V2nd, C3: pov in sec. viii

[alice wellintown]

Why does Adam call himself a tourist? Why does he consider himslf a
spy? Who or What, according to Adams, is an artist? A writer?

The dates might be important. The Jewish Opera man here is forgot; no
Verdi that is for sure ;-)


On July 4, all Europe had been in peace; on July 14, Europe was in
full chaos of war. One felt helpless and ignorant, but one might have
been king or kaiser without feeling stronger to deal with the chaos.
Mr. Gladstone was as much astounded as Adams; the Emperor Napoleon was
nearly as stupefied as either, and Bismarck: himself hardly knew how
he did it. As education, the out-break of the war was wholly lost on a
man dealing with death hand-to-hand, who could not throw it aside to
look at it across the Rhine. Only when he got up to Paris, he began to
feel the approach of catastrophe. Providence set up no affiches to
announce the **tragedy**.


Under one's eyes France cut herself adrift, and floated off, on an
unknown stream, towards a less known ocean. Standing on the curb of
the Boulevard, one could see as much as though one stood by the side
of the Emperor or in command of an army corps. The effect was lurid.
The public seemed to look on the war, as it had looked on the wars of
Louis XIV and Francis I, as a branch of **decorative art.**   The
French, **like true artists**, always regarded war as one of the fine
arts.

 Louis XIV practiced it; Napoleon I perfected it; and Napoleon III had
till then pursued it in the same spirit with singular success. In
Paris, in July, 1870, the war was brought out like an ***opera of
Meyerbeer.***


One felt one's self a supernumerary hired to fill the scene. Every
evening at the theatre the comedy was interrupted by order, and one
stood up by order, to join in singing the Marseillaise to order. For
nearly twenty years one had been forbidden to sing the Marseillaise
under any circumstances, but at last regiment after regiment marched
through the streets shouting "Marchons!" while the bystanders cared
not enough to join. Patriotism seemed to have been brought out of the
Government stores, and distributed by grammes per capita. One had seen
one's own people dragged unwillingly into a war, and had watched one's
own regiments march to the front without sign of enthusiasm; on the
contrary, most serious, anxious, and conscious of the whole weight of
the crisis; but in Paris every one conspired to ignore the crisis,
which every one felt at hand. Here was education for the million, but
the lesson was intricate. Superficially Napoleon and his Ministers and
marshals were playing a game against Thiers and Gambetta. A bystander
knew almost as little as they did about the result. How could Adams
prophesy that in another year or two, when he spoke of his Paris and
its tastes, people would smile at his dotage?