elsass—lothringen—metz—gravelotte—mother of the curé of ste. marie aux chênes—waterloo.

it is a just award

that they who take, should perish by, the sword.

i included mulhouse, colmar, strasbourg, bitche, and metz in my homeward journey. as i passed along, the higher peaks of the vosges were white with recently fallen snow. it is not, however, the forest-clad mountains, and their snow-capped summits which interest most the thought of the traveller, as he traverses this district, now, but the consequences of that recent transference of power, of which the names just written down remind him: the cotton industry of mulhouse and colmar; the astonishing agricultural wealth of the neighbourhood of strasbourg, where the land yields, side by side, in singular luxuriance the five agricultural products, sugar-beet, hops, wine, tobacco, and maize, which in europe pay the best; the strategical importance, and military strength, of strasbourg, bitche, and metz; the variety of the manufactures, and 231of the agricultural resources, of the country round metz; and, more than all this wealth and strength, the people themselves of these districts, who were the manliest, the most industrious, and the most thriving part of the population of france. one can, at present, hardly estimate rightly the value of what has thus been taken from france, and given, if the expression may be allowed, to her natural enemy. still it was france herself that laid this incalculable stake upon the table: her portion of the left bank of the rhine against prussia’s; and insisted on the game being played. and the chances were against her. she had acquired strasbourg by amazing treachery; and now the ignorance, arrogance, and vice by which she was to lose it, were equally amazing. and this war of 1870-71 was a natural sequel of the wrongs the first napoleon did to germany. that it was that had obliged the germans to devote themselves to military organisation, and to understand the necessity of national union; and which was hardening their will, and nerving their arm. as to the french, one would be glad to find that they were delivering themselves from those causes in themselves, which led to their great catastrophe. but the existing generation cannot expect to see the day, when the rural population of france will have attained to more enlightenment than they have at present, and its city population to more rational ideas of liberty, justice, and truth, than they 232have exhibited hitherto; for the lives of the former are too hard, and the latter are too fanatical, to admit of much immediate improvement in either.

i stopped at metz to see the battle-field of gravelotte. i went over it with two englishmen, who had come to metz for the same purpose. we were provided with maps, and plans, and narratives of the great battle. it was a bright fine day. we started at 8.30 a.m., and did not get back to metz till 5 p.m. it requires, at least, six hours to go over the field, including the hour you stop at ste. marie aux chênes for baiting your horses, and for luncheon.

the french ground was well chosen for a defensive battle. it was along the ridge of the rising ground, facing to the west, from st. privat and roncour on their right, to the high ground opposite to, and behind st. hubert, on their left. st. hubert was a farmhouse in the depression. it had a walled garden. this ground was about five miles in length. early in the day the germans occupied only a part of the ground in front of the french position, beginning at gravelotte, a little to the south-west of the french left. at this time there was no enemy in front of the french right. the ground here, rendered strong by a line of detached farm-houses, woods, and villages, was occupied by french outposts. from all these they were driven, in succession, by the extension of the german left. the strongest position here, 233and in it much hard fighting took place, was the village of ste. marie aux chênes. the germans first attacked the french left at st. hubert. from this they drove them out. one can hardly understand how they managed to get possession of it, for the french occupied the high ground all round it. to march upon it was like marching into the bottom of a bowl to attack a strong place in the bottom, commanded by the enemy’s cannon from every part of the rim. having, however, established themselves here, they advanced up the hill against the french left. but, though they were repulsed, they were not driven out of st. hubert. in the evening, the germans, having established themselves along the front of the french right, and having even somewhat outflanked it, attacked them at st. privat and roncour. here was most desperate fighting; and one, while standing on the ground, is surprised that any troops could have faced what the germans had to go through. their advance was made up a perfectly smooth, and open, incline, three-quarters of a mile across, the whole of it completely swept, and commanded by the french cannon, mitrailleuse, and chassepots, which we must recollect killed some hundreds of yards further than the needle-gun. a saxon corps, that had been coming up with forced marches, in the evening reached this point, and went straight up the hill. in fourteen minutes half its strength was hors du combat. there is 234a monument on the spot to those who fell here. the whole field is full of german monuments, for wherever their men fell, there they were buried; and there a monument has since been raised to their memory. at last the french right was driven off this ground, and out of the strong village of st. privat behind it. it was now dark. the french were in no position, or condition, to renew the fight the next day; and so, during the night, they withdrew to metz, leaving their material behind. they had fought a defensive battle, which suited neither the character of their troops, nor the circumstances of their position.

