Pasteur also gathered up tales of bravery, of heroism, and of resignation--that form of heroism so often illustrated by women--during the terrible siege of Paris. And, from all those things, arose the psychology of war in its two aspects: in the invading army a spirit of conquest carried to oppression, and even apart from the thrilling moments of battle, giving to hatred and cruelty a cold-blooded sanction of discipline; in the vanquished nation, an irrepressible revolt, an intoxication of sacrifice. Those who have not seen war do not know what love of the mother country means.
France was the more loved that she was more oppressed; she inspired her true sons with an infinite tenderness. Sully-Prudhomme, the poet of pensive youth, renouncing his love for Humanity in general, promised himself that he would henceforth devote his life to the exclusive love of France. A greater poet than he, Victor Hugo, wrote at that time the first part of his _Année Terrible_, with its mingled devotion and despair.
The death of Henri Regnault was one of the sad episodes of the war. This brilliant young painter--he was only twenty-seven years of age--enlisted as a _garde nationale_, though exempt by law from any military service through being a laureate of the _prix de Rome_.[30] He did his duty valiantly, and on January 19, at the last sortie attempted by the Parisians, at Buzenval, the last Prussian shot struck him in the forehead. The Académie des Sciences, at its sitting of January 23, rendered homage to him whose coffin enclosed such dazzling prospects and some of the glory of France. The very heart of Paris was touched, and a great sadness was felt at the funeral procession of the great artist who seemed an ideal type of all the youth and talent so heroically sacrificed--and all in vain--for the surrender of Paris had just been officially announced.
Regnault’s father, the celebrated physicist, a member of the Institute, was at Geneva when he received this terrible blow. Another grief--not however comparable to the despair of a bereaved parent--befell him--an instance of the odious side of war, not in its horrors, its pools of blood and burnt dwellings, but in its premeditated cruelty. Regnault had left his laboratory utensils in his rooms at the Sèvres porcelain manufactory, of which he was the manager. Everything was apparently left in the same place, not a window was broken, no locks forced; but a Prussian, evidently an expert, had been there. “Nothing seemed changed,” writes J. B. Dumas, “in that abode of science, and yet everything was destroyed; the glass tubes of barometers, thermometers, etc., were broken; scales and other similar instruments had been carefully knocked out of shape with a hammer.” In a corner was a heap of ashes; they were the registers, notes, manuscripts, all Regnault’s work of the last ten years. “Such cruelty,” exclaimed J. B. Dumas, “is unexampled in history. The Roman soldier who butchered Archimedes in the heat of the onslaught may be excused--he did not know him; but with what sacrilegious meanness could such a work of destruction as this be accomplished!!!”