as a " manufacturer of advertising boards." Yes, absolutely a manufacturer — at least, so the neatly printed business card .said, which further went on to assure the general public that not only did I pursue the above- mentioned branch " of art," but that, further, I was prepared as a scene and blind painter, an heraldic or decorative artist, lithographic designer, draughtsman and colourist generally, to carry out orders in the best possible manner, in the shortest possible space of lime, and for the smallest possible amount of money. Sic itur ad as/ni. I do not know if any still exist of the many advertising &' 24 \VANDERL\GS OF A WAR-ARTIST. boards 1 prepared at "the factory." I think I may say that I was the originator of a school which may be dubbed the " Rail or Road " period \ the treatment was severe, the subject always, more or less, the same. A cheery little engine, under the superintendence of two gentkmen in, considering the circumstances, exceptionally white shirts, is bringing a huge many-coloured furniture van, followed by a black goods-truck, towards the coast. Indeed, the sea may itself be seen in the distance, and on it a diminutive vessel bearing another huge furniture van is _aily careering, while yet another of that ilk is having a bad time of it, drawn by refractory steeds — up impossible heights— to an uncomfortable-looking dwelling perched on an emerald green cliff to the right. With satisfaction far exceeding the pardonable pride with which I have since found myself on the line at the Royal Academy, I then found myself all along the line at all the railway stations of the United Kingdom. ;}:• * *- * * That " there is a divinity which shapes our ends rough hew them as we may," is evidenced so often, even in the lives of the most prosaic, that there is httle wonder that those in the vortex should realise the master-hand in everything, though they do not always admit it in so many words. I was soon again in a whirligig of perplexities. Not having the wherewithal to withstand the tide, the " factory," after a brilliant but short career, collapsed for want of funds, and it was an advertisement in the Daily Telegraph which effectually settled the question of my immediate future. SCHOLASTIC— Wanted, at Si. Dunstan's College, St. Dunstan's Crescent, Kentish Town, Junior Master, thorough English, French and classic scholar, charge of thirty gentlemen in trainii.g fur the army, Civil Service, ^:c. , &c. ; increasing salary, commencing /15 jier annum. EARLY LIFE. 25 What an opening this ! To make a long story short, 1 was accepted as his factotum by a very learned-looking pedagogue in caj) and gown, and shortly afterwards installed into my new abode on the northern heights of London — nay, more : being only an Usher, a room was allotted to me which the Boots had absolutely refused to sleep in ; a thin partition only dividing my bedroom from that of a howling lunatic, who had, for a substantial consideration, been taken by the Principal as a boarder. He was an ex- captain in the army suffering from the effect of sunstroke, and his friends were only too glad to get rid of him on these terms. A slight glimmer of reason presented itself now and then, like summer lightning in a sultry sky, and with all his yells and execrations he turned out, on acquaintance, to be a kindly and sympathetic neighbour enough, quite delighted when I gave him occasionally a small modicum from my tobacco-pouch— a luxury now denied him, and which, though it may have made him troublesome afterwards, had at least a soothing effect at the time. 'I'he voice of the hungry wolf, with which I have since become well acquainted, would have been music to this gentleman's ravings, and had it not been for my nocturnal narcotic, I really think there might have been another candidate for restraint. It has been a mystery to this day as to how the Captain came by that tobacco. When questioned on the subject, he always replied with the same charmingly vague response of "Juggernaut," which, in time, palled upon the most anxious inquirers. The roseate hue given to things in that establishment is to me memorable, an opalesque liquid supplied for the matutinal meal being dignified by the name of tea, while the homely succulent treacle was glorified into— African jam. 26 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. But I was evidently not born to be a pedagogue, and so, as soon as I possibly could, I escaped into the outer world again, leaving a more worthy successor to worship at the shrine of St. Dunstan. Then came a series of shifting scenes, in which first photographic background painting for the London Stereo- scopic Company and others, and then scene-painting proper A I.EAR\ED-LOOKI\G I'EnAGOGUE. arranged themselves. In this connection I have pleasant memories of old Cremorne Gardens, as well as provincial ventures in which Croydon Theatre played a conspicuous part. From my experience it seems that, not unlike the pro- verbial snowball which gathers as it goes, one picks up, un- consciously, those unconsidered trifles which become means to an eventual end. Thus, a little greater variety of occu- LARl.Y LIFE. 27 pation might have made me a vagrant — an extra dash of scenic work a scene painter — a longer residence at W'alham Green a sign-painter, and so on. It appears, however, that there were several ingredients still wanting, amongst which, strangely enough, was science, this loo being destined to play its part, for by my diary I find that I next appeared as a meteorological ob- server to the metropolitan district of St. John's Wood, and at the same time librarian and secretary of the literary and scientific institution of that much-abu.sed neighbour- hood. In return for these services I had tuo empty rooms, coals, gas, and a salary of ^50 a year, with a perpetual handling of considerable sums of money. To the pure, of course, all things are pure ; — but sitting on the safety- valve is not an advisable way of looking after the loco- motion of a steam-engine. To give a very small salary, with very great temptations, to very young men, is like putting plum jam on the table and making them sip senna- tea. For several months I remember predicting utterly im- possible atmospheric combinations, greatly to the horror of the authorities at Woolwich Observatory — who wrote seriously assuring me that were my prognostications possible, the world would be in fragments in five minutes. By de- grees, however, acquiring a knowledge of the astronomical instruments over which I presided, I was looked on really quite as the Zadkiel of the neighbourhood. Moreover, I occupied my spare evenings in getting up the theatrical entertainments, concerts, e^c, which every winter took place at the Assembly Rooms, not forgetting at odd times to make what extra cash I could by private pupils, to whom I gave lessons in painting. Time's picture, a dissolving view, changes so often that 28 IVAXDERLYGS OF A WAR- ARTIST. we, like bees, find ourselves flitting hither and thither, not kno.ving from which flower we may cull the most honey, often wanting in that discrimination which makes success. I, all unconscious of it, had yet several flowers to fly to before I made my final choice. Having, as I have before mentioned, lost, by his death, my father's valuable support and counsel, I had for some years, as has been seen, been at the front unaided, and between the acts sore pressed ; indeed, often making tracks down by-streets rather than encounter friends who had known me in better days. It was a great relief to me to know that my sorrows were all my own. I had succeeded in preventing my mother from sharing them, which greatly lightened my burden ; and I meant, if possible, with the same constant supply of cheery letters, to keep her ignorant to the end, when I hoped, with continued perseverence and a fair amount of success, to make a comfortable home for us both ; but that, as yet, was in the far future. And this brings me to pondering for a moment on the advisability of shunning the services or testing the sincerity of one's friends at such times. There is a glorious feeling of independence about it, even when in extremis ; but per- haps a little more confidence in the real kindliness of others, which does exist to a greater extent than some suppose, might be advisable too. Thus time went on and years succeeded each other through which I had had the constant though distant sympathy of my mother, and then, in one short month, her sudden illness changed the whole tenor of my life. The Doctor advised immediate change, and I brought her to London where, shortly afterwards, in my little rooms in St. John's Wood, she breathed her last. The reins of love were broken ; the one being to whom I EAKJA LIIE. 29 (•Iiin!j;, for whose appreciation I worked, for wliom, in fact, I cared to live, was gone. 'I'hat sable angel who had de- prived me of a father's affectionate guidance, had now taken from me my only remaining tie. I was alone — terribly alone — and utterly callous as to what the fiUiire might bring forth ; so I let things drift, and told the Council at the Athenccum to get someone in my place, that I was going somewhere — anywhere ; and so, in a few weeks, a substitute was obtained, and I left, again to float along somehow, anyhow, on the great tide of life. My luggage, nothing very considerable, I left behind me. I could send for that later on, when I knew what 1 was going to do. I strolled down Wellington Road, and so on into Regent's Park, lit my pipe, and breathed the scent laden air of a soft spring morning, which seemed to be infused, for the first time since my mother's death, with hope. While sitting there pondering over the past, so full of queer vicissitudes, and wondering what next might happen, I suddenly bethought me of a sculptor friend, one Scarlet Potter, who had a studio not far off. I would spend an hour at his Atelier. It was the result of this call which brought about an arrangement for the joint proprietorship of a studio, one that was somewhat remote from public gaze, and which on enter- ing had a weird, ghostly look that made one shudder and step back. From its grimness it derived its nickname of "The Catacombs," though certainly, if one may judge from some of our evenings there, the spirits let loose were rather mundane than otherwise. The studio stew^, too, which we discussed on these occa- sions has not, to my belief, been eclipsed by the choicest ragout I have ever tasted ; and since I am anxious that llirifty housewives, should they honour these pages by 30 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. sparing . time from their domestic duties to con them— since, I repeat, I am anxious they may not lose a recipe which Soyer and Mrs. Gask would enshrine in gastronomic mystery, I may say that studio stew is a pot-au-feu made of the unconsidered trifles cut off by the butcher when he trims up the joints for his more wealthy customers, and which with any vegetables that may be hand}', with sauce, herbs, and seasoning, served up steaming hot from the fire, will be found to be a dainty dish that one might set before a king, and from which His Majesty would rise benign and smiling, more inclined to sign a treaty of peace than a death- warrant, Chacun a son gout. Finding, however, that cash was getting conspicuous by its absence, and that there were breakers ahead, I thought seriously of leaving for America, a bright artistic future in the New World opening up to me ; but about this time a competition took place at a large public school in the north (Rossall) for the professorship of painting, and at the press- ing persuasion of my one remaining relation, an aunt of whom I was exceedingly fond, I agreed to throw this last card before making for the land of Columbus ; consequently I drew from the pack of posterity and it turned up trumps. I won the trick — in other words, my application found favour, and shortly afterwards I left " The Catacombs " for this great scholastic centre to become one of the twenty-two " Pro- fessors " who ruled the roost over some 550 of our then coming men. Since then, many a public school match has been lost and won, many a laurel gathered — aye, and many a grave opened too, on the arid plains of India and in the jungles of Zululand. It is not this, however, that should make us sad ; nor should we do more than wonder how it is that so many of our old schoolfellows and friends in after-life have gone EARLY Lll-E. 3' clean out of sight, as so many do ; l)iil it is for those whom we still know, removed from us by circumstances over which they mi^ht have exercised every i)Ossible control had they cared to do so, and who seem really more distant than the dead— these it is for whom we sigii very sadly as we recall old memories. Not long ago I nut a man who had been at school with me, as good a fellow, as well read, as worthy in every sense of the word as one could have wished in those days to be at the lop of the upper sixth ; but now, where are those good looks? wIktc all that bright intelligence, those generous impulses? and echo answers — where? He haunts back slums, is satisfied with being a tap-room hero, living from hand to mouth, from hour to hour. And are there not many such ? ^^'ith misfortune we may weep, as the song says : Does Time with lier cold wing w illier Each feeling that once was dear ? Then child of misfortune come hither ; ril weep with thee tear for tear. This, however, does not apply to those who will go headlong to destruction. Why should all that was once so worthy cease to be? But to return; I might, I have no doubt, have still been comfortably located in my snug rooms at Rossall had not those wily damsels, " the Fates," deputed one of their fair sisters (Lachessus, I think it is, who carries the scissors) to snip the thread of my public-school life and direct my energies into a new channel. It happened thus : It wa^, J.ong Vacation. Some were fishing in the Highlands, others were at the lakes, while yet a few were abroad, amongst these latter myself, basking in the sunshine at Lausanne, taking occasional excursions on the Lake of Cleneva to Chillon, N'illeneuve or Montreu.x, and otherwise peacefully killing the old enemy, when siid- 32 IV A Xn F. RING S OF A II A R-A R TIS T. denly a mine exploded — a huge shell seemed to burst — scattering its grim tidings and dangerous fragments all over Europe. The world was for a moment convulsed — war was declared between France and Germany — even quiet, unsoldierly Swit- zerland shuddered, and sent its little army to guard its otherwise peaceful pastoral frontier. My time had come ; in fancy unsheathing that wooden sword of my childhood, I started to find it steel. True I had no papers or credentials of any kind, but I would pull through somehow ; and so, with a fair modicum of impudence and money at command, I shouldered my knapsack and found myself, "in my mind's eye " at least, a war-artist and correspondent on the best London and Continental papers, all of which I expected would rush after me. That prolonged European peace, which had continued almost uninterruptedly since the old Crimean days, was now over ; Bob Landells, the veteran, was, of course, again on the war-path ; while rushing up a by-lane, with only the heterogeneous teachings of the past to guide me, was I, wondering whether this was to be a realisation of the old Spanish proverb, " Everything comes to those who wait," and if, silently threading my way and wntching my oppor- tunity, I should become — one of the rest. PART I. THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. J3 CHAri'i:k I. SiNCK the unnecessary use of the first-person-singular Um often enshrouds individual experiences in egotism, and de- prives "a plain, unvarnished tale" of much of its crisp- ness, I prefer describing those passing events, which it is my province to chronicle, in homely phrase ; and although the spirit of personal adventure will necessarily play its part, I wish to pose only as a becomingly modest representa- tive of the Press, to avoid those comments on the situation, and military technicalities which have been so well and exhaustively treated by the war-correspondent pure and simple, and devote myself to a series of anecdotal sketches in pen and pencil taken on the war-path during a roving career, only touching lightly on matters historical, so as to link together a chain of events. Having thus placed myself in accord with my readers, what remains to be done save to [blunge in medias res, and tell them, as best I may, the simi)le story of the wan- derings of a war-artist ? not quixotically in quest of adven- ture, but rationally in search of material wherewith to add his mite, however small, to the pictorial history of our times. It was the eventful year of 1870; the dogs of war were let loose ; Paris and Perlin were in political fernu-nt. The D 2 36 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. Constitutionnel had published the words : " Prussia insults us — let us cross the Rhine — the soldiers of Jena are ready.'' While, on the one hand, crowded Boulevards and frantic cries of "A has Bismarck: A Berlin!" and " Vive la Guerre \ " everywhere resounded throughout the highways and byways of the City of Pleasure, the en- thusiasm in Berlin knew no bounds : 100,000 people assem- bled at the Brandenburg Gate singing the national anthem and shouting lustily. Unter den Linden was brilliantly illuminated ; and the old King repeatedly acknowledged the many expressions of his people's devotion by which on all hands he was met. The French, at that time acknowledged to be amongst the finest and, it was supposed, most fit soldiers in Europe, were declared by the Minister of War, Marshal Leboeuf, to be ready for anything. Seven army corps, under generals of European fame, were already concen- trating on the frontier to meet the invaders. McMahon, Ladmirault, Frossard, De Failly, Felix Douay, Bazaine, Canrobert, and Bourbaki were at the front with their army corps. True it was that the Prussians in actual numbers put their neighbours into the shade ; but, nevertheless, from 300,000 to 400,000 men were now supposed to stand in battle array under the Imperial standard, and confidence in the troops who had taken the field was established in the Capital. The Emperor's plan of action, not generally known, was, as far as I could gather, as follows : — In the first place, to concentrate large army corps at Metz, Strasburg, and Cha- lons, and then, taking the initiative, to march some 250,000 across the Rhine, so that the southern States would be forced to fall back, while he engaged the Prussians proper. The good old copy-book maxim, about "procrastination,' applied poinfedly in this case. Carried out with [irompti- /•///: /-RANCO-l'Rl^SS/AX WAR. 2,7 tudc, ihis plan mi-ht have nu'l with sli-ht check, and the foiluiK-s of war liavc been other than ihey were. Three weeks elapsed, however, and nothing djefinite was done, no positive step on a large scale taken in this strategic direction, or indeed in any other. The Prussians were thus gaining valuable time and making good use of it ; from the most remote corners of the kingdom Teuton warriors were mustering on the frontier of the Fatherland. Then, too, came the news that paper soldiers padded the effective returns of the French, and that numerically the actual complement of fighting men was considerably less than was at first estimated; in place of 150,000 men at Metz, they mustered only 100,000; at Strasburg they had to put up with 40,000 instead of 100,000 ; and so on to the end of the chapter. It was found, too, impossible to leave Algeria ungarrisoncd, or Paris and the other great centres of France completely without troo[)s. These may have been amongst the reasons for the inaction which was so soon to prove fatal to French arms. It was not till the 2nd of August that the Emperor and his little son arrived at Forbach, proceeding thence in all possible haste in the direction of Saarbriick, a Cierman frontier town, occupied by an advance guard of Prussians. General Bataille it was who, on the heights of Spicheren, to the right of Saarbriick, commenced actual hostilities ; these positions he carried with ease. This little overture to future events, at which the Emperor l)ersonally assisted, and where the young prince received that " Baptism of Fire " which has since become historical, occupied only three hours from first to last. Strategically it has always appeared to me to have meant nothing— no point was gained in a military sense, except the Kudos of having drawn the enemies' fire, and occupied nominally the first |)()^ition in the great contest. The moral effect on the 434427 38 WANDERINGS OF A WAR- ARTIST. French people and army, however, promised well ; and had not some of their own newspaper correspondents, venturing into Saarbriick that same afternoon, been actually taken by the Prussians, who were again in possession, the story of victory might have been better told. So much by way of digression, to show the condition of affairs on the frontier when, young and enthusiastic, after enjoying the dolcc far nientc of a long vacation ramble in Switzerland, I was making my way to Basle, all agog to be playing some small part, literary or artistic, in connection with those stirring events at which Europe was looking on in silent wonder. On arriving I found this pleasant little town to be up in arms : bugles were sounding, orderlies were galloping hither and thither ; regiments were marching and countermarching ; all the pomp and circumstance of actual war everywhere going on ; and I in the midst of it, with eyes and ears alike on the alert. The late Lord Beaconsfield once said that success in life might be summed up in the one word " Opportunity," availing oneself of that particular moment when the tide turns, be it for peace or war, which leads to fortune. And now surely my turn had come. The little army of observa- tion with which I was, occupied the frontier only to preserve the neutrality of the soil ; but the clatter and bustle were as real, and the patriotism of those Alpine legions as great as if they were about to light for their own independence. The opportunity for incident too was immense. I wan- dered out of the town in the quiet twilight, sketch-book in hand, and soon found my lirst subject, " Guarding the Frontier," one which would make a telling page for the IHiis- trated London News or Grapliic. I took up my position and commenced. At first one or two soldiers only — off diJty — looked list- THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAA WAR. 39 lessly on ; presently, however, I was approached by a hirsute sergeant, who, in a patois 1 could not understand, was evidently questioning my right to sketch, and required me to desist ; but since — smiling amiably— I still went on with mv work, he sliortly reappeared with a file of men, and ordered me to be arreste-^' .f^ s: ^'^ v^ ■. '>!■- :^^i:^j&m-i s->-v ■&-*! A ^S^^ '^*^--^- ill ^*~--^ ^ THE FRANCO-PRUSSIA \ WAR. 47 I'lou^h nuicli diluted as this li:ul ahead)' been, it soothed the inner man immensely. " So you're a spy, are you ? " It was a female voice which came from a dark corner of the terrace on which I was sitting, watching in no pleasant mood the moon rise on my captivity. The cutting interrogative, spoken in English, was, how- ever, an agreeable surprise; the speaker, I discovered, was a fair American, who with her husband, her brother, and half- a-dozen children, had since the declaration of war been detained here for want of sufficient money ; and still, a seeming paradox, they had plenty, but unfortunately it was all [)aper, and perfectly useless on the war-i)ath. My American friends were really most kind, rendering me great assistance in the manufacture of a small Union Jack, which, acting under their instructions, I fastened to a piece ot flaring red ribbon and tied round my wide-awake. They started the Stars and Stripes, they told me, during the American War, wearing which they crossed the lines in safety, and they were then busy making a fresh supply. " A national flag is known where individual nationality may be a matter of question, and the Union ]:ivk may not be insulted with impunity." " You see," said one of them, " you may be a chimney sweep, but you i/u)^hf be a prime minister, and so they'll think twice before they molest you." " But you don't mean to say that I am rcal/y a /prisoner in the proper sense of the word ? in fact, I think of making a start, even if it be in the sm dl hours, that I may at least get to some more civilised place." "That's impossible, my dear sir," said the lady's brother. "There are two of the ugliest devils in the whole Baden army told off for your special attention." 