Chapter XXV: Part 25

The stern cable of the maintainers of tests having parted, is the fibre of the other more reliable? The confidence in the efficiency of tests, which was once almost universal, is being every day shaken by fresh revelations of their futility. At the Universities the tests have been themselves tested and found to be base metal, stamped indeed with the die of authority, but current only in those marts where credulity holds commerce with cruelty. Bishop Colenso was long a resident and, so far as his powers of imparting mathematical instruction are concerned, an ornament to the University of Cambridge, yet Bishop Colenso denies the inspiration of writings which the Church of England holds to be canonical. If it be maintained that his heterodoxy was subsequent to his residence, it may be replied, that he has ceased to reside at Cambridge because he has accepted preferment to an office which involves submission to a multiplicity of tests, each more stringent than that which attaches to a fellowship. Professors Baden Powell and Jowitt, two of the ablest writers in the volume which was once popularly called 'The Challenge of the Seven Champions of _un_-Christendom,' occupied distinguished places in the University of Oxford. Probably if we were to search for the home of the most dangerous kind of skepticism we should find it not far removed from the Combination rooms of Oxford and Cambridge, where 'the dons' discuss high matters at their ease 'across the walnuts and the wine.' This is certainly the case if we may take the evidence of Mr. Paley, who thus writes:--

'In plain words, every one knows that a person may be an
avowed member of the Church of England, and yet be a
downright rationalist. Thousands are undoubtedly such. To
talk therefore of "admitting free-thinking" by removing
tests, can only raise a smile in those who know intimately
the working of the present system. Indeed, it has been well
said, that if the religious nonconformists who are excluded
from fellowships could hear the conversation of many who
now hold them, they would be as much shocked as surprised
at the fruits which the test-system is producing.'

It is easy to conceive of a case in which these arguments for the retention of tests might be urged with great force. It is scarcely possible to imagine a case in which they could be rendered more feeble and futile by the comment of circumstance.

The progress of events and the logic of facts could scarcely render the University tests more absurd, did not these make them day by day more pernicious to the charity and concord of Christians of all denominations, more galling and injurious to the Universities, now striving nobly and efficiently to meet the requirements of the age, and more detrimental to the interests and highest aspirations of the British nation.

In tracing the causes why these University Tests have existed so long, it has been impossible to avoid incidentally producing the reasons why they should endure no longer.

The test imposed at Cambridge, by requiring the graduate when he proceeds to his B.A. degree to declare himself a _bonâ fide_ member of the Church of England, not only excludes the nonconformist from a voice in the senate, which body is the popular and ultimate regulator of the studies of the university, but it also denies to him a vote for the members representing the university in Parliament. This is the only constituency in which a religious belief is made to curtail the exercise of the franchise.

Headships and fellowships in colleges, as distinguished from the offices of tutor, lecturer, and dean, are sinecures involving no onerous duties, and not necessarily connected with the imparting of instruction of any kind, whether religious or secular. They are posts of honour and not of trust. Their occupants, no doubt, influence and control the course of study at their colleges, but they need not be and are not by their offices personally concerned in education. These posts, therefore, not only involve no clerical duty, they do not demand the exercise of those debateable functions which lie between the lay and clerical offices, such as the education of youth is supposed to imply. To use an illustration now rendered familiar to most by the practical working of the Education Act; the master and fellows of a college occupy the position of a school board, while the tutors and lecturers alone instruct. Lecturers in the several departments of study are, it is true, generally chosen from the body of fellows, but by no means necessarily so. Hence, there is no analogy between the test imposed on the clergy, and that which is taken by the heads and fellows of the colleges. The former is a pledge to perform definite functions for which the functionaries receive a definite stipend, the latter is a test applied to those who require service to be performed. The test as applied to these offices has become an unparalleled anomaly. It is the last remnant of the revengeful policy exercised by the Anglican upon the Puritan party, after these were driven from their short-lived supremacy.

Thus viewed, the tests at the universities are like the Needle rocks, which once were continuous with the neighbouring cliff, but are now become strange and fantastic through the isolation imposed upon them by the waves of the ever advancing ocean. As political change is as rapid and certain as geologic change is slow and sure, their bold position is an evidence not of their immunity from, but of their amenableness to the influence of the forces which play upon their bases.

The offices of tutor, dean, lecturer, &c., inasmuch as they are directly connected with the moral supervision and education of the undergraduates in all branches of study, including theology, stand in a somewhat different position with regard to tests. To those unacquainted with the universities, the distinction between these two classes of office is not obvious. The general impression obtains that these national institutions are training schools for the clergy of the Establishment, in which training all resident officials are concerned; but the members of the governing bodies themselves are quite aware of the difference pointed out. Unless this distinction could be made there would be no _locus standi_ for the select committee of the House of Lords appointed for the purpose of inquiring into the best mode of giving effect to the following resolution of the house--

'That in any measure for enabling persons not members of
the Church of England to hold offices to which they are not
now eligible in the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and
Durham, and the colleges and halls in those universities,
it is essential to provide by law proper safeguards for the
maintenance of religious instruction and worship, and for
the religious character of the education to be given
therein.'

