The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Volume 1Gwynn, Stephen Lucius
History
The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Volume 1
Gwynn, Stephen Lucius
Dilke, Charles Wentworth, Sir, 1843-1911; Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 19th century
'Fighting in our quarter had been again suspended at night, and in the
grey light of early morning (it was fine after a long rain) I left my
baker and made my way to the left, the left again, and then down a
long street towards the Eastern Railway. A sentry about two hundred
yards off presented his piece. I stood still in the middle of the
street. He seemed then not to know what to do. I had on the red-cross
armlet which I wore throughout the war, and held a white handkerchief
in my hand. I suppose I looked respectable enough to be allowed to
come nearer, for he let me advance. When near enough I called to him
that I wished to speak with the officer of the post. He called out a
corporal, to whom I made the same statement. They kept me there for a
time which seemed an age, and then brought an officer. I shouted to
him that I was an English newspaper correspondent, that I had an
authorization as such, an English passport, and a Prussian pass into
Paris, and that I was known to the Due de Broglie and to Lord Lyons;
also that I could name friends in the centre of Paris to whom I might
be sent under guard. He let me pass, and said: "Allez! Vous avez eu de
la chance." I went straight to the Arts et Métiers. The dead were
lying thick in the streets, especially at the Porte St. Martin
barricade, where they were being placed in tumbrils. The fighting had
been very heavy; the troops alone had lost 12,000 killed and wounded
after entering Paris. At least as many Federalists were killed
fighting, or wounded and finished, besides the great number shot after
their surrender. I found Tresca, the father, picking up the pieces of
the shells which were bursting in the courtyard, and putting them all
together with wires, to the greater glory of his own particular make.
It was the Federal artillery on the heights which was bombarding Paris
with Tresca's shells. When one burst perfectly into some twenty equal
pieces he would say:" Beautiful; that is one of mine." Any that burst
into one large piece and two or three little ones he set down to the
"génie militaire" of Vincennes.
'After several days I left Paris with Dr. W. H. Russell of the
_Times_, my former opponent at Chelsea at the '68 election, whom I had
last previously seen at Nancy on the day of Mars la Tour, and returned
to London, having for the purpose of leaving Paris a pass from Marshal
MacMahon's Chief of the Staff, which I still preserve.' [Footnote:
This Diary Extract of the War of 1870 was published in the _Nineteenth
Century_ of January, 1914.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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