48 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. I smiled incredulously, when with his strong American twang he replied — " Wall ! if yer think I'm hoaxing yer, turn round and tell me if yer think those parties behind yer are altogether pre- possessing." And there, sure enough, just behind me were two of the most cadaverous-looking Badeners I ever set eyes on ; they were good men and true, no doubt, affectionate fathers, good husbands and patriots, for all I knew, but I certainly felt I could do better with their room than their company at that moment. Shortly after this I rose from my seat. To take a stroll and look about the place was my intention ; but I very soon found that my promenade was limited to the terrace ow which I stood, and my kind Americans pictured in glowing colours the danger of venturing beyond it — which advice I began to see, under present circumstances, the wisdom of taking. About half-past eleven I was taken under military escort to my bedroom : and when I had closed the door, going out on to the balcony, I looked into the gloomy night. I saw there were farm buildings attached to the hotel, and should have continued my scrutiny of the position, but, hearing the heavy tramp of my guards under the windows, I thought better of it, stepped noiselessly back, and abandoned for that night the idea of freedom. To have attempted to hoodwink those guards would have meant at best a very narrow escape, always supposing the darkness had enabled me to effect my purpose ; so I packed my knapsack, that at any moment I might be ready to take advantage of an opportunity, and retired to rest. Before six the next morning 1 was up and x^n the look out, determined to make a desperate effort to get away, R('SS/.l.\' //'./A'. 67 course, if m ihc morning or evening docs nol appear. 'I'lic occupier was (luiic cheery over the disaster; he would receive ample compensation in due course, from whichever side got the belter of the contest, and had already begun to speculate as to the new furniture he would then purchase, In the meantime he posed as an injured citizen, and gained more sympathy from his neighbours than he had thought them capable of. From what a different point of view must the lodger on the flat above him have looked at the matter. Before the first shell fell, that i)oor old man had gathered together a few necessaries and fled, no one knew or cared whither, leaving his c )llection (for he was a naturalist of no small research) behind him. His feathered friends occupied almost every available wall of his suite of rooms, arranged in the most [)erfect order for the inspec- tion of the curious ; but they were not property easily moved, and the changed aspect of the work of a quarter of a century was a terrible sight to contemplate now. Beaks, wings, and legs, mutilated limbs of every shape and colour were bestrewn upon the floor ; while in a corner still intact were perched on wooden stands several fine old owls in solemn conclave, their eyes dilated as if in wonder that human beings — calling themselves Christians too — could be capable of so much ruthless slaughter. Then there was a jackdaw on a table who took a side glance and looked down with his glassy eye, as who should say, "Oh, what glorious chance for loot is here." The philosopher below stairs liaving nothing to lose which he could not easily replace was happy; while the enthusiast above, having lost at one crushing blow the result of his life's devotion, was poor indeed. I must not forget, however, while thus generalising, that I have more than one campaign to chronicle, and what is F 2 68 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. [)erhaps of even greater importance, to remember that 1 have barely the means to get back to Paris, where, whate\er the Prussian or French armies intend to do in that direction, / must at least hasten with all possible speed, lest I find myself besieged by that greatest and cruellest of enemies to human kind, impecuniosity. And so, to avoid this, to secure the wherewithal which I felt sure would by this time be awaiting me at the Paste Restante, and to feel my footing generally as a Press representative, I hurried off, while I had yet my railway fare at command, to ihe capital. Poor Paris ! One might, indeed, say with Hamlet : " ^Vhere be your jibes now ? " The City of Pleasure had lost her smiles ; the grim reality of the situation was re- flecting in every face those coming events which wtre already casting such black shadows before, and which fell so heavily on every heart. Everyone you passed on the Boulevards was a peculiar study, the same subject occupy- ing every mind, and reflected according to their indi- viduality in the features of each. As far as I was concerned, having received the remit- tances and credentials I expected, and having made, more- over, certain satisfactory arrangements with the Monde IIhistn\ &c., &c., which, being then an artistic and literary freelance, I was able to do, I was, as you may imagine, on the best of terms with the world in general and myself in particular. I put up, as I always had done, at Hoffman's a comfortable hotel in the Place du Havre (of which more anon), and set to work making plans for the future, devot- ing a few days to Paris itself in its then highly delirious state of war-fever. By the way, were you ever possessed of two shadows? If the shadowless man felt the inconvenience to no small e.xtent of being deprived t f his, 1 verily believe that having y •///:" FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. (*) two such appendages is equally trying. You have failed naturally to see the point of my inquiries, always supposing Nature gave you your proper allowance of one. I refer to the Parisian shadow, which, for the smallest reason, was tokl off to dog the footsteps of anyone whom for any purpose it might be thought advisable to follow : and if in peace times these shadows, or police agents, found this line of procedure profitable, how many must have been the attractions held out to the mouchard in time of war. These creatures were in the last days of the Empire attached to one like an official stamp, or the registration mark on one's baggage ; and if on one's arrival in the metropolis there was the most remote excuse for it, the shadow hooked himself on to you, attaching himself in a most unpleasantly adhesive way, and, failing to find any case against you, watched you till you finally left for I'Jig- land or elsewhere, with the sad expression on his face of one who feels that in life's lottery he has drawn yet another blank. It was such a shadow that at once was attached to me on my arrival in Paris. I met him at the station ; he at first winked and blinked at me like a falcon from whose head the hood had just been taken, and then his eagle eye be- came riveted, and he stuck to me with admirable pertinacity through thick and thin ; he followed me to my hotel, and later on he was awaiting my departure from it for an evening stroll. I entered a bar famed for its American drinks ; it had two doors. I went in at one and out at the other, my shadow — waiting till I had finished my cocktail — following. From that moment he seemed to look upon me as his, body and soul ; indeed, he seemed a very devil in peg-tops — ever in my wake. The following day I took him round the fortifications. I went bv train to St. Cloud; Monsieur was at the end of 70 WAXDER/NGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. my compartment, smoking moodily. I returned by another route, and went in the evening to the Jardin Boullier in the Latin Quarter, there to drink refreshing draughts of bock to an accompanying whirhgig of mazy wahz and dcHrious can-can. He bockcd at a neighbouring table, moody as ever, sick at heart that he could find no guile in me, and I heard the heavy thud of his high-heeled boots behind me as I walked back towards my hotel. On the Pont Neuf I rested, looking over for a moment into the Seine in passing ; //c, that constant, never-failing he, was also looking over at no great distance. I should have quite missed him had he, in sheer despair of finding me guilty of anything, committed suicide at that moment ; and I think I should have taken a camp-stool and sat by my dear departed shadow in the Morgue, till Mother Earth re- claimed him. But he had no such intentions, he was fai- too much attached to me, the rock to which with all tenacity he clung, for that ; he followed me everywhere ; he was to the fore at the Poste Restajite when I went there for letters, and if I dined at Duval's he took in his modest supplies within a glance of me. At last, one day, I gave him much material on which to speculate. I wrote several articles for London papers in the first cafe I came to, he exhausting the pages of the Figaro the while. I (I should say ive) next strolled dowm the Boulevard des Capucins. The departure of troops for the front, passing through Paris from the north, was an admirable subject for my pencil. Again I plunged into the nearest cafe in order to commit my notes to paper and despatch them at once ; he was at my side, but what — what in the name of fortune could it all mean? — his moody air had deserted him, he was beaming as brilliantly as it was possible for such a face as his to beam. What could have hapjjened ? Oh ! of TIJF. FRANCO-PRUSSIAX WAR. 71 ('(Hirsc lie was wcaxiii^' a wi-l), making up sonic sweet little plot of his own in which / played chief role ; my recent conducl had been suspicious to a degree. I was a mystery worth solving. He rearranged his frayed shirt-cuffs, re- pointed his waxen-ended imperial, and smiled visibly ; more- over, a friend now joined him. 'Iwo extra shadows on a hot autumn day were oppressive to a degree. Things, however, were coming to a climax. That even- ing I went to the Cafe des Ambassadeurs in the Place de la Concorde. 'I'hey converged in a serpentine sort of way upon me from opposite points, exulting over their /e,i^ifima/e prey, each at last presenting me, simultaneously, with his police authorisation, each at the same moment clapping a hand melodramatically on my shoulder. I would not have escaped them for anything ; I was too much interested. AMiat next ? " Espion ! Kspion ! " was on every lip ? Oh no, nothing of the kind, I had another part to play. I was hooted out of the place in less than no time — a shallow on citlicr side. A few minutes later anil I was in a gendarmerie ; and was requested to give up everything ; I, of course, refused, and a struggle took place, resulting as usual in victory to numbers. I was overpowered and searched — searched did I say ? — aye, and almost stripped into the bargain, my l)oots being torn off my feet, and then, bruised and dishevelled, I snt for quite an hour on a wooden bench wondering what next would turn up. At last a sort of inspector strolled in. followed by another with all my belongings. The first had a photograph in his hand ; like a lay figure T was turned and twisted about in every imaginable dircclioii to see how far 1 resembled the portrait. A magnifier was next produced, and a very close inspection of my left cheek followed ; my shirt collar was then turned down in search of a mole or mouse, or some 72 IVAXDERIXGS OF A WAR- ARTIST. animal or vegetable link h.'tw-en myself and somebody. A look of blank disappointment overspread the faces of all present ; they consulted in an undertone ; my two shadows looking specially crestfallen. Then a police-officer, more urbane than the rest, begged I would see that everything had been returned to me ; nothing was missing. Monsieur was the wrong man ; he was very sorry indeed to say so, but Monsieur was not the American swindler who was '■ wanted.'" Monsieur answered admirably to the descrip- tion — really admirably ; those occasional cocktails had pro- bably emphasised the impression. "And yet," he went on, "Monsieur was evidently not the man — so sorry. Look at this photograph, a scar on the left cheek brought out in bold relief by the magnifier, the missing mole or the absent mouse all proved it to be a case of mistaken identity. Monsieur had no such marks. The authorities apologised most humbly, and Monsieur was free to leave whenever he pleased " — and Monsieur by this time was not sorry to do so. Thus ended my first acquaintance with a Paris shadow, as far as the American swindler is concerned. I only hope years have altered the resemblance, and that I may not again be held responsible for his shortcomings. My ardour, however, was undamped by my experiences, and as I was a little anxious to get all I could artistically out of Paris be- fore leaving, I directed my steps the night after the foregoing misadventure to Belleville. It was Albert Smith who said : A sort of vulgar Venice reminds me that I am Not in dirty London, but still dirtier Rotterdam. One might thus have paraphrased it in 1870 : A sort of Seven Dials with a dash of .Saffron llill, Mixed with rookeries at Rolhcrhythe reminds me of Helleville rilh: FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAN. 73 At the best of limes that inappropriately cliristened suburb of Paris is not a neighbourhood to Hnger in after niuhtfoll ; but during the war, when the best and worst impulses were alike fermented, when the patriot thought only of his country, and the scum of the city dwelt vulture like on plunder — Belleville was grim to a degree. 'I'here it was — in that nest of infamy — that cradle of crime — that I noted Willi curious interest the process of incubation going on, which before long was to develop the Commune. Indeed, I looked on this quarter of the capital as a special study, as a resource from which I might draw untold treasure in the shape of subject for the illustrated papers later on — not, of course, that 1 was prophetic enough to foresee the coming struggle with the Versailles troops, but felt — as everyone must who found himself in their midst — that mischief was brewing, and that when the brewery was Belleville it was likely to be no small beer in the end. I remember being introduced, by one who had the entree to a little coterie of cut-throats in a small back street in this neighbourhood. The assemblage forming one of the illustrations, which I took when in their midst on the eve of the two sieges, is a typical group, which at that time might have been multiplied ad mfinitinn. There, of course, was the wild enthusiast, the leader of the little party, gifted with that small modicum of knowledge which is a dan- gerous thing when possessed by one so unscrupulous, addressing the rest on the gravity of the situation, the utter incompetency of the army, and eciually utter impossibility of anything coming right unless Paris— as represented by himself — came to the fore. Then there was also the leader's particular friend, who swore by him through thick and thin, whose narrow mind, so far as il was able to i)enetrate through the opales(iue w. 'A '^.^■■^""'^^k 'i THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. 75 atnK)S[)lKTc of absiiUlK' in which il was .steeped, saw in liiui the regenerator of the land. There were too, of eourse, several women of the pariy. 'I'hu women of Paris are too historical not to play their part at all such gatherings ; a pohtical meeting without a pctroleusc in Ijclleville would be like a ball in l^clgravia without a scandal ; the back- ground is filled up with the great unwashed ; the charcoal- burners and vendors of the neighbourhood ; the man from the small charcuterie stores round the corner ; the greasy- looking individual who sui)plics petiis verres from many coloured bottles at the leaden counter over the way, and the little barber, all soft soap and suavity, who occupies his days with sou shaves, and his nights with eau-de-vie and anarchy. Each and all i)lay their respective parts at the meetings of those small centres, which are really the hot-beds of the innumerable horrors which may be summed up by the one word — Communism. One burly fellow was waving a red flag in the faces of his excited hearers when I entered, as though he were at a Spanish bull-fight, talking loudly the while of blood and barricades, just as an oily, unhealthy-looking niiscral'le near him was assuring a fat friend how such and such things iniist happen, and there was positively no alternative. A rag-picker, having put down his basket and put out his lantern, had, attracted by the babel of voices, just entered. Indeed this rag-picker, with whom for artistic purposes I hob-nobbed, led to an intimacy with many of the same picturesque crew. Introduced by him I made strange acquaintanceships, which in one or two cases were curiously renewed later on. The chiffotniier is a many-sided character well worth studying; one who is not only a picker-up of unconsidered trifles in the ordinary sense of the word, but has, when 76 IVAXDKR/.WIS OF A WAR-ARTIST. trade is not brisk in Paris, his seasons elsewhere. Having divided, sub-divided, and sold his last basketful of rubbish, he becomes, when warmer weather invites him country- wards — a tramp ; he has saved uj) five or six francs, and with these he purchases a miscellaneous collection of very cheap jewellery, common coloured chromos (chiefly scrip- tural subjects), a crucifix or two, laces of various patterns and lengths, pins, needles, thimbles, pens, pencils, and packs of cards. He economises shoe-leather by the way by carrying his boots on his back, and thus goes from village to village, disposing as best he can of his wares ; or, where legitimate business is slack, doing conjuring tricks, or telling fortunes, or robbing a hen-roost, or otherwise gaining a living, honest or dishonest, as circumstances may suggest. They are very sharply looked after by the authorities are these waifs, and obliged to show when required their Cartief, a memorandum book in which all particulars as to name, age, place of birtli, ^c, are entered with as much care as if their memoirs were some day to occupy a place in the libraries of their country. They are of two distinct classes, the Placiers and the CoH?-eiirs, the former having their regular rounds and special places at which to collect rags, bones, and other debris ; while the latter Avander at will here, there, and everywhere, in quest of the wherewithal to fill the majinegi/in, or huge basket, which they carry strapped to their backs. It goes for said that, at the best of times, the life of the chiffonnier is but a very sorry state of existence. I remember one who said that its inconveniences were twofold, since the rag-picker didn't make enough to live on and still made just enough to prevent his dying. Of course, like the French soldier who carries the baton of the field-marshal in his knapsack, he also has a remote THE FRANCO-I'RL'SSIAX WAR. 77 hope thai he may some day liiid a diamond necklet in a dust-heap, unexpected treasure having been before now- round there. Indeed, the story of one of the few chiffonniers on whom A SORT or DRAIN DEMON. I have heard fortune has since smiled, may not be un- interesting, especially since he was in 1870 one of the little coterie to whom I was introduced. A sort of drain (fe/iion, he had gone from sewer to sewer. 78 / VA .YDJ-J/^LYGS OF A IVA R-A R T/S T and dust-heap to dust-heap, for many years in quest of suppHes without earning more than the bare pittance which, as a rule, rewards the efforts of scavengers of his class; when one night, groping with the aid of his long-hooked stick and his grimy hand in a pile of rubbish, he suddenly uttered a sharp sacre, and, regardless of its condition, began to vigorously suck his finger. Had he been stung by some gutter reptile, or what could it be that had drawn blood so freely ? He now carefully turned over the dirty conglomerate bit by bit ; and there, sunk deep in its muddy setting, lay an exquisite brooch, the pin of which had pricked him, and in which emeralds and brilliants played a conspicuous part. It was evidently of no small value. If this brooch was or was not advertised for I never heard ; but this I did hear, that the chiffonnier disposed of it forthwith for a sum which was, at least to him, consider- able, and that having an eye to the future, he so manipulated the amount that before long he was able to crawl out of his hitherto muddy path, and bring to bear those talents which rags had so long hidden ; for it turned out that prior to this more recent state of his existence he had held the position of an officer and gentleman, from which high estate he had been cast down by circumstances over which he at the time had, perhaps, a little too much control. Be this as it may, he and his misdeeds were long since forgotten ; and thus at a critical moment emerging to the light and grappling the then position of affairs, he had joined one of those societies in the fever-haunted slums of Belle- ville, which I have' endeavoured to depict ; becoming, during the second siege, an officer of distinction, who fought not wisely but too well in the cause of misrule ; and I can pic- ture him in all the bravery of those fine feathers which have something to do with making fine birds, as he strolls down THI-: FKAXCO-PRUSS/AX ll'AR. 79 the lioulevards in the small hours, and, willi that fellow- feeling which makes us wondrous kind, " throws a handful of coppers to the first chiffonnier he passes on his way back, to his club." What a marvellous sight, too, were those same Boulevards at that lime — as telegram after telegram sped into the capital with fresh news from the front — crowds elbowing their way to get within closer touch of the fortunate possessor of Ihe latest edition, who read aloud from the vantage point of a cafe chair for the benefit of the rest. German successes were veiled in the editorial office by wonderful out-fianking movements which, in the immediate future, were to turn the tables in favour of those who were bravely, though vainly, struggling against the on-coming tide of victory which was already half admitted to threaten the capital itself. I was staying then, as I have said, at a com- fortable hotel in the Place du Havre, kept, it will be remem- bered, by one Hoffman (who, though a naturalised l''rench- man, was by birth a Bavarian) and his two sisters, and shall not easily forget the abject fear of this unwarlike Teuton, as hour after hour brought accounts of the nearer approach of his countrymen ; nothing short of death from his point of view menaced him on either hand. He looked each morn- ing with a scared expression at the fresh posters atifi.xed to the kiosques, and the slightest suggestion of a Prussian advance, reminding him of his own nationality, made him shiver in his shoes — at the thought of his neighbours, all of whom he considered combined to wreak their vengeance against him. He was of a type, happily not often to be met with in the Fatherland or elsewhere, whose sole iilol was self. Indeed, it was quite refreshing, on the other hand, to find that, much within the proverbial stone's-throw, one could hit upon any number of instances of patriotic devotion ; families whose last sou had long since gone to 8o ll'AXDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTJST. replenish the military coffers, and who, having left only the young, aged, and infirm in the rear, had gone to fill the broad gaps which Prussian shot and shell laid bare. One pathetic story apropos of this is worth telling. A few doors from Hoffman's just where the Place du Havre approaches the Madeleine is, or was, a fruit and flower shop, lovely to look upon all the year round, its loveliness, however, being quite eclipsed by its presiding goddess, a perfect Juno in her fair proportions, who seemed, through sitting there, to have imbibed the essences, as it were, of her fruity and floral surroundings, her rosy cheeks, her cherry lips, &c., 5 > »J£ .