Paris to-night is in a state of the maddest ferment. For some days past the public have followed with breathless interest the rapid development of events on the Russo-German frontier, and the news of the first skirmish at Alexandrovo, which was printed in Le Soir this evening, has roused the wildest enthusiasm. Long and anxious consultations of Ministers have been held daily, and the Press, with hardly an exception, have been urging on the Government an immediate declaration of war. Many of the better-class Germans have been hurrying from Paris—a precaution which, in the issue, has been shown to be judicious. When to-day’s news became known, every trade and artifice was instantly abandoned, and the streets since three o’clock till now have been thronged by vast crowds, pulsating to a more and more impassioned excitement. By four o’clock there were literally fifty thousand people standing in the street with newspapers in their hands, and every reader was the centre of an excited throng. I was standing opposite the Vaudeville when a man, bearing a prodigious bundle of newspapers wet from the press, came staggering swiftly towards the kiosque. The mob fell upon him, despoiled him of his burden, and tore open his parcel. There was such a wild hurry to learn the news, and everybody was so eager to be first with it, that scores of the journals were torn to ribbons, and hundreds more were trampled into the mud of the pavement. The proprietress of the kiosque wrung her hands and wept over the spectacle, and a gentleman who, by pressure of the crowd, was forced half-way through one of the windows, vociferously demanded to know the value of the lost journals. The woman instantly became business-like, and appraised them roughly at a hundred francs. The gentleman produced a pocket-book and paid her twice over, shouting noisily, ‘I present this glorious news to Paris! Vive la Russie! A bas la Prusse!’ That was the first signal I heard, and in one minute the whole boulevard rang with frenzied roar on roar. Omnibuses, public carriages, and vehicles of every description were wedged immovably in the crowd which thronged the horse-road. The drivers rose from their seats, the passengers and occupants of the carriages stood up in their places and roared and gesticulated with the rest. Hundreds of people at once strove to make speeches, and the combined result was such a charivari as can scarcely have been heard since the great day of the Confusion of Tongues.

I, myself, had occasion to be thankful for that inconquerable English accent which has always disfigured my French. A blond beard and spectacles have always helped me to something of a German look, and to-day has given the few Germans who happen to be left in Paris such a scare as the bravest of them is not likely to forget. At one moment I was surrounded by a wild section of the mob, whose yells of ‘Down with Prussia!’ were far too obviously intended to be personal to me. There was nothing for it but to join in the shouting, and I cried ‘Vive la France!’ and ‘A bas la Prusse!’ as lustily as any of them. There was an instantaneous laugh at the English accent, and I was left alone; but I could not help thinking what would have happened had I chanced to learn my French mainly in Berlin rather than in London. One unfortunate German is reported fatally injured by the violence of a mob at the Gare du Nord. He had booked for London, and is said to have carried with him only a small handbag, and to have left all the rest of his belongings at the hotel, in his hurry to catch the train for Calais. The director of the Opera came near to paying with his life for his artistic allegiance to Wagner. Happily for him he was able to take refuge in the house of a friend, and the mob contented itself by keeping up a ceaseless boo-hooing for an hour or more.

EXTRAORDINARY SCENE IN THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE.

The wildest manifestation of the afternoon was in the Place de la Concorde, where an immense mob fell to dancing about the statue of Strasburg. Everybody knows the sullen threat with which that statue has been placarded for so many years. It runs ‘L. D. P. (the initials standing for “Ligue de Patriotes”) Qui Vive? La France. 1870–18—.’ When the prodigious noise created by the mob seemed at its highest, it was cloven, as it were, by a din still greater, and a solid phalanx of men forced a way into the already crowded square. In the centre of this phalanx twenty or thirty men marched, bearing a long ladder, the heads of many of them being thrust between the rungs. In the middle of the ladder was seated a working painter in a blue blouse. The man was literally wild with excitement, and was roaring ‘Quatre vingt douze’ to a sort of mad, improvised tune, in which the packed marchers about him joined with the fell stress of their lungs. In one hand the man flourished aloft a pot of red paint, with the contents of which he occasionally bedewed his unheeding companions, some of whom had playfully bedaubed their own and others’ features, so that they looked as if they had just come fresh from some scene of massacre. In the other hand the man held aloft a sheaf of brushes, and in an instant the vast crowd seized the motive of his presence there, and the meaning of the rhythmic repetition of ‘Quatre vingt douze!’

