PARIS UNDER SIEGE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 909, 29 April 1871, Page 4

PARIS UNDER SIEGE.

_*— The following extracts are from the diary of the " Besieged Resident," and range from January 6 to the evening of Feb. 1 : — The bill of mortality for the week ending January 13 gives an increase on the previous week of 302. The number of deaths regis tered is 39 S2. This is at the rate of above 20 per cent per annum, and it must be remembered that in this return those who die in the public hospitals, or of tbe direct effect of the war, are not included. Small-pox is about stationary ; bronchitis and pneumonia largely on the increase. The Pantheon was struck yesterday. What desecration ! everyone cries ; and I am very sorry for the Pantheon, but very glad that it was the Pantheon, and not me. The world at large very likely would lose more by the destruction of the Pantheon than of any particular individual ; but each particular individual prefers himself to all the edifices that architects have raised on the face of the globe. In order to encourage us to put up with our short commons, we are now perpetually being told that the Government has in reserve vast stores of potted meats, butter, cheese, and other luxuries, of which we have almost forgotten the very taste ; and that when things come to the worst we shall turn the corner, and enter into a period of univereal abundance. These stores seem to me much like the mirage which lures on the traveller of the desert, and which perpetually recedes as he advances. But the great difficulty of the moment is to procure fuel. I am ready, as some one said, to eat the soles of my boots for the sake of my country ; but then they must be cooked. All the mills are on the Marne, and cannot be approached. Steammills have been put up, but they work slowly ; and whatever may be the amount of corn yet in store, it is almost impossible to grind enough of it to meet the daily requirements. Bombs fall into the southern part of the town ; but habit in this world is everything, and no one troubles himself much about them. At night, the Trocadero has become a fashionable lounge for the cocottes who still honour us with their presence. The line of the Prussian batteries and the flash of their guns can be seen. The hissing, too, of the bombs can be heard, when the cocottes crouch by their swains in affected dread. It is like Cremorne, with its ladies and its fireworks. Since yesterday morning, too, St. Denis has been bombarded. Most of its inhabitants have taken refuge in Paris, but ifc will be a pity if the cathedral, with the tombs of all the old French kings, is damaged. St. Denis is itself a species of fort. Its guns are not, a friend tells me who has just come from there, replying with vigour. The Prussians are filing on it from six separate batteries, and it is feared that it will fall. Our attention today has been diverted from the Prussians outside by a little domestic quarrel at home, and we have been shooting each other, as though the Prussian missiles were not enough for our warlike stomachs, and death were not raging around our prison. I suppose about 10 people are hit every 24 bours. Now, as above 50 people die every day in Paris of bronchitis, there is far more danger from the latter than from the batteries of the disciples of Geist outside. It is uot worse to die by a bomb than of a cold. Indeed I am by no means sure that of the two evils the latter is not the least, yet a person being suddenly struck down in the streets of a capital by a piece of iron from a cannon will always produce a more startling effect upon- the mind than a rise in the bills of mortality from natural causes. Those who are out of reach of the Prussian guns are becoming accustomed to the bombardment. "You naughty child," I heard a woman who was walking before me say to her daughter, "if you do not behave better I will not take you to see the bombardment." "It is better tban a vaudeville," 6aid a girl near me on the Trocadero, and she clapped ber hands. A man at Point-du-Jour showed me two great holes which had been made in his parden the night before by two bombs close by his front-door. He, his wife, and his children, seemed to be rather proud of them. I asked him why he did not move into the interior of the town, and he said that he could not afford it. Ihe yin ordinaire is giving out. Io has already risen nearly 60 per cent, in price. This is a very serious thing for the poor, who not only drink it, but warm it and make with bread a soup out of it. Yesterday, I had a slice of Pollux for dinner. Pollux and his brother Castor are two elephants, which have been killed. It was tough, coarse, and oily, and I do not recommend English families to eat elephant as long as they can get beef or rmitnjtn MffHyof the restaurants are closed, owing to the want of fuel. They are recom mended to use lamps ; bufc although French cooks can do wonders with very poor materials, when they are called upon to cook an elephant with a spirit lamp the thing is almost beyond their ingenuity. Castor and Pollux's trunks sold for 45f. a