<'i £: '=»^— 83 CHAPTER III. H.wiNG left Paris and the sliadows of the Empire to pre- pare for coming events, let us again follow the fortunes of the army. It was, I think, on the 14th of August that the Emperor issued his farewell address to the troops at Met;^, and the following day that Ba/.aine, appointed Commander-in Chief, retreated on Verdun. During this, at Mars-la-tour, it will be remembered, a sanguinary engagement took place be- tween Prince Frederick Charles's army and that of the re- treating French forces, while it was followed up on the i8th by the battle of Gravelotte, resulting in Bazaine's falling back on INIetz. Then came the memorable ist and 2nd of September before Sedan. It was General von der Tann who began it, at the first streak of dawn, by opening fire, when the early mists had cleared off sufficiendy to reveal the enemy's position. The meshes of the net which was so soon to entrap the army of McMahon were already spreading. At Bazeilles the French were fighting like tigers. The day ^rew hotter as those mists cleared off from the Meuse, and were replaced by the smoke-clouds which the sultry air seemed scarcely to agitate. Big guns were now brought into position here, there, and everywhere. Great round puffs like magic snowballs appeared and disappeared m every direction, while the thunder of those guns became G 2 84 WANDERINGS OF A WAR- ARTIST. more deafening. As midday approached, the fighting became furious ; distinction would be invidious, Teuton and Gaul deserving equally well of their countries. The splendid charges over and over again of the French cavalry, almost invariably repulsed b\' the enemy's artillery, were particularly noticeable ; with magnificent dash did they gallop to the attack till, forced by a heavy cannonade and rattling fusillade from the Prussian infantry, they re- treated, leaving horses and men dead and dying round about them. Villages and positions were now one by one taken. The investment, a cordon of rapidly contracting white smoke fringed with bayonets, came closer and closer still to strangulation point ; then, in several parts of the town, explosions took place, while others before long were in flames. Confusion — that confusion in which no one sound is distinguishable, an indescribable medley of horrors — reigned supreme. At this point, too, McMahon being seriously wounded, gave up his command to General Wimpffen, who, capitulat- ing, placed at the disposal of the Prussian commanders 80,000 prisoners, besides an enormous amount of war material of every possible description, another crushing disaster bging thus scored to the French arms ; then, as if to give one finishing touch to that terrible picture, to add the crowning humiliation to a series of defeats, the Emperor himself had no alternative save to surrender his sword. Those who were in the villages round about where the fighting was fiercest at that time will indeed carry to their graves grim memories of the glories of war. " After the battle " is a picture which neither pen nor pencil can ever portray so as to convey any adequate idea of the terrible reality ; although, at the same time, the curiously contradic- tory fraternal feeling with which the wounded French and Prussians, after the fight, exchanged civilities, came like a rUE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. 85 passing glimpse of sunshine on the prevailing desolation as they lay there side by side in half-dismantled farm buildings anil cottages. Yes, it was curious to note that there was no animus, no feud, which a pipe of " caporal " or a swig of cognac — were such a luxury obtainable — would not heal . Thanks to the unwearied efforts of the Red Cross sur- geons, nurses, and bearers, the most seriously wounded were as quickly as possible carried well to the rear, either to field hospital tents, half demolished chateaux, or elsewhere in the neighbourhood, or were even taken as tenderly as bad roads and springless requisitioned carts would admit of to still more remote shelter. 1 have generally, whenever it has been possible, attached myself to the ambulance. From a correspondent's point of view it has many advantages, much information being thus obtainable ; while for the artist's pencil subjects innumerable abound, besides which one may sometimes be of some small use to those pro- fessionally engaged, though I am painfully aware that on more than one occasion, had it not been for very prompt surgical aid, I should have been responsible in my zeal for terrible, if not fatal, results ; nevertheless, in time, I made progress, and was ultimately looked on as rather an acquisi- tion than otherwise. Of those doctors and nurses who volunteer their services in war time one cannot speak too highly. Men, who, in many cases, have left comfortable practices to give their in- valuable services to the good cause, and women who have sacrificed all the comforts of home-life to minister to the wants of the suffering soldiery of both sides. "There's a lot of humanity about, isn't there ? " said an American to me one day after a hot engagement ; while round about us the doctors were hard at work with splint and bandage. "A lot of humanity, regardless of sex, position, or nationality." 86 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. Aye, and he was right, too ; so there was and is, and never is it more noticeable than at the front ; although, strange to say, the ambulance does not escape abuse. A brassard of while linen with a Red Cross on it is easily secured or made, and under cover of this, spurious Rosicrucians go about in the towns and villages getting the entree everywhere and pillaging right and left. Compared with one of these, what a charming companion, what a perfect hero would be the professional burglar who terrifies suburban London with his nightly visits, and, with the aid of a jemmy, dark lantern, and revolver, persuades peaceable inhabitants to surrender their loose cash and jewellery ; what a reliable addition to one's bosom friends would such a man be compared with the oily sneak, who, under the guise of humane intentions, undercover of the am- bulance flag, wanders about seeking whom he may "finish," or what crib, already battered by shells, he can still further " crack " for such remaining plunder as there be. He is naturally conspicuous by his absence where any real danger exists, is this counterfeit ambulance doctor or helper. He creeps out from queer crannies and odd corners when the sun goes down, coming vampire-like to gloat and batten on the horrors round about him. Now since, prior to a prolonged stay in France, I found it absolutely necessary to return for a few days to make cer- tain arrangements in England, I took what promised to be a short respite, while the victorious Kaiser marched on Paris, and, as an exceptional chance at the same time offered itself of getting through, I made the best of my way to Havre, there to cross over and so arrange matters as to admit of my speedy return in the capacity of a war-artist and ( orrespondent. Having arrived at that port, I felt something perhaps might yet be done in the eight or nine hours which intervened before the departure of the mail Tin'. FRANCOPRrSSlAX WAK. 87 lioal ; ami iiuked, something more was done lliaii I at the time bargained for. Ever ready to beh'cve myself (juite impervious to anything, one of the most delightful of the many weaknesses of youth, 1 that day visited one of the military hospitals to which the sick and wounded had been removed for sea air. IVsti- lence, however, which ever follows in the wake (jf war, was doing its worst, committing, indeed, greater ravages than bullets. The many touching incidents aS. devotion on the part of tender-hearted sisters and indefatigable doctors serving as good subject for my pencil, I spent some hours in their midst, and after making many sketches, strolled down to the beach, where my attention was attracted by a number of soldiers busily, and, to me, somewhat mysteriously en- gaged with a large (juantity of blankets and counterpanes, which they were immersing in the sea. I at once became nterestcd in these domesticated warriors; they were a merry squad, and I was soon in their midst as concerned about their doings as they were about mine. Each man posed grotesquely when I produced my sketch-book in the fond hope that he might be immortalised in the London papers, and it was well for them that they had a spark of pleasantry left in them, for their office was a sorry one. They were, indeed, nothing more or less than a gang of dis- infectors disinfecting the bedding on which patients had died in the small-pox hospitals. That I personally should have run any risk did not, how- ever, strike me at the time. One gets inured to the terrible, and danger is, happily perhaps, slow to suggest itself. I, at least, on arriving the following morning in Southampton, save for a sort of mental fatigue, attributable to the strain I had recently had on my nerves, felt fairly fit, and proceeded when in London to " bide a wee " with some old friends, THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. 89 where, however, mind as well as body became rapidl)- affected, so much so that I had to at once take to my bed, when a doctor having been called in, it was discovered that I was suffering from a virulent attack of small-pox, caught, beyond doubt, in those hosjjital wards or on the seashore amongst those contaminated bed-clothes at Havre. If you can imagine the feelings of one who doats upon dancing, suffering from a sick-headache, while her more for- tunate sisters are happily tripping it on the light fantastic at a xinall and early ; if you can remember how you pic- tured those other fellows in the cricket-field on that lialf holiday when you, kept in, were with a carefully arranged three-nibbed pen, scril)bling those 500 lines in the class- room ; if you can remember this, then you can form some idea of my sensations when " cribbed, cabined, and con- fined," I found myself down with the small-pox, while the ball, which but now had been rolling at my feet, lay motionless. My opinion of the Fates at that time was anything but flattering, I can assure you, and as the complaint developed and delirium set in, I have been told my descriptions of the horrors I had so recently seen, took such vivid form as to quite scare the three generous daughters of my kindly host, who insisted, by turns, on nursing me. I was naturally in my more lucid moments much concerned about them, and was horrified when I heard that two out of the three were laid up with the same fearful complaint. In each case, happily, the attacks were as short as they were sharp, leav- ing no trace behind them save the indelible impression that if "a man's a man for a' that" then surely a woman is equally heroic, be it on the field of battle or in the Fulliam Road ; the ambulance cross being only '' the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace " which makes the sweet ministrations of the opposite sex acceptable when every other consolation fails. 90 IVAXDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. However, it was some time before I was sufificiently my- self to be equal to campaigning. When I was, I started once more for Havre (fighting shy a little of the hospital wards at the outset), and, seeing that Paris, invested by the Prussians while I was fretting and fuming on my sick-bed at Fulham, was now unapproachable from without, and more- over that my credentials were all French, I joined the army of the north. I made the Cafe de la Reine my head- quarters when in Havre, partly because it was the ren- dezvous of the officers and my fellow war-correspondents, and I think partly also because of a certain fair Hebe who presided over the many coloured bottles by which she was surrounded at the extreme end of the long room, and who had made a rather deep impression on me. Here, night after night (Havre being in a state of siege) did we congregate long after, according to siege laws, all lights should have been out. True it is that at 9 o'clock the patrol came round to enforce compliance with the law, and all lights for the nonce went out accordingly, to be relighted, however, when the shutters were closed later on. The siege laws were not very strictly enforced, and I think the Commandant must have known this 10 be a hot- bed of officers, or he would have insisted on more rigid obedience to them. The story of that fair Hebe to whom I have just made reference is worth the telling. Her father, Mons. Beauregard, was a wealthy retired merchant, living in a charming chateau not far from Havre. He had, for some fifteen years, been a widower; his sole and all-sufficing happiness being his four children, three strapping young fellows aged respectively twenty-three, twenty-two, and twenty, and a daughter, fresh, intelligent, and beautiful, who had not yet numbered nineteen sum- mers. Her untiring delight was to minister, as she alone THE FRANCOPRUSSTAN WAR. 91 could, ic) the whims, fancies, and ic(iuiicnients of her affec- tionate old father's dechning years, for she had grown from infancy to early womanhood like the mistletoe on the oak, part, as it were, of the very being of the one she loved so well. When, howe\er, the war broke out, old lleauregard saw before him, as many others did at that time, a very definite course of patriotic duty to pursue, and determined to follow it without flinching. He, by degrees, sacrificed all his pro- perty in every form to the service of his country by sinking it in the war fund, and became himself a franc- tireur. As one can easily imagine, he was not long in being joined by his three sons, each of whom had, within a fortnight, taken w\^ arms, while provision was made for his daughter, who was [jermanently to reside with an old maiden sister of his, who had a house at Honfieur. Thus, shouldering their muskets, had the father and his three sons gone to the front, some time prior to my arrival in Havre. The first to fall were Beauregard and his second son, the father being shot dead, while the other lingered for some time in hospital. The next victim, a few days afterwards only, was the eldest son, who, being taken prisoner, and never heard of afterwards, was doubtless done to death as all franc-tireurs were supposed to be when caught by the Prussians. And now, curiously enough, small-pox, which, as you have heard, was raging considerably in this part of the world just then, attacked the old patriot's sister, with whom the daughter, Elise (for this was her name), was stay- ng, and whom she carefully nursed without herself catching the disease, till the enfeebled old soul at last succumbed to it, leaving the poor girl, and her one remaining relative, her brother (still, of course, at the front), not only penniless, but almost friendless. 92 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTISl. In this condition, what could she do but jump at the first offer of employment by means of which at that exciting moment she could hope from day to day to live ? She ac- cepted the appointment of waitress at the Cafe de la Reine in Havre, and it was there that I heard from the officers her romantic story. She was always dressed in the very deepest mourning, with jet bracelets, and a collarette of the same material, which gave peculiar brilliancy to her classic, refined features. Then, again, those sombre garments were frequently relieved by a tri-coloured sash, which no less at the request of the management than from personal inclination she wore across her shoulders. The effect was wonderfully striking : she seemed in that sable garb (as, indeed, she was) as much in mourning for her country as for her relations ; still did she do her best to appear more cheery than she felt, for she had a part to play on the little platform where she stood, or, when not serving customers, where she sat knitting listlessly to kill the intervening time; and probably those brave fellows, here to-day and gone to-morrow, might indirectly owe to a remembrance of her — who knows ? — the gallantry they from time to time displayed elsewhere. "There's no knowing how far a woman's smile may pene- trate," an old Georgian courtier once said, and I, for one, most cordially agree with him ; and so it was that day after day and evening after evening Elise Beauregard, though weeping inwardly, uncomplainingly bore up, dispensing smiles and cafe noir, liqueurs, small cognacs, and sym- pathy to the many customers who frequented the Cafe de la Reine, certainly not the least susceptible being a certain young war-artist with whom you arc already ac- quainted. Those who went through the campaign will never forget the memorable winter of 1870-71. The intensity of the Tin-: FR.LWCi )-PRUSS/AN IT. I A' 93 cold was supplemented by the general depression wliieh tokl the sad fate of defeat on every face. Near the docks one morning, however, I was witness to the wildest enthusiasm — a certain General anived by sea, and from the deck of the steamer made a most florid speech, ill which he assured his hearers that the time had at last come when France would be avenged, when the tide of war would turn and the Prussians be driven with ignominy across the Rhine. He repeated his brilliant augury from the balcony of his hotel later on, but the wound was too deep, and he aroused but little real feeling, save, perhaps, amongst those, who emulating him, thought it about time that they also indulged in verbosity, for as the day wore on everyone who could get a hearing was posing as a i)atriot ; amongst whom none were more enthusiastic than one Captain Corot. Corot was the keeper of a little double-fronted shop in a small street off the market-place, one window of which was devoted to pipes, cigars, and tobaccos, while in the other depended pigtails of hair, frisettes, and the other attributes of a hairdresser's shop. Corot, however, had a soul above frisettes ; just as his rubicund nose was the outward and visible sign of alcohol, so through his keen grey eye did the soul of patriotism peep out. He had been the first to raise his curling-tongs against the invader, figuratively at least, and now that the perfidious Cerman was the man in posses- sion, there was nothing he was not patriotic enough to achieve, if he could. Hence it was that, having gathered his customers round him he was able before long, what with them, and those of their friends who were willing to enlist under the Corot colours, to get together a well-shaven, if not over well-disciplined, troop. There, outside his sho]) door, which was a sort of im- provised headquarters, with his insignia, that brazen bowl. r ' "> GENERAL MO<)UAKI) THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. 95 dangling like Manibrino's helmet overhead, might our hero be seen any morning addressing a little knot of patriots on the one all-absorbing topic ; inviting them, when early shaves were over, to come to the market-place and hear a bit of his mind, where he would further go into detail with reference to certain military tactics, which would mean nothing short of annihilation to Prussian arms. Though certainly born rather to be a barber than a brigadier, poor Corot meant well, and so far carried others with him as to be able to raise a company — a very non- descript one — to which he was appointed Captain, and of which he was immensely proud — although he was only one of many such men who at that time obtained nominal com- missions. He has yet to play a part in our story, and as he will be again referred to later on it is as well that my readers and he should be acquainted. By the way, an odd incident happened about this time in a neighbouring town, of which I heard and which was sufficiently amusing to be taken note of. It appears that French shells had so battered the place as to make it almost untenantable by the Germans, many of whom were known to be buried in its ruins. In one (luarter the work of excavation was going on, owing to voices having been heard below the debris; succour or death seemed a matter of moments, so with most earnest, dogged determination did their comrades go to work, the terrible picture of stifling compatriots presenting itself more vividly each moment. At last, with a crash, a large portion of the ruined house on which they were at work fell in, when it was discovered that five burly troopers were below ; not, however, by any means in the terrible predicament they were supposed to be, for they were discovered in the cellar of what had been an hotel, to which they had found some side entrance, and, broaching the choicest wines. 96 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. quite oblivious to the horrors of war and the good inten- tions of their generous rescuers, they were drinking to their heart's content to the girls they had left behind them in the Fatherland. This brings me to an experience which came under my personal notice at that time of a somewhat similar kind. A miser had for many years lived in a gaunt, ghostly- looking house inhabited solely by himself and the rats, mice, blackbeetles, and spiders which made it their home. No one, save the miser, Dubosque, was ever seen to enter this mysterious mansion. When the war broke out, how- ever, and misrule held high revel everywhere, it is natural to suppose that a place with so tempting a reputation would be the first to be invaded. Indeed, this was done by the Mobiles quartered in the neighbourhood, who are said to have discovered Dubosque dead from sheer fright in one of the passages of the house. Suspicion pointed to the pro- bability of his having met with foul play ; search was at all events made forthwith for the old fellow's hoard, when to the astonishment of everyone, as he was known not to have banked his money, not a sou was anywhere to be found. Even to the very cellars, the place was empty save for the truckle bedstead in which the old skin-flint slept. It was without even the commonest neces.saries. One day, however, one of the soldiers, for some purpose, was hammering a huge staple into the wall of one of the vaults, when to his surprise a quantity of liquid spurted out upon and startled him not a little. He w-as still more horrified on emerging to the light to see its sanguinary hue. Had a man then not quite dead, though embedded behind those bricks, received his coup-de-grace from the Mobile's hammer ? Suffice it to say, it turned out to be nothing more nor less than a bricked uj) wine-cellar of enormous /7//: /■'A\l.V('i)-/'/CfSS/.l\ llWh'. (;7 (.'xtriU. Il was ill this rurin that |)iil)os(iuc luul lujurdcd his wealth, feeling, with imich wisdom, that every year added enormously to its value, though it was not long, as you can imagine at such a crisis, before the fine old fruity savings of a lifetime were scattered, and inebriated soldiers were drink- ing deep draughts of the rosy to the repose of the soul of 1 )ubosque the miser. But to return to the thread of my story ; I really do not think I ever shall forget the day I started, having secured my saitf conduit from the commandant, to join the Moquards. It was one of the bleakest it is possible to imagine. The snow was above the ankles of one's top- boots, even in the market-place ; and win ivw r it had drifted it was, of course, considerably deeper. The pro- spect I had before me outside the town was not promising. A good horse, a good constitution, and no end of good intentions were, however, not a bad stock-in-trade to start Willi, so I left Havre for Montvilliers, full of cheery antici- pations, though the sleet was so blinding and the snow so deep. The first post, at Harfleur, strongly barricaded with baskets, barrels, boxes, and every imaginable kind of dclwis, and mounted with big guns, was a subject too picturesque to pass unnoticed ; so regardless of consequences I made a special note of it in my sketch-book — which led naturally to my arrest. 