All the gentlemen who gave evidence before that committee, with the exception of the Rev. E. H. Perowne, who has the reputation of being the most uncompromising and indiscriminating advocate of tests, recognise this distinction; and all suggest that while fellowships, or some of them, be thrown open to all, a modified test be applied to the functional posts.

The pernicious principle that Government has a right to interfere between parents and their children in the regulation of the religious instruction of youth, has, no doubt, been often acted upon. Thus that Act of Uniformity, which is now the main prop of university tests, requires subscription not only from persons in holy orders and university officials, but also from schoolmasters in private as well as in public schools, and even from tutors in private families.

The recent legislation for the primary education of the country has, however, thrown a flood of light on the relations of education to religion, and of the State to both. It is scarcely conceivable that the Parliament which passed the Elementary Education Act of 1870, should retain a sectarian test as a safeguard to offices because they are posts of education. The Education Act was avowedly tentative and incomplete. It was a compromise, in which the representatives of old ideas obtained more recognition than they had anticipated. The bill will certainly be modified before many years are gone, and if so the modification is sure to be in the direction of eliminating the sectarian element from education. Yet there was great unanimity of opinion among the parties to the discussion in certain principles embodied in the Act. These principles were: 1. That the State might neither provide nor require definite religious instruction. 2. That where, owing to existing methods of denominational education, it was necessary for the State to make the various sects its allies to effect the common object of secular education, it should deal to all denominations even-handed justice. 3. That wherever the State interfered or was concerned with education, no child who was the recipient of the benefactions applied to instruction should be placed at any disadvantage on account of the religious belief of the parents of that child.

If the House of Lords should endeavour so to mutilate the University Tests bill as to substitute a test, however modified or limited in its action, in place of that imposed by the Act of Uniformity, it would ask the legislature to violate every one of the aforesaid principles, and thus to stultify itself. Such an attempt is certain to be successfully resisted. We had better not legislate at all than re-endorse a time _dis_-honoured practice.

The Elementary Education Act, while it thus indicated the nature of the reform required, also furnished the most urgent reason for the immediate adoption of that reform at the universities. If primary education ought to be the care of the State, secondary education is not less its duty. By secondary education we mean a higher education than that rudimentary training which is thought essential to all children; that is, a higher class education, not education for a higher class. That the child of a poor man who has shown himself capable of wider and higher culture by the readiness with which he has responded to the lower, should not be able to proceed to a higher class school, because of the poverty of his parents, would be even more deplorable than that dull ones should lack education altogether. The universities form the natural apex of the pyramid of national education. The nation can never rightly economise and utilise its intellect until every one of its children, capable of such culture, can pass freely up through all the grades of education to the very summit. If this is to be the case the capital must be rendered congruous with the column it should surmount. By reason of tests the national universities are rendered so incongruous with the rest of the structure that is in course of erection, that no cement could make them cohere. If by common consent we must eliminate sectarian religion from elementary education in the interests of the child whose father is so stolidly indifferent to the higher needs of that child that he must be compelled to send him to school; how absurd it is to provide that when he has grown into manhood and shown a capacity for the reception of the highest culture, he should be handed over for instruction to a body rendered exclusively sectarian by the retention of antiquated religious tests. The inauguration of a national scheme of education is an _epoch_ in the history of the nation. It is a _crisis_ in the history of the universities. On the present settlement of this question in some measure depends whether the ancient universities shall stand in the position of the Doric capitals which crown the columns and support the architrave of the classic temple, or lie like those same capitals after the earthquake has dashed them to the ground--the broken and isolated fragments of a former grandeur.

From a review of the past struggle, in which we have endeavoured to show how the march of events, the advance of ideas, and the change of position of parties, rendered the old line of defence formed by these tests, not only indefensible, but deserted by its defenders, we turn to examine the ground of the next battle-field.

The necessity of taking holy orders as a condition for holding or retaining offices and emoluments at the universities and their colleges is a test of the most stringent and pernicious character. Every argument against tests in the abstract, may be urged with double force against this clerical test. Every consideration of the welfare of nonconformists, of the universities, and of the nation, which has determined the abolition of the simple tests, is of greater force when applied to the complex test implied in the taking of holy orders.

