Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day. Volume 2

Finally, when the conscript has become a soldier, mastered the intricacies of the Théorie and the details of the manual of arms, learned the secret of keeping his accoutrements in parade order, taken part in the interminable drills in the secrecy of the caserne that prepare for the great ones in public, he departs for the grand manœuvres. When they are over, the classe for that year is dismissed, except those unfortunates who are detained as many days longer as they have served days in prison. The cheerfulness with which the soldiers undergo the fatigues and discomforts of these annual exercises is rightfully considered as an excellent sign of the efficiency of the service. In the present year of grace, these manœuvres were rendered unusually trying by the persistent abnormal midsummer heat, and by the blinding dust that blotted out whole parades. And yet, says a correspondent of the Temps, "if the armoire à glace (the knapsack) be heavy, the road dusty, and the march across cultivated fields laborious, it is none the less true than in the ranks of each detachment there are to be found certain loustics whose inexhaustible repertory is sufficient to unwrinkle the most morose brows.

"The ancient French gaiety is dead, you say; follow, then, for a couple of hours a column of infantry on the march, and you will not be long in being undeceived. You will recognize very quickly that, in the army, this gaiety is still in very good condition, even though it be at times a little too gross. And, if you know your authors a little, you will see things that would astonish them.

"You will hear chanted the Boîteuse, which was hummed, some two hundred and odd years ago, by the troops of Louis XIV, and the couplets of which swarm with allusions to the infirmity of Mlle. de la Vallière; Auprès de ma blonde … song addressed to Mme. de Montespan, and a multitude of others bearing witness to the passage of noble sovereigns, or of illustrious chiefs now long since disappeared."

You will also, if you are a foreigner, see many other interesting traits of national character, and, not improbably, some such curiously unmilitary proceeding as that represented on our page, engraved from the record of an unsympathetic photograph. This particular incident took place at the manœuvres at Châteaudun in 1894; the President of the Republic, M. Casimir-Perier, is distributing the cross of the Legion of Honor to a number of specially deserving officers and sous-officiers.

That very modern instrument of warfare, the bicycle, appeared in the manœuvres of this present year of grace with more importance than ever. One correspondent, writing from Dompierre-sur-Besbre, on the 11th of September, says: "The compagnie cycliste, covering the advance of the march of the thirteenth corps, threw itself into Thiel at the moment when the advance guard of the division was attacked by superior forces. Taking advantage of the shelter of the woods, of the hedges, of the houses, it held the enemy at bay long enough to permit the division to come up, and the company bivouacked with the division." Another writes: "I rejoined the column by a cross-road at the end of which the dragoons were defiling past at a hard trot, followed by the compagnie cycliste, whose support at this moment was most valuable. It protected the retreat by delivering at certain distances volleys which momentarily arrested the pursuit. It was wonderful to see with what rapidity the men of Captain Gérard's command threw themselves into their saddles, covered a distance of five or six hundred mètres, faced about and opened fire. If they had been more numerous, what service would they not have rendered! The cavalry officers who see them every day at work are the first to recognize their usefulness." The employment of these instruments has even been extended to the gendarmerie by an order of the Minister of War, at the close of the manœuvres,—two legions of this force having been furnished with them. In 1897, some machines constructed by the artillery were distributed to a legion near Paris, as an experiment, with very satisfactory results,—the transmission of orders, maintenance of communication, etc., being thus assured in a satisfactory manner. There is, of course, some opposition manifested to this innovation, and the employment of mounted gendarmes is not yet discontinued. As may be seen from the illustrations on page 139, the French military bicycle, the invention of Captain Gérard, is constructed in such a manner as to fold up and be transported on the soldier's back.

As in all old armies, very many of the regiments have records which date back to the last century, and of which they are very proud;—one of the cavalry regiments, the Fourth Chasseurs, celebrated in 1890 the anniversary of its creation in 1744 with an historical restoration and a military carrousel of the most picturesque character. In the immense court of their caserne in the Quartier Gramont of Saint-Germain-en-Laye there might be seen to defile a cavalcade of all the uniforms worn by the regiment, and of all the standards borne by it since the date of its organization. The tendency of modern warfare is to abolish more and more the picturesque and artistic, but the wars of the Republic and the First Empire have contributed a series of costumes among the most martial and the most imposing known to history.