1 was marched off to an improvised guard- room, where, however, my sai/f conduit stood me in g/r:^^(^^f^<:i^^ ICK^ CHAPTER TV. TiiK soldiers of tlir Rcpuljlic were certainly superior to those of the Empire, 'i'aught ]))• the sad experience of de- feat, they held their own, only giving way inch by inch, clinging with des[)erate tenacity, even when all hope of ulti- mate success was gone, to the colours, now little more than shreds, by which they stood. Indeed, had not ammuni- tion and commissariat supplies been too oflen conspicuous by their absence, the movements of Faidherbe would more often have been crowned with success. His artillery was certainly considered excellent even by the enemy, and, though chiefly composed of recruits, the Army of the North held its own with a courage and gallantry which won admi- ration, 'i'his I afterwards heard from many of the most critical officers in the Prussian service. A desperate attack was made on the 25th and 26th of November on General Manteuffel, which being eventuallv repulsed, the Germans marched on Rouen, where little or no resistance was offered : nothing, indeed, of any impor- tance happening save a sharp engagement near I'orges, where about 300 of our side were taken. I think it was during this engagement that the i)ot-valiant Captain Corot won a doubtful reputation, and was noticed to have returned with the remnant of his scattered corps to Havre, covered with — well, snow and perspiration where, Ivalstaff-like, he gave his own version of events to those of no li-AAJ>KK/XGS OF A WAR- ART/ST. his old customers who, not actually fighting under his flag, were constrained to listen and accept it —aim }:;rano saljs. As for the main body of the Army of the North, it had not been so shattered by defeat as to sink by any means into oblivion ; for, rising phoenix-like from its ashes, came a second army, which concentrated at Arras and Lille, and with well-equipped battalions, and guns well served by naval gunners, promised to form, after all, a formidable barrier to the still further advance of the Prussians ; though at that late date no victories, however decisive, could have possibly influenced events to any material degree. A junction between the armies of the North and the be- sieged troops in Paris having now become impossible, Faid- herbe's next manoeuvre was to occupy a very strong position on the ridge of a hill extending towards Querrieux, where seventy guns were brought into position. The fighting, which was very severe, occupied the whole day, Querrieux and Pont Noyelles being eventually taken by the Prussians, who, till darkness set in, seemed to have the best of it. Then it was that our side, with wild hurrahs, and shouting " Vive la Republique ! " rushed madly at the enemy, who, their ammunition failing, replied only in a desultory sort of way, and as the French were not slow to realise this, they rushed down from the heights they had occupied, making a most brilliant attack on Querrieux. So harassed, indeed, by French shells which kept con- tinually bursting in their midst, were some of the German regiments, that a retreat was ordered, and the French were, for the moment, masters of the situation. A Prussian fusi- lier battalion, however, coming to the rescue, night closed in on a hand-to-hand fight, in which the French twice failed in their most gallant efforts to retake and hold the village, fighting bayonet to bayonet to the bitter end, when Colonel Tin-: /--RANCo-J'/u '.v-VA./A' ir.ih'. 1 1 1 Baron \'oii Dornberg evenluall) claiincHl llic victory uiid occupied the village, which, being now in flames, lit up with its lurid light that scene of horror. To those who have never seen a burning town or village in war-time it is not given to know, though they may imagine, what the effects on its surroundings are. Thus it is not easy to conceive how, in the fitful light — especially if a breeze be stirring — the faces of those striving for dear life on either side become at one moment lit up like fiends in- carnate, while the next they are lost in utter darkness. There will unexpectedly be seen a fringe of glittering bayonets, which, owing to the uncertain flicker, will presently seem to spring up elsewhere, while in such fighting as that which took place, a comparative silence, a tension far more terrible than the wildest war-cries, often takes place, in which you seem to feel with those who fight that the issues are personal, that man to man is contending, bayonet to bayonet, in a great death-struggle, far too terrible for the voice of despair or the vivats of victory ; then, as if by com- mon consent, the fighting flags and both sides sink down exhausted — • The weary to sleep, And the vvouiKlcd to die ; and one seems to get more time to appreciate the grim reality. The fires die down and smoulder ; the stillness is almost appalling ; the moon peeps out and flecks with silver those who but yesterday were eager for the fight, and who now, dead and frozen, lie there in the darkness as they fell, forming yet anoiher terrible tableau of " Glorious War." The villages of Querrieux, Pont Noyelles, and their vicinity were remarkable on this particular evening. Darns and out-houses filled with dead and dying ; un buried bodies q 3 Till-: FR.\.\C()-rRrssrAN war. 113 lyini;; hero, theiv, and everywhere in the eenieleiies, some witli their hands elaspcd as if in [jrayer, while others still (Irmly grasped their rifles with the final impulse to do or die wrillen on ihuir hard set waxLii features. Such sights are, indeed, as dear old I )r. Arnold said, " something rather to think about than talk about " ; and surely we would, if w< eould, have forgotten them, for it was approaching \'ule tide, when "peace and goodwill" are proclaimed to all mankind. What a sad mockery to those countless thousands must have been that Christmastide of 1870. T have come to the conclusion that in war men are collectively fiends, individually heroes. There were cases in which at five yards' distance in ambush, the Prussians opened fire from their needle-guns with the deadliest effect, literally moivin'^ dow/i the enemy, a splendid regiment of patriots at one mi)nient being a pile of dead and dying the next. Then, again, the French showed no more (juarter when the fortunes of war favoured them ; while individual cases of pluck on both sides would, were fhey committed to paper, occupy many volumes. For instance, a Prussian officer being thrown from his horse and his thigh-bone being fractured, begged that he might not be carried away, but in the arms of his men still retain his command, and it was while in this position that he was shot in the arm. "It's getting hot,'' he said, "but I can still hold on; carry me farther to the rear." Whilst doing so a second bullet entered his chest, and he expired. Again, anotlier, wounded in the left arm and back, came to the ambulance to en(|uire if it would be possible for him to keep \\\) till the end of the engagement, and on beinu told he might, he rushed ^ii again into the thick of the fight. 114 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. It was in the fighting about this tim: thit nearly all my old friends, the ofificers of the Moquards, were killed. I think their chief escaped unscathed, but the doctor, who it will be remembered relied so fully for protection on his sketch-book, was one of the first victims. It is to me marvellous how, with such raw material, such ill-clad, and in many cases ill-fed troops, so much was done by the Army of the North. The childish way in which they displayed their uniforms, and wanted everyone to see their revolvers ; the complete absence of all order ; and utter incompetency in many cases of their officers, made one wonder more and more how they resisted as they did. I remember hearing of an American officer in one of the cafes, who, noting the pride they displayed concerning those revolvers, said in a loud voice, that, " Babies in America were taught to play with revolvers before they took to rattles." Their drill in some cases was absurd: a battalion would be formed, which, after two or three evolutions, would become so hopelessly mixed that captains had quite lost sight of their companies, for which they were vaguely hunting ; and then there would be a pause, and when things righted themselves company drill would be attempted with equal want of success ; then with the assistance of a few sergeants they would struggle on, and the command — Avancez en Tirailleur ! Feu a volou/e ! Visez bas ! would be given and they would blaze away high in air, as if the Prussians were perched up aloft like sweet little cherubs, whom they were as intent on bringing down as if they had been so many .skylarks ; but then the people would say — who stood good-naturedly watching their eccentric e\olu- tions — " What can one expect ? they are patriots, poor things, to the backbone; though after all they are only Mobiles, you know." THE FRANCO-PRl'SSIAX WAR. 113 Let us not forgot, however, Havre -our oM Iniiiling- grouiul — -where towards tlie end of l)eceml)er 1 again found myself frecjuently as of yore at the Cafe de la Reine, which was still the head(iu irters of officers and representatives of the Press. One night, when the assemblage here was unusually numerous, and most of the regiments then fighting in the North had their representatives at the little round tables playing dominoes or cards (if not excitedly talking politics), an event happened which was a turning point in the career cjf poor Ehse Beauregard. A horseman was heard galloping in hot haste over the frozen snow, coming nearer and nearer still, till he halted and dismounted, knocking loudly at the door of the closed cafe for admittance. Siege laws were, as I have said, in force, and no answer was at first given. Stillness reigned within. This late visitor, however, would take no denial, and when he said he must see Mdlle. Beauregard at once, he was of course admitted. There seemed a sort of spell cast over the habitues of the cafe as the sturdy cavalry sol- dier who had thus intruded upon them shook the snow from his forage cap, produced a note from his pouch and handed it with a profound salute to Elise, who, wrapped about in her tricoloured sash, looked statuesquely beautiful, as she mechanically opened and proceeded to read it. There was a moment of painful silence which no one dared to break, and then, with a shriek those present will never forget, Elise crumpled up the note and fell senseless on the platform where she, the admired of all admirers, had so recently presided. It was a message from the officer of his company to say that the last of her patriotic brothers had the previous night fallen when on outpost duty, and that his frozen remains had that morning been recognised. 1 2 1 16 WAXDE/UNCjS ( IF A 1 1 'A A A R TJS T. Restoratives, as can well he imaij,ine(l, were (juickly supplied, and all that could be was done to alleviate the poor girl's sufferings ; her family ties one by one broken, as they had been, her youngest and favourite brother had alone been left to her; and now, rclationless and utterly alone, her fate seemed too hard to bear. Little by little, however, she regained consciousness, and was at last led away by the manager, who, with his wife, tried in vain to console her for her latest loss. She never again, however, appeared at her accustomed post ; and though circumstances did not admit of my ascertaining at the time what became of her, I found out, after the war, that she had joined a religious sisterhood, to find that consolation which the world could not afford. In those thrilling old days of the past in Havre — those earliest days of my wanderings — I made many friendships amongst journalists and others which have lasted through Hfe. Amongst these were several of the officers of the American, Swedish, and British war-ships, which in the interests of their several countries were in harbour. I remember being on the American vessel just after the suppression of a mutiny on board, and as a number of the ringleaders had been put in irons, I was able to scrutinise them in their barred-off compartments between decks with impunity. They struck me as looking far more dangerous than any tigers I had seen, even at feeding-time at the Zoo. One of my friends, a broad-shouldered, good-natured fellow, exhibited these scowling Brother Jonathans with as much pride as if they had made a haul of mermaids, or found several pearls beyond price, saying to mc as we walked away : " Batch o' beauties those, eh ? Western Ijoys ; ready for anything except honesty and hard work. Iron bars and revolvers are tlic only arguments they appreciate." And TJI/: FRAXCO-I'RUSSIA.X ll'.lR. 117 then \vc adjourned to the Swedish maii-o'-war lying along- side and drank contusion to those mutineers in some of the most delicious milk-punch I have e\er tasted. One night towards the small hours we left the Cafe de la Keiiie by a side door — the siege laws having become ter- ribly strict. The i)arly consisted of several officers of different nationalities, two or three correspondents, and myself. On our way to our quarters we found ourselves passing the small tobacconist's shop presided over by the vain-glorious Captain Corot, whose magnificent retreat from Roujn was still the theme of those of his customers who did not witness his flight, panic-stricken, from the on-coming Ciermans. So good an opportunity for a practical joke was not to be lost ; the wild spirits of eighteen years ago were un- tempered by the eighteen years' greater e.xperience of to-day, so we woke the echoes of the night by thundering away with fists and revolvers on the closed shutters of the captain's little shop. My American friend, who spoke a delightfully Bret-Hartish German interlarded with Americanised English and a dash of bad French, addressed that worthy, whose be- nightcapped, affrighted head appeared at an u])[ier window, in somewhat the following terms : " l)u bist unser gefangner, die Preussen sind da. Come down will )ou, you miserable old scaramouch. \'ous etes prisonnier de guerre — descendez, descender, or dans un moment vous etes tue. By Jove, you are " Poor old Corot, \ ou would never have forgotten him could you have seen him as he appeared at the chained-up side door of his shop, all save his nose an ashen grey. A flat candlestick in one hand, his sword nervously clutched in the other ; he seemed to have some vague idea of selling his life dearly, or a hope that when his mangled remains were found he should be sword in hand. He even made several feeble prods into the night air with his trusty bladr. ii8 WANDERINGS OF A IVAR-ARTIST. which unfortunately for him was, with the assistance of a cloak, which was quickly thrown about it, seized and secured ; then it was that holding his head — which in his excitement he had unintentionally put out too far — we obliged him to undo the chain and surrender. The hero of Rouen was in our hands, and I do not know what the next development would have been had not we in turn been seized by a patrol of gendarmes, who very naturally demanded our authoriry — in a besieged town too — for thus disturbing that warrior's rest. Suffice it to say, we were taken to the gendarmerie, where, having proved our identity, we were — having been only guilty of frighten- ing the Captain, whose reputation had gone before him everywhere — discharged with a caution. Talking of one's identity brings me to the difficulty one sometimes had at that time to establish it, owing to the utter ignorance of die patrols, in many cases recruits fresh from the vineyards and ploughtail, who, after "lights out," arrested us. One night I remember escaping durance vile through the ready wit of a fellow correspondent, who, pointing to " I, Lord Granville," • Ah, just so, that's it ; as clear as a bell, my dear Sir 122 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. as clear as a bell. My own enemy, too modest. A friend to all humanity, save myself — am, I assure you. Then I'm a fatalist — great thing to be a fatalist if you wish to emulate the happiness of the linnet or the merriment of the grig." "Ah, just so," I replied. " But why not call 'a spade a spade,' an eel an eel, and not a ' grig,' " he went on. " Besides — what proof have you of its merriment ? No naturalist has yet, I believe, discovered in it any special capacity for enjoyment ; it has never yet been seen to laugh, has it? Deep and all- absorbing question that ; strikes me the name was intro- duced into the English language specially for the use of poets, in connection with fig, swig, rig, and so on. How odd is the association of ideas, the refreshing word swig suggesting as it does our almost exhausted libations ; while rig makes me look down and blush and apologise for my present somewhat shady aspect. Fact is, friend of mine promised me a suit last Tuesday; taken seriously ill last night — complaint catching — can't be seen — ergo, no clothes. Sad, isn't it ? — very sad. Moment I saw you " (and here he scrutinised my nether garments suggestively), " I said with Desdemona : ' Would that heaven had made me such a man.' Crunch — poor old Crunch — did he want a bis- cuit ? " This he addressed to a dog, which I remember to have been as like its master as one pea to another. Its ears were large, its eyes had the same roguish twinkle, and a few lank locks on its upper lip did duty for its master's ragged moustache. He was a little better kept perhaps, for Crunch picked up unconsidered trifles at the cafes its master frequented to such an extent as to become rotund of body and dropsical of limb. " Crunch, poor Crunch, beg. AN'onderful dog that, Sir ; look at him, almost human, I assure you. Think the missing-link more likely to be a dog than a monkey. THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. 123 Perfect philosopher too, e(iually content with the succulent mutton bone or humble crust ; professionally a thief, he will never rob 'another poor dog of his bone,' as the saying is, rather purloining the dainties of the rich, when he gets a chance, than venturing on canine combat for a vulgar meal. Always bides his lime does Crunch ; waits, like Mr. Micawber, for something to turn up. Wouldn't part with him for millions ; don't look like it, do I ? Fact, I assure you ; we are Bohemians in adversity, ' a fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind ' ; and we love, we do really, as — well— as he and I alone can. Crunch, poor Crunch, beg Sir ; there now ! "' One had little to do save to listen, the volubility of this eccentric character being almost inexhaustible, a distant detonation now and again starting him at a tangent. "Ah!" he went on, "hear that? shell from Versailles. Yes, there's another ; sad, very sad, isn't it ? Have been all through first siege, now well into second ; wonder how many more they are likely to have. Personally, like Christy Minstrels, I never perform out of London ; otherwise, fired with martial ardour, should have taken up one side or the other long ago." When we separated I pressed him (his scruples were charmingly assumed) to accept a few francs, and I thus lost sight, pro ion. at least, of Somerville the adventurer and his faithful ally. Crunch. It was a veritable reign of terror; mob law was proclaimed, and Paris, humiliated but uninjured by Prussian occupation, had now been laid low by the cruel hand of Communism. I remember how, later on, I shuddered every time I passed the smouldering remains of the Tuilcries, when I thought of what that palace had been but a few months before ; that l)alace where, during the Empire, the most brilliant gather- ings in Europe had taken place, where the wit and wisdom 124 IVAXDEK/XGS OF A IVAR-ARTIST. of the Imperial reign had commingled, reduced to a heap of blackened stones, and as I peered through the broken aper- tures where windows once had been towards the Louvre and its surrounding buildings, I felt I was separated onlj'by the few walls still intact from the tottering shell of the Hotel de Ville beyond; while all round about me — a painful picture — lay the heaped-up debris of what had been but a short time since the most boasted promenade of fashionable Paris — the Rue de Rivoli, the shattered colonnade of which was piled up so high in the roadway that I had considerable difficulty in scaling it, and I then realised how terrible the blow had been. There, just round the corner, in the Place Vendome, lay, in many fragments, the historic column which looked for all the world, with its metallic casing peeling off, like a half- skinned, disjointed python which, having spread desolation around, had been struck down in the moment of its exulta- tion by an avenging angel — but I must not anticipate. In the Rue de Bac and the Rue de Lille there was scarcely a stone standing ; indeed, though agile ennigh at that time, I found it no easy matter to clear the great piles of bricks and stones which completely choked the thoroughfare, re- sembling more than anything else monster ant heaps, over which the equally industrious animal, man, was climbing. After nightfall a great portion of Paris was utterly im- passable. I myself often completely lost my way in locali- ties I could have before visited blindfold. Then, of course, came hand-in-haud with civil war all the horrors of disease and famine, which had indeed estab- lished themselves in the capital during the first siege so firmly, that nothing short of surrender and the consequent opening up of the great arteries of the city could mitigate them. By the way, it is utterly impossible to say what une did, THE i-RA.\C()-rRrssi.\.\ war. 125 or (lid noljCat al this lime in I'nris: pcrsoiiallv I look cvcry- ihiiij^ withoul iiu[uiry. One correspondent, failing l(j take with him lu the restau- rant where he dined that greatest of luxuries, breads tells how, having purchased a piece at an exorbitant price, which was so hard that he could not get through it, lu' was implor- ingly importuned, by a dcini-iiioiidainc on one side and an officer of the National Guard on the other, to make it over to them, as they had not enjoyed such a treat with their scant repasts for a very long time, which, on condition that the fair one should have the greater half, he did. Among the odd dishes on which Paris fed, dog was said to be the most nutritious. They called it saddle of mutton, and sold it at from three to five francs a pound. As I have said, what you really did eat was open to grave doubts and much speculation. You found an expensive dish of, say, Ris-de-Veau mix Epinards to be all you could wish, and were under the impression you were dining a la carte — not at all, it was cat disguised by the subtle skill of a clever cook, but unmistakable cat nevertheless to those who by this time had become connoisseurs. Quart ier d Ai^/ieau a la Brochettc you next fed on, and fondly fancied it was lamb — in life it had been known, ave, and beloved too, probably, as a black retriever ; and so on through the menu., till you found yourself well into the meagre dessert, or in the realms oi frouiage et salade, where you breathed again, relieved to know that things, were once more what they seemed to be. One thing I felt (juite sure about was horse, specially war-horse ; the toughest beef was quite tender compared with this. While on the subject of meals, nn anecdote of an un- finished breakfast in a Paris suburb may be interesting. Happily, even in these terrible times, it was an exceptional dcjeihicr. Nine sat down to it. including in their number a 126 IVANDERJNGS OF A WAK-ARTIST. regimental doctor, several officers and ladies. |u.st as they were comfortably sipping their first cups, a shell from Versailles came through the roof; six out of the nine were killed and two dangerously wounded. The doctor, who was untouched, seems providentially to have been saved to bind the wounds of these two. History does not relate if he took a second cup that morning. Again, the utter absence of news from without during a siege is always one of its most trying characteristics. When you come to think of it, to be months without any news whatever of the great world in which you live, is to be curiously situated to say the least of it. True, Prussian prisoners were sometimes taken during the first investment who had newspapers in their possession, these being pass- ports to special consideration at the hands of their captors, by whom news from the world beyond was ravenously devoured. In the second siege, however, the absence of real news gave rise to the liveliest imagination. I found it the safest way to believe only that which I personally experienced, or which I heard from the very few sources which I knew to be reliable. I think perhaps the complete unrest on every face was what struck me as most remarkable; continuous noise seemed to have unhinged them, they had an odd scared look. A group of men are smoking and drinking behind a barricade. Yonder a girl from a neighbouring cafe is supplying them with creature comforts. The same look is on every face ; the query, " What will the next moment bring forth ? " seeming to be stamped alike on the features of all. The men are as ready to be ordered off anywhere, or to have to stand to their guns at any moment, as the girl is to seek the safety of the adjacent cellar. Devastation reigns supreme. Barricades taken and retaken had to be finally taken again ; more blood spilt, more lives sacrificed, THE IRAXCO-l'RUSsJAX WAR. 127 hrforr |).)