at ste. marie aux chênes, where we stopped an hour for luncheon, we spent part of the time in walking about the village, and looking at the traces of the fight. it is a large village, every house of which has thick rubble or stone walls. all the buildings in it were occupied strongly by the french; and all were, successively, carried. it was a from house-to-house and hand-to-hand fight. we found all the doors, window-shutters, and window-frames in the place, new, because the old ones had been battered in, hacked to pieces, and destroyed by the germans, as they forced their way into each house separately. no prisoners were taken.

among other spots we visited here was a little enclosed space, where the germans had buried their dead. while we were looking at the grave of a young 235englishman of the name of annesly—von annesly he is called on the stone—who had fallen in the assault on the village—he had attained to the rank of lieutenant in the german service—an elderly peasant woman approached; and, on finding that we were not germans, freely entered into conversation with us. she soon told us that she was the mother of the curé of the village. she had been one among the few inhabitants of the place, who, having taken refuge in cellars, had remained in it during the assault. she was very communicative, and invited us to accompany her to her house, where she showed us, with touching pride, their best tea service, and the church ornaments, which are used on fête days. the best room in the house had been appropriated to their safe keeping, and exhibition. the china service had been a present, what we should call a testimonial, and was placed, en évidence, on a table in the middle of the room. the church ornaments were arranged on a large sofa. they consisted of artificial flowers moulded in porcelain, with a great deal of gilding. the good woman then took us into the study; m. le curé’s study, as she was careful to tell us. she never referred to m. le curé, and her thoughts were never far from him, without a smile of satisfied motherly emotion playing over her face. those were m. le curé’s books. there were about half-a-dozen. that was the table at which m. 236le curé sometimes wrote. that garden, the outer door of the study opened upon it, was a beautiful garden, which m. le curé worked in himself. m. le curé was now absent from home, for the purpose of making a collection for the purchase of a figure of the virgin, to commemorate her goodness in having miraculously saved the church, when so much injury had been done to every other building in the place: but the church in the neighbouring village we saw had been burnt during the assault upon it. the good villagers had been very liberal in their contributions for the purchase of the figure. the sum, however, mentioned as their contributions, amounted only to a few francs. still it might have been much for them to give, for they may not have been much in the habit of giving. m. le curé’s study, the scene of his peaceful and sacred studies, had been made a hospital. there, just where he always sits, a limb had been amputated. here, and there, on the floor wounded men had died. the floor of m. le curé’s study had been stained with blood. one memento of that fearful day had been preserved. it was a small hole in the door through which a bullet had passed: but that was a bullet that had hurt nobody. i shall never think of the field of gravelotte without a pleasing recollection of the mother of the curé of ste. marie aux chênes. she was a tall woman with what seemed a hard face, but at every mention of m. le curé, or of the holy 237virgin, it was lighted up, and softened. she wore a faded cotton dress, and a weather-stained, coalscuttle-shaped straw bonnet—her grandmother, perhaps, had once been proud of it—but the reflection of her simple, motherly, happy heart on her face, refined both face and dress. the heart’s ease only was noticed.

the germans have done, and are doing, everything that could be done, to restore to the people what they lost during the war. they have, in these parts, repaired every house and building that admitted of repair; and completely rebuilt all that had been too much injured for repair. they have thus given many new lamps for very old ones. they have not yet rebuilt the church of st. privat, because the people themselves have not yet decided, whether they wish the new one to be the facsimile of the old one, or a larger structure, such as the increased population of the modern village requires: the familiar opposition between those who are afraid to acknowledge that the world has made any advances, and those who see nothing objectionable in advances, or in accommodating themselves to them. of the other injuries, the people in these parts had sustained by the war, they were asked to make an estimate themselves. half of their estimates was immediately paid to them; and they were told that the remaining half would be paid, after the 1st of october, on their having decided to become german citizens. the inhabitants of the 238villages round metz had had their corn, and cattle, and horses swept off by the french commissariat. these poor people the germans fed during the siege with provisions brought from germany. i could not hear in metz, or in the neighbourhood, of a single instance of a german soldier having been seen drunk, or that any act of violence could be charged against them; nor could i hear even of oppression or harshness of any kind.

