Excerpts from The Journal of Edmond de Goncourt

September 2-4, 1870

                                                                                                September 2, 1870
On my way out of the Louvre I buttonhole Chennevières, who tells me that tomorrow  he leaves for Brest  as escort for the third  shipment  of paintings  from  the  Louvre,  which have been taken from  their frames and rolled up and are being sent to the arsenal or the prison at Brest to save  them  from the Prussians. He paints me a sad and  humiliating  picture of this packing up, of Reiset weeping warm tears in front of  La Belle Jardiniere in the bottom  of its case as though  he were standing before a beloved corpse at the moment of  nailing  down the coffin.

In the evening after dinner we go to the Rue d'Enfer station and I see seventeen boxes which contain the Antiope , the finest  Venetians,  etc. -- pictures which  we thought  would hang  on the  walls of the  Louvre  forever  and  which  now are mere packages, protected  against the hazards of displacement and travel only by the word fragile.

                                                                                                September 3, 1870
You are scarcely alive when you live in this great frightening unknown which surrounds and strangles you. Things  die as well as men. Chennevieres  told me yesterday that the stitch for Argentan  lace was completely forgotten from  1815 to 1830, and  that  if it had  not  been for the long memories of two old maids who were still alive, it could not have been recovered.  Even  so, there is  one variety of this stitch that is lost.

What an appearance Paris has this evening as the shocking news of McMahon's defeat and the Emperor's capture circulates from group to group!  Who will be able to paint the dejected faces, the heedless coming and going of feet aimlessly beating the pavement, the anxious asides of shopkeepers and concierges on their doorsteps, the black crowds at street corners and the approaches to the municipal offices, the rush to the newspaper kiosks, the triple lines of people reading under every street light and on their chairs in the living quarters behind the shops the despairing posture of women whom you see alone, without their men?

Then there is the  rumbhng  clamor  of  the crowd,  among whom anger follows on stupefaction. Then there  are large bands running along  the boulevards with flags in  front of them, repeatedly  shouting:   "Down   with him!" "Long  live Trochu!" In short,  the tumultuous  and disorderly spectacle of a nation which is going  to perish if it does not save itself by a prodigious effort,  by  doing  the  impossible as in the time of the Revolution."

                                                                                                September 4, 1870
A frightening silence  here,  under  a grey  sky that makes everything sad.

Around four o'clock  this is the way the Chamber  of Deputies looks on the outside.  On  the  grey facade from  which  the sun has gone, before and around  the columns and on the steps, a crowd,  a world of men, whose blouses make white and blue spots against black broadcloth.   Many  have  branches  in their hands and green  1eaves on their round  hats. A scattering  of Mobile Guards carry greenery on the ends  of  their rifles.

A hand rises above all the heads and on a column writes the list of members of the Provisional Government in chalk in great red letters.  Somebody had already written on another column: The Republic has been proclaimed.  Applause, shouts, hats thrown into the air; people climbing the pedestals of the statues, making a group around the figure of Minerva; a man in a blouse tranquilly smoking his pipe on the knees of the statue  of  Chancellor  de  l'Hopital;  clusters  of  women hanging on the grille facing the Pont de la Concorde.

Everywhere around me I hear people greet each other feverishly with the remark: "This is it!" Above the façade a man removes the blue and white from the tricolor [flag] and leaves only the red floating in the air. On the terrace facing the Quai d'Orsay  infantrymen  plunder  the  bushes and hand green branches over the parapet to women, who snatch at them.

At the Tuileries gate, near the big pool, the gilded N' s are concealed under old newspapers, and wreaths of immortelles hang in the place of the departed eagles.

At the grand entry of the palace I see Under  the protection of the citizens written in chalk on the black marble tablets. Perched on one side is a Mobile Guard, a handkerchief  around his head under his kepi in the Arab fashion;  on the other side a young infantryman,  who holds out  his shako [a military cap]  to the crowd: "For the  wounded  of  the  French  army."   Men  in  white blouses leaning on their rifles as they stand on the pedestals of the peristyle columns shout: "Free  admission to the bazaar," while the crowd rushes in, hats in the air, and an immense clamor is swallowed up in the stairway of the invaded palace. On benches next to the kitchens women are sitting with cockades stuck in their hair; and a young  mother  tranquilly  suckles a tiny infant in white swaddling clothes.

Along the Rue de Rivoli you read on the ancient blackness of the stone: House   for rent; and hand-written  notices proclaim: Death to thieves. Respect property.  Sidewalks and streets are covered, are full of men and women who seem to have expanded  their  premises onto the sidewalk as on a holiday  in the  great  city;  a million people who have forgotten  that  the Prussians are at  three or four days' march from Paris and who, on this warm, intoxicating day go about aimlessly, impelled by the feverish curiosity of historic drama that is being enacted. Troops are passing by along hte length of the Rue de Rivoli, singing the shout 'Long live the Republic!'  Nothing  is missing, not even the carnival masks of revolutions.  An open  carnage conveys some men with  goatees and red carnations who  are holding  up a huge Bag, and in their midst are a drunken Algerian soldier and a tipsy woman.

It is half past five at the Hotel  de Ville. This  monument of a free city, its pediments in shadow, shines in the light of the sun, which  makes the clock and the two windows on either side blindingly bright. At the first-floor windows men in blouses and men in frock coats rise in tiers to the very top, the first row seated with their legs hanging out of the windows, looking like an enormous  paradise  of street urchins stuck  in a piece of Renaissance sculpture.
The square is swarming  with people. Carriages in which the curious are hoisting  themselves  up stand motionless. Youngsters are hanging  from the ornamental street lights. And from all this throng  there comes a deep, dull murmur.
Now and then little pieces of paper fall from the windows; the crowd picks them up and throws  them back into the air till they look like a whirl of snowflakes overhead. These are the ballots of the May 8 plebescite with Yes printed on them in advance. [Napoleon III had agreed to a vote on a new constitution allowing more freedom earlier in 1870.]  

A  man of  the  common  people says:  "The  ragpickers are going to have a field day!"  Now and then personalities of the extreme left, whom people around me recognize by name, come out for a moment to receive the applause of the crowd; and Rochefort, who shows his thin, pale profile for a moment, is acclaimed as the future savior of France . . . poor France!