Fully one-half of the fellowships of Oxford and Cambridge, and nearly two-thirds of the headships, can be enjoyed only by clergy of the Establishment. This clerical test is therefore a practical bar to Nonconformists of half the preferments of these wealthy national institutions; and the fact that all conscientious laymen are included under this academic ban certainly does not commend this test to exceptional retention. Colleges, where there is a certain minimum of clerical fellowships, are at the present moment compelled to elect inferior men when all their lay fellowships are filled. In colleges like Trinity and St. John's, Cambridge, where all must take orders at a certain date from their degrees, the more able and energetic men usually become absorbed in other pursuits and vacate their fellowships to serve in turn to younger men as means of defying the impecuniosity which notoriously dogs the early stages of a professional career; while the idlers as naturally become sinecure pluralists, because the dignity of the priest need not interfere with the fellow's ease. By this system the colleges are equally dishonoured by those whom they retain and those whom they reject. By this system the nation also suffers, by allowing the large revenues of national institutions to be squandered on cureless priests, which, by some such arrangement as is explained by Mr. Paley, might secure to literature and science the labours of our greatest scholars and ablest investigators. To this catalogue of ill effects may be added the damage done by the clerical test to the Church of England. Many years of university life is admitted to be the very worst preparation for parish work. As a rule, fellows manifest great repugnance to take upon themselves, in middle life, the duties involved in the acceptance of a college living; and the man who allows himself to drift first into holy orders and then into a college benefice, from sheer inanity, is not likely to bring much zeal to his work.

We are quite aware that a very different view of this result of clerical fellowships is taken by their advocates; and this brings us to the examination of those reasons which may be brought forward to show that the clerical test stands on a footing different from that of other tests. The advocates of clerical fellowships would state, first, that the clerical test was not imposed _ab extra_ by the Imperial Legislature, but rested wholly and solely on the wills of the founders and donors of the emoluments and offices it guarded. They would argue, secondly, that by removing the tests from lay fellowships a sufficient number were thrown open to satisfy and reward all the Nonconformist scholars who were likely to seek education at the universities, and that by retaining the clerical fellowships a preponderance would be secured at the seats of learning in favour of Protestant Christianity, which preponderance is a desideratum with nine-tenths of the English people. They would show, thirdly, that these clerical fellowships induced men, having the reputation and acquirements of scholars, to enter, and thereby adorn and strengthen a Church which more than ever needs learned divines to meet scientific sceptics on their own ground.

All this may be true, but it is very little to the purpose. Whether the colleges, or any of them, were originally monastic institutions is a curious antiquarian question, but the requirement of holy orders and celibacy, from every member of the fraternity, in many instances, at least, originated in times when the recognition of a distinction between the regular and secular clergy was a part of the public opinion of the day. A community which accepted the theory that good works could be performed by a sacerdotal order which would benefit men's souls after death, quite irrespective of any effect which could be produced upon them during life, might look with complacency on fraternities freed from social ties, and consecrated to spiritual uses when these uses were not apparent. Nowadays, however, a collegiate priest is of all men least likely to give himself to works of supererogation. The duties of a fellow of a college and a priest without cure can be defined only as Bishop Blomfield once defined the functions of an archdeacon, namely, as archidiaconal. These duties may both once have been burdensome, but now the academic Issachar crouches down between them, and declares rest to be good and the land pleasant. The plain teaching of the clerical test is, not that we ought to follow the letter of the wills of the founders when it contravenes their spirit, but that well-meaning men can do little good, and may do much harm, by endeavouring to impose the ideas of one age on the customs and manners of a remotely future one.

It is a wild expectation that the maintenance of a Christian and Protestant ascendancy at the universities will establish oases in the midst of the barren desert of doubt, or clearings in the forest of Papist superstition, such as the several religious alarmists, according to their bent and temperament, would induce us to believe our country will soon become. Let those who delight in clothing bugbears with imaginary terrors speculate on the possibility of a Mussulman or a Parsee becoming an examiner for the theological degree, or a positivist becoming a professor of exegesis. A reasonable man will consider the conditions upon which such a thing could occur. Our nation must have forsaken a faith which has existed among us for a thousand years. Our legislature and our universities, both equally transcripts of the popular mind, must have forgotten their God. In such a case is it conceivable that a religion alike abandoned by a people which it has raised to power and prosperity, and by the Deity which promulgated it, should be preserved to our colleges by the operation of a test which is even now profaned by men who avow their readiness to swear _et ceteras_?

The great classical scholar Person, himself a sufferer under, and a protester against the clerical test, used to say that a fellow's life was like the lime-tree avenue at Trinity--a long walk with a church at the end of it. This was said in reference to Coton spire seen in the distance.

The present Bishop of Carlisle said in a sermon addressed to the University of Cambridge, 'We want men to enter the ministry of our Church who, if they went to the bar, would succeed at the bar.' There was a curious admission implied in these words, but to do Dean Goodwin justice, he was then speaking, not in defence of clerical fellowships, but to rouse the voluntary enthusiasm of the students he addressed.

That scholars are induced by the practical working of the system of clerical fellowships to take their places among the clergy of the Establishment cannot be denied, but the argument deducible from this, savours both of bigotry and worldliness. A clerical fellowship is in this view a skilfully-baited trap to catch a Church decoration. We have many instances to show that by placing upon learned men the badge of orthodoxy you do not make them defenders of the faith. Too often the false position of a man, thus entrapped, makes him cynically sceptical. Of such an one it may often be said, 'A little grain of conscience makes him sour,' and causes him--

'Like a dog, that is compelled to fight,
Snatch at his master, that doth tarre him on.'

