The Plébiscite; or, A Miller's Story of the War

by Erckmann-Chatrian

  Produced by Al Haines

  [Frontispiece: HE ROBBED YOU, THAT'S ALL.]

  HISTORICAL ROMANCES OF FRANCE

  THE PLEBISCITE

  OR

  A MILLER'S STORY OF THE WAR

  BY ONE OF THE 7,500,000 WHO VOTED "YES"

  TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF

  ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN

  ILLUSTRATED

  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

  NEW YORK::::::::::::::::::::::1911

  COPYRIGHT, 1889, 1898

  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  "_He robbed you, that's all_" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_

  "_The grapeshot has mown them down. There are none left_"

  _They drew two poor old men from their cellar_

  _There he was, leaning forward to listen_

  "_Good-by, my father! Good-by, my mother!_"

  INTRODUCTORY NOTE

  The present volume serves to emphasize the important connection, sogenerally now lost sight of, between the _plebiscite_ of 1870 in Franceand the war with Prussia which so speedily followed. Under theadministration of Ollivier, which promised an attractive extension ofpopular liberties, it will be remembered, the _plebiscitum_ of theRoman Constitution was borrowed, to give an air of popular approval tothe strongly attacked Imperial regime by taking the sense of the peoplethrough universal suffrage as to the continuance of the Imperialauthority on its then existing basis. Of the web of chicane andcorruption by which the election was brought out an overwhelmingtriumph for Imperialism, MM. Erckmann-Chatrian give a clearer and moreimpressive notion in this book than could be obtained from entirevolumes of parliamentary reports and whole files of newspapers. Butthey make it especially clear how the people were persuaded to return amajority of "yeses" so enormous as to make it impossible to account forit on the theory of mere corruption and chicane. It is evident fromthis narrative that the people were made to believe that the Empiremeant peace abroad and freedom from foreign complications thenthreatening, as well as tranquillity at home, and that therefore one ofthe profoundest instincts of twenty millions of peasantry was utilizedin order to be subsequently betrayed.

  No authors could have been so happily chosen to write the story of thestruggle which followed. Alsace and Lorraine, at once the scene of theearliest campaign of the war and the victims of its result, furnish themost appropriate background of such a picture. In reading theseadventures, sufferings, meditations, and discussions of the simple yetshrewd Alsatian miller and his neighbors, the reader will take inalmost at a glance the causes, incidents, and consequences of one ofthe greatest of modern wars. The corruption of the office-holdingclasses, the ignorance of the army officers whose ranks had been filledby favoritism, the bravery of the private soldier ill-equipped,ill-fed, and disastrously led, the contrasting system and discipline ofthe Prussians, the awakening by Gambetta of the national enthusiasm,and the determined and dogged fighting under Chanzy, Faidherbe, andBourbaki, how the peasants fared at the hands of the enemy, and how theenemy conducted themselves during the brief campaign are all unfoldedbefore the reader with a combined fulness and incisiveness difficult toencounter elsewhere in narratives of this momentous conflict.

  THE PLEBISCITE

  OR

  A MILLER'S STORY OF THE WAR

  CHAPTER I

  I am writing this history for sensible people. It is my own storyduring the calamitous war we have just gone through. I write it toshow those who shall come after us how many evil-minded people thereare in the world, and how little we ought to trust fair words; for wehave been deceived in this village of ours after a most abominablefashion; we have been deceived by all sorts of people--by thesous-prefets, by the prefets, and by the Ministers; by the cures, bythe official gazettes; in a word, by each and all.

  Could any one have imagined that there are so many deceivers in thisworld? No, indeed; it requires to be seen with one's own eyes to bebelieved.

  In the end we have had to pay dearly. We have given up our hay, ourstraw, our corn, our flour, our cattle; and that was not enough.Finally, they gave up _us_, our own selves. They said to us: "You areno longer Frenchmen; you are Prussians! We have taken your young mento fight in the war; they are dead, they are prisoners: now settle withBismarck any way you like; your business is none of ours!"

  But these things must be told plainly: so I will begin at thebeginning, without getting angry.

  You must know, in the first place, that I am a miller in the village ofRothalp, in the valley of Metting, at Dosenheim, between Lorraine andAlsace. It is a large and fine village of 130 houses, possessing itscure Daniel, its school-master Adam Fix, and principal inhabitants ofevery kind--wheelwrights, blacksmiths, shoemakers, tailors, publicans,brewers, dealers in eggs, butter, and poultry; we even have two Jews,Solomon Kaan, a pedler, and David Hertz, cattle-dealer.

