Paris at once became delirious with enthusiasm,
though, as we know by all the telegrams from the
Prefects of the departments, the provinces generally
desired that peace might be preserved.



38 MY DAYS OF ADVENTURE

Resident in Paris, and knowing at that time very
little about the rest of France for I had merely
stayed during my summer holidays at such seaside
resorts as Trouville, Deauville, Beuzeval, St. Malo,
and St. Servan I undoubtedly caught the Parisian
fever, and I dare say that I sometimes joined in the
universal chorus of "A Berlin ! " Mere lad as I
was, in spite of my precocity, I shared also the
universal confidence in the French army. In that
confidence many English military men participated.
Only those who, like Captain Hozier of The Times, had
closely watched Prussian methods during the Seven
Weeks' War in 1866, clearly realized that the North
German kingdom possessed a thoroughly well
organized fighting machine, led by officers of the
greatest ability, and capable of effecting something
like a revolution in the art of war.

France was currently thought stronger than she
really was. Of the good physique of her men there
could be no doubt. Everybody who witnessed the
great military pageants of those times was impressed
by the bearing of the troops and their efficiency under
arms. And nobody anticipated that they would be
so inferior to the Germans in numbers as proved to
be the case, and that the generals would show
themselves so inferior in mental calibre to the com-
manders of the opposing forces. The Paris garrison,
it is true, was no real criterion of the French army
generally, though foreigners were apt to judge the
latter by what they saw of it in the capital. The
troops stationed there were mostly picked men, the
garrison being very largely composed of the Imperial
Guard. The latter always made a brilliant display,
not merely by reason of its somewhat showy uniforms,
recalling at times those of the First Empire, but also



OUTBREAK OF WAR 39

by the men's fine physique and their general military
proficiency. They certainly fought well in some of
the earlier battles of the war. Their commander
was General Bourbaki, a fine soldierly looking man,
the grandson of a Greek pilot who acted as inter-
mediary between Napoleon I and his brother
Joseph, at the time of the former's expedition to
Egypt. It was this original Bourbaki who carried
to Napoleon Joseph's secret letters reporting Jose-
phine's misconduct in her husband's absence, mis-
conduct which Napoleon condoned at the time,
though it would have entitled him to a divorce nine
years before he decided on one.

With the spectacle of the Imperial Guard con-
stantly before their eyes, the Parisians of July, 1870,
could not believe in the possibility of defeat, and,
moreover, at the first moment it was not believed
that the Southern German States would join North
Germany against France. Napoleon III and his
confidential advisers well knew, however, what to
think on that point, and the delusions of the man in
the street departed when, on July 20, Bavaria,
Wiirtemberg, Baden, and Hesse-Darmstadt an-
nounced their intention of supporting Prussia and
the North German Confederation. Still, this did
not dismay the Parisians, and the shouts of " To
Berlin ! To Berlin ! " were as frequent as ever.

It had long been one of my dreams to see and
participate in the great drama of war. All boys, I
suppose, come into the world with pugnacious
instincts. There must be few, too, who never " play
at soldiers." My own interest in warfare and
soldiering had been steadily fanned from my earliest
childhood. In the first place, I had been incessantly
confronted by all the scenes of war depicted in the



40 MY DAYS OF ADVENTURE

Illustrated Times and the Illustrated London News,
those journals being posted to me regularly every
week whilst I was still only a little chap at East-
bourne. Further, the career of my uncle, Frank
Vizetelly, exercised a strange fascination over me.
Born in Fleet Street in September, 1830, he was the
youngest of my father's three brothers. Educated
with Gustave Dore, he became an artist for the
illustrated Press, and, in 1859, represented the
Illustrated Times as war-artist in Italy, being a part
of the time with the French and at other moments
with the Sardinian forces. That was the first of his
many campaigns. His services being afterwards
secured by the Illustrated London News, he next
accompanied Garibaldi from Palermo to Naples.
Then, at the outbreak of the Civil War in the United
States, he repaired thither with Howard Russell,
and, on finding obstacles placed in his way on the
Federal side, travelled " underground " to Richmond
and joined the Confederates. The late Duke of
Devonshire, the late Lord Wolseley, and Francis
Lawley were among his successive companions. At
one time he and the first-named shared the same
tent and lent socks and shirts to one another.

