CHAPTER XI.
FRANCE UNDER THE HARROW.
Before Paris fell, Bismarck's hour of triumph had arrived. The headquarters of the German armies around Paris was at Versailles,[136] where King William held his court in the palace of the French emperors. Early in December King Ludwig of Bavaria proposed that a German empire should be established, and that the King of Prussia should be its first emperor. All the leading states gladly agreed, and on January 18, 1871, an imposing ceremony took place in the great gallery of the palace at Versailles. Every regiment around Paris sent its colours in charge of an officer and two non-commissioned officers, and all the chiefs of the army were present. A chaplain read a special service, and then the king, ascending a dais, announced himself German Emperor, and called upon Bismarck to read a proclamation addressed to the whole German nation.
The Crown Prince, as the first subject of the empire, came forward and kneeled before his father in homage. The Emperor raised him, and clasped in his arms the son who had toiled and fought and borne so great a share in bringing about that unity which the German peoples had so long desired.
* * * * *
On the 24th of February terms of peace were arranged, and on the 15th of March peace was signed. Before I tell you how France was punished by her conqueror, I wish to introduce to you two men who fought in this war--the one a Frenchman, the other an Englishman. If you were to see the Frenchman to-day you would find him a sturdy, thick-set man, with a heavy white moustache, huge eyebrows, and teeth that flash when he speaks. His head is massive, his neck is short and thick, and he gives you the idea of a trustworthy watch-dog. He is General Joffre,[137] Commander-in-Chief of the French army.
He was a lad of eighteen, a cadet at a military school, when the Franco-German War broke out. At once he was promoted second lieutenant and attached to a regiment of artillery. During the siege of Paris he fought his gun bravely against the Germans. Since that time he has seen much fighting, and his countrymen know him to be strong and silent--"a great soldier and a great man." He now commands the armies of France against the foe with whom he fought as a boy of eighteen. France and her soldiers have laid to heart the lessons of those terrible days, and the present war sees them no less brave, but far better prepared to meet their old enemy.
When the war began, an English boy of twenty, a cadet of the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, was staying with his father in Brittany. Without waiting to consult his father or his masters at Woolwich, he enlisted in the French army as a private, and joined the 2nd Army of the Loire. An attack of pneumonia put an end to his services, but not before he had realized the terrible peril which a nation runs when unprepared for war. One of his experiences with the French army was a perilous ascent in a war balloon; forty-three years later he made his first aeroplane flight.
That boy is now Field-Marshal Earl Kitchener,[138] the British Secretary of State for War, the man whom we all regard as our organizer of victory. Since the days when he fought against the Germans in France he has seen warfare in many lands, especially in Africa. In 1898 he overcame the Mahdi[139] in the Sudan, and it was largely due to him that the Boers were forced to make peace after the long war of 1899-1902. A German general who was with him in the Sudan said: "Lord Kitchener was cool and perfectly calm; he gave his orders without in the least raising his voice; he always made the right arrangements at the right moment. He seemed to be absolutely indifferent to personal danger, and never did anything out of bravado. Acting is out of the question with him; he is always perfectly natural." Such is the man who is the Secretary for War at this time of national stress and anxiety. The Germans were his first foes. Let us hope that they will be his last.
* * * * *
France paid dearly for her defeat. Germany demanded £200,000,000, and ordained that a German army should remain on French soil until this huge sum was paid. It seemed at first sight quite impossible for France to find the money; but so rich is her soil, and so thrifty are her peasants, that the whole of it was paid by the end of the year 1874. To most Frenchmen this was by no means the heaviest blow which France suffered. When Germany took back Eastern Lorraine and Alsace, which, you will remember, had once been her own, there was the deepest shame and sorrow throughout the land, and thousands of Frenchmen swore they would never rest until these provinces had been recovered. Though forty-three years have come and gone since that black day, Frenchmen have never forgotten the shame which they then endured. They have mourned without ceasing for Alsace and Lorraine, and that is why the statue of Strassburg in the Place de la Concorde has been draped in black for so many years. Every patriotic Frenchman believes that, when the present war is over, the tricolour will once more wave from the towers of Alsace and Lorraine.
* * * * *
Most of the people in Alsace were French by descent and by sympathy, and they were greatly distressed when they found that they must become subjects of Germany. When the Germans tried to force the German language on them, they were reduced to despair. I think the best way to explain to you their feelings is to ask you to read the following pathetic little story, which was written by a great French novelist, named Alphonse Daudet.[140] It is entitled--
"The Last French Lesson."