This endeavour to affix a plume to the helmet of faith worn by the church militant is in strange relation to the thanksgiving which proceeded from the Head of the Church, 'I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.' This is evidently solely a Churchman's consideration, and does not deserve our further notice; but it is intimately related to the wider question of the influence of this test on morality and religion.

We cannot better preface our concluding remarks on this important bearing of the subject than by quoting the evidence given by the Rev. D. P. Chase and Professor J.B. Lightfoot before the Committee of the House of Lords:--

'286. Lord Rosebery: You say that there are Free-thinkers
already amongst the body of fellows at Oxford, who, under
the irritation produced by their false positions, express
their feelings and opinions with some freedom.'

'Dr. Chase: Yes.

'289. Have you reason to think that these gentlemen
deliberately swallow their opinions in order to obtain the
advantage of a fellowship?

'I would hardly put it in that way: I think they have
persuaded themselves that the imposition of any such test
being in itself immoral, they may act in a way in which
they would not act towards an obligation which they
acknowledged.'

Dr. Chase does not endorse this lax morality, for he says as follows:--

'I have my own impression of the men whom I meet, and of
the way in which they obtrude their contempt for religious
opinions in general, but I can say nothing more definite
than that I allude to people who are _already upon
foundations_.

'40. Marquis of Salisbury: They come in in spite of the
existing tests?

'Yes.

'41. Do you think that that is probably due either to some
subsequent change of opinion on their part, or to a
peculiar elasticity of mind?

'It is due to the loss of common honesty and morality, I
think.'

'1001. Earl of Morley: I think you mentioned the fact of
several fellows having retired who had formerly taken the
tests. Would you like to mention any instances of that?

'Dr. Lightfoot: I am not in a position to say exactly the
motives which led them to resign their fellowships; but
there have been two or three instances quite lately where
persons have resigned fellowships, and I believe they have
done so on account of religious scruples.

'1302. Do those facts have rather a bad effect upon the
undergraduates, do you think?

'I think they have. That is my reason for desiring a
change. They create a prejudice against religion.'

Lord E. Fitzmaurice, in the debate on clerical fellowships, is reported to have said:--

'The clerical fellows might be classed as those who wore
white ties and those who went without. The first class
steadily opposed all progress in the universities, and the
last merely took orders to obtain the fellowship. These
latter, in fact, threw away the outward visible sign of
that inward and spiritual grace which they were conscious
they did not possess.'

Lord Fitzmaurice has so lately left the University of Cambridge that his recollection of it must be very vivid. The sentences quoted have just that quality of candid but rather indiscriminate truth, flavoured with somewhat flippant and irreverent satire; which would have brought down the house at the Union Debating Society. Indeed we can hardly refrain from thinking these words were originally prepared for the benefit of the audience there assembled.

The ingenuity of the great enemy of souls would be taxed in vain to hit upon a device by which the ministry of Christ and the truth of God could be more thoroughly brought into contempt in the judgment of susceptible youth, which is ever keen to detect selfish shams, and ever loyal to self-sacrificing nobility. The system of clerical fellowships is such a scheme--

'As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul; and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words.'

If this hoar iniquity of clerical tests be for a few years longer maintained by a mistaken section of Churchmen, it will be our duty as Nonconformists, during that time, by making a vigorous protest through every channel by which public opinion is influenced, to show that if these tests be _safeguards_ they are safeguards not of Catholic Christianity, but of sectarian ascendancy; to keep the fair garments of religion unspotted by a worldly and turbid policy; to cause that the contempt which cannot but be felt should light not upon the royal priesthood of Christ, but on the priesthood of the Establishment; and to demonstrate that, if truth be violated, she is violated by no criminal consent of ours.