Now and again, however, Frank Vizetelly came
to England after running the blockade, stayed a few
weeks in London, and then departed for America
once more, yet again running the blockade on his
way. This he did on at least three occasions. His
next campaign was the war of 1866, when he was
with the Austrian commander Benedek. For a few
years afterwards he remained in London assisting
his eldest brother James to run what was probably
the first of the society journals, Echoes of the
Clubs, to which Mortimer Collins and the late Sir



OUTBREAK OF WAR 41

Edmund Monson largely contributed. However,
Frank Vizetelly went back to America once again,
this time with Wolseley on the Red River Expedition.
Later, he was with Don Carlos in Spain and with
the French in Tunis, whence he proceeded to Egypt.
He died on the field of duty, meeting his death when
Hicks Pasha's little army was annihilated in the
defiles of Kashgil, in the Soudan.

Now, in the earlier years, when Frank Vizetelly
returned from Italy or America, he was often at my
father's house at Kensington, and I heard him talk
of Napoleon III, MacMahon, Garibaldi, Victor
Emmanuel, Cialdini, Robert Lee, Longstreet, Stone-
wall Jackson, and Captain Semmes. Between-times
I saw all the engravings prepared after his sketches,
and I regarded him and them with a kind of childish
reverence. I can picture him still, a hale, bluff, tall,
and burly-looking man, with short dark hair, blue
eyes and a big ruddy moustache. He was far away
the best known member of our family in my younger
days, when anonymity in journalism was an almost
universal rule. In the same way, however, as every-
body had heard of Howard Russell, the war corre-
spondent of the Times, so most people had heard of
Frank Vizetelly, the war-artist of the Illustrated.
He was, by-the-by, in the service of the Graphic
when he was killed.

I well remember being alternately amused and
disgusted by a French theatrical delineation of an
English war correspondent, given in a spectacular
military piece which I witnessed a short time after
my first arrival in Paris. It was called " The Siege
of Pekin," and had been concocted by Mocquard,
the Emperor Napoleon's secretary. All the " comic
business " in the affair was supplied by a so-called



42 MY DAYS OF ADVENTURE

war correspondent of the Times, who strutted about
in a tropical helmet embellished with a green Derby
veil, and was provided with a portable desk and a
huge umbrella. This red-nosed and red-whiskered
individual was for ever talking of having to do this
and that for " the first paper of the first country in
the world," and, in order to obtain a better view of
an engagement, he deliberately planted himself
between the French and Chinese combatants. I
should doubtless have derived more amusement
from his tomfoolery had I not already known that
English war correspondents did not behave in any
such idiotic manner, and I came away from the
performance with strong feelings of resentment
respecting so outrageous a caricature of a profession
counting among its members the uncle whom I so
much admired.

Whatever my dreams may have been, I hardly
anticipated that I should join that profession myself
during the Franco-German war. The Lycees " broke
up " in confusion, and my father decided to send me
to join my stepmother and the younger members of
the family at Saint Servan, it being his intention to
go to the front with my elder brother Edward.
But Simpson, the veteran Crimean War artist, came
over to join the so-called Army of the Rhine, and my
brother, securing an engagement from the New York
Times, set out on his own account. Thus I was
promptly recalled to Paris, where my father had
decided to remain. In those days the journey from
Brittany to the capital took many long and wearisome
hours, and I made it in a third-class carriage of a
train crowded with soldiers of all arms, cavalry,
infantry, and artillery. Most of them were in-
toxicated, and the grossness of their language and



OUTBREAK OF WAR 43

manners was almost beyond belief. That dreadful
night spent on the boards of a slowly-moving and
jolting train,* amidst drunken and foul-mouthed
companions, gave me, as it were, a glimpse of the
other side of the picture that is, of several things
which lie behind the glamour of war.