A way was cleared for the advancing cohort as if by magic. The ladder, still supporting the painter, was drawn up lengthwise before the statue, and the workman knelt to his task. At first it was impossible for him to work, for the bearers of the ladder were jigging to the tune they sang; but by and by they were persuaded to quiet, and a very striking and impressive silence fell upon the crowd. The man, with great deliberation, and with a much firmer hand than he might have been supposed to own at a time of such excitement, drew the outline of the figures 9 and 2 in white chalk, at as great a size as the space of the placard admitted. His movements were watched with an actually breathless interest, and when, after the completion of his drawing, he rose and clasped the knees of the statue in his arms with a joyful and affectionate cry, two or three people in my neighbourhood sobbed aloud. The man knelt down again and filled in with red paint the outline he had drawn. One grim personage, with a squint and a pock-marked face, who held a short, well-blacked clay between his teeth, shouldered me at this moment, and said, ‘C’est le sang de la France, Ça.’ He thought so well of this that he moved away among the crowd repeating it, nudging his neighbours to call attention to the saying, and pointing a dirty forefinger at the red paint of the figures to indicate its meaning. I was waiting for an outburst of enthusiasm when the figures were completed, but to my amazement the mob accepted the proclamation they conveyed with a grave silence, as if it had been in some way authentic and official, and as if for the first time they recognised the terrible significance of the hour. Their quiet did not endure long, for one of their number, having contrived to scramble on to the ladder, clambered up the statue, and amid great cheers tore from it the ragged emblems of mourning which have so long disfigured it.

Then came an episode, the like of which would be possible nowhere but in Paris. The whole thing might have been arranged for scenic effect, and the distinguished artist who made the coup had never, brilliant as his triumphs have been, arrived on the stage at so opportune a moment, or encountered so overwhelming a reception. The new-comer was no other than M. Jean de Reszke, who was on his way to dine with a friend before appearing as Faust in Gounod’s masterpiece this evening. His coachman was slowly making way along the crowded road when the great singer was recognised. He was greeted with a roar of applause, and a dozen members of the crowd threw open the closed landau he sat in, while a thousand voices clamoured for the Marseillaise. The statue had, at that instant, been denuded of its last rag of mourning, and M. de Reszke, who had risen bareheaded in the carriage, was whipped out of it in a trice, and borne, nolens volens, to the figure, and placed aloft on the pedestal. His companion, a lady attired with much distinction, was at first evidently alarmed, but soon gathered the peaceful intention of the crowd, and seizing the meaning of the moment, she stripped from her own shoulders a handsome scarlet cloak, and threw it towards M. de Reszke. It was immediately passed on to him, and he, with considerable difficulty, and at the risk of a tumble on the heads of the people below him, succeeded in casting the cloak over the shoulders of the statue. At this, all the previous noises which cleft the air of Paris this afternoon seemed as nothing. The cheering was simply deafening and maddening, and lasted for full three minutes. At length perfect silence was restored, and M. de Reszke began to sing the Marseillaise. He was pale at first, and obviously unstrung at the spectacle of this prodigious audience, and for the first few notes his voice was broken and ineffective. He gathered confidence, however, before he had completed the singing of the first line, and gave the rest of the song with an inspiring vigour and Élan.