()r woimdi'd I'jris cniild Ix- luMnniiiiccd f)iit <»f (lanL;rr. The (iovcniinciU troops, having fought half-heartedly, had lost ground which would cost much to recover. The National Guards for a time had it all iheir own way. C.encral \'inoy retreated to the quarter of Les 'I'ernes, where he ascertained that elsewhere in Paris things had been equally adverse. The troops of the Republic, whose morale was gone, might have been seen fraternising everywhere, especially in Belleville, with the National Guards, who, by complicity or fighting, were not only everywhere holding what they were pleased to call their own, but were now getting possession of war material of every kind which had been brought into operation against them. It was on the i8th or 19th of March that the decisive blow was struck, and the battalions of the Commune (their ranks largely swollen by insurgent troops) triumphantly took possession of the Place Vendome, the ImpriiiKric Nationnle the Napoleon barracks, and the Hotel de Ville, the successes of the day being capped by the arrest of General Chanzy. Then it was that Paris seemed to become an Inferno. Flushed by victory, deafened to every feeling by the din of battle round them, with their appetites just sufficiently whetted to make them thirst for more blood, the Com- munists now began to do their worst in terrible earnest, the severe street and barricade fighting serving as a sort of first course to the murder, outrage, and misery of every kind which followed, coming under the all too high-flown name of civil war. Amongst the more humane commanders of the Commune (and they formed a very small coterie, I assure you) it was arranged that avant-coureurs should rush hither and thither, warnin'j; the inhabitants that within an h )ur their immediate 128 ll'AXDERlXGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. neighbourhoods would be in flames, and that if they valued their lives they must escape at once. The majority, how- ever, did not observe even this precautionary measure ; indeed, reports were circulated that as all Paris was to be burnt and they would l)e put to the sword if they ventured beyond the walls, they might just as well die where they were. With a ficndislincss which none save those who were there can realise, did these so-called soldiers fire on men, women, and children, in wanton devilry as they rushed shrieking and panic-stricken from the homes they left blazing behind them. The incendiaries are said to have been paid as much as ten francs for each house gutted. I have this on the best authority. The systems naturally varied ; a favourite plan being that of taking bottles of petroleum, nitro-glycerine, &c., and attaching to them lighted fuses, to throw them into the lower rooms or down the cellar-flaps of the houses. This plan very seldom failed ; as a rule it produced within a few minutes the desired result — a red glow, as of sunset, first suffused the windows, a chipping, crackling noise fol- lowed, the glass fell with a crash to the ground, and flames reigned supreme. Then again, Belleville and the formidable batteries of Pere la Chaise did their work well in this direction by sending petroleum shells indiscriminately in every possible direction, so as to add, without the smallest show of reason, to the general desolation. No consideration for human life or property was shown. For instance, here is a proclama- tion by only one of the many newly-created generals of the Commune : " Fire on the Bourse, the J>ank, the Post Office, Place des Victoires, Place Vendome, and the Gardens of the Tuileries; leave the Hotel de \'ille to Commandant Pindy. THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAX WAR. 129 We will send you cannon and ammunition from the I'arc Basfroi. We will hold out to the last, happen what may. (Signed) " E. Eudes." At night the aspect of affairs was naturally ten times as terrible as in the day. Barricades were now one after the other taken, which, by the way, were not only constructed of paving-stones and huge masses of demolished houses, but in some cases of household furniture of every imagm- able kind and description. Elegant sideboards, broken, though still beautiful ; antique tables minus their legs, and chairs minus their arms, intermingling with the bodies of men equally maimed. The houses along the line of battle, if one may call it so, were now occupied, and from their upper windows the Communists blazed away, making night still more hideous with their fiendish yells and shouts, to say nothing of the eternal fusillade, while from the roofs of the houses petroleum was poured on the surging masses below, and over and above all hung a heavy funereal pall of thick black smoke, as if to hide from outside observation the hell upon earth it shrouded, and to which every day fresh horrors were added. Paris was now literally ablaze. The prefecture of police looked like the rotten tooth of some giant, in which a volcano had sprung up, while the Hotel de \'ille, Theatre Lyricjue, Palais Royal, Palais de Justice, besides all the chief streets in the capital might, wrapped as they were in flames, have been in the hands of destroying angels. Does not "devils incarnate " seem more appropriate ? The Place de la Concorde, with its lovely statuary by Pradier, its long lines of graceful trees, and its fountains, was now a confused heap of ruins, the theatrical properties of the Cafe Chantant and the choicest examples of the sculptor's art lying side by side. It took three whole days to completely gut the Tuileries, and it was not the fault of /■///•; FNA.\co-rRrss/AA' ii:ia\ I'll one Napias Piquet that the Louvre, the greatest art-treasure house in tlie world, did not follow in the wake of the Imperial Palace. He was caught, like Guy Fawkes, red- handed, with a number of men, who had slow matches ready for the j)urpose. When taken, he was at once shot, and thus this historic building was one of the few which Com- munism, through no virtue of her own, spared to posterity ; though had it not been for the exceedingly thick masonry of wiiich it was composed, it must, I think, have met with the fate of the 'I'uileries, so enveloped was it in flames. Water now ran short, so that when, in the general confu.sion, any attempt was made to save life or property, it almost invariably failed. The value in houses alone destroyed during this second siege is said to have been twenty millions sterling, while fiu-niture and works of art of all kinds represented no less than twelve millions, the value of window-glass even being estimated at a million sterling. The incidents which came under one's notice were of course innumerable, some as pathetic as others were amusiiiLf. I remember a war-correspondent telling me how an American lady, who had been carefully hidden away during the two sieges, complained to him that although she painfully realised the horrors of war, she had not, having thus remained /<'n///t' during the uproar, seen a single dead soldier, and that to return eventually to America and describe to the awe- struck family circle her experiences without this most necessary colouring to the picture, would be to deprive it of more than half its effect. Hence it was that he so far accommodated her as to call on her one morning and tell her that only just round the corner was a barricade, to which he wcjuUl guide her, where a Communist ofificer lay dead. His American friend, thanking him warml)-, made her K 2 132 \r.L\DJ:K/.\uS 01- A WAR-ARTIST. first veniure out of doors for a considerable time under his guidance, and they soon reached the barricade in question. But "Oh ! what a change was there." in an incredibly short space of time, too. 'Toinette, or Gabrielle, or whatever her name may have been, had turned up in the interim. The women of Paris /Af rOIXETTK had no scruples where uniforms or watches were concerned, and the few opportunities when no one was looking were taken immediate advantage of; in other words, the officer had been stripped of every article of clothing while our American cousin was putting on her bonnet, and the tableau THE IRAXCO-l'RUSSlAN WAR. 133 which presented itself — that of a nude corpse — I need hardly say, shocked her sense of delicacy extremely, and she turned as furiously on her guide as if he had been the author of some grim practical joke, to which he could only reply : " You expressed a wish, my dear madam, to see a dead soldier; you made no stipulation thai he must be in full uniform, though, when I passed him, half an hour ago, he was as perfectly equipped, and as picturesque as, with all your scruples on the subject, you could possibly have wished him to be." The pulses of a great city, like those of the human frame, seldom all cease to beat, however terrible the local disease may be. Hence, some efforts at the ordinary business of life were made by those who were too poor to stop their labours for one day, even when in the very jaws of death. Cupid, too, amidst the thunders of Mars dared sometimes to assert himself. I heard of a wedding party, people in comparatively humble circumstances, who had yet enough money to hire a couple of conveyances to drive off with their friends to the Mairie to be married. The place, how- ever, had, since they last saw it, been transmogrified into a Communist guard-house, so the dejected couple had to return shii^k to their respective homes, although the soldiery were profuse in their offers to perform the all- important office themselves ; nor were the young couple reassured with reference to their future state, when an old woman shouted after them as they disconsolately left the place : "What a wonderful escape for both of you! You will now be spared the suicide you contemplated, for a day or two at least." Evidently this woman had in her youth — now many years ago — been crossed in love. Much was done durint;; the second siege to foster the bad 134 irAXDKR/XGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. blood of the Commune by the Press, which circulated the most baseless reports with reference to Versailles. The assassinations of Generals Duval and Flourens ; the bar- barous maltreatment of imprisoned vivandih-es : exaggerated descriptions, in short, of cruelties of all kinds fed the flame of hatred which was already, goodness knows, burning all too fiercely. Were they individuals or institutions, the Commune made no distinction. They respected absolutely no person nor thing. Even priests were shot down during that reign of terror, indiscriminately ; Pere la Chaise being a favourite spot for this kind of rifle-practice, perhaps because there was a demoniacal touch of sentiment — if I may use the expres- sion — about priests biting the dust in God's Acre, a strained sense of humour peculiar to those unholy times. It is im- possible to say how many fell during the siege. There were, I know, sixteen shot in this cemetery on the 26th of May alone, and this was by no means a day of exceptional blood- shed. Bad as he was, however, the Communard would yet compare favourably with some who lived through those terrible times, were records of their doings placed side by side. There, while just outside the circumventing belt their fellow-men were fighting to the bitter end — indeed, in some cases, still closer home, for the cordon had now been forced in several places, and the Versaillais and Communists were in deadly conflict within the walls ; — there, I say, in a security which only wealth could, at such a time, purchase, in underground pandemoniums they had had specially con- structed, regardless of their country's neetl — of all, indeed, save themselves — were to be found men, not only in hiding, but making merry withal, giving themselves up, with the aid of the dice-box and the demi-monde, to every imaginable form of debauchery. The rattling of those dice seemed THIl FRANCOPRL SSIAX ir.lA'. I J3 like a minute iniinicrv of tlic fusillades vvithoul ; the uncork- ing of ehanip.igiK' bring e(iually suggestive of shells in miniature. There were little apertures here and there througii \vhi<;ii one might peej) into these well-arranged cellars; and to gel a glimpse of the inner lives of such people at such a time, was like looking through the reverse end of a telescope and discovering how very small indeed it is possible for some people to become. It is difficult to sa\' which of the two is the more terrible spectacle, that of a crowd of fiendish petroleurs wrecking the mansions of the great, or a group of drunken fashionable roues who, with a number of painted Circes, are making night hideous by the clatter of dice-boxes and ribald songs in some corner far removed from danger to life and limb, while war to the knife is going on round about them, they continuing their lascivious orgies at their own sweet will. One may well say, " Look on this picture and on that," and find it (lilTicult to choose between them. By the way, talking of the opposite se.K brings one to the cdiitinicres^ many of whom did prodigies of valour during the Commune. One, having seized the rifle of a wounded man, became almost furious in her enthusiasm, and it was not till she had l)een several times severely wounded that she fell back exhausted, having, with a well-directed aim, scattered the contents of her now dying comrade's cartridge- box into the ranks of the enemy. Again, another who had fought for days with an ardent spirit, which was much stronger than that which she carried with her, met her death at last through part of a shell striking the little barrel she wore, the shattered portions of which entered her chest. Nor did men and women hold the monopoly as far as this wild enthusiasm went. Even small children caught, in many cases, the war fever : these 136 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. very light infa/ttry, having secured what knives and sticks they could, met in serious conflict — for serious they were, to the smallest details of military discipline. They had their officers and cantinicres — little girls of seven and eight years of age — and marched in sections, and half-sections, deploy- ing to the right and left, &c., &c., in the most approved order. Indeed they played out there little drama all too tragically, for on one occasion at least there were many dead and wounded left on the field — amongst others a juvenile captain being mortally stabbed in the stomach. This digression, touching the women and children of Paris during the Commune, serves, if it does no hing else, to show the low ebb to which the stricken city had come, and brings back memories also of the hotel I used then to stay at in the Place du Havre, where (though to all intents and purposes closed) I found such shelter as it afforded me very acceptable. It will be remembered as having been kept by one Hoffman — that cowardly old Bavarian skinflint who, when the Prussians appeared before the gates of Paris, escaped to England, leaving his two sisters to do as best they could in that besieged city by themselves. These two energetic girls ran the hotel during the two sieges, and, with shutters closed, managed yet to supply the wants of many old customers who might otherwise have starved, for by some subtle magic of their own, they were never without the best part of a dead horse in their cellar. " Yes, Monsieur," said Gretchen, the younger of the two, to me, one evening, " now that we are at peace with the Prussians, Carl will think it safe to return, but he little knows what he will come back to." Nor did Gretchen know either how prophetic her words were, or what a terrible catastrophe was casting its shadow before. 137 CHAPTER V. Gretchen was right. Her brother succeeded by some means in getting into Paris : his anxiety about his worldly possessions (certainly not about his sisters' safety) was so great that he at last overcame, as far ns possible, his many scruples about number one, and ventured to leave London, where, during what he erroneously supposed to have been the real danger, he had remained perdu. He was of course prepared for some difficulty as far as entering Paris was concerned, but would never have left the security of Soho had he even dreamt of the denouement which was about to take place. How he effected that entry I never heard. I only know that he was arrested some- where, not far from the St. Lazare terminus, indeed very near the Hotel du Nord itself. Whilst he was speculating as to whether he would find it in ruins or not, and — as a secondary consideration — wondering if he would find his sisters still in the flesh, he was suddenly clapped on the shoulder by a tall, meagre-looking man, who said : *' Monsieur's name is Jaquelard." Quite ready to be terror-stricken at the smallest provoca- tion, as can easily be imagined, this very palpable hit made him wince to such a degree, that in the eyes of his c.iptor he was Jaquelard confessed, and there was an end of it. Indeed, before he had realised what had happened, he was bundled into a fiacre, and all his solemn assurances— as 13S ll'AXDERJAGS OF A WAR- ARTIST. they rattled over the stones — to the effect that he had never heard of such an individual as Jaquelard in his life, were fruitless. Unnerved as he was, imagine the horror of Hoff- man when he found himself driven through the great gates, and across the courtyard of "La Roquette,"' and handed over to a gaoler, hy whom he was promptly incar- cerated in a small stone cell 1 I heard he was thus confined for eight or ten days, only to be put through a hasty — indeed one might almost call it mock — trial, before a Communist tribunal, the result of which was that he was condemned as Jaquelard, an informer (who was supposed, I think, to have been in communication with Versailles), to be shut with nine others at eight o'clock the following morning. It is impossible to realise entirely what a night of horrors that nmst have been to Hoffman ; but one can picture at least how, through thai long-drawn-out agony, he listened to the measured tread of the sentry, till dawn brought other sounds without, which increased his terror tenfold, by re- minding him, all too vividly; of the world he was about to leave ; thus did the minutes seem like hours, the hour like years, in which Hoffman reviewed his past life, and the mean ends to which he had lived, and then, in that curiously contradictory way in which he of the scythe seems on such occasions to disport himself, did this wretched man wake from his strange lethargic reverie to find that he had but an hour to live, and to feel how rapidly the time had really flown in which his busy brain had done so much. It was seven o'clock : one short hour more, and he would be lying, with nine others, dead in the courtyard. What would he not give of his life's hoard now to be free. How differently would he live, were a fresh lease granted him. But listen! The half-hour has struck; he feels a choking sensaticm. as if it would tnke little now to cheat the rilE l'RA.\CO-PRVSSL\K WAR. 130 hulK'ls of tluir billet. Hark '. the assistant gaoler is coming to attend as valet at his last toilet. Oh I the terrible irony of it all ! Dazed, bewildered, quite unaware that lie is ])ul- ting one foot before the other, he is led from his cell into the courtyard where those other nine who have been pre- pared for the same diead jcjurney into that titra i>icoi;iiii,i have already assembled. They were ranged in close order, their backs to the high walls of the prison. The firing-party had halted vis-a-vis: the word of conimand was alone wanting which should send them into eternity, when— just at that moment of terrible tension, an officer — hastening on some military errand across the ([uad — stopped suddenly short, and stared thunder- struck, at the last of the line of condemned men ; then, hurriedly making some momentary sign to those in charge ol them, he hastened off to the officer in command of the firing- party, presently returning with two other officers. Imagine the agony of those awaiting their quietus ! A hasty consultation was held, when the first-named offi- cer strode out a step or so from the rest, and called out in a loud voice the name " Hoffman." That one word acted like electricity on the poor wretch ; although already more than half-dead, he essayed to spring forward, bu'; fell the next instant in the effort to do so, and it was some time before he regained consciousness sufficiently to understand that he was once more a free man. Suffice it to say, it was a case of mistaken identity, and had it not been for that officer who in passing recognised him as " Hoffman," the proprietor of the Hotel du Xord, where, in peace times, he was himself a regular customer, he would have met his fate with llie rest, who, three minutes later, had ceased to be. Hoffman was immediately con- ducted to his hotel, where on his arrival he knew no one. but gazed on all with a blank, vacant air, terrible to witness ; I40 WANDEKIXGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. the shock had been too much for him. True, he recovered his reason to a certain extent after some months, but ever afterwards was utterly unrehable, and at any moment would rave in an idiotic way about Jaquelard — his friend Jaque- lard, and laugh hysterically, till, the fit wearing off, he would become himself again. Three years since I was at the Hotel du Nord ; the busi- ness had been sold ; there was a new proprietor ; Hoffman having been taken by his sister to a small villa near St. Cloud, where she has become his nurse, for Hoffman is now a harmless imbecile. There is yet one ray of light to throw on this sad story. Gretchen, the younger sister, is married, and, curiously enough, to the officer who saved her brothers life, and who has, since those stirring times, become a prosperous and peace-loving citizen. But to return to our subject ; the beginning of the end has arrived. Hard fighting is telling upon the comparatively irregular forces of the Commune, and all the best efforts of their leaders are failing to rally the wavering spirit of Red Republicanism. In the churches stump orators are doing their utmost to goad on their hearers to renewed efforts, but their best leaders are either shot or made prisoners, and the life-blood of anarchy is ebbing fast away. In the preceding chapter I have touched on the final stand of the so-called defenders of Paris, who were now being, slowly perhaps, but surely crushed by the on-coming army of Versailles. Probably about this time one of the most picturesque of groups might have been found any evening at St. Eustache, which was, for the time being, turned into a Communist club. There, where litanies had erst been chanted, where Te Deums had echoed through the vaulted roof, and maidens and children in spotless white had raised high their voices in processional anthems and hymns of praise — there, on that riJK I-'KANCO-fKl SS/.L\ II Ah'. 