  This will show you what was our state of prosperity before this war;for the wealthier a village is, the more strangers it draws: every manfinds a livelihood there, and works at his trade.

  We had not even occasion to fetch our butcher's-meat from town. Davidkilled a cow now and then, and retailed all we wanted for Sundays andholidays.

  I, Christian Weber, have never been farther than thirty leagues fromthis commune. I inherited my mill from my grandfather, MarcelDesjardins, a Frenchman from the neighborhood of Metz, who had built itin the time of the Swedish war, when our village was but a miserablehamlet. Twenty-six years ago I married Catherine Amos, daughter of theold forest-ranger. She brought me a hundred louis for her dowry. Wehave two children--a daughter, Gredel, and a son, Jacob, who are stillwith us at home.

  I have besides a cousin, George Weber, who went off more than thirtyyears ago to serve in the Marines in Guadeloupe. He has even been onactive service there. It was he who beat the drum on the forecastle ofthe ship _Boussole_, as he has told me a hundred times, whilst thefleet was bombarding St. John d'Ulloa. Afterward he was promoted to besergeant; then he sailed to North America, for the cod fisheries; andagain into the Baltic, on board a small Danish vessel engaged in thecoal-trade. George was always intent upon making a fortune. About1850 he returned to Paris, and established a manufactory of matches inthe Rue Mouffetard in Paris; and as he is really a very handsome tallman, with a dark complexion, bold looking, and with a quick eye, he atlast married a rich widow without children, Madame Marie Anne Finck,who was keeping an inn in that neighborhood. They grew rich. Theybought land in our part of the country through the agency of MonsieurFingado, the solicitor, to whom he sent regularly the price of everypiece of land. At last, on the death of the old carpenter, JosephBriou, he became the purchaser of his house, to live there with hiswife, and to keep a public-house on the road to Metting.

  This took place last year, during the time of the Plebiscite, andCousin George came to inspect his house before taking his wife, MarieAnne, to it.

  I was mayor; I had received orders from M. le Sous-prefet to givepublic notice of the Plebiscite, and to request all well-disposedpersons to vote "_Yes,_" _if they desired to preserve peace_; becauseall the ruffians in the country were going to vote _No_, to have war.

  This is exactly what I did, by making everybody promise to come withoutfail, and sending the _bangard_* Martin Kapp to carry the votingtickets to the very farthest cottages up the mountains.

  * An old word, probably from _ban garde_; now _garde champetre_, a kindof rural policeman.

  Cousin George arrived the evening before the Plebiscite. I receivedhim very kindly, as one ought to receive a rich relation who has nochildren. He seemed quite pleased to see us, and dined with us in the
best of tempers. He carried with him in a small leathern trunkclothes, shoes, shirts--everything that he required. He was short ofnothing. That day everything went on well; but the next day, hearingthe notices cried by the rural policeman, he went off to Reibell'sbrewery, which was full of people, and began to preach against thePlebiscite.

  I was just then at the mayoralty house wearing my official scarfreceiving the tickets, when suddenly my deputy Placiard came to tellme, in high indignation, that certain miserable wretches were attackingthe rider; that one of them was at the "Cruchon d'Or," and that halfthe village were very nearly murdering him.

  Immediately I went down and ran to the public-house, where my cousinwas calling them all asses, affirming that the Plebiscite was for war;that the Emperor, the Ministers, the prefects, the generals, and thebishops were deceiving the people; that all those men were acting apart to get our money from us, and much besides to the same purpose.

  I, from the passage, could hear him shouting these things in a terriblevoice, and I said to myself, "The poor fellow has been drinking."

  If George had not been my cousin; if he had not been quite capable someday of disinheriting my children, I should certainly have arrested himat once, and had him conveyed under safe keeping to Sarrebourg; but, ongiving due weight to these considerations, I resolved to put an end tothis awkward business, and I cried to the people who were crowding thepassage, "Make room, you fellows, make room!"

  Those enraged creatures, seeing the scarf, gave way in all directions;and then discovering my cousin, seated at a table in the right-handcorner, I said: "Cousin! what are you thinking of, to create such ascandal?"