ART. VII.--_The War of 1870-1._

In the last number of this Review we endeavoured to describe what may be called the first act of the tremendous contest which has convulsed Europe during the last eight months. We glanced at the original causes of the war long impending between Germany and France, reviewed the opening passages of the struggle, the gathering of the antagonist hosts, the false strategy of Napoleon III., the great ability of his opponents, the first victories that were the result,--Wörth, Forbach, and the battles at Metz; and examined the remarkable movements which led to the catastrophe of Sedan, an event unparalleled in military history. Pursuing the narrative, we noticed briefly the consequences of that awful disaster--the advance of the German armies to Paris, and their investment of the famous capital; and said a few words on the grand spectacle afforded by France at this conjuncture, when, after her unprecedented reverses, she unrolled the banner of national resistance, and tried to stem the flood of Teutonic invasion. We felt, however, that it would be premature to dwell at length on the scenes of the latter conflict, because their issue was as yet uncertain, and we postponed to the present number a more elaborate survey of them. We now propose to give a short account of the second and closing act of the drama, comprising the marvellous siege of Paris, the efforts of France to relieve the city, and their defeat by the German hosts, and, finally, the fall of the beleaguered capital after an heroic resistance. This phase of the war is altogether different from that which preceded it, and in many respects is more interesting. It is not a mere succession of dazzling triumphs caused by genius and force on one side and incapacity and weakness on the other; it is a frightful international strife, in which, owing to peculiar circumstances, the result was for a long time doubtful; in which the belligerent which at first seemed prostrate made a rally of an extraordinary kind, and placed its opponent in comparative danger; and in which victory was decided at last through the continued efforts of rare ability wielding perfectly organized military force, and prevailing over patriotic energy, strong in the elements of warlike power, but untrained, undisciplined, and badly directed. This part of the campaign shows us how the defences of Paris caused the invading armies, which had never expected that they would hold out, to be exposed to formidable attacks; how the breathing-time obtained in this way enabled France to rise again, and to put immense masses of men into the field; and how, in consequence of their military situation, the Germans, although at all points victorious, necessarily occupied a precarious position; and it shows not less clearly how superiority of generalship, of skill, and of efficiency in war, turned the scale at last against mere numbers, though possessing some remarkable advantages. As for the lessons to be deduced from the straggle, it lays bare painfully the real causes of the overwhelming calamities of France; it reveals very plainly the true nature of the gigantic Power now dominant in Europe; and it makes thinking persons sadly admit that, notwithstanding civilization and progress, the passions of man remain little changed, that the lust of conquest burns as fiercely at the close as at the beginning of the nineteenth century, that experience seems unable to teach that the triumphs of mere ambition and force are often a curse even to the victor.

After the disaster of Sedan, the German armies proceeded at once to march on Paris. At this moment the last regular army of France in the field was a mass of prisoners; the Army of the Rhine, the hope of the nation, was shut up with Bazaine at Metz, hemmed in by the corps of Prince Frederic Charles; and France seemed so utterly vanquished that even the cautious German leaders could see no possible danger in moving into the heart of the invaded country, though they had not taken one important fortress, or even occupied one line of railway. Besides, it was assumed in the German camp that the advance to Paris would be little more than a military pageant or demonstration; the city had fallen in 1814 and 1815 after a resistance of a mere nominal kind; though it had been since fortified, the fortifications were known to be within the range of modern heavy guns; and, in any case, it was taken for granted that a population like the Parisians would never venture to make a stand, or submit to anything like privations. Accordingly, the magnificent German hosts were directed in two enormous masses from Sedan against the devoted city, the Fourth Army under the Crown Prince of Saxony advancing by Vouziers and Rheims towards the Marne, the Third, under the Crown Prince of Prussia, descending from Rheims upon the Seine, the object of both being to converge and hem in Paris in an investing circle. Eye-witnesses have recorded with admiration how superb was the aspect of these mighty arrays as, flushed with astonishing success, and in the most perfect military discipline, they rolled on through the plains of Champagne in all the pomp and circumstance of war, finding literally nothing to check their progress. By the 15th or 16th of September the two armies had made good their way to the rivers which, in their uniting bends, form the first lines of the defence of Paris; the Crown Prince of Saxony having reached Meaux, and his colleague having pushed forward to Mélun. Soon after these points had been passed, the first signs of opposition appeared. After the fall of the Imperial _régime_, General Trochu, who had been President of the Government of National Defence, had been making great preparations to enable Paris to stand a siege; and as it was of vital importance to retard the assailants as long as possible, he had sent one detachment to hold in check the Germans in the valley of the Marne, and another to attack the Crown Prince of Prussia as he crossed the Seine to the south of the city. Their efforts, however, completely failed, the French troops with Vinoy and Ducrot, demoralized by repeated defeats, being wholly unable to withstand the Germans; and on the 19th of September the invading armies had closed on all sides around the beleaguered city, the Crown Prince of Prussia having mastered a range of heights overlooking the defences to the north, and having captured some temporary works erected by Trochu along their position. The army of the Crown Prince of Saxony spread along the northern and eastern parts of Paris, from Charenton to about Argenteuil; that of his brother Prince completed the circle from the Marne across the Seine to St. Germains, the head-quarters being at Versailles.

