Twenty Years in Europe. S. H. M. Byers
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to make short work of me. On the General’s return, I was marched up to headquarters, followed by a number of idle soldiers, who anticipated a drumhead court-martial and a little shooting. Of course, I was promptly released with an apology. But there I was, on foot, in the snow, and not a horse to be had, had the King himself wanted it; for the French army, 80,000 strong, was making for a battle, or else for the Swiss frontier. It was the frontier. That very night, Bourbaki, the French commander, shot himself, and the whole army, 80,000 strong, tumbled, pell-mell, into Switzerland, and surrendered. That was January 31st.
It was a sad-looking army that gave itself up to Switzerland. Their red trousers were worn, dirty and black, their shoes were almost gone. Some wore wooden sabots, some had their feet wrapped in rags. Their faces and hands were black as Africans’, from close huddling over scanty camp-fires, to keep from freezing. All were discouraged, disgraced, many boiling over with wrath at their incompetent leaders. And these leaders, hundreds of them, were followed by courtesans of Paris, in closed carriages. That was a spectacle for the gods; this host of poor, ragged, freezing privates, wading through the snow of the Alps, followed by a procession of gilded carriages, filled with debauched women, drunken officers and costly wines.
The surrender there in the snow included the whole army of 80,000 men, 284 cannon, 11,000 horses and 8,000 officers’ swords.
In a week’s time the Swiss had this great army of Frenchmen quartered at the different cities. Zurich had 11,000 of them. They were a happy lot of men, to be out of a dreadful war, and in the hands of a people who bestowed on them every kindness. Many never left Switzerland, but settled among their sympathizers and benefactors for the remainder of their lives.
The war went on. Paris, for months, lay besieged and starving. Then the end came.
Tower in Old Zurich.
At Zurich, the friends of Germany now undertook to celebrate the close of hostilities. Speeches and a banquet were to be had one night at the great Music Hall on the lake. Some consuls were invited to take a part, myself among the number. I was to be asked to send a telegram to our President. At four o’clock of the afternoon a man called at my office and whispered in my ear, “Stay away from that banquet; something is to happen.” I remained at home. That night, just as the toast to the new German Emperor was being read, and at a preconcerted signal, every window in the vast hall was smashed in. Stones and clubs were hurled at the banqueters. A large and excited mob of French sympathizers and French prisoners, with side-arms, surrounded the building. Many dashed into the galleries, waved French flags, struck people down with sabers and fired revolvers. The banqueters were in terror till, led by the courageous among them, they broke their five hundred chairs into clubs and drove the rioters from the hall. A few had been killed, a number injured. All the night the mob stayed outside and howled. The police fled for their lives. The militia, called out, stood in line, but when the order to fire on the mob was given, threw down their arms.
Inside the hall, the banqueters stood with clubs in their hands till the grey of morning, waiting the attack. The women, alarmed and terrified, were hidden under the tables, or in corners.
Zurich seemed in the throes of a revolution. The bad elements of every kind joined in the mob, and the Socialists and Anarchists cried out: “This is the people, striking for their rights.”
Ten thousand troops were hurried into Zurich from other cantons. Cannon bristled at the street corners, and placards warned the people to stay in their houses. A battery was posted in the street in front of our door. Climbing up on to the terrace by the minster, I saw a terrible mob below, and watched a cavalry squadron ride through it with drawn sabers. The mob gave way, and the alarm was at an end. Murders had been committed, and many men were arrested and punished. The man who had kindly whispered to me to keep away from the banquet, fled. He was afterward condemned, and is to this day a fugitive in England.
CHAPTER IV
1871
THE PARIS HORRORS--SOME EXCURSIONS WITH LITERARY PEOPLE--BEER GARDENS--A CHARACTERISTIC FUNERAL--FUNERAL OF A POET’S CHILD--CAROLINE BAUER, THE ACTRESS--A POLISH PATRIOT--CELEBRATING THE FOURTH OF JULY AT CASTLE RAPPERSCHWYL--THE ST. BERNARD--THE MULES AND DOGS--ON A SWISS FARM--FOR BURNING CHICAGO.
June, 1871.--Horrible news continues to come of the atrocities of the “Communists” in Paris. The most beautiful city of the world is half burned up by its own children. Hundreds of innocent people have been slaughtered. Nobody here understands wholly what it is these Paris murderers want. It looks as if all the criminals and their ten thousand abettors were simply avenging themselves on civilization.
Europe looks on with horror. The world did not know that it contained a whole army of such wretches in one single city. Yet New York has just as many, if they were let loose. There are men right here in Switzerland, the kindliest governed state in the world, who are walking around the streets, quietly thanking God for all the indescribable things at Paris. There was a man in France once (Madame Roland’s husband), who killed himself, rather than live longer in a land so given over to dastards. The Paris anarchists will again, and soon enough, have made suicide sweeter than living there. That is what they want. Anarchists would rejoice if all the decent people in the world would kill themselves and get out of it.
This summer of 1871 we made many little foot excursions with the Brentanos, the Kinkels, or the Scherrs. The whole party was always more or less literary. Even Mrs. Scherr had written her book, much liked by German housewives. These afternoon walks have been to points along the beautiful lake or to some near valley, and often to the Uetliberg or to Rüssnacht. We always turned up at some simple country beer garden, with its quiet tables under shady bowers, where the beer and the pretzels were good, and the view fine of lake and mountain.
What delightful times we have had with our cheap lunches of black bread, beer and cheese and much talking! We walked home by dusk, always stopping at many a vantage point, to look in wonder at the sunset and the gorgeous glow on the Alps. I never saw these sunsets in the Alps without thinking of another world. They seemed to belong to something more beautiful, more lasting than our mere lives. If I spoke of it, however, Scherr would shrug his shoulders and say, “Ich glaub’ es nicht. Wir werden es nur hoffen,” and once he added: “The whole world is but a graveyard. Above the door is written The End.” Mrs. Scherr always smiled and said, “No, it is not so, what he says. What is all that grandeur that you see over there in the mountains for? Surely not only for a little party like us to gaze on, of an afternoon, and then say good-by to, forever. No, it is not true. I expect to see the beautiful mountains, and with these friends, too, a thousand years from now.”
Alas! sooner than we knew, she was to look beyond these Alps. A heart trouble, aggravated by the deeper heart trouble of a mother, through a wayward son, suddenly terminated her life. Just after leaving our home, one day, where she had been calling, she fell dead upon the steps of St. Peter’s church.
I was present at this friend’s funeral, conducted in accordance with German Swiss custom.
An old woman had carried the funeral notices to the friends. They were printed on large, full sheets of paper, with black edges an inch wide. The woman, in delivering these messages, was in full black, and carried with her an enormous bunch of flowers, apparently a symbol of her office. At the appointed hour I found all our male friends at the house of mourning. It was designated by a broad, black cloth stretched across the front of the building and running up the stairway. Here, in a room denuded of all carpet and furniture, I found Prof. Scherr, waiting to receive the condolence of the invited friends.
“To the left,” said the old messenger woman, who had brought the death notices. She stood in the hall, beside an urn, into which friends put their black-edged cards. Again she held a bunch of flowers. All, as they entered the