Omaha daily bee., 1898-06-12
CHAPTER XVI.


~petrOthed.
In Paris the days succeeded each other
with few incidents and moderate excite
ment. Suspense had given place to GER
tainty. The city was completely hemmed
in by an unseen enemy, unseen save for the
smoke of burning villages on the horizon,
yet that enemy had as yet done nothing.
Notre Dame and the Tuileries were still
standing, cabs, cars, omnibuses ran as usual,
and the boulevards and cafes were
thronged.
True, there had been a few alarms in the
interior of the city. A petroleum store
house caught fire on Montmartre through
accident, a chemical factory blew up in
the Rue de Vanguard and killed some
people. Everybody was certain that these
fires were of incendiary origin, but prob
ably nobody knew the truth-unles Speyer
and Stauffer knew it. There was practi-
cally no news from the provinces. Now
and then a daring messenger managed to
elude the Prussian pickets and creep into
the city, but, except for that, Paris was
! absolutely isolated from the rest of France
as far as receiving news was concerned.
But the Parisians could send news by
! pigeons and balloons. They sent some
thing else, too-a balloon loaded with 200
pounds of M. Gambetta, destined to fill the
Midi with his fanfare and gasconading. des-
tined to flop in the Prussian dragnet and
blind himself and his fellow victims with
the turmoil of his own Hopping, destined
incidentally to aid in the disgrace and de-
struction of a brave incapable more sinned
against than SHINING, the innocent, fat
Drained scapegoat of a frenzied nation-Ba-
zaine. If there ever existed such a thing
| DC n patrinfir dap,apopr,a narf1y paniuS
partly mountebank, Gambetta must remain
the unique example, and yet the court
martial of Bazaine has left the stain that
furnishes the name of Gambetta and makes
it stink a little, too.
The courage and splendid fortitude that
frightened the gloom of the year Of punish
ment, the terrible chastisement Of a guilty
nation, was displayed by the army and the
people. The leaders, the politicians, the
men in high places, the government must
look elsewhere for eulogy. Theirs agitated
by senile 'convulsions, Gambetta bawling
nonsense, Rochefort brilliant and useless as
a will-o'-the-wisp-and quite as easy to
catch; Favre, self-effacing, patriotic, I'M
equal to his task; Trochu, sombre, fervidly
good, living amid Authorizations, a monu-
ment of martyred indecision-will some
historian or writer of fiction-they are
sy~nonyms-be pleased to gid the letters of
these great names? And while the
romancer or Observation-Disclosures you will
is about 1t, let him regild the name of
Renan, as he sits feeding himself at
Tortoni's in the starving city, splitting
platitudes with De Goncourt. See him as he
eats! His chin is fat, his belly fatter, his
fat white fingers are spread out on either
knee, the nails Extensively He
4 breaches universal brotherhood; he is on
good terms with humanity. Incidentally he
talks much, and familiarity, about our
Saviour-and eats, eats, eats.
In the beginning of his career Gambetta
created for himself a name. 1t only took a
few weeks to create it. He followed
Rochefort's methods with equal success. He
was very popular in France. He was a
talented lawyer. Again and again IN the
Corps Legislatif he showed himself to be
not only an orator, but a statesman of a
certain kind. In the beginning of the
revolution he was useful; he was the hyphen
that connected the parti avance and the
bourgeoisie. He was opposed to Trochu. He
sailed away in his balloon to Tours, where
he felt that his sphere of action ended only
with the frontier. He was mistaken. His
colleagues proved useless. He set up a
dictatorship that ended by sterilizing and
making ridiculous his former energy.
"Did this young tribune of the people re-
member that the greatest glory God can
accord to man is the glory incompatible of
saving his country? Had he a soul sublime
enough for such a mission? And the purity
of his intentions. the simplicity OF his life,
the elevation OF his character-were they
so notorious that he should be deemed
worthy OF such an honor?"
Let France answer her own.
The third sortie ended in the fire swept
streets of Bagneux. and, for the third time
since the siege began. the army of Paris
retired to the city. having accomplished
nothing except a few thousand deaths,
highly commended by "OlIivier Militaire."
Bourke, hurrying back to the city, had at
tempted to telegraph this news by way Of
Bordeaux. Then, when he had spent the
remainder of the day In similar and equally
vain attempts, he gave 1t up and went back
to the house on the ramparts, where he
found Hardwood. pockets stuffed with I'M
sent dispatches, pacing the hallway and
smoking furiously.
ITS just as / told you" he said when he
saw Bourke; we're cooped up for good. If
you had listened to me and gone on to
Versailles"
20 shut up" said Bourke, pleasantly,
"you are no worse OFF than ! am"
Hardwood, a little ashamed of his selfish
petulance, sat down on the stairs and looked
t over his dispatches.
eve can't run the lines" he said; I'VE
| can't send these by pigeons. even II we had
the pigeons; we might send them In the
next balloon"
"Tve tried" said Bourke; "1ts no co.
He flung his OWL dispatches into a corner
/ and lit a cigarette.
) "As war news puryeyors." he observed,
"you and j are useless, my son, until a
, sertie Is made and the German lines pierced.
Then We must be there; We must 90 on,