lb. ; the other parts of the interesting twins fetched about lOf. a lb. It is a good deal warmer to-day ; and has been thawhig in the sun; if the cold aod the siege had continued much longer, the Prussians would have found us all in bed. It is a far easier thing to cut down a tree than to make it burn. Proverbs are not always true ; and I have found to my bitter experience of late that the proverb, that "there is no smoke without a fire " is untrue. The Tupper who made ifc never tried to burn green wood. This morning the bread was rationed all °IL r J*iL_-__3_'_ No Lone_ is to l have more than 300 grammes per diem; children only 150. I recommend anyone who has lived too high to try this regime for a week. It will do him good. No costermonger's ' donkey is so overloaded as the stomach of most rich people. The Government, on December 12, solemnly announced that tbe bread never would be rationed. This measure, therefore,

looks to me very much like the beginning of the end. A requisition is also being made in the apartments of all those who have quitted Paris,in search of provisions. Another sign of the end. But it is impossible to know on how little a Frenchman enn live until the question has been tested. I went yesterday into the house of a friend of mine, in the Avenue l'lmperatrice, which is left in charge of a servant, and found three families, driven out of their homes by tbe bombardment, installed in it— one family, consisting of a father, a mother, and three children, were boiling a piece of horse meat, about 4in square, in a bucket full of water. This exceedingly thin soup was to laßt them for three days. The day before they had each had a carrot. The trouble of the bread is that the supply ceases before the demand in most quarters, so that those who come last get none. When the capitulation does take place, the question of reviiitualling will not be any easy one to settle. The Prussians will probably insist upon being put in possession of towns such as Havre, from which food is to be forwarded. But will these towns agree to terms with regard to which they have not been consulted ? In the view of most persons here capable of forming an opinion, the war will not continue long after the capitulation of Paris. Sooner or later, a National Assembly must be called together, and this assembly will be in favour of peace on the best terms which can be obtained from the victors. Paris, even besieged, acts as the rallying point of France ; when it is taken all unity of action will disappear. There will, indeed, cease to be a Government ; for what are the deputies of Paris when the city is in the hands of the Prussians ? and what is the delegation at Bordeaux but an emanation from these difficulties ? Since the bread has been rationed the women are not nearly so strong in favour of a prolonged resistance as they were. There will, of course, remain many persons who will endeavour to bow the seed of future political capital by crying out for a lutte a outrance until the very end ; but unless the temper of the population changes — and very possibly it will — in the next few days, the • • happy despatch " will take place without any tumults of a dangerous character. Our rulers are, however, so weak, and so afraid of acting with energy, that a few reBolute men at the head of a very small mob might do mischief. To-day I was down in Vaugirard. I saw a house through which a shell had just passed. It burst under a billiard table, but killed no one. People in the Faubourg St. Germain are beginning to move. In the southern outer faubourgs there is a complete stampede. Every sort of van is in requisition, but as trucks are rare, people are to be seen staggering away with their beds and a few articles of furniture on their backs. The mayors of the safe quarters have issued notices, calling upon charitable persons to house these fugitives. The noise of the cannon is now | incessant. Standing near Point dv Jour it sounds like a gigantic battue, with cannon instead of guns, and ourselves taking the place of the hares and rabbits. The effect upon the population is more one of wild anger than fear. They had never really realised to themselves the possibility of the Prussians venturing to throw shells into the " centre of civilisation " The object of the Prussians is, I presume, to increase the misery of the town by throwing back the poorer classes into the interior. I suppose that by the rules of war they are justified, for a city, if it chooses to stand a siege, must accept the consequences. Bufc it is carrying the rights of war to their extreme limit to kill women and children by firing shots into tbeir houses from batteries miles away. One shell fell into a school, and killed three children and wounded several others. As for aiming at the hospitals, Ido not believe it ; but it is certain that both ambulances and hospitals have been struck. In the bombarded quarters many shops are closed. Some householders have made a sort of casements reaching to the first story of their houses ; others sleep in their cellars. The streets are, however, full of people, even in