14' same spot, might now he Iicard il)c Icjud guffaws ut oily Communards, the shrill, hysterical laughter of lawless, aban- doned women ; and above all the surrounding din, the harsh voice of the stump orator, desecrating the pulpit from which he addressed the crowd, with his coarse wit and impudent blasphemy. The chairs, having long since lost their wonted order, were occupied in all sorts of positions, by all sorts and con- ditions of men, women, and even children. The baptismal font was filled with tobacco, for the benefit of the community at large ; while those who were sufficiently well off had secured bottles of stinuilanis, and were offering up their tribute to Bacchus in odd corners, the incense of other days being replaced by the thick fumes of many pipes, which hung like a grey pall over the assemblage. One after another would agitators take their places in the pulpit, and in loud voices preach destruction to everybody and everything, while an accompaniment of shell-fire at no very great distance seemed to tell, all too plainly, how futile their best and worst efforts were likely to be. The addresses, all of which were short, took various forms, some being political, some social. " Citoyennes ! Citoyennes ! !" shouted one burly petrolense who mounted the rostrum. " Listen to me. 1 )o you, I say, all elect to be slaves? Do you subscribe to the heathenish customs of our ancestors ? If not, why submit to be tyran- nised over by the animal 'man'? Why submit to mar- riage I It must be suppressed, I tell you, as a crime of the deepest dye ; down with it, and every other institution which limits the liberties of the people." Yells and shouts filled the air every time the speaker paused to take breath; what he or she said appearing to be a matter of small moment, the rafters were sure to ring again with wild ajiplause. TJ/J: FR.lNCO-P/iUSS/A.X ir.lA'. 143 Next, an unshaven greasy-looking man would ascend to the vantage-point which his predecessor had just left, and amidst thunders ol applause, would preach blood, barri- cades, arson, and murder to his heart's content. Then pipes would be refilled at the common tobacco bowl, healths drunk from the exceedingly common liottle, and the orgy would go on even till the drunken crowd sallied forth, crossing themselves in mock reverence ere they rolled off to their cells and dens to sleej), perhaps to dream of a coming Millennium, when cverytliing that was not burnt or olhcrwise destroyed would be eciually divided aniungst the- communit)-, and France, from the hunibk-sl lo the most exalted, would be struggling through life at the rate of about three francs fifty per week, all told. Talking of Communistic gatherings reminds me of one, out of many, which took place at the Tuileries just prior to its being burnt down. There was a grim attempt at gaiety at these meetings which were supposed to api)ly to '•■ all classes of men " — and women. If you were modest in your requirements and confined yourself more or less to the gardens, an outlay of ten sous would be all that was necessary, while a visit to the Salle dcs Marechaux repre- sented as much as five francs. Dim X'enetian lamps lit up the grounds, and damp fireworks struggled in vain to look festive. Oh, what a motley crew ; what a crowd of ne'er-do-wcels were there ! It was a strange sight. Chifibnniers, blue blouses, and pickpockets hob-nobbing with officers of the National Guard, and women with loose ncg/ige apparel, and still loser morals. It was a curious picture, that palace possessed by the mob. Pindy, military governor of the liulel de \'ille (really a carpenter), was there with Brilier the couch-maker, and Dereure the cobbler. They were all great men iio'w, who. 144 WANDERINGS OF A IVAR-ART/SV. preach equality as they might, thought no small beer of themselves as " citizens " of the very first water, and whose feelings were far from being as fraternal as they professed for those rag-pickers and others with whom (having paid their ten sous at the gate) they had to rub shoulders. Those women too, how utterly out of their element did they seem as they marched about the Salle des Marechaux, sniggering and sneering at the draggle-tailed appearance of '&C5 their poorer sisters, who had tried in vain to look worthy of the great occasion, sweeping past them in their gowns of better material and later style, as if to say : " Avaunt, miserable intruders, get out of the shadow of our silken dresses." None of that much-talked-of " equality " was here at all events. Envy, hatred, and malice were already asserting themselves at every turn, quite as much as they could ever have done in the old days of despotism. Painted harlots and would-be politicians ogled each other on the grand staircase, the first wearing a mask of enamel, rouge, and violet powder, while the others wore one of cunning, which was less diplomatic than it was brutal. And so the night wore on ; and, in spite of the band, the Venetian lamps, and the concert in the Grande Salle des Marechaux, a very dull night it was — brought to a close by a downpour of rain, which cleared the gardens, and so disagreeably crowded the Palace that everyone escaped, as soon as he or she could, into the Rue de Rivoli. Thus ended one of the many failures during the Com- mune to please the people, by an attempt at an exhibition of that great Equality and Fraternity which its leaders were so far from feeling, and expressed so clumsily, not only at St. Eustache and the Tuileries, but at innumerable other churches and centres, of one of which I have made a pictorial note. But if these sorry attempts at gaiety were a failure, THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. 145 how f.ir more depressing was the aspect of the Boulevards. The trees were, in many cases, broken, the drains choked ; and, save where an excited iiidI) rushed hither and thither, bciU on murder and arson, there was a strange emptiness about those broad highways which, under happier circum- stances, had been so instinct with Hfe and cheerfulness. Places seemed so far apart, too. You wanted to go from the Place de la Concorde to the Madeleine, for instance : it seemed quite a journey, just as distance in a desert seems double what the same distance would be in a lively thoroughfare. It was only the decrepit and mere children and women who could show up with safety out of uniform. Of course, troops were marching here, there, and every- where, and the desultory booming of the distant guns came like a message from \'ersailles that the end was at hand, and that all this evidence of activity was as the final struggle before death. On turning round you seemed to see that sable one, on his grim stalking horse, in entire command, and felt that you must tread lightly, and with care, lest he should take umbrage, and suppose you had treated his all-powerful majesty with levity. It is beyond my i)en or pencil to convey even an idea of the sensations with which one, at that time, just on the eve of the final concentration, went from place to place. Whilst clambering through those shattered heaped-up streets, you could almost fancy that you had travelled altogether into some other world — ^a world of destruction — of chaotic con- fusion. The very houses which remained standing had an unwonted and uncanny aspect, as though some demon had claimed them as his own. In some of the older by-streets the gabled roofs seemed drawn closer over their heads, like the hoods of Capuchin monks anxious to hide their virtues under their cowls ; while in other places there were houses dismantled and tottering, standing side by side with others 146 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. by which they were supported, looking Hke slatternly old beldames, whose fair daughters, erect, tall, and statuesque, disdained to look down upon them. Again, there were two other examples of domestic archi- tecture which time's effacing finger seemed curiously to have metamorphosed into a sort of resemblance to poor humanity : the half-blown-up house, which, bulging out- ward, looked for all the world like a corpulent drunkard tottering to his fall. The other example was equally half- demolished, having, from some explosion witJwut, bent forward and curved inwards ; its upper story on the eve of collapse, its back broken, seeming to resemble closely a wizened, bewrinkled hag, tired and bent double with old age, toil, and trouble, whose next step must inevitably be to the grave. My impressions at the time were so vivid in this particu- lar, that, as old scenes re-present themselves, I feel L must, even at the hazard of being thought too descriptive, make passing reference to them. I have not, however, forgotten that the fighting had become more earnest every day. It was strange, too, in the perpetual din of civil strife, with the excitement of which, in one sense, nothing could compare, that there should still be a curious, inexpressible feeling of loneliness. You realised so thoroughly that every- one was for himself, ready to fly from you at the shortest notice. The comparative lull before the coming storm made the anticipation of it all the more terrible. Everyone was anxiously waiting for something dreadful to happen. To be by oneself was to be solitary in an awful sense of the word. The people, when they ventured out at all, flocked together like sheep, merely for the sake of being near each other ; there was somehow a feeling of safety in numbers. The effort to appear at ease, too. was pain- ful. I4S WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. Most of the shutters were shut : few of the lamps ht. The actors, in the very few theatres that were open, per- formed to ahnost empty benches. Just when the Paris of old times began to live (about lo oclock), it now went, if possible, to sleep, and the shattered streets were as silent as those of Herculaneum after the eruption. Paris could suffer to a degree and yet smile. She bore up bravely against the first siege. She starved complacently. The Prussians entered and left. Ixit she still held on till this final humiliation came. Then she seemed to collapse as completely as the Tuileries, the Vendome Column, the Rue de Rivoli, and the thousand other landmarks by which the beautiful City of Lutetia had so long been known, .seeming as if she had but one hope, that an earthquake or deluge would sweep her numberless ruined homes from the face of the earth, so that when coming generations ap- proached the site, Paris might be found to have risen. Phcenix-like, from its ashes. And now came the final struggle. The roar of cannon as the city was shelled from without, the sharp rattle of musketry as barricades were lost and won, to which ex- plosions now and again gave marked and terrible emphasis. The shops, chiefly closed, admitted residents only, who, from necessity or curiosity, had ventured out by side doors ; these, when they were seen hurrying homewards, were thrown open specially for them and immediately closed. How unlike the always half-open hall-door of the piping times of peace. In the making of barricades, which was now done generally in all the principal streets, passers-by were en- listed indiscriminately into the service ; and when paving- stones and dibris were exhausted, those who constructed them were not atall particular as to whose property they appropriated for the purpose in the name of the Commune. \' 2 THE FRAXCO-PRUSSIAX WAR. 149 Pianos, sideboards, tables, and sofas, amongst other things, l)laycd their part in those great heaps. Even the cafes were now closed. What waiter could carry a tray full of liqueurs and cognacs at such a moment ? There was still, however, an effort to supply the wants of the barricade-makers, a few, chiefl)' waitresses, by the wa\, mustering sufficient courage to rush out now and again to those conveniently at hand ; who, thus refreshed, renewed their efforts. Thus barricade after barricade rose higher and higher still, and the deafening din of battle sounded louder and louder, till all became a surging mass of con- fusion and nuisy bewilderment. Here and there might be seen a p'ctrokuse rushing recklessly down a by-street, screaming and scrambling over the broken masonry of the half-demolished houses, bran- dishing her trusty bottle of petroleum in one hand, and probably a torn red rag of a flag tied to a broom-handle in the other ; while in the capacious pockets of her draggle- tailed skirt she had, no doubt, several bottles of the same deadly fluid in reserve. On she went till some inviting cellar-flap or room in the basement of a house presented itself, when she would stop to hurl her death-dealing mes- senger into the cavernous depths below, and await cahiily the beginning of the end. See ! it has caught : the fluid fire is spreading, the flames find vent, hissing and crackling as they struggle to the surface. Then our pKfrok'iisc smiles Ijlandl)'. She deseroes ivell oj the Commune, and thus en- couraged she hastens on with a newly-primed bottle to create more havoc. This was not, however, the only work of the "women of Paris," as they were called at that time ; they were acti\e in a hundred other ways. Harnessed to mitrailleuses ;hcy played the part of the horses they had long since eaten. I'hey carried supplies of food and ammunition to the ^^ JJOWN WITH EVERTHING. THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. 151 barricades and bivouacs, and were otherwise maids-ol-all- work during this reign of terror. Shells now began to fall fast and furious in the very heart of Paris from the forts without. The Versaillais had, after several hour's hard lighting, taken the Champ de Mars (appropriate lumic that), while from round about liie Tuileries a heavy cannonade was directed against the Arc de Triomphe. The Veni:;eiin were fighting like fiends, and falling like flies. The Champs Elysees (curiously inai)pro- priate name now) was a blaze of bayonets, and the Ministry of War surrounded. For a whole day and night did the fighting go on without noticeable intermission, when, at early dawn, the Arc de 'IViomphe was surmounted by the tricolour, and several of the outer defences of the Communists, in the shape of barricades, taken. But the pulses of a great city must, however terrible the fever be which is raging within, respond even at such a time, in some sense, to the domestic requirements of struggling humanity. Rats, cats, and dogs were being bought and sold to those who had the money to buy and appetites to eat them. One rat-catcher, having won a reputation through the medium of his dog, for the rats he supplied during the two sieges, see- ing that the end had come, that rats would be at a discount, and that his dog had played its part, sacrificed this faithful ally at the last moment to stock the larder of a restaurant where customers were prepared to pay well, at such a crisis, /or the luxuries of the seasoti. It seemed now as if the actual people of work-a-day Paris were no more ; they were lost to sight in cellars, sheds, and back kitchens. Here and there one was brought back sud- denly to oneself, as it were, by children whose parents were either dead, or had hastened elsewhere, leaving them to 152 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. cater for themselves, and who, too young to reaUse the clanger, were sometimes to be found playhig at childish llIE DELlCACUiS Ol- THE SEASON. games almost within gunshot. I have several toys before me now which had been hastily left behind by little ones, THE J-KANCO-J'R L SSIA.\ 1 1 '.I A'. '3J oblivious to tlie last momenl (jf lla-ir peril, .iiul which I tound, and have preserved with much care. There seemed but two courses left to the Comnuuie : unconditioual surrender, or one final rally, which slnnild decide their fortunes, one way or the other, for good and for aye. Citizen Delescluze took the initiative with the following proclamation : — "Citizens I we have had enough of militaryism ; let us have no more stuffs embroidered with gilt at every seam. Make room for the people, the real combatants, the bare arms. The hour of the revolutionary war has struck. The people know nothing of scientific manoeuvres ; but with rifie in hand, and the pavement beneath their feet, they fear not all the strategists of the monarchical school. '■ To arms, citizens, to arms 1 You must conquer, or, as you well know, fiill again into the pitiless hands of the reactionaries and clericals of Versailles : to those wretches who, with intention, delivered France up to Prussians, and now make us pay the ransom of their treason I " If you desire the generous blood which you have shed like water during the last six weeks not to have been shed in vain, if you would see liberty and ecjuality established in i "ranee, you will rise as one man, and before your formidable bands the enemy, who indulges the idea of bringing you again under his yoke, will reap nothing but the harvest of the useless crimes with wliich he has disgraced himself during the past two months. '• Citizens I your representatives will fight and die with you, if fall we must ; but, in the name of our glorious France, mother of all the popular revolutions, the i)er- manent source of ideas of justice and unity, which should be, and which will be the laws of the world, march to en- counter the enemy, and let your revolutionary energy pnn-e to him that Paris niav be sold, but can never be delivered 154 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. up or conquered. The Commune confides in you, and you must trust the Commune. "The Civil Delegate at the Ministry of War. "(Signed) Ch. Delescluze." But the \ ersaillais were slowly and surely encroaching. Step by step they came like so many waves advancing and receding, yet ever encroaching in the main ; and as they did so, first in one quarter, then in another, did the retreating Reds spread fire and consternation as thev \\ ent. Indoors or out, at any time of the day, one seemed in momentary peril. At night the state of tension one was Worked up to was something beyond description ; it was frightful. Apart from revolt — from war to the knife — cruel and cold-blooded murder was at work ; crime was to the fore at every street corner, the most dastardly crime it was possible for demoralised human nature to dream of. A child, for instance, selling a suppressed newspaper, was taken up a quiet street and shot without any other appeal than her own mute agony. Again, another, for no other purpose, it seemed, than that she was in the way, was grimly told to come and be shot, and not to mind, as her father should follow her to-morrow. The next moment she was pierced through and through with several balls — rare sport this ! I heard of the funeral of a little one who had died of fever whose remains were being followed by sorrowing parents and friends, in a remote suburb, when a shell falling in their midst killed several of the mourners, the coffin being smashed to fragments, and the dismembered remains exposed to the gaze of the horror-stricken parents. Children, too, w-ere everywhere being drafted into the ser- vice of the petrokuse to bring up relays of petroleum, or into that of the male incendiaries, to whom over the debris they handed up nitro-glycerine and other combustibles, THE FRANCO-PRiSSLlX WAR. 153 whitli llu'sc ficiuls in luiiiuiii turni ixmreil down the cliiiu- neys of tlu- unoffending. In several cases numbers of criminals were released on condition that they would take up arms, and do Iheir best for the cause, whereupon they proceeded, without the slightest hesitation or discrimination, to massacre right and left, even their fellow-prisoners not escaping. I'hcse volun- teers were, in many cases, commanded ijy women, who seemed thoroughly initiated to their business, flying at their victims like cats, and literally tearing them to pieces, shout- ing and screaming the while to their followers to hurry up and join them in their mad triumph, glorying in the mas- sacre of their fellow-citizens and the demolition of the capital of wliich they professed to be so proud. .\ curious incident happened at the Pantheon, where a large quantity of gunpowder had been placed with a long time-fuse attached. This news getting wind, an exploring party volunteered to enter the building and search, at the imminent ri;,k of their lives, for that burning fuse which might at any moment have blown the place to pieces. Indeed, when their courageous leader did discover it, it was so close to the gunpowder that it must in a few minutes have ignited ; it required more than ordinary nerve to sever the connection and avoid that single spark escaping which would have sent them to eternity, and made yet another public building a heap oi ruins. Nor was it always the actual street fighting, in whicii naturally wild excitement and bad blood i)layed a con- spicuous part, that was most terrible. 'I'here was yet another phase, which was, if possible, more grim, and less susceptible of description : I refer to those deserted streets where, human passions having done their worst, death and silence reigned supreme. One after the other behold long straggling rows of shattered houses, looking the more 156 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. desolate, perhaps, because of the advertisements still cling- ing here and there to their tottering walls, the specialities they had sold still set forth in pictorial gaudiness in their windows and at their dismantled entries. \\q all know how the Parisian in peace times tries to con\ey to the passer-by an idea of the temptations within by those long slip pictures, which are, as it were, a catalogue of his supplies. What a mockery it all seemed now I On one board were all the delicacies the gourmand most loves to discuss, for the house had been a restaurant. Next door was a wine-shop, on the outward and visible sign of which was depicted everything that could possibly tempt the bibulous, from the small cognac to the brimming beaker of sparkling hock — and so on from one wrecked shop to another, while above were old theatrical advertisements and such other commercial ones as " Au Bon Diable," &€., which made one speculate on devils generally, and wonder which the good ones were. Sad satires these on the wrack and ruin round them. Then, here and there one came upon a pile of rubbish, which, coming as if from a hollow tooth, represented by the few walls of a house still standing, spread its broken frag- ments across the street, making it impossible — were there any so inclined — to clamber over it. Death and desolation w^ere, indeed, in possession. There is a dead horse, which, when found, was under the debris, and so " high '" as to be actually uneatable, which had been left where it fell in consequence. Yonder are several soldiers and civilians sleeping their last sleep in the ruins. The silence is positively awful. Could anything be more horrible ? Flames ; the wild cry of the excited mob ; anything would have been welcome — anything but this per- fectly undisturbed silence in the dull, gloomy twilight of the coming night. THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. IV It was unbearable. " Oli ! tliat the proverbial pin woiiM clro))." Stay ! Isn't that sontcthini^ xwcwwy^ after ail ? Scjuicthing noiselessly approaching that unsavoury carcase ? What is it? Its eyes are phosphorescent — it is a famished clog, which, ha\ing escaped the butcher, has been starving in a cellar hard by, till, released by the falling in of some timbers, weak as he is, and shaky as he seems to be on his hindquarters, he has crawled out to take what will probably be his last meal ; the lean beast may be poisoned by i)ulre- faction, and ii he doesn't die a natural death, will be killed and eaten only to spread more fever and misery elsewhere. Ah I and what's that again, which, like a vampire, flits from one charred rafter to another, tripping lightly over each huge pile of bricks and mortar? It's yet another pctrokiise^ bent on destruction, taking a short cut to the next condemned place which she is commissioned to set in flames. Seel she has disappeared, and silence, that terrible, unbearable silence, again holds its own. What a ghastly monument this to Liberty. Equality, and l-'ratcrnity I i have touched previously, only in a few words in passing, on the burning of the Tuileries, the fall of the Vendome Column, &c., since in their proper order (if indeed order there be) I must again refer to them. The Tuileries burnt for three whole days vigorously ; at least a week elapsed before the fire was put out. The retreating Reds now spread devastation wherever they went : indeed, Irom the moment the National (iuards murdered (ienerals Lecomte and Clement Thomas in the '' Rue des Rosiers," from, in fact, the declaration of the Commune till its fall, lawless brutality in every possible form was on the increase, till it culminated in a general conflagration and butchery. THh: FRA NCO-PR USSIAN 1 1 'A A'. , 59 Running at right angles with the smouldering shell of the Tuilcrics was the Rue cle Rivoli, that paradise of Paris fashion, where I had so often