In this way, within two or three days after their first appearance on the Marne and Seine, the German invaders had encompassed Paris, and by the 22d of September the investment was complete. It is said that the fortifications merely saved the city from the terrors of an assault; but, however this may have been, these works were already in a condition which compelled the Germans to pause, and to make their approaches with circumspection. In fact, the natural strength of Paris as a defensible position is exceedingly great; and the artificial defences, though constructed before the invention of the artillery of this day, had rendered the capital a powerful fortress. Paris is protected along its eastern front by the converging streams of the Marne and Seine, thrown before it like a series of fosses, and by the succession of heights extending from the plain of St. Denis to Vincennes; to the west it is covered by the winding returns of the Seine, from Sèvres to beyond St. Germains; and to the north and south, though at these points weaker, it is not without a barrier marked out by nature. The result is that Paris is, as it were, designed for a vast entrenched camp, very difficult to surround or attack; for its situation on the rivers which wind about it not only compels an enemy to divide his forces if he would invest it, but exposes him to considerable danger, especially if a defending army held the eastern heights before referred to. This naturally strong and vast position had been fortified with great care in 1841, by engineers of the school of the first Napoleon. A ditch had been thrown around the city, and a rampart with regular bastions made; but these were merely the internal lines. The real and external defences were a series of powerful detached forts, so arranged as to support each other, and to constitute a zone on all sides of great dimensions, difficult to approach. For this purpose every advantage had been taken of the character of the place; the forts were so built as to command the obstacles formed by the Marne and Seine, and thus to enable troops to bar the passage of an enemy across these streams. They also crowned the eastern heights, and thence covered St. Denis to the north; and while one fort only--that of Valérien--threw a shield over the western front, four or five, along a range of projecting eminences, protected the southern and southwestern. It must be added, however, that those who designed the fortifications of Paris always supposed that an army would be within the zone comprised by the range of the forts, and would thus be able to oppose an enemy; and, owing to the invention of heavy rifled guns, the southern forts, from Charenton to Versailles, were comparatively weak, and liable to attack.

Such was the aspect of the defences of Paris when, at the end of the third week of September, they were surrounded by their Teutonic foes. The forts and ramparts were extremely formidable, but they were, as yet, ill-armed with heavy guns, and, above all, the great element required for a successful defence--a well-regulated and disciplined army, to prevent an enemy from closing round--was, for the present, altogether wanting. General Trochu, in concert with subordinate officers, had for several weeks laboured hard in bringing into the city artillery and munitions of war. Paris had become a vast arsenal for constructing fieldpieces, manufacturing gunpowder, and fabricating all kinds of military appliances; and an immense number of men fit for service, amounting, it is said, to half a million, including 250,000 National Guards, had been congregated within the walls to form the materials of an organized force. But though the efforts of the Governor and his assistants, and the patriotism of the population, had been admirable; though stores of provisions had been laid in; though foundries and workshops had toiled day and night in casting ordnance and preparing cartridges; and though the multitude of recruits had been subjected to continual drill, Paris was not ready when the Germans appeared; and, in consequence, after the feeble resistance of Vinoy and Ducrot on the 17th, the investment was completed without difficulty, and the first great object of the besiegers was attained. Yet, though Trochu was thus driven to a passive defence--what had hardly been seriously contemplated by those who had fortified Paris--he did not despair or lose heart; and we may believe that he had good hopes that France would be saved through the resistance of Paris. He knew that the city possessed resources of food for several months; he was aware that it was possible to create a vast supply of cannon and arms; he thought that he would have time to make out of the crude masses of men in his hands an efficient army inside the walls; and on these data he formed a scheme for the defence of the country, which, though it failed, and though, as we think, it was open to censure, was, nevertheless, not without grandeur. He would render Paris impregnable to attack, and detain the Germans around the ramparts for a time passing their calculations; he would form into soldiers the levies he commanded, while provincial armies would be raised in France. And if these forces could be made to combine, and attack the besiegers from without and within, how critical might their position become, divided, as they would be, around the capital, and distant from the frontier, perhaps in the depths of winter! In that case, it was not impossible that the siege would be raised, perhaps after a great defeat, and that the Germans would be compelled to retire; and the retreat might become one of extraordinary loss and disaster.

To make, therefore, Paris as strong as possible, although defended passively at first; to allow the besiegers to invest it without molestation for some time, inasmuch as this was unhappily necessary; to consider the capital the main pivot and cardinal point of the national war; and to combine operations by means of which an army, to be formed under his own auspices, was to fall on the Germans, while an army outside was to cooperate in the attack--such were the leading features of Trochu's project; and though, as we have said, it invites criticism, and it did not lead to the deliverance of France, it was nearer success than may perhaps be imagined. The Governor of Paris addressed himself energetically and steadily to carrying it out; and during the first few weeks after the investment, his whole care was directed to the increasing and strengthening of the defences, and the fashioning into military shape the enormous levies which had been collected. Heavy guns were turned out in quantities, and mounted upon the forts and ramparts; new works were constructed to add their fire to that of the original fortifications; redoubts were thrown up at several points, and armed with batteries of a formidable kind; the southern forts especially were protected; and at Avron and Villejuif, on the eastern and south-eastern fronts of the city, the investing circle began to be threatened by what, technically, are called counter-approaches, bristling with large and destructive artillery. The result was that although the armed masses within Paris were almost quiescent, and the besiegers were only slightly molested by an occasional and distant cannonade, their lines were gradually removed and forced back, and the obstacles to continuing the siege became more and more evident. At the same time, the organization of the masses inside the city went on regularly, and before long a real army of 150,000 men, supplied with artillery, officers and a staff, and in a fair state of military power, was formed out of the chaotic multitude crowded together when the siege had commenced--an achievement marvellous under the circumstances. Meanwhile, having escaped in a balloon, M. Gambetta had devoted the singular powers of his enthusiastic and passionate nature to raising and equipping provincial armies; and, aided by the patriotism of France, his success had been, on the whole, surprising. Old soldiers were recalled to the standard, recruits joined the ranks in hundreds of thousands, and immense efforts were made to procure field guns and small arms in sufficient quantities. In a few weeks four armies seemed to start, as it were, from the earth, in France--those of the North, the East, the West, and the Loire--all intended either to resist the farther advance of the German foe, or to co-operate in the relief of the capital. The first three armies were, as yet, in a very bad and ill-disciplined state; but the fourth army--that of the Loire--composed largely of veteran troops, and numbering nearly 100,000 men, with from 300 to 350 guns, was by no means to be despised by an enemy.