Something of this contrast of costume may be seen in the reproduction of M. Orange's painting from the Salon of 1891, the "Medallists of Saint Helena," on page 175,—the annual ceremony of the old soldiers of the First Empire depositing their memorial wreaths at the base of the Vendôme column; and it is with a very natural impulse that the French citizen and the French soldier of to-day turn from the bitter memories of their last war to recall the images of those great days when the nation was afire as it has never been since. The curious revival of Napoleonic literature which we have witnessed within the last few years may doubtless be ascribed in part, at least, to this longing to dispel somewhat the national depression. There is not wanting in these memoirs abundant testimony to the strange transformation which the casting off of the ancient régime wrought in the whole people. In the Consulat et l'Empire, M. Thiers quotes the testimony of an astonished Prussian officer after the astonishing battle of Auerstadt in which Davout with twenty-six thousand men overthrew sixty thousand of the soldiers trained in the school of the great Frederick, repulsed twenty times the charges of the cavalry considered the best in Europe, and took with his forty-four cannon one hundred and fifteen of the enemy's. "If we had to fight the French only with our fists, we would be vanquished. They are small and weakly; one of our Germans could beat four of them; but under fire they become supernatural beings. They are carried away by an inexpressible ardor, of which no trace can be seen in our own soldiers." In much more recent publications, the Mémoires du sergent Bourgogne, the Souvenirs d'un officier danois, the Lieutenant Frisenberg, there is further testimony as to the quality of this Grande Armée. The latter, a young soldier, records the strong impression made upon him by the French officers when he first met them, their sobriety, their moderation, wonderful in the conquerors of Europe, their easy acceptance of orders. "What will not a Frenchman dare!" he exclaims. It is this apotheosis of military valor and efficiency which we see apostrophized in so much contemporary national art,—as in Karbowsky's "Drums of the Republic," Bac's spirited sketch of the return of the troops to Paris after Marengo, Marold's "Review in the Carrousel," under the eyes of the Emperor, and Le Blant's return of the veterans of the Republic and their fierce impatience under the supercilious inspection of the dandies and incroyables of the capital.

The military souvenirs of the Second Empire are much less imposing. Among the most interesting of those recently published are those of Marshal Canrobert, taken down from his verbal recitals by M. G. Bapst, afterward written out and corrected by the old soldier. His portrait of Louis Napoleon is interesting; he came to Paris on the eve of the Coup d'État and was presented to the Prince-President. "The man whom I saw before me was small in stature; his eyes, very small, were dull and very mild; while they were professedly looking at me, they had the appearance, at the same time, of being directed at some much more distant object; his black hair, smooth on his head, very much pomaded, was long and fell below his ears and on his collar; his heavy moustache, not waxed, covered his lower lip. He wore a frock-coat, buttoned up, and a very high collar which enclosed the lower part of his face. He stood with his side rather toward me, the left arm considerably in advance, and offered me his hand with a constrained gesture. I felt, in clasping it, as though I were grasping the hand of a paralytic, almost an anchylosed one. He addressed to me some commonplace phrase, so commonplace even that I no longer remember it; but he spoke with a peculiar accent, which you would have taken for an Alsatian accent. This was all that happened."

In the military operations of the 2d of December, Canrobert took part as general of brigade: according to his own account, he constantly exerted himself to suppress the fire of the troops on the citizens and to save the lives of the latter. But when he was offered the grade of general of division afterward, he refused it, and thereby, says one of his commentators, "violated military discipline and condemned, himself, his action of the day before."

