ger hopes had been entertained
that the army raised in the South by Chanzy and Gambetta might
unite with his one hundred and seventy-two thousand soldiers in
Metz, and march to the relief of Paris; but to this day no one
knows precisely why Bazaine took no steps in furtherance of this
plan, but, instead, surrendered ignominiously to the Germans. It
is supposed that being attached to the emperor, and dreading a
Republic, he declined to fight for France if it was to benefit
"the rabble Government of Paris," as he called the Committee of
Public Defence. He seems to have thought that the Germans, after
taking Paris, would make peace, exacting Alsace and Lorraine, and
then restore the emperor.

Nothing could have been braver or more brilliant than the efforts
of Chanzy and Gambetta on the Loire. At one time they were actually
near compelling the Prussians to raise the siege of Paris; for
two hundred and fifty thousand men was a small army to invest so
large a city. But the one hundred and fifty thousand German soldiers
who were besieging Metz were enabled by Bazaine's surrender to
reinforce the troops beleaguering the capital.

Gambetta seems to have been at that time the only man in France
who showed himself to be a true leader of men, and amidst numerous
disadvantages he did nobly. He and Chanzy died twelve years later,
within a week of each other.

From September 19, when the siege began, up to December 27, the
Parisian soldiers, four hundred thousand in number (such as they
were) had never, except in occasional sorties, encountered the
Prussians, nor had any shot from Prussian guns entered their city.
On the night of December 27 the bombardment began. It commenced
by clearing what was called the Plateau d'Avron, to the east of
Paris. The weather was intensely cold, the earth as hard as iron
and as slippery as glass. The French do not rough their horses
even in ordinary times, and slipperiness is a public calamity in
a French city. The troops, stationed with little shelter on the
Plateau d'Avron, had no notion that the Germans had been preparing
masked batteries. The first shells that fell among them produced
indescribable confusion. The men rushed to their own guns to reply,
but their balls fell short about five hundred yards. It became
evident that the Plateau d'Avron must be abandoned, and that night,
in the cold and the darkness, together with the slippery condition
of the ground, which was worst of all, General