wandered in previous years " well pleased " from shop to shop. Where were those shops now ? The row of stone bmUlings by which they were backed having fallen in, they, and in many cases their contents, were piled in n hiai) of ruins, which, tumbling through the colonnade that runs along its entire length, blocked u]) com- pletely those shorter by-streets that led into the Rue St. Honore, or in the direction of the Palais Royal, with huge fragments of stone, masses of masonry, iron girders, and wooden beams, which made clambering over them seem like miniature mountaineering, and so, hour after hour, and day after day, did the shifting scenes of this terrible drama ciiange from one horror to another. News now canie in from all ([uarters of how soldiers of the Commune, not knowing llu- movements of their fellows, or how far Paris was yet occupied by the Versaillais, fell into unsuspected traps. How, amongst others. Assy was caught near the New Opera Mouse. It was midnight ; he was going his accustomed rounds alone; a sentinel challenged him: ''Who goes there?" Making the wrong response he was at once made prisoner. I can hardly credit his having gone so wide of the mark in ignorance of the movements of his own side, though it is quite possible that, wronglv informed, he mav have done to. What now had become of the much vaimted citizen- generals of the Commune ? I'^ew indeed were in evidence. No one seemed to know what had become of Delescluze ; he must have been under the ruins somewhere, or have fled, as is equally probable, in a blue blouse and sabots. Dombrowski was killed — shot when crossing the Rue i6o WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. Myrrha. The ball had entered the lower part of his chest ; he was at once taken to a chemist — in the Rue des Poissonniers, I think it was — when, the wound having been dressed, he was removed to a neighbouring hospital, where he died, his last words being the same precisely as those when he was struck : " I'm no traitor I " It has been said of him most aptly that he was " a most brilliant soldier in a most unworthy cause." Indeed there were many such. One, still a particular friend of mine, who, with a charming wife, seems likely to end his days in peace on the northern heights of London, tells a thrilling story of how, a young and enthusiastic artist, he with other brothers of the brush rushed off on the first intimation of the Prussian approach to offer his services, which were at once accepted, and how, havmg fought (and he fought, I have heard, with signal bravery) through the first siege, he had listened to the over- tures of Red Republicanism and became a Communard, finding out too late the real nature of the cause he had espoused, and from which he severed himself on the first opportunity, only to discover that a reward had been offered for his apprehension, and that he was now between two fires (the \'ersaillais and Communists equally regarding him as their legitimate prey). Under these cir- cumstances he thought the best possible thing he could do would be to disguise himself as a workman and take his chance, which he did, with the happy result that while rewards were offered for his apprehension, and while wit- nessing the doing to death of others for similar offences all round him, he at last escaped to England, where he has been ever since a great favourite with a large circle of friends, and one of the most prolific artists connected with the London Press — but 1 digress. We were talking of those officers of the Commune who, one by one, now became conspicuous by their absence. THE FRANCO-PRLSSIAX WAR. \(a " Where is so and so ? " " Where was he last heard of?" " In what part of Paris was he last seen ? " These were the queries made, from time to time, with re- ference to men whose names had, till rcucnlly, been all power- ful, and who, like stage demons divested of their spangles, now dropped one by one into utter insignificance, save where in some cases, with the bravery of desperation, they fell fight- ing, rallying their discouraged battalions for the last time. Amongst the worst and first to fall was Citizen Ferrargu. He was caught and shot near the Hotel de Vilk- by the Versaillais ; a petroleum bottle was found in his pocket ; lie moreover admitted that he had played his part, " \mA wisely, but too well." A permanent court-martial was established in the Theatre du Chatelet— truly a theatre of war this. The Communards were being brought here all day long in batches, tried, sentenced, and in almost all cases taken at once into the open and shot, a tnitrailleusc being found the most expeditious means of mowing down the rich harvest of souls which the silent reaper was gathering. The bodies of petrokuses and pitroleurs were lying about here and there, specially in the neighbourhood of the Porte St. Martin, where the e.xecutions seemed to have been numerous ; while in some places, stables, forecourts ot hotels and restaurants were blocked with the piled-up bodies of those who had either fallen in fair fight or been shot as enemies to the Republic. On May the 23rd, one of the correspondents to the Suck, Mons. Chaudey, was made prisoner at the ofiice of his paper, and ultimately taken by order of Raoul Regault to Sainte Pelagie. " You are condemned," he was told ; " you have exactly one hour to live." " If, as you say, I am to be murdered, I can merely await developments," was his reply. M i62 ]]-AXDERL\TiS OF A XVAR-ARTIST. The first firing-party refused tu do their unthankful office, a second, less considerate, was obtained, and a volley fired at the unfortunate correspondent. He was wounded only, a "soldier" giving him his quietus in the shape of a revolver bullet in the head. Raoul Regault was one of the most unscrupulous leaders of the Commune, which is saying quite enough, I can assure you. Those who would not fight tooth and nail were shot like dogs. His, however, was to be a short-lived glor)-, for on the same day on which he had Chaudey executed he fell himself. He was caught, and was on the point of being taken off for trial (such as it was) by his captors, when his shouting " Vive la Commune !" at the top of his voice so exasperated them, that they came to the conclusion that a court-martial would be an unnecessary formula, so they shot him against the first wall they, came to. I'hen came the execution of the hostages, who, when the Versailles troops advanced, were removed from Mazas prison to that of La Roquette. I gather the following from an account of an eye-witness to the last moments of Monseigneur Darboy and his fellow victims : " It was about half-past seven o'clock on the evening of the 24th of Ma)', when a man who had been for some years a prisoner at the hulks — a man named Lefran^ais — leading a party of Federals, ranged them in such a way as to form a double line down the staircase which led to the courtyard below. Then the head gaoler summoned the unfortunate archbishop, who calmly rose and prepared to follow his brutal guide. He then proceeded to the cell of M. le President Bonjean, thence to that of the Abbe Allard (a leading member of the Society for the Aid of the Sick and A\'ounded in AA'ar), and so on to Pere du Coudray, Pere Cleve, and finall)' to the Abbe Deguerry, cure of the Till: FRAXCOPRUSSIAN WAR. ir.3 Madeleine. I^adi in lurii was lakeii uiil iiU£i-- i66 CHAPTER M. The final moment had come, the Commune was at its last gasp. While yet its life blood was being drained, and the iron grip of the Republic, ever tightening, was upon it, it struggled with knife and firebrand to leave, if possible, yet deeper stains behind. Men and women, however, were coming from all quarters to join the party of order, deserters from the mad cause they had only a few hours before espoused so warmly. The enemy, whichever way they went before the advancing bayonets of the Versaillais, left destruction behind them. Not content with burning the Porte St. Martin Theatre itself, they murdered the proprietor and staff of the ca/? adjoining, which they occupied as a \antage point from which to pour petroleum, till it was one sheet of seething flame, while all those who attempted to extinguish it were shot down like dogs. Happily, the attempt to burn Notre Dame was a miserable failure. Two or three huge bonfires were made out of the Cathedral chairs, but these having burnt themselves almost to ashes, no further damage was'done before a rescue part\- succeeded in completely extinguishing them. Curiously, enough, too, the Sainte Chapelle — that lovely example of pure (rothic — was quite untouched ; while St. Eustache was considerably damaged. This church was foremost, it will be remembered, amongst those which, during the second siege, were used as Communist clubs. rUI: FRANCO-PRISSIAX WAR. 167 SviR-ly now I'aris was a very hell upon earth. Those who had escaped from prisons in the general confusion returned to them, in many cases, for the temporary pro- tec lion their strong walls afforded. Ihcy might he had out ami shot al aii_\' inomeiil li\ ihc \'ersaiilais, or the- Cum- munards for the matter of that ; but they felt sure they would fall victims to the bullets of one side or the other if they remained homeless in the burning streets. Women and childriMi. the inhrm and old, were flying hither and ihiilur in L\ery direction : the little ones, having in many cases long since lost sight of their parents, were struck in numbers by stray bullets, if not d(jne to death in wanton devilry, and were, every now and again, to l)e seen lyino- near a barricade, or on a heap of stones or broken timber; in some cases still firmly clutching in their tiny hands the petroleum can they had been requisitioned to carry for some passing petroleuse. To what miserable ends had these poor little ones lived and died I yet how calm, peaceful, aye, almost har)]^-, did they look, compared with the wrack and ruin round al)Oul them. The Commune, however, was soon only to be a blot on the page of history. Its story was almost told ; its bad lilood had nearly all been shed. The final eight days of fever, during which it was in the agonies of death, were drawing to a close, each moment becoming more terrible, il possible, as the end approached, till, falling prone before the advancing tide of victory, it expired. Then came the calm after the storm ; a calm more awful than the uproar which had preceded it. The tricolour had replaced the red flag. The X'ersaillais occupied all the positions hitherto held with so much self- assertion by the soldiers of the Commune. Poor Paris had indeed gone through a terrible ordeal— like one who is sick i68 WANDERINGS OF A WAR- ARTIST. unto death, and on whom unscrupulous doctors have ex- perimented in vain. The Empire faihng to meet the requirements of the case, the Germans had tried their hand. Again the Repubhc had stepped in, when, before its remedies could avail, it was replaced by the Communards, who were now again super- seded by the party of order. The impression, immediately after the final collapse of the Reds, of one who had dropped direct from a balloon in the centre of the stricken city, might easily have been, that he was in a capital of automata, where the commerce, the inner life, indeed the whole movement of those he saw around him, was dependent on exquisite mechanism, on perfectly tempered mainsprings. All was silence. It seemed too terrible to suppose that humanity had played so active a part in such indescribable confusion ; and one was in- clined to imagine those who went from heap to heap, from ruin to ruin, if they were not working out the will of some evil genii, had been sent there by some good spirit to evolve order from chaos before humanitv again took up its position. Dead bodies were in the streets, in the houses, every- where. The smouldering, crumbling, crackling ruins form- ing a running accompaniment to the horrors around them. But were they all bad, these Communards who had wrought in so short a time such terrible havoc? They were criminals, it is true, in the widest sense of the word, seeming, in their diabolical inventiveness, to have completely over- looked their original motive for revolt : their one idea having been to eclipse each other — to out-Herod Herod, as it were, in butchery, which made the Paris Boulevards like shambles, leaving nothing but desolation behind to tell the tale of their advance. But were they, I repeat, altogether bad ? Had they no redeeming point ? Yes, they were THE FRAXCO-PRUSSJAN WAR 169 brave ; brave to recklessness. No one instance of pol- troonery, at least, is to be laid to their charge, as far as my ]icrsonal observation was concerned. They fought like the tlcmons they were, with a degree of ]ilu(k which would ha\c brought down honours tliick ujioii tlieni in a civilised cam- paign. Ia'I us, before we leave tlu-m, unlionoured if not unsung, to sink into obli\ion, at least record the fact that their brilliant dash and daring would, under other circumstances, have placed the names of many on the muster roll of I'ame. I think I was myself as much impressed b_\' tlu- Fcsse Commune as anything. It seemed like the signature at the end of the decree of fate, that common grave in Pere la Chaise, where, with the aid of a row of mitrailleuses, prisoners, caught in most cases red-handed, were literally turned off in batches. You remember those soldiers of our childhood, who, being fixed on a trellis-like parade ground, could, on the principle of an ordinary pair of scissors, be made to advance and retire en zig-zag at one's own sweet will. WqW it was somewhat thus that the prisoners were ranged when awaiting the command ; while behind them was a deeply- dug trench, into which, wlicn shot, they fell. An expedi- tious method of disposing of the surjilus population, which saved much trouble, was it not ? I was a gruesome sight — was Pere la Chaise. Tombstones besmeared with blood, chipped and broken— in many cases torn up and overturned — showed how little the violation of God's Acre had been considered by one side or the other. The walls where the Versaillais had entered and which lay on the ground all round this spot, where fratricide h;id been for several days going on so systematically, were literally churned up with human blood. It was too awful for de- CAUtJHT RED-HANPEP. THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. 171 scription. Distinctly do I remember how it rose over the very sr)lcs of my boots, and clogged the cavity between the.sc and ihc uppers, just as the mud of everyday life is wont to do. Yes, the \'ersaillais did the work of vengeance as thoroughly as the encin\- had done that of destruction, and under these circumstances it is only natural to suppose that I availed myself of the Hrst opportunity which offered for getting out of Paris ; nor was it many days before I was able to proceed as far as \ersailles, where I made man)' sketches of the ( lonmuuiist prisoners there incarcerated. They were a motley crew : types of terribU' humanity of every degree, from vulgar brutality to refined villainy, were- to be seen through those bars, which divided the main body of prisoners at the Orangerie from those who were privileged to see their friends from time to time in the bare-walled com- partment which answered the purpose of a reception-room. There was the gross, bloated malcontent, peering with envy on a more fortunate sister who, in presence of two Ciendarmes, was being interviewed by her mother. The envious one had not a relation in the world, or a friend even, now that the fortunes of war were changed, who would take the trouble to come as far as Versailles to extend symi)athy to her ! By her side is a semi-idiotic dupe, who was persuaded tf) join a cause of which lu- knew nothing, for an end which was equally vague ; his effort with a huge moustache and l)ushy imperial to hide a weak chin and cruel moutii l)eing negatived by the unmistakalV.y low villain)' which marks every other feature as its own. Over there arc pctrohuses — viragos of every kind, who, like so many caged hya.Mias, growl and laugh by turns, ever and again hurling execrations at the powers that be beyond those iron l)ars, THE J'R.lXCO-l'RUSSIAX ll'.lR. 173 Oh I unci here too, is a member ut the Press — the Com- munistic Press, let me hasten to explain — whose rusty sable suit and mute-like black tie accord well with his lack-lustre eye, turnip-like complexion, and lank locks. Confined within the comparatively narrow dimensions of his prison- house, his scope for evil-doing is now limited to fanning the weak sparks of Nihilism which yet remain in the hearts of those fellow-prisoners around him. It is impossible to say to what extent this man ma) nm have been responsible for the lives of his fellows. Possessed of the, to him, fatal advantage of a superior education, his pen has done more to foster the spirit of revolt than the swords of many generals, and it is as well, perhaps, that his ardour for so bad a cause has been confined at hist to so small an area. There is a rank odour of garlic as one enters the place, which is suggestive of a tenth- rate restaurant out Clichy way; for it is not long since the mid-day meal was served out, and the unsavoury aroma is still hanging about. Look at that burly fellow there in the centre ; he is a blacksmith, who has done no end of good work for the Commune at the barricades, and might have been an ex- gencral at the present moment, had he not been taken just before the beginning of the end and removed for safety here. There are ne'er-do-weels of many classes huddled together in odd variety, from the hollow-cheeked agitator, to the muscular murderer who carries out his schemes : all alike, with their wings clipped now, awaiting the judgment which will send them to Cayenne or Eternity. I could not help falling into a sort of rambling reverie as I strolled down those quaint, old-world garden-walks, past the historic frog-fountain, through sequestered yew-lined avenues, where statues stop the way at every turn, and where the lovely old palace and its surroundings, left quite 174 IVAXDER/XGS OF A IVAR-ART/ST. intact by the Prussians, now held within its precincts a horde of savages, who had not only destroyed the capital itself, but — given one short half-hour and the wherewithal to achieve their end — would have gloated over the destruction of this old chateau and its precious contents, together with those gardens, fountains, and statues, the beauties of which have for ages been extolled. Yes : the animal man is, indeed, a curiously duplex creature, which alike constructs, embellishes, desecrates, and destroys. Is it for these paradoxical ends we possess an intelligence superior to that of the brute creation ? We denounce war as iniquitous, but Christianity has never yet striven, as it seems, in the manner she might have done, to crush it. Indeed, in the name of religion war is too often declared, and that the God of battles is on our side is the universal rallying cry of fighting Christendom. As the Bishop of Rochester has aptly put it : " Sometimes she has made war on her own account, as if she was but a kingdom of this world ; on other occasions, while affecting to be neutral and to belong to neither side, she is practically on both, without any consciousness of hol- lowness or treachery ; and instead of sternly excommunicat- ing both sets of combatants alike for committing murder, in the name of the Lord she blesses both and sanctifies their bloodshed."' The advocates for war are seldom those to whom it comes home directly. The little one who defiantly draws his wooden sword in mimic battle has not been scratched even by its point, while the old soldier, covered though he be with honours, realising as he may the necessity for war, shoulders his musket and shudders the while. It is impulse which, unseating ordinary reason, makes him rush into the thick of ihe fray, and it is the reaction from his last campaign Avhich makes him THi: FRA.\C0I'Iris of the next house, and find our way to the basement, the blackened walls of which owe as much to the charcoal smoke which for years has been burning there, as to the shells which have reduced that main street to huge heaps of lath, plaster, and other half-burnt and pulverised building material. N 178 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. It was in this cellar that a iiuinhand de cJuirbon carried un his dark calling, and, when he least expected it, was un- earthed there, as he was discussing the now broken bottle of 30 centime via ordinaire with which he was washing down his frugal breakfast. A\'hen the party-wall came in with a crash, he had only just time to escape with his life, leaving his worldly wealth — a stack of charcoal — behind him. Just above, in the piping times of peace, a buxom widow kept a small wine-shop. After their i f. 50 ordinary over the way, or round the corner, the shopkeepers and others of the neighbourhood used to patronise Madame's liqueurs or small cognacs, and indulge perhaps in the mild dissipa- tion of a cigarette before returning to their afternoon's work. Madame had always a pleasant smile to dispense with her small change, and a little bit of local gossip with just the faintest relish of scandal to give flavour, to it, which helped in a marvellous degree to digest the concoc- tions she sold. AMiat a change is now before us I Part of the counter is left, certainly, and the wooden bowls in which she kept her silver and coppers, as of yore, are upon it ; but the contents of that little shop were smashed to atoms at that unfortunate moment when our friend the inarcJuind de charboii was so rudely disturbed at his breakfast by the bursting of that shell, glittering broken glass alone remain- ing to testify to the fact that one was looking upon what was once a wine-shop. Of the first floor, and so on to the top of the house, but one wall was left standing. This, however, spoke eloquently enough of its late inmates. Here, probably, fur years a happy old couple resided, who, unlike many in the gay city yonder who live distinct lives, were Darby and Joan in French attire ; at least, what remains of their surroundings suggest it. There is a faded picture on one side of the cracked looking-glass, which represents a vineyard in Normandy, and was hung there. THE FRAXCO-PRUSSIAX WAR. i;.^ shall \vc say, to rcniind |)arl)y of when Joan, a lillu' young peasant, first won his heart. The cupboards haw been all blown open by the force of the explosion, and the small dainties she used to prepare for her good nian"s return are, some of them at least, still standing l)e violated 1 could not tell ; the next shot, however, brought my cogitations to a conclusion. a bullet burying itself in the wooden sash of my window, while at the same time came a loud rapping at the door in the opposite direction. " Carambo ! " shouted the [iroi)rietor loudly. '• .