Among the recent minor monographs relating to this epoch is one devoted to the Imperial picked body-guard of a hundred men, the Cent-Gardes, by M. Albert Verly, a fervent Bonapartist. One of his incidents is worth quoting. One day, the Empress Eugénie, traversing her apartments, accompanied by Colonel Verly, stopped before one of these sentries, whose rigid immobility in the correct military attitude made her smile. "Admit, colonel," she said, "that this perfect motionlessness is only an appearance, and that the slightest thing would cause it to disappear." "Your Majesty may assure yourself to the contrary," replied the colonel. "And if I were to offer him an insult?" "I have nothing to reply to your Majesty. You might ascertain yourself!" The Empress, knitting her brows in an attempt to frown, approached the sentry and reproached him severely for some imaginary infraction of discipline; stiff as a statue in his position of salute, he made no sign whatever. Whereupon, pretending to take offence at his silence, she dealt him a vigorous blow on the cheek. She might as well have struck a statue! So she returned to her apartments.

But, not willing that the affair should rest there, she ascertained his name, and the next day, through his superiors, sent the soldier a note of five hundred francs as some recompense for the gratuitous insult offered him. And he immediately returned it, through the same channel, answering that he esteemed himself as "too happy in having received on his face the hand of his well-beloved sovereign." M. Verly considers this response as very fine, and as justifying all that has been said concerning the correctness of appearance and attitude, and the intelligent and affectionate devotion which all the men of the squadron of the Cent-Gardes maintained toward their Imperial Majesties.

One of the first acts of the military administration after the Coup d'État was the disbanding of the National Guard throughout France. By a decree dated from the Tuileries, January 11, 1852, the superior general commanding was charged with its reorganization. On the 2d of December of the same year, the new Emperor signed at Saint-Cloud the decree promulgating the sénatus-consulte ratified by the plébiscite of the 21st and 22d of November, endorsing the Empire, and made his solemn entry into Paris. At one o'clock in the afternoon the cannon thundered, the drums beat, the trumpets and bugles sounded: "then might be seen," says the official Moniteur, "an inspiring spectacle, the new Emperor passing under that Arch of Triumph erected by his uncle to the glory of the French army.... From all the ranks of the army, from the Garde Nationale and from the people, there arose but one cry, powerful, unanimous, drowning the sound of the cannon of the Invalides which announced the entrance of Napoleon III into this ancient palace still resonant with the glory of his name. His Majesty, followed by his suite, traversed on horseback the Pavillon de l'Horloge and passed in review, on the Place des Tuileries and the Place du Carrousel, the troops of all arms there drawn up. He rode along the front of all the lines, receiving everywhere the most enthusiastic acclamations. After the review, the Emperor, followed by the generals who had formed his staff, ascended into the grand apartments of the palace," etc.

The renewal of the traditions of the First Empire was incessantly pursued. On the 21st of March, the President reviewed the garrison of Paris and distributed the military medal which he had just instituted, addressing the troops in a discourse in which he explained his object in creating this badge of distinction; on the 10th of May, there was a great military display on the Champ-de-Mars and the distribution of the eagles of the colors to the army. A decree of the 12th of August, 1857, instituted the medal of Saint Helena, given to those old soldiers of the first Napoleon who had served in the campaigns from 1792 to 1815. The Imperial Guard for the army, a reserve corps and corps d'élite, and the Cent-Gardes à cheval for the service of the Imperial palace, had been organized two years earlier. In 1867, at the culmination of the prestige of the Empire, when "the whole Almanach de Gotha passed through the salons of the Tuileries," these crowned heads were honored with a grand review of sixty-two thousand men in the Bois de Boulogne;—"the honors were carried off by the artillery of the Guard; the chasseurs, the zouaves, the guides, and the cuirassiers divided these acclamations, … all these soldiers, presenting the most brilliant appearance, defiled before the King of Prussia, the Count Bismarck, the general Baron von Moltke, the major-general Count von Goltz! And three years later!…"