"This morning I was late in going to school, and I was very much afraid of a reprimand, as Mr. Hamel had said he would question me on the participles, and I had not prepared a single word. For a moment I thought of playing truant; the day was warm and bright, the blackbirds were whistling, and the Prussian soldiers were at drill in the park. I managed to resist all these attractions, however, and hurried on to school.
"In passing the mayor's house, I saw that a new notice was posted up on the board, which every one stopped to read. Many a sad notice had been posted up there during the last two years--news of battles lost, and orders for men and money for the war. As I passed on, the blacksmith, who was standing there, called to me, 'Don't hurry, my boy; you will be at your school soon enough to-day.' I thought he was making fun of me, and ran on.
"When I reached the playground, I did not hear that buzz of noise which I had counted on to enable me to get to my place unnoticed. Everything was quiet. You may imagine how frightened I was at having to open the door and enter in the midst of this silence. But Mr. Hamel only looked at me, and said in a kindly voice, 'Hurry to your place, my little Franz; we were about to commence without you.'
"When I was seated at my own desk, I had time to notice that the master had on his handsome green coat, his finely-embroidered shirt-front, and his black silk skull-cap, all of which he wore in school only on examination days and at the distribution of prizes. But what surprised me most was to see the benches at the end of the room, which were usually unoccupied, filled by the old people of the town, all sitting silent like ourselves.
"Mr. Hamel took his seat, and in a grave, sweet voice he said, 'My children, this is the last time I shall teach you. The order has come from Berlin that nothing but German is to be taught in the schools of Alsace. The new master will come to-morrow. To-day is your last lesson in French. Be very attentive, I pray you.'
"Now I understood why he had put on his fine Sunday clothes, and why the old men were seated at the end of the room. My last French lesson! Why, I could hardly write. How I regretted the time I had wasted in bird-nesting and in sliding on the Saar! My books, that I had found so wearisome, now seemed old friends that were about to leave me.
"I heard my name called. What would I not have given to be able to recite all those rules of the participles without a blunder! But I could only stand silent, with a swelling heart, not daring to look up.
"'I will not scold you, my little Franz,' said Mr. Hamel, in a sad tone; 'you are punished enough. Every day you have said, 'I have time enough--I will learn to-morrow;' and now what has happened? This putting off instruction till to-morrow has been the fault of us all in Alsace. Now the invaders say to us, 'How can you pretend to be French, when you cannot read and write your own language?'
"Mr. Hamel went on to speak of the French language, saying that it was the most beautiful, the most polished, and the richest language in the world, and that we must now watch over each other and see that we never forgot it; for even when a people become slaves, while they keep their own language it is as if they held the key to their prison.
"Then he took up a grammar, and went over our lesson with us. I was astonished to find that I could understand it quite easily. I had never listened so eagerly, and the master had never explained so patiently. It seemed as if he wished to make all his knowledge enter our heads at once.
"Next we passed to writing. He had prepared an entirely new exercise for us, to be written in round hand: 'France, Alsace; France, Alsace.' How eagerly each one applied himself! Nothing could be heard but the scratching of the pens upon the paper. A butterfly entered, but no one stopped to watch it.
"Mr. Hamel sat silent in the chair he had occupied for forty years. To-morrow he would leave the country for ever; even now we could hear his sister in the room above packing the trunks. Yet he had the courage to go through the school work to the end.
"Suddenly the clock struck noon. At the same time the bugles of the Prussian soldiers sounded under our windows, where they had come to drill.
"Mr. Hamel rose, pale, but full of dignity.
"'My friends,' he said in a low voice--'my friends, I--' But he was not able to finish the sentence.
"He turned to the blackboard, and with a piece of chalk wrote, in letters that covered the whole board, '_Vive la France!_'
"Then he stopped, leaned against the wall, and without saying a word, he waved his hand as if to say, 'The end has come; go!'"
[Footnote 136: _Vār-sa´y´_, French town, 11 miles south-west of Paris, containing a famous palace of Louis XIV., said to have cost £40,000,000.]
[Footnote 137: _Jofr_, born 1852.]
[Footnote 138: Born 1850.]
[Footnote 139: _Mah´di_, false prophet of the Mohammedans, who preached a holy war in the Sudan, that part of Africa south of Egypt and the Sahara. He was conquered by a British and Egyptian force at Omdurman in 1885.]
[Footnote 140: _Dō-dā´_, born 1840, died 1897, one of the greatest French novelists of the later nineteenth century. He has been compared, not unjustly, with Dickens.]