metz, with its central arsenal, and its outer circle of apparently impregnable hill fortresses, gives you the idea of a place which nature had formed expressly for this gunpowder era, intending that its owners should fortify it, and use it as a rallying place for defeated armies—the armies, not of a small, but of a great nation; where they might in safety collect their shattered fragments; and, having re-organised and re-equipped themselves, might again take the field for fresh efforts. in the days of bows and spears it could not have had this value, which it may lose when our present instruments of war shall have been superseded by discoveries not yet dreamt of; but, although the french were not able to turn the place to such an account, still this seems to be one of the uses that may be made of it by its possessors: besides being an impregnable advanced post for the invasion of a neighbour.

the cathedral is far too short for its height. it contains some windows of very good old stained glass. 239the only person i saw in it was an american. shall i say that we had both come to see it, just as we might go to see some curious object in a museum? i, at all events, accused myself of something of this kind, for i had a consciousness of the discord between such a purpose, and the history and character of the structure. for however much it may now have the appearance of a thing unused, and unloved, and from which the soul has fled, yet was it built to satisfy a want, in the religious order, which all men longed to satisfy; and to give visible expression to a feeling, which then stirred every heart. not anything else, not money, not power, could have built it; that is to say, could have summoned into existence the sentiments, of which the building is an embodiment.

but on this occasion its clustered columns, its groined roof, its lofty aisles, its jewelled light, transported my thoughts only to mr. spurgeon’s tabernacle; for i found myself endeavouring to understand and measure the difference between the two: but the endeavour brought me to see, under so much outward diversity, only an inward identity. they are both equally the result of the desire to form elevated and right conceptions of god—the focal name in which all elevated and right conceptions meet; and so to open the heart and mind, as that these elevated and right conceptions, which have been projected from them, may react upon them. this is religion, the spiritual 240life, in their simplest expression, in their inner form. in the ages of faith, as they have been called, the most effectual way of attaining the desired end was through the eye; that is to say, the means, that could then be used with most effect, was art, in architecture, sculpture, painting, music. in the then state of the heart and of the imagination these best stirred and attuned them. hence the cathedral, and all that is implied in it. in these days, not of the knowledge, or of the conditions of life, or of the faith, of the old kinds, the most effectual means, especially among the lower strata of the middle class, is not art, which would have no power over them, but such direct appeals to their understandings and consciences, as will not be beyond their capacities. hence mr. spurgeon and his tabernacle. but the object is in both one and the same.

no sooner, however, had i come to this, which seemed for a moment to be a conclusion, than my thoughts entered the reverse process, and the identity i had been contemplating was transformed into diversity. the juxtaposition, in the mind’s eye, of the cathedral and of the tabernacle suggested a difference, if not in the elements of religion itself, yet, at all events, in the modes through which different religious systems have attempted to act on the world. the cathedral seemed to represent two modes: that which may for convenience be called, using the word in a good sense, the heathen mode; that is to say, 241culture, but in the form only of art; and the priestly, or judaical, mode, which means organization. its grand and beautiful structure grew out of the former, through the aid of the latter. the tabernacle represents a totally different mode—the prophetical; and prophesying is the principle of life, of growth, and of development in religion. we see this throughout the history both of the old and of the new dispensation. romanism has killed this vital principle; and is, therefore, as good as, or worse than, dead; for it has a bad odour. it is now all dead heathenism, and dead organization: a gilt and gaily painted monstrous iron machine, which can be set at work, but which has no heart. this explains everything. this is the key that unlocks its whole modern history. its long ghastly list of persecutions, its inquisition, its st. bartholemew’s, its infallible monocracy, are all alike logically deducible from the determination to live by other means than that of prophesying; in fact, utterly to suppress the one means of life, and to live, if such a thing were possible, by those means only which have not life in themselves. but persecutions, inquisitions, st. bartholemew’s, and infallibility can be of no avail: for prophesying has always and everywhere been, and will always and everywhere be, the life of religion; and, therefore, destructive, sooner or later, of all cast-iron systems. with respect to the tabernacle, it is not so much that it has rejected the 242other two modes, as that it has no comprehension of their nature and use. it never, therefore, has either risen to the level of ordinary culture, or organized itself as a religious system. it makes no appeal to the former, and, wesleyanism excepted, no use of the latter. this explains why, though not devoid of life, it is without form, and without attractive power for refined minds. christianity, it is evident, in its early days depended entirely on prophesying. as it grew, having at that time the living power of assimilating what it needed, it borrowed organization from judaism, and culture and art from heathenism: but prophesying must always be the distinctively christian mode; so long as christianity addresses itself to what is in man, that is, to his knowledge and moral consciousness.