It must have been about July 25 when I re-
turned to Paris. A decree had just been issued
appointing the Empress as Regent in the absence
of the Emperor, who was to take command of the
Army of the Rhine. It had originally been intended
that there should be three French armies, but during
the conferences with Archduke Albert in the spring,
that plan was abandoned in favour of one sole army
under the command of Napoleon III. The idea
underlying the change was to avoid a superfluity of
staff-officers, and to augment the number of actual
combatants. Both Le Bceuf and Lebrun approved
of the alteration, and this would seem to indicate
that there were already misgivings on the French
side in regard to the inferior strength of their
effectives. The army was divided into eight sections,
that is, seven army corps, and the Imperial Guard.
Bourbaki, as already mentioned, commanded the
Guard, and at the head of the army corps were (1)
MacMahon, (2) Frossard, (3) Bazaine, (4) Ladmerault,
(5) Failly, (6) Canrobert, and (7) Felix Douay. Both
Frossard and Failly, however, were at first made
subordinate to Bazaine. The head of the informa-
tion service was Colonel Lewal, who rose to be a
general and Minister of War under the Republic,
and who wrote some commendable works on tactics ;
and immediately under him were Lieut. -Colonel
Fay, also subsequently a well-known general, and

* There were then no cushioned seats in French third-class carriages.



44 MY DAYS OF ADVENTURE

Captain Jung, who is best remembered perhaps by
his inquiries into the mystery of the Man with the
Iron Mask. I give those names because, however
distinguished those three men may have become in
later years, the French intelligence service at the
outset of the war was without doubt extremely
faulty, and responsible for some of the disasters
which occurred.

On returning to Paris one of my first duties was
to go in search of Moulin, the detective-artist whom
I mentioned in my first chapter. I found him in his
somewhat squalid home in the Quartier Mouffetard,
surrounded by a tribe of children, and he immediately
informed me that he was one of the " agents " ap-
pointed to attend the Emperor on the campaign.
The somewhat lavish Imperial equipage, on which
Zola so frequently dilated in " The Downfall," had,
I think, already been despatched to Metz, where the
Emperor proposed to fix his headquarters, and the
escort of Cent Gardes was about to proceed thither.
Moulin told me, however, that he and two of his
colleagues were to travel in the same train as
Napoleon, and it was agreed that he should forward
either to Paris or to London, as might prove most
convenient, such sketches as he might from time to
time contrive to make. He suggested that there
should be one of the Emperor's departure from
Saint Cloud, and that in order to avoid delay I should
accompany him on the occasion and take it from
him. We therefore went down together on July 28,
promptly obtained admittance to the chateau, where
Moulin took certain instructions, and then repaired
to the railway-siding in the park, whence the Imperial
train was to start.

Officers and high officials, nearly all in uniform,



OUTBREAK OF WAR 45

were constantly going to and fro between the siding
and the chateau, and presently the Imperial party
appeared, the Emperor being between the Empress
and the young Imperial Prince. Quite a crowd of
dignitaries followed. I do not recollect seeing Emile
Ollivier, though he must have been present, but I
took particular note of Rouher, the once all-powerful
minister, currently nicknamed the Vice-Emperor,
and later President of the Senate. In spite of his
portliness, he walked with a most determined stride,
held his head very erect, and spoke in his customary
loud voice. The Emperor, who wore the undress
uniform of a general, looked very grave and sallow.
The disease which eventually ended in his death
had already become serious,* and only a few days
later, that is, during the Saarbrucken affair
(August 2), he was painfully affected by it. Never-
theless, he had undertaken to command the Army
of France ! The Imperial Prince, then fourteen
years of age, was also in uniform, it having been
arranged that he should accompany his father to
the front, and he seemed to be extremely animated
and restless, repeatedly turning to exchange remarks
with one or another officer near him. The Empress,
who was very simply gowned, smiled once or twice in
response to some words which fell from her husband,
but for the most part she looked as serious as he did.
Whatever Emile Ollivier may have said about
beginning this war with a light heart, it is certain
that these two sovereigns of France realized, at that
hour of parting, the magnitude of the issues at stake.
After they had exchanged a farewell kiss, the Empress

* I have given many particulars of it in my two books, " The Court of
the Tuileries, 1852-1870 " (Chatto and Windus), and " Republican France,
1870-1912 " (Holden and Hardingham).



46 MY DAYS OF ADVENTURE

took her eager young son in her arms and embraced
him fondly, and when we next saw her face we could
perceive the tears standing in her eyes. The
Emperor was already taking his seat and the boy
speedily sprang after him. Did the Empress at that
moment wonder when, where, and how she would
next see them again ? Perchance she did. Every-
thing, however, was speedily in readiness for de-
parture. As the train began to move, both the
Emperor and the Prince waved their hands from the
windows, whilst all the enthusiastic Imperial digni-
taries flourished their hats and raised a prolonged
cry of " Vive 1'Empereur ! " It was not, perhaps,
so loud as it might have been ; but, then, they were
mostly elderly men. Moulin, during the interval,
had contrived to make something in the nature of a
thumb-nail sketch; I had also taken a few notes
myself ; and thus provided I hastened back to Paris.



