The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-03-03


latest novel, the scene of which is laid
in the midst of the Franco-Prussian
war. has been somewhat sharply criti-
cised on the score Of its alleged exag-
geration of the barbarities that marked
the course of that great conflict.
One critic says: There is something
of the rabid sensational in parts" An
other writes: Nobody will believe
that a tenth part of the story is true.
Scarcely half of it is even possible"
Still another observes: He has a fine
scorn for exact truths and sordid posi-
bilities. even the most sanguinary
are satiated,' remarks yet another
( Mr.. Chambers attention having been
called to these criticisms, he has re-
piled to them in an open letter printed
below:
MR.. CHAMBERS LETTER.
If self-preservation is the first law.
the privilege of seif-dsfense is seldom
accorded to critic-ridden authors.
An author, choosing a great war for
background on which to trace romantic
patterns, is usually assaiied and sum
marily sandhsgged. He is charged with
revolving realism by romantlcists; he
is rebuked as a romancer by realists;
he is dubbed right and left by the vast
army OF omniverous rnediocrity.
So called realism is photography;
both are equally distorted. Even a
photograph cannot reproduce the dead
ly realism of dialogue. There is such
thing as realism; there is no such thing
as fac-simile reproduction of realism.
For realism is life, and all attempted
reproductions are and must remain in
terpretations. These interpretations
are acceptable or not, according to the
taU1raT nd infelIioapoa Of tho audience
addressed, and in proportion to the in
telligence and executive ability of the
author.
War is realism. To interpret it is not
realism. 1t is the same story of paint
ers and their models and the legitimate
results of the combination. My critics
charge me with multiplying the horrors
of war. Anybody who has used war as
background for fiction will under
stand that the authors greatest diff
Guilty is to eliminate and suppress, from
the mass of facts, all but enough to
tinge the historical painting with a
FAINT reelection of the truth. AS skill
full artist makes a mob out of three or
four figures, so must a romancer fling
q battle before his readers and leave
but the echo of a single volley in their
ears.
Yet the author must know the de-
tails; he must understand the length
and breadth of the subject; he must
have counted the armies of the dead
the wasted hamlets, the shell-torn cit
ies.
AS am accused of exaggerating the
horrors of war in Lorraine" and as
the charge is untrue, l will take the
most insignificant incident in the book
"a paragraph-and quote it as 1 have
written it. Then 1 will in this single
instance give a few of the actual facts
that 1 have suppressed.
The paragraph reads:
Three miles away the ruins of the
village of Bazeilles lay in the bright
September sunshine.
"Bavarian soldiers in greasy corvee,
numbered among the charred chaos
searching for their dead"
This is the truth, unvarnished, unex-
purgated.
Bazeilles was a slaughter house: a
massacre had been perpetrated there as
horrible as any in history.
Do my critics charge me with exag-
geration? 1 have not even limited at the
smallest fraction of the frightful bru-
tally and slaughter that characterized
the attack on Beetles. 1 have been ret
icent in the novel because it was a
novel, but gave enough to show that
the Franco-Prussian war was not a
Cuban skirmish or a Greek ebullition. l
estimation, it gave the story raison
d'etrel. Would my critics wish to know
what / suppressed? Here are the facts
in regard to BaZeilleS:
1. After the capture of the village of
BaZeilles a squad of Bavarian soldiers
seized an old man, Simon behave, 60
years of age, and beat out MS brains
with their gunstocks in the presence of
his wife. The old woman died of fright.
T1ar0edAR Robert and a
mason, Pierre Porter. were bound to-
gether and shot dead. They were harm
less citizens.
8. Two brothers named Grenoix,
masons, were also murdered in cold
blood.
4. Elisee Remy. a young man sick in
bed with pleurisy, was confronted by a
Bavarian officer. Unheeding the shrieks
and prayers of the sick mans young
wife, who crouched on the floor with
her baby in her arms, the Bavarian Off
Ger fred twice at the helpless invalid,
shattering his chin and wrist. Remy
died two weeks later.
3. Two Bavarians, walking in the
alley of Lorson about o'clock in the
afternoon, perceived a harmless citizen
ahead of them. They killed him in
spite of the supplications of woman
named Liegeois, who begged on her
knees for his life.
6. Jean Jacquet, 55 years old, an in
offensive citizen. was kicked to death
by a Bavarian soldier in front of the
Bouquet hotel.
I. \ poor idiot, so years old, named
Henry Baptiste, was wounded in the
rue des BoulanSers. \ Bavarian squad
met him. dragging himself along on
crutches. They tied him to a bale of
hay and burned him alive.
s. A municipal councillor, Jean Bap-
tiste, was ordered TO bring wine from
his cellar to the Bavarians. When he
returned with the bottles the soldiers
murdered him with their sabers, say
ing he had not fastened sufficiently
with the wine.
8. Lambert Herbulet, 81 years old,
and his wife were assaulted and nor
ribly mangled with bayonets. The old
man died from his wounds; the woman,
wounded in the face by a sabre thrust,
recovered.
10. Emmanuel Boury, Gustave Hen :
riet and Jean Domelier, the latter aged
"a years, were killed by shells.
IL. A woman, Julie Dehaye, with her
two little girls, Irene and Marie, were
smothered by smoke in the cellar. where /
they had crawled to escape the shells.
u. A woman named Henry was as
saulted and outraged. She became in
sane. Two young girls suffered the
same fate, and were then butchered- !
one at the foot of the bed, where the ,
corpse of her father lay.
1S. A woman so years old. Madame 1
Poncin, was horribly maltreated by /
dozen drunken BaVarians. {
Il. Madame Chariot, clinging to her
husband, was shot in cold blood. An |