\re we all to be shot dead in our beds? Sancta Maria! What have you been doing to attract the Carlist's fire ? Vou have surely not opened your window?" Alas I it was I who had thus been unwittingly the culprit. My desire for fresh air hatl most certainly thrown a dangerous light on the subject, and made me the victim of pleasantries from Carlist scouts on the opposite shore, who, failing to find the stray Republicans of whom they were in quest, had devoted their cartridges to me, and it was only due to their abominable aim that I had escajied with my life, my second pi[)e at Hendaye having thus been anything but one of peace. The following morning I reconnoitred the position as far as pos.sible from French soil, to preserve the neutrality of which four batteries of French artillery were placed at the river's brink at convenient distances. My walk took me along the windings of the Bidassoa, a pictures! [ue panorama, to which the Pyrenees formed a background, whichever way you looked. Facing Hendaye was the quamt gabled little town of Fuenterrabia, nestling under the walls of which was the smuggler village of Sta. Madelena, while, as one jiroceeded inwards from the river's mouth, one came across the more 192 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. important fortified town of Irun, dominated by the fort of St. Marcial, now held by the CarUsts, who every now and again send a shell amongst the Government troops. Continuing the walk still farther, one passed through Fremch Behobie, which was separated only from the Spanish town of the same name by a frontier parti- coloured bridge, one half of which was painted red, while the other was white. The people, all of whom were Basque, were as much Spanish or French (whichever you will) on one side of the river as the other, and it was only the law of nations which made them what they were. You asked a native if he was French, he would tell you laconically, " No." Spanish then, of course ? Certainly not. " Je suis Basque '"' was all that could be got out of him. Next (if we except the fort of Saint Marcial) came La Puncha, the first Carlist post to be met with at that time on the frontier, and which served as a check on the movements of the Government troops occupying (Spanish) Behobie and Irun. My morning's stroll had been delightful, by vine- clad valley and hillside, out to dry heathery heights above, only to descend again into the moist verdure of the low lands ; passing here and there a crucifix, where the devout of both sexes piously crossed themselves as they went, or kneeling, counted their rosaries with unaffected reverence. It was a close, hot day, which for more reasons than one will ever be memorable to me. Have you, in a varied experience, ever had a horse shot under you? If so, come closer, let us shake hands over the remembrance of predicaments which, "alike yet not alike," were at least not altogether dissimilar. I had strolled, as I have said, making notes by the way, as far as La Puncha only, on the French bank of the Bidassoa, which commanded a view of the Carlist encamp- rill': sr.wisii w.\i<. inciit on ihc opposiir side of llic ii\i r. Kouiiil about an old lioat-house 1 saw that a group of soldiers of El Rcy ('alios \'II. well' cookini^ their miil-day uical. while several olficers were superiiUcndiiiLi; the unloading of an ox-wa^|^(jn, the contents of which, intended for the garrison of I run, were being api)ropriated. The subject was too tempting lor me to forego ; they were the first Carlists I had come across, and were thus to me invested with i)eculiar interest. In WW anil)itious mind's eye I could see them as they would ap|)ear in the publisher's windows and on the book-stalls of the great metropolis ; besides, being on neutral ground, the boundary river dividing us, I was free as the air to do what- ever I pleased ; so, opening a camp-stool with which I ha immoderate amusement to those Carlists whose crack shots had been taking deliberate aim at me from the vcr\- moment I had settled down to artistically pick them off. "But how about the shattered limb?" you will naiumlly ask. Dont. reader, shudder, but reserve your syinpatlu- o 194 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTJST. yet a little longer. One leg was, as 1 have said, completely shattered by that Carlist ball — but it was the leg of my camp-stool. "Only that, and nothing more," as our mutual friend, Edgar Allan Poe, would put it. Hastily and most ungrace- fully I scuttled off to the cover of a neighbouring tree, where I finished my sketch in comparative safety. Oh, yes, I finished that ! I was afterwards told by one of the French frontier guards that these little attentions were not uncommon when corres- pondents or others made notes from French soil ; and where they were out of the range of French artillery they did their best to keep the coast clear of those who might be, for all they knew, making notes to be afterwards con- veyed through France into the enemy's lines. He, more- over, told me, what turned out to be quite true, that the one way to win over the Carlists was to go straight across to them and explain your peaceable purpose, whereupon they would give you every facility in their power, since they were particularly anxious to appear well in the eyes of the Press, especially that of England. So, taking his advice, the next time I was in the neighbourhood of the outpost of La Puncha, I availed myself of the services of a boatman, a sketch of whose characteristic face is here reproduced. The special occupation of this old fellow's life was to ply from France to Spain, across that little silver streak, the Bidassoa, which became in my eyes for the nonce, seeing how war to the knife was being waged on its opposite shore, a sort of Styx, as gondolier of which he was a most perfect nineteenth century embodiment of old Charon. Indeed, this was the nickname I gave him till I ascertained his real cognomen. Hernandez Gimenez, for that was his name, was "a villain of the deepest dye" — not that this was necessary of Ttli: SI', WIS 1 1 WAR. '95 explanation. I Icrnandcv. could not have Ijll-h a liypocrilc had he tried. Oh, dear no, he was at least su|)erior to this ; the only vice of which nature had made him incapahlc. He looked it. There being policy even in villainy, he was, to all intents and purposes, harmless enough now; for, '* OLD CUARO.N. being ferryman to the contrabandistas (of whom mor. between the two countries, he was not ill-paid, 1.. which, it was less troublesome, and gave liim that rest which, in his declining years, he felt he wanted. The inventive genius of the murderer must ever be on the alert, o J 10 WANPER/XCS OF A WAR- ARTIST. for may not crime be looked on, as De Quincy says, "as one of the fine arts," requiring serious study, and happily for poor humanity, a peculiar aptitude — I was almost saying an innate talent. l'"rom his earliest youth he had been an adept at it. I in(iuired carefully after the antecedents of this man, and this is what I gathered from the investiga- tion. Of course one may presuppose that in his infancy he was a little Tartar. His parents were of a long line of smugglers living somewhere on the coast, and did not take much trouhle as to the culture of the higher qualities in their precocious offspring. I was told that at about fourteen he gave up the smuggling fraternity, amongst whom he had been born, and took to the road. Now, to " take to the road ■■ in this favoured island, and travel in boots, woollen goods, or pickles, and to do what is nominally the same thing in the Pyrenees, are, I need hardly say, occupations requiring totally different qualifications. The road which the juvenile Hernandez took was the most direct one to ruin, albeit flavoured here and there with sensational ad- venture, and on rare occasions with pecuniary gain. At first he was but a brigand's boy ; that is to say, he shared none of their dangers, though he enjoyed his quota of porridge, which he cooked for them during their absence on marauding expeditions, and otherwise looked after the hut high up in the wooded hills, where with dried leaves as a common couch, these gentlemen on the road resided. In my time 1 liave known many murderers of many nationalities. A certain doctor, whose name will be re- membered, a polished gentleman, urbane and most winning in manner, was one whom I knew at Bucharest, and one who, doing signal service in connection with the Red Cross, afterwards did to death a youthful relation at a London suburban school, for which he was hung. Again, Constance /'///•; .SV. /.W.s// If. I A- 197 Kent, whom I ixincinhcr as a j^irl, as having won over my all too susceptiljlc schoolboy heart, and will) whose brother I was for some time at school. I'.ut to return to Hernan- dez. He luUurall), in llic course of years, developed the in- grained predilections of his youth, and before he was out of his teens, had been promoted to the position o{ " one of the gang," with whom he was not loii-! in gainin^.; such laurels as won for him rai)id [)rouu)tion. In the protession his special walk had been cold-blooded murder, and though this could nuN cr be brought home to him, he was amongst his own fralernily, many of whom were now Carlists, known to have led a life of almost unparalleled crime. As it was, at the time of which I write, the armies of bolii sides were too much occupied with killing to concern them- selves about him, while the French found it no business of theirs; hence this atrocious criminal ferried backwardsand for- wards in perfect security, though, if half the stories known con- cerning him were true, his unenviable notoriety should have ended long since on the gallows. He, nevertheles.s, stood me in good stead when crossing and re-crossing from one country to the other during the early days of my <<•. ..nd campaign. On the first of these occasions I crossed, as I have said, at La Tuncha, where 1 had recently so narrowly escai)ed being shot, and where, as had been predicted, I was received with the greatest courtesy. •' Vou see," said the officer at that i)Osi, in excellent French, " Fm in a position to offer you every possible faci- lity. Go where you like, sketch what you like; in guerilla warfare, such as this is, your danger is no greater than ours. What more would you have?" This was said with a spirit of such charmui- urbanity, that it served to temper the painful jiro.spect ol luving 198 WANDERINGS OF A WAR-ARTIST. always to carry one's life in one's hand, though I could have wished at the time he had been more reassuring ; in deed, my camp-stool experience was not the only one I had on French soil of an equally disagreeable character, for since the width of the Bidassoa varied considerably, I was often, when taking my morning reconnaissance, within speaking distance of Spain, and was on several occasions fired at wantonly by passing Carlists, and once or twice by Govern- ment troops. Once, but only once, supposing I might at least claim the protection of the white flag, I tied my handkerchief to a walking-stick, and fluttered it high in the air. Mistaken, however, as I must have been, for a rabid politician or a dangerous lunatic, it only drew derisive cheers and more bullets, so I pocketed the affront, hauled down my flag, and accepted the kindly cover of the nearest underwood, where I waited, full length, till such time as my neighbours were tired of watching for me to rise like a partridge to their guns. I made some very curious and interesting friendships at Hendaye, which was then the headquarters of a number of journalists and others, who found from that point they were able to keep up direct communication with Fleet Street, while spending much time with either or both armies in the field. Legaraldi's Hotel was where they most were wont to congregate, and here I repaired when nothing of special in- terest detained me at the hostelry of old Imatz. Legaraldi, I remember, had two charming daughters, typical Spanish girls, with whom we were all over head and ears in love. Amongst others with whom I became acquainted was Barrington Kennett (now Sir Barrington Kennett), recently most deservedly knighted for his services through a long series of continental campaigns, as the leading spirit of the Red Cross Society. We have met since in many lands and under many strange circumstances, of which more anon. T}{E SPANISH WAR. un My first acquaintance with Mcginal (ui the IllustruUJ News), too, is worthy of mention in passing. \Vc had eyed each other with peculiarly British curiosity frcjni afar on many occasions on the frontier. Who that fellow was who was everlasting getting tit-bits in the shape of effective incident. was as nuuh ;i matlcr of query on my part as on his. We had not yet met at I he common rendezvous, Ixjgaraldi's, and thus we walked round each other, as it were, from day to day without unmasking our batteries. One evening, however, we found ourselves seated oppo- site each other at the long wooden table of a village venta. Each having his own .sketch-book conveniently at hand, wc presently discovered ourselves challenging each other, he doing a caricature of me, while I returned the compliment. Thus, as fellow war-artists, did we from that njoment fore- gather. Mr. Henry Lane's name, too, I must not omit to record, whose acquaintance, made under strange circum- stances to which we are coming presently, has ri|)ened into a life-long friendship, to say nothing of a mysterious indi- vidual whom I then knew as Maule, the strange story of whose career will, before long, I hope, interest you. While at Estella and other places converging towards this common centre, Hendaye, there were yet very many others whom I first met in the north of Spain, foremo.st amongst whom comes the undaunted O' Donovan, whose experiences will be interwoven in the after-developments of this autobio- graphy. . . Memory brings back so vividly to me. as I write, familiar scenes and faces, that my fingers itch to reproduce with my pencil thai which my pen may not clearly convey ; indeetl. I fear that were I not kept within ccitain bounds this might be but a confused mass of odd sket.hes and memoranda. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ Early, unusually early, one morning I woke with a sudden 200 i\:ixj)Erj\l;s OF A iiwk-artjs'i: start in my little room at "the Imatz" to find myself sitting bolt upright in bed, the victim of, as I supposed, a sort of nightmare ; not yet half awake, I was gazing absently around, when, a sound as of not very distant thunder, revealed to me the cause of my sudden awakening — it was the thunder of the guns from the Republican forts. There was evidently something going o\\ of unusual im- portance at the front which required that I should be up and doing ; so out I leaped, and was not long before I found myself, fully equipped, hurrying through the deserted village street, for the last toper had long since sunk to sleep and the first rustic was not yet afoot. It was just daylight, a dense white fog enshrouding every- thing in such a way as to make the nearest object barely dis- tinguishable, one of those fogs which are in mountainous districts generally the forerunners of a desperately hot day. Through this I made the best of my way in the direction from which the now increasing sounds of cannonading came, and was soon out in a long straight country road which skirted the river, being guided alone by the hedgerow of that side nearest to which I walked. Now and again I heard the voices of others, aroused by the noise, who like myself, were converging from different directions to the same point, Behobie, for it was evident from the rattling of small arms which momentarily increased, that it was there the fighting was going on, but one could see ab- solutely nothing, so opaque was the ^■apoury cloud which enveloped everything. On arriving at that part of the town on the French fron- tier which was divided, as I have said, from the Spanish portion by a parti-coloured bridge, I had to almost feel my way through the streets, till I reached a broad ex- panse of turf, originally a public garden I think, from which 1 might, had not the narrow boundary river inter- 202 waxdi-:rings of a war- artist. vened, have been in actual touch with the combatants ; as it was, that impenetrable screen of fog completely ob- scured them. Though the object of it all was at that moment shrouded in mystery, I afterwards found it to be a feint by which the Carlists distracted the garrisons of Irun and Fuenter- rabia while they landed at Punta de Figuera a large supply of small arms, ammunition, and Krupp guns. Fifteen hundred or two thousand of them invested at an early hour the Custom House, which was most pluckily defended and admirably held by only fifty Republican troops. In the course of years, I have witnessed war under many strange aspects ; but this fighting in a dense fog was cer- tainly unique to me then. Imagine a stage on which actors are heard and not seen, a court of law full of empty benches, where, nevertheless, prosecuting and defending counsel attack each other in furious harangue, yet all are invisible ; and then, picture for a moment the odd effect of a battle, of sounds rather than of substance, the shrieks of the wounded, the oaths and curses of both sides as they come within shouting distance of each other, the " quack, quack, quack," of the Carlists, whose wildest form of derision is to dub the Republicans ducks, while they in return bark like one vast pack of yelping hounds in retalia- tion (for the Carlists were to them "dogs"). Picture, I say, the strange unreality of it all, mingled the while with the sharp rattle of musketry and the bursting of those shells which came at intervals from the Republican forts, and which, owing to the difficulty of sighting under such cir- cumstances, fell, in many cases, into the river, and occasion- ally over on to French soil. These combined sounds of strife, the terrible din of war, yet no living creature visible, were an experience which I shall not easily forget. They were the prelude to the drama 7 //A SPAA'JSH UAh\ 203 which was al)out to coniiiKiuf. TIk- curlain was just going to ring up, for, the first feeble rays of ihc morning sun having the desired effect, the drop scene of fog was hfting. Gradually — as in a transformation scene when the red fire has cleared away, and demons are discovered at work — those glittering rays illuminated e'er long, all too clearly — the minor details of the grim reality, as if at the touch of a magician's wand. The raison d'etre, as it were, for the roar and rattle to which we, a group of excited correspondents, had since daylight been auilitors. was now made manifest. It appeared that the Carlists had, like wolves, swept down on the fold in the small hours, and possessing them- selves of the straggling outskirts of the little town, were now fighting their way, as best they could, inch l)y inch up its main street; the Custom House close to the bridge was still held, as was that half of the bridge which was Spanish, by the Republicans, the greater part, indeed, of the place being proof against the advancing hordes of Carlists, who came scuttling down like ants from their mountain fastnesses. From where I stood I commanded an admirable view of the contending forces of both sides during this little engage- ment, and think the sketch done at the time, which I now reproduce, will convey some idea of the condition of affairs on that day. With quickly improvised dummy sol- diers, like the Guy Fawkes of our youth, and further, with the aid of mops and their own caps, the Carlists, from be- hind the walls of a brewery, drew the enemy's fire, wa-sling much Republican powder during the earlier part of the morning, smoking cigarettes the \Nhile with delightful non- chalance. One Carlist, more adventurous than the rest, leaped tviry now and agam from behind the protecting wall, pirouetting 204 IVA NDE JUNGS OF A I VA R-A R TIS T. fantastically, then like a harlequin, flitting again under cover before the hail of lead which followed could cut short his STRATAGEMS OF WAR. antics for ever. With this strange species of war delirium he continued for four or five hours tantalising the enemy, run Sl'AXKII ir U: n.: till. li,i\iii<; ventured out once too oltcn, I saw him tlrop. ridtUctl with a dozen well-directed bullets. Not having yet broken my fast, and (French) I5ch"iii< being in far too great a state of excitement to sup|)ly my wants, I pocketed my sketch-book anil retired to the out- skirts of the town, where, at a small posada, I obtained a flask of Spanish vin ordinaire, some lilack bread, and pe;irs. These, for the time being, satisfied my cravings. I was returning to the scene of action, the Miii»ke <>l which had settled on that sultry day like a dense cloud over the town, when I suddenly came across, half hidden btihind a hedg % and moreover under the kindly covtr of a cart, an individual who shall be nameless. Wild horses will not drag from me the identity of my horror-struck brother artist —for artist he was of no mean talent who, thus far from the actual fighting, was shivering in his shoes. sketchintr the while those distant clouds of smoke which seemed to show where an engagement was going on. Suffice it to say when — supposing him to be an ICnglisliman n consequence of the pipe he smoked, which I recog- nised as the latest new thing of the kind in i-ondon I suggested his coming with me closer in to gel more details, he at first refused point-blank, till finding 1 was making sketches for the lUiistrated London Ne7vs he felt his amour propre at stake, and did so. Several press men were on the spot when I returned with my nameless knight ; but as the day advanced the shelling from the forts increased every moment, and the point we occupied became so exposed that every now and again there was a general cry of '' Fuego ! Fuego ."' and we all fell on our faces till, those dreadful missiles having burst, we could venture to hold up our heads again. This sort of thing was, of course, anything but pleasant. and since it was the nameless one's first experience at the theatre of war, no one is more willing to make allowances MY^^OWN GHOST. TtlE snAMSII / / . / A iff] for him ihaii T ; yd al the same linic 1 cuiild nui tail lo noic those chamclcoii-hke changes which suffused his face as the roar and rattle increased, and could not lielp admiring, loo, the way in which, striving to overcome himself, he drew ghostly outlines in that sketch-book. Three mortal hours did we suffer, all of us, from an exposure which we could not escape, till at last the din and confusion, coupled with yells, groans, and oaths, became absolutely diabolical. It was too much for him whose latest novelty in London pipes had long since gone out. Turning, he looked most pathetically in my face. " Would I believe him, it was absolutely true, he was going to breakfast with the Mayors The next moment he had bolted. Alas! he had forgotten it was now between 4 and 5 o'clock — a late hour for this eccentric Basque's dejeihier. He had held on, terror- stricken as he was, since mid-day, when, no longer able to control himself, he had thus decamped. He was for sonn- time the butt of our little community. " Have you break- fasted with the Mayor ? " going as a kind of amiable query from lip to lip ; whilst each of us would, I am sure, have been only too glad of the respite which he was probably enjoying behind a distant hedge. I have said he shall be nameless, and, doubtless, my readers will suppose it is be- cause of the fiasco to which I have referred. It is not, however, on this account alone ; but because this same cor- respondent, shortly afterwards, won exceptional laurels for signal bravery on the batdefield, rescuing, at his own personal peril, a number of wounded on whom the enemy were about to fire, thus clearing off his old Behobie scare then and there, and setting, through a useful life, a marked example for courage. I am sure he must have enjoyed the joke as much as 1 THE SPANISH WAR. mq did, if he saw, some years since, a higlUy laudatory and well deserved reference in one of the London papers to his coolness under fire, written evidently by one who had known him in his first campaign, which concluded somewhat as follows : " ^[r. , amongst one or two other bad habits of his earl\ xouili. has givrii up ihal iti hreakfisliiii^'vith f/if Mayor." 'I'his little anecdote will, at least, serve to show how the bravest and best natures are sure to bear fruit in the end, and is my excuse for the slight detour I have made from the actual fighting whii h every hour grew fiercer. I next took up a position on the (White) French half of the bridge, as from this I commanded a new view of hos- tilities. Although the fortunes of war had varied consider- ably since early morning, first one side then the other gaining ground, there was no material alteration of affairs late in the afternoon, the Custom House, the roof of which was crowded with Miguelites, and the Spanish (Red) half of the bridge being an effectual bar to the further advance of the Carlists. Presently there was a crowding, crushing of the soldiers, first to one side then to the other, and all eyes were directed to where a Republican officer was staggering imder the weight of a heavy burden towards French soil, and who passed me as he went. He was carrying a girl of some eighteen or nineteen summers, as beautiful as she was young, from out the thick of the fray ; her hands were satu- rated^ with blood, which flowed copiously from her wrists. both of which were seriously wounded. \\"hat could it all mean ? Listen, and 1 will tell you. Maraqueta (1 never ascertained her other name), the really lovely daughter of a local peasant, was devotc