  He, too, was abashed at the sight of the scarf, having served in thenavy, and knowing that there is no man who claims more respect than amayor; that he has a right to lay hands upon you, and send you to thelock-up, and, if you resist, to send you as far as Sarrebourg andNancy. Reflecting upon this, he calmed down in a moment, for he hadnot been drinking at all, as I supposed at first, and he was sayingthese things without bitterness, without anger, conscientiously, andout of regard for his fellow-citizens.

  Therefore, he replied to me, quietly: "Mr. Mayor, look after yourelections! See that certain rogues up there--as there are rogueseverywhere--don't stuff into the ballot-box handfuls of _Yeses_ insteadof _Noes_ while your back is turned. This has often happened! Andthen pray don't trouble yourself about me. In the Government Gazette,it is declared that every man shall be free to maintain his ownopinions, and to vote as he pleases; if my mouth is stopped, I shallprotest in the newspapers."

  Hearing that he would protest, to avoid a worse scandal I answered him:"Say what you please; no one shall declare that we have put anyconstraint upon the elections; but, you men, you know what you have todo."

  "Yes, yes," shouted all the people in the room and down the passage,lifting their hats. "Yes, Monsieur le Maire; we will listen to nothingat all. Whether they talk all day or say nothing, it is all the sameto us."

  And they all went off to vote, leaving George alone.

  M. le Cure Daniel, seeing them coming out, came from his parsonage toplace himself at their head. He had preached in the morning in favorof the Plebiscite, and there was not a single _No_ in the box.

  If my cousin had not had the large meadow above the mill, and thefinest acres in the country, he would have been an object of contemptfor the rest of his days; but a rich man, who has just bought a house,an orchard, a garden, and has paid ready money for everything, may saywhatever he pleases: especially when he is not listened to, and thepeople go and do the very opposite of what he has been advising them.

  Well, this is the way with the elections for the Plebiscite with us,and just the same thing went on throughout our canton: atPhalsbourg--which had been abundantly placarded against the Plebiscite,and where they carried their audacity even to watching the mayor andthe ballot-box--out of fifteen hundred electors, military and civil,there were only thirty-two _Noes_.

  It is quite clear that things were making favorable progress, and thatM. le Sous-prefet could not be otherwise than perfectly satisfied withour behavior.

  I must also mention that we were in want of a parish road toHangeviller; that we had been promised a pair of church-bells, and the_Glandee_, or right of feeding our hogs upon the acorns in autumn; andthat we were aware that all the villages which voted the wrong way gotnothing, whilst the others--in consideration of the good councillorsthey had sent up, either to the arrondissement or the department--mightalways reckon upon a little money from the tax-collector for thenecessities of their parish. Monsieur le Sous-prefet had pointed outthese advantages to me; and naturally a good mayor will inform hissubordinates. I did so. Our deputies, our councillors-general, ourcouncillors of the arrondissement, were all on the right side! Bythese means we have already gained the right to the dead leaves and ourgreat wash-houses. We only sought our own good, and we much preferredseeing other villages pay the ministers, the senators, the marshals,the bishops, and the princes, to paying them ourselves. So that allthat Cousin George could say to us about the interest of all, and thewelfare of the nation, made not the least impression upon us.

  I remember that that very day of the Plebiscite, when it was alreadyknown that we had all voted right, and that we should get our two bellswith the parish road--I remember that my cousin and I had, aftersupper, a great quarrel, and that I should certainly have put him out,if it had not been he.

  We were taking our _petit verre_ of _kirsch_, smoking our pipes, withour elbows on the table; my wife and Gredel had already gone to bed,when all at once he said to me: "Listen to me, Christian. Save therespect I owe you as mayor, you are all a set of geese in this village,and it is a very fortunate thing that I am come here, that you mayhave, at least, one sensible man among you."