While France had thus been collecting her strength for a great effort of national resistance, the Germans on their side had not been idle. Though disappointed, as days rolled on, that Paris still held resolutely out, and though conscious that its defences were assuming a very formidable shape, they seem not yet to have supposed that a long siege was already certain. Nevertheless, they proceeded to clear their communications with the frontier, and to collect supplies from all parts of the country within tolerably easy reach of Paris; and for this purpose the sieges of some of the north-eastern fortresses of France were begun, and flying columns were despatched as far as Dreux, Chartres, Beauvais, and Orleans, to sweep the adjoining districts of their crops and cattle. These raiders, however, although they formed a kind of observing force for the investing lines, were not properly a covering army strong enough to defeat a real effort made in strength to relieve the capital; they were little more than petty detachments; and there can be no doubt that the German leaders were not yet sufficiently aware of the power of France to renew the contest. They seem, indeed, to have specially under-rated the real force of the Army of the Loire, which was now collected just north of Orleans, and had between it and the capital only a Bavarian corps about 25,000 strong; the reason being that in the first week of October a part of this army had been defeated easily, and had shown remarkable want of discipline. Yet even at this period--that is about six weeks after the beginning of the siege--the situation of the Germans in France, in consequence of her great exertions, was one of increasing difficulties. Nearly the whole forces of the invaders were spread around the capital and Metz,--that is, were detained by two vast entrenched camps, and were liable to attack from within, and that in the depths of an enemy's country; and while an army far from contemptible was being slowly created in Paris, immense levies were gathering in the provinces, and were being trained into regular armies in a condition of more or less efficiency. The German chiefs, however, elated by success, disregarded all these menacing preparations, and even now reckoned that a few days would see them victorious inside Paris, and would bring the war to a triumphant close. So confident, indeed, were they that no attack from any quarter was probable, that, instead of sending for reinforcements to strengthen the army around Paris, they had detached, after the fall of Strasburg, a force which might have been so employed, to reduce the fortresses of Alsace, and to Dijon, Besançon, and Lyons.

Such were the positions of the belligerents in the last days of the month of October. The fall of Metz increased immensely the power and advantages of the Germans, and threw a weight into the scale against France which ultimately it became impossible to counterbalance. It was not only that 200,000 invaders were now let loose to overrun the country and to strengthen the investment of Paris, nor yet that the whole army of the Rhine, with the garrison of a first-rate fortress--170,000 men, four marshals of France, and 6,000 officers--were swept off into captivity in Germany; the surrender of Metz, it is now well known, prevented operations which, at this juncture, were being planned for the relief of Paris, and which, but for that circumstance, would probably have been successful. As we have seen, the Germans had allowed the Army of the Loire to collect near Orleans, with only a small Bavarian corps interposed between it and the French capital; and they still so utterly despised this army that, although after Metz had capitulated, their leaders had ordered one corps of those around the fortress to advance to Paris, the bulk of the troops of Prince Frederic Charles were separated into two great masses, one directed against the North of France, and the other towards Troyes, Nevers, and Bourges,--that is, against the centre of the country, and not immediately on the Loire and Orleans. These dispositions, which showed plainly that the real strength of the Army of the Loire was inadequately understood in the invaders' camp, permitted the commander of that body--a veteran named D'Aurelles de Paladines, who had done much to improve its discipline--to attempt a design he had been meditating, and even to strike a blow at his enemy which possibly might have had extraordinary results. D'Aurelles, aware that the only obstacle to his reaching the lines around Paris was one corps of 25,000 men, resolved to attack and overwhelm that detachment; and there can be little doubt that, in the event of success, he contemplated a march on the besieged city, even though he must have known that Prince Frederic Charles had been set free, and was moving from Lorraine. The plan of D'Aurelles was well designed, though not executed with equal ability. On the 7th of November he crossed the Loire below Orleans with the mass of his army, a single column having crossed higher up, his intention being to surround and destroy the few divisions which stood in his path, and then to advance, if fortune favoured. Von der Tann, the commander of the Bavarians, either unaware of his enemy's strength, or confident in the prestige of success, moved boldly to attack the main French column; but, finding himself opposed by irresistible forces, he fell back rapidly and with great skill on the main roads from Orleans to Paris. Although this retreat was very well executed, and, indeed, was in part effected at night, Von der Tann suffered a good deal in a series of sharp and repeated engagements at Marchenoir, Coulmiers, and Baum; and had the French column which had crossed the Loire above Orleans been sufficiently quick, he could hardly have escaped a serious defeat. As it was, when upon the 11th he stood concentrated at Arthenay and Toury, covering the main route to Paris from D'Aurelles, he had certainly lost more than 3,000 men, and what is more important, the ascendancy of success; he had been, in fact, decidedly overmatched; and a French army, 70,000 strong, which could have been increased to 90,000, stood in his front, eager for battle and revenge.