the most exposed districts ; and all the heights from wbich a view is to be had of the Prussian batteries are crowded with sightseers. Every now and then one sees some house through which a shell has passed. The public buildings have, as yet, suffered very slightly. The dome of tbe Pantheon, which we presume is used aa a mark for the aim of the Prussian artillerymen, has not been hit. In the Jardin des Plantes all the glass of the conservatories has been shattered by the concussion of the air, and the orchids and other tropical plants are dying. Although war and its horrors are thus brought home to our very doors, it is even still difficult to realise that great events are passing around us which history will celebrate in its most solemn and dignified style. Distance in battles lends grandeur to the view. Had the charge of Balaclava taken place on Clapbam Common, or had our gallant swordsmen replaced the donkeys on Hampstead Heath, even Tennyson would have been unable to poetise their exploits. When one sees stuck up in an omnibus office that omnibuses " will have to make a circuit from cause de bombardment ;" when shells burst in restaurants and maim the waiters; when the trenches are in tea gardens; and when one is invited for a sou to look through a telescope at the enemy firing off their guns, there is a homely domestic air about the whole thing which is quite inconsistent with " the pomp and pride of glorious war." , So poor Jonah (Trocbu) has gone over, and been swallowed up by the whale. He still remains the head of the civil government, but it only is as a figure-head. He is an honest upright man ; but as a military chief he has proved himself a complete failure. He was a man of plans, and never could alter the details of these plans to suit a change of Circumstances. - : What his grand plan was, by which Paris was to be saved, no one now, I presume, ever will know. The plans of his sorties were always elaborately drawn up;

each divisional commander was told in the minutest details what he was to do. Unfortunately, General Moltk'^ usually interfered with the proper development of these details — a proceeding which always surprised poor Trochu ; and in the account the next day of his operations, he would dwell upon the fact as a reason for his want of success. That batteries should be opened upon his troops, and that reinforcements should be brought up against them, were trifles — probable as they might seem to most persons — which filled him with an indignant astonishment. General Vinoy, who has replaced him, is a hale old soldier, about 70 years old. He has risen from the ranks, and in the Crimea was a very intimate friend of Lord Clyde. When the latter came, a few years before his death, to Paris, the English Ambassador had prepared a grand breakfast for him, and had gone to the station to meet him. On the platform was also old Vinoy, who also had prepared breakfast for his old comrade in arms; and this breakfast, very much to the disgust of the diplomatist, Lord Clyde accepted. General Vinoy has to-day issued a proclamation to the troops, which in its plain, simple, modest language contrasts very favourably with the inflated bombast in which his predecessor was so great an adept. The newspapers are already commencing to prove io their own satisfaction that the battle of last Thursday was not a defeat, but an incomplete victory. As for the National Guard, one would suppose that every one of them had been in the action, and that they were only prevented from carrying everything before them by the timidity of their generals. The wonderful feats which many of these heroes have told me they performed would lead one to suppose that Napoleon's Old Guard was but a flock of sheep in comparison with them. I cannot help thinking that by a certain indistinctness of recollection they attribute to themselves every exploit, not only that they saw, but that their fertile imaginations have ever dreamt to be possible. In all this nonsense they are supported by tbe newspapers, who think more of their circulation than of truth, lo read the accounts of this battle one would suppose that neither the Line nor the Mobiles had been in it. As a matter of fact, about 5000 National Guards were in the thick of it ; the men behaved tolerably well, and many of the officers very well. The great majority of the marching battalions which were iv the isthmus "did not give," to use the French phrase; and some of them, notwithstanding the efforts of their officers, were unable to remain steady as soon as the Prussian bombs reached them. This sic vos non vobis which is meted out to the Mobiles and the Line makes me indignant. As for the sailors, they are splendid fellows — and how we alwayß manage to treat them afloat increases my admiration of the British tars. They are kept under the strictest discipline by their captains and admirals. In the forts they are perfectly cool uuder the heaviest fire, and both at Le Bourget and at Chatillon they fought like heroes. Ten thousand of them, said a general to me the other day, are worth more than the whole National Guards.