At the present day, the great number of these very red and blue soldiers, officers and privates, always to be seen promenading in the streets of Paris, the sentries on duty before all the principal public buildings, the mounted dragoons, or estafettes, riding about the streets with official messages, and the dragoons of the Garde-Républicaine, the municipal force, on duty before the Opéra-house on nights of performance, add greatly to the animated and picturesque aspect of the capital. To those who were in the city in the early fall of this year, the efficacy of a standing army to maintain public order was abundantly demonstrated. There can be no doubt that the threatened general strike of workmen and laborers, affecting all private and municipal works, and even the success of the coming Exposition of 1900, was prevented, almost in its inception, by the abundant protection afforded those workmen who continued to labor. If it were necessary, a single ouvrier, or terrassier, could have half a dozen soldiers or police to protect him against the violence of those of his fellows en grève, and the city was dotted with pickets of infantry and cavalry, sergents de ville, sentinels before all unfinished buildings, railway stations, etc. The arts of the demagogue are by no means unknown in this land of universal suffrage, and frantic appeals were made to them on this occasion, but the government remained entirely unimpressed, to its praise be it said.

The drawing of the conscripts for the army by lot, and the revision of those thus selected, were formerly conducted in the Hôtel de Ville, but of late years have been apportioned among the Mairies of the various arrondissements. For those which offer no suitable locality for these operations, the Palais de l'Industrie was used until its recent demolishment. The conseil de révision held its sittings in the great Salle Saint-Jean at the back of the Hôtel de Ville, on the rez-de-chaussée, or ground-floor. These sittings began at eight o'clock in the morning, the members of the council took their places, according to their rank, at a large table in the shape of a horseshoe, the general or the colonel present at this function at the right of the president, then the oldest conseiller général, the intendant, the mayor of the arrondissement whose citizens were to come up for inspection, and who was present in an advisory capacity; at the left, the conseiller of the prefecture, the second conseiller général, the captain having charge of the recruiting. Before the table the examining doctor took his stand, and the patients presented themselves before him, after having been measured, all of them as naked as they were born, and yet in a correct military attitude, heels together, arms hanging by the side, the hands open and the palms forward. A sufficient force of gendarmes kept this somewhat incongruous parade in due order. And yet, in summer, a certain odor arises which compels the least delicate of the judges to have frequent recourse to flasks of smelling-salts judiciously provided. The decisions of this court are without appeal, and are pronounced by the president, either after having consulted his colleagues or in voicing their common opinion. The conscripts are then directed by the gendarmes toward the neighboring salle, where they resume their garments. The réservés pass into a special chamber, where a médecin-major examines them carefully, either as to their eyesight or as to the action of the heart. Attempts to avoid military service are comparatively rare in the conseil de révision of the Seine, and the shammers are readily detected.

Theoretically, there is an absolute equality of all classes before the conscription. Even the law-givers have not been supposed to be exempt from the obligation of military duty. The law of the 24th of July, 1895, declared, in its first article, that no citizen was eligible as a member of the Parlement unless he had fulfilled all the conditions of the military regulations concerning active service. Those residing in Algeria or in the colonies came under the special regulations of a law of 1889. By article second, no member of the Parlement was to be called upon to do military duty during the sessions of that body, unless it were on the request of the Minister of War, by his own consent, and with the approval of the Assemblée of which he was a member. By article third, the members of the Parlement while doing military duty could not participate in the deliberations, nor in the voting, of the Assemblée. In case of convocation of the Assemblée Nationale, their military service was suspended during the session of this body.