  I was going to get angry, but he said:

  "Just let me finish; if you had but spent a couple of years at Paris,you would see things a little plainer; but at this moment, you are likea nest of hungry jays, blind and unfeathered; they open their bills,and they cry 'Jaques,' to call down food from heaven. Those who hearthem climb up the tree, twist their necks, put them into the pot andlaugh. That is your position. You have confidence in your enemies,and you give them power to pluck you just as they please. If youappointed upright men in your districts as deputies,councillors-general, instead of taking whoever the prefecturerecommends, would not the Emperor and the other honorable men above beobliged then to leave you the money which the tax-collector makes youpay in excess? Could all those people then enrich themselves at yourexpense, and amass immense fortunes in a few years? Would you then seeold baskets with their bottoms out, fellows whom you would not havetrusted with a halfpenny before the _coup-d'etat_--would you see thembecome millionnaires, rolling in gold, gliding along in carriages withtheir wives, their children, their servants, and their ballet-dancers?The prefets, the sous-prefets say to you: 'Go on voting right, and youshall have this, you shall have that'--things which you have a right todemand in virtue of the taxes you pay, but which are granted to you asfavors--roads, wash-houses, schools, etc. Would you not be having themin your own right, if the money which is taken from you were left inthe commune? What does the Emperor do for you? He plunders you--thatis all. Your money, he shows it to you before each election, as theyshow a child a stick of sugar-candy to make it laugh; and when theelection is over he puts it back into his pocket. The trick is played."

  "How can he put that money into his pocket?" I asked, full ofindignation. "Are not the accounts presented every year in theChambers?"

  Upon this he shrugged his shoulders and answered: "You are not sharp,Christian; it is not so difficult to present accounts to the Chambers.So many chassepots--which have no existence! So much munition of war,of which no one knows anything. So much for retiring pensions; so muchfor the substitutes' fund; so much for changes of uniform. Theuniforms are changed every year; that is good for business. Do thedeputies inquire into these matters? W
ho checks the Ministers'budgets? And the deputies whom the Minister of the Interior hasrecommended to you, whom you have appointed like fools, and whom theEmperor would throw up at the very first election, if those gentlemenbreathed a syllable about visiting the arsenals and examining into theaccounts--what a farce it is! Why, yesterday, passing throughPhalsbourg, I got upon the ramparts, and I saw there guns of the timeof Herod, upon gun-carriages eaten up by worms and painted over toconceal the rottenness. These very guns, I do believe, are recastevery third or fourth year--upon paper--with your money. Ah, my poorChristian, you are not very sharp, nor the other people in our villageeither. But the men you send as deputies to Paris--they _are_ sharp,too sharp."

  He broke out into a laugh, and I could have sent him back to Paris.

  "Do you know what you want?" said he then, filling his pipe andlighting it, for I made no reply, being too much annoyed; "what youwant is not good sense, it is not honesty. All of us peasants, westill possess some good sense and honesty. And we believe, moreover,in the honesty of others, which proves that we ourselves have a littleleft! No, what you want is education; you have asked for bells, andbells you will get; but all the school you have is a miserable shed,and your only school-master is old Adam Fix, who can teach his childrennothing because he knows nothing himself. Well now, if you were to askfor a really good school, there would be no money in the public funds.There is money enough for bells, but for a good school-master, for alarge, well-ventilated room, for deal benches and tables, for pictures,slates, maps, and books, there is nothing; for if you had good schools,your children could read, write, keep accounts; they would soon be ableto look into the Ministers' budgets, and that is exactly what hisMajesty wishes to avoid. You understand now, cousin; this is thereason why you have no school and you have bells."

  Then he looked knowingly at me:

  "And, do you know," said he, after a few moments' thought, "do you knowhow much all the schools in France cost? I am not referring to thegreat schools of medicine, and law, and chemistry, the colleges, andthe lyceums, which are schools for wealthy young men, able to keepthemselves in large cities, and to pay for their own maintenance. I amspeaking of schools for the people, elementary schools, where readingand writing are taught: the two first things which a man must know, andwhich distinguish him from the savages who roam naked in the Americanforests? Well, the deputies whom the people themselves send to protecttheir interests in Paris, and whose first thought, if they are notaltogether thieves, ought to be to discharge their duty toward theirconstituencies--these deputies have never voted for the schools of thepeople a larger sum than seventy-five millions. The state contributesten millions as its share; the commune, the departments, the fathersand mothers do the rest. Seventy-five millions to educate the peoplein a great country like ours! it is a disgrace. The United Statesspends six times the amount. But on the other hand, for the war budgetwe pay five hundred millions; even that would not be too much if we hadfive hundred thousand men under arms, according to the calculationwhich has been made of what it costs per diem for each man; but for anarmy of two hundred and fifty thousand men, it is too much by half.What becomes of the other three hundred millions? If they were madeavailable to build schools, to pay able masters, to furnish retreatsfor workmen in their declining days, I should have nothing to sayagainst it; but to jingle in the pockets of MM. the senators and toring the bells of MM. the cures, I consider that too dear."

