The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1894-04-27
THE WALLS OF PARIS.
ERECTED At GREAT COST, BUT NOT
OF MUCH USE IN WAR.

One day the wise men of Paris consult
ed together and agreed that it would be
well to surround the city with an elabo.
rate system of Notifications. The time
was not far from the year 1S40 Perhaps
it was not, accurately speaking, a council
of wise men, but only one of the many
plans that constantly evolved from the
brain of Louis Philippe, who did so much
to beautify Paris and improve it artistic
ally and from sanitary standpoint. Any
how the decree was issued that Paris
should be fortified city, and forthwith
thousands of men and hundreds of carts
were set at work building the huge en-
bankments that now girdle the French
capital.
For five years the men dug, the team
sters swore at their much abused horses,
the earthen wall grew and grew, and one
morning Paris woke up and found itself a
city within a fortress. In the first place
there was moat about so feet wide and
as many feet deep, which must be crossed
by an invading enemy. Above it lowered
the steep side of the bank, on the top of
which was parapet 10 feet wide. The
latter would accommodate the French ar
my in safety. and what a splendid situa-
ton it would afford the defenders to ut
terly annihilate the invadersl The forti-
fication was constructed at varying an
| giles in order that the French infantry and
artillery might pour flank fire into the
ranks of the hostiles whenever any hos
tiles presumed to surround Paris. The en-
tire system, completed, cost the French
nation 140, 100000 francs, about S2S, 000,-
900 in American money. The total length
of the fortification is 81 miles.
But years passed, and an invader tram
pied the 'sacred soil of France" under his
sturdy German feet. The fertilization was
still there, and the residents of the city
often walked out to it and from its para
pet watched for signs of the Germans. 1t
was valuable for reserved seats in which
to view some of the panorama of the war
simply that and nothing more. The
Germans were not such fools as to walk
up to it and expose their precious bodies
to French bullets. No, indeed; they camp
ed out on the hills surrounding Paris and
amused themselves shooting at the most
prominent steeples in the city with their
long range cannon. Upon some days the
French soldiers marched out of the gates
of the avenues intersecting the fortifica-
tions. They looked grim and determined.
Somehow or other, as often as the French
soldiers sailed forth, so often they stray
gIed home. Not all of them, it is true, for
the mute stone monuments in the environs
of Paris bear silent testimony to the bray
cry with which they fought. The fortif-
cation, however, was still there, and it is
there yet, and the citizens of Paris are be-
ginning to ask themselves whether it is
worth the money that it cost and the ad-
ditional thousands that it takes to keep it
in repair.
In this age of the world "walled city,
is possessed of two advantages. The first
is that from the wall the defenders can
fight to save their lives and property-the
second is an advantage for the other chap
That wall of defense is also wall of i'm
prisonment. 1t is palpable to any one
that it is much easier to keep an animal
in cage than it is to hunt the animal in
the woods. The gay Partisan and his
country relatives got behind the wall, and
all the Germans had to do was to see that
they kept behind it until they were starv-
ed into submission. The officers of the
German army knew that when the Pari-
slams were ready to sally it must be by one
of the main exits from that fertilization.
How easy, therefore, to keep excellent
watch of the exits For that reason the
Notifications about Paris are no longer
the fashionable thing" in military cir
Giles. In fact, the descendants of the hon
est bourgeois are inclined to poke all nan.
ner of fun at what their ancestors sacred
ly revered. The mighty earthen embank-
ments are overrun with cowpaths and foot
paths, and it does not take more than
half an eye to see that Paris recognizes the
imbecility of intrenching herself behind
costly ditch and wall of earth, when the
enemy between breakfast and dinner can
sit on the hillside and fire his little pop
guns and big popguns all day long at the
handsome buildings and most sacred ed
ifices
Then, too, Paris is becoming ambitious.
Not that Paris has not always been am
bilious in certain channels, but that a
new channel has opened. Paris is jealous
of London. London is the largest city in
the world, so far as population is concern
ed. If those miserable Notifications were
torn down, and the municipal limits of
Paris extended through the many suburbs
which really are a portion of the city,
Paris would very likely be larger than
London, and, therefore, from a French
standpoint, possibly from that of others,
the capital of the world
The Notifications, however, are not all
that protect Paris, or rather are not all
that are meant to protect Paris. Beyond
the wall of the Notifications there exists
circle of forts, gems in the coronet of hill
sides that crown the lovely city. OF these
forts the most important, so l am told, is
that of Mount Valerien. 1t was never tax
en- by the Germans when they invested
Paris. For that fact Mount Valerien has
the right to be congratulated.
The natural defense of Paris is upon the
hills that surround the city. Once permit
them to be captured, and Paris itself will
be at the mercy of any enemy. All the en-
bankments capable of being constructed
between the Arc de Triomphe and the
heights of st. Cloud and other elevations
along the Seine could not protect the city
for moment from the artillery fire certain
to be directed from the hillsides facing the
city.
Since the siege of 1901 the Parisians
have left nothing undone to place the city
In the best possible condition to resist the
advances of hostiles. One can scarcely
tell why, but there seems to exist in the
Partisan atmosphere a sort Of PRESENT.
mem that in case of continental war Paris
will once more be the scene of struggle
ClaValand padar