This general abolishing of social privileges to maintain the military strength of the nation naturally works with a good deal of friction. On the one hand are what might be called the inevitable tendencies of all human society to oppose it and to violate it; and on the other, the fierce watchfulness of the demagogues and the socialists to maintain it. M. "Job's" amusing sketch on page 126 of the arrival of a rich conscript at the caserne, adopts the evident and plausible view of the situation. The new soldier brings along his footman to carry his equipments, the officers of the regiment, colonel at the head, come out to welcome him, the sentry on duty is petrified with astonishment. This was supposed to be designed with reference to the celebrated M. Max Labaudy; but it is curiously at variance with the real facts in his case. This too-rich young man, the Petit Sucrier of the Boulevards, was the son of a great sugar refiner, deputy to the Chamber from the department of Seine-et-Marne, and who left a fortune of more than two hundred millions of francs. The young man in question spent his portion with commendable freedom, but when he drew an unlucky number in the conscription he was declared eligible, though it was said at the time that he was already threatened with an affection of the lungs. He speedily fell ill; there was immediately raised such a violent demagogic outcry that his illness was feigned that "not one military commission dared to declare him unfit for service, he was transferred from one hospital to another, from Vernon to Rouen, from Rouen to Val-de-Grâce, from Val-de-Grâce to Amélie-les-Bains, where he died,—died of his millions, it may be said, for if he had been only a poor devil he would have been immediately mustered out." The young man, fully recognizing the disability under which he labored in the eyes of his cowardly and truckling superiors, wrote pathetic letters from his hospitals, regretting his fatal millions.

For the service of the city of Paris, there is a special corps d'élite, the Garde Républicaine, comprising an infantry force of two thousand two hundred and ten men and one of one hundred and ninety mounted men. This is recruited from the sous-officiers, brigadiers, corporals, and soldiers of the active army under certain conditions. Each applicant must have served at least three years uninterruptedly in the regular army, have an irreproachable record, be able to read and write correctly, be at least twenty-four years of age and not over thirty-five, and have a stature of, at least, 1 mètre, 66 centimètres—1.70 mètres for the cavalry. The members of this force have special privileges of pay, pension, ability to compete for the grade of brigadier and succeeding ones, and of resigning from the service after having complied with the requirements of the recruiting law. Those who serve as guards at the theatres and the race-courses have an additional indemnity of from 75 centimes to 1 franc .25, according to the length and nature of the service. It appeared, from statements published during the strike in the capital in the autumn of 1898, that the soldiers and police, of all grades, received, on an average, less pay than the workmen whom they were protecting.

In the multiplicity of military regulations of all kinds, and of men who promulgate them and who are affected by them, there naturally appear from time to time some of the aberrations and eccentricities of ordinary human nature. Sometimes the French wit appreciates these oddities and makes much of them; and sometimes it completely fails to perceive them. One of the most distinguished of their generals, Poilloüe de Saint-Mars, enjoys quite a little reputation for the cocasseries of certain of his orders. One of the most famous of these was that of the soldat-tender, designed to enhance the prestige of the infantry officer. For this purpose, he was authorized to select from among the men in his command one of the "most robust and alert," who would be the "most sympathetic and the most devoted to his officer, and who would follow him like his shadow." This soldier-tender, who "would be to his officer what the tender is to the locomotive," would carry his déjeuner and all his other baggage, being relieved from the ordinary company equipment,—the officer, thus lightened of everything but his weapons, would enjoy over his men the same physical and moral advantage that his comrades of the artillery and cavalry do by the excellence of their mounts and their "aureola of an orderly," and those of the marine by the superiority of their technical knowledge. "In campaign, the mission of the tender will accentuate itself and aggrandize itself. He will be authorized to halt if his officer fall wounded. He will assist him affectionately, will bandage his wounds, confide him to the litter-bearers, and, to avenge him, then hasten to rejoin his comrades." Practically, an arrangement is made by which the infantry officer, in reviews and parades and while in charge of detachments,—as may constantly be seen in the streets,—marches along unencumbered by the side of his heavily-charged men.

Another of General de Saint-Mars's theories was that the foot of man had been especially created by Providence for the pedal of the bicycle. During the annual manœuvres of 1896, he issued an order to the mounted escort of the foreign officers, recommending to them an extreme cleanliness, even to the point of cleaning their finger-nails with "a piece of paper folded in four." This was really a very practical regulation, for the hands of the French soldier are capable of the most extreme dirtiness. In this respect, they practice more than even the usual neglect of their countrymen for the most elemental rules of decency in washing. It may be said that they would be a much pleasanter people to live with if they observed the Semitic regulations and observances of their hated Jewish fellow-citizens.