Ill

ON THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION

First French Defeats A Great Victory rumoured The Marseillaise,
Capoul and Marie Sass Edward Vizetelly brings News of Forbach
to Paris Emile Ollivier again His Fall from Power Cousin
Montauban, Comte de Palikao English War Correspondents in Paris
Gambetta calls me" a Little Spy " More French Defeats Palikao
and the Defence of Paris Fears of a Siege Wounded returning
from the Front Wild Reports of French Victories The Quarries
of Jaumont The Anglo-American Ambulance The News of Sedan
Sala's Unpleasant Adventure The Fall of the Empire.

IT was, I think, two days after the Emperor's arrival
at Metz that the first Germans a detachment of
Badeners entered French territory. Then, on the
second of August came the successful French attack
on Saarbrucken, a petty affair but a well-remembered
one, as it was on this occasion that the young Imperial
Prince received the " baptism of fire." Appro-
priately enough, the troops, whose success he
witnessed, were commanded by his late governor,
General Frossard. More important was the engage-
ment at Weissenburg two days later, when a division
of the French under General Abel Douay was sur-
prised by much superior forces, and utterly over-
whelmed, Douay himself being killed during the
fighting. Yet another two days elapsed, and then
the Crown Prince of Prussia later the Emperor
Frederick routed MacMahon at Worth, in spite of
a vigorous resistance, carried on the part of the

47



48 MY DAYS OF ADVENTURE

French Cuirassiers, under General the Vicomte de
Bonnemains, to the point of heroism. In later
days the general's son married a handsome and
wealthy young lady of the bourgeoisie named
Marguerite Crouzet, whom, however, he had to
divorce, and who afterwards became notorious as
the mistress of General Boulanger.

Curiously enough, on the very day of the disaster
of Worth a rumour of a great French victory spread
through Paris. My father had occasion to send me
to his bankers in the Rue Vivienne, and on making
my way to the Boulevards, which I proposed to follow,
I was amazed to see the shopkeepers eagerly setting
up the tricolour flags which they habitually displayed
on the Emperor's fete-day (August 15). Nobody
knew exactly how the rumours of victory had
originated, nobody could give any precise details
respecting the alleged great success, but everybody
believed in it, and the enthusiasm was universal.
It was about the middle of the day when I repaired
to the Rue Vivienne, and after transacting my
business there, I turned into the Place de la Bourse,
where a huge crowd was assembled. The steps of
the exchange were also covered with people, and
amidst a myriad eager gesticulations a perfect babel
of voices was ascending to the blue sky. One of the
green omnibuses, which in those days ran from the
Bourse to Passy, was waiting on the square, un-
able to depart owing to the density of the crowd ;
and all at once, amidst a scene of great excitement
and repeated shouts of "La Marseillaise ! " "La
Marseillaise ! " three or four well-dressed men climbed
on to the vehicle, and turning towards the mob of
speculators and sightseers covering the steps of the
Bourse, they called to them repeatedly : " Silence !



ON THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION 49

Silence ! " The hubbub slightly subsided, and there-
upon one of the party on the omnibus, a good-looking
slim young fellow with a little moustache, took off
his hat, raised his right arm, and began to sing the
war-hymn of the Revolution. The stanza finished,
the whole assembly took up the refrain.

Since the days of the Coup d'etat, the Marseillaise
had been banned in France, the official imperial air
being " Partant pour la Syrie," a military march com-
posed by the Emperor's mother, Queen Hortense,
with words by Count Alexandre de Laborde, who
therein pictured a handsome young knight praying
to the Blessed Virgin before his departure for
Palestine, and soliciting of her benevolence that he
might " prove to be the bravest brave, and love the
fairest fair." During the twenty years of the third
Napoleon's rule, Paris had heard the strains of
" Partant pour la Syrie " many thousand times, and,
though they were tuneful enough, had become
thoroughly tired of them. To stimulate popular en-
thusiasm in the war the Ollivier Cabinet had accord-
ingly authorized the playing and singing of the long-
forbidden " Marseillaise," which, although it was
well-remembered by the survivors of '48, and was
hummed even by the young Republicans of Belleville
and the Quartier Latin, proved quite a novelty to
half the population, who were destined to hear it
again and again and again from that period until
the present time.