It is not impossible that at this moment D'Aurelles could have forced his way to Paris had he known how to seize his opportunity. Considerable alarm prevailed at Versailles: it had become evident that a powerful force was only five or six marches from the lines, with nothing between but one reduced corps; there really was no covering army to repel a bold attempt at relief, and it was expected that the army of the Loire would advance obliquely by Chartres and Dreux, and attack the Germans to the west of the city. Such an attack, which would, of course, be combined with an attack from the armed masses within, would be too formidable to be resisted, for it would place the Germans between two fires, spread as they were on an immense circumference; and accordingly the remarkable man who directed the operations of the invaders made preparations to raise the siege, and to incur the consequent moral loss, in case the columns of D'Aurelles' army should be descried on their way from the south. As, however, the French general might pause, a corps of about 20,000 men was sent off to the aid of Von der Tann under the command of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg; one-half of this corps, however, being ordered to diverge towards Dreux to observe the French Army of the West, supposed to be moving from that quarter. Thus, even as late as the 13th of November, not more than about 30,000 Germans were interposed between D'Aurelles and Paris; and it is difficult to suppose, had he moved on the 11th, that he would not have broken down with ease the only barrier in his way, and not improbably have defeated Von der Tann and the Grand Duke in detail. The French commander, however, hesitated; he had not destroyed Von der Tann; he was evidently not thoroughly confident in himself; and, at this crisis of the affairs of France, he drew back instead of advancing, and finally retired to a camp at Orleans which he had marked out for ulterior operations, his success being thus rendered wholly fruitless. This was a calamitous mistake for the French; yet we can account for it without charging D'Aurelles with entire incapacity. Knowing that Von der Tann was still in his front, he calculated with justice that the Bavarians would be able to obstruct his progress until reinforcements should come up; and the news, which in all probability reached him, that the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg was being detached, caused him perhaps to overrate the Grand Duke's strength, and to halt until he should ascertain it. In addition, and what was, we believe, decisive, D'Aurelles knew that Prince Frederic Charles was moving from Metz towards the south; and though the Prince was still really distant, the French general not unreasonably feared undertaking a march on Paris, which might expose the Army of the Loire to be ultimately assailed in flank and rear. This consideration, though not well-founded, was exactly such as would influence a commander not of the first class, and thus a favourable opportunity was missed, of which the consequences might have been immense.

These operations, when attentively reviewed, show at once what a terrible disaster to the French cause was the capitulation of Metz, at the time when it actually took place. Had the fortress held out till the 9th of November, Prince Frederic Charles must have remained around it; his movement against the centre of France would not have been even commenced; and, in that event, there would have been no force which could have even threatened the Army of the Loire in the rear, had it advanced on Paris. If so, the obstacle which probably prevented D'Aurelles from pushing forward after the actions of the 9th and 10th could have had no existence even in his fancy, and, consequently, it is difficult to believe that D'Aurelles would not have marched, at once, and succeeded in raising the siege of Paris. As it was, he had, we believe, the means of attaining this result, had he been endowed with qualities of the highest order; but, giving him credit for the talents he possesses, had he known that the Prince was at Metz, he would almost certainly have pressed forward. And had the siege of Paris been raised, as was not altogether uncontemplated by Von Moltke, if ever the Army of the Loire came up, the effect in France would have been prodigious; and though we differ from those who insist that it would have led to a great German disaster, we think that it would have prevented a renewal of the investment of Paris. The question, therefore, presents itself--Did Bazaine hold out to the last, and is he responsible for the surrender of Metz at the moment when it occurred? On this subject, as may be supposed, there is a great deal of conflicting evidence, but some conclusions seem tolerably certain. We do not think it possible to deny that Metz really yielded to famine; the army was in a deplorable state, horseflesh had long been the only animal food, the bread rations had been greatly reduced, and fever and typhus had made portentous ravages among the troops, and even the population. But, on the other hand, there is some proof that, at the beginning of the investment, provisions had not been carefully preserved, and that the generals and other officers thought a great deal too much of their own comforts, and did not attend to the wants of the army; and therefore, although we think that Bazaine was incapable of anything like treason, and really made a stout resistance, it is possible that a more self-denying and foresighted commander might have slightly protracted the defence. The luxury and pride of the imperial _régime_, it is to be feared, infected the head-quarters and staff during the siege of Metz; and it may--though we speak with diffidence--have been the result that the fortress fell exactly at the least fortunate moment, so far as regards the interests of France.