  As Cousin George bothered my mind with all his arguments, I felt a wishto go to bed, and I said to him:

  "All that, cousin, is very fine, but it is getting late: and besides ithas nothing to do with the Plebiscite."

  I had risen; but he laid his hand upon my arm and said: "Let us talk alittle longer--let me finish my pipe. You say that this has nothing todo with the Plebiscite; but that Plebiscite is for all this nicearrangement of things to go on. If the nation believes that all isright, that enough money is left to it, and that it can even spare alittle more; that the ministers, the senators, and the princes are notyet sufficiently fat and flourishing; that the Emperor has not boughtenough in foreign countries; well, it will say with this Plebiscite,'Go on, pray go on--we are quite satisfied.' Does that suit yourideas?"

  "Yes. I had rather that than war," said I, in a very bad temper. "TheEmpire is peace; I vote for peace."

  Then George himself rose up, emptying his pipe on the edge of thetable, and said: "Christian, you are right. Let us go to bed. Irepent having bought old Briou's house; decidedly the people in theseparts are too stupid. You quite grieve me."

  "Oh, I don't want to grieve you," said I, angrily; "I have quite asmuch sense as you."

  "What!" said he, "you the mayor of Rothalp, in daily communication withthe sous-prefet, you believe that the object of this Plebiscite is toconfirm peace?"

  "Yes, I do."

  "What, you believe that? Come now. Have we not peace at the presentmoment? Do we want a Plebiscite to preserve it? Do you suppose thatthe Germans are taken in by it? Our peasants, to be sure, are misled;they are indoctrinated at the cure's house, at the mayoralty-house, atthe sous-prefecture; but not a single workman in Paris is a dupe ofthis pernicious scheming. They all know that the Emperor and theMinisters want war; that the generals and the superior officers demandit. Peace is a good thing for tradesmen, for artisans, for peasants;but the officers are tired of being cramped up in the same rankperpetually without a rise. Already the inferior officers have beendisgusted with the profession through the crowds of nobles, Jesuits,and canting hypocrites of all sorts who are thrust into the army. Thetroops are not animated with a good spirit; they want promotion, orthey will end by rousing themselves into a passion: especially whenthey see the Prussians under our noses helping themselves to everythingthey please without asking our leave. You don't understand that!There," said he, "I am sleepy. Let us go to bed."

  Then I began to understand that my cousin had learned many things inParis, and that he knew more of politics than I did. But that did notprevent me from being in a great rage with him, for the whole of thatday he had done nothing but cause trouble; and I said to myself that itwas impossible to live with such a brute.

  My wife, at the top of the landing, had heard us disputing; but as wewere going upstairs, she came all smiles to meet us, holding thecandle, and saying: "Oh, you have had a great deal to tell each otherthis evening! You must have had enough. Come, cousin, let me take youto your room; there it is. From your window you may see the woods inthe moonlight; and here is your bed, the best in the house. You willfind your cotton nightcap under the pillow."

  "Very nice, Catherine, thank you," said George.

  "And I hope you will sleep comfortably," said she, returning to me.

  This wise woman, full of excellent good sense, then said to me, while Iwas undressing: "Christian! what were you thinking of, to contradictyour cousin? Such a rich man, and who can do us so much good by andby! What does the Plebiscite signify? What can that bring us in?Whatever your cousin says to you, say 'Amen' after it. Remember thathis wife has relations, and she will want to get everything on herside. Mind you don't quarrel with George. A fine meadow below themill, and an orchard on the hill-side, are not found every day in theway of a cow."

  I saw at once that she was right, and I inwardly resolved never tocontradict George again: he might himself alone be worth to us far morethan the Emperor, the Ministers, the senators, and all theestablishment together; for everyone of those people thought of his owninterests alone, without ever casting a thought upon us. Of course weought to do the same as they did, since they had succeeded so well insewing gold lace upon all their seams, fattening and living inabundance in this world; not to mention the promises that the bishopsmade to them for the next.

  Thinking upon these things, I lay calmly down, and soon fell asleep.