The young vocalist who sang it from the top of
a Passy-Bourse omnibus on that fateful day of
Worth, claimed to be a tenor, but was more correctly
a tenorino, his voice possessing far more sweetness
than power. He was already well-known and
popular, for he had taken the part of Romeo in

E



50 MY DAYS OF ADVENTURE

Gounod's well-known opera based on the Shake-
spearean play. Like many another singer, Victor
Capoul might have become forgotten before very
long, but a curious circumstance, having nothing to
do with vocalism, diffused and perpetuated his name.
He adopted a particular way of dressing his hair,
" plastering " a part of it down in a kind of semi-
circle over the forehead ; and the new style " catching
on " among young Parisians, the " coiffure Capoul "
eventually went round the world. It is exemplified
in certain portraits of King George V.

In those war-days Capoul sang the " Marseillaise "
either at the Opera Comique or the Theatre Lyrique ;
but at the Opera it was sung by Marie Sass, then at
the height of hex reputation. I came in touch with
her a few years later when she was living in the Paris
suburbs, and more than once, when we both travelled
to the city in the same train, I had the honour of
assisting her to alight from it this being no very
easy matter, as la Sass was the very fattest and
heaviest of all the prime donne that I have ever
seen.

On the same day that MacMahon was defeated at
Worth, Frossard was badly beaten at Forbach, an
engagement witnessed by my elder brother Edward,*
who, as I previously mentioned, had gone to the
front for an American journal. Finding it impossible
to telegraph the news of this serious French reverse,
he contrived to make his way to Paris on a loco-
motive-engine, and arrived at our flat in the Hue de
Miromesnil looking as black as any coal-heaver.
When he had handed his account of the affair to
Ryan, the Paris representative of the New York

* Born January 1, 1847, and therefore in 1870 in his twenty -fourth
year.



ON THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION 51

Times, it was suggested that his information might
perhaps be useful to the French Minister of War.
So he hastened to the Ministry, where the news he
brought put a finishing touch to the dismay of the
officials, who were already staggering under the
first news of the disaster of Worth.

Paris, jubilant over an imaginary victory, was
enraged by the tidings of Worth and Forbach.
Already dreading some Revolutionary enterprise, the
Government declared the city to be in a state of
siege, thereby placing it under military authority.
Although additional men had recently been enrolled
in the National Guard the arming of them had been
intentionally delayed, precisely from a fear of
revolutionary troubles, which the entourage of the
Empress-Regent at Saint Cloud feared from the
very moment of the first defeats. I recollect witness-
ing 011 the Place Vendome one day early in August a
very tumultuous gathering of National Guards who
had flocked thither in order to demand weapons of
the Prime Minister, that is, Emile Ollivier, who in
addition to the premiership, otherwise the " Presi-
dency of the Council," held the offices of Keeper of
the Seals and Minister of Justice, this department
then having its offices in one of the buildings of the
Place Vendome. Ollivier responded to the demon-
stration by appearing on the balcony of his private
room and delivering a brief speech, which embraced
a vague promise to comply with the popular demand.
In point of fact, however, nothing of the kind was
done during his term of office.

Whilst writing these lines I hear that this much-
abused statesman has just passed away at Saint
Gervais-les-Bains in Upper Savoy (August 20, 1913).
Born at Marseilles in July, 1825, he lived to complete



52 MY DAYS OF ADVENTURE

his eighty-eighth year. His second wife (nee Gravier),
to whom I referred in a previous chapter, survives
him. I do not wish to be unduly hard on his
memory. He came, however, of a very Republican
family, and in his earlier years he personally evinced
what seemed to be most staunch Republicanism.
When he was first elected as a member of the Legis-
lative Body in 1857, he publicly declared that he
would appear before that essentially Bonapartist
assembly as one of the spectres of the crime of the
Coup d' 1C tat. But subsequently M. de Morny baited
him with a lucrative appointment connected with
the Suez Canal. Later still, the Empress smiled on
him, and finally he took office under the Emperor,
thereby disgusting nearly every one of his former
friends and associates.

I believe, however, that Ollivier was sincerely
convinced of the possibility of firmly establishing a