From the beginning of the whole extraordinary scene people had been flocking in from every quarter, and I believe that I am well within bounds when I say that the singer had an audience of a hundred and twenty thousand. The chorus was one of the most stupendous and moving things which can ever have been heard by human ears. It rose from the densely-packed mass of humanity in one amazing roll and roar of sound, and its echoes came straggling faintly from the Rue de Rivoli and the Tuileries Gardens, from the AvÉnue des Champs ElysÉes, from the Rue Royale, from the Pont de la Concorde, and the embankment on the further side of the river. When the whole song was finished it was redemanded, and was sung through again with undiminished relish both by the soloist and the chorus. Finally, the singer was permitted to descend from the pedestal, and was escorted to his carriage. The crowd had taken out the horses, and M. de Reszke and his companion were drawn away by some hundreds of volunteers. The great singer’s nationality has made him the idol of Paris during all the late days of strained expectation. Every night the Opera-house has been thronged, and every song from his lips has been received with literal thunders of applause.

The President speaks—‘A Berlin!’

The crowd had already begun to thin when the news passed round that the Ministers were in conclave at the ElysÉe. I acted immediately on the first hint I received, and with great difficulty made my way across the Place. I found myself almost at once wedged in anew, this time in a streaming current which set steadily towards the ElysÉe. The crowd grew vaster every moment, for by this time all Paris seemed to have been drawn to that quarter of the town. For a long time there was silence, or what seemed like it after the torrent of noise which had roared so long in all ears, but at last the babble of excited tongues began again, and was intermixed with occasional cries of impatience. These grew in a steady crescendo, until no single voice was audible. But before things reached that point I had heard a hundred excited conjectures as to the course which would be adopted by England at this crisis. By seven o’clock the patience of the mob was quite outworn. The building, so far as could be seen from the outside, was in complete darkness, and the rumour of the meeting of the Ministers seemed likely to be practically denied. At length, however, a sudden swell in the storm of sound greeted the appearance of light at three windows, and certain ill-defined shadows were seen moving on the blinds. One profile was distinct and stationary for a moment, and there was a roar of ‘Ribot!’ A minute later the blind of the centre window was drawn up, the window itself was thrown open, and the figure of M. Ribot, Minister of Foreign Affairs, was seen. This apparition was the signal for a new outburst in which only the name of the President of the Republic could be distinguished. The air rang with shouts of ‘Carnot! Carnot!’ and M. Ribot having braved this incredible tempest for a few seconds only, bowed and retired. A minute later the President himself appeared. From where I stood his features were invisible, but his attitude was erect, and he stretched out his right hand with an impressive gesture to command silence. It was some time before this injunction was obeyed, but when he was allowed to speak his voice was firm and unusually clear. His words were few and to the point. ‘Citizens! Germany has declared war upon the ally of France. Those gentlemen whom you have appointed as the guardians of the national honour have debated the serious intelligence which has to-day awakened the heart of Paris. It is my duty to tell you that there is no dissentient voice amongst them. France will fulfil her pledges!’ At this point M. Carnot was interrupted by a unanimous outburst of applause, which made speech impossible for a space of at least five minutes. Again and again, when it seemed about to quiet down, it was taken up from distant quarters, and came rolling along like a wave, again to subside and again to be renewed. When order was once more restored the President continued: ‘France speaks to-night, and demands of her neighbour that the menace against her ally shall be withdrawn. She couples with that a demand for the surrender of those provinces which were torn from her twenty years ago!’

There was at this more cheering, and yet more. The President retired, and a great deluge of rain which had been threatening to fall all day speedily cleared the streets. The latest and most important of the day’s events is yet hardly an hour old, but we seem now to be living in a city of the dumb. Everybody is hoarse with four hours’ almost continuous shouting, but the popular excitement is as great as ever.

The house of M. Ferry has been guarded by the military, and only the entente cordiale existing between the troops and the populace has saved it from attack. At the moment of writing the Boulevards are again crowded. The reply of Germany is, of course, a foregone conclusion, but it is awaited with intense eagerness.