which, therefore, of these modes is the best is an inquiry, which would be somewhat sterile, and misleading; for each is good in its proper place, and degree, and for its proper purpose; and under some circumstances one, and under other circumstances another, will inevitably be resorted to. it would be more profitable to keep in mind that not one is ever exempt in its use from error and perversion. these, at every turn and step, will reappear, as the unavoidable results of the imperfections of those, in whose hands the administration of religion, as of all human affairs, must rest: for they are but men; and, error and perversion, you both have the same name, and that name is man. history, and experience, 243teach us that, in the long run, the most efficient check to these errors and perversions, both in those who minister, and in those who are ministered to, is, as far as is possible in this world of necessarily mixed motives, and defective knowledge, to be dead unto self, and alive unto god, that is to the good work one finds set before one. herein is the true apostolism: not for self, but for the end for which one was sent—for an object, beyond self, distinctly seen, and distinctly good. this in an individual is almost, and in a body of men perhaps quite, impossible. still it is just what always has to be done by ‘the church,’ which, in whatever sense we take the word, will be a body of men; and by mr. spurgeon, acting with those who believe in him; and, therefore, whenever attempted, will only be done very imperfectly. so it must be. but we see that, notwithstanding, the world has advanced, and is advancing. in ‘the church,’ and among the spurgeons and their respective people, and among others, who cannot be quite correctly ranged under either of these categories, there will always be some (generally a very small minority; but these are not questions that can be decided by counting hands) who have caught partial glimpses of what ought to be said and done, and who will set themselves the task, generally a very thankless one, of making their partial glimpses known. one thing, however, at all events is certain: it is safer to 244trust to the spirit of the prophet than to the culture and organization of the priest, if they must be had separately: though, perhaps, their due combination, might be best of all.

these were the thoughts which passed through my mind, while i was in the cathedral of metz; for the american, who came in just after i had entered it, required but a very few minutes for ‘doing’ this grand old monument of mediæval piety; and soon left it to the twilight—the day was nearly run out—and to my twilight meditations.

the hotel de l’europe, the best in metz, is not good. the head-waiter—he was an austrian—was so imperious that i soon found it advisable, whenever i had occasion to ask him a question, to apologise for the trouble i was giving him. the angular peg had been put into the round hole. nature had intended him for a german prince. they charge here for a two-horse carriage to gravelotte, including the driver, two napoleons. at this rate they must get back, one would think, every week the original cost of the rickety vehicle and half-starved horses. there is, however, but little competition in the matter of the imperious waiter, and none at all in that of the costly carriage he provides for you.

at metz, and i heard that it was so, generally, throughout both the annexed provinces, a great many people were desirous of selling their houses and land. there was not, however, by any means an equal 245number of people who were desirous of purchasing. this fewness of purchasers indicates the prevalence of an opinion that the loss of these provinces is far too great for france ever to acquiesce in; and that, therefore, she will, on the first opportunity that may offer, endeavour to recover them by the sword: in which case they will become the theatre of war. it is true that the course of events in the new world, as well as in the old, has taught the present generation, very impressively, the lesson that what is expected is seldom what happens; still, one may say, of course with a strong feeling of the uncertainty of human affairs, that there is nothing apparent, at present, on the surface of things, to give rise to the supposition that a second reference, on the part of the french, to the arbitrament of the sword, would lead to a different issue from that which the first had. empire is maintained, and retained, by the means by which it was obtained; and there seems no probability of germany ever allowing herself to be caught napping; or of her strength, energy, and determination being sapped by national corruption. that is not a consummation which the solid character of the people renders at all likely. even their rude climate, which, to some extent, forbids a life of sensuous and vicious self-indulgence, will, we may think, help them in the future to maintain the character, which has always distinguished them hitherto; it seems to make earnestness, and mental hardihood, natural to them. one’s 246thoughts on this subject would be very much modified, if there were in france any symptoms, which might lead one to hope that she was ‘coming to herself.’

