French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – The Downfall (La Débâcle) – Contents
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Notes
[1]Commanded by Marshal MacMahon.—Trans.
[2]The hero of M. Zola’s novel ‘La Terre,’ son of Antoine Macquart and brother of Gervaise, the heroine of ‘L’Assommoir.’—Trans.
[3]Weissenburg was stormed by the army of the Crown Prince of Prussia on August 4, when General Abel Douay was killed, and 800 of his troops were taken prisoners.—Trans.
[4]This was Madame Marie Sass, the prima donna.—Trans.
[5]It was stationed at Rome and Civita Vecchia for the defence of Pius IX.—Trans.
[6]Commanded by the notorious General de Failly who had slaughtered the Garibaldians at Mentana three years previously, and who, as aide-de-camp to Napoleon III., had rendered the latter certain services of an equivocal character. This was proved by the secret papers found at the Tuileries after the Revolution and published by the Government of National Defence. To reward M. de Failly, the Emperor appointed him to the command of an army corps that he might have an opportunity of winning the bâton of Marshal of France.—Trans.
[7]The Plebiscitum of May 1870, when the policy of Napoleon III. was ratified by 7,350,000 votes against 1,500,000.—Trans.
[8]August 6, 1870. The French, under MacMahon, defeated at Wœrth by the Crown Prince of Prussia with the loss of two eagles, six mitrailleuses, thirty cannon, and 6,000 prisoners. The French also defeated and driven back at Speichern by General Steinmetz on the same day.—Trans.
[9]Under the military law then in force in France, a young man drawn at the conscription was not compelled to serve provided he could pay for a substitute. Loubet was one of the latter. A similar regulation obtains in our militia.—Trans.
[10]See note 5.
[11]A nickname given to Napoleon III.; properly the name of the workman whose clothes he wore in escaping from the fort of Ham in 1846.—Trans.
[12]Presided over by the renegade Emile Ollivier, who declared war with ‘a light heart.’—Trans.
[13]Formed by the mendacious Count de Palikao.—Trans.
[14]A nickname given to Rouher on account of the large share of authority he exercised during many years of the Empire.—Trans.
[15]The Guides were a regiment of light cavalry wearing a hussar style of uniform, but armed with carbines as well as sabres. The Cent-Gardes were the imperial bodyguard, picked men of the heavy cavalry, 100 strong as their name implied.—Trans.
[16]Abel, not Félix Douay.—Trans.
[17]The Germans brought about 40,000 men into action to overcome these 5,000 Frenchmen.—Trans.
[18]The Chasseurs d’Afrique thus designate their squads, in imitation of the Arabs.—Trans.
[19]On August 11 the Emperor left Metz, Bazaine’s army commenced its retreat, and an indecisive action took place at Courcelles and Pange; on the 16th Prince Frederick Charles attacked Bazaine at Mars-la-Tour, and stopped his retreat; and on the 18th the French were again attacked at Gravelotte, and, after nine hours’ fighting, driven back towards Metz.—Trans.
[20]The mendacious War Minister, Count de Palikao, had the effrontery to assert before the Corps Législatif that this engagement had really taken place, whereas it had no existence, save in the imagination of some unscrupulous French journalist.—Trans.
[21]The marching powers of the German infantry are well known. Before a Prussian recruit is entered in a foot regiment he is carefully examined in order to see whether his feet will bear the strain of long marches, and the greatest attention is paid to the fit of the excellent boots with which he is provided. In war time, moreover, whenever practicable, the knapsacks are conveyed in a cart attached to each company, in order to facilitate rapid motion. Such care is sure to reap its reward.—Trans.
[22]Meaning the surgeon. French army surgeons are commonly designated by their military rank, without reference to their medical qualifications.—Trans.
[23]In point of fact the Royal Prussian head quarters were at Bar-le-Duc on August 25, and it was there that the Crown Prince heard that MacMahon had made at first for Rheims, and then had struck off in a northerly direction. Count Moltke immediately decided that the army of the Crown Prince of Saxony, which on August 22 had started on its westward march from before Metz by Verdun and St. Menehould, should advance to meet MacMahon, and hold him in the Argonne; whilst the Crown Prince of Prussia’s forces hastened northward by forced marches in view of sweeping round the right flank of the French, and hemming them in against the Belgian frontier. On August 26 the Saxons were marching for Stenay on the Meuse and the Prussians to Clermont-en-Argonne and Grand-Pré.—Trans.
[24]In the engagements fought this day (August 30) between the Germans and De Failly’s corps and other portions of MacMahon’s army, 7,000 of the French were taken prisoners, and a quantity of their camp equipage and twenty guns were captured.—Trans.
[25]Equivalent to our Charlie.
[26]Napoleon III. had very short legs, and on foot he looked comparatively insignificant. But the length of his trunk gave him a commanding presence when he was on horseback, and he then appeared taller than the majority of his officers.—Trans.
[27]In order that the reader may form some idea of Bazeilles, it may be mentioned that in 1870 it was a large village of over 2,000 inhabitants. The great majority of these were weavers. There were a few cloth manufactories and fulleries there, together with some ironworks with furnaces, plate-rolling mills, etc. Balan, between Bazeilles and Sedan, had a population of 1,500; whilst Sedan itself counted over 13,000 inhabitants, but nearly half of these had fled to Belgium prior to the battle.—Trans.
[28]This incident will not surprise those who remember how, during the bombardment of Paris, the urchins used to lie about waiting for the shells, and, after each explosion, pounce upon the splinters with the view of selling them as ‘souvenirs of the siege.’—Trans.
[29]The sergeants of the French Artillery are usually styled quartermasters. This was Honoré’s rank. We have quartermaster sergeants in our own service.—Trans.
[30]For enlightenment on this point and many others we must wait for the publication of Marshal MacMahon’s memoirs, the portion of which dealing with the Franco-German war was written some years ago, three copies of it being then printed for private use.—Trans.
[31]A celebrated French surgeon of the first half of the present century.—Trans.
[32]Literally the Hollow of Givonne. It should not be confounded with Givonne proper, which lies some miles to the north.—Trans.
[33]Licorice-root water, a favourite drink among Parisian children.—Trans.
[34]The shooting of the civilian inhabitants who took part in defending the village was in accordance with the cruel, but recognised, usages of war; but for the deliberate burning of their bodies there can be no excuse. However, some English newspaper correspondents, on the German side, asserted at the time that the occurrence was accidental, both French and Bavarian corpses being burnt by the falling houses.—Trans.
[35]M. Zola has omitted to mention that, whilst Count von Bismarck and the Emperor were together, they came out of the house and sat talking for a couple of hours in the open air, on chairs that were placed there for them. Meantime, the staff officers present remained lying on a patch of grass not far off. When Count von Bismarck had left him, the Emperor returned into the house, which curiously enough was tenanted not by a French family, but by that of a Luxemburg weaver, speaking both French and German. After considerable delay Napoleon was escorted to the château of Bellevue by a detachment of Prussian Cuirassiers.—Trans.
[36]When we remember that the Marseillaise is typical of the French Revolution, which was the origin of the power of the Bonapartes, the significance of both these engravings, in the circumstances in which the Emperor found himself, was truly remarkable. He stood there, as it were, betwixt Alpha and Omega.—Trans.
[37]The length of the French league is about 2 miles 6 furlongs.
[38]In time of peace a bottle of the common wine, here priced at seven francs, had cost about twelve sous, whilst the usual charge for a liqueur glass of so-called brandy was no more than three sous.—Trans.
[39]It may be explained that M. Zola borrows this simile from the Roman ritual, and refers to the Stations of the Cross.—Trans.
[40]M. Zola, as was to be expected, invariably alludes to these battles by the names adopted in France. In England, however, we generally employ the names which the Germans gave to these engagements. It should therefore be explained that the battle of Borny is also that of Courcelles; that Rézonville is also Mars-la-Tour; and St. Privât, Gravelotte. These battles have been referred to in the notes to chap. III., Part I (note 19).—Trans.
[41]The ‘combined army,’ so the Germans called it.—Trans.
[42]M. Zola’s assertion that Bazaine made no attempt to break through the German lines (subsequent, of course, to Sept. 1) is not correct, for after a delay of five weeks he made one apparently serious effort—in the direction of Thionville, on Oct. 7. Then, however, he remained idle for twenty days and had to capitulate. The translator, who was present at the marshal’s trial as an English newspaper correspondent, and heard and sifted all the evidence, has never entertained a doubt as to the justice of the court’s finding. We shot Admiral Byng for dereliction of duty insignificant in comparison with the charges brought home to Bazaine. Certainly the latter had ability as a soldier; he had, partly by merit, but also considerably by favour, risen from the ranks to be a marshal of France; however, his private character was execrable, his greed well-nigh as insatiable as that of Marlborough, and his instinctive cruelty of disposition, as exemplified in Mexico, notorious. Like Marshals Magnan and St. Arnaud, he was a type of the unscrupulous military adventurer.—Trans.
[43]The leaders of this rising (most of the phases of which were witnessed by the translator, who was then in Paris) were Gustave Flourens, Blanqui, and various officers of the National Guard who afterwards became members of the Commune. During the afternoon and evening M. Ernest Picard, General Trochu, and M. Jules Ferry managed to escape from the Hôtel-de-Ville and succeeded in delivering their colleagues of the Government at 3 a.m. on Nov. 1.—Trans.
[44]The eleven fortified places here enumerated were garrisoned by over 45,000 men of the regular army, all of whom became prisoners of war.—Trans.
[45]An allusion of course to Beaumarchais’ immortal creation of the boy-lover.—Trans.
[46]Gambetta was called a furious madman by Thiers.—Trans.
[47]The engagement fought on Nov. 9 when D’Aurelle de Paladines with the army of the Loire defeated Von der Tann’s Bavarians, with the result that the French for a brief period again secured possession of Orleans.—Trans.
[48]Fought on December 22-23.—Trans.
[49]One hundred and twenty millions sterling.
[50]Equivalent to rather more than 10½ ozs.—Trans.
[51]During the last week in December the number of deaths from natural causes alone was already 3,280, and during the week ending January 21 it had risen to 4,465, an average of 115 per thousand! And at the same time the wounded were dying off ‘like rotten sheep’ in the ambulances.—Trans.
[52]Neither the Rue des Orties nor the hill known as the Butte des Moulins now exists, both having been swept away to make room for the Avenue de l’Opéra, the lower portion of which runs across the spot where the Butte, with its few dingy, narrow streets formerly rose.—Trans.
[53]Thiers did try to spare it, and Count von Bismarck in the Emperor William’s name offered to forego the triumphal entry if Belfort were surrendered to Germany. But this proposal was rejected by Thiers, to his everlasting credit.—Trans.
[54]This appellation was for brevity’s sake bestowed on the Federated National Guards serving the Commune, whilst the Government troops were habitually called the Versaillese.—Trans.
[55]The translator enabled several French friends to get out of Paris at this time by lending them, in turn, his English passport.—Trans.
[56]This is not quite accurate. The excessive prudence of the French commanders at the outset was mainly due to the fear that their men might fraternise with the National Guards. This fear was altogether unfounded, as the troops, most of whom had gone through the war, were enraged with the Communists, whose rising had delayed their discharge. Nevertheless, the officers remembered what had happened at the outset of the insurrection, and in the earlier stages of the street-fighting seldom allowed their men to come within speaking distance of the National Guards. Officers of high rank admitted this to the translator at the time.—Trans.
[57]The Magenta and Solferino campaign of 1859.—Trans.
[58]Containing the throne-room and the Prince Imperial’s apartments.—Trans.
[59]The place of revelry where Napoleon III. and his wife, his mistresses, his sycophants, his corrupt ministers and his incompetent commanders, had danced and made merry for well-nigh twenty years.—Trans.
[60]The State depository for the crown jewels, plate, works of art, valuable articles of furniture, &c., not used in the palaces.—Trans.
[61]Hand-pumps were then used by the French firemen. I do not think there was a single steam fire-engine in Paris at that time. I well remember assisting in the pumping both in the Rue Royale and at the Palais de Justice, during those terrible last days of the Commune which M. Zola here so forcibly and accurately describes.—Trans.
[62]I remember that both the Place de la Concorde and the Esplanade des Invalides were littered with these papers, some in fragments quite charred and black, and others but slightly burnt at the corners. Among the less damaged documents I noticed were some curious petitions of the old émigrés of the Revolution beseeching Louis XVIII. to give them back their ancestral estates.—Trans.
[63]Among those who witnessed this scene, or at all events one very similar on the same spot, were the translator’s father and brother, Mr. Henry and Mr. Arthur Vizetelly.
[64]A vast magazine where cereals and oil, especially the latter, were stored in considerable quantities.—Trans.
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French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – The Downfall (La Débâcle) – Contents
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