on leaving metz, by an early train, i had to form one in a scene of crowding and confusion greater than i had ever elsewhere encountered on that side of the channel, except a few days before at strasbourg, where it was as bad. we are often told that the advantage of the foreign system of over-administration is that everything of this kind is rendered impossible; but here it was all in excess. tickets for all classes were issued by the same clerk, and for two trains at the same time, for one was to start only a few minutes before the other. some people were pushing; some were in a high state of excitement. there was no possibility of forming a queue. i was told that this, and many other things of the same kind, would be set right after the 1st of october, on which day the germans would take all these matters into their own hands. hitherto they had interfered with the local administration as little as possible. one consequence of this had been that the existing authorities, whose reign was so soon to expire, had not been very attentive to their duties; perhaps they had not been very desirous of keeping things straight; and the lower orders, availing themselves of the license that had been permitted, had become so insubordinate, that it had been found 247difficult, in some cases impossible, to carry on the operations of factories, in which many hands were employed. but after the 1st of october there was to be an end of all this: a german burgomaster was to be appointed, and german order was to be maintained. on that morning i wished that, as far as the station at metz was concerned, the change had already been effected.

in the neighbourhood of luxembourg, i saw several trains full of iron ore. from luxembourg to namur the country is, generally, very poor. it consists mainly of lime-stone hills, heaths, and woods in which there is little or no good timber. between namur and brussels the country improves, agriculturally, very much.

at brussels i had some difficulty in getting a bed; all the hotels being full of belgian and english volunteers, and of people who had come to see the international shooting. there had just been a public reception of volunteers, and everybody was in the streets. i heard a burly tradesman, who was standing at the door of his shop, shout at the top of his voice, but the result did not correspond with the effort, as one of our volunteers was passing, in the uniform of a scottish corps, ‘shotland for ever’—the land, doubtless, of good shots. etymologists, consider this, and be cautious.

the much-lauded hotel de ville i venture to 248think unsatisfactory. for so much ornamentation it is deficient in size. its chief external feature is the multitude of figures upon it. the effect of this is bad. one sees no reason why they should be there. they are too small. they are indistinguishable from each other, there is no action: merely rows of figures. this was unavoidable in the position assigned them, but its being unavoidable was no reason for assigning them that position, nor does it at all contribute towards rendering them pleasing objects.

many of the volunteers made a night of it in honour of their english visitors. having been woke, by their shouting and hurrahing in the streets, at one o’clock in the morning, i was disposed to think such demonstrations unbecoming in bearded warriors.

i went with a party of englishmen, and some americans, to waterloo. we were driven over the old, straight, stone-paved, poplar-bordered road, by an english whip, in an english four-horse stage-coach. the road is just what it was, when wellington passed over it, from ‘the revelry at night’ for the great fight. that part, however, of the forest of soignies, which should be on the right of the road, has been destroyed, to make way for the plough. what remains of the forest, on the left, consists of tall, straight, unbranching beech, with the surface of the ground, between the trunks, clear and smooth. while we were at hougomont a violent thunderstorm, accompanied with 249heavy rain, drifted over the field. as the soil is a tenacious clay, which becomes very slippery when wet, this storm was most opportune, for it showed us what kind of footing the contending hosts had on the great day. hougomont is still very much in the condition in which it was left on the evening of that day. what was burnt has not been rebuilt; and what remained, has not been added to, or altered. the loop-holes that were made in the garden wall are still there. so also are the hedge, and ditch, on the outside of the orchard. the only difference is that the whole of the wood of hougomont has gone the way of a part of the forest of soignies. we have all of us tried to understand waterloo; but a visit to the field itself will show that it is no more possible to understand, fully and rightly, this than any other battle, without ocular knowledge of the ground on which it was fought. a comparison of the field of waterloo with that of gravelotte will assist a civilian in estimating the extent of the change in tactics, which modern improvements in the weapons of war have necessitated. he will see that the battle of june 18, 1815, belongs to an order of things that is obsolete now. with the cannon, and rifles, of the present day, it could not have